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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5634472" data-attributes="member: 54877">I grant you that it is an ambitious and difficult task. However, I don't think it is quite as bad as all that, on either the mix of options for players, or re-adjusting for balance. Consider that you have several modular add ons that applies to all characters or weapon users or spell casters or fighters or wizards in particular (or elves or dwarves or people who wear flowers in their hair--doesn't matter). Assume that each one has been pegged as being worth N units of power, per the article. You might have Fighter Thing #2 with units of power 3. And then you also have some special Fighter Feats with units of power 2. And then there is a special All Characters Option A with units of power 1. But you might also have Really Simple Fighter Thing #2, also with units of power 3. Or Really Simple Fighter Thing #1, with units of power 2.  Really Simple Fighter Thing #2 is what a fighter player picks when everyone else is getting options worth 3 units of power, and the player wants to stay uncomplicated. Or if doesn't mind a little complication, maybe he goes with Really Simple Fighter Thing #1 and the All Characters Option A. This says absolutely nothing about what other characters might pick. Now obviously, if some of these are thematic, they might not apply in a certain campaign. But I think that ultimately boils down to what the players want and are wiling to handle. It makes sense to say, "I'd like a simple option and a complex option for a fighter having a keep." It doesn't make sense to say, "I'd like a simple option for a fighter having a keep that adds no complexity compared to a fighter not having a keep." That's not a desire for a mechanics options. Rather it is a desire that the keep be essentially color or entirely roleplaying driven. Nothing wrong with that, but you don't gain "units of power" from such things, except insomuch as the group wants to. For balance, one of the nice things with lots of options that are discrete is that sometimes there is nothing wrong with the option as written--just the value assigned to it. In that case, rather than buff or nerf the option, you simply change the value to better reflect its worth. One of the problems with feats is that you don't have such a value. With powers (and spells in earlier versions), you always had the option to change the level. Monte Cook wrote in one of his design articles (I think for Book of Eldritch Might, could have been something else) that part of the drive to have spell levels correspond to character levels was to have a greater opportunity to tweak power level. They considered it for 3E, with the express intention of moving tings like mirror image into the level "half space" opened in such a design.</blockquote>

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