I wonder where Orthos is? On my Forum Drinking Bingo, I have to finish my drink every time he favorites a post of mine ;)
I wondered when this thread would descend into dev bashing.
Welp, time to play the Message Board Drinking Game...
ok, what is that? (grabs bottle of vodka)
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Honestly claiming that devs have a better understanding of the game isn't really true at all, they're just people. They're roughly as smart as we are and to be honest a lot of us probably have more hands on experience with the system than they do because we play more. They will almost always have a better understanding of the intent behind the rules but when they're written down wrong that doesn't really help.
My brother said something very insightful earlier. Those who know a game best are its players. It is the players that keep the game alive. It is the players who often end up fixing the problems with the game. They do it out of a labor of love rather than because it's their job.
He was talking about PC games, but the translation is perfect for D&D as well. There are MANY people on these very boards that do very good developmental work. There's a lot of stuff on the Giant in the Playground forum that is better put together than a lot of the stuff Paizo or WotC developed and published. There are many people here who wouldn't be caught dead publishing something like Prone Shooter, Vow of Poverty, Elephant Stomp, etc.
Pathfinder itself is little more than a big mod released for d20 D&D, putting them pretty much on the same level as everyone else. I realized a long time ago that designing something good is as simple as doing it. It can take practice, it can take time, and it might require you to learn something new. There is no sacred voice from on high mountains spreading the secrets of gaming truth down to the ignorant masses.
Perhaps it's me being old fashioned but I tend to think of characters from an actual roleplaying perspective. I mean, it seems like most adventuring parties aren't made up of childhood friends or family members or some other thing preventing people from being more than friends or peers.My groups tend to be longtime friends or family members. At least if we are talking about a campaign. We have done one-shots with a motley crew before but in a "Save-the-World" type game the "band of strangers" seems odd. Most fantasy fiction is done the same way (at least the ones I've read) there is some beforehand knowledge of each other before calamity strikes. Otherwise it would just be silly for the Gnome Alchemist and the Kobold Sorcerer to team up with the Half-Orc Ranger with favored enemy (small creatures) without some sort of reason.
Well it's not uncommon for characters in many games to have wildly different backstories and motivations. Even Adventure Paths tend to swing this way even though they often give you hooks to get everyone involved in the game together. The idea of multiple adventuring companies is something that spans many campaign settings. In essence, a lot of people can't or won't make characters that are related so closely. This is doubly so in the case of conflicting alignments or cultures (a haughty Chelaxian citizen can end up in a party with a former halfling slave for example).
If someone is a liability then they actually just need to stay home. This is doubly so if they are someone you care about like a childhood friend or relative.
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In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.
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In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.
What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
Oddly, if the players know the best, doesn't the fact they pay money for the work of the developers and don't pay money for the work of others speak to the quality of the work of others...
Sometimes it's a matter of why buy the cow. In other cases it's a matter of whether or not you can buy it in the first place. There are examples of fans who have gone into publishing because of their love of the game. Dreamscarred Press for example has become a much beloved publisher. This is from the DSP site.
Something my wife brought to my attention is that we don't really have anything on our site about just who we, the owners and authors of Dreamscarred Press, are outside of these mysterious writers, publishers, and developers.
While I work on a better solution than a blog post, I figure this is a good place to start!
I'm Jeremy Smith and I've been playing RPGs in some form or fashion for over 20 years, starting back in the mid-80s with computer RPGs such as Phantasie III : The Wrath of Nikademus. 20 years later and I still remember that game. I played other computer RPGs such as the Ultima series (primarily Ultima IV) then later into games such as Pool of Radiance. I got into tabletop roleplaying games later, around the mid-90s, and into Psionics with the Psionicist Handbook for AD&D 2nd Edition.
I was born and raised in upstate New York, although I now reside in Texas with my wife of 5 years who is a gamer like me and shares my enjoyment of computer and tabletop roleplaying games. I'm a computer programmer by day and a RPG developer in my spare time.
I've been developing content for psionics for about 7 years now, starting with material posted on the Wizards of the Coast forums back during the 3.0 and 3.5 days. It was truly the release of Complete Psionic that prompted me to get the ball rolling on what I considered to be a "better" book, taking some of the best fan-created content and adding a whole bunch more and publishing Untapped Potential: New Horizons in Psionics, working with other great developers like Brian Dupuis, Greg Jacob, and Michel Fiallo-Perez.
That project taught me just how little I truly knew about publishing for anything, let alone for role-playing games. Over the course of the next five years, I would lead Dreamscarred Press, and we as a company have published over 50 PDFs of varying lengths covering a variety of concepts.
