D&D 4E Will the 4E classes be deliberately unbalanced to get players to read?

[Wormwood]

Not too everybody.

Oh I'm sure that's true.

But thanks to my Real-Life Ignore List™ feature, I don't have to game with those people.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think that for D&D, characters that are "intentionally bad at combat" are a bad idea. D&D (and many other RPGs) rely a lot on combat. If you can't contribute there, 2 problems arrive:
- For the "non-combattant", every instance of combat risks becoming boring. Considering the time you need to spend in combat, that can be very bad for your play experience.
- D&D maybe more so then others relies on good team-work. If a member of the team doesn't do its job, the whole team suffers. That means a bad play experience for all players involved.

There might be groups that rely less on combat, where suboptimal characters might not matter that much, but that is not the default assumption. A game that doesn't even support its default assumption is a bad game. To use a car metaphor: Sure, it's nice if the newest VW Passat is fast and more horsepowers then ever, but if this costs the back seat room and trunk space, that's bad.

I am okay if you take feats for "flavor", but wouldn't it be nice if this flavor also transferred into a useful mechanical benefit? 3E Toughness grants you +3 hit points. Thematically, it presents your character being tougher then users. But why couldn't it work like 4E toughness? 3 extra hit points, +1 for each level after the 1st? It still has the same flavor, but it now might actually be worth taking!

A Bard is a cool character concept. He doesn't need to be a aggressive front-line fighter, not even a great archer, nor does he need to throw fireballs around. But why not give him bardic abilities that augment his comrades power, making the improvement equal in worth to a full character? (The 3.5 Bard was close to this ideal, but not quite there. (+15 % to average damage per round is only equal to one character if you 6-7 PCs in addition to the Bard...)
A character just has to look like a non-combatant, he doesn't have to actually be it. A 4E Leader could (but probably won't) be rigged so extreme that he will never make a single attack roll, and all his influence in the combat would be due to "moral" healing and buffing effects. Sure, he will never be able to go toe-to-toe with a fighter, but he is still 100 % useful in a fight party vs monsters.

 

[Torchlyte]

but he is still 100 % useful in a fight party vs monsters.

There is little evidence to suggest that.

 

[Dausuul]

Now, Game Mastery. I knew there was a reason I hated M:tG, but that's beside the point. The big problem with game mastery is that, eventually, every character is the same. Forget the dude who plays the same character since middle school, every wizard you ever play, every fighter, every rogue, every character will eventually fall into one of the optimal builds for the class. Every Wizard has magic missile and fireball. They also take Archmage with Mastery of the Elements as soon as possible. No fighter ever uses a 2-handed sword because TWF deals more damage. Everyone plays a human or elf because the racial benefits are optimal.

...While I agree with your larger point, were you actively trying to select sub-optimal approaches to character design in your examples of super-optimized builds? Blasting magic is one of the least effective ways to play a wizard--you're far better off with save-or-lose spells and battlefield control--and "greatsword with Power Attack" is the gold standard for fighter damage output. And elves are the weakest of the full-blood races in the PHB, though still better than half-elves and half-orcs. The Constitution penalty kills them, literally.

Humans are solid though. Love me some humans. And if you include the sub-races in the Monster Manual, I'll concede that wood elf is a decent pick for a melee specialist.

Anyway, yeah... "system mastery" is a major problem IMO. For one thing, it means a lot of the Player's Handbook is wasted paper once you figure out what's good and what's worthless. For another thing, it means that you often end up with some PCs being uber-powerful and others being near-useless, in a relative sense; whether because some players know how to work the system and others don't, or because some players stumble across a killer combo by sheer luck, or because some players aren't interested in power-building and others are.

There will always be system mastery in D&D, simply because no RPG ever built has achieved perfect balance except by making all options identical. But increasing the impact of system mastery should not be a design goal by any means.

 

[hong]

Absolutely you sometimes want to play the role of a brave fighter who can take on any challenge, or a mighty wizard that can huck spells about. But sometimes I want to play a craven wizard, or some other character that just stinks in battle.

It's very easy to create a character who doesn't contribute in a fight. Just don't roll the dice.

