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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 4457956" data-attributes="member: 1544">Oh certainly. I see 4th ed as being the first time the fundamental mechanics of combat have changed. In 0-3.p characters rolled a d20 to hit (str vs ac), then rolled the appropriate damage die, and that was about all there was to it. In 4E they have to determine one of 5 or so different attacks to make, roll to hit... which may not be str vs ac, then roll a varying number of damage dice.Put another way, in all editions I know exactly how to play a fighter, because they're fundamentally the same. Yes they gained more options over time, but the standard walk up and swing your sword action was always a viable option. Now you never do that as you always have at-will powers with funky abilities to use. And those powers are hands down better than the basic attack. Using alternate actions such as disarm or power attack always came with negatives to balance them out against the basic attack (e.g. not dealing any damage). Few of these powers have such negatives.Maybe this is just me, but the sheer concept of non-spellcasters having powers the way they do now just doesn't feel right. It's a sacred cow to me, although it's one I've only just identified. Like fireball should have a large area of effect, a fighter should be a valuable member of the party by walking around swinging his sword, with the mundane everyday 'basic attack'.The option to make a basic attack is present in 4E, but I've yet to see it used with any non ranged weapon. I'd feel much more at home if the at-will attacks were removed, leaving just the encounters and dailies (wizards being the exception).Even though the maths has changed over time, the mechanic really hasn't. THAC0 becoming the current AC system made perfect sense. They're the same mechanic, just turned upside down. Having numerous combat moves with fancy names is a new mechanic.I can easily follow a ranger using two weapons in any edition, but now everything has weird names that throw me off. Twin strike - sure that one is obvious. Dire wolverine strike? What the hell does that do? Other players should not need to read out the text of their actions for it to be obvious what they're doing. Power names NEED to be clear descriptions of what the move is.Freezing cloud? Got it.Sleep? Got it.Fireball? Got it.Hammer and anvil? What the?Reaping strike? What?Steel serpent strike? What the heck is a steel serpent, and what does it look like when a character tries to mimic one?I also rail against pointless names for abilities. If an ability isn't something you use it does not generally need a name. Why waste space and mental power saying 'Dwarven Resilience' when you can just have a dot point that says Dwarves can use second wind as a minor action instead of a standard action?To be fair to the system itself; a lot of my complaints revolve around a mentality that the developers have employed, where everything has to sound cool and look exciting rather than just being written plainly and simply. I'm damned if I'm going to learn names for rules that don't need names, and I'm damned if I'm ever going to remember 50 different powers for every class, a quarter of which have names that don't describe the action.I don't have much experience with the system, I'll admit that. I've only played twice so far, but I'm already sick of saying "I use priests shield" instead of "I swing my mace". As the OP put it, saying things like this takes me out of the suspension of disbelief. I feel like I'm watching power rangers, or dragonball Z instead of Conan or LotR. Everything feels flashy and overstated. Too many things exist in this edition that serve very little purpose, or no purpose at all."Oh good, my team-mate gets +1AC for one round. I sure hope something attacks him so that I didn't waste my time saying priests shield instead of basic attack".The rogues' sly flourish could just as easily have been written this way: The effect is the same, but the player no longer has to repeat the words 'sly flourish' every round.Maybe that's it. I should stop using my at wills for a while to see if it actually makes any difference to the outcome of the action.</blockquote>

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