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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5790606" data-attributes="member: 7006">I would suggest that because 4E was geared towards balance that it allowed characters to "shine" without "dominating".  After all... to achieve that, you need a character to do good without being too good too often.4E characters have never been actually "equal", because they all have different trained skills (meaning their participation to the challenges outside of combat would always lean towards certain characters over others), and while within combat... the differing roles meant that each of them had a different focus which became highlighted depending on the type of encounter they found themselves in.  The defenders could and did compel monsters to go mano-a-mano against them and lock them down... the strikers did do massive amounts of damage when the enemies required it of them... the leaders did keep people on their feet when the entire party got bombarded by massive amounts of injury... and the controllers did wipe out or hold back waves and waves of enemies that threatened to overtake them.Counter this to certain times when characters are built in other systems where one character can and does do it all... and that's where you run into the most problems.  The cleric in 3E being a prime culprit depending on how he gets built.That being said... I think more often than not, a character dominating over just shining tends to be the result of a DM not being on top of his game, as opposed to any particular game system.  The DM should have the skill and the agency to keep all PCs in check just by the types of encounters he throws at them.</blockquote>

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