NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6179026" data-attributes="member: 37579">It's a matter of degree. If you have five characters who are all fighters but different subclasses they will be more alike than unalike. If they were all martial melee classes they'll be almost completely unlike. (Or the classes will be redundant.) So describing the classes takes more effort. And nothing is forcing you to use subclasses. But this actually highlights another benefit of subclasses. New classes mean adding something to the game. New mechanics to learn, new content to add to the world, etc. More work for the DM. If not buying a new book means you don't need to add things, it's easier to skip the book. If the options just expand on content you're already using, classes and races that are already a part of the game, it's easier to work into the game. Which makes Accessories more attractive, as their expansions not ad-ons.The Mage Issue is non-representational of this issue. That's a whole other discussion. The Mage Issue is really about turning formerly core classes into subclasses, while much of this subclass discussion focuses on reducing splatbooks classes into subclasses. This isn't an either/or issue. You're allowed to like the idea and focus on subclasses over new classes and still think they're going too far. Personally, I think adding psions to the mix is too much. But I still like the focus on fewer classes.  This is irrelevant. They've already said (multiple times over the past year) that they will have alternate spellcasting. So, regardless of class, you can use Vancian or spell points, or powers. So if someone wants to play an arcane caster they don't have to pick a side class if they hate Vancian casting.What will seperate the warlock subclass from the wizard subclass will likely be mechanics unrelated to casting.True, there's nothing stopping a subclass from being OP. But that wasn't what I was saying. I was saying that it's easier to balance a subclass than a full class. Because it's simply less work to balance abilities gained over 3-6 levels rather than powers gained over 20 levels. In addition to having fewer powers, you can also compare it to other subclasses, rather than trying to balance against every class in the game. As you already have the relative power of the class balanced. Actually, it does. If it's a class then you either have support or not. However, if it's a subclass then a lot of the content created for other subclasses might apply. If there's a separate shadowdancer you might not see feats, items, and the like that works with that class. If the shadowdancer is a rogue subclass then options for the rogue -both past and future- might work for the subclass. And content that is created with the shadowdancer in mind might still work with other rogue subclasses.Again, with alternate spell systems this is moot. You could okay a wizard with powers or a warlock with Vancian spells.The trick is phrasing the rules module to work with feats.</blockquote>

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