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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Particle_Man" data-source="post: 1378692" data-attributes="member: 892">pawsplay: by that argument, no one could ever compare any of the phb classes against each other unless there was proof that "no sane player takes the class".  Yet, in 3.0, the ranger did indeed get the shaft, as did the half-elf and monk and bard.  Thus, they were improved in 3.5 as a result of seeing, in playtesting over the 3 years and feedback, that they did, indeed, get shafted.  (I'm still uncertain about why the powerful dwarf race was further improved, but there ya go).But if you don't like the comparison argument, how about the "niche" argument.  If there are only 3(4) classes, they each fill a niche.  The warrior is the tough guy.  The spellcaster(s) is/are the spell guy.  What is left for the expert?  Well, not rogue abilities, ranger abilities, or bard abilities, since those can be duplicated by the feat-happy warrior.  So I would say skills.  But if your *only* niche is skills, then you should probably have more of them.Now for the dreaded PHB class comparison.  Let us assume that the fighter is balanced against the sorceror and rogue.Now the warrior has less proficiencies than the fighter (no heavy armour or tower shields) but gains flexibility in class skills (the fighter has lousy class skills), good save choice, and feat selection (not restricted to the fighter list of feats).  A nice trade of greater flexibility for slightly less power.  The spellcster has a few less spells per day than the sorceror, and no automatic familiar, but gains flexibility in class skills (the sorceror also has lousy class skills), good save choice, extra feats (and not restricted to the wizard feat list, either), and spell selection!  Nice to have cure serious wounds and fireball as spells on one's list!  Again, a slight loss of spell power, for greater flexibility.Now the expert has (if compared to the bard), a loss of all bard abilities, and (if compared to the rogue) a loss of all rogue abilities.  They get 7 feats to make up for that.  But note, that none of the abilities that are bought with the bonus feats can be considered "niche" since they can be bought by the warrior too.  Ok, they get 2 good saves of their choice.  This is pretty nice, I admit, but not something to build a niche on.  So let's look at the skill points.  They get 6 class skills (same as the bard, and less than the rogue) and freedom to choose what the class skills are.  This is where things break down.  The bard and rogue (especially the rogue) had wonderfully good class skill lists already.  Thus the expert is losing power and is NOT getting enough flexibility.  This is a significant loss in power without a corresponding significant gain in flexibility.  Thus, if the expert is to continue to exist as viable (and different from the tough guy and the spell guy), the only thing I can think of is to increase the class skills per level.  Then they can be the skill-monkey and fill the skill-monkey niche.So, if in the phb the figher, sorceror and rogue are about balanced, but in the UA, the warrior and spellcaster lose X to gain Y, while the expert loses X to gain, I dunno, maybe 1/2 Y, then the expert is less viable than the spellcaster or warrior.I will not say that no sane player will play the expert.  Perfectly sane players played the 3.0 ranger.  But.  The class is still weaker than its 3.0 compatriots.Another alternative would be to eliminate the "skill monkey" niche entirely and just give 4 extra class skills and 4 extra skill points/level to the other two generics.  If one then makes a special deal where a beginning character (only) can trade in 2 feats to have one extra good save, then the generic expert disappears.  Is the generic expert missed in such a scenario?  Or, if a party has enough warriors and spellcasters, almost all of the skills can be "covered".  Is the expert missed in such a party?The expert is meant to be either a jack-of-all-trades or a master of some.  As it stands they can either be jacks-of-some-trades or masters of a few.  There just ain't enough juice in the expert.I would be curious as to what, besides a poll of everyone who plays with the generics, would convince you that the expert was too weak.  But I am trying with various arguments to show that a) They are weaker than their generic kin, b) They lose more compared to their PHB counterparts than their generic kin lose compared to their generic counterparts, c) The expert doesn't fill the only niche left to it well enough, and d) If push comes to shove, a party can exist just fine without a single expert far better than it could without a single spellcaster or without a single warrior.  If you don't like any of these arguments, I would welcome a counter-argument that shows that the expert is in fact the equal of the other two generics.  An argument that shows that it is impossible to prove who is weaker or stronger won't work.  In 3.0, some classes really were weaker that others, and it was not impossible to show that.  These weaknesses were flaws in the game that were fixed in 3.5.Maybe I need UA 1.5 to come out...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Now, my proposed solution would be (if the expert is to remain) to make him the skill monkey he is destined to be.  The easiest way to do that is to add 4 skill points/level to the class (or perhaps only 2 skill points/level if you use the injury rules, as the HD difference then disappears).  A possible objection is that then the expert gains more skill points than the bard, or even the rogue, the skill-monkey of the PHB.  However, the rogue also has a lot of abilities, which the expert cannot duplicate all of with his measly 7 bonus feats (although he can get fairly close).  And, since the idea is that the generics will be the only classes, the fact that a class being used (the new improved 10 skill point/lvl expert) has more skill points than a class not being used (the phb rogue) should not be a horrendous issue.I guess my other question is, if it cannot be shown that one class is more powerful than another, then is it not equally impossible to show that the 10 skill point/level expert would be too powerful, compared to the warrior or spellcaster?  Or would you say that, if the expert has 10 skill points/level, no sane player would ever take a spellcaster or warrior?</blockquote>

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