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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Choice" data-source="post: 6021546" data-attributes="member: 90669">Actually, I'll argue it's more organic than the nine levels of spells (10 if you consider cantrips a spell level) that we got in 3.X (9 and 7 back in previous editions).  We're just used to say "oh yeah, meteor swarm, totally a 9th level spell". To everybody outside the hobby, that makes zero sense.  Seriously, I'm a level 10 wizard, why can't I cast level 10 spells?  It's a crap tradition, pointless obfuscation meant to keep the "riff raff" out of RPGs, and, originally, just an awkward piece of oddly designed game mechanic that no designer dared to touch for fear of impotent nerd rage or because of laziness.I'll admit, the solution isn't perfect, but it accomplishes two things: 1) it makes spells that really shouldn't be of the same power level, different power levels (anybody saying Nystul's magic aura and Sleep need to be the same level; and 2) it gets rid of an old, tired trope that's a barrier to entry for new players.On the contrary, siloing allows more character concepts to be played efficiently at all levels of play.  You might be opposed to that, but I believe that it's a strength of a game when making a choice doesn't take away from my characters effectiveness.Just because the rules mostly cover combat (like EVERY edition of D&D ever), doesn't mean you can't create a non-combat focused character with personality, quirks and fun little bits of odd roleplaying, it just means that, once a fight does break out, you won't be cowering in the corner waiting for the big loud noises and explosions to stop (you totally could though, if that's the personality you're shooting for).  4E's system simply leaves the RP component of the game in the hands of DMs and players and doesn't hand out mechanical aids to play a bartender or a cobbler; you want to be a shoemaker, there you go, you've been making shoes for a while, no need to dump skill points in craft or whatever, go out and talk how the duchess is a horrible monster who refuses to pay when you fix her high heels!I've seen a lot of people arguing that, according to 4th Edition's rules, they can't make a crippled (from a gameplay perspective) character, a character with flaws that make him thoroughly useless in fights and claim that's a failure of the system.  I've even seen an actual designer of an actual game that is currently in print say that the fact you can't make a combat/adventure-effective and, at the same time, mundane skill competent character is a good feature of the 3.X ruleset.  In 19 years of gaming with diverse players from various horizons, I have never met a single solitary one who rolled a character incapable of performing simple tasks in a dungeon adventure (outside of bad dice rolls and deliberate DM/GM trolling).  The only times I've seen it claimed was by players of spellcasters ("look, I didn't take magic missile! He's not a combat character!") who still dominated fights whenever they chose to do something.In short, 4E does exactly what every other edition of D&D ever did; it just doesn't pat you on the back with condescention/punish you with an unplayable character when you make a less than optimal choice.  I mean, there were NO skills, at all, back in 1st Edition (no feats or other bits of mechanical support for doing anything outside of combat, aside from a few spells), how did people make characters with personalities outside of combat?</blockquote>

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