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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Robert Ranting" data-source="post: 3416808" data-attributes="member: 28906">Arcana Evolved is, without a doubt, my preferred rules set for d20, as both a player and a DM. I started playing in my first campaign the fall after Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed came out, and fell in love with the races, classes, spell system, and many of the feats.  I began running my first campaign as a DM a few months before the "director's cut" Arcana Evolved came out, and I'm currently running my third campaign in my homebrew setting (and planning the 4th and 5th).Despite what anyone might tell you, despite the emphasis of the implied setting in the book, there is no reason you can't use the mechanics outside the Diamond Throne.  It's only the flavor that becomes troublesome.  If you like a particular bit of flavor, keep it, and modify your setting to allow for it's existance.  If you like a class' mechanics, but hate the flavor, come up with an alternate explanation for it.  If you think you can cludge together something  better for your needs by hybridizing it with a core d20 class, or making one from scratch, go ahead and do that.The Mageblade, Magister, Unfettered and Warmain are pretty much generic enough that you don't need to worry terribly much about them.  If there are swords and sorcery in your setting, you can be sure that there will be light dodgy guys, heavy armor guys, and guys who want to use spells when they fight, and guys who just use spells.  If you'd rather use the Fighter than the Warmain, then go ahead, there's no real compelling reason to choose one generic beat-stick over another.  Give the fighter access to AE's feats, armors, weapons (particularly the simplified proficiency categories) and let him go to town, or even boost it further like ehren37 did.  I would however, reccommend keeping the Unfettered, since it's an archetype that D&D doesn't do so well (I've played the Rogue/Fighter going for Duelist, and those first 5 levels were a tale of woe, misery, and inadequacy as the party's elven ranger, not even proficient in the bastard sword she wielded and specced for archery, surpassed my melee prowess in every way).Every other AE class has some form of baggage which must be taken into account in developing your setting, or re-written to fit, as well as a group of detractors who will complain about it unceasingly for being too weak, too limiting, or too "not what I personally wanted".  My advice is to look at the mechanics, seperate from their flavor, and decide whether the class stands on it's own, and whether to keep it.  The only opinions that really matter in the final analysis are yours and those of your players.  I could give you more information on my own experience, biases, and houserules, but I think that would only serve to lose the key point that needs to be made.  AE is a rules set, and it has a particular flavor.  Neither rules nor flavor are sacred.  Use what you like, re-write what you don't, and just focus on crafting something that's fun to play.Robert "If I pushed an agenda, I'd be here all day" Ranting</blockquote>

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