Interestingly enough, in many european cultures iron is seen as a magic ward/deterrent against magic creatures. So, steel armour restricting magic could make sense.
Joseph Carreras Still, not the same. As for it being a deterrent against magical creatures .... considering it was a deterrent against human villainy: bars, locks, weapons, shields .... yeah, of course it would be seen as protective against unknown forces on a metaphysical plane as well.
Joseph Carreras I think that depends on how one defines "metaphysical". It's pretty similar with the word "supernatural", as things are either natural, artificial, or don't exists. If anything that is usually called "supernatural" exist, then it is technically natural, and need not be called "supernatural". If something metaphysical exist, then it may not have a physical form, but it has indeed manifested in some way. However, this would make things like electricity metaphysical, but we don't call it that, do we?
An interesting concept that was explored in fantasy back in the 80's/90's is that the iron railroad tracks and the trains that soon ran totally disrupted all ley lines bringing a complete end to cross over between realms.
Steel is mostly iron. We're talking about creatures largely considered to not be real and whether or not heavy steel armor which could hamper hand gestures important to spell casting would be impeded by mostly iron armor.
I've always found class systems fun, it feels like im playing chess,all the pieces have individual roles which i have to balance, particually in games like ff9.
@Manannan anam in a mmorpg i can see a class system in place cause of people like me who would max out every stat. In a single-player rpg, a less restricted system would work but that game would have to be one hell of a challenge then, personally in that scenario i would want every enemy to pretty much one shot you jus for a challenge or it would feel like skyrim with the nuclear magic mod:P
Still, isn't it better to give the option to use either, than to just be forced to color a coloring book? Most games where there are no specific classes tend to have "base stats" which can be as an alternative to classes. While its not true in the other way.
> that's how all pen and paper rpgs worked No, that's like GURPS works. It's completely levelless and classless but there are archetypes you can use as a starting place. (E.g.) D&D 5e's classes have almost the whole progression written for you. Multiclassing helps but not much.
@@zettovii1367 who is forcing you to use a colouring book? There are literally THOUSANDS of different RPG games. Some are like colouring books, some are a blank canvas. Just play the type you prefer...
It all depends on the game you play. Take Pathfinder for example. If you want to use a sword you use one of your feats two gain proficiency in it, therefore you can now use your sword. You could also choose a different mage class that gives you a sword right from the beginning like a Magi. They can use more martial weapons and learn to use heavy armor, they do this at the expense of higher level magic though as they spent time learning to do that instead. Its all about give and take.
5th edition D&D has also made this a possibility as well. In fact there are rules listed if not in the players handbook in the dungeon master's guide on training in a new skill, tool weapon or armor without using up a feat (which has become an optional rule).
I know I'm super late on this one... When given complete freedom in character creation, and skill choice: players often gravitate towards 2 poles. -The path of least resistance (diablo and PoE many/most builds actively use 1-2 abilities after prebuffing) -META, often created by balance issues (all classes start taking a shield and a rank 1 spell reflect to make magic damage a nonissue) So for the sake of creating 1: complex gameplay and 2: a balanced game Character classes are the crutch many dev studios lean on. Creating a system where players have total control, and dealing with the above issues is an extremely difficult issue to deal with
I think dark souls did pretty good, You have freedom to up the stats of every class then you won't have much power than focusing on 1 class. If you focus on 1 class then there'll be enemies which are prone to your class and some other enemies which are resistant to your class. That is why in soulsborne series you will be having difficulty no matter what you choose.
@@romerus6087 yeah you can have varying difficulty against different bosses depending on your build but you are guaranteed to a have same level difficulty overall game.
Ds1: Giant Dad or Havel Mom. Ds3: Knight or Glass Cannon. I've yet to play ds2. What I'm saying is that if it's classless, then people either max everything or go with the most optimal strategy (Stealth archer in Skyrim.) So, ironically, Classes tend to be the option that actually have people make unique and creative characters and builds.
There are a few reasons for classes except filling a role in a party. 1) Many classes are too unique and have unique features and abilities. You cannot do that with systems like the Elder Scrolls. Why? Because then you'd have endless trees and subtrees of talents to include every single ability. Also because if you're going to specialize in a few talents (like tanking, healing, sneaking etc) you might very well choose a class for that role. So it comes full circle. It also works better in a party of characters. For video games where you control only one character, sure freedom to make whatever is fine. But in a group, you're going to specialize so each character is the best at what they do and classes do that, they specialize you in a role. In DnD, classes represent someone with a background in that class. If you trained for several years in the army, you'd be a fighter/warrior. If you spend years in a monastery, you'd be a Monk. If you spend years in a temple, you'd be a Cleric/Priest or Paladin. If you spend years studying magic, you'd be a Wizard. 2) In DnD, it's not that Wizards cannot use swords, if you're not proficient in them, you get a big penalty to use them. It also represents that they haven't been trained in it. Anyone can pick up a sword, but how many can use it properly against monsters and people? That's why they're not "proficient" in it.
Only commenting on your second point, but why would my wizard not be proficient? Learning how to use a sword well doesn't mean I'm a master swordsmen who can slay 100 men without taking a hit, but that I know how to wield a sword effectively in combat along with my spells. Gaining proficiency in swordsmanship while learning to be a wizard could be the equivalent of going to the gym why studying in school.
Awes0m3n3s5 Because they don't teach sword-fighting in Wizard academies? That's what having only Wizard levels mean. You have devoted all of your time and focus on your studies. Still, you can spend a feat to gain "Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longsword)" and still be a pure Wizard. Or be an Elf, because they gain some free weapon proficiencies because of their traditions. Just because you took the extra time and effort to learn sword-fighting while going to school, doesn't mean that all students learn it. That's what proficiencies represent. Most school students aren't proficient in sword-fighting and neither are Wizardry students.
I would agree, somewhat. The game mechanics of D&D 5e allow one to easily dip into one level of fighter (or another martial class) to get armor and weapon proficiencies. (The best class for that is actually a cleric of the tempest or war domain, because multiclassing into fighter or paladin does not give heavy armor proficiency.) Going for realism, a better system would have been to give all classes most gear, but increase the damage bonuses given to the martial classes, but doing so would make 5e not feel like D&D.
Very true also you have to remember sometimes players are just extremely stupid when they're first playing something so classes give them a guide so they're not trying to hoping for stealth with a 7 foot warrior. Or attacking things in melee range with an archer or mage. People need their hands held since it's like shadowgate on the NES where if the torch goes out they instantly fall on their face and kill themselves.
Srithor That's world building stuff though which most players just want to jump in a club things. Yet I understand it. It'll be something like how Tyranny's character creation and conquest mode work. It's still rigid yet with conquest you have backstory. You character would most like be a world weary monk that wants to be left alone yet could make weapons in his sleep and break bones with a touch. The problem with character building is that you're always a bit bombastic from the start instead of starting off kinda humble and become something to be feared.
For video games it's not a question of realism. Planning and balancing encounters becomes much easier for the developers if the scope of actions in any given scenario is limited to certain predictable combinations. This in turn allows the developers to tune encounters in such a way that they can maximise enjoyment. Don't get me wrong it's entirely possible to make games without classes, and there are some great games out there that take this approach, but this will generally either make it more difficult for the designers or more boring for the players.
not to mention the ones that do, are typically 1 player rpgs. like Skyrim/the Witcher, etc. games like Everquest, WoW, KoTR use classes so that they can balance the power a group of six or 12 or 24+ of you can bring to the table.
Angus Davies you have a very valide point right there. without class restrictions, there will always be ways to make stupidly overpowered characters, which is the reason for Solo rpgs having them, and online rpgs not having them.
I think it more depends on the way the game is designed. If you include training to be part of the process of gaining skills, it means the player would only be able to gain experience in things they use. Then you just balance the game around that restriction. Basically it's possible to do, it just requires more work.
Ultima Online was a really fun game without any classes. It was an MMO so you had group combat, and pvp and everything. It was all balanced and stuff and it was a lot of fun. Also it didn't have levels at all, another restrictive thing a lot of games have. Instead it had experience and you gain experienced in different skills as you used them. I actually think the game is still out, even though it is like 20 years old. That is some solid game making. Though I don't make any statements of how fun the game is at this point, it was very fun back in the day.
Angus Davies, it becomes about realism when an artificial restriction pulls the gamer out of the experience and puts a damper on the fun they can derive from it.
You kind of forgot to cover the point of "training". Where did your character learn to use all this fancy magic? Where did he learn proper swordsmanship? How did he gain the ability to shapeshift? Explaining that is where classes comes in. Personally I've always viewed character classes more like backgrounds. When you play a fighter in D&D, your character learned to fight using several different types of armor and weaponry, not so much with magic and other mystical skills, therefore he uses and develops that skillset. I agree that games which limit the amount of things you can learn throughout your adventure are unnecessary and annoying, but I don't thnk someone who has practiced magic all their life should be able to pick up a weapon like a sword and use it like an expert right away just because they want to. That is perhaps the most unrealistic thing you could do. I, like you, love the way Dark Souls handles it's classes. In that game-series classes are actual backgrounds: they gie you a short description of your past, a skillset (stats) and some equipment to start with. But DS still suffers from the question of training. A question it never answers, since the player character can just pick up any weapon and use all it's most difficult techniques right away... So I think classes and the restrictions they bring are necessary, but I don't see a reason why they should hinder you from learning something new down the line, even if it is just paying for an NPC to teach you the proper forms and stuff.
Personally I think that a character's class works best as a representation of their education, so it should be a large starting pack of skills which you then have a fair amount of freedom to develop further. Some restrictions would be appropriate, considering that certain skills would require you to have learned other skills first; you could hardly expect to be able to pick up an advanced technique without first learning the basics.
Jens Bugge Exactly my point: you should have a fair bit of freedom with your character, but how do you justify it when your character knows the basics of literally every type of weapon, armor and spell. True, they may not be very skilled at it, but even basic swordsmanship requires a whole lot of investment. Implementing this kind into future RPGs would, in my opinion, be one of the most immersive things they could do. A system which rewards you for branching out to other skills, but makes it clear that you can't just suddenly do it without effort
firstoftheoutcast It's also important to make sure that a character can't become good at everything. So having a definitive limit to the total number of skill points or the like they have available to spend; i.e. no SP-grinding.
Jens Bugge Well... while I agree with you on principle, I can't shake the feeling that too many of these "restrictions" would hinder the games accessibility. Only a few hardcore RPers like you and me would buy that kind of game, I think. That would be bad.
firstoftheoutcast If someone doesn't like an RPG because they can't make their character good at everything then they should not be playing an RPG in the first place; it's not that kind of game.
Speaking purely from a D&D/Pathfinder perspective -multiclass. Or take a feat (weapon proficiency etc)-or just wield the weapon you want to wield as a wizard or a rogue and take the to hit penalty because you are untrained with that weapon type. I like the idea of a classless system but in my experience a lot of people like classes-they like being defined-at least to some extent. They like having a core to build on rather than having to figure out how to build a certain character type from scratch. Same goes for spells. There are systems that let you make a spell but most players (in my experience) prefer to have a list of pre-existing spells to choose from. A lot of players just aren't that bothered about creating their own thing-at least not from the ground up.
Peter Anckorn &@Bjorn Arnesen Exactly my thinking! Multiclassing is not a solution, as it is still limited by the class system. "Just add another class" does not answer the issue of classes as a rule being more limited. The real and obvious solution is instead of the classes being the only options, they can simply be a choice available to build on in a more flexible character creation system. Any good freeform system will provide examples/templates to make the process faster and easier. I'm working on such a thing right now for my own personal roleplaying game which is very freeform and complex for the very same reasons.
In my experience most people dont like classes, it just makes it easier for new players but restricts knowledgible players too much in the end. Everyone that wants a "class" can still make one in a classless system, just without the artificial restrictions of "heavy armor cant sneak" or "non cloth cant cast spells" or "magic requires a staff" etc. which are all arbitrary and unrealistic.
@@impossibletetriz563 Dude thats my point... People argue as if Hands or Staffs as weapons and cloth as armor are the only choices for a completely fictional mechanic... Use Magic however you want and stop following stereotypes, it just gets super boring and stale.
I disagree with your assessment, not the least because I disagree with your assessment of the justification. You see it from a metagaming perspective, but they have a valid in-game role. Looking at real life, I'm a pretty decent scientist and orator inasmuch as presentations and speeches are concerned. But already when public speaking is concerned, I'm a piss poor salesperson and while I might improve on that to some degree with lots of coaching, it will never be something that will be natural to me. And I'll never be an athlete, either. That's what character classes do - they are a way to describe the aptitudes and talents of a character just as much as the weaknesses. The notion that wizards are not allowed to use swords is one that some RPGs practice, but by far not all of them. Many allow the full spectrum of items to be used. Just that your wizard's training and aptitudes will never allow him to become a master at swordplay because not only does his natural aptitude lie elsewhere, the focus of his training does, too. D&D may be a good point of reference which everyone knows, but at this point in time, acting as if its mechanics were representative of RPGs in general is a wee bit bold. Allowing players to pick whatever they want at levelup would not really work in my eyes not the least because it's unrealistic. You can't just pick up whatever you want on a whim. But not the least, it is also very seductive in luring the player into metagaming - "Hey, I just found a sword +3 of world domination, but I don't have any skill in swords. I know! Let's just pick up sword skill at the next levelup!" Unlikely thoughts for a character for whom a sword would feel very strange and non-natural in their hands. There would have to be a far greater motivation for someone like that to take some time out and learn how to handle that weapon effectively (e.g. "It's the only weapon that can slay the demon that killed my family. I found it, but now I need to learn how to use it!")
You could accomplish a similar thing with skill trees. For example you have separate trees tied to the equivalent of base stats: skills related to intelligence, athleticism, etc. The restriction in this case is that you can't, say, suddenly be able to run along walls without first having related, yet simpler and easier to acquire, skills. Now bear in mind that a character's abilities aren't based so much on what comes naturally to them as what they've dedicated time and effort into learning how to do, and while a player may tend to stick with a certain set of skills, they don't have to.
Alex Carter I don't see how that does what I say it should do. And any learning relates to what comes natural to someone - the more of a knack you have for something, the quicker you are likely to pick it up. And yes, if you pose no limits, a player may decide not to stick to a certain set of skills. But that, in my eyes, is a bug, not a feature. You're highly unlikely to pick up nuclear physics in evening school at age 50 if you work two other jobs and haven't really dealt with complex mathematics for 30 years.
Shadowrun doesn't have classes and yet it has clear character types such as hacker, social talker, street samurai, mage, etc and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from learning any skill or using any equipment at all (beyond not able to use magic unless you were born with the ability to do so of course). You want your mage to be good at spotting things? No problem. Your hacker is a skilled pickpocket? No problem. Your pretty elf with the award winning smile carries a machine gun with armor piercing explosive rounds an attached chainsaw for when people refuse to listen? No problem.
