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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5947007" data-attributes="member: 87792">I do.  I also think that it's a really hard challenge.  And nothing ever produced by WoTC before Essentials has ever given me the impression that any of the owners of D&D post-Gygax have a clue how to go about doing this. 1e pre-weapon specialisation was a miserable failure for the fighter.  (Compare fighters to clerics) - and the thief was a problem (and nothing like as much of one as the monk).  2e headed to failure despite the near solid core Gygax left them.  3e was bad right out of the gate and only got worse - and Pathfinder has added both the Gunslinger and the Summoner.There are two approaches that work.  Exuberance and backlash.Exuberance says that everyone is the best there is at what they do.  (At least the best at their level).  And exuberance is why the 2e approach worked.  If you want a huge horde of enemies chopped up, who are you going to call?  The Fighter.  The cleric is doing less than two thirds of his damage of a fighter with weapon spec - but the fighter can't step on anyone else's toes.Backlash says that for mechanical reasons the characters that are actually more powerful don't want to use their powers.  Because they cost Sanity (call of Cthulu) or accidently let demons into the world (WHFRP).  So although they spike higher, people know why they don't do everything.So does D&D next have either backlash or exuberance?  It certainly don't have backlash.  As for exuberance, we can check by looking at the 'mundane' archetypes.  The fighter and the thief.  Is the fighter exuberant?  Is he really the best there is at what he does?  Take away theme and stat differences and the fighter has an unexplained +1 to hit - and +4 damage (of which +2 are explained).  The warpriest on the other hand can match that +4 damage with +d6 from crusader's strike, and gains +1 to AC against the fighter's +1 to hit.  Is the fighter exuberant?  Hell no.  As for the thief?  The thief came closer.  It's the skill monkey.  (Who can't find traps based on the build).  But as a sneak is the thief exuberant?  Can the thief cross even a doorway without cover?  No.  Can the thief climb round the doorway?  No.  The thief is not exuberant.If your resources are interchangeable you quickly run into an analogue to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law" target="_blank">Gresham's Law</a>.  "Bad money drives out good." Fighter resources are interchangeable with warpriest ones.I'd rather they seemed homogenous and really weren't than we were back to a huge power disparity that claimed not to exist.  But then I'm a 4e player.</blockquote>

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