What I am getting at is whether you feel combat dominates/is the most important aspect of PF by far or whether you feel there is more of a balance with other aspects like roleplaying social interactions, puzzles and traps, exploration, etc.
Personally, I thought that I ran a pretty combat-heavy campaign, but after reading through these boards I'm changing my view of my own game. I would rate our game about like this:
Combat 40%
Roleplaying 25%
Traps and Puzzles 10%
Exploration 25%
Part of why I am curious is reaction to many of the arguments I've seen posted here about what classes are stronger/weaker, or what builds are stronger/weaker. These arguments almost always are only in relation to a character's performance in combat, and completely ignore the rest of the game, in my opinion.
I've also noted that it seems to be an assumption that every character should excel in combat, or they aren't carrying their weight and/or players aren't happy with them. To me that seems odd and different from older editions, where no one expected the cleric or rogue or monk or bard to be a combat god, because their contributions were in other areas.
I'm not interested in passing judgment on anyone's game, just interested in hearing people's opinions about combat in PF in general and in their campaigns specifically.
Well all the people I play with want Roleplaying to be the dominant force. In fact they get bored with just fighting. They like character development and all that entails. I suppose they're actors at heart.
Combat in our games is not very important. It happens and we try to get it over with as quickly as possible to get back to the story line. That's one of the reasons we didn't like 4E. The game was fine but the combats took too long and the story kind of got lost. In PF the combats are about the same as 3E maybe even a little quicker with things like Power Attack changed to flat number so less calculating the optimal attack modifier to use.
The only time combat is really important is when it plays a big part in the story.
I run pretty hack and slash games, so
Fighting 50%
Exploration 30%
NPC interaction 15%
Traps and puzzles 5%
Butterscotch ripple: 3%
I do try and fit in more NPC time, but my players tend to get twitchy when not acting in initiative order.
I run pretty hack and slash games, so
Fighting 50%
Exploration 30%
NPC interaction 15%
Traps and puzzles 5%
Butterscotch ripple: 3%I do try and fit in more NPC time, but my players tend to get twitchy when not acting in initiative order.
Thank you for pointing out the all-important time spent on snacks, which I had forgotten, although we tend to favor nachos and homemade cookies over ice cream. One of our defining rules is that a character sheet is not really a character sheet until it has some type of food or drink spilled on it. :)
Well first off, I would say your break down is pretty close to that of my group. Somewhere around 40% combat, and then a mix of roleplay, puzzles and exploration for the rest.
Given that we usually have several hours (in real time) of combat per session, to be poor in combat in my group makes for a pretty boring time. For that reason we do find that most characters want to be participating during those 2-2.5 hours at the table per session.
I think the reason combat is so important in 'strenght/weakness' of a class is it is the biggest part of the mechanics. It has come up before, but the fact is, it is easier to discuss mechanics on the boards then it is to discuss roleplaying. Roleplay varies alot between groups, and how they handle it differs pretty wildly. How people use skill checks even differs signfiicantly.
Combat makes up the biggest chunk of the rules (mostly because it needs it) and that is what is easiest to discuss. We all have them, and baring houserules we use them roughly the same. We can quote the book and argue over ambiguous terms. So rules and subsequently combat will often make up the bulk of discussions.
Well first off, I would say your break down is pretty close to that of my group. Somewhere around 40% combat, and then a mix of roleplay, puzzles and exploration for the rest.
Given that we usually have several hours (in real time) of combat per session, to be poor in combat in my group makes for a pretty boring time. For that reason we do find that most characters want to be participating during those 2-2.5 hours at the table per session.
I think the reason combat is so important in 'strenght/weakness' of a class is it is the biggest part of the mechanics. It has come up before, but the fact is, it is easier to discuss mechanics on the boards then it is to discuss roleplaying. Roleplay varies alot between groups, and how they handle it differs pretty wildly. How people use skill checks even differs signfiicantly.
Combat makes up the biggest chunk of the rules (mostly because it needs it) and that is what is easiest to discuss. We all have them, and baring houserules we use them roughly the same. We can quote the book and argue over ambiguous terms. So rules and subsequently combat will often make up the bulk of discussions.
