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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3935341" data-attributes="member: 15999">I consider myself quite lucky to have generally avoided such groups in my 23 years of gaming.&nbsp; I know they're out there, but it's just not my style. Improvising a plan on the spot in response to some unexpected development -- that's fun.Having your PC do something impulsive, daring, and heroic, with a real chance of failure, at a dramatic moment -- that's LOADs of fun, even if the PC fails.Being forced to be &quot;sub-optimal&quot; and finding a way to still muddle through -- that's actually LOT of fun in my experience. Maximizing effectivness?&nbsp; Not so much fun, for me at least.&nbsp; I can certainly do it, but it means dragging the game down a painstakingly slow pace.This brings up a point about teamwork that I recognized in 3E.&nbsp; If the fighter chooses to use options that sacrifice defense for offense (2-handed weapon, charging, raging, Enlarge), he gets to dish out a LOT more damage, but also requires much more healing -- thus forcing the cleric to spend her actions healing the fighter.&nbsp; A more balanced sword-and-board fighter does less damage, but also takes less damage, thereby allowing the cleric to do the &quot;cool stuff&quot; that she wants to do.&nbsp; I assume this tradeoff will still be there to some extent in 4E.&nbsp; Even if other classes can self-heal, and even if the cleric can heal while taking other actions, it is my guess that the most effective healing will be something the cleric does as a standard or full-round action. Is the specialization (&quot;I hit things, you heal me&quot;) teamwork?&nbsp; It can be.Is the distribution (&quot;We all hit things&quot;) teamwork?&nbsp; It can be.Baseball and basketball are both team sports, but they have very different balances of roles and &quot;spotlight time.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 3935341, member: 15999"] I consider myself quite lucky to have generally avoided such groups in my 23 years of gaming. I know they're out there, but it's just not my style. Improvising a plan on the spot in response to some unexpected development -- that's fun. Having your PC do something impulsive, daring, and heroic, with a real chance of failure, at a dramatic moment -- that's LOADs of fun, even if the PC fails. Being forced to be "sub-optimal" and finding a way to still muddle through -- that's actually LOT of fun in my experience. Maximizing effectivness? Not so much fun, for me at least. I can certainly do it, but it means dragging the game down a painstakingly slow pace. This brings up a point about teamwork that I recognized in 3E. If the fighter chooses to use options that sacrifice defense for offense (2-handed weapon, charging, raging, Enlarge), he gets to dish out a LOT more damage, but also requires much more healing -- thus forcing the cleric to spend her actions healing the fighter. A more balanced sword-and-board fighter does less damage, but also takes less damage, thereby allowing the cleric to do the "cool stuff" that she wants to do. I assume this tradeoff will still be there to some extent in 4E. Even if other classes can self-heal, and even if the cleric can heal while taking other actions, it is my guess that the most effective healing will be something the cleric does as a standard or full-round action. Is the specialization ("I hit things, you heal me") teamwork? It can be. Is the distribution ("We all hit things") teamwork? It can be. Baseball and basketball are both team sports, but they have very different balances of roles and "spotlight time." [/QUOTE]

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