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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3770603" data-attributes="member: 15999">I think it'd be extraordinarily difficult.  With "character customization," the main thing I hear players in my group clamoring for, you can choose to make a character who's good at one aspect of the game at the price of being less good at other aspects. I don't see how you can reconcile the freedom of players to design their characters as they like with a goal that every class is equally useful in non-combat situations.  Ability score point buy is a good example of this.  A high-Charisma character is going to be better at social interactions -- that's the point of Charisma, after all.  A high-Constitution character will be better at combat.  Many players I know would prefer a character who is less effective in combat but more effective in social situations.  They want the ability to make that trade-off.Now, you could have every class have the *potential* to be good at non-combat encounters.  With this approach, a  fighter could -- if he chose to devote skills and feats to it -- to be just as good at diplomacy as the cleric or bard.  Still, in all likelihood, the fighter would forego those options to focus on combat.  Making all skills available to all classes, and giving everybody 2-4 more skill points per level, would go a good way towards offering this option in 3.5.</blockquote>