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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8037027" data-attributes="member: 87792">It's funny because I look at a statement like that and then I think back to the edition before 4e and think how much of an improvement roughly a third of your powers being utility powers was over 3.5 and how much less like a game built almost exclusively around combat 4e felt to me.If we look at the class that is supposed to be the non-combat expert in D&D 3.5, the rogue, it very quickly becomes incredibly obvious that before 10th level the only non-combat ability that allows the rogue to go above and beyond an extremely constraining skill system is trapfinding.  Even at 10th level the best a rogue can do is the ability to take 10 under stress with Skill Mastery - useful but it doesn't exactly allow you to go above and beyond. And with such a ridiculous number of skills in 3.5  the rogue could either spread themselves ridiculously thin or be competent in less than a quarter of skills in 3.5; a 4e rogue was competent by default in more than a third of skills. Also from the way the skill numbers were cut down the 4e rogue was proficient in far more roguish abilities than the 3.5 one; hide and move silently condensed into Stealth (which all 4e rogues were proficient in) and Sleight of Hand, Pick Lock, and Disable Device all condensed into Thievery (which, again, all 4e rogues were proficient in). That's five skills all related to core elements of roguery (and that were five of the eight AD&D thief abilities before we start talking about rogues being locked in to these skills) all covered in just two skills, leaving four more skills to learn other stuff. Things are so bad for the poor 3.5 rogue that I've made a 4e first level fighter that could put a 3.5 rogue to shame.Meanwhile if we look at the 3.5 rogue, the class that supposedly has expertise out of combat its abilities are Sneak Attack (clearly a combat ability), Trapfinding (I'll grant this under the protest that it should not exist as it hard-codes magic to being just better), Evasion (a passive ability almost always used in combat), Trap Sense (a combatish ability), Uncanny Dodge (a combat ability), Improved Uncanny Dodge (a combat ability), and six choices for special abilities of which four are pure combat, and slippery mind is mostly combat.The 5e rogue isn't quite as bad as the 3.5 one; it is at least competent skill-wise and xpertise does work even if it's boring. But Sneak Attack is pure combat, Cunning Action is mechanically written to be pure combat, Uncanny Dodge is combat, Evasion is almost all combat. Thieves' Cant is situational. 5e, through bounded accuracy, does what 4e does through level scaling and means that the skill system defines what you are good at rather than what you simply shouldn't try against anything in the same league. But, especially once you bring feats into play (and take into account that the first two ASIs are probably going on Dex for the rogue in 5e), the 5e rogue struggles out of combat against the 4e one - if you want interesting things to do play a spellcaster.And this is where the fundamental disagreement occurs. 4e was the first and so far pretty much the only version of D&D where the out of combat situation didn't have an almost Harry Potter level of gap between magic users and muggles. It also had some decent if undercooked scene framing mechanics (badly presented but there). And it is therefore the first and only D&D where the rules out of combat seem like more than a barely designed bolt-on to a tactical minatures game.oD&D was a hacked tabletop wargame. 3.0 and 3.5 mandated grid based play and had opportunity attacks. AD&D earned its hack and slash reputation, and the Non  Weapon Proficiencies were a poorly designed joke that didn't mesh at all with thief skills.  The 3.0 and barely different 3.5 and Pathfinder skill systems mostly defined what you couldn't do. And spells with defined areas want maps, period. There has never been an edition of D&D I've felt wasn't built for the minatures game - the difference to me is that 4e let me design my character's fighting style and manage their stamina including taking a breather in combat (second wind) rather than using a video-gamey "Mash A to attack" followed by an equally video-gamey "keep chipping away at the bullet sponge health bar with the only mechanical effect coming into play when it hits zero". At least if you are playing a muggle.</blockquote>

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