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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6111090" data-attributes="member: 4937">First, that's not the case.  At the very least, the 3e 20th level fighter is likely to +5 Str relative to the 2nd level first, but also, the fighter's access to feats like Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Power Attack and many many others means that he's been incrementally improviing his expected damage per attack over time.   I certainly know that this is true of my own 3e inspired game.   But secondly, it's irrelevant because restricting this discussion to 'per attack' is not that meaningful.   The primary purpose of the 3e incremental itterative attacks is to ensure a steady smooth increase in the expected damage of a fighter as he levels up.   They could have justed as easily said at 6th level the fighter does double damage on attacks and at 11th triple damage, but then this wouldn't have produced a smooth curve in steadily increasing expected damage.   There is a trade off.Yes, it does.However, while I'm not firmly on one side of this debate or the other because I don't care what they do with DNDNext and have no hopes for it (and frankly will be surprised at this point if it isn't vaporware), there is as I said a trade off.   If you reduce the complexity, then you give the player a smaller number of choices.  Sure, at some level each choice is more meaningful, but its still fewer choices.  If I get 5 feats over the course of 20 levels rather than 27, then if those feats are roughly 5 times as powerful then the end result in the same and the 5 feat system is at one level simpler (there are fewer feats to track and describe).  However, I've reduced player freedom.  Suppose a player spends 4 feats, but for that 5th feat they'd like to take a half feat in 'archery' and another half feat in 'cleave'.  In the simpler system that's impossible.  You can't take a 'minor interest' in something.   But if I had 25 or 30 smaller choices, then I can take the 5 or 6 choices and spread them among two ideas.The other potential pitfall is that your system of making one feat as powerful as 3 or 5 small feats is that you might end up not reducing complexity, because its not clear that your 'big feats' aren't more complex than small feats or indeed aren't as complex in many cases as 3 or 5 small feats bundled together.   You may end up with a lot of feats that look like specialities or 'tactical' type feats, where each feat involves multiple related things you can do.</blockquote>

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