Historically, Knights have been known to be competent and well trained in oration, music, fighting (both with weapons, without and archery), hunting, theology, warfare, and probably a dozen other things I can't remember. They also had to be well read on all manner of diverse subjects. This was not specific to Europe (or to the medieval ages) either, and some countries had some rather extreme regimens for certain members of their population. What I'm getting at is that humans have historically been expected to (and succeeded) be very competent in multiple fields. The idea of extreme specialisation is a relatively recent phenomenon. Sure, one could say that not everyone had the money and resources for pay for such a regimen. But then again, it's not like these people had any innate ability to be better than less funded individuals of their time. The fact you have to specialise to be an archer who can barely wear armour and hardly knows how to wield any other type of weapon is ludicrous. The very idea that not a single wizard could possibly eccentric enough (if this there was a social stigma against sports) or enjoy physical activity in any way is an incredibly narrow-minded way of viewing humans. If their magic drained their physical abilities then perhaps that might explain their frailty. If metallic armour prevented them from zapping everyone in the room, then wear a gambeson! Of course, not everyone goes the D&D route as you mentioned. But the prevalence of extreme specialisation, especially in an era where it was done, has always frustrated me. To the point of writing this long and probably pointless comment.
Janus "Historically, Knights have been known to be competent and well trained in oration, music, fighting (both with weapons, without and archery), hunting, theology, warfare, and probably a dozen other things I can't remember. They also had to be well read on all manner of diverse subjects." If you believe their own propaganda, yes. As a matter of fact, many wouldn't have known to write a single word, "hunting" involved having a bunch of helpers trapping the prey or driving it right where the lord was waiting for it. " Sure, one could say that not everyone had the money and resources for pay for such a regimen. But then again, it's not like these people had any innate ability to be better than less funded individuals of their time. " Yes, they did - well-fed parents and a full larder, which helps quite a bit. "The fact you have to specialise to be an archer who can barely wear armour and hardly knows how to wield any other type of weapon is ludicrous. " Not really. Your average archer was part of the general population. Aside from the use of the bow, he knew how to tend fields, raise cattle or pigs, make shoes or grow wine. And had all hands full doing all of that. "The very idea that not a single wizard could possibly eccentric enough (if this there was a social stigma against sports) or enjoy physical activity in any way is an incredibly narrow-minded way of viewing humans. If their magic drained their physical abilities then perhaps that might explain their frailty. If metallic armour prevented them from zapping everyone in the room, then wear a gambeson!" And the very idea that spending time on physical activity does not reduce the time you have to train other things is incredibly ludicrous. "But the prevalence of extreme specialisation, especially in an era where it was done, has always frustrated me." It wasn't done half as much as you imagine. There's a reason lords hired fencing instructors, people whose entire life revolved around mastering combat, be it as instructors or champions in judicial duels. There's a profound difference between being able to do something and being a master at it. You want to be really good at something, you have to invest A LOT of time into. Time that you don't have for other exploits.
I think in RPG, balance is a very extensible concept. If you need a balance in combat abilities, then the class system doesn't make it any better. For example, the difference between a wizard and a warrior in DnD is the complete superiority of the wizard in combat and various non-combat actions.
I think the wizard thing can be explained as that the training required to use magic is so time-consuming that they simply don't have enough time to train with weapons and armor. Also for balance, but whatevs
Well yeah, but that’s like saying someone who’s spent their whole lives becoming a master carpenter or a master chef wouldn’t be able to use a gun. Would they be able to use it as effectively as a soldier? No. But would they be able to still kill someone/something with it? absolutely.
Then just make the damage they deal with a staff grant more damage compared to when they use a sword. Like a class bonus damage skill thing. If we ignored iron being like some kind of magic blocker. We could say that it's easier for magic builds to go with robes because those kind of clothing allow their casting time not to be affected and allows them to dodge. While heavier armor does protect them more. It just let's them be staggered in battles and slowed down. It's up to the magic user really.
Yup, something similar was in Lineage 2, you was able to use any weapon or armor on any class (but not all races was able to use Heavy Armor, but it was explained why), but you did not get passive benefits from that (all classes have Passive skills there, so mage class get bonuses for magic weapons - books, stuffs, magic blunt and magic sword weapons, or archer have passives for bows, but still was able to use sword. Just magic was restricted for just magic characters, so, you still was able to use stuff on archer, but you can't cast magic, cos your character did not have magic resource for that...), but sometimes, in certain situations it was useful to use non class weapon, like on Destroyer/Berserker to use a bow to fight long range enemies, or using swords in both hands on some mage supports.... (but did not see anything even similar in modern games, today or classes are very restricted or have no classes at all, and both scenarios bring some weird thing sometimes)
Character Classes create Diversity. Generally what happens when there is free creation is that people become mostly self sufficient. Restrictions create distinct weaknesses so people are forced to work together. People also tends to also gravitate towards the basic archetypes anyways. Example of ArcheAge that has a system that allows for 120 Distinct Classes, yet about 8-12 specific combinations are used over 95% of the time.
I've never played a game of D&D where people didn't have to come to an agreement before chargen who was going to play what class because if two or more people are the same class the party couldn't survive. Classes actively prevent any diversity and force players to assume roles to accommodate survival-level diversity in a group.
I've never played a game of D&D where people planned ahead the classes everyone was going to be. I have played in over 50 tables in the last 20 years too. Hell, in the last 5 tables I played at didn't even have any of the dedicated Healer classes like Bard, Cleric, or Paladin. People just made due with potions and 'rotation' tanking. Character Classes creates diversity because it forces everyone from having access to clearly better stuff. I made a quick poll in my wednesday game. Asked - "If you could have 1 class feature from any class with no penalty, what would you grab?" All the 3 Archers(1 Fighter, 2 Rangers) said Sneak Attack, the Barbarian said Paladin's Lay on Hands, and Rogue wanted Pact of the Blade from Warlock to be able to hide a Dagger inside his body. That's what lack of Classes does. It makes people gravitate towards a few of the stronger choices.
I abjectly refused to believe that you've played 50 games of D&D without discussion of who will play which class, much less an argument over who's going to play the healer class. It is more fundamental to D&D than jokes about saving versus ridiculous BS. I will also never understand why anyone every thinks that being forced to do things you don't want to do with your character is an appealing trait in a role playing game. It certainly doesn't create diversity. You just told us you're playing a game with three archers where all of the players wish they could be doing something different than the options that they are cloistered with. Your players are literally telling you that they wish they could be more diverse but your system forbids it.
It was an estimate, Maybe it was more than 50? 20 years of Pen and Paper adds up a lot of sessions with a lot of people. Ironically I have done that for Digital games. Never for Pen and Paper games. Probably because Pen and Paper games are approached with a sense that it will be played for a long time, so people are more willing to allow people to just play whatever the fuck they want and they can deal with it as the time comes. Maybe that's why we have such different perspectives? Because your group constantly forces you to do things you don't want to do. All 3 Archers want Sneak Attack because it's the single strongest DPS option in the game. They don't want to be a Rogue, but they want the sheer power it can bring. If it was a classless system all 3 would be using Sneak Attack and their builds would be extremely similar to each other. The class system creates diversity between them.
My groups, across 40 years of Pen and Paper, I fucking shit you not, 100's of tables across 7 states, players ages 11 to 73, all races and economic backgrounds, many players from different nations. EVERY single class-based role playing game starts with the same question, "what are you going to play?", because every player able to comprehend a game defined by character classes understands that the game system's restrictions will force players into roles to be able to accomplish goals for the group. How this is alien to you in even 20 years of playing Role Playing games, even if you have never cracked open the cover of Dungeons and Dragons, is non-comprehensible. If your players want similar builds then it points to a defect in game balance or in the failing of your GM to stress the value of diversity in the group, it's not somehow a validation that Class-Based systems create diversity. In a non-class based Role playing game it is nearly impossible for two players to make the same character if only because their character isn't constrained by an archetype. Even if you agree to attempt to make characters that are the same you routinely end up with very different interpretations because that definition of the character is now subjective based on the player's vision rather than objectively defined by a schema in a book. For example, in a recent game I and another player wanted to make unsavory nobles from the same Noble Family. I made a scarred brooding problem-solver who bred attack dogs, he made a politically ambitious swordmaster who suffered from an extreme OCD. If we were playing in a class-based game we would have likely had the same starting abilities and more-than-likely chose the same options that best fit an unsavory noble and we probably would have had very similar stat distribution in order to play to the strengths of the class abilities, we not only wouldn't likely have had the abilities to raise attack dogs or become a master duelist but we would never achieve those ambitions within the class because that class was designed by someone with a specific vision of what a Noble is that we didn't share.
I totally agree with classes being restrictive. I really enjoyed the skill system in Skyrim. it allowed me to develop my own play style over time and make a character that I could really identify with. and the more you use a skill, the more you level a skill.
I've recently started playing the total conversion for skyrim called "Enderal". among other things, they also changed the whole skill system a bit, so now you gather "learning points" that you then can invest with teachers or books to learn certain skills or get better in them. Anyway, it shows that there are a number of ways that are less restrictive than classes!
Trevor Daniels Sadly, yes. But there it is completely free. Enderal was made by a small team that has made total conversions for the elder scrolls series for quite some time. They have one for morrowind (called arktwendt), for Oblivion (called nehrim) and for skyrim now. All of them are set in a completely new world, reworked some features, introduced new creatures and a complete, voiced storyline with sidequests (Oh god now I sound like salesman). They were mostly known for building their entire world map by hand whilst the original games like oblivion and skyrim had mostly generated ones. If you get the chance, it's worth looking into, they have a decent amount of play time.
As fun as skyrim was, the talent tree system was broken as fuck. Too easy to get too OP way too soon. Very unbalanced even with enemy level scaling. Sometimes a little bit of restriction (i.e. having more clearly defined roles the game can be balanced around) can be good. ;)
A single player game is only as OP as you let it get. What is there to balance against except yourself? I understand the skill tree is a bit simplistic, but the devs wanted to aim the same direction as other Elder Scrolls games, while at the same time making leveling simpler. They still want people to play on a survival mode, or be a god if they so choose. In some ways those overlap and may be undesirable to others who would like it to be harder to be a god, sure. I just think they're onto the right idea where skills are learned as you use them, and you can create class types as your play style develops.
Well, to argue about the wizard not allowed to use a sword, atleast for Board Games this is not entirely true, For dungeons and dragons and most board games their is a term Proficiency in which a characters is able to use these weapons normally, but not having proficiency doesn't mean not able to use it, it just means not able to use it properly. Example, you hand a guy who hasn't held a sword in his hands a sword Since they don't know how to use a sword hey are not going to be fighting Properly and thus would have penalties for not knowing how to use it, (Telegraphings attacks, not aligning the edge correctly, doing flashy moves you see on movies, etc.) So you can argue is if you hand a Greatsword to a Wiaard, yes he can use it, but if he has no proficiency on the sworrd he probably not going to do much with it.
and you either take a class lvl in wich it give you proficiency of take a feat, i find it stupid you cannot take some downtime and/or pay to know to wield a weapon, when you see it like that class that give you a lot of proficiency give you a lot of free feat, take the fighter proficiency with all simple and martial weapon (simple is a single feat but martial is a feat for each different martial weapon) proficiency with all armour (3 free feat (light, medium and heavy)) and proficiency with all shield (2 feat here (the tower shield and the other type of shield) plus he get a free combat feat, compare to a wizard, proficiency with quaterstaff, dagger sling and light crossbow + the feat scribe scroll. people say that magic is strong that's why then why is the cleric having a shit ton of free feat compare to the wizard and the thing to restrict more a wizard is the arcane spell failure of an armour and/or shield (not weapon tough) because it restrict mouvement but not to divine caster because reason and a buckler restrict mouvement in what way compare to a greatsword, that's why its stupid
Yes but he is talking about game classes such as mage, warrior, etc where certain weapons are restricted to classes, eg. Shields cannot be used by mages for inexplicable reasons. Think of World of Warcraft, Diablo, Sacred classes vs something like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Skyrim.
this is one of the cases of if i want to make a jack of all trades master of none then i should be allowed to things. keeping classes with this concept in place would allow to have a specialty focus with side skills learned as needed. say i am playing a mage that needed to learn how to fight by non-magical means, i could then go to a trainer and pick up the base proficiencies to do so or i can learn by doing and gain experience in that field. how ever the more focus i put in to one area the less focus i am putting in to another.
This was all addressed in 5th edition D&D. There's no longer any restrictions on wizards wearing heavy armor, wielding martial weapons, or using shields with spell failure. In fact, 5th edition seems very focused on dealing with most of the issues Shad mentions in this video, so I'm assuming he either hasn't played it or conveniently left it out for the sake of making this video.
this is a subject for more than just D&D. their are going to be exeptions to this argument across the genera. the arguments that can be applied as to how something should logicly be is going to apply across the genera even for those that already have it in place.
i agree and dissagree, classes are a good starting point, but can often times be to limiting. but with full freedom, you can have some really unrealistic types such as. then a huge full plate warrior sneaking like a rogue blasting people with huge fireball while swing a war sword.. or a hafling archer
Exactly. In 5e you can build anything you want to play within the class system. Will you get it at lvl 1 most likely not, but with work, and making the right choices when you level up yo can make anything.
7 лет назад
it's almost always been so. And you could even wield weapons you aren't proficient in. Nothing forbids you doing that, you just aren't going to be very effective, naturally so. This vid was propaganda for his "gaming system" that his brother helped developed. BS.
Elijah Kleinman so you can't have the character you want before you have invested a lot of time in the character you don't want? that is some slow character creation.
+Mads Moller Jensen I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in the DMG that backstory can allow proficiency; even if it doesn't, the DM can just houserule it if you convince him. Problem is, the wizard won't be terribly effective with said sword, due to a need for a high Int score instead of Strength and no martial abilities aside from spells that will be much more useful on party members that specialize in martial combat. You can have a sword; it just won't do nearly as much as other classes who have their kits built around fighting, while yours is built around spells.
Elijah Kleinman well my hurdle is not the wizard and the sword. I get it it makes sense. in classless rpgs that is also the case if you don't want to go down on something else. my problem with it is that you are so defined. I am a fighter? why? if I have an idea for a completely different character than what's allowed I will just have to deal with it. that is why I prefer classless rpgs. the role playing gets more important and gets more interesting. in som game worlds it may make sense though that there are some kind of classes but even then I would rather avoid the dnd model because it is just so restrictive. you can't really make the character you want because of the few possibilities of customisation in the beginning. over time it may be the character I want but I don't want to play for weeks before my character is what I envisioned.
There's nothing stopping a wizard from picking a sword up but they may not be skilled using it since they have been studying magic or they need their hands free to use magic. A rouge may take daggers because they are easier to use and conceal than a giant sword. You can use logical explanation to explain off all these. Also using the argument I may be doing both so I should be able to level up both skills at the same time sounds logical at first. Then you realize it take double the time to study. So you end up finishing as studying one individually for a class up.
but what if my wizard doesnt master all schools magic just the useful ones (the few I choose) and trains using a sword like Gandalf as the example shown. Then it could be fine maybe my character wont be able to use all sword techniques but will have magic to compensate.
