Min/Max Boards

Just commenting, since this particular idea hasn't been there last time I read this post:

Option #2: Partial Gestalt. Tier 1s and 2s are normal. Tier 3s and 4s may gestalt their levels with an NPC class of their choice (Adept, Expert, Commoner, or Warrior). Tier 5s and 6s may gestalt their levels with any other Tier 5 or 6 class of their choice, or Adepts. Result? Again, a healthy power boost for the low Tiers. Suddenly the Rogues can have full BAB and lots of hitpoints, and the Monks can have Fighter powers too. Very handy. Plus, multiclassing works... it's just that if you start as a Fighter//Monk and want to take a level of, say, Ranger, that level must have an NPC class on the other side. If for some reason you wanted Sorcerer, you wouldn't be gestalt at all in that level. Lord knows Fighters get a lot better when they can be Fighter//Monks or Fighter//CA Ninjas or whatever.

An honest question: Does this really that much to level the playing field?

Sure, a rogue with d8 hitpoints and the good BAB is nice, but given your definition of the various tiers, it certainly won't bump it up to t1 or t2 - tbh I am even wondering whether it would help to bring rogues up to t3.

Something similar can be said about the T5/T6 classes: Given the fact that almost all of the T5 classes are some sort of fighting class anyway, being able to combine them with one another just gives you another class that is even better at hitting things; but still has most of its other weaknesses. 

Another chunk of stuff that's basically off-topic.

Note that it does just define away the dilemma:  Good > Law.  So, there's no dilemma.  Problem solved.  It'd be like in Antigone's case if we just declared familial obligations > civic obligations.  That'd make Antigone's life easier, but now Sophocles' masterpiece is like 8 pages long. 

I would argue that if there's a chaotic side in this conflict, it would be the insane king with his personal set of, like Oslecamo put it, Calvinball rules ("my champion is... fire!! Wooohoooo!!! ...by the way, tie that guy there up so that he strangles himself if he moves") and his woman-stealing son. Usually, part of an oath of fealty was that you're liegelord also had obligations towards you, so it wasn't an entirely one-sided relation. And the thing is - the Tagaeryens broke that obligation. Of course now we don't know how exactly fealty looks like in Westeros, but it's save to assume that it probably worked more or less like the one in medieval Europe.
But for Antigone, it's less Good > Law, but rather Law (tradition) > Law (ruler).
(though not every law or tradition is necessarily "lawful", more on that below)

I don't doubt that you can cash out Lawful X or Chaotic Y in interesting ways.  But, at that point, I'm pretty sure it's the cashing out that's the helpful part.  Or, at the very least, I'd rather not have to solve one of the main debates of legal philosophy just to be able to play D&D ...

Which may be the reason why they did away with the alignment matrix in D&D4

D&D alignment is quite simple actually. Altough people just looovvveee to complicate it.

Guilty as charged 

And before you ask it, the rules a lawful person's plays can be anyone's rules, as long as they aren't calvinball, aka they're well defined rules that you don't change when they stop being convenient to you. Some lawful people follow personal codes, other lawful people follow other people's codes.

There's another beef. Is following a specific code "lawful" under any circumstances? I am not just refering to a chaotic person following a "code of what I was doing anyway" (since I totally agree with the "following the code even if it's inconvenient" part), but to a code that is inherently destructive (best example: The Sith code, where the obligation to be chaotic is pretty much the essence of its letters)?

So, if two families belong to a culture with the concept of a blood feud get into conflict, while the country they're living in prohibits violence and reserves it to the state. Is carrying out the blood feud and killing the son of the rival family's patriarch a lawful act?
Or mafia mobsters, who may be utterly loyal to "la familia" but otherwise break any law of the land and terrorize the community his clan is feeding on, are they lawful? Would Luca Brasi be (for anyone who hasn't read or watched The Godfather, the guy has a Wikipedia entry)? Well, they are probably "more lawful" than a street thug, but is it enough to qualify for the alignment?

