Backtracking to Bards    

Here we are returning to the subject of bards, which we briefly skipped over!  Bards have a fascinating history in Dungeons & Dragons.  Sure, it's easy to become a bard now, but back in the day, you really had to work for it.  Bards first appeared in core rules back in First Edition D&D (technically AD&D).  To create a bard, you had to meet stringent requirements.  Your human or half-elf only character had to have extremely high ability scores to even begin to attempt to become a bard.  You would then create a fighter character, and go off adventuring.  Sometime after you reached fifth level, you would then dual class (a variant type of multiclass) into a thief.  Finally, after many adventures as a thief, you would dual class again, to a druid.  You would keep your fighter and thief abilities, and now you could also cast druid spells!  This idea of a fighter/thief/spellcaster was very appealing, and had previously only been available to elves.  Humans could get this combo, but they had to work for it.  However, when Third Edition came out, everyone could multiclass freely.  Fighter/thief/spellcaster types were now available to any race, and in a variety of different interesting combinations.  Where did the bard now fit into the game?

The core of bards in D&D is that they are knowledgeable about many things, they are jack-of-all-trades, and they can charm people with their music.  This last ability is greatly expanded in Third Edition and Pathfinder, and becomes the core of what makes a bard unique.  When Third Edition came out, I felt that there was a great deal of excitement about bards.  Like the monk, here was a class with an entirely new set of abilities.  However, as time went on, I noticed that interest in the bard had waned.  Bards were underpowered, it was argued, and often didn't really fit into the adventure in the same way that the other character classes did.

How Did the Jack-of-all-Trades Become the Least Flexible Class?

To understand the problems with the bard, you have to look at the multiclass system.  Multiclassing is highly favored among many players of the game, both in D&D and in Pathfinder.  And yet, as I've discussed in earlier posts, there are some multiclass combinations that just don't work very well.  And, unfortunately, that includes pretty much any combination that contains the bard.

The first problem is that the bard is a spellcaster.  Any class that combines with the bard that is also a spellcaster is going to be at a significant disadvantage.  That includes a lot of classes!  But fighter/bards, rogue/bards, and even monk/bards are still quite feasible.  Why do we not see more of them?  Part of the reason is that sorcerer gives a lot more bang-for-your-buck as a multiclass spellcaster.  Sorcerers get access to a larger variety of spells and can cast more of them.  Then, with the advent of the magus class, bards were even less useful, as the magus blends their spellcasting and fighting in a much more efficient way.  Another reason is that there is too much overlap between abilities.  The bard offers better fighting and better skills than the sorcerer, but a fighter and a rogue, respectively, already have those things.  Monk/bards have an issue with ability scores:  they need all of them to be viable, which spreads their scores fairly thin.

But I believe that the main reason that bards don't get multiclassed (or played) as much is that players have a hard time figuring out what to do with the musical component of the class.  The idea that bards will play music and aid the rest of the party through their song is a very specific one.  It feels sort of odd and out of place in epic fantasy.  The most popular example of a bard that regularly uses bardic performance to support his allies is one that pokes fun at the very concept.  And it is this musical support ability that the majority of bard archetypes reduce or get rid of.  Pathfinder has done their best to expand the different ways that one can play a bard, but the fact is, it remains a very narrow character concept.  A good analogy would be the necromancer.  A great concept for a character, but clearly not for everyone and not suitable for every game.

Performers in the Fantasy Genre

My approach to the bard, to address some of these issues, would be to focus on the bard as a performer, and allow this to include a broad spectrum of abilities.  A Performer component would encompass the traditional "play music to enchant and buff allies," but that type of performance would not be overly critical for the class's function.  Performers in fantasy can be broken down into a number of different categories, all of which would be accessible by the bard.

