Why does 4th Edition have classes anyway?

[Draco_Argentum]

What about all the characters who start as one role and then change mid way through a story? Blackgaurd style. Seems like role protection would mess that trope up.

[PhoneLobster]

That's small potatoes compared to the fact that role protection messes up like a zillion character concepts right out the character creation gate.

Having Hammer guy moves be different to Sickle guy moves is cool and what not.

But if Hammer guy can't ever learn Sickle techniques because it would impinge on Sickle guy's personal space and hurt his feelings.

Or if he can't be allowed to whip out a sickle because it would "break expectations" of anyone who read the "hammer guy" entry in the Guy Guide.

Then that screws someone's cool hammer and sickle guy concept.

And it isn't fucking worth it in a million years. You are seriously fucking lucky if players remember that there's some sort of troll-no-likey-fire thing or can agree on what exactly kills a vampire.

Do you seriously expect that more than a fraction of players are going to remember, recognise AND like fixed associated strengths, weaknesses and ability lists for HOW many protected roles now? ALL the classes AND all the monsters AND all the races AND all the items AND... etc...?

And that tiny fraction of players is going to outweigh the vast majority of players that walked in and said "hey can my wizard guy like also hit things with a hammer, like Hammer Guy?" and got disappoint when the answer was "never, ever, not even a bit, what are you trying to steal from Hammer Guy? Are you trying to trick Anti Wizard Guy Guy? NOT ALLOWED!!!!!"

Its a big fat up yours to player options at character design and as such a big fat up yours to the "cooperative" part of cooperative storytelling.

And might I ask, in the wonderful world of role protection, what is the protected role of the Rogue and how is that either not A)A lame tiny role I don't care about or B) A Role that steps on the toes of every other character concept ever.

Rinse and repeat with every other character role you intend to protect.

[Username17]

That's small potatoes compared to the fact that role protection messes up like a zillion character concepts right out the character creation gate.

YES!

Just like when you come into a game about Vampires you mess up character concepts like "spaceman" and "dinosaur wrangler" when you make a world and associated concepts and protected categories and roles you mess up everything that doesn't fit into the categories and genre of your world. And that's a good thing.

We've seen what happens when people make games where everyone can bring in their own prima donna character concept - nothing fits together, nothing makes any fucking sense, and there's no reason for anyone to do anything in particular. You need to be able to accept not having things in order to really have anything.

Cooperative storytelling requires compromise. Both in the resolution of actions and in the narrative. Those compromises should be codified if you're going to codify the game. Otherwise you just have a shouting match.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

No, once again you bring in the Smurf Strawman.

We are talking about class protection of things like Wizard, Rogue and Hammer Guy or Sword Guy.

We are talking about saying Fuck You to Joe when he sits down at the cooperative story table and asks to mix the available advertised story elements to his liking to make the one and only character that is actually his.

Joe isn't asking to play as a god damn smurf. You told him there were adventurers with bows and swords but when he sat down and wanted to make an archer swordsman you told him to go fuck himself.

Fuck this immature "oh but its anti spaceman protection" argument of yours Frank.

Its the lamest and stupidest thing I've ever seen you produce.

[Kaelik]

No we aren't talking about protecting roles like Wizard/Hammer Guy/Rogue/Sickle guy.

Frank has said several times now. Stabbing people and casting spells are not roles, it is a slider.

Stop mischaracterizing his position by claiming that he thinks hammer guy and rogue and sickle guy need to be separate. He has already said several times that Hammer guy ad Sickle guy and Rogue are all the same role.

[virgil]

Frank's kinda going extreme on his characterization of his position, likewise on the opposite end of the spectrum for PL.

The wizard throws full-on lightning, the swordsman cuts the lightning in half, while the archer shoots enough arrows in a blur into someone that they have trouble touching the ground. All three can simply grab a sword, have it gain an electric aura, and ignominiously chop an orc down.

[Username17]

The main character of a story can be a master of all five magics. A player character should not be allowed to be such. The amount of special permissible in single author fiction is much much higher than the amount of special allowed in a role playing game. If you're playing Cowboys and Indians, you have to be a Cowboy or an Indian, if you're making Dances With Wolves you can make some kind of crazy Cowboy/Indian hybrid.

If you're going to hand out lightning as some sort of special thing, it should be reserved for special functions. If you're going to make it universal, make it universal. In Star Wars, Lightning is used by Sith.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Frank has said several times now. Stabbing people and casting spells are not roles, it is a slider.

