I'm sure it can be done but I've not seen a PnP game thats both balanced and worth playing.  And when it comes to those two qualities the latter is the most important one. perfect balance isn't essential if it's not pvp or an MMO, it's just a bonus. I do like Pathfinder but only with any 3.5 stuff also added to it.  If you wanted to make all characters closer in power to each other I suppose banning all the non casters would be the way to do it.  But everyone knows the casters are the apex of D&D power. Someone may still want to play a "Badass Normal" type. He knows what he's getting in to, its still what he wants to play. Toss him some free stuff maybe. He shouldn't be forced into not playing that character.<br/><br/>The plots you can come up with in 3.5 are the real draw. Raise all someones dead loved ones as zombies and send them after them while they chant every way their target failed them in life. They might not physically hurt him but the emotional scars are real flavorful. Play an agent of pure chaos that grants demonic supernatural powers to commoners and watch the insanity unfold.  Manipulate one of the Kings advisers into doing what you want by terrorizing his dreams. Spread a plague that turns people into cows. Then have one of your minions open a butchery selling beef. Be a warlord in command of hundreds of cannibals that have lived for generations underground. Be an undead spirit that murders beautiful maidens to continue modifying it's crafted physical body to be more and more beautiful. Be an evil sorceress that uses magic to permanently mutate and disfigure any other beautiful woman and torment any man that would deny her.  Murder an important noble and impersonate him, taking over his life.  My characters son, Caligula Bathory, and his whole "thought police" thing is a wonderful concept, and totally undoable in most other systems.<br/><br/>4.0 Balanced things better and in doing so made an unplayable game. It played like a miniatures game there was combat and that was it save for an occasional skill challenge. Combat? That thing that happens 3 times a year in message board games a few times a month in a weekly RL game?  I know, some people like doing mostly dungeon crawls so the system works great for them. But the things I listed above are impossible in it so its worthless to me. And when it comes to most PnP games, thats the rule not the exception. As I said Exalted is one of the only other systems that I find worth playing.