Fair enough. Lacking any obvious flaws in the logic, I'll simply have to dismiss it as anecdotal "evidence".
Fair enough. Alternatively, you could attempt to digest what you have read and then generate an insightful response, whether in agreement or disagreement is not as important as whether the response is insightful.
You just have to remember that what we get, the DM gets.
If we get 3 x hit die + con at 1st level, so does he.
If we can get +10 initiative at 1st level, so can he.
So it will balance itself out. I really like the way Saga is done, it makes waiting for 4th almost unbearable. I am going to try to talk my group into introducing some of these rules into house rules for our 3.5 game.
SIDE 1 * One Soldier * One character of any class, other than Soldier or Noble
SIDE 2 * One character of any class * One Noble
Side 1 always beats side 2.
Then you obviously don't know how to effectively utilize a Noble. One powerful Noble Talent is Trust: Give an ally your Standard Action. So Side 2's soldier can lay the smack down twice in a round. There are other painful Noble Buffs, but I don't have my book right now to cite them.
I believe I have answered this question above as to how a class such as the Noble can be as good as any other class in combat, such that power will progress as they advance levels, just as it does for other classes. There are multiple ways to do it other than my suggestion. No reason for you to get so upset about it. Is somebody in your family related to Princess Leia or something? Calm down.
Hah, no, no relation, just a fan of her bikini. But you are simply failing to comprehend that someone specializing in combat (Jedi, soldier) *must be more effective in combat* than someone who does not.
You are proposing a series of mechanical "fixes" to make the non-combat specialists just as effective in combat as the actual specialized combatants. In other words, you are trying to make non-combat specialists just as good at combat as combat specialists albeit through indirect methods. But whether direct or indirect, the effect is the same -- making non-combat specialists just as good at combat as combat specialists. It doesn't matter if you're doing indirectly or in a hidden way -- boosts that increase combat ability in a nonobvious way. You're still doing it.
You're confusing this with D&D. In D&D there are guys who don't specialize in actual physical combat and yet are of course the most powerful in combat in a lot of ways. Wizards, clerics, etc. The fact they can cast magic spells makes them very potent combatants despite their relative lack of physical combat expertise. But such a thing does not exist in Star Wars. You cannot posit effects on the order of reality-changing magic to boost a noble so that he's just as mighty in combat as a soldier. That was the point of my snark about the "Overwhelming Imperiousness" "spell" -- to do what you claim is necessary requires giving Noble's the equivalent of damaging offensive spell-like effects, based, for flavor's sake, on their breeding and social position. It just isn't realistic and furthermore disagrees with the movies' "reality."
The fact of the matter is that you are wrong, characters are built to have both non-combat abilities and combat abilities, and that overall class effectiveness is determined by a blend of the two -- how much he can do in combat and how much he can do outside it. These games being largely about combat (at least as they're frequently played), the former -- combat ability -- is more important. Nevertheless the Noble has a lot more out-of-combat power than the soldier, starting with the great number of trained skills, and including some selectable talents.
You can posit all the special bonuses and such you like. Ultimately, however, if all these special situational bonuses make a Noble, a non-combatant class, just as effective in combat, just as important to a group's success as a Jedi or soldier, something's wrong. The three classes you find fault with are not *supposed* to be as effective or have the impact in combat as the Jedi or soldier, and if they did, they'd be stealing the Jedi's and soldier's raison d'etre.
The Noble is of course included to emulate Leia. But was Leia as effective in combat as Han or Luke? Of course not. The game already gooses a Leia-type's combat power quite a bit more than the source material would suggest it should be, in the interests of making it an inviting class. But there's a limit to how far you can push a Noble's combat effectiveness before it simply becomes a Soldier or Jedi with a different name and a different set of combat maneuvers.
The only point I think you have is that if you're right, and a Scout is more useful in combat than a Noble, then there's something wrong there, because a Scout gets more trained skills and such. If the Scout is better in combat, the Noble should be better outside of combat.
Fair enough. Alternatively, you could attempt to digest what you have read and then generate an insightful response, whether in agreement or disagreement is not as important as whether the response is insightful.
There's no "insight" to be had. Your argument is based on a misunderstanding of what "roles" are supposed to entail, we're talking about a system (SWSE) where the "roles" concept may not have been fully implemented, and your only evidence is "I did this and it turned out this way", which AT AT Assualt just totally countered with his own anecdotal evidence. There was nothing I could really say on the matter other than "Nuh-uh!", which isn't all that useful.
