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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6052116" data-attributes="member: 996">Actually, the problem is labeling a mechanic 'spellcasting,' when it's more general than that.  Fighters in 4e categorically do not cast spells.  Not any more than they did in 0D&D when using a magic bow, because magic missle was equivalent to a +1 arrow from a +1 bow.  But, while the objection is spurious, it is powerful, and the sort of thing you suggest - spells being feats and spell-casting being skills would be just as vulnerable to the same sort of spurious objections.  Of course, the same emotional impetus to launch a campaign of hatred and mis-information, might or might not be there in whatever hypothetical alternate universe WotC might actually try such a thing.  Still, it's as (in)valid an objection to the idea as it was to 4e, and it was one of the things that helped pull down 4e in only 2 years, so it would seem like a very risky move, as well as being a 180 from the stated 5e goal of stitching together a new edition from the "best" (most popular/familiar/whatever) bits of the various dead editions.There are very solid 'gamist' reasons - balance, consistency, playability, ease of designing new material, etc, etc...  There also aren't any reasons characters of the same level shouldn't have the same number of various arbitrary mechanics, like hit dice, for instance, or feats, or max ranks in trained skills."Play experience" is very subjective, of course, and a virtually classless system would likely be perceived as different, even if it did cleave very closely in many ways.Really, the direction you're outlining is a good one, I don't really want to discourage you from speculating on it.  It's just the same direction as 4e took, and that didn't work out so well.  You're starting from a different point and taking it much farther, but it's still the same direction.When 3.5 was current, it became very clear that the balancing of the fighter, an elegant class design if ever any edition of D&D had one, against classes with dailies, simply didn't work.  At the time, like you're doing now, I'd occasionally advocate that the game would be better if everyone worked like the fighter: with abilities all what we now call "at will," and classes highly customizable.  The downside, of course, was that it "wouldn't be D&D anymore."  The alternative, which I was always quick to dismiss, was to 'make everyone a caster' - give all classes dailies.  4e did that, it gave everyone dailies and balanced them something like casters, though turned down from 11.  The launch of 4e was somehow mis-handled, garnered a lot of bad will, and because WotC also chose to abandon the OGL, left a wide-open opportunity for Paizo (as it turned out) to cash in on the nerdrage.  But, the upshot of it is that "making classes the same" mechanically, is now viewed as anathema to D&D.  Since it really amounts to moving towards a classless system, that's not 100% hate and hysteria, there's a grain of truth there.  Class is one of the eldest and most sacred of the D&D cows.Nod.  Which is why 5e is cobbling things together from past eds rather than trying anything new.  Even 'bounded accuracy' and XD & maneuvers have turned out to just be BAB & bonus feats turned inside-out.  In that sense you're getting part of what you want - martial characters will all essentially be a bit like 3e fighters.The problem is the many people who don't.  5e is catering to them.  Change just isn't in the cards this time around.  4e tried it, failed, and the pendulum has swung in a decidedly reactionary direction as a result.  I rather like the idea of building on the elegance and customizability of the 3.x fighter design, but it would have it's issues, too.  Customizability leaves the door pretty wide-open to the worst abuses of 'powergaming,' for instance.</blockquote>

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