Psionics Unleashed has caught me a bit by surprise in how successful it continues to be. I have no doubt as to the quality of the material, but the reception has been more than I could even have hoped for. The success of the book has opened up a wide variety of doors for Dreamscarred Press as well as me personally. We have begun working with other publishers in a significantly greater capacity than previously, doing some consulting work on other publishers' products, granting permission to show compatibility with our books, and taking on a variety of freelancers to produce books we had only dreamed of doing just a few years ago.
Although I would love someday to have Dreamscarred Press be my primary source of income, today it helps primarily to fund itself and gives some extra money to afford some extra luxuries. But, I consider that to be pretty successful for something Andreas and I both do in our spare time.
I myself have had people ask for my assistance with things on a pretty regular basis. If I can write stuff that people find fun and functional...well I guess damn near anyone could. :P
In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
I guess. But they wouldn't be an amateur then. (Also, human nature being what it is, I suspect there'd be a certain amount of blaming "the mainstream", the marketing power of their competitors or just a general "I'm ahead of my time" vibe (or the similar "people just didn't get it...").
Honestly claiming that devs have a better understanding of the game isn't really true at all, they're just people. They're roughly as smart as we are and to be honest a lot of us probably have more hands on experience with the system than they do because we play more. They will almost always have a better understanding of the intent behind the rules but when they're written down wrong that doesn't really help.My brother said something very insightful earlier. Those who know a game best are its players. It is the players that keep the game alive. It is the players who often end up fixing the problems with the game. They do it out of a labor of love rather than because it's their job.
He was talking about PC games, but the translation is perfect for D&D as well. There are MANY people on these very boards that do very good developmental work. There's a lot of stuff on the Giant in the Playground forum that is better put together than a lot of the stuff Paizo or WotC developed and published. There are many people here who wouldn't be caught dead publishing something like Prone Shooter, Vow of Poverty, Elephant Stomp, etc.
Pathfinder itself is little more than a big mod released for d20 D&D, putting them pretty much on the same level as everyone else. I realized a long time ago that designing something good is as simple as doing it. It can take practice, it can take time, and it might require you to learn something new. There is no sacred voice from on high mountains spreading the secrets of gaming truth down to the ignorant masses.
That may be true, but it still doesn't give everyone free reign to just insult the devs and their work and intelligence just because we don't agree with their work, especially since despite all that, they are usually really good about listening to their fans and interacting with them. There are always ways to express complaints without being a c#$! about it, and I wish more people on these forums did that. And mistakes (like Prone Shooter) are bound to happen. I'm sure the people on GitP and especially here have posted various rules, abilities, feat, etc. that have been met with criticism and complaints. Point is, constructive and polite criticism is always better and more appreciated than screaming how the devs are retarded for whatever reason. And a lot of times, you'll gradually get FAQs and things changed, like Prone Shooter. It's a slow process, but it works. And I'd rather be politely critical of anyone, dev or not, than a complete douche.
In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.
Yeah, I actually did a little game writing. I found it very hard, and this is why I give the FT pros full respect. I know how hard it is.
I guess. But they wouldn't be an amateur then. (Also, human nature being what it is, I suspect there'd be a certain amount of blaming "the mainstream", the marketing power of their competitors or just a general "I'm ahead of my time" vibe (or the similar "people just didn't get it...").In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
In my case I'm too busy with other stuff in my life to put a lot of effort into doing more than writing articles and the occasional gift. But I've seen other people who do great, great work who are still considered amateur. As Jeremy points out Dreamscarred began as nothing but a fan project (I remember those days as I loved to frequent the WotC boards). And the fans made a better sourcebook for psionics than the Complete Psionics could have ever hoped to have been.
That may be true, but it still doesn't give everyone free reign to just insult the devs and their work and intelligence just because we don't agree with their work, especially since despite all that, they are usually really good about listening to their fans and interacting with them. There are always ways to express complaints without being a c!!~ about it, and I wish more people on these forums did that. And mistakes (like...
Whats with Prone Shooter? I see ppl hating on it almost as much as monks and rogues
I dont play ranged much so I guess its a case of Ive never used it or really looked at it. Can you explain why its such an issue?
In its old incarnation (if I recall correctly), it removed the penalty for shooting while prone with a crossbow and firearms. Except that there was no penalty for that. Now it lowers the AC penalty against melee attacks when prone, and increases the AC for ranged attacks when prone. Better, albeit more situational. Made mostly for sniper types or dealing with more ranged attacks.
