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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Miyagi" data-source="post: 5810438" data-attributes="member: 6689011">You know, I'm sympathetic to this view. But I can't help but think that this degenerates into something that doesn't match this vision. I don't have a problem with "Fred's character being a little better" than mine at any particular thing, regardless of the focus area. If that were the only consequence, I would love it. Sadly, I don't think that will be the case. Trading an ability in one area for an ability in another means that the natural differences are amplified, and the more customizable the characters, the worse this could be. This means that the promise that characters could always participate in every area of the game unless they make bad choices, which would be "their fault," is no promise at all. The player who makes a fighter and sacrifices everything for combat changes the combat game for everyone in the party. Sure, he can't talk to anyone because he frightens furry animals and small children by his very presence, and may have no ability to find his way meaningfully through the dungeon on his own, but he can throw that damage. And in the end, this means that the player of the bard character can't participate meaningfully in combat at all - and meaningful participation is the only thing that matters. The DM must balance combat in ways that accommodate the fighter, and that ruins any initial balance that existed as a result of player choices. It could have exactly the same kind of result as in 4E, where skill challenges were terrible (in part) because the best strategy was to have a single character make skill rolls in his best skill until he won for you. If "everyone gets the spotlight" means "one at a time, with the practical exclusion of others" then none of these parts of the game will be fun, because the need for a group is eliminated in all cases.    It would certainly model characters more accurately, and it doesn't sound like it will be hard. But I don't think it would be good. The "vestigial junk" doesn't need to be something a player doesn't want. Wouldn't it be better to have each character class have the ability to work well in each play environment? I just don't see how it's better to relegate some characters to certain playstyles - that seems to be more of an imposition than giving all characters fun and interesting abilities in all areas, and making the "I just want a social character" player live with unused information on the character sheet.  Worse, the kinds of choices that get made about this are generally pretty poor. It reinforces the strongest limitations on character. This was, in 3E, one of the major problems - in some cases, like with the cleric, a player could trade out abilities they didn't like (such as "healing") for abilities they did like (such as "turning into a vessel of divine power and killing everything in sight"). The fact that clerics also had some skills that allowed them play the talky parts of the game and spells for exploration made them in all ways better, and more fun, than more liimited characters. Like the fighter, who got to have such "impressive" combat ability at the cost of being able to do other things, like talk to adults, get around in nature, or participate in the game at all past 6th level. A more balanced game would help here, but my point is that I don't know why anyone would want to play the fighter - everyone would want to play the cleric. Even if they don't, what they really want to play is the fighter who is like the cleric, in that he can participate, in his own way, in all the fun parts of the game.     I agree with the poor implementation, but I think it needs better rules, not fewer. People who like combat-heavy games don't complain that the tactical rules are much of a straitjacket, and a more complex and rules-relevant social game would be more interesting, to me at least. A lack of rules in this area leads to one or two skills really dominating, and thus breaking, this part of the game - see 3E diplomacy. But I agree - a less fiddly way of allowing players to use character abilities in combination with creativity and open-endedness is the way to go, here.    I agree. I also don't think anyone dislikes elegance in game design. I don't know that tamping down the power curve will help much, except by tamping down character power enough that no one cares. The problem of 3E multiclassing - or at least, the most significant problem in terms of balance - is that characters at all levels had to be balanced with each other, which didn't happen. It wasn't possible, in most cases, to take "a little of class X" without dramatically diminishing power, except for martial style classes, in which case you had characters that all took levels of fighter, barbarian, ranger, paladin, and rogue, because of the front-loading. What I meant by 4E being on the right track is that it might best not to simply give the actual abilities of one class to your character when you multiclass, but instead to give something like the ability you are looking for, but in a level-appropriate way. So the fighter who wants to be able to use some lightning magic can multiclass, but what this gives him is not "sleep" and "shocking grasp" once a day, but some magic detection, the ability to add some lightning damage to his attacks, and a ranged lightning attack that does level-appropriate damage like his own attacks do. Or something like that. I was just struck by how the 3E system of multiclassing seemed really great, but in practice was one of the most metagamey and game-breaking parts of that edition.</blockquote>

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