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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Journeymanmage" data-source="post: 5209386" data-attributes="member: 63814">Agreed.  It's just that in the old editions, you could go out and cure x or y, remove y or z with a few 3rd - 4th lvl spells.  Normally those spells were beyond most of the average npc clerics or they rarely had more than a single 3rd lvl spell, unless you were in a major city.  Now to cure a disease or affliction, it takes major resources in residuum.  150g for disease and 250g for affliction and if you roll poorly, you can kill the person you're healing.  Granted, rolling low and doing damage equal to max hp to a commoner most likely means you do 1 point of damage .... It's a combination of it makes the PCs look important and powerful for only they are hardy enough to take the kind of risks that lead to those situations. You can't do cures or restorative spells because the common npc can't survive the process and the surely can't afford to pay for it.  Nor can the PCs pay to cure more than a few people.  The PCs just don't have the resources to do that because they really are going to need $$ to upgrade their gear to survive defeating whatever else is endangering the town.  Which leads to: - In the game, Magic is kind of useless to the average person.  Cures are too expensive.  Light spells last 5 minutes.  Many spells don't exist anymore or are rituals that don't do 1/3rd of what the could do in previous additions.  I think part of it is ... It's not the "New" experience anymore, some of the shine is gone.  I've seen in a few posts people say basically: "for those people new to D&D (4th ed.), years from now when they play 6th or 7th or 7.x ... they'll remember 4th and say 'that was a great system' the new stuff just doesn't compare".   That's because this is all new to them.  They haven't "Been there Done That".  The polished shine is still new.  I've played all the D&D editions, I've played the original Tunnels and Trolls, I've played GURPS, Rolemaster, I play-tested DC Heroes, Earthdawn, TORG (The Other Role-playing Game) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  (I've played a whole host of other games, but I'll stop the list here).  I think the mechanics of 4th ed. are excellent.  The classes .. reasonably powered, less "swingy".  They are very balanced to each other, they keep that balance and reasonable power up through at least Paragon (again I do not have any experience with Epic level so I won't comment on it.)  Clunky rules were cleaned up or removed.  Combat is more dynamic (I like that), there are reasons to move and shift around the battlefield.  But this also brings up the one word I forgot to put into the previous post... "mechanical".Not only does 4th Ed feel different, it also feels "mechanical" ... at x level you should have y to y+z hp depending on class.  You should be doing n[w] or n-1[w] but with this rider/effect.  I have no intentions of saying which edition is better, that is subjective.  I liked each addition for different reasons.  1st and 2nd because it was all new, shiny, endless possibilities and getting better.  3rd-3.x because it cleared up a lot of mess from earlier and added some new stuff (good/bad).  I didn't like the "OMG power-creep" of late 3.5 but I think part of that was GM/PCs allowing/taking multiple "splat books" / prestige classes when really it should have been take 1 prestige class, not 4.  I like 4th Ed. for the dynamic battles, for the class balance, for the much clearer rules (once you realize that the rules mean pretty much exactly what they say) ... (give or take a small bump).  But 4th also feels restrictive (even with a score of classes and hybrids (though I also like the hybrid rules), it feels like low-medium magic, low-medium fantasy and it feels mechanical.  Gone are the days of a 9th level Wizard, Going Invisible, being protected from arrows, flying 200 yards above a battle field and pulling out a wand or 2 and laying waste to an army of hundreds with impunity.  Gone are the days of a low con Wizard getting jumped by equal or near equal rogue and getting ganked before taking one action (Short Sword d6 + (1/2 lvl) d6 worth of backstab) surprise round + doing it again when you go first in the 1st round.  Gone are Save or DIE.  Gone are Hold Person = ZERO actions for 10 rounds per level of caster (iirc).  (After the 2nd time I used that as a GM, I banned myself from using it against PCs).  * tldr summary:Cures and Healing are now very different from previous editions and in-part leave a feeling that in a magical world, magic isn't available or helpful to the common person.  Each edition has/had it's advantages and disadvantages some real, some subjective.The feel of the game has changed. Some of that is: If you're new to D&D or came in when 3.x was getting out of hand, then yes 4th feels different, 4th is new and shiny.  If you've played through several editions / "way back when" ... then the game in general isn't new, and from my perspective: + side: It's balanced across the boards better and less swingy, combat can be more dynamic.- side: Not as ... magical. and more mechanical.</blockquote>

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