The class balance thread (let's try to keep this one trolling free)

[Libertad]

Just a recommendation, Lord Mistborn, but in good faith you should also say what sourcebooks and editions you have experience with/access to.  Same goes with other frequent posters in this topic.

[Lord Mistborn]

Fine

Rules Cyclopedia -never played
2E core -never played
3.5 almost all of the books -played almost since launch
4E core -played once or twice

[MGuy]

Just a recommendation, Lord Mistborn, but in good faith you should also say what sourcebooks and editions you have experience with/access to.  Same goes with other frequent posters in this topic.

K though by now I think I've said it before:

2E: 2 times. I don't know if the GM included splats or anything.

3E/Pathfinder: Played most. Familiar with most official splats (not as well with Pathfinder) and a decent amount of 3rd party material (Fantasy Craft, Iron Heroes, Iron Kingdoms, Dragonmech, Arcana Evolved, the list goes on)

4E: Played more times than I'd like. I am not familiar with anything beyond the core books and Martial Power.

[Exploderwizard]

This... doesn't counter anything and doesn't answer the question I posed. However I will answer it if only to get you to answer mine.

Being less effective doesn't equate to you being unable to contribute. Having a +1 bonus to attack over someone else makes you a more effective attacker but doesn't mean that the other attacker can't contribute. What DOES make you unable to contribute is if your inclusion in the party is a net loss for the team or if you can't seriously do anything that to help the team. If the party is only worse off with your participation, you don't covver any ground that isn't better covered by someone else, and other people can out do you in the one thing you're supposed to do best then you cannot meaningfully contribute.

This is an MMO attitude. If you don't get your DPS to X level then you get booted. :rotfl:

Oh and what you can contribute will be apparent from looking over your character sheet right?

Contributions by the player are meaningless unless they can be translated into rulespeak I suppose. Not my kind of fun for tabletop gaming but have fun with that and game on.

[Libertad]

This is an MMO attitude. If you don't get your DPS to X level then you get booted. :rotfl:

Not necessarily.  MGuy's post wasn't talking about "doing as much damage as possible" so much as he was talking about having characters who can hold his own weight in the group.  This concept's well established in many tabletop games.

In Shadowrun, you had the hacker who thwarted Matrix security, you had the mage deal with astral barriers, you had the Face negotiate with Mr. Johnson and get on people's good side, and your Street Samurai covers the physical and combat-related needs.

[Lord Mistborn]

This is an MMO attitude. If you don't get your DPS to X level then you get booted. :rotfl:

Oh and what you can contribute will be apparent from looking over your character sheet right?

Contributions by the player are meaningless unless they can be translated into rulespeak I suppose. Not my kind of fun for tabletop gaming but have fun with that and game on.

-_- Listen if you don't want to contribute to this thread then don't post in it. We're trying to have a mature discussion here and I expect you to argue in good faith.

[Marleycat]

Mature discussion? You wouldn't know that if it slapped you in the face. We have two sides that literally know nothing of each other's source material and couple middle of the road types stirring the pot. It's boring and a poorly disguised attempt to continue the wizard/fighter shitfest of a thread. At least that was shut down. This I just don't care I have other places to go and post on something relevant.  I'm honestly surprised anybody took the bait.

But I guess if you're that bored have at it guys. For me enough is enough and thank the heavens I have other interests beyond rpg's.

[Exploderwizard]

Not necessarily.  MGuy's post wasn't talking about "doing as much damage as possible" so much as he was talking about having characters who can hold his own weight in the group.  This concept's well established in many tabletop games.

In Shadowrun, you had the hacker who thwarted Matrix security, you had the mage deal with astral barriers, you had the Face negotiate with Mr. Johnson and get on people's good side, and your Street Samurai covers the physical and combat-related needs.

DPS was a placeholder for mechanical X at level Y or greater. It could be damage, support, a specialty, etc.

[Premier]

That's the thing, given how much D&D devolved into hack and slash every class should have somthing to bring to combat. What that means is being good a combat isn't somthing that can be role protected in 3e. So I agree that the fighter needs to have access to out of combat stuff.

Had you prefaced the entire thread with "I'm specifically talking about 3/4E and nothing else", this statement wouldn't raise an eyebrow. However, it's billed as a generic discussion of levels and balance, so I must take issue with the veracity of this statement.

Considering your experience (absolutely nothing prior to 3E), your observation is perfectly understandable, but, alas, not true. It's specifically the WotC games that devolved into combat, previous editions have a rich tradition of offering much beyond that.

Now, there are plenty of folks here who I'm sure will be happy to enlighten you, explain how things were back then, and help you widen your understanding of D&D. But as the Freemasons say, "if you want to learn about Masonry, ask a Mason" (or whatever, Pundit will correct me). If you genuinely and earnestly want to discuss matters of balance and other game design issues as relates to D&D in general, it would behoove to actually ask for information on parts and eras of the game you're unfamiliar with, as opposed to making ostensibly generic statements while being ignorant of a significant part of the material you're making declarations about.

[StormBringer]

Let's look at this as critically as we can here because this is important. Exactly what makes "being a fighter" more effective than "being a thief" in combat? What exactly about "being a thief" makes you better at finding traps?

Jesus, seriously?  Look, whatever else you want to tack on for the definition, at the very core all games are one thing:  arbitrary.  Why is Park Place more expensive than Marvin Gardens?  Why does the rook move only in straight lines?  Why can a battleship take five hits?

