Hat's off to WotC for...

[drothgery]

4E fighters are as complicated as a 3.5 caster of equal level?

No, not seeing it. A 10th level caster in 3.5 (Let's say wizard) could cast at least 20 spells a day, plus int bonus, and a 10th level fighter in 4E has 11, plus perhaps a few for magical items, but ditto for 3.5 so no change there.

4E is a lot simpler for all the classes. Spellslinger or not.

Eh. I'd say traditional 4e classes (PH1/PH2 style) range in complexity from about as complex as an extremely low level (say, 2nd or 3rd level) 3.x spontaneous caster (at low levels) to that of a mid level 3.x spontaneous caster (at high levels). They're never as complex as a high-level 3.x caster; they're always more complex than a straightforward beat-it-with-a-sword 3.x fighter or barbarian.

 

[PeelSeel2]

Essentials sucked me back in, kinda. I bought all essentials stuff available right now and will buy all that comes out. But I am not going to switch from Moldvay/Cook/Marsh/LL D&D. I have a lot of love for that right now. What I was thinking about doing though was running D&D encounters on Wednesday night....

 

[delericho]

No. It was a good thing that there were some classes that were simpler than others. It wasn't a good thing that to have a tactically interesting class you needed to play a spellcaster. And fighters were people who wandered round wearing dunces' caps.

Both of these are very true. Ideally, the game should have a Fighter-lite, a Wizard-lite and a Rogue-lite, in addition to full-featured and complex versions of the same.

Whether these should each be individual classes, or simply 'builds' under the umbrellas of existing classes, is a design decision (which probably doesn't have a 'right' answer).