Warweaver, I think you should try playing a Warlord sometime. With the amount of levels your mind seems to work on, you would probably be a VERY good Taclord.
Personally, I blame Hasbro. What else did we expect from this type of thing? They're a flippin' TOY company.
I agree with you on both counts. I am just not comfortable with this direction D&D is taking. Locking everything into one mechanic (whether it be "all attacks do hp damage" or "all classes work by the same rules") just doesn't sit well with me, inherently. I like being surprised and intrigued by sub-systems. I like having unique and different tactics available (more different than 4e offers, anyway). I like having a wealth of truly fantastic (meaning wildly different) options to choose from, even when I'm not leveling.
Illusions, fear effects, etc. not doing damage just makes sense to me - not because I don't sometimes do the "hp is morale" thing, but I do it rarely, and they are the best candidates for something that I think should exist - exceptions to the hp "rule". I like exceptions. Exceptions do not have to be powerful, they just do something not duplicated elsewhere, which makes them interesting.
It's a good thing that they are trying to appeal to a wider audience. I just wish they didn't have to diminish D&D so much to do it. If the "instant-gratification" crowd could be taught to like taking their time on D&D, to discover its nuances and hidden joys - that'd be nice. But that is a long-term goal, and I don't think WotC is interested in long-term. Theirs is not to prevent a sales-slump - it is to have 5e ready when it does.
They have illusion spells, arcane source will probably have more, and they have rituals, warlocks have quite a few fear effect powers, especially in dark pact. And no they do not need exceptions, exceptions are a bad idea, exceptions are what help break a game.
I agree with you on both counts. I am just not comfortable with this direction D&D is taking. Locking everything into one mechanic (whether it be "all attacks do hp damage" or "all classes work by the same rules") just doesn't sit well with me, inherently. I like being surprised and intrigued by sub-systems. I like having unique and different tactics available (more different than 4e offers, anyway). I like having a wealth of truly fantastic (meaning wildly different) options to choose from, even when I'm not leveling.
Illusions, fear effects, etc. not doing damage just makes sense to me - not because I don't sometimes do the "hp is morale" thing, but I do it rarely, and they are the best candidates for something that I think should exist - exceptions to the hp "rule". I like exceptions. Exceptions do not have to be powerful, they just do something not duplicated elsewhere, which makes them interesting.
It's a good thing that they are trying to appeal to a wider audience. I just wish they didn't have to diminish D&D so much to do it. If the "instant-gratification" crowd could be taught to like taking their time on D&D, to discover its nuances and hidden joys - that'd be nice. But that is a long-term goal, and I don't think WotC is interested in long-term. Theirs is not to prevent a sales-slump - it is to have 5e ready when it does.
I actually like the way they are doing it. Making the game easier to learn is making it very easy for me to get new players, and get players who don't have the same sort of time we had at high school back to the gaming table. I really do think a rule system is secondary to the story and roleplaying (so i guess it is actually third ), so I don;t have a problem with the easier rules.. i kind of liken it to my football coaches philosophy, basically the idea is by keeping the playbook simple, player concentrate on playing rather than what they are supposed to be doing. The same can be true for roleplaying games. Keeping the rules easy, and by extension the subsystems to a minimum, i believe it allows players to roleplay rather than thinking about the rules and how they need to use then to roleplay... in short.. just roleplay! :D
I also have to say, i like that morale effects etc affect hitpoints. I have read in every version of the game that HP's are more than physical damage. This is the first edition that does back up this statement with rules to support it. I remember (i think it was the 2nd ed core rules) states that melee lasts a minute, but you only get one strike in that minute because it is the only chance at a successful hit (the rest of the time is spent parrying, dodging and moving. But the rules also said Hitpoint where endurance, luck etc.. but the rules did not really support that statement. With 4th ed they do, in my opinion.
If you have any 4E conceptual issues or rules that you would like help with feel free to PM me.
But in 4e, there is no recourse for the people who want to play with lots of options, like the Wizard or Cleric. These options do not need to be (in fact, shouldn't) any more powerful than those of other classes - in fact a tiny bit weaker would make sense. But curtailing them to a handful of extra dailies (and a single class/role) is the definition of unsatisfying.
I'm of two minds here.
On one hand, having played 3E and having played 4E, I really do feel like the Vancian classes and the non-Vancian classes could never have really been balanced with each other. Tome of Battle was a big step in that direction but it still didn't really get there -- the casters still were just that much better in the right hands.
