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View Full Version : Thief/rogues, a character class that should not be?



xBlackWolfx
2015-04-14, 01:51 AM
I'm not saying they're overpowered or something like that, I question the morality of this class.

I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side soldiers and intellectuals? And really, who would want to go on any sort of trip with a guy who's likely to rob you? And that's the best case scenario: he could just sneak attack you and walk off with all your belongings, leaving you to rot in the middle of nowhere.

I mean, in all seriousness why would you have a class that is by its very definition a criminal? Yeah okay, adventurers tend to be racist and essentially genocidal, but at least they aren't a problem to their own society.

They kind of fixed this with rogues, and not just with the re-naming. You don't have to be a pick-pocket if you so choose. But it seems that the only reason to bring one along is to deal with traps. And they still reak of 'criminal', despite the fact that they can be any alignment.

Why do I have such thoughts? Well, I was reading up on stuff about the Kender (I'm only really familiar with the Forgotten Realms, just so we know), and everywhere I see criticism of them being kleptomaniacs. Also a lot of criticism of them (and halflings) being infantile, but that's not relevant here. But I do agree, why would anyone tolerate a race of kleptomaniacs? It makes no sense. I certainly wouldn't see a miniature and somewhat immature thief as cute.

Not that I'm trying to troll, but I honestly don't see why this is a core class. It seems more like something you would see in the supplements that detailed the assassin and blackguard class. And playing on that NWN server, most people played their rogues as either thieves or assassins (though strangely enough, few were evil, though most were chaotic neutral). I mean, at the very best they're grave-robbers and spies.

Why is it that one of the classes by its very nature has to be either selfish or evil? Unless you go with a robin-hood character, I don't see anyway you could be good (and even that is questionable, I don't recall hearing anything about robin hood stabbing people in the back). I mean seriously, what kind of a decent person would have a skill set like this??? The things you excel in are lockpicking, sneaking around, disabling people's defenses, and stabbing people in the back. Oh, and you can also be a pick-pocket.

Is there anyway to play a rogue that isn't an obviously atrocious individual? I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but I don't understand why this class is one of the standard options. Clerics make sense, druids make sense, fighters, monks, wizards. Yeah, sorcereres and barbarians are iffy, but sorcerers is more just the stereotype that having a high charisma means your character is arrogant. And just because you prefer brute force in combat doesn't mean you're evil, its just a different tactic. And besides, barbarians don't have to be stupid. I mean Conan himself was fairly clever, and just because you like brute force doesn't mean you can't be good at other things, like smithing or riding or whatnot. Honestly, you think about it intelligence is kind of a dump-stat, since really the only characters that have high intelligence are wizards, for everyone else its only above charisma on the priority list (unless you're a paladin or sorcerer or bard or something else that relies on charisma). Heh, you think about it there's actually more classes that rely on charisma than there are for intelligence! But that's kind of a tangent...perhaps something for another thread.

some guy
2015-04-14, 02:52 AM
I'd say you'd want a criminal in the party because going into a dungeon and taking loot requires someone familiar with breaking and entering, stealing, subterfuge.

Gandalf hires a burglar to rob a dragon.

Mr Beer
2015-04-14, 02:57 AM
You mentioned Conan, who was a heist man and thief in his spare time. Seems to me that someone could do some of that and be as much of a hero as Conan.

Karl Aegis
2015-04-14, 02:58 AM
By creating a class that is specialized in a particular area the game designers can feel justified in making every other class unable to model that particular archetype. Normally this doesn't work and you end up with every class being weaker because of it. It's there basically to trap players into playing a unnecessary class while bringing every other class down with it.

Lord Raziere
2015-04-14, 03:19 AM
feudal societies are basically a bunch of protection rackets layered on top of one another. the law is whatever a noble says it is unless its whatever the king says it is. "justice" is usually whatever the strongest person around decides to do to you, regardless of how unfair or badly judged it is. most knights never followed their chivalrous code, the church was corrupt and launched bloody crusades for what they believed in and all thats without being in a world of monsters, powerful cosmic forces that can do pretty much anything in the hands of a small number of people and other dimensions that are even more dangerous than this one.

calling a rogue evil in this world is calling someone who has had to steal, beg, sneak, lie, outwit and outcheat everything around them just to survive when most people have divine or arcane powers or the protection of the higher classes of society on their side, evil. rogue isn't a class the person chooses, its a class they either learn growing up or they die, because most people who becomes rogues? probably didn't start in a good place to begin with. they started at the bottom of society where all the people who just listed? the warriors, the wizards, the clerics? they left these people in the gutter and the slums.

the nobility, the so-called society that you think is "good"? they're the ones that left those people poor and destitute to begin with and created the conditions for rogues to arise at all. not every beggar is going to accept their lot in life and content themselves asking for coins when their belly is grumbling and their mouth starts to become dry. some are going to do whatever they can to not die, and they're not going consider the society that created the conditions for what they had to do in any "good".

the rogues that survive the streets, are the best ones of the lot. the competent ones that know exactly what kind of injustices happen to them because of the nobility killing them for sport, because of wizards kidnapping them to use for experiments, or priests grabbing them to sacrifice them to their god. they the leanest toughest people who are tired of seeing the downtrodden suffer everyday while wizards nobility and clerics live relatively cushy lives- and they will use the only methods they know how to beat them to make things right. they will lie, cheat, steal, sneak, ambush, manipulate for Good causes- because thats the only things they know how to do. they never knew anything else.

Mastikator
2015-04-14, 03:31 AM
A rogue isn't necessarily a criminal, an intelligence officer (spy) would have the rogue class. As would some types of police and private detectives.

Kalmageddon
2015-04-14, 04:11 AM
I think all of these issues would be fixed if the "Rogue" class was instead called "Expert", "Specialist" or something similar. Their role is to be the guy that uses brains and agility to overcome obstacles, that's it.

veti
2015-04-14, 04:17 AM
Why would fighters be a core class? I mean, seriously, who wants to go adventuring with someone whose first instinct when faced with a problem is 'stab it in the face'?

Why would magic-users be a core class? Weedy men who sit around in dimly lit rooms inhaling mercury fumes until they work out how to put people to sleep once a day, don't sound that much of an asset to a well organised team.

And as for clerics... what, a spellcaster whose powers are dependent on an outside patron of inscrutable goals and capricious temperament, which might choose to withdraw its support at any time? Next please.

And why are you disparaging grave robbers? Isn't that, when all's said and done, how most adventurers make most of their money?

Seriously, you can make any class sound bad if you frame it in the most negative light you can. What's your point?

Comet
2015-04-14, 04:18 AM
I'd say that murdering someone with a longsword is about as evil as picking the lock on their front door and sneaking into their bedroom to steal their golden necklace.

edit: seems like the above poster beat me to the punch. All cuteness aside, though, Dungeons & Dragons was built on pulp fantasy where immoral men and women venture into underground places full of monsters and traps with the sole intention of getting rich. The thief fit right into that and now we're left with a relic that still works in a tamer adventuring group as the 'edgy' member of the group that can still be relied to help everyone out when the going gets tough.

oxybe
2015-04-14, 04:30 AM
Going back to the historical use of the Thief class? It was the only gamespace allowed that could locate and disarm traps. Either you had one in your group to try and deal with them, or you dealt with the trap via brute force and a HP buffer.

Later versions tweaked the class to be more of an opportunistic fighter and opened the trapfinding skills up a bit more. It keeps the criminal-themed name for legacy purposes in the sense that not all priests are Clerics and not all Clerics, priests.

Heck, for the most part your class is an entirely metagame concept. No one in-universe goes around asking if you're a fighter, a rogue or a ranger. If you belong to a given organization you likely refer to yourself by your title. Some classes like "wizard" or "magic-user" tend to be a bit more vague and useful when it comes to describing a profession, but even then you're likely to be more of a "Carl the Seer", "Bobby the Sage", "Steven the fix-it-mancer" or "Ben, the guy who makes zombies do dances in funny costumes for the seniors' entertainment every Thursday".

Few classes, like the Cleric or Paladin refer to actual positions inside their organizations, and again, even then you're likely to be called "Father Ted" or "Sargent Dorf".

Do note that if you question the morality of the rogue, you should also question that of the fighter, the class who's entire purpose is "Pointy-pointy end goes in the squishy-squishy bits. Hard." or how noble and righteous the wizard is, when he's immolating people alive with arcane fires.

Both of which I have heard are rather painful and horrible ways to die.

Not much difference between stabbing someone in the back or the front. Honor and fairness be darned, most people calling for fair fights are using shorthand for "a fight where I'm obviously going to be at an advantage because I'm bigger and tougher then you".

Seriously, next time a paladin or fighter or any big dumb sharp metal stick user calls ANYONE out for not fighting "fair", tell them to describe what's fair about forcing someone into a fight that plays specifically to the aggressor's strengths?

Long story short, D&D is a game about a group of sociopathic murder hobos with a fantastic PR agent, having found out that "adventurer" is a more socially acceptable title then "jobless maniac with a sword, a blast of unrefined magical energy and a hair trigger" and you can make a killing by finding the ugliest species you can, branding them "monsters" and routinely kicking in their doors and stealing all their valuables, then returning to town victorious in having vanquished the "monsters" in the middle of eating a supper of quiche and ale.

The rogue fits in just fine.

xBlackWolfx
2015-04-14, 07:21 AM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

{scrubbed}

Defending yourself is obviously necessary, murdering and robbing civilians is something completely different. Some of you make it sound like a rogue is basically a person who screws over everyone else just so they can survive themselves. Screw over the rest of the city, so you can eat like a pig.

What, do you all play openly evil characters or something? I actually find it disgusting the one guy who justified an obviously evil character as 'necessary for his own survival'. A campaign where everyone's evil, that would definitely be something.

And over the past few hours, I did manage to think up a rogue character who ISN'T selfish and his actions are justifiable: a bounty hunter, or a monster hunter perhaps. A person who hunts down wanted criminals would certainly have a skill-set like what you see in a rogue's kit. Someone like this could easily be good, hell they could even be lawful perhaps.

Joe the Rat
2015-04-14, 07:23 AM
See, and here I am thinking "Well, Thief isn't as problematic as those other reprehensible core classes like the Assassin (who must be Evil, and is probably a half-orc) or Paladin (who must be played by a total jackwagon)." But that's me showing my age.

It's not like you can have a Heroic protagonist who's schtick is being sneaky and taking stuff. Besides Aladdin, or Ali Baba, or Jack, or Jason, or Odysseus (for Classic definitions of "Heroic"), or Puss-in-Boots, or Robin Hood...
But yon scoundrel doesn't have to be the protagonist. Many a noble hero has had a loyal if somewhat surreptitious lackey to do less-than-noble deeds, allowing the knight in shining armor to remain clean. The key there is Loyal.

No, the silly thing was that regardless of any particular theme or concept, thieves were expert in all things Felonious (box man, freeclimber, stealth ninja, pickpocket, polyglot cryptographer). Later editions did let you decide how much of each (if at all) you want your thief (later rogue) to master.


And as for clerics... what, a spellcaster whose powers are dependent on an outside patron of inscrutable goals and capricious temperament, which might choose to withdraw its support at any time? Next please.

Oh... now I want to run a game with nothing but Clerics and Warlocks for spellcasters.

Comet
2015-04-14, 07:43 AM
If everyone was walking around with guns shooting people for petty reasons does that mean you shouldn't have one yourself?


Ideally, yes. If there's any chance of avoiding those gunners, I'd take it.

Thing is, D&D is an action fantasy and as such it makes violence and might-makes-right as easy as it can. There are absolute evils that deserve to die. Do they also not deserve to be robbed? What if you use all your stolen goods to make yourself a better defender of justice or donate them to a temple that is absolutely good? All kinds of exciting yet realistically depressing actions are okay in D&D because the world is different from ours.

Thrudd
2015-04-14, 07:55 AM
Because "morality" is not a concern. The thief class was based on a certain type of fictional pulp hero/anti-hero, such as the Grey Mouser of Lankhmar and Cugel the Clever of Vance's Dying Earth. As was pointed out, Conan spent a number of his stories as a thief and pirate as well. While in fiction, characters aren't as bound by rules and limitations, for the purposes of the game, thieves are a little more restricted.

As for assassins, it is true that you won't usually see an assassin running around with a party of do-gooder heroes. But there is such a thing as playing evil characters, and even having an all-evil party. Such parties stick together for protection and mutual profit, someone that kills or robs their associates will soon find themselves alone without anyone to help fight off the ghouls and owl bears and carrion crawlers...

hookbill
2015-04-14, 08:02 AM
You could also look at it as a Robin Hood type class, or even (I know it’s a bit much) but Aladdin was also one, not generally a bad dude. my assassin types were always those with a code, never just wanted them evil, more of a necessity to do the dirty work that most didn't want to in order to balance the scales. He was loyal to the party and hid what he was (just played it off as a rogueish type/light fighter (because lets face it, if everyone knows you're an assassin, it wouldn't be very good for business) and only took those contracts that he approved of (fit within the code), corrupt merchant, dirty mayor, family abuser, etc. and depending on how the quests were laid out, sometimes there were "pro bono" type work that he provided.


eta - I had a third party assassin book that i would run by the DMs to allow the class (instead of the DMG version) these were not always evil and could "exist" within a party if played smartly, even with a pally *lead sheet*

Hypername
2015-04-14, 08:08 AM
Not a Rogue player so I think I am as objective as I can be.
First of all a thief isn't necessarily evil. Think of Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit. He was a burglar, essentialy a thief.
Also the rogue's archetype is a broader archetype than the thief's. All thieves are rogues, not all rogues are thieves.

Dexam
2015-04-14, 09:01 AM
I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side soldiers and intellectuals?

Not all warriors are soldiers; not all magic users are intellectual.

And really, who would want to go on any sort of trip with a guy who's likely to rob you? And that's the best case scenario: he could just sneak attack you and walk off with all your belongings, leaving you to rot in the middle of nowhere.
Who says that a thief/rogue class is more likely to do this than any other class? Such behaviour is an aspect of the character, rather than of the class.



I mean, in all seriousness why would you have a class that is by its very definition a criminal? Yeah okay, adventurers tend to be racist and essentially genocidal, but at least they aren't a problem to their own society.
Bwhahahaha!

Oh, wait... you're serious?

Once again, 'criminal' and 'problem to society' are aspects of the characters, not the class. In most games I've played in, the wizards and fighters have been bigger criminals and menaces than any thief-type.


They kind of fixed this with rogues, and not just with the re-naming. You don't have to be a pick-pocket if you so choose. But it seems that the only reason to bring one along is to deal with traps. And they still reak of 'criminal', despite the fact that they can be any alignment.
Not just traps; thief/rogue classes tend to be the most highly skilled of the classes, and sometimes you need to solve a problem in ways other than lopping limbs off or turning people into toads.


Why is it that one of the classes by its very nature has to be either selfish or evil?
It doesn't. A skill set is neither good nor evil, selfish nor unselfish - it's all about what you do with it.

Unless you go with a robin-hood character, I don't see anyway you could be good (and even that is questionable, I don't recall hearing anything about robin hood stabbing people in the back). I mean seriously, what kind of a decent person would have a skill set like this??? The things you excel in are lockpicking, sneaking around, disabling people's defenses, and stabbing people in the back.
How about "sensible"? I mean, if you're opposing evil overlords who can take your head off with one swing of an axe, or set you on fire with a word and a snap of the fingers... well, the sensible person sneaks up on them to give them a poke in the kidneys.


Is there anyway to play a rogue that isn't an obviously atrocious individual?
Yes. I've played lots of rogue-type characters, most of them good and decent people.


And just because you prefer brute force in combat doesn't mean you're evil, its just a different tactic.
And just because you prefer stealth and subtlety in combat doesn't mean you're evil, its just a different tactic.

Basically, just because it says "thief" or "rogue" on a character sheet, it doesn't mean the characters have to behave in any prescribed way. Speaking personally, I could argue that most of my rogue characters have been better people, morally speaking, than other characters because they will often look for non-violent solutions, or choose to sneak in and eliminate just the main threat rather than slaughterin dozens of minions.

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-14, 09:11 AM
The underlying idea behind this objection seems to be that there's something wrong with playing attrocious characters. Considering the popularity of games such as GTA, I think the premise is flawed. Obviously, people like playing the bad guy(s) from time to time. Why not let them?

Red Fel
2015-04-14, 09:17 AM
I'm not saying they're overpowered or something like that, I question the morality of this class.

Okay. I'm going to ignore the issues with the name, because the name of the class is mutable. I'm also going to try not to retread arguments other people have made, because they're pretty good ones. Instead, I'm going to look at one instance of the class itself - the Rogue from D&D 3.5 - as an illustration, and determine which parts of it are more criminal or immoral than any other class.

In 3.5, the Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm) has the following class abilities: Sneak attack Trapfinding Evasion Trap sense (Improved) Uncanny dodge Special abilities (e.g. feats, ability damage, improved evasion)
So let's run down the list. Trapfinding, trap sense, and (improved) uncanny dodge can be checked off - there's nothing immoral about that. Indiana Jones navigated and disarmed traps. (Sometimes successfully.) These are survival skills, totally fine.

So let's look at what remains. Sneak attack. What is sneak attack? When the enemy is denied their Dex bonus to AC (fluffed as "unable to defend himself effectively"), the Rogue deals bonus damage. That's it. It's a very precise, effective attack. Given that the Rogue, along with everyone else in the party, will be participating in combat, there is nothing immoral about a "hit harder" ability. At least, nothing immoral compared to the Fighter's increased BAB and feats, the Barbarian's rage, the Monk's increasing ability to punch people in the face, and the Wizard's fireballs.

And then special abilities. Defensive roll, improved evasion, skill mastery, slippery mind? Utilities. No morality there. Feat? Everyone gets those. Opportunist? Attack someone as an AoO. That's just teamwork. Crippling strike? When you deal sneak attack damage, you injure and disable your opponent. You disable him! That's just horrible.

Look, I'm not defending the class because there is nothing to defend. This is a dexterous, survival-oriented combatant who focuses on multiple precise strikes rather than individual powerful ones, and brings a skillset to the table. Anything beyond that is what the player brings to the character.

You keep coming back to the word thief, and the problem is that that word has been removed, for many versions of the class, from the lexicon. Even those who have it have similar terms for other classes. Thieves, sure. Sellswords and mercenaries. Guns for hire. Dark wizards. Cultists. Any class can have a dark side. But not every class has to embody solely that dark side, and you seem entirely focused on it.

The thief is dead. Long live the rogue.

Maglubiyet
2015-04-14, 09:24 AM
If you want to break into an impenetrable fortress, avoid being seen, and do semi-legal things, hiring people who specialize in that kind of thing makes sense.

Anyway, I like Matthew Broderick's character in Ladyhawke. I think his nickname was the Mouse. A thief who could squeeze through any opening, escape from any cell.

Spiryt
2015-04-14, 09:42 AM
All I can really say is that specifing on what exactly you're talking about here...

Because, for simple example, in 3.5 'rogue' is combination of skills and features, that one can, well or baldy (mostly badly, unfortunately:smalltongue:) build character out of.

Almost nothing, really about their morality, character or whatever.


Going, into earlier editions, of course, things looked a bit different, but still those were 'guidelines' at most AFAIU.

VoxRationis
2015-04-14, 09:44 AM
Because the thief is a character archetype, particularly in fantasy, and this is a fantasy game which is all about filling classic archetypes, particularly in older editions before everyone was a magic robot. Because there are certain skillsets which become very useful to a party (not just sneaking... Forgery is a wonderful skill in 3rd edition, and the AD&D thief's "I can climb walls like a gecko" ability was also useful). Because a thief still has loyalty to his friends, and stabbing your compatriots in the back in an environment filled with deadly supernatural monsters is suicidally insane, even for untrustworthy types.

Berenger
2015-04-14, 10:21 AM
I think it's quite ridiculous to call thieves "immoral" or "evil" when they exist in a world that doesn't even provide the possibility of making a honest living to a lot of people. The standard fluff for nearly every other base class assumes an amount of privilege most rogues can only dream of. Even an apprenticeship to become an NPC tradesman requires social status and money you pretty much have to be born with.

