Q u o t e: this system here only promotes matching your stats and items with your crazy build. stats and items need to be complementary just as stats and skills do.
Argh, sorry man, Battle.net screwed me over again. Was about to post a long reply on your idea regarding the mix & match possibilities using gear, stats and skills, when it got removed from cache.
Anyways, what I basically was going to say is that firstly, I see armor as something that only exists on gear, and not in the attribute trees. Armor basically reduces the chance to be hit, similar to the bonus in the dexterity tree, that I imagined to be more like dodge.
So if someone is using heavy plate, they wouldn't really need that specific bonus from the dexterity tree, but they could take it anyway and it would be much more difficult to hit them in combat, even if they do have low amount of hitpoints.
Secondly, yeah, the possibilities are endless with a matching system like that.
One could make builds like: a barbarian equipped with heavy plate armor, primary attribute dexterity and offensive skills and then just give him a bow, and voila' you got yourself an archer capable of avoiding hits and doing some damage from a distance. However, he will indeed have lower hit points - but that's the point of it all - it is very difficult to get overpowered with such a useful system. That is if the systems corresponds well together.
I, for one would make a mage with heavy plate, everything except requirements in Willpower and defensive skills. That would make me quite powerful in melee combat, and able to do decent damage using spells, thanks to Willpower.
But yeah, a system with items, skills and attributes working together - that would certainly rock my pants off.
Not certain regarding the requirements on weapons, though. Will have to give it some thought.
Oh, Blizzy my love - take your time - I'll be waiting... ..mwahahahaha....
