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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8467905" data-attributes="member: 71699">I'm thinking more of one-shots on PCs, but I agree with you: it's really a feature. I am after lethality. Capped at 6th an average fighter has 40HP, while an average wizard 26HP. At 5th they might have 34 and 22 respectively. The difference is still meaningful against higher CR creatures because in most cases the fighter will need to be hit an additional time by an attack dealing average damage, compared with the wizard. I'll keep an eye on the level capped at as something to possibly change.I plan to leave MM creature HPs where they are for now. Change a few mechanical dimensions at a time and prove those out, is my thinking.These are reasonable measures to constrain the number of combinations. Something to look at would be cherry-picking sub-class features. Say with barbarian. Some sub-classes have fantastic 3rd level features, while others have better features at 6th. Free choice will let mechanically minded players choose the strongest features from across levels. That should show itself in play as some features hardly ever taken and others almost always taken. I tried measuring feat preferences with a survey here awhile back and got some reasonable data: a similar method might be used if several groups were playing using your rules.Committing players to picking only within a class and then only within one subclass allows a game designer to balance across levels (a stronger feature can be balanced against a weaker one at a different level). Allowing free-form picking means the balance really needs to be approximately absolute (all feats and features must be of equal value). You mentioned creating a list of features that can't be picked. I think that is essentially attempting to achieve absolute balance. It will trim the top. Players will still be able to cherry-pick from the rest (and new players perhaps walk into trap picks.)Maybe it would be worth at least saying that the pick must be of a feature that would be available to the barbarian at their current level?</blockquote>

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