Skill Based PCs

[Rotku]

Just to bring the two threads together, feel free to whine and moan about skill based PCs here. Even better, if someone can come up with a useful suggestion about how to fix this problem that doesn't involve:

• Banning Clerics/Fighters
• Reversing pats admin dicisions
• Telling DMs how to DM

[danielmn]

A builders meeting on how to integrate these skills into the game via scripts so that PC's can use them when there isn't a dm presence. I know I for one have little to no clue on the scripting side of things. I've seen climb checks put IG through scripts, And I am sure other things IG as well. Some statics for the nature classes would be nice as well, BG has herb gathering, I believe WHL will have hunting/herb gathering also...good to see those in. Visable discussion before things are removed and inaccesable to the player....I know Frenzied Berserker got taken off the shelf just before I could've taken that PRC...luckily I have a really good HDM that is willing to work with me in an alternate possible PRC.

[mr duncan]

1) Stop letting PCs get away with tracking without the feat and skill. The same applies for picking locks, Lore, or anything else. You might feel is this telling a DM how to DM, but you simply dont get to have value to skills if people dont stand a chance to lose at skill checks or need them in game

2) Many more traps in the dungeons that players are likely to visit when they are /without/ a DM. Lots of traps. I totally understand and agree with players not being able to set instant traps but things lurking in dark caves should have traps. More traps to disarm. An XP award for disarming them, since you can get hurt for failing.

3)Locked doors of varying difficulty in those same monster lairs (Also, see suggestion #2)

4) Chests with locks, you either bash them and probably lose whats in there or you take a lockpick with you. (Also, see suggestion #2) Some loot in the chests would be best, even if it means taking loot off the creatures in the area for balance sake. Putting almost all the loot in locked chests.

5) BG is supposed to have some statics that you can get only with the right skills, more of that would help a bit. TSM has a school that does a good job of being nice safe statics for low HP casters, a bard school would be a small help too.

6) Secret doors



In a persistent online DnD game there really is some advantage to being a fighter or cleric. I dont think anyone holds that against them just for that, but if those players have to see the clerics and fighters getting to ignore their lack of skills then they do have right to get upset like they have been for a few topics recently


J

[kiyoti]

+1 to both mr.d and danielmn.

More danger that required a skill based PC in a group to overcome would increase their value. And if said PC risked their lives to face that danger they should get a reward, which would also increase their value and increase the numbers of players that would want to play them. Fighter types are so attractive to play because you can continue to advance and get rewards for doing what that class is good at; mainly killing things. If other classes had the same incentive for advancement perhaps a wider variety of classes may see an increase in popularity. More folks with these desired skills would mean less faking of the skills/feats/abilities people need to succeed in a quest.

[Rotku]

Fighter types are so attractive to play because you can continue to advance and get rewards for doing what that class is good at; mainly killing things. If other classes had the same incentive for advancement perhaps a wider variety of classes may see an increase in popularity.

Just a quick bit of numbers, about this whole claim of fighters and clerics been the only classes around. I have DMed three sessions in the past week. The classes I have had playing have been:

-> 3 Rangers
-> 1 Fighter/Barbarian/Cleric
-> 1 Barbarian
-> 1 Paladin/Monk
-> 1 Wizard
-> 1 Rogue[/something???]

I don't know what things are like in BG, but I can tell you on TSM, your fears are completely false.

[mr duncan]

The example of the player saying he couldnt find a scout so they ignored the tracking role was a TSM player. I am pretty sure pointing fingers at a server and saying it must be the problem rather than another wont get anywhere helpful. There /is/ this unbalance or it wouldnt have come up. The imbalance lies in how they are treated, not how many are here on a given night. The fact that people will still play what they like is not reason to treat them unfairly

[Rotku]

There /is/ this unbalance or it wouldnt have come up.

Invalid argument. Does not compute. The correct statement here is that "There /is/ this perceived unbalance or it wouldn't have come up". Just because something is raised does not mean it is true. Just think that it was obviously raised before when the evil standards team decided to nerf anything that wasn't a fighter. And following your reasoning, as they raised the issue of unbalance, it must have been true.

The imbalance lies in how they are treated, not how many are here on a given night.

I'm not arguing their isn't, I'm just pointing out the fact that saying people don't play non-cleric/fighter classes is BS.

