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4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6076559" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>I think I'd quibble with this a little bit. Combat pre-WotC was fairly abstract, even if reasonably codified, and went significantly faster which greatly reduced the amount of table-time that any given character was sidelined. Additionally, some of those editions, if played RAW, had fairly extensive subsystems covering all the "exploration" aspects of dungeon-crawling. (Sometimes even more than one, depending on if you were a Halfling, Thief, Elf, etc.) In this way, thieves could feel a little more important, sometimes vital, without having to engage constantly in fighting toe-to-toe. Even my Wizard will occasionally "sit out" a fight if he thinks his spells will do more good later. If you have 6 fights a session, with several exploration and interaction encounters/scenes as well, this isn't a big deal.</p><p></p><p>The WotC editions, IMO, have taken the direction of abandoning abstraction and simplicity in combat for ever more detailed and codified tactical movement and conditions. Choosing, or being forced, to sit out a fight can often mean sitting out a third or more of a session. For that matter, I've seen 3e fights take up the entire session! I've heard similar complaints about 4e. (and <em>both</em> have their defenders saying "you're just doing it wrong."<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />) That can lead to the nonsensical situation where a DM is trying to avoid his heroes getting into a fight! This, I think, more than anything else, destroys the parity between the pillars and locks them into this "everyone must be equally good at fighting" thing....and <em>that</em> infringes on the class identities of fighter(s) <em>and</em> everyone else. </p><p></p><p>Okay, maybe that was more than a little quibble....</p><p></p><p>and maybe it wasn't directly related to argument at hand...</p><p></p><p>but I feel better having typed it.<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 6076559, member: 6688937"] I think I'd quibble with this a little bit. Combat pre-WotC was fairly abstract, even if reasonably codified, and went significantly faster which greatly reduced the amount of table-time that any given character was sidelined. Additionally, some of those editions, if played RAW, had fairly extensive subsystems covering all the "exploration" aspects of dungeon-crawling. (Sometimes even more than one, depending on if you were a Halfling, Thief, Elf, etc.) In this way, thieves could feel a little more important, sometimes vital, without having to engage constantly in fighting toe-to-toe. Even my Wizard will occasionally "sit out" a fight if he thinks his spells will do more good later. If you have 6 fights a session, with several exploration and interaction encounters/scenes as well, this isn't a big deal. The WotC editions, IMO, have taken the direction of abandoning abstraction and simplicity in combat for ever more detailed and codified tactical movement and conditions. Choosing, or being forced, to sit out a fight can often mean sitting out a third or more of a session. For that matter, I've seen 3e fights take up the entire session! I've heard similar complaints about 4e. (and [I]both[/I] have their defenders saying "you're just doing it wrong.";)) That can lead to the nonsensical situation where a DM is trying to avoid his heroes getting into a fight! This, I think, more than anything else, destroys the parity between the pillars and locks them into this "everyone must be equally good at fighting" thing....and [I]that[/I] infringes on the class identities of fighter(s) [I]and[/I] everyone else. Okay, maybe that was more than a little quibble.... and maybe it wasn't directly related to argument at hand... but I feel better having typed it.:) [/QUOTE]
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