Balance... whatever it is

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

And I think _generally_ it is a problem; that's my point. The fact some people have no issue with it doesn't make it a generally good thing.

The inverse of this is true as well: the fact that some people have an issue with it doesn't make it a generally bad thing.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

I disagree about RQ3's previous experience system creating useless characters. Certainly, with a completely random character generation system, there is the possibility to create superior and inferior characters; and I do not see this as a problem. However, these characters are not the norm, and so when they do appear it only makes those characters all the more interesting to play, IMHO.

No one is useless in RQ3 combat. Every combatant is usefull, if only to occupy an opponent.

I think that's the problem; to many, people, if all you're good for is to tie up an opponent while a better fighter does his work, and have no outside combat function, you're close enough to useless for practical purposes.

Or put another way, if you're inferior enough, the fact you aren't technically useless is meaningless to many, if not most players.

That's really my point; you can define the problem away, but at that point you effectively aren't talking about what I'm talking about.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I think that's the problem; to many, people, if all you're good for is to tie up an opponent while a better fighter does his work, and have no outside combat function, you're close enough to useless for practical purposes.

Or put another way, if you're inferior enough, the fact you aren't technically useless is meaningless to many, if not most players.

That's really my point; you can define the problem away, but at that point you effectively aren't talking about what I'm talking about.

Yes, and you can over simplify your definition of 'useless' or 'inferior' characters to support your unlikely senario.

[Rurik]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I think that's the problem; to many, people, if all you're good for is to tie up an opponent while a better fighter does his work, and have no outside combat function, you're close enough to useless for practical purposes.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. In my experience the 'useless' characters are often the ones who take down tougher foes. The "Better Fighter" in fact is who just ties up the enemy, because as we know tough guy vs. tough guy fights in RQ3 can go on for a while before someone gets the lucky blow. The 'useless' guys often get the unblocked swings at the opposing tough guy. Many times has the 'weakling' taken down the top opponent - and the player of the weakling invariably enjoys the experience all the more because of the disparity in power levels.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

Yes, and you can over simplify your definition of 'useless' or 'inferior' characters to support your unlikely senario.

I haven't seen anything someone has said to make it "unlikely"; what I've seen is people who've said that they haven't seen it. I haven't seen anyone really argue the numerical aspect, which is the only non-subjective part of the process that isn't also campaign dependent. At that point, the only thing you can do is talk about how people respond and what seems to happen in a typical campaign.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

The inverse of this is true as well: the fact that some people have an issue with it doesn't make it a generally bad thing.

Sure, but when I've seen enough people do so (and I have) you'll just have to accept that some naysaying on it isn't going to sell me on the contrary.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Rurik

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. In my experience the 'useless' characters are often the ones who take down tougher foes. The "Better Fighter" in fact is who just ties up the enemy, because as we know tough guy vs. tough guy fights in RQ3 can go on for a while before someone

This, however, assumes the tough guys always match up, which at least until you get into the ranges where there's a certain selection going on (i.e. Gloranthan runic versus non-runic characters) is a big assumption; its just as likely for the match to be strong versus weak because that's how the positioning and movement happens to work out, at which point all the weak character does is desperately hope he can stay alive until his more capable buddy deals with the riff-raff he's gotten tied up with and can come help him.

Because the ugly truth is, he's not sure of surviving against even his opposite number, as with low parry rolls, that just turns into a question of who rolls his hit successfully first.

Its fine if all your fights are many on ones where the tough guy on the opposite side ignores the weaker opponents to clang away at his opposite number, but that's anything but a typical RQ fight in my experience, and in anything but those, a combatant with lousy combat skills is in trouble.

After all, its not like parrying the dangerous opponent while you spend the round putting down his weaker sideman is, on the whole, a particularly bad tactic in RQ.

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I think that's the problem; to many, people, if all you're good for is to tie up an opponent while a better fighter does his work, and have no outside combat function, you're close enough to useless for practical purposes.

Ah, now I see what you are getting at.

