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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nnms" data-source="post: 5633075" data-attributes="member: 83293">Good points, guys.I remember when my group house ruled leveling away for a few sessions.  Characters were rebuilt without any of the per level math.  It was fun, but in the end, the ability to use the character builder and not have to apply house rules for something that was mathematically equal won out.The smoke & mirrors thing was present in older editions, but their dungeon/wilderness population rules (as contrasted with encounter design rules) weren't concerned with making combats fit the PCs, but with making locales the players needed to choose to enter or not.  But that's a really old school approach that has been pushed aside by many ever since people decided they'd rather play games that were about "the DM's story."  When the PCs *have* to go into a certain area for the DM's plot reasons than the power to regulate difficulty by choosing not to go further out into the wilderness or deeper into a dungeon is taken away.  It's also usually accompanied by a shift from large dungeons and huge wilderness areas to monster layers and set encounter orders.  Story trumps exploration.  Which is cool and all, I run my games that way some times.EDIT:  Figured out another thing I loved for the last few years but now dislike:10) Defined roles for PCs and MonstersRoles like defender, lurker, soldier, controller, striker, etc., certainly work for the vast majority of monsters and PCs.  They describe what they do and give good guidance for running them.I'm getting sick of them though. I think the main reason is that they end up being so character defining.  If someone is in a given role, they're going to do certain behaviours and have stats within a certain range and have average damage of a certain range, etc.,.  While there is variance, the similarities are for more important for the functioning of a cohesive party than the minor differences.D&D has always had roles.  But the rules in previous editions let the players figure out what they were and if there were multiple options, they could choose themselves as they developed the character.  Essentials (thankfully) reintroduced some of this with their classes for more than one role like the leader sentinel druid, a striker slayer fighter, etc.,.  Those classes, however, are even more tightly focused and leave even less room for a player to drift them towards their preferences.Something to remember about the various lists of issues people have with 4E is that they are all pretty much features of the game.  All 10 of my issues I formerly defended as features.  I've even defended the larger amount of time combat takes because tactical miniature gaming is interesting and fun and fits for D&D as it is part of its history and development.The game is just getting so "samey" to DM.  The game trundles along between its game modes like exploration, encounters, skill challenges, etc., and the players all have a blast.  They actually care about getting past the enemy town and finding the river that will lead them to the secret lair.  Along the way there will be skill challenges and encounters of various levels with different combinations of monster roles present.  Just like every other session.  The players all tell stories about how awesome it was and how each thing was memorable and different, but it's really not.  The challenges are illusory as play stops if they fail.  Monsters seem unique and interesting and nastier and deadlier as they do larger and larger numbers of HP of damage.  They get more save or die chain effects, nastier status effects, etc., but that's accompanied by an increase in the number of granted saves from items, feats and powers.  Character creation is too complex and requires too many pages to be printed or written out to just jump right back in like you would in Basic D&D so presenting a real challenge like in pre 3.x old school play creates a hassle with every character death.And if the goal is the story, than there's not much in the way of rules with regards to narrative rights.  As the DM, I just have them all.  And most DMs function under the illusion that being the author of the story while someone else is in charge of the actions of the main characters is both possible and desirable.  Someone's input will be rendered meaningless.  So if story is the goal, there are tons of games out there which actually concentrate on narration rights and having thematic stories produced during the actual process of play that are better suited.I feel like I can coast as a DM and still produce excellent game play for the players.  I know people who are new to DMing long for when everything is effortless, but I'm starting to get bored.  The players continue to see everything as new and interesting, but if they actually looked at what's behind the curtain, it's really not.So another feature of 4E that I now see as a downside:11) Super easy to DM.What a great feature when I was new to the system!  Now it's easy to the point of boredom.</blockquote>

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