Thanks. Some good thoughts in there. I think I agree with you that because combat is easier to quantify objectively, it makes it easier to debate effectiveness in. Some of my curiosity, I admit, is sparked by the visceral negative reaction I have to claims frequently made on these boards about a character being "useless", etc, with the argument being based solely on effectiveness in combat.
BTW, I'm jealous of the long game sessions you run. Due to competing needs of job, wife, kids, etc. we can manage just one night a week, usually for about 4 hours or so. :(
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Combat is important but it's not the be all and end all. For me if you just want combat there are plenty of first person shooters out there.
For me it's about making your combats interesting. I'm not interested in meaningless fights, I'm interested in encounters. I want my players to think about each of the opponents they are facing, to make them come up with new and interesting ways to defeat them. A trap or puzzle or roleplayed conversation is just as important to me as a combat. They are all encounters.
Whay do I want to play a two weapon fighter? Because it's powerful? No because it's cool to swing two weapons about. I have no interest in working out my average damage or comparing weapons. I would much rather enjoy developing my character as a living, breathing entity.
Combat is important but it's not the be all and end all. For me if you just want combat there are plenty of first person shooters out there.
For me it's about making your combats interesting. I'm not interested in meaningless fights, I'm interested in encounters. I want my players to think about each of the opponents they are facing, to make them come up with new and interesting ways to defeat them. A trap or puzzle or roleplayed conversation is just as important to me as a combat. They are all encounters.
Whay do I want to play a two weapon fighter? Because it's powerful? No because it's cool to swing two weapons about. I have no interest in working out my average damage or comparing weapons. I would much rather enjoy developing my character as a living, breathing entity.
I hear you and pretty much agree. There is a reason I took the path of least resistance through science and math requirements in college. :)
However, there are lot of more math-minded players out there to whom such things must be fun, or so it seems to me from reading these boards. I'm interested in hearing from some of them as well, to better understand where they are coming from.
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Most of the games run in my group have been fairly combat-centric (equating to at least half of the time per session) and roleplaying has been at an all-time low, which saddens me greatly. So, with my upcoming campaign I plan on encouraging roleplaying and getting players invested in their characters (rewarding them for a written backstory, encouraging them to talk "in character" when they interact with an NPC rather than something like "I tell him about the recent murders", giving more intangible rewards and/or less combat-oriented rewards like influence, fame, land).
I've heard good things from my players regarding these changes, so it seems like they will be on board with them, which makes me excited to start.
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Pre-Kingmaker, we were about 50/50 RP/Fighting
Now, its about
35% Straight Combat
25% Exploration /Mapping
10% Civil Engineering
20% In Character Roleplaying
10% Dinner / Smoke / Tangent Breaks.
That's all "at table" time. The others (I GM ) are starting to get into the whole "campaign journal " mode as well, lately, & a lot of IC stuff comes up in email, posts, and the like.
Pre-Kingmaker, we were about 50/50 RP/Fighting
Now, its about
35% Straight Combat
25% Exploration /Mapping
10% Civil Engineering
20% In Character Roleplaying
10% Dinner / Smoke / Tangent Breaks.That's all "at table" time. The others (I GM ) are starting to get into the whole "campaign journal " mode as well, lately, & a lot of IC stuff comes up in email, posts, and the like.
Interesting. I just started them on Kingmaker this week, and I'll have to see if it will change our game as well. Any thoughts from other Kingmakers out there? It's definitely a very different and fresh look at the AP genre, and does kind of hark back to the days of 1st edition when you automatically attracted followers and were expected to build a stronghold at a certain level.
a) 10% off-topic chit chat of what did go on since last week
b) 10% role-playing
c) 10% exploration
d) 40% conocting a plan to counter a threat with all types of misunderstanding/crazy ideas/rules discussion that will utlimately go wrong
e) 30% frenzied all out combat because of d)
Needless to say we need a long time to crawl through the AP's (currently Bastards of Erebus).
