Mathematically define a "viable" or "successful" character


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Reading through various threads, I was struck by what seems to me to be a basic disconnect that I think might be arising from varying expectations. Lots of people bandy about terms like "viable", "successful", "gimped", "overpowered", etc,, but I'm not convinced we are understanding what each of us means by the terms. So I ask, breaking it down into basic game math, what makes a character "viable" or "successful".

For a martial character, is it being able to hit a level appropriate opponent 25% of the time? 50%? 75%? 90%? Almost always?

For a skill monkey, succeeding at the appropriate skill (Stealth, Diplomacy, Search, etc.), same percentages

For a caster, spell success (the effect you wanted, be it failed SoS save, successful battlefield control or buff, blasting enemies to chunky little bits of XPs, etc.), same percentages

For the party as a whole, defeating level-appropriate encounters.

For me, I think I'd find my character viable if I'm succeeding at least half the time and pretty successful if I'm succeeding 75% of the time. The bar is higher for the group as a whole - there I expect the group to probably succeed in an encounter at least 90% of the time to feel successful (and be able to retreat, raise our dead/recruit replacements, lick our wounds and come back for payback the other 10%). Implicit in that is the idea that the group functions as a unit, covering for each other's weaknesses, so that not everybody shines (or even contributes much) in every encounter and that's OK.

I suspect, however, that others have set the bar higher, and don't feel successful unless they almost always succeed. But I could be wrong (happens to me several times every day). Educate me.

Liberty's Edge

This sounds like a job for...

...I'll think of somebody, gimme a minute.


viable/playable/balanced:
-Character with level X has about 50% chance (or slighty higher) to defeat a foe of CR X in less than ten rounds.
-Party level X: same thing, but appropiate encounter CR and no time limit.
*Notes:
The time limit is here because a character that takes too much time to defeat a single foe isn't useful for a party.
I don't care about minimum AC, attack bonus... just defeat the foe, no matter how.

weak:
Same as before, but 50% or higher chance to loose the fight.

overpowered:
Same as viable, but very high chance of winning (about 75%).

broken:
Victory almost always, except for some rare encounter or situation.


For myself these are what I consider viable.

Martial: Needs to be able to drop a CR equal opponent in a round and a half of full attacks. He should be able to survive at 4 encounters of equal CR a day -- either by having enough hp and self healing or enough AC as to not get hit or a combination of the two. A viable martial build needs to be able to ensure a means of attacking even if the opponent doesn't come at him in his preferred form of combat (in the case this happens I would go for a 3 round kill).

Skill people: Need to be able to succeed on their skill suite about 80% of the time against level+10 DC's. The should contribute meaningfully in combat with either status effects or damage though they can be slower in dropping things than the martials and should be able to take a full round of attacks at least twice in a fight without dropping (how they manage this I don't care). Their skills suite should cover at least 5 skills that are regularly used and 3 skills at with at least a 65% success rate that are occasionally needed -- these can be switched around some too (more regular use skills instead of a bunch of infrequent use skills).

Spellcasters: Need to be able to contribute to a combat every round in a matter that shortens the over all fight. The ability to survive at least one full attack in a combat is also fairly mandatory, and they should bring something other than combat ability since out of combat is when their spells have the most use.

Save Throws: Generally put you want your lowest save throw to have a bonus at least equal to your level. Your highest should generally be about 2~5 points higher depending on class.

Combination characters: should provide at least 75% of what the basis of their combination is. If they bring like 90% of one and 40% of the other that is ok too.

Healing: is a combined responsibility of the party. The party should be able to set down after 4~5 encounters and be at full after a rest period.

This is with the understanding that a CR equivalent opponent should eat about 20% of party resources and the party should win against 4 CR equivalent fights a day.


IkeDoe wrote:

viable/playable/balanced:

-Character with level X has about 50% chance (or slighty higher) to defeat a foe of CR X in less than ten rounds.
-Party level X: same thing, but appropiate encounter CR and no time limit.
*Notes:
The time limit is here because a character that takes too much time to defeat a single foe isn't useful for a party.
I don't care about minimum AC, attack bonus... just defeat the foe, no matter how.

weak:
Same as before, but 50% or higher chance to loose the fight.

overpowered:
Same as viable, but very high chance of winning (about 75%).

broken:
Victory almost always, except for some rare encounter or situation.

If I'm reading you correctly, you are setting the bar a little lower than I am. To clarify my own points, I think the party should succeed such a high percentage of the time because I don't believe every encounter should be a death struggle. Many or even most of them should just serve to advance the plot, and set up/prepare the group for the few really dangerous, vital encounters (BBEGs and the like) that determine overall success in the adventure.


I made up a table of average defenses and primary attack bonuses . Data based on the 3.5 monster tables, detailed by CR.

Spoiler:

CR, AC, ATT, WILL, REF, FORT
1, 15, 1, 1, 3, 3
2, 16, 2, 3, 4, 5
3, 16, 3, 3, 4, 5
4, 16, 5, 5, 5, 7
5, 17, 6, 5, 6, 8
6, 19, 8, 6, 7, 8
7, 18, 8, 7, 7, 9
8, 20, 10, 8, 8, 9
9, 22, 12, 9, 10, 12
10, 23, 13, 9, 9, 12
11, 24, 14, 11, 11, 14
12, 22, 17, 9, 9, 15
13, 27, 14, 12, 10, 14
14, 27, 16, 14, 12, 16
15, 30, 19, 16, 11, 16
16, 32, 21, 17, 13, 17
17, 28, 20, 16, 13, 20
18, 33, 24, 19, 16, 20
19, 36, 28, 20, 16, 22
20, 36, 30, 21, 19, 24
21, 39, 28, 21, 16, 23
22, 40, 30, 24, 20, 23
23, 40, 31, 25, 22, 26
24, 42, 38, 27, 24, 30
25, 44, 34, 29, 24, 28
26, 44, 27, 26, 20, 21
27, 47, 44, 33, 28, 32
28, 54, 43, 32, 37, 37
29, 51, 22, 25, 26, 25
30, 41, 48, 39, 26, 36


Lopsotronic they've done the work for you in pathfinder: It's in the back of the bestiary along with average saves and average DC for abilities.


I like to keep AC at so 20+ character level for front liners. People who might end up in melee(second line clerics) can do with 15.


Abraham spalding wrote:

For myself these are what I consider viable.

Martial: Needs to be able to drop a CR equal opponent in a round and a half of full attacks. He should be able to survive at 4 encounters of equal CR a day -- either by having enough hp and self healing or enough AC as to not get hit or a combination of the two. A viable martial build needs to be able to ensure a means of attacking even if the opponent doesn't come at him in his preferred form of combat (in the case this happens I would go for a 3 round kill).

