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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6577747" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think what appealed to me most about 4e is that, for me, it was very much about providing process, but not limitations. There were really relatively few straight up limitations that weren't attempts to make workable mechanics. A dwarf can be a wizard, and swing an axe. AD&D was just filled with all these strictures that had no reason to exist, and then all its subsystems were a giant uncoordinated fung of incoherence. Sure, ALL games set up a basic structure of limitations, but 4e did it as little as possible, very consciously. To the point where the places it failed to do it were irritatingly apparent, like swordmages being limited to swords, why can't I be an axemage? There's no actual real REASON beyond 'flavor' for that, if you remove that rule no breakdown of game balance or anything else happens. Things like all classes falling into an AEDU structure are in the same category, simple and coherent and thus enabling. When I DO want to inevitably go beyond what was in the book its very very simple and easy to do that. If a player had a good narrative reason why his fighter could cast Fireball as a level 5 daily, its dirt simple to make it happen, and it isn't having some impact on the relative strengths of the characters, he gave up 'Come and Get It' for the privilege and the game thinks that's probably a reasonable trade off.The rules are silent on this. They simply tell you what the mechanics are and provide flavor text. If the monk's 'hammer' is mechanically a club then no rules have even been referenced, let alone had a say, IMHO.I believe it does take 24 hours, yes. That seems OK with me. Especially given that it is a feature of an ED and not a power or even a feat it seems like it should be more open to interpretation though. Yeah, I think most everyone nowadays that comments on 4e is of the opinion that Page 42 should have been located in the PHB. Nothing is perfect. I suspect every edition has had some sort of similar 'duh!' sort of element.Yes, athletics has a formula for the DC equated to different jumps. Obviously if you were to drastically rebase Athletics then you'd have to probably add some sort of non-linearity to that. Generally the game DOES have a 'base'. Various materials are consistently indicated to be associated with various levels and thus DCs, as are certain terrain elements. Falling damage also helps to scale things concretely. Still, the system is very straightforward and everything works on the basis of consistent DCs, so rescaling isn't that hard. It may not be any harder in 3.x in theory either, except 3.x has this large array of little subsystems and modifier tables and such that all have to be addressed. 4e has a LOT less of that.I tend to favor simplicity and then I'm always free to have some kind of loose system for something if I want. 4e for instance has personality traits and quirks for NPCs, they just don't have any mechanical significance attached to them. Obviously they COULD impact modifiers in some cases, but they are primarily narrative tools, as are PC backgrounds for the most part. Its also a question of setting independence. In my own 4e hack I can add in these sorts of things if I want and they might mesh well with my setting, but while 4e espouses 'PoL' as a CONCEPT, it makes very few assumptions in its mechanics. In fact there is a profound LACK of mechanics impacting these sorts of story considerations in 4e. I liked that myself. 13a of course really took this to even another level, but they also had to tie it much more into the assumptions of their campaign world. Its kind of a trade-off. 4e walked the line pretty well. Honestly earlier editions didn't do terribly badly here either. They had more of an assumption of a medieval type of society built in, but it was never really too hard to override that, except in equipment choices where players tend to resist being restricted.</blockquote>

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