NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5260012" data-attributes="member: 42582">Personally I'm not all that interested in this as the measure of PC difference. If the PCs are different, I want this reflected in the mechanics.Now, there are all sorts of ways of reflecting this difference in the mechanics - 3E at-will fighter vs Vancian mage is one, 4e Tide of Iron vs Thunderwave is another - and as it happens I'm quite partial to the 4e approach. (Although there are other non-D&D ways of doing it that I also quite like, such as Rolemaster.)One way of cashing out my desire for mechanics to matter is this example: if part of my PC's background is that I'm a grubby street urchin, then the rules of the game should reflect this when I attempt a skill challenge invovling infiltrating the Duke's castle (eg the mechanics should make it easier for me to infiltrate via the scullery than the throneroom - the game shouldn't simply rely on me to make that choice because it is consistent with my background). Conversely, if my PC is a titled member of the nobility, that should make it harder for my PC to successfully use Stealth in the same skill challenge.And whether I infiltrate by using Stealth, or via the scullery, or via the throneroom, should in turn make a difference to how the encounter plays out.Of games I'm familiar with, the ones that make this sort of mechanical differentiation most front-and-centre are 4e (in combat, and to a very high degree with both tactical and roleplaying ramifications), and HeroQuest and Hubris Games's Maelstrom (in the full range of encounters, but at a more abstract level of resolution than 4e combat). Outside of combat 4e can approximate to the approach that I like if skill challenges are used in a certain way, but the actual support for this approach from the skill challenge rules themselves is a bit underdeveloped, at least at this stage of the game's development. (Although I think it is better supported than many critics of skill challenges assert - especially post-DMG 2.)</blockquote>

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