Really? Because when I look back the Cleric and Paladin could do just as well in the social area as the Bard. Which means the bard wasn't the face of the party in most cases. Especially since the paladin required a 17 Charisma... Maybe you are thinking of another game...
Nope. I'm thinking of the game where bards have more skill points than clerics and paladins put together to use towards social skills. Which game are you think of? And no, broken spells don't count. That's a completely separate issue.
2E, and in 3.xE I believe a Cleric had to have a decent charisma to turn undead and they got diplomacy as a class skill if I remember correctly, so yeah 2E, 3.xE, etc...
Social is more than diplomacy. Bluff and sense motive were also huge. So your cleric is spreading his 2 skill points into bluff, diplomacy and sense motive, while completely ignoring concentration, religion, and spell craft. Good job!
I'm not saying that Sleeps in Traffic, no class should be good at everything. Not without having paid for it through use of the options all classes have. I do think Fighters are getting the short end of the stick, though. They already are expected to have good Strength and Constitution, and Dexterity depending on the build. It is inevitable that they are going to take the hit to at least two 'Mental' stats to allow for that. The Casting classes can concentrate on one good 'Physical' stat, concentrating on the others as they wish, and rely on Spells to make up the difference. It's a disparity.
Not really because of 1 cold fact...The casters, and rogues, have overkill. seriously the DCs you are looking at in a normal not talking to a god scenario are likely looking at a DC of 14 or less. Having a 12 in charisma makes that an acceptable difficulty. Training alone (expending one of your granted choices at character creation) is enough to make these checks an esily acceptable difficulty, taking any of the other options open to everyone, such as setting a higher than average cha, or taking the skill specialist, are going to make these checks even less of a problem. You can get skill focus at level 1 or level 3. Meaning that by level 3 you could have (completely outside your own ability mods) a +5 to the skill you wish to focus on and an inability to roll below 5 on checks or 10 on challenges, you marry that with a decent cha and you have quite the talker. Take skill supremacy and basically don't care about any checks because you're probably going to pass every one that comes up (though getting back to the whole team game thing the help action makes skill supremacy kind of useless as almost anyone can help you talk). Anyone can do this as part of their build. It is an option open to everyone completely independent of class. Yes the guy who straight owns combat is going to need to spend some character resourses on being a god at talking...That is fine. The others give up combat prowess for the extra abilities.
Here let me break the math down for you:
Fighter with 10 Charisma vs. DC 10: 55%; vs. DC 15: 30%; vs. DC 20: 5%; Fighter with 10 Charisma and training vs. DC 10: 70%; vs. DC 15: 45%; vs. DC 20: 15%; Rogue with 10 Charisma, training, and skill mastery (7.975 average roll to add with +3 for a total of +10.975) vs. DC 10: 100%; Vs. DC 15: 79.875%; Vs. DC 20: 54.875%; Wizard with 10 Charisma and Charm Person vs. DC 10: 79.75%; vs. DC 15: 51%; vs. DC 20: 9.75% I left out the 100% chance things and only showed the chance of failure or success on things that actually had a chance of failure. Spider Climb, Fly, etc... don't give a chance of failure at all...
Now do you see what we are saying? The only time the Fighter pulls ahead is against the Wizard at DC 20 and only by 5.25%. The only way the Fighter could have a chance at being helpful would be to have training as well as the skill specialist specialty which means the Fighter has to give up their background and specialty just to compete with the Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard who don't have to give up their backgrounds and specialties to compete...
ahhh competition...NOT WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR TEAM. You don't compete within your team unless that competition is for self betterment, and you don't let the competition hurt your success as a team. Thats the problem here. We aren't in competition with each other on the table. We are not competing we are cooperatively working on a team to tell a story. Thats the problem here you want the fighter to be aces in combat and to be able to do everything outside of combat you want to know the greatest thing in the book right now. The help action. Sometimes it requires skill training to work.
Also this gets back to the people telling you with their character what they want to do. You want to know why I as the fighter don't speak up and take over the talking sections of the game...because someone else made a rogue with training in persuasion and bluff and the skill specialist specialty based around those skills. He just told me and everyone else at the game hey this is what he wants to do on the table. Me stepping in and taking that away from him would basically be the equivalent of unsprtsman like conduct. he obviously wants to do this, I may butt in if I have a character with aplicable skills, even if only to provide help (and therfore advantage on the check), but I will let him take point in the talking because he obviously wants to.