Remember when you see the discussions here for the bulk of the players.. Combat IS the game. And the characters are designed appropriately.
In the game 90%+ of the dice rolls are in combat. So is it a wonder that players optimise their chars to be good where it "counts"?
For Rp and Exploration you don't need that many rules (if at all).
Thanks. Some good thoughts in there. I think I agree with you that because combat is easier to quantify objectively, it makes it easier to debate effectiveness in. Some of my curiosity, I admit, is sparked by the visceral negative reaction I have to claims frequently made on these boards about a character being "useless", etc, with the argument being based solely on effectiveness in combat.
BTW, I'm jealous of the long game sessions you run. Due to competing needs of job, wife, kids, etc. we can manage just one night a week, usually for about 4 hours or so. :(
Well, I think that often the mechanically driven players play in combat heavy games (i think 40% is probably pretty combat heavy, it wouldn't likely be that high in my group if it wasnt so large and thus each combat takes a pretty long amount of time compared to a party of 4 or 5). In which case, if you are sitting there at level 10 doing 1d8+4 damage each turn for maybe 1.5 hours of a 4 hour session, i would certainly feel pretty useless wouldn't you?
In addition to that, the CR system expects all 4 party members to contribute in some way to combat. Maybe its buffs, maybe its damamge, maybe its just slinging fireballs, but if you are doing virtually nothing in a combat, you are putting your party at a disadvantage if the normal CR system is being used at your table.
As for the sessions, dont be jealous. Our sessions are long because they have to be, 10 people total in the group right now with a good chance of adding another. Average game has 7 players. Getting all of us together in the first place is a pain, and given things take a long time, when we do get together we dont want to stop after a couple hours.
In the game 90%+ of the dice rolls are in combat. So is it a wonder that players optimise their chars to be good where it "counts"?
For Rp and Exploration you don't need that many rules (if at all).
I acknowledge the factual correctness of this statement. I would note, however, that some of the most important rolls, at least in my game (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, etc.) usually come outside of combat and can have lot more impact on the success of the group than any individual combat roll, or even many combat rolls combined. I wonder if some people are missing the forest for the trees in their character design?
The least most important thing.
The people I tend to play with find combat, as a mechanical exercise, dull. There's some glee in the thrill and agony of being at the mercy of dice, and it's always fun to push the minis around and do something clever. But it's not "the game."
Combat represents a failure to come up with a creative enough non-combat solution. However, because it's relatively rare, it's also really important. If the weapons come out - and they will come out - #*$(* is going down. It makes the moment much more memorable.
Interesting thread you have here.
In the game I'm currently in (heavily modified Kingmaker), none of the characters are optimized, although we did roll and got super high stats. There is at least one player who gets bored in combat, and two players who don't have strong character backgrounds and thus do not roleplay much, but I should at least give credit to the neutral character always suggesting neutral routes of action.
Due to the interests of the group, we spend thirty percent of our time in combat, thirty percent of our time in exploration and reacting with those events, and thirty percent of the time working on our kingdom. Roleplay wins out over combat in the end when I think about the times we spend trying to convert kobolds or talk the hill giant into behaving rather than slaughtering the whole lot. We even dream up what happened when we roll a public scandal event.
As far as dice rolling goes, we don't expect much. We have a plastic sippy cup in the shape of a dinosaur that we call "The Failsaurus". First person to roll a 1 has to drink out of it the rest of the night. We have horrible luck, honestly. This has probably shaped us into not caring so much about combat dice rolling. In general, we care more about the kingdom than combat so we worry more about those dice rolls moreso than whether or not we downed the worg.
In the end, combat and the occasional super slog through a dungeon is an interesting side point to break up the roleplaying and kingdom planning, not the main focus of our game.
...I would note, however, that some of the most important rolls, at least in my game (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, etc.) usually come outside of combat and can have lot more impact on the success of the group than any individual combat roll, or even many combat rolls combined...
