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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 2107424" data-attributes="member: 8158">If a system isn't defined by classes or levels, then it's defined by points or some other finite resource. Your mage may be as good with a pistol as the "gun bunny", but is he as skilled at everything else the gunner can do? How about those high-power asault rifles? And to actually be as good with a pistol, wouldn't you also need all of the cyber-enhancements that increase the gunner's accuracy, which would consequently impact your spellcasting ability? At some point, there are sacrifices to be made and you are limited in what you can do by the resources the system allots you. Shadowrun offers a sufficiently generous allotment that you don't have to make huge sacrifices right away in order to co-opt aspects of someone else's archetype (and we can reserve the topic of whether or not it is too generous to the minmaxers for a different debate).In d20, these resources consist of levels and class options. If you start a character at 1st level, then the options are limited indeed. If you boost those levels, you get more feats, more skill points, and you gain the ability to multi-class, including access to advanced classes. There are means to be a spellcasting warrior or a technician with social skills, it's just a matter of what you're willing to trade off, just as in SR.</blockquote>