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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4999405" data-attributes="member: 58197">A couple of things that I miss:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Easy non-battlemat play. From OD&D through 2E, the trend was toward making the game easier to play without a battlemat. That trend reversed in 3E and the reversal has continued into 4E. This makes me sad.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cursed magic items. Cursed items were poorly implemented in previous editions, tending to be something of a "gotcha" trick; but their existence elevated magic items beyond the bland packets of crunch that they are in 4E. Magic items in old editions were exciting and dangerous things, to be tampered with at your peril. I wish they'd looked for a better way to implement cursed items instead of just scrapping them.</li> </ul>(I also miss support for ruling domains and waging mass combat at higher levels. But I can hardly blame 4E for that, since the only edition I can recall with core support for those elements was BECMI.)In a more general sense... I guess I feel like the game should be more grounded in the imaginary world. Previous editions, especially 2E, made a big effort to evoke a sense of setting. If you look at 2E's equipment list, for instance, you see pages and pages of stuff, much of which has little or nothing to do with adventuring; and prices that reflect at least some effort to imitate medieval reality.Compare that to 4E's equipment list, which is laser-focused on adventuring utility, and has a suit of full plate cost only twice as much as a suit of leather armor. I understand why they did it this way, but I think they failed to count the cost. Back in the day, I would look down the equipment list and it really made me think about my character and the world he or she lived in - how much would my character spend on clothing? A horse? Do I have a pet, and is it a cat or a dog or a hunting falcon? Do I wear a tunic or a robe, and what kind of inns do I stay at? 4E's equipment list has none of that*.4E feels unmoored to me. As a DM, the mechanics of my job are easier than ever before, but creating that sense of setting seems harder.[SIZE=-2]*Also, having prices for all those oddball items encouraged PCs to come up with clever uses for them. Anybody who's ever watched "The Princess Bride" should understand why it's important to know if the party can afford a wheelbarrow.[/SIZE]</blockquote>

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