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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6127138" data-attributes="member: 42582">Not at all. I enjoyed the post.I don't find this particular way of distnguishing build elements helpful, mostly because nouns, verbs and adverbs can be fairly easily transformed into one another. Am I a baker who uses flour? A producer of products from flour who uses an oven? A warrior who beats people up with weapons? A weapon-wielder who fights to win?I mean, the class which started out as magic-user (how one does things, presumably - by using magic) is now called wizard (which presumably names a profession, what it is that one does).I feel that your post takes a very process-simulation approach to PC-build elements. But we needne't do that.For instance, suppose the difference between "feat" and "class" is "little mechanical element" and "big bundle of mechanical elements with a whole range of sizes". Then, in choosing the "gladiator" feat I am choosing to make gladiating only a modest part of my PC's overall mechanical build. Whereas in choosing the "gladiator" sub-class I am choosing to make gladiating a very rich part of my PC's overall mechanical build.But neither choice has necessary implications for how big gladiating is in the story of my PC. On either build it might be that gladiating is a big part of who my PC is, or a small part.A couple of examples from my 4e game - a PC in my game started out as a wizard with a religious devotee background, at one point added a cleric multi-class feat to reflect that background, at a later point retrained that for an invoker multi-class feat to open up a particular paragon path choice, then - after dying and being resurrected - was rebuilt by the player as an invoker (with a wizard multi-class) to better give voice to what the PC was really about.The story of the PC didn't change particularly over the course of these rebuilds (though in some ways it got richer) - rather, different mechanical elements were added and subtracted which change the way the PC is expressed in play.Furthermore, the real character of the PC is as a sage and ritualist, even though - because the game is 4e - the single biggest area of the character sheet deals with combat-relevant abilities. So in play the PC is expressed very much via combat abilities - but this doesn't mean that the PC's background and character isn't that of a sage.</blockquote>

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