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Tasha’s cauldron character thread
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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8133543" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>I think the rationale for WotC not going that way was because they deliberately wanted to limit choices to avoid the build-planning minigame that 3.x could turn into, and to avoid the necessity of balancing features against each other one on one. The subclass system has its weaknesses, but it gives a lot more design leeway if you think of a cool, interesting, powerful level 11 feature and want to design a subclass to use it, you can the subclass by giving it a weak level 14 feature, rather than having to do your balancing on the granular feature level. If people can pick and choose features from a list as they go, the decision spaces for system mastery shenanigans and broken combinations becomes much bigger, and you inevitably have to prerequisite-gate some of the features and then you're basically right back where you started in 3e with Pun-Pun.</p><p></p><p>It does limit character development choices as you level up though. Unless you're playing a spells-known caster, the only meaningful character customisation choices you'll make after level 3 are your ability score increases or feat selections, once every four levels. Which I do find a bit of a lack in the system at times, I admit - I'd prefer more but weaker feats, but of course that would open up the decision space for char op, as mentioned above...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8133543, member: 5948"] I think the rationale for WotC not going that way was because they deliberately wanted to limit choices to avoid the build-planning minigame that 3.x could turn into, and to avoid the necessity of balancing features against each other one on one. The subclass system has its weaknesses, but it gives a lot more design leeway if you think of a cool, interesting, powerful level 11 feature and want to design a subclass to use it, you can the subclass by giving it a weak level 14 feature, rather than having to do your balancing on the granular feature level. If people can pick and choose features from a list as they go, the decision spaces for system mastery shenanigans and broken combinations becomes much bigger, and you inevitably have to prerequisite-gate some of the features and then you're basically right back where you started in 3e with Pun-Pun. It does limit character development choices as you level up though. Unless you're playing a spells-known caster, the only meaningful character customisation choices you'll make after level 3 are your ability score increases or feat selections, once every four levels. Which I do find a bit of a lack in the system at times, I admit - I'd prefer more but weaker feats, but of course that would open up the decision space for char op, as mentioned above... [/QUOTE]
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