| william butler |
Let me post here why I don't think this is a major issue.
My dwarven fighter named Krome (mmm wonder where I got the name for my avatar here) was advancing along quite nicely. Now he multiclass a couple of times to Rogue and once to Ranger, not so much cause the FIghter class sucked anywhere, but because I wanted Evasion, and Tumble and Two-Weapon Fighting for the type of fighter I imagined. It was easier to multiclass for them than to work on the feats and actually fit in with what he wa doing at the time.
Now, that being said he had been leveling along and was looking at upper teen levels. All my ability score increases had been pumped into Strength. Then I came across two feats.
The Mountain Does Not Move from the Book of Ultimate Feats which allows me to "burn" a WIsdom point in order to make a Fort roll against the non magical damage I just took. If I succeed I do not suffer that damage. AWESOME! But now I need to work on some Wisdom cause I KNOW how often I will use that. So I sacrifice my Strength growth to work on Wisdom because that is a new focus for the character.
Then I read a feat from Complete Divine. I can't remember the exact name of it, but it lets me glow with a holy aura when I want. Not much else. No REAL game benefit at all. But I think this is so COOL, especially sine he is trying very hard to become a "paragon" of goodness. But I gotta have some Charisma. Crap my Charisma SUCKS! So, from then on until lvl 20 I worked on Charisma.
I sacrificed progress on Strength to work on something I found interesting and something I thought my character would focus on. It required Roleplaying. It sacrificed min.maxing. It made for a more interesting character, but one that was not fully focused as a fighter. But I guarantee you Krome did not suck as a fighter.
In essence I had t make some roleplaying decisions about my character. I had resources I had to manage. And I had to make decisions.
I think had I had more ability score points to add in I would have been...
While I agree in concept, the game system does not actually allow you to do what you gave an example of in most cases.
The 'prereqs' in the game system actually hurt your roleplay options needlessly.
Too many feats and other things like needing a 16 INT to cast level 6 spells, for example, exist.
So to be well rounded is impossible. Note that I said 'well rounded' and not 'I want high stats' I do NOT want high stats. I want to be allowed to make a well rounded character regardless of my stats.
What I would prefer, is the 'lean' stat points COMBINED with lowering Stat prereqs considerably.
My gripe is simple. The game penalizes me for not making a cookie cutter powergamer build. Allow me to roleplay, thank you very much.
If I want a strength 10 wizard with power attack, cleave, and great cleave, let me.
If I want an intelligence 12 wizard, let me. Low spell DC is plenty of a penalty for this character without taking away spells above level 2.