4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[AbdulAlhazred]

You actually have this precisely backwards in the rogue's case. There is literally no balance reason for a rogue not to be able to use a shortbow (a +2/1d8 weapon) when including rogue weapon talent they have access to ranged weapons that are +4/1d4 (dagger) and +3/1d6 (shuriken). The answer is obvious when you look at the rogue's weapon list, however, and is a pure in-universe choice. The rogue's weapons are the following in the PHB: The dagger, the hand crossbow, the shortsword, the shuriken, and the sling. With the arguable exception of the pistol crossbow, every single one of those weapons is concealable. The short bow on the other hand is normally about the length between the bottom of someone's sternum and the ground - unless you're wearing Highlander-style trenchcoats and have Highlander style plot exemption for carrying katanas, there is no way you are going to be able to carry a bow that is longer than your legs around with you without it being spotted and without affecting your walk. The rogue's weapons list has everything to do with in universe justification - what can you carry without being spotted?

And the fighter not wearing plate - I'd argue that +1 armour class for -2 armour check penalty is balanced. So this can't be a balance issue either. It therefore must be intended to reinforce the thematics somehow. And it does this two ways. The first way is that it makes plate armour special without making plate armour ridiculously expensive. In 3.X plate armour was rare and special because it cost 1650GP (did anyone who could afford plate armour not have masterwork plate?) In 4e they wanted to make first level paladins able to be knights in shining armour, so plate armour is officially cheap enough to be bought by a first level PC. On the other hand they wanted to make plate armour rare and special - and couldn't do it through financial cost (a silly way given the D&D economy in any edition). So they did it through opportunity cost - if it (a) costs a feat to wear plate armour even for a fighter and (b) isn't actually better than scale (remember that -2 armour check penalty) so isn't worth the feat then plate armour will be rare and special. And Paladins will get to be our Knights in Shining Armour.

In neither of these cases is "because it's not balanced" even close to being accurate. Both of @Remathilis ' requests are requests for things that are balanced mechanically - but in one case there's a good in-universe reason to not have them (concealment) and in the other it's thematics and worldbuilding.

Of course I'd argue that neither was a good design decision, but for different reasons. The rogue's ability to use a rapier with a feat undermines this theme and both the club and the staff are concealable (or rather the staff can be hidden in plain sight); I'd have had an explicit "Rogue weapon expansion" feat in the PHB if doing all this again, to make this obvious. And the plate armour issue comes under the heading of "Game designers trying to be too clever by half and not explaining why". Something responsible for a lot of problems.

If I were re-writing the rogue weapon proficiencies from the PHB, I'd probably just add the following:

Rogue Weapon Expansion (proposed feat)
Most rogues only carry weapons they can conceal easily, but whether for cultural reasons or through sheer flair you can carry your choice of weapon openly. Gain proficiency with either all simple weapons, or any one one handed martial weapon. You may add this to your rogue's weapon list (and therefore use it with sneak attack and any applicable rogue powers) although a versatile weapon must be wielded in one hand to do sneak attack damage.

Rogue Weapon Master (proposed feat)
Pre-requisite: Rogue Weapon Expansion
Your favoured disguise is that of a warrior, and there's nothing quite like hiding in plain sight. You gain proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and add them to your rogue's weapon list (therefore using them with sneak attack and any applicable rogue powers). When wielding a non-simple weapon in two hands lower your sneak attack damage by 1d6 - this replaces the restriction on versatile weapons for Rogue Weapon Expansion. Further, any weapons the rogue gains proficiency in through superior weapon training feats become rogue weapons.

Shortbow: A rogue may gain proficiency with the shortbow through the Rogue Weapon Expansion feat. Using a shortbow does not lower your sneak attack damage if you also have Rogue Weapon Master.
Whip, Net, Parrying Dagger, Bolas, Talenta Boomerang, Xen'drik Boomerang: The rogue may select the [] as a weapon with the Rogue Weapon Expansion feat
Garrotte: The rogue is automatically proficient with the garrotte.
Kusari-Gama, Spiked Chain: The rogue may select a [] with the Rogue Weapon Expansion feat despite it being a two handed weapon. If they do so, lower sneak attack damage by 1d6.
​

Why yes, at the price of three feats the rogue can wield an executioner's axe. And this is balanced - the rogue weapon restrictions have everything to do with theme.

