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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Verequus" data-source="post: 1958521" data-attributes="member: 9135">I like the principle structure of the 3rd edition - changing basics like BAB seems unnecessary. At least, I don't know, why the referred ideas of alternatives should be better. Still, I have my gripes. The premise, that everything is possible, isn't true - D&D is only somewhat semi-generic and needs a further "GURPS-ification" in regard of being more modular.   So I'd like to have a better magic system - the one, I want to see incorparated in 4th edition, is Elements of Magic Revised. The ones, who said, psionics is a better system than the original system, should check it out - it is IMO far better than every alternative, I know of, although it still has some areas, which need improvement.   The other thing, which comes to my mind now, is to remove classes and make the system point-buy based. Next to have a more or less automatically balanced system - the core classes aren't entirely balanced in the first 20 levels, which results in having a 20th level cleric being as powerful as a 23th level fighter and makes a true point-buy replication difficult - everyone can buy the options, he wants to have.   But I haven't seen a system without any flaws - at least the avoidable ones. Class-based systems limit inherent flexibility, while point-buy systems need a correct pricing, which is dependent on the type of campaign - dungeon bashing emphasises other options than mere political intrigue, but both styles aren't really the assumed default, so a point-buy system should allow repricing without getting out of wack.   Also, point-buy should prevent overspecializing, but without stopping it from happening - if I want to have a 20th level expert with only 3 hitdice, then it should be able to cope with this request. If someone wants to focus overly (like putting everything in BAB and hitdice), then he should can, without being able to unbalance the campaign due to ending up as a special target of the GM. Both Dr. Spunj's and Thanee's system assume a commoner as base and limit everything like the core classes, so they are out. Furthermore, adding new options should be easy and allow a correct pricing - nothing more annoying, if an ability should cost 3.5 points, but you can only pay 3 or 4 points. Granularity is the keyword.   Buy The Numbers is granular enough, but suffers from negledging of synergy effects or overstates them. If you can buy abilities at a constant cost, linear cost or a quadratic cost, then you are going to pay the higher costs only, if you think that they are necessary - in the end, min-maxed characters are unbalanced, while class-mimicking characters suffer from too high costs eventually.    Maybe a point-buy system, which is universal, is impossible, but we can still hope, can we?    ****  There are still points to consider, but I won't discuss them here.</blockquote>

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