Skill people: Need to be able to succeed on their skill suite about 80% of the time against level+10 DC's. The should contribute meaningfully in combat with either status effects or damage though they can be slower in dropping things than the martials and should be able to take a full round of attacks at least twice in a fight without dropping (how they manage this I don't care). Their skills suite should cover at least 5 skills that are regularly used and 3 skills at with at least a 65% success rate that are occasionally needed -- these can be switched around some too (more regular use skills instead of a bunch of infrequent use skills).

Spellcasters: Need to be able to contribute to a combat every round in a matter that shortens the over all fight. The ability to survive at least one full attack in a combat is also fairly mandatory, and they should bring something other than combat ability since out of combat is when their spells have the most use.

Save Throws: Generally put you want your lowest save throw to have a bonus at least equal to your level. Your highest should generally be about 2~5 points higher depending on class.

Combination characters: should provide at least 75% of what the basis of their combination is. If they bring like 90% of one and 40% of the other that is ok too.

Healing: is a combined responsibility of the party. The party should be able to set down after 4~5 encounters and be at full after a rest period.

This is...

It seems like you set the bar higher than I do, if I read your very detailed and thoughtful post correctly. You've defined a lot more mathematical parameters than I chose to get into, indicating you've put some serious thought into it.

A couple of things jump out at me. Your martial characters need to not just win, but win quickly, in your opinion, to be successful. Your casters need to contribute every round, not even just every encounter. You seem to be saying that the chatracters should win every encounter to be successful, but I might be misunderstanding you. Perhaps you mean that they should only be expected to win the CR equivalent encounters, but will be more challenged in the BBEG-type encounters. Can you clarify?


Brian Bachman wrote:
IkeDoe wrote:

viable/playable/balanced:

-Character with level X has about 50% chance (or slighty higher) to defeat a foe of CR X in less than ten rounds.
-Party level X: same thing, but appropiate encounter CR and no time limit.
*Notes:
The time limit is here because a character that takes too much time to defeat a single foe isn't useful for a party.
I don't care about minimum AC, attack bonus... just defeat the foe, no matter how.

weak:
Same as before, but 50% or higher chance to loose the fight.

overpowered:
Same as viable, but very high chance of winning (about 75%).

broken:
Victory almost always, except for some rare encounter or situation.

If I'm reading you correctly, you are setting the bar a little lower than I am. To clarify my own points, I think the party should succeed such a high percentage of the time because I don't believe every encounter should be a death struggle. Many or even most of them should just serve to advance the plot, and set up/prepare the group for the few really dangerous, vital encounters (BBEGs and the like) that determine overall success in the adventure.

My benchmark is more oriented to testing individual characters than judging parties in actual game play.

In the actual campaing I expect a balanced party to win more than 90% of the encounters, because everything below "Epic" difficulty is using foes far weaker than player characters in numbers not that impressive.


I tend to agree with the developers of Trailblazer and go with the threshold of a 70-75% success rate against CR appropriate foes with most actions as being the measure of meeting minimum utility.

Basically against CR appropriate foes no more than 1 action in 4 should result in PC failure.

In regards to Hit Bonus vs Monster AC after the first few levels (which are heavy in terms of miss percentage) the success rate of 75% measures the PC success rate without items. With magical items buffing the Hit Bonus success with the first iterative attack should be close to 95% with a full BAB class. 3/4 BAB and iterative attacks should be some percentage behind in terms of hit rates.

PC success rates on Save DC vs Monster saves should range between 75% against poor saves to about 50% vs good saves. This rewards the choice to use the right spell against the right monster.

Monster success rates vs PCs should be the inverse of the PC success rate. A character with an optimized AC should be hit roughly 25% of the time with a primary attack and most characters should be at an AC level where 50% of the attacks of a CR appropriate monster are negated.

PC Saves vs Monster Save DC is where things get tricky. Optimally the PCs should fail no more than one save in 4. For good saves that's generally pretty doable. The problem arises when Monsters target poor saves. The rate of PC success plummets pretty significantly even with resistance items in the mix. Poor saves with no resistance items are catastrophically bad.

For me the rate of progression of poor saves is one of the key failings of the game. Even with a reasonably optimized build PCs still fail saves a reasonably high percentage of the time. Against CR +2 or CR +3 monsters the PC success rate is pretty bad.

From a balance perspective this isn't such a bad thing as a failed save on one PC isn't the end of an encounter. It typically means that the PC loses a round of actions at best or is vulnerable to a CDG (insta-death is relatively rare in PF). However considering most rounds especially in high level play are relatively time consuming being stunlocked for a round or two is pretty frustrating especially if rounds can take 15-30 minutes to adjudicate.

So in effect it's a decent construct that just doesn't hold up under real world conditions. Trailblazer uses action points to resolve the issue. By giving the PCs the ability to boost their success rates a limited number of times you can avoid the stunlock problem and keep everyone engaged in the game.

Personally I think contracting the difference in range between the Good Saves and Bad Saves is a good solution as well. I'd be willing to forgo a high rate of success against the poor saves of Monsters and NPCs if my poor saves were less likely to bite me in the behind.

My solution to this is to alter the basic save mechanic to a (HD/2 +2) for good saves and a (HD/2) for poor saves. This means that success rate of PC casting hovers around 55% vs good saves and 65% vs bad saves. Against CR +2 or +3 foes this typically forces the caster to switch to full time support/buff + some limited Debuffs which I think is actually appropriate. Being able to insta-win with a SoS against CR+3 foes isn't particularly great gameplay IMHO.


I'm saying the party should be able to expect to win a CR equivalent encounter with little fear.

Now higher CR encounters will be more difficult of course and do not entail a guarantee of winning.

If the Melee types can't convince the opponent that by themselves they are a threat to the opponent's life then what are they doing? I'm assuming best case senerios for them to kill the enemy in 1~2 rounds -- where the enemy is stupid enough to just stand there and let them unload on him with full attacks. This rarely happens which leads to naturally longer combats (first round you need to close or find the opponent, second round has more shuffling, maybe a full attack here or on the third round with finishing up happening on the final round if no one else has dropped him).

The wizard could be a threat to life and will from the start -- however against the average good save throw (average being stressed here) the wizard that maximizes his DC and goes for the Save or Die spells is only going to succeed with his best spells 55% of the time. Since he'll generally only have 3~6 of those available he's looking at 3 opponents per day that he can handle on his own with his best spells if he does nothing else with those slots.

