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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6240941" data-attributes="member: 2067">So, on the one hand, anything that you're going to spend more than about 5 minutes of table time doing is something that no one should be sitting out.But combat doesn't need to be one of those things.So it's important for balance between the classes to recognize the goal of the design.In D&D, I think the goal of the design shouldn't be the encounter. It should be the adventure.Which means that maybe it's OK to have a thief sit out a combat with goblins that only lasts about 3 die rolls anyway. And maybe it's OK to have a fighter who can't do much when there's not goblins around, if the scene is brief. And a wizard who prepares the wrong spells might sit out a fight or two, if the fights are short. And maybe a stun will take you out of the fight for a minute or two. All of that is OK, if the encounter is quick. The "three pillars" means that we have a good perspective for what an adventure should take to complete. Adventures should require interaction (getting the map from the eccentric trader, earning the trust of the town guard), exploration (sneaking past the sleeping dragon, or doing reconnaissance on the orc fortress), combat (slaying the dragon, fighting the orcs). If, when these challenges crop up, they are mostly quick (one combat round), then you can have folks sitting them out. Personally, I'm in favor of a "minimal contribution to everything," so that maybe the fighter sucks at talking to the king, but he can do something when there isn't stuff to stab. This lets you do things like run slightly longer scenes -- now that dialogue could last three or five rounds, and the party fighter might not be in her element, but she can contribute a bit, without fear of being too much of a dead weight. But because balance is overall across the adventure and not just in the encounter, I'm totally cool with encounter-level imbalance. I'd rather it not be binary, but I'd also rather it not be blandly homogenous, where everyone does everything at about the same level of competence across the board.</blockquote>

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