Submortimer
2015-04-14, 10:34 AM
"Of course there is a mark," said Gandalf. "I put it there myself. For very good reasons. You asked me to find the fourteenth man for your expedition, and I chose Mr. Baggins. Just let any one say I chose the wrong man or the wrong house and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to digging coal." He scrowled so angrily at Gloin that the dwarf huddled back in his chair; and when Bilbo tried to open his mouth to ask a question, he turned and frowned at him and stuck out his bushy eyebrows, till Bilbo shut his mouth tight with a snap. "That's right," said Gandalf. "Lets have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say that he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is. or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea about himself. You may (possibly) all live to thank me yet. Now Bilbo, my boy, fetch a lamp, and let's have a little light at this."

Despite the fact that Bilbo wasn't ACTUALLY a thief at the outset, Gandalf knew that they needed him. As such, he convinced the dwarves that a "burglar" would be needed because he would have been trained to hide in the shadows and to access that which should not be accessed. Thorin and his crew understood that he was correct, and brought him along.

In terms of Tolkien Fantasy Tropes, the only REAL classes we ever see are Wizard, Fighter, Rogue(Specifically thief), and (spell-less) Ranger, maybe Barbarian if you count the orcs/Uruk-hai.

Seto
2015-04-14, 10:53 AM
Sooo, if fighters are evil sociopaths, then I guess every soldier to ever fight in a war is a sociopath? Were the people who rampaged through nazi germany liberating the concentration camps and overthrowing a war-mongering despot evil for what they did? Get real. Yes, most wars are wrong and shouldn't happen, but just because they're wrong doesn't mean you shouldn't have some way to defend yourself. If everyone was walking around with guns shooting people for petty reasons does that mean you shouldn't have one yourself?

Except there's no reason to equate "soldier" with "Fighter". Among the base classes, Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Monk and Rogue can all be convincing soldiers (even if the Fighter's more iconinc). Let's admit that wars are sometimes necessary. Ok, then. In that context, having a guy who can sneak into the enemy camp (Rogue, Ranger), snipe the enemy from afar (Ranger, Rogue), spy as a double agent (Bard, Rogue), sabotage from the inside (Rogue) is a pretty useful asset. Useful becomes necessary if the enemy is using tactics like these.


Defending yourself is obviously necessary, murdering and robbing civilians is something completely different.

As others have said, Rogue is a skillset, not a job or a personality. Absolutely nothing states that a Rogue has to rob or murder civilians. Even looking at the PHB's basic fluff, even though it's mentioned that Rogues are often untrustworthy and good at getting what people don't want them to get, we are reminded that "Rogues have little in common with one another", that they fill many roles and "what they do share is adaptability and resourcefulness".

You do have a point, however, in that the archetype of the Rogue-Thief is still extremely iconic, even in the minds of the writers who try to get away from it, and it's often how that class is played. Which is actually a flaw in reasoning, in that "the iconic representation of a thief would best be portrayed by a Rogue" does not logically entail that "the iconic representation of a Rogue would best be portrayed as a thief" (which by the way is meaningless in-game, since "thief" is an in-game concept and Rogue is a metagame concept).

LibraryOgre
2015-04-14, 11:39 AM
So let's run down the list. Trapfinding, trap sense, and (improved) uncanny dodge can be checked off - there's nothing immoral about that. Indiana Jones navigated and disarmed traps. (Sometimes successfully.) These are survival skills, totally fine.


If you look at Indiana Jones, he's pretty much the perfect example of a AD&D thief. Raiders opens with him using Find and Remove Traps, and the switch he attempts is arguably a Pick pockets attempt that ALMOST works. Climb Walls? Temple of Doom, after the bridge breaks. His facility with written Greek and Latin can be the fact that he has a high intelligence, but you can also put him down with the Read Languages ability. He picks locks, he sneaks around. He's not a bad fighter, able to hold his own against mooks, but any time a REAL fighter type shows up (say, a bald, shirtless German mountain), he wins by guile after getting his butt kicked... or by shooting the guy who brought a sword to a gunfight.

I prefer to name them thieves, myself; it leaves "rogue" open for other classes (as Hackmaster calls their equivalent to a 2e bard).

YossarianLives
2015-04-14, 11:51 AM
I'd rather have someone steal my jewelry than melt my face with acid.

eleazzaar
2015-04-14, 12:02 PM
Why is it that one of the classes by its very nature has to be either selfish or evil? Unless you go with a robin-hood character, I don't see anyway you could be good (and even that is questionable, I don't recall hearing anything about robin hood stabbing people in the back). I mean seriously, what kind of a decent person would have a skill set like this??? The things you excel in are lockpicking, sneaking around, disabling people's defenses, and stabbing people in the back. Oh, and you can also be a pick-pocket.

Is there anyway to play a rogue that isn't an obviously atrocious individual?

Sure.

The next character I look forward to playing is a Lawful Good Locksmith (Guild Merchant Background). He's an ordinary and honest citizen, but he has a few odd hobbies that collectively add-up to the Rogue skill set. He's interested in Comparative Anatomy and Street Performers (among other odd hobbies).


Comparative anatomy gives him backstab (“hmm, this is a goblin, so i can reach his heart by stabbing under the scapula at this angle!”)
Street performance gives him acrobatics and slight of hand
Stealth is a natural part of his forest gnome upbringing
Locksmithing gives him lock-picking



There's tons of other possibilities if you look past the standard rogue character, and think of other characters that might have those abilities.

Ralanr
2015-04-14, 12:17 PM
I don't think any class should be considered straight up evil or good (Screw you Paladin, you're a tradition now and we have to have the alignment equivalent don't we! :smallannoyed:.) The rogue/thief I've always just seen as the specialist in stealth, sabotage, scouting, spying, espionage, etc. Can other classes do that? Yeah, but that relates to poor balancing (Cause wizards could apparently do anything in 3.5. I know that's a specific game, but the concept of the caster doing everything and do it better seems to be a stigma). Are rogues more likely to be of a not so nice morality? Yeah, but it's about as equal as a fighter.

The abilities of rogues and rogue like classes are not abilities that are commonly used in peace time or in accordance to the law. The same can go for fighters (though they can work as guards). A rogue doesn't have to be a thief however, they could just be quick on their feet and useful in a variety of tasks. Maybe the rogue works as a delivery person who uses parkour to get around a city?

Honestly to argue against the core class of the rogue/thief is to argue against core classes in general. Some people like them, some people don't. If someone doesn't like rogues, then they don't play them. If someone they play with plays a rogue, well guess they should deal with it since they can't control what other people do (And they shouldn't try to, beyond offering their opinions).

Lord Raziere
2015-04-14, 01:37 PM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

Sooo, if fighters are evil sociopaths, then I guess every soldier to ever fight in a war is a sociopath? Were the people who rampaged through nazi germany liberating the concentration camps and overthrowing a war-mongering despot evil for what they did? Get real. Yes, most wars are wrong and shouldn't happen, but just because they're wrong doesn't mean you shouldn't have some way to defend yourself. If everyone was walking around with guns shooting people for petty reasons does that mean you shouldn't have one yourself?

Defending yourself is obviously necessary, murdering and robbing civilians is something completely different. Some of you make it sound like a rogue is basically a person who screws over everyone else just so they can survive themselves. Screw over the rest of the city, so you can eat like a pig.

What, do you all play openly evil characters or something? I actually find it disgusting the one guy who justified an obviously evil character as 'necessary for his own survival'. A campaign where everyone's evil, that would definitely be something.

And over the past few hours, I did manage to think up a rogue character who ISN'T selfish and his actions are justifiable: a bounty hunter, or a monster hunter perhaps. A person who hunts down wanted criminals would certainly have a skill-set like what you see in a rogue's kit. Someone like this could easily be good, hell they could even be lawful perhaps.

...... ok.....this is either going to be hilarious or very fail, can't tell which.

1. nothing is inherently morally good. the only class that starts off guaranteed as good is a paladin, and even they can fall. problem is, rogues don't have alignment restrictions either, so are not inherently morally bad.

2. godwins law! -1 internet from you sir!

3. your not in the modern world where the law is an inherently good thing and justice is considered to be completely impartial. every ruler in a feudal world is a despot who has been told that they have a divine right to rule from birth and that if anyone says differently? that they do whatever they want to them. call the king a jerk and they might just have your head just because.

4. No, how about you trying reading Mistborn or A Song of Ice and Fire sometime? because feudal society is anything but a truly lawful place with good bureaucracy or anything like that. feudal society is a bunch of scheming lords all trying to get more power by any means necessary, kept in check only by a single guy who has more power than them, who all rule over a bunch of peasants and commoners who bow to their lords so that they continue growing their crops.

5. the local lord, one who routinely kidnaps peasant girls from the village to rape them while sending his thugs to beat up anyone who speaks out against him, lately has had trouble with a certain roguish fellow standing up to him with cunning and guile and evading his usual thugs. you, the bounty hunter are hired to go kill said fellow.

The Grue
2015-04-14, 01:59 PM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

Sooo, if fighters are evil sociopaths, then I guess every soldier to ever fight in a war is a sociopath? Were the people who rampaged through nazi germany

For those of you playing at home, this thread's Godwin number(the number of posts until someone uses an analogy involving Nazis or Hitler) is 10.

BRC
2015-04-14, 02:05 PM
Why is it that one of the classes by its very nature has to be either selfish or evil? Unless you go with a robin-hood character, I don't see anyway you could be good (and even that is questionable, I don't recall hearing anything about robin hood stabbing people in the back). I mean seriously, what kind of a decent person would have a skill set like this??? The things you excel in are lockpicking, sneaking around, disabling people's defenses, and stabbing people in the back. Oh, and you can also be a pick-pocket.

I'm sorry, where are you seeing this?

It's been a while since I've read the PHB (normally I use the SRD), but where is it required that Rogues be selfish and evil?

Point it out to me please.

Paladins, Druids, and Clerics all have a code of some sort to abide by. One could argue that Barbarians require a certain character type in order to justify their Rages. Monks are similar I guess.

But Rogues? Rogues have access to a wide variety of skills, often use stealth, and prefer to attack from surprise, using precision rather than raw strength.

Want to know who that describes? Batman. Also Sherlock Holmes, or Robin Hood (Although Ranger is probably a better fit there).

Yeah, Rouges have the skills to support being a thief or assassin, but Fighters have the skillset of a mass-murderer, and don't even get me started on Wizards and Sorcerers.

"Rogue" is simply a set of game mechanics. It has absolutely nothing to do with how your play your character. A Rogue could be an upstanding nobleman who would never tell a lie or break a law if his life depended on it, but instead is very persuasive and has a wide breadth of knowledge.

But, in the end, The Rogue is there because it's a fantasy heroic archetype, much like the powerful Wizard, Noble Knight, or Barbarian hero. Heroic fantasy is often about getting something from the clutches of something big, evil, and powerful. Heros are almost always outmatched by their foes, and Rogues flourish under those conditions. The army is too big to fight, so they sneak past it. The door is too strong to break down, so they find a window. The enemy is too strong, so they out think it. There are more ways to win than battering the enemy into submission.

Rogues are not inherently greedy or treacherous, and I really don't understand where you're getting the idea that they are. It's true that many archetypical rouges, especially in DnD and inspired fantasy, are portrayed as greedy and duplicitous. Just look at Haley Starshine. But, while Haley is greedy and dishonest, you would be hard pressed to call her evil or treacherous, and in the end, she's an individual character, not the only possible interpretation of a set of mechanics.

SiuiS
2015-04-14, 02:08 PM
I'm not saying they're overpowered or something like that, I question the morality of this class.

I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side soldiers and intellectuals?.

Fighter: adventurer, marauder, barbarian, murderer, Grave robber
Magic User: trafficker with demons, consorted with spirits, violator of the natural order, self-obsessed Hubristic djinn enslaver
Cleric: violent and zealous proselytizing crusader


I'm not seeing it. If anything, the grave robbing burglar is the only class that should be dungeon Felicia and everyone else is a licensed contractor brought along to make it slightly easier to get to certain scores.

VoxRationis
2015-04-14, 03:24 PM
Not to mention that no thief or rogue since I think 1st edition AD&D (the 2e books I have enable skill point distribution) has to include skills that are actually used for stealing. In 2e, you could put your skill ranks in Find/Remove Traps, Read Languages, Climb Walls, etc. In 3e, your horizons broadened even further. Your rogue might be diplomacy-focused almost entirely, or athletics-based with no more ability to steal anything or break into a locked room than a fighter would have.

erikun
2015-04-14, 03:50 PM
I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side soldiers and intellectuals?
I think you might mean:

I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side murders and demon summoners?
Stealing the ideas from other people in the thread.

All in all, it comes down to a matter of perception. You could call all thieves liars and stealers, and then question why you would want a thief in a party of ex-soldier mercenaries and other questionably noble types. But you could also call all fighters butchers and murderers, and question why you would want a fighter in a party of ruin-explorers and adventurers. It doesn't take much to paint a class in a negative light due to select examples.

Even ignoring that, just because someone steals from somebody doesn't mean they steal from everybody. Someone stealing to feed their family is probably not going to turn around and steal from their family. Someone stealing from the orc outpost probably isn't stealing from their hometown. Someone who breaks in and steals stuff from the Lich's tower (basically, all adventures ever) doesn't mean they do the same to the local church.

The last thief/rogue classes I've used included a dwarven locksmith and a half-elf orphan. What parts of these character descriptions label them as evil, criminals, grave-robbers and spies? Heck, if we are going with D&D3e, then the rogue class is probably the best one to represent some sort of elven noble.
Diplomancy? Check.
Gather Information and Knowledge Local, to know going-ons? Check.
Listen, Spot, and Sense Motive for typical elven perception? Check.
Typical elven fighting style, wielding a rapier and agile movement in light armor? Check.

As I said, it all depends on how you make and run the character. Even with AD&D and before, just because a character has "Pick Pockets" on their sheet doesn't mean that they are forced to pick every pocket they come across.

veti
2015-04-14, 03:52 PM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

We're not "demonizing" other classes. We're just describing them in parallel terms to those you use to describe the rogue/thief.

You can describe anything in any terms you like. What's mystifying me is, why you seem to think it proves something inherent about that class, rather than about your own descriptive or imaginative capacity.


Not to mention that no thief or rogue since I think 1st edition AD&D (the 2e books I have enable skill point distribution) has to include skills that are actually used for stealing.

Good point. I played several 1st edition thieves. I don't think I ever used the "pick pocket" skill.

SiuiS
2015-04-14, 04:54 PM
We're not "demonizing" other classes. We're just describing them in parallel terms to those you use to describe the rogue/thief.

Sure we are. But because they actually are demons. The classes are good only in a different moral framework, the same way greek heroes are heroes because their passions were larger than mortal man's, not because they were good or heroic people.

All adventurers, by class alone, are terrible people at best. The fighter's class features were "can kill a number of men in a round equal to their hit dice", after all. Sure, that's bad ass! But it's also cold blooded murder and might-makes-right frontier justice.

Kane0
2015-04-14, 05:46 PM
Rogues/thieves are the 'sneaky' or 'skilled' character archetype, much like the fighter and his friends the paladin, barbarian and ranger are the 'warriors' and the casters are types of 'mage' or 'devout'. If you go back a couple editions those were the classes you had, sometimes even less.

How a class is typically portrayed or played is not the only thing they are capable of being. Rogues could theoretically be pirates, scouts, spies, thugs, politicians, assassins, thieves, swashbucklers, duelists, acrobats, etc. a few of those are more common than others, but the base was supposed to be applicable to many similar but different character concepts. This is true for most if not all classes, at least the ones you get initially in an edition before the specialised and specific ones come out.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-14, 05:47 PM
Sure we are. But because they actually are demons. The classes are good only in a different moral framework, the same way greek heroes are heroes because their passions were larger than mortal man's, not because they were good or heroic people.

All adventurers, by class alone, are terrible people at best. The fighter's class features were "can kill a number of men in a round equal to their hit dice", after all. Sure, that's bad ass! But it's also cold blooded murder and might-makes-right frontier justice.

This actually points out one of the problems I have with the D&D class systems: in practice, aren't all the character classes rogues - if not outright thieves? Likewise for having a class called the "Fighter" in a game built around combat. I guess you have to identify not-wizards somehow.

SiuiS
2015-04-14, 05:59 PM
This actually points out one of the problems I have with the D&D class systems: in practice, aren't all the character classes rogues - if not outright thieves? Likewise for having a class called the "Fighter" in a game built around combat. I guess you have to identify not-wizards somehow.

That particular bugaboo makes sense though.

The war game, CHAINMAIL, assumed everyone was a fighter. As things went, they added guys who were different. Clerics a could heal, Wizards could artillery, and rogues could assassinate.

So you have a dungeon game based on combat, where three of the classes are "less fight-y than the default, but make up for it with utility" and we have one class that's defined as "professional grave robber instead of incidental grave robber". It's jut that over the last, what, 45 years? People have forgotten what they were and filled in their own reasons.

Arbane
2015-04-14, 06:06 PM
Going back to the historical use of the Thief class? It was the only gamespace allowed that could locate and disarm traps. Either you had one in your group to try and deal with them, or you dealt with the trap via brute force and a HP buffer.

There was also the ever-popular "Read the DM's Mind To Find How To Disarm This" approach. (Popular with DMs, not players.)

As has been pointed out, all a 3.5 Rogue (or any of the variations before and after) is is 'a skilled person who's good at sneak-attacking'. Nothing about that necessarily implies they can't be decent citizens or team players.

oxybe
2015-04-14, 06:22 PM
There was also the ever-popular "Read the DM's Mind To Find How To Disarm This" approach. (Popular with DMs, not players.)

As has been pointed out, all a 3.5 Rogue (or any of the variations before and after) is is 'a skilled person who's good at sneak-attacking'. Nothing about that necessarily implies they can't be decent citizens or team players.

to be fair, the "Read the DM's mind to find out how to disarm them" approach was effectively "deal with the trap via brute force and a HP buffer".

You never found those traps. Or at least I never did because Gord knows I forgot to mention pulling the 4th book of the 2nd shelf of the 3rd bookcase on the left of the southern door in the lounge we passed 2 hallways ago, that would disarm the trap in this room.

:smalltongue:

As such, either the fighter went forward if the rogue failed, or we got some hapless mook we paid off with a few coppers to open it for us. And once he dies, we take the copper off his corpse and use it to hire another mook.

Ralanr
2015-04-14, 06:38 PM
to be fair, the "Read the DM's mind to find out how to disarm them" approach was effectively "deal with the trap via brute force and a HP buffer".

You never found those traps. Or at least I never did because Gord knows I forgot to mention pulling the 4th book of the 2nd shelf of the 3rd bookcase on the left of the southern door in the lounge we passed 2 hallways ago, that would disarm the trap in this room.

:smalltongue:

As such, either the fighter went forward if the rogue failed, or we got some hapless mook we paid off with a few coppers to open it for us. And once he dies, we take the copper off his corpse and use it to hire another mook.

Pragmatism at it's finest. Some future adventures were gonna loot that copper off the then decayed skeleton anyway.

goto124
2015-04-14, 07:48 PM
I find that such heavy restrictions make Chaotic Good much harder to achieve.

Lawful is not Good. Chaotic is not Evil.

Arbane
2015-04-14, 10:39 PM
Lawful is not Good. Chaotic is not Evil.

Not since Basic D&D, anyway.

goto124
2015-04-14, 10:53 PM
Yea, lol.

Point is, it's pretty easy to confuse the two. Especially when it comes to thievery.

Makes me wonder... if thievery is ruled as Evil, and the Chaotic Good person needs to steal/get the McGuffin, how would she do it? Slaughter everything in the way? Or come up with a convulted plan to trick someone into giving it to you (which sounds Lawful Evil, and not everyone has the RL mental capacity for it...)?

zinycor
2015-04-14, 11:00 PM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

So, you demonize Rogues but we can't demonize the other classes?


Sooo, if fighters are evil sociopaths, then I guess every soldier to ever fight in a war is a sociopath? Were the people who rampaged through nazi germany liberating the concentration camps and overthrowing a war-mongering despot evil for what they did? Get real. Yes, most wars are wrong and shouldn't happen, but just because they're wrong doesn't mean you shouldn't have some way to defend yourself. If everyone was walking around with guns shooting people for petty reasons does that mean you shouldn't have one yourself?

