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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Estlor" data-source="post: 1910693" data-attributes="member: 7261">At the risk of reiterating Sean Reynolds,  With all due respect, I think you're completely wrong and have misunderstood what "options" in a roleplaying game are. A kit did not serve to supply a player with additional options.  It served to give an unbalancing quantifiable bonus to a character concept that allowed players to tweak the rules in their favor.  If I want to play a gladiator, would I do it as a fighter with tailored weapon and nonweapon proficiencies, or would I rather take this kit that gives me a bonus without a balancing penalty to represent my more specific bonus?  Ask yourself how many elven bladesingers were created and I think you'll discover the answer to that. In abolishing kits, WotC provided the player with a far greater number of options.  For example, instead of a single kit with set bonuses or penalties gained at first level, I have hundreds of feats and dozens of skills to choose from at each level.  This lets me tweak and adjust the core class to fit the concept I'm working toward.  On top of that, once I get around 7th level, I can look into taking a prestige class instead of my core class to further refine my character... or not.  Maybe I like that fighter's benefit more than the duelists. Compare the 2E fighter to the 3(.5)E fighter.  Every 2e fighter is virtually identical even if the character decides to use a bow instead of a sword.  In 3e, my fighter could be a tight ranged combat-focused character and look completely different than your melee combat-focused fighter.  We might wear the same armor and have the same weapon choices, but what I can do with my bow (and you your sword) is completely different from the other. Another point of contention - Savage Species versus Complete Humanoids.  Complete Humanoids is considered more "flavorful" than SS, and rightly so.  TSR didn't find itself bogged down by the idea of keeping those races in line with each other.  Instead of worrying about balance, they created phantom penalties such as level limits that never really altered the course of play because no one made it past 10th level anyway. WotC has a different aim for D&D.  They want 3(.5)e to be an experience that is enjoyable and playable through the course of at least 20 levels if not more.  They've presented a number of mechanical options to do so.  Likewise, they want to sell books and have targeted players as the base they need to court to succeed in this aim.  Therefore we get lots of player-oriented books that give you more options to build a powerful character.  We don't see a lot on the magister, for example, because HOW to play a magister isn't as important as how to BUILD one.  Let the player determine how they will play a magister when they get to it, not some author that has no business controlling the game. And, as far as costs go, the argument that the "value" in a 3(.5)e book is less than a 2e book is silly.  In 2003 dollars the consumer costs of both books are virtually equal with the added benefit of hardcover, high-quality paper, and full-color interiors.  Personally, I find more value in a book that only spends a page on the concept of the magister and moves on than a book that spends 100+ pages going into the concept in such detail that someone can argue with me how my magister is "wrong" or "broken" because I don't play it exactly like the book. Further, TSR went into such insane details on subjects because they overproduced FR material to the point where that was all they had left to talk about.  That's not a good thing, that's a bad thing.  Not to mention expensive and straight-jacket in nature when trying to play in the world.  It's okay to make the DM think from time to time.  In fact, it's good for him.</blockquote>

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