People have talked about how hard/impossible it is to balance a class like a fighter or a ToB class that's on a roughly even power keel from encounter to encounter with a class like a wizard that might be out of juice in an encounter or might be fresh and willing to blow its wad. While I think there's truth to that, I think the bigger problem in balancing those classes was this: the cost of adding extra spells to your repertoire as new books came out was minimal as a wizard and nonexistant as a druid/cleric. When Complete Warrior comes out, my melee character has new choices for feats and levels, but they occupy the same slots I always had -- my power can only increase so much with extra material. But if I'm a druid and Complete Divine comes out, not only do I gain those same opportunity-cost choices of class levels and feats, but I get access to a whole bunch more spells for free. Even if all of those spells are perfectly balanced (not that they were or ever could be), my versatility increasing does power me up.
On the other hand...
I really, really liked Vancian casting. I really liked that a wizard could be the strongest or weakest character in a party depending on how well you anticipated the day's challenges and picked your spells accordingly. When I first read about 4E and heard how they were changing the game, I thought that there probably wouldn't be anything for people like me in 4E. (I have a different opinion, having seen the finished rules and played the game, but...) I submitted a question which was asked of the 4E designers at D&D experience... it and the response are posted on the web somewhere or other... basically asking if there would be options in the game for people like me who craved more mechanically complex characters. Their answer was that there would be, just not in the core books because they wanted to keep the classes in there relatively uniform/simple in basic mechanics.
So, we'll see. It doesn't seem like as big of a problem to me as it once did, but I'd still really like to see what they'd do with a more mechanically complex class. I hope that's still forthcoming.
I guess we'll just have to disagree here. Handing me an rpg that has "Super Attack: do YxLevel damage to Z creatures" for every class (the game just has one), and tells me to "flavor it so it's a different class every time!" would be tossed in the trash. (Yes this is a huge exaggeration.)
Now what point is exaggerating going to serve? I mean, I suppose I could create some conversive argument by claiming that "3rd Edition sucks because it's causing global warming (yes this is a huge exaggeration)", but it doesn't do anything to counteract or promote any side of the debate.
Though to be fair, 3rd Edition does have Super Attacks... Save-or-Dies, Wish, Power Word Kill... take your pick.
Warweaver wrote:
This is a mildly deceptive statement. I would never say the melee classes getting more options is a bad thing. But claiming 4e's ratio of only-damage abilities is smaller than 3e's (which, for some melee classes, was at or close to "100%") doesn't discount the fact that the ratio of "damage-dealing options" to "other-dealing options" or "combat" to "non-combat" is far higher in 4e than 3e.
I mean, I could just as easily say that a Barbarian or Rogue in 3e had any ratio of "only-damage" options - after all, anyone can grapple/trip/disarm/etc. You can do it for your entire career and never deal a single point (as short as that career would be).
That would be the peak advantage of this Edition. Characters have a decent amount of both combat and non-combat abilities; combat abilities being largely powers both attack and utility, and non-combat being largely skills and rituals. In fact, a large number of utility powers can serve both a combat and non-combat purpose.
However, you seem to forget that this edition had to disperse largely different abilities amongst 8 different classes with small amounts of overlap (Healing/Inspiring Word, Sure Strike/Careful Attack), whereas 3rd Edition had a spell list that heavily overlapped amongst several classes (and yet 3rd Edition still has around 100 less spells than 4th Edition has powers).
Lastly, you can limit yourself to grabs, utility powers, rituals, and more while refusing to deal a single point of damage. Nothing stopping you anymore than base attack bonus stopped you from doing the same in the previous edition.
Warweaver wrote:
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. I've never been against melees getting more useful decisions. I am, however, against the choice not to do damage and instead the "non-damage" component being enhanced somehow, being so incredibly rare. Even page 42 is mostly about damage. I find that disturbing. If it all involves the same "pluses", it's boring. It's a game of plink-the-badguys to death that everyone is playing the same way.
Then perhaps you should show us in your infinite wisdom how a 29th level power could deal an effect while dealing no damage and be balanced against all the other 29th level powers. Be equally effective in some way, by some balancing manner, without convoluting the rules to a greater degree. I'd actually be interested in how you'd do it.
Also, page 42 largely references circumstance bonuses and setting DCs based on improvised action. Two-thirds of a chart and two paragraphs do not make most of a page.