Are there soldies who are sociopaths? yeah there are, even if you are fighting for "the good side" that soldier may very well be a sociopath. Is he a sociopath because he is a soldier? No, and rogues aren't really evil either.


Defending yourself is obviously necessary, murdering and robbing civilians is something completely different. Some of you make it sound like a rogue is basically a person who screws over everyone else just so they can survive themselves. Screw over the rest of the city, so you can eat like a pig.

If you want to play a character that is all about himself, that's fine and fun, but the fact of the matter is that a rogue doesn't need to be all about himself, he can fght for his family for those who are oppressed, agains tyranny or whatever.


What, do you all play openly evil characters or something? I actually find it disgusting the one guy who justified an obviously evil character as 'necessary for his own survival'. A campaign where everyone's evil, that would definitely be something.

well, if you are the game master you are actually playing evil characters openly, and there are campaigns where everyone is evil, and there is nothing wrong with that either.

And yeah, rogues commonly develope their abilities because they have used and perfected them out of need, they didn't learn them from a book or in an academy, they learned them to survive or to live.


And over the past few hours, I did manage to think up a rogue character who ISN'T selfish and his actions are justifiable: a bounty hunter, or a monster hunter perhaps. A person who hunts down wanted criminals would certainly have a skill-set like what you see in a rogue's kit. Someone like this could easily be good, hell they could even be lawful perhaps.

Of course, but that's just limiting you players into what sort of character they can play. And bounty hunters may not be that good, you can perfectly play a bounty hunter who works as a mercenary to get whatever bounty from whoever is willing to pay. a monster hunter may be hunting good dragons and celestials.

In the end, you can play any class as evil or good, lawful or chaotic. If you don't want to play a thief or assasin because you don't like the morality behind that, fine, play a bounty hunter with the same skillset but with another name. But the fact is that in fiction there are rogues that are good, and you may want to play them in your game, like Han Solo, Bilbo Baggins and the punisher to name a few.

Ashtagon
2015-04-15, 04:06 AM
Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet."

So, yeah. That.


]"Farewell, good thief," he said. "I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed. Since I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the Gate."

That too.

http://www.bookrags.com/shortguide-fafhrd/keyquestions.html#gsc.tab=0

And the Grey Mouser (who the original inspiration for the D&D thief class)

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-04-15, 07:19 AM
You say rogue or thief, I say scout, spy, detective ...

Sometimes sentries needs to be silenced, sometimes they can't be silenced, but the key still needs to be taken from their pocket, sometimes there is no key at all, but the lock still needs to be opened, sometimes there's tripwires, snares, spiked pits and all sorts of other traps that need to be circumvented quietly.

As for "why you'd have a thief in the party", maybe part of their share of the loot goes back to the thief's family, and they want to make sure a last payment will do so if they fail to come back, maybe they just don't want to steal from their friends, maybe they do pickpocket them, but then give the goods straight back so that the rest of the party gets better at defending against pickpockets, maybe they know that playing the long game will get them more money, maybe they're actually the leader and the rest of the party is their crew - the fighter is the muscle, the mage does illusions for distractions, sleep spells etc to disable guards, divinations/scrying to assess their targets, transmutations, conjurations and enchantments to aid in escapes, and the Cleric's the bagman, fence, keeper of the hideout and the healer when everything goes to pot and someone comes back with a couple of pints of blood less than they started with (who they also hire out to other crews as necessary).

Or, maybe the rest of the party put up with them for their skills, and have explained to the thief in no uncertain terms that if ever anyone's coin purse even looks like it's going missing, it will not go well for them.

Lord Torath
2015-04-15, 07:39 AM
So, xBlackWolfx, any thoughts on the discussion?

Satinavian
2015-04-15, 07:55 AM
4. No, how about you trying reading Mistborn or A Song of Ice and Fire sometime? because feudal society is anything but a truly lawful place with good bureaucracy or anything like that. feudal society is a bunch of scheming lords all trying to get more power by any means necessary, kept in check only by a single guy who has more power than them, who all rule over a bunch of peasants and commoners who bow to their lords so that they continue growing their crops.Your view of feudalism seems pretty off.

It developed because it worked far better than anything else providing a fair amount of justice, security and fairness for everyone with very small bereaucracy. The latter resulting in lower taxes and smaller burdens for peasants. Also feudalism was all about limiting the power of rulers and tyrants. What are the alternatives ? Tribal democracies that break down for any larger number of people ? Byzanthine bureaucracy that failed due to ever increasing maintenance cost ? Tyranny, where you really only have legimacy through strength ?

Better gouvernments were only possible with technological progress : cheap paper, printing press, faster transportation with better canals and streets, agricultural progress allowing more than 1 non peasant for every 10 peasants...

Most nobles tried to do their job which consists of pretty much the same things modern gouvernments provide : protection (army, police), justice(judges, laws) and management of the country. They were no more or less honest, greedy, benevolent or corrupt than modern politicians or employees of a gouvernment.

@ topic

The thief is there for traps and locks in traditional dungeon crawling. If that is, what you are doing, he has his place. If for whatever reason that is not your playstyle, both abilities tend to be unimportant anyway and the thief/rogue/whatever is basically a scout, a spy or an informant. Which is also nice to be have amongst the dase classes.

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 10:50 AM
{redacted}

Eloel
2015-04-15, 11:02 AM
That's a pretty rose-tinted view of feudalism—the abolition of serfdom in the post-medieval era was seen as a progressive measure for a reason.

Brace yourselves, real-life morality at work here.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 11:06 AM
Yea, lol.

Point is, it's pretty easy to confuse the two. Especially when it comes to thievery.

Makes me wonder... if thievery is ruled as Evil, and the Chaotic Good person needs to steal/get the McGuffin, how would she do it? Slaughter everything in the way? Or come up with a convulted plan to trick someone into giving it to you (which sounds Lawful Evil, and not everyone has the RL mental capacity for it...)?

I have long held that thievery is usually a chaotic act; Evil is "crimes against people", while thievery is "crimes against property and propriety".

Lord Raziere
2015-04-15, 11:49 AM
Tyranny, where you really only have legimacy through strength ?
.

You mean feudalism? because that is basically what feudalism was: tyranny. but with bloodlines and more titles.

and just because something like that was considered something good back in the day, doesn't mean that didn't it suck for everyone involved. cultures have a habit of ignoring how horrible things are for them, all of them. mostly because all cultures suck and don't want to admit that they suck. don't talk to me of cultural optimism where the culture is always right and anyone outside of the culture is being the bad guy because they are misunderstood and have their own circumstances for believing what they believe. I'm a cultural pessimist and I say all cultures suck. Feudalism sucks no matter what kind of paint you try to put on it.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2015-04-15, 12:12 PM
Is there anyway to play a rogue that isn't an obviously atrocious individual?

Here's a list of famous characters who could all be Rogues or Rogue/XXX hybrids.


Zorro
Robin Hood
Indiana Jones
Bilbo Baggins
Batman
Hawkeye
Han Solo
Westley aka The Man in Black
Jack Sparrow (maybe sort of terrible sometimes)


And there are undoubtedly dozens more.

See, while the term "rogue" implies an untrustworthy nature, the D&D Rogue is better defined by a widely-skilled (often either physically, socially, or both) lightly-armored fighter who prefers precision strikes* and dexterous combat. Remember: it's entirely possible to be a highly skilled pick-pocket, but never actually steal from people. Stage magicians do it all the time, and I could easily make a rogue into a stage magician. So there are rogues of all ethical bents, of all alignments (yes, even Lawful), and all sorts.

*Sneak Attack doesn't actually *require* back-stabbing. It's instead about striking your opponent when they have openings in their defenses, whether it be through a deceitful stab in the throat while disguised as their friendly neighbor (your idea of a terrible rogue), or a cunning and swashbuckling disengage around a careful parry during a thick melee (flanking).

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 12:23 PM
I have long held that thievery is usually a chaotic act; Evil is "crimes against people", while thievery is "crimes against property and propriety".

Can't see how would it really work though... No matter of details, crime against 'property' will inevitably be crime against person who got robbed out of it...


because that is basically what feudalism was: tyranny

Eh, hard to really respond to all those opinions, but this is just blatantly wrong.

Feudalism can't be any ''tyranny' because no individual had anything resembling absolute power, not even mightiest king. Actually they, in many ways had really small funds and means compared to modern governments. Borrowing even more from bankers and traders...

If anything, post feudal monarchies in Europe were tyrannic - some of them at least.

Lord Raziere
2015-04-15, 12:31 PM
Eh, hard to really respond to all those opinions, but this is just blatantly wrong.

Feudalism can't be any ''tyranny' because no individual had anything resembling absolute power, not even mightiest king. Actually they, in many ways had really small funds and means compared to modern governments. Borrowing even more from bankers and traders...

If anything, post feudal monarchies in Europe were tyrannic - some of them at least.

bah, if feudalism and monarchies are not the same, they're still similar enough to suck in all the same ways.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 12:43 PM
Can't see how would it really work though... No matter of details, crime against 'property' will inevitably be crime against person who got robbed out of it...

Because people are not their property, unless that property is intrinsic to their lives. Stealing someone's computer doesn't kill them, or even directly injure them; it inconveniences them.

A good example might be Firefly's "The Train Job." The crew was perfectly willing to steal the shipment when they thought they were simply stealing property... they were willing to take a chaotic action. However, once it became clear that they were stealing medicine people needed to live, they realized that the consequences were not Chaotic but Evil, a line they were not willing to cross (though, of course, they were happy to kick Crow into an intake, though that was arguably self-defense).



Sheriff Bourne: You were truthful back in town. A man can get a job, he might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours, well, then he has a choice.
Malcolm Reynolds: I don't believe he does.

Eloel
2015-04-15, 12:45 PM
A good example might be Firefly's "The Train Job." The crew was perfectly willing to steal the shipment when they thought they were simply stealing property... they were willing to take a chaotic action. However, once it became clear that they were stealing medicine people needed to live, they realized that the consequences were not Chaotic but Evil, a line they were not willing to cross (though, of course, they were happy to kick Crow into an intake, though that was arguably self-defense).

I see the Firefly crew as Chaotic Neutral - this sounds highly accurate.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 12:50 PM
Because people are not their property, unless that property is intrinsic to their lives. Stealing someone's computer doesn't kill them, or even directly injure them; it inconveniences them.

A good example might be Firefly's "The Train Job." The crew was perfectly willing to steal the shipment when they thought they were simply stealing property... they were willing to take a chaotic action. However, once it became clear that they were stealing medicine people needed to live, they realized that the consequences were not Chaotic but Evil, a line they were not willing to cross (though, of course, they were happy to kick Crow into an intake, though that was arguably self-defense).

That's essentially saying that evil is not evil provided if it's somehow 'minor'.

Can't see it to be very logical at all.

Stealing few dollars or snacks could be 'chaotic' I guess, but stealing someone's computer may even easily destroy their life, if said computer consumed large part of his earnings/resources or whatever, and they make their living with computer.

There was a reason why in many, many primal, medieval, or whatever societies stealing anything more substantial was extremely harshly punished misdeed.

Eloel
2015-04-15, 01:05 PM
There was a reason why in many, many primal, medieval, or whatever societies stealing anything more substantial was extremely harshly punished misdeed.

Because the punishing power was called Law and they were offending it by being Chaotic?

BRC
2015-04-15, 01:11 PM
That's essentially saying that evil is not evil provided if it's somehow 'minor'.

Can't see it to be very logical at all.

Stealing few dollars or snacks could be 'chaotic' I guess, but stealing someone's computer may even easily destroy their life, if said computer consumed large part of his earnings/resources or whatever.

There was a reason why in many, many 'primal' societies stealing was very harshly punished crime.

I mean, it's a matter of degrees.

You steal a hundred dollars from somebody working two jobs and barely making ends meet, that ruins their life.
You steal a hundred dollars from a millionaire, they barely notice.

I think the idea is that stealing is not, in itself, evil. But no action exists in a vacuum, and the harm is usually less in the theft itself, and more in the consequences of that theft.


For example, let's say I'm financially secure. I find ten dollars on the ground. Then, you steal five dollars from me. The consequences are very light, I didn't need the money, and since I put no effort into getting the money, it's not like you made me waste the effort I could have spent doing something else.
Yeah, I am less well off than I was before, but the damage is pretty minimal.

Whereas, if I earned ten dollars working for an hour, and you steal it from me, you've not only deprived me of ten dollars, I could have spent that hour doing something else, by taking my money you've also robbed me of whatever I could have been doing.

Same goes for how much I need the money. If I'm struggling financially, stealing that $10 could mean stealing a meal.

All you Took was $10, harming me very little, but the CONSEQUENCES of that action cause me considerable harm.

Lets say I have a big pile of dirt. I'm doing nothing with that dirt, but saying that it's mine. You take some of my dirt. I don't notice.
Now, you've violated my property rights, which is Chaotic, but you didn't harm me, so that's not really Evil. The act of theft itself is simply Chaotic, with the Evil coming from the consequences of that theft.

Compare to say, stabbing me. This is a violent action that directly harms me, it is inherently Evil. But, it could be more or less evil based on the Consequences.

You stabbed me because I was attacking you, makes it self defense. You stabbed me in the leg so I couldn't walk while I'm miles from civilization, ensuring a slow, painful death, that's more consequences, the act is more evil.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 01:14 PM
Because the punishing power was called Law and they were offending it by being Chaotic?

Except that punishing power didn't have to be called 'Law' or even be any power at all, other than 'people gathered to stone/hang you for stealing'.

Societies without Roman/Christian idea of Law were punishing stealing too.


I really can't see why stealing anything would be particularly chaotic by itself.

Even the D&D rules are trying, if somehow lamely, state that 'Lawful' and 'Chaotic' are inside workings of character, his attachment to schemes, schedules, places, changes and so on.

Lawful Evil character can steal stuff in tidy, organized and reliable manner, sticking to the 'Law' in all other areas that benefit them, and still be LE.


Lets say I have a big pile of dirt. I'm doing nothing with that dirt, but saying that it's mine. You take some of my dirt. I don't notice.
Now, you've violated my property rights, which is Chaotic, but you didn't harm me, so that's not really Evil. The act of theft itself is simply Chaotic, with the Evil coming from the consequences of that theft.


Eh, but that really requires any 'property rights' in the first place.

Simple - one has pile of dirt. It's their. I steal it, saying 'f*** you, I know it's yours, but I don't care cause. I want it'.

Of course it can be extremely minor, but it's still aggression towards someone.

Who am I to decide if he really doesn't need that dirt? May very well need it for, supporting foundation, road, or whatever. May to have something sled from in winter.

Eloel
2015-04-15, 01:16 PM
Except that punishing power didn't have to be called 'Law' or even be any power at all, other than 'people gathered to stone/hang you for stealing'.



Welcome to the definition of government, would you like a crash course?

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 01:29 PM
That's essentially saying that evil is not evil provided if it's somehow 'minor'.


Only if you're defining stealing as evil. When you define stealing that does not directly result in harm to a person as chaotic, then it's saying "chaotic is not evil provided it's not also evil."

Because it comes down to "how do you define the law/chaos axis in a way that is fundamentally different from the good/evil axis." When you consider that one of the standard examples of CG is Robin Hood... someone known for their theft... you have to move away from the idea that "stealing is evil".

My definition, my litmus test, is that good and evil are about people, and law and chaos are about property and ideas. Good and evil are things that help or harm people, while law and chaos are about supporting or disrespecting property and ideas.

Theft is, when removed from other contexts, disrespecting people's property (as is vandalism). So, too, would be disrespecting others ideals or religious prohibitions (not in that you fail to follow them yourself, but that you actively conspire to make them break them... i.e. tricking a vegetarian or vegan into eating meat, or someone who avoids alcohol into drinking). Lawful acts involve respecting property and ideals, even if they are not your own. You might work to change them... you might even violently oppose them. But lawful means you don't actively disrespect that those beliefs are real, or that the property belongs to the person who owns it.

An action can have multiple alignment impacts, of course; the theft in the Train Job had consequences for people that made it an evil act as well as a chaotic act, whereas the theft in Ariel can be seen as purely chaotic... "They'll be restocked within hours." Freeing slaves by cutting their chains is chaotic good, whereas keeping slaves is lawful evil, at best... placing a concept of property above people.

It's a flexible way of viewing actions and their consequences that lets you classify most things once you understand their impact.

BRC
2015-04-15, 01:37 PM
Eh, but that really requires any 'property rights' in the first place.

Simple - one has pile of dirt. It's their. I steal it, saying 'f*** you, I know it's yours, but I don't care cause. I want it'.

Of course it can be extremely minor, but it's still aggression towards someone.

Who am I to decide if he really doesn't need that dirt? May very well need it for, supporting foundation, road, or whatever. May to have something sled from in winter.
Well, that's where the Consequences thing comes in.

Lets say you take $10 from me, then give it back five minutes later.
Now, you disrespected my property rights by taking my stuff, which is Chaotic, but, assuming I had no use for that money during those few minutes, it can't really be said that you harmed me in any way.
Technically speaking, Theft happened. You took my stuff. The fact that you gave it back later does not change the fact that you took something that was mine without my permission.
The act is Chaotic, but not Evil.

Now, lets say you take $10 from me, you don't give it back. I needed that money to buy dinner, now I go hungry for the night. You violated my rights (Chaotic) and harmed me (Evil).

Now, lets say I owe you $10. I need $10 to buy dinner. You come over and demand the $10 I owe you right that instant., knowing that it's all I have until I get paid in the morning. You didn't violate my rights, I owed you $10, and you had the right to collect whenever you wanted, but you did cause me harm (Evil).

The Chaotic Act (Violating my property rights and taking the thing from me) is different than the Evil act (Harming me by depriving me of whatever I would have done with the money).

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 01:41 PM
Only if you're defining stealing as evil. When you define stealing that does not directly result in harm to a person as chaotic, then it's saying "chaotic is not evil provided it's not also evil."

Because it comes down to "how do you define the law/chaos axis in a way that is fundamentally different from the good/evil axis." When you consider that one of the standard examples of CG is Robin Hood... someone known for their theft... you have to move away from the idea that "stealing is evil".



Eh, because it is evil. By pretty much definition of robbing someone out of something he wants to keep. Harm.

This doesn't have to stand in any conflict with stereotypical Robin Hood.

One steals from some 'bad guy', causing harm, but bad guy had already caused serious, selfish harm to stealer or/and other people, so this is war/self defense, not aggression.

Leaving aside the fact that even most 'good' RHs often had completely non good elements of stealing from people just because they had 'too much' of course. But that's other story, perhaps evil acts of mostly good character, or whatever.


Lets say you take $10 from me, then give it back five minutes later.
Now, you disrespected my property rights by taking my stuff, which is Chaotic, but, assuming I had no use for that money during those few minutes, it can't really be said that you harmed me in any way.

And yet, if I knew, I would feel harmed, very much.

It's still screwing other person, pretending that you know better what should happen with those money.

Which is why it's mostly unrealistic scenario, because how can one knows how/why other doesn't 'need it'.

Disrespecting is not chaotic, it's bad. It can be done in orderly manner, and with Law, Inner Code of Conduct, or whatever "Lawful' on stealer side, if he follows some oppressive ideas about property.



The Chaotic Act (Violating my property rights and taking the thing from me)

Violating someone is pretty much definition of harm. Word means that much...




Now, lets say I owe you $10. I need $10 to buy dinner. You come over and demand the $10 I owe you right that instant., knowing that it's all I have until I get paid in the morning. You didn't violate my rights, I owed you $10, and you had the right to collect whenever you wanted, but you did cause me harm (Evil).

Hard to call it as evil act at all. If lending person manipulated the other person into situation.

Yes, there's harm in not being able to buy dinner, but it's SELF harm.

One cannot be really made responsible for other person lack of money, shortsightedness or whatever.

He lend money, now wants it back, doesn't want anything unjust. The fact that other person is irresponsible is not his fault.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 01:45 PM
Eh, because it is evil. By pretty much definition of robbing someone out of something he wants to keep. Harm.


