I love free respec in this game. In addition, would encourage it in just about ANY RPG game.

And not because I want "ez mode" or anything stupid like that. It's because, I love DISCOVERING new abilities as I naturally progress through the game. I think that researching every ability in the game before you start playing really kills that enjoyment of discovering.

But in a difficult, punishing RPG without a free or cheap respec option, the player is forced to research builds before starting and plan their build out the entire game. Or, more often, pick a cookie cutter build from a forum or something. If they don't do this, they will almost always have a crappy or at least suboptimal build and will have to either restart, or just be stuck with it.

This absolutely KILLS that enjoyment of discovering new skills, or experimenting with a new unorthodox build just to see how it performs.

With the ability to respec however, I can actually experiment with new ideas. I'm not stuck with some cookie cutter crap just because I don't want to waste 40 hours of my life leveling a crap build, only to find out its crap after 40 hours.