Regarding testing as a campaign
I do agree that there should be a significant amount of combat testing, especially at the higher levels.
However, there are a few things that testing as a campaign will catch that spot testing in combat will not catch, however.
- Is the power progression over time reasonably smooth for all classes?
- Which items or abilities are the most abusable outside of combat?
- Are the guidelines for creating treasure reasonable?
- How well do the non interactive rules work out (overland travel, equipment cost)
- How are players likely to choose to advance their characters over time?
There is also what I would call an X factor for non combat stuff. When I do get to play as a player, I am probably one of the worst offenders for finding ways to 'break' the game. The best example would be the time I played a Changeling Rogue, and maxed the disguise, bluff, and forgery skills. To this day, I think I am probably the only player in D&D history to have had a character thrown in jail for attempted mail fraud. I had the bright idea of following an NPC of interest, and watched him use the Eberron equivalent of the postal system to send a letter. I then disguised myself as the NPC, and tried to obtain the letter he had sent, with plans to rewrite and resend a different letter. However, I ended up getting caught.
Good gaming? Sure. But if that sort of thing happened in play tests, someone might have realized that an at will +10 bonus to disguise might be a bit overwhelming. Or maybe it did come up, and someone knocked it down from an even higher bonus.
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