Then how do you define the lawful/chaotic split? You keep insisting that "theft is inherently harm" and, if you assume that, then, yeah, you're going to keep seeing it as evil. But you still have to define "law" and "chaos" in a way that's useful.

BRC
2015-04-15, 02:08 PM
And yet, if I knew, I would feel harmed, very much.

It's still screwing other person, pretending that you know better what should happen with those money.

Which is why it's mostly unrealistic scenario, because how can one knows how/why other doesn't 'need it'.

Disrespecting is not chaotic, it's bad. It can be done in orderly manner, and with Law, Inner Code of Conduct, or whatever "Lawful' on stealer side, if he follows some oppressive ideas about property.

It's called an argument. I'm trying to prove that there exists a situation where something can be stolen, but the "Victim" is not actually harmed in any way. The situation does not need to be "Realistic", it just needs to be possible.
Money has no value on it's own, it's value is only in what it can be exchanged for. If you were not going to exchange that money for anything in the time it took for me to give it back, you were not impacted at all by it's being gone.

If you put two people on desert islands, gave one of them $100 worth of food, and the other $1000 worth of gold bullion, the guy with the food would be much better off. Money itself has no value unless you are going to exchange it for something.




Violating someone is pretty much definition of harm. Word means that much...
No PERSON was violated, somebody's PROPERTY was violated. There is a difference.





Hard to call it as evil act at all. If lending person manipulated the other person into situation.

Yes, there's harm in not being able to buy dinner, but it's SELF harm.

One cannot be really made responsible for other person lack of money, shortsightedness or whatever.

He lend money, now wants it back, doesn't want anything unjust. The fact that other person is irresponsible is not his fault.

You may or may not be responsible for my lack of other money, but you're certainly responsible for the consequences.

Why are you taking that $10 Today? do you need it today? You know that taking it will mean I can't eat, you know I'll be able to pay you in the morning.
For the sake of argument, you don't need $10 today. Your life will not be impacted in the slightest if you get those $10 in the morning.

The only difference between demanding $10 now, and waiting to be paid back in the morning is whether or not I get to eat dinner tonight. Just because you have the RIGHT to take the money and make me go hungry, does not mean that it is the RIGHT thing to do.


I could keep clarifying the situation to go around you're "Responsibility" argument (I have money, but my wallet was stolen, and I won't get a new ATM card until the morning, all I have to get dinner is the $10 I found in my jacket pocket), but that's not really relevant.
Your act is Evil, but it is also perfectly Lawful. That's how Lawful Evil works.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 02:08 PM
Then how do you define the lawful/chaotic split? You keep insisting that "theft is inherently harm" and, if you assume that, then, yeah, you're going to keep seeing it as evil. But you still have to define "law" and "chaos" in a way that's useful.

Law/Chaos would be character, mind, brain or however one calls it, acting in chaotic or orderful manner. Pretty simple.

Of course, those terms itself will be problematic, but no one said that this particular idea from D&D isn't problematic. Quite contrary :smalltongue:

So level of adherence to some set patterns, rules, predictable 'paths', programmed behaviors, amount of creativity, impulse, or general chaos and randomness in system.


Of course, in your human like creatures, strongly, sometimes totally influenced, socialized and driven by others in society, so actual community/culture laws and traditions may very wel bel most of that what drives character from 'inside', his inner workings.

They will be likely Lawful then, I guess. Strongly outside steered, perhaps not very independent (though it gets tricky real fast) Lawful.



No PERSON was violated, somebody's PROPERTY was violated. There is a difference.

Except that it's not really discernible in such cases.

When person is being robbed, actual loss value is very often completely secondary to feeling of being, indeed, violated.

Someone decides, at their whim, that they can decide what happens with your stuff, and just takes it, treating you like subordinate, trash, or whatever.


Why are you taking that $10 Today? do you need it today? You know that taking it will mean I can't eat, you know I'll be able to pay you in the morning.
For the sake of argument, you don't need $10 today. Your life will not be impacted in the slightest if you get those $10 in the morning.

The only difference between demanding $10 now, and waiting to be paid back in the morning is whether or not I get to eat dinner tonight. Just because you have the RIGHT to take the money and make me go hungry, does not mean that it is the RIGHT thing to do.


I could keep clarifying the situation to go around you're "Responsibility" argument (I have money, but my wallet was stolen, and I won't get a new ATM card until the morning, all I have to get dinner is the $10 I found in my jacket pocket),

"Needing" doesn't really, have to matter. Why not 'want'.

Responsibility was used in very broad sense.

The fact that someone got robbed sucks, but it's not lender fault.

Delaying payment would be rather tiny, minor act of goodness - to help someone whose situation sucks from whatever reason, but refusing it cannot be really 'evil'.

Forced goodness is no goodness at all.

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 02:21 PM
You could define law and chaos as respect and disrespect, respectively (:smallbiggrin:) for the good of the community as a whole, rather than the people inside that community. In that regard, doing things which foster togetherness, unity, and order within the community are good for it as an entity separate from its constituent parts, and are thus Lawful. But the things which secure order in the community are not necessarily those which are good for the individual, or even for all of the individuals within the community.
An excellent analogy is the body, as opposed to the cells within the body. The good of the entity that the cells make up is maintained at the expense of the good of the cells within the body: the cells have their protein expression, their identity, rigidly controlled, as well as their reproduction, and have to be actively ordered not to commit suicide. A community most akin to the body would be highly dystopian from the point of view of an individual, even if the community ran well.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 02:26 PM
You could define law and chaos as respect and disrespect, respectively (:smallbiggrin:) for the good of the community as a whole, rather than the people inside that community. In that regard, doing things which foster togetherness, unity, and order within the community are good for it as an entity separate from its constituent parts, and are thus Lawful. But the things which secure order in the community are not necessarily those which are good for the individual, or even for all of the individuals within the community.
.

That's not bad indeed, although Chaotic or Lawful character actually exist, and are such, even without any community to speak off.

Totally solitary people, without even getting into demons and devils in some forsaken abyss, for example.

And community can be, after all, complete chaos, so character actively supporting community's working can very well not be very 'Lawful'.

BRC
2015-04-15, 02:30 PM
"Needing" doesn't really, have to matter. Why not 'want'.

Responsibility was used in very broad sense.

The fact that someone got robbed sucks, but it's not lender fault.

Delaying payment would be rather tiny, minor act of goodness - to help someone whose situation sucks from whatever reason, but refusing it cannot be really 'evil'.

Forced goodness is no goodness at all.

Which is where the difference between "Lawful" and "good" comes into play.

Take the money out of the equation. Due to no fault of my own, you are within your legal rights to make me go hungry tonight. Maybe I owe you $10, maybe the government has given you an official license to grab my food out of my hands and throw it down the toilet.

It's effectively the same thing as far as we're concerned, unless you're willing to argue that "That fuzzy feeling that comes with having an extra $10" morally outweighs "Making somebody else go hungry".

You have the RIGHT to make me go hungry. That does not make you obligated to make me go hungry, nor does it erase the fact that you are making me go hungry. Whether you're collecting a debt, or stealing the money, the effect on me is the same. Your relationship with the law is all that changes. The fact that you are within your legal rights to collect the debt does not mean that you are morally justified in making me go hungry. Acting within ones lawful rights, but doing evil things with it is called Abuse of Power, tyranny, or being Lawful Evil.


It is within the rights of an absolute monarch to order his soldiers to execute everybody in the kingdom named Greg, because a guy named Greg once made fun of his hat. He's an Absolute Monarch, it is within his rights to do anything he wants.
That does not make his decrees anything but absolutely evil.

It is NOT within the soldier's rights to go out, not kill anybody, and then come back and say "Sorry your majesty, it turns out that nobody in the kingdom is named Greg, except that one guy who made fun of your hat, and you killed him years ago". That does not mean that the soldiers are not doing the right thing.

Keltest
2015-04-15, 02:30 PM
Ive always thought of Law/Chaos as your proclivity to put your own desires and goals over the desires and goals of the community. A Lawful person can still have their own goals, they just wont pursue them if it means that someone else gets hurt. A Chaotic person meanwhile isn't going to go out of their way to go against the desires of the community, but they wont hesitate to do so either, should the need arise.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-15, 03:15 PM
Serious alignment arguments. Hooray. Never mind that the distinction exists because someone wanted to be edgy and unpredictable back when Law and Chaos were just Red Team and Blue Team identifiers, and resented the fact that their arbitrary team name was an arbitrary team name.

You could make the argument that a "CG" character who steals randomly actually has to be Neutral because on a fundamental level they aren't recognizing that other people have needs too, but that won't fly because the person playing the character thinks they're Good, so they must be, right? They're like a Robin Hood who never gives anything to the poor, y'know?


Welcome to the definition of government, would you like a crash course?

I think the case he was describing was a "lynch mob," not "government," which has a different definition entirely.

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 03:20 PM
You could make the argument that a "CG" character who steals randomly actually has to be Neutral because on a fundamental level they aren't recognizing that other people have needs too,


Actually that's a near-exact copy of an example the DM's Guide in 3e gives of the difference between Good and Neutral.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 03:33 PM
Which is where the difference between "Lawful" and "good" comes into play.

Take the money out of the equation. Due to no fault of my own, you are within your legal rights to make me go hungry tonight. Maybe I owe you $10, maybe the government has given you an official license to grab my food out of my hands and throw it down the toilet.

Except that it's completely false equivalence.

It's not lenders fault that someone doesn't have anything to eat, and goverment or 'law' has nothing to do with it.




You have the RIGHT to make me go hungry. That does not make you obligated to make me go hungry, nor does it erase the fact that you are making me go hungry. Whether you're collecting a debt, or stealing the money, the effect on me is the same. Your relationship with the law is all that changes. The fact that you are within your legal rights to collect the debt does not mean that you are morally justified in making me go hungry. Acting within ones lawful rights, but doing evil things with it is called Abuse of Power, tyranny, or being Lawful Evil.

It doesn't need any 'laws' introduced.

Just relationship between two people. One promised to give money back, and honesty generally requires to give it back if asked to.


And no, effect is absolutely not the same.

Collecting what's yours cannot be morally compared to taking what's not yours, rather obvious.

Again, one cannot be automatically expected to take care of other people just because they're hungry or whatever.

If that's 'abusing the power' then guy who owes money is, as well, abusing his position, trying to keep money still, by throwing responsibility on someone else. Using feeling of guilt, or whatever.




It is within the rights of an absolute monarch to order his soldiers to execute everybody in the kingdom named Greg, because a guy named Greg once made fun of his hat. He's an Absolute Monarch, it is within his rights to do anything he wants.
That does not make his decrees anything but absolutely evil.

Bad comparison as well... It may be in his right, but it's absolutely actively hostile, aggressive act towards people who actually doesn't have anything to do with the fact.

Lord Torath
2015-04-15, 03:45 PM
Except that it's completely false equivalence.

It's not lenders fault that someone doesn't have anything to eat, and goverment or 'law' has nothing to do with it.

It doesn't need any 'laws' introduced.

Just relationship between two people. One promised to give money back, and honesty generally requires to give it back if asked to.I think you missed what BRC meant by "Take the money out of the equation." He proposed a completely new situation in which he does not owe you anything, but for whatever reason you have been legally empowered with the right to deprive him of dinner. You suffer no consequences for depriving or not depriving him of dinner. So if you choose to deprive him of dinner, it is a Lawful act. But it harms BRC, so it is not a Good act.

Similarly, the Solider has been ordered to kill anyone in the kingdom named Greg. If that soldier chooses to kill a Greg, it is a Lawful act. But since Greg was undeserving, it is an Evil act. If the solider decides not to kill Greg, it is a Chaotic act (he's disobeying a direct order from his king), but it's a Good act, because he's refusing to harm another.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 03:53 PM
Law/Chaos would be character, mind, brain or however one calls it, acting in chaotic or orderful manner. Pretty simple.

That's completely circular. "You're chaotic if you act in a chaotic manner." "What's a chaotic manner?" "A manner in keeping with chaos."



So level of adherence to some set patterns, rules, predictable 'paths', programmed behaviors, amount of creativity, impulse, or general chaos and randomness in system.


Creativity is a chaotic trait? Sonnets and sestinas immediately come to mind as counter-examples... the sestina, especially, requires a large amount of creativity to stay within a set format.

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 03:56 PM
That's completely circular. "You're chaotic if you act in a chaotic manner." "What's a chaotic manner?" "A manner in keeping with chaos."



Creativity is a chaotic trait? Sonnets and sestinas immediately come to mind as counter-examples... the sestina, especially, requires a large amount of creativity to stay within a set format.

I think he's referring to creativity as in developing novel things outside of previous patterns. Like how I consider myself to not be a creative person, because while I develop new things (campaign settings in particular) and put my own influences on them, I keep within the bounds of established patterns.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-15, 04:01 PM
Similarly, the Solider has been ordered to kill anyone in the kingdom named Greg. If that soldier chooses to kill a Greg, it is a Lawful act. But since Greg was undeserving, it is an Evil act. If the solider decides not to kill Greg, it is a Chaotic act (he's disobeying a direct order from his king), but it's a Good act, because he's refusing to harm another.

Which - assuming any LG character would also choose not to kill Greg - makes Law and Chaos little more than different flavors for Good and Evil characters.

Actually, possibly also for Neutral characters too. Would a CN character refuse to kill Greg, just because killing him would be Lawful? Law and Chaos don't realistically motivate character actions. There is no real-world philosophy that specifically mandates that its adherents reject all instructions because freedom. There couldn't be one, because its own adherents would be required to reject it, and to reject that requirement ad infinitum.

Unless you're a C(X) PC, which case "because I'm Chaotic" is unfortunately a thing that exists.


Actually that's a near-exact copy of an example the DM's Guide in 3e gives of the difference between Good and Neutral.

Then at least according to some people, you can't be Good and Chaotic at the same time - since Chaos seems to define itself by rejection of external motivations.

I want to be clear about my own position here: I think Alignment is utterly absurd, limiting, and a major source of problems (as opposed to conflict, which is often good). I think one of the problems with Rogues and Paladins alike is that they have to fit into this arbitrary system that doesn't remotely model the motivation of even fictional people. Of course, that's just a part of the problem that they're both fixed sets of mechanics with fixed sets of fluff (even if approached as a base that can be modified).

BRC
2015-04-15, 04:11 PM
And no, effect is absolutely not the same.

Collecting what's yours cannot be morally compared to taking what's not yours, rather obvious.

Again, one cannot be automatically expected to take care of other people just because they're hungry or whatever.

If that's 'abusing the power' then guy who owes money is, as well, abusing his position, trying to keep money still, by throwing responsibility on someone else. Using feeling of guilt, or whatever.


As far as who is harmed and who benefits, it is EXACTLY the same. The collector does not benefit to any appreciable degree, and the debtor is harmed.
That's really all that matters. Who is harmed and who benefits.
The fact that the Debtor owed money does not mean that the Collector is not inflicting harm on the Debtor, they're just within their legal rights to do so.
The Collector made a decision (I will collect the money tonight), and as a direct result of that decision, the Debtor is harmed. That is basically the exact definition of responsibility. The Collector is responsible for the Debtor's harm, hence Evil.
Whether or not the Debtor can be held responsible for BEING in debt with only $10 accessible right now (Whether they're just broke due to poor financial planning, or because their wallet was stolen and they're waiting for a new ATM card) is irrelevant. The Collector is not some inevitable force, they're a human being capable of making a decision, and they are therefore responsible for the consequences of that decision.

If I hand you a knife, and you stab me with the knife, you're still the one who stabbed me. The fact that I am responsible for giving you that power over me is irrelevant.



Bad comparison as well... It may be in his right, but it's absolutely actively hostile, aggressive act towards people who actually doesn't have anything to do with the fact.
Which is my point.

It is the King's right to execute the Gregs, but that does not make doing so a non-evil action.

It is the Collector's right to collect the money at that time, but that does not make doing so a non-evil action.
The King and the Collector are sitting at exactly the same place on the law/chaos scale. They are doing something within their rights.

Good and Evil exist independent of Law and Chaos. When determining whether or not an action is Good or Evil, all that matters is harm and benefit. I was going to eat, and due to your actions I will go hungry. Good and Evil do not care that I owed you money, or that you were not within your rights to take the money. You took an action, and as a result I was harmed.

It is an Evil act.

runeghost
2015-04-15, 04:15 PM
As my 1st edition AD&D thief used to say "Thief stands for: Treasure Hunter In Expert Fashion". From Bilbo Baggins to Indiana Jones, thieves and rogues are an integral part of all sorts of Speculative Fiction and roleplaying.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 04:29 PM
As far as who is harmed and who benefits, it is EXACTLY the same. The collector does not benefit to any appreciable degree, and the debtor is harmed.
That's really all that matters. Who is harmed and who benefits.
The fact that the Debtor owed money does not mean that the Collector is not inflicting harm on the Debtor, they're just within their legal rights to do so.
The Collector made a decision (I will collect the money tonight), and as a direct result of that decision, the Debtor is harmed. That is basically the exact definition of responsibility.


No, he's not harming anybody.

It's not HIS responsibility to feed other people. It's their life, and business.

It may not be very nice, but it's perfectly OK, to say 'sorry, but I cannot lend you this money for any longer'.

There's absolutely no reason he should be responsible for this person hunger, and not say, any other beggar who's pretty hungry few meters away.

If he gives those 10 $ to some other beggar instead, is he still harming the debtor?

Or if he gives it to him after, all is beggar2 harmed?

It gets maddening really quick.





Which is my point.

It is the King's right to execute the Gregs, but that does not make doing so a non-evil action.


Eh, expect that he really doesn't have that right. It violates the other people rights, so it not really rightful by default.

In really most cases only kings 'right' here would be 'no one can punish me', provided that victim was unimportant enough.





I was going to eat, and due to your actions I will go hungry.

No, you will go hungry because you cannot provide yourself any food for whatever reason, and it's not collectors fault.

He didn't cause your state in any way, and if anything, already issued you a courtesy by lending some money.

Why is he forced to take that baggage?

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 04:31 PM
Which - assuming any LG character would also choose not to kill Greg - makes Law and Chaos little more than different flavors for Good and Evil characters.

Actually, possibly also for Neutral characters too. Would a CN character refuse to kill Greg, just because killing him would be Lawful? Law and Chaos don't realistically motivate character actions. There is no real-world philosophy that specifically mandates that its adherents reject all instructions because freedom. There couldn't be one, because its own adherents would be required to reject it, and to reject that requirement ad infinitum.

Unless you're a C(X) PC, which case "because I'm Chaotic" is unfortunately a thing that exists.



Then at least according to some people, you can't be Good and Chaotic at the same time - since Chaos seems to define itself by rejection of external motivations.

I want to be clear about my own position here: I think Alignment is utterly absurd, limiting, and a major source of problems (as opposed to conflict, which is often good). I think one of the problems with Rogues and Paladins alike is that they have to fit into this arbitrary system that doesn't remotely model the motivation of even fictional people. Of course, that's just a part of the problem that they're both fixed sets of mechanics with fixed sets of fluff (even if approached as a base that can be modified).

Actually, rogues aren't limited in alignment at all (barring 2e, when they were barred from Lawful Good and Lawful Good only—they could still be a Lawful Neutral 00 agent or a NG protector of the weak). You can have a Lawful Good king's agent who happens to use a lot of deception and stealth.

Lord Torath
2015-04-15, 04:32 PM
Which - assuming any LG character would also choose not to kill Greg - makes Law and Chaos little more than different flavors for Good and Evil characters.The difference, here, is that the soldier has been explicitly ordered to kill everyone named Greg, so killing him is a Lawful Evil act. Any other LG characters have NOT been ordered to kill Greg, so for them, it is a Chaotic Evil act to kill Greg (assuming murder is against the law in this kingdom). Note that NG and CG characters would also decide not to kill Greg if their alignments are accurate. It's not just the LG types.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-15, 04:34 PM
As far as who is harmed and who benefits, it is EXACTLY the same. The collector does not benefit to any appreciable degree, and the debtor is harmed.
That's really all that matters. Who is harmed and who benefits.
The fact that the Debtor owed money does not mean that the Collector is not inflicting harm on the Debtor, they're just within their legal rights to do so.
The Collector made a decision (I will collect the money tonight), and as a direct result of that decision, the Debtor is harmed. That is basically the exact definition of responsibility. The Collector is responsible for the Debtor's harm, hence Evil.
Whether or not the Debtor can be held responsible for BEING in debt with only $10 accessible right now (Whether they're just broke due to poor financial planning, or because their wallet was stolen and they're waiting for a new ATM card) is irrelevant. The Collector is not some inevitable force, they're a human being capable of making a decision, and they are therefore responsible for the consequences of that decision.