"Fighter" is more effective in combat than "Thief" because the rules say that a "Fighter" is more effective in combat than a "Thief".  The concept derives from Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, among other things. The mechanics derive from certain goals, emulation and niche protection among them.  Hence, a Fighter is better at fighting, and a Thief is better at thieving.

Pretty straightforward, right?

[MGuy]

This is an MMO attitude. If you don't get your DPS to X level then you get booted. :rotfl:

Oh and what you can contribute will be apparent from looking over your character sheet right?

Contributions by the player are meaningless unless they can be translated into rulespeak I suppose. Not my kind of fun for tabletop gaming but have fun with that and game on.

Explode what exactly is your deal? If you cannot DO anything to help adventure why would I put you on my team? MMO logic? Its schoolyard logic. It is lack of contributing to the team that would make people skip over you when selecting people to play a game. If adventurers are to be "realistic" then I'd assume that they wouldn't take anybody on their "save the world" quest that would only get them fucked up especially when that person can be replaced and their role filled out much better by someone who doesn't suck. You don't take civilians into a warzone to help you fight a battle if you can help it. You don't pick someone overweight/out of shape to join your professional football team. You don't pick the gu that hates you to represent you in court. If doing things that are common sense is MMO logic then what MMOs were around when I was choosing not to pick the fat kid to play basketball with in grade school?

You also still haven't answered my earlier question which I suppose means you asked your "counter" question merely as a means to "prove me wrong" instead of actually taking any time to think about what I asked. If you're not going to actually answer my question then there's no point in even talking to you at all.

[Lord Mistborn]

Had you prefaced the entire thread with "I'm specifically talking about 3/4E and nothing else", this statement wouldn't raise an eyebrow. However, it's billed as a generic discussion of levels and balance, so I must take issue with the veracity of this statement.

Considering your experience (absolutely nothing prior to 3E), your observation is perfectly understandable, but, alas, not true. It's specifically the WotC games that devolved into combat, previous editions have a rich tradition of offering much beyond that.

Oh no, you don't get to do this. Hackmaster is a thing that exists, your argument is invalid.

Combat a large part of every edition. Heck the roots of old D&D are as a wargame. The game in all editions has a tendencey to disolve into hack and slash, you may consider that a problem and it's not totally my cup of tea but I would consider a minmum standard for say 5e not to break if people start treating it like a wargame.

3e can do hack and slash, but it can also do other things and yes 4e striping the game of so many non-combat elements was a bad thing.

My point is if combat can not be role protected in D&D then their is a clear problem with a class having "fighing guy" as it's only trait.

[Premier]

Combat a large part of every edition. Heck the roots of old D&D are as a wargame. The game in all editions has a tendencey to disolve into hack and slash,

You yourself have said you have no experience with pre-3E editions. How the fuck do you dare pronounce sweeping statements about things you have, by your admission, no knowledge of, and then maintain them in the face of people who ARE speaking from personal experience and who are correcting you hoping you'll stop making an uninformed ass of yourself?

Also, you're moving he goalposts. First you said "D&D devolves into hack'n'slash". I told you it doesn't. Now you're "Combat is a large part of every edition, so I was right." No, you weren't. You ARE right in your second statement, but that's a completely different claim than your original one. So NO, while combat IS a large part of all D&D, all D&D does NOT "devolve into hack'n'slash". BECMI, for instance, has two entire books dedicated to high-level non-combat-oriented play: managing kingdoms, questing for immortality, tampering with history, etc.. Which you wouldn't know about, of course, because you prefer pulling shit out of your arse to actually getting informed about whatever the fuck you're making entitled declarations about.

[Lord Mistborn]

You yourself have said you have no experience with pre-3E editions. How the fuck do you dare pronounce sweeping statements about things you have, by your admission, no knowledge of, and then maintain them in the face of people who ARE speaking from personal experience and who are correcting you hoping you'll stop making an uninformed ass of yourself?

Also, you're moving he goalposts. First you said "D&D devolves into hack'n'slash". I told you it doesn't. Now you're "Combat is a large part of every edition, so I was right." No, you weren't. You ARE right in your second statement, but that's a completely different claim than your original one. So NO, while combat IS a large part of all D&D, all D&D does NOT "devolve into hack'n'slash". BECMI, for instance, has two entire books dedicated to high-level non-combat-oriented play: managing kingdoms, questing for immortality, tampering with history, etc.. Which you wouldn't know about, of course, because you prefer pulling shit out of your arse to actually getting informed about whatever the fuck you're making entitled declarations about.

If combat is a large part of a game then that game will devolve into hack and slash no mater how much about basketweaving you staple to the rules. I'm not on a crusade against your favorite edition so stop trying to circle the wagons. So let me say this one more time.

-Combat is a large part of D&D so everyone should have some relevence there.
-D&D should also have non-combat stuff and everyone should have somthing useful they can do out of combat.

If a class is only useful in combat then that makes the game even more likely to devolve into hack and slash. At the least that means that any fighter class in future editions should have a skill list that people care about so as not to suffer the disgrace that is the 3e fighter class outside combat.

[Premier]

If combat is a large part of a game then that game will devolve into hack and slash no mater how much about basketweaving you staple to the rules.

To quote Wikipedia, [Citation_needed]

You need to PROVE what you say. With ARGUMENTS and LOGIC (or citations). Which so far you've never really done in this thread, since all you seem to do is state things assertively without bothering to provide actual arguments to support the veracity of your claims. And that just doesn't fly.