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Regardless of the decision on maneuvers versus vancian spells, the problem is deeper rooted in the sense that a wizard or cleric can bump all their points into one ability, i.e. intelligence or wisdom, and it effects everything they do from attack bonus to hit, difficulty of saves, number of spells available, etc. The martial class is multi-stat dependent. I believe a decision has to be made to follow the 4E design paradigm to make each class choose a primary stat, or in the old school train of thought, make certain abilities effect certain attacks. So if a wizard wants to do tenser's transformation and wield a sword then they need a good strength, if they want to lob missiles, then they need a good dex, if they want to charm someone they need a good charisma. But they should take a feature from other games like GURPS and make it hard for a magic user to boost their own stats.

I would like the playing field balanced at a lower level based on abilities. This will lend itself to balance class features.

Can you elaborrate on what you mean in terms of how stances interract with Reserve Points/Fatigue? I'm not sure I understand. There's a lack of concise definition in this thread and I want to make sure everyone's on the same page. These are the definitions as I currently understand them.


Fatigue-Mundanes have a pool of fatigue points that is used for various abilities by these classes.
Reserve-Reserve abilities are passive abilities that always remain on as long as Fatigue Points are invested in them. Some Reserves may have extra Fatigue Points invested to increase their effect
Stances-Specific set of abilities that come in a module that are used like the reserve abilities, except as long as you have points reserved in stances, you may swap between any stance you know at will without draining stamina.
Exploits (for lack of a better term)-Abilities that drain stamina. If this drops your stamina below the current amount being used for a reserve, you need to drop one of your reserve abilities.

Am I mostly right in what we're discussing, or is it something else entirely?  My biggest confusion was where stances fit into everything. Or would Stances just be the name for Reserve abilities?

Assuming I'm right, In this system the simplest fighter would be the one who just uses a bunch of reserve abilities that he never bothers changing. The next most complicated would be one who invests points into stances he can switch up at will. The most complicated would be one actually using exploits and managing that resource. The best part is all three playstyles can be accoplished more or less without any changes to the class or resource system, it's all in how the player chooses to use it.





As for how to make a simple Wizard to balance against it, looking to reserve feats from 3.5 might be a good place to start. As long as you have a spell of a given type prepared, you get a weaker at will ability. For example Fiery Burst gives you a 5ft radius burst within 30ft that deals Xd6 damage where X is the highest level Fire Spell you have prepared. 

You could expand on this concept and make it so a Wizard who doesn't actually expend any of his spells plays something like a warlock (a handful of at will abilities and passive buffs), while one who does cast his spells has more potent abilities but has to manage his resource. 

The question in my mind isn't how to keep a Fighter from needing Dex (as pointed out, you can choose Dex or Str and be fine either way, though dex is usually better), but how to make a Fighter not need con, and how to provide out of combat utility if you're SAD on Strength. A lot of the Fighter's noncombat utility problems can be traced to having Strength and Con as their primary stats and neither of those being linked to much in the way of non-combat utility, where Dex, Int, Wis, and Charisma all fill very important roles (sneaking/knowledge/perception/social respectively).

We could use the implement idea and call it Focus.

You can change Focus as often as a fighter can change stances and this alters which reserves are in effect (or perhaps slightly heightened).  Defensive focus might grant extra AC and buffs with the offensive spells falling back to the default at will versions.   Then from the appropriate stance you can cast your daily and loose the bonus abilities for that associated spell.

I could see having Focus that modifies current reserves. Say you have one focus that increases the range of any targetted reserves, one that makes them hit a wider area/more targets, that sort of thing. Though this is the sort of thing I frequently see brought up as a good way to handle implements. What if instead of focus, you let Wizards have non-magical implements (ie cheap and easy to get) they can switch between to gain different effects for their at will abilities. That way it has a distinctly different feel from how a Fighter's stances work, even though the end effect is similar. Because if we learned nothing else from 4e, it's that if the mechanics look or feel somewhat similar, people will complain that the Fighter is using magic even if he's not.

This also gives us a good basis on how many reserve points the fighter would need.  The fighter gets exactly as many reserve points as the wizard gets daily spells.