Shannow
I had a similar issue as they did in a PnP game I played in college. I wanted to be a trip focused dexy spring attack fighter guy (which the system supposedly suported) and the DM killed him off in a fight with a multiarmed sword wielding snake woman thing and told me just to make a Dwarven Defender because nothing else would survive in his campaign in melee range. So, I just didnt play with them again. It has nothing to do with story vs power gaming or whatever. It is about being able to realize a wide variety different reasonable character concepts or being pigeonholed into a fewer 'necessary' build types.
Sry for responding so late. For some reason your tag didn't show up on my alerts.
That your DM was a retard has already been established. Dwarven Defender (though admittedly my favourite) is not inherently stronger than your char would have been. Just different strengths and weaknesses. (In fact, you could make a trip focused dexy spring attack dwarven defender
) I could ramble on, but I believe your argument has already fallen apart, as this was not an issue of a viable char build, but of a moron DM. Others have already pointed out how it's more a matter of campaign/game design, than of the char system.
But I'd like to clarify that my examples of story-fag and powergamer-fag are obviously extremes of scales. And not even two ends of a scale, since I expect a person can be a powegamer and extremly invested in his character's personal story backround. I just hadn't realized that people might exist that prioritize their "character" so much over what the system actually supports that they'll make gimped chars and then complain about it.
I know what they're trying to say, but I still feel the need to point out that this is a really bad example:
The reason I think it's a very bad example is that they have it completely backwards. The problem with a ring that maximizes one of your attributes this early in the game isn't that your attributes are unbalanced or that some of the other attributes must be changed to compensate for all the points you wasted into this attribute or whatever. The problem is that
there is a ring that maximizes one of your attributes this early in the game. The sane solution isn't to completely redesign your class and attribute system, the solution is to take that item out. It's like noticing the Ring of Wizardry in BG1 and deciding that what you need to do is rewrite the entire magic system (IIRC Bioware did take out the ring in one of the patches, or in TotSC).
Otherwise your post is nothing but
My post was actually better than you gave it credit for, since I do imply the issue you raise.
AFAIK, 3.5rd ed only has +bonus items/spells and no "set stat to XX". At least NWN(2), ToEE and KotC were like that. So, as far as I'm concerned the issue was already fixed and never repeated after BG2. (Though polymorphing still had the issue.)
Since I mention that only OGL should really have been in discussion for PE and not AD&D... Well
Also, my very first BG1-2 character, going through the entire saga, was a fighter with 18/00 STR, 18 DEX, 18 CON, 18 CHA, and the rest dumped into WIS (I think for the saving throw bonus, but I'm not sure, it's been a while). Getting the big discounts early in BG2 was great for buying all the overpowered items from Adventurer's Mart. Of course in terms of "useless stat" argument you could just replace CHA with INT, but my point of the ring and deciding what actually needs to change (ie, not the attributes) still stands.
Anyway I still don't like the system as much as I would've wanted, but I like it more than I used to.
As Shevek pointed out in the PE thread, wis didn't actually give the saving throw bonuses it was supposed to. While I don't remember and haven't bothered checking, I believe he is right. Int gave lore bonuses, was important for wizards (copy spell, requirement for spell level) and can be seen as "HP" in mindflayer fights. (Mindflayer melee attacks damage int. When you reach 0 you is dead. IIRC the dmage range was 1-4, so your 6 int fighter might die in two hits. Oh and touch attack... Fucking squidheads.) Otherwise I agree, obviously.
So I still see the "useless stat" discussion as plain wrong.
1. All stats had "some" uses.
2. The fault with massively "inferior" stats (depending on class) was not primarily in the char system but in game design. PS:T proves this.
3. Weaknesses of AD&D are rather irrelevant. See above.
(While OGL still has many issues, IMO PE's system will need to be significantly better to have been worth all the effort. Not much longer...)
