User blog comment:Alzrius/Pyrrha Nikos d20/@comment-17727644-20131029012027/@comment-11687-20131029164449

Thanks for the kind words, Andrew.

I presume that, when you say you "prefer the Pathfinder system" you mean using the class-level method of building characters that Pathfinder uses in the Core Rulebook, right?

That method of character construction has its advantages; the primary one being that its easier to keep a handle on what the characters can do (which is a form of "balance") when many of their powers and abilities are hard-coded into specific levels of specific classes. Players and GMs alike know what to expect.

The drawback to this, on the other hand, is that it's much harder to create characters that don't fit into a given class's particular mold. Now, D&D has been getting better at this - Pathfinder particularly so, as it has things like variable class abilities (e.g. rogue talents), feats (which are a large pool of near-universal class abilities), a very loose style of multiclassing, class archetypes, and (for many classes) the oldest kind of variability in the game: spell selection.

That said, virtually all of these come with built-in presumptions that can fly in the face of a given character concept - it'd be pretty odd if Pyrrha could only manipulate magnetism by making specific gestures while chanting specific words, and using specific material components (which were then consumed by the casting).

That's the trade-off for the ease of built-in power progressions, even with limited areas of variability: you're still giving up a not-inconsiderable degree of freedom in designing your character. Hence why I used Eclipse, which gives you back that degree of freedom while still being compatible with the game rules.

Ahem...that aside, I am familiar with reserve feats (I believe those are what you were referring to), which if I recall correctly were introduced in Complete Arcane. If you didn't want to abandon the class-level system for building characters, but wanted to make RWBY characters, that wouldn't be a bad way of making semblance powers.