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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DarkKestral" data-source="post: 3255281" data-attributes="member: 40100">And I completely disagree with you. Multiclassing/Alignment restrictions largely need to go the way of the dodo, as should multiclassing penalties, as I'll soon explain. Divine casters need to keep their alignment restrictions for spells, but honestly, I think not allowing multiclassing or penalizing it is pointless and generally forces wasting feats on classes that are already harder to make viable builds with for low-stat characters due to MAD or focuses attention on ways to get around it. (the abundance of multiple PrCs in many optimized character builds is a good example of this problem) I don't like it when core class design forces a single view of the character class, rather than allowing a bunch of legitimate characters that require different views, but can use the same mechanics. Class-based should not equate to inflexible. Multiclassing restrictions and penalties force inflexibility. d20 Modern is how I think a good class-based system should work: it has options, though they are separated by class, and allow for a lot of easy fine-tuning to fit the class to the character.Yeah, but there's also examples of paladins who 'lay down the sword' at some point because they finished their commitment (they slew the dragon, stopped the invading horde, yada yada yada) and only come back to kicking butt and taking names after many years. These paladins aren't served by multiclassing restrictions, nor are those who devote themselves to some other holy cause or to life in a monastic order or something similar. If paladins are to be something other than weaker clerics with a free mount and some ability to smite their opposition, they need to be freer to multiclass and clerics made more difficult to multiclass, IMO.See above. Give me one good (not flavor, but pure balance and mechanics) reason why should paladins NEED a specific line in the mechanics of a class that allows them to allow freely multiclass between paladin and their new class if their new class suits their role in the game, because that's what you're advocating. Roleplay rationale is one thing. Mechanics is another. If it's a suitably fight-y or religious PrC, they should be allowed to do so by the GM, if the GM allows that class, that class's actions fit within the character's code, and the player is willing to RP the class. Plain and simple. We'll use Bob the Paladin as our example. Bob the Paladin has slain the dragon that beset his town. Now, he's off to live at the monastery in quiet contemplation, and during his time, he picks up a level of rogue because he's the monastery's contact with the locals and needs the skillpoints to be effective as their face to the public, only come to find out, now there is a new dragon he needs to slay, so he picks.. well, he doesn't pick up his sword because he can't be a paladin anymore. Well scratch that, Bob's decided letting someone else go save the world because he can't pick up the sword and actually play his role because his GM said he couldn't pick up levels in the class he wanted to take.Err, I say let the monk multiclass for the same reason paladins should multiclass. There are literary examples of 'multiclassed' monks who did the monk thing, go to some other profession and become a monk again. In fact, I think the Buddha would be one such. Since the flavor of the D&D monk is meant to recall Buddhist monks of legend, arguably we should consider that when talking about multiclassing restrictions, and that if the Buddha cannot be adequately represented, we're dealing with at least a minor failure of the class design. I'd say scrap the restriction before we scrap the class.Racial levels ala Arcana Evolved's racial levels are meant for paragons of the race. A mind flayer does 'develop it's full abilities as a matured Mind Flayer' without a single paragon level. It just doesn't take the step towards becoming a Mind Flayer that is an archetypal Mind Flayer. The low LA version would have some of the abilities, but an advanced version might focus on using it's grapples and fight more in melee more than a paragon 'Flayer, because where an archetypal one has levels in the 'Flayer paragon class, it might have it's levels in the Fighter class. It still has it's full adult abilities, but not in the way that a paragon does. This is a way to allow more customizability of PC races and of monsters that are otherwise hard to fit in a campaign due to abilities that significantly change the CR.Yeah, but a Paragon Minotaur would be a larger/stronger/better fighter in ways that minotaurs classically are than a normal minotaur. This means the low version is 'normal' and the one with a bunch of racial levels is either an elder or simply unusual. Thus, a Dire Wolf would not be a different animal by stats, but instead be a Wolf with maxed paragon racial levels. Thus paragon levels CAN be used for a lot of monsters, especially Humanoids, Giants, Monstrous Humanoids, Fey, Outsiders, and Animals. Oozes and other mindless/low-Int monsters would still advance by other means. But for the large part, Paragon levels would be used to allow creatures to be made at varying CRs more easily than they now are and more capable of leveling up abilities more effectively.You're complicating it too much. Seriously. Why not just say "Generally, creatures that are mature have X number of racial levels up from the base. If a creature has less than 3 Int or are mindless, they advance by HD or by paragon level depending on type. If they have 3 Int, they advance by class. Paragon levels are treated as always favored, always allows free multiclassing with other non-paragon classes, and as a normal character class for class advancement, except paragon classes cannot be taken for classes other than that race's paragon class." Yay. I'm done. Woo.End of rant... part 1. Now onto part 2! My specific pet peeves few/no people have mentioned in the thread...Like Nyaricus, I'm not a fan of the Natural Attacks/Unarmed Strike system of 3.0/3.5, however, I also want Primary Natural Attacks to be able to have iteratives, and to be able to do so without requiring a feat. However, this does mean some monsters may need the number of their natural attacks taken down a notch.Polearms and other reach weapons should be capable of attacking close-in OR at reach, but not both during the same round in core rules for polearm-class weapons. This makes armor spikes less necessary in reach weapon character builds... (which I dislike enough that I'll talk about that below.)Weapon Groups should be core, IMO. They make paying for proficiencies with feats not suck so bad for characters whose schtick is that they know weapons that are unusual for their profession/race. When combined with weapon sizes, I feel they can add a lot of streamlining of weapon descriptions and special rules, as you could define entire classes of weapons without needing a bunch of text on each, except to note special abilities unique to a weapon within a group.Armor spikes. I hate them. I think they're just meant for rules-lawyer cheese. Spiked gauntlets and shield spikes are OK as they're used with limbs that actually... attack. But big spikes on your plate armor? Not really, they're not something you ATTACK with, IMO. I'd be more willing to live with them if they only gave damage on attempts to do damage in grapples and other situations where flesh hits armor. Essentially, they're reactive damage. You don't threaten with them, they just sort of sit there helping to make attacks against you seem less appealing.Finally, Animated Shields and the current dual-wielding rules. Sorry. They need to go. Flat out. There's no way to adequately balance them out in the current rules. They're bad mechanics on their own, before you add all the cheese that goes along with them, generally.</blockquote>

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