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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5983778" data-attributes="member: 2067">It's very true that every single edition of D&D has focused almost exclusively on combat as the one mechanic for resolving challenges in the game.However, this near-exclusivity had variation. From deadly low-level combat to spells like Charm Person to mechanics like level drain and disease to things like wandering monsters to things like XP for treasure to things like rust monsters and green slime and shreikers to things like difficult HP recovery to things like weak thief classes, the idea was that sometimes -- maybe only 1/4th of the time, but sometimes -- combat was something you wanted to avoid. Anyone who says that 4e is just as combat focused as any other edition has to take into account the fact that other editions, while pretty combat focused, weren't monolithic in this in the slightest. There WAS variation. It may have been a bit "DM makes stuff up," and a bit "Ha! Screw you, Player Character!", but it was absolutely there. Fighting was deadly and swingy and unsatisfying unless you were a fighter or an attack-focused spellcaster.4e, continuing a trend from 3e, had a few modifications that, in effect (if not in purpose) did away with that little bit of variety. Rituals and skill challenges suffer mightily from issues that make it seem like they were design afterthoughts. Powers and feats are almost always combat related. Encounter-based design doesn't like anything of consequence to happen outside of an encounter, and tenacious balance doesn't like anything to skew the math too bad. Any 4e DM who wants to can choose not to embrace this focus. It's pretty easy, if you're a DM who is good at engaging other areas of the game, to do so. It's one of the tremendous virtues of having a DM. But the mechanics of the system slant toward combat, in a way that wasn't quite as true before, in a very multifaceted way, in a way the designers maybe didn't exactly intend, and in a way that a good DM might never, ever see. This doesn't mean the issue is illusory, or that people are "bad actors" when they make this comparison. There's something at the core of it. Maybe not something you personally are very familiar with, but something real nonetheless. Sort of, just because you're well-fed and happily employed doesn't mean that the system that you succeed at isn't deeply problematic for others.</blockquote>

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