Essentials: An end to MADness?

[Gradine]

The only build really screwed over by MAD is the Starlock. Sure, some were fairly hardup when all we had was the PHB1 (such as the Strength Cleric), but even from the start, taking a paragon path from your primary class was only one of a number of options for character growth from levels 11-20. And while paragon multiclassing is hardly ideal, paragon paths from your second class was always an option with most secondary classes (my first character a Taclord -> Battle Mage). And now there are racial paragon paths and, once they become core, theme paragon paths should your campaign choose to use them.

That said, I'm hard-pressed to find too many builds that really require more than one strong primary and a decent secondary, in which case, Essentials really changes nothing in this regard.

In response to the OP, as a roleplayer I've also learned to stop forcing character personality to be based solely on what stats I need to make a useful build. Many players may feel they must give their "impulsive" characters a low Wisdom, yet there are builds of Battlemind that suggest impulsiveness as a primary character trait, yet still suggest Wisdom as no worse than a 3rd-highest stat.

This isn't to say that attributes can't still be used as a roleplaying tool; but especially in 4e should never be regarded as personality-defining shackles.

 

[LostSoul]

Random stat generation one way of conveying the idea that you don't need to have a perfectly optimized PC in order to be effective. It pushes the idea that the game challenges the player, not the character.

 

[Shin Okada]

Forget that obsolete random stat generation. It just forces someone to play inferior character while another lucky player play a very strong PC. Usually, it just makes the unlucky player uncomfortable (and make some lucky player uncomfortable, too).

Also, it does not give a lucky player a challenge. If you want to give challenge to players, do it in other ways. And let ALL the players challenge something, if you think giving challenge to players is so important.