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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9027087" data-attributes="member: 29398">I more or less agree with this in principle, but I'm already seeing where it'll run aground: more character options usually mean more complexity in character generation, which is for many players (and some DMs!) a big-time negative.If each class uses different mechanics and yet those mechanics within themselves are simple in char-gen and easy to learn thereafter, this problem somewhat goes away as most of the time a player only needs to learn the mechanics for the one character they're playing at the time.  The problems come IME when even the mechanics for one character get too complex - I found this in 3e with all the feats and abilities the player of even a supposedly-simple Fighter type had to keep track of.Or, another option is that where possible some of the mechanics remain DM-side; an example being Clerics turning undead in 1e.  The player knows the Cleric has the ability but has no idea of the game-mechanics behind it; in play the player simply declares the Cleric is turning undead and rolls a d20, on which the DM processes the mechanics, maybe asks for some associated rolls e.g. to determine how many are affected, and narrates what happens next.The Bard IMO has yet to ever work well in terms of design matching intended flavour.  A Bard casting fireball, for example, doesn't match the flavour of a minstrel doing magic with sound.I redesigned them from the ground up (and I'll say right now that my design ain't any better, but I'll posit it's not much worse either), and made them ability based.  They don't learn of cast spells as such; rather, they select abilities as they level up and with a few exceptions can use those abilities pretty much at will.  Some of these abilities mirror those of Rogues e.g. move silently while others are quasi-magical, explained in the game physics by the Bard being able to harness magic through manipulation of sound.However, there's drawbacks as well: as all their "magical" abilities are sonic, if the target can't hear or there's a Silence effect in the way, the Bard is hosed.  Also, most of these abilities take longer to perform (intentional word use) than a typical spell.  And while their combat ability is OK for the first few levels it falls off very rapidly after that.I'm convinced there's a good Bard design out there that somehow keeps the original 1e idea of a part-Fighter, part-Thief chassis with music and sonic abilities yet which starts at 1st level like all the other classes, but I've yet to either see it or think of it.That's an option, but I long ago concluded instead that the swordmage or gish or whatever just isn't something the game handles well and probably never will as long as in-party balance is any consideration.  And so, I don't bother trying to design for/around it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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