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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fumetti" data-source="post: 5418351" data-attributes="member: 6667461">I was the first modifier/mixer of DnD systems in my crew.  We played the Basic Set system faithfully but were aware of the interesting ideas in 1st Edition.  I was jealous that Dragon Magazine had so many new concepts but only for AD&D (such as the Archer class and Anti-Paladin).  So I just created Basic versions of those NPCs and other rules.  We did eventually move on to AD&D, and I wanted changes to that too.  Never implemented them tho.  But I wanted to revamp Magic-Users so they had more to do each day.  Anyhoo, to your post... Agreed that the upper tier should focus more on world-shaping.  It can include combat, but XP and leveling up should be built on major socio-political achievements not just killing bigger monsters.You could accomplish this on your own by telling players everything stops at 20th level, but I doubt they'd appreciate it.  Even good roleplayers enjoy the leveling up process, and playing without XP feels like wasting time.  So an XP mechanic would be necessary.   Agreed, but mostly in the other direction.  I don't like that it becomes almost automatic to kill (and almost impossible to be hit by) lower and mid-level monsters.  There needs to be a point where the numbers slow down.  As for minis, my beef is with how WOTC packages them.  I'm not buying dozens of boxes when I don't know what monsters I'm getting.  The "hidden prize" approach leaves me with so many I will never use.  WOTC needs to start offering "Basic" monster mini sets such as a set of basic undead (skeletons, ghouls, etc) and basic humanoids (orcs, goblins, etc).  As for gameplay, the 3E/4E approach is so specific that I feel like I'm playing MageKnight--and that it takes even longer! Not agreed.  Remember who RPG's biggest audience is.  We all know the stereotype, and there's some truth in that stereotype.  If a kid was charismatic and diplomatic on his own, he'd probably be somewhere else using those skills in the real world (school council, chasing girls).  RPGs allow us to do what we can't do so well in real life.  (My own dexterity is abysmal these days.  But I get to be extraordinarily stealthy for a few hours a week.)  Remember the old days when TSR would always be throwing charts at us (most often in Dungeon Magazine)?  In the old days, we'd have no problem finding a decent, massive chart that gave DCs for nearly every possible scenario.  And then we just make small adjustments as needed. Seems like a waste of money to buy a handbook that tells us to simply make them up on our own...  Again, didn't these kind of things (conditions) appear in various Dragon articles?  Or something close.  I remember a weapon damage article once that my group incorporated.  Heck of a thing to be fighting a dragon and your sword breaks because you didn't have it repaired after rolling all those "1s" last week! I find them useful, but mostly boring after awhile.  I keep doing the same damage and effect over and over and over and over again.  And as you say, they're all almost identical in their structure--especially from class to class.  I was very disappointed to see how similar all the at-will powers were between fighters, wizards, and thieves.  Seems that the only hard difference between the classes in 4E is the armor they can wear.True, they add flavor, but a PC should be able to choose from a larger list each turn.  Or at least have some kind of drawback to using them--such as having basic attacks be penalty free but powers cause a penalty to initiative (-2 perhaps, due to the extra effort required to pull off all the effects).   I don't have much of a counter argument other than I don't like every class having the same level of combat abilities.  Heck, if I had the time, I would do just that.  I would use the Basic system as my starting point and build on that.  Wouldn't require all that much adjustment since Basic was expanding all the time in the late 80s.  Didn't Basic actually introduce the first melee powers to DnD?  Seems to me there weren't any such things until the Companion (I think) Set introduced the "Smash" attack option for Fighters (lose initiative, -5 to hit, but x2 damage).</blockquote>

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