Everyone should contribute every round of combat -- for a caster this could be as simple as casting enlarge person or haste or as detailed as summoning monsters or changing the battle field -- but if he has nothing to offer for 1 round of each encounter then he's useless to the party 1/4 of the time against things they should be able to handle with little issue -- so what is he doing to do against opponents that are more difficult.

Now I'll be a little coy and say, "Of course the party has to win every encounter to be successful -- adventuring is dangerous if you fail you are dead and generally don't get a second try."

Again I'm only talking about fights against CR equivalent monsters -- these sorts of fights are (according to the developers) supposed to take 3~5 rounds in general and eat up about 20% of the parties resources, meaning the fifth such fight in a day would generally have a good chance of dropping the party.

If a character is a bit out of bounds with these numbers I'm not going to flog the player and tell him how he's "doing it wrong" -- but I might offer some advice on how to make his concept work better. I'm generally under the impression that the PCs should be major motivators of the world they inhabit (even if they aren't the big dogs) and their success rate should reflect that. In a more gritty campaign there is of course more room for swing, and in a high powered campaign less room.


vuron wrote:

In regards to Hit Bonus vs Monster AC after the first few levels (which are heavy in terms of miss percentage) the success rate of 75% measures the PC success rate without items. With magical items buffing the Hit Bonus success with the first iterative attack should be close to 95% with a full BAB class. 3/4 BAB and iterative attacks should be some percentage behind in terms of hit rates.

...

For me the rate of progression of poor saves is one of the key failings of the game. Even with a reasonably optimized build PCs still fail saves a reasonably high percentage of the time. Against CR +2 or CR +3 monsters the PC success rate is pretty bad.

From a balance perspective this isn't such a bad thing as a failed save on one PC isn't the end of an encounter. It typically means that the PC loses a round of actions at best or is vulnerable to a CDG (insta-death is relatively rare in PF).

These are the two things in your post that jumped out at me, and that I'd like to explore some more. In the top point, this is my experience as well in 3.X/PF, and part of why I enjoy the lower and mid levels more than the high levels. At what level do you think the expectation starts to drift above 75%?

I like your point on saves effecting opponents more than PCs, although I caveat that by saying it is likely because GMs (not really wanting TPKs) don't really play opponents as deadly as they could. Generally, failing against an SoS spell is pretty much the end for the bad guys, but it is usually an inconvenience for the PCs. So I agree that having PCs fail saves pretty regularly doesn't hurt the game, as the consequences aren't as dire now as they were in early editions of the game.


Abraham spalding wrote:

I'm saying the party should be able to expect to win a CR equivalent encounter with little fear.

Now higher CR encounters will be more difficult of course and do not entail a guarantee of winning.

If the Melee types can't convince the opponent that by themselves they are a threat to the opponent's life then what are they doing? I'm assuming best case senerios for them to kill the enemy in 1~2 rounds -- where the enemy is stupid enough to just stand there and let them unload on him with full attacks. This rarely happens which leads to naturally longer combats (first round you need to close or find the opponent, second round has more shuffling, maybe a full attack here or on the third round with finishing up happening on the final round if no one else has dropped him).

The wizard could be a threat to life and will from the start -- however against the average good save throw (average being stressed here) the wizard that maximizes his DC and goes for the Save or Die spells is only going to succeed with his best spells 55% of the time. Since he'll generally only have 3~6 of those available he's looking at 3 opponents per day that he can handle on his own with his best spells if he does nothing else with those slots.

Everyone should contribute every round of combat -- for a caster this could be as simple as casting enlarge person or haste or as detailed as summoning monsters or changing the battle field -- but if he has nothing to offer for 1 round of each encounter then he's useless to the party 1/4 of the time against things they should be able to handle with little issue -- so what is he doing to do against opponents that are more difficult.

Now I'll be a little coy and say, "Of course the party has to win every encounter to be successful -- adventuring is dangerous if you fail you are dead and generally don't get a second try."

Again I'm only talking about fights against CR equivalent monsters -- these sorts of fights are (according to the developers) supposed to take 3~5 rounds...

Thanks for the clarification. I think I understand where you're coming from. My only real difference from you is that I don't think every character needs to contribute in every round of every combat, so long as the group as a whole can handle it. Of course, we play with a group of seven characters, and I think the larger party size allows for more specialization (including the possibility of characters who are designed more for other things than combat effectiveness), and also allows for soem characteres to coast through some encounters while their buddies handle it.


Brian Bachman wrote:


These are the two things in your post that jumped out at me, and that I'd like to explore some more. In the top point, this is my experience as well in 3.X/PF, and part of why I enjoy the lower and mid levels more than the high levels. At what level do you think the expectation starts to drift above 75%?

I don't want to reprint all the tables from Trailblazer but I would suggest that anyone interested in the mechanics behind 3.x look at it.

Basically in regards to Player to Hit vs Monster AC the martial PCs will hover at roughly 60-65% success rate on attacks for levels 1-5, go up to 75% of level 7-8 and then be at 95% for primary attacks from level 9-20. Against CR 21+ the success rate begins to go down again unless you are somehow including an epic ruleset (Don't do it!).

However given that the primary attack represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the expected DPR of a martial PC this stands to reason as his secondary and tertiary iteratives go way down in terms of success rate. 3/4 BAB PCs are typically linger somewhere behind (lower BAB, lower stat modifier, likely less invested in a weapon). 1/2 BAB PCs quickly avoid using martial attacks ;)

Quote:


I like your point on saves effecting opponents more than PCs, although I caveat that by saying it is likely because GMs (not really wanting TPKs) don't really play opponents as deadly as they could. Generally, failing against an SoS spell is pretty much the end for the bad guys, but it is usually an inconvenience for the PCs. So I agree that having PCs fail saves pretty regularly doesn't hurt the game, as the consequences aren't as dire now as they were in early editions of the game.

SoL spells do definitely mean different things to the party and the monsters. The PCs are generally assumed to win most encounters (CR +3 or more being pretty risky). As such even if they suffer a SoL effect that takes one or more PCs out of the fight the rest of team awesome will generally survive and then it means a break enchantment or raise dead/restoration effect and the PCs are back to fighting form. As long as they withdrawal after losing a party member they can generally come back to fight another day. For the Monsters losing a SoL generally means the encounter is either over (Solo fights are not good designs IMHO) or some percentage of the opposition is negated.

The problem is that being inactive is pretty much unfun for players. Even if there really isn't a significant penalty for death (unlike AD&D) you have effectively lost x amount of game time in which your PC is completely out of the fight.

Considering that we have basically been in a phase where player enjoyment/empowerment is the most important factor for most gamers/groups this results in a failure of design.

Notably despite the desire to avoid SoL effects in 4e the stunlock problem was something that was transferred over in the original iterations of 4e. Monsters that could effectively stunlock, especially monsters that could stunlock groups were quickly reviled and later significantly modified.

