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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 4701865" data-attributes="member: 1544">I think it rather depends on how much reading-between-the-lines you are doing at the time. The obvious example being the lack of fluff in the monster manual. While neither directly states that you should create a monster in a given way, by providing 3-400 canon examples it does encourage one line of thought or the other. I think the point I was getting at (in my awfully long winded way), was as follows:4E encourages you to think of the balance/stats first, and then hang a description on top. Simply because it provides all the instructions for balance.3E lacked those tools, which caused the opposite effect - you created a creature first, and fit the appropriate stats etc afterwards, because until you knew what the creature was, you had no guideline to work with.I'll admit it's a fairly subtle difference in reality. I'll also admit that 4E is easier, and provides a more predictable result.The way you've phrased that suggests that you never house rule anything. Amusingly it also suggests that you should still be playing original DnD, because anything else would be a change, and therefore cause problems. I realize what you mean of course.So is the fighter who uses Str with his crossbow not encroaching on the archer's territory?It seems 4E's ideal is that no class should ever overlap another's shtick, yet it has feats that allow them to do exactly that. Wizards now play a lot closer to fighters than they used to be, because they have so few spells to choose from. Fighters now play a lot closer to wizards than they used to be because they have all these spell-like powers. That seems to be considered okay while at the same time you're saying that they shouldn't overlap. Which is it to be? Previous editions have taken the assumption that everyone starts out the same and diverges. 4E appears to take the assumption that everyone is already different and will possibly merge over time.Playwise they're becoming the same, while fluffwise they're spreading further apart. It's all "X[W]" across the board, while trying to make the fighter not an archer.Yes... You can vary off the baseline in either direction. Is the resulting average still 60%? It sure feels like it when I play.Which defeats one of the initial reasons for wanting to make the change in the first place. But then, I never was a fan of encounters being the measure of recharge. (Note to those about to tell me 4E isn't for me, I already know that, we're not discussing which game I should play).Granted. But is it as unbalancing as some were suggesting earlier? I think not.No, as it happens, but that doesn't invalidate the point anyway. The starting comment was that 'no game is perfectly balanced'. Black being able to win doesn't break the argument. Not even chess is perfectly balanced.</blockquote>

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