• Actor:  Actors in the fantasy genre are often associated with masks and the type of very stylized acting represented by Commedia or Mummery.  They are more closely associated with illusions than other bard types, as well as trickery.
• Dancer:  This type of performance is almost always associated with combat, as well as the normal bard functions of enchantment and buffing.  The class of Dancer is a mainstay of Japanese fantasy RPGs.  It should be noted that dancers in the fantasy genre are almost always female and often tend to be sexualized.  Being aware of the problematic tropes associated with dancers is important, and I'll talk about it more in my next post, which is all about charms and enchantments.
• Juggler/Acrobat:  Another performance that is often associated with combat.  Jugglers do not tend to be able to enchant with their juggling.  It is seen as skill, not magic, and is often used for pranks or thievery.
• Musician:  The typical D&D or Pathfinder bard, this performer plays instrumental music and generally this has a magical effect.
• Singer:  Enchantment through song is a strong theme in fantasy.  It is often gendered (women tend to be singers more than men) and often sinister.  The harpy and the siren are examples of singers that enchant male heroes, often to their doom.  See my notes on Dancer, above.
• Storyteller:  Performers of this type are often used by an author of a fantasy story to introduce the myths and tales that are the core of the fantasy world.  In other words, they exist mostly for exposition.  Storytellers as protagonists do exist in fantasy as well, however, and they tend to be knowledgeable about many things.  They also tend to be the guardians of lore that would otherwise be lost.

Components of a Bard

We know, from prior posts, that our bard might include Spellcasting as a secondary component and Agile as a tertiary component.  Their other Secondary component could be Scholar (making them more like wizards) or Versatile (making them more like sorcerers) or Healer (making them more like clerics).  For now, let's look at a Performer component, which would be the primary component of the bard class.

Performer

Requirements:  None.

Hit Dice:  Primary Performers gain d8 hp, others have no change

Skills:  Performer characters gain the following class skills:  Acrobatics, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Linguistics, Perception, Perform, Sense Motive, and Sleight of Hand.

Base Attack Bonus:  Primary Performers gain base attack as rogues, others have no change

Saving Throws:  Performers begin with a +2 Will save and advance quickly.

Additional Spells:  Performers add the following to their spell lists:

• 1st - cause fear, charm person, comprehend languages, confusion (lesser), hypnotism, remove fear, sleep, ventriloquism
• 2nd - animal trance, calm emotions, daze monster, enthrall, heroism, hypnotic pattern, pyrotechnics, rage, scare, shatter, sound burst, suggestion, summon swarm, whispering wind
• 3rd - charm monster, confusion, crushing despair, deep slumber, fear, glibness, good hope, haste, sculpt sound, slow, speak with animals 
• 4th - dominate person, freedom of movement, legend lore, modify memory, rainbow pattern, shadow conjuration, shout, speak with plants
• 5th - dream, false vision, heroism (greater), mind fog, nightmare, shadow evocation, song of discord, suggestion (mass)
• 6th - analyze dweamor, eyebite, find the path, irresistible dance, sympathetic vibration, veil

Special Abilities:  Tertiary Performers gain a single special ability from the list below at first level.  Secondary Performers gain one ability at first level, and one additional ability every two levels, starting at level two.  Primary Performers gain one ability at first level, and one additional ability every level, starting at level one.

• Acrobatic:  As the feat.
• Affect Animals (Su):  Use all Perform abilities on animals as well as people.
• Alertness:  As the feat.
• Animal Affinity:  As the feat.
• Athletic:  As the feat.
• Calm Emotions (Su):  Calm down listeners and make them peaceful.
• Catch Off-Guard:  As the feat.
• Countersong (Su):  Counter magical effects that rely on sound.
• Dazzling Display:  As the feat.
• Distraction (Su):  Counter magical effects that rely on sight.
• Dramatic Display:  As the feat.
• Fascinate (Su):  Distract others, so that they receive penalties on certain rolls (such as Perception).
• Gather Crowd (Su):  Compel all within a certain range to come closer to see and listen to your performance.
• Hero's Display:  As the feat.
• Inspire Competence (Su):  Grant allies bonuses on certain skill rolls.
• Inspire Courage (Su):  Grant allies bonuses against fear effects.
• Inspire Fear (Su):  Increase intimidation effects.
• Inspire Ferocity (Su):  Grant allies bonuses in combat.
• Intimidating Prowess:  As the feat.
• Mass Charm (Sp):  (Primary only) Extend the effects of certain enchantment spells to all who see and hear the bard's performance.
• Masterful Display:  As the feat.
• Mocking Dance:  As the feat.
• Murderer's Circle:  As the feat.
• Savage Display:  As the feat.

