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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9112562" data-attributes="member: 87792">There is zero hypocrisy here. Just complexity. And a button to push isn't a yak to shave.As I mentioned every interaction with the character sheet is a cost. I don't argue that no costs are worth paying; I don't always get the cheapest possible food because I prefer food that tastes better. I didn't, for example, say that having a mechanic for wearing a heavy sweater in cold weather was a bad thing. The point about tracking arrows is that the cost racks up every time and the reward remains trivial. You're spending ten cents on a penny sweet.  Meanwhile for 4e the reward is threefold; kinaesthetic mechanics (which IMO are good - the way characters move and moving not like each other is excellent), character exhaustion mechanics are inherently tracked, and tactics. Three axes all of which I value for one interaction and all of which are immediately relevant - unlike individually counting arrows which is only relevant under rare circumstances.The second is that  I disagree that by the standards of D&D the character sheet is complex. The big difference is that the character-specific rules are, in 4e, on the character sheet and given a whole lot of whitespace. In other D&Ds the character sheets, especially for casters, are normally incomplete. A "complete" 3.X character sheet would have the full rules for every feat the character used on their character sheet - and a "complete" spellcaster character sheet would have all the rules for all that character's spells on their character sheet. No looking them up in the rulebooks. When you start comparing like with like, a 5th level 4e character is significantly simpler than a spellcaster in any other edition.The third is that you can like a game without considering every aspect of it perfect. I'm currently running what started out as a homebrew 4e retroclone. One of the first decisions I made was that for every character class except the archivist wizard all that character's class-based options fit onto a double sided A4 sheet. Not just the options they pick but all the class feats and all the class powers. (I've also dropped the six basic stats and made a few other changes). Like I said, a long and complex character sheet is a cost. Sometimes it's worth paying. And on my todo list is an app-based version of the character sheet that only displays the abilities you picked.</blockquote>

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