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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6056450" data-attributes="member: 87792">Really?  Because I just read a long rant about how 4e sucks (by someone who doesn't get 4e - @pmerton has gone into some of this) and how much better things were in The Olden Days.  This would be the 2e that is not well remembered for the quality of its rules, but for the quality of its monster manuals and settings like Planescape, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Birthright?  And the 2e for which TSR were putting out an average of five books per month? It would also be the 4e which intentionally has only a dimly detailed default setting (the Nentir Vale) and in which there were, for the most part, precisely two worldbooks per setting encouraging you to make things up? Finally it would be the 1e for which the best known and best selling adventure was the railroad-adventure-path known as the Dragonlance Saga, in which all Paladins would fall, in which all Assassins were Evil, and in which alignments had their own languages and were otherwise hardcoded into the rules.Right.  On my bookshelf there are three books within the space of about half a dozen.  Unearthed Arcana, Skills and Powers, and the Complete Book of Elves.  Do you want to talk about optimisation and editions?  And at least you don't have stat requirements for classes these days.  And yet 4e has fewer systems and subsystems than 2e - and 1e had the rules layering of things like the Wilderness Survival Guide and Unearthed Arcana.  Do you want to  talk about how the 2e Thief Skill system was entirely distinct from the Non Weapon Proficiencies (and there was a mess), the combat rules including AC modifier by weapon type (did anyone ever use that thing?)  Now that's rules layering.  Paradoxically most ignorable in 4e when 4e has the clearest guidelines.  In early editions the wealth by level was "You must be this tall to play" - without the right sort of weapon you couldn't hurt your target at all.  4e first codified the WBL, then because it was codified managed to remove most of it and replace it with inherent bonusses.  I think that you're looking at a range of factors that were undoubtedly present in 3.X (although I'd argue 3.X wasn't any worse than 2e at most of these examples) and then assuming that 4e must be like 3.X when one of the things 4e is is a reaction against the very things you are criticising.</blockquote>

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