This is a draft of the Performance component, and it is far from complete.  But it should give you an idea of the direction that this component would go in, and the types of benefits that it would offer to characters.

Next post I want to talk a bit more about charm effects, as they are often used by bards.  Then we will move on to druids!

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Tackling Spellcasting     

Whenever I sit down to muck with whatever D&D rules have come out most recently (which is fairly often), I always say to myself:  "just leave the spells and magic section for later."  And, inevitably, I will immediately be drawn down into the rabbit hole of analyzing and rewriting the spells and magic section, and banging my head against the wall as to why mage armor is still a Conjuration spell (thank you Fifth Edition for fixing this!) and what exactly the point of the Transmutation school is (spells that change people or stuff, to make them better or worse, except not magic weapons, because that's Enchantment, and not cursing, because that's Necromancy, and who the heck knows why message is in here...)

See, even in that paragraph, I got drawn down the rabbit hole!  I cannot keep out of it.  But, in this post, I swear, I am not going to get into individual spells.  Instead, I'd just like to talk about spellcasting, generally, as a class ability.

Out of the eleven core classes in Pathfinder and Third Edition D&D, only four are non-spellcasters.  And one of those, the rogue, can actually cast a few spells through Rogue Talents.  Each class has its own spell list, gains spells at a different rate, prepares spells in different ways, casts a different number of spells each day, and requires different components to do so.

Compare this, for example, to the combat rules regarding fighting with weapons.  All but two of the eleven core classes can use crossbows, and they all use the same rules for doing so.  What makes a fighter better at firing a crossbow than a wizard is separate from the rules about how crossbows work.  This is what I would like to do with Spellcasting.  There would be only one class component for Spellcasting, because it would all work in the same basic way.  It would then be modified by other components of your character class.

Which Ability Score Should Spellcasting Use?

One way in which the different classes approach spellcasting is that they use different ability scores to do it.  Clerics, druids, and rangers use Wisdom; bards, paladins, and sorcerers use Charisma; and wizards use Intelligence.  There isn't, as far as I can tell, a reason why these particular ability scores are used.  Paladins cast divine magic, but sorcerers cast arcane magic.  Bards do not need to prepare their spells, but paladins do.  All three classes use Charisma as their ability score for casting spells.  Let's look at the sort of things that having a high ability score will give you, with respect to spellcasting:

• Determines whether or not you are able to cast spells of a particular level at all.
• Grants a number of bonus spells per day.
• Grants a bonus on the DC for opponents to save vs. your spells.

The first two rules are odd, to say the least.  Most other class abilities that are based on an ability score have a set number of uses per day, and then either add or subtract their ability modifier to that number of uses.  It would make more sense if low scores for spellcasters resulted in the opposite of bonus spells, i.e., you can cast fewer spells per day, instead of not being able to cast at all.  Moreover, ability scores do not grant a flat bonus of "plus however many spells per day."  Instead, there is a table that limits these bonus uses of spells by level, meaning that a first level character will have a maximum of "gain one bonus spell per day" and a minimum of "can't cast spells at all."

The third rule affects some, but not all of your spellcasting actions.  Specifically, it only affects spells that require a saving throw from your opponent.  These spells are offensive in nature, since spells that boost your abilities or the abilities of your allies do not require a saving throw.  Nor do spells that are cast on non-creature targets, generally speaking.  And many offensive spells do not having a saving throw, but are instead resolved with melee touch attacks or ranged touch attacks (making the relevant ability scores Strength or Dexterity, respectively).  Indeed, only about 26% of the Pathfinder Core Rules, first level cleric spells require a saving throw.  That number rises only slightly, to 27%, when considering first level wizard spells.

