The problem with that is the use of spells to replicate psionics. If you want just the subclasses, great, you're going to get them. Enjoy your psionics. We want a new system for psionics, not just replicating pact magic or spellcasting. This makes it too simple, and infuriatingly lacking in the depth psionics can have.
You're focusing on the narrative, Positron. The idea that the mechanics "shouldn't get in the way of the story"....
The issue you're running into is that for many of us, "mechanics" and "story" are not two separate things, each to be weighed and settled on with one held paramount. ...
...Well, on this end of the bridge the lack of mechanics is what's Getting In The Way....
...Because believe it or not, some of us care about the game underneath the story as much as we care about the story....
Yurei,
I’ll personally take it a step further. I care more about mechanics than story. Because, quite frankly, we will make the story good regardless. I don’t have to worry about that because I play with interesting people. We will get a good story no matter what. But for me, most of my enjoyment (as a player) comes from my character.
Positron,
For you, you want a simple mechanic that doesn’t get in the way because for you, the game is an excuse to tell the story. For me, the story is just an excuse to play the game. For me, as a player, the enjoyment of the mechanics is more important than my enjoyment of the story. (When I DM, my enjoyment is my players’ enjoyment. They like story so I give it to them.)
I’m the player that skips the cutscenes to get back to the playing. I had no idea what the actual story behind Halo was until after Halo 3. And to be honest, I still don’t care. I don’t need to know what the excuse for shooting aliens is, I just need ammo and map marker where the aliens are.
Quite literally for me, when I am a player, the game matters more than the story. Why do you keep insisting that my fun is wrong?!?
So. Let us hope you get your simple subclasses while we get a base Psion class worthy of the name. Because like I said earlier, there's only so many warlocks I can play, it'd be nice to have another class that actually respects my friggin' intelligence enough to be worth my time.
First, great post. I couldn't have said it better, and I tried.
(Second, I currently am playing a hexblade warlock. It is infuriatingly lacking in player options for me. People say that the Warlock is a complex class, but it really isn't. You're either a eldritch spammer, hexblade that does less damage than an eldritch blast spammer, or you are a celestial warlock that tries to focus on support. I love your idea of swapping pact boons, I wish that was already integrated into the class.)
The Psion class, if we get one, I hope it is at least as variable as the Warlock in character options beyond subclasses.
A Pact of the Blade Hexblade with the Improved Pact Weapon and Thirsting Blade invocations, and a Heavy Crossbow Pact/Hex Weapon, does more damage than an Eldritch Blast spammer. If you also have Agonizing Blast, you still do more damage with the crossbow until Level 11.
In other words, you can do more damage as a Hexblade without using EB, but it needs a specific setup.
So a proper example has occured to me at last, or at least a discussion point worth bringing up.
@Positron: Do you consider the bard class to be freely available to everyone? That anybody can, and should, play a bard if they feel like it? That anyone who can play a Champion fighter is also capable of playing a bard?
I don't. I do not play bards, despite the fact that I vibe pretty fiercely on that class and would likely have several on standby if not for the fact that I have zero musical talent whatsoever, nor do I have any other performance skill or the sort of lightning wit that could make up for a lack of musical acumen. Now certainly I could play a bard without any of those things - and in fact I've got character narratives/backstories set up which eliminates the need for them - but the long and the short of it is that such a character would be an insult to the class. Bards are fast-talking bombastic jackanapes for whom everybody is The Audience, and it's why the entire Internet loves a good bard player. With or without the damnable horndoggedness. I cannot live up to the hype, I cannot provide the sort of energy and on-demand instant witticism the class demands, and so I cannot properly play a bard. No matter how much that fact vexes me.
Do you think that's all hogwash? That it doesn't matter if I can't sing, or spit sick rhymes, or tell moving tales, or insult a goblin so hard the thing takes psychic damage while the DM snorts his Pepsi and the table howls with laughter? That I should totally be able to play a bard anyways if that's the story I want to tell? Because I don't. No matter how much it burns in my craw that I can't play the awesome, tale-inspiring magical-rogue scoundrel that lives in my head.
And that is perfectly fine. Different classes require different skillsets, not every player is created identical, and sometimes a player just has to accept that something is beyond his abilities. That doesn't mean there aren't other stories they can tell, other characters they can explore. Trying to make every last single class equally appealing to every last single player simply means the options for what we all get to play are limited to only those things everybody can comfortably play without any investment or attachment. And that is no way to design a game.
