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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hellcow" data-source="post: 4122477" data-attributes="member: 15800">Yes, and it is. You can multiclass at first level if you choose. The key difference between 4E and 3E is that there is a difference between a ranger who's multiclassed to paladin and a paladin who's multiclassed to ranger. The paladin is still first and foremost a defender, the ranger a striker. But the ranger-paladin is distinctly different from a ranger-rogue - or a ranger who hasn't multiclassed at all. I wish I could lay out all the options that are available, because there are a few things I really like that make characters of the same class completely different from one another. You haven't seen them, because what you've seen are the base characters from DDXP. So you don't know how multiclassing works, what options feats provide, and so on. But there's ways to make three paladins very different from one another (and I don't mean "One took Power Attack and the other took Dodge"); they simply don't involve taking a LEVEL of ranger. Looking back to SWG: I'll note that I never said you HAD to be a janitor - I said you COULD be a janitor. And that KotOR does not give you that option. It's a difference in design goals, and SWG put a great deal of design time into supporting the "world sim" role. KotOR focused on the hero experience, and that's what 4E is doing. But beyond that - Lizard, you see to be under the impression that you CAN'T stat out NPCs in 4E. Why is that? In the campaign I'm running at the moment, I've got a large cast of NPC characters. A few are statted out with all the detail of PCs, and in fact I've used the PC class system for them - just as if I was making a NPC with PC class levels in 3E. A few are statted out at the level of the typical monster: critical skills and powers, ability scores, hit points. And a few are background characters I haven't bothered to stat - names, treated as minions if they get attacked. 4E doesn't provide special CLASSES for these characters. I didn't have to say "Hmm... I guess he'd be an expert instead of a commoner, because I've given him four skills and Heal isn't a commoner class skill." It hasn't devoted significant design space to NPC classes - although as a disclaimer, I have not seen the DMG and thus don't know exactly what is said about creating NPCs.  But I do know that NPCs are not supposed to be treated as interchangible cogs with identical ability scores; you simply don't have a twenty-level class system tied to them. Oh, and as an aside, you DON'T have to have an epic destiny. I probably shouldn't say more than that, but it's not like lightning strikes every character at level 21; that's the point at which it is POSSIBLE to discover your epic destiny. At the end of the day, it's true: 4E is more like KotOR than SWG. It's designed to let you play a hero, and if you WANT to play the janitor, it's not the right game for you. It doesn't provide all the options of 3E, because unlike 3.5, it's not an evolution of 3E; it is a new game, which shares some basic principles but completely redevelops others (for example, magic). For you, that may make it a flawed system, and that's fine; you can stick with 3E. Meanwhile, I WANT to play a hero - and 4E, IMO, does a much better job of it than 3E. I'm having more fun than I ever did with 3E. But, of course, I had more fun with KotOR than I did with SWG. So I think they are focusing on a particular flavor of play - focusing on the hero's tale as opposed to the world simulation tool. But essentially it's a question of doing one thing well instead of being a jack of all trades and master of none. And if you think 3E DOES do all things well, no one's going to stop you from playing it, and some companies are going to continue to support it. Me, I'll be playing 4E. I've got an epic destiny to fulfill. <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=";)" />And let's face it, we're talking about a core system here. All it takes is a single rulebook - "The Anti-Epic Handbook" - to provide a commoner class, 0-level characters, and supporting rules, and you're good to go.</blockquote>

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