I'll just go with what I don't like, which isn't a very long list, really:
- Dual-wielding penalties. I like D&D 3.5's versions better, which takes the size of the off-hand weapon into account. In SWS, there's no advantage to wielding a lightsaber/shoto instead of two regular lightsabers, even though the first combo would typically be more practical.
- SWS didn't have Two-Weapon Defense (aside from the Jarkai lightsaber form), making it unnecessary to have two weapons or a double weapon unless you could make a full attack, which happens less frequently in SWS than in 3.x.
Hah, no, no relation, just a fan of her bikini. But you are simply failing to comprehend that someone specializing in combat (Jedi, soldier) *must be more effective in combat* than someone who does not.
You are proposing a series of mechanical "fixes" to make the non-combat specialists just as effective in combat as the actual specialized combatants. In other words, you are trying to make non-combat specialists just as good at combat as combat specialists albeit through indirect methods. But whether direct or indirect, the effect is the same -- making non-combat specialists just as good at combat as combat specialists. It doesn't matter if you're doing indirectly or in a hidden way -- boosts that increase combat ability in a nonobvious way. You're still doing it.
You're confusing this with D&D. In D&D there are guys who don't specialize in actual physical combat and yet are of course the most powerful in combat in a lot of ways. Wizards, clerics, etc. The fact they can cast magic spells makes them very potent combatants despite their relative lack of physical combat expertise. But such a thing does not exist in Star Wars. You cannot posit effects on the order of reality-changing magic to boost a noble so that he's just as mighty in combat as a soldier. That was the point of my snark about the "Overwhelming Imperiousness" "spell" -- to do what you claim is necessary requires giving Noble's the equivalent of damaging offensive spell-like effects, based, for flavor's sake, on their breeding and social position. It just isn't realistic and furthermore disagrees with the movies' "reality."
The fact of the matter is that you are wrong, characters are built to have both non-combat abilities and combat abilities, and that overall class effectiveness is determined by a blend of the two -- how much he can do in combat and how much he can do outside it. These games being largely about combat (at least as they're frequently played), the former -- combat ability -- is more important. Nevertheless the Noble has a lot more out-of-combat power than the soldier, starting with the great number of trained skills, and including some selectable talents.
You can posit all the special bonuses and such you like. Ultimately, however, if all these special situational bonuses make a Noble, a non-combatant class, just as effective in combat, just as important to a group's success as a Jedi or soldier, something's wrong. The three classes you find fault with are not *supposed* to be as effective or have the impact in combat as the Jedi or soldier, and if they did, they'd be stealing the Jedi's and soldier's raison d'etre.
The Noble is of course included to emulate Leia. But was Leia as effective in combat as Han or Luke? Of course not. The game already gooses a Leia-type's combat power quite a bit more than the source material would suggest it should be, in the interests of making it an inviting class. But there's a limit to how far you can push a Noble's combat effectiveness before it simply becomes a Soldier or Jedi with a different name and a different set of combat maneuvers.
The only point I think you have is that if you're right, and a Scout is more useful in combat than a Noble, then there's something wrong there, because a Scout gets more trained skills and such. If the Scout is better in combat, the Noble should be better outside of combat.
Keep in mind that I am accepting as an assumption that all classes are supposed to be specialized in one of the four combat roles. The ONLY reason I accept this assumption is because that is what WotC has said at multiple times in multiple ways. One thing that appears certain about 4e is that every character will have equivalent (but different) impact on combat. Paraphrasing some WotC statement I can't recall word-for-word, "it will be easier for a party of four to have one of each of the 4 combat roles represented. You can do without one or more of the roles, but it is just going to be a bit harder." That can only logically mean that if you have a leader in a combat role, combat is going to be easier for the group.
So, I am not confusing SWSE with D&D. I am pointing out what I don't like about SWSE that may work its way into 4e, which is the very topic of this thread. Specifically, I do not believe that the Noble makes it easier for the group, and the abilities of the Noble diminish in this regard the higher level you go.
Please note that I am NOT talking about balancing classes with in- and out-of-combat capabilities. I'm perfectly fine with you doing that, and perfectly fine with a game that attempts to do just that (like, for example, D&D 2e). However, that is not the stated goal of 4e so you'll just have to adapt your arguments so we can even get on the same page to start to disagree with one another. If you don't, you will just keep saying I'm wrong, and I will keep scratching my head wondering why you won't accept that all characters have equivalent combat effectiveness.
