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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorhook" data-source="post: 6347600" data-attributes="member: 58401">Word, broseph! We're just exploring the history of the system! One of my favorite things about the 5E backgrounds is the randomized traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. These are built right into the Player's Handbook, and can even give two uncertain players with the same race/class/background combo two distinct character concepts. That rocks. I didn't 4E backgrounds closely enough to ever see if they included things like this. 4E builds were well balanced, but I'm not convinced that each one was very well considered in the context of the whole system. By the end there were builds that were only distinct by virtue of their power selection, and the system balance was too vulnerable to exploitative powers. What little we've seen of 5E seems to skirt that problem. (My opinion is that the Essentials classes were much better crafted than most of the early classes, for what it's worth.) The weren't particularly consistent though, neither with each other nor with the previous builds for each class. Ultimately they seemed like mulligans of the PH1 and PH2 classes. In 5E, everything we've seen suggests that all fighters will share most of the same features, with the subclass features only deriving from the martial archetype they select at 3rd level; I believe this is more commonality than Essentials builds shared with their pre-Essentials siblings.  No doubt about it!Agreed. I'd actually argue that the high degree of balance and structure in 4E made optimization so much worse. At least in 3.5E, if you sucked, you probably sucked in a unique way; 4E were effective by default, but when they were outclassed, they tended to be outclasses absolutely.</blockquote>

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