Personally I enjoy the skill system set up in World Tree where the skills have actual levels to them but there are no classes. This allows a character to have a great deal of different skills that exactly match the idea for the character rather than being rigidly based on western stereotypes. In World Tree a character can have no levels to beyond twenty in a given skill. In D&D you end up being very limited by class level. There's not a great deal of difference at first level between someone with 4 skill points or 3, and feats, ability scores, and similar can make such skills almost meaningless. And that's not even getting into the societal problems that come wit the restriction of skills, there's absolutely no reason an Elven Wizard should be restricted to the same set of skills a Human Wizard is.
As an example: you could never have a Wizard from Sparta in D&D because all Spartans were taught the martial arts from a very young age and Wizards are traditionally seen as too weak physically to do much. They aren't allowed to learn most types of weapons or armor unless you multiclass, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. Wizards are supposed to be smart, why can't they figure out how to use arms and armor like everyone else? Even Gandalf was able to use a long sword.
As an example: you could never have a Wizard from Sparta in D&D because all Spartans were taught the martial arts from a very young age and Wizards are traditionally seen as too weak physically to do much. They aren't allowed to learn most types of weapons or armor unless you multiclass, which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. Wizards are supposed to be smart, why can't they figure out how to use arms and armor like everyone else? Even Gandalf was able to use a long sword.
