My answer to martials up or casters down is usually both, or it can be bring the casters down. In one of the previous iterations of this thread someone said it was pointless to give martials near infinite power because casters had infinite power. Ignoring the fact that that would still be progress I realized: Who wants to play/tell a story about an infinitely powerful character? OK people do, but I certainly don't because as it gets harder and harder to tell interesting stories as power-levels get further and further away from real life. As the story gets more distant from reality the difference usually has to be about that difference. And at this point I think I am just babbling.

Maybe I will try to think of another thing to say about base rules. Does anyone else have anything to say about that? I don't mind if we go over the old caster/martial paths again, but I would really like to explore this other view to see if there is anything interesting there.