It starts getting weird when a "generic NPC citizen" who simply does his day job (without much passion), pays his taxes (but isn't above some small-scale fiscal fraud), generally obeys the law (out of habit, not out of loyalty to the state), and has a reasonably stable family (but would be tempted to cheat on his wife if there was an attractive opportunity) is labeled as "true neutral" by virtue of being a generic NPC guy, but the utter loyal mafia goon above is seen at "lawful evil" (or perhaps even "lawful neutral" if he is a more non-violent type) because he is more invested into the machinations of his family, but discounts the country he lives in as a legitimate source of authority.

To get back into D&D and paladin territory, where the weakness of this concept of "lawful" gets into full force. Assuming you play a law-bound class that can dish out additional punishment against chaotic characters. And now you're meeting someone with a code that violates pretty much everything your code stands for - but you can't use your abilities on him because technically, he's lawful. But you can against a chaotic guy, who might be rebellious and carefree, but perhaps has never acted against your code for whatever reason.

1. Yeah, here we are hung up on Gandalf, literately one of the weakest spellcasters in lotrs, and he was still thrown off a cliff so Tolken would write a book that wasn't based on sorcery.
2. You mean Wizards & Sorcerers?
3. It's that "Fighters are comic relief".

1. Can't argue with that (though he still gets a lot of action in LOTR, so his story-breaking wasn't that bad there as it would have been in The Hobbit).
That's also funny about most DnD books (I know of) - I can't recall a single one were the caster of the group does what he theoretically would be able to do; even IF they gather godlike powers in the end (Raistlin in Dragonlance, Sadira in Dark Sun's The Prism Pentad), they are either still strangled by the red string when it comes to putting them to good use, are overshadowed by the even more awesome villains, or the solution to the most important problem is an asspull. Makes you wonder whether the authors really thought the power balance between mundanes and casters would play out that way in a real game or if it's a hint that they're aware that a high-level caster has to be reined in by specific challenges tailor-made to counter their powers.

2. No. I really meant "artifact" as in "super-duper-ultra-powerful unique or at least extremely rare item" and not some replacable book, and "divine blood" as in "really divine status or recent divine ancestry" and not a trace of blood from a magical creature in your geins. Or just being an Eldar who was around since the dawn of time. And even then the ability to do magic doesn't necessarily convert into casting spells, but mostly takes other forms.
The thing is: In a proper Tolkien-style setting (no, not MERP), you wouldn't be able pick up caster levels in the first place in a standard group, and even if you did, you would probably be the group's most powerful member anyway just by virtue of having been around for millenia and therefore having an advantage in character levels. The only exception I can think of on drop of a hat is Beorn the shapeshifter, but he was pretty unique in Tolkien's stories and was created before The Hobbit was integrated into his Middle Earth-mythology. Oh yes, and Aragorn's small-scale healing of Faramir. That came in handy, but hardly defined his role in the series.

3. Here I beg to differ. I can't recall that Gimli was particularly funny in the book - that was the younger hobbits' role, and even they got more serious over the book. Defining Sam as a cohort would go against Tolkien's stance on this - he considered him, not Frodo, the actual hero in LOTR (as in: Bilbo's replacement). And I'd say that he's a rogue-ish character (though one with most of his ranks in cooking, knowledge (herbalism) and knowledge (Bilbo's tales)). The dwarves in "The Hobbit"... well, it's a children's book, so I would argue that the style in there is owed to the nature of the story (it's interesting that the most powerful good guy apart from Gandalf is a shapeshifter, though).
But you have to keep one thing in mind: Most of the character's in Tolkien's work were some kind of fighter or (mundane) ranger, and this includes the Elves (though these oftentimes had some kind of magic along with their fighting prowess, see above). Fingolfin (greatest warrior of the Elves ever) - wounds Morgoth, Turin - kills Glaurung, Ecthelion - killed a Balrog, Glorfindel - ditto,  Earendil - kills Ancalagon, Elendil and Gil-Galad - throw down Sauron. I leave out Bard because he's a particular case with all his archery and bird-talk.
Tolkien was too immersed in the tradition of epic Norse and Anglo-Saxon Mythology to let warriors play second fiddle to wizards (and most likely also too aware what a Wizard with unrestricted reality-altering powers on the loose would mean for a story). And even though these warriors are occasionally wielding some supernatural powers, these powers drove his stories, they didn't break them. 

