Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
The reason is that I don't want to have to deal with unnecessary complications when it comes to battles. I want to fight the two Ogre Zombies in the room and move on to the next part of the adventure as quickly as possible. I want the focus of the adventure to be on the plot. If we are exploring an ancient tomb, I want to get to the part where we learn the history of the tomb, why it was created, we search for the treasure buried there, and we solve the puzzles the creator left for us. The battle part is interesting and needs to be there, but I'd prefer the focus not be on the minutia of combat. Whether I take a full step left or only a half step left before attacking is not important at all. The important thing is that I attack the enemy and do damage.
My character knows how to fight, I don't. I don't want to have to come up with the exact details of HOW he fights. He knows how best to defeat his enemies whether they are Undead or Orcs. I'll let him figure that out and then abstract that into an attack roll and a damage roll.
My metric for "Is this a good mechanic?" almost always comes down to: "How intuitive is it for fairly new players to use?"
If someone who had never played an RPG before shows up at my game wanting to learn and says "I want to be that sneaky guy, who hides and disarms traps and stabs people in vital places" and I have an adventure planned that's entirely undead, I don't want the player to complain halfway through the game that it feels like his character is useless compared to everyone else. I don't want him feeling like he made a bad choice when creating his character.
He also likely won't know what scrolls, wands, or alchemists fire were or why he'd need to carry them around. Also, if the campaign started at first level, he likely wouldn't afford any of that.
Plus, I feel that an RPG really should let you create a character at least close to your vision of them. Rarely do Rogue-like characters in TV shows, movies, and books carry around scrolls or use magic. They are just really good at combat. Albeit, sneaky combat. Most players come in thinking, "So, I'm going to be like Riddick(or insert any character here), I sneak in the darkness and attack people when they aren't looking. That'll be so awesome!"
It creates a large disconnect when you suddenly say "Oh, yeah, you are just like Riddick, except when there's zombies around. Then your normally badass character can barely hurt them. You mean you didn't buy the magic item listed on p. 239 of the Magic Item Compendium that means you are good at defeating zombies? What are you, an idiot?"
And this is the key, most people don't know what kind of campaign it will be when they create their characters. I don't know of any DMs who inform their players of these things in advance. Exactly the opposite. Most DMs specifically keep these details hidden so the players have to figure it out as they go along.
Plus, if you are playing an ongoing campaign, the adventures change from session to session. You might start the campaign looking for the Stick of Truth only to find it when you get to level 6 and then suddenly there's an undead army invading and the next 5 levels are attempting to defeat the Lich King and his Undead army.
It feels like of lame going from that guy who does 10 more damage than everyone else and kills enemies before any of your friends to the guy who does 1/10th of everyone else's damage and feels like he is sticking a sewing needle into enemies over and over again, uselessly.
