I interpret your readme to say that you intend to nerf dual and multi class characters so that they'll be roughly equal in power with single class characters. I share your disdain of powergaming but this idea doesn't even make role-playing sense to me. It's broadly logical that people with many talents and/or professions use their varied skills to somehow augment each other, thus making them more formidable than most, provided that their skills are roughly compatible with each other. Perhaps I misinterpret your intentions?
BTW, I agree that the way multi classes get their HLA's has to be changed. It makes no sense that Jaheira can get a Critical Strike when leveling up as a druid or that Aerie can get Mass Raise Dead when leveling up as a mage.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that Multiclassed HLA access is hardcoded: Jan can gain a new level as a Thief and learn how to cast Dragon's Breath, and there's just no way to enforce that he can only learn that spell when it's his Mage half that earned it. Sorry.
There are two motivations for my "watering down" the HLA options for the Multiclasses. One is somewhat subjective: I feel that their greater fluidity of HLA selections makes them (unfairly) more powerful than the Single- and Dual-classes, and it's part of my main objective to get all of the classes and kits on a more even footing. The other motive, on the other hand, is quite objective: A Multiclassed Fighter/Thief (or whatever) should not be able to attain
more Fighter HLAs than someone who's spent his entire life as a Fighter. Yet a pureclassed Fighter gets 21 HLAs under the EXP cap; a Fighter/Thief gets 23. I agree, if a character can combine different skills to his advantage, well and good--but let them work by actually combining
different skills (e.g., Assassination and Greater Evasion are absolutely lethal skills to put on a Tank), not by simply being able to toss out 2 more Critical Strikes per day than the pureclass Fighter can. I haven't worked out the specifics of how many of each HLA the Multiclasses will be able to choose, but I certainly won't be penalizing them too much--just enough to make them feel a bit disgruntled about "running out" of Greater Whirlwinds and having to choose regular Whirlwind instead.
I really think that Paladins should be able to reach Grand Mastery in at least the Great Swords category. I may be wrong, but when I picture a Paladin I picture a Medieval Knight with a Divine purpose. In my mind, Knight's have always been the better trained when compared to regular fighters. Why is there a limitation on their training anyway?
There's a limitation on their training because a Paladin is a Fighter who can cast spells, use special abilities, and has a permanent -2 bonus to all Saving Throws. If they could reach Grandmastery as well, their only disadvantage would be their slower level progression (and their inability to combine with other classes), hardly a significant drawback. In this mod, I gave pureclassed Paladins the abilitiy to reach Mastery only to help them catch back up with the various Paladin
kits, not with the Fighter class.
Odoriferous Knight idea . . . hmm. Frankly, I feel this is much more suited for a Barbarian than a Paladin. The Hide armor restriction could be done by giving the kit the same item restrictions as the Archer, but the "no Shields" and "only 2-handed weapons" could not actually be implemented--you'd have to just allow them much greater weapon specialization with 2-handed weapons, which would simply make 1-handers and shields undesirable. This "odor causes human enemies to faint"--were you thinking of that as a
permanent effect? I would be against it: If the making the Save is easy enough to avoid making the game too easy, it would also have to be so easy that the Stench effect would happen so rarely as to be nearly negligible. It would be more in tune with the spirit of the kit, I feel, to give them a Horrid Flatulence ability, which is difficult to control: When cast, the game rolls a d100 to determine how rancid the stench is, how long after cutting the cheese the aroma actually takes effect, or if the fart attempt even works at all.