Okay, here are my thoughts on this The problem here is that in real life, training and acquiring skills would take a very long time, too long for a person to acquire multiple of them. A knight would obviously be far better at sword-fighting than a wizard, so how would one fix this problem? Having knights able to pull off more fighting techniques (for example, more keys on the keyboard assigned to different 'locked' attacks) or perhaps having a weight value to have their hits do more damage than a wizard's. But to incorporate these values, something will have to define a knight against a wizard, and that's where character classes would still have to appear. It also wouldn't be a good idea to have the characters take a long time acquiring a skill. That's just tedious for a lot of people and doesn't make for a good gameplay. If you could just click on a button and the 'training' is done, even in some good amount of time but within a reasonable limit, you would have time to click on multiple ones, and the only way to fix it would be to 'lock' some of the other training buttons if you've already done one or many. This is no different from character classes (In which you could perhaps choose multiple classes) You could somewhat avoid that issue by having the players develop an actual real life skill - say having twenty different keys associated with sword swings and one has to learn to quickly and cleverly press them one after another to block or thrust or whatever, in a virtual training area perhaps. But this has the same problem that if it's something that takes too long to practice, it's unreasonable for a game, and if not, it's possible to practice multiple skills. If this issue isn't fixed, the optimum character would be one with every available skill, which becomes very unrealistic. But it's what the best players would have. And perhaps every character in the best teams of players. Suddenly, this way to make a more diverse range of characters has turned all of those into the same one. I like the idea of wizards' magic not being as effective if they're wearing armour, and one could expand onto that idea, and with enough ideas put cleverly, one could avoid the creation of character classes entirely. Inventory limit is the obvious choice; you could have two slots to put weapons in, and a warrior would probably go for a shield and a sword. Or a shield and a spear. But a wizard will have to have a staff there, or a wand, or both. Or a mystic sceptre. Having a back up sword might make them less powerful and able to do less spells. Perhaps a thief carrying a sword will make him slower and less able to do parkour. Note that when I say thief or wizard I just mean a general choice by the player, not a distinct character class. If you want to be a wizard, you better carry the magical things. But you could carry a sword if you can afford to be limited and maybe require a sword. Anyway, this causes issues because of two reasons. One is that with enough items it gets quite complicated to keep track of, and the rules might start looking unreasonable to balance things out. Sword weighing you down would only really cause a problem if it seriously weighs you down so anyone can catch you, which is unreasonable as people can move quite quickly carrying a sword. Why can't an archer carry a sword? Because they need to carry both the bow and the arrows in the two slots? Arrows don't take as much space as a shield. The other problem is that it doesn't address the skill issue in the first place. Would the sword swinging abilities of the wizard and the fighter be different? If yes, how would you be able to tell who is which? If they are carrying magical items, make their sword hits weaker? That doesn't really work. And you can still end up with unrealistic characters with many, many skills, unless perhaps you make the rules hopelessly complicated to remember. Maybe there is a sweet spot. Something reasonable enough and not too complicated but addresses every issue. I've been working on a game in which your goal is to make it to the end of the 'board'; the last 'tile', and like a board game you're assigned a random number you can move along that number of tiles in any direction you want, and often you land onto a bag of coins tile which gives you a random number of coins. (The die circles only in your team, so there's no boring waiting or whatever, only stressful ones, but I digress), and maybe to be more skilled at sword-fighting or magic wielding you have to pay a large number of coins, and you only have a limited amount and no sure way of acquiring more unless you're willing to use your precious turns to hunt for coins instead of other important tasks you might need to do before the final fight, like acquiring weapons and armour or looking for loot in abandoned castles or fighing beasts (While which your turn is skipped), and taming beasts for the final fight (Tame spells are also very expensive). The coins only last one game, and you don't have any from the last at the start of a new game, so there won't be players who have a ridiculous number of coins they've collected from previous games that they can use to get multiple skills. You learn from each game, and have to plan out every one. These decisions are important, and exciting, and really require a lot of thinking and prediction. Also, this is quite different from a typical RPG game, so my method isn't quite relevent... so... no more shameless patting on my own back. The conclusion is... it's just easier to have character classes, and most people are perfectly okay with them. As long as there aren't too many unreasonable restrictions; perhaps a wizard can carry a sword but his hits would we weaker, which is actually now possible to do because we can define a wizard, and also regarding the actual purpose of character classes, which is to direct people to fill in all the important tasks, I think it's okay to have them. But if there's that sweet spot I mentioned, or another way of avoiding it that I couldn't think of, then I'd definitely pick that. Thanks for reading my ridiculously long comment! I hope whatever little bit of your day's remaining goes nicely.
Ivan Lima I love making the Sneaky Barbarian. Muffling and invisibility spells, with self boosting potions, and using Twohanded weapons and heavy armor.
The problem with this video is that is presented only from the perspective of the player, not that of the designer. When you think about gameplay rules as a designer, one of the first things to look for is BALANCE, and if you decide to go with a no-class system then you are severely restricted in what skills and traits you can bring to the game, without introducing some COMPLETELY BROKEN build that everyone will play. So from the perspective of a designer, the no-class system is actually MORE restrictive than the class based one. And you will come to the same conclusion if you imagine what if all WOW (for example) skills were available for anyone - I'm sure that for an afternoon such ridiculous builds will pop up, that the entire game would be rendered unplayable.
Most of my favorite games don't lock in classes with restrictions... though I look at a class kit as a toolbox and the more tools the more chances for a different approach/ tactical fun. Classes are useful for narrowing game design focus AND players immediately grasping another person's role though (all the more so in an age of anonymity and immediate play.)
The rules are not rules, but general guidelines, the DM sets the tone of play and can set - "No class barriers" as one of his/her defining DM style... The DM sets the rules not the book!
It's kind of impossible to do this, classes are one of the foundations of character creation in D&D, like yeah you can shape the rules, but sometimes you shape then so much that you're no longer playing dnd.
Was I the only one sitting here screaming at my screen "SKYRIIIIIIIIM!" Well, Shad must like Skyrim then. Or TES series in general. Why not mention it in the video though? It's basically what you described!
I greatly prefer much more "open" systems where you can mix and match whatever particularities you like. I'd love to see many more of them than I do now. I think restrictive classes are used just because it's easier to design and balance. What you referred to in Dark Souls, I call 'backgrounds' where a character has a skillset already, but isn't restricted in what they're able to learn as you play further.
There's a game out there with what you want. It's called ArcheAge. It has "classes" but you can pick any class, weapon and armor at any point. I have a teleporting, multi-dimensional, heavy-armor wearing 2-handed axe swinging Assassin that will plunge you from the sky, teleport into your face and then vanish into thin air before you can react.
The idea is that Character Classes are the proffession the characters aredy have. They don't bring restrictions, but, they bring capabilities. When you are a mage, it means that you are trained in casting spells. That does not mean that you cannot hold a sword, but, it means that you are not trained to use the sword in a fight.
Depends on the system & what the classes allow you to do. Which DnD derivative lets you take "Trapfinding" as a feat? Sorry for the "gotcha" question but it's the only way I can get my point across. Trapfinding is a vital support skill in the traditional RPG genre. Why can't you take Sneak Attack as a feat which is stackable? Pathfinder has "Accomplished Sneak Attacker" which you can only take once & you need Sneak Attack 1d6 as prerequisite. You would do this so you don't have to slow your progression in your primary "role" which the class system forces you into. You still burn a feat to do it, so what is the problem? Why can't I take Evasion & Improved Evasion as feats? In a point buy system you can freely mix & match capabilities so long as you have sufficient points. You can build an EldritchKnight/ArcaneTrickster type which has a far more subtle spectrum of build according to your concept & party composition. You can do it without having to juggle what class levels you take of what & when. As it is, both the Eldritch Knight & Arcane Trickster Prestige Classes have some really quirky issues but they allow you to plug more gaps in the group capability when you don't have the players for a dedicated Melee, Skill Monkey & Wizard. Some people find the flexibility intrinsically attractive as you are more adaptable & approach obstacles in a flexible manner. The recurring problem with point buy systems is there is very often a "God Stat" which ends up being overly important, eg Agility for both FFG Star Wars & Shadowrun. WEG Star Wars also had a God Stat but I can't for the life of me remember what it was but it filled a similar place as Agility. That is just lazy game design by the publishers though.
When talking about any D&D. Books always very clearly state that at the end rules are set by game master not by book. Books are only a guidance, list of spells, list of classes in which somebody may find something interesting, some strange weapons. D&D(probably most real life RPGs) is very specific system that have shit ton of rules yet none.
Exactly. If you've spent years and years learning how to blow dudes up by summoning fireballs, then why would you get in close and swing an ax at someone? It makes pretty good sense in context, honestly. Of course, there's always going to be exceptions and other circumstances like "Some people would want to have the option to fight up close as well or the ability to be useful once they run out of magic", but that's a far cry from saying we should straight-up get rid of all classes because they usually do make some form of internalized sense both IC and for gameplay balance. And just because new classes are created to fill more and more niche roles doesn't mean that the existing classes weren't sufficient, necessarily. It COULD mean that, but it doesn't ALWAYS mean that. That's like trying to argue "This DLC adds ___ many more quests, therefore, the game was lacking content before this point!"
@@dracocrusher because at some point a silence spell or sore throat is gonna ruin your magic abilities.....plus why not learn to use a sword? Fight with the sword then whip out a fire ball at the right time......ace up the sleeve?
+Daniel Essex Because magic's hard to master and, if you're spending time learning fencing instead of practicing your arcane knowledge, then that's just that much further you are from learning the REALLY dangerous stuff. In D&D specifically magic makes up for a lot of lost physical abilities anyways like with Shocking Grasp and Mage Armor. And if you're taken out just because you only have spells with verbal components, then you're probably not that good of a wizard to begin with. Besides, as a mage, your main draw is almighty ranged attacks and crowd control. So if someone rushes you you've basically got the equivalent of a super-gun right at your fingertips that you can use to blast someone apart with just a thought and a wave of your hand. You can learn physical combat alongside that, but there's just a point where what you can already do is just so varied and all-encompassing that it doesn't really make sense to rely on something less-useful than what you already have. It's better to be a master mage or a master swordsman than it is to be a really good mage and a novice swordsman or a solid fighter but a crappy mage, even though there are definitely spells that can make those combinations work and be more useful. They're not THE BEST mage spells, though, so the longer you take to get stuff like Meteor and Wish then the longer it's going to take you to get stuff like Meteor and Wish.
"what's physically stopping this wizard using a sword" He's a fucking wimp who spent their entire life studying books and couldn't kill a basic mob with a sword without snapping his arm bones or something. And the barbarian can't use magic because he probably can't even read much less use magic which requires deep lore.
"ME SKULL BASHER, ME BASH NERD SKULLS!!!" Too focused on building that body of theirs I would say than reading a big book on how to cast fire and shit.
Tell that to Gandalf the Grey/White and Merlin, both of whom used swords. Or Dr. Strange, who looks like he works out regularly once or twice a week at the neighborhood gym, or Harry Dresden, who runs and does parkour every day to keep in shape, or... The REAL reason why wizards can't use swords in fantasy RPGs is because Gary Gygax decided not to let them do so in D&D, and since every fantasy RPG ever is derived from D&D to some degree, they don't allow it either. As for barbarians not using sorcery, that stems from Robert E. Howard's "Conan" series, in which sorcery was dangerous and could steal your soul rather than Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" novels where anyone could learn magic with enough practice and intelligence. Basically, arbitrary divisions like these are to maintain "game balance". Barbarians are tanks, so they don't get magic because that would make them walking nuclear submarines. Wizards get nukes, so they're squishy and wimpy so they can't roll over other classes like a juggernaut. Yeah, you could let barbarians be sorcerers as well, or let mages wear full plate and swing zweihanders (think Dark Knight class from the Final Fantasy series), but then what do you do with the other classes, unless you make them so expensive in terms of XP and/or spells and equipment that they're practically unplayable.
Most stupid restriction ever was the clerik of dnd who cant use sharp weapons because religigion. Sereously smashing skulls is an way more disturbing way to end someone as an clean cut, its ridicculous. Plus paladins were completely fine. Even with same religion.
In Role-playing Games (like DND) you can use pretty much any weapon but you get a negative added on to your attack roll. Meaning it makes sense that someone isn't capable of using a sword properly if they're not trained in it, even if you can get that training.
Phelan No, once you get martial weapon proficiency you can be just as capable as someone who is a more basic fighter class. You're also saying that a hindrance is a bad thing necessarily. Why? Would you take every single pitfall and goomba and koopa out of Super Mario Bros? No? Aren't those hindrances? If everything is easy and accessible than a game becomes too easy. And besides, guess what, in DND you can Multiclass. So yes, even if you start out a sorcerer, you can become just as good as a fighter at something because you trained for it. Learn RPGs and gaming theory and come back and see me.
+Phelan It can be an in-character solution. You are a wizard who has found a magical sword and decides he wants to train to use it better. so, you use it "un-proficient" for a level, earning a new feat. so you take martial weapon proficiency with that sword. DONE! You have, through the system, explained that after using that weapon for so long [a level worth of XP] you've now achieved an acceptable level of competence with it. Oh but you dont get a feat for magic? NO! you were too busy playing with your freakin metal stick of scrublord... But at least now you can be happy and swing your sword like the kid who cant use magic, but instead spent his upbringing in a martial school for the militia [ie: the fighter]
I agree from a first person perspective character classes don't make any sense. But their original intent was for games where you have to build an entire party, not just one character. In this case it makes sense to have classes as they help you determine roles of your party members, and customize them easier. From that perspective they are good design.
He/she doing something before doesn't mean that they are forever constrained to that single profession. Nothing stops a wizard from deciding that he now becomes a warrior and starts training warrior skills.
You are right. But I'm not saying that, and you can dual class in dnd. I'm saying you are choosing a character class because your character was doing something before you took control. He/she has a history. You don't start off as a baby or a child, so you need some kind of backstory.
I think 'good' character classes are useful. I found in years of GMing that some players really got lost during character creation without a template to give them some guidance. A lot of my player's favorite characters, actually, were pre-gens that I made for them. (They always complained and whined that they wanted to make their own, but then always really got into the ones I made. That may have been because I was a good character creator, but it was also easier to integrate characters into a world if, as the GM, had some input into creating them. My favorite D&D version was 3.5, particularly the skills and feats. If I was going to get rid of classes I would have created master skills that were required to use lesser skills, so if you wanted to create a character who wanted to sling spells you would have to purchase a very expensive spell casting skill that would probably preclude you from having points left to spend on being good in wearing armor. Of course, there were lots of optional rules that let you wield a two handed sword as a wizard. You just took a -6 to your attack rolls and used the wizard's measly attack bonuses. (You were banned from specializing though). I think most restrictions can be imposed without hard and fast rules though. If you don't want thieves running around with two handed swords don't let it work with backstab or impose a penalty on their stealthy skills or reaction times. It's much easier to jump over a pit and grab hold of a ledge when you don't have the pommel of a big sword hitting you in the back of the head! The other function is they were useful for controlling rules lawyers. When a player wants to use skills from 15 different books and 13 different classes, or wants to play a ninja in your European setting world classes let you keep control of things. It's very easy for players to get obsessed with all the options available to the point where they only care about the numbers. A good gamemaster should be able to make the game interesting for a straight fighter or a straight mage. Amalgam characters with bits and bobs of several classes have less reason to rely on each other. One of the worst experiences I ever had in a game was as a player. I'd specialized in sword and taken skills out of the Celtic Guide that let me super specialize. I even had a chance, on a called shot, to sever people's limbs. I was a fighter, so I could, in theory, shoot a bow (and did have one) but the parties archer could easily deal out twice as much damage at range as I could. But close in, I was a monster. But then the game master gave the party a vorpal sword. It's powers overlapped with mine (rather than giving me a bonus) so we gave it to the archer, who instantly became better in melee than me. Have strict classes had given us different areas to shine. There are, of course, people who don't get it. There was a gamer who complained that we were asking his fighter to stand in front of the mages and take all the hits (with 10 point better AC and 2 1/2+ times as many hp and a big sword, the horror). But give a character just the basic classes and then the things he focuses on are backstory and ideas. I can't even begin to count the number of game sessions I've run. For years I would run 2-3 games a week sometimes. The campaigns that lasted tended to actually have characters that didn't overlap as much. Yes, it's fun to make incredible characters, but creating incredible characters is sometimes a separate activity from playing well. Pick something, get good at it, and define your character by his personality. *Of course, ignore this if you are aiming at hack and slash, unless you are going to coordinate closely with the other players during character creation. In hack and slash the way to glory is to be able to smash. If you can coordinate with the other players specializations aren't a bad idea though. I once had a pacifist cleric, who used an optional spell point system that let him cast spells that served his deity's ethos (healing) at a reduced cost. I could cast more than 4 times as many healing spells as a normal cleric of my level, and earned xp from each casting, so I eventually was several levels ahead of my partymates... which made them upset for some reason, even although I literally never stole any kills and my whole raison d'etre was to keep them alive... but my rant about levels as an arbitrary marker of power and achievement is too long for this post...