It is with this context in mind that I would like to propose the following:  eliminate ability requirements for accessing high level spells, and standardize what ability score determines save DCs with respect to all spell casting.  Other facets of spell casting, including number of spells per day, can be determined by whether your Spellcasting component is primary, secondary, or tertiary, and what other class components your character has.  The challenge will be keeping the distinct flavor of each major spell casting class, and keeping the ability scores balanced within the game.

Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma: a Brief History of the Dump Stats

In original versions of D&D, you did not always have control over where your ability scores were placed.  It was also fairly likely that you would have one or more ability scores that were below average.  So the concept of the "dump stat" started very early in D&D's history.  Charisma was the primary target, since the system didn't provide very much incentive to take a high Charisma, unless you were a paladin.  But Wisdom and Intelligence were not far behind, especially before the advent of a skill system and the all-important Perception skill.  Wisdom was important for clerics, and Intelligence for magic users, but neither was particularly important for any of the fighting types.

Second Edition added school specialization rules for wizards that required very high ability scores in something else other than Intelligence, presumably in an attempt to balance and differentiate them.  However, this approach was not particularly successful, and was dropped in Third Edition.  Third Edition's approach was to add a robust skill system based around Intelligence.  The Will saving throw and the Perception skill made Wisdom useful.  Charisma was used for several key skills and special abilities, as well as being the core of the new Sorcerer class.

Intelligence, however, suffered major setbacks when it came to Pathfinder.  Originally, the number of skills you received at first level was multiplied times four.  An 18 Intelligence score could translate, therefore, into twenty-four (!) additional skill points for a first level character (and an additional four per level).  Pathfinder changed this rule (for good reasons) so that instead you would only receive four extra skill points at first level (and an additional four per level).

These extra skill points from Intelligence were not bonuses, but rather ranks.  This is important, because in Third Edition you could spend up to your character's level +3 in ranks into a skill.  However, in Pathfinder, you can only spend up to your character's level.  This means that additional skill ranks will give a character more skills, but not higher skills.

In Third Edition, Intelligence added to the following skills:  Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Knowledge, Search, and Spellcraft.  In Pathfinder, however, the Decipher Script and Forgery skills were eliminated.  Search was incorporated into Perception, which remained based on Wisdom.  And the important skill of Disable Device was made into a Dexterity skill.  This left only five skills (with the newly added Linguistics) for Intelligence in Pathfinder.

Intelligence as the Primary Spellcasting Ability Score

My house rules would make Intelligence the ability score used for calculating all spell saving throw DCs, regardless of class.  How would this impact the other spellcasting classes?

Bards are often already high Intelligence characters, since they have access to all Knowledge skills (as well as the other four Intelligence based skills).  Their Charisma will be less useful for spell casting, but will remain critical for their Perform-based abilities and bardic performances.

Clerics will be at somewhat of a disadvantage, since they are not generally high Intelligence characters.  However, their Domain abilities are often Wisdom based.  By standardizing that rule, that Domain components work off of Wisdom, it will remain an important score for clerics.  To further keep Wisdom as the primary ability score of clerics, it could be substituted with Charisma as the score which determines how many channel energy uses the cleric receives.  This will also serve to further distinguish clerics from druids, as clerics will be higher Wisdom whereas druids will be higher charisma.

Druids are also not generally high Intelligence characters.  However, the trade off from Wisdom to Intelligence is unlikely to affect druids very much.  Their abilities are generally Charisma based.  The advantages that a higher Wisdom brings are mostly in the area of skill bonuses, will be offset by additional skills in the form of higher Intelligence.

Paladin and ranger are tertiary spell casting classes.  Their spells are focused primary on buffing, and they will not be unduly hindered by having somewhat lower save DCs.

Similar to the cleric's domain being important for Wisdom, sorcerers will keep Charisma as a primary ability score by making it critical for their Bloodline abilities.  But Sorcerers will have to have a decent Intelligence score as well.  Currently, Sorcerers have less need for Intelligence than Fighters do (after all, fighters might want to take combat expertise).  This is a change that I think will enhance game balance, and to the extent that sorcerers are less accurate in their targeting of spell effects, I think that makes for good story as well.  Wizards are the spell experts, and sorcerers are the rogue talents who don't know nearly enough about the massive powers that they can wield.