I don't get that impression with Lore Bards, which is the only subclass I bother with. A Lore Bard is meant to be a more bookish type of bard that amasses knowledge, even going so far as to have up to 6 skill proficiencies from the class alone and being able to steal magical secrets much sooner than other bards. The Lore Bard can also be a storyteller, disseminating what they've learned as tales and such.
And for what it's worth, I consider folks who want to play Clerics without a deity, Paladins without an oath, and Warlocks without a patron (and yes, I've come across all three on the Internet) without a compelling reason to be much worse than a person who wants to at least attempt to play a Bard as the party face without having the performance talent IRL.
I merely brought up the example as a means of demonstrating that the goal of "everybody can play everything!" is already a bust. Some players aren't IRL charismatic enough to play the dashing rake. Some players don't have the inventiveness and problem-solving skills to play D&D run a spellcaster as anything but a basic blaster. Some players can't tolerate restrictions on their actions in the game and thus can't (properly) play clerics, paladins or warlocks.
Trying to make every single class be every single thing to every single person is a fool's errand and a surefire way to sink your game. Psions don't need to appeal to Every Single Player, they need to appeal to enough players. There's Champion fighters for everybody else.
It has the spells of a wizard, the hit die of a barbarian, the attacks of a fighter, the smites of a paladin, a warlock's invocations, whatever's good about ranger, clerics channel divinity, sorcerers metamagic, artificers infusions, druids wild shape, rogues sneak attack, bards expertise, and a monks ki! Its great, balanced, and everyone loves it!
It has the spells of a wizard, the hit die of a barbarian, the attacks of a fighter, the smites of a paladin, a warlock's invocations,whatever's good about ranger,clerics channel divinity, sorcerers metamagic, artificers infusions, druids wild shape, rogues sneak attack, bards expertise, and a monks ki! Its great, balanced, and everyone loves it!
It has the spells of a wizard, the hit die of a barbarian, the attacks of a fighter, the smites of a paladin, a warlock's invocations, whatever's good about ranger, clerics channel divinity, sorcerers metamagic, artificers infusions, druids wild shape, rogues sneak attack, bards expertise, and a monks ki! Its great, balanced, and everyone loves it!
Funnily enough, because of the infusions, metamagic, expertise, and invocations (and assuming you can choose the Channel Divinity), this would be a highly customizable character.
I merely brought up the example as a means of demonstrating that the goal of "everybody can play everything!" is already a bust. Some players aren't IRL charismatic enough to play the dashing rake. Some players don't have the inventiveness and problem-solving skills to play D&D run a spellcaster as anything but a basic blaster. Some players can't tolerate restrictions on their actions in the game and thus can't (properly) play clerics, paladins or warlocks.
Trying to make every single class be every single thing to every single person is a fool's errand and a surefire way to sink your game. Psions don't need to appeal to Every Single Player, they need to appeal to enough players. There's Champion fighters for everybody else.
Crawling basically already said my view to this. There is a difference between a story (which can be changed) standing in the way of the player vs the mechanics (which are rules) to be followed standing in the way. You can play a version of a Charismatic Bard that fits your personality by saying “they do a dance” or “they tell a random joke”... Justifying the Psion needs to be complicated because it is Intelligence based and therefore it’s players should be doesnt sound right to me.
it should “feel” intelligent in the game, but appeal to any player that is attracted to the trope of the Psion. If it doesn’t, they won’t dedicate the resources to it.
And any player running a bard who resorts to "they do a dance" or "they tell a funny joke" should be ashamed of themselves and switch characters immediately.
I am very firmly on the side of "Charisma checks are correct; everything else is backwards" in the age-old debate of whether a player should be allowed to just announce an action and make the DM narrate it. A shy, awkward, nervous player with no charisma in reality cannot play a dashing, swaggering overconfident jack Sparrow-esque rake no matter how much he might wish to, or what his skills say. A slow, dense player without much imagination cannot play a quick-witted, highly intelligent and creative problem-solver, no matter what his skills say. A creepy jackhole with no people skills cannot play a wise, insightful Friendly Sage - again, no matter what his skills say.