SpeartonMan 3.5 had a lot of things going for it. There were a lot of huge leaps from the previous edition. Getting rid of THAC0 was a revelation. I actually haven't played past 3.5 (and a little pathfinder), but I played a ton of AD&D and 2nd Edition. 3.5 was lightyears beyond 2nd Ed. It was clear 4.0 was going in the wrong direction. One thing I noticed about every edition is that every expansion, in order to sell, needs to add one overpowered new skill to hook you. Pretty soon a nicely balanced game gets broken by power inflation. It's really not that different than buying unlocks in video games. One trick that sort of was a work around for classes that I would do is have characters build what I called a 'sketch'. They'd roll their stats and pick a few of their skills, but for the first couple of game sessions I'd let them reassign things. It didn't give them different powers, but it let them pick powers that fit how the game was going. Nothing worse than being a fighter and finding out that you are in a world where the best weapon is a club and there are ancient staves that shoot fireballs everywhere! (Sort of an outgrowth of some of the 2nd Ed. zero level character systems.)
To be fair, you were playing a fighter. A druid's animal companion can usually replace them, DnD fighters are not at all mechanically viable for what they are thematically expected to do. Notice you needed a special feat in order to chop through a limb, notice how chopping off a head /required/ magical assistance, no amount of skill or force would allow it as per the game's mechanics. You were playing a system in which stabbing a sword into someone's eyes only blinds them for 6 seconds, meanwhile a 2nd level spell blinds or deafens permanently. It'd be very, very difficult for you're fighter to not be overshadowed.
Randal Jeffrey But fighters got more feats than wizards in 3.5, so it was pretty easy to get at least one path of really devastating attacks. There should have been better specialty rules, and actually, if you had lots of books there were optional rules that beefed up the combat system. All games struggle between balancing simplicity vs. awesomeness. At the extreme other end, I played some Champions (a superhero game) and everything was bought with points. You built your powers from the ground up and the math was really solid, but it could take a half an hour to resolve a fight with a single enemy.
I remember reading about a classless trpg system, Open Legend, that was about choosing the mechanics of what your character can do and then ascribing you're own flavor text to it. for eg, an area attack could be a fan of flying daggers or a mini missile barrage or dragon breath attack, or literally anything you want it to be. As awesome as that sounds, it does somewhat expect players to know beforehand how they want their character to play mechanics wise, and for new players that's a bit of a hurdle. More so it basically means characters functionally are the same.
2:44 I don't remember picking a sorceress in Diablo 2 prevented me from wearing a big plate of armor. Infact, I loved playing the good ol' big knight-like enchant sorc. Ironically. I think you need to realize that these mechanics are just put in place for the game to run in a certain theme, or play a certain way. And every RPG is different. And it's kind of why I love them. If one day I play a levelless, classless RPG. I'd be down. But I wouldn't particularly think it's better than the rest of them, It would feel different, that's for sure. Comes down to opinion I suppose. And maybe that's just what you're after.
If the team work is really needed to progress, players will adapt and train on skill that complement the rest of the party of their own free will, instead of having to choose one class and maybe regretting it later. If everyone is the jack of all stats, after some levels, who's going to cast the high level CC spells? Who's going to heal everyone with specialized high level spells? Who'll maker the advanced potions? Who will have the levels to repair everyone's equipment? Players would be able to make hybrid combat classes like an agile character who dishes out powerful attacks and can heal everyone, and the other guy would complement that by making a tank who can attack and retreat quicky if necessary who also happens to be able to cast AOE spells. That makes the character variety much larger, and doesn't stop a squishy wizard from getting some armour, or a healer from picking up a shield. Restricting play styles will artificially force team work, while making balanced and well-designed PvE encounters will make players specialize in one or three fields in order to make a balanced team.
Very brave video, but I think character classes are interesting and despite being limited they keep roles going :) and create a playstyle direction, have dedicated gear, etc.
After reading some of the comments going both ways on this issue, how about this? 1. A character class (or multi-class) is a starting point, representing what your character has been doing with their lives up to their young adulthood, practicing weapons and swordplay, burying their nose in books and learning spells, living on the streets and sneaking around, or whatever. It is your initial skills before you start being who you BECOME during the course of actual gameplay. It's a package based on archetypes, but you could probably be allowed to customize it a bit if your backstory suggests it. 2. Since you have spent your life up to that point practicing/studying/living a certain set of skills and abilities, those (according to the class) are easiest for you to learn - but as you gain power and experience you don't HAVE TO choose those abilities (you get ability points, and the cheapest abilities are the ones within your "class"). You could choose skills and abilities outside your previous area of expertise, for a higher cost. Choose enough of them, and your "area of expertise" shifts, reducing or negating the extra cost. The problem with diversifying too much, in a multiplayer game, is that you could end up being a high level character with no high level skills but a whole bunch of low and mid level skills - which are usually useless in high level scenarios. Honestly, I wish more multiplayer games allowed for that kind of play style... but it's hard to compete with people who have spent their entire time honing a particular set of complementary skills, especially ones that allow them to perfectly fulfill a role in a party. Likewise, there's the possibility that a lot of players would find an "optimal strategy" (in tabletop RPGs this is generally called "min-maxing" or meta-gaming or being a "munchkin") that makes them the most effective at as many scenarios as possible, and then everyone ends up being really similar. That being said, I've always wanted to play a game where there were multiple players using the same character class (or similar/related ones) but fulfilling different roles, through their own customization choices - like a group of ALL BARDS, who were a band, or theatre troupe. Maybe one roguish scoutish ranger who drives the horse cart with their stage and costumes and keeps everyone fed, a rogue who picks pockets during the performance, a traveling evangelist cleric if it's more of a carnival/variety show, or whatever. Depends on the size of the group. I think most games know the limitations of character classes, but give a lot of optional packages and customizations to fulfill whatever your character concept needs. I guess a band is a good metaphor. Maybe the standard singer, guitarist, bass guitarist, maybe rhythm guitarist, and drummer "rock band" combo could be a little stale. But nobody wants to see a show of six one-man-band guys on a stage, especially if they ALL have a bass drum on their backs, cymbals between their legs, a ukulele, a harmonica around their neck, because they all think that's the most "effective" one-man-band type for solo busking and didn't re-spec when they joined a party. Before you say you do want to see that, you might enjoy the spectacle for the duration of a RU-vid video, but you're not going to become a fan - that's my point.
Classes are incredibly good from a design perspective for devs and a learnability perspective for players. The more you generalize character possibilities, the more simulation elements you need. Typically, games have simple levels and explicit class selection to offer this simulation, but if you wanted to make it so that people could make their own "classes", you invite so many other problems. In RuneScape (I played back in 2005ish), you can choose which skills you level just by using them, and that is tied to a "combat level" which is a general measure of how strong you will be given the skills you've developed, but in PvP that combat level is used to artificially restrict who can fight each other to provide a degree of fairness in PvP zones, so you if you want to be successful in that context, you need to make sure your skills are finely tuned to have the highest strength-combat level ratio possible, which will be lower the more you generalize your character. RuneScape also has gear locked behind distinct levels, so someone who has 39 attack can't use a rune weapon since they are missing a single, artificial point. Even disregarding PVP, a lot of characters have pretty much the exact same capabilities and all they need to do is switch gear, and everything being the same isn't much of an interesting choice when creating a character. In games like Tree of Savior, the general simulation for character possibilities is a lot of distinct class selections that you pick and choose as you progress, but the problem invited here is that there are many suboptimal choices you could make, so there really isn't a very general system, because making use of it is not versatile, but is instead simply incorrectly playing the game. Darksouls has a nice general system, except as you progress, it takes longer and longer to reach the next progression point, meaning if you choose a wrong point, you will be suboptimal unless there is infinite time available to you to account for the extra time you spend leveling. It fixes RuneScape homogenity, but asks you to create a new character if you did something suboptimal. This is fixed with respecing, but it brings a realism issue that might be problematic in many games because then progression isn't tied to what you are specifically doing; if a skillful swordsman goes to some old lady and leaves as someone not strong enough to hold a sword and is a master magician, that's a bit weird, possibly an interesting scenario, but not for every game. (There's also the issue of gear and abilities being locked behind distinct, artificial points.) The question is then how do you make a more believable character possibility system to provide interesting choices? No RuneScape homogeneity, no Korean miscalculations, and a thoroughly believable progression system. The easiest answer seems to be ultra-distinct classes, their disadvantages are mentioned already by the video. An ultra-general system that avoids all of these problems would be truly a sight to see.
Classes easily create problems. I left WoW because the official designer made his character's class more interesting and strong. In the new addition, a new class appears, which is stronger and more interesting than the previous ones. Developers cannot create a class that partially uses the abilities of other classes, but is slightly different thematically. Uniqueness for the sake of uniqueness.
@@bharl7226 at the time of the original post, no I had not heard of GURPS, but I did pick it up 2 or 3 years ago, and yeah it's pretty great. While I love it, it is difficult for my players at the table to learn what the hell is even possible much less what they should even do on their turn in combat. I'm in love with GURPS actually, trying to write my own rules to replace combat since it is clunky, as well as fleshing out templates so that it isn't as confusing for players. But yeah, while GURPS fixes the class problem, it has a ton of simulation rules and other elements that confuse players, which is why we primarily still play D&D 5e.
In most traditional video game RPGs where you control a party of characters rather than a single character (for example, Final Fantasy) I find that although the class system may not always make the most amount of sense, it certainly adds a lot to the fun of actually playing. Half the fun of playing games where a one of your characters can only be a single class at a time is figuring out which combination of classes “works”, as well as which ones work the best. By enforcing restrictions on the player for every character, a game makes it so that every class has certain drawbacks which can only be remedied by another class in your party. If any character could fulfill every role there is then a lot of the fun from making a functioning combination of classes would be replaced by simply giving each character the optimal gear for the role they’re supposed to play.
I'm building one also; I dislike character classes, but outside the dynamic flexibility of a pnp, for example in a video game, the number of potential outcomes with totally open choice become quite prohibitive to balance. Nobody likes their preferred choice to be gimped and in the long run it often becomes a matter of players deriving the "best" overall build which is then very difficult to find a realistic alternative to. Sure after several years of careful iterations, a balance could be achieved, but in that time it's easy to go bankrupt if you're trying to keep investors interested.
Might i suggest the World of Darkness Series or Savage Worlds, if you're looking for classless systems. I have had a lot of fun from either system and is actively using the latter these days with my players. It might be worth noting for those who haven't looked into these before, that they quite centered on storytelling and works different in a lot of ways compared to your old D'nD genre games.
PnP is getting fresh blood every year and there are some systems which dont have a class system, they just uses talents and skills to represent the characters training. Fragged empire is my go to for classless system.
Skill buying is even more problematic than classes. In D&D, if you want to be a man who sneaks around in heavy armour with a warhammer who can cast spells and wield the power of the gods, you multiclass paladin with arcane trickster. There’s a balanced set of rules and the possibilities are really endless. In an experience point buy “free” system, like Skyrim, you can eventually do everything. Which is fun in a power fantasy single player game. But in dnd, the point isn’t to be free and wield every type of magic and be your own cool Mary Sue. You’re assumed to have worked hard to get the class abilities you have. Total freedom doesn’t work if you want balanced gameplay, especially if it’s based around cooperation. Having archetypes is a good thing, and it’s more realistic that you’ll have a certain set of skills. Besides, feats in dnd, as well as homebrew and everything else, make it so you can pretty much play whatever character you want anyway. You want to be a rogue with a warhammer? Do it. But accept you’ll naturally have limitations. In the real world people pick their own path, and develop similar skills. Two lawyers might be vastly different people, but they both have the skills to represent you in court. Want to check out my lawyer-astronaut-caveman-superhero?
It's for balance, yet power. If a wizard could equip tank armor, and have the defensive stats of a tank, and the power of a wizard, nobody would pick anyone else. It'd defeat the purpose of both the tank class, and wizard gear. As for abilities, there'd eventually be some META best in slot build, that takes skills from every class and puts them together in this mage, priest, paladin, rogue, assassin, hybrid that does all the roles of the jobs listed well enough that nobody why wants to win would do anything else. And yes, this would be a major problem in video games (I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege 1), but there will always be that one guy in table top games. It's easier to tell the tryhard, "No, play with your class. Try to maximize your damage stats within the confines of the game" than to tell him "Hey bro, we can't make a dungeon for you, because Chris built a Wizard who can't keep up with your omni class monstrosity."
icspps you're viewing the whole thing through a D&D lens and assuming no other changes would be made to the system to adapt to the new reality. Take a look at the newly release videogame Tyranny for example. The heavier the armor, the bigger the "recovery" penalty. Meaning there's a bigger downtime between your actions. With that in mind, you could play a wizard in heavy armor. But your spells are spread much further apart because you have so much downtime between them. It balances things out. And that's the whole thing. Classes are a crutch. An antiquated system created when no alternatives existed. You want to prevent mixing and matching of any skill or ability people want? Then have prerequisites. Which are already a thing even within the same class in D&D. It would prevent people from having both level 7 spells AND ultra super duper mega mastery over exotic weapons with thirteen passive feats for combat. You'd be allowed to build what you want, but can only get the good stuff if you go deep in one direction. Problem solved.
It is more then just a Crutch. It is a guide. In pen and paper, having too many options often locks up a player, leaving him confused, unsure how to build hit character. Classes, also allow for faster character creation then a "point-buy" system, or other free-form systems of character. It means that if your Fighter gets roasted by a Dragon during an adventure, you can create a new character, and join back in as a Paladin, Barbarian, Brawler, Ranger, Magus, Gunslinger, ect. If I need to write up a new Exalted or Shadowrun Character, it takes quite a bit longer. I am not saying Classless games are bad, but sometimes, I do like Shadowrun, Dark Souls, and other games like that, but I also like Pathfinder, Diablo, Neverwinter Nights (1&2), and games with Classes.
Flying Toaster Okay, whats to keep me from items that give say the best speed rating? Lets say Rogue gearing, this still leaves Mage Gearing useless. Bottom of the line, the class system is there to encourage variety. It's the easiest way to do it. Is it the only way? Hardly. Is it an effective, and proven way? Yes. It boils down to "If it ain't broke don't fix it." Games which have experimented with cross class systems usually get min/maxed pretty quickly, and as a result, there will only be a few viable builds.