4e actually has a LOT of this, WRT weapons. Not only the rogue's weapons, but what about the swordmage for example? There's no reason at all that swordmages shouldn't have access to axes, maces, etc. It isn't even worth a feat. At least the rogue's use of things like rapier and longsword are balanced at the cost of a feat (a battle axe would be equally balanced too though). It was an odd choice too when other classes like the cleric are perfectly welcome to use swords. In the cleric's case there are some nice weapon enchantments for mace that they'll probably want, so it often makes sense for a STR cleric to stick with the more traditional weapon. OTOH even this creates some silliness because it sure seems odd that a cleric of Odin would favor a mace over a spear...

I think the fighter plate armor thing is mostly a matter of attempting to make choices be meaningful even when they're relatively small ones. A fighter CAN benefit from using plate armor. The extra defense is worth a feat, and there are plate options later on, and a few enchantments, that some fighters may well be interested in. It isn't mechanically a wasted feat. However, they could just as easily have not done it and tweaked things a bit differently. Every game design has stuff like this in it though. Design is a process. Choices get made and a lot of the ones made early on have dimensions that aren't appreciated until later, at which point you simply don't have the budget and time to rewrite everything again to try to get rid of them.

PERSONALLY if I were redoing it? I'd greatly simplify weapons in general and make that choice mostly aesthetic. I don't think I like the whole armor proficiency thing either. Let the characters wear what they want to and balance it more cleverly.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think your rhetorical tactic of "your experience must be so atypical that it doesn't count, but mine is entirely mainstream" is weaksauce dude. It is utterly unconvincing and is a horrible debating tactic. Anyway, all I have to do is point to the number of complaints about the pre-4e class restriction mechanics (Paladin as poster-child) to make my point. Clearly MANY MANY people were not happy with the way the old approach worked. Consider all the evidence of this:

1) The complaints themselves
2) The perpetual watering-down of the restrictions over time and efforts to skirt them
3) The very existence of a different design in the form of 4e

Seriously, I have DMed D&D games since like 1975 or 76. I think I'm qualified to state that problems with these sorts of mechanics, workarounds, debates, and alternative proposals have been a staple feature of D&D community discussion the whole time. Like what you want, but can the "I know best what the community likes" nonsense, it doesn't fly.

But it isn't my tactic. I think you are reading way too much into what I am saying here. I am not denying some gamers feel the way you do. Nor am I saying my preference for the old paladin is the best solution for the entire community. I am saying just because some do, that doesn't make designing toward a different preference bad design. It may be that the old approach to the paladin isn't going to be workable as the sole option of the game. But given the complaints people are making about 4E, i think it is clear that many gamers do share my taste on the matter. What that means isnt that I am right, or that you are wrong, it just means there is a divide in preference and attempts to label design towards one set of preferences or the other as "bad" miss the point.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For my tastes, the 1e ranger is the best version out there, a pretty clear nod to his literary inspirations. Hands down, my favorite class in the edition, restrictions and all. That said, the 3.5 and PF versions are also quite good, from a thematic standpoint with powers that work well together. Both the 3.0 and especially 2e (a serious black mark against an otherwise great edition) fell short.

I will admit that of the 4e stuff I seriously investigated (first 3 core books), I think the ranger is the brightest spot in an otherwise disappointing offering. Most of the combat powers are straightforward, they generally uphold a scope similar to previous editions (while the fighter noticeably narrows, for example), and their utility powers offer a good set of options for well-themed, non-combat, general adventuring. By comparison, the class I actually played most in 4e, the rogue, was a fairly pathetic also-ran. But while a black mark or two wasn't enough to get me to reject 2e or 3.0, a rare bright spot or two wasn't enough to get me to like 4e.

Yeah, very different tastes. I liked the 1e ranger, the first time I played it. After that it was like "gosh, I can make exactly one character with this whole class!" which isn't perfectly true, but not far off. Why was so much left on the cutting-room floor? In 1e you're Aragorn, that's it baby, right down to the "I can wrestle a palantir from the will of Sauron." That's OK, but it seems like an awkward game design when you've got room in your PHB for 11 classes and they have to be so narrow in concept. Again, my fighter couldn't even learn how to track, it was "be Aragorn or don't track".

To me 4e is all bright spot because finally I can make ALL the different sorts of PCs I can imagine with one rule set, vs being stuck with AD&Ds scattershot where a few narrow concepts are supported really well and everything else has no support at all. IMHO the 4e rogue is a great success. You can make a LOT of different types of characters that all fall under that archetype, and if you want you can graft parts of the archetype onto other classes to do even more stuff.

