AbdulAlhazred
Legend
That right there is definitely a move towards modern game design which would be a real advancement in my opinion.
I've toyed with this idea in the past. After all, if you have your attack stat at 18 at 1st level and you add "standard" magic items (or inherent bonus) and expertise, you attack at level +3 for the majority of the 30-level spread. Getting rid of the necessity of maxing out one stat and also not having to obsess about having the correct attack item is certainly enticing.
This is how I see skills and skill challenges working in 4e.
But combat I see more as about deploying your powers, and using them - plus p 42 - to manipulate the field of battle to optimse your situation. This makes differeneces in attack bonus a needless complication, I think. (Using stats for damage is fine - this is like using them for other aspects of combat effect, like the number of squares pushed or whatever.)
Yeah, but one of the things that I saw with less hardcore players in 4e was a difficulty focusing in on the thematic elements needed to make their character be 'who I want to be'. 5e CLEARLY recognizes that, in spades! In 5e it is incredibly easy to be 'Big Axe Dwarf!' You can do it with one selection of a class and subclass (and race, but that part is chrome) at chargen. 4e makes you constantly keep making choices so you CONTINUE to be 'big axe dwarf'. I mean, there's an argument for thematic flexibility, but I also think there's an argument for just being what you are in the most simple terms. So you want to be 'Big Axe Dwarf' in HoML you put +4 in STR, probably crank up your CON as much as you can/want, don some heavy armor, pick up an axe, select the 'Axe Master' boon for first level, and you're on your way. You could do nothing about your Axe forever more in HoML from that day and you will plainly want to hack things with that nasty hunk of iron for the rest of your career. You are plainly Big Axe Dwarf. When you solve problems, by gosh you use your muscley muscles and your dwarfy axe.
Its just moving the focus a little to create tighter thematics, but without restricting your options in other respects (IE you can generate a TON of ways to make 'hack it with my axe' into a favorable proposition). You can obviously have more than one dimension to your character as well. I don't think you'd play a HoML character 20 levels without some further development. You just probably wouldn't develop into a rapier fencer...