Right, however, in many situations it is enough if one and only one PC succeeds at the roll. If you have one "party face" the rest can usually be as ugly as they get, if one has Knowledge (whatnot) then usually noone else needs it.
But in combat it's important that everyone rolls good.
Combat: 40%
ADD meanderings: 45%
RP: 15%
Remember when you see the discussions here for the bulk of the players.. Combat IS the game. And the characters are designed appropriately.
I've actually seen very few posters on these boards who come across as having this mentality. A good many seem to place a great deal more emphasis on combat than what seems to be the norm for most of the players who post around these parts, though.
This supposed "Roleplayer Extraordinaire" versus "The Anti-Rolepaying Combat Monkey" mentality is getting quite a bit out of hand, IMHO. Emphasis of any particular part of the game doesn't make you a unique and beautiful snowflake whose opinions are to be worshipped as law.
50% - Combat
20% - Story
20% - Player Discussion
5% - Role play
5% - Food
Only one person in my current group is much of a roleplayer and he's DM at the moment. Some of us can enjoy the occasional bit of role playing but we all have the most fun during combat and what I called "Player Discussion" which consists of everything from planning out our day to discussing how we'd like to respond to a major event in the storyline.
Some people would call parts of "Player Discussion" role playing but I wouldn't as the discussion is done out of character. Our characters rarely interact with each other "in character." Occasionally when in the middle of talking to an NPC some "in character" talk between PCs will happen but that's pretty rare.
Bearing in mind that I play exclusively via Play by Post, and favor really long, complicated byzantine plots...
30% combat
30% inter-party Roleplaying (just PC's carrying out their interpersonal plots with each-other)
40% Roleplaying with the broader world, with a special emphasis on intrigues, NPC double-crosses, and problem-solving.
Mind you, combat can be a part of the last two, easily... Combat and Roleplaying are not opposing values in my group.
You know... I find it hard to have perspective, and I bet Lathiira (one of my players) could answer this better.
But I would say it's probably
25% combat
20% exploration
30% roleplay and story
25% player planning, rules talk, analysis, puzzles, traps, etc.
(running a solo campaign, so figures may be skewed)
50% story/character development
20% shopping/exploring/planning
20% combat
10% ruleness/distraction/fiddlieness
---------------------------------------
90% roleplaying
Can't give numbers, but combat is very important, at least it takes a good ammount of time, and is the most important (but not the only) thing when thinking about whether a character is overpowered or not. Characters die in combat, in our games our characters can't die when using stealth or diplomacy (sadly) unless they are really Stupid, there's nothing more to say.
When I make adventures I give a lot of importance to planification and exploration, I try to give them a bit of Sandbox-game feel. Some skill usage and roleplaying is also good.
I.e. the last adventure was basically a fantasy version of the film "The Guns of Navarone", so planification, strategy and exploration before combat was very important.
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This is how I would characterized the average play at our table
Combat 30%
Roleplaying 35%
Traps and Puzzles 15%
Exploration 20%
I would like to point out that my point of view is probably skewed based on the the role I play in the group which is usually a Bard. Others at my respective gaming table will proably have a totally different take.
Cheers!
As for the sessions, dont be jealous. Our sessions are long because they have to be, 10 people total in the group right now with a good chance of adding another. Average game has 7 players. Getting all of us together in the first place is a pain, and given things take a long time, when we do get together we dont want to stop after a couple hours.
Still suffering from green-eyed monster. We've got a group almost as big (8), and they are pretty faithful, rarely more than one missing per session, and all there more than half the time. Our controlling factor is jobs. Of the two of us that usually GM, I don't get home from work until about 6 and the other works graveyard shift and has to leave before 11. Weekends are out due to other obligations.
...I would note, however, that some of the most important rolls, at least in my game (Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, etc.) usually come outside of combat and can have lot more impact on the success of the group than any individual combat roll, or even many combat rolls combined...Right, however, in many situations it is enough if one and only one PC succeeds at the roll. If you have one "party face" the rest can usually be as ugly as they get, if one has Knowledge (whatnot) then usually noone else needs it.
But in combat it's important that everyone rolls good.