Not familiar with Conan beyond Schwarzenegger's film, and even that barely. Quick glance at Wikipedia and he does look like a real pure Fighter in a sword & sorcery setting. Off that alone, it appears to be a series where a Fighter didn't get the short stick. So good find there.

While the movie takes some liberties with the background, they capture the essence of the setting pretty well. But yeah, Conan indeed is a purely mundane character, though his build wouldn't work without some levels of rogue, given the stunts he pulls of and the sheer amount of knowledge he has gathered. The gear he works with usually is pretty mundane as well (which he loses most of a time between or during stories anyway). But it also works because of the limits to magic in the setting. Of course, occasionally a well-prepared wizard still takes him out (equally often by use of quasi-supernatural abilities as by some kind of alchemy), but when the tables are turned - and it's very possible to get a Wizard flat-footed - he tends to make short work of them as well.

You mean like turning lead into gold (alchemy), killing people with a doll (voodoo), raining fire & brimestone (bible), healing injuries (indian shaman), invincibility during battle (circle of awe, norse), or controlling the weather (every. single. one. of. them. ever.)?

And that. It's not that I'm opposed to casters having nice feats that can't be reproduced by mundanes - what would be the point if they hadn't. I guess no one has a beef with classes being complementary to one another (the warrior kills the dragon, the priest patches up the warrior) - just that some classes can do everything by themselves.

OR you know. Follow other fantasy novels and the main character(s) can just use magic anyway.

Like the Seeker, Wheel of Time, Dragon Prince, Dark Sun, Harry Potter, Eragon, and so on series.

Didn't read half of them and from what I've heard, didn't miss that much. Okay, Harry Potter I know and TWOT at least partially. And both of these have in common that we don't have exactly classes, but scenarios where almost every major character is sort of a Caster or has other leet skillz. If Harry Potter was an RPG, odds are good you could only play different sorts of caster classes.
Funny thing: JKR herself stated that a wizard as a rule wouldn't be much of a match against a muggle with a shotgun. So Clarke's third law still applies.

I absolutely agree.  I firmly believe that when or if a Paladin falls should be entirely up to the player, even if it isn't necessarily up to the character.  The DM doesn't get to decide unilaterally that a Paladin has broken her code.  Using a moral code to force tough decisions on a character is all well and good and can lead to great gaming moments, but putting a character in a no-win situation and going "Gotcha!" when the character chooses "wrong" is, to me, offensive enough to warrant some mechanical limits on the DM to prevent him from pulling that.

Wasn't that what atonement was for - giving you a way to repent for your transgressions if you truly had no other choice?
But then again, a malicious DM could make you perma-atone which was as good as having you become fallen for real.

I really don't watch Game of Thrones, so I don't know the specifics of the discussion.

Well, you would have to read the novels anyway, and even though I say that GRRMs work is probably one of the best out there to discuss alignments because there are loads of characters with some measure of depths, it would probably not be worth it in itself

I personally am not a fan of alignment-as-mechanics, especially as an avenue of punishment.  Would it be best to just keep an NG/CG restriction, but leave the specifics of the code of conduct to role-playing and setting details?

Probably. Then again, if you want to stick to the paladin-mechanics, I'd suggest you to check the Holy Liberator-entry above or the Paladin of Freedom (https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/extras/community-creations/house-rules/classes/paladin-of-freedom#TOC-Code-of-Conduct).

I wondered, though, what exactly made an AD&D warrior preferable over a ranger apart from weapon spec? Not regarding the fact that the warrior is a lot more accessible due to lower stat requirements, of course. Because the way I see it, a warrior didn't have much over a ranger unless you played a non-good party or wanted to multiclass.

