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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5506381" data-attributes="member: 996">Well, outside of the only current official organized play from WotC, D&D Encounters.  But, really, the point isn't that they have taken the Fighter's toys away, it's that it seems they may be trying to.  The ball is rolling in that direction (see previous 'conspriracy theory manifesto' post).Actually, new options that obviate old ones can result in a net loss of 'real' options.  For instance, if you have a number of feats that give a modest feat bonus in narrow categories, they're options - if you add a new feat that gives a larger blanket feat bonuses in all those castegories, all those old options are effectively gone, because they've become bad choices.The same goes for any game element, if it's left behind in effectiveness, it's been replaced.  It's still there, but you're a chump if you use it.  It would take years of power inflation, cunning kept from ever touching the old martial builds, to 'replace' them with the E-martials that way, but it's a concievable possibility, and, worse, a concievable (childish, petty) intention of Essentials and those who pushed for it's aproach to the martial source.The AEDU class advancement structure is key to 4e's class balance.  Class balance is something that D&D had never successfully delivered before (not even close), so, yes, losing that would upset some people.  How many?  Impossible to say, but, of the respondents to the poll we're discussing, 3.9% said they 'didn't care about balance.'  So, potentially, 96% of 4e fans /do/ care about balance.  And the class structure the 'new design direction' is throwing under the bus is all about balance.And the sad part it, isn't doesn't need to go under the bus to satisfy the demand for a simpler-to-build or simpler-to-play class.  The archer-ranger build, for instance, is already quite simple to play, in spite of being AEDU.  The Warpiest is very simple to build (one choice: domain), in spite of being AEDU.  A Fighter build that used the underlying AEDU structure 'behind the curtain,' could quite easily have been both - while still being 'upgradeable' to a 'real' Fighter, later, if desired.  I can tell you really want to wrap yourself in the banner of inclussion (and, hey, maybe you personally belong wrapped in it, I don't know you, you could be a paragon of tollerance), but, the anti-martial stance of those Essentials apears to be catering to is distinctly exclussive.  When someone complains that a Fighter using a daily power 'breaks verismilitude' or 'ruins immersion,' they're not just talking about a fighter they're playing, they mean any fighter - any non-caster, be it PC, NPC or monster - that they /see/ doing that.  Because verisimilitude and immersion are /not/ and cannot be limited to just your character.  It is a stance that is, at bottom, all about making other people play the character you want them to, not the character they want to.  Using a 'big tent' analogy to defend that attitude is a bit ironic.</blockquote>

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