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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oni" data-source="post: 5810355" data-attributes="member: 380">There are some fighting games that mix characters from different iterations of the series on which they're based, and you see exactly this sort of balance in those type of games, and balance is vastly more important in a head to head game like that.  Now that is an entirely different sort of game, but for me it proves the principle is sound, versatility is just a different type of power. Yes, too much of a disparity of raw power can not be overcome no matter the amount of versatility, but since they are very much tamping down the power curve in the next edition I think this will work well.  The flatter power curve will give less opportunity for people to accidentally pooch themselves by sacrificing too much hit bonus or the like.   That's a player choice, if you want to be good at one thing you make a sacrifice somewhere else, that seems completely reasonable to me.  If combat isn't dominating game time any time it comes up like it does in 4e, then there isn't any reason to worry that Fred's character is a little better than yours at it, you'll be moving on to other stuff soon enough anyway.  You should build characters to do the things your interested in.  If you love combat and don't like talking, why should the guy who wants to do both things be just as good at combat as you and then get to shine during all the social bits too?  These kinds of trade offs allow players to build to the expectations of campaigns (i.e. this campaign will be 60% combat, 30% exploring, and 10% social) and then it allows them to build to their interest within that framework.  If a character can't participate in an area of the game, from the sounds of what we've heard so far, that will be their fault for purposely choosing to put all their focus in other places.   My question to you is, why shouldn't people be able to trade ability out of one area that they're less interested in for ability in an area they are more interested in?  Make things too regimented and your make a game that is stale and artificial feeling.   They've indicated that you should be able to swap the focus of characters about without too much fuss.  Don't want a social bard, step up from the base rules a bit and swap out some things for more of a combat focus, or whatever.  Seems like a much more elegant solution than having a bunch of vestigial junk on the character sheet you never intend to us, plus it models characters more accurately than having them being able to do all sorts of stuff that they just choose not to do.   The general concept of breaking down big or important actions into smaller steps is a fine one.  The 4e implementation was wretched.  The idea of setting up a multi step challenge ahead of time as 4e did, basically means you've dictated too much of how it should go, instead of letting player creativity decide that.  I don't think the next iteration of D&D needs skill challenge rules, it needs DM advice on how to break down important story elements so they aren't reliant on a single die roll, but minus all the regimentation of primary and secondary skills and forcing participation and all the other junk that went with 4e's skill change system.   I didn't really like multi-classing in 4e, I thought it was too resource intensive for what you got.  The hybrid system was interesting, but unfortunately collapsed under the weight of the stat dependency of 4e and it felt a bit like a clunky kludge.  I do appreciate a little elegance in my game design.  3e had a great many problems with it's multi-classing system as well, but the basic premise is pretty slick and I have very high hopes that tamping down the power curve will solve most of its issues.   Unfortunately I think that's a tradeoff that just can't be avoided.  Allowing people to customize means they're going to end up with something custom and it'll most likely be a least a little, if not a lot, different from the game down the street.  I personally think this is healthy, but it does make it a little harder to just plop down at a table and know how to play.</blockquote>

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