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In my case I'm too busy with other stuff in my life to put a lot of effort into doing more than writing articles and the occasional gift. But I've seen other people who do great, great work who are still considered amateur. As Jeremy points out Dreamscarred began as nothing but a fan project (I remember those days as I loved to frequent the WotC boards). And the fans made a better sourcebook for psionics than the Complete Psionics could have ever hoped to have been.I guess. But they wouldn't be an amateur then. (Also, human nature being what it is, I suspect there'd be a certain amount of blaming "the mainstream", the marketing power of their competitors or just a general "I'm ahead of my time" vibe (or the similar "people just didn't get it...").In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.
Creating a rule book is much more than creating rules. As an amateur you don't have to make the hard choices around space constraints, broad appeal and (crucially) deadlines.
In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.Yeah, I actually did a little game writing. I found it very hard, and this is why I give the FT pros full respect. I know how hard it is.
Don't get me wrong. I have much respect for the Paizo team. I'm in no way suggesting that their jobs are easy. It takes a lot of love and consideration to make good rules. What I am saying is everyone are just people and you are and will always be judged on the quality of your work. I do not run a computer repair service officially but I frequently get requisitioned to fix computers locally by word of mouth, often getting requests from people I've never heard of or met before 'cause I fixed somebody else's computer and they told them.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the guy you got had a business card or even a business as long as your computer is fixed. :P
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I'd love to live in this fantasy land where being the most skilled or gifted at a craft meant you were the most successful and "best" at it.
Maybe in that world, Justin Beiber is not the greatest singer of our times.
Since how good someone is can only be measured by commercial success and all.
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I guess. But they wouldn't be an amateur then. (Also, human nature being what it is, I suspect there'd be a certain amount of blaming "the mainstream", the marketing power of their competitors or just a general "I'm ahead of my time" vibe (or the similar "people just didn't get it...").In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
I kind of feel like until you can actually support yourself on sales (or at minimum earn minimum wage vs effort), it is a hobby and you aren't a pro.
And I agree 100 with the blaming the market. I just find it interesting when someone says the players know best, while at the same time saying the market (made up of the players) is an unreliable mark of quality.
In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.Yeah, I actually did a little game writing. I found it very hard, and this is why I give the FT pros full respect. I know how hard it is.Don't get me wrong. I have much respect for the Paizo team. I'm in no way suggesting that their jobs are easy. It takes a lot of love and consideration to make good rules. What I am saying is everyone are just people and you are and will always be judged on the quality of your work. I do not run a computer repair service officially but I frequently get requisitioned to fix computers locally by word of mouth, often getting requests from people I've never heard of or met before 'cause I fixed somebody else's computer and they told them.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the guy you got had a business card or even a business as long as your computer is fixed. :P
You've actually fixed a computer though.
The guy with ten thousand posts and twenty thousand opinions hasn't actually produced a rule set.
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It's easy to bash a developer when you yourself are not writing hundred of pages of feats, monsters, archetypes, rule systems, etc a year for public consumption. I suspect most of the people here would do far far worse if they were in the developer's shoes.
I also get a sense that the rules are not written for power gamer optimizers...I suspect most people play at a level where they are not endlessly tweaking their characters for ridiculous amounts of damage, etc.
I'd love to live in this fantasy land where being the most skilled or gifted at a craft meant you were the most successful and "best" at it.
Maybe in that world, Justin Beiber is not the greatest singer of our times.
Since how good someone is can only be measured by commercial success and all.
That's easy. It's skill and being gifted at marketing ;)
Of course, one could say that in the case of Justin Beiber, it is more a product of his fans having simple and low standards and being easier to manipula- I mean, please than other bands :)
It's always easy to write music for hormone-driven angsty teenagers.
He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.
Practice makes perfect. Untapped Potential was leaps and bounds better than the "professional" book at the time. So he was an amateur who was producing better quality material than the professionals. That's all my point is.
Creating a rule book is much more than creating rules. As an amateur you don't have to make the hard choices around space constraints, broad appeal and (crucially) deadlines.
Oh yes. All those things are major considerations in a product. In fact I'm sure that these sorts of things are one of the major reasons that there are not many more people publishing books and instead sharing their labors of love with their communities through messageboards and similar.
I never said it was easy to be a publisher of rulebooks.
I guess. But they wouldn't be an amateur then. (Also, human nature being what it is, I suspect there'd be a certain amount of blaming "the mainstream", the marketing power of their competitors or just a general "I'm ahead of my time" vibe (or the similar "people just didn't get it...").In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.What if...and this is purely hypothetical of course, an amateur produced a product for the market and found it did not sell, was poorly reviewed and frankly widely panned.