Also interesting is that the most recent iterations of monsters have significantly increased the rate of player success vs monsters (most noticeably Soldiers) while increasing the dpr of monsters. Monsters last less time but hit harder which is a more rewarding design than long interminable battles where the PCs know that they will eventually triumph but it takes 10 rounds to resolve :D


Abraham spalding wrote:

I'm saying the party should be able to expect to win a CR equivalent encounter with little fear.

Now higher CR encounters will be more difficult of course and do not entail a guarantee of winning.

I'm not sure if you've mentioned it or not, but in PF a "challenging" fight is not CR = APL anymore. It's actually CR = APL + 1. A CR = APL encounter is now considered "average". The concept of a 20% reduction in resources from a "challenging" encounter was from 3.5 (since I can't see it in the PRD). I'm not sure how many "average" encounters you can fight before rest, but I'd imagine it's a lot more than the number of challenging fights in 3.5.


vuron wrote:

... Considering that we have basically been in a phase where player enjoyment/empowerment is the most important factor for most gamers/groups this results in a failure of design.

Again, this statement jumped out at me. It has also struck me that player empowerment is definitely the wave we have been riding ever since 3.0 came out, although I don't actually equate it with player enjoyment, at least not for all players.

Sczarni

Martial Character:

Viable = Can stay in combat with CR appropriate baddy 2-3 rounds. May not be able to drop him solo, but can weather the exchange at least.

Successful = As above, but will drop his foe before the 3rd round.

Overpowered = Can reasonably stay in melee without any fear of death, and/or one-rounds appropriate CR baddies solo.

Skillmonkey:

Viable = Can take 1-1.5 rounds in direct combat before dropping, while dealing 50-75% of damage output of martials.

Successful = Either stays in combat longer, or matches damage output of martial character. (i.e. if they tag-team a CR=APL guy, he's going down in 1-1.5 rounds)

Overpowered = Can't be seen and/or can't be touched with Save spells and/or non-touch attacks, while performing as above.

Skill success should be ~75% likely on most skills, almost auto-success on the "important" set you pick (i.e. the Trapsmith Rogue does not fail to Spot/Disarm traps & locks, unless they are CR=APL+4 or greater. Stealth Monk gets spotted only by Perception-Specialized Skillmonkey Enemy, etc.)

Spellcaster:

Viable = Carries utility & combat magic, uses them successfully 60-75% of the time. Buffs party or creates easier time for others to do their schtick.

Successful = As above, but relies more on party-aiding spells & battlefield control. Keeps party members alive when they otherwise would not have a chance (i.e. Featherfall, Breath of Life, Protection from Energy, etc.)

Overpowered = Can fight as well as Martial while doing the above. Also see: any character that can end 4-5 fights / day without fail solo (Ridiculous DC Infernal Sorcerer Charmer, Gnome Insta-kill Illusionist, Divine Metamagic Cloistered Cleric, Chain-Binding-Conjurer, etc.)

As a party, you should win 85-90% of all fights. If one or more PC's die/become incapacitated in the progress, that still counts, but may seriously impact future success rates.

Short Answer: If, using CR appropriate foes, I can only hit your Fighter on a 20, only save vs. your SoD on a 19-20, or only spot you on a 18-20, there's something wrong.


psionichamster wrote:

Martial Character:

Viable = Can stay in combat with CR appropriate baddy 2-3 rounds. May not be able to drop him solo, but can weather the exchange at least.

Successful = As above, but will drop his foe before the 3rd round.

Overpowered = Can reasonably stay in melee without any fear of death, and/or one-rounds appropriate CR baddies solo.

Skillmonkey:

Viable = Can take 1-1.5 rounds in direct combat before dropping, while dealing 50-75% of damage output of martials.

Successful = Either stays in combat longer, or matches damage output of martial character. (i.e. if they tag-team a CR=APL guy, he's going down in 1-1.5 rounds)

Overpowered = Can't be seen and/or can't be touched with Save spells and/or non-touch attacks, while performing as above.

Skill success should be ~75% likely on most skills, almost auto-success on the "important" set you pick (i.e. the Trapsmith Rogue does not fail to Spot/Disarm traps & locks, unless they are CR=APL+4 or greater. Stealth Monk gets spotted only by Perception-Specialized Skillmonkey Enemy, etc.)

Spellcaster:

Viable = Carries utility & combat magic, uses them successfully 60-75% of the time. Buffs party or creates easier time for others to do their schtick.

Successful = As above, but relies more on party-aiding spells & battlefield control. Keeps party members alive when they otherwise would not have a chance (i.e. Featherfall, Breath of Life, Protection from Energy, etc.)

Overpowered = Can fight as well as Martial while doing the above. Also see: any character that can end 4-5 fights / day without fail solo (Ridiculous DC Infernal Sorcerer Charmer, Gnome Insta-kill Illusionist, Divine Metamagic Cloistered Cleric, Chain-Binding-Conjurer, etc.)

As a party, you should win 85-90% of all fights. If one or more PC's die/become incapacitated in the progress, that still counts, but may seriously impact future success rates.

Short Answer: If, using CR appropriate foes, I can only hit your Fighter on a 20, only save vs. your SoD...

Good answers, although I was struck by the fact you first mentioned combat for the Skill Monkey before talking about skills, and that you thought he should autosucceed on his specialties. Regarding the former, I guess I the only thing I want my Skill Monkeys to do in combat is survive and make some slight contribution. You set the bar a little higher than I would for skill use, as well, althougb I can see your point if you are talking about an ultra-focused specialist in one particular skill or small set of skills.


meabolex wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:

I'm saying the party should be able to expect to win a CR equivalent encounter with little fear.

Now higher CR encounters will be more difficult of course and do not entail a guarantee of winning.

I'm not sure if you've mentioned it or not, but in PF a "challenging" fight is not CR = APL anymore. It's actually CR = APL + 1. A CR = APL encounter is now considered "average". The concept of a 20% reduction in resources from a "challenging" encounter was from 3.5 (since I can't see it in the PRD). I'm not sure how many "average" encounters you can fight before rest, but I'd imagine it's a lot more than the number of challenging fights in 3.5.

From the designers posts that I've seen pathfinder supposes that a CR = APL fight should eat up 20% of resources and that should be the "norm" from there is the deviation like you stated.

Remember that each increase of CR increases the failure rate of the PCs by about 10% so increasing CR by 3 means you are giving the PCs a 30% higher chance of failing.


Quote:
So I ask, breaking it down into basic game math, what makes a character "viable" or "successful".

