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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5698666" data-attributes="member: 2011">I think that well defined rules for combat roles are great. You are a controller that dazes. You are a defender that attacks multiple foes. There can be a little bleed over, but the controller really cannot defend too well.I think that well defined rules for non-combat roles are extremely questionable. You are an sophisticated infiltrator that only does this via guile. Because of your role, you don't infiltrate via stealth. That's a different role.It's ok to have rules for skills. Either the skill works, or it doesn't work.To have rules for non-combat roles though implies that players have to roleplay within certain guidelines, just like they have to do so today via combat roles. It's no longer just about using skills to accomplish the roleplaying goals, it's about following the rules laid down about the non-combat roles.I see this with backgrounds and themes. For many players that I have played with, a background was merely a way to get some mechanical advantage. The player might have merged that background within his or her own concept of the background of the PC, but it was mostly to gain the mechanic.The game mechanic background drove a portion of the actual background, but tended to not really be what the player was looking for. He just wanted the Perception skill and his class didn't supply it.When themes came out, I saw the same thing happening. The player took the theme more to gain the mechanical advantage then to really roleplay a PC with that theme.I suspect that the same thing will happen with non-combat roles. They will be treated like the current backgrounds or themes (at least by many of the players that I play with, obviously, people can protest that other players might play differently) as merely mechanical tools to give the PCs non-combat options.I prefer a system of the background / theme / non-combat role has ZERO to do with mechanical game advantages. That way, the player has a tendency to roleplay the PC as s/he envisions the PC, not in a way that sort of, kind of, partially, follows the background / theme / non-combat role that gave the mechanical advantage.Any mechanical advantages should merely indicate the chance for success, not limits (like with combat roles today) as to how to do things. Most Strikers tend not to heal a lot. It's a limit on the role.I think that background / theme / non-combat role should be totally divorced from mechanical game advantages.So my suspicion is that non-combat roles will merely be just another layer of mechanical gain rules and/or additional abilities similar to backgrounds and themes that don't add much more with regard to non-combat than giving more stuff to the PCs.I think the same if the game were split up into handing out combat feats, and non-combat talents. If the same pool of feats isn't used for both like in 4E, then there is a lot less give and take and decision making on how to design the PC. All PCs get the best of both worlds and can be "All Americans" by definition. There are a lot of good PC concepts where the PC isn't good at both skills and combat, but breaking this apart (or as an example, giving everyone the same number of skills) means that everyone is equally good at both combat and non-combat.Instead of a system like this, I would prefer a system similar to the old multiclass rules.In other words, your Barbarian PC can be a kick butt combatant, but never ever be good at anything else. Or as the PC Barbarian gains levels, he can be like Conan where he gains a lot of thieving type skills and later on in his career, leadership skills (being a captain and such), and even later on diplomacy skills (as a King), etc. The player decides, the rules on non-combat roles (or non-combat feats/talents) doesn't turn the PC into a cookie cutter of every other Barbarian PC out there that now has to pick 6 skills (or 6 boosts to his current skills), even if the player doesn't want his Barbarian to be skilled.Or, he could take feats with his Barbarian like in 4E where he starts to become even Bard-like in his skill versatility, but he's not quite as good at combat because of it.In a split of combat and non-combat feats and potentially roles, PCs are somewhat forced to be semi-decent at both. They cannot lean in one direction or the other too much. That takes away from the game instead of adding to it.</blockquote>

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