NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahwe Yahzhe" data-source="post: 4531628" data-attributes="member: 55229">(sigh) Twin strike, hunter's quarry, lethal hunter... (yawn) I also think I get what the OP was trying to explain- that characters are pretty much written by the rulebooks once you've chosen your race, class and build.  Once you've done that, your powers, defenses, hit points, and skills are all pretty much pre-determined.   Very easy to churn out a character in 5 minutes, but no choice of options if you actually want to create a character "out of build." Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of powers is a great balancing mechanism and all that, it's just that they get predictable very fast.  Before, it was just the fighter saying, "Full attack.  Again." Now, ALL the players are doing that with characters, just using the terminology appropriate to their chosen class.  It became a running joke with our stabby-build ranger (as opposed to the shooty-build ranger.)  So much so that when another player filled in for him and ran the ranger that night, he quoted the original player verbatim: "(Sigh) Twin strike, hunter's quarry, lethal hunter... (yawn.)" A little bit of custoimzation or choice in character creation beyond race, class, and one of two builds selected would be nice.  Something that probably could have filled all that white space in the PHB. My solution so far has been trying to get all flavory and sh*t when describing the same attack for the fiftieth time, and a few selective house rules to deal with regenerative healing gone haywire.  Battles run 5-8 rounds at my table, but usually by the end of round 3 the players have figured out that victory is inevitable and just a matter of attrition.  I keep combat encounters under a hour (except really big ones) by using magnetic markers and an initiative Combat Pad and abusing players who haven't written down complete attack and damage bonuses for their powers on their character sheets.  (Badly-designed character sheets are no excuse.)  After a couple of hundred hours DMing 4e, and about half that playing 4e, I'm coming to the conclusion that the OP and the "half-dozen" before him have:  the game has sacrificed flexibility in character creation for the balanced mechanics. -AY</blockquote>

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