I've experienced D&D4

[Remathilis]

D&D 3.0 didn´t need system mastery from the beginning. When you used it like ADnD with cleaner rules and more options it was wonderful. It bacame annoying, when people leaned to master and exploit its loopholes, and it had a lot of them... instead of fixing, pathfinder embraced those loopholes... and no, it doesn´t feel like the D&D i am grown up with.

Oh it most certainly DID.

Create two fighters using ONLY the 3.0 Player's Handbook. Make one a Human Fighter with Power Attack, EWP: Bastard Sword, and Cleave. Make the other a half-elf with toughness and endurance. Tell me which one is more effective in combat.

While I agree that it was similar to AD&D with cleaner rules, one must remember AD&D itself had system mastery issues. It didn't take a genus to figure out rangers were better fighters than fighters, dual-classing was inherently broken, demi-humans should multi-class, anything a human did a half-elf did better (cept dual class), Single-classes thieves were a joke or a henchman, and magic-users would eventually pwn't all other classes if allowed to advance past 9th level.

Guess what? 4e has some system mastery issues too. Two words: Battlerager Fighter. Yeah.

There were two ways Pathfinder could've went: de-powered the classes and got them all to "brass tacks" or up the power levels on things to get them roughly on the same playing field. Since backwards compatibility was an issue, they decided to up the powers a bit. Really, they don't feel that overpowered (the biggest bennies went to the classes with the biggest power-sinks; sorcerer, fighter, and ranger. Its not everyone's cup of tea, but neither is 4e, so we're even.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I would like to commend Bullgrit for not posting further in this thread - he put his opinion on his blog, stated his reasons, then did not rise to any bait thrown into the waters.

If he were trolling (which I do NOT believe to be the case) then I would call it a successful troll. All the commotion has been raised by other parties.

The Auld Grump

 

[Piratecat]

Annnnd we're closed. I'm going to give a few folks vacations as well. They saw that line and just jumped right over it. Not particularly appreciated.

Klunk.