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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6030022" data-attributes="member: 42582">In one of my builds, working from a playtest spell list, you have to take only half or so of the spells you are entitled to for levels gained from 2 to 5. I personally think that that's not too bad, and isn't an instance of the "Oberoni Fallacy" - no PC build or action resolution rules have to be changed - it's in the same ballpark as a PC with armour proficiency nevertheless not wearing armour (like my cleric build).D&D doesn't have an archetype of a non-magic-using sage. Its sage archetype comes from classic D&D, and is a spell-user. On the PC side it's traditionally been covered by the wizard.A game which makes scholarly wizards viable as PCs has no design room for a mundane sage - because there is no room to push the scholarly side harder than the wizard builds in question. They are already maximally scholastic!Rolemaster has this very problem for its non-spell-using scholar class (found in RMC2, and also in the current playtest version of Character Law). The scholar is no better at scholarship than spell users - the only advantage a scholar has is less punitive PC build costs for non-scholarly pursuits (and in practice it is an NPC class - players build casters!).The only way to create room for a "balanced" non-spell using scholar option is to reduce the scholarly dimensions of wizards, warlocks and clerics - which would be to go against all the traditions of D&D! As [MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION] said, if you want to play a non-spell-using sage PC in D&D, you have to just build a weak PC - follow the wizard rules but don't give yourself any spells!I've just given one example - if one of your "3"s is spell-use, then creating an option for a non-spell-using scholar requires watering down the scholarship of spell-using classes. Which would be contrary to the traditional "story" of D&D, in which spell-users (at least a certain class of them) are the most scholarly individuals that they are. (And it's not as if that approach has no foundation in broader legend and fairy-tale.)The same thing applies in relation to combat, too. If you make a player who is building a fighter pay resources to get social abilities, that could instead be spent on making the PC a better fighter, you create needless pressure towards all (or, at least, the best) fighters being asocial desperadoes. Whereas, in my view, D&D is best served both in mechanical smoothness of play and in story terms by having the charismatic and sociable fighter be a norm, who does not need to sacrifice fighting ability to get there (again, this is a reiteratin of [MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION]'s point above).Furthermore, as I said in an earlier post, disparities that preclude meaningful participation in a given scene destabilise party play unless various sorts of "stabilising" mechanics are brought in, such as "carry over" bonuses from scene to scene, augments based on thematic/metagame/narrative considerations rather than simulationist/causal ones, etc. And D&Dnext will not have those sorts of mechanics, given the hosing received by the very modest versions of them present in 4e."Meaningful" is, of course, somewhat amorphous in its content - but even my example sages have enough hit points to have a chance of surviving the first blow from an orc's axe. Plus the warlock can Eldritch Blast. The cleric can Searing Light. And the wizard can Charm Person ("Away put your weapons!"), and/or protect him-/herself using Shield.</blockquote>

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