Actually, I think it would be great for tournament play, but as a game for having fun with being creative, it's not very interesting saying: per day, per encounter, at will, at will, at will ... at will, at will, at will ... at will? Oh he's dead? I pick up the treasure, roll a skill challenge to disarm the trap.
you do know that the majority of rpgs use the same internal mechanics right? i know you have only gamed 3rd once , 4th never but you have gamed with people in some rpg right? wod, nwod,shadowrun,hero,gurps? each use 1 mechanic & each are fun. I can list off far more games with 1 major mechnic then games like older versions of d&d that use several.
Yawn dude, yawn. I am glad that you find them varied and unique enough in actual play, but I don't. Having most of the variation be "how much damage to how many", getting to pick from a (much smaller) list of inflictable conditions, and having slight variations in the numbers involved based on your feats is not what I would consider "unique". They are by no means identical, but what separates them is far diminished from previous incarnations.
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almost all spells in 3rd edition are damage,movement or status with a few that are a combonation. the issue is with you mentaly blocking this out.
On some level, I am talking about casters. When you hit on a neat way to do things, you don't "go halvsies" on it and apply that to everything else. I just didn't see the point of them dragging some classes down and squeezing them in (decreasing lateral options) to meet all classes in the middle - bringing everyone up to the level of casters is just as good. See Tome of Battle.
Tome of Battle still didn't bring everyone up to the level of casters - that was (is?) part of the problem.
Players don't want non-casters to be "on par with" casters, it seems. Sure, they can deal as much damage. They may also be able to do some pretty neat tricks. But they shouldn't be allowed to instant-kill, or create illusions, or manipulate reality - or to scry-teleport-ambush. At least, that's what it always seems like.
"Bringing everyone up" to the level of casters could be just as good... but given the fact that "attacking + blinding every creature in a 3x3 square with what is described as a flurry of crossbow shots or thrown daggers" ("Blinding Barrage", Rogue 1) is often decried as "unrealistic" (or the At-Will/Encounter/Daily power scheme), I don't think it would ever be possible to truly "bring everyone up" to the same level without even worse complaints than we get now.
Even using just the Sorc and Wizard as examples, we had a good template. I fully agree not everyone wants to memorize a huge list of options - in fact, the vast majority of people I played with in 3e played melee classes because of that fact. In most cases, 3e melee classes were not under-powered in relation to monster encounters - it was only when the casters popped up that their weakness was revealed.
My experience was usually that 3e melee classes worked perfectly fine against NPCs. Against monsters, unless they were prepared, things were difficult. You are right though, their weaknesses were revealed when the casters popped up. But the casters always popped up. Because they were popular. And because they often had an easier time of things.
I've played with a party of all non-casters and a party of all-casters, and each time everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and didn't feel out-classed.
I've played both as well - non-casters work extremely well alongside non-casters, and full-casters work extremely well alongside full-casters. But when they were together, the "differences" in the systems began to shine through, and the weaknesses of the non-casters began to show.
I never had a problem with players outright stating that they were not enjoying themselves because of class. I did, however, have a strong trend throughout all of 3.5 for more and more players to abandon older characters to start playing casters. While we started out with 5 or so players, with a Wizard and a Cleric, by the time we were leaving 3.5 for other games the group was alternating between 4 and 5 players, with the majority as full casters (or Warlocks) with maybe a rogue. Tome of Battle almost tipped the scales, but only momentarily, before the players began requesting to swap to casters again, just for the sheer volume of options that type of character would have when compared to non-casters.
The point I'm trying to make here is that there are people who will always play the classes with fewer options, just as there are people who always play melees, because that is what they want.
I don't see how that is a solid argument though. We shouldn't say "alright, this system is fine as-is because someone will always play the worst option, even if it is the obvious worst option." Someone, somewhere, will always play a commoner - that doesn't mean "Commoner" would be a good idea for the balance levels for a base class.
But in 4e, there is no recourse for the people who want to play with lots of options, like the Wizard or Cleric. These options do not need to be (in fact, shouldn't) any more powerful than those of other classes - in fact a tiny bit weaker would make sense. But curtailing them to a handful of extra dailies (and a single class/role) is the definition of unsatisfying.
But there is recourse - I think it's just not the one you want.
Rituals are intended to fill that "player wants to play with a lot of options" niche - and like spells in 3.X, rituals have the distinct advantage of being immediately available when introduced (via supplements): the character can pick and choose from new rituals, without replacing his old.
Additionally, Wizards have a few tremendous further advantages.
