[3.X/PF] Universal Tier 4-6 fix?

[Person_Man]

So I have a house rule which has recently become a lot more relevant to my players, as many of them have started using Pathfinder Archetypes (http://www.pathfindersrd.com/classes/class-archetypes). It's a fairly simple, but it seems like it has gone a long way to giving lower Tier (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1002.0) classes a lot more options to play with.

Any class can use any Alternate Class Feature (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7908.0) or Archetype, without regard to per-requisites, as long as they do not trade away the same class feature more then once. You do not need to take every ability in an ACF or Archetype's progression, you can pick and choose the ones you want. Dead levels (or dead-ish levels with cruddy abilities, such as a Barbarian's Trap Sense, Monk's Slow Fall, or many half-casters' spell progression) are also given any class ability/ACF/archetype from any thematically appropriate class. For example, a Swashbuckler could choose to fill in it's dead levels and "Grace +1" levels with appropriate Rogue class abilities, ACF, Racial-subs, or Archetypes. In addition, each time you gain a level, you may retrain a previously chosen feat and/or ACF/Archetype, in case you've decided you want to try something new.

Has anyone else tried something similar? Does this seem like it would be a workable solution in general for your games?

[gkathellar]

That seems like a solid idea for PF Archetypes, but haven't 3.5 ACFs pretty much always worked like that?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

In general, I think the benefit of the fix would depend on your group's mean and variance in optimization levels. Mixing and matching archetypes/ACFs has a lot of potential, but you could end up with a character who mixes "flavor" abilities to the point of sheer uselessness. In the more reasonable scenario, one character could stick with a vanilla fighter, and the other could have pounce, dungeoncrasher, zhentarim, sneak attack, and what have you. Sure, 3.5 has the same problem (especially with high-op), but this magnifies it somewhat.

Also, the "dead levels" thing could require a lot of DM rulings on what constitutes a dead level. I assume any level where you advance full spellcasting doesn't count, but what about crappy full casting like the Healer? Fighter bonus feat? Samurai intimidate?

It seems like a lot of bookwork; I'm tempted to recommend homebrew class fixes instead.

[Curious]

I think this would work for some classes, mainly the ones such as monk or Barbarian that have lots of very good Archetypes and ACFs, but it also needs some more definition as to what exactly these extra abilities gained at dead levels are. Making an actual list, such as what Rogue Talents a Swashbuckler can get, would help take a lot of the DM work out of it, because that's basically all this fix is right now, more work for the DM.