NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="yarael" data-source="post: 4923069" data-attributes="member: 26355">Having taken a day to really consider this, I think I have pegged it for myself.  My room analogy, was, in retrospect, not the best constructed analogy, so I will try again.... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />In 4E, you are told to go design a living room.  You can choose wood, stone, brick, or plaster.  Regardless of that choice, you still have to pick a choice for the walls, ceiling, floor, and a furniture grouping.  Your choices in this regard are limited based on the material you choose.  You cannot used the furniture from the wood group in your living room if you choose stone as your material.  In 3.X, you are told to design a room.  You must first decide what room you wish to design.  You have the choice of kitchen, bathroom, living room, and closet.  Based upon that choice your, you will still need to choose something for the ceiling, walls, and flooring.  Some of that may be the same as one of the other rooms.  But kitchen designers get to choose amongst appliances, which the other folks don't get to choose.  They also must choose a countertop, a back splash, and a sink.  The living room design just a furniture suite to choose.  The quantity of choices the kitchen designer gets to make is different then the living room guy, much less the closet guy.In the first example, the initial choice is significant because it limits the palette you can choose from.  But the second example shows a different kind of siginificance.  It may not limit your palette at all, but the quantity of choices is different.To 4E the 3.X character creation choices for a moment, making it somewhat abstract.  A 3.X fighter gets to choose a feat.  That is his class feature at first level.  Let's say that feat is roughly equivalent to an At-Will Power (power attack, expertise, two weapon fighting, whatever, most allowed the fighter to alter his basic attack into something another character couldn't do with his basic attack).  Now let's look at the wizard.  His first level class features where choose 4 spells, choose some cantrips, and choose a familiar.  So we will say he gets to choose 4 Daily Attack powers, 6(?) Daily Utility Powers, and a Class Feature.  Obviously the difference between those two choices is quite significant.Now to a detail guy like me, I look at that dichotomy and I hated it.  Building a fighter was boring.  By choosing that option, the game was less fun.  But to another kind of guy, he looks at that and sees that his choice Matters, with a capital M.  In 4E I look at all the options each class has, and no matter which I class I choose, I still have roughly, if not exactly, the same amount of choices to make.  Cool.  And with in each choice I see a myriad of different choices, each one making my character unique.  But a Big Picture guy (maybe there is a better descriptor) looks at each of the choices as minor variations on a theme.  They all heal X, damage Y, to status effect Z.  Little in the choices he sees offer a clear dichotomy, a completely different choice.  If he chooses Fighter, the quantity and types of choices will be exactly the same as for a Wizard.  There is nothing unique there.I use character creation in my examples because I think it is easier to see this difference.  But I my no means mean that it is limited to character creation.  I can now see it in other areas too.Take combat.  Here the choices for any character in 4E.Do I need/want to use my move action to improve my tactical situation?Do I need/want to use my minor action to do my Role?Do I need/want to spend my Standard action expend a Daily Resource, damage something, and utilize an interesting rider?If not, which of my encounter/at-will powers to damage something and decide amongst which of my rider effects will garner me and/or my allies the best tactical situation.There is a lot of options available in each of those choices.  For detail guy this plethora (yes, I even know what a plethora is) of choices represents the opposite of hegemony.Take 3.X.  Here are some examples of choices...Do I want/need to move to improve my tactical situation?Do I want/need to take a 5' step to improve my tactical situation?I am Fighter, I will pretend to consider other tactical choices, and then hit the monster several times, pausing between each to see if he goes down so I can move, and/or hit another monster.I am a Cleric.  Do I use my standard action expend a Daily resource to heal someone?  Buff me or someone else?  Cast a damage spell?  Or do I save my Daily resources, and just hit something with my weapon.  I am a Wizard.  Do I use my standard action to expend a Daily resource and damage something?  Buff myself or someone else?  Figure out some creative use for one of my Utility spells?  Or not expend a daily Resource and pretend to try to hit something with a weapon?  Use another move action to hide/get away?Each of those have different quantity of choices, as well as different types of choices.  To the Big Picture guy, his original character class choice Means something.(Now there is still some of that in 4E, which the original quote I posted acknowledged, but sometimes is not.  The choice of Role -not Class- has a somewhat similar effect on combat.  But the order of magnitude is less then the Class choice in 3.X)So to sum up.  Detail guy looks at 4E and sees significance in his choices because it limits his options.  He sees variety do the sheer number of choices he gets to make, as well as the plethora of options available for each choice.Big Picture guy looks a 4E and sees no significance in his choices, because they do not affect the quantity and types of choices he makes.  He sees homogeneity in all his choices because none of them have the magnitude of significance upon later choices in character creation or game play that 3.X did.</blockquote>

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