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="pemerton" data-source="post: 7935624" data-attributes="member: 42582">In my experience of AD&D and B/X the fighter and thief used the same power in every fight - that is, roll to hit and roll for damage. (Sometimes the thief was buffed by backstab.)Even at 1st level, in our 4e games the players chose between at-will powers as well as when to deploy encounter and daily powers.A bit like some other posters, I'm missing the contrast here with AD&D and 5e.I can only report that this is very foreign to my experience.The first combat I ran in 4e was adapted from the B/X module Night's Dark Terror. I can't remember exactly how it is presented in the module, but as I ran it the PCs were in a boat and a group of reavers stopped their boat with a chain stretched across the river. It's over 10 years ago now, but I can still remember the basic elements - there was a sandbar in the river (that some of the PCs swam, jumped or teleported to; and with a tree that they took cover behind), there was a raft of opponents (I think minions plus a mage) that was bearing down on the PCs, and an enemy slinger (probably the MM halfling) on the shore. And an enemy fighter with a magical polearm, but I can't remember now how that NPC was positioned - though I think it ended up with him surrendering to the PC fighter on the shore, so the action moved there somehow.I was the GM and not a player, so obviously I can't speak for them, but to me it seemed like we had a pretty vivid sense of the situation, and the character abilities really allowed the players to get involved in the fiction.And while I've been critical of the 4e DMG upthread, I will reiterate that it had some very good technical advice for encounter design, which I drew on in coming up with this first combat encounter. In that sense I have always found the game to deliver exactly what it promises.</blockquote>

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