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Not in the tradition of role-playing games with which I have been very well acquainted, starting with Original D&D and including the majority of commercially published ones until (I think) sometime in the 1990s. Of course, people who have never known anything but stuff like the crap that TSR...

I don't have the latter. The former states right off the bat: Setup: For the NPC to provide assistance, the PCs need to convince him or her of their trustworthiness and that their cause helps the NPC in some way. Level: Equal to the level of the party. Complexity: 3 (requires 8 successes before...

In that case, Bull Rush alone gets the job done. Thanks! Still, it was an excuse to show how one can use DMG page 42 to come up with numbers for various maneuvers. No doubt that has been considerably expanded upon in subsequent works.

Which would be what? compared with

I'm just guessing here, but my guess is that WotC management came to regret the contribution of so much Open Game Content to the Open Game License initiative. I think 4e is set up to make it more difficult for anyone to produce a "work-alike" rival. I think of the enthusiasts who say that they...

Mallus and billd91, and anyone else who seriously thinks my problem is not with the formalism itself but merely with "people who use the rules badly"... Show me! Give us an example of what you think a proper application of the rules looks like.

Well, (1) through (6) are straight from the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide. As for the rest, I hardly think the enthusiasts trying to "sell" people on the formalism have been presenting it uncharitably. I was recently looking at just such a thread over at rpg,net, in which there's one example after...

There's Bull Rush, 4e PHB page 287 -- not a Power but a move available to anyone -- but that entails shifting into the vacated space, so the subject is not actually any farther away from you unless you have pushed the subject over a cliff edge or the like. The fighter's Tide of Iron makes...

Whereas in a 4e "skill challenge" it's: 1) DM decides goal and context 2) DM decides level and complexity 3) DM decides what skill numbers are applicable, with what +/- factors 4) DM decides on other conditions 5) DM decides on consequences 6) Players roll dice and make up excuses for why Now...

You seem to think -- because it is the only premise from which I can see that inference -- that convenience to some other end is the only reason to oppose falsehood with truth.

In addressing the very matters of fact that I proposed to address (funny how that works), I have not said thing one about whether "4e's character build rules are obnoxiously constraining on PC development in a way that marks a radical break from earlier versions of D&D." In broad terms of...

No, you are also making factually false claims, one after another, that by their falsehood can do no good for that cause. If pointing out the actual facts is opposed to your cause, then clearly your cause is something else.

pemerton: I see how I erred in writing "at any time other than first taking the class". For rhetorical purposes, it was of course easy for you to pretend that I somehow considered the stated requirements for taking a second class as not including the prime requisite for the first. Suffice to say...

I have made no such attempt. Neither have I -- or any other players of my acquaintance, and by evidence not the designer himself -- ever harbored the view that AD&D ought to be all things to all people.

You tell me. Once again, your claim is -- obviously, I should think -- factually false.

I think you are probably accurate in terms of the designers' intent, and definitely on the mark with what I have seen in actual play. It is, to be sure, not an absolute binary difference but rather (as are most phenomena in this world that is not the realm of Platonic Forms) a matter of degree...

Bing! We have a winnah! Here's your plush platypus; display it with pride. The alignments are whatever they are in the game -- just like the unicorns and fairies, dragons and giants, wizards and enchantresses that have 'em.

False on the first count, I think. I don't recall any indication that ability-score prerequisites for taking classes apply at any time other than first taking the class. So, you might have a character who formerly had strength and intelligence scores high enough to take both classes, but -- due...

When you make contra-factual claims? Yes, it does make a difference to me what you in fact have and have not written. Others here may be pleased to "put words in your mouth" that you did not say for the simple reason that they were not what you meant.

... and there's nary a thing that's not included in the 4e cleric package because it's a distinction of another class? Getting back to actual facts: Methods already in the PHB and DMG include (but are not necessarily limited to) wish, clone and reincarnation spells; and the ring of...