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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MyISPHatesENWorld" data-source="post: 4217668" data-attributes="member: 65684">Melee is more boring than healing in 3e? I'm not seeing where TWF or multiclassing have anything to do with not having one character that does the perceived fighter/ranger/rogue job in 4e. A single classed fighter that uses a two-handed weapon does tanking and DPS straight out of the box. A couple feats (most likely) and he tracks and trapfinds. Does he do whoopass damage with a greatsword or two longswords? Either way, whoopass damage is whoopass damage. But, if the player likes using two longswords better, why not let him have a way to do it? The powers system is supposed to make things easier to balance, so it makes sense to use that to make more options that are balanced specifically for a class.Plenty of 3.x parties have two fighters, and I've played in a few games with two axe and shield dwarf fighters or three fighters. Nobody ever complains about those fighters stepping on each others toes. Why would two (or even three) characters that can deal damage, soak damage, track, and find/disable traps at varying degrees of ability step on each others toes more? If anything, they'd work really well together in combat, and the party would have redundancy and the flexibility of sometimes letting the character in the best position to work on a skill task in combat do that rather than always needing to make possibly disadvantageous movements to get the one person that can do something into place.Having also played Since AD&D, the last thing the game needs to take from MMOs is one of the biggest limitations of MMOs - lack of flexibility. MMOs have strong (using strong to mean extremely limited) classes to ease development (and remember an MMO has to code everything that is possible, which is more time/labor intensive), not because limited options for players is a great thing (see the original Star Wars Galaxies for an example of very flexible, but hard to maintain). IMO, having a party of well-rounded characters is great for co-op games. Wanting to be a one-dimensional toon isn't "role playing" either. And you can still avoid multiclassing or taking any feats that broaden your capabilities in 4e. Or, you could not make those 3 different classes and the single class could be modifiable via powers, feats and alternate class abilities. Taking a system that allows a class to be easily customizable via powers, feats and alternate class abilities and adding arbitrary restrictions to a bunch of limited classes rather than options for a flexible class makes for an unsatisfying character creation process. Some Hunter will want to use two weapons in melee (Dagger/Hand Axe to simulate Bowie or Arkansas Toothpick and Tomahawk or hatchet), another Hunter is going to want a spear or longspear, another Hunter is going to want a 2-handed axe to simulate a Woodsman's axe, another is going to want a longsword because they think that's what a king's forester is likely to carry. A Hunter class that is limited to only one melee fighting style is going to leave people out. So you either have one flexible class that can gain other fighting styles via feats, alternate class abilites and powers that allows people to play the character they want to play or you have three or four or more Hunter classes that are the same in almost every way but fighting style or have each of them have a couple abilities that would fit all the hunter classes that you don't share between them to protect the artificial niche you're imposing on them. The first option is going to make a lot more people completely satisfied and is going to make most of those that aren't completely satisfied able to get more of what they want than the second option.Splitting strikers arbitrarily into ranged and melee also leaves a bunch of people out who would like to use a half their options for melee and half their options for ranged attacks rather than focusing solely on one or the other. Whipping up 20 TWF powers for the rogue, 20 TWF powers for the fighter, 20 TWF powers for the paladin, etc. is a lot easier than making a class that does everything that a ranger does but in a different way that fights with a two-handed weapon or everything that a fighter does but in a different way that fights with two-weapons. You sell books with powers and feats just as well as class books, sell pre-made power cards whether there is one class or two, and a fighter-with-two-longswords mini sells just as well as a<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f44e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="(n)" title="Thumbs down    (n)"  data-smilie="23"data-shortname="(n)" /> [arbitrary class that is really just a fighter with two longswords] mini. Considering it looks like you are stuck with the class you pick but can retrain powers and feats, powers and feats books may be much more attractive to a lot of people than class books. Leaving out options like two-weapon fighting for non-rangers is like leaving money on the ground. There may be space limitations that keep that kind of stuff out of the PHB, but sooner rather than later, WotC should pick up that money. They're in a position with the time restrictions on the GSL to increase their dominance in the DND aftermarket (even moreso than in 3.x) and not taking advantage of that time to be the first to put out a supplement that is a "must-have" for a lot of players is not only wasting the opportunity to pick up that money, but not taking advantage of the opportunity to keep customers from starting a relationship with another company.</blockquote>

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