However, most of my games have had people whose job it is to soak up damage from two NPCs, thus freeing up a bigger hitter to work his way through the line. In our c urrent game we had exactly that situation - a bow-using Desert Tracker and a shaman desperately parried and dodged while the beefed-up Storm Bull killed NPC after NPC, not needing to worry very much about his opponents because the others were soaking up the opposition. Similarly, in Spirit Combat, the Shaman finished off the spirits while the others soaked them up, taking hits and hoping they wouldn't be beaten to easily.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Or put another way, if you're inferior enough, the fact you aren't technically useless is meaningless to many, if not most players.

Maybe, it's all a matter of perception. If the PCs were victorious because PCs held up the opponents long enough for them to be killed then we'd be happy.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

That's really my point; you can define the problem away, but at that point you effectively aren't talking about what I'm talking about.

It's all a matter of opinion.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by soltakss

However, most of my games have had people whose job it is to soak up damage from two NPCs, thus freeing up a bigger hitter to work his way through the line. In our c urrent game we had exactly that situation - a bow-using Desert Tracker and a shaman desperately parried and dodged while the beefed-up Storm Bull killed NPC after NPC, not needing to worry very much about his opponents because the others were soaking up the opposition. Similarly, in Spirit Combat, the Shaman finished off the spirits while the others soaked them up, taking hits and hoping they wouldn't be beaten to easily.

You'll note, however, from the description of the two characters that they have useful outside combat capabilities; one's a shaman and the other, from the sound of it, a tracker and outdoorsman. Combat is important in every RQ game I've ever seen, but its not the sum of a character's function. The problem with some of the results that table could produce is that it didn't even leave an outside function.

Examples in point:

One of my players generated a civilized sailor of fairly low age (as I recall, he was 18 or 19); he actually had slightly above average attributes (I recall a fairly high Dexterity and decent Strength), but that wasn't enough to pull up his combat skills above about 35%, the lowest in the party at that time. He had Boating and Shiphandling which no one else did, but those rarely came up (in fact I'm not sure the Shiphandling ever did). Even his Swimming wasn't particularly better than most of the group. There just wasn't much purpose the character served other than to be someone who could help hold the line (but noticeably worse than anyone else in the group by at least 10% in his skills.

In contrast, at one point in an RQ game I rolled up a 20 year old Civilized Scribe. Now he wasn't exactly a fighting fool either (as I recall my best weapon skill was my dagger; I ended up getting by early with just my default use of crossbow and 2h spear a lot) but his Lores, language skills and one or two others were high enough I actually served some kind of purpose in the party and was willing to tough it out until my combat skills (and magic skills) made him a bit more generally viable, because I like scholar-heroes.

Now some of this is campaign dependent of course; in a more watery campaign, the Boating on the first character might have mattered more (but at that point the horsemanship skills of such types as Herders would have been more useless) but that really doesn't matter; what the issue is is that the randomness of the system could just too easily throw out a character who served no purpose. This was made all the worse because there are whole classes of skills that its usually bad ideas to let even the second best person with them use (negotiation skills and things like Devise come to mind) unless you can't help it.

Maybe, it's all a matter of perception. If the PCs were victorious because PCs held up the opponents long enough for them to be killed then we'd be happy.

I'm sure some of it is; other people would not have likely been willing to deal with the scribe as I was above. But in the end, I'm hard pressed to see why its a virtue that they should _have_ to. Even with a competent character, getting one you're not interested in playing isn't a virtue; when the system can stick you with one who isn't even competent within his own areas of speciality, I'm just not able to see that as a good thing.

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

I haven't seen anything someone has said to make it "unlikely"; what I've seen is people who've said that they haven't seen it. I haven't seen anyone really argue the numerical aspect, which is the only non-subjective part of the process that isn't also campaign dependent. At that point, the only thing you can do is talk about how people respond and what seems to happen in a typical campaign.

Yes, you're senario is subjective. I did state that I find your senario unlikely. As far as statistically possible, just look at the Occupation tables.

Are you saying that your typical campaign experience is that one player has a young farmer while every other player has generated an experienced warrior type?