It's the same system as Pillars of Eternity which is a refinement of Obsidian's previous RPG formulas which are rooted in AD&D. Honestly, PoE classes are bland. Obsidian wanted to maximize the options that the PC could choose by minimizing the difference between "optimal" builds. The result is that nothing you make is particularly engaging or distinct.
Actually i disagree with you. Character classes are in the end your learned profession in that world. In theory in real life you can become a secret agent, a lawyer, a doctor of medicine and a smith. You COULD do that but you wouldnt be good at either one and youd be pretty old once you got there so basicly no one does that. Classes really are professions. if you are a mage you likely spent decades in an arcane university to learn sheltered from the real word. its likely you wont know how to really do anything but read and cast spells. vice Versa as warrior you had military training and physical exercise, in a medieval setting you likely dont know how to write your own name how can you expect to ever cast spells. in special as most games limit ingame time and clearly state like "everything you experience happens in between 3 years inside the world" so after all the adventuring is done you are just 3 years older. Hardly a timeframe to learn something new. Like the entirety of Diablo 1 takes not even a month ingame time, how would a mage become a warrior in that time frame? And class doesnt have to limit the armors you can wear or weapons you can use, though it often does and that makes sense. If you pick up a weapon in a game you are supposed to be able to fight with that. And by that i mean effectively so you wont be instantly killed by a goblin with a dagger. And for some weapons, like swords, without any training...just picking one up and start swinging is more likely to damage you than your opponent so while you COULD pick up a sword and fight in real life, without any training thats a very bad idea... Similiar for armor. if you never ever worn full plate armor and want to FIGHT in...i doubt you could even put it on without help (first time) similarily why cant a warrior wear robes? well in many games he could, but in reality robes would impede his movement a lot while severly reducing his protection...you CAN do it but its a very stupid idea.
Dont you think thats exacltly why character classes shouldnt exist? Yeah, to be a full fledge wizard you'd need, lets say, 10 years of reading books in some library. To be a swordsman, you'd need 10 years of muscle and swrod training. Why not allow the players to choose being someone who spent only 5 years reading books, and only 5 years of sword training, and therefore they are lesser in both professions, however they can use both and mix both to porentially become even stronger? Give the players a choice. If they think its stupid, they'll just go for a single profession play-style like most games offer. If not, they can mix professions as they please, just like you can do in real life.
@@stickmaniac672 but you shouldnt restrict the player's choices. if a crosswbowman-wizard class doesnt exist, he cant be that. if you just dont have classes, he could potentially be that, or a triple class (bow-axe-priest). There is simply no need for those restrictions.
@@guyeldar2540 because thats not logical rpg's tend to only last most of the time not even in a year and only a few years to some extremes, your not supposed to have 10/20 years to master them. You start as a novice/lvl 1 and the story is supposed to take you to these journey to be good at your class/professional and finish the game. If you didn't you shouldn't be able to beat your enemies who are good at theirs, Theoretically your character doesn't have the time to divide and conquer, just like you can't become a doctor/lawyer/engineer all at the same time your supposed to focus one at a time and so does the class.
I get where you're coming from. Character "classes" seem arbitrary and abstract, not to mention unrealistic. But there are solid reasons why so many games use these concepts. For one, it's a familiar model that players of many different types of games can understand. No matter what my gaming history is, if I can choose to be a warrior, wizard, or rogue, I have at least some idea right off the bat what that means. It guides me towards the play style I'm looking for, rather than making me research hundreds of skill descriptions and figuring out one at a time if they fit what type of character I'm looking to play as. Second, restrictions aren't always a bad thing. Think about it from the point of the game designers. If they have pre-defined "sets" of skills that are grouped together, then they can anticipate the possibilities players will be allowed to pick for any given situation. That makes balancing skills, enemies, and scenarios a lot easier. It's a lot more manageable to set up 10 "classes" with limited access to 40 potential skills, than to just let players have carte blanche over 400 skills in any combination. Also, when the developers know the specific context in which certain skills may be used, then they can get more daring with the effectiveness and dynamics of those skills. They can make an assassin who can go into stealth easily and for a longer duration, rather than a weak, generic "hide" skill that needs to be watered-down for anybody to use. Third, it depends heavily on what type of game you're making. Are we talking a tradition MMO like World of Warcraft? Because in those types of games, you NEED to have traditional roles of Tank, Healer, and DPS. A lack of defined classes, with total freedom to choose any skills, would actively confuse and deteriorate that system -- in fact, any "freedom" would be an utter delusion, because at the end of the day, any skill a player takes that isn't benefiting their role is a waste. It's easy to sit back and play armchair critic, saying that games shouldn't have character classes. But go ahead: remake Dungeons & Dragons so that there are no more classes, and anybody can take any skill or spell as they wish. Show us how Final Fantasy VI would have been better if all the characters had no innate skills and could just take anything the player wanted. Make an MMORPG with no "holy trinity" and no classes, that actually manages to retain popular interest. It's a fascinating idea, in theory, but putting it into practice is a whole different ball game.
Honestly I think you never designed a game and is just pulling those things about which one is easier to develop out of your ass. One's could argue that worrying about "the player" is much easier than worrying about 20 classes that complement each other in complex ways. "any skill a player takes that isn't benefiting their role is a waste" That's the point. Giving the player the chance to use his brain to decide which skills are useful for his strategy and which one's aren't instead of forcing a given path.
Vitorruy1 Nobody uses their brain to decide anyway in a MMORPG, and you end up forced on a certain path by the community anyway. You're expected to research which skills will optimize your character using multiple online sources and won't be welcome in groups if you don't use cookie cutter set up for your character. It's called min-maxing and it's one of the reasons I prefer to do a lot of solo content in WoW. I don't need some 12 year old or neck-beard giving me crap in a dungeon because he doesn't like some skill I've chosen. Freedom is just an illusion in these games.
@Primalxbeast I dunno about you dude but back in my day everybody did whatever they wanted I nobody cared as long as it worked. There wasnt one perfect strategy. But Wow is a class based game, so saying that people in that game act like that doesn`t mean that it`ll always be that way for every game including free choice based ones.
J.I Mendaro I understand min-maxing in mythic raiding guilds doing the hardest content, it's the try hards looking to nit-pick other people's choices when PUGing easy content who are annoying.
I agree it's stupid that a wizard or whatever cannot pick up a sword, but it is equally stupid to expect that such character would know how to use it properly.
The problem with a bit by bit approach is that it is physically impossible to balance because you have to make thousands of decision points equal to one another. Otherwise you will find yourself more restricted than just having character classes because there are things you can’t have a strong build without. I’ve never seen this approach done right, and I believe it will stay that way for a long time.
This is why i love the fire emblem games. It has a class system but its mostly based on how efficient the character gets with the weapons you give them to use over time.
In dnd for example nothing is stopping a wizard from picking up a sword and using it but because of the nature of what he has studied (magic) he has not spent enough time learning sword play to truly be proficient, so he gets a lower atk modifier. Fyi I’m talking 5e
I agree with all and have this to add/ask: What about forcing people down talent trees? For me...I dislike it even more than classes.....as it simply forces you to super specialize.
Mauricio José Osuna you can also pull a Skyrim and mix basic percent upgrades with abilities, as long as it makes sense, like if you are getting better with swords having more damage for your swords makes sense.
I enjoy the Dark Souls type character classes, its just a good start platformto start you off as, otherwise we would have an even starting skills and the likes which as we can see would not be realistic because everyone is not born equal. What I enjoy about it is that you get a boost to the build that you think you want to make but you can change your role on the fly. Lets say you are a high strenght character, you could be the teams berserker but you could also be the shield, in most rpg games i have played they have a class for either role but now you can switch out on the fly because there are no barriers. So yeah, i am in agreement with you that the strict class borders are outdated but i think that some sort of boost on your preferred stats should exist from a class-like system.
There are a number of ways I have seen classes done in RPGs; some are more strict than others. For example, the Fantasy Flight Star Wars games have a very flexible class system based around a class that you start with and subclasses that you can buy into them. D&D 5e classes, subclasses and backgrounds also provide a massive amount of flexibility. There is also a guy called Kevin Crawford, who made some really good OSR style games by combining a class based system and a skill based system. For example, Spears of the Dawn (a game set in fantasy Africa) comes with four classes: the wizard, the cleric, the bard and the warrior (under different names). The wizard cannot use armour for reasons given in the fluff, but there is a ritual that can create an amulet that is about as good as decent armour that a wizard can take at first level. The cleric can wear armour, and uses magic in a different way to the wizard. The bard uses story telling and song to achieve effects on the natural world. This isn't considered magic; this is considered to be just a part of how the world works; it just takes years of dedicated training to be able to do it. The warrior is literally anybody who can't use magic; be they thief, assassin, the setting's equivalent of a knight in shining armour or anything in between. You can use any weapon you want, and how well trained you are in the weapon uses the skill system (untrained gives you a penalty). Personally, I think class as a concept depends on the game itself. Some games are designed around characters fitting certain archetypes common to the setting. Some are not. The problems tend to lie in the implementation, in my opinion, rather than in the concept itself.
There Be Game Oh yes; there are definitely trade offs, and I would absolutely not recommend a class based system for every setting. But, depending on the game you're playing, it can provide a few benefits, such as speeding up character creation and providing niche protection for groups who actually care about that kind of thing.
Same reason why a lawyer would pay a plumber to come fix their plumbing. Not everyone is skilled at everything and specializing in professions is the best method
It's called proficiency and training. Classes are aptitudes and trained skills. You can't just pick up a sword and use it because you wouldn't be able to do any damage with it.
Yeah, I look at it as aptitude for a certain skill-set. Most elite individuals are specialist rather than generalists and here I'm talking about the top 30% of civilization and for me at least, that's what an adventurer is. -Nerdarchist Ryan
In realty that isn't true though. You don't need to be trained in a sword in order to pick it up and cause some damage. Sure you may get yourself killed in the process, but someone with no weapons who has no skill in swords is better with a sword against another opponent with a sword. Unless you wanna try to beat that opponent with a sword with your bare hands which is probably worse than being inexperienced in swords.
+B-Bunny Gaming the objective is to do damage without dieing. old school video game RPGs didnt typically show someone defending from a sword attack with a SWORD. as in actually physically blocking the sword. which is what you typically do. you block the blow coming in with w/e weapon you have. and, in being skilled with that weapon, you have to know how to stand in order to actually parry the blow effectively, or to absorb the impact. thats called sword skill. people who spend most of their time sitting at a desk reading, usually dont have a very imposing physical presence, meaning, they typically arnt very muscular. you need muscle mass to some extent to swing something even slightly weighty and expect to hit someone with it. and again, your tying to hit a PERSON, not stuffed training dummy, most people dont WANT to be hit with a weapon, bladed or otherwise. so newsflash, they will prolly try to MOVE out of the way. even swinging a light sword can wear you down quickly when 1. you dont know what your doing 2. you dont have the physical stamina needed for prolonged physical exertion your basic argument to haveing a sword being an improvement over being barehanded is true, but only applicable for the first few altercations, after that they usually have enough time to consider whether they want to fight with a sword or not.
Griede26 Have you ever held real sword? ... Most are created to have balance .. meaning despite their weight .. they are not actually that hard to swing. I mean you would have to have some sort of physical defect for you to not be able to pick up a fairly normal sword and swing it a few times. The point here isn't whether or not the person can be successful. The point here is they are physically capable of picking up a sword and swinging it.
2:10 one of the reasons stopping a wizard from using a sword is that many spells need a somatic component, if you can't use your fingers properly you can't get the spell to work properly. Other than that it's solely a matter of your inability to use the sword properly, if you have spend most of your time studying books, not doing any manual labour, and haven't ever practiced with a sword, odds are you won't be anything resembling efficient with a sword. I personally like the classes when I play (I mostly play D&D), because they show the focus your character has put in. If you spend all your time running around bashing things with a sword, you will not have been able to put in enough time in worship of your god, and time spend learning the game of the church, to achieve a position within the clergy where your god would grant you magic. When that is being said, except for physical limitations, like the one you state where the metal interferes with the magic, or your god specifically forbids you to use some kind of weapons, there should be nothing stopping any character from putting on any armour or using any weapon they want, but they will definitely be at a serious disadvantage when trying
I think that there is a difference between a wizard who is forbidden by game rules to use a sword and a wizard who can't cast spells and hold a sword at the same time. That seems similar to the restriction that Shad mentions. As far as for the training concept, that makes sense, but it is often ignored. If a fighter is someone who trained years on how to fight and a wizard someone who trained years doing magic, then how does that fit into levels? Also, in 5e at least, the fighter isn’t that much better a fighter than a bard or druid. Furthermore, warlocks just get their powers, no training. So why can’t everyone multiclass to be a warlock for free. One just has to sell their soul to the devil. So maybe druid, clerics, and paladins can’t multiclass as warlock.
I disagree- I find it to be similar to picking a trade out of different schools that require similar skillsets, and specialising. Dark Souls allows you to use whatever weapon you darn well please, but your stats determine how well you can use it (which makes sense).
Strangely enough, having power restrictions usually turns out to be more interesting than having complete freedom, as you need to make an effort in finding ways to win *_despite_* those limitations. Besides, there is no (fun) game without rules.
The problem is that you are limiting yourself to your perception of the classes. In d&d 3.5 for example you select your class level by level wich is basically a choose whatever skill you want, while at the same time keeping a bit of theming to what you do. You could also use classes as world building tools, having knights of a certain order have a particular prestige class wich determines their rank, or a guild of rougues or wizards; or specially for priests of a particular religion. It becomes a problem when players forget that a class is a useful tool rather than a strict path.
I think Earth Dawn has that as an actual thing. The game is beautifully broken for other reasons, but "Levels" refer to how initiated in a magical path the character is.
Time is a finite, non-renewable resource. Multitasking is also, technically, impossible. You can say you're good at multitasking all you like, but your efficiency at each of the tasks you're trying to do simultaneously is reduced because your attention is split between them. Let's be realistic here; you can spend time learning both magic and say swordplay. But because you are splitting your focus and time, you will be less practiced in each than a specialist of either. And while you may have some degree of versatility, you will be hard-pressed to overcome a specialist who will not allow you to use that versatility as leverage. It's why, in Final Fantasy for instance, a Paladin will always hit harder with their swords than a Red Mage, a White Mage will have better healing and white magic offensive spells, like Holy, than a Red Mage. A Black Mage will have more spells overall and more powerful spells than said Red Mage.
***** Except it's not stupid at all, and it does make sense. To master swordsmanship is itself something that takes many years of constant training. Then try adding learning how to cast spells, control magic, etc. at the same time. You'll find that you'd be stretching yourself thin because, as I said, you only have so much time which you can learn. You can either specialize in one area and become masterful in that, or you can spread your time and learning out over multiple fields, and be adequate, if anything, in them. It is impossible for a person to excel in absolutely everything. There are things which a person will naturally be more inclined towards for a number of reasons. Furthermore, holding a sword is a lot different from using one effectively, and well enough to face someone, if you're say a mage and trying to use a sword, against someone who has spent most of their life mastering swordplay. You will be completely thrashed in swordplay, and chances are that the person who is more skilled as a swordsman would run you through or finish you off before you realize your error and can fall back on your spellcasting. And more than anything, it is precisely for, wait for it... BALANCE. Let's use D&D for an example. If you had a person who could be a mage, and yet still use martial weapons as effectively as a paladin, who by virtue of being a knight that is trained in the usage of many martial weapons over the course of their training and life as a knight, what would be the point of playing a paladin, who has lesser offensive capabilities as a spellcaster? Time is finite, and people, no matter who they are, have an inclination to some area or another. Some are more mathematically gifted, others are more linguistically inclined, others are more physical, others are more cerebral, etc. Play to your STRENGTHS, don't try to shore up your weaknesses so much that you neglect honing your strengths at all.
