Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 7246181" data-attributes="member: 6877472">There's no such animal as a &quot;standard&quot; D&amp;D group.&nbsp; I know that makes it hard to have these sorts of discussion, as who can take into account all the myriad ways people play (and enjoy) the game?&nbsp; Some months back on another forum, I witnessed a massive thread that blew my mind away as it was full of DM's who actively believe that, no matter what the rules say, &quot;there's no way a Barbarian can get a better Arcana check than a Wizard&quot;.&nbsp; Their perception of what D&amp;D characters are like was so strong that, in order to preserve that image (and apparently some measure of niche protection), they would give higher DC's or even deny &quot;inappropriate skill checks&quot; outright.&nbsp; Even when it was pointed out that a Rogue could Expertise his way into being better at Religion or Arcana than Clerics (easily, as most Clerics don't get a lot of advantage from Intelligence) or Wizards (harder, but still quite possible).Now if you feel this is tangential and just clouding the discussion at hand, I apologize.&nbsp; But given that the game is based on &quot;rulings, not rules&quot;, and thus subject to a given DM's &quot;vision&quot; of how the game should be, I think we should at least acknowledge the fact that the Fighter may very well be exposed to some prejudice when he attempts to step outside of his accustomed role (ie, big dumb thug with high AC and lots of hit points that the DM can beat up to make him feel like his game is challenging without killing the other PC's), no matter how much effort his player goes to.&nbsp; Maybe if his design actually put more thought into the other &quot;pillars of play&quot; this wouldn't be a problem.&nbsp; Maybe.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 7246181, member: 6877472"] There's no such animal as a "standard" D&D group. I know that makes it hard to have these sorts of discussion, as who can take into account all the myriad ways people play (and enjoy) the game? Some months back on another forum, I witnessed a massive thread that blew my mind away as it was full of DM's who actively believe that, no matter what the rules say, "there's no way a Barbarian can get a better Arcana check than a Wizard". Their perception of what D&D characters are like was so strong that, in order to preserve that image (and apparently some measure of niche protection), they would give higher DC's or even deny "inappropriate skill checks" outright. Even when it was pointed out that a Rogue could Expertise his way into being better at Religion or Arcana than Clerics (easily, as most Clerics don't get a lot of advantage from Intelligence) or Wizards (harder, but still quite possible). Now if you feel this is tangential and just clouding the discussion at hand, I apologize. But given that the game is based on "rulings, not rules", and thus subject to a given DM's "vision" of how the game should be, I think we should at least acknowledge the fact that the Fighter may very well be exposed to some prejudice when he attempts to step outside of his accustomed role (ie, big dumb thug with high AC and lots of hit points that the DM can beat up to make him feel like his game is challenging without killing the other PC's), no matter how much effort his player goes to. Maybe if his design actually put more thought into the other "pillars of play" this wouldn't be a problem. Maybe. [/QUOTE]

Verification