...

It is the Collector's right to collect the money at that time, but that does not make doing so a non-evil action.
The King and the Collector are sitting at exactly the same place on the law/chaos scale. They are doing something within their rights.

Good and Evil exist independent of Law and Chaos. When determining whether or not an action is Good or Evil, all that matters is harm and benefit. I was going to eat, and due to your actions I will go hungry. Good and Evil do not care that I owed you money, or that you were not within your rights to take the money. You took an action, and as a result I was harmed.

It is an Evil act.

Even if the Collector is under the threat of losing their job if they don't? Even if they believe that the system relies on them doing what they do, and that if they don't, far more people will be harmed than this one unfortunate debtor?

Which leads to the question of who is responsible for Evil in a system. Is capitalism Evil?

BRC
2015-04-15, 04:46 PM
Even if the Collector is under the threat of losing their job if they don't? Even if they believe that the system relies on them doing what they do, and that if they don't, far more people will be harmed than this one unfortunate debtor?

Which leads to the question of who is responsible for Evil in a system. Is capitalism Evil?

We've already established that, for the sake of the argument, the Collector's life is not changed at all if they get the money in the morning compared to right now.



No, he's not harming anybody.

It's not HIS responsibility to feed other people. It's their life, and business.

It may not be very nice, but it's perfectly OK, to say 'sorry, but I cannot lend you this money for any longer'.

There's absolutely no reason he should be responsible for this person hunger, and not say, any other beggar who's pretty hungry few meters away.

If he gives those 10 $ to some other beggar instead, is he still harming the debtor?

Or if he gives it to him after, all is beggar2 harmed?

It gets maddening really quick.

He's not feeding anybody. He's simply NOT collecting on the debt until the morning.

Reverse the situation. I have no money on-hand, you owe me $10. You could pay in the morning, or you could pay me right now. Your life is not impacted ,but if you pay me now, I get to eat.
You're no more obligated to pay me back in the morning than the Collector was obligated to take the money right now in the other scenario. It is entirely your choice, and you are legally within your rights regardless of your decision.

In the first scenario (I owe you $10), it is your action (Collecting the $10) that causes me harm.
In the second scenario (You owe me $10), it is your inaction (Not paying me back) that causes me harm.

Do either of those scenarios count as "Evil" in your book? Or does the simple fact that i'm at your mercy absolve you of responsibility for my situation, regardless of who owes what.




Eh, expect that he really doesn't have that right. It violates the other people rights, so it not really rightful by default.

In really most cases only kings 'right' here would be 'no one can punish me', provided that victim was unimportant enough.


Absolute Monarchy. Nobody has any rights except those that are granted to them by the Absolute Monarch, and those rights can be taken away at the whim of said Monarch.
Unless you want to get all Enlightenment Philosopher on us, and argue that certain rights are inalienable regardless of the nature of the State.

TheTeaMustFlow
2015-04-15, 04:46 PM
As my 1st edition AD&D thief used to say "Thief stands for: Treasure Hunter In Expert Fashion". From Bilbo Baggins to Indiana Jones, thieves and rogues are an integral part of all sorts of Speculative Fiction and roleplaying.

Technically speaking, Bilbo wasn't actually a thief, given that the Arkenstone was the Dwarves legal property. More of a freelance tax collector.

... I really want to play a rogue as a tax collector now. Though that's not really an example of a non-thieving or a non-evil rogue.

Spiryt
2015-04-15, 04:46 PM
That's completely circular. "You're chaotic if you act in a chaotic manner." "What's a chaotic manner?" "A manner in keeping with chaos."

Chaos is disorder, lack of pattern, order.

Laws can indeed be pattern, but it's not really the key, because behaviors of breaking the law can be completely following patterns as well.





Creativity is a chaotic trait? Sonnets and sestinas immediately come to mind as counter-examples... the sestina, especially, requires a large amount of creativity to stay within a set format.

Depends on definition of 'creativity', and it may indeed not be a good example.

Creating 'ex nihilo' may be more Chaotic, as in coming up with something like sestina in the first place.

Comping up with new one is much more the matter of drilling the rules and examples.


In general, I of course am not pretending that this system makes much sense, I'm just saying that reducing it to actual 'Laws vs breaking laws' makes even less sense, and even more headache.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 04:47 PM
Which leads to the question of who is responsible for Evil in a system. Is capitalism Evil?

The Mod Wonder: That would be a question best answered on a board without a prohibition on politics.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-15, 05:22 PM
We've already established that, for the sake of the argument, the Collector's life is not changed at all if they get the money in the morning compared to right now.

Missed that. Fair enough.


The Mod Wonder: That would be a question best answered on a board without a prohibition on politics.

Sorry! Better not to go there.

Let me use BRC's example. Is an absolute monarchy in which people named Greg can be arbitrarily killed always Evil?

Keltest
2015-04-15, 05:25 PM
Missed that. Fair enough.



Sorry! Better not to go there.

Let me use BRC's example. Is an absolute monarchy in which people named Greg can be arbitrarily killed always Evil?

It is if they ARE being arbitrarily killed. If its some hidden law that nobody knows about, it doesn't have enough of an effect to judge.

Karl Aegis
2015-04-15, 05:32 PM
Isn't arbitrary violence what chaotic evil does nowadays? How would anything that was arbitrarily violent ever be lawful?

Keltest
2015-04-15, 06:02 PM
Isn't arbitrary violence what chaotic evil does nowadays? How would anything that was arbitrarily violent ever be lawful?

Yes. The fact that it is legal does not mean it is lawful. However if you replace 'murder" with "excessive taxation" the society becomes lawful.

Karl Aegis
2015-04-15, 06:14 PM
Yes. The fact that it is legal does not mean it is lawful. However if you replace 'murder" with "excessive taxation" the society becomes lawful.

Excessive taxation leads to less taxes being collected overall. You aren't being lawful, you are being stupid.

The Grue
2015-04-15, 06:14 PM
Except that it's not really discernible in such cases.

When person is being robbed, actual loss value is very often completely secondary to feeling of being, indeed, violated.

To play Devil's Advocate here, how do you quantify that feeling? Can you objectively quantify that feeling, or is it inherrently subjective? Who decides whether the victim feels sufficiently violated to constitute a wrong being committed? What happens if the person being robbed does not feel violated? What if they feel violated, but not enough to constitute a wrong being committed?

Keltest
2015-04-15, 06:18 PM
Excessive taxation leads to less taxes being collected overall. You aren't being lawful, you are being stupid.

The two are not mutually exclusive, as anyone who has ever partied with an overzealous paladin will tell you.

Morty
2015-04-15, 06:19 PM
I saw the thread's title and thought it was a question of how the "rogue" archetype is too broad and how dumping every concept that uses neither magic nor martial skill onto one class isn't a very good idea. Instead, I saw a bizarre premise and an alignment debate. Here's what I get for being an optimist.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-15, 06:23 PM
I saw the thread's title and thought it was a question of how the "rogue" archetype is too broad and how dumping every concept that uses neither magic nor martial skill onto one class isn't a very good idea. Instead, I saw a bizarre premise and an alignment debate. Here's what I get for being an optimist.

Hey, I've been arguing for there to be only three classes since the late 90s. Doesn't get much broader than that and remain a class system. ;-)

Lord Raziere
2015-04-15, 07:36 PM
Hey, I've been arguing for there to be only three classes since the late 90s. Doesn't get much broader than that and remain a class system. ;-)

Fighter, Mage, Rogue?

:smallfrown:

I dislike that system, because it doesn't allow for any hybrid concepts. what if I want to play a roguish illusionist who is adept at both magic and mundane to solve his problems? or someone who uses both sword and spell well? things like that?

Eloel
2015-04-15, 07:40 PM
Fighter, Mage, Rogue?

:smallfrown:

I dislike that system, because it doesn't allow for any hybrid concepts. what if I want to play a roguish illusionist who is adept at both magic and mundane to solve his problems? or someone who uses both sword and spell well? things like that?

Hello, multiclassing!

Lord Raziere
2015-04-15, 07:44 PM
Hello, multiclassing!

......What if I want to play something that doesn't suck?

goto124
2015-04-15, 07:45 PM
Quoted from paladin thread:


Hacker, a character archetype that should not be?

I'm not saying they're overpowered or something like that, I question the morality of this archetype.

I mean seriously, why would hackers be a core shadowrunner archetype alongside faces and street samurai? And really, who would want to go on any sort of 'run with a guy who's likely to brick your cyberware? And that's the best case scenario: he could just hack you and walk off with all your nuyen, leaving you to rot in the back of a LoneStar police car.

I mean, in all seriousness why would you have a role that is by its very definition a nuisance? Yeah okay, shadowrunners tend to be pragmatic and essentially criminal, but at least they aren't a problem to their own team.

They kind of fixed this with riggers, and not just with the re-naming. You don't have to illegally steal other people's data if you so choose. But it seems that the only reason to bring one along is to deal with drones. And they still reek of 'Matrix', despite the fact that they limit themselves to drones.

Not that I'm trying to troll, but I honestly don't see why this is a core role. It seems more like something you would see in the supplements that detailed the HMHVV-infected and drake metatypes - extremes of a sort.

Why is it that one of the roles by its very nature has to use the Matrix to undertake illegal actions? Unless you go with a greater-good character, I don't see anyway you could be useful. I mean seriously, what kind of a useful person would have a skill set like this??? The things you excel in are cracking security systems, cybercombat, programming, and simsense addiction. Oh, and you can also be a rigger on top of that with some work.

Is there anyway to play a hacker that isn't a total wiz data-stealer? I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but I don't understand why this archetype is one of the standard options. Street samurai make sense, faces make sense, street shamans, wage mages, infiltration specialists, adepts. Yeah, even riggers and technomancers are iffy, but technomancer is more just the stereotype that having an always-on Internet connection in your brain means your character is feared and hated by others. And just because you prefer not hacking in combat doesn't mean you're a good guy, its just a different tactic.

I wonder what other stuff this would work for… someone more clever than me needs to do up one for the Happiness Officer in a game of Paranoia.

Rogues sound better by comparison.

erikun
2015-04-15, 08:17 PM
Then how do you define the lawful/chaotic split? You keep insisting that "theft is inherently harm" and, if you assume that, then, yeah, you're going to keep seeing it as evil. But you still have to define "law" and "chaos" in a way that's useful.
On a personal note, replace "law" with "order" for my current look at the subject.

Chaotic is a lack of order, or a lack of consistency and willingness to change. This could be because the law shouldn't matter if it hurts the people (CG) or because the law shouldn't matter when it gets in my way (CN, CE). Most chaotic societies tend to be the most likely to change, either with their government leaders or with their policies and motivations as a country.

Lawful/Ordered is a focus on order, or a consistent methodology and unwillingness to change. This could be because the rules established are the best for everyone involved (LG) or that the laws best benefit those on top (LE) or just that the laws should remain as they have been (LN). Lawful people tend to have their own personal logic or methods which they stick with, either from habit or because it has consistently worked.


Creativity is a chaotic trait? Sonnets and sestinas immediately come to mind as counter-examples... the sestina, especially, requires a large amount of creativity to stay within a set format.
It can be, yes. Spontaneously coming up with a song, or just thinking about something to fit a particular mood, could be considered quite chaotic. But putting together a four chords song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ) is probably considered reasonably lawful/ordered.

goto124
2015-04-15, 08:31 PM
This could be because the law shouldn't matter if it hurts the people (CG)

Blah blah thievery hurts people blah blah.

I just want to play Robin Hood.

Concept of greater good could apply. The rich noble I stole from barely notices the loss, but it goes towards feeding a hero who saves the world.

Sounds good enough to me.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-15, 09:04 PM
I saw the thread's title and thought it was a question of how the "rogue" archetype is too broad and how dumping every concept that uses neither magic nor martial skill onto one class isn't a very good idea. Instead, I saw a bizarre premise and an alignment debate. Here's what I get for being an optimist.

Yeah, Rogues are a bit the "other" option, now that you mention it.


I just... Argh! Why does there need to be a class system in the first place? Why can't there just be a bunch of features and abilities that you pick from in order to do your thing? What do classes even add aside from these endless arguments over appropriate breadth and the relationship between fluff and mechanics?

Agh. Please excuse the despair. I realize this ground has been covered before, by other people, and it may not add much to have one more voice screaming "WHY?" to the heavens.

VoxRationis
2015-04-15, 09:33 PM
Because in principle, a class system allows for easier pick-up-and-play character creation, and to some extent it still does. If I'm not working too hard on optimizing a character build, I can build a 3.5 rogue or fighter quite easily, and even a wizard somewhat. I know what the class can do, what the character can do, and I don't have to keep track of a ton of character-building points. Some classes are more complicated than others, but at the basic level, I can do that pretty well.
Furthermore, a class system allows certain abilities to be linked with one another thematically in a way which is conducive to establishing a tone for characters. You can do that with a point-based or abilities a la carte system, but you'd have to make a giant interconnected tech tree, which would be a pain to navigate.
Also, trying to do a robust magic system without some sort of underlying class structure might well be difficult. You could grab each magical ability a la carte, in the fashion of Arkham Horror, but that limits caster flexibility greatly—your wizard would feel less like a master of the arcane and more like a guy who happens to know a couple of cute tricks.
Lastly—and most importantly— there are a bunch of point-buy systems out there, D&D doesn't have to be another, and feel free to grab a point-buy if you feel so inclined.

veti
2015-04-15, 09:40 PM
I just... Argh! Why does there need to be a class system in the first place? Why can't there just be a bunch of features and abilities that you pick from in order to do your thing? What do classes even add aside from these endless arguments over appropriate breadth and the relationship between fluff and mechanics?

There really doesn't. There are perfectly playable game systems that don't have the concept of "class" at all.

It's just that, for various reasons, none of those systems is as popular as D&D.

Satinavian
2015-04-16, 04:06 AM
bah, if feudalism and monarchies are not the same, they're still similar enough to suck in all the same ways.You don't seem to have a clue what you are talking about.

Monarchy is about a supreme ruler, what he can do and how he gets selected (yes, there are a bunch of non-hereditary monarchies). Feudalism is about how the gouvernment works (personal bonds of loyalty) and the kind and responsibilities of gouvernment officials and how they get selected (nobles and retainers).

Often they go together, in many other cases they don't. You do have a lot of feudal oligarchies and various noble republics (with or without king). And with the rise of absolutism you have a lot of monarchies that are not feudal anymore and rely instead on a more elaborate and modern bureaucracy.

Tyrannies are something completely different. Both feudalism and monarchy rely on tradition and law (and sometimes faith) for legitimacy. A classical feudal king is nothing without the tradition and law that makes him king and actually brings all those mighty lords to accept him. His personal power as a noble (due to family land and personal army) would never achieve anything. Tyrannies rely on force alone. If a tyrant can't enforce his rule, he will fall. Because he lacks the right to rule and the mandate to do so. And people don't like to be bullied. A weak hereditary feudal king will see his vassals do as they please but he will stay king, his children will get a claim to the throne and the oaths of his vassals will stay in place - as long as he has no legitimacy issues.


And none of those conceps is a "culture".


There really doesn't. There are perfectly playable game systems that don't have the concept of "class" at all.

It's just that, for various reasons, none of those systems is as popular as D&D.Considering that a lot of countries have dominant RPGs that are not D&D and derivatives, many of them not class systems, i would not say that this is linked to any superiority of class systems. D&D was just first established and keeps its players. If it ever gave up on classes, it would still remain the most popular system in the regions where it is dominating now. Roleplayers seem pretty change averse sometimes. And using a big system makes it so much easier to find players.

Morty
2015-04-16, 09:16 AM
Hey, I've been arguing for there to be only three classes since the late 90s. Doesn't get much broader than that and remain a class system. ;-)

If you only have three watered-down, broad classes, one wonders why you need a class-based system in a first place.



I just... Argh! Why does there need to be a class system in the first place? Why can't there just be a bunch of features and abilities that you pick from in order to do your thing? What do classes even add aside from these endless arguments over appropriate breadth and the relationship between fluff and mechanics?

Agh. Please excuse the despair. I realize this ground has been covered before, by other people, and it may not add much to have one more voice screaming "WHY?" to the heavens.

There doesn't. There are advantages and disadvantages to using predefined archetypes. D&D does a spectacularly lousy job at playing up the former and downplaying the latter. Although I think levels may be a bigger straitjacket on character variety, really.

LibraryOgre
2015-04-16, 10:10 AM
Fighter, Mage, Rogue?

:smallfrown:

I dislike that system, because it doesn't allow for any hybrid concepts. what if I want to play a roguish illusionist who is adept at both magic and mundane to solve his problems? or someone who uses both sword and spell well? things like that?


Hello, multiclassing!


......What if I want to play something that doesn't suck?

The system I worked out allowed for multiclassing, and for classes that were explicit hybrids. Nowadays, I don't think I did my best design work on that concept, and would do it a lot differently, but your roguish illusionist or gish would've worked, though you'd have to make sacrifices... you likely wouldn't be able to cast all the types of magic, or run into some other problems.

Ralanr
2015-04-16, 10:22 AM
The system I worked out allowed for multiclassing, and for classes that were explicit hybrids. Nowadays, I don't think I did my best design work on that concept, and would do it a lot differently, but your roguish illusionist or gish would've worked, though you'd have to make sacrifices... you likely wouldn't be able to cast all the types of magic, or run into some other problems.

To a lot of people that sounds like having your cake, but having no spoon/fork to eat it with. Sure you can eat it with your hands, but where are your table manners then?

goto124
2015-04-16, 10:34 AM
Serve finger food such as sushi :P

VoxRationis
2015-04-16, 10:42 AM
To a lot of people that sounds like having your cake, but having no spoon/fork to eat it with. Sure you can eat it with your hands, but where are your table manners then?

I am having difficulty understanding the objections I keep seeing to the concept that building a character to do two things makes them worse at any one of those things than a character who just focused on one would be. It is not only logical, but it is balanced. If being an archwizard who is also a top-notch swordsman is possible, why would anyone ever make a wizard without that kind of martial skill?

LibraryOgre
2015-04-16, 11:06 AM
I am having difficulty understanding the objections I keep seeing to the concept that building a character to do two things makes them worse at any one of those things than a character who just focused on one would be. It is not only logical, but it is balanced. If being an archwizard who is also a top-notch swordsman is possible, why would anyone ever make a wizard without that kind of martial skill?

More or less, this.

The system (as I said, the class section is pretty bad (http://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/indep.html)) was designed so that you could either start as a combination class, add a class later in life, or dip a bit into other class's abilities to bolster your own.

Needs a lot of work, and, apparently, the page to the rogue is entirely broken.

Spiryt
2015-04-16, 11:15 AM
Feel less wretch
Impunity
He watches
Lurking behind the tree
Hopelessly cheap
Has been busted
He leaves arrest
Hunter of the shekels is rising
Immoral
On market he steals

No honest folk who eternally steals
Stranger eons rouge makes fair deal

Drain you of your property
Face the class that should not be

Lord Raziere
2015-04-16, 12:21 PM
You don't seem to have a clue what you are talking about.

Monarchy is about a supreme ruler, what he can do and how he gets selected (yes, there are a bunch of non-hereditary monarchies). Feudalism is about how the gouvernment works (personal bonds of loyalty) and the kind and responsibilities of gouvernment officials and how they get selected (nobles and retainers).

Often they go together, in many other cases they don't. You do have a lot of feudal oligarchies and various noble republics (with or without king). And with the rise of absolutism you have a lot of monarchies that are not feudal anymore and rely instead on a more elaborate and modern bureaucracy.