Ole-Martin Thorsen Tanks are also in a drought, remember. There are multiple factors that key into this. People wanting to do massive damage because it feels good, it feels powerful. People being toxic towards tanks or healers for making even the slightest mistake. Most content needing only one or two, maybe three tanks for large raids, versus needing a lot of DPS also contributes to this. The class system is not to blame, it is mostly other people, and this is for MMOs. I play as a tank mostly and people who have never even touched a tank before, when I was just learning, or made a slight mistake due to being new to content, they would immediately rip into me. The same happened to healers who were new or were slightly off with their timing. It is a thankless, stressful role, but I do it anyway because I enjoy it.
+Darth Nox Your points are correlated, but you could just as easily argue that the reverse is true. It could just as easily be that most players choose a DPS role, so developers make raids that need many DPS players. Players could be toxic towards minor tank or healer mistakes because they have had to wait for a long time to do the mission/dungeon/raid whatever, and are upset because they can't just leave and find a better group after wasting all this time. Also, developers tend to focus on improving the parts of their games that get the most attention from players, so part of the DPS class feeling better to play may come from the extra attention that role is payed. There are MMOs that do tanking and healing roles well, but I can't think of a good example of one where the player is locked into their choice. The best one, imo, is Final Fantasy XIV, but you can freely switch classes at any time.
! example a wizard can't wield a sword or wear armor, how is that multitasking?" Perfectly logical since study of magic most of times means neglecting physical exercises in favor of mental ones and thus making physically weaker which in turn means that sword, and armor would encumber you, interfere with spell gestures and etc. Logical balance.
I know this is an old video, but I just now saw it and thought it was worth commenting on. At first, I agreed with Shad - there is no need to restrict characters' ability to learn new things. I'm a software developer, but I'm self-taught - my formal education has nothing to do with writing code! Similarly, I didn't get into playing hockey until I was a teenager, and I've met guys who learned to skate and stuff much later in life! So real life is not that restrictive - it's not like "You're {x} so you can't do {y}." People can have more than one skill! If I be both a programmer and a hockey player, then a character in a game can be both a warrior and a sorcerer. But let's look at this from another angle: some skills take years to learn to do effectively. For example, when I started writing code back in 2012(ish), I didn't know nearly as much as I do now - and in another 7 years, I'll know a lot more than I do now. Why? Because I'm investing my time in becoming the best coder I can be. I can do things now that would have blown my mind 7 years ago! Same deal with hockey - professional hockey players could skate circles around me, because they have invested all their time in becoming the best hockey players they can be. And in both cases, there are even "subclasses" - programmers can specialize in one language or another, and there are different positions in hockey as well; sure, that doesn't prevent people from trying other positions or languages, but people can choose to specialize in specific ones. In other words, some skills require ridiculous amounts training or experience to do WELL. So I guess I sort of still agree with Shad, in that strict character classes should be explained by logic, and ideally should not restrict players' abilities to the extent that we see in most RPGs; however, I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater here either. Okay, so yeah, a wizard should probably be able to pick up a sword - but is s/he really gonna be able to fend off a highly trained, physically stronger warrior? Of course not (and why would s/he, if his/her magic skills can do better)! A rogue may learn a spell or two, but is s/he gonna be able to defeat a powerful wizard? That would play out like this: Rogue throws fireball at wizard Wizard vanishes, avoiding the fireball, then turns into a dragon and turns rogue into charcoal. Versus: Rogue sneaks up on wizard, and kills him/her with a dagger. Done. So I don't really think character classes are completely pointless or absolutely stupid. It might be fun to have a character who isn't specifically a warrior or wizard or whatever, and have him/her learn as s/he goes. But it might also be fun to just be a wizard! :D
@@lt.branwulfram4794 So, Eldritch Knights were supposed to be "casters" too... but it's not like I am the one who came up with the concept that "Armour interferes with mana." I was just asking: "Shouldn't a heavily armoured souldier/knight be resistent to magic or at-least lightning/electicity based magic?" :D
Although I like D&D 5e because A wizard can still wear armor and use a sword he's just not proficient. Armor slows him down (Makes sense) and wizards in specific can't cast spells in non proficient armor can describe as you like Weapons are not as good for them (Don't add your proficiency to hit)
Pathfinder and D&D 3.5 edition were the same in a way. He could always use a sword but at a -2 to hit unless he spends a feat on it. Armor came with a spell fizzle chance that depended on the type of armor worn with certain types of armor being better for casting in. Some magic casting classes also leaned to cast perfectly while wearing armor up to heavy armor at a high enough level, although they did this at the cost of higher level spells.
I'm a casual gamer who likes diving into RPG-s without the need to master all the rules and stats beforehand. Classes offer great guildlines for just jumping in and playing. Usually with too many stats I just google a good lookong character build and follow that without thinking. So there are many playstyles I guess.
I think it depends on the game. When I started making games I was in the same boat of wanting more player-choices, no classes, more freedom. I still like that freedom when I play, however, in some games like team based strategy, such as DND and JRPG's, players especially those unfamiliar with the genre, can easily get overwhelmed, lost and frustrated without guidelines such as classes when expectations aren't met. I think if you're already well-versed or playing a single-player game it's nice to have that freedom to build what you want and games should cater to veterans who want that, but most players need a foundation to understand the game in order to continue the game's longevity, which is why every game has some form of tutorial to make the player feel like they're standing on solid ground. Just like tutorials, some games pull of well-made tutorials and well-made class systems, but other games feel bad and could use work. I see no problem in giving everyone the ability to use a sword though.
Not really. To learn everything comes with a simple price. you will master nothing. In computer games and P&P RPGs you always have a limitet number of points you can use for skills and stuff. And you can build other restrictions like "metal makes problems while wielding magic or a cost for magic that allows non magic users to pick advantages you simply don't have the points for if you pick a magical ability. You can give advantages to certain materials. Like " A wooden staff helps channeling your magic while the meal of a sword doesn't help channeling magic but makes problems with gestures. While the Warrior searches for the Meteorite Metal that is especially good for weapons, The Sorcerer searches for the Wood of an Anciend whatever Tree cut in the Light of the first full moon after summer solstice because it channels Magic better.
Imagine a lvl 10 character He may: -Have one single skill on lvl 10 -Have 2 skills on lvl 5/5, 7/3, or any other variation -Have 10 skills on lvl 1 (wich would actually suck, knows everything, good at nothing). Having access to every single skill tree doesn't make a character op. Being high level with a good skill choice would do it. Just like real life: you can learn or train any skill, you decide in wich ones you will invest your time or not.
There's a chronic problem with options in classless systems being nearly impossible to balance. There are too many possible interactions and some of them are bound to be broken. If there's unlimited grinding all classless characters eventually do everything, which makes them become boring. Classes remove some of the possible interactions without completely removing the options and make game design simple enough that balance isn't completely impossible. As has been famously said of democracy, classes are the worst possible system apart from all other systems that have been tried.
I mean, yeah, it's easy to break certain things with a classless system, but that's really part of the fun. You just have to manage to balance it so it's not heavily broken, just moderately broken. For example, in KoA:R, if you do a Universalist run (Almost totally well-rounded between Sorcery, Finesse, and Might), you can be great with a Greatsword, have Lunge, and have a Faer Gorta. What that essentially means is that you can teleport behind an enemy, deal lots of damage with a combo, and still have a dummy there for things to attack while you actually deal damage. Which is kind of broken, yeah, but it's still not so broken that it defeats everything in the game. A lot of the bigger enemies that are harder to stagger can easily just ignore it. Simple balancing~
the way to balance it is to encourage a specialty or build/character concept. say i want to make a hunter. i would focus on stealth and marksman ship so i can take an animal at range. i would also focus on tracking skills, navigation, natural lore like knowledge of plants, animals and environmental factors. as well as skills in basic anatomy so i could quickly kill and prepare an animal once killed. from their i could branch of as the character develops. say my character also runs a shop. he would then need skills for management, finance and communication and what ever skills the theme of the shop focuses on. this type of focus would be for more drawn out campaigns where a one off would work better with the archetypal classes so that the other players better know what to expect at a glance.
I mean... the existence of classes doesn't prevent D&D from being broken. In 5th edition, the paladin's standard attacks do more damage than anyone else's spells. The warrior with great weapon fighting benefits more from being invisible than the rogue. The fighter who picks eldritch knight makes better use of defensive spells than an abjuration mage. The ranger is stronger in hand to hand combat than at range. All classes have the same damage output, but some have better health and AC. Druids can conjure better pets than rangers' class feature. Sorcerers can do twice as much per round as mages. Rogues aren't the best sneak attack, not the best DPR, not the best _anything_ . You can't really use balance as an excuse if you then go and don't do any effort to balance.
The reason I don't buy the balance argument is because I have played many class systems and the classes are never balanced equally to each other, never. No matter what you do, there is always some kind of imbalance. And for the classless games I have played in, the unbalance has never been any worse than with class based games. That said, you do need some cap. You obviously can't let people max out every skill in the game.
There are no restrictions like that in DnD. A wizard can use a sword, or a halberd, or anything. He's just not proficient in it, so he won't be as good at it. Makes perfect sense.
The idea of more freedom in games is interesting, and as a fan of the Souls series, I also appreciate the fluidity in leveling up ones character. However, I think classes do fulfill certain necessities in games that involve multiple players. The restrictions within classes give players defined roles, which is very important in team based games. It is common in real life that when one is given a group project, members assume certain roles that contribute to different aspects of the project. Classes emulate this. It forces players to work together. Only Bob can heal, only John can properly tank, only Mark can do high DPS. They must work as a team to be successful; if they all could heal, tank, and do damage, then teamwork would not be nearly as necessary. Secondly, many games with classes (namely RPGs) are games of numbers. Some players do determine what equipment they use based off of back-story or stylistic preference, but ultimately that equipment assigns certain numbers to their character. Their character has so much defense, they can do so much damage, they can go this fast, etc. Because of this, if no restrictions are placed, then players will eventually learn what is the best "build." What combination of armor, weapons, and abilities create the best character? Depending on how the game is designed, this could lead to either one build being the best overall, or a few being superior to others. In a team-based game, this means one player is more valuable than others hands down, which is never good. In a PvP setting, this makes one player better than the rest except for those with the same or similar build. Having classes with restrictions make it so that the best build of one class is not the best build over all classes. The best Wizard is not the best character; the best Fighter offers many things that the Wizard will never be able to do. When fighting other players, I don't just lose because my opponent has the best build. This is more prevalent in slower or turn-based games, such as tabletop games. In a game like Dark Souls, there is a huge emphasis on skill in timing and reflexes. Players can be Lvl 1 with just a dagger and kill the final boss. Why? Because they mastered the timing, invincibility frames, and boss attacks. That character has the worst "build." My Lvl 100 character has far superior stats in every case, but if their Lvl 1 were to fight my Lvl 100, they would probably win. Why? Because the game has a much greater emphasis on skill in timing that numbers. In a game like D&D or other table top games, they are less focused on skill and more focused on a well designed build. If one were to compare two control wizard characters of the same Lvl, people well versed in the game will be able to determine which is better. A fight between these two will go to the better build, ignoring luck in rolling. If given two Dark Souls characters of the same Level, people could tell you which is better, but when pitted against each other, the victory goes to the more skilled player, not better build. This all being said, I think freedom in building a character really depends on the type of game. Single-player games or games with more emphasis on timing and reflexes, then freedom is more justifiable. Single-player games do not have interaction with others to deal with it, and timing based games reward skill, not build. In slower/turn-based games or multi-player, restrictions on classes become much more important as the numbers associated with the build become much more important and/or interaction between players needs to be balanced. Just the thoughts of a RPG enthusiast (videogames and some tabletop).
I must, respecfully, strongly disagree with everything you have said here, fellow rpg enthusiast, and here's why. The players don't need their roles to be defined by restrictions that the game's mechanics foist upon them. They will naturally fall into the roles their characters fit into during play due to the group dynamics that come about through roleplaying. That's why it's called a rolePLAYING game rather than a gameplaying role, lol. In the case of tabletop rpgs, classes do not force teamwork, or at least aren't needed to do so since the setting of a cooperative game does that just fine on its own. Regardless of overlapping capabilities of their characters, the players are still all naturally inclined to work together to succeed because they are sitting together at a table to play the game with each other. The same can be said of cooperative multiplayer videogames, except without the table. The story, the setting, and the character's motivations will also serve to bind the party together. Teamwork is already completely necessary without the need for mechanical limitations in the game rules. They are games PARTLY about numbers, not ONLY about numbers. Again, it's called a ROLEplaying game, not a GAMEplaying role. The problem of optimization which you describe is not a problem at all, and even if it was, the same holds true whether or not such restrictions are in place in the mechanics of the game. It isn't a problem for the simple fact that not everyone wants to play a character just to have the best numbers, and if they do, let them, it's their way to enjoy the game. In which case, that only becomes a problem if the other players are petty or immature enough to let this cooperative game be about "which one of us is better" and/or if the game is solely about mechanical success in a specific task, such as a combat focused rpg. Which is, unfortunately, how most video game rpgs work and is why such restricted roles are so prevalent, but is extremely wasteful when it is that way in a tabletop roleplaying game which can easily and should definitely be about so much more. Otherwise, you'd be better off just playing a tabletop wargame, which exists for that exact purpose. It is much more difficult to find such a balance in videogames, however, because the medium itself is much more restrictive to play styles and focuses than a game literally only limited by the collective imagination of the players. Your statement of "This is more prevalent in slower or turn-based games, such as tabletop games" is only correct with the caveat of "... such as tabletop games THAT EMPHASIZE OR FOCUS ON MECHANICAL SUCCESS IN A SPECIFIC TASK." Tabletop games are indeed less focused on the skill of the player (because it is somewhat irrelevant in a purely social game where everything in the game is decided by choices and chance) and more focused on the skill of the character based on its build, but they also have many more aspects to focus on such as ROLEplaying, decision making, strategy, exploration, socializing, and story telling. A tabletop game that focuses on optimal character building is severely limiting its potential for a satisfying and enjoyable experience. When your focus is solely on combat in game play, then regardless of medium or player skill, a better build will be desirable and will become a focus of the game to some degree. This happens in video games (including your dark souls example) as much as it does in tabletop games. In all types of rpgs there will always be a balance between emphasis on choice of tools and skill of usage. In any game with rules of any kind the use of the rules can and will be optimized by its players, it's unavoidable and only a problem if it goes too far. Certainly some games do emphasize optimization more than others. Particularly games like D&D and Pathfinder which strongly emphasize combat in their rules and use a class system with many choices of special abilities with various bonuses and penalties. Those kinds of rules mechanics, most commonly characterized by a strict class system, creates a complex system of many different combinations of varying effectiveness in combat. It's exactly why I don't play D&D or Pathfinder anymore and have been developing my own personal ttrpg system. Because I don't want to play a game that both emphasizes optimal builds and restricts freedom of building. I think that more freedom in building a character is always more justifiable than less, regardless of whether the numbers associated with the build are more or less important in the focus of the game play. Interactions between players should be balanced, surely, but not by the unnecessary restrictions that a class system imposes. There are better and easier ways that do not hamstring creativity. Thank you for reading this far if you did.
