Nonexistent/underrepresented RPG roles

[TKVNC]

Armor should be treated logically. Heavy armor slows you down and limits your mobility. If you jump around and travel a lot, it doesn't make sense. You can't just put it on for the battle, because you'd still haul it around. You'll drown with it on. If you traverse through a heated or very cool area, the temperature will bother you more.

In mythology, fairies are practically turbo-allergic to metal. If settings made magic come from fairies and be equally allergic to metal, then you have a limiter. Hells, mages could potentially be very weak to getting caught in metal nets or being put into metal cuffs limiting their access to magic. You could have a real boundary while keeping things working.

By extension, the heavy armor would become restricted to adversaries only, making it make more sense why they're tankier than your party.

But no one designs systems anymore. They just want to give people quick gratification. That's why **** sucks.

You could even have enchanted items existing, but make it lore-wise that when they come in contact with a mage, they start sucking out their own magic, hence why they're restricted to non-mages only.

Well, realistically the best way to balance it is to simply base it on reality (with some leeway for magic, of course); a fighter jet can't patrol a street corner.

Just make magic expensive, and rare, but genuinely overpowered. Too many games opt for the former, but fail to achieve the latter.

[Maledict]

Just make magic expensive

That's a good approach. I think in Game of Thrones magic cost you humanity and literally your flesh or someone else's flesh. I think that's a very good approach. It would also explain why mages aren't as defensive - their bodies diminish the more magic they use.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's near impossible to make a role around the idea of being very useful extremely rarely, it jut doesn't translate well to games.

[Norfleet]

Armor should be treated logically. Heavy armor slows you down and limits your mobility.

Myth, really. The weight of a soldier's gear hasn't actually changed between medieval times and today. Almost as if soldiers have adapted throughout the ages to carrying a certain level of kit and there's no desire to actually change it, so even when the tech changes, the level of kit stays stuck at the same standardized level. So it's not anymore encumbering than what you're already used to carrying as a soldier, and as for mobility-limiting, we can see Youtubes of people doing gymnastics in it just to disprove that argument also.

Why can't you be allowed to wear robes over armor?

It's not that you're not allowed to wear robes over armor. It's that the purpose of a wizard's robes is purely for them to maintain the setting's G or PG ratings, since their true original purpose is to enable the wizard to quickly and conveniently get naked for magic time. Something that is completely undermined if you wear a suit of armor under it, because a suit of armor is the OPPOSITE of something you can conveniently take off.

It's near impossible to make a role around the idea of being very useful extremely rarely, it jut doesn't translate well to games.

Specifically, it's nearly impossible to make this a PLAYABLE role, because if you have the ability to do something very powerful very rarely, and your entire class is structured around doing that thing, the rest of the time you are not actually playing the game.

Wizards are also kinda polarizing. Like your old argument about how if thieves are the sneaking class, it means no other class can sneak, the wizard takes that argument up to basically 10, if not 11: If the wizard is magic, nobody ELSE can be magic. Of course, this isn't mythologically accurate, either. Heroes of myth and tradition are generally magic to some degree intrinsically. They aren't generally just random schlub humans. They're pretty much always the descendants of gods and otherworldly entities. How many heroes of myth can you name that AREN'T?

[Stack of Turtles]

Specifically, it's nearly impossible to make this a PLAYABLE role, because if you have the ability to do something very powerful very rarely, and your entire class is structured around doing that thing, the rest of the time you are not actually playing the game.

Wizards are also kinda polarizing. Like your old argument about how if thieves are the sneaking class, it means no other class can sneak, the wizard takes that argument up to basically 10, if not 11: If the wizard is magic, nobody ELSE can be magic. Of course, this isn't mythologically accurate, either. Heroes of myth and tradition are generally magic to some degree intrinsically. They aren't generally just random schlub humans. They're pretty much always the descendants of gods and otherworldly entities. How many heroes of myth can you name that AREN'T?

These two things together suggest that the better way for players to have magic is an Eldritch Knight kind of thing where the character is predominantly a fighter or [whatever], but also has some magic to use in a pinch. This is the kind of character most common in literature, too, after all.