Tyrannies are something completely different. Both feudalism and monarchy rely on tradition and law (and sometimes faith) for legitimacy. A classical feudal king is nothing without the tradition and law that makes him king and actually brings all those mighty lords to accept him. His personal power as a noble (due to family land and personal army) would never achieve anything. Tyrannies rely on force alone. If a tyrant can't enforce his rule, he will fall. Because he lacks the right to rule and the mandate to do so. And people don't like to be bullied. A weak hereditary feudal king will see his vassals do as they please but he will stay king, his children will get a claim to the throne and the oaths of his vassals will stay in place - as long as he has no legitimacy issues.


Ok, but how do they suck differently?

FocusWolf413
2015-04-16, 02:53 PM
Find it funny how everyone is defending the rogue class as outright evil, and even demonizing the other classes.

{scrubbed}

Defending yourself is obviously necessary, murdering and robbing civilians is something completely different. Some of you make it sound like a rogue is basically a person who screws over everyone else just so they can survive themselves. Screw over the rest of the city, so you can eat like a pig.

What, do you all play openly evil characters or something? I actually find it disgusting the one guy who justified an obviously evil character as 'necessary for his own survival'. A campaign where everyone's evil, that would definitely be something.

And over the past few hours, I did manage to think up a rogue character who ISN'T selfish and his actions are justifiable: a bounty hunter, or a monster hunter perhaps. A person who hunts down wanted criminals would certainly have a skill-set like what you see in a rogue's kit. Someone like this could easily be good, hell they could even be lawful perhaps.

You seem like the kind of person who has never played an evil character, nor have you played with someone who plays one accurately. Evil is essentially a complete disregard for others, so long as one's needs or desires are met. They rarely, if ever, view themselves as evil.

You should read Villains by Necessity, by Eve Forward.

TheCountAlucard
2015-04-16, 03:23 PM
I'd rather have someone steal my jewelry than melt my face with acid.Said the person wearing the Skeletor avatar... :smallamused:

erikun
2015-04-16, 03:52 PM
Said the person wearing the Skeletor avatar... :smallamused:
Sounds like he might have first-hand knowledge to make the comparison, then!

Satinavian
2015-04-17, 02:37 PM
Ok, but how do they suck differently?

A tyranny relies on force and has usually little regard for tradition, structures or law because it came to power against tradition and law. As a result you will have a huge army or equivalent (to keep you in power), lots of taxes to pay the huge army (probably more confiscations than taxes) and a lot of power abuse everywhere (because the weak law and traditions) and a lot of random violence (because of the strong army used to keep the power.)

You are hardly pressed to find any medieval, rennaissance or ancient source on gouvernments that doesn't condemn tyrannies. At best you might find a philosopher or two giving it some merits as transitional state. (cleaning the slate/getting rid of all the old corrupt whatever for a new start/a strong man to solve a certain problem... you probably know this kind of arguments)

feudalism is big on law and tradition but it uses nobles and retainers for pretty much every gouvernment position possible. Your noble fills the role of soldier, judge, lawmaker, policemen and minister at the same time. It is an extremely cost efficient "small gouvernment" which comes with comparably low taxes.
But on the other hand your soldier/judge/lawmaker/minister is usually not as good at any of those as a specialist would be. And lacking all those other functions when the Lord goes to war is not nice either. Then the posts are hereditary, you will have a lot of people who are to young/to old to do the job. Nobles are trained locally and your "rule of law" is based on what the father or mater remembered of the law. And some people are simply bad at some jobs.

This is why feudalism comes up, when a country can't afford its vast beureaucracy any more due to various difficulties or when small (tribal) countries or towns form a nation and are not willing to pay for the needed bureaucracy. And this is also, why feudalism vanishes, when technological and economical progress allows for more bureaucracy and a bigger gouvernment. Because people like having competent officials who are trained for their job. Even if they have to pay for it.

So, yes, feudalism does suck differently.

goto124
2015-04-18, 09:25 AM
Ok, but how do they suck differently?


So, yes, feudalism does suck differently.

May I sig these please?

Wardog
2015-04-18, 04:21 PM
I am having difficulty understanding the objections I keep seeing to the concept that building a character to do two things makes them worse at any one of those things than a character who just focused on one would be. It is not only logical, but it is balanced. If being an archwizard who is also a top-notch swordsman is possible, why would anyone ever make a wizard without that kind of martial skill?

I think it depends on how they go about limiting the power of the two aspects.

The "easiest" way to design an X/Y hybrid class would be "Can do X, but not as well as the Pure X Class, and Y, but not as well as a Pure Y Class".

The problem with that is getting the balance right - if you nerf the Xand Y abilities too much, you get a hybrid that sucks at everything. If you don't nerf them enough, you get an OP class that makes the pure classes redundant.


A better way to do it, IMO, is to nerf the hybrids range of abilities, rather than their power. So e.g. a fighter/mage hybrid could be as good with a sword as a standard fighter, and as good with teleports as a standard wizard, but can't effectively use armour or shields and can't use fireballs. (Making for a good tactical role of "teleport behind enemy lines and sword them in the hitpoints, but don't expect me to tank or blast").

Morty
2015-04-18, 04:39 PM
What a "hybrid" class needs is a way to combine the abilities of the two archetypes in a unique way. So that it's more than a sum of its parts. It helps if you don't need to multiclass to a rogue in order to be able to tie your shoelaces together, or to a wizard if you want to use any magic at all.

Jay R
2015-04-18, 09:33 PM
A. The class was originally invented so people could play characters based on Bilbo Baggins or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

B. A 2E Thief/Wizard is a particularly nice combination, and requires the Thief class to work.

C. A class that has existed for 40 years, and that people have enjoyed playing for forty years, should in fact exist.

D. If you don't like it, don't play it. You don't have to try to handwave away forty years of role-playing fun in order to choose your own class the way you want to.

SiuiS
2015-04-19, 02:28 AM
I saw the thread's title and thought it was a question of how the "rogue" archetype is too broad and how dumping every concept that uses neither magic nor martial skill onto one class isn't a very good idea. Instead, I saw a bizarre premise and an alignment debate. Here's what I get for being an optimist.

Never too late to start that conversation!


Hey, I've been arguing for there to be only three classes since the late 90s. Doesn't get much broader than that and remain a class system. ;-)

Elaborate?


Fighter, Mage, Rogue?

:smallfrown:

I dislike that system, because it doesn't allow for any hybrid concepts. what if I want to play a roguish illusionist who is adept at both magic and mundane to solve his problems? or someone who uses both sword and spell well? things like that?

Then play a game that supports that. They're out there.

If the question is more implicitly "how do I play this specific game in a way that violates many of the spirits and strictures of what make this game, this game" then the question is sort of invalidating.

I like the FATE method. If you're a fighter, take the Fighter skill. Anything that fighter-Ing applies to? Use it for that. Same with wizard-warriors or any other concept.


Yeah, Rogues are a bit the "other" option, now that you mention it.


I just... Argh! Why does there need to be a class system in the first place? Why can't there just be a bunch of features and abilities that you pick from in order to do your thing? What do classes even add aside from these endless arguments over appropriate breadth and the relationship between fluff and mechanics?

Agh. Please excuse the despair. I realize this ground has been covered before, by other people, and it may not add much to have one more voice screaming "WHY?" to the heavens.

Because that specific division allows for the specific handicaps which have made the game as it is. Limitations are as important as options for crating emotional definition. Wizards are as much Not Warriors as they are Wizards. That's a valuable and useful tool if you use it right.

Personally, I default to the understanding of magic as deals and agreements with things most folks couldn't even get a conversation with. Anyone can learn magic. That's not impressive. But it's the wizard who commands a seat of respect and/or authority in the spiritual hierarchy thereby.

Anyone can steal. You're a rogue if it's primary to you. There's "sleight of hand" and there's "Duke walks in to his private chamber. You're in his seat, smoking His cigar, wearing his sword belt (and sword) and smiling, confident you'll get away", and that – the something extra, beyond just rolling skills or RPing your way out of a sitch – is what defines a class. They're deacriptive, not prescriptive (unless you're talking about actual old school rules. Then they were both).


To a lot of people that sounds like having your cake, but having no spoon/fork to eat it with. Sure you can eat it with your hands, but where are your table manners then?

Eh. You're not entitled to cake. You want cake instead of gruel? You make sacrifices. Everyone gets one meal setting worth $12.50. If we spend that all on cake, you get a paper plate if you're lucky, for you. If you spend less because gruel. The savings go to the place setting.

Welcome to balance~!


Sounds like he might have first-hand knowledge to make the comparison, then!

Pretty much my reaction, aye.

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 11:09 AM
Stealing few dollars or snacks could be 'chaotic' I guess, but stealing someone's computer may even easily destroy their life, if said computer consumed large part of his earnings/resources or whatever, and they make their living with computer.

There was a reason why in many, many primal, medieval, or whatever societies stealing anything more substantial was extremely harshly punished misdeed.

Sure, one reason that theft was punished severely is that if you steal a man's cow, or the tools that he uses to earn a living, or even the loaf of bread that he baked, he and his family go hungry and may even starve to death. Another reason is that the people who had lots of stuff worth stealing are the ones making or at least enforcing the rules.

An example of theft not being a crime against the person: taking the jewelled idol out of the ruined temple that your party found in the woods: absolutely classic D&D behaviour. It might be the party Rogue who actually lifts the statue, but the Fighter provides the muscle to fight off the monstrous vermin that infect the temple, the Cleric turns the undead guardian, and the Wizard fireballs the goblin warband who try to mug the party on the way home. Robbing the temple is a joint venture by the whole party.
It's entirely possible for a Rogue PC to go through a whole career (if that is the way the character is being played) without using his skills against the innocent populace, just as it's possible for a Fighter (or indeed a spellcaster, either arcane or divine) to use his or her class features to rob the common folk.

GloatingSwine
2015-04-19, 11:35 AM
I mean seriously, why would thieves be a core class along side soldiers and intellectuals? And really, who would want to go on any sort of trip with a guy who's likely to rob you? And that's the best case scenario: he could just sneak attack you and walk off with all your belongings, leaving you to rot in the middle of nowhere.


You don't **** where you sleep.

Really, that's all it takes.

If you're playing as a Rogue you don't rob the people you're adventuring with of their stuff. Sure, you might palm a few juicy trinkets from the treasure chest (which they never saw so what they don't know won't hurt and besides you're the one who unlocked and disarmed the trap on so you deserve a little bonus, right?) but you leave their stuff alone.

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 11:51 AM
And really, who would want to go on any sort of trip with a guy who's likely to rob you? And that's the best case scenario: he could just sneak attack you and walk off with all your belongings, leaving you to rot in the middle of nowhere.

You're confusing character class with personality.
Rogues probably have the least useful skillset for robbing their party and leaving them to die in the wilderness. Depending on level, spellcasters (of course) have the most options for disabling/ killing their comrades, and for taking what they want and simply disappearing. Barbarians and Rangers can disappear in the night, having taken what they want and covering their tracks, leaving the comrades they were supposed to be keeping guard for either asleep, or Coup de Grace'd. Even Monks have fast movement to run away faster than you can keep up, and Paladins can summon a mount out of nowhere. Pretty much every class can be played as 'I use my abilities to take other people's stuff, possibly after killing them first', and with a few exceptions can do so entirely in keeping with the ethos of their class.

Jay R
2015-04-19, 12:28 PM
It's not restricted to the Thief class. All party members are equally in the business of killing others and taking their stuff. If a player will mess up the game that way, he can do it with any class.

I have no problem playing a Paladin with a Thief in the party, and I have no problem playing a Thief with a Paladin in the party.

Of course, I cannot play a Paladin with a jerk Thief in the party, but I can't play with a jerk Paladin, a jerk Fighter, a jerk Wizard, or any other jerk.

If all players have actually agreed to play characters loyal to the party, the any class is fine. If a player is willing to destroy the game by sabotaging the party, then he can destroy party unity, and the basic game, with any class.

Satinavian
2015-04-19, 12:41 PM
May I sig these please?sure, as far as i am concerned.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-19, 02:56 PM
I saw the thread's title and thought it was a question of how the "rogue" archetype is too broad and how dumping every concept that uses neither magic nor martial skill onto one class isn't a very good idea. Instead, I saw a bizarre premise and an alignment debate. Here's what I get for being an optimist.

I don't want to force everyone to change topic or anything, but... This does actually sound like a more interesting discussion to have. I say this partly because I don't have a knee-jerk response to it.

SiuiS
2015-04-19, 04:03 PM
By all means, please start the conversation. I would, but I'm out of brain right now. :)

Keltest
2015-04-19, 04:08 PM
By all means, please start the conversation. I would, but I'm out of brain right now. :)

Indeed, im rather curious where it would go.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-19, 04:20 PM
Okay then.

Is the rogue, in practice, just a non-magic not-Fighter? The entire "skillmonkey" idea certainly suggests that the purpose of the class is to do all those "skill" things that other classes don't care about because they actually have unique mechanics.

Morty
2015-04-19, 04:21 PM
I don't want to force everyone to change topic or anything, but... This does actually sound like a more interesting discussion to have. I say this partly because I don't have a knee-jerk response to it.

Well, this thread of conversation was actually followed for a bit. My point is that the Rogue suffers from a similar problem as the Fighter. It's so generic as to not mean anything. What's more, it shoulders the burden of being the only "expert" class in most editions' core rules. It's not a warrior or magic-user, but it occupies this category alone.

Much like the Fighter should be nuked from orbit along with Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins, and replaced with a few more interesting classes, the Rogue should be replaced by more flavourful classes representing the canny, resourceful and charismatic heroic archetypes. Also, the focus of those classes shouldn't be having skills. This sort of approach leads us to Fighters and Clerics who can't tie their own shoelaces if they're not fighting or casting spells, respectively. Rather, it should be about doing things with those skills that others can't.

EDIT: Well, it seems you ninja'd me with your other post.

VoxRationis
2015-04-19, 04:37 PM
And in my opinion, that's the exact opposite of the right approach to take with classes. Having some specific-fluff classes is fine, but when you don't have any way to model just a generic soldier or thief, you've stopped playing D&D and started playing Exalted. The fighter, balance issues aside, is useful because it allows you to play someone who is useful with weapons without having a bunch of baggage tacked onto it. The rogue allows skill and precision in the same way.

Keltest
2015-04-19, 04:39 PM
And in my opinion, that's the exact opposite of the right approach to take with classes. Having some specific-fluff classes is fine, but when you don't have any way to model just a generic soldier or thief, you've stopped playing D&D and started playing Exalted. The fighter, balance issues aside, is useful because it allows you to play someone who is useful with weapons without having a bunch of baggage tacked onto it. The rogue allows skill and precision in the same way.

These are my thoughts as well. If you want a hybrid or a class with more fluff, there exist several rogue-esque classes that are somewhat different, several prestige classes and the foundations for creating your own custom classes. But sometimes you just need a skillmonkey who has one job and does it well.

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-19, 04:52 PM
We ran into the above line of discussion with one of my friends, who's homebrewing material for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. LotFP switched Thief for Specialist, but my friend decided to reintroduce Thief alongside the Specialist. Why? Because with a class called "thief", you automatically know at least some of the things you're supposed to be doing. With "specialist", you don't, and always have to ask a follow-up question "specialist in what?"

And that's one important thing about early class systems. The roles of Fighter, Thief, Magic-User and Cleric weren't generic to the point of pointlessness - they were actually fairly specific. Fighter was Aragorn or Conan; Thief was the Grey Mouser or Robin Hood; Magic-User was Gandalf or Merlin; so on and so forth.

It's only after decades of more fantasy, more heroes, more rules and player options that the original classes have become vague and indistinct. This is actually more apparent with Magic-Users and Clerics when you stop to think of it. The original spell lists were fairly short and drew from a limited set of sources. But as more and more spells were introduced, magic became able to do pretty much anything, and you now could make characters with little to no overlap with the original inspirations, or characters who could do ridiculously more stuff than any of the inspiring sources.

Keltest
2015-04-19, 04:55 PM
We ran into the above line of discussion with one of my friends, who's homebrewing material for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. LotFP switched Thief for Specialist, but my friend decided to reintroduce Thief alongside the Specialist. Why? Because with a class called "thief", you automatically know at least some of the things you're supposed to be doing. With "specialist", you don't, and always have to ask a follow-up question "specialist in what?"

And that's one important thing about early class systems. The roles of Fighter, Thief, Magic-User and Cleric weren't generic to the point of pointlessness - they were actually fairly specific. Fighter was Aragorn or Conan; Thief was the Grey Mouser or Robin Hood; Magic-User was Gandalf or Merlin; so on and so forth.

It's only after decades of more fantasy, more heroes, more rules and player options that the original classes have become vague and indistinct. This is actually more apparent with Magic-Users and Clerics when you stop to think of it. The original spell lists were fairly short and drew from a limited set of sources. But as more and more spells were introduced, magic became able to do pretty much anything, and you now could make characters with little to no overlap with the original inspirations, or characters who could do ridiculously more stuff than any of the inspiring sources.

Aragorn was a ranger, actually, and I don't just mean his title in the books. A fighter would be Boromir or Gimli.

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-19, 04:58 PM
Details. :smalltongue: (Though in honesty, it just further highlights the point. Ranger was Aragorn at first, then Drizzt later. Ranger wasn't "generic wilderness dude" etc.)

Keltest
2015-04-19, 05:04 PM
Details. :smalltongue: (Though in honesty, it just further highlights the point. Ranger was Aragorn at first, then Drizzt later. Ranger wasn't "generic wilderness dude" etc.)

Well, actually...

at least in 1st edition ad&d, the ranger has more wilderness powers even than the druid without spells. Among other things, theyre incredibly difficult to ambush and are unparalleled trackers in the wilderness.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-19, 05:09 PM
We ran into the above line of discussion with one of my friends, who's homebrewing material for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. LotFP switched Thief for Specialist, but my friend decided to reintroduce Thief alongside the Specialist. Why? Because with a class called "thief", you automatically know at least some of the things you're supposed to be doing. With "specialist", you don't, and always have to ask a follow-up question "specialist in what?"


Alternately, you could have one class, called "Good At Things." :smallwink:

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 05:12 PM
Well, this thread of conversation was actually followed for a bit. My point is that the Rogue suffers from a similar problem as the Fighter. It's so generic as to not mean anything. What's more, it shoulders the burden of being the only "expert" class in most editions' core rules. It's not a warrior or magic-user, but it occupies this category alone.

Much like the Fighter should be nuked from orbit along with Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins, and replaced with a few more interesting classes, the Rogue should be replaced by more flavourful classes representing the canny, resourceful and charismatic heroic archetypes. Also, the focus of those classes shouldn't be having skills.
Rogue for me is one place in big field of characters marked 'non caster' that also includes 'Fighter= guy in full plate with big sword'. I was going to say one end of a spectrum but that isn't really true. But you have, as one archetype, a guy whose defence is his armour and whose offense is his weapon, swung hard, and another whose defence is his stealth and dexterity and whose offense is a small blade, aimed precisely. But in this space you also have others, which have characteristics of both: agile fencers/swashbucklers/duelists; Tolkien-style rangers (Aragorn and Legolas), light and fast and strong barbarians and so on, as combinations of the two. Having Skills has taken a bit of a backseat in 3rd Ed- the one you need outside of combat to replicate a thief beyond about 3rd level is UMD (if not made redundant by spellcaster levels) plus a supply of wands/ scrolls of cheap low-level spells. The enduring features of the rogue are Sneak Attack and Evasion (and derivatives). If 'Sneak Attack +1d6' were available as a fighter feat (perhaps with limitation requiring medium armour or less) it would be worth taking over a lot of others and would (with some liberalising of skills- no reason why a fighter should be so limited in choice or skill-points) effectively unify fighters, rogues, scouts, and several others into one 'pick and mix' non-caster class. Ranger and Paladin spellcasting could be achieved by prestige classes or by refluffing as feats or skill tricks, allowing them to be included as well.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-19, 05:15 PM
Having Skills has taken a bit of a backseat in 3rd Ed- the one you need outside of combat to replicate a thief beyond about 3rd level is UMD (if not made redundant by spellcaster levels) plus a supply of wands/ scrolls of cheap low-level spells.