None of the games you brought up forbid you to use swords if youre a wizard... neither DnD nor diablo.... especially not diablo wich allows you to wear and use all the weapons and armors no matter if youre a barbarian, wizard or necromancer. Also simply "allowing players to pick what they want" would be a horrible horrible balancing nightmare that would ruin a DMs campaign 9 out of 10 times because you had one guy who made his character into Arnold mcmurderface stalone... the fireball juggling, fullplate wearing, two hand wielding sneaky backstabbing crit machine. Also besides being a balancing factor classes are also Archetypes that help players (not only the person playing the char btw) identify and imerse themselves into said character and the world those characters reside in. For example in the forgotten realms a wizard does not wear heavy metall armor and wields battleaxes, a barbarian doesnt spend most of his time studying ancient arcane tomes of knowledge and warriors usually dont spend time being in tune with mother nature in the middle of a forest by turning into animals. Freeform systems ala Skyrim and Darksouls might work well for singleplayer and/or games where your chars statistics are secondary to your reflexes and skill at the game (monster hunter franchise comes to mind) such (in theory) limitless systems would ruin any PnP round i can think off.
I would aggree on the balancing part, but not because of the exact reason you presented. Since there is a big connectivity between players of games these days, it is fairly quickly found what "builds" work the best for a given game, classless or not. so if you have a classless multiplayer game then people would figure out really quickly what combination of skills and weaponry is the best, simply because there always will be a mathematical best build. something like that happend to Starcraft, where the different races were so balanced in numbers, that they were really too similar, and players started all playing the same strategies, winner beeing the one who could execute it best. So I think that in multiplayer rolegames you run danger of loosing diversity really quickly if you dont have classes, that guarantee at least a small degree of diversity. All in all I like skyrim-ish systems for singleplayer much better, but I dont know if i would want to see that in a multiplayer game
Thundermikeee Ah but heres the thing: In a class system your DM has more control over what is allowed and what isnt. Lets say a player wants to take RDD to boost his berserkers/barbarian stats to kingdom come (+8 STR +4 NAC and some other nifty bonuses). The DM has many lore reasons to deny him this class that arent solely based on his arbritrary decisions, eg. he has a justification for denying said barbarian from picking that class even if he has the needed qualifications for said prestige class. Maybe there are no dragons around, maybe no dragon wants the character as Disciple or maybe that class simply doesnt even exist in his world The DM could make sure that the characters choices reflect the current campaign and worldsetting. If the player on the other hand could freely pick and choose however there would be alot less justification, not only that but a specific ability that adds flavour and fits a certain build might be completly OP and out of place on another. How are you gonna justify allowing player A to pick that ability, but deny it to player B? Because it would make his character to powerfull? But player A was allowed to take it... thats totaly unfair. And then you have players playing the rulebooks and not their characters. Sure this also happens in class based systems, god knows NwN and NwN 2 servers where full of that crap... but usually a class based system is simply better for a smooth play experience on the table.
Riptors well i have to admit to not having much experience with tabletop games, but i believe there it does make some sense but even so an archtype system would be preferable, you can learn whatever skills you want but are slower at learning those that dont fit your archtypw or have a cap on them. there can be lore reasons to these restictions as well, seeing as a character would have had a finite amount of time to train before any given adventure, you cant possibly have the mental discipline of a mage while having the physical discipline of a trained warrior, for example. i was more talking about mmorpgs, where the creators of thw world have less control over individual players on lore reasons, for obvious reasons. as for playing the rules over playing the character, in online games with even just a bit of competition i am a player that will play the rules, so am i in board and card games that i cant win. if i play a character then i dont care how op a build there is, i wont use it if its not compatible with my lore (in skyrim for example i can choose to play a priest type character and nor use necromancy, theft or assassination, even if it would bolster my strength... i guess important here is that everyone is on the same page about what they want out of the game.
Thundermikeee Thing is this system allready exists in DnD... so this video really is barking up the wrong tree. DnD has done away with class restrictions ever since 3rd edition, letting you freely multiclass and take what you want (aslong as it fits the campaign ofcourse) Even the penalty for wearing heavy armor can be mitigated greatly if you let your char wear armor made from mythril, so in theory you can have your fullpalte wearing wizard. This video critisizes systems that havent been in place for forever in Dungeons and Dragons. And compares said dungeons and dragons to diablo 2 wich has about as much to do with RPG then a streetfighter title has to do with RPG DnD has come a long way and there are so many iterations out now that theres something for everyone... afterall its in its currently 5th edition i think?
You 60% don't use ANY weapons in D3, actually. Unless you don't have enough resources for your standard attack you never actually swing your sword. Instead, for example, the monk puts his weapon away and kicks/punches, yet still, deals more damage with his attacks the stronger the weapon on his belt/back is. It IS true tho that you can pick up all weapons that aren't class restricted which is I think most of them. The only thing that says you shouldn't pick up that sword as a wizard is the D3 Meta...
I think D&D 5e does it particularly well (though not the best). You can use any piece of equipment you find, but you’re going to need to be proficient to use it well (and you can gain proficiency from a class or from other sources including downtime training). As for casting in armor, it essentially implies that if you’re not proficient with an armor piece, its just restrictive and exhausting enough to hinder casting, I imagine similar to a swordsman in training who’s never fought in full plate; not impossible, but not combat-efficient. 5e also throws out prestige classes, and leans more on subclasses, which just highlight a particular way to be a particular class, like an assassin, thief, or swashbuckler rogue, as well as more fantastical options. If you want to learn magic, you could dedicate a level to a casting class, take a feat that allows you to cast particular spells, or perhaps just cast it through an item you found in a pile of ogre dung. (Being magically gifted by lineage is also possible) So for 5e, a class is more representative of your broad training, your subclass is your specialization, and your various proficiencies and feats are specific things you’ve learned how to do. It’s about as rigid as it needs to be, but flexible enough to allow a wide verity of builds, with new options always being released officially or as play-test material, as well as a multitude of fan-made homebrews for anything you could think of.
I think classes have a place in very rules heavy games because of the amount of depth they can provide for example lists of spells for mages, but I think most designers use classes as a crutch to compensate for poorly designed encounters.
Character classes are a absolute must in MMORPGs because without those 90% of players would grab the best build from some homepage and the game would become stupid as shit.
Люций Бойправ There _is_ a ultimate build for every role you can play in EVE even if it hasn't been _found_ yet (large pool of possible upgrades makes it harder to find the optimum). It always comes down to stats and one build is the one that's either the one with the best stats or the one with the best costs/stats ratio. In EVE you have to buy the stuff you want on your ship which makes it harder to pursue the best build, but most RPGs simply give you a skill point per lvl and you are free to spent it however you want. There is a reason why every marksman hunter in WoW has the exact same specs. A progressive guild did the math (small pool) and everyone copies it because it gives you the biggest numbers on the dps-meter.
Well, Pillars, Tyranny and Skyrim did it perfectly without classes, you can do anything and everything at once or you can specialize but it's your choice.
David Bodor Skyrim has *zero* multiplayer content. I very clearly talked about MMORPGs since in Skyrim there's no one to cry foul when you use an exploit to become totally OP (and boy, are there many). But look at Elder Scrolls Online, that game flopped so hard it's not even funny anymore.
The reason there are class's is because people need structure. With unlimited choice people will either pick the same skills, or create a build that cannot work and end unable to perform. Sometimes less is more.
People also want to do what they want, which will directly contrast with a games flow, setting, and design. Classes help to keep you tied to the world and story you are currently playing.
I think RPGs like the Elderscrolls series and the Dark Souls series solved this problem quite good: Play what you like, if you are good at it, you could even win a battle with a ladle (Dark souls 2).
I'd like to plainly disagree with you, Yono. As a lover of both games, the freedom is an interesting novelty until you understand what you inevitably end up with. When talking about Souls, we're probably talking about PVP when it comes to the end game, and in DS1, you had tons of freedom, everything was powerful and viable, but the system for PVP was a fucking mess of backstabs, exploits, and meta that ultimately removed any chance of skill. DS2's soul memory ruined what could have very easily been the objective best PVP experience of any souls game period, all in the hopes of stopping a rare, seemingly negative, but ultimately positive experience for only a few individuals. Instead of DS1's freedom, you're forced to either tough it out against people significantly higher level than you, all able to cast every spell, use every weapon, and shrug off any hit you have to trade with them due to their misunderstanding of PVP. Winning through sheer numbers is not winning, in both DS2 and DS3 we can plainly see this in full swing, as in DS2 you have havelmonsters with gorillions of tools at their disposal, usually extremely high damage low-risk equipment that you can't really do much to protect or counter without resorting to cheesing in some way yourself, and in DS3, you either play the meta or don't play at all as the community's meme-builds will just faceroll you into oblivion with their "sheer skill" of 600 damage r1s. The elderscrolls does well until you reach the endgame, which is max level. Most players as I've heard, (and personal experience) just end up maxing out every skill and being a god among men, which sounds cool since at least you had to work up to it, but it makes any further gameplay extremely hollow, as there's no challenge left that you can't brute force your way through with sheer numbers. More or less the same issue in DS2 just in a different flavor, the player doesn't care for playing a role and just goes with the best of everything he can do. I think a much better example of freedom in classing would actually be Star Wars' Knights of the Old Republic 2, where you started with a class that had an early direction - and a few constraints, but ultimately let you design your character absolutely however you pleased, for example, it's rarely heard of, but playing as a blaster-caster jedi in heavy armor is actually quite good in the second game, as there are perks to benefit ranged weapons in close combat, and you can swap the melee strength scaling for dexterity instead, effectively being able to build without any need for strength at all. Further mixed with the pretty depth-y weapon customization, you'll end up rarely feeling threatened by anything towards the end of the game, but it ties into the story, and doesn't last too long as your end game is achieved shortly before the end of the game in most cases. The problem with absolute freedom is absolute freedom. You either don't know what to do with it, do boring meta-tier trash things with your freedom that aren't really free, or end up failing because it's poorly balanced. Real freedom is tough, and never really works out well if you still want a challenge after you've done with half or so of the game.
I would also add: I hate the concept of magic in most of those games. Like, my character can throw fireballs at my enemies but I can't light a candle because I don't have the specific magic to do it? Or, hey, I can throw a fireball... wops, I can't anymore, because I "forgot" how to cast them (despite having it writen down in the book in my hands, right in front of my eyes)... That's why I created my own magic system for NWoD (I hated the one in Mage: the Awakening and the one in Second Sight) in which the characters magical prowess "limit" what he can do with the magic (enhance an existing thing, transform and existing thing into another, creating something completely new etc), but as long as he have the knolodge, he don't have pre-determined skills, and can use, what I called, "creative magic", in which he quickly creates the spell on the go and roll the dices (there is a single roll for "controlling magic"), also, I allowed the players to, in case they repeatidely use a spell in a single way, or if the mage's family had a tradional spell of their own, they can make it into a "classic spell", which needs to be cast in a specific way, but have bonus to the control roll (those would work like the classical magics) I'm currently testing it, but seens to be going well. It's the 3rd or so attempt on doing it, and this time I've completely rulled out "arcanes" and "magic schools" of any kind, as I found out they made rules inconsistent and the players were abusing them ("hey, I can "regulate" life force? so I can decrease it and cause the person to die, can't I?" this kind of stuff, now such deeds are extremely hard to control without some specializations, which may result in the mage hurting himself)
I do not mind the classes in videogames though, as they are never "my character", even in games such as skyrim, that in theory allows you to "freely roleplay", they are highly restrictive on what you can actually do, and usually direct you into roleplaying a semi-pre-made character, even if you can customize them. It's the case in Diablo, for example, you can customize the character's equipment, but they have their own personality and you can't change it at all, so i don't mind they having their specific sets of skills, because that's what that character develops, and I just point and click around the screen untill (s)he speaks something ('cause, lets be fair, that's Diablo's gameplay if you remove the cool animations, the only possible layer you could add there is controlling how many enemies you confront at once). So, since it's not MY character, it's a pre-made character that I am allowed to customize a few points and then control it as I discover how his personality is, I don't mind that the skills he will dedicate his life to are as predetermined as his personality, behavior, likes, dislikes etc
Mage was fine as long as you had a good GM willing to throw out rotes entirely. I only played first edition so I don't know how they changed it, but 3 points in forces and fireballs, candle lighting, heck even night vision and basic inertial dampening in combat should've been possible. Even with the rotes system in, you could still attempt something different at a higher difficulty.
***** but that was for one specific tower, the other ones had problems like 'what exactly does regulate death or Regulate life does?', I also found a series of inconsistencies along the way in it. Maybe "hate" wasn't the best world, it is, after all, the basis for the system I created, but the tower thing just didn't worked well, neither the descriptions they gave to what each Arcanum level allowed that you couldn't do before. The paradox system was really good though, and kept basically the same thing with slight modifications in my own magic system. Also: I created this system for a specific scenario based in Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, the humanity system is vital to this game, making WoD the only pratical system to play it, but the monsters, magic etc aren't hidden from humanity (at least noit all of them) kinda in a Witcher like world, humans have their cities and society, but just outside of it, monsters might be lurking, ready to tear down to pieces those uncapable of defending themselves, so the Winsdom and Paradox system had to be rewriten to still be a major part of the system, but without stopping mages from using it in front of others. So, those were the reasons I didn't like the Mage system: 1- players exploiting the non-logical base of the system to manage things they shouldn't be allowed in their level, because the system wasn't well written 2- the system (at least in the first press) was already full of problems, miss-writes etc that would force me to change a lot of things anyway 3-tower system with towers that either overlapped or didn't worked well in the system as a whole (either because it took 3~4 Arcanum levels to become as efficient as the others or because it drastically dropped efficiency after 3~4 Arcanum levels) 4-it didn't suited the game's scenario, even though the system it self was perfect for it - killing a goblin, for example, isn't just a random encounter like in D&D, it results in humanity drop, not as drastic as killing another human, but they are humanoids that share many instincts and behaviors with humans, making it kinda the experience to actually kill one and go mentally unscratched from the encounter... at least untill your humanity drops enough. 5-complex system with informations spread all around the book that forced players to waste an awful lot of time looking for what they needed. 6-felt like some concepts from other sources would be a good add to the system, though they didn't mixed well with the original
It's about training if you want to be proficient with a weapon you have to dedicate time in practicing with it. A wizard could pick up a sword but you would be shit at it. That is why in most RPG you get proficiency modifier. And to simplify it they ban it all together.
