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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8944915" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I'd probably put non-combat options and combat options on different progression paths; one of the big issues with the non-combat utility powers and feats was that they directly competed with the combat ones; you never knew if a non-combat utility would come in handy, but combat ones always did.For example, I had this Assassin utility, Ghost on the Rooftops, that let me climb or jump a set distance without a check.  I really like the mobility it gave me, but whenever we came upon a "platforming" section, it was always a skill challenge and DM's were loath to just let me "succeed".  And in combat, there were only a handful of times I really needed to climb something, so it mostly just took up space on my character sheet.  Honestly, I was always "meh" about skill challenges anyways; the exact skills asked for always seemed arbitrary, some classes had few useful skills, and sometimes all you were doing was giving the "real" skill a bonus.  More effort needed to be made to explain how and why to use them, how to construct them, and how to make it more interesting than "a challenge appears!  make 4 successful rolls before 7 failures!".Some Essentials classes were ok, but a few were not only underpowered, but were so lacking in options as to completely miss the point of strategic combat.  I don't care how much you hate thinking in your fantasy combat simulator, but a class needs more than "I swing" and "I swing...with feeling!".The Rituals system felt tacked on, and despite the massive amount of Rituals, they interacted oddly with the rest of the system, especially skill challenges, due to working like spells, often with cast times that relegated them to pointlessness, and just making things happen instead of saying "this obviates the need for checks" or granting bonuses.And the nonmagic version (Martial Practices, I think?) were woefully undeveloped.  A lot of options (especially feats) weren't properly balanced or given development time; a lot of bloat existed, and some classes had tons of flavorful and powerful abilities (Wizard) while later ones felt janky and barely functional (Ardent).I loved 4e by the end of it's run (and hated it at the start), but it's token acknowledgement of other pillars of play outside of "uh, make a skill challenge!" was obnoxious, and there really needed to be a real 4.5 (no essentials doesn't count).But something I'll never forget is how easy it was to build and run encounters as a DM.  No more poring over books and books of monsters or trying to find the right critter.  Level a monster up or down, change it to a minion, elite, or solo as needed, you could make encounters in minutes.I'd love to have that sort of functionality back.</blockquote>

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