NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 8280481" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!I'm probably not the only one here, but I'm gonna have to call shenanigan's on that statement.This is one of those things where someone's experience/outlook/idea is misinterpreted as being "true for everyone else in the world". Non-casters in D&D have never felt like they couldn't equal casters in effectiveness or flexibility... FOR ME (and my group, in general).EDIT: It occurs to me that I should clarify the last sentence. I am talking from a META perspective of Overall Campaign Time. A one-on-one "what can a fighter do" vs. "what can a wizard do" white-room type thing is NOT what I am talking about. I'm more talking about the concept more in line with a "1e idea of class/race balance"; that is, time. In a 1e campaign, the group is lucky to hit level 9 after playing ever weekend, 8 hours a week, for a year. After that, an average of about 2 levels per year is to be expected. At this rate, 20th level takes about 6 years...which works out to be a bit FAST for my experience (got to level 20 in 1e after 6 years, but we played a REDICULOUS amount of time...I worked it out to be roughly 6500 hours! O_O ). So "non-casters" have MORE than enough time to show how viable and versatile, and FUN, they are to play compared to the casters. Casters never "over-shadowed" the non casters.I think this belief, as stated by Ath-kethin, comes from a style of play issue. I have encountered other players/DM's that seem to also have this stance. When pressed and when getting into the things they've done in their campaigns and whatnot, one thing becomes apparent: The DM runs the world not as a living, breathing, 'realistic' (insofar as the campaign worlds realism), but more like a episodic TV series. The PC's are the stars of the show, and one or two episodes are them in Country A, fighting against the Evil Hoards of Undead. Episode 3 is the PC's in a town, buying stuff, recovering, then at the 44 minute mark, some McGuffin points them to Country B. Episode 4 is the PC's being attacked as the enter into Country B, by the Evil Soldiers of King Badguy, where they are defeated and taken to town. They meet the King, are told they are to be entertainment, and are tossed into the dungeon below. Episode 5 and 6 is the PC's fighting in the dungeon and ultimately escaping with the Secret Power Stone of Evil King Badguy...who just so happened to have kept the one and only thing capable of defeating him in said dungeon. At the 44 minute mark, Evil King is killed and his castle falls into a pit of green fire. Episode 7 is the PC's riding on a road, into Country C, where...And so on. Small little "mini-stories", with very little to no actual "continuity" other than "A happens before B which happens before C...", but there is zero "crossover concerns" between "The Evil Undead" and "The Evil King". How did the undead get to be so many? Why aren't they also in Country B? Or country C? How did the Evil Kings destruction have absolutely no effect on the surrounding country A or C?So...in such an "episodic" but mostly unrelated style of 'campaign'...THEN sure. Casters are 'better/more viable'. Because there is nothing in the world to hinder them or let non-casters, to use a common term, "shine in the spotlight for a bit". BUT, if a DM runs a Campaign more along the line of a current TV Series or Movie Series (ex: The Expanse, Babylon 5, Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, Marvel Cinematic Universe, etc), things become VASTLY different. Campaign Time and the 'common, every day living concerns' become a notable thing.Lastly, as an aside, there is nothing wrong with the notion of a Player just wanting to play a simple sword-swinger. Not every Player MUST be the "hero of the story" or the "best of the best". I fear this is a more, er, "recent" (re: last 2 or 3 decades...but mostly in the last 1) Player and DM attitude or preference. So many RPG'ers, and this includes designers, are absolutely convinced that it is impossible for a Player to get enjoyment of playing a 'lowly commoner' when everyone else is playing a 2-classed 18th level character with no stat lower than 16. This simply isn't true (see my initial calling of shenanigan's, above). I've had many a player choose to play a, for lack of a better word, "sucky" PC they rolled up. In fact, some of the most memorable PC's we've seen have been rather average or below average...but it's BECAUSE of this that their actions are note worthy; even if/when they die, they are remembered fondly. And the Players had a BLASTS playing them, and I, the DM, got great enjoyment from watching these 'pathetic' PC's defy the odds and the Player just role-play the heck out of it all. I've even played my fair share of "bad" PC's...either stat wise or just outright "sub-optimized" PC with the backstory to, uh, back it up. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Anyway...no. Non-Casters are not "less viable/interesting/etc" than Casters. At least not in a well-run and "more realistic'ish" based Campaign (re: "Series" as opposed to "Episodes").YMMV, of course. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

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