Wouldn't you think that would be a humbling enough experience to not continue telling the Devs they don't know what they are doing?
I kind of feel like until you can actually support yourself on sales (or at minimum earn minimum wage vs effort), it is a hobby and you aren't a pro.
And I agree 100 with the blaming the market. I just find it interesting when someone says the players know best, while at the same time saying the market (made up of the players) is an unreliable mark of quality.
In my view its because they are misunderstanding what the aim is. Rules consistency is important, of course, but there's a whole bunch of other factors the developers consider that the amateurs don't need to - hence they can sit back and criticise the rules as if prone shooter (for example) was included as a deliberate act.
The other perceived inconsistencies are similar, in my view. There's a wealth of factors we don't know about, the big one being that the time pressures seem immense. Once the amateur has invested a few thousand bucks, put out a product or two and then started having to write the next one before the first couple are even released. I'll be more inclined to think they know what they're talking about.
As it is, they have the luxury of poring over their amateur offering for hours and hours - and if it turns out to be poorly received they just post a tweaked version. Publishing is a completely different thing to house ruling.
I think another broad assumption by the 3e devs that seems to be carried over to Pathfinder is to overrate spontaneous casting.
PF did not overrate it. They were well aware of the wizard's power over the sorcerer, but part of the appeal and marketing plan was backward compatibility with 3.5, so they could only change so much if they wanted to bring the 3.5 crowd over. Some things they could have changed more, but it is hard to tell at times what they could and could not get away with.
He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.Practice makes perfect.
He's better than he would have been if he'd not gone into business.
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I think another broad assumption by the 3e devs that seems to be carried over to Pathfinder is to overrate spontaneous casting.PF did not overrate it. They were well aware of the wizard's power over the sorcerer, but part of the appeal and marketing plan was backward compatibility with 3.5, so they could only change so much if they wanted to bring the 3.5 crowd over. Some things they could have changed more, but it is hard to tell at times what they could and could not get away with.
This is another excellent point (and particularly pertinent to the OP). Backwards compatibility was a huge constraint faced by the designers.
In nearly every field, amateurs think they're better than they are. It's easy to maintain that confidence if you never have to produce something that actually gets tested in the market - you can just ignore a whole bunch of factors that actual game designers can't afford to.Yeah, I actually did a little game writing. I found it very hard, and this is why I give the FT pros full respect. I know how hard it is.Don't get me wrong. I have much respect for the Paizo team. I'm in no way suggesting that their jobs are easy. It takes a lot of love and consideration to make good rules. What I am saying is everyone are just people and you are and will always be judged on the quality of your work. I do not run a computer repair service officially but I frequently get requisitioned to fix computers locally by word of mouth, often getting requests from people I've never heard of or met before 'cause I fixed somebody else's computer and they told them.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the guy you got had a business card or even a business as long as your computer is fixed. :P
You've actually fixed a computer though.
The guy with ten thousand posts and twenty thousand opinions hasn't actually produced a rule set.
Neither has anyone at Paizo to my knowledge. Not on their own anyway. Arguably not at all, given that the vast majority of the rules weren't written by any member of the Paizo staff anyway and were just conversions to some mods.
Don't get me wrong. It's a lot of modding. And I'm not sure how many people were involved in the development (I know Jason Bulmahn has the author credit but he's the lead designer which suggests that there are sub designers).
Not even the original 3.x was written by one person.
You've actually done the thing being compared. That was the point. Coming up with a few house rules is the equivalent of assembling a kit computer - not being a computer technician.
He's better than he would have been if he'd not gone into business.He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.Practice makes perfect.
That seems like a pretty unsubstantiated claim. How can you prove this? And is there a reason you're ignoring the part where I pointed out how they produced a book - as amateurs - that was at the time much better than the professional alternative?
Are you just trying to be hard to get along with or something?
That seems like a pretty unsubstantiated claim. How can you prove this? And is there a reason you're ignoring the part where I pointed out how they produced a book - as amateurs - that was at the time much better than the professional alternative?He's better than he would have been if he'd not gone into business.He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.Practice makes perfect.
It is an unsubstantiated claim. It's my opinion. (I was rewording it, since it seemed like you'd misunderstood my point).
I didn't address the follow up point because I have no idea if it was better. How did you determine that? The only objective measure seems to be sales.
You've actually done the thing being compared. That was the point. Coming up with a few house rules is the equivalent of assembling a kit computer - not being a computer technician.
I'm not a computer technician. It's not even my job. But I'm good enough with computers through hands on experience that I know how to deal with most issues and provide technical support, advice and recommendations for software, hardware and occasionally test for hardware malfunctions.