It's really difficult to gauge what makes a character viable. In one situation you're viable, in another you're not. The goal should be to viable in as many situations as possible. More often than not, the solution for true viability *isn't* optimization. The real solution is to have a diverse toolkit of options to use. Being good at dual-wielding short swords is useless when you can't get within 30 ft. of a bad guy. . .

For instance, let's say you're trying to make a viable caster. You want to hit a specific save type (fort/reflex/will) depending on the monster. You also want spells that ignore SR for SR-heavy baddies -- or at least spells that could care less about SR (like buffs). You want spells with different ranges so you can hit a monster at a distance or up close. You want different types of spells respective to the environment. Spells that hit a big area and spells that selectively pick targets in narrow spaces. You want spells that can help your teammates "get out of jail" (free up status effects) or save their bacon. You also want enough protection spells to prevent you/your party from getting smashed by certain *cough red dragon breath cough* things. I'm sure there are other things, but covering those bases will help you out most of the time.


Brian Bachman wrote:
vuron wrote:

... Considering that we have basically been in a phase where player enjoyment/empowerment is the most important factor for most gamers/groups this results in a failure of design.

Again, this statement jumped out at me. It has also struck me that player empowerment is definitely the wave we have been riding ever since 3.0 came out, although I don't actually equate it with player enjoyment, at least not for all players.

Well I'd definitely concur that empowerment is not necessarily equal to enjoyment but in most cases there is significant overlap ;)

However my essential point is that if you have 3 hours to game in a given week (I wish that I could game even that much) being forced to sit on the sidelines for 30 minutes to an hour while other people get to do the killing can be frustrating. Especially if it's not a particularly uncommon happening.

The consequence for failure in a combat situation exist on a continuum.

Example 1: If the success rate dips too low for to hit vs AC (especially if DR is thrown in) then the game tends to drag. A monster AC that results in a success rate of less than 50% of the martial characters often means that the 3/4 BAB characters miss virtually all the time and the fight lasts too long.

In this case it's almost always better to avoid the one big foe with good defenses in favor of several weaker foes that the whole party can effectively hit.

Example 2: If the success rate for PCs dips too low this can mean that one or more PCs start being nuked by SoL every fight once SoL spells and SLAs become more common. This is compounded if you increase the number of casters by a significant amount or if the opposition is a solo Caster CR +2 or more.

Considering that martial characters often have substandard will saves and will saves often have extremely unfun consequences this can result in significant decrease in player enjoyment of martial PCs.

As a DM I'm always careful about how many SoL spells or SLAs that I throw at the PCs. Even if they are a good tactical choice they are a bad storytelling choice. In some cases a series of bad saves can even result in a death spiral effect as the PCs suffer significant negative consequences for each PC that drops.

Ultimately it's about maximizing player enjoyment while also retaining an element of randomness and challenge. Some players are okay with being immobilized, or petrified, or stunlocked for a fight and others aren't. If you have a group that dislikes being hammered with SoL effects then DM tactics that focus on those abilities/effects can be a serious negative.

I think fundamentally there is a disconnect between some of the old school gamers who often don't mind high mortality and negative spell effects and the newer crowd that view game designs that incapacitate and slay PCs as a significant detractor to their enjoyment of the game.

4e for instance has largely decided that spotlight balance and SoL effects are a negative remnant of traditional D&D gameplay. As such they should be replaced with absolute class balance and heavily limited SoL effects.

PF has decided that some aspects of the old style of play are worth keeping while they should be de-emphasized.


Abraham spalding wrote:
From the designers posts that I've seen pathfinder supposes that a CR = APL fight should eat up 20% of resources and that should be the "norm" from there is the deviation like you stated.

That's odd. A challenging fight in 3.5 is clearly not a challenging fight in PF (3.5: "challenging" versus PF: "average"). So the PF challenging is equivalent in difficulty to a very difficult fight (CR = APL + 1) in 3.5? Based on my extensive PF play in multiple campaigns and extensive DMing with 3.5, I don't think so.

A PF CR = APL + 1 challenging fight feels similar to a 3.5 challenging fight at CR = APL, at least playing with 3.5 using core rules only. I can't imagine that a CR = APL encounter in PF is really using 20% of your party resources on average. That can't be right. . .


Well I'm not going to say they succeeded completely but I would suggest that system mastery could account for the variant that we see in CR = APL as well as difference in character building methods.

Remember the "normal" campaign uses 15 point buy and has no traits with the material from the core rulebook only. With those in place I would suggest that it might be tighter than you think.


vuron wrote:
Lots of good stuff

I hear you on how some players just hate it when their character is taken out early in a long combat, particularly if it happens to that same character often. If it happens all the time, definitely not fun, although in some cases I have been tempted to suggest that player perhaps do something to raise their characters Will save rather than continuing to maximize offensive output if it bothers them so much.

I sort of agree on the care you take with SoL spells, but only to the extent that I try not to metagame my bad guys so that they always know what individual party member weaknesses are. I try to play all foes logically, so that sometimes means ruthless and brutal efficiency from really smart opponents, but a lot less of that from normal foes. I also try not to repeatedly target the same character, unless that character is just so obviously the greatest threat that to do otherwise would be stupid. In that case, by making their character a God they have invited deserved retribution.


meabolex wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
From the designers posts that I've seen pathfinder supposes that a CR = APL fight should eat up 20% of resources and that should be the "norm" from there is the deviation like you stated.

That's odd. A challenging fight in 3.5 is clearly not a challenging fight in PF (3.5: "challenging" versus PF: "average"). So the PF challenging is equivalent in difficulty to a very difficult fight (CR = APL + 1) in 3.5? Based on my extensive PF play in multiple campaigns and extensive DMing with 3.5, I don't think so.

A PF CR = APL + 1 challenging fight feels similar to a 3.5 challenging fight at CR = APL, at least playing with 3.5 using core rules only. I can't imagine that a CR = APL encounter in PF is really using 20% of your party resources on average. That can't be right. . .

The CRs for most monsters in PF are actually more accurate than in 3.x.

NPC encounters in particular with the CR = HD-1 (or more) formula tend to increase their utility in respect to the 3.x model.

Honestly though there is quite a bit of variance at work in terms of what a CR = Average encounter actually means.

I think the game is arguably designed based upon a 4 member party of individuals using elite array. That means the fighter has a Strength of 17, the Rogue a 17 Dex, the Cleric a 17 Wisdom and the Wizard a 17 Int.

If the PCs get their big six at level appropriate rates then they should hover around 75% success rate for the majority of levels from 1-20. Saves as mentioned above are a noticeable exception but that's based on the assumption that one failed save doesn't mean a TPK.