No, he said currently the roles overlap, and he wants to "fix" that "problem".

Now if you think that ISN'T what he wants to do then maybe you should pin him down to describe the roles he is separating. I guarantee you you have two options in those role descriptions.

1) They are too broad and hurt everyone else's character concepts.

2) They are too narrow and make for lame inflexible character concepts.

That's what role protection DOES. You divide the options up into packages that make sense only to you and then throw a big up yours at everyone else.

I mean holy crap...

If you're playing Cowboys and Indians, you have to be a Cowboy or an Indian, if you're making Dances With Wolves you can make some kind of crazy Cowboy/Indian hybrid.

... for instance.

That is some crazy ass bullshit right there.

He just jumped from "fictional characters are the centre of their universes" to "Bow Guy abilities must NOT combine with Gun guy abilities, fuck you Kevin Costner for wanting to play a character like that in my cowboys and indians game you role stomping freak, why don't you go play fucking rifts".

I mean REALLY, no cowboy/indian hybrid? We aren't exactly talking fairies and cyborgs here. But then again in a game advertised as The Amazing Fairy Cyborg Universe Game, a ROLE PLAYING game no less, I'd be somewhat alarmed at there being no crossovers permitted between the two advertised factions.

[CatharzGodfoot]

If you're playing Cowboys and Indians, you have to be a Cowboy or an Indian, if you're making Dances With Wolves you can make some kind of crazy Cowboy/Indian hybrid.

... for instance.

That is some crazy ass bullshit right there.

He just jumped from "fictional characters are the centre of their universes" to "Bow Guy abilities must NOT combine with Gun guy abilities, fuck you Kevin Costner for wanting to play a character like that in my cowboys and indians game you role stomping freak, why don't you go play fucking rifts".

I mean REALLY, no cowboy/indian hybrid? We aren't exactly talking fairies and cyborgs here. But then again in a game advertised as The Amazing Fairy Cyborg Universe Game, a ROLE PLAYING game no less, I'd be somewhat alarmed at there being no crossovers permitted between the two advertised factions.

Cowboys and indians both have exactly the same starting attributes. Both can ride horses and shoot guns. They also get cultural weapons, such that an indian can start with a bow and a cowboy can't. If a cowboy picks up a tomahawk, however, she can use it.
You might want a few protected abilities. I'd suggest that indians can't use lariats and cowboys can't use bows. Other than that, they're exactly the same except for fluff and starting gear.

So say you want to play a cowboy/indian. Well, you can play a cowboy/indian raised by cowboys or raised by indians. You still have to choose which team you're on, and that determines starting gear. You don't get to start with or use both lariats and bows, because that would entice everyone to play a cowboy/indian. You also have to choose a team, because that's how the game works. If you decide to be neutral, you simply aren't playing at all.

[JonSetanta]

I've been mulling over the idea of visual cues for TNE, and I think I've solved the Wizarding Blob.

Wizards use magic tattoos a la Full Metal Alchemist to use their combat powers. Intelligent Blobs with wizard levels would have magical patterns visibly suspended in their fluids.

Awesome, no?

I'd prefer something like "sparking with magenta arc lightning" or "an effervescent neon mist" over runes but it works.

It works better, however, if such blobs gain powers after having eaten a Wizard, spellbook, or spellcasting item. Multiple devourings don't change anything; it's that initial exposure, like a bacterium absorbing genetic code form another source.

[K]

I've been mulling over the idea of visual cues for TNE, and I think I've solved the Wizarding Blob.

Wizards use magic tattoos a la Full Metal Alchemist to use their combat powers. Intelligent Blobs with wizard levels would have magical patterns visibly suspended in their fluids.

Awesome, no?

I'd prefer something like "sparking with magenta arc lightning" or "an effervescent neon mist" over runes but it works.

It works better, however, if such blobs gain powers after having eaten a Wizard, spellbook, or spellcasting item. Multiple devourings don't change anything; it's that initial exposure, like a bacterium absorbing genetic code form another source.

I've been thinking about what Sorcerers need as cues, and have decided that Sorcerers gain their powers not from words and symbols, but from drawing them from magical objects and places. They will be different from Wizards in that they are sharply themed while Wizards are a form of generalist.

So a fire sorcerer gets flame traits. This means that a Sorcerer Blob would have flame traits in their ooze if they ate a flame sorcerer or Pyroclastic Armor.

[JonSetanta]

I've been thinking about what Sorcerers need as cues, and have decided that Sorcerers gain their powers not from words and symbols, but from drawing them from magical objects and places. They will be different from Wizards in that they are sharply themed while Wizards are a form of generalist.