Incidentally, I recently read Jack Vance's two fix-up novels about the sort-of-rogue-equivalent Cugel, who survives the messes he makes for himself through a combination of luck, a sort of low cunning, and an absolute lack of anything even distantly resembling morality. I would call it instructive for rogue characters.

[rusty_shackleford]

Wizards are also kinda polarizing. Like your old argument about how if thieves are the sneaking class, it means no other class can sneak, the wizard takes that argument up to basically 10, if not 11: If the wizard is magic, nobody ELSE can be magic. Of course, this isn't mythologically accurate, either. Heroes of myth and tradition are generally magic to some degree intrinsically. They aren't generally just random schlub humans. They're pretty much always the descendants of gods and otherworldly entities. How many heroes of myth can you name that AREN'T?

It's possible to have different types of magic, but when you have a class dedicated to being sneaky it means everyone else is going to suck at being sneaky to cement the sneaky class's monopoly on sneakiness.
It would be like creating a class that excels specifically at riding horses. Now everyone else sucks at riding horses to create niche protection.


"Guy who is good at opening locked doors" is just a weak niche. The only way to improve it is to keep subtracting from the other classes — now only thieves can scale walls and listen at doors, etc.,
There's a reason the thief only existed for a couple editions before usurping the assassin when it became rogue.

[J1M]

Armor should be treated logically. Heavy armor slows you down and limits your mobility. If you jump around and travel a lot, it doesn't make sense. You can't just put it on for the battle, because you'd still haul it around. You'll drown with it on. If you traverse through a heated or very cool area, the temperature will bother you more.

In mythology, fairies are practically turbo-allergic to metal. If settings made magic come from fairies and be equally allergic to metal, then you have a limiter. Hells, mages could potentially be very weak to getting caught in metal nets or being put into metal cuffs limiting their access to magic. You could have a real boundary while keeping things working.

By extension, the heavy armor would become restricted to adversaries only, making it make more sense why they're tankier than your party.

But no one designs systems anymore. They just want to give people quick gratification. That's why **** sucks.

You could even have enchanted items existing, but make it lore-wise that when they come in contact with a mage, they start sucking out their own magic, hence why they're restricted to non-mages only.

Heavy armor doesn't really slow you down in real life. They wouldn't design it to make you die.

[Maledict]

Slowing down =/= stopping you, which is what yous act like is what I said. 15-25kg of metal all over your body is going to wear you down and slow you down.

[J1M]

Slowing down =/= stopping you, which is what yous act like is what I said. 15-25kg of metal all over your body is going to wear you down and slow you down.

This is similar to saying that a regular person is slowed down by wearing a sweat suit. The penalties games impose on heavy armor are astronomical. Not unlike how they treat shotguns as melee weapons.

[rusty_shackleford]

Once again, we need a word for the tendency of the internet to greatly overcorrect. No, plate armor does not make you immobile. Yes, it does slow you down. And yes, it would be very hard to perform somatic components required by spells.

[Norfleet]

Slowing down =/= stopping you, which is what yous act like is what I said. 15-25kg of metal all over your body is going to wear you down and slow you down.

Like I said: It doesn't really. Soldiers are already used to carrying this level of kit. This is already the baseline. If you're NOT carrying that level of kit, you feel floaty and trip over things because you're not properly weighted anymore. If you're not carrying 15-25kgs of metal armor, you're instead carrying 15-25kgs of bullets and grenades instead. Wearing body armor does not offer any intrinsic slowdown beyond the weight itself, and that weight is generally below any encumberance slowdown lines for the typical character, because soldiers are already calibrated for that weight.

Once again, we need a word for the tendency of the internet to greatly overcorrect. No, plate armor does not make you immobile. Yes, it does slow you down. And yes, it would be very hard to perform somatic components required by spells.

That would really depend on the armor. I can type just fine in metal gauntlets, but only if they have fingers. If you have metal mittens, it becomes a case of "how do you type with boxing gloves on". So, plate armor is not necessarily an encumberance to performing the somatic components required by spells, since I can cast Tenser's Formatted Disk just fine with them.

[rusty_shackleford]

I can type just fine in metal gauntlets, but only if they have fingers.

I have to wear fingerless gloves when it gets cold, I can't wear gloves with fingers because I can't type properly with them on.