First, they earn several rituals for no cost (13, to be exact), which is an awesome little feature that I think get's too-often overlooked.
And second, they have access to double (triple, with a feat) the number of Daily and Utility powers of any other class. With the feat, they may seriously be selecting all but 1 option at any given level.
Between those two features, the Wizard, specifically, has a lot more options than any of the other classes. The Cleric lacks the spellbook, but maintains the Rituals, which still puts him far ahead of the other classes.
That's unfair. The Warlock is taken from the 3e class of the same name and Binders, not Sorcerers. Sorcerers have (depending on your view) either been completely eradicated in 4e, or given the Wizards' name and wizards have been eradicated.
I think it is fair. To be honest though, when the Warlock was released my first thought was "THIS should have been in the core books, not the Sorcerer" - my gaming group agreed, and we never had another sorcerer (plenty more wizards though).
Still, the point was that our two core arcane classes are more distinct than our two core arcane classes from 3.5. They don't even have the choice of being exactly the same - they are distinct in design itself.
And let's be honest - both arcane casters in 3e could do a lot more than either of them can in 4e! Potentially (due to spell selection) they could be way more different than the warlock/wizard - unless you don't consider their spell lists a class feature. Illusionists, blasters, controllers, dominators, summoners, necromancers, party buffers...
Potentially, they could be exactly (minus casting per day) the same (due to spell selection).
While I love all of those aspects of the arcane spell list (namely, that it was a whole hodge-podge of classes mixed into one - or two), I have issues with it being in a class-based system.
Or, more accurately, I have issues with spellcasters (and to a much lesser extent, Fighters in 3.5) working outside or around the class-based system while the others do not. Honestly, to get the same variety for the non-full-casters, one would have to roll Barbarian/Fighter/Monk/Ranger/Rogue into a single class, from which the player could pick their options as they advance (and don't forget buying additional options).
The one thing that I like the most from core 4th Edition, in regard to Wizards, is that there is some promise that their disparate classes and class roles will all be split off into actual separate classes. Now, given the Illusion web supplement (which was a huge step in the wrong direction, for multiple reasons, in my mind), and the forthcoming "tempest fighter," I think this might break down in 4th as it did in 3.5, which will be a huge let-down (and which will result in me taking a much heavier hand with supplements this time around).
Tome of Battle was a big step in that direction but it still didn't really get there -- the casters still were just that much better in the right hands.
This is true - ToB was great but it didn't go far enough. I think they tried to make the maneuvers a little weaker because you could go all day, which was the wrong direction. I'm fine with stuff like At-Will spells for casters in 4e. What I don't like is reducing their options because everyone has to have the same. It's magic. It's a standard of fantasy that magic can do things normally impossible. That said, the real problem with ToB was not that they didn't have as many options as the casters did - people that play "traditional" melee types (not counting gishes and such) don't care about transmuting stone walls into honey, or if they do, it is a very particular kind of magic that a PrC or a magic item can handle. No, what ToB was missing is the idea that melee PCs should not be "out-badassed" by casters in anything - they need to be equal. The fighter doesn't have to be able to make a Forcecage - however, he does need to have a way of getting out of it that looks cool. The rogue doesn't need to fly. However, he does need a way to combat flying creatures effectively (SAing their wings to force them down, etc.).
I really think those who enjoyed wizards and those who enjoyed barbarians are two entirely different kinds of player. The same person can be both kinds of course, but not at once. There were casters that jumped the gap as well, like sorcerers and warlocks - the wizard for those who didn't care so much about options. But turning every class into a 50/50 mix of this, and just weakening all their powers instead of keeping the strength and providing counters, makes them all dissatisfying...to me, anyway.
DireMongoose wrote:
While I think there's truth to that, I think the bigger problem in balancing those classes was this: the cost of adding extra spells to your repertoire as new books came out was minimal as a wizard and nonexistant as a druid/cleric. When Complete Warrior comes out, my melee character has new choices for feats and levels, but they occupy the same slots I always had -- my power can only increase so much with extra material. But if I'm a druid and Complete Divine comes out, not only do I gain those same opportunity-cost choices of class levels and feats, but I get access to a whole bunch more spells for free. Even if all of those spells are perfectly balanced (not that they were or ever could be), my versatility increasing does power me up.
