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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 5362363" data-attributes="member: 20307">I think you overvalue the role of the archetypes; I consider weakening them to be the consequence, not the trigger.IMHO 3e's greatest step (forward or not) was the introduction of a unified system for task resolution: 1d20 + bonus; roll high. Before 3e, (A)D&D had differing subsystems for lots of tasks. During the lifetime of 2e other RPGs had introduced and spread the concept of a unified system, be it a simple (GURPS) or a complicated one (Rolemaster). In the light of this situation the development team practically had to introduce this concept. Their way was to deconstruct the game and build anew from ground up, Lego bricks style.The reason for abandoning the strict archetype concept was probably more an economic one. With the separation of character elements in 3e, starting with feats and reaching to atomized classes, where a player may pick only one level of a class, they opened the gates for never-ending publication of supplements: "Hey, we need 120 Prestige Classes and 250 Feats by next Friday!" Could one have published so many classes for a previous version? Without flexible multiclassing players would have been forced to chose between maintaining their present character despite the shiny new class or to start with a completely new one.Now where does 4e stand on this stage? It maintains the deconstructed classes with it's big menu of powers, feats, and magic items, thus paving the way for supplements but casts classes in a new light. They are organized in four archetypal roles, with each class being a different interpretation of this role. Character elements are very codified in order to ensure a balance. This codification allows characters with newer elements not to surpass older characters.IMO the old archetypes were replaced by functional archetypes (roles) in 4e. They have some similarity, but on a theoretical level only.So, it's 5:30 at my place. I'm gonna switch off the computer and go home now. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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