Good point, although I can think of some situations (everyone trying to sneak up on the enemy fortress, or climb up a cliff, etc.) in which everybody needs to roll well out of combat.
I think also because we have a large group (7 players plus DM) we can afford to specialize a bit, and not everyone has to be great in combat. Everyone does need to contribute, but that contribution may be as minor as tying up a few bad guys until the heavy cimbat specialists can finish their own opponents and come to help.
Remember when you see the discussions here for the bulk of the players.. Combat IS the game. And the characters are designed appropriately.I've actually seen very few posters on these boards who come across as having this mentality. A good many seem to place a great deal more emphasis on combat than what seems to be the norm for most of the players who post around these parts, though.
This supposed "Roleplayer Extraordinaire" versus "The Anti-Rolepaying Combat Monkey" mentality is getting quite a bit out of hand, IMHO. Emphasis of any particular part of the game doesn't make you a unique and beautiful snowflake whose opinions are to be worshipped as law.
Agree completely. I have my own preferences, but respect everyone's right to play the game their own way. I, too, bristle whenever the old, tired "we're doing it better than you are" comes out. We have a few different preferred styles of play just at my own table, and one of my most significant challenges is balancing it all so everyone gets their chance to shine and have a good time.
A lot of what I'm trying to get at in this thread is a sense of what variation there is in the community as a whole and whether people see combat becoming increasingly important in PF.
Still suffering from green-eyed monster. We've got a group almost as big (8), and they are pretty faithful, rarely more than one missing per session, and all there more than half the time. Our controlling factor is jobs. Of the two of us that usually GM, I don't get home from work until about 6 and the other works graveyard shift and has to leave before 11. Weekends are out due to other obligations.
As for the sessions, dont be jealous. Our sessions are long because they have to be, 10 people total in the group right now with a good chance of adding another. Average game has 7 players. Getting all of us together in the first place is a pain, and given things take a long time, when we do get together we dont want to stop after a couple hours.
Sounds kind of like my group. Have a couple in 9-5s a couple that work retail (and so have irregular hours) one nurse that works overnights, and a couple that are in school. Scheduling can be a real pain sometimes.
I have noticed that the larger the group, the more of a role combat plays in the game, possibly because everyone in the party can participate, whereas most role-playing encounters involve only one or two PC's.
As far as 'optimizing' characters for combat, a friend of mine argues that a character who looses a diplomatic argument suffers a setback, but a character who looses combat is usually dead. He feels that a combat-optimal character can survive non-combat threats better than a non-combatent can survive fighting. He is also an outstanding role-player, and storyteller, proving that a player who builds combat monsters can be a good player for other styles of gaming.
These are two interesting points. I also think the larger your group, the longer the combats will take just because there are more actions involved (since usually encounters will have been ratcheted up with more bad guys, too).
On your friend's point I would just say that failing that acrobatics check while trying to cross the teetering bridge or the stealth roll while trying to sneak into the dragon's lair or the bluff roll while trying to talk your way past the evil temple's demon guards will all leave you just as dead as a failed save or critical hit in combat. Not all combats are all that deadly, too. But his point is taken, that whenever anyone is threatening you with pointy things or spellfire, the stakes are pretty high.
I can't draw a line between "combat " and "role-play". The notion that one can seems silly to me. If I play a Lawful anal swordsman, he's going to act very differently than if I play a chaotic insane swordsman.
I agree with what you are saying, and admit that it is certainly not a bright line between any of these things. That's why I listed it in my original post as "roleplaying in social situations" (or something like that, I would never mean to imply that you can't or shouldn't roleplay during combat. I would caveat that by saying that many people don't really roleplay much during combat, preferring to just move their minis and roll the dice, and that's OK, too, as long as everyone's having fun.
Part of why I am curious is reaction to many of the arguments I've seen posted here about what classes are stronger/weaker, or what builds are stronger/weaker. These arguments almost always are only in relation to a character's performance in combat, and completely ignore the rest of the game, in my opinion.Combat is the only part of the game where everyone can contributes and where everyone plays a game ... and more importantly, where most of the in game rewards come from.
