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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6882739" data-attributes="member: 4937">[MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION]: I don't at all disagree that there are a lot of solid concepts that the core books don't support well that perhaps there should be support for.  I'm just not at all sure that the particular way the splat books go about it is the best way to go about it.  Lets say we decide that we want to make the ability to channel divine power more generally useful in cases where there aren't undead around, and that we want to support different thematic uses of divine power depending on the character concept.That's sounds good, and I agree that in theory that could help 1/2 casters more than full casters.So lets say we decide that it's a fair price to pay one feat to get the ability to turn one turning attempt into the equivalent of a 1st level spell.Well, right off the bat, that's a better feat than just about any non-caster feat as it is.  Spend one feat to get to get 6-8 additional 1st level spell slots?  Yes, please!  That's an awesome feat, even if it is restricted to a single spell and even if it is competing with another use of our (sometimes rarely used) class ability. But then, when you get to something like Sacred Healing and you start comparing it to standard spells, what you find is that this ability you just granted isn't in fact equivalent to a 1st level spell.  You find that the ability to heal 12-21 h.p. to all your allies is at least equivalent to Mass Cure Light wounds which is a fifth level spell.  So suddenly, from a relatively low level, we are now granting a sizable chunk of 5th level spell slots to a spell-caster.   This is beyond an awesome feat, and of course this radically increases the Paladin's ability to step into the role of healer.  Granting any class the ability to cast a half dozen or more 5th level spells of a particular type would radically increase that classes ability to fulfill whatever role that spell facilitated.  Typically, the way I would expect someone to respond to me at this point is to say something like, "Well, no, it's not that awesome.  The party could achieve basically the same effect with just a Wand of Cure Light Wounds."   And while the point is true, the fundamental argument being made with that sort of rebuttal is, "Since there exists something isn't balanced, it doesn't matter really what the power level of anything else is."  It's that sort of thinking which lead to 3.5 being so wholly imbalanced, especially once people started combining different redundant facilitating features into single builds.  I think it's very easy as a 3.5 player to fall into the trap of thinking that because they can think of something that is even more game breaking, that X thing is well balanced.   You have to step back I think and compare what you are doing to some sort of baseline just to be able to answer the question, "Exactly what are we doing here?"</blockquote>

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