[mr duncan]

I dont think anyone said we dont play those classes. A few spoke up and mentioned feeling those classes were more popular/powerful for obvious reasons, hardly saying skill PCs arent being played

I see posts with people showing a loss of morale that thier scouts, bards, and rangers are treated as inferior to those classes. I said before that this imbalance was about treatment not numbers on a given night, or even the numbers in the vault

As I am not one of them, and making this pointless case out of an unhealthy sense of fairness, I will stop. Ill concede you are right and those players are whining about perceptions, choke them... Im playing a fighter


J

[Rotku]

I dont think anyone said we dont play those classes. A few spoke up and mentioned feeling those classes were more popular/powerful for obvious reasons, hardly saying skill PCs arent being played

I'm not saying there is an imbalance. I'm not saying their isn't. To be honest, I'm not in a position to know. However, wo places come to mind where people have made a claim that these PCs aren't as popular, so there I am pointing out that it is an incorrect claim.

If other classes had the same incentive for advancement perhaps a wider variety of classes may see an increase in popularity

Rangers, bards and rogues are scarce IG (at least in BG they are, I haven't been on TSM much for a while). There is doubtless a reason skill based PC's are becoming scarcer, but that is perhaps a topic for another thread

Look, I am a big fan of skill based PCs. Look back at my history of PCs (and those numbers are huge, so there's a good sample to go on) and the majority of my PCs are either Bards, Paladins, Rogues, or Clerics. I love the skill based play, particularly as far as diplomacy is concerned. However, here I feel a lot of people have got their pants unreasonably twisted and are turning a mountain into a molehill.

However, in saying that, I am happy to listen to suggestions. Most of which, at present, seem to come down to static content needs to be more fairly distributed (I completely agree with, although can't comment on the current situation) and DMs need to DM better (I completely disagree with).

[Mulu]

If you want to look at a good example of a skill based PW, The Heroes' Stone by Poetic Colossus is available for download on the vault. I've never seen a better designed PW from a skills perspective. He also put in a lot of new options for bards. It's NWN1 of course, but the ideas are there.

I also have a hard time believing that ALFA DM standards would allow clerics and fighters to track, but maybe that's a topic for the DMA, not the PA.

[johnlewismcleod]

self edited...realized after my entry I had said nothing I haven't already said several times before

To late to delete...so I'll take this opportunity to give Mr D a big +1(for everything excluding the dubious comments about our Helmites ) and thank him for championing the skill-based cause.

[kiyoti]

i guess i was to vague by saying "fighter types" what i intended was to mass the ranger/fighter/barb/pal into what i should have called perhaps the "warrior types" of PC. ranger is a mix of skills/warrior, but i still think they can still dish out some pain when needed. so in that mix of PC's you mentioned i see one dedicated skill PC, the rogue, a wiz and 6 warrior types, again admitting that rangers do have some skills.

its a good thing the rangers can dish it out because i believe we are arguing they still do not get to use the moderate number of skills they are given. lets not forget to mention the rogues heavy skill set that seems to be getting neglected as well with no static or scripted content that I have seen (I could be wrong and just haven’t seen it yet).

[Kest]

well this is certainly a civil discussion

itd be pretty neat to see more of the bg skill stuff, yeah

[Rotku]

self edited...realized after my entry I had said nothing I haven't already said several times before

To late to delete...so I'll take this opportunity to give Mr D a big +1(for everything excluding the dubious comments about our Helmites ) and thank him for championing the skill-based cause.

I found your post a good read! You should have left it!

Anyway, so the main concern is that people feel static content should take into account skills more? If so, I'll happily pass that on to the builders and we can call it a day. I know for certain that there's already a topic in the WHL builders forum discussing this very thing.

[Veilan]

Without wanting to knock the terrific TSM builders, a good example of how to do it wrong are their cargo-hauling quests. It favours strength-based characters - those that can go out and bash stuff to advance anyway. At the same time, social interactions and skills aren't really rewarded, you don't get to talk out more coins for doing the same haul in a longer time. I suggest tapping bartleby for some ideas for good and easy skill and activity based statics, some trials with repeatables on Moonshaes 1 were rather impressive.

Add on top of that the mushy nature of "soft" skills, and the propensity of many mediocre players to just roleplay as if they had those skills. Often times they simply substitute their ooc knowledge and skills into their character's actions. This actually constitutes metagaming, but few DMs have the time to check each char sheet thoroughly (and they shouldn't have to). Of course, I'll stop here, lest we summon a certain charisma-obsessed player from ages past...