You may not see that much of a difference in these "oddities", but I do. Fighters got specialization and most other classes did not (rangers also did in 1e), but that's more of a question of degree of results not ability to get some result. The same is true for the thief's bonus damage with a backstab. Other characters could attack from behind (or flank) and get some benefit depending on the target. In earlier editions, the target would lose their Dex bonus to AC, shield bonus, and give up a +2 to hit and under 3e, without facing, they'd still probably give up a +2 to hit for flanking. That some character class was able to do even better wasn't a problem because my character would still get some benefit from the action, something the 4e class power system discourages.
I guess I just don't see the discouragement. All sorts of PCs can get benefits from bull rushing, grabbing, flanking, charging, sneaking and the like. Some PCs just get greater benefits due to particular powers and/or class features.
Or is the issue particularly about tripping and disarming? In which case yes, these are more closely confined in 4e, and debate rages periodically on the 4e forums about whether or not these (or at least disarming) should be achievable outside the power framework.
I am only interested in discussing what each succeeded in doing and what each failed in doing on a constructive level.
Likewise. My curiosity arose in relation to your observation that "They all however interact with the game world / story in the same way now and the difference is in how they play on a tactical level."
By story, I am not referring just to "flavor text" of an attack. A Fighter can push back a foe with his shield while a Wizard pushes back a foe with thunder or something. Or in 3.5 a Wizard can stun a foe by waggling fingers while a monk can punch them in the head for the same effect. What I am referring to are the underlying assumptions of how these characters have arrived at, exercise, and deploy these powers whcih consequently is a part of the underlying story.
This still leaves me curious. The underlying assumption is that a fighter punched hard - like stunning by way of pummelling in AD&D 1st ed. The underlying assumption is that a wizard conjured might magical forces - like stunning by way of Power Word in AD&D 1st ed.
In one version, IMO, Swords and Sorcery are very different things at this level, in the other the line is not so clear.
Are you talking about the story, or the game mechanics?
In 3.5, it is more clear that the Spellcaster is engaging in a studied art for which there are clear means of practice that define it as specifically NOT being a martial concept. You study spells, they belong to schools, these spells can persist and be analyzed with various other spells, many can be utilized in a number of creative ways whether inside or outside combat, there is an internal strategy to use of these spells that does tend to exclude martial classes, the spells are by definition not like persistent feats which you can use at will - they are specifically "fire and forget". Spellcasting in 3.5, for better or for worse, is more clearly a realm of its own mechanically and what is required of a caster to interact with the game world.
This suggests to me that you are talking about mechanics, and the way in which players leverage those mechanics to change the fiction. (Which I wouldn't myself describe as "interacting with the gameworld" - that's what I would describe the PCs as doing
within the context of the fiction. A minor terminological difference between us, but it is what made me curious about your earlier post.)
I also think you're underestimating the contribution to the fiction made by the 4e wizard's mechanical features of spellbook and rituals. Warlocks also have their pacts, analogous in certain respects to wizard schools. And wizards themselves have their implement variations, analogous also in some respects to schools. But these are probably relatively minor points.
For 4e, "Powers" are a broad description of what everyone can do. There is less feel for a solid difference between say a magic missile and an arrow fired from a bow - both do all the things you mentioned (attack rolls - which were not the norm for 2e/3e DnD spellcasters; damage; possible special conditions; the same usage rate and limitations; the same actions to exercise these abilities, etc. etc.) All classes now, for better or for worse, utilize one uniform system in order to accomplish their effects. The biggest separation is the flavor text and the class "role" that helps define how these effects interact with the game world.
If by "flavour text" you mean the italicised line in the power description underneath the header and above the mechanical information, then I strongly disagree - at least in my game, this is of little importance and for many powers the players use I've never even looked at it. If, on the other hand, by "flavour text" you mean the description by player and/or GM of what is happening in the ficitonal world when a power is used, then I think I agree - this is a big contributor to what makes different classes different.
But as to powers all being the same - I am really coming to think that this is more and more a
layout issue. After all, a 4e martial power has the same info that a 3E martial feat or class feature had (martial power source, use with a ranged or melee weapon, useage restrictions - various martial prestige classes in 3E, for example, have X per day abilities). An arcane power has the same info that a 3E spell had (arcane power source, range, targets and effect, energy keywords, etc). And arcane powers often conjure things or create zones - clear markers of magic at work within the fiction!
Various PC abilities in 4e are not formatted as powers but could be, and would in some cases be easier to read and apply if done in such a fashion (eg hunter's quarry; fighter's abilities with opportunity attacks and for dealing with marked targets). Would formatting them as powers have a dramtic effect on whether they felt more like spells than like martial talents?
And in Pathfinder, I believe that wizards and clerics have at-will powers (orisons/cantrips), just as fighters etc have at will attacks. But I've never heard it suggested that because of this Pathfinder is tending towards a 4e "sameness of class" feeling.
Even in traditional 3E, many SU and EX abilities are identically formatted, relying on nothing but the SU or EX tag to indicate how they are happening in the gameworld, but I don't remember it being suggested that this undercut the fictional contrast between magical and non-magical abilities.
Its just a very plain difference and consequently, IMO, it has an effect on how these characters will interact on a story level and even what the story will require of each.
This is what I am still curious about. Why would a common layout and rules terminology for class abilities and features, that nevertheless preserves a number of key distinctions within the fiction (what is the source of the ability, what happens when it is used - both to the PC and to the target, etc), have this effect?
The real debate, from what I can see, rests at how these things fundamentally interact with the imagined world around them. Some people just -want- spellcasters to be a classification unto themselves who do happen to have abilities that are more...supernatural let's call it (don't read too much into this)...than a fighter's tactical command of the battlefield.
I personally, IMO, have found that I prefer the solid separation of the two concepts and it supports the way I tell stories best.
And in my view the real debate is about whether class abilities X and Y can be understood as resolving differently in the fiction, even if in the rules text they are formatted in the same way, and expressed using some shared and regimented terminology governing frequency of use, effects, etc. I just don't find this to be an issue - not in the sense that it's not an issue because I can compensate for it, but because at my table it has never even occurred to anyone to suppose that the fighter who belts people up with a polearm is doing the same thing as the magic user who summons Bigby's hand or the sorcerer who calls down blasts of starlight and transforms himself into spark form. The differences are so obvious, to us at least, that the idea that they would not matter to the fiction is almost self-evidently absurd.
I also want to be clear - this is
not the same question as to whether or not one prefers that martial and magical powers have their differences represented by different mechanics. Rather, this is about whether or not the fictional differences can survive regimentation in rules layout and terminology. The claim that it
can't is one that I find very strange. If the fiction can't be prised off the mechanics even to this extent, then implementing any change to the way that warriors are handled in the game - for example, as various posters have suggested, giving players of warriors metagame tokens of some sort or another - is going to be very difficult.
