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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Three Pillars and Class Balance
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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5829261" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>Every class should have a basic level of competence in all pillars. Then you get some additional competence to assign based on class and player decisions. Just to throw out some numbers:</p><p></p><p>70%: Core competence. Everyone has this.</p><p>0%-15%: Class competence. This is added to core competence based on your class.</p><p>0%-15%: Discretionary competence. This is assigned by the player using feats, skills, and so forth.</p><p></p><p><em>Important: I am not proposing that PCs actually get a pool of "competence points." This is just an example of how one might approach the question during game design. You could balance a class with the idea that "this class is +10% at roleplaying and +5% at combat," or a feat with the idea that "this feat will add +5% to exploration at level 1." Of course this will involve some fudging and guesswork, since roleplaying and exploration are tough to turn into hard numbers.</em></p><p></p><p>So, maybe you've got Bob the Invincible, Fighter. The fighter class is heavily combat-oriented, so he gets 15% class competence in combat, and Bob wants to be <em>really good</em> at fighting, so he's put all his feats and special abilities into combat stuff, getting 15% discretionary competence as well. He's 100% in combat.</p><p></p><p>Then you've got Jane the Tricksy, Rogue. Rogues are not a combat-heavy class in this version (this is just by way of example), so her class competence in combat is 0%. She picks up a combat feat, worth about 5% or so. End result, she's 75% in combat.</p><p></p><p>When a fight breaks out, having Bob the Invincible on your side is worth about one-third more than having Jane the Tricksy. Bob will certainly outshine Jane, but Jane can still contribute substantially. On the other hand, when trying to sneak into an enemy fortress, Jane is going to do substantially better.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5829261, member: 58197"] Every class should have a basic level of competence in all pillars. Then you get some additional competence to assign based on class and player decisions. Just to throw out some numbers: 70%: Core competence. Everyone has this. 0%-15%: Class competence. This is added to core competence based on your class. 0%-15%: Discretionary competence. This is assigned by the player using feats, skills, and so forth. [I]Important: I am not proposing that PCs actually get a pool of "competence points." This is just an example of how one might approach the question during game design. You could balance a class with the idea that "this class is +10% at roleplaying and +5% at combat," or a feat with the idea that "this feat will add +5% to exploration at level 1." Of course this will involve some fudging and guesswork, since roleplaying and exploration are tough to turn into hard numbers.[/I] So, maybe you've got Bob the Invincible, Fighter. The fighter class is heavily combat-oriented, so he gets 15% class competence in combat, and Bob wants to be [I]really good[/I] at fighting, so he's put all his feats and special abilities into combat stuff, getting 15% discretionary competence as well. He's 100% in combat. Then you've got Jane the Tricksy, Rogue. Rogues are not a combat-heavy class in this version (this is just by way of example), so her class competence in combat is 0%. She picks up a combat feat, worth about 5% or so. End result, she's 75% in combat. When a fight breaks out, having Bob the Invincible on your side is worth about one-third more than having Jane the Tricksy. Bob will certainly outshine Jane, but Jane can still contribute substantially. On the other hand, when trying to sneak into an enemy fortress, Jane is going to do substantially better. [/QUOTE]
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The Three Pillars and Class Balance
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