It's a big change, but a change that I think makes for a better game system.  Next post, a breakdown of Spellcasting and how primary, secondary, and tertiary components differ!

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Breaking Down Barbarians    

As I discussed in my last post, Skills & Powers was an attempt to break down ability scores, races, and character classes into component parts, so that players could customize their characters more easily.  I think that this was a good idea, but poorly executed.  My goal is to try to do this in a way that is easier for the player (especially new players), preserves game balance, and offers useful tools to the gamemaster.

Let's start with barbarians.  There was a piece of art in Second Edition D&D that started me on my love of barbarians, despite the many flaws inherent in the character type.  It's by Jeff Easley, but he doesn't have a copy of it on his website.  I don't have permission to use it, but you can see it here.  It shows a muscular female barbarian grabbing an ogre-like monster by its nose ring, with her sword drawn.  Beside it, you can see that she has already sliced up the ogre's spiked club and shield.  At the time, it was a relatively unprecedented gender-flip of a very traditional image, down to the Conan loincloth, the Rambo headband, and the curly mullet hairstyle.  Barbarian started out as just a kit in Second Edition, although it was later made into a full class.  But it wasn't until Third Edition that barbarians really started to shine.

In Third Edition, barbarians were designed to be front-line fighters whose Rage ability gave them temporary bonuses in combat.  From a game design point-of-view, this was the first fighter type of character to have time-limited abilities.  Whereas before you could divide the party into "people who can do things all the time" and "people who can do things a certain number of times a day," and all the fighters were in the first half, barbarians were now in the second half.  The reasoning behind this is that Third Edition used a system of encounter-based balance to track party resources.  A party's resources included each character's hit points, but also the spells and abilities that were limited in use to a certain number of times per day.  The Challenge Rating (CR) system would rate each encounter or monster with a number that could be directly translated into the percentage of party resources that encounter was expected to expend.  This was great for gamemasters, because they could plan out encounters, knowing at about what time the group was going to have to rest or go back to town to restore their resources.

In Pathfinder, barbarians are still focused around their rage abilities.  However, there are several barbarian archetypes who do not rage, replacing that ability with a different one.  And, of course, all of the other barbarian abilities are also replaced by alternate ones in the many archetypes available to barbarians.  One problem with the class archetype system is, it is very hard to guess which abilities will be replaced with which!  There is no point value set to each individual class ability (nor am I suggesting that there should be).  Instead, it is done on an more crafted basis.  What this means, in practice, is that I might have to read through many, many archetypes in order to get the combination of abilities that works for my character.  Even then, I might have to take an archetype that doesn't really fit, because it is the closest thing I can find.

What I would like to do is to break barbarians down into a few large core components that can be swapped out easily, and without disruption to game balance.  Part of the challenge will be to balance out starting abilities from those that the class only gains access to at later levels.  Otherwise it will be too easy to select only from components that are "front loaded."  Fortunately, this is a problem that Pathfinder has addressed, somewhat, based on feedback from Third Edition D&D.  Because you could multiclass freely, many folks took the opportunity to take a single level of a "front loaded" character, such as the rogue, in Third Edition, before taking all the rest of their levels in a different class.  Pathfinder was written with awareness of that problem, and this should help us in our goal.

Berserker

There are a lot of theories about historical berserkers, but they are generally associated with a warrior taking on the mystical aspect of an animal (a bear, a boar, or a wolf), and wearing the pelt of this animal instead of armor.  This signified that they were as a wild beast on the field, attacking anyone around them without mercy, and heedless of their own defense.  This inspiration is clearly at the forefront of the barbarian class.  Thus, berserker is the aspect of barbarians that focuses on rage in combat.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Berserker component (number indicates approximate levels at which it is gained):

• non-lawful class requirement
• Intimidate class skill (1)
• high base attack progression
• rage and associated rage powers and abilities (1-20)

As it stands, this component is very powerful, and fairly well spread out throughout levels one through twenty.