Also great to see that all of them can contribute meaningfully if only by giving themselves a cha higher than 10 and maybe picking up training. remeber most check DCs should fall in the 11-17 range 15+ being the difficult checks.
I'm also not saying they have their math right just yet. However on over all principles this works for me. The math definitely needs work (especially the rogue being way to good at the normal band DCs) but I'm fine with the idea of people being able to select what they are good at without being forced to be good at something they don't wish to be.
We aren't in competition, but nobody wants to feel like a side kick and you are advocating for the Fighter class to be the side kick outside of combat. That is not acceptable. I've had players quit for that...
Not gunna lie if they can't deal with not being the star all the time then you should grant them bon voyage as they leave your table. Also I'm not saying any one character type should be a sidekick outside of combat but if you put literally nothing into your build to make you good at something you shouldn't be good at it. You shoulddn't be able to dump stat cha, have no training in interaction skills, and pump everything into combat prowess and still be good at out of combat interaction.
Ah, no... I also didn't like the fact that the Barbarian was taking all the glory and the Rogue was the lackey. I'd rather see my players happy and not have to kick them out because they picked the wrong character class. Its also not about being the star all the time, but being the star an equal amount of time.
Also the Rogue depending on his scheme can be good at almost everything in the game outside combat without sacrificing anything. That's exactly what you are saying you want for all classes...
Why was the barbarian taking all the glory...Was he always presented with a situation where he could have all the glory? Was everything designed to his benefit? Was there not situations presented where the barbarian couldn't get into charge range and the rogues sneaking ability was the only way to disable the guards? Maybe the adventure was the issue. Maybe if the thing had been changed to highlight some of the rogues expertise the rogue might not have felt like such a lackey. (also wait did someone leave because they were disapointed with the game or was someone kicked out for show boating)
Also no the rogue can be good at a select group of things within the game. 8 things to be precise (10 if he also takes the specialty) (4 if you take backgrounds and skills out of the game), and like you said none of those really gets to be combat. He made that selection to not be as good at combat and to in turn be good at this small subset of things. The weight given to those things is entirely up to the DM (just like the weight of combat prowess is up to the DM).
I was running Red Hand of Doom. Its a combat centric adventure series for 3.xE. The Rogue could sneak up and hit a single target for some good damage, but after that the Barbarian just destroyed enemies. Outside of combat the Barbarian had enough skills to make them equal to the Rogue since it wasn't a trap filled dungeon crawl adventure.
My problem is that unless you specifically design the adventure toward a particular group of characters you are going to have players feeling left out. If they design the game the right way it won't matter how you design your adventures everyone will have something to do...
Really? Because when I look back the Cleric and Paladin could do just as well in the social area as the Bard. Which means the bard wasn't the face of the party in most cases. Especially since the paladin required a 17 Charisma... Maybe you are thinking of another game...
Nope. I'm thinking of the game where bards have more skill points than clerics and paladins put together to use towards social skills. Which game are you think of? And no, broken spells don't count. That's a completely separate issue.
2E, and in 3.xE I believe a Cleric had to have a decent charisma to turn undead and they got diplomacy as a class skill if I remember correctly, so yeah 2E, 3.xE, etc...
Social is more than diplomacy. Bluff and sense motive were also huge. So your cleric is spreading his 2 skill points into bluff, diplomacy and sense motive, while completely ignoring concentration, religion, and spell craft. Good job!
Sense motive was Wisdom based so they were usually as good as a trained character and I don't remember or not if sense motive was a clerics trained skills. Bluff doesn't fit the archetype of the holy warrior unless they were of a religion of trickery or deceit and in those cases their domains would give them spells or skill training in the appropriate skills. Spell craft isn't required for a Cleric. concentration was useful but a single feat would give you the equivalent of 4 ranks in it for the only reason a Cleric needs it and that is casting spells. Yeah religion would need a few ranks.
Really I'm not seeing why the bard would be a better face than the Cleric or the Paladin...
Sense motive was Wisdom based so they were usually as good as a trained character
You have an odd notion of "usually as good" At 1st level the cleric has +4 if he has an 18 wisdom. At 1st level the bard has +4 due to skill points. The bard gains 1 per level after that. What does the cleric gain? 1 point every 8 levels. Yeah, that's "as good".
and I don't remember or not if sense motive was a clerics trained skills.
It probably was. But it doesn't matter. They get 2 points to spread over 3 skills. Bards get 6 points to spread over those same three skills + more.
