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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vyvyan Basterd" data-source="post: 4618198" data-attributes="member: 4892">I think I'm on the same page with Mustrum. Except I'll take it a step further.Each additional rule in 3E led to the bloat that eventually drove me away. I bought new books because I like new options. And I like to include new options not exclude. (Someone will jump in at this point and blame the rules-bloat on me.) But two fundamental flaws in the system cause the problem in my opinion. Feats: This was a new toy in 3E. I don't think the designers decided what they wanted these to be. Some feats were small perks (Toughness) and others were cool powers (Whirlwind Attack - although I'm sure I could find better examples that aren't part of a long feat chain). Without a strong codification of what a feat should grant, power level of feats varied widely. It wasn't just a matter of making bad choices, it was the effort of determining which feats were the duds. I remember reading that one designer regretted designing the system in such a way as it hindered those that weren't playing the game for the love of system mastery. I do believe this has been corrected in 4E. Some people look at it as depowering feats, but I am just happy that most feats are on par with those in the same tier. And so far the design team has seemed to stay on course with the design goal of what a 4E feat should grant.Multiclassing: New classes and prestige classes seem innocuous to some, but each new one stacks a new batch of options to cherry-pick. It makes it difficult to continuosly design balanced classes. Each new option must be weighed against everything that came before. And as time went on this became too difficult for designers. Again system mastery came into play. I believe that this has been corrected by 4E. Multiclassing in 4E is a shock to many when compared to 3E, but I really believe the change needed to be made. I also think that multiclassing in 4E hasn't been explored well enough and those that have delved into it find it to be a better option than it how it reads.System mastery caused the death of 3E for me. Casual players, IME, are frustrated when a system master trumps them continuously just because they don't want to (or can't) make the investment of time and money to master the system. DMs can even fall into the casual category. A recent poll showed that many of us here are in our late 30's. We have jobs, family, etc. to take time away from gaming and not all of us have the desire to master a system any more. Personally, I DM for a mix of people, some of whom do have the time to master the system and other that don't, and I became frustrated with 3E. I couldn't provide a worthy challenge for the system masters without over-challenging the non system masters. YMMV.This is one reason I think the fixes in this thread don't necessarily help. They tack onto a system that has some fundamental flaws that didn't rear their ugly heads until years after release.</blockquote>

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