Quote Originally Posted by blackseven View Post
Again, I don't find the argument against "reasonable" to be compelling. Yes, "reasonable" is subjective, but it's not as wildly subjective as people seem to think. If we can't agree that a STR 16 person beating a STR 1 person in an arm wrestling match without a roll is "reasonable", I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to play with that person.
Okay, and when it's a str 10 (+0) person against a str 18 guy with training (+7), is it still reasonable? What about when we leave the realm of physical behind and it's a 16 int Wizard's illusion against someone with 6 wis? Or a Bard's bluff against a low wis guard? Are these also reasonable?

And if you say yes to all of these examples, and any case where the modifiers are 7-8 points apart is in fact different enough for it to be reasonable for an auto success, why do the rules not support that? Because the rules as written tell me that with that 8 point difference, the better character is running with a 20% chance of failure. Why is it up to the DM and group to decide "no that doesn't make sense" rather than the rules telling me up front where the line of "This is easy enough to ignore" is drawn.


The idea that rules have to be airtight is simply untenable. You are going to have to trust a DM to make calls. The rules cannot, ultimately, be detailed and thorough enough to eliminate this.
The problem is we're not even looking at really weird corner cases. We're looking at numbers that are explicitly attainable taking actions that are very basic, and generating results that make no sense. I mean I don't care if the rules don't cover every possible situation, but when the rules tell me the strongest most skilled man in the world will fail to break down an average dungeon door about 40% of the time, and the weak frail wizard will actually succeed at it 10% of the time, that is a resolution system that makes no sense and should never have been allowed to be printed by a designer with half a lick of sense.




Although Seerow is right that the very easelier iteration of D&D only had those 3 classes, I think that, by now, the four (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief) are *irreducibly* iconic.
I disagree. The design space between the Fighter and the Rogue traditionally have a lot of overlap, as the two main Mundane classes. Note how with the three specified, each one has a different power source, and will clearly represent different concepts. On the other hand, the only real reason to separate the Fighter and Rogue is if you believe that the Fighter can't do dex based combat (something I disagree with), that the Fighter can't take advantage of underhanded tactics (something I disagree with), or that the Fighter shouldn't be allowed to be skilled (something I heavily disagree with).

The two CAN be represented as separate classes, but ultimately the Fighter is capable of filling the rogue's role in and out of combat, and in a minimalistic game it should. Mainly because making the rogue separate and making something like skill usage a Rogue primary ability gimps the Fighter out of being able to be skilled... leaving him with basically no way to interract with the world out of combat (see: 3.5)