Each of these players can take steps to try and address those weaknesses. D&D is a great place to do so, but saying "I do a cool dance" or "I woo him with flattery" or "I convince the guard to let us through" isn't really playing the game. It's forcing the DM to play your character for you, and the DM has enough on her plate without having to play all her PCs, too. Especially if she doesn't have that particular skillset, either.
If you want your game to be memorable? If you want it to be awesome? You have to play within your capabilities. Play characters you can pull off, or play things only a bit outside your abilities to try and challenge yourself to stretch to meet them.
This isn't directly related to the class design of the Psion, but man. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get one class - one, single, class - that required the least, slightest bit of investment and comprehension to play well?
What do you mean when you say "'Charisma Checks are correct; everything else is backward'"? Didn't you specifically give examples that someone shouldn't just ask for a check?
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
What do you mean when you say "'Charisma Checks are correct; everything else is backward'"? Didn't you specifically give examples that someone shouldn't just ask for a check?
My mistake. I believed this issue was well known. I'll leave the description in spoilers since it's veering pretty heavily off-topic.
There's a persistent debate I've seen in many a D&D circle that states "Charisma checks are backwards". In most cases the player says "I do X", the DM sets a DC and assigns a roll, and then narrates the result. In the case of many Charisma checks, most prominently Persuasion or Deception, the player says "I do X', the DM says "okay, what do you say?" and makes the player narrate/describe/roleplay their words, then assigns a DC and calls for a roll if she feels one is warranted.
There's a subset of players who believe this form is backwards, and that Charisma checks should also be a case of "I do X" and the DM assigning a roll before narrating the result. They believe this makes the game more inclusive, allowing any player to play any character no matter how bad the mismatch between them - especially since physical scores such as Strength and Dexterity are not IRL prerequisites for their in-game counterparts the way Intelligence and Charisma are.
As you yourself noted, I am not one of those players. I hate "I do X", and I do not actually allow it in my game. Someone trying to Persuade or Deceive in my games gets to speak the words they're Persuading or Deceiving with. Someone attempting to Perform gets to describe their performance. Someone fishing for an Acrobatics check to do some dumb thing or other gets to describe the actual in-game actions their character is taking. At no point does a player ever get to say "can I roll [Skill here] to win?" They get to play a role and inform their DM of what their character is doing. I will then assign a role if a roll is needed (spoilers: one of the benefits of this 'backwards', player-narrated system is sometimes you do a good enough job with your action that you get to succeed without rolling) and narrate the result.
This is the basis of my belief that a truly great D&D game, one everybody remembers and tells awesome war stories about for years to come - or the same game in any system, really - comes when every player plays to their strengths. I am an individual of average at best IRL charisma, and my "Wisdom" abilities i.e. perceptiveness, intuitive insight, empathy, and the like are...well. I share my favorite artificers WIS of 6, let's say. But I am a keenly intelligent individual with a great deal of real-world tinkery sort of knowledge and over twenty years of voracious fantasy and sci-fi reading, as well as diceless freeform roleplaying, to back me up.
I make an absolutely piss-poor, utterly unacceptable bard. I am not great at being a cleric or paladin, since I'm too pragmatic for either class and tend to balk at Sworn Codes - though there's a small handful of exceptions. I have to be very careful with high Wisdom characters; I can fake high sensory acuity and perceptiveness in the context of the game world, but I cannot fake Insight and have to stretch real damn hard to make Insight work at any level. On the flip side, I make a goddamned fantastic rogue and a pretty slick wizard, warlock, or artificer. when I play those classes, aligned to my strengths, I am extremely effective and my party can not only rely on me, they can enjoy playing with me. When I try to play characters outside that template...well. My one and only cleric only worked because she rolled an Intelligence of 6, she was a fight-happy Tempest cleric of Kord for whom that was probably an asset rather than a detriment, and I hammed it up hard enough to make folks laugh, but that did not fit well and I was not a particularly effective member of the party with poor Cynai.
That's the sort of thing folks like me think about when designing both games and characters, as a DM or a player. And one of the reasons I hate the thought of a prospective Psion class being dumbed down to the point of Champion fighter.
And any player running a bard who resorts to "they do a dance" or "they tell a funny joke" should be ashamed of themselves and switch characters immediately.