- Intelligence was nigh-useless for everyone but Wizards, governing only how many languages you could speak. [...]
In 1st edition, [Clerics] also needed Wisdom of 18 to cast 7th level spells, and Wis ~16 or so to cast 6th level spells.

If you used the skill system, the # of bonus languages converted into additional skill points for level 1, which was quite handy considering most classes only had 3-4 of them and only gained 1 more point every 3-4 levels; the cleric's spell level cap also applied to 2nd ed., though.

Level 20
Druid: 2,000,000.
Thief/Bard: 2,200,000.
Cleric: 2,700,000.
Fighter: 3,000,000.
Paladin/Ranger: 3,600,000.
Wizard: 3,750,000.

This lists omit the fact that druids got royally screwed over since they had to restart again from scratch after becoming a hierophant. They advanced pretty quickly until the mid-levels, at which point their xp requirements went through the roof. Just to get to level 16, they needed 3,500,000xp, effectively making them the only class that needed 5,500,000xp to get to level 20. And one had to win against competitors in order to gain levels after a certain point (I think it was from 13-15 or something like that), with a defeat barring you from advancement or even costing you your newly gained level (can't recall). Unless one had a DM who was willing to hand out generous xp rewards for winning these duels, being a druid truly sucked at least in that regard.

It's pretty easy to assume that a character with 26+ INT could come up with the correct wording, even if you and I can't.

Good point.

So it's probably better to focus on the OP's original questions, can a Wish turn a person into an animal?  Would you restrict the INT to 2?

Okay, let me turn this question around to illustrate my position.
Let's assume someone wants to turn into the undead type for whatever reason (it's a lot more attractive than being an animal http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Undead_Type) but doesn't want to change in any other way than that.
But what does being an undead entail apart from those numerous perks? Would he be immortal? Infertile? Rotting away or ageless? Would he be able to fulfill a prophecy that states that "no living man can ever yadda yadda yadda", if he wouldn't actually BE undead apart from a purely game mechanic PoV?
In other words: Would an undead that behaves in any other way apart from the game mechanics like a living being actually be conceivable? Can a wish "invent" something totally new for a game world or produce a result that totally runs counter to the in-universe logic?

Or would it be much more feasible to make the player in the TE's group come up with a workaround that produces the results in regards to game mechanics, but doesn't try to stick to the original goal of getting the animal type.
(assuming this isn't just some kind of intellectual exercise in the first place, since I fail to see why becoming an animal is a desirable goal)

For that matter, if someone stuck a hat of +4 INT on a dog, would you say "it doesn't work" or would you say "it now has a 5 (or 6) INT?

Interesting question.
Would you let a cat benefit from the perks of a (large) magic ring worn around its paws, or would you restrict the benefits only to magical items that are explicitly tailormade for animals? And, the other way round, would you let a humanoid being benefit from that kind of item, f.ex. let a human benefit from wearing horseshoes under the sole of his shoe (I don't even know whether unicorns may benefit from magical horseshoes) ?

The worst DM I've ever met... well, booya.

A guy who constantly smoked pot during sessions and whose biggest goal in life was to flood the clandestine weed trade in our city with product from the (relatively) nearby Netherlands because he was pissed of with our state's policy regarding soft drugs.
 
And his game was as one could expect it was. It was not that he was actively malicious, but his complete and utter thoughtlessness when it came to DMing, condoned powergaming beyond belief and seemingly didn't know anything else but a goldrush campaign. Bonus points for hentai-like content as a reminder when something is serious business. In short: He was so utterly immature at 23 that he is my go-to anecdotal evidence when I am stating that I'm fairly sure that too much weed during your teens stifles the development of your personality (and since he had somewhat of a temper, he's my counterevidence that weed automatically has to have a calming effect on people).

