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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aribar" data-source="post: 6595216" data-attributes="member: 6777974">I understood you, but I don't believe it's as bad as you say. Compared to 3E, 4E made great advances towards allowing all characters to be good in combat and out of combat. Not perfect as you indicated with the "3 good stats / 3 dump stats", but sub-optimal characters aren't as ineffective all around.System mastery is a very bad problem in most editions of D&D. 3E was absolutely terrible with the countless splatbooks of feats, classes, magic items, and spells. 4E, where Fighters or Wizards can have over a thousand Powers to choose from, can be very painful as well. I believe 5E has gotten this back down to somewhere between Basic to AD&D levels of complexity, which is very nice.I think we have vastly different views of how the game supports play here and won't convince the other side of anything. Personally, I don't believe D&D has ever supported the style of world building you've discussed. I view the numbers as a game construct, not the laws of physics in the game world. As a DM, I can set the level scale however I like. I can set the tone that levels 1-15 are gritty, beginner adventurer levels where kobolds and orcs are scary, monstrous things to fight even with a number advantage. I can say that at level 1 the players are champions and can take on dragons and armies of orcs. Either way works in 4E, I can just adjust combat difficulty and monster stats to make it happen, or even make it not a combat at all but a series of skill check to avoid or escape an "unbeatable" foe.I completely accept that your explanation of level balance is a valid way to play the game. It's not a style of D&D I prefer, though.Apologies, I would never deny that the 4E power framework is based on Vancian magic. The whole thing is based on having a set amount of powers for a set timeframe after all. I felt that the magic system in every edition but 4E was unbalanced because it was very easy for the spellcasters in the party to determine how long the "adventuring day" is. One player run low or out of spells? They'll want to rest. Compared to 4E, everyone runs on the same resource pool and will want to rest at the same time. Additionally, in every other edition except kind of 5E, Vancian magic is an all-or-nothing affair. My only way to balance spellcasters is to either disrupt their rest and they can't regain ANY spells... Or let them rest and they have all their spells back.I totally agree with your statement on rules. If I have to pay $150 or more for a bunch of rules to play elf games with my friends, they better be easy to understand and fun to use! However, I'm not sure where the combat/roleplaying mechanic thing came from to an extent... D&D has always had few or poor out of combat rules in my opinion, and 4E is no exception there. 4E just focused on the part of the game that most of the rules are about, combat, into something fun compared to the pain I feel it is in other editions. Personally, I've never been a fan of alignment because it's just caused problems in my group. One person tries to justify being an annoyance to the party (in-game and out of game) by saying they're Chaotic Neutral. I get told "my character wouldn't do that!" like someone else knows my character better than I do because I'm Neutral Good instead of Lawful Good. I feel like backgrounds and such do a much better job of describing characters than alignment.</blockquote>

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