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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Mhoram" data-source="post: 5959075" data-attributes="member: 4789">Hey Back. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Not that Teamwork is a negative but the exclusive focus on balance for teamwork makes playing other types of approach difficult. It isn't really, just that the focus of the game being so strong on combat (which I find less in earlier editions - taste) makes it seem more unsupported in the game materials. But you have a point.Okay - but say you are playing in the module - with a solo character. How do you have that fight (with no change to what is written in the module, jsut house rules for the character) - without making the solo character so high a level that his hit bonus and AC is so high that the combat is boring. Add in free multi-class, extra hero points, extra surges, and even multiple actions every round still make it difficult to come up with house rules to support that style of play.  If you have some that work - let me know I'd love to try them. My 4E books (have everything up to essentials) are just sitting on my shelf unused.  ---- I add in the caveat of having to use published modules for solo game play, because the GM (my wife) doesn't have time to make her own.I am using this specific example to illustrate a broader point.To play a solo character in a previous edition, in published modules, it took about 2 pages of house rules (at least in my case). You could just have the characters be a couple levels over the assumed level of the module if you had three. It's pretty easy.What I see with 4E, is that the balance, the math, the teamwork assumption, the necessity of roles, makes playing a 3 character team, in a published module, more difficult to do. And solo play through a published module, and still make it challenging (and combats not last 3 hours due to less actions, more HP and more healing as the solution) is much more difficult.With that as my analysis, I am saying that the balance in 4E makes it more difficult for those that want to play outside the assumption of 4E (5 character all roles filled, level balanced) much more difficult because of said careful balance. It's not that teamwork is bad, but that the game basically requires it.If you play to that structure, it works like a perfectly well oiled machine, but the further you move outside the assumptions of the game, the less well the machine works.I find older editions much easier to "kit-bash" to other types of play, and other approaches to combat than I do 4E. And I find the reason for that is the exact reason 4E is a perfect game in the very narrow design parameters. The balance and structure really drive play to a very focused style, and if you don't play that way, the game doesn't work for you. I want the core of D&DN to support as many possible play-styles as it can, so I feel a laserlike focus on balance (especially in combat) would lessen the ability of the game to do that.I hope that explains my point better.Basically I would want that laserlike focus to combat and balance in a module. Or modules that can kill it easily - to better appeal to more playstyles.tl;dr - the thing that makes 4E great at what it does, makes it worse than other versions for multiple approaches to the game and gameplay.</blockquote>

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