The level restriction is a sort of balancing fail-safe in the event that certain items don't have attribute requirements or to put a reasonable limit how far ahead in items the player can get by twinking themselves with lots of +attribute gear and min / maxing their points. I think it could be less restrictive than it is on TQ though.
I will probably be apply / balancing requirements differently this time around. I don't feel like the way requires were set up in TQ was optimal. To some degree it is too much like what you're talking where mage stuff is all INT, melee stuff is mostly STR, archer gear is mainly DEX. There isn't much choice to be made there. It is just like "oh I'm a mage, guess all my points go into INT". At least, that's how it generally went if your build was more oriented toward one of the purer archetypes. It was bad for hybrid chars though because they got stuck having to divide points were pure classes didn't.
I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to do it this time but my goal is to create more of a choice between offense / defense / utility for all classes. At the same time, I want to give different classes and hybrids more flexibility in terms of which weapon they use. To that end, level requirements may play more of a limiting roll while attributes may be more important in determining how effective you are with the weapon you equip.
One change that is almost definite is that I've divided OA and DA so they are no longer both increased by DEX. I'm not sure why exactly I did it that way on TQ but I was never quite happy with it. I'm not sure about this but my current thinking is that all weapons will use DEX either as a requirement and / or to be effective with them. All armor will require STR. Certain magical items like jewelry will require INT.
Oh... also STR, DEX, INT have different names all do slightly different things. I'm not really sure about this change yet or the new names, which better describe what each do now but sound a little awkward to me. Currently we have Cunning, Physique, and Spirit.
My thought is that cunning describes your skill, training, and cleverness in combat both with physical weapons and magic. To that end it increases your damages, probability to hit, and critical hits.
Physique is your overall strength, dexterity, physical conditioning. It influences your ability to effectively wear heavier armor but also represents the agility with which you avoid attacks and being critically hit.
Spirit represents your energy and willpower. It allows you to wield more potent magical items and influences the rate at which you regain energy.
I'm also contemplating getting rid of the point allocation for both health and energy and then making it so that you gain a health bonus for every point in physique and an energy bonus for every point in spirit.
Thoughts? Discuss...