I am very firmly on the side of "Charisma checks are correct; everything else is backwards" in the age-old debate of whether a player should be allowed to just announce an action and make the DM narrate it. A shy, awkward, nervous player with no charisma in reality cannot play a dashing, swaggering overconfident jack Sparrow-esque rake no matter how much he might wish to, or what his skills say. A slow, dense player without much imagination cannot play a quick-witted, highly intelligent and creative problem-solver, no matter what his skills say. A creepy jackhole with no people skills cannot play a wise, insightful Friendly Sage - again, no matter what his skills say.
Each of these players can take steps to try and address those weaknesses. D&D is a great place to do so, but saying "I do a cool dance" or "I woo him with flattery" or "I convince the guard to let us through" isn't really playing the game. It's forcing the DM to play your character for you, and the DM has enough on her plate without having to play all her PCs, too. Especially if she doesn't have that particular skillset, either.
If you want your game to be memorable? If you want it to be awesome? You have to play within your capabilities. Play characters you can pull off, or play things only a bit outside your abilities to try and challenge yourself to stretch to meet them.
This isn't directly related to the class design of the Psion, but man. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get one class - one, single, class - that required the least, slightest bit of investment and comprehension to play well?
If you don’t know how to start a campfire you shouldn’t play a Ranger. If you know nothing about the religions of old don’t play a Cleric. If you don’t know martial arts don’t play a monk... if we follow your logic to it’s end we end there. There is a balance in this... it’s not about actually being able to match the skills of your choice, but being able to come up with creative ways to do it.
back to the Psion, just because the concept of their powers are one way doesn’t mean the mechanics require you to be that to use them.
And any player running a bard who resorts to "they do a dance" or "they tell a funny joke" should be ashamed of themselves and switch characters immediately.
Yurei,
I gotta firmly disagree with you about that. While I encourage roleplay whenever possible, that is unfair. Considering the stereotypical “D&D nerd” with the neckbeard, and the “mom’s basement smell” by your logic most people would never play a Bard. I cannot carry a tune in a bucket, and I can’t always come up with a good joke or story. I do my best, but I’m no Regal.
The point of playing D&D is to be someone else. How can anyone ever be someone else if they are forced to play who they are. Using that same argument you should no longer be allowed to play cross-gendered characters. That’s not fair. Boring people can play Bards too. You can play a Bard. Wanna know how you get to be good at playing a Bard if you’re not naturally inclined to it? The same way everyone gets better at anything... practice.
I gotta say, that is legitimately the first thing I have ever read that you said that has slightly offended me.
For you, you want a simple mechanic that doesn’t get in the way because for you, the game is an excuse to tell the story. For me, the story is just an excuse to play the game. For me, as a player, the enjoyment of the mechanics is more important than my enjoyment of the story. (When I DM, my enjoyment is my players’ enjoyment. They like story so I give it to them.)
I’m the player that skips the cutscenes to get back to the playing. I had no idea what the actual story behind Halo was until after Halo 3. And to be honest, I still don’t care. I don’t need to know what the excuse for shooting aliens is, I just need ammo and map marker where the aliens are.
Quite literally for me, when I am a player, the game matters more than the story. Why do you keep insisting that my fun is wrong?!?
Now, I’ll take this opportunity to clarify things. When I say I enjoy my character and the game more than the story, I do not mean it in powergamer way. I mean it in a puzzle solving way. I love to figure out a puzzle.
My characters are puzzles for me to solve. (Just like the homebrewer. And game design in general I suppose.) I get to “figure out” two things: “who they are” and “what they can do.” I know that my Artificer would do better in every meaningful way with a +2 infused Longbow instead of his +1 Repeating Crossbow. But I got the enjoyment of figuring out two things:
That the +2 Longbow mathematically is flat out better. Longer ranges, additional +1 bonus, doesn’t require Attunement... flat out better.
My character doesn’t care, and went with the crossbow anyway.
The story is another puzzle, but the story shifts and changes overtime. My characters grow and evolve over time, but they are with me until the end, or until they die. I’m tired of only having half of anything to figure out after 3rd level. So are others. As of now, there’s Warlocks, Artificers, Bards, a handful of other subclasses, and that’s about it. And, to be honest, Warlock Bard and Artificer are starting to get stale because they are all still reliant on the Spellcasting system.
I am desperately hoping for another class with more to figure out. A whole new Class with new mechanics and new puzzles to solve would be lovely. Especially if it is either a little crunch, or at least just novel. That Psi Die was simple and I loved it. I took the survey (twice) begging WotC to expand it into an entire class. Simple is okay, as long as it’s different than what we have.