So a fire sorcerer gets flame traits. This means that a Sorcerer Blob would have flame traits in their ooze if they ate a flame sorcerer or Pyroclastic Armor.

That's a good direction. Oddly similar to my take on fey magic as a series of illiterate cultures using spoken word and memory as sole means for advanced learning simply because their lifespans never required stored information (though the implementation in game is under revision).
Young fey simply ask the creator of a spell or one of the creator's students, even though they might be hundreds of thousands of years old.
It's a luxury many short-lived beings can't afford if information is to endure time, and mortals that don't use writing don't progress very far as civilizations, as real world (Earth) cultures go.

Doesn't mean one can't use graphics and patterns though, written word or not. An animalistic tribal tattoo could function the same as Wizardly writing even while that would be the exception to the rule as you say.
Still, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Sorcerers indeed need more DBZ flash and pizazz.
Fire, lightning, acid mist, frost, all that good stuff. That's sorcerous signature right there.
For magical locations, treating magic itself as condensable, localized, pervasive substance rather than an ambient and generally untouchable universal force is best IMO.

What's your take on Clerical and Divine magic then? What happens if a monster eats a Cleric?
Do they gain symbols and portfolio related to the eaten being's deity or more of their own belief system? I'd think the latter.

[PhoneLobster]

You might want a few protected abilities. I'd suggest that indians can't use lariats and cowboys can't use bows.

OK that isn't actually the same as protecting the cowboy and indian roles at all. Its protecting the Bow guy and lariat guy roles. Which is even dumber when you think about it.

So say you want to play a cowboy/indian. Well, you can play a cowboy/indian raised by cowboys or raised by indians. You still have to choose which team you're on, and that determines starting gear.

First of all that is not Frank's design philosophy or presented argument. Remember in his world a guy playing an elf flavor as a unique race is subverting the rules and ruining the game compared to a guy using the SAME elf rules to play an elf that is merely a cultural adaption of an imaginary pan-elfdom elf.

So using the cowboy rules to play a non cowboy is fucking crazy town.

Second that sort of "rules support" is the same sort of rules support 4th edition has for all those things its rules don't actually cover at all. You are leaving me with no room or support for my Cowboy/Indian greater than the fluffy bunny fairy tea party support, in the rules I'm just a fricking cowboy like everyone else.

You also have to choose a team, because that's how the game works. If you decide to be neutral, you simply aren't playing at all.

Thirdly, what the hell is this? WoW? Pick horde, pick alliance, one or the other, no halvsies or independents, bitch. We aren't just presenting this as a campaign thing either, congratulations its hard coded to the very core of the rules through role protection!

You don't get to start with or use both lariats and bows, because that would entice everyone to play a cowboy/indian.

Why on earth do you think that is the case?

[Manxome]

Judging by the Fantastic! brainstorming notes Frank posted in the diagrams thread, it looks like he's in favor of having fairly broad roles with overlapping powers. They allow situations where charactes of different archetypes could choose the same powers and characters of the same archetype could choose different powers, but not arbitrary mix-and-match.

And while I'm sure players would be sad if their particular favored concept isn't supported in the game, there are perfectly valid mechanical reasons not to allow that: the game's easier to learn, play, test, and balance when you can't play collect-them-all. And even if the game did allow gluing all forms of unrelated powers together willy-nilly, that still doesn't guarantee that it will support your favored concept (space marines in a fantasy game and all that), or that any support it offers will be balanced.

So how about you tackle this question from the opposite direction, PhoneLobster: what do you consider a reasonable justification for saying that the players can't do something? Keeping in mind that if you answer "nothing," then the only game you can play is magical tea party.

[Koumei]

...so I just learned that a lariat is a lasso. Hitherto this moment, I didn't know the origin of the name of the lariat attack (more or less a clothesline).

[CatharzGodfoot]

You might want a few protected abilities. I'd suggest that indians can't use lariats and cowboys can't use bows.

OK that isn't actually the same as protecting the cowboy and indian roles at all. Its protecting the Bow guy and lariat guy roles. Which is even dumber when you think about it.

If you don't like the setting, maybe you should come up with some other hypothetical game that you would be more comfortable arguing about.

So say you want to play a cowboy/indian. Well, you can play a cowboy/indian raised by cowboys or raised by indians. You still have to choose which team you're on, and that determines starting gear.