Survivalist

Barbarians are described as living out in the wild and being uncivilized.  This aspect follows the root of the word "barbarian" itself, as a cultural slur against a group that you believe is less civilized or worthy than your own culture.  Obviously, there are a lot of problematic things about using the word barbarian to describe people who, in the real world, would bear the most resemblance to indigenous tribes.  We can mitigate this a bit by focusing on barbarians as living apart from any culture.  Like someone from any sort of civilized society who abandons it to go and live in the forest, barbarians live alone in the wilderness by choice, not by nature or nurture (both of which are tied to heritage, and not character class). 

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Survivalist component: 

• Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Knowledge (nature), Perception, Ride, Survival, and Swim class skills (1)
• increased Fortitude save (1-20)

As it stands, this component is front loaded, and significantly less powerful over the course of time than Berserker.

Agile

Another focus of barbarians is their speed (fast movement), as well as their ability to move freely around the battlefield (acrobatics), and dodge out of the way of danger (uncanny dodge).  This fits the profile of a warrior who is likely going to be wearing little or no armor.  The Reflex and dodge bonuses granted by trap sense would also fit well into this component of barbarians.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Agile component: 

• Acrobatics, Climb, and Ride class skills (1)
• fast movement (1)
• uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge (2, 5)
• trap sense (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18)

As it stands, this component is front loaded for the first levels, but tapers off in usefulness very quickly after level 5.

Tough

The fact that barbarians gain d12 hit points is a big part of their draw.  Other abilities also play up the nigh-invulnerable nature of these warriors.  Which is certainly something that they need, since they are often on the front-line and often unarmored.  In later levels, barbarians gain damage reduction to further increase their ability to ignore being damaged.

Features of the barbarian class that fit with the Tough component: 

• 1d12 hit dice (1-20)
• increased Fortitude save (1-20)
• damage reduction (7, 10, 13, 16, 19)

As it stands, this component is fairly well balanced throughout the levels, but still not as powerful as Berserker.  Also, it lacks the interest and specificity of the other three components.

In my next post, I'll talk more about how to use these components, what might need to be changed, and how components can be used to create archetypes more easily!

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Talking about Character Class    

Let's take a break from heritage and race for a bit, and talk about class.  Class is another word that has a very different meaning in D&D than it typically does in the real world!  (It is hard for me to imagine being someone who has never been exposed to roleplaying games, but I can only wonder what such a person might think about our fantasy game where "race" and "class" are the way you describe your character.)  Character class serves the purpose of giving each character a specific set of skills and a role on the team.  Some versions of D&D, notably Fourth Edition, focus more on the role that your character serves from a tactics point of view.  Some versions are more concerned with the skills that your character has, such as fighting, spellcasting, healing, and finding traps.  Almost all fantasy RPGs attempt to "balance" classes, so let's first talk about what that means.

Balance is an elusive concept.  We can talk about mathematical balance:  If you and I have identical characters, but your character has much higher bonuses on their die rolls than I do, then you might say that our characters are imbalanced.  Of course, in all the systems that have individual random ability score generation, this is likely to be the case.  We can talk about balance in terms of challenge.  One of the guiding principles of D&D is that adventures should be dangerous and challenging, but that the players should often succeed in their goals.  Creating and maintaining that level of challenge, over the course of an epic tale, is probably the cornerstone of D&D's game design.  If I have a 4th level character for whom 4th level adventures are no longer challenging at all, then that character is not well-balanced.  Lastly, we can talk about balance in terms of "spotlight" time.  In early editions of D&D, my 1st level magic user had one spell.  When I cast it, I was (briefly) a rock star.  Once it was cast, however, it was gone for the day.  I was pretty much useless for the rest of the adventure.  In the meantime, the fighters and thieves were still busy doing things, since their abilities could be reused as often as they'd like.  That's one way to measure a "spotlight" time imbalance.