Ditto.
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This^^
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Yurei,
I’ll personally take it a step further. I care more about mechanics than story. Because, quite frankly, we will make the story good regardless. I don’t have to worry about that because I play with interesting people. We will get a good story no matter what. But for me, most of my enjoyment (as a player) comes from my character.
Positron,
For you, you want a simple mechanic that doesn’t get in the way because for you, the game is an excuse to tell the story. For me, the story is just an excuse to play the game. For me, as a player, the enjoyment of the mechanics is more important than my enjoyment of the story. (When I DM, my enjoyment is my players’ enjoyment. They like story so I give it to them.)
I’m the player that skips the cutscenes to get back to the playing. I had no idea what the actual story behind Halo was until after Halo 3. And to be honest, I still don’t care. I don’t need to know what the excuse for shooting aliens is, I just need ammo and map marker where the aliens are.
Quite literally for me, when I am a player, the game matters more than the story. Why do you keep insisting that my fun is wrong?!?
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A Pact of the Blade Hexblade with the Improved Pact Weapon and Thirsting Blade invocations, and a Heavy Crossbow Pact/Hex Weapon, does more damage than an Eldritch Blast spammer. If you also have Agonizing Blast, you still do more damage with the crossbow until Level 11.
In other words, you can do more damage as a Hexblade without using EB, but it needs a specific setup.
So a proper example has occured to me at last, or at least a discussion point worth bringing up.
@Positron: Do you consider the bard class to be freely available to everyone? That anybody can, and should, play a bard if they feel like it? That anyone who can play a Champion fighter is also capable of playing a bard?
I don't. I do not play bards, despite the fact that I vibe pretty fiercely on that class and would likely have several on standby if not for the fact that I have zero musical talent whatsoever, nor do I have any other performance skill or the sort of lightning wit that could make up for a lack of musical acumen. Now certainly I could play a bard without any of those things - and in fact I've got character narratives/backstories set up which eliminates the need for them - but the long and the short of it is that such a character would be an insult to the class. Bards are fast-talking bombastic jackanapes for whom everybody is The Audience, and it's why the entire Internet loves a good bard player. With or without the damnable horndoggedness. I cannot live up to the hype, I cannot provide the sort of energy and on-demand instant witticism the class demands, and so I cannot properly play a bard. No matter how much that fact vexes me.
Do you think that's all hogwash? That it doesn't matter if I can't sing, or spit sick rhymes, or tell moving tales, or insult a goblin so hard the thing takes psychic damage while the DM snorts his Pepsi and the table howls with laughter? That I should totally be able to play a bard anyways if that's the story I want to tell? Because I don't. No matter how much it burns in my craw that I can't play the awesome, tale-inspiring magical-rogue scoundrel that lives in my head.
And that is perfectly fine. Different classes require different skillsets, not every player is created identical, and sometimes a player just has to accept that something is beyond his abilities. That doesn't mean there aren't other stories they can tell, other characters they can explore. Trying to make every last single class equally appealing to every last single player simply means the options for what we all get to play are limited to only those things everybody can comfortably play without any investment or attachment. And that is no way to design a game.
Please do not contact or message me.
I don't get that impression with Lore Bards, which is the only subclass I bother with. A Lore Bard is meant to be a more bookish type of bard that amasses knowledge, even going so far as to have up to 6 skill proficiencies from the class alone and being able to steal magical secrets much sooner than other bards. The Lore Bard can also be a storyteller, disseminating what they've learned as tales and such.
And for what it's worth, I consider folks who want to play Clerics without a deity, Paladins without an oath, and Warlocks without a patron (and yes, I've come across all three on the Internet) without a compelling reason to be much worse than a person who wants to at least attempt to play a Bard as the party face without having the performance talent IRL.
I merely brought up the example as a means of demonstrating that the goal of "everybody can play everything!" is already a bust. Some players aren't IRL charismatic enough to play the dashing rake. Some players don't have the inventiveness and problem-solving skills to
play D&Drun a spellcaster as anything but a basic blaster. Some players can't tolerate restrictions on their actions in the game and thus can't (properly) play clerics, paladins or warlocks.Trying to make every single class be every single thing to every single person is a fool's errand and a surefire way to sink your game. Psions don't need to appeal to Every Single Player, they need to appeal to enough players. There's Champion fighters for everybody else.
