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Message: <blockquote data-quote="drnuncheon" data-source="post: 149384" data-attributes="member: 96">I can think of a lot of reasons to get rid of classes and levels - most of them boil down to "there are more elegant ways of doing it".For example, the CoC 'classes' are OK - but they seem kind of clunky to me, for a lot of the same reasons that the D&D NPC classes seem clunky to a lot of people.  Things like: "why does the world's foremost expert on Pre-Imperial Merithian Pottery (Expert 10) get more attacks per round than my career soldier (Fighter 5)?"  If level were removed from the equation - or if combat prowess was a skill rather than being level dependant - then one could separate the Expert's high Knowledge skill from her level.That kind of thing works in D&D, where higher level = more heroic = better at everything. The farther you get from the cinematic-heroic style of play, though, the less it becomes appropriate.  I suppose you could eliminate BAB, save and hit point advancement from all non-martial classes but you're starting to venture away from elegance and into kludginess.I don't think of superheros as a genre that has the same core assumptions as D&D either.  Classes? Well, there are superhero archetypes, certainly, but I would view those as more akin to races as they don't tend to channel a character's development as much as a class does. For that matter, superheros don't show the same advancement patterns as D&D characters - has Mr. Fantastic raised his Knowledge (Physics) or Use Scientific Device skills?  Has Batman really gotten that much better at fighting since the 50s?  Instead, they tend to stay at the same level, with the occasional power (or new use for a power) being added.  So classes & levels don't really match superhero stuff either.  (To be honest, this is a thing that most superhero systems don't handle well - I think because of the strong desire for character improvement, which may be because people were used to it from D&D...)Anyway, I'd hate to see all the diversity go.  Sure, RPGs follow Sturgeon's Law - but the 10% has some genuine greats.  In fact, the diversity is what came back and strengthened and altered D&D and brought about the evolution to 3e in the first place.  So I'm all for it, even if it means there's a lot of crud out there - the good stuff more than makes up for it.J</blockquote>

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