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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6095770" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I've been saying for literally years, WELL before Essentials, IIRC well before PHB3, that 4e should have used power source based power lists instead of class lists. There could be SOME class powers of course, but you'd get your basic mechanics from source, then toss on class features and maybe theme on top to give them specific utility in your role. Drop the game to 20 levels with 6-7 levels/tier, cut out some fat, replace a lot of powers with single scaling variants, etc and you can end up with a VERY compact power list, even with a lot of classes, and certainly HALF the 4e classes are useless cruft and/or can be subsumed in other concepts.As you say, lists do tend to grow. I think Mike is ready to try to stop doing that. I'm not sure if in the long run any game that continues to get support will resist entirely, but my main point is the existence, nominally, of lists doesn't force them to be too long, any more than they are in B/X. As for things like Archer, the flaw I think that 4e ran into was associating ability score with powers. That both necessitated a differentiation between weapons and/or splitting classes, or a V class (ranger), etc. If ALL attacks with a bow were just to use dex, then you have solved the problem. A good archer has a high dex, and uses a bow. Whatever other options exist can be class-independent and just build on that. You can use that approach with power based classes or any other design, and it makes perfectly good sense. It provides a good logic for the rogue -> dagger kind of thing too, rogues use daggers because the essence of being a rogue benefits from dex and daggers are dex based light weapons. I THINK you run into a lot less corner cases this way than you did in 4e, and while it is still odd to make your fighter that is primarily about 'defending' into a bow user it is not that big a deal, less so even if you are building classes to fill several roles.</blockquote>

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