Quote:
Originally Posted by RMS
Sticking with the example here, Bilbo does have an advantage. The fun part is that mechanically his advantage is superior INT rather than superior (burgular) skills. I'd say he does have some superior skills in sneak/hide, but they don't come out until later in the story.
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Sure, player's ability can be an equalizer, but it shouldn't have to rely strictly on this.[/quote]
But if you rely on it or not it is a big factor. And one reason why balance doesn't really exist. A Character can have all sorts of avantages on paper, but more often than not Intellegice will win out. One of my early Dms used to let certain players start with more powerful and better equipped characters than others. When asked why the rest of us couldn't have such stuff, he'd reply "Because you only need one!" Sure enough, two sessons later when the latest powerhouses ended up dead the rest of us ended up with some neat stuff.
In a 3E D&D campaign I was in, I took out a 8th level barbarian with a 1st level farmer. Entirely because the guy who played the barbarian was an idiot. He was part of a group that had actually rescued us from some monsters. Yet everytime he spoke to us, he said he was going to sell us into slavery, rather than he was rescuing us. Well, when a foe had him down and out, my not to bright character made sure he didn't recover, so we wouldn't be sold as slaves! I did however, patch up the prest who said he was there to rescue us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RMS
Then there's that....but I prefer not to do that sort of thing on a regular basis myself. It seems too artificial.
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It
is too artificial. Even in the Hobbit/LOTR it was the ring working it's way to Sauron. It sort of like Luke and Leia being siblings, or the entire party gets knocked out with no chance of escape or victory. Every GM can pull it off once in awile, but don't make a habit of it.
Still, I have no problems putting powerful magic items into the hands of "low-level" characters. Worked for King Arthur.