 

[B.T.]

You actually have this precisely backwards in the rogue's case. There is literally no balance reason for a rogue not to be able to use a shortbow (a +2/1d8 weapon) when including rogue weapon talent they have access to ranged weapons that are +4/1d4 (dagger) and +3/1d6 (shuriken). The answer is obvious when you look at the rogue's weapon list, however, and is a pure in-universe choice. The rogue's weapons are the following in the PHB: The dagger, the hand crossbow, the shortsword, the shuriken, and the sling. With the arguable exception of the pistol crossbow, every single one of those weapons is concealable. The short bow on the other hand is normally about the length between the bottom of someone's sternum and the ground - unless you're wearing Highlander-style trenchcoats and have Highlander style plot exemption for carrying katanas, there is no way you are going to be able to carry a bow that is longer than your legs around with you without it being spotted and without affecting your walk. The rogue's weapons list has everything to do with in universe justification - what can you carry without being spotted?

That's certainly a generous interpretation. My own thoughts: the designers highly overvalued large damage dice on multiple [W] attacks, so they didn't want the rogue to be wielding something that would be rolling d8s or d10s along with his sneak attack.

And the fighter not wearing plate - I'd argue that +1 armour class for -2 armour check penalty is balanced. So this can't be a balance issue either. It therefore must be intended to reinforce the thematics somehow. And it does this two ways. The first way is that it makes plate armour special without making plate armour ridiculously expensive. In 3.X plate armour was rare and special because it cost 1650GP (did anyone who could afford plate armour not have masterwork plate?) In 4e they wanted to make first level paladins able to be knights in shining armour, so plate armour is officially cheap enough to be bought by a first level PC. On the other hand they wanted to make plate armour rare and special - and couldn't do it through financial cost (a silly way given the D&D economy in any edition). So they did it through opportunity cost - if it (a) costs a feat to wear plate armour even for a fighter and (b) isn't actually better than scale (remember that -2 armour check penalty) so isn't worth the feat then plate armour will be rare and special. And Paladins will get to be our Knights in Shining Armour.

I think it might have to do with the fighter needing lower AC to make up for his striker secondary role, but I'm a cynical SOB.

 

[Remathilis]

That's why there are a plethora of feats that let people give their Fighters plate mail or otherwise deviate from the default playstyle, right?

But Fighters were proficient in plate armor from inception. Even in Basic, where plate armor was dirt-cheap (60 gp, or about what one orc camp has) plate was the hallmark of the fighter. Requiring a feat to do something that was inherent to the class previously is a feat tax.

"A certain class [has] a certain playstyle and Thou Shall Not derive from it because [the designers] know best" can literally be said about every single edition of D&D, most strongly in 1e and with less truth behind it in each successive edition, and it's least true in 4e. You could say, "Why are wizards only proficient in certain weapons in 3e?" or, even better, "Why do all clerics in 3e wear medium armor and wield martial weapons? That's not the kind of cleric I want to play!"*

Medium armor and martial weapons? I think you mean simple weapons and heavy armor. Anyway, feats were what you did if you wanted to go outside the box, and they're still a good place if you want armored mages, clerics with martial weapons, or greatsword weilding rogues.

To the extent that classes in 3e allow for more flexibility in style, it's because they each have one single default theme that "Thou Shalt Not deviate from." If you want to be a wilderness skirmisher, you have to play a ranger, and if you play a ranger then you are a wilderness warrior -- oh, and you also have to focus on two-weapon fighting or ranged weapons or else you're wasting some class features.

Or a Scout. Or a Wilderness Rogue, or a Barbarian. But lets take your example for a minute. In 3e, I get TWF as a bonus feat. I am also still proficient in all martial weapons and medium armor, and I still get 1 feat every 3 levels. I could devote my feats to power-attack and that chain, wield a bastard sword and shield, and still be on par with a paladin or slightly below a fighter in terms of combat and let TWF languish on my character sheet alone and neglected.

I can't really do that in 4e, can I? If I want to be a ranger; I better use a bow, two weapons, or an animal companion or else my powers are pretty much reduced to basic attack, aren't they?