Higher degrees of optimization such as a starting score of 20 in your main stat, higher rates of WBL return (generally a result of self-crafting), and use of extended 3.x material (particularly SC and MiC items) can typically result in a significantly higher success rate.

My personal feeling is that unless the group is very unlucky they should be able to power through more than 5 encounters vs CR = APL encounters without dipping significantly into limited replacement consumables. I do not consider full healing via wands of CLW to be a especially significant drain on resources.


Abraham spalding wrote:
Remember the "normal" campaign uses 15 point buy and has no traits with the material from the core rulebook only. With those in place I would suggest that it might be tighter than you think.

A level 1 fight versus 4 kobolds was a truly challenging affair in 3.5, especially given the few number of abilities per character. A cleric at first level in PF has so much healing relative to a cleric at first level in 3.5 that I could see a party fighting *many* groups of 4 kobolds at 1st level without a rest.


Brian Bachman wrote:
vuron wrote:
Lots of good stuff

I hear you on how some players just hate it when their character is taken out early in a long combat, particularly if it happens to that same character often. If it happens all the time, definitely not fun, although in some cases I have been tempted to suggest that player perhaps do something to raise their characters Will save rather than continuing to maximize offensive output if it bothers them so much.

I sort of agree on the care you take with SoL spells, but only to the extent that I try not to metagame my bad guys so that they always know what individual party member weaknesses are. I try to play all foes logically, so that sometimes means ruthless and brutal efficiency from really smart opponents, but a lot less of that from normal foes. I also try not to repeatedly target the same character, unless that character is just so obviously the greatest threat that to do otherwise would be stupid. In that case, by making their character a God they have invited deserved retribution.

I also try to avoid any sort of metagaming nonsense with most encounters. If the opposition is a BBEG that has been scrying on the PCs or is a recurring villain that knows most of the their strengths and weaknesses then I can see being really meta with my target choices but given the amount of time that most combats would actually be taking up it's generally cast spell/SLA first, think later.

Both Clerics and Fighters are often fairly heavily armed and armored and there is really no reason why most casters wouldn't cast will saves at clerics as much as at fighters in the opening phases of a combat.

If the opposition isn't always precisely targeting the easiest possible target on Team Awesome then the risk of poor saves goes down a significant amount.

Failing the occasional will save is frustrating but if high level opposition is always spamming dominate monster or maze effects at the Fighter things become sucktacular fast.


vuron wrote:
My personal feeling is that unless the group is very unlucky they should be able to power through more than 5 encounters vs CR = APL encounters without dipping significantly into limited replacement consumables. I do not consider full healing via wands of CLW to be a especially significant drain on resources.

According to the guidelines in 3.5 the CLW wands are part of your resources. What constitutes a "resource" is anything your character can do, special abilities, spell slots, items (per day and charged), hp, energy channels, etc. It's a very cumbersome statistic to calculate, especially since resources are not weighted equally.


meabolex wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Remember the "normal" campaign uses 15 point buy and has no traits with the material from the core rulebook only. With those in place I would suggest that it might be tighter than you think.
A level 1 fight versus 4 kobolds was a truly challenging affair in 3.5, especially given the few number of abilities per character. A cleric at first level in PF has so much healing relative to a cleric at first level in 3.5 that I could see a party fighting *many* groups of 4 kobolds at 1st level without a rest.

I think the case can be made that 4 Kobolds was never really that challenging in 3.x either. Even at medium or long range (i.e. no color spray) their slings aren't that great and they are vulnerable to a sleep effect.

That being said, it seems at low levels PF parties are far more durable than 3.x equivalents. Channeling, at will cantrips/orisons, higher base value of stats, etc all contribute to better offense and defense.

1st level killing zones are generally frowned upon in this day in age. PC death is often permanent at levels less than 5-6 due to the high relative cost of purchasing raise dead effects. I'm okay with the challenge of low level encounters being less than high level encounters mainly because the consequences of PC failure are actually significantly greater for low level games.


meabolex wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Remember the "normal" campaign uses 15 point buy and has no traits with the material from the core rulebook only. With those in place I would suggest that it might be tighter than you think.
A level 1 fight versus 4 kobolds was a truly challenging affair in 3.5, especially given the few number of abilities per character. A cleric at first level in PF has so much healing relative to a cleric at first level in 3.5 that I could see a party fighting *many* groups of 4 kobolds at 1st level without a rest.

I disagree about the danger of the 4 kobolds in 3.5 but that might just be me.


meabolex wrote:
vuron wrote:
My personal feeling is that unless the group is very unlucky they should be able to power through more than 5 encounters vs CR = APL encounters without dipping significantly into limited replacement consumables. I do not consider full healing via wands of CLW to be a especially significant drain on resources.
According to the guidelines in 3.5 the CLW wands are part of your resources. What constitutes a "resource" is anything your character can do, special abilities, spell slots, items (per day and charged), hp, energy channels, etc. It's a very cumbersome statistic to calculate, especially since resources are not weighted equally.

While they are a party resource (and prior to level 3-4) a pretty significant resource at higher levels the relative cost of full healing goes way down.

Further I typically have it so that the entire group contributes gold to a general fund for consumables like CLW wands so that the entire burden for healing isn't focused exclusively on the divine casters.

Being stuck being the healbot sucks, if the fighter has to contribute resources to a fund for healing I think that's quite appropriate. Further I typically don't factor joint property consumables like cheapo wands and potions into WBL.

Yes that often makes characters more powerful than they would otherwise be but the actual impact on APL is pretty marginal IMHO.


That's why I stated healing is the party's responsibility and not a single characters. After all bad things can happen to a single character and then the party is screwed so they best make sure to take care of themselves/everyone from the get go.


Abraham spalding wrote:
I disagree about the danger of the 4 kobolds in 3.5 but that might just be me.

Play a wizard with 3 hp and your attitude might change (:

(A 3.5 elf wizard with 2 point buy points put into Con would have a 8 Con. Since 3.5 wizards had a 1d4 hit die, 3 hp would be all you'd have. In PF, an elf wizard with no point buy points in Con and favored class bonus into hp would have 6 hp. Thus a single non-crit hit from a kobold spear could at most reduce the elf wizard in question to 1 hp. A 3.5 version of the same character would be dying.)


meabolex wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
I disagree about the danger of the 4 kobolds in 3.5 but that might just be me.

Play a wizard with 3 hp and your attitude might change (:

(A 3.5 elf wizard with 2 point buy points put into Con would have a 8 Con. Since 3.5 wizards had a 1d4 hit die, 3 hp would be all you'd have. In PF, an elf wizard with no point buy points in Con and favored class bonus into hp would have 6 hp. Thus a single non-crit hit from a kobold spear could at most reduce the elf wizard in question to 1 hp. A 3.5 version of the same character would be dying.)