[Norfleet]

I have to wear fingerless gloves when it gets cold, I can't wear gloves with fingers because I can't type properly with them on.

Use a proper keyboard with full-sized keys, not little girlyfinger laptop keys. You can't just go typing on strange keyboards without gloves anyway, you'll get your fingerprints all over them.

[Oyster Sauce]

I imagine there are some indirect offensive upsides to heavy armor. Being able to extend your arm without fear of having it be slashed might make an armored warrior more agile than the guy who can be cut down instantly. Hard to represent such things in a video game unless it has an in-depth morale system.

[Magick]

The thing is, the existence of mages makes most other classes redundant, unless extremely limited in some way (mana or whatever).

Damage? Got that one down. You don't need to bring an artillery piece when you have a living, thinking one.
AoE? Naturally.
Buffs, enchantments, debuffs and curses? Sure! Take your pick.
Sneaking? Lol invisibility.
Lockpicking? Lol magical unlock, or just blow it off.
Defence? Magical shields (including against elements) that can even be used to protect others.
Some mages can even do healing or rooting and antimagic tasks.

Time, Concentration and/or mana & cooldowns is the only thing that limits them from doing almost ANYTHING. So why even bother taking some ****** super-niche class?
D&D has to go way too far (even limiting their spell pool due to "memory" lol) to make other classes viable at all.

[rusty_shackleford]

Range of motion and energy cost of locomotion of the late medieval armoured fighter: A proof of concept of confronting the medieval technical literature with modern movement analysis

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66% more energy expenditure just when moving, significant reduction in ROM with regards to shoulder, elbow, and wrist movements. They compare it to a modern firefighter's gear.

[rusty_shackleford]

The thing is, the existence of mages makes most other classes redundant, unless extremely limited in some way (mana or whatever).

Damage? Got that one down. You don't need to bring an artillery piece when you have a living, thinking one.
AoE? Naturally.
Buffs, enchantments, debuffs and curses? Sure! Take your pick.
Sneaking? Lol invisibility.
Lockpicking? Lol magical unlock, or just blow it off.
Defence? Magical shields (including against elements) that can even be used to protect others.
Some mages can even do healing or rooting and antimagic tasks.

Time, Concentration and/or mana & cooldowns is the only thing that limits them from doing almost ANYTHING. So why even bother taking some ****** super-niche class?
D&D has to go way too far (even limiting their spell pool due to "memory" lol) to make other classes viable at all.

D&D wizards break the game and are only 'balanced' because they suck for the first few levels. It's not something that translates well to video games outside of e.g., rogueylikes

[Maledict]

Like I said: It doesn't really. Soldiers are already used to carrying this level of kit. This is already the baseline. If you're NOT carrying that level of kit, you feel floaty and trip over things because you're not properly weighted anymore. If you're not carrying 15-25kgs of metal armor, you're instead carrying 15-25kgs of bullets and grenades instead. Wearing body armor does not offer any intrinsic slowdown beyond the weight itself, and that weight is generally below any encumberance slowdown lines for the typical character, because soldiers are already calibrated for that weight.
comes a case of "how do you type with boxing gloves on". So, plate armor is not necessarily an encumberance to performing the somatic components required by spells, since I can cast Tenser's Formatted Disk just fine with them.

This isn't kit. This is metal plates all over your body. If you can't fathom how this differs, that's on you.

• The weight doesn't stop nor reduce outside of designate rest time
• Maintenance
• Hygiene
• Good armor which defends you will reduce mobility as it will cover weak spots - if you don't cover weak spots, there's higher mortality and wound probability
• Your life is accompanied by the endless sound of the armor you're encased in
• You have to take care of the armor
• Weather will affect the armor more intensely. Heat and cold will affect the metal. Rain will make you permanently wet, because you won't dry through the metal.
• If you go into the water you're more likely to drown. The metal will remove your buoyancy as well as drag you down.
• WHEN the armor gets deformed from strikes, you will feel the indents and will have to fix the armor or be bothered by the deformities
• The armor will most likely make you sweat more and trap your BO - enjoy being stinky, and, WHEN wounded, more likely to have the wound fester

And that's just what comes to mind. I see Rusty made some further research. Reality denialists will mald but heavy armor isn't a ******* sweatsuit.