In 4e, however, while classes have a default flavor, they -- like every other mechanical element in the game -- are encouraged to be reflavored. If you take away the default flavor, then you just have different builds that provide you the mechanics for different playstyles. Want to be an armored, but mobile warrior who fights best in the middle of the field? Good, pick the fighter class and you're all set. Want to play an archer fighter? Pick the "ranger" class, call yourself a fighter, don't take skill training in the nature skill, and take the most powerful ranged weapon powers. Want to be a heavily armored warrior who sacrifices mobility for defense? Pick the fighter class, specialize in sword & shield, and pick the plate armor proficiency feat; or pick the "paladin" class and reflavor the Divine buffs/debuffs as the effects of your imposing presence.

Ah, the reflavoring canard. A tired cliche that role-proponents use when they have to justify hardwiring combat styles into classes.

First off, Classes aren't generic. I almost wish they were; it'd be easier to have a "defender" class that gives power like "Mark", "Shielding Strike" and "Push Foe" and then let the player decide if he's a paladin, warlord, ranger, warden, Swordmage, or whatnot.

A ranger is NOT just "good with a bow" class. I don't WANT to have to re-write 30+ levels of paladin powers because I want to be able to wear plate. (And explain how my Imposing Presence HEALS WOUNDS WITH A TOUCH? Wait, don't. Refluffers could justify making Orcus LG if they need to). It'd have been a lot simpler to have rogues use shortbows (as they did for 3+ other editions) than to have to rewrite another class to become a rogue (and sacrifice roguish powers like tumble for rangerish ones like Owl's Wisdom) with a bow.

Its one thing to change magic missile into necrotic shooting skulls or make a Warden part of a Barbarian tribe, its quite another to say my rogue's crossbow shoots necrotic shooting skulls or make a Paladin part of a Barbarian Tribe...

*(I'm only singling out 3e here because it's the only pre-4e edition with which I have first-hand experience, or else I'd provide examples from 1e and 2e)

1e and 2e had their fair share of nonsensical rules (clerics using bludgeoning weapons being prime) but 3e did a lot to allow flexibility. Rogues could use any weapon and SA. Clerics could gain proficiency in their deities weapon, even if was an edged weapon. 4e pulled that back and by taking away options (or making them sub-optimal; IE basic attacks only) in the interest of hard-coding certain styles to certain classes. Its exclusive, not inclusive and lazy.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For my tastes, the 1e ranger is the best version out there, a pretty clear nod to his literary inspirations. Hands down, my favorite class in the edition, restrictions and all. That said, the 3.5 and PF versions are also quite good, from a thematic standpoint with powers that work well together. Both the 3.0 and especially 2e (a serious black mark against an otherwise great edition) fell short.

The 1e Ranger is Aragorn - and just about no one else. To me, that's not a class.

I will admit that of the 4e stuff I seriously investigated (first 3 core books), I think the ranger is the brightest spot in an otherwise disappointing offering. Most of the combat powers are straightforward, they generally uphold a scope similar to previous editions (while the fighter noticeably narrows, for example), and their utility powers offer a good set of options for well-themed, non-combat, general adventuring. By comparison, the class I actually played most in 4e, the rogue, was a fairly pathetic also-ran. But while a black mark or two wasn't enough to get me to reject 2e or 3.0, a rare bright spot or two wasn't enough to get me to like 4e.

The 4e Rogue isn't an also-ran. What they are is fiddly with a lot of unstated assumptons - chiefly that they are going to get combat advantage almost every round in combat. (The 4e Thief is a lot better this way - if you just want combat advantage, spam tactical trick; the other tricks are for going above and beyond). If they'd actually bothered to mention this in the PHB far fewer people would have had bad experiences. Out of combat they are, of course, more comptent than in any other edition due to the narrowing of the skill lists (in particular the folding of hide and move silently into stealth, and open lock, pick pockets/sleight of hand, and disable device into thievery) and due to utility powers.

The fighter doesn't narrow as noticeably as he appears to - he shifts. Fighter used to be a catchall class - in 4e it's "Melee Badass", pure and simple. But within that the 4e fighter is covering territory that no other edition will - even before the splatbooks did what 4e splatbooks do and added additional breadth rather than power to the classes. And honestly, I find the ranger the blandest and most boring class in the entire PHB.

PERSONALLY if I were redoing it? I'd greatly simplify weapons in general and make that choice mostly aesthetic. I don't think I like the whole armor proficiency thing either. Let the characters wear what they want to and balance it more cleverly.