I have not, and never suggested, that the Noble should be able to swing a Vibro Ax as well as a Soldier. I believe the abilities of the Noble are going in the right direction with the buffing of party members. I have just found in playtest that they fall woefully short of scaling with the rest of the party. Stated more colloquially, Nobles suck in combat.
The solution is not to increase HD or an equivalent of your snarky suggestion. Rather, the solution is to make Nobles scale more elegantly with party level, while retaining their leadership role.
Then you obviously don't know how to effectively utilize a Noble. One powerful Noble Talent is Trust: Give an ally your Standard Action. So Side 2's soldier can lay the smack down twice in a round. There are other painful Noble Buffs, but I don't have my book right now to cite them.
Every class has some talents that make them better. That is not my point. My point is that the Noble does not scale with the rest of the classes as you advance levels EVEN IF you utilize the Noble effectively. If the Noble gives away his Standard Action each round, for example, then the Noble is trading hit points for a Soldier's attack. If he was a Soldier instead, he wouldn't be trading anything for a Soldier's attack (and the attack could come from different directions). I don't really want to get into the coolness of each of the Noble's abilities, but it hopefully isn't that hard to get my point, even if you disagree.
I think you will find when you get back to your book that you run out of options for the Noble that actually make a group of a Noble (Leader), Scoundrel (Striker), and Soldier (Defender) better than a group of two Soldiers and a Scoundrel. At low levels, it will not be blatantly obvious to you, but at higher levels, it will become more so. That said, a multiclass Noble might be viable. You get a couple of cool talents, and, as long as you don't take more than 4 levels, you only take a minor hit to BAB, and lose a handful of hit points. As I said, it isn't until 5th level when the class really starts to lame out, and it isn't until 9th level that it becomes blatant.
There's no "insight" to be had. Your argument is based on a misunderstanding of what "roles" are supposed to entail, we're talking about a system (SWSE) where the "roles" concept may not have been fully implemented, and your only evidence is "I did this and it turned out this way", which AT AT Assualt just totally countered with his own anecdotal evidence. There was nothing I could really say on the matter other than "Nuh-uh!", which isn't all that useful.
An insightful response would have, for example, corrected me on my misunderstanding of what "roles" are supposed to entail. As it stands, I still believe that you simply don't understand the stated goal of combat roles in 4e. Of course, I am not staff at WotC. If you have some real insight, pray tell. I'm going on snippets like everyone else.
Every class has some talents that make them better. That is not my point. My point is that the Noble does not scale with the rest of the classes as you advance levels EVEN IF you utilize the Noble effectively. If the Noble gives away his Standard Action each round, for example, then the Noble is trading hit points for a Soldier's attack. If he was a Soldier instead, he wouldn't be trading anything for a Soldier's attack (and the attack could come from different directions). I don't really want to get into the coolness of each of the Noble's abilities, but it hopefully isn't that hard to get my point, even if you disagree.
Yeah, you really don't get it. The Noble isn't about dealing damage. The Noble is about leading his allies and handling all social affairs. Think social affairs are meaningless. Lets see what your Soldier with his BFG does when goes to a Civilized world. Whoops! Can't tote that portable armory around.
Also, there's more things one can do with a SA than a normal attack. One of many things: You could charge, then Pin+Crush somebody. Or Pin+Crush them, then pull of a sneak attack powered regular attack.
Another powerful Noble ability: Ignite Fervor: When the Noble makes a successful ranged or melee attack (easy enough, just peg a Stormtrooper), an ally gets a damage bonus on his next attack equal to his level. That's pretty useful, as the Noble can pick off weak guys, and make the Soldier hit the tough guys even harder. The following talent, Inspire Zeal, is always on that has your allies push enemies further down the Condition Track. Rally is good for picking up your party when they start to take some serious damage.
run out of options for the Noble that actually make a group of a Noble
Well DUH! If you single class, you're going to eventually run out of new options. This is why PrCs exist. And a Noble that multiclasses into Crime Lord/Officer becomes even more effective at bolstering his allies.
I guess I shouldnt fault you for being so narrow minded about single classing. DnD is pretty much a "Your class is your character" game. SW Saga is a "Choose the classes [set of abilities] that fits your concept best".
The Noble is very effective at what it does. However, you must accept the fact that Combat is not life. Combat just happens to be the most rules complex aspect of a game since it has to be extremely balanced. You know all those scenes where the Senators talk and strategize? They are non combat (and XP earning). The Soldier and others aren't going to fare well there. Without a Noble (or a Scoundrel, but Nobles are better), you're just going to have to miss out on some XP.