The answer goes down to three things: 1. Weapons 2.skills and 3. Stats. If u want to use magic its not that u can't pick up a sword but the sword gives u physical damage and a wand gives magic damage, equipping a sword just makes you loose damage since a fire bolt causes magic damage and gets bonus from magic damage, so its not u can't but its more like its not the best option, second its the stats, if they increase attack speed u probably prefer a weapon that profits from that like a dagger that has half damage as a sword but has double the chance to critical strike dealing 3 times more damage so if u like to play with high evade and attack speed u would opt for daggers since they give again the most value, and last u have skills, if u want to heal u pick up a mace that increases heeling and gives u something to help your teem. Classes a created because of this 3 things, in order to optimize what u want to do u chose a class because u choose abilities, weapons and stats that give u the most benefit. If a sword wouldn't give u the same benefit as a wand that the items are only for customization and have no real impact, and that is also the problem with mmorpgs, u can't make a character unique because u need the best item and abilities to do what u want, if u want sneak u need a ability that makes it possible, and light armor which offers small defense but good doge so u want bee a killer u can a) equip a dagger so u can use poison on him and move fast since daggers are not heavy and attack stealthy from the shadows or u can b) equip a long sword and run in battle just hitting face on what comes in the way, but u need much damage and some armor so u don't go down before u swing the sword. It depends on how u want play, but there is customization, so u can equip something that looks like a sword but is actually a wand but that is only customization, usually costs money and isn't quit so free on what weapon u can have
I personally agree that classes do add unnecessary restriction and that it's preferable to have a class-free system. But the reason why D&D will never do away with them is easy to explain: if they give you this freedom, they can no longer sell you a shitload of expansion books which do nothing other than adding all sorts of new classes which are basically nothing than a re-combination of existing abilities that previously could not be combined in that manner, because of those artificial restrictions.
Shadiversity, you missed a crucial thought on this subject. You were looking at it from a game player mindset and not a developer mindset. From a developer's perspective, you need to have a mechanism where you can provide cool abilities to players that are iconic feeling (note, the iconic feeling is not a unique ability in and of itself but it feels good to a player when they get it) and they have to be balanced against each other. Dungeons and Dragons (which I have played for a long time in multiple versions) is restrictive in ways that many other RPGs are not, and they are not the best at balancing their system, but what about other RPGs? I will bring two examples specifically for your argument and show that it has to do with developers choice for balance, namely Shadowrun and Fantasy Craft. In Shadowrun, they have listed classes, but literally the classes do nothing except give a starting point for ideas that players can build down. All of the abilities are purchasable with the growth mechanics that are the replacement for leveling up. The downside of this is that there are correct choices in the world of Shadowrun for a player to be now, because you can mathematically calculate exactly which abilities are more efficient than the others, and there is not a game reason (there may be a role playing reason) to do anything else. There should not be hackers or samurai or guards or anything but adepts in shadowrun because the magical abilities do not have downsides like the cyber-themed warriors or the combat useless hackers. Plus, since the Adept can choose any ability, they can still learn how to hack if the need arises, making the players who choose hacking to feel bad about their decisions (which is the most important point). Then we have Fantasy Craft, which is a D20 spawn with a class system. They aimed for low magic with a variety of classes with relatively unique abilities and a huge feat pool for customization. In this, the classes allow for unique abilities to be gained in a balanced way as compared to the other classes, and they feel good because they are related to a long term investment on the part of the player. A player is rewarded for dedicating themselves to an idea for a long time and not deviating (this is achieved through capstone abilities and midway capstones at levels 5, 10, 14, and 20). Furthermore, your wizard not able to wield a sword scenario is circumvented by having proficiency work as a growing purchase system that either diversifies your knowledge portfolio of weapons, or specializes you by giving you tricks and maneuvers with your proficient weapons (same pool used for both tricks and proficiency). Fantasy Craft also has a fluid skill base by giving each class a base set and providing an origin skill of the player's choice (sometimes two skills depending on the background chosen at character creation). Fantasy Craft showcases the strength of a class based system (providing unique abilities that reward player decisions at the beginning while remaining balanced against other players) and giving flexibility to players who want to make unusual choices for a class. Also realize that what class you are does not define how your character sees themselves. One of my favorite characters in D&D was a Samurai. His class was all Wizard and he carried a Katana that he did not use for combat but as an arcane focus. He would challenge people to duels, prepare a spell, and then use "combat techniques" to create powerful magical effects. When asked he would say he was a Samurai, and he followed a Samurai code. What your character does and says has nothing to do with the names that are given to the statistics and math that go into his mechanics. I do appreciate the freedom of choice that you mentioned in your video (which is why I prefer Fantasy Craft to D&D) but there are reasons to use classes. As an aside for your prestige classes (not denying that money for book releases is a motivator) when you make something, and then later think of a cool ability that you wanted in the game, but would be game breaking if it were given as an option for any character, prestige classes allow for cool abilities that you came up with after the initial release to be introduced to the game in a way that does not trivialize other options.
As a gamer i can definitively see where your coming from from but also as a gamer i like the character types. With the archetypes their is some what of a familiarity to a game like for noobs who are just starting a game the archetypes help with the learning experience. For instace i always go for a mage as my starting character in any games that allow that so there is a starting point so i can see if i like the archetype rather than starting a new character with nothing to build them up just to not like the finished outcome that can be time consuming so it is nice to have that starting position.
I honestly hate the stock grinding aspect of role-playing that's been made such a norm. In last year's Crusader Kings II unrest tyranny is example of really good. Because you play a role and you have to you learn how to play in that role interact with the world what is possible for that role etc.
Joel Bridge I think I see what you're getting at. I can definitely understand the fun of having limitations in the sense that it forces you to think in ways you might not have considered otherwise. I think an excellent example of this would be Team Fortress 2. If you decide to play as the engineer then it forces you to look at the battlefield in a way that is very different than if you had chosen to play as the soldier. In that sense being forced into a limited role can actually bring more variety into the game. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?
That's one way but I'm more referring to if you're a wizard you're not really going around throwing Fireballs you're going to be studying the esoteric nature of magic. If you're so sure you're going to be a mercenary you're going to be working for a company maybe you're a grunt in the army you're not going to be this Rising hero only fate and change gives you that ability. How late I want it to you if you rise you gain ability it's through how to fix them or trade something you acquire and time that you're kind of gross but it's not this unnatural class system or this. Your character is made by their background before the games begin dance for Tuesday are their abilities or social class where they come from there going to be a certain person no baby this high adventure. But maybe you can rise to the occasion. Again that's why I love seeing you too because you're really forced to play a feudal Lord and deal with the responsibility of being a feudal Lord.
for a limited use game where you can switch between classes, roles, or characters, the diffrent classes work well. for a one off mission or a strategy game they work well too because you know what you are getting and can use the leveling trees and game mechanics to build a force that works for the mission. for long term characters, being able to mold your character the way you want to is key. one way to do this is having classes that branch in to sub-classes, another way is to have a starting archetypal build that allows you to go from there, like in oblivion. in Oblivion you could chose from a list of premade classes after a tutorial dungeon crawl or you could make your own. at the end of the tutorial they gave you a recommendation based on how you handled the tutorial. still another is to give a general build and tell the player to have at it.
There is a difference between "not able to pick up a sword" and "not knowing how to use swords properly". It makes sense that a amazon in Diablo II wouldn't pick sword as her weapon of choice since she is a master of the the bow and the spear. Either way, modern DnD totally allows your mage to use a sword. The only thing they get is a penalty to attack rolls, which is self explanatory since a first lvl mage used his time to learn magic instead of swinging around a sharpened piece of metal. Character classes serve as a mechanic to balance the average power a character can posses and even with all these rules and limitations in play people still manage to create lvl 1 demigods. Now image such a munchkin in a system where he freely gets to chose his proficiencies, features and stats. Have fun creating an encounter (not necessarily a battle, social interaction counts, too) that isn't a cakewalk for the munchkin and totally impossible for anyone with a sensible character.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning....the perfect game for doing whatever the frack you want with your level-ups and game answering with "Yep, got you covered there!". I absolutely love the amount of possibilities in that game. Want to mix sneaking, magic and fighting and get perks for mixing all 3? Yep, no problems. Want to have quite a bit of magic and swordfighting and only a little bit of sneaking and get perks for that? Yep, it's there. No penalties, no restrictions, just pure enjoyment. A shame that besides "classes" and brilliant combat that game had nothing else going for it :(
The thing about classes is, while a lot of people enjoy the roleplay element of making the character the way they want, when you get to end game content in a lot of games, you get players trying to be as efficient as possible as more players reach end game they are encouraged by their mates to switch to the best in slot. Resulting in min maxing being one of the best arguments against having all options available, even with current games you have this problem, someone shares a build that is efficient, lots of players copy that build, it gets nerfed by the developers and a new build becomes copied. If players had all the skills available, you would have less incentive to create more characters, since your one character could do everything and a large amount of players would just be using largely the same build till something better comes along only switching out the skills/ability's they use. Classes are just a smart way to increase the playtime of players in games, by giving them a different tool set to play the game, increasing the amount of time they spend in game. In a lot of online games increasing the chance they spend money in the ingame stores.
"What is stopping a wizard from picking up this big sword?" Well since you're saying this while showing an image of Diablo 3... and also while talking about D&D I'd have to point out that in both games a wizard CAN wield that big sword. ...he might just not be very good with it, which makes sense. If I spent my entire life reading books I'm not going to be a very good swordsman. The whole point of character classes is specialization. Just like in real life. A guy who trains with a sword his entire life will be much better at using a sword than a person with no real specialization. I mean if you wanted you could have an entire party of jack-of-all-trades but you'll get your asses kicked.
That's a good point. He mentioned D&D and Prestige Classes, which weren't in the game until 3rd Edition. At which point, Wizards could use swords and wear armor. Saying that having a particular class restricts you from using particular weapons or armor is stupid is a valid point, but that's not an argument against classes per se. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of class based gaming systems either - I prefer systems like GURPS and Ars Magica. But if we're going to talk D&D in particular, then there needs to be some acknowledgement of how the treatment of classes changed over the years. Yes, in the early editions classes function a lot like straight jackets - choose your class (or race, in Basic D&D) and that pretty much defines what your character will be able to do competently for that character's whole career. But in later editions, particularly 3rd Edition and later, class choice became much less restrictive. And for all the bad things about classes in general, the fact is they do help focus a character on a specific role which the class designer thought would be effective for the game (although actual in game experience sometimes showed the designer was wrong). So I don't think classes in RPGs are stupid, although I agree that sometimes they could have been better designed, and so could the overall game rules themselves. And in particular, I did not like the way character classes were designed in Dungeons and Dragons prior to 3E.
Sometimes I wonder if the classes are there to raise the skill floor, ie: to keep dumb people from designing useless characters that are jack-of-all trades-skilled-at-none. With a skilled/experienced group they are not really needed.
While I do appreciate the point that Gandalf, literally the prototypical Fantasy Wizard character, used a sword, he was also an ageless and immortal Maia who had been around since forever. Most RPG PCs are ordinary mortal people, typically young, who haven't had the time to get good at multiple things. As a child, I showed some affinity for the piano. My teacher said I had the potential to be really great at it. But the thing i had real passion for was the path of a different keyboard, and I threw myself into learning about computer programming. Today I've become really good at that and I've successfully made a career out of it, but at the cost of neglecting my musical training. If I had tried to seriously study everything I had an interest in, I would have never actually gotten *good* at any of it. In essence, I chose to specialize in becoming a Wizard (I create arcane formulae in strange languages that work by unintuitive rules that, when invoked, cause changes in the world) rather than a Bard. And isn't that what a character class really is? A reflection of a character's specialization and training, the thing that they become good enough at to be exceptional--because RPGs are all about heroes, who are exceptional people by definition. I agree that saying "the wizard can't pick up a sword" is stupid. That takes things too far. But it's completely realistic to say "he won't be nearly as good at using one as a trained fighter." Even Gandalf follows this rule; he may have held a sword, but the one you really remember for using swords effectively is Aragorn.
@Bjorn Arnesen Yeah, the early D&D magic system was horribly broken. It's been called "Vancian magic," but if so it completely misunderstands the writings of Jack Vance, where the strict limitations on magic were balanced by magic being _absolute._ For example, if you cast a spell to try to kill someone, the result is that they die. Period. They don't lose some HP, they don't get to make a save, etc. Vance's magic was exceptionally powerful, and exceptionally costly. D&D magic was exceptionally costly... and kind of sucky. (At least at lower levels; if your campaign ever lasted long enough to get to high levels you ended up with the opposite problem, typically referred to as "Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards.") They've done a lot of work to balance it out better in later editions, but IMO the spell-slot system really should have simply been put out of its misery decades ago and buried in a shallow grave next to THAC0 and other major mistakes of the early editions.
In a completely open-character system like D&D or Fallout, I agree that classes are rarely any good for anything more than initial structuring of the character. In other games, like Final Fantasy, Diablo, or the like, class is as much about character as about structure. It's not just about everything they can and can't do, it's about who they are. The Samurai doesn't not-use bows because he can't pick them up, but because he finds it dishonorable and distasteful. The mage doesn't not-use swords because he can't figure out which end to hold, but because why should he bother with crude steel when he can mold the very elements to his will! If YOU are the mage, though, from the get-go, then maybe you just think molding the very elements to your will with 4 feet of steel is a LOT cooler than doing it with 6 feet of wood.
Im pretty sure that the bow was actually the main weapons of the samurai for most of history, alongside guns and spears. Just a nitpick. on a more serious note, im not against classes necessarily, but gear restrictions based on class should go die in a burning hole for eternity. Its a awful, terrible thing. im okay with debuffs instead. say, the wizard can use the sword at any moment, but will be shit with it if the wizard does not invest in sword skill. atribute limitations are aalso okay. say the giant hammer that weights 15kg needs 8+ strenght to wield properly. not making it unwieldable, but rather very slow swing speed say, unless you have 8+ strenght. the tt shadowrun is a good example. far, far too complex for me to enjoy it, but they handle archetypes much better than most rpgs. Who you are should be molded by dialogue, with additional options based on your skills.
rafael m The bow was indeed a common weapon for Samurai for much of history, but many also refused to use it because they thought it dishonorable to kill an enemy from a distance without putting yourself in danger. Same for knights, though I think it was stronger in Europe. Yeah, I guess knight would have been a better example.
I think the best way to do it is like skyrims warrior, mage, theif stones. just as a guideline but you develop skills as you use them. its realistic and gives you a feeling of commitment to your character
What in the world would make someone believe a Samuria doesn't use a bow? It's primary weapon? The titular reason to be a samurai? The thing they were supposed to train with constantly to be able to shoot someone in the face with accuracy because everywhere else was too armored? Right alongside history and poetry. The katana was a samurai's secondary weapon (the equivalent of a pistol) used for civilian situations against unarmored opponents when it would be too cumbersome to carry around their real weapon. The pure idiocy of saying a samurai can't use a bow is EXACTLY WHY CLASS SYSTEMS ARE BAD. Gaaah! I'm sure others can point out the lunacy of saying a magical scientist who spends his entire life unraveling the mysteries of the universe could never, under any circumstances, figure out which end of the sword is the grip, but my god it's like you've never looked at a history book. And no you aren't the only one, DnD is rife with hilarious examples of classes not being able to do things they should by rights, and being given access to weird nonsensical things they would never have reason to use.
Mechanics aside, people are naturally drawn to archetypes, and they make for more enjoyable play. Without classes, you get into the insane hybrid and hyperoptimization aka munchkinning.
I don’t think classes change that. In fact, with fewer classes and maybe no classes, one can prevent that. One just has to build in costs. Like if weapons and armor had a penalty against the user's ability to use magic, then magic users would not use them. I would make magic ability not based off wisdom, but a “magic ability” stat. The problem with the hyperoptimization comes from "balancing" but also because DnD is just about combat.