First of all that is not Frank's design philosophy or presented argument. Remember in his world a guy playing an elf flavor as a unique race is subverting the rules and ruining the game compared to a guy using the SAME elf rules to play an elf that is merely a cultural adaption of an imaginary pan-elfdom elf.

So using the cowboy rules to play a non cowboy is fucking crazy town.

Second that sort of "rules support" is the same sort of rules support 4th edition has for all those things its rules don't actually cover at all. You are leaving me with no room or support for my Cowboy/Indian greater than the fluffy bunny fairy tea party support, in the rules I'm just a fricking cowboy like everyone else.

Regardless of your back story, you play one role. The role you play is either cowboy or indian. I think it's pretty simple, really.

You don't get to start with or use both lariats and bows, because that would entice everyone to play a cowboy/indian.

Why on earth do you think that is the case?

I think it should be fairly obvious, but I'll try to explain it anyhow.
If there isn't some utility to using an item, it might as well not exist. Therefore, I make the assumption that every item is ideal under at least one situation. If my assumption holds, then the utility of being able to use both items is greater than the utility of being able to use only one of the items. So, there is incentive (greater utility) to play a cowboy/indian rather than one or the other.

You also have to choose a team, because that's how the game works. If you decide to be neutral, you simply aren't playing at all.

Thirdly, what the hell is this? WoW? Pick horde, pick alliance, one or the other, no halvsies or independents, bitch. We aren't just presenting this as a campaign thing either, congratulations its hard coded to the very core of the rules through role protection!

Yeah, and you probably play chess with the gray pieces that go in the middle of the board.

[PhoneLobster]

If you don't like the setting, maybe you should come up with some other hypothetical game that you would be more comfortable arguing about.

What you mean like you just did because Frank's position was actually indefensibly dumb?

Regardless of your back story, you play one role. The role you play is either cowboy or indian. I think it's pretty simple, really.

But highly inflexible considering its supposed to be a role playing game where people invent and operate their own characters as their ONLY contribution to the cooperative story.

Just because you can DESCRIBE it fairly simply doesn't make it a good design idea. I can say "You aren't allowed to play cowboys at all" and that kinda sucks doesn't it? But it's really simple.

Therefore, I make the assumption that every item is ideal under at least one situation. If my assumption holds,

If your assumption holds then EVERYONE will be making characters that can use Dynamite, Throwing Knifes and combat playing cards, because in at least one situation THOSE are also good.

An ability "being good" in "some situation" is not the only motivation or limitation to taking it. Just because I CAN select an ability and just because it is good at "something" doesn't mean I won't select ANOTHER ability that is ALSO good at something.

In your role protection example, why the hell is Thingmabob/Bows such a must for exclusivity? I can walk in as a Dynamite/Tomahawk (and there's a cool combo) instead and never care.

Yeah, and you probably play chess with the gray pieces that go in the middle of the board.

How many times does this actually need saying?

Chess != RPG

That is to say what the fuck crack are you smoking to think that bringing up chess in anyway supports your point about an RPG?

[Username17]

But highly inflexible considering its supposed to be a role playing game where people invent and operate their own characters as their ONLY contribution to the cooperative story.

Yes, Cowboys and Indians is a very inflexible game. It has the advantage however of being very quick to assess groups once people know the rules. A cowboy character can lasso things, an indian character can indirect fire arrows over walls, and both characters can shoot things with rifles and ride horses. It's a simple an inflexible game, and it isn't for everyone. But if everyone at the table has agreed to play it, they have agreed to play within those inflexibilities. If you come to the table where people are playing Cowboys and Indians and you try to bring in a character with a lasso and a bow, heck if you try to come in with a character with a lasso and a bow but without horse riding skills, you're being an asshole. If you can't accept playing a Cowboy or an Indian, you need to play a different game that encompasses character options that you can accept.

And saying "C&I is too limited of a game, I don't want to play it." is a perfectly valid stance. You don't see me clamoring to play original pamphlet Chainmail where every single player was a "Fighting Man." But if other people are dead set on playing such a game then your options are to play within those limits, or not play. Now you're perfectly within your rights to say "Yeah, I really wouldn't play that game, if you want to play with me we need to play a game with more depth of player options." That's fine. But agreeing to a game with few options and then demanding that you get special options made for you is a dick move.

Every game has limits of what you can play. Some of those are game balance based (you can't play a guy who can karate chop a planet in half in most games), and some of those are simply based on the story being told (you can't play an Ewok thunder mage in a Star Wars game even if he's just a reskinned Sith Lord). And if you agree to play a game, you agree implicitly to accept those limits.

