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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 4285614" data-attributes="member: 3586">Honestly, there are three things that make D&D recognisable to me:The first is the activity that D&D promotes - heroic fantasy adventurers delving into dungeons, slaying monsters and finding treasure. Of course, there are other systems that promote that, so it alone is not enough. However, it shouldn't be discounted.The second is the basic combat system. Regardless of edition, the basic combat system is:You roll a d20 to hit, with high (modified by level & abilities) hitting the opponent's Armour Class. You roll a polyhedral die for damage, which is then subtracted from the opponent's Hit Points. At 0 hp, the opponent is dead.That's the core mechanic of every edition of D&D, with the possible exception of very early games of oD&D that used the Chainmail resolution mechanic.The third is the Race/Class system, which is important as a way of providing options that exist within archetypes.The actual abilities of races and classes and the way they are implemented are far less important to me. In fact, they have been far more fluid over the years. As new options have come out, they've used wildly varying mechanics. Just consider spell points! To expand on that example, Vancian magic is a recognised part of the AD&D Magic-User class. However, it's not part of the AD&D Fighter class - it's not a shared feature of all classes. So, I don't see it as absolutely essential, especially as we have the AD&D 2E Psionicist which is similar to a magic-user but with different emphases and mechanics. At the end of the day, most of what makes D&D tick actually is the Hit Point, AC and melee combat system, with special effects layered on top of that.I believe it would be entirely possible to create an AD&D Vancian Magic-User for use with the rest of 4e, although the balance work may be problematic. Just ignore the standard power-gain progressions of 4e and write your own level progression chart. 4e doesn't actually preclude such a class working, although a 1:1 convergence would probably be unachievable or undesirable - a d6 per level fireball may be too good in the new system! An appreciation of what the power levels are and what the power curve is would be necessary, of course... but that was true for every new class in AD&D as well. With our extremely limited knowledge of 4e, such seems close to an unclimbable mountain at present, but I suspect it will become easier.Cheers!</blockquote>

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