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Message: <blockquote data-quote="grufflehead" data-source="post: 5203606" data-attributes="member: 35977">I bought Trailblazer on a whim, and it has sat in my 'big folder of things Grufflehead has bought but never got further than flicking through'. Time to have a proper look at it and see what it's all about.Wandering away from the original topic, but I was thinking about it as I was making dinner last night and wondered if a reductionist type approach a la True 20 might be the way to go on redressing some of the balance (I don't imagine that it would sell books so a theoretical project only!). Take skills out of the equation by giving all classes 'equal' access to them; extra skills could be gained through feats if you still want a 'skill monkey'. Your 'Warrior' class would basically encompass the current Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Monk *and* Rogue. Their primary purpose is to hit things, it's just the flavour that's different. You could create a series of 'paths' via a selectable set of feat lists (as the PF Ranger and Monk get) to describe the fighting style - not too dissimilar I suppose from what Iron Heroes did. If you want a 'precision' based fighter - which I suggest would cover Ranger's favoured enemy, Rogue's Sneak Attack and Monk's Unarmed Strikes - pick that tree. It would cover things like Weapon Finesse, Improved Unarmed Strike, some way of replicating the 'Sneak Attack' idea of hitting weak points etc. It works all the time, no need for flanking, denying of DEX etc, it's just the way they do damage. Barbarian is 'power' and would cover the Rage powers, plus obvious things like Power Attack, Cleave, Bull Rush etc. Others may be 'training' based - the PF Fighter's weapon training plus Weapon Focus and Specialisation. There would probably be one for missiles (and then when the splatbook comes out you can add in other styles <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />) and off hand I can't think where Paladin's would fit.Note that these are effectively bonus feats, so you would be free to pick other feats with your normal allocation. One thing I would enforce though is a way to cut down on the 'stacking' issue that is another plague on my house. Hands up who has been down a game with someone playing a PC who has Sneak Attack and the Power Attack feat? One which relies on very...careful...placement...of...blows and another which relies on A...HUGE...YAHOOOO. I take it I'm not alone is seeing the 'problem' with this?On the casting side, you've got the equivalent 'Wizard' class. Their style of casting would be the trees to pick from, so prepared casters do it one way, spontaneous casters another, ritual casters have a style etc etc. The arcane/divine split can be handled via spell list; the mechanics are the same eg the cleric is a 'prepared' caster who picks off one spell list, the wizard picks off another. If you want a spontaneous divine caster just put the building blocks together. Next, restore the uniqueness of spell lists so you no longer find the same spell on multiple lists, and restore the 1st Ed idea that you JUST DON'T CAST BESIDE WARRIORS/MONSTERS - or you will get your ass handed to you. No combat casting, no concentration checks, just no! Maybe make things like Lunge, Step Up, Disruptive and Spellbreaker abilites that all warriors get as class abilities at various levels to reinforce this.I can already imagine people spluttering into their cocoa, but until you narrow the gap between the predominantly melee focussed classes and the casters, the balance things is always going to be there.</blockquote>

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