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Message: <blockquote data-quote="A_Carrington" data-source="post: 9897141" data-attributes="member: 7053765">Classes do not reduce complexity, lol. They're mostly good at adding a bunch of options to a character that the player wasn't interested in and doesn't care about, so they represent wasted resources they could have spent elsewhere, while also making the character clunkier to play for no benefit.Like in d&d, it's way more difficult than it needs to be to play a strongly themed wizard. Suppose I want to play a frost mage in core 3.5 for example. How many cold themed spells even are there in the book? And am I screwing myself out of being relevant to the game by picking them?Seriously, here are all of the leveled wizard cold themed spells in PHB 1.1st : Chill Touch2nd : Resist Energy, if you choose cold3rd : Protection from Energy, if you choose cold ; Sleet Storm4th : Ice Storm ; Wall of Ice5th : Cone of Cold6th : Freezing Sphere7th : Control Weather (debatable)8th : Polar Ray9th : Nothing (Using Wish to duplicate one of the others is just casting that other spell).So, one thing immediately jumps out at me here. A wizard automatically knows three first level spells at level 1 at minimum, and learns two new spells at every new experience level. There aren't even two cold spells available at the majority of spell levels to learn. So, from the very beginning of the game, we are forced to make choices that take us further away from our intended concept, and add things we're not interested in. And it gets worse with every level gained. Remember, since you only get access to a new level of spells every two levels, there would have to be a minimum of four cold spells at every spell level in order for the frost mage to work.And I was actually sandbagging in favor of classes with this example. Heaven forbid I choose an actually rare damage type, like acid or force or radiant to specialize in. Or if I wanted to be a wizard who focuses entirely on bringing objects to life. Or any of a million other possible character concepts.Now let's compare that to how easy and fast it is to make a frost mage in a good game. A single power, Elemental Control, can represent pretty much anything the spells listed above can do, and a lot more besides, and I don't need to remember a bunch of different rules for every single thing I want to do. I can protect myself with armor made of ice, I can attack foes with icicle barrages, I can defend myself in close combat with an ice hammer, I can make walls of ice, I can even travel at high speed with ice slides, something that I simply can't do with any d&d cold spell.And I can do it all from the start of the game. I don't have to wait until level 15 to be a frost wizard. I can just be a frost wizard.Alternatively, if I prefer, I can purchase more specific powers like Blast or Strike and apply modifiers like Sweep, Burst, Area, and Reach to change how they work to fit my specific theme. I can buy Armor (Ice). I can buy Summoning and get little snowmen that follow me around. I can buy Sidekick and have an ice golem.And since every single power I choose is something I specifically intended to get, and customized specifically to support my character, I'll actually use them, and won't forget what they do. Every option I choose supports my concept.The best feature, of course, is that every single option mentioned is guaranteed to be neither over nor under powered relative to any other character concept, no matter what it is. There are no dominant strategies, even when every player is doing their best to make effective characters. I don't have to choose between flavor and roleplaying and fun and being relevant to the game and the game being easy to understand and to play. I can have it all.</blockquote>

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