 

[hong]

In short, I defeated one of the sub-bosses, supposed to be very hard for a team of 4 PCs and 2 DMPCs by myself,

Hopefully this will be much less likely to occur in 4E.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There is little evidence to suggest that.

To clarify: I am not talking about about any of the existing Leader implementations. it is pretty clear that they all use attacks as part of their powers. But you could theoretically create a Leader Class that will never attack anyone, but still grant all the necessary damage, to-hit bonus, movement bonus and extra attacks to his allies that he is equivalent to a full character.

Such a class could exist in 3E, too, by the way. You could have a super-buffer class that did exactly this. Both 4E and 3E will never really have such class, I suppose, since the story/flavor-reasoning for such a class would be hard to create. (Though maybe, something like "Talisman" or "Warmind" - but the latter alone would already be against the spirit of non-combatant)

 

[phloog]

I think that for D&D, characters that are "intentionally bad at combat" are a bad idea. D&D (and many other RPGs) rely a lot on combat. If you can't contribute there, 2 problems arrive:
- For the "non-combattant", every instance of combat risks becoming boring. Considering the time you need to spend in combat, that can be very bad for your play experience.
((SNIPPED STUFF) .

I guess that's where I wasn't being clear on my shifting of more responsibility onto the DM.

During the combats, if I know that a PC will be present who is weaker in combat, I will provide either some lesser part of the combat for them to participate in, or I will provide a sideline activity which requires equal ATTENTION for them during the battle...never said it was easy though.

I guess I'll probably make things worse with examples, but here goes:

My wizard stinks at combat - if he takes a hit he'll likely be at 1/2 hit points or worse. The DM knows the BBEG is a huge demon with a Greataxe in each hand. When I'm creating or revising the adventure, I can either:

1) Surround the demon with low-level grunts - if these aren't taken care of, the fighters will have to wade through them while the demon is free to individually lay the smackdown on others in the party. The non-com wizard uses sleep/hypnosis/etc. to create a direct path so the barbarian can engage the demon

2) Make the demon TWO versions - one is how they encounter him, the other is a weakened form. The stronger form is because he is powered by [Ancient Device / Old Magical Ritual / Link to Elder Gods / Etc.] -- the craven wizard is able to 'damage' the demon through his skills and arcane knowledge, by Throwing the Right Switches / Actively working to dispel the ritual / breaking the link

The same is true for specific skills, though you have to work to avoid Deus Ex Machina problems ("Wow....Woodcarving always seems to play a part in defeating evil!")

But if the DM is willing to work on the adventure, and makes sure he is familiar with the full set of each player's abilities, there is no need for boredom for anyone. I will admit that perhaps I've just been lucky.

 

[small pumpkin man]

SCIENCE! and NUMBERS!

I agree. I just meant to point out for the non-mathematicians that "+.275 per swing" is slightly less crappy than it sounds.

It also, unlike backstabber, works with any weapon/spell/attack and gets proportionally better as you get into more trouble. It also stacks with backstabber. Not as good as backstabber or Dwarven Weapon Training (or whatever it's called), but more Weapon Spec than Toughness IMO.

Of course if it's quite difficult to get a 19-20 crit range or the feat doesn't scale with level, then it seems a waste of page space at this juncture.

 

[phloog]

It's very easy to create a character who doesn't contribute in a fight. Just don't roll the dice.

I'm not sure if you didn't understand me, or if you're just having fun...I don't believe I said I wanted a character that doesn't 'contribute in a fight'....I said I wanted to play a character that was no good at combat.

Yes, if 4E makes it so everyone is good at combat, I could opt to not roll the dice, but it's hopelessly artificial...then I'm not playing a character ill-suited to combat, I'm playing a character who is awesome in combat, but chooses not to participate. I've got all these eldritch blasts in my pocket, but I don't feel like using them right now.

What I want to play is a character that contributes to a 'fight' or an encounter, but can do so in character without being a combat equal to a warrior. This requires a DM willing to build encounters that engage the characters that are present, rather than building a series of fights where the only option is to slug it out.

Will there be times when the only option is combat? Absolutely, and maybe during those times the weak wizard IS less of a contributor...but the same is true when you're attempting to break the magical spell trapping the baron. But it can be minimized if you design interesting encounters.