However, the way that it often gets measured is:  can my fighter beat up your wizard?  To me, this is the least interesting way of talking about character balance.  It requires a game designer to ignore what actually will happen in a typical fantasy game (the players working together to defeat a common foe), and design for a scenario that does nothing to contribute to the story (two players, on a desolate plain, a short distance apart, try to kill each other with all of the resources they have).

Instead, my rules of character balance are:

• Does every character have a variety of interesting choices to make during the course of a typical adventure?
• Are characters different enough that each has a relatively unique role to play, or are they interchangeable?
• Will a team of characters of a given level be challenged, but often successful, in a typical adventure of that same level?

Lessons Learned from Skills & Powers

Player's Option:  Skills & Powers was a rules supplement for Second Edition D&D.  It appeared about halfway between the release dates of Second Edition (in 1989) and Third Edition (in 2000).  The changes to the rules were fairly simple, but so impactful that it was almost like a "2.5 Edition" for D&D.  Second Edition had allowed for very little customization of character classes.  You could take a kit, which gave you a few bonuses and maybe a special ability.  Kits were directly tied to particular classes.  So you randomly rolled ability scores, chose a race, a class, and a kit, and that was pretty much it.  Skills & Powers not only introduced a point-buy system for ability scores, it also allowed you to use the same sort of system to custom build races and classes.  Finally, it allowed you to customize ability scores so that you could tailor the bonuses to optimize your character.  For example, you could lower the "Endurance" part of your Strength score (carrying heavy things over long distances), in order to increase the "Muscle" part of your Strength score (bonuses to hit and damage with weapons).  You could reduce bonuses that were hardly ever used in the game (such as System Shock), and increase bonuses that were used constantly (such as Hit Points).

Some players loved Skills & Powers.  It let them build and customize their characters outside of the rigid class system.  Some players felt that Skills & Powers was too unbalanced.  It allowed players to make characters who were significantly stronger than the original Second Edition system had allowed.  D&D Third Edition attempted to strike a balance between rigid classes and unlimited character customization, while still maintaining "balance" between the classes.  What I will try to do, in the next few posts, is set out a way to be even more flexible, without drowning the player in class archetypes and options.

 

A Note About Balance and Player Restraint

One issue that often arises when we talk about system balance is: do we really need system balance at all, so long as we have "good" players?  This approach says that our problems with game balance are due to a certain kind of player, a "munchkin," who "min-maxes" the system in order to optimize their character.  They are "roll-players" and not "role-players" because they are only interested in dice rolling and combat and winning and magic items, and are not interested in making a story and an interesting character.  They are the "Mary Sue" of their fantasy game, good at everything, with no real flaws, other than perhaps a tendency to be a loner and not work well with others (Charisma is their dump stat).  And they don't need to work well with others, because they can already do everything themselves.  What we need, it is argued, are"good" players who are going to make characters that are interesting first, and competent second.  Who realize that the system can be abused, and choose not to abuse it.

I have always been adamantly opposed to this type of thinking.  First of all, it is often used as an excuse for poor game design.  And second, it demonizes people who want to play the dice rolling game that underlies the storytelling game, by telling them that they cannot do both.  If they are interested in optimizing game mechanics, they must not be interested in the story or in roleplaying or in teamwork. 

On the other side of things, there are people who revel in the "munchkin" label, who enjoy being "better" at the game than anyone else, and who place no value on whether the other players are having fun or whether an interesting story is being told.  This, to me, is just as bad.  It devalues people who enjoy story and roleplaying, telling them that they are avoiding the complex rules system because they are not capable of understanding it.  Again, it places a false dichotomy between story and game.

It will not come as a huge surprise that these differing points of view are often described as gendered.  I cannot count the number of people I have spoken with who believe that women like story and roleplaying, but don't like math and combat.  Whereas men like competition and rules mechanics, but aren't as good at emotionally evocative storytelling.  This is all bullshit gender essentialism.  And, just as it supports a view of gender that is binary and inflexible, it also supports a view of gaming that is binary and inflexible.  You can have both good storytelling and good system mechanics.  Well written game design requires it.

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