I think if I were redoing it, I'd take a leaf out of the 13th Age books. Armour is classified as light or heavy and AC is by class - and weapon damage dice is by class, modified by one handed or two.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"A certain class [has] a certain playstyle and Thou Shall Not derive from it because [the designers] know best" can literally be said about every single edition of D&D, most strongly in 1e and with less truth behind it in each successive edition, and it's least true in 4e.

I don't know that I agree that it's least true in 4e. 3e multiclassing alone gives so much more character variety than 4e is really functionally capable of, and 3e's introduction of feats makes it much more flexible than any e that came before it.

You can re-fluff stuff easily in 4e, but that's kind of dodging the point. You can call a smeerp a rabbit and make something an X in name only, but why is my archer fighter capable of learning nature magic and apparently skilled with natural beasts? Rangers are made to support a different archetype.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's certainly a generous interpretation. My own thoughts: the designers highly overvalued large damage dice on multiple [W] attacks, so they didn't want the rogue to be wielding something that would be rolling d8s or d10s along with his sneak attack.

The PHB contained the rapier - a 1d8 light blade as an exotic weapon which could be used for Sneak Attack. The designers had no problem including that despite the fact it could get rogues d8s with their sneak attack. They also had the simple crossbow - another weapon rogues could use with their sneak attacks and that did d8 damage. The rapier is, however, much more telling because it's a superior weapon in the PHB - but the only class that would take it in 4e other than as a pure flavour feat is the rogue (almost anyone else who wants to be in melee would just take the longsword and shrug).

I therefore can not agree that the designers didn't expect rogues to use d8 weapons when there is a d8 weapon obviously put in for rogues to wield.

But Fighters were proficient in plate armor from inception. Even in Basic, where plate armor was dirt-cheap (60 gp, or about what one orc camp has) plate was the hallmark of the fighter. Requiring a feat to do something that was inherent to the class previously is a feat tax.

No. It isn't a feat tax. It's a use of a feat. Classes change between editions - and fighters are no exception.

Or a Scout. Or a Wilderness Rogue, or a Barbarian. But lets take your example for a minute. In 3e, I get TWF as a bonus feat. I am also still proficient in all martial weapons and medium armor, and I still get 1 feat every 3 levels. I could devote my feats to power-attack and that chain, wield a bastard sword and shield, and still be on par with a paladin or slightly below a fighter in terms of combat and let TWF languish on my character sheet alone and neglected.

I can't really do that in 4e, can I? If I want to be a ranger; I better use a bow, two weapons, or an animal companion or else my powers are pretty much reduced to basic attack, aren't they?

No. No they aren't. They haven't been that way for almost three years - Martial Power 2.

But I'm going to ask you a question I'd really like an answer to. You do not want to use a bow. You do not want to use two weapons. You do not want an animal companion. Why do you want to play a ranger in 4e? Because you're getting close to the territory of "I want to play a cleric but I don't want to cast any spells". A 4e class isn't about who you are underneath. It's about what you do on the outside - and on the outside you don't want to fight, move, or behave like the 4e ranger class.

Ah, the reflavoring canard. A tired cliche that role-proponents use when they have to justify hardwiring combat styles into classes.

The whole point of classes is to package things together. You have three options - effectively play point buy (as 3e did), treat the classes as a straightjacket (as AD&D often did) or reflavour when you want to come up with something that's outside the realms of what the designers anticipated (as 4e actively encourages).

First off, Classes aren't generic. I almost wish they were; it'd be easier to have a "defender" class that gives power like "Mark", "Shielding Strike" and "Push Foe" and then let the player decide if he's a paladin, warlord, ranger, warden, Swordmage, or whatnot.

4e classes aren't generic. They are packages of behaviours. You want to play a "ranger" that doesn't fit with the behaviours that 4e thinks go with a ranger.

A ranger is NOT just "good with a bow" class.

What a ranger is has been different in every single edition of D&D. The 1e ranger wasn't the 2e ranger. The 3.0 ranger was a waste of space. The 3.5 ranger was different again. And the 4e ranger is different yet again. So what is a ranger? Someone with light armour, scouting skills, some connection to nature appears to be the only common thread.

I don't WANT to have to re-write 30+ levels of paladin powers because I want to be able to wear plate.

Assuming this is a fighter we're talking about, you don't have to. You can spend one feat. Is one feat really that high a price? And if that was really part of the paragraph of complaints about the ranger - why does your ranger want to wear plate armour anyway? So he can drown in a peat bog. Forgive me for being unsympathetic.

