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This. Not that this distinction gets much play around here. I like second wind mechanics – beats the omnipresent clergy by a mile – but heroes should get meaningfully hurt from time to time.

What annoys me a lot about this new edition is that it seems to be run by theoryheads who believe that ideological purity on, for example, the gamist vs. simulationist axis or class/level vs. point-buy is so important it overrides other concerns. Not really giving a crap about either of these...

It seems pretty contrived to me. Also, they're probably trying to slot the Warlord as the cerebral combatant with all kinds of tactical tricks, and your Fighters are going to be the big lunks with swords.

Dude, look up escrima on Youtube for clubs – you can also find videos of large swords, spears (well, not so much longspears), and especially staves being brought to bear with the kind of speed and precision you'd want to imagine a sneak attack employs. Also working against a knife in those kinds...

But many of the powers are expressly tied into the builds: you get more benefits from these powers if you've taken one of the two rogue talents, which mirror the builds. It's much more of a constraint suggestion than the sample builds you'd see at the end of character class entries in 3e...

- the thing about these two rogue builds is that they do seem to be hard-coded into the power write-ups, where you have powers that gain extra benefit from particular rogue talents (instead of forking) - see "Charisma is a good third ability score, particularly if you want to dabble in powers...

He can also throw his offhand dagger like a champ, so I guess he's right out in 4e. :P I dunno. The Grey Mouser doesn't ever jump people. He's like a fighter with rogue skills, hence the usual multiclassing in depicting him in RPGs. He is portrayed as being very agile, but not that much more...

No, this is a bogus breakdown: Spells in 4.0 seem to occupy the same slot as the various powers, and seem to be much less numerous than in 3e; there are several classes in 3.5 at least that have featlike choices or power paths (ie ranger); there are alternate class features in the expanded rules...

So, basically the topic of this thread is "I shall preen about my consumer preferences"? Seriously, there's a lot of weird exclusionary vanity that goes on in these threads. Ooh, I've turned off that guy, and thus I have purified the inner circle! It's like an ideological substitute for fun...

Interminable theory-loving yaps about "stronger class definition" and "the game not being everything to everyone" aside, I'm simply not going to play an RPG that doesn't allow me to make the characters that I want to play – I'd rather go back to 3e (E6, probably) and its flaws and yet actually...

Reasonably sure that not being careful about that part is the 4e business model.

Yep. The 3e rogue is one of the best classes of that edition, and felt like a complete liberation from the earlier thief classes in terms of power and what roles you can make the class fill. The 4e rogue appears to be a shining example of the philosophy of "if it ain't broke, beat the freaking...

I hope the full version of the class isn't so damn narrow. Disappointed. Especially if 4e multiclassing is as restrictive as it sounds like it might be.

Yeah, roguelikes are good games. What makes them hard is that if you die, you start over, and you can't ordinarily go back to a previous save (though there are ways around this of course). And also unlike D2 there's a wide variety (in Nethack, a wide wide wide wide variety) of things that can...

I anxiously await the Gnomish Potion-Drinking Hat in PHB IV (covering the power sources of Shadow and Convenience).

Warlock. I want to see how the binder elements work with the new warlocks, since I was never very happy with the 3.5e warlock, the binder – though cool as hell – felt like half mage half fifth wheel in play, and I'd been playing around with combining the two into my idea of an archetypical mage...

This is how I houseruled it in 3.5. Oh and I took out the spikes. Basically, it is a meteor hammer in my setting. (The spikes went on a different chain weapon, essentially a morningstar-on-a-chain that didn't have reach but did bashing/piercing plus finessable plus you could sling it a real good...

I am agreeing with KM a lot lately. I haven't really heard of 4e Wizards doing a lot more than plink people at range. Their plethora of save-or-suck options seem pretty well deprecated from their 3e counterparts, and thus, the "controller" role – I can't bring myself to refer to these roles...

But average Joe is probably not D&D-proficient in the baseball bat or the knife. That even moderately trained armed opponents have an advantage over dedicated martial artists isn't usually considered a controversial point, which is what the unarmed AoO models. It's also perfectly possible to...

It also may make sense to have weapon groups overlap, possibly with setting-specific content, for example: Martial Proficiency: Hoplite (shortspear, spear, longspear, short sword, dagger, shield)