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Message: <blockquote data-quote="3catcircus" data-source="post: 2898135" data-attributes="member: 16077">I didn't say that I wasn't - I have to put forth additional effort in designing challenges that are appropriate for everyone in the party.  That is my penance for not realizing that such a combo wasn't going to work to begin with. You are comparing apples to oranges.  Sure - toughness isn't balanced against power attack; when leveling up to a level granting a feat, for a Wizard (with d4 hit dice) which averages 2.75 hp (rounded to 3) taking toughness *does* balance against the fighter (d10 hit dice) which averages 5.5 (rounded to 6) hp.  *AND* - Power Attack *is* balanced against itself since it is a 1-for-1 trade on attack bonus vs. damage.Again - *how* the players get stuff done may be more important than *how well* they get it done, depending upon the campaign and the DM.You are attempting to break my statementinto two parts and address each of them individually - please address the statement as a whole, which is: "A rogue with a high Dex and tons of ranks in "Open Locks" is no more effective than one with an average Dex,or not as many ranks in "Open Locks" but who has a crowbar, or special acids in addition to the thieves' tools. Maybe he has spread his skills and has some ranks in disguise, bluff, etc. - this could be even more effective even if his raw skill ranks don't make him as "powerful."I'm making an observation that some designer s have used the rules to min/max in such a way as to cherry-pick feats, skills, or class abilities from existing base classes to build prestige classes that may have little or nothing in the way of balancing out the advantages that the prestige class brings.  It shouldn't have to be up to the DM to be forced to disallow prestige classes, feats, or other bits of the game from "shiny new book X," but that is what the d20 rules have become.LA is a good *idea* - one that I don't think is implemented all that smoothly because of the inconsistencies between different abilities that lead to the same LA.  What are the "point values" (for lack of a better term) of each racial ability that add up to making a race a specific LA?  In your example (and going strictly from the Monster Manual), a Hobgoblin has +2 Dex, -2 Con, 60 ft. darkvision, and a +4 bonus on move silent checks and is a LA +1.  The Aasimar  has +2 Wis, +2 Cha, Darkvision, and a +2 racial bonus to spot and +2 racial bonus to listen, as well as Daylight special attack and resistance (5) to acid, cold and electricity and is *also* only a LA +1.  Of course they are not going to be equal since one of them is one level higher than the other.  As to letting players pick attributes - that already exists and it is called point-buy.  The DM can set limits on that as well (25-pt buy, 28-pt buy, etc.)</blockquote>

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