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Message: <blockquote data-quote="theNater" data-source="post: 4345460" data-attributes="member: 62560">I can field a possible answer to this one(though your others are mysteries to me as well).  Axes are relatively heavy.  Getting full use out of them will wear you down very quickly in combat unless you've got great endurance.  Sure, you can attack with them with no problems, but the really valuable big swings are exhausting.  The 5/5 fighter/wizard was actually part of the problem.  He had spellcasting appropriate to a 5th level wizard, which was fine, except for the fact that he was facing 10th level monsters.  A fifth-level wizard casting 3rd level spells at a monster whose spell resistances and saving throws are ready for a 10th level wizard casting 5th level spells is going to have troubles.  Also, his attack capability(BAB, number of attacks per round) is equal to that of a 10th level druid of equivalent strength, which always struck me as kind of strange.In 4th edition, a 10th level fighter/wizard has access to 9th level wizard spells(highest level attack abilities available to any 10th level character), and uses them as effectively as a 10th level wizard with the same stats.  He also continues to attack(in any round where he is using fighter abilities) as a 10th level fighter.  Instead of using reduced fighter ability every round, he has 1-3 fewer fighter options each combat. The roles themselves haven't changed much, though they've been formally recognized, with mechanics explicitly designed to assist a character in fulfilling its role.The change to multiclassing is that fighter/wizards have changed from being okay defenders and okay controllers all the time to being good defenders most of the time and good controllers some of the time.  They can go to their secondary role for a few rounds, but generally not for an entire combat. A tenth level 4th edition character with no bonus feats has 6 feats at tenth level.  A tenth level 3rd edition character with no bonus feats has 4 feats at tenth level.  If each 4th edition feat makes a character 2 "points" more awesome and each 3rd edition feat makes a character 3 "points" more awesome, a tenth level character from each system will have the same number of awesome points from feats.  If feats are 2/3rds as valuable, but you get 3/2s as many, the feat systems are equally powerful. Powers are very specific in terms of what they do, so the inventiveness comes into play in using that specific thing to its best effect.  Powers with forced movement are some of the best examples of this, because where you choose to move the target can have a huge effect on play.  Do you try to toss him over the cliff, which has a 50-50 chance of taking him out of the fight entirely, or drop him between the two rogues, who probably won't take him out this round but will almost certainly finish him off next round?  Or do you knock him into the wedding cake, humiliating him in front of his minions?  Can you herd all of the monsters into a nice Fireball target?  Is that better or worse then separating them out if they get bonuses when they're close to each other?Just because a power does something specific, doesn't mean there's no creativity to using it. Well, there are no coincidences.  Especially in tabletop games, where the gameworld is constructed and run by the DM.If the monster has a potion, there are two possibilities:  either that potion is part of the treasure the PCs are expected to acquire, or it is an effect that the monster is expected to perform.  If the former, then the DM who has the monster drink it is reducing the character's treasure level below the expected amount, causing them to be weaker than the game expects.  If the latter, then the PCs who claim it from the monster have increased their treasure above the expected amount, causing them to be stronger than the game expects.  Either of these cases results in game balance being off, meaning challenge is harder to gauge, meaning fights are more likely to be too hard or too easy.Is a single potion likely to make the game unplayable one way or the other?  No.  But with the understanding that the DM and the players are not opponents, there is no real need for the DM to thwart the players out of treasure or the players to force the DM into providing additional treasure. Yup.  Instead of those, you get better powers.  Trust me, it's a good deal.You may be interested in Exorcism of Steel(fighter 17).  It includes a disarm effect.  There are other effects available, though I don't think sunder comes up.Well, I was assuming that he was managing a team, not doing all the work himself.  I doubt Sam can build a whole set of stairs in one day by himself, no matter how long he's been practicing.<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=";)" /> Yeah, but after 20 years, he's building waaay better staircases in that one day. That's my point.  Without the feat, your chances of succeeding are laughably low.  Low enough that the attempt is almost never worth giving up an attack that is likely to do damage.  So a fighter without the feat won't attemt to disarm, where a fighter with the feat will. That's what I mean by feats controlling your options, and the effect that now belongs to powers. It starts as a close burst 2, meaning all undead within 2 squares of the cleric are subject to its effects.  That's a 5x5 square, so a cleric can, if completely surrounded, target 24 undead with it(assuming a two-dimensional battlefield).  At 11th level it becomes burst 5(11x11, for up to 120 targets), and at 21st level it becomes burst 8(17x17, 288 possible targets).  They are also guaranteed to take radiant damage(unless they are minions, in which case they either die or don't), and many forms of undead are vulnerable to radiant damage.  You get to steer where they go, and unless they have ranged attacks, they don't get to attack your party for the next round.  Even if they do have ranged attacks, you can move them around corners or behind obstacles, to make it more difficult for them to make use of them.It no longer removes all the undead from a battle, but that has the side-effect of making fights that consist entirely of undead events in which characters who are not the cleric can participate. In 3rd edition, rogues played two roles.  They were the so-called "skill monkeys", and with their sneak attack they were combatants capable of dishing out massive damage.  They still fill both of those roles, and have fewer situations where they must choose between combat effectiveness and out of combat effectiveness.As an example of that, if you like your rogue to be doing the bluffing and diplomacy, you can make a rogue that functions perfectly well in combat using only dex and cha, without feeling that you need to put points into strength for the to-hit and damage bonuses. Spell preparation is still alive and well, I'm afraid.  However, given that you were willing to house rule it in 3rd edition, I see no reason not to apply the same house rule to 4th edition.  The power boost may even be less than it was in 3rd edition, because of the reduced size of your personal spell list. Yup, Back to the Wall does depend on having handy walls or a helpful DM.  'Course, if he's gonna go all rules lawyery on you, try putting your back to a Wall of Fog.  If that doesn't make him start adjusting the feat for reasonableness(in which case you can argue that a tree bigger around than your character is reasonably a wall), then you've got the ability to create your own walls when necessary at level 6.  And it doesn't even eat into your attack spell selection. Oh.  Well, I have no problem with a character who is mostly fighter standing in the front lines and casting spells.  In fact, I've always kind of figured that was the point of having a fighter/wizard: you get to be a big beefy front-liner who has some magical/explosive options.What I have a problem with is a character who is mostly wizard being able to do the same thing.  4th edition holds that in check quite nicely, while there were workarounds(defensive casting, the Armored Caster special ability that showed up at one point, etc.) in 3rd edition.Well, we all want more power.  But even if multiclassing only permitted one power, there would still be times it would be handy.</blockquote>

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