Kwalish Kid
Explorer
It's great to see so many assumptions about role-playing and 4E in one place!
I have ceased to be surprised at the failure of players on this board to apply a minimal amount of imagination to 4E.
There is little reason to think that the static difficulties for certain environments will not remain in 4E. The difference is that, if the DM wants players to have a chance to escape a certain situation, the obvious environmental difficulties are not the only challenges to overcome. For example, characters can climb something easier than a sheer, slick wall and then use other skills to continue to escape.Kamikaze Midget said:It's not just a perception. 3e says: "20 ranks in Climb lets you do all these things!". 4e says "If you want to try and escape the city by climbing the walls, that sounds good, do you want an easy, medium, or hard difficulty?"
4E does not limit actions like this to once per encounter, it limits special narrative effects surrounding tripping (supposedly) to once per encounter. Players can always continue to trip using STR/DEX vs. Reflex Defense.3e says "Tripping can't be 'used up,' so do it whenever you want." 4e says "Tripping can't be 'used up,' really, but you can only do it once per encounter, however you want to make sense of that."
I have ceased to be surprised at the failure of players on this board to apply a minimal amount of imagination to 4E.
Having unique options is not the totality of 4E. It's the manner in which all PCs have these abilities that contribute more-or-less equally to the drama of the game.I don't see how 4e is doing anything that any other class-based system hasn't already done, here.
3e's classes have unique options. 4e's classes will, too. 2e's classes did. 1e's classes did. And the unique options have nothing, AFAICT, to do with where each game's rules system focuses.
I don't understand this sentence.I'm not sure how you can look at the RULES for Trip (for instance) that we know and tell me that 4e cares what your character is literally capable of as much as it cares about what your character functionally does.
4E rules seem to involve ensuring that the characters built by the system have an impact on scences that is based on their creation. That seems optimal.That's the heart of what I'm saying. 3e's rules revolved strongly around building a character. 4e's rules revolve more strongly around building a scene. You can't have a scene without some characters, and you can't have characters without some sort of scene for them to be in, but the focus is a bit different, in the rules.