Thanks for clarifying. I aplogize about the troll question, but unclarified, it really looked that way to me, though now I see your points.
Brother MacLaren said:
1) Basic/Expert D&D had several design elements that I loved. "Wizards start off weak, but can eventually become very powerful." "Magic has its uses, but magic is limited, where Strength can be used as often as needed." A wizard who starts weak and can run out of spells is a class I'd love to play again. It makes him fundamentally a frail human novice with some abilities that he's just learning to master. The idea that he can run out makes him seem more human. Now, the warlock can never run out... it's a good class, it's a neat concept, and he's suitably creepy/alienish, but it's not how I see a novice wizard.
But another way to look at it is: If I wanted to play a crossbow sniper, I would have picked fighter or rogue or ranger as my class.
I also started playing D&D with Basic edition, so I remember those design elements.
But another consideration is that now, in 4e, every class can "eventually become very powerful". I Kinda like this design idea. Now when we're playing epic level characters (whether you refer to it as "Immortals" from the Immortals Boxed Set, or Epic from 3e, or Paragon from 4e), every character will have as much to contribute as the wizard. All too often in current or previous versions of D&D, very high level gaming broke down to "Fighter hold off the BBM while cleric keeps the fighter alive, and hopefully we can do this long enough for the wizard to solve the problem."
Sure, a good DM can create scenarios that don't play out this way. But sometimes the DM is a little burned out, or just new, or the players tried a different tack and missed the clever setup the DM provided, or whatever, and the game devolves down to a series of wizard saves the day once again, while his PC support group handles the little stuff.
Now 4e is balancing the high-level game somewhat, so why not also balance the low-level game, since "eventually become very powerful" is no longer the result of playing a wizard and sacrificing low-level usefulness?
Brother MacLaren said:
2) In Basic/Expert, you got HP at all levels; saves and attack rolls improved at some levels, not all, and there were no skills. So the complaining over "dead levels where all we get are HP, BAB, saves, and skills" sounds like whining to me. Also, in 3E, plotting out your character build became much more a component of the game than it had before. Focusing more attention on what abilities you get at each level is, I think, contributing to this trend. I just don't see "Dead levels" as a valid complaint. The game should, in my mind, be about cool stories and about clever tactics to overcome challenges, not about flashy abilities and character builds.
You're going to have cool stories and clever tactics anyway, assuming the DM and players are capable/skilled enough to provide this.
You're also going to have some flashy abilities and character builds. You had them in Basic/Expert too, though the variations were not as multitudinous.
But, now in 3e you can very easily have a group where some characters have flashy abilities/builds, and other characters don't. It can lead to players having character envy when their character is fairly bland and the guy sitting next to them at the table has lots of flash.
This can happen on a level-by-level basis, too. "Oooh, I just got this cool new ability to do xxx. What did you get?" It's never fun to answer with "Jost some more HP."
Yes, I agree, it does sound like whining to me, too. But if people are whining about it, then they're obviously not having as much fun as they want to have, so is it really so bad to make it more fun for everyone? Is justifying dead levels on the basis that we had them in Basic/Expert editions really the best answer?
Brother MacLaren said:
3) Every alignment and every god ALREADY has a holy warrior. It's called the cleric. Paladins were representative of two things: first, an attempt to model a certain heroic archetype such as your Galahads; and second, an idea that the forces of evil were numerous and the forces of good were less numerous but had an elite champion. The code is what makes the paladin class worth having; otherwise, just use a Ftr/Clr. I'd rather see the class removed than see it corrupted.
So, this is all still true. We still have 4e clerics for all deities. We will still have the Galahad archetype. The forces of Good will still have an elite champion. None of that has changed.
But, now, Evil can have an elite champion too. King Arthur had his paladin-like knights, but there were villains, too, such as Mordred, who now is not stuck with just being a fighter.
I'm not sure why this is a bad thing.
Brother MacLaren said:
4) Playing a support character can be a great deal of fun. It's a team endeavor, not a game to see whose star can shine the brightest. Sometimes the cleric's best action is to get the fighter back on his feet, and the bard's Inspire Courage is often the difference between winning and losing. I have no problem with that. It's a team effort. And some of my favorite moments in games have been sitting back and watching other PCs handle everything. The players are my friends, the characters are my PC's allies, and it happened to be immensely entertaining to watch the bard make his one-man stand against the death knight and liches, or to watch the arcane trickster do some body-hopping infiltration-slaughter on her own. 4E seems to be based on the idea, "If you aren't doing something cool, the game isn't fun."
This last one is the one that thrw me in your post. I thought you were agruing that such roles should not be fun, when you were, in fact, arguing that they are already fun.
Yet, in groups I've played in as well as other groups I've DMed, I've had numerous characters playing bards or clerics or healers or support-oriented mage classes, who at some point, and usually often, state their disappointment with how their character plays out. At tournaments, when pre-generated characters are being handed out, I never really hear anyone say "Yes! I got the cleric!" and if players are given a choice, cleric is almost always the last one picked.
I've seen many groups who meet weekly that don't have a cleric at all, because none of the players in the group want the class.
It strikes me as a rare person that can be consistently happy in such a role.
While 4e seems to be moving toward the paradigm you stated, I don't see how that's a bad thing either. Players like yourself (and like me, actually - most of my characters are clerics of some kind) will still be able to enjoy watching your player friends and PC allies do heroic things, and you'll be able to do heroic things too.
But unfortunately, not all players feel the same way. For many players, being the hero is much more fun than supporting the hero.
Instead of leaving the heroics to some of the group, now everyone will be heroic.
Again, I fail to see how this is a bad thing.
