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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4123855" data-attributes="member: 710">They did something like that in the Farscape d20 Implementation. It was definitely badly thought out. Aside from Hit points, Characters also had Control Points that were used to "power" magic effects and special abilities. A Hynerican had a lot HD. And if he picked his most appropriate class (judging from the shows primrary Hynerican character, an exiled king of the Hynerians), he would end up with low HP (due to race) and low control points (due to class). No surprise that he was a coward and typically grumpy...On the other hand, the most effective character could be modelled after another character, a Priestess. High Hit Dice, high Control Points. At worst, with this system you get only Orc or Dwarfen characters for everything. If you're lucky, rare characters (like Halfling Barbarians or Orc Wizards) become more prevalent, since you can at least compensate the weaknesses...If you want a race to "generate" a lot of hit points, ensure that it has a good con and has a in-built reason to pick classes with a lot of hit points to gain. That is indeed a problem. Or maybe _THE_ problem. And it is a _very_ fundamental problem of the 3E. The whole class advancement table supports the expanding gap between the specialized and non-specialist (Wizard BAB vs Fighter BAB). Feats or class abilities help further (Rage/Weapon Focus vs lower BAB, or Skill Focus vs Cross Class Skill). Buff spells enforce it further (Bull Strength to Fighter-Types vs Eagle's Splendor). Magical Weapons add again (+X Sword vs Light Crossbow?). Magical Buff Items cement the effect of Buff Spells (Gloves of Ogre Power vs Headband of Intellect)A lot of this stuff "makes sense" on its own. Why would a wizard need more strength? Why would he need a high BAB? But added on top of each other, you get an overspecialisation effect. Adding yet another class ability that enforces this won't help at all. And then, you combine this with "Fire & Forget" magic/spells as daily resources. Probably starting around 5th level, a casters crossbow doesn't make a difference. His attack bonus is too low, and if he hits, he deals neglible amounts of damage. So he wants to cast spells, otherwise he is just standing around until the time he is needed. Which conceptually sounds nice, but the truth is, if the group can rest easily/with little risk, why not "go nova", cast a spell every round and have fun, and avoid any risks? (If the caster is nice, he just uses a lot of buff spells to ensure that the full party is doing it works, but since many buff spells don't stack with magical items, this might not be "wise". Or at least their acquisition wasn't <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )Mayb e a solution would be to considerably change BAB/Save advancement. Instead of "increasing gaps" give "kickers". (That's what 4E appears to be doing.) But this causes imbalances at the extremes if applied to 3E. Low level monsters (unadjusted) AC is suddenly too low, High level monsters AC is suddenly to high. Weapons or Implements are given to everyone, and they all can have an enhancement bonus that improve your attacks...And this doesn't fully address the AC of player characters yet. In some ways, the armor system already uses a kind of "kicker" mechanic. But then, you have several "standard" bonus types (that can be acquired by core spells or core items) like shield + armor (both with their enhancement chances), and deflection and natural armor. On the other hand, you have mostly enhancement and strength/dex boost. So you have to shift around stacking rules here again. In the end, you probably will no longer have a 3.x compatible system. But maybe you don't need to aim for the solution for everything. I mean, that's what 4E is already doing, right? (It might not be the best, or the only, or the preferred solution, but it seems to offer at least one). In doing so, it sacrifices compatibility. So maybe the Pathfinder RPG shouldn't aim to high in regards of "fixing" the system if they also want to keep a compatible system. There is certainly room for improvement in 3.5 without throwing compatibility out of the window. The Alpha release doesn't look to work here, but -  that's what the Alpha and public playtest are for.(And maybe I am wrong. Maybe "extremizing" the game even further without rebalancing everything else will really encourage people being a little less "min-maximized" focussed? As an example: I know that most of my 25 point buy characters had very similar basic "stat arrays", but higher point-buy characters usually were a little more varied and I felt encouraged to put points in ability scores I normally wouldn't have considered in fear of inferior characters. Like high Charisma-Barbarians and so.)</blockquote>

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