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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4208169" data-attributes="member: 710">I think that for D&amp;D, characters that are &quot;intentionally bad at combat&quot; are a bad idea. D&amp;D (and many other RPGs) rely a lot on combat. If you can't contribute there, 2 problems arrive: - For the &quot;non-combattant&quot;, 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&amp;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 &quot;flavor&quot;, 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 &quot;moral&quot; 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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4208169, member: 710"] 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. [/QUOTE]

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