---

Now some games are classless and purely point based. If you're playing Champions, you agree implicitly that your character is going to run around town stopping crime rather than sitting in a lab cranking out copies of his powersuit and selling them to Iranians. And you'll have to agree explicitly to fall within the numerical constraints of the game you're playing (so no spending all your points on a no-range personal immunity area of effect that wipes out every enemy and ally on turn 1). But other than that, you can really go nuts. Maybe you've decided to play Rampant, a character who shoots a beam of lions out of his chest, allowing him to either cause tremendous instant damage or make an area exceedingly dangerous depending upon how fast he shoots them. Whatever. Go nuts. That has real advantages, and it has real disadvantages. It takes a lot longer to explain what your characters can do than more codified systems, and it can be hard to figure out if the team has all the bases covered ("Holy shit, none of us can do Forensics?!"), and you accept those advantages and disadvantages when you go into an open system like that.

Some systems have soft classes. Shadowrun for example, is skill based. There are very definite and exact things that the team will want to have covered, but there's no definite order as to who on the team covers which of those bases or how. Maybe your team face is a Conjurer who also does astral scouting; maybe she's a bio-modified assassin who specializes in walking through security checkpoints with a smile and doesn't set of astral, physical, or matrix tests only to pop a monowhip out of her ring and kill with ruthless efficiency; maybe she's a technomancer who does the team matrix info gathering. And so on. There's a lot more than five thigs your team wants covered, and you probably have 3-6 team members, and they all have skills in various stuff. Hopefully the bases covered by each team member collectively allow the team as a whole to complete missions, and they'll do so in a different manner than another team who split up skills a different way. And that has advantages and disadvantages too.

And finally, there are games that have hard classes. A character who is an X is not a Y. AD&D is a solid example. If you're a Ranger, you're not a Bard or a Paladin. Full stop. And this has advantages and disadvantages just like the other setups do. And one of the advantages is that you can tell the other players what your character dos and what they are good at really quickly and easily with very little chance of confusion. And one of the disadvantages is that the number of supported concepts of the game is much less than the other systems.

Now, AD&D is a bad game. And one of the reasons that it's a bad game is that none of the character classes are really different one from another. I mean seriously: a Paladin, a Ranger, and a Fighter have differences but there's honestly nothing that makes me care. Rangers get more hit points at first level and gain hit points slower over time, and they get a bonus to kill giant class enemies. But if you rolled up a Ranger and just rolled badly you wouldn't even notice.

Now a Totemist, that's a class. Granted the mechanics are bullshit and the flavor is kind of retarded, but you make a glowing frost worm head and wear it on your face in order to shoot sonic blasts at things. That is clearly different from other classes and that's the only reason that anyone gives a fuck about Incarnum. I was dead serious when I said that D&D would be a better game if they took as their base classes Binder, Shadowcaster, Totemist, Warblade, and Warlock. Those five classes do things that are clearly distinct from what other classes do. Having those as the base classes would accentuate the advantages of playing with a class system at all. If you don't make the classes distinct, you are better off getting rid of them and just going skill based or point-buy entirely.

Characters in Slayers aren't made with character classes. They all swing swords (except Sylphiel who specialized to the point where she only casts spells), they all use spells (except Gourry, who specialized to the point that he only has sword techniques). Each character just picks abilities off the list and moves on with their life. And that's fine. That's a game where every single player has agreed to play a humanoid adventurer who has some combination of sword and spell techniques. But it's not morally superior to a game where some people call on malleable solid shadows and other people meld blue energy monster parts to their souls and none of the player characters do both.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

No point I could make with cowboys and indians would support any position, as it doesn't fit your concept of a role playing game either. It's a highly restrictive game where you play for one of two teams. Similarly to basketball, soccer, or team deathmatch, if you play a 'neutral party' you're either not playing or you're being an asshole.

D&D can work like that too, but (unless you're playing Living Whatever) the teams are `agreed' on by the players. There's no need for "role protection" beyond that agreement, which can take the form of 'We'll play by the rules" or "The DM will make something up and will take her lead" or "Everyone works together to create the setting" or "I'm playing a fighter/mage or I'm going home".

At the end of the day you don't need "role protection" in the rules, but if it is than at least everyone is on the same page (page 104).

That is to say what the fuck crack are you smoking to think that bringing up chess in anyway supports your point about an RPG?

Actually, I'm not smoking any kind of crack at all.

[PhoneLobster]

You know it never occurred to me you might be trying to use the genuine child's game cowboys and indians to back your arguments.