Please do not contact or message me.
That's why I made the Everyman class!
It has the spells of a wizard, the hit die of a barbarian, the attacks of a fighter, the smites of a paladin, a warlock's invocations, whatever's good about ranger, clerics channel divinity, sorcerers metamagic, artificers infusions, druids wild shape, rogues sneak attack, bards expertise, and a monks ki! Its great, balanced, and everyone loves it!
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I just laughed so hard I almost peed a little.
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Funnily enough, because of the infusions, metamagic, expertise, and invocations (and assuming you can choose the Channel Divinity), this would be a highly customizable character.
Crawling basically already said my view to this. There is a difference between a story (which can be changed) standing in the way of the player vs the mechanics (which are rules) to be followed standing in the way. You can play a version of a Charismatic Bard that fits your personality by saying “they do a dance” or “they tell a random joke”... Justifying the Psion needs to be complicated because it is Intelligence based and therefore it’s players should be doesnt sound right to me.
it should “feel” intelligent in the game, but appeal to any player that is attracted to the trope of the Psion. If it doesn’t, they won’t dedicate the resources to it.
And any player running a bard who resorts to "they do a dance" or "they tell a funny joke" should be ashamed of themselves and switch characters immediately.
I am very firmly on the side of "Charisma checks are correct; everything else is backwards" in the age-old debate of whether a player should be allowed to just announce an action and make the DM narrate it. A shy, awkward, nervous player with no charisma in reality cannot play a dashing, swaggering overconfident jack Sparrow-esque rake no matter how much he might wish to, or what his skills say. A slow, dense player without much imagination cannot play a quick-witted, highly intelligent and creative problem-solver, no matter what his skills say. A creepy jackhole with no people skills cannot play a wise, insightful Friendly Sage - again, no matter what his skills say.
Each of these players can take steps to try and address those weaknesses. D&D is a great place to do so, but saying "I do a cool dance" or "I woo him with flattery" or "I convince the guard to let us through" isn't really playing the game. It's forcing the DM to play your character for you, and the DM has enough on her plate without having to play all her PCs, too. Especially if she doesn't have that particular skillset, either.
If you want your game to be memorable? If you want it to be awesome? You have to play within your capabilities. Play characters you can pull off, or play things only a bit outside your abilities to try and challenge yourself to stretch to meet them.
This isn't directly related to the class design of the Psion, but man. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get one class - one, single, class - that required the least, slightest bit of investment and comprehension to play well?
Please do not contact or message me.
What do you mean when you say "'Charisma Checks are correct; everything else is backward'"? Didn't you specifically give examples that someone shouldn't just ask for a check?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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So...Hunter's Mark?
Yeah. I like rangers (they are my second or third favorite class), but they don't have much going for them in the power department.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
My mistake. I believed this issue was well known. I'll leave the description in spoilers since it's veering pretty heavily off-topic.
There's a persistent debate I've seen in many a D&D circle that states "Charisma checks are backwards". In most cases the player says "I do X", the DM sets a DC and assigns a roll, and then narrates the result. In the case of many Charisma checks, most prominently Persuasion or Deception, the player says "I do X', the DM says "okay, what do you say?" and makes the player narrate/describe/roleplay their words, then assigns a DC and calls for a roll if she feels one is warranted.
There's a subset of players who believe this form is backwards, and that Charisma checks should also be a case of "I do X" and the DM assigning a roll before narrating the result. They believe this makes the game more inclusive, allowing any player to play any character no matter how bad the mismatch between them - especially since physical scores such as Strength and Dexterity are not IRL prerequisites for their in-game counterparts the way Intelligence and Charisma are.
As you yourself noted, I am not one of those players. I hate "I do X", and I do not actually allow it in my game. Someone trying to Persuade or Deceive in my games gets to speak the words they're Persuading or Deceiving with. Someone attempting to Perform gets to describe their performance. Someone fishing for an Acrobatics check to do some dumb thing or other gets to describe the actual in-game actions their character is taking. At no point does a player ever get to say "can I roll [Skill here] to win?" They get to play a role and inform their DM of what their character is doing. I will then assign a role if a roll is needed (spoilers: one of the benefits of this 'backwards', player-narrated system is sometimes you do a good enough job with your action that you get to succeed without rolling) and narrate the result.