It'd have been a lot simpler to have rogues use shortbows (as they did for 3+ other editions) than to have to rewrite another class to become a rogue (and sacrifice roguish powers like tumble for rangerish ones like Owl's Wisdom) with a bow.

Which is why they fixed this problem. The thief can use a shortbow. This has been the case for over two years. So that's one complaint that hasn't been true for almost three years and one that's not been true for over two. As for your complaint about sacrificing roguish powers like tumble for rangerish powers like owl's wisdom, there is nothing saying that Owl's Wisdom (which is a Druid power anyway) needs to go anywhere near your character sheet at all. Instead you can sacrifice skirmishy powers like tumble for skirmishy powers like Yield Ground (which lets you shift back when hit in melee). There's no way Yield Ground is incompatable with being a rogue.

Its one thing to change magic missile into necrotic shooting skulls or make a Warden part of a Barbarian tribe, its quite another to say my rogue's crossbow shoots necrotic shooting skulls or make a Paladin part of a Barbarian Tribe...

What's wrong with the idea of a Paladin being part of a Barbarian tribe? Do barbarian tries not have driven champions of causes? Or do the gods just hate them? The biggest problem I see with it is justifying why the Barbarians have plate armour.

1e and 2e had their fair share of nonsensical rules (clerics using bludgeoning weapons being prime)

Actually that wasn't non-sensical. That was quite explicitely for balance purposes as edged weapons did more damage against large targets, thus giving the fighter a subtle boost precisely when the spells were starting to edge the clerics out. Contra B.T. if you find a non-sensical rule from Gygax it was probably for balance purposes. If it's in 4e it's, more likely than not, fluff.

but 3e did a lot to allow flexibility. Rogues could use any weapon and SA. Clerics could gain proficiency in their deities weapon, even if was an edged weapon.

What you mean is that 3e had a lot of flexibility on straightforward options and spells. Find me the effective non-spellcasting warlord in 3e. Find me The Grey Mouser. Find me the Lazy Warlord. Find me the defender - and no, just being able to put a shield in the way won't cut it. I could go on - but after 4e trying to create a non-caster in 3e feels extremely cramped.

4e pulled that back and by taking away options (or making them sub-optimal; IE basic attacks only) in the interest of hard-coding certain styles to certain classes. Its exclusive, not inclusive and lazy.

What is a class? And what options were removed from non-casters that were not brought back later? 4e splatbooks all added breadth rather than power. And all the complaints I recall you raising in this post haven't been issues for more than two years. But if we want to talk about options not there, how about going back to AD&D. Taking a human and trying to play an armoured wizard. Or a cleric with edged weapons. The point of a class system is to have styles mixing with classes.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can re-fluff stuff easily in 4e, but that's kind of dodging the point. You can call a smeerp a rabbit and make something an X in name only, but why is my archer fighter capable of learning nature magic and apparently skilled with natural beasts? Rangers are made to support a different archetype.

I have no idea why your archer fighter is capable of learning nature magic and skilled with natural beasts. My archer fighter using the ranger class doesn't have nature trained and all his utility powers are to do with movement or resilience. The utility powers I didn't choose for him are not a part of the character.

Edit: And this is one of the reasons why 4e character creation is much more flexible than 3.X in most cases. With the exceptions of fighter, bard, and sorceror, one member of any of the PHB character classes looks pretty much like another. Two members of the same class share almost all the class features of each other. Any cleric can prepare and cast all the non-domain spells any other cleric can cast. The monk's class features (other than the feats) are identical to all other monks. In 4e there is no reason two rangers or two barbarians have to share any powers in common. Literally all they need to share are hit dice, basic defences and proficiencies, and the Rampage and Rage Strike abilities.

 

[Keldryn]

Given how well it worked in so many groups, once again I think pegging it as bad design is applying your own preferences to it. It is good design for a certain kind of game. You may not think it balanced out, but my years of direct observation are that it did for my group and most people I knew. Playing a paladin was not easy. Having to operate within the limits of a code, does limit their options and that is a disadvantage. I always felt the limitations on them balanced out what they got.

Interpretations of the paladin code in AD&D was a pretty common topic of discussion in the "Letters" and "Forum" sections of Dragon magazine. It may have worked well in your groups, and I never experienced any significant issues firsthand, but paladins seems to have worked poorly for many other groups due to differences of interpretation in how they should be played. From a modern perspective, with RPG design having been refined over the past 40 years, I think that it's a poor design in general. The AD&D ranger, druid, cavalier, and barbarian classes are marred by a similar design philosophy (to varying degrees).

