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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 4283403" data-attributes="member: 24970">Personally, if I had to balance everything out in terms of Absolute Balance, I'd prefered the idea of playing in a combat world where High-Level Power automatically equals Spells, and that's just how it is. You can *start out* as a low-level fighter, rogue, etc., who doesn't know magic, but when you get up to 15th+ level, those classes (or their Paragon Paths, etc.) automatically become more "magical" and start taking on spell-like functions. Basically, don't nerf the wizards -- give EVERYONE some magic as levels progress.(Of course, this would remove the very appeal of playing those non-magic-using classes, to a lot of people... but anyway... that'd be *my* solution. I like spells. ~_~ )Anyway, my chief complaint about the 4e PHB, apart from my personal desire to dominate the gaming table with some ret*rded spell/Metamagic Feat combination ( <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=";)" /> ), is that it just doesn't offer as many options for varied character builds as in the 3e PHB. In this way, it's really more of a game for newbies, as opposed to experienced character-crafters, number-crunchers, "explorers", power-gamers, whatever you want to call them (us). It's much easier to make an average character, and much harder to make a notably "good" character or a "bad" character via good or bad choices.Now, this in itself isn't a bad thing... and it's great to be a dragonborn or a tiefling or an eladrin, but..... but c'mon, the variety of characters you can make in 4e is really very limited, particularly spellcasting characters. It's like someone else pointed out in another thread, about just how few feats were really appropriate for her Dwarven Cleric. In 3e you could play a zillion different types of clerics, wizards, or sorcerers just using the basic PHB, all drawing from different combinations of the same spell list. If I wanted to create a "plant-themed" sorcerer I *could* do it, just using things like Entangle and Plant Growth and Summon Weird Plant Monsters. ~_~ Or if I wanted to create this, or that... basically the options were all there. The spell list in 3e was the Grand Guideline For What Level Any Effect Would Be, and How It Would Work.And I personally never felt it was broken. (But then again, I also welcomed the added randomness of high levels -- sure, keep flinging save-or-dies at one another! High levels equal unpredictability!) Here's two related things I dislike:(1) your class is now Your Class. Yes, I know there's a pseudo-multiclassing system in 4e, but I much preferred the multiclassing & prestige class system in 3e. It was much more diverse and customizable. Now, you're really locked in for life. Again, simple and understandable, but less versatile.(2) in keeping with this, there are much fewer "cross-class" abilities which are accessible to everyone. It used to be that both Feats *and* Spells could be taken by every class if you had the right requirements. Now apparently Spells are too complicated to exist as a type of thing in their own right, and instead, every class has its own set of feats, even redundant ones, such as all the multiple level 29 powers that cause 7(W) damage. :/Y'know how I would have done it? Three separate lists of "powers." Arcane, Martial and Divine. Instead of listing each class's powers right next to the class. The only reason not to do it this way is to make it sliiiiightly simpler to keep track of, so they're right there next to your class and you don't have to read through them in alphabetical order from a big list like the spells in 3e. Furthermore, this way you don't necessarily notice if some classes have a smaller number of stronger powers, or a larger number of weaker powers. Which I think is a legitimate design decision.Essentially, as someone who virtually always plays spellcasting characters (I did play one 3e rogue, and after he died on his third session, I must admit I understand the appeal of 4e rogues :/ ), and who prefers "internally consistent" worlds, I agree that 4e is probably not my game.I do want to play it at least once or twice to see what it's like to shift all those minis around and push them into lava pits. After I house-rule EVERY SINGLE 3E SPELL back into the game... sheesh, what a pain...</blockquote>

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