Looks like said elf broke my rules on viability :D

Again play style differences. Just because one character could fall doesn't mean he would die, and doesn't mean the party was lost and doesn't mean that the encounter was "more difficult" just that things went poorly and the character didn't have enough HP.

Sczarni

Brian Bachman wrote:
stuff

Well, I usually base the "is this a good/bad/excellent character design" on the "can he survive the game?" question. Seeing as how a non-combat Skillmonkey (Expert, in other words) would not really be a fun or interesting character to play as a PC, the ability to contribute when blades come out is necessary.

Now, there ARE ways to negate combat as a Skills Type - Diplomacy, Bluff, Linguistics (forgeries) and the like - but in a typical setup, that will not be viable at least some of the time. Thus, combat-abilities.

As far as the "auto-succeed" on skill checks...perhaps it's just my bias, but a Trapfinder who fails to find traps nearly guarantees his (or her party's) demise. If your schtick is to get through doors or climb up walls, being able to succeed under normal circumstances (not covered in ice, not ability damaged, have the right tools, etc) should be practically a given. At least, after the first couple of levels, when everybody's bit is "try to fail in an elegant fashion."

Some examples of my characters that would be the "skills" type, for clarification:

3.5ed: Shifter Ranger/Reachrunner. Party scout, she had all the physical skills completely maxed out, getting stacking Racial, Class, and Enhancement bonuses to Climb, Spot, Listen, etc. She was not nearly as capable in combat as the other fighter-types, despite having nearly full BAB and decent stats, but she could out-see, out-climb, and out-stealth almost anything in the game.

PF: Human Rogue throughout Second Darkness. Eventually took Skill Mastery, just to be able to Take-10 during combat on things like Acrobatics, Stealth, etc. Party Face & Leader, whose contribution to combat came into play mostly because the rest of the group was playing synergistic classes (Bard, Buffing Cleric, Buffing Sorcerer, etc)


Abraham spalding wrote:

Looks like said elf broke my rules on viability :D

Again play style differences. Just because one character could fall doesn't mean he would die, and doesn't mean the party was lost and doesn't mean that the encounter was "more difficult" just that things went poorly and the character didn't have enough HP.

The encounter is more difficult because the 3.5 wizard had 50% of the hp resources of the PF character. Sure the 3.5 cleric can heal the wizard, but the 3.5 cleric has only 2 to 3 spell slots. He can only heal that damage 2-3 times -- and only for one character. The kobolds can nickel and dime the party with damage until the cleric cannot cope. 6 encounters of 4 kobolds in one day is a huge task for a 3.5 core level 1 group.

The PF cleric has the same amount PLUS 3+ charges of AoE group healing. That is a massive difference. The same kobolds went from being truly challenging to. . . average. 6 encounters of 4 kobolds may not even use half the party's resources.


Quote:
1st level killing zones are generally frowned upon in this day in age. PC death is often permanent at levels less than 5-6 due to the high relative cost of purchasing raise dead effects. I'm okay with the challenge of low level encounters being less than high level encounters mainly because the consequences of PC failure are actually significantly greater for low level games.

OK, let's put the lowest levels aside. I still contend that the system can't honestly expect 20% of "important" resources to be used in a PF fight on average if the encounters are truly CR = APL. In that sense, we really can't judge what is "viable" if the CR system doesn't correspond to our expectations. If we use APL = CR as our base line to determine viability, then we're going to lower the bar beyond what is truly expected.

In virtually every paizo module I've run or played in, the CR is generally above the party's level. . . usually at a +1 for non-climatic fights. Occasionally there's an APL = CR encounter, but it's uncommon. I'll check with my Kingmaker modules today, but I'm pretty sure that's the case.


V = x | S - F, wherein theta approximates pi


psionichamster wrote:


Well, I usually base the "is this a good/bad/excellent character design" on the "can he survive the game?" question. Seeing as how a non-combat Skillmonkey (Expert, in other words) would not really be a fun or interesting character to play as a PC, the ability to contribute when blades come out is necessary.

...snip...

now see, while i appreciate what this thread is trying to accomplish, this comment really illustrates the problems with trying to do so. i have played in at least 3 multiyear campaigns where an expert would have actually been a perfectly viable character. yes, there was combat, but the stuff that was not straight up combat was a much bigger part of the game and often much deadlier.

in those games, the 3.x fighter was completely nonviable at any level of play as it could contribute nothing out of combat. PF has done a lot to change that, and you could actually build a fighter with some decent out of combat abilities, but a "typical" fighter build that i've seen on these boards would still often be standing around with nothing to do.

that said, i've also played in other, usually shorter, games where combat is a huge part.

so it seems to me that viability would have to be some sort of sliding scale. maybe a graph where the y axis is some sort of number that describes viability and the x axis is the importance of combat vs out of combat.


The short version is you should be able to contribute meaningfully to every challenge thrown at you without dying or running out of resources. What constitutes a meaningful contribution changes by role/class.

A skill monkey needs to be able to succeed on taking 10 for open locks/disable device. He also needs to be able to do some damage every round in combat.

A melee character needs to be able to survive minimum 4 combats a day and should be able to 2-round level appropriate challenges (CR=APL).

A caster needs to be able to provide out of combat utility (fly/teleport past obstacles, shrink item, identify, knowledges, etc.) and provide at least one game-changer per combat encounter.

Healer needs to be able to maintain equilibrium as far as party HP total.

Those are the 4 basic roles, but some classes have more than 1 (a cleric is likely a healer but is also a caster and a backup melee). You'll notice also that some of these requirements depend on the viability of your support. You can be both viable skill monkey and viable melee in theory (ranger), or skill monkey/healer (inquisitor).

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Spes Magna Mark wrote:
V = x | S - F, wherein theta approximates pi

Keep your math outta my D&D!


Gimped = Your character has 1 thing he/she is good at and is completely worthless in all other aspects. A fighter with 10 DEX, 10 INT, Full Plate +5 and a Vorpal Mercurial FullBlade +5, but no ranged weapon and no other magical items is an example of this.

Viable = All party members are contributing in various ways. Sometimes you shine brightly, sometimes you don't, but you always contribute. If you find yourself with nothing to do in a lot of encounters, refer to gimped.

Overpowered = You outshine everybody in the party. If it wasn't for you, the party wouldn't survive at all. 2/5 of the party is dead, but you have yet to take damage. You land all the killing blows, yet you've managed to completely replace the skill monkey through magic items.

