AbdulAlhazred
Legend
4e is weird, because it tends to DISCOURAGE you from doing this (and of course you are correct that some arenas of planning like classic D&D spell load outs don't much exist). HOWEVER, gear could be pretty important, and there's a fairly tight encumbrance limit, oddly enough. So, you may well not be able to carry all you would like!I don't think that 4e D&D supports planning very well. Unlike classic D&D, there are no spell load outs. Even at low levels, mundane gear doesn't matter much (eg sunrods are very cheap). Skill challenge resolution depends on a certain degree of abstraction. And much of the action is in real-time decisions about resource expenditure.
One time a few guys over on the old WotC boards wanted to do an online 4e and I joined them. So, I forget, we played on some VTT or other, but I decided to get a little crazy and I build my character as the ultimate 4e toolkit wizard. I just loaded up on stuff that would expand my options, give me the ability to create 'stuff', etc. So, I had the tome implement mastery, and the expanded spell book, and I bought rituals left and right, and alchemical formula, and picked the Apprentice Wizard theme, which gave me a couple more oddball things, etc. Even at first level, I remember the VERY FIRST THING we did was try to sneak up to some walled in place, and I found some oddball ritual that got us a huge bonus on our Stealth, and there we went, lol. It was like that every adventure. I swear, I'd figure out what the perfect stuff to have would be, plan it all out, and viola I would whip out the right potion, scroll, alchemical item, or ritual to make the whole plan work. It was like I was back in 1e. It drove everyone nuts because it was like LFQW, lol. I mean, most any PC could have done it, though wizards did have a few nicer options. Planning in an old-school sense might not have been EMPHASIZED, but if you paid attention, AV2 particularly was FILLED with some totally ridonculously effective consumables. Some of them are really outrageous.