Petrosian said:
Why would you need RULES for this? A class is a set of abilities to represent an archtype in the campaign. PRCs even more tend to reflect specific groups within the campaign itself. I don't need rules to tell me whether the Knight of the ShireWood have bonuses against their traditional enemies, do I?
Again, why would i need RULES for this. If the feat progression i create accomplishes my goal, it is good.
Before I could convince you of why rules are needed for these things, I would have to convince you that the statement in your signature is wrong:
"Balance and imbalance start, run, and end with the GM and the GM alone. No rule, no system, no player, just GM."
Yeah, the GM can tailor the game so that imbalances inherant in the rules do not affect play, but it gets to be a little forced and contrived after a while. It would be preferable if a GM could work on an adventure with mostly the story to worry about and spend minimal energy making sure everyone can contribute to the group effort (assuming your players are role playing people in a party and there is a group effort, and not individuals moving seperately).
There are some basic guidelines for creating new spells in the DMG. Spells are subdivided into levels to help gadge when they should become available to PCs. But there are hundreds of feats out there with a wide range of power and no obvious indicator of their strength. And how many of these feats are so (comparatively) underpowered that they have *never* been chosen by a player? Likewise, there are hundreds of prestige classes now that are obviously out of balance (Red Avenger vs Templar or Ninja of the Crescent Moon? And these are the WotC prestige classes!) There needs to be concrete rules on how to assign prerequisites and design these things. Perhaps feats should be organized into tiers like spell levels.
Most classes have what i call a DYNAMIC equilibruim as opposed to a STATIC equilibrium. This appears to have been a design goal of 3e.
In some case, the fighter is clearly the superior choice for solving the problems, given his abilities. In other cases, the Wizard is. in others the cleric is. That means IF the GM applies a reasonablely diverse series of situations and challenges, each class will get his niche scratched now and again.
I have not seen any class "useless" out of a dungeon at all.
I have to disagree with you here. The fighter is good at fighting. THAT'S IT. Put a 20th lvl rogue in a cage and he might be able to pick the lock. The 20th lvl wizard could disintegrate the bars, teleport, summon some monsters to help him, ethereal jaunt, etc., etc. The 20th lvl fighter? "Well, I could fight really well if someone lets me out!"
IMO, spell casters are clearly more often able to tackle general problems then non spell casters (excluding rangers and paladins who have a small spell list). If you're unconvinced, picture each D&D class in our world, would the ability to fight really well be worth the power to turn invisible, charm people, summon minions, teleport, move really fast, and fly?
I said the dungeon setting was limitted because:
* You fight most everything you meet.
* There often isn't time for wizards and clerics to prepare the spells that are best for a given situation. Usually, in story focused adventures and everyday life, there would be.
People will often say non-spellcasters can acquire magical items to do all the things that the spell casters can do, but who makes these magical items? The spellcasters.
Thats not a system issue, however, tho YMMV.
Since I have no idea what YMMV means, no comment
