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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6290044" data-attributes="member: 4937">This.&nbsp; There were several important ideas that the rules were intended to ecapsulate.&nbsp; One was to discourage lots of class dipping to pick up front ended powers, while still allowing classes to be front ended so you could play the concept from level 1.&nbsp; Another was to provide a large advantage in flexibility to humans so that if you wanted to play something that did 'dip' in an odd way, human would be the preferred concept.Other similar heavily ignored rules where people complain about the results:Entry into PrCs was originally not supposed to be on the basis of mechanical value of the PrC, but only on the basis of in game play.&nbsp; PrC's access is supposed to be a reward for RP engagement with a particular setting, not a part of standard PC character creation.&nbsp; When that got invalidated, admittedly with WotC's encouragement when they started marketting PrC's to players, just about the last good justification for PrC's went away.Cross class skills.&nbsp; Throwing this out tends to tie into easy access to multiple PrCs to bring the brokeness faster.&nbsp; Throw out the multiclassing penalties as well and PrCs with complex requirements just get that much more broken.Even without dropping the rules, the PrC/Multiclassing nonsense was probably the biggest thing that drove me from 3.5.&nbsp; They took a relatively easy problem and replaced it with tons of harder problems.&nbsp;&nbsp; Fundamentally, the throwing out of multiclassing penalties, cross class skills, and lots of other rules seems to be motivated by the desire to break Celebrim's 1st Law of RPGs: &quot;Thou shalt not be good at everything.&quot;The whole justification for all this tends to be, &quot;Well, Wizards/Clerics/Druids are OP.&quot;Ok, sure, the 1st tier classes do break the 1st Law, especially when optimized. But, instead of fixing that, why create all this elaborate rules scaffolding which ultimately not only doesn't fix the problem - Wizards/Clerics/Druids are still OP - but often leads to hideous caster brokenness as well - &quot;You mean I can keep my full caster spell progression and get the equivalent of a bonus feat every level and [do some broken thing with DCs/Metamagic/caster level] too?&nbsp; Sold.&quot;&nbsp; Why is the solution to the OP nature of Wizards/Clerics/Druids, &quot;Let's just make everything OP.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; I mean, I know why WoTC took short term profits over long term success and health of the 3.X system by encouraging that sort of outlook through the splatbooks, I just don't understand why DMs and players put up with it.If you add to that the 'magic wal-mart' issues resulting from making all wealth fully fungible, you basically have the CharOP boards.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6290044, member: 4937"] This. There were several important ideas that the rules were intended to ecapsulate. One was to discourage lots of class dipping to pick up front ended powers, while still allowing classes to be front ended so you could play the concept from level 1. Another was to provide a large advantage in flexibility to humans so that if you wanted to play something that did 'dip' in an odd way, human would be the preferred concept. Other similar heavily ignored rules where people complain about the results: Entry into PrCs was originally not supposed to be on the basis of mechanical value of the PrC, but only on the basis of in game play. PrC's access is supposed to be a reward for RP engagement with a particular setting, not a part of standard PC character creation. When that got invalidated, admittedly with WotC's encouragement when they started marketting PrC's to players, just about the last good justification for PrC's went away. Cross class skills. Throwing this out tends to tie into easy access to multiple PrCs to bring the brokeness faster. Throw out the multiclassing penalties as well and PrCs with complex requirements just get that much more broken. Even without dropping the rules, the PrC/Multiclassing nonsense was probably the biggest thing that drove me from 3.5. They took a relatively easy problem and replaced it with tons of harder problems. Fundamentally, the throwing out of multiclassing penalties, cross class skills, and lots of other rules seems to be motivated by the desire to break Celebrim's 1st Law of RPGs: "Thou shalt not be good at everything." The whole justification for all this tends to be, "Well, Wizards/Clerics/Druids are OP." Ok, sure, the 1st tier classes do break the 1st Law, especially when optimized. But, instead of fixing that, why create all this elaborate rules scaffolding which ultimately not only doesn't fix the problem - Wizards/Clerics/Druids are still OP - but often leads to hideous caster brokenness as well - "You mean I can keep my full caster spell progression and get the equivalent of a bonus feat every level and [do some broken thing with DCs/Metamagic/caster level] too? Sold." Why is the solution to the OP nature of Wizards/Clerics/Druids, "Let's just make everything OP." I mean, I know why WoTC took short term profits over long term success and health of the 3.X system by encouraging that sort of outlook through the splatbooks, I just don't understand why DMs and players put up with it. If you add to that the 'magic wal-mart' issues resulting from making all wealth fully fungible, you basically have the CharOP boards. [/QUOTE]

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