I can't argue with this...to be honest, I consider myself a little biased. I've been running a 3.5 campaign for the last few years, and it has a bunch of my house rules. One of them was to come up with a substantially cut-down spell list for clerics, the trade-off being they can memorize domain spells in any slot (as well as the extra one). This made clerics more individualized and more like their earlier edition roots, where they had some neat cleric-only spells but weren't the catch-all utility guys like wizards. I also made Natural Spell a +1 lvl metamagic feat. These and some other tweaks (SoDs in my game just put you at -1d10 hp) pared down their nuttiness - and if you think the gp cost for maintaining a spellbook is negligible, I suggest playing a 3e wizard. It's not bank-breaking, but it is a noticeable chunk of your WBL. This, combined with the fact all my non-caster players have at least a few levels in ToB classes, has shown me what's still possible with a "fixed" 3e (not that my house rules are - just a start). Comparatively, 4e grinds it all up and lays it out in a homogenized set.
DireMongoose wrote:
Their answer was that there would be, just not in the core books because they wanted to keep the classes in there relatively uniform/simple in basic mechanics.
Well! Here's hoping.
Decivre wrote:
In fact, a large number of utility powers can serve both a combat and non-combat purpose.
I don't think the "large number" of utility powers is as big as you claim. Though it would be interesting to be proven wrong.
Decivre wrote:
However, you seem to forget that this edition had to disperse largely different abilities amongst 8 different classes with small amounts of overlap (Healing/Inspiring Word, Sure Strike/Careful Attack), whereas 3rd Edition had a spell list that heavily overlapped amongst several classes (and yet 3rd Edition still has around 100 less spells than 4th Edition has powers).
And yet, 3e also has more variation in said spells. Not to mention the classes that do "heavily overlap" (cleric/druid, sorc/wiz/bard...you can pretend the paladins/rangers do too, but it's a fractional class feature - it'd be like a 4e class that got Powers at half the progression of the others) have a wider variety of options than 4e powers do.
In 4e, they could've come up with a "power rubric" instead of listing out all those powers for each class (in fact they nearly did with page 42). "It does X damage at Y level plus Z. If you want it to inflict A status, reduce damage by B. If it has a range/area/# of creatures C, reduce damage by D." Personally I don't like it when half the sourcebook I paid for looks like it was created purely via plugging in numbers and making sure they keep to a specific range. I'm all for balance, but I don't buy an rpg to look at pages of math that I could almost figure out the Master Formula for in my head. It's wasted space that could be spent on expanded options.
Decivre wrote:
Then perhaps you should show us in your infinite wisdom how a 29th level power could deal an effect while dealing no damage and be balanced against all the other 29th level powers. Be equally effective in some way, by some balancing manner, without convoluting the rules to a greater degree. I'd actually be interested in how you'd do it.
I dunno, but here's a shot in the dark:
Squee-Gee's Mold (Wizard Attack 29) Daily + Arcane, Implement, Necrotic, Charm Standard Action Close Burst 20 Target: Each Enemy in Burst Attack: Int vs Will Hit: The target is stunned (save ends), loses the use of their minor action (save ends), and suffers a -2 to all attacks until the end of the encounter. Miss: The target is dazed (save ends), and suffers a -1 to all attacks until the end of the encounter.
Other fun ideas would be powers that: decrease the numbers a monster power is Recharged on, negate interrupts/freeze action points for its duration, reduces their resistance to other spells of the same element for its duration, etc. Since NPCs work by monster rules now, these ideas are more applicable than ever.
This is a little beside the point, as I just flat-out don't like where they've put the balance bar - but I'm working with what I got. Personally, I'd be fine with rituals that create permanent structures (like Wall of ___) for little to no cost. By a certain level, you should be able to make a big maze out of ice walls with nothing but time. "But oh noes" you say, "what if they do the wall of iron thing and then sell all that scrap iron and break ze economy!" And you would say this as if adventurers haven't been pulling the carpets and armoires out of dungeons and selling them in town for decades. As always, it'll work if the DM wants it to, no more no less. (General "you" here - I don't think any of you folks would actually make this argument.)
Decivre wrote:
Also, page 42 largely references circumstance bonuses and setting DCs based on improvised action. Two-thirds of a chart and two paragraphs do not make most of a page.
Fair enough.
jimthegray wrote:
lets play a game real quick, name 6 3rd ed spells from the 3rd ed phb lets repeat that for at least 3 levels but more is fine.
Is this...
jimthegray wrote:
almost all spells in 3rd edition are damage,movement or status with a few that are a combination. the issue is with you mentaly blocking this out.
