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I'll second the unusual henotheism of D&D. (Cool word for the day; henotheism is the worship of one god without denying the existance of other gods) This is distinct from historical polytheism, in which people worship multiple gods and priests aren't necessarily limited to one. D&D also shares...

Another limitation: If an enemy Drains an ability (which isn't terribly uncommon), drain also applies to every variation of that ability.

Specifically, you are paying a small cost for greater range of options rather than the big cost for overt power. Consider: 'I can fly. Or I can shoot beams out of my eyes. Just not both.' Ok, so flight is useful... but you can't actually do anything else when flying. Flight becomes more a handy...

Generally what I do in my campaigns is remove the 'non-lawful' element of bards, and most PC nobles use the Bard class. But it's cool to see variations...

I think the king example is a good one. 'I don't care what you do, I just want X, Y, and Z done. And don't embarrass me.' The king ignores the evil his henchmen does, unless it is excessive or negatively impacts his goals. Likewise, he'll pay lipservice and help out the good works of other...

Cuthbert is Neutral, but is anti-evil, in the new version. As for people being neutral... neutrality in one mode communicates a lack of committment. IE: I'd LIKE to help the homeless. What have I done? Well. I feel bad about them. vs. 'I work at a soup kitchen once a month, donate money...

Gizmo, yeah, to some extent I mean 'Christianity.' But also ideas like 'Gods are omniscient, never change their minds, and are absolutely right about everything.' Rather than 'Do what the Gods say or we're in trouble.' One thing that often strikes me odd about D&D religion is that it sort of...

Boy, that's kinda daft. By the RAW, they are extra-likely to get piercing crits which they are then immune to. Like all crits. Maybe there's something weird in 3.0 like 'susceptibility overrides immunity,' but I'd chalk it up to simple error.

I would honestly use a scimitar straight. While a scimitar isn't exactly the same as a sabre... they're pretty darn similar in function. I would not give them any particular benefit on horse-back; that's taking their historical use a bit too literally. I mean, I think scimitars were also used...

As I said in the other thread, it's possible for paladins of Wee Jas to have attitudes and beliefs beyond their god. That is, 'Wee Jas doesn't have a problem with evil followers, but her concerns are not all our concerns.' I would probably play most paladins leading a separate sect that...

I like this possibility: Our god doesn't care if we are evil or good. But that's our god. Down here on Earth? We value goodness, and we're going to work to purify the other followers of Wee Jas. Without pissing her off, ideally. Again, RL is full of examples of deities and worship being...

I refuse to vote on the grounds that the choices are silly.

In my last campaign, I had one god with the power that raising undead was not evil and the ensuing undead did not register as evil under very specific circumstances: The targets in question had to be willing, and working in the service of their religion. In essence, 'proper' undead were like...

Good debate, back and forth... as for earlier point on 'within the faith,' I was a bit wrong. But I think there's some confusion on the scope of what 'within the faith' means. There is 'followers of X god,' and there is also 'members of Y religion.' So you could have 'followers of Wee Jas,'...

(looks at monster size tables) Yeah. Halflings should be -4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con. I'd love to hear the screaming if I did that in my game. ;)

According to the faith according to whom? Maybe I prefer my deities fairly inscrutable, but I tend to shy from the idea of D&D religions as singular monolithic entities.

I've always disliked the Cha penalty for both dwarves and half-orcs. It's part of the general inconsistency of how Charisma is treated in the game. Charisma is strength of personality and compelling nature. The putative 'dwarves and half-orcs are asocial so thus have lower Cha' has a number of...

Achieving balance is impossible. But so are a lot of things. Striving for balance, IMO, is worthy. The real argument comes from weighing options. Is a given option balanced enough? Is the extra effort worth the improvement? The real complexity in D&D (as mentioned in this thread) comes from...

Personally, I find it makes for a very interesting game if a given god can have multiple religions, sometimes at war with one another. I mean, imagine sects of LG Wee Jas who have immense doctrinal differences (such as over what parts of Wee Jas are most worthy of worship), but occasionally...

A triple gestalt is weird... many of the choices actually wouldn't be terribly more powerful than a regular gestalt. But there are exceptions (like a caster-caster-martial character... druid-barbarian-sorcerer? Ow.).