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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3177777" data-attributes="member: 28553">It is better to have modular, adaptable tools than to custom make a new tool for every task.  For that reason, I strongly support the idea of using feats to customize characters, rather than creating a whole new category of ability in alternate class features.  When you get down to it, all feats are alternate class features, and it's better design to make similar things function according to the same rules and terminology wherever possible.However, also based on the logic of that first axiom, I can't support the idea of hard-wiring specific abilities into classes and making whole new classes when you want to exchange those abilities for different ones.  Making a Ranger class that can choose the dual-wielding path or the archery path is a lot more elegant than making a Dual-Wielder class and an Archer class, especially when those two classes would overlap in terms of BAB, skills, saving throws, hit die, etc.I just don't see a lot of value in maintaining classes as predictable sets of abilities.  If you're building a party for a dungeon crawl, it's just as easy to say "we need someone who can heal and someone who can find traps" as it is to say "we need a Cleric and a Rogue".  It shouldn't matter if your healer ends up being a mage who's taken feats from some biomancy feat tree, or your trap-finder is a priest of the clockwork god.</blockquote>