...related to this? Because this latter statement is completely, totally, verifiably untrue. Even for many spells that have status effects (i.e. Wall of Stone, Tree Shape), that effect is far from their primary purpose.
greatfrito wrote:
Players don't want non-casters to be "on par with" casters, it seems. Sure, they can deal as much damage. They may also be able to do some pretty neat tricks. But they shouldn't be allowed to instant-kill, or create illusions, or manipulate reality - or to scry-teleport-ambush. At least, that's what it always seems like.
See my response to Dire Mongoose above - I think it will help explain my viewpoint a bit better. (And I don't like SoD's any more than you do - not instant ones anyway.)
greatfrito wrote:
I don't see how that is a solid argument though. We shouldn't say "alright, this system is fine as-is because someone will always play the worst option, even if it is the obvious worst option." Someone, somewhere, will always play a commoner - that doesn't mean "Commoner" would be a good idea for the balance levels for a base class.
Definitely not. A system always needs improvement if it is not balanced vertically (power-level wise), but not always if it is not balanced laterally (options-wise). Even that's not quite what I'm saying though...it's really the breadth of the options themselves I'm talking about. Melee/non-caster types should get plenty of balanced options for what they are good at - non-magical stuff and fighting (which everyone should be good at). The casters should get the really weird, out-there stuff - spells that summon fiends and make people invisible and fly and such. But while these options are more diverse than the non-casters, they should have perfectly mundane downsides that can be exploited. You can still hear or throw water/paint/dust on the invisible guy. If you kill the fiend it causes feedback to the caster, or maybe there's a summoning focus they must hold while controlling it - disarm that, and poof! The flight spell is advantageous - until people start firing arrows at you, and you take penalties like old-school Levitate because it's hard to control.
greatfrito wrote:
Rituals are intended to fill that "player wants to play with a lot of options" niche - and like spells in 3.X, rituals have the distinct advantage of being immediately available when introduced (via supplements): the character can pick and choose from new rituals, without replacing his old.
I loved Rituals in theory - but in practice, they're just another "meh" factor. Forcing them all to have gp costs was, IMO, a mistake, as well as having many of the same kind in the PHB. Hopefully my interest will return as more come out.
greatfrito wrote:
Between those two features, the Wizard, specifically, has a lot more options than any of the other classes. The Cleric lacks the spellbook, but maintains the Rituals, which still puts him far ahead of the other classes.
True - the wizard still suffers from a severe lack of options compared to his 3e incarnation, though. And not just due to not having a "potentially infinite, gold and pages aside" spell list. But more due to the only spells the 4e wiz being able to choose making him Control, Control, and more Control. This is my problem with class roles though (see below).
greatfrito wrote:
Potentially, they could be exactly (minus casting per day) the same (due to spell selection).
Considering the number of spells to choose from, I would consider two identical arcane casters but one option among many. "Potentially" yes, probability wise, much less likely. The real reason I think most people dropped the Sorcerer was that the Wizard is better in almost every way (especially once you realize the awesomeness of Scribe Scroll). Some held onto the Sorc as their only option for "caster with a tiny list but lots per day" - until the Warlock.
greatfrito wrote:
While I love all of those aspects of the arcane spell list (namely, that it was a whole hodge-podge of classes mixed into one - or two), I have issues with it being in a class-based system.
Maybe this is the source of my problem. I love the lore and feel of D&D, but I liked 3e the most. So really, I don't like class-based systems.
greatfrito wrote:
Or, more accurately, I have issues with spellcasters (and to a much lesser extent, Fighters in 3.5) working outside or around the class-based system while the others do not. Honestly, to get the same variety for the non-full-casters, one would have to roll Barbarian/Fighter/Monk/Ranger/Rogue into a single class, from which the player could pick their options as they advance (and don't forget buying additional options).
Agreed. The fact that such an option-pick (like the 3e Fighter, but not crappy) appeals to me is further proof of the above...
With the amount of levels your mind seems to work on, you would probably be a VERY good Taclord.
), so I don;t have a problem with the easier rules.. i kind of liken it to my football coaches philosophy, basically the idea is by keeping the playbook simple, player concentrate on playing rather than what they are supposed to be doing. The same can be true for roleplaying games. Keeping the rules easy, and by extension the subsystems to a minimum, i believe it allows players to roleplay rather than thinking about the rules and how they need to use then to roleplay... in short.. just roleplay! :D