It's not about how viable your character is on his/her own. It's about how balanced he/she is with the party.


psionichamster wrote:


Well, I usually base the "is this a good/bad/excellent character design" on the "can he survive the game?" question. Seeing as how a non-combat Skillmonkey (Expert, in other words) would not really be a fun or interesting character to play as a PC, the ability to contribute when blades come out is necessary.

...snip...

boards ate my first post so i'll try again.

the quote above really illustrates a big problem with a thread like this. i've played in 3 multiyear campaigns where an expert would have done just fine, and been fun and interesting to play. (though a rogue is better obviously.) not to say there was no combat, just that the noncombat stuff was more frequent and more important to the story, as well as more deadly actually.

a 3.x fighter would have been completely worthless in any of those games at any level of play. a PF fighter could fair much better, but most of the fighter builds i've seen on these boards would be standing around with nothing to do a majority of the time. heck, most of the builds i've seen for any class on here would have been subpar.

i've also played in other, usually shorter, games where combat played a much more central role, and that changes the considerations for viability completely.

so to do this mathematically we're looking at a minimum of an x axis representing the ratio of combat to noncombat importance in any particular game, a y axis representing the level of usefulness/viability of the character in said game, and a z axis representing character level. i'm not going to bring a fourth axis in as that might complicate things a bit.

so to me, to be viable, a character has to be able to contribute meaningfully to 50% of the situations a party faces. ie, the other characters, if they thought about it would say, man, it would have sucked if x wasn't there to help with that.


Well Angryscrub I would suggest that's exactly what we are considering -- just in a normal game setting.

Not to say other settings/ game types are invalid or "unfun/wrong" or anything but unless we start stating each exact campaign type we should stick to the default.


Abraham spalding wrote:

Well Angryscrub I would suggest that's exactly what we are considering -- just in a normal game setting.

Not to say other settings/ game types are invalid or "unfun/wrong" or anything but unless we start stating each exact campaign type we should stick to the default.

aha! awesome. do you have a link to a description of what a normal game setting is?


angryscrub wrote:
aha! awesome. do you have a link to a description of what a normal game setting is?

Not at all I don't need one as it is covered in the Gamemastering section of the book.

However if you want to keep up the snark take it else where since it really isn't helping here. I mean I'm all for snark -- if it is being productive.


Abraham spalding wrote:
angryscrub wrote:
aha! awesome. do you have a link to a description of what a normal game setting is?

Not at all I don't need one as it is covered in the Gamemastering section of the book.

However if you want to keep up the snark take it else where since it really isn't helping here. I mean I'm all for snark -- if it is being productive.

sigh. not snark, a legitimate request. in the gamemastering section i don't see anything remotely approaching a description of a normal game setting.

PRD wrote:

Designing Encounters

The heart of any adventure is its encounters. An encounter is any event that puts a specific problem before the PCs that they must solve. Most encounters present combat with monsters or hostile NPCs, but there are many other types—a trapped corridor, a political interaction with a suspicious king, a dangerous passage over a rickety rope bridge, an awkward argument with a friendly NPC who suspects a PC has betrayed him, or anything that adds drama to the game. Brain-teasing puzzles, roleplaying challenges, and skill checks are all classic methods for resolving encounters, but the most complex encounters to build are the most common ones—combat encounters.

ok, that last sentence there for instance. 40% combat, 30% roleplaying, 20% puzzles, and 10% skill checks means combat encounters are the most common, yet are less than half of the overall encounters.

so in all seriousness, without snark, can you point me to where a normal game is described? it would make these discussions much much easier.


Himmmm... I have a thouhgt

If a game is in fact gamemastered by RAW and the flavor/setting/role playing is removed (is this the setting we are infact discussing?) thus enableing us to discuss Mathematically defineing a "viable" or "successful" character to mutial advantage or are we infact attempting to define mathmaticly a "viable" or "successful" character dispite nay becouse of the aforementioned flavor/setting/role playing present in a veriety of "by RAW" games???

Abraham spalding I am not trying to be mean or snarky it is an honest thought/question as RAW attempts to put us on the same page but the style is what makes the game.


Zotpox wrote:

Himmmm... I have a thouhgt

If a game is in fact gamemastered by RAW and the flavor/setting/role playing is removed (is this the setting we are infact discussing?) thus enableing us to discuss Mathematically defineing a "viable" or "successful" character to mutial advantage or are we infact attempting to define mathmaticly a "viable" or "successful" character dispite nay becouse of the aforementioned flavor/setting/role playing present in a veriety of "by RAW" games???

Abraham spalding I am not trying to be mean or snarky it is an honest thought/question as RAW attempts to put us on the same page but the style is what makes the game.

No no I understand both of you better now -- I took what was being said as snark and now I see it wasn't meant as such -- I apologize.

I generally favor the 40/30/20/10 split. However with role playing being 30% there is room for skills in that but a large (I would suggest major) part of that is the 'character acting' as opposed to anything mechanical. It does use up time and is very important but doesn't necessarily mean system mechanics are involved or needed -- the meleer is probably going to rely on the skill monkey/face for a large portion of this when rolls are needed but hey that's ok since that's what is supposed to happen to some degree it's not the martial character's turn to shine. This isn't to say you can not have a martial character that shines in role playing/diplomacy and is a face of the party -- but it isn't assuming that case either.

With 20% traps and 10% puzzles we have time for the casters and skill monkeys again with some room for the martial guy as well (somethings just need broken, and who's to say a martial type can't help think out a puzzle). The casters really come in here since many spells can help overcome puzzles and traps just as well as skills can.

Combat however is the "majority" role -- just like Caucasian make up the majority of the USA but are under 50% of the population combat makes up the "majority" of the 'normal' campaign -- also combat is generally more deadly and/or permanent in its dealings with PCs. As such it plays a very important role in defining what is going on at the table.

Finally I would point out that I purposefully included a multi-class option above just in case something like this came up. I did purposefully point out I was ok with a guy that was 90% martial and 10% skills or 75% and 50% something else because no one wants to play a character that can only do one thing. The martial character should bring something else to the table beyond the sheer ability to kill things -- however as a martial type his primary focus should be on ending fights in some sort of violent fashion.

It comes done to focus for the character involved. It is reasonable to think that a martial type character should be good at martial activities like killing things and not being killed. That doesn't mean he can't be good or decent in other activites -- just that he needs to be good at his focus.

Just like a martial character that only focuses on melee without regard to flying creatures or things faster then him a character that completely focuses only on say combat or skills and role playing isn't doing his best for his party.

Each type must be good at what they do -- but it shouldn't be the only thing they do either.

My over all understanding of the thread was that we were here to establish minimums for character types. As such at a minimum each character should be good at what his focus is. Beyond that is where players and characters grow.

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