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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 5531350" data-attributes="member: 40398">I keep seeing statements like this, as if it addresses the issue.Everybody knows that savvy players can compensate for poor design. (How many years did high level players optimize their way through the even wackier math of high level play in previous editions?) Heck, one of the guys in my group refuses to pay his feat taxes if not given to him for free, and he seems to think the game works just "fine."In fact, I'm sure that I could ban the feat taxes and impose an additional -3 screw-you penalty to all their stats. The game would be pretty hard, but it's all "fine" because they're smart guys and they'd survive and get their treasure. I could even be nice and give access to an "Expert" feat that negates the screw-you penalty. That would be even more "fine," because savvy players could take more interesting feats while casual players could take the Expert feat to compensate for not optimizing or team-playing.But playing a "fine" game isn't the point. The point is that 4e is a level-based system. And the whole point of a level-based system is to have consistent math to make DM adjustments easier and to cut down on system mastery.But hey, what do I know? I'm just some ignorant sod who wants to play a great game.</blockquote>