Bluff doesn't fit the archetype of the holy warrior unless they were of a religion of trickery or deceit and in those cases their domains would give them spells or skill training in the appropriate skills.
Who cares. This is about your claim that clerics are as good as bards at social, so to prove that, they have to have bluff as well. If they don't have bluff, they automatically fail at being as good. If they do have bluff, they still aren't as good AND they've made themselved bad clerics on top of it.
concentration was useful but a single feat would give you the equivalent of 4 ranks in it for the only reason a Cleric needs it and that is casting spells.
4 ranks was worthless. When you get hit for 15 points of damage and need to make a DC 25 check......yeah. When you get hit for 30 and need that 40...
Sense motive was Wisdom based so they were usually as good as a trained character
You have an odd notion of "usually as good" At 1st level the cleric has +4 if he has an 18 wisdom. At 1st level the bard has +4 due to skill points. The bard gains 1 per level after that. What does the cleric gain? 1 point every 8 levels. Yeah, that's "as good".
and I don't remember or not if sense motive was a clerics trained skills.
It probably was. But it doesn't matter. They get 2 points to spread over 3 skills. Bards get 6 points to spread over those same three skills + more.
Bluff doesn't fit the archetype of the holy warrior unless they were of a religion of trickery or deceit and in those cases their domains would give them spells or skill training in the appropriate skills.
Who cares. This is about your claim that clerics are as good as bards at social, so to prove that, they have to have bluff as well. If they don't have bluff, they automatically fail at being as good. If they do have bluff, they still aren't as good AND they've made themselved bad clerics on top of it.
concentration was useful but a single feat would give you the equivalent of 4 ranks in it for the only reason a Cleric needs it and that is casting spells.
4 ranks was worthless. When you get hit for 15 points of damage and need to make a DC 25 check......yeah. When you get hit for 30 and need that 40...
Bluff isn't required to be good at social. It is only required to be good at lying. There is a huge difference. Even that aside didn't characters get points per level? If that is true then 2 points would be plenty. Every other level throw a point in diplomacy, sense motive, and religion. Sure you aren't at the same exact ranks as the Bard, but you don't have to be to succeed at the DCs that they gave out. Being remotely optimized (by having a decent stat and many skill points put into a skill) was all that was needed.
It isn't that they were better, its that the overkill didn't help the bard more than the Cleric...
Bluff isn't required to be good at social. It is only required to be good at lying. There is a huge difference.
My bad. I thought lying was done in social situations during, you know, CONVERSATIONS WITH NPCs.
Even that aside didn't characters get points per level? If that is true then 2 points would be plenty. Every other level throw a point in diplomacy, sense motive, and religion. Sure you aren't at the same exact ranks as the Bard, but you don't have to be to succeed at the DCs that they gave out.
Congrats! You are now half as good.
It isn't that they were better, its that the overkill didn't help the bard more than the Cleric...
You can try to pretend that high DCs didn't happen, but they did. Sense motive and bluff were opposed checks, so your cleric fails when facing anyone good. The bard doesn't. Diplomacy had very high DCs, but the bard could hit those. The cleric couldn't.
Bluff isn't required to be good at social. It is only required to be good at lying. There is a huge difference.
My bad. I thought lying was done in social situations during, you know, CONVERSATIONS WITH NPCs.
Even that aside didn't characters get points per level? If that is true then 2 points would be plenty. Every other level throw a point in diplomacy, sense motive, and religion. Sure you aren't at the same exact ranks as the Bard, but you don't have to be to succeed at the DCs that they gave out.
Congrats! You are now half as good.
It isn't that they were better, its that the overkill didn't help the bard more than the Cleric...
You can try to pretend that high DCs didn't happen, but they did. Sense motive and bluff were opposed checks, so your cleric fails when facing anyone good. The bard doesn't. Diplomacy had very high DCs, but the bard could hit those. The cleric couldn't.
I'd hate to play with you if all of your NPC interactions require lying to succeed.
High DCs were rare, when you were dealing with a King or a commoner, they had a lot less ranks than you did and usually were moderate DCs. The only time you had high DCs was when you were dealing with fully statted out and classed NPCs which were not the suggested norm.
Half as good with a high wisdom so sense motive up to what level 15 or so was just as good? Not to mention the DCs were normally easy to beat anyway if you followed the encounter design rules at all. House ruling aside high DCs were rare...
