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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7639899" data-attributes="member: 42582">AD&D has no system for a fighter to invent a new weapon. If a player of a fighter wants to introduce a new mechanical element into the system that has a correlate in the fiction - like, say, a new design of polearm or a javelin with better flight capabilities or whatever it might be - s/he has to establish a house rule.In 4e there is nothing stopping house rules. Two of the PCs in my game have themes that I houseruled for them, in consultation with their players; and this included making up some new powers. A GM and player could houserule a new power for a mage, or a new ritual.But there is no ingame process for generating new houserule elements comparable to the spell research system in classic D&D. And the play of a 4e mage is not based around the "spell for every occasion" approach of playing a magic-user in AD&D.I can only report my play experiences. I've played a lot of AD&D. I've played a lot of 4e. The former has a strong resource-management element - worrying about hit points, managing spell load-outs, and - in some contexts, at least - managing inventory.4e does not. Hit points are not precious as they are in AD&D, because of the very different healing mechanics. Healing surges are an important resource, but generate a very different dynamic from AD&D. The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a non-combat situation comes from either skills or rituals, the former of which are not resource-limited and the latter of which are limited by components - in effect, money - and not by the sort of preparation that characterises inventory and spell load-out in AD&D. The bulk of a PC's effectiveness in a combat situation comes from encounter powers, which are a resource within the combat context but not beyond it: this is what makes 4e a scene-based game, whereas AD&D is not that.If someone's only experience with 4e was playing 1st level PCs in a dungeon-crawl style scenario then maybe these significant differences from AD&D would not make themselves evident. But that is rather an edge case of 4e play, and not a reliable guide to what is typical for the system.Changing the resolution numbers (AC and other defences, hp, to hit, damage) used to resolve the combat is not changing the ghoul in the fiction. This has been my point throughout this exchange.</blockquote>

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