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<blockquote data-quote="bardolph" data-source="post: 5041866" data-attributes="member: 2304">Fair enough.&nbsp;This.&nbsp;Agreed. Also, it's yet-another-subsystem that only sees play when an extroardinarily improbable conjunction of dice rolls occur during character creation. Or when the players cheat.&nbsp;No, rather my complaint is that immediately after the chart is the suggestion that, rather than rolling on the table, maybe the encounter should be role-played instead, which calls into question the whole point of the chart in the first place.&nbsp;Magic Missile had almost no valid uses. 1d4+1 damage just wasn't enough to justify a spell slot.&nbsp;OK, that's two useful spells in the entire list. However, note that a cleric who regularly marches into battle armed with &quot;Command-Disrobe&quot; is a pretty silly notion in itself. Not from a usefulness standpoint, but rather from a why-does-every-encounter-turn-into-sketch-comedy standpoint.&nbsp;Problem is that his &quot;niche&quot; was to roll against a chart that was insanely stacked against him, usually leading to an early death.&nbsp;And why was &quot;studded-leather-plus-shield&quot; considered equivalent to &quot;scale mail&quot; from an armor-piercing standpoint?&nbsp;It's not that it's overpowered, it's just cumbersome, as was all multiclassing. It was just weird that, when the cleric-part-of-my-personality advanced a level, I had to roll 1d8/3 for my hit points, for example.&nbsp;I agree. However, flavor was all it ever was, since it's doubtful the author ever intended that real PCs would ever progress that far.The monk was even more useless than the thief, as far as I'm concerned. A melee combat focused character who was not allowed to wear armor? This class is pretty much designed to be dead on arrival.The entire saving throw chart was arbitrary and weird, and the fact that the column names kept changing from edition to edition only reinforced its weirdness. Poison, Petrification, and Death Magic? An entire column dedicated to Dragon Breath? Really? I guess the name of the game is Dungeons &amp; Dragons, but...Nope, I still don't get it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="bardolph, post: 5041866, member: 2304"] Fair enough. This. Agreed. Also, it's yet-another-subsystem that only sees play when an extroardinarily improbable conjunction of dice rolls occur during character creation. Or when the players cheat. No, rather my complaint is that [i]immediately[/i] after the chart is the suggestion that, rather than rolling on the table, maybe the encounter should be role-played instead, which calls into question the whole point of the chart in the first place. Magic Missile had almost no valid uses. 1d4+1 damage just wasn't enough to justify a spell slot. OK, that's [i]two[/i] useful spells in the entire list. However, note that a cleric who regularly marches into battle armed with "Command-Disrobe" is a pretty silly notion in itself. Not from a usefulness standpoint, but rather from a why-does-every-encounter-turn-into-sketch-comedy standpoint. Problem is that his "niche" was to roll against a chart that was insanely stacked against him, usually leading to an early death. And why was "studded-leather-plus-shield" considered equivalent to "scale mail" from an armor-piercing standpoint? It's not that it's overpowered, it's just cumbersome, as was all multiclassing. It was just weird that, when the cleric-part-of-my-personality advanced a level, I had to roll 1d8/3 for my hit points, for example. I agree. However, flavor was [i]all[/i] it ever was, since it's doubtful the author ever intended that real PCs would ever progress that far. The monk was even more useless than the thief, as far as I'm concerned. A melee combat focused character who was [i]not allowed to wear armor?[/i] This class is pretty much designed to be dead on arrival. The entire saving throw chart was arbitrary and weird, and the fact that the column names kept changing from edition to edition only reinforced its weirdness. Poison, Petrification, and Death Magic? An entire column dedicated to Dragon Breath? Really? I guess the name of the game is Dungeons & Dragons, but... Nope, I still don't get it. [/QUOTE]

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