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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6175742" data-attributes="member: 42582">If in doubt, I'd give them out for free. Maybe use the PHB2 versions rather than the Essentials versions, which bring extra stuff with them on top of the maths - I'd say if a player wants the extra stuff (some of which is quite good), let them pay the feat slot.I would say yes, in the same way that even a renegade drow is still connected to Lolth through that mythological racial history.I would try to gently discourage that - depending on the degree of sub-optimality, I guess. What I mean is that there is a certain sort of RPGer (I associate the type with 2nd ed AD&D) who takes a sort of pride in building a fighter with a 12 STR and a peg leg, and then roleplaying the hell out of it.I think 4e will tend to suck for that sort of player taking that sort of approach. The game rewards individuality, and quirkiness, but you can get that via class, power, skill and feat selection without needing to mechanically hamstring yourself. It's such a mechanically driven game that it doesn't have quite the same space as AD&D 2nd ed for a "roleplaying instead of mechanics" approach to play.I hope the above makes some sort of sense.It is very free form. Which relates somewhat to the above point about mechanics - the game expects you to use the mechanics rather than just RP (so is different from 2nd ed AD&D) but is very relaxed about precisely how the mechanics get deployed (which is the indie vibe that I feel very strongly in 4e - and which is also why GMing advice from a whole lot of "modern" games like Marvel Heroic RP and the like is useful for 4e GMs).The single biggest weakeness in 4e, in my view, because it's not just a matter of taste but something that hits you when you try and play the game to its strengths, is the combat/non-combat interface. For instance, in a skill challenge an Athletics check is freeform and abstract like anything else; but in combat the rules for jumping and climbing are very tightly defined. A lot of the time this doesn't matter - but sometimes it does, and makes adjudication at the interface harder than it should be. I don't have any special tips for handling this other than be aware of it, and if it comes up try to take care that in resolving it you don't make the players feel like they got dudded.It's not a waste of my posting time to talk about how to get the most out of 4e! That's not quite 100% of why I'm posting here, but it's a good chunk of it!</blockquote>

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