BryonD said:
My bad.
I was not previously aware that the shift was a nerfed version of the 5 foot step, now requiring a move action. That certainly does make a difference.
Not sure I care for THAT change. And other problems that force "its just a game" to be the only explanation remain. But I didn't know the shift change and was wrong on that.
There are other aspects that changed in the "action economy" compared to 3E.
There is full round action anymore, for starters. Things that weren't move actions without being related to movement in 3E (like drawing a weapon) are now either standard or minor actions.
In 3E, you could take 5 ft steps only if you didn't move at all, which happened relatively often thanks to all the actions that cost you your regular move action (fullround attacks the primary one). And there were many cases where you didn't use your move action at all - for example a spellcaster in melee would typically cast a spell as a standard action and use a 5 ft step (but no move) to avoid Attack of Opportunities from casting.
Yeah, actually, I did and do. And I've hated Vancian casting since the days of red box/blue box.
I'm prepared to accept the 4E dailies as "metagame narrative," but I still wish they'd found a logical non-metagame explanation.
I don't like the Vancian casting (as related to memorisation/spells per day), but mostly due to its negative impact on designing the encounter "flow" in an adventure.
I think I really begin to like the "metagame narrative" since it seems to give a lot more leeway for abilities. Previously, you had to limit "special moves" by making them very difficult to use. This unfortunately meant that maneuvers like trip or disarm where harder to pull off, and thus were rarely used succesful - until you got the right feats, leading to an "special move spamming" that wasn't really satisfying, either. The "metagame narrative" approach allows you to get the effect of an ability that is rarely used, but when it is used, it has a good chance of success. Without ever running into the "spamming" problem. Maybe 4E will allow you to use the same
nencounter powers each encounter, but at least each individual power will be different.
I once played a Fighter that was strongly specialised in tripping, also having feats like Defensive Sweep to trigger trip attempts on failed attacks. It was pretty effecive, but it still sometimes felt a bit like overdoing - the same effect each round, basically. (But the alternative would have been weapon specialisation, and that's even more boring... Though possibly even deadlier...)