Biggest 4E PHB complaint...

[lutecius]

I agree with you. But I would be carful or you will get flamed about druids being able to do too many jobs.

controller and striker were speculation but everything else (hybrid role, focus on shapechange and weather control rather than elemental powers) was mentioned on a designer's blog.

 

[Cryptos]

NOOOOOoooooooooo!

I'll second that. The archery ranger characters I've constructed turned out to be better rogues than my rogues skill-wise (it turns out that Wis and Dex help more traditional roguish skills in 4e than Int and Dex - dungeoneering, perception, insight as opposed to... none, unless your rogue is a history buff), and just as good at being a ranger, regardless. Add to that not having to worry about combat advantage for extra damage, and I'd argue that in terms of the "sneaky person that spots things, picks locks, disarms traps, moves around a lot and does lots of damage in spurts" definition of rogue, your average Ranger with Sneak of Shadows is simply the better class.

Not to mention that the Ranger class highlights the tactical differences in 4e better than many of the other classes ("move or die" as opposed to older editions' "everyone get in position and stand there.") And that the fighter class has more or less been stripped of ranged and two-weapon builds, and the rogue has very limited ranged build options (sorry, never liked crossbows (can't remotely imagine someone pulling off some of the multiple target powers with one), shuriken are... eh, okay, and there's only so many Bart Simpson sling rogues one can build.)

Now, if they had changed rogue substantially, allowing him to rip off the ranger's bows and some of his ranged attacks to add to the rogue's power lists, either made intelligence useful in terms of their skills or changed their tertiary to wisdom, and provided more opportunities for combat advantage... then it would be a toss-up and I could see arguing that Rangers should have been the ones to get the chop.

But as it stands, no one is taking my ranger!

I do wish we had greater diversity of classes in given roles in the PHB1. I personally don't think it would have been so horrible to have moved magic items back to the DMG (perhaps dumping the mini adventure or Fallcrest, or both, or the redundancy of some of the DM advice that mainly serves to pimp other products: "we suggest playing it this way, and oh, by the way, we've got just the thing to help you do that!") if it would have provided extra pages for either more powers for every class or an extra controller class.

However, the wizard has been the one class that very vocal minority are having the hardest time adjusting to, judging by all the "they nerfed wizards" stuff flying around over on Gleemax (god, I hate the name "Gleemax"... sounds like they should be making bubblegum.) Not that I agree at all with the claims of broken wizardry, a lot of it is ignorance - willful or not - but they are fairly prominent. Having a second controller at release would have inevitably drawn more comparisons and more arguments about why wizards were "broken." But it would have been nice to have had an additional arcane or divine class to start. Maybe both.

 

[Mercule]

I'd say ditch the ranger

They did that a long time ago. The name sticks around, but the archetype is history.

 

[Derren]

I'd say ditch the ranger (impossible to ditch the rogue, and the warlock's one of the 4e poster children) and replace it with another controller of some kind.

When you ditch the ranger than no class in D&D can use bows very well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When you ditch the ranger than no class in D&D can use bows very well.

Personally, I would've preferred a "sharpshooter rogue" to an "athletic rogue."

 

[AlexS]

Now, I can't remember where I heard it, butI thought there was some mention of the Warlock originally being intended to be a variant controller and for one reason or another they decided it was better off being focussed as a striker.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

System aside my problem is that the Tiefling is a direct cut and paste from World of Warcraft. If you don't believe me check it yourself.

And people keep telling me that this game has nothing MMO about it. ROFLMAO.

P.S. Defender = Tank; Striker = DPS, Controller = Crowd Control, Leader = Healer. hmmmmm

Tiefling? WoW? Really? Hopefully you're not talking about the Draenei, given the role Tieflings play in FR, amongst other settings?

And, I don't think setting up roles is any different than what I've done for the past 15 years. "OK, so Jesse is playing the mage. OJ, are you playing the Tank or the skill monkey? Skill monkey? Cool, I guess I'll take the healer than and stick Jeff with the Tank."

That conversation has been going on since at least AD&D in my group. Now they just have fancy titles. Nothing new there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Tiefling? WoW? Really? Hopefully you're not talking about the Draenei, given the role Tieflings play in FR, amongst other settings?

People keep claiming it, though, which suggests they don't know that much about the draenei or about tieflings.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Draenei

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefling

 

[Victim]

I'll second that. The archery ranger characters I've constructed turned out to be better rogues than my rogues skill-wise (it turns out that Wis and Dex help more traditional roguish skills in 4e than Int and Dex - dungeoneering, perception, insight as opposed to... none, unless your rogue is a history buff), and just as good at being a ranger, regardless.

How is INT a rogue stat now?

 

[The Little Raven]

They did that a long time ago. The name sticks around, but the archetype is history.

The only thing the 4e ranger lacks that the previous ones had is favored enemy. And with Hunter's Quarry, that isn't even necessary.