I'm not saying that Sleeps in Traffic, no class should be good at everything. Not without having paid for it through use of the options all classes have. I do think Fighters are getting the short end of the stick, though. They already are expected to have good Strength and Constitution, and Dexterity depending on the build. It is inevitable that they are going to take the hit to at least two 'Mental' stats to allow for that. The Casting classes can concentrate on one good 'Physical' stat, concentrating on the others as they wish, and rely on Spells to make up the difference. It's a disparity.
Not really because of 1 cold fact...The casters, and rogues, have overkill. seriously the DCs you are looking at in a normal not talking to a god scenario are likely looking at a DC of 14 or less. Having a 12 in charisma makes that an acceptable difficulty. Training alone (expending one of your granted choices at character creation) is enough to make these checks an esily acceptable difficulty, taking any of the other options open to everyone, such as setting a higher than average cha, or taking the skill specialist, are going to make these checks even less of a problem. You can get skill focus at level 1 or level 3. Meaning that by level 3 you could have (completely outside your own ability mods) a +5 to the skill you wish to focus on and an inability to roll below 5 on checks or 10 on challenges, you marry that with a decent cha and you have quite the talker. Take skill supremacy and basically don't care about any checks because you're probably going to pass every one that comes up (though getting back to the whole team game thing the help action makes skill supremacy kind of useless as almost anyone can help you talk). Anyone can do this as part of their build. It is an option open to everyone completely independent of class. Yes the guy who straight owns combat is going to need to spend some character resourses on being a god at talking...That is fine. The others give up combat prowess for the extra abilities.
Here let me break the math down for you:
Fighter with 10 Charisma vs. DC 10: 55%; vs. DC 15: 30%; vs. DC 20: 5%; Fighter with 10 Charisma and training vs. DC 10: 70%; vs. DC 15: 45%; vs. DC 20: 15%; Rogue with 10 Charisma, training, and skill mastery (7.975 average roll to add with +3 for a total of +10.975) vs. DC 10: 100%; Vs. DC 15: 79.875%; Vs. DC 20: 54.875%; Wizard with 10 Charisma and Charm Person vs. DC 10: 79.75%; vs. DC 15: 51%; vs. DC 20: 9.75% I left out the 100% chance things and only showed the chance of failure or success on things that actually had a chance of failure. Spider Climb, Fly, etc... don't give a chance of failure at all...
Now do you see what we are saying? The only time the Fighter pulls ahead is against the Wizard at DC 20 and only by 5.25%. The only way the Fighter could have a chance at being helpful would be to have training as well as the skill specialist specialty which means the Fighter has to give up their background and specialty just to compete with the Rogue, Cleric, and Wizard who don't have to give up their backgrounds and specialties to compete...
ahhh competition...NOT WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR TEAM. You don't compete within your team unless that competition is for self betterment, and you don't let the competition hurt your success as a team. Thats the problem here. We aren't in competition with each other on the table. We are not competing we are cooperatively working on a team to tell a story. Thats the problem here you want the fighter to be aces in combat and to be able to do everything outside of combat you want to know the greatest thing in the book right now. The help action. Sometimes it requires skill training to work.
Also this gets back to the people telling you with their character what they want to do. You want to know why I as the fighter don't speak up and take over the talking sections of the game...because someone else made a rogue with training in persuasion and bluff and the skill specialist specialty based around those skills. He just told me and everyone else at the game hey this is what he wants to do on the table. Me stepping in and taking that away from him would basically be the equivalent of unsprtsman like conduct. he obviously wants to do this, I may butt in if I have a character with aplicable skills, even if only to provide help (and therfore advantage on the check), but I will let him take point in the talking because he obviously wants to.
Also great to see that all of them can contribute meaningfully if only by giving themselves a cha higher than 10 and maybe picking up training. remeber most check DCs should fall in the 11-17 range 15+ being the difficult checks.
I'm also not saying they have their math right just yet. However on over all principles this works for me. The math definitely needs work (especially the rogue being way to good at the normal band DCs) but I'm fine with the idea of people being able to select what they are good at without being forced to be good at something they don't wish to be.
We aren't in competition, but nobody wants to feel like a side kick and you are advocating for the Fighter class to be the side kick outside of combat. That is not acceptable. I've had players quit for that...
Not gunna lie if they can't deal with not being the star all the time then you should grant them bon voyage as they leave your table. Also I'm not saying any one character type should be a sidekick outside of combat but if you put literally nothing into your build to make you good at something you shouldn't be good at it. You shoulddn't be able to dump stat cha, have no training in interaction skills, and pump everything into combat prowess and still be good at out of combat interaction.