Playacting can be done cooperatively, but it's not really a game ... so balance doesn't matter.
Skill use for infiltration or social combat is a game, but it's usually only one or two who are really rolling the dice on it ... and the rest are playacting. So balance doesn't matter much. If you can help avoid combat or make combat easier it can count partly as your contribution in combat, but rarely will such a contribution be enough to explain taking along a weakling.
I've also noted that it seems to be an assumption that every character should excel in combatThey should be competent, they are part of an adventuring group after all ... if someone choses a weak character because they think it's metagame cool they are metagaming ... the problem is they rarely take into account that the other players need in character reasons to drag his sorry ass around as well unless the campaign is especially set up around them escorting mr. weakling around.
It's not polite to ask other players to metagame for you. If you suck in game you really do suck in game, no matter how cool you think the metagame concept is.
Thanks for your perspective, even if I don't agree with much of it. It does clearly lay out for me that, at least in your group, combat is very important and combat effectiveness is seen as a must.
Just for sake of argument, however, I would point out that the heroic fiction and movies from which the original game drew much of its inspiration had many examples of characters who were not terribly good in combat, but still vital to the success of the mission. For example, the weakling rogue who is the only one with the mad skills necessary to penetrate the trap-filled tomb of the ancient pharoah, or the aged and feeble scholarly wizard who is the only one with the experience to have a chance to decode the ancient spell needed to save the world. In many cases, they are the actual key to overall success, and everyone else is really just a bodyguard to make sure they get to where they need to be in one piece.
Do you think these archetypes would have no role at all in your game and be viewed as "mr. weakling" and resented for their relatively meager combat skills?
Thanks for your perspective, even if I don't agree with much of it. It does clearly lay out for me that, at least in your group, combat is very important and combat effectiveness is seen as a must.
Just for sake of argument, however, I would point out that the heroic fiction and movies from which the original game drew much of its inspiration had many examples of characters who were not terribly good in combat, but still vital to the success of the mission. For example, the weakling rogue who is the only one with the mad skills necessary to penetrate the trap-filled tomb of the ancient pharoah, or the aged and feeble scholarly wizard who is the only one with the experience to have a chance to decode the ancient spell needed to save the world. In many cases, they are the actual key to overall success, and everyone else is really just a bodyguard to make sure they get to where they need to be in one piece.
Do you think these archetypes would have no role at all in your game and be viewed as "mr. weakling" and resented for their relatively meager combat skills?
Often though these people were literally the only people for the job. In the world of pathfinder rpg, there isnt a reason why a rogue with 'mad skills' cant be good in combat as well. The people of the world would be aware of this (assuming as is normally the case that rogue is a common class in the general distribution of adventurers), so why wouldnt the party go seak out the very competant lockpick who is also good at driving a pair of blades into the back of his enemies then the weakling who is only slightly better at picking locks?
Often though these people were literally the only people for the job. In the world of pathfinder rpg, there isnt a reason why a rogue with 'mad skills' cant be good in combat as well. The people of the world would be aware of this (assuming as is normally the case that rogue is a common class in the general distribution of adventurers), so why wouldnt the party go seak out the very competant lockpick who is also good at driving a pair of blades into the back of his enemies then the weakling who is only slightly better at picking locks?Thanks for your perspective, even if I don't agree with much of it. It does clearly lay out for me that, at least in your group, combat is very important and combat effectiveness is seen as a must.
Just for sake of argument, however, I would point out that the heroic fiction and movies from which the original game drew much of its inspiration had many examples of characters who were not terribly good in combat, but still vital to the success of the mission. For example, the weakling rogue who is the only one with the mad skills necessary to penetrate the trap-filled tomb of the ancient pharoah, or the aged and feeble scholarly wizard who is the only one with the experience to have a chance to decode the ancient spell needed to save the world. In many cases, they are the actual key to overall success, and everyone else is really just a bodyguard to make sure they get to where they need to be in one piece.
