Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
The Rules as Written are what prevent the player from playing what they want. The advice in the DMG is "consider it". Or do you think it's adversarial to not let fighters pick up levels in Dragon Disciple? They wanted to be one, who cares that they don't meet the requirements? Maybe you should let the 16 intelligence wizard cast Meteor Swarm? Or the 12 strength bard take Power Attack? The rules as written prevent those (in 3e)... the 2e DMG is specifically saying "Think about letting them do it, anyway."
If there's no adjustment then fine, the player plays the fighter as rolled. If there is to be adjustment then there's no reason to deny anything. In any case thankfully 3E introduced Point Buy into D&D, so this problem has never come up again.