How went our campaign?
Well, not good. One was a AD&D 2e campaign. At first we were 8-9 players, with little to now checks of how the party was set up. The whole session consisted of nothing but fights that took ages because we had to go through 10 people rolling for 20 and more different beings each round. Characters casually died and were equally casually replaced with replacements of the players choice of equal level and equipment (so death was relatively cheap here).
I can't recall much of the campaign (another testament of his skill as a DM), but I know that at some points we had to go to Sigil, prompting the reaction of one of our players what an unpleasant and nasty place that was and he wished we hadn't go to go there. I wondered "how bad (not: How hard) can the city of the planes be?" Well, it turned out that he took the fact that "any faction is represented here" as "every member of any faction do as they please and behave as they're used to", which amounted to a vivid description of a gathering place in Sigil were super-endowed demons were casually raping women to death in their section and bypassers didn't seem to care whatsoever. Phat lewtz was also handed out casually, including the retarded Deck of Many Cards where some guy drew the imprisonment card, causing a bunch of Mercy Killers to drag him away in chains, sending us another pointless sidequest to get him back. The DMs reaction? "You're so awesome, with the stuff you get into, I don't even need a plot for the game".
Nevertheless I sticked around (stupid idea, I admit), with the number of the players dwindling (among them also some of his pals, which should have been a huge warning sign for me). We went down to a more manageable size of 4-5 regulars, but the quality of the game didn't improve. The DM constantly needled the most good-natured member of the group (not that the others weren't, he was just extremely laid-back), who coincidentally also was the only one with a girlfriend at that time.
He also was having additional sessions of the side with two of the players, and tailored the challenges to the party to the loot he handed out to them during these sessions, with increasingly ridiculous buffs coming in for them. After he buffed one of them between regular sessions by several levels (I think he went up from 9 to 14), made him a Chosen of some goddess of Magic and handed him out artifact-quality loot and the other guy was pampered similarly, pretty much reducing the other players to spectators to their awesomeness, I quit (though I would have quit as well if I had enjoyed the same treatment because a playstyle that went out of hand to such an extent wasn't exactly what I had signed up for).

-------------------------------------

The very same guy also took the cake when it came to DMing a Vampire LARP game. He was co-DM to two other guys, and we were playing as a Camarilla community. I joined as a neonate (I was pretty new at both LARPing and Vampire back then and had little knowledge of the setting, so there was little for me to do back then, and I was willing to stay on the sidelines and gradually get into the game later). I got to play a whopping two sessions.
One reason for this was that we rarely gathered for playing (only once per month) due to the number of players (~15 + 3 DMs). The other was that he caused the completely tanking of the campaign at the second meeting I joined.
To elaborate: While the other two DMs created reasonably powerful (and passive) DM(N)PCs to partake in the setting (two mid-generation Primogens, which made sense), he went all-out and came up with a two thousand year-old Brujah (but he had been in torpor for a thousand years, so it was okay). He also played the role of the Sheriff, since he deemed one of the players, another Brujah, who was interested in the job, as "too irresponsible" if I recall correctly. 
The evening was entertaining (it was about a demon and stuff, I only got a fraction of the references because I joined quite late), until the demon temporarily possessed one of our melee heavy players. The player (in character as a possessed being, and empowered by said possession) got into a fight with the sheriff and finished him off permanently in one round, thereby rendering all the work he put into his precisious Marty Stu to dust in a few seconds. This apparently throw him off the rails, and the evening went downhill from that, quite similar to some Star Trek TOS episode, with an immature brat (don't know which race) with superpowers and a childlike mind having pretended to be the demon the whole time for shits and giggles. Judging from the reaction of the other two DMs, this had not been planned to play out like this. He later made a feeble attempt to apologize, mentioning how he pissed off that his DMPC had died, but if someone can't cope with the loss of a (ready made, not actually leveled), ill written wish-fulfillment character and actively ruins the fun for 17 other people because of it, I guess only the most kind would let that slide.

Needless to say, the campaign was discontinued after that.

So, something like UA's Generic Warrior, but with more variety?

Well, with greater variety and a power level comparable to the baseline ability - a 4d6 sneak attack for a lvl 15 expert is definitely not on par with what we get for the rogue. But yeah, something like that. Of course, it would only really work if all classes would follow these mechanics and were brought in line power/versatility-vise with one another, but the fundamental idea - allowing the recreation of existing classes by molding them into the feat system - is there.