The talk about "different power sources", especially taken in the light of the Bo9S and how Force powers and certain class features work in the SWSE makes me feel like the designers are essentially thinking about giving "spells" to all classes.
It doesn't really matter what you call it - whether it's a spell, a maneuver, a stunt, a trick, or whether the "power source" is called martial, divine or arcane - if the underlying mechanics end up being similar. (with per day, per encounter and at will abilities, most of which are clearly extraordinary)
Which isn't really a new idea - IIRC, the old Earthdawn RPG (which I only had peripheral experiences with as a Shadowrun player) had a very high-magic world in which all characters - regardless of whether they specialized in hitting people with swords or spells were at their core magic-using "adepts".
It isn't an inherently bad idea, either, it just doesn't feel a lot like D&D to me. Sure, there is currently a huge high-level gap between magic users and mundane characters, and arguably, books like Bo9s have helped redress the imbalance - but I don't think giving non-magical classes spells with the serial numbers filed off is much of a solution.
If you're going to design rules intended to get around the built-in limitations of the current class-based D&D system, why use classes at all? Go all the way, none of these half-measures that always leave me with the vague feeling that my intelligence is being insulted. As if someone out there is hoping that if enough superficial features are left intact, you will think it's still basically the same game, despite the fact you're no longer even remotely the demographic they're aiming at...
It doesn't really matter what you call it - whether it's a spell, a maneuver, a stunt, a trick, or whether the "power source" is called martial, divine or arcane - if the underlying mechanics end up being similar. (with per day, per encounter and at will abilities, most of which are clearly extraordinary)
Which isn't really a new idea - IIRC, the old Earthdawn RPG (which I only had peripheral experiences with as a Shadowrun player) had a very high-magic world in which all characters - regardless of whether they specialized in hitting people with swords or spells were at their core magic-using "adepts".
It isn't an inherently bad idea, either, it just doesn't feel a lot like D&D to me. Sure, there is currently a huge high-level gap between magic users and mundane characters, and arguably, books like Bo9s have helped redress the imbalance - but I don't think giving non-magical classes spells with the serial numbers filed off is much of a solution.
If you're going to design rules intended to get around the built-in limitations of the current class-based D&D system, why use classes at all? Go all the way, none of these half-measures that always leave me with the vague feeling that my intelligence is being insulted. As if someone out there is hoping that if enough superficial features are left intact, you will think it's still basically the same game, despite the fact you're no longer even remotely the demographic they're aiming at...