Do you think these archetypes would have no role at all in your game and be viewed as "mr. weakling" and resented for their relatively meager combat skills?
I agree that in PF (and 3.X to a lesser extent), the general power up all characters have received makes it possible for characters to excel at multiple things, removing the "need" for specialists who fill more defined roles in a party that may or may not involve combat. I guess what I'm getting at is whether everyone "has to" be good at combat, or whether there is still a place in the game for folks who make most of their contributions in other areas. If not, I would suggest that perhaps something has been lost.
In our own particular game, I never really resent a character who is inherently weak in combat, so long as they are doing their best to make what contribution they can, not being a coward, and making their contributions in other areas. The only characters that annoy me are the ones that are optimized to the max as combat monsters, but still act cowardly in combat, largely because their player doesn't want the character to die. If you build your character with a 20 Strength, a 21 AC, 14 HP and +8 to hit at first level, get your ass in there and swing! Don't hide behind the cleric (so he's always there to heal you) and throw javelins!
I agree that in PF (and 3.X to a lesser extent), the general power up all characters have received makes it possible for characters to excel at multiple things, removing the "need" for specialists who fill more defined roles in a party that may or may not involve combat. I guess what I'm getting at is whether everyone "has to" be good at combat, or whether there is still a place in the game for folks who make most of their contributions in other areas. If not, I would suggest that perhaps something has been lost.
At the tables where they dont have a place, they never had one to begin with so nothing has been lost. If a group demands everyone be good in combat, the switch to pathfinder didnt bring that about, it has to do with the group. I will definately admit I get frustrated with characters that are useless in combat even if they are useful elsewhere, because our group is pretty much all optimizers, and as such our dms tend to throw rather dangerous fights at us. When a character ends up not contributing it becomes very difficult.
On top of that, if they have to explicately be protected it can be even more frustrating. If the story you want to tell is the fellowship protecting frodo, awesome, but that isnt every adventure, and it isnt every adventurer. The majority of self interested adventurers (in character) would cut dead weight loose pretty early in their careers before they get someone killed.
Rogues could backstab in AD&D as well ya know.
Yep, but not anywhere near as often or to anywhere near as great an effect as they do in 3.X/PF. Which is truly wonderful if what you want to play is a combat-oriented rogue, or even a general rogue who wants to be able to hold their own and sometimes excel in combat. But what if you want to play the 95-lb weakling expert "boxman" or the acrobatic but blood-averse second story work specialist? Is that still permissible in your game or in PF more broadly, or would it be resented?
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For my group combat is a means to a end. Which is the story that is the characters lives. Our session vary a great deal from one to the next. We have had mostly combat games and then on very rare occasions when we never touch the dice all night. So with that in mind I would guess we break down on avg(avg being over say 10 game sessions)
RP/NPC interaction - 40%
Combat - 20%
puzzle/mystery/problem solving - 20%
Politics - 10% (I know this is kinda like RPing but a bit different)
Other - 10% (things that that fit the above)
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See for me, it depends on the game I'm running.
In my more sandbox games, yes a break down of...
Combat 40%
Role-playing 25%
Traps and Puzzles 5%
Exploration 10%
Logistics 10%
Food/Other 5%
...seems fair. However, in some of my smaller games...
Combat 20%
Role-playing 50%
Traps and Puzzles 5%
Exploration 15%
Logistics 5%
Food/Other 5%
...or, sometimes I run a modern survival horror game and that's about...
Combat 20%
Role-Playing 30%
Traps and Puzzles 15%
Exploration 25%
Logistics 5%
Food/Other 5%
...hmmm...not a lot of time spent on food there.
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You know... I find it hard to have perspective, and I bet Lathiira (one of my players) could answer this better.
But I would say it's probably
25% combat
20% exploration
30% roleplay and story
25% player planning, rules talk, analysis, puzzles, traps, etc.
Pretty much this. Our group gets bored if in say a 4 hour session that combat "mechanics" takes anymore than about an hour. If I want to move figures around on a board in a tactical fashion I would rather play chess.
S.
