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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 3552684" data-attributes="member: 20564">Okay, I'm going to go back and be devils advocate on the ones that people put up.  Just trying to present another view.  A lot of these are more rules people dislike then rules that serve no purpose.  I'm trying to stay away from those.I was talking to a game designer who was doing an alternate players handbook, and he said that he originally took it out but it actually did help provide race flavor during playtests and put it back in - with favored class you were more likely to pick up a level or two of the favored class if it was worthwhile.I'd love to play devil's advocate on this, but I can't.  Well, I suppose I could say it adds to the purity of the classes, that from a flavor perspective they need to be completely focused.  But I'm biased against if it's needed because I don't like it.  If you want to design that in, then design it in by havign good abilities that keep coming at higher levels and play off character level.  The monk is a better example of this then the paladin...Conditional bonuses are the bread and butter of some DMing styles.  The rules can't touch everything.  "I watch the guard on his rounds and sneak past when he has his back turned."  How do you represent doing something smart like that without a conditional bonus?  And that's not even including things like ranger favored enemy or dwarven stonecraft.  They definitely serve a purpose, even if they are a bit unwieldy.I think the rule is a bit poorly done, but not useless.  I've seen it come up several in high level games.  Bard (the man, not the class) killing Smaug was a critical hit and massive damage.  The problem is that the Fort save is far to low by the time 50 points of damage is going out for it to come into play.Yes and no.  Just because they are poorly done doesn't mean they are superfluous.  From a game design I agree - simplify and remove ones that don't come into play.  But I do see the need for something besides just (lethal) HP damage.  Could conditions be done better - definitely.  Between Firelance and Wik you get "simplify and remove redundant", which makes sense.Used constantly in the game I run.  I think this may be more of a party compisition and DM thing then a rule that isn't needed.Aging rules can often be more a tool for a DM.  (Pet peeve - they also needed to go the other way and have adjustments for young, so I can have street urchin thieves.)Hard to played devil's advocate on these.  The only time they're used it's as a quick reference of averages for a player to base their character off.  But that's better as a line in race description then a rule, so I guess I have to agree that those aren't needed.That's 3.0, not 3.5.  So looks like the designers agreed with you that it's not needed.Okay, this was just trying to present other sides of the coin.  There were a lot of rules that people just didn't like - that's a different issue (and could be a fun thread).  Some of the ones above I'd change myself if writing the game from scratch, but most have a purpose, even if they don't do a great job of it.Cheers,=Blue(23)</blockquote>

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