[rusty_shackleford]

Like I said: It doesn't really. Soldiers are already used to carrying this level of kit. This is already the baseline. If you're NOT carrying that level of kit, you feel floaty and trip over things because you're not properly weighted anymore. If you're not carrying 15-25kgs of metal armor, you're instead carrying 15-25kgs of bullets and grenades instead. Wearing body armor does not offer any intrinsic slowdown beyond the weight itself, and that weight is generally below any encumberance slowdown lines for the typical character, because soldiers are already calibrated for that weight.
comes a case of "how do you type with boxing gloves on". So, plate armor is not necessarily an encumberance to performing the somatic components required by spells, since I can cast Tenser's Formatted Disk just fine with them.

This isn't kit. This is metal plates all over your body. If you can't fathom how this differs, that's on you.

• The weight doesn't stop nor reduce outside of designate rest time
• Maintenance
• Hygiene
• Good armor which defends you will reduce mobility as it will cover weak spots - if you don't cover weak spots, there's higher mortality and wound probability
• Your life is accompanied by the endless sound of the armor you're encased in
• You have to take care of the armor
• Weather will affect the armor more intensely. Heat and cold will affect the metal. Rain will make you permanently wet, because you won't dry through the metal.
• If you go into the water you're more likely to drown. The metal will remove your buoyancy as well as drag you down.
• WHEN the armor gets deformed from strikes, you will feel the indents and will have to fix the armor or be bothered by the deformities
• The armor will most likely make you sweat more and trap your BO - enjoy being stinky, and, WHEN wounded, more likely to have the wound fester

And that's just what comes to mind. I see Rusty made some further research. Reality denialists will mald but heavy armor isn't a ******* sweatsuit.

Armor maintenance, weather, etc., are severely underrepresented in RPGs. I want a squire in my retinue.

[rusty_shackleford]

The strength of wizards is arbitrarily made up by the people creating the system which is why they also have arbitrary limitations like they explode when they try to mix metal armor and magic. WARHAMMER fantasy tends to handle this much better as far as I'm aware.

[Norfleet]

I imagine there are some indirect offensive upsides to heavy armor. Being able to extend your arm without fear of having it be slashed might make an armored warrior more agile than the guy who can be cut down instantly. Hard to represent such things in a video game unless it has an in-depth morale system.

You don't even need a morale system for that, and it's not hard to represent in a video game. All you need is a fighting system which models which parts of the body are exposed during various motions, which is already commonplace in a live-action combat system with collision-based hit detection, and could also be included in a turn-based setup. If parts of your body are armored and thus relatively impervious to damage, an actor, whether played by a human or simply robotically calculating the odds, with no need for a specific "morale system", will be more willing to expose those parts because, well, they're not really as exposed.

66% more energy expenditure just when moving, significant reduction in ROM with regards to shoulder, elbow, and wrist movements. They compare it to a modern firefighter's gear.

And when you compare that against a modern soldier carrying his kit into battle, you'll find it comes out to a wash. Sure, it might be more encumbering than being a naked man sprinting across a field, but it's NOT more encumbering compared to every other soldier on the field. The main reduction in shoulder movement comes in the form of being able to raise your arms over your head. But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure making it harder to surrender falls under "it's not a bug, it's a feature".

[*] The weight doesn't stop nor reduce outside of designate rest time
[*] Maintenance
[*] Hygiene

So, it's exactly like your kit.

[*] Your life is accompanied by the endless sound of the armor you're encased in
[*] You have to take care of the armor

So, it's exactly like your kit.

[*] Weather will affect the armor more intensely. Heat and cold will affect the metal. Rain will make you permanently wet, because you won't dry through the metal.

You act as if ponchos and cloaks didn't exist. And yes, running around in full plate through the desert is probably not a great plan. Which is why crusaders quickly stopped doing that and adopted the style of their adversaries instead.

[*] If you go into the water you're more likely to drown. The metal will remove your buoyancy as well as drag you down.

So, it's exactly like your kit.