Worked so hard, only to have their job replaced by technology...

Morty
2015-04-19, 05:24 PM
If you have classes whose sole purpose is to be "generic", it makes me wonder why even have a class-based system in the first place. Just use a point-buy system and avoid taking anything too flashy or useful.

Anyway, a more specific idea for the rogue class was something along the lines of making it a "physical" expert, or perhaps bringing it closer to the old thief. An expert on getting in and out of places, and dealing precise damage from the right spot. The more cerebral and social aspects could be covered by other "expert" classes. Which isn't to say the rogue/thief wouldn't be able to have such skills - it just wouldn't be their focus. It's entirely possible it wouldn't work, but that's one of the ideas I'm throwing at the wall to see if they stick.

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 05:43 PM
Aragorn was a ranger, actually, and I don't just mean his title in the books. A fighter would be Boromir or Gimli.
In the earliest edition of D&D I played (Red/ Blue box, early 80s), becoming a Ranger or a Paladin were options available to you as a Fighter on reaching a certain level if you met alignment (lawful for Paladins, don't remember for Rangers) and certain other criteria- effectively early Fighter prestige classes.

Keltest
2015-04-19, 05:49 PM
In the earliest edition of D&D I played (Red/ Blue box, early 80s), becoming a Ranger or a Paladin were options available to you as a Fighter on reaching a certain level if you met alignment (lawful for Paladins, don't remember for Rangers) and certain other criteria- effectively early Fighter prestige classes.

That's so old school im not sure it counts anymore. :smallbiggrin:

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 05:51 PM
Worked so hard, only to have their job replaced by technology...

Very good:smallsmile:
The irony is that in a lot of campaigns it's ancient rather than new technology. It's not clear how in this case, being so effective, magic isn't doing everything everywhere as it has for countless millennia. Even historical re-enactment societies would have forgotten what those sharp bits of metal were for. Until they used magic to locate the previous owner and used speak with dead to ask him, of course.

Nightcanon
2015-04-19, 05:55 PM
That's so old school im not sure it counts anymore. :smallbiggrin:
Ouch! I felt the extra D6s as that one slipped in:smallamused:

Keltest
2015-04-19, 05:57 PM
Very good:smallsmile:
The irony is that in a lot of campaigns it's ancient rather than new technology. It's not clear how in this case, being so effective, magic isn't doing everything everywhere as it has for countless millennia. Even historical re-enactment societies would have forgotten what those sharp bits of metal were for. Until they used magic to locate the previous owner and used speak with dead to ask him, of course.

Much like adamantine weapons, availability is going to limit use.

Jay R
2015-04-19, 06:23 PM
Is the rogue, in practice, just a non-magic not-Fighter? The entire "skillmonkey" idea certainly suggests that the purpose of the class is to do all those "skill" things that other classes don't care about because they actually have unique mechanics.

The rogue is a class invented for 3E to avoid having to say "thief", and to make all skills work the same, and available to all. It's the automatic result of making everything have the same mechanic, which turned a unique design into a generic one.

When the thief class was introduced, in Greyhawk, the first supplement to original Dungeons and Dragons, we all thought it was a wonderfully unique class - and the only way to play a non-human with no defined level limits. I had a hobbit thief ready to go the day I first saw the class. Every party needed to have one thief. Nothing else could replace it.

The 3E+ rogue isn't a unique class - it's just a generic non-caster with more skill points and a few unusual class skills.

But don't blame the class. This is an automatic result of trying to make all skills available to everyone, and all classes available to all races. If you give everyone the unique advantages of a given class (access to the thief skills, unlimited promotion for non-humans), then you make that class less necessary.

goto124
2015-04-19, 07:54 PM
The more cerebral and social aspects could be covered by other "expert" classes.

Bard?

... hmm...

TheCountAlucard
2015-04-19, 10:03 PM
Having some specific-fluff classes is fine, but when you don't have any way to model just a generic soldier or thief, you've stopped playing D&D and started playing Exalted.Excuse me? :smallconfused:

Are - are you trying to use my preferred game as a slur?

What is this even intended to mean? I honestly don't get it. Please clarify. And don't say my attachment to the game is blinding me or some B.S., I legitimately want to know how "no generic soldier" equates to "high-action mythic pulp fantasy revival."

Milo v3
2015-04-19, 10:22 PM
Excuse me? :smallconfused:

Are - are you trying to use my preferred game as a slur?

What is this even intended to mean? I honestly don't get it. Please clarify. And don't say my attachment to the game is blinding me or some B.S., I legitimately want to know how "no generic soldier" equates to "high-action mythic pulp fantasy revival."

I think it's because in exalted you specifically cannot play a mundane guard. Generic people stats aren't the point of the game.

VoxRationis
2015-04-19, 10:36 PM
I think it's because in exalted you specifically cannot play a mundane guard. Generic people stats aren't the point of the game.

Bingo.

I didn't mean that Exalted is a bad game, or that one shouldn't play it—it's not my cup of tea, which is why I play, you know, D&D and not Exalted—I meant that it was a very different kind of game, one that is not, at its fundamental level, the sword-and-sorcery, Lankhmar- and Conan-inspired game that is D&D.

TheCountAlucard
2015-04-19, 10:39 PM
I think it's because in exalted you specifically cannot play a mundane guard.Mortals are absolutely playable. Weak, but playable. Very much like fighters and rogues and warriors and commoners and experts and aristocrats and monks and so on.


Generic people stats aren't the point of the game.And "generic people stats" are the point of D&D? Mortals may not be the laser-focused area on which the system shines its spotlights, but they're still a feature.


I meant that it was… not, at its fundamental level, the sword-and-sorcery, Lankhmar- and Conan-inspired game that is D&D.It may have a different take on it than D&D did (and I'm not saying any one in particular did it better in this argument), but Conan's just as much an inspiration in Exalted as he is in D&D - did you miss the part of the description I gave in which I said "pulp fantasy revival?"

Either way, your preferences in system have no bearing on the fact that the statement that you made is incorrect. You can absolutely model "generic" soldiers and warriors in Exalted. There are even sample stat-blocks of such in the back of the book.

Please don't spread inaccurate statements about games just because you don't like them. Would it be right of me to say that D&D has no mechanics to model dragons? Or that Shadowrun 5e has no rules for the costs of living?

Karl Aegis
2015-04-19, 11:13 PM
What is the skill set of a generic thief? Am I supposed to use the same skills for a cat burglar and a pickpocket? If there is any overlap between the two it is not apparent at all, besides the obvious "engages in deviant behavior". Having a class that is supposed to do all the deviant behavior you can think of just detracts from every other class's ability to engage in deviant behavior. It's bad design.

goto124
2015-04-19, 11:36 PM
What's a cat burglar anyway...?

(Also, since this is fantasy, we could take the 'cat' in 'cat burglar' literally, but I digress.)

LibraryOgre
2015-04-19, 11:54 PM
What is the skill set of a generic thief? Am I supposed to use the same skills for a cat burglar and a pickpocket? If there is any overlap between the two it is not apparent at all, besides the obvious "engages in deviant behavior". Having a class that is supposed to do all the deviant behavior you can think of just detracts from every other class's ability to engage in deviant behavior. It's bad design.

In 2e, this is covered by discretionary points. Your cat burglar probably has high scores in Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, and Climb Walls. The pickpocket probably puts a fair number of points in Hide in Shadows and Pick Pockets.

Put your points where you need them.

Karl Aegis
2015-04-20, 12:08 AM
What's a cat burglar anyway...?

(Also, since this is fantasy, we could take the 'cat' in 'cat burglar' literally, but I digress.)

A cat burglar is someone who uses acrobatic skills to enter a building with the intent to commit a felony. One of the important skills they need is the springing jump which cats generally can do pretty well.

Lord Raziere
2015-04-20, 01:24 AM
so what people are basically saying, is that the current Rogue Class could be better represented by a more generic Expert or Specialist class....

and that more specialized underhanded classes are needed? like we need to break it down into specialized roles that fulfill more distinct roles?

like....

Thief is one class
Assassin is one class
Charlatan is one class
Spy is one class

....I dunno, there are many many roles that a Rogue breaks down into even if you discount the refluffing into something legal and above the law. and thing is, many of them have overlapping skill sets. an assassin, a con man and a spy all have to be good at disguises, social skills and sneaking stuff into places where they don't belong, a spy will sometimes play the role of a saboteur or an assassin in their line of work, a thief has to slit a throat once in a while to get away, I'm not too sure on what historical pirates did, but I'm not sure how you can stealthy sneaky guy while on a boat and raiding people so they might be one archetype where the Rogue skills don't overlap?

I think what makes the Rogue so odd, is that in addition to being this super-generalist class of any possible concept, they are expected to also fulfill many different underhanded criminal archetypes that people see as different but also has overlapping skills and roles. when really, even I'm not sure what the exact differences between all of these underhanded archetypes are- and I like playing these underhanded guys, doing tricky stuff that society normally disapproves of to save the day. thing is, the Rogue's ability to fulfill many different roles is in part a reflection of the fiction they emulate: the people the Rogue is supposed to emulate are pragmatic, often flexible adaptable people with versatile skill sets who can figure out how to turn the situation to their advantage with a bit of thinking and applied trickery. their role is to be able to be a spy one moment, a thief the next, the face another moment, all because the sword-and-sorcery protagonist is (discounting Conan who is like, half Rogue himself) often a guy who focuses on fighting, but they still need somebody to do more subtle and delicate things that fighting won't solve.

further problem is, we're mostly focusing on DnD 3.5 in this discussion: where Wizards are king and their various enchantments and tools they have are apparently so easy to make and use that they they are considered to outright make the Rogue class redundant. thing is, the wizard is the DnD 3.5 Solar Exalted: they can emulate any of the other classes and even do their role better just by learning the right spells, except that is a complete accident of design as the class acquired spells and power over time rather than it being intentional as it is in Exalted. The intention of DnD in all its incarnations is to be a team game where various different classes and people come together to adventure to save lives and be good-aligned heroes fighting against evil. and the bane of every team ever made, is an unequal distribution of work and effort. everyone must contribute to the team, and if one person does all the work while two other sit around useless, you don't have a team. further problem is, the "wizard is king" meme has gotten so bad, that rather than acknowledge these problems, the default response is not to fix it but rather to try and fit a square peg into a round hole by saying that if you want to contribute just as much the wizard, just play a wizard and refluff into a rogue! or something like that.

which I find honestly? ridiculous. at least the Solar Exalted don't HAVE to refluff and pretend that they suddenly fire-and-forgot their skills of stealth and lying in a few minutes because the mechanics said that they used up their invisibility and glibness spells for the day. by then, you might as well be playing DnD 4e! except in 4e, the fire-and-forget thing only applies to in combat attacks while you still get to keep all your rogue skills around forever to use repeatedly and use them on equal terms with the wizard! DnD 4e took the 3.5 optimizers advice and made everyone casters, as they have been recommending people do for 3.5 on a group level, this whole time! except, in 4e, your not FORCED into trying to refluff a wizard into a rogue, thats just a natural part of the game! the real difference between 3.5 and 4e, is not that in one everyone plays casters and one not, but rather that you play casters in both if you want to be useful- the difference is that in 3.5 you are forced to, because all the other options are relatively useless, in 4e, there are no other options and the game is thus balanced around that, thus the caster thing fades into the background and you can focus on the fluff because the mechanics are all the same. but the mechanics focused 3.5 people didn't intend that when they pointed out these problems: they saw this as less of a class imbalance where everyone is incompatible, and more as styles of play like with Exalts: if you want to play low levels of power, play these classes, if you want to play higher levels of power play these classes.

the problem with that viewpoint however, is that not everyone agrees that classes should work like tiers of power, where some classes are just meant to play one level and other classes are meant to play on another level! some people want to deceive and trick the gods themselves with their skills and not spells, not even mechanically. because a curious thing about DnD, is how people have gotten attached to what the mechanics represent for a character and what their capabilities how and how it informs their style of play. when I want to play a rogue, vancian fire and forget effects are the last thing I want, because I like stealthing when I want, wherever I want, because I shouldn't have to prepare spell slots for skills that naturally come to me whenever the situation calls for it. problem with that, is that the people who like wizards, don't want rogues and such to be powerful enough to deceive gods or whatever, because they like their style of play where the wizard is a walking utility belt of solving problems- even though thats what the Rogue is supposed to be!

really, the problem with the Rogue class and how useful it is, is deeply rooted in the history of DnD. we can't exactly get rid of it, because its a traditional class, but at the same time another traditional class that is far more popular does all the stuff that it does but better. sure in 5e we have attempts to make sure that the spells wizards cast that are close to Rogue skills now have side-effects that kind of eliminate the point, but if what I've heard from players is any indication, many DnD groups just don't use Rogue at all because they are completely replaceable because they are mostly just used as trap-disablers- a role that itself can be plausibly replaced by a freaking LOG -, stealth is actually considered detrimental to getting encounters come to you to get more exp, social skills isn't useful during a dungeon crawl, and people will probably use force to get chests open because even in a realistic world, destroying the container doesn't harm whats inside all that much.

Meaning, the DnD culture of dungeon crawls and optimization ultimately render anything that isn't a spell or some metagaming dungeon crawl trick useless, and this isn't considered a bad thing, because these games are beer and pretzel ones where the primary goal is to just escape into a reality where you can kill things without any repercussions, and the best way to kill is with spells without bothering with any social niceties or subtlety- which is what the rogue is all about. these games don't care about a serious world where politics, crime and so on make the world more than just a blank slate to fill in with various dungeons to raid and villages to get quests from, and even those players who do play in such serious worlds, they apply the wizard to everything anyways, because of Tippyverse culture, completely ignoring any possibility of the wizard having reasons to NOT become an all-powerful arcane god of solving. I'm not saying these games are inherently bad though. But what I am saying, is that they have a toxic, detrimental effect on the rest of the classes and how people play them even if they don't intend so. you could see this in Exalted again: the game in 2nd edition got so focused on cosmic, killing the gods level of play and high magitech and so on, that the developers are outright rebooting the entire setting to fix this, even if those games weren't inherently bad in how fun they were, what mattered is that because of that fun the rest of the players suffered for it. people thought that the only way to solve anything was with Solars, and so on.

and that ultimately, the rogue's position as it is now is a complicated messy thing formed from 30 years of a complicated messy game, first formed when RPG design was still new and not well understood and then constantly modified over the years without entirely understanding what those modifications were doing to it, by a company that don't actually care how well the RPG is designed as long as they get money, then warped by a fandom that the company does not understand and doesn't communicate well with, a fandom that has successfully proved that the 3.5 mechanics work better for a grown up Harry Potter game than sword and sorcery and doesn't have any problem with this because they want to play that. if you want a good rogue that plays well with in a group, you have to clean up the system and make sure they are all playing on the same field. thing is, that has already been tried-4e- and it has failed. why? because the attitude of DnD players seems to be, to me: "sure, the system is a mess- but its OUR mess". they don't want it to be cleaned up- which wouldn't be a big problem if DnD were a more obscure, niche game that deviated from a more popular game that emulated what people outside DnD expect from fantasy nowadays, which is for warriors, rogues and wizards to be all a roughly equal playing field, as one would expect from videogames, novels and media. but its not, its the most popular roleplaying game there is. meaning the most people who will come into the hobby will probably be coming through DnD. and those people will have expectations that will clash with what DnD actually is- I know I had those expectations when I first came into it. and when a product does not live up to people's expectations, they tend to get disappointed, which is bad for both the person and the product.

such disappointment causes people to find other products that are similar but will do what they want better, and thus that is why I have gone to universal systems: because DnD does not actually work as advertised to my viewpoint. I don't actually care about how it actually works or what fun I could derive from how it works now. I only care that it does not work as how I expected it to, and the rogue? I expected the rogue to be this cunning, super-cool lying badass who tricks people so that he wins, manipulates the situation to his advantage- but I never got that, why?

because DnD is a mess that DnD players don't want to clean.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-20, 02:19 AM
A cat burglar is someone who uses acrobatic skills to enter a building with the intent to commit a felony. One of the important skills they need is the springing jump which cats generally can do pretty well.

I always thought it was like "dog-napper" or "bird watcher." Next you'll be telling me a "rat race" isn't a thing where you bet on which rodent is fastest. :smallwink:

@Raziere: Give me, like, ten minutes to read your post and make sure I don't miss anything. Minimum.

Lord Raziere
2015-04-20, 03:02 AM
@Raziere: Give me, like, ten minutes to read your post and make sure I don't miss anything. Minimum.

Yeah. I kind of gone overboard with that one. I just see all the connections and my thoughts run away with me.

The Evil DM
2015-04-20, 03:11 AM
A cat burglar is someone who uses acrobatic skills to enter a building with the intent to commit a felony. One of the important skills they need is the springing jump which cats generally can do pretty well.

Cat burglars specialize not only in B&E but they specialize in B&E through upper floor access points which is why they are also called second story men and the reliance on acrobatics.

Some other colloquialisms for heist job rolls.

Box Man = Safecracker
Muscle = Thug
Grease Man = Someone who can get you into tough to enter places. Make infiltration go smoothly
Wheel Man = Driver

BayardSPSR
2015-04-20, 03:11 AM
Okay.


I think D&D has three sets of mechanics: the combat mechanics, the skill system, and vancian casting. Multiple classes are assigned vancian casting, which is shared to a limited extent by some classes and denied completely to others, to the point that it's useful to think of a full caster/partial caster/non-caster distinction. The Fighter is explicitly defined as the class that does the combat mechanics, but other classes also do that with extra class features. Rogues are mechanically defined by the fact that they have the greatest access to the skill system. All other classes use it to a lesser extent, and are usually defined by their class features or spells. And on top of all this, the vancian magic system is generally more effective than using the combat or skill mechanics to solve problems.

That makes the Rogue... Skill-character with a class feature or two on top - class features which are situational, in the sense that they mechanically cannot come into play except in specific circumstances (contrast with, say, a Paladin's Detect Evil, which while situationally useful can still be used whenever the player wants it to be). Plus the fact that the mechanics the Rogue is defined by are generally less effective that those emphasized by a host of other classes.

Is this a good thing? Should this specific mechanical class exist in this context? It doesn't seem like it fits that well to me.

Of course, all assuming 3.5, but that's pretty standard for this forum (whether bashing or defending). My familiarity with any edition of D&D is limited, so please leap in and correct me.


Cat burglars specialize not only in B&E but they specialize in B&E through upper floor access points which is why they are also called second story men and the reliance on acrobatics.

Some other colloquialisms for heist job rolls.

Box Man = Safecracker
Muscle = Thug
Grease Man = Someone who can get you into tough to enter places. Make infiltration go smoothly
Wheel Man = Driver

And I thought the "second storey man" was the person who tries to retell someone else's story and botches it, the "box man" was the UPS guy, the "muscle" was locomotive tissue, the "grease man" was someone with a sweaty handshake, and the "wheel man" was someone without the use of their lower limbs!

... I'll stop now.

Morty
2015-04-20, 06:05 AM
Bard?

... hmm...

Bard would be a social-focused, magic-dabbling expert class. The "brainy" one would be something like the Factotum, I guess. Someone whose trump card is knowing things and applying that knowledge.

Jay R
2015-04-20, 07:09 AM
I think D&D has three sets of mechanics: the combat mechanics, the skill system, and vancian casting.

That's a reasonable description of modern D&D, but to understand the Rogue character you have to start with an old school Thief.

A Thief is a character with specific, unique abilities useful in thievery but also useful in adventuring, which were denied to all other classes. He had an exact role that no other character class could fulfill. It was also the best class for non-humans, because (originally) they were unrestricted in Thief levels.

The Rogue is what's left after the entire unique Thief ability set is opened up to any character, and all classes are open to all races.

Take a character with a unique skill set and a clear role, then make the skills non-unique, and make the role one others can easily do, and you have the Rogue.

Segev
2015-04-20, 07:16 AM
To be fair, if it weren't for the fact that you literally do not need the skills in question if you have the right spells, the rogue would be a perfectly valid class. By having the most skill points and the best range of skills, they would still be the go-to class for performing those actions. The trouble is that there's a spell to cover perfectly everything a rogue can do well, and the spellcaster has a full suite of other abilities on top of that.

