I think this is it - this right here may be the important difference in viewpoint. Not only yours and mine, but of those who argue for the lenient ruling and against it.
Classes were never 'just' the mechanics to me. Each feature with any amount of flavour adds to the character's story and makes me imagine the things about their past it reflects, how they came to posses it, what situations it could've helped them in.
But this is all fair and right. You can have all the reasons of this world to not like something, and the same is for me. It's about having different backgrounds, different preferences and different everything.
If you don't like something is fine. If Larian looks around and decide "this thing isn't liked by enough people, it isn't worth it" is fine. What I can't consider fine is saying "larian shouldn't implement this because I don't like it". It's vastly different.
This isn’t just optional. It’s super optional. There is no mechanical advantage to reclassing characters at all. You can creat the exact same builds on any of the hirelings. So it isn’t even an option where there is some incentive you might have to reconcile with missing out on.
It is only here for people who want it, and can be completely ignored by those who don’t. That’s perfect.
@zanos, this wasn’t added at the 11th hour, Swen said this would be in the final game 3 years ago when the EA launched. Every complaint you have can be mitigated by three words: “don’t use it.”
I will be changing Minsc’s class every time I play a new campaign. Mostly as a barbarian, but I will do one novelty playthrough where he is a wizard and I will do this because he won’t be acting like a wizard at all. It’s awesome Larian gives people like me this option, as it wasn’t hard to program, so why not?
