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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6436614" data-attributes="member: 8461">The more I look at this particular methodology of class (de)construction, the more problematic I find it; it's not an issue of the inherent flexibility of point-buy systems being used to &quot;unbalance&quot; a game, but rather the way in which he determines the initial costs for various aspects of a character class.From what I can tell, this is more of a method for auditing a given class; that it assigns a numerical value to various parts of a class that can then be used to construct a new class (as a 20-level whole, with virtually no level-by-level breakdown that I can tell) is something of a side effect. I also question some of the decisions made in his formula, such as pricing a spell list differently whether it's arcane or divine (Table MA2: Ability Type), independent of any other concerns - the labels of &quot;arcane&quot; or &quot;divine&quot; magic have no real meaning to them, because the spell lists for every class are different anyway. The idea that &quot;arcane magic is more expensive, because it offers a better spell list than divine magic (all else being equal)&quot; is in reference to the way that things happened to shape up between the wizard and the cleric (and subsequent spellcasting classes), but that's a feature of how those specific classes were built, rather than an inherent feature of any gradation of arcane and divine spellcasting in and of themselves.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6436614, member: 8461"] The more I look at this particular methodology of class (de)construction, the more problematic I find it; it's not an issue of the inherent flexibility of point-buy systems being used to "unbalance" a game, but rather the way in which he determines the initial costs for various aspects of a character class. From what I can tell, this is more of a method for auditing a given class; that it assigns a numerical value to various parts of a class that can then be used to construct a new class (as a 20-level whole, with virtually no level-by-level breakdown that I can tell) is something of a side effect. I also question some of the decisions made in his formula, such as pricing a spell list differently whether it's arcane or divine (Table MA2: Ability Type), independent of any other concerns - the labels of "arcane" or "divine" magic have no real meaning to them, because the spell lists for every class are different anyway. The idea that "arcane magic is more expensive, because it offers a better spell list than divine magic (all else being equal)" is in reference to the way that things happened to shape up between the wizard and the cleric (and subsequent spellcasting classes), but that's a feature of how those specific classes were built, rather than an inherent feature of any gradation of arcane and divine spellcasting in and of themselves. [/QUOTE]

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