Ah, no... I also didn't like the fact that the Barbarian was taking all the glory and the Rogue was the lackey. I'd rather see my players happy and not have to kick them out because they picked the wrong character class. Its also not about being the star all the time, but being the star an equal amount of time.
Also the Rogue depending on his scheme can be good at almost everything in the game outside combat without sacrificing anything. That's exactly what you are saying you want for all classes...
Why was the barbarian taking all the glory...Was he always presented with a situation where he could have all the glory? Was everything designed to his benefit? Was there not situations presented where the barbarian couldn't get into charge range and the rogues sneaking ability was the only way to disable the guards? Maybe the adventure was the issue. Maybe if the thing had been changed to highlight some of the rogues expertise the rogue might not have felt like such a lackey. (also wait did someone leave because they were disapointed with the game or was someone kicked out for show boating)
Also no the rogue can be good at a select group of things within the game. 8 things to be precise (10 if he also takes the specialty) (4 if you take backgrounds and skills out of the game), and like you said none of those really gets to be combat. He made that selection to not be as good at combat and to in turn be good at this small subset of things. The weight given to those things is entirely up to the DM (just like the weight of combat prowess is up to the DM).
I was running Red Hand of Doom. Its a combat centric adventure series for 3.xE. The Rogue could sneak up and hit a single target for some good damage, but after that the Barbarian just destroyed enemies. Outside of combat the Barbarian had enough skills to make them equal to the Rogue since it wasn't a trap filled dungeon crawl adventure.
My problem is that unless you specifically design the adventure toward a particular group of characters you are going to have players feeling left out. If they design the game the right way it won't matter how you design your adventures everyone will have something to do...
Maybe you should have told the rogue player ahead of time that the adventure you were going to run didn't have all that much need for a trapsmith. Maybe you should have explained out front that the players would effectively be spending their whole campaign in an active warzone. Also I am fairly sure there are multiple ways to run that adventure, and stealth can really really help on a lot of those combats, and interaction can in fact net you a decent number of victory points (or whatever they called it) and can get you extra benefits throughout the campaign. I currently have a friend running red hand of doom for an all dwarf party (including a rogue) haven't seen all the combats but I know at least a few where stealth can be useful (this is the game I've played in without having a character).
Maybe you should have told the rogue player ahead of time that the adventure you were going to run didn't have all that much need for a trapsmith. Maybe you should have explained out front that the players would effectively be spending their whole campaign in an active warzone. Also I am fairly sure there are multiple ways to run that adventure, and stealth can really really help on a lot of those combats, and interaction can in fact net you a decent number of victory points (or whatever they called it) and can get you extra benefits throughout the campaign. I currently have a friend running red hand of doom for an all dwarf party (including a rogue) haven't seen all the combats but I know at least a few where stealth can be useful (this is the game I've played in without having a character).
Social interaction is only useful if your Barbarian friend doesn't get you kicked out for being a Half-Orc and suspected of being in the raiding parties, as the adventure suggests. The stealth stuff only works if you have an all stealth party. The Barbarian couldn't sneak if his life depended on it...
I'd hate to play with you if all of your NPC interactions require lying to succeed.
Nice Strawman. Nowhere did I say every NPC interaction required lying. However, PCs do need to lie fairly often, so bluff is indeed a social skill that bards are simply better at. Clerics fail at being as good as bards. It's that simple.
High DCs were rare, when you were dealing with a King or a commoner, they had a lot less ranks than you did and usually were moderate DCs. The only time you had high DCs was when you were dealing with fully statted out and classed NPCs which were not the suggested norm.
I'll Strawman you like you did to me. I'd hate to play with you if all your NPCs are Kings and commoners.
Half as good with a high wisdom so sense motive up to what level 15 or so was just as good?
Let's examine the numbers. Cleric at level 8 with a 20 wisdom +9. Bard at level 8 with a 14 wisdom. +13. Cleric at level 15 with 21 wisdom +12 (less than the 8th level bard) Bard at level 15 with 14 wisdom +20. So no, it wasn't just as good.
Not to mention the DCs were normally easy to beat anyway if you followed the encounter design rules at all. House ruling aside high DCs were rare...
Go look at diplomacy. The DCs are built in very high. The others are opposed and will be opposed at like level, so your low DCs are the house rule, at least with social skills. The normal DC chart only applies to other skills.
