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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6887091" data-attributes="member: 996">Re-skinning just isn't the thing in 5e that it was in 4e and other MMOs (yeah, cheap shot - but, why not, I don't feel like enduring another round of personal attacks).  When it was announced, and through the Next playtest, the push was always to make classes more distinctive and fluff/crunch more integrated.  The benefits of that should be obvious (and were certainly debated enough to refrain from doing so again).  Same with the downsides.  That's why keeping the Barbarian was dubious.  But, OTOH, 5e is very much the compromise edition, and the Barbarian was a very prominent part of 3.x (in the PH1, arguably the best class for melee and the best 'training wheels' class) - the 5e Barbarian leaning heavily towards the 3e version only makes sense, that way. In theory (and not just in theory) you could have a system that is so effects-based that fluff really can be anything.  Even Hero didn't go quite that far (there were some powers and limitations that referenced 'special effects'), but it came close.  4e actually /did/ segregate fluff and crunch and let you mess with the former - but 'crunch' included things like 'Source,' so you, indeed, could not simply re-fluff your WotST's 'One Sword' as a secret martial-arts maneuver, because it would still have the Arcane keyword.He actually said mechanics rather than balance.  But, yeah, how much harder would it be to put up with a re-fluffed character if that 'cosmetic' change somehow made it broken?  Someone, for want of a psion, re-fluffs their Sorcerer as a psionic, and the DM lets him get away with being immune to Dispel Magic and using his full powers while everyone else's spells, ki, and magic items fail them in an anti-magic zone.  There are all sorts of examples of self-injury in religious practices.  As a form of sacrifice, to attain an ecstatic state, to purge sin, etc...  That middle one could include 'keeping a prayer going.'</blockquote>

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