I think its not "balance" per se that drove some of 4e's weapon/armor, it was aesthetic. Simply put, they wanted to make certain classes "look" different and the best way to do that was to artificially limit his weapons and armor (and by limit, we mean have class features and powers not work with non-sactioned gear). It was done to create a clear visual key to artists, miniature makers, etc.

Hasn't every version of D&D featured classes with artificially-limited choices of weapons and armor? Singling out 4e as doing that for the purpose of creating a clear visual reference for artists and such is not only overly cynical, but I don't think it holds up to the evidence.

The 4e classes don't have identical weapons and armor proficiencies to what they had in previous editions, but none of them have strayed very far. They seem very much informed by what the classes were given in previous editions, tweaked to fit into how the classes were re-designed in the 4e paradigm of roles and power sources.

Fighters lose default proficiency with plate armor, while paladins retain it. The knight subclass of fighter (from Essentials) also starts with proficiency in plate armor. For the PHB fighter, it's only one feat to obtain proficiency, and he will most likely meet the STR and CON requirements for the feat.

Clerics aren't proficient with any armor heavier than scale, which likely serves two purposes. Not only to differentiate from the heavily-armed and armored divine warrior (paladin), but also it seems that chain armor is the baseline for leader-role classes (the bard and warlord have the same).

Rangers could wear heavy armor in 2e and were still proficient with medium armor in 3.x, but a number of their abilities wouldn't function, so they were effectively restricted to light armor anyway. The martial strikers focus on mobility, so the armor restriction fits the concept. Rangers had abilities that were only useful when wielding a bow or dual weapons long before 4e arrived.

Rogues (thieves) have always been associated with leather armor, and in some versions weren't allowed to wear any other kind of armor. The restriction to smaller, easily-concealed weapons is hardly without president (check out the AD&D 1e allowed weapons) and fits the flavor of the class.

All of the primal classes (barbarian, druid, etc) are set up to favor light (non-metal) armor and have class abilities to prevent them from getting hosed for doing so. This goes right back to the AD&D incarnations of the druid and barbarian.

Granted, some of these began to double up (invokers and clerics share the same wp/armor, IIRC, as do barbarians and wardens) but 4e was very adamant you weren't supposed to wear plate if your a fighter, have a bow if your a rogue, wear metal armor if your a barbarian, or any armor if your an avenger. (If the errata for such things were any indication).

It was just one more place 4e was keen on dictating that a certain class had a certain playstyle and Thou Shall Not derive from it because WotC knows best.

4e is also the first edition of D&D that allows virtually any character class to wear any sort of armor without it completely blocking their special abilities. It's an expensive investment of feats (which have high STR and CON prerequisites for heavier armors), but there is no spell failure for wizards casting in armor and druids won't lose all of their spells and supernatural abilities for putting on a suit of metal armor or using a "prohibited" weapon.

There is certainly a heavily-implied default playstyle to each class -- which I don't see as a bad thing, as it makes it clear to players in what situations a class will be most effective -- but there is a lot of flexibility within that playstyle. There are also many ways to break out of that default playstyle through different builds or subclasses.

So, is the paladin thing beaten to death? How about a slight diversion? What about rangers? How did AD&D style design work there? Seemed to me like there were some things that were OK, but a lot of puzzlement. Looking at the restrictions:

1) Must be good - What? There are no woodland scout type guys that aren't good? I have no idea why this restriction exists, except as purely a counterweight to the class's better features vs a fighter. It lacks even the logic of reinforcing a specific trope the class is designed for. I mean Paladin by its nature refers to a good guy, 'woodland warrior' has no such connotations.

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Others make sense, but I never understood the magic user spells or the giant class creature bonus.

I think that the good alignment restriction and giant-class creature bonus come from the LOTR-inspired ranger archetype: not so much a woodland scout but a hardy, commando-like warrior operating on the fringes of civilization, keeping the evil creatures at bay. Given the assumed setting implicit in Gygax's D&D, this would be human civilization (hence the racial restriction to human or half-elf and not allowing elves) and the evil creatures assaulting the borders would be giants, orcs, goblins, and the like. They are "good" because their primary purpose is to protect civilized lands at great risk to their own lives.

It's a pretty narrow archetype, but the ranger's connection with nature wasn't really much more than a side effect of operating away from cities and towns.