This is the basis of my belief that a truly great D&D game, one everybody remembers and tells awesome war stories about for years to come - or the same game in any system, really - comes when every player plays to their strengths. I am an individual of average at best IRL charisma, and my "Wisdom" abilities i.e. perceptiveness, intuitive insight, empathy, and the like are...well. I share my favorite artificers WIS of 6, let's say. But I am a keenly intelligent individual with a great deal of real-world tinkery sort of knowledge and over twenty years of voracious fantasy and sci-fi reading, as well as diceless freeform roleplaying, to back me up.
I make an absolutely piss-poor, utterly unacceptable bard. I am not great at being a cleric or paladin, since I'm too pragmatic for either class and tend to balk at Sworn Codes - though there's a small handful of exceptions. I have to be very careful with high Wisdom characters; I can fake high sensory acuity and perceptiveness in the context of the game world, but I cannot fake Insight and have to stretch real damn hard to make Insight work at any level. On the flip side, I make a goddamned fantastic rogue and a pretty slick wizard, warlock, or artificer. when I play those classes, aligned to my strengths, I am extremely effective and my party can not only rely on me, they can enjoy playing with me. When I try to play characters outside that template...well. My one and only cleric only worked because she rolled an Intelligence of 6, she was a fight-happy Tempest cleric of Kord for whom that was probably an asset rather than a detriment, and I hammed it up hard enough to make folks laugh, but that did not fit well and I was not a particularly effective member of the party with poor Cynai.
That's the sort of thing folks like me think about when designing both games and characters, as a DM or a player. And one of the reasons I hate the thought of a prospective Psion class being dumbed down to the point of Champion fighter.
Please do not contact or message me.
Thanks for the in-depth response.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
If you don’t know how to start a campfire you shouldn’t play a Ranger. If you know nothing about the religions of old don’t play a Cleric. If you don’t know martial arts don’t play a monk... if we follow your logic to it’s end we end there. There is a balance in this... it’s not about actually being able to match the skills of your choice, but being able to come up with creative ways to do it.
back to the Psion, just because the concept of their powers are one way doesn’t mean the mechanics require you to be that to use them.
Yurei,
I gotta firmly disagree with you about that. While I encourage roleplay whenever possible, that is unfair. Considering the stereotypical “D&D nerd” with the neckbeard, and the “mom’s basement smell” by your logic most people would never play a Bard. I cannot carry a tune in a bucket, and I can’t always come up with a good joke or story. I do my best, but I’m no Regal.
The point of playing D&D is to be someone else. How can anyone ever be someone else if they are forced to play who they are. Using that same argument you should no longer be allowed to play cross-gendered characters. That’s not fair. Boring people can play Bards too. You can play a Bard. Wanna know how you get to be good at playing a Bard if you’re not naturally inclined to it? The same way everyone gets better at anything... practice.
I gotta say, that is legitimately the first thing I have ever read that you said that has slightly offended me.
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Positron,
You never responded to my post from before:
Now, I’ll take this opportunity to clarify things. When I say I enjoy my character and the game more than the story, I do not mean it in powergamer way. I mean it in a puzzle solving way. I love to figure out a puzzle.
My characters are puzzles for me to solve. (Just like the homebrewer. And game design in general I suppose.) I get to “figure out” two things: “who they are” and “what they can do.” I know that my Artificer would do better in every meaningful way with a +2 infused Longbow instead of his +1 Repeating Crossbow. But I got the enjoyment of figuring out two things:
That the +2 Longbow mathematically is flat out better. Longer ranges, additional +1 bonus, doesn’t require Attunement... flat out better.
My character doesn’t care, and went with the crossbow anyway.
The story is another puzzle, but the story shifts and changes overtime. My characters grow and evolve over time, but they are with me until the end, or until they die. I’m tired of only having half of anything to figure out after 3rd level. So are others. As of now, there’s Warlocks, Artificers, Bards, a handful of other subclasses, and that’s about it. And, to be honest, Warlock Bard and Artificer are starting to get stale because they are all still reliant on the Spellcasting system.
I am desperately hoping for another class with more to figure out. A whole new Class with new mechanics and new puzzles to solve would be lovely. Especially if it is either a little crunch, or at least just novel. That Psi Die was simple and I loved it. I took the survey (twice) begging WotC to expand it into an entire class. Simple is okay, as long as it’s different than what we have.
So I’ll ask again, why is my fun wrong?
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