Firsrt of all: I have never played PnP so I can talk only about computer games.
I have read the stuff above and its almost fun to see how you guys fight each other.
My opinion:
- A computer game is something different than PnP so it is OK if they change some rules.
Since I have no connection to PnP I do not care what rules a computer game has ( for example DnD or not, and if DnD what edition) as long as the game is fun to play.
If it is fun to play I will see when I play it.
All we have seen so far is a pre alpha video.
I admit that some rule changes in the video seem strange to me, but I will not complain about stuff until I have played it myself.
- Balance is importent, even in a single player game.
If we have class A and class B and class A can do everything better than class B, why add class B to the game:
Example from pathfinder: Rogue and Vivisectionist
Rogues have sneak attacks and a rogue talent every second level. Vivi has the same HP, BAB, sneak attacks and talents, PLUS spells ( that can be cast in armor and you can use self only spells on others with infusion ) and mutagens (bonus to stats and AC that stack with everything plus extra attacks with feral mutagen)
Also every class with animal companion is better than the same class without animal companion in most cases. A sorcerer cannot hit an elephant right in front of him with a weapon and you can cast only a few spells? No problem, the (buffed) pet of my sylvan sorcerer hits like a truck while I can focus on buffs, CC and even more summons.
In PnP it must be even worse. A wizard can solve almost every problem with a spell, a druid has an animal companion who hits things plus he can transform into an animal that hits things plus many spells. At the same time a melee martial char can be happy to be the meat shield of those guys, so they do not need to use a spell slot to summon a meat shield.
On the contrary, it´s far less worse. Most campaigns are not combat focused like videogames, where you are fighting 80% of the time (I do not say it´s wrong a videogame involving lots of fights, I say it´s different in PNP) so the different classes and races offer you multiple options to interact with the world outside combat. because you are roleplaying, crafting, talking, interacting with the world, building the story, creating funny or dramatic scenes on the fly, you can have a house, a business, a profession, etc... there are modules that have one fight per session and you can avoid combat entirely using some impressive amount of possible shenanigans if you want to...
So character builds that are the same in combat are useful in other areas. And character builds discarded in videogames because they have zero combat value could be useful in other settings, so the balance comes in several ways.
There are also campaigns that have their unique classes, races, feats and rules that are only useful in those campaigns(In Skulls and shackes AP you are travelling by ship and there are a lot of water combat, so sailing and water-breathing are more important, in WoTR you can command troops, so leadership skills are useful, etc) In PNP you have to balance more things than that. Of course you have a DM so you can change things on the fly, so...
In the example of the vivisectionist vs rogues, they have different out-of-combat features and ways of interacting with the world, even if those could have similar mechanics in combat. And of course story-wise it´s not the same to be a sylvan sorcerer with a panther than a draconic sorcerer, they have different features that you cannot see in the PF game because they are not used in combat. For example, there are places that you cannot take your Animal companion or eidolon (And you can mount them), a thing i´ve never see in a videogame of sorts.
