rumtap wrote:
All interesting points but I'd also consider the following.
Knights and barbarians spend a good deal of time in combat training prior to becoming 1st rank to earn that combined attack/defence total of 20. The hunter however will spend less time on combat training than dedicated melee warriors as they spend time learning all those wonderful hunter skills including their favoured (ranged) weapon. So is an attack & defence total of 19 accurate?
I think it is, but I had the chance to raise this during 'development', so that might be obvious.
rumtap wrote:
I believe a closer comparison can be made with the warlock. They spend a part of their time training in combat and the rest of their time studying magic before starting off at 1st rank. Warlocks start at attack 12 and defence 5, total 17. At 3rd rank the warlock then has an effective -2 to Attack in all weapons other than their favoured weapons (i.e. weapon groups) to reflect that they are not just focused on fighting.
My view on that is simple enough - while a Warlock certainly does get some combat training, I think more of their time is spent studying magic, than is true of a hunter studying their skills. Remember that a Warlock has a minimum Intelligence score of 11 - higher than that of a Sorcerer. As I assume that Sorcerer magic is more complex than that of Warlocks, I think the higher Intelligence reflects the fact that the Warlock has to try and cram their less complex knowledge in faster (I should mention here that 'in real life' I'm a school teacher who specialises in teaching intellectually gifted children - so I have particular ideas and expertise in how Intelligence interacts with learning that do influence my opinions on this), and that the time spent on combat training is probably as limited as they think they can get away with. Basically I think a Hunter probably does have more time to learn combat skills than a Warlock does.
rumtap wrote:
Now the warlock gains defence each rank where the hunter doesn't but I think that again reflects a better level of combat training.
Actually I assume that reflects the fact that the Warlock spends more time in physical melee combat once his or her adventuring career begins and their defence improves faster because they spend more time using that skill.
rumtap wrote:
I'm also not sure you can bring primary stats into it. For example I would always want my reflexes to be my best score no matter what profession I play. But stats are up to the dice gods and they fall where they may.
I think you have to consider their impact if you start talking about balance - now, as I've said, I'm less concerned about numerical balance than some people, but if you get into the number crunching looking for it, I don't think you can really ignore Characteristics because they do have a significant impact.
This is part of the reason why I set up the poll I did yesterday. Because I think the choices people make on character creation as compared to the default in the books could have a meaningful impact on this as well.
A Knight has no minimum prerequisites, while a Hunter has a minimum of 9. What is the average Strength and Reflexes of a Knight? That's actually a complex question to answer - on one level, you could say it's 9.5 for both, but honestly I doubt that is really true - would somebody with a Strength and Reflexes of less than 6 each be likely to become a Knight? I doubt it. But the point I am making is, it is probably more likely that a Knight has penalties to DEFENCE than a Hunter does - and a Hunter is more likely to have a bonus to DEFENCE than a Knight - because their minimum Reflexes score of 9 precludes that particular DEFENCE penalty - in fact that minimum Reflexes of 9, means the average Hunter has a Reflexes of nearly 12 (11.81 I make it, but this is quick mathematics), and over a third of Hunters would actually have a DEFENCE one point higher than average from their Reflexes score. They'd also have a slightly higher chance of having a DEFENCE bonus from their Intelligence score as well.