[*] WHEN the armor gets deformed from strikes, you will feel the indents and will have to fix the armor or be bothered by the deformities

When your YOU gets deformed from strikes instead, you won't feel the indents because YOU WILL BE ******* DEAD.

[*] The armor will most likely make you sweat more and trap your BO - enjoy being stinky, and, WHEN wounded, more likely to have the wound fester

I think most people will be willing to trade a slight increase in wound infection risk for a sharp reduction in the risk of being wounded in the first place. It's not like being injured on the battlefield is somehow safer in lighter armor, either. The part which is trapping your sweat and odor is the same part that is already present in light armor.

[rusty_shackleford]

modern soldiers carry their kit to a building to sit it down and shoot a rifle

[Tweed]

It's near impossible to make a role around the idea of being very useful extremely rarely, it jut doesn't translate well to games.

What kind of power is Heart anyway?

[Norfleet]

What kind of power is Heart anyway?

The power of heart is what makes the sun rise. The Aztecs knew that.

[Norfleet]

Armor maintenance, weather, etc., are severely underrepresented in RPGs. I want a squire in my retinue.

Maintenance of ANYTHING is severely underrepresented in games, period. It's what contributes to the mythology behind maintenance pigs like the Tiger tank. Sure, the Tiger tank is a statistically magnificent animal...if you can get it to the battlefield and keep it working and supplied. A big if that is conveniently ignored.

[J1M]

Spellbooks getting wet is severely underrepresented in games!

[TKVNC]

Like I said: It doesn't really. Soldiers are already used to carrying this level of kit. This is already the baseline. If you're NOT carrying that level of kit, you feel floaty and trip over things because you're not properly weighted anymore. If you're not carrying 15-25kgs of metal armor, you're instead carrying 15-25kgs of bullets and grenades instead. Wearing body armor does not offer any intrinsic slowdown beyond the weight itself, and that weight is generally below any encumberance slowdown lines for the typical character, because soldiers are already calibrated for that weight.
comes a case of "how do you type with boxing gloves on". So, plate armor is not necessarily an encumberance to performing the somatic components required by spells, since I can cast Tenser's Formatted Disk just fine with them.

This isn't kit. This is metal plates all over your body. If you can't fathom how this differs, that's on you.

• The weight doesn't stop nor reduce outside of designate rest time
• Maintenance
• Hygiene
• Good armor which defends you will reduce mobility as it will cover weak spots - if you don't cover weak spots, there's higher mortality and wound probability
• Your life is accompanied by the endless sound of the armor you're encased in
• You have to take care of the armor
• Weather will affect the armor more intensely. Heat and cold will affect the metal. Rain will make you permanently wet, because you won't dry through the metal.
• If you go into the water you're more likely to drown. The metal will remove your buoyancy as well as drag you down.
• WHEN the armor gets deformed from strikes, you will feel the indents and will have to fix the armor or be bothered by the deformities
• The armor will most likely make you sweat more and trap your BO - enjoy being stinky, and, WHEN wounded, more likely to have the wound fester

And that's just what comes to mind. I see Rusty made some further research. Reality denialists will mald but heavy armor isn't a ******* sweatsuit.

Armor maintenance, weather, etc., are severely underrepresented in RPGs. I want a squire in my retinue.

Morrowind does pretty well.

[Norfleet]

Spellbooks getting wet is severely underrepresented in games!

It's not as big an issue as you'd think. Paper didn't exist in that era. They were using parchment and vellum instead, and being made of animal skins, had some intrinsic level of water resistance and didn't turn into soggy mush the way a book made of dead trees would be.

[Tweed]

Spellbooks getting wet is severely underrepresented in games!

Rougelikes are the only games I've played that keep track of that sort of thing. Getting wet can be catastrophic in Nethack.

[J1M]

Spellbooks getting wet is severely underrepresented in games!

It's not as big an issue as you'd think. Paper didn't exist in that era. They were using parchment and vellum instead, and being made of animal skins, had some intrinsic level of water resistance and didn't turn into soggy mush the way a book made of dead trees would be.

I was just making a joke. There's a weird tendency for people to nerd out about making the fighter's life harder, but nobody bats an eye at random reagents like guano being available everywhere at affordable prices.