On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 17:14:26 CDT, "Chris Tutty"
wrote:
>From: edhogg@equus.demon.co.uk
>>One of those reasons for running games that done make these artificial
>>and ludicrous restrictions. Which ever system it is, take your pick.
>>
>Um. Actually that campaign had been a skill-based system for about five
>years at that point. The _players_ thought of their characters as fighters,
>mages, merchants, whatever. The fact that the game system imposed no limits
>to the skills a character could study doesn't take away character classes.
depends on the Skill system. Of course you can class yourself as
Warrior, of Mage or merchant but if that Warrior specialises in fencing,
has taken up thieving as a hobby and studies languages and magic is he
"just a warrior". I know D&D has multic-classing but a decent skill
system should allow blurring of the lines.
>Unless you ignore the benefits of specialisation (which, IMHO, is like
>ignoring gravity) character classes are realistic under any system. You
>might be playing a campaign where everyone is a generalist (or basically
>unskilled) - there are solid advantages to this -
In my time jobs have included Programmer, Sysadmin, DBA, shovelling
horse manure, hauling stuff as unskilled labour on a building site,
telephone answering, form processing and typist.
What "character Class" am I?
>but if one of your PC's
>studied combat skills for ten years would you refuse to call him a fighter
>just because it's 'classist'?
nope, but I'd want a bit more than that. The character should be the
character, not the job. Else it's a tactical, skirmish level wargame,
not roleplaying. IMHO.
>The first point I was making was that a magical spell that provides similar
>benefit to ten years of combat training marginalises anyone who took the
>path of fighter specialisation. In a balanced system there is an enormous
>amount to a fighter besides their chance to hit, but AD&D only has three
>basic combat stats (to-hit chance, armour class and hit points). When a
>mage can cast himself into fighter-level to-hit rolls, use a potion to bring
>his hit-points up and cast defensive magic to bring his armour class up
>anyone in that campaign who's been played a fighter to high level is
>beginning to wonder why they bothered.
There should be payback for this. Mind you I haven't played AD&D since
1983 and thanks for reminding me why. The potions can take a horrible
effect on the system after they wear off (I've created a potion-type
mage for my C&S 3 Campaign that has that built in.), the use of magic
might attract magic-seeking monsters, similar to the old Psi feeding
beasts, the MU might get hit by anti-magick magick.
That's why I've always preferred the C&S mage (see an essay on use of
Mages at the BGD website http://members.aol.com/marakush and follow the
links for "Downloads" "Of Mages and Magicks" IIRC) who DOESN'T get that
much experience for acting as a swat team but gets more for conducting
magical research. If the mages are going into battle then make them take
RISKS, don't give them an easy ride.
>In a campaign that only ran mages I could accept it, but in a camapign which
>has player-character warriors this sort of power for mages fails to respect
>the investment the higher-level fighters have made. A player whos'
>character isn't respected by the campaign is going to have a hard time
>getting enthusiastic about it.
>
>Now I realise that I've gone a long distance sideways from the subject
>tangent rose, but I've been down the track of making magic-users more combat
>competant and I'm saying from experience that the players with warriors
>hated it.
>
>I mean what's next - cast a spell to pick up bardic charm abilities, cast a
>spell to pick up druidic abilities,
I also hate most RPG Druids. For a free sample of my take on the type,
see the aforementioned website. Druids are not Californian Tree-huggers.
>cast a spell to become an experienced
>negotiator?
I seem to remember D&D has this all. The GM might want to take some time
out to RESTRICT the spells available. Try and come up with plausible
spell list based on the concerns facing the mages of his game-world.
>A mage _trained_ in combat I'd accept. A mage who casts a
>spell that let's him stand toe-to-toe with a fighter I have real problems
>with.
See above "levelling" ideas. Hell, in D&D it'd be acceptable to have an
enchanted weapon that IGNORES spell based armour protection so they have
to use their normal AC.
ed
--
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