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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4095580" data-attributes="member: 710">Often enough, we read criticism on 4E from people that mostly dislike it. It often comes down to the same points repeated, and us 4E likers have to jump in and defend what we like (or so we believe <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ).But this thread is a chance for those that like most aspects of 4E to describe the stuff they still worry about. Changes going to far? Changes going not far enough? Weaknesses in the design assumptions? Drawbacks we'd prefer to avoid?Here are my concerns: - Fear: Ease of play: I love the idea of every class getting powers and resources to manage. It was one of the strengths of Iron Heroes, in my opinion. But with that said: What if it gets too difficult for beginners? It was said that the easiest class to play was usually something like the Fighter - no resources to manage besides hit points, and you only have to find a way to get close to your enemy and hit him hard. It's really simple. Yes, it can get boring over time, but we're talking about a D&D/RPG beginner here. - Fear: Miniatures/Combat Grid focus: I don't think 4E is worse then 3E in this regard. But that doesn't mean it would have been nice to get more options to ignore the grid. With area effects and flanking in the game, using a battle map makes things a lot easier. But, again from a beginners perspective, this forces one to use a visual representation. Maybe graph paper and improvised tokens are enough, but it still feels like a barrier to entry.- Fear: Encounter power "spamming": People will use their encounter powers as often and as much as possible. If the number of encounter powers are limited, this will lead to repetition. Or if they are not limited enough, every attack/action will use an per encounter power, and they lose their feel of "specialness".Not that Charge/FullAttack/FullAttack wasn't repetitive or lacked specialness, either, but the improvement might not e as big as I could hope for. - Fear: Daily powers to powerful/important: Daily powers might be so powerful that, after some time of game experience, people will return to the 3E 15 minute adventuring day. It's an escalating effect: People learn that any hard encounter can be turned into a cakewalk by novaing. So adventure designers put even harder encounters in the game. Everyone novas all the time, and we're back to square 3.x. - General: Hit Points as an encounter resource: It was already true for the most part in 3.x, thanks to Wands of Cure Light Wounds. Healing Surges might actually get us back closer to HP being a per day resource, but still, the rules seem to assume that getting to 0 hp during a combat is a common occurrence. (and not just for the enemy)But I wonder if the whole thing shouldn't be changed even more radically. Throw away scaling hit points / HD. Throw away escalating damage. Instead of ablative hit points, use a different resource for general "nastiness protection", like "Drama Points" or "Possibilities". Spend a drama point to reduce your damage, reroll your attack or saving throw and stuff like that. A more narrative approach to modeling damage...- Fear: Irrational fear: What if everything that looks like something I like doesn't work that great in actual play?!There are counter points to most of these fears (except the last, because that one is irrational <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ). All of this stuff can be countered (or validated) by playing the actual game. So, that are my points, as far as I can think them up.</blockquote>

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