I just assumed that you meant "Wild west flavoured RPG". Well. That makes everything you guys said using the cowboys and indians example significantly stupider.

edit: Almost as stupid as if you had tried to back RPG design with examples from Chess...

But it's not morally superior to a game where some people call on malleable solid shadows and other people meld blue energy monster parts to their souls and none of the player characters do both.

It is however superior for practical game play purposes.

See once again, the universe of the monster part men and the shadow squeezers (who hate each other and never mix, ever, or share skills, ever, or change careers, ever, etc...) may well work as a specific campaign (or more likely a one off or short mini campaign, it's kinda one trick pony really).

But it fails in supporting multiple groups and players trying to implement their own games from the rules set.

You seriously got your head well up your own ass over this whole "toolkit" thing. Your creation is not so divine that it needs to be so god damn inflexible and incorruptible. Players (including the GMs who in theory will be using your rule set) need choice or they will fucking walk.

By all means role protect out the ass for that one rules set you are putting together exclusively for yourself to run that one gimmicky one off campaign. But don't expect anyone else to love its inflexible ass when you call it 4th edition or TNE.

[Draco_Argentum]

Essentially saying "we're playing D&D" is meaningless for determining what roles should exist. The list of things that are in D&D that have actually been played by the people here is massive. This isn't like WoD where there is a semi restricted list of shit you can be.

Anything advertised as 'D&D' or as 'D&D but better' will cause PL's reaction if it does not let you do a very broad array of character types. Thats just how it is. You can't say necromancers use bows because some of people walk into the discussion wanting to be a sword wielding necromancer.

In a game with no shared universe role protection makes no sense.

[Username17]

Essentially saying "we're playing D&D" is meaningless for determining what roles should exist.

No. It's contradictory. Not the same thing.

There are many people who immediately get the impression that the roles of Black Mage, White Mage, Fighter, and Thief are the roles that should exist when you say that you are playing D&D. These people are not necessarily wrong.

---

There is a tug of war between two competing and irreconcilable thoughts. On the one hand, people want to be special by being allowed to do something that mixes and matches. On the other hand, people want to be special by having other people get their grubby mitts off their shtick. And different games can and do play to those two ideals of specialness.

Class based systems are not good at having people mix and match stuff. Making a Fighter/Mage out of levels of Fighter and Mage is stupid difficult. If you wanted to do play to the people who wanted to blend archetypes from your setting, you'd ditch the classes. You don't have to go leveless or anything, although you can, but the classes seriously don't do you any good unless you are protecting people from having other characters steal their thunder.

But class systems are good at preserving people's uniqueness. If the White Mage can't learn Black Magic, then the Black Mage need not live in fear that she's going to walk in one day with his signature spell and put him out of a job. If you want to keep the class system, you want to increase the differentiation between the classes. Full stop.

-Username17

[Orion]

Also, while admittedlz limiting necromancers to a specific weappon maz be for most settings a little harsh, it's important to have a class szstem if zou want to have PC necromancers *at all*.

Because seriouslz, in classless szstems plazers who know what thez're doing tned to walk in with one psz-blast, one death reaz, one poison dart, and a fire shiled (cause it happened to be the best defense). Totallz freeform point buz szstems are the enemz of character differentiation, because everzone has an incentive to use the best mechanics. Unless, of course, there exists sznergz to the point that everzone buzs one super´move, which also sucks.

To put it another waz, the thign where in 4e rogues have to use daggers and zou´re flat disallowed from sneak attacking with a club is retarded. On the other hand, because rogues all use daggers, fighters all use polearms, and rangers all dual´wield, there`s guaranteed to be some weapon diversitz.

Even if the szstem is diverse and well´balanced enough that freeform characters are diverse, it tends to undermine concept builds more than it assists them. The fact is that if the szstem allows zou to grab a little of everzthing, zou usuallz will, which in itself limits the available characters.

In conclusion, german kezboards are weird.

[Cynic]

german keyboard stuff.

all i could see was that in every relevant area that a "Y" should have appeared there was a "Z." It's amusing that the german keyboard is really only that different.

Huh. Strange.

[Orion]

What about all the characters who start as one role and then change mid way through a story? Blackgaurd style. Seems like role protection would mess that trope up.

Actuallz, Blackguards are no problem. Thez were alreazd an explicit character rebuild that overwrote abilities ozu used to have with new ones entirelz. Zou could seriouslz just junk zour old Fighter and roll up a new Deathpriest.