Add in the rogues' dilemma (which is also oft negated by a caster's ability to cast things on the whole party), and...



(It's worth noting that the rogues' dilemma faced the class when it was Thief back in 1e and 2e AD&D, as well.)

Jay R
2015-04-20, 10:28 AM
To be fair, if it weren't for the fact that you literally do not need the skills in question if you have the right spells, the rogue would be a perfectly valid class. By having the most skill points and the best range of skills, they would still be the go-to class for performing those actions. The trouble is that there's a spell to cover perfectly everything a rogue can do well, and the spellcaster has a full suite of other abilities on top of that.

Add in the rogues' dilemma (which is also oft negated by a caster's ability to cast things on the whole party), and...



(It's worth noting that the rogues' dilemma faced the class when it was Thief back in 1e and 2e AD&D, as well.)

In my experience, in original D&D, and in 1E and 2E, it worked the other direction. If you have a Thief, then the small number of spell slots can be freed to use for other things. Why have a Knock spell memorized if you expect to pick the locks?

We always wanted one Thief in the party.

Storm_Of_Snow
2015-04-20, 11:07 AM
In my experience, in original D&D, and in 1E and 2E, it worked the other direction. If you have a Thief, then the small number of spell slots can be freed to use for other things. Why have a Knock spell memorized if you expect to pick the locks?

We always wanted one Thief in the party.
Agreed, and even if you do have thief-skill replicating spells memorised, how many can you cast a day and how much do you impede yourself regarding spell selection to do that? While a thief can potentially spend all day picking locks/pockets, climbing walls and doing a lot more besides.

To be honest, the only reasons to have a knock spell memorised specifically to open a lock (as opposed to any other uses you can come up with and your DM allows you to get away with :smallamused: ) is in case the thief either really messes up (in 1st edition, a thief had one chance per level to pick a lock), finds a lock that's too difficult to pick, you don't have the time it would take to pick it.

Morty
2015-04-20, 11:08 AM
Building a class around "well, someone has to disarm those traps and open those locks" has never struck me as a terribly good idea.

VoxRationis
2015-04-20, 11:08 AM
In my experience, this is even true for 3e. You can pump up skill checks enough that picking the lock or disarming the trap is nearly automatic (unless your DM really has it in for you), and skill checks are an unlimited resource; it's not worth investing a spell slot that could go to blindness/deafness or summon swarm.

Keltest
2015-04-20, 12:15 PM
Building around the class around "well, someone has to disarm those traps and open those locks" has never struck me as a terribly good idea.

Certainly not if the alternative means +1 wizard who devotes a spell slot or two to performing the same functions. But if you want to play a rogue, by all means your party should take advantage of your presence and use their spells/skills to do something you cant do as well.

Jay R
2015-04-20, 01:09 PM
Building around the class around "well, someone has to disarm those traps and open those locks" has never struck me as a terribly good idea.

Nor has anybody suggested that. That's as absurd as saying the Fighter was built around, "Well, someone has to swing the sword," or that the Wizard was built around, "Well, someone has to cast those fireballs."

Deliberately belittling choices you disagree with by pretending they are less than they are is a common activity, but it really doesn't add to a discussion.


Certainly not if the alternative means +1 wizard who devotes a spell slot or two to performing the same functions. But if you want to play a rogue, by all means your party should take advantage of your presence and use their spells/skills to do something you cant do as well.

It sounds like your DMs haven't offered many traps, locked doors, walls to climb, and enemies to sneak up on. "[A] spell or two" cannot open a dozen locks over the course of ten hours of an adventuring day, or climb a dozen walls over the course of a single day's adventure. It takes more than a spell or two to spy on the orc lair, scout out the goblin village, and plan the ambush of the ogres.

But again, I agree that opening up the Thief skill set to all classes greatly reduced the value of the 3E+ version of the original Thief class. I''m defending the Thief class in D&D and AD&D, not the Rogue class in later versions.

Nightcanon
2015-04-20, 01:10 PM
In my experience, this is even true for 3e. You can pump up skill checks enough that picking the lock or disarming the trap is nearly automatic (unless your DM really has it in for you), and skill checks are an unlimited resource; it's not worth investing a spell slot that could go to blindness/deafness or summon swarm.
The major difference with 3E is that magic is so much more available and disposable. Pretty much the only way you got a scroll of Knock in earlier editions was if it popped up as treasure (you could scribe one, but it was an expensive and high-level pursuit). In 3E, spending a spare evening and a few XP on half a dozen scrolls is a worthwhile investment, or you could pop into the magick shoppe next time you are in a small town. If your sorcerer knows Knock, he has it available until he's out of 2nd level or above slots. Meanwhile, Detect Traps is a generic cleric spell, whereas if it existed at all in 2E (I can't remember) it would have only been available to priests with a specific ethos. Oh, and no taking it 'just in case, first slot to burn if we need some healing', either. Also, if you can cast it, you can make a wand of it at 5th level, or again, pop to the magick shoppe and buy one. Earlier editions had the chime of opening, again available as loot if your DM wanted you to have it, and iirc also functioned as a bell of monster summoning: you rang it, the lock opened and the party straight man intoned "great, that's just told every hostile creature within 500 yards where we are" as a Pavlovian reaction. The bend bars/ lift gates roll had the same issues. Having a thief along to open things was always quicker, cheaper and quieter.
Oh, and in earlier editions crafty tactics spread by word of mouth and in the monthly pages of Dragon; now they are debated real-time on the internet and the whole world knows about them.
As others have said, the smart ploy if you want to do these things is to have another wizard in the party to share the trapspringing chores, but that's true of a lot of things: summon monsters if you want to fight melee; charm and dominate if you want get people on your side; ask your DM about the circumstance bonus to your cross-class intimidate roll given by demonstrating your ability to turn things into frogs; teleport/finger of death/ teleport if you want to be a hitman, and so on.

Eloel
2015-04-20, 01:25 PM
Nor has anybody suggested that. That's as absurd as saying the Fighter was built around, "Well, someone has to swing the sword," or that the Wizard was built around, "Well, someone has to cast those fireballs."

I am pretty sure that is the whole point of classes. "Well, someone needs to heal" is pretty much the reason Clerics were created.

Nightcanon
2015-04-20, 01:26 PM
Okay.


I think D&D has three sets of mechanics: the combat mechanics, the skill system, and vancian casting. Multiple classes are assigned vancian casting, which is shared to a limited extent by some classes and denied completely to others, to the point that it's useful to think of a full caster/partial caster/non-caster distinction. The Fighter is explicitly defined as the class that does the combat mechanics, but other classes also do that with extra class features. Rogues are mechanically defined by the fact that they have the greatest access to the skill system. All other classes use it to a lesser extent, and are usually defined by their class features or spells. And on top of all this, the vancian magic system is generally more effective than using the combat or skill mechanics to solve problems.


In 3E you could argue there are only 2 mechanics:
1) Roll a D20, add your modifiers and compare to the target value you are aiming at (be it AC, a skill DC, saves, opposed skill checks). You can usually go on doing this as many times as you like, as long as you are still alive and it is your go.
2) Magical exceptions to the above: if you are one of the chosen few, you can spend a token and get an effect that you want. Tokens are limited and generally refreshed daily. They are often called spells, but other things work the same way. For historical reasons around what the developers of the game found most fun, tokens are generally valued by the game considerably below their actual worth compared to D20 rolls, and this is exacerbated by inflationary effects such as new books introducing more ways to get even more tokens, even more powerful effects to spend them on, and ways of spending them faster.

Heemi
2015-04-20, 02:38 PM
My Rogue in the 3.5 game I'm playing with my friends is Lawful Good, and is actually actively against thievery. She's just a Roguish, sneaky character because she's an agent of her country whose duties include sneaking around, scouting, and doing away with dangers that threaten her country.

My DM approved the Avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a) class, so she'll be going that at first opportunity. =)

BayardSPSR
2015-04-20, 05:28 PM
A Thief is a character with specific, unique abilities useful in thievery but also useful in adventuring, which were denied to all other classes. He had an exact role that no other character class could fulfill. It was also the best class for non-humans, because (originally) they were unrestricted in Thief levels.

The Rogue is what's left after the entire unique Thief ability set is opened up to any character, and all classes are open to all races.

Take a character with a unique skill set and a clear role, then make the skills non-unique, and make the role one others can easily do, and you have the Rogue.

That context is valuable. It sounds like the pre-3e Thief didn't have the redundancy problem of the Rogue, and had skills that were more narrowly defined than "other..." like other classes (except the Fighter) have...


Nor has anybody suggested that. That's as absurd as saying the Fighter was built around, "Well, someone has to swing the sword," or that the Wizard was built around, "Well, someone has to cast those fireballs."

That sounds like the way the early class system worked: every class had a thing it Did, and if you didn't have one of each in your party you had some dangerous weaknesses.

Incidentally, that's one of the things I dislike about the D&D-inspired class systems: the fact that they encourage mechanically standard parties, and the fact that enforcing party balance over character concepts is often less fun for players in my experience.


In 3E you could argue there are only 2 mechanics:
1) Roll a D20, add your modifiers and compare to the target value you are aiming at (be it AC, a skill DC, saves, opposed skill checks). You can usually go on doing this as many times as you like, as long as you are still alive and it is your go.

I really don't think the skill system and the combat system have anything in common aside from the number of sides on the die and the fact that higher numbers are better. Skill checks don't have critical hits; you can't take ten on an attack roll; you can't trigger a "skill check of opportunity;" you don't get a base bonus to skill checks and you can't assign points to an "attack" skill; you don't get additional skill rolls as you level up... They're two totally different systems that don't interact much.

The same goes for saves, actually, except that those are reactive rather than proactive. I think they're an unnecessary mechanical addition and shouldn't exist as they do now. My ideal world would have everything working off of one resolution mechanic, but hey, that's why I don't play D&D.

Morty
2015-04-20, 05:37 PM
Certainly not if the alternative means +1 wizard who devotes a spell slot or two to performing the same functions. But if you want to play a rogue, by all means your party should take advantage of your presence and use their spells/skills to do something you cant do as well.

Disarming traps and picking locks is a pretty bad niche to have even if you don't hamstring other logical ways of solving those problems. Never mind that at some point, locked doors aren't going to stop a party of adventurers, one way or the other. It's fine as a thing a rogue or rogue-like class does, but treating it as their defining niche that needs to be protected is fairly pointless.

Keltest
2015-04-20, 05:44 PM
Disarming traps and picking locks is a pretty bad niche to have even if you don't hamstring other logical ways of solving those problems. Never mind that at some point, locked doors aren't going to stop a party of adventurers, one way or the other. It's fine as a thing a rogue or rogue-like class does, but treating it as their defining niche that needs to be protected is fairly pointless.

Thieves were also the only class capable of stealth with any degree of competence. Wizards could use invisibility and silence to emulate it, but even that was significantly less reliable than thief stealth since, among other things, they couldn't actually get close enough to monsters to spy on them that way because they would either have a good chance of making noise (clumsy wizards) or, if silenced, the monsters would suddenly be unable to speak or make sounds.

Jay R
2015-04-20, 08:45 PM
I am pretty sure that is the whole point of classes. "Well, someone needs to heal" is pretty much the reason Clerics were created.

Simply not true. An early player in Gygax's game had a vampire character, and the cleric class was invented to give that character a weakness. The cleric class was designed around turning undead, not around healing.

But most of the other classes, including and especially Thieves, were designed around the desire to simulate specific literary characters. The fighter was designed around Arthurian knights. The Thief was designed around Fafhrd, the Grey Mouser, and Bilbo Baggins, with a side effect of allowing non-humans to have unlimited advancement.

Any statement about the design of the Thief class that is not rooted in those three literary characters plus non-human races is simply false.

Morty
2015-04-21, 06:37 PM
Thieves were also the only class capable of stealth with any degree of competence. Wizards could use invisibility and silence to emulate it, but even that was significantly less reliable than thief stealth since, among other things, they couldn't actually get close enough to monsters to spy on them that way because they would either have a good chance of making noise (clumsy wizards) or, if silenced, the monsters would suddenly be unable to speak or make sounds.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing wizards into this. Magic being too powerful and too convenient is an issue, but the rogue class is problematic even without it. Making them the only class able to competently sneak is hardly a good solution, is it?

Keltest
2015-04-21, 06:56 PM
I'm not sure why you keep bringing wizards into this. Magic being too powerful and too convenient is an issue, but the rogue class is problematic even without it. Making them the only class able to competently sneak is hardly a good solution, is it?

I think youre undervaluing the benefits of having a plan ahead of time beyond "Charge in and pray".

Morty
2015-04-21, 06:58 PM
I am, in fact, doing the exact opposite by suggesting that the capacity to sneak around shouldn't be restricted to a single class.

Keltest
2015-04-21, 07:05 PM
I am, in fact, doing the exact opposite by suggesting that the capacity to sneak around shouldn't be restricted to a single class.

I am rather skeptical that a fighter in chainmail or full plate would be able to be stealthy with any reasonable degree of competence even if they had the training necessary. Wizards would not be able to for the same reason they cant fight well. Clerics have a combination of the two problems.

I suppose you could theoretically have a fighter who wears only light equipment and is trained to be stealthy, but do you know what that sounds like? A thief.

BayardSPSR
2015-04-21, 07:20 PM
I suppose you could theoretically have a fighter who wears only light equipment and is trained to be stealthy, but do you know what that sounds like? A thief.

Interesting. To me, that sounds like... a Fighter with their armor taken off.

Keltest
2015-04-21, 07:24 PM
Interesting. To me, that sounds like... a Fighter with their armor taken off.

Sure. And wizards are just fighters who don't wear armor and cast spells. And clerics are fighters who DO wear armor and cast spells.

Morty
2015-04-21, 07:27 PM
A fighter who wears light armour and can use stealth is... a fighter who wears light armour and can use stealth. No more, no less. Your argument falls apart because there's more to the concept of a "thief" than just being able to sneak around. What's more, there's a lot of ground between "able to use stealth if situation calls for it" and "a stealth specialist able to accomplish things using the skill others cannot". The former is a wizard, warrior, cleric or bard who happens to have stealth training, or a thief/rogue/whatever for whom stealth isn't a primary focus. The latter is a stealth-oriented thief.

Karl Aegis
2015-04-21, 08:38 PM
Maybe I have read or seen enough eastern media, but from what I can tell everyone in every eastern media can be stealthy in whatever armor they're in. Even the lowly coffee machine is more stealthy than a D&D fighter, not to mention the dudes in jade plate don't make a sound when they move.

Keltest
2015-04-21, 08:50 PM
Maybe I have read or seen enough eastern media, but from what I can tell everyone in every eastern media can be stealthy in whatever armor they're in. Even the lowly coffee machine is more stealthy than a D&D fighter, not to mention the dudes in jade plate don't make a sound when they move.

I think people have a tendency to overestimate how loud a suit of full plate would actually be, but you aren't going to be sneaking along underneath a guard's nose wearing it or anything like that.

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-23, 08:52 AM
Certainly not if the alternative means +1 wizard who devotes a spell slot or two to performing the same functions.

From 1st to 5th level, devoting a "spell slot or two" means devoting from two-thirds to all of the Wizard's daily output to doing something for 5 minutes, what a Thief or Rogue could be doing for the whole day. Detection spells, Invisibility et all have piss-poor duration for the low levels, Knock only works for one door per use etc. Even in 3rd edition, a Wizard will have to wait untill character level 7 before they have enough high-level spells for other stuff so they can dedicate lower-level ones to emulating a Rogue. Prior to that point, a Wizard can situationally cover for a Rogue, at the cost of not doing much Wizardly stuff for that day. What's funnier, between levels 5 and 9 a Rogue will have enough resources to use UMD and magic items himself to situationally cover for the Wizard, while not noticeably hindering his ability to do Rogue stuff.

At low levels, two Wizards are better than a Wizard + Rogue only when they both can be playing to the strenghts of their class. If one of them has to act as a poor man's Rogue, they'll actually perform worse.

Keltest
2015-04-23, 11:38 AM
From 1st to 5th level, devoting a "spell slot or two" means devoting from two-thirds to all of the Wizard's daily output to doing something for 5 minutes, what a Thief or Rogue could be doing for the whole day. Detection spells, Invisibility et all have piss-poor duration for the low levels, Knock only works for one door per use etc. Even in 3rd edition, a Wizard will have to wait untill character level 7 before they have enough high-level spells for other stuff so they can dedicate lower-level ones to emulating a Rogue. Prior to that point, a Wizard can situationally cover for a Rogue, at the cost of not doing much Wizardly stuff for that day. What's funnier, between levels 5 and 9 a Rogue will have enough resources to use UMD and magic items himself to situationally cover for the Wizard, while not noticeably hindering his ability to do Rogue stuff.

At low levels, two Wizards are better than a Wizard + Rogue only when they both can be playing to the strenghts of their class. If one of them has to act as a poor man's Rogue, they'll actually perform worse.

Im working under the assumption that the party will eventually progress to the point where wizards are actually reliably useful.

VoxRationis
2015-04-23, 01:12 PM
But wizards can be reliably useful earlier than that. Really, a wizard becomes quite useful once they get color spray if fighting non-undead, non-construct opponents, and becomes more reliably useful once they get 2nd level spells. Note that 2nd level spells are also where the rogue-imitating spells pop up. But since the wizards don't have a lot of those spells, every locked door they open is a boss fight that they didn't shut down with summon swarm. (And really, low-level to mid-level play is the core of the game, not only because it gets played more often, but because it matches the classic tone of the game. Consider the homages to D&D, The Gamers and "Never Split the Party." The characters there were not acting like high-level sorts.)

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-24, 06:35 AM
Im working under the assumption that the party will eventually progress to the point where wizards are actually reliably useful.

Then you've conceded Rogues are better at their schtick than Wizards untill level 5 - and can't be wholly replaced untill level 7. That's a pretty significant chunk of the game during which the Rogue does indeed have a place in the party.

Segev
2015-04-24, 09:06 AM
Then you've conceded Rogues are better at their schtick than Wizards untill level 5 - and can't be wholly replaced untill level 7. That's a pretty significant chunk of the game during which the Rogue does indeed have a place in the party.

Which, in a way, is even worse, since there's even larger a chunk of the game where they're superfluous. "Thanks for helping us get this far, but now we don't need you. I don't suppose you have a cousin who's actually got useful skills for our level, do you?"

LibraryOgre
2015-04-24, 01:37 PM
Which, in a way, is even worse, since there's even larger a chunk of the game where they're superfluous. "Thanks for helping us get this far, but now we don't need you. I don't suppose you have a cousin who's actually got useful skills for our level, do you?"

Again, this heavily presupposes 3.x. A 2e thief remains useful, partially because it predates 3e's magic inflation.

Frozen_Feet
2015-04-25, 02:52 PM
Which, in a way, is even worse, since there's even larger a chunk of the game where they're superfluous. "Thanks for helping us get this far, but now we don't need you. I don't suppose you have a cousin who's actually got useful skills for our level, do you?"

A technically larger chunk, perhaps. In actual playtime, I'm fairly sure low levels have a more significant role than the later levels.

And if we're talking about earlier editions than d20, 9th was so called "name level". What are erroneously referred to as "mid-game" these days was more like the end game for most groups. It was rare to progress to the point where a thief could be supplanted, especially when you account for the stuff Mark Hall noted.

Also, "can be supplanted" =/= "superfluous". At high levels, a Rogue can be swapped for a Wizard, but so a Wizard can be swapped for another Wizard. A Rogue remains able to perform in their niche and contribute against challenges of the game environment throughout the game. Sure, a Wizard becomes increasingly more powerful and versatile, but if you think those are the only things that matter for an RPG, you're off the track.

The Fighter is strictly superior to a Warrior, and Rogue almost as much as the Expert - so why have NPC classes? To mechanically model less powerful roles without jumping through unnecassary hoops. Sure, if you're a wizard, you can gimp yourself and pretend you're a rogue - but from a systems perspective, it's easier to just have a character without those, ahem, superfluous mechanics.