I'm not a trained technical support guy, but I've taught the people at my ISP things about their modems they didn't know and usually have a general idea as to where the problem lies before I ever call technical support 'cause my internet is down. I've had tech people thank me for walking them through the process to reset their new model of modem without clearing all the settings in it. But I'm not the technical support guy.
Am I professional as long as I'm getting paid for it? What if it's merely a gratuity? What if I offer to do it pro-bono 'cause it's a little old lady and she doesn't have a lot of money? Does that mean I'm not going to be able to fix her computer? Do I need to have a set rate or should I be paid by the hour for their computer to be fixed better? If I give them a receipt does it mean their computer runs better than if I don't?
There are many people here who wouldn't be caught dead publishing something like Prone Shooter, Vow of Poverty, Elephant Stomp, etc.
There also ideas some of these people would never have thought of that are good. Every developer lays an egg sometimes, even after creating something that the masses loves, and even those of us who would never be consistant at putting out quality work will come up with something really good.
The key to greatness in any occupation is consistency. The guy who averages 10 points a game, but occasionally scores 30 points will never be as valuable as the guy who gives you 20 points night in and night out.
PS: I am sure I can create a better fighter than the PF fighter, but I don't have a deadline to meet either.
PS2: Ok last PS... :)
I am not saying they give us perfection. I still don't agree with vital strike being a standard action that can not be used with a charge, but all points must be considered, and often they are not.
Oh, and I dont care for VoP either.. :)
That seems like a pretty unsubstantiated claim. How can you prove this? And is there a reason you're ignoring the part where I pointed out how they produced a book - as amateurs - that was at the time much better than the professional alternative?He's better than he would have been if he'd not gone into business.He's better than he used to be now that he's doing it for money.Practice makes perfect.It is an unsubstantiated claim. It's my opinion. (I was rewording it, since it seemed like you'd misunderstood my point).
I didn't address the follow up point because I have no idea if it was better. How did you determine that? The only objective measure seems to be sales.
Well let's see...
If you went to the WotC boards and asked about expansion material or Complete Psionics. 9/10 people on those boards would tell you to ignore it and get Hyperconscious and Untapped Potentil instead, citing it as better balanced, better written, and more useful, leading me to the conclusion that it was in fact better received by its audience.
There also ideas some of these people would never have thought of that are good. Every developer lays an egg sometimes, even after creating something that the masses loves, and even those of us who would never be consistant at putting out quality work will come up with something really good.There are many people here who wouldn't be caught dead publishing something like Prone Shooter, Vow of Poverty, Elephant Stomp, etc.
Is that why everyone is freaking out? 'Cause I mentioned that devs can write crappy rules too? Sheesh. Apparently everyone missed the entirety of the point. The point was that people are people. There's nothing about being a developer that makes you infallible. If there was there wouldn't be hundreds of unofficial bugfixes for various PC games all over the place (Bioware/Black Isle released some of the greatest RPGs of all time but there are many fan-released bug-fixes that make their games function as intended).
I haven't stopped buying Paizo products. I never said "lulz paizo sucks and dey can't write rulz". I made a passing comment about what Gnomersy said about them being human and commenting that there are lots of people out there who aren't professionals who have better material available and BAM, suddenly everyone's in a tizzy.
But then again I'm also not going to pretend like they don't write some pretty crappy stuff sometimes. And when I say "they" I mean "Paizo's staff (which includes freelancers)" because to my knowledge they don't stamp the name of the designer on each section that they wrote in a sourcebook, which means literally everything they publish regardless of who wrote it or why will reflect on Paizo. That's life.
It's also one of the reasons that I agree being a publisher would not be cake.
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If you are in any kind of sandbox, you can walk away from anything you can't kill, unless you made some dumpy speed 20' character with no initiative and no magic. Then you deserve to die. Adventuring isn't like guarding a doorway. You shouldn't use the guarding a doorway build for someone who may have to and who will be allowed to run.
This! This! and This! I never saw the purpose of the skirmisher/swashbuckler/fencer as being to out damage the guy in full plate with a greataxe. The purpose of the light fighter was to have a fighter with a broader range of usefullness.
"what there is a narrow log we have to walk across to get over there. My fighter can't do that!" or "What we have to be on the deck of a ship in a storm...I don't have any ranks in balance!" vs. "My swashbuckler tumbles across the deck of the ship swings on a rope and attacks the enemy!" or
"That guy keeps running away...I only have a 20 ft. move!" vs. "I can charge to cut him off in my light armor!"