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Daily powers are bad (house ruled to one per milestone long ago). Besides that I'm loving it.

I can't answer this question, because my expectations haven't evolved yet. When 3.0/3.5 came out, I thought it was clearly the superior system to any previous DnD system and that no future system would trump it. It borrowed many of the best ideas from other systems and removed bad ideas from itself (ThAC0). But, after a while, the flaws began to show up. Still, even with the flaws, no other system fixed the flaws, so it was still the superior system.

4e has fixed a majority of the flaws and borrowed good, new ideas from other systems. In a sense, 4e is the 3e of 10 years ago. Is it perfect? No. Are there problems? Yes. Could it be improved? Of course. But, at this point, I don't have the perspective to know what new design philosophy or rules technology (yes, rules are a form of technology) would be a massive improvement to the current state. I know AD&D was better than D&D (I'm of mixed opinion on the quality between 1st and 2nd). I know 3e was better than previous editions. Heck, I know 3Paizo is better than 3.5. And, I know 4e is better than all 3e (including Paizo). But, until I see 5e or possibly some other RPG system that nails it, 4e is currently "the mark".

-SYB

It's in comparison to its predecessor, where 4e falls shortest, for me, because it seems to ignore the strides the previous edition took.

The simplest thing to make the game appeal to me? Give it a different name. Market it as an alternate fantasy RPG. Make it the new D&D miniatures. Make it D&D: Basic. But don't replace an existing framework without improving upon it.

Aside from that, I would have been happier had the game included:

Craft, Profession and Perform systems, not as primary skills, but sub-systems.

Mechanical incentive for RP, such as tying action points to fulfilling the character's motives or portraying their personality, rather than a static option.

A unified PC and NPC system, not different systems for monsters and players.

Shorter combats by design, either through methods to bypass HP, such as instant kill abilities, or simply lower HP values all around, so sessions don't waste hours with an encounter.

Non-combat abilities within the power system. I'd like to see a 50/50 ratio of battle powers to powers designed for other purposes. For all classes. At wills of this nature, too.

A balanced skill system, that either grants all classes the same number of skills, or less skils and "ritual caster" to compensate, so character's aren't useless out of battle.

RP incentive within the skill challenge system, giving players mechanical rewards for acting within their character's nature in such scenarios.

No mention of roles.

Racial penalties, as characters should be defined by flaws as well as strengths.

A better system for handling small characters and weapons.

"Fluff" - rationalization for every classes powers, and their structure. Martial classes can simply be tapping into an external reservoir of superhuman energy, using their motions as conduits for that energy. Their bodies can't handle such energy more than once per day, in the case of stronger abilities, however, or more than once in a short period of time, in the case of encounter powers. If you're going to make martial characters magical, go ahead and make them magical.

A full alignment system, along with a personality archetype system, and a system for fulfillment of 'ego', 'short term satisfaction', and 'long term satisfaction', along with mechanical rewards for playing thusly.

A treasure system that doesn't scale at such jarring jumps at certain points, or an alternate 'low wealth' treasure table, for campaigns where you want high level characters who don't deal with tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of goods.

High and low magic options built into the PHB. Slow and fast experience tables.

Powers that heal, buff, or debuff, that aren't tied to an attack, or the option to forgo the attack, in all such cases, and simply have the buff/debuff/healing occur. For example: Healing Strike, or, simply Heal - player's choice.

A few.

RC,

I have suspected for a long time, but now I finally have proof. You really just dislike 4e and prefer 3e. Every thing you complained about is either something that 4e changed or that is the same in 3e and 4e.

So, I have to ask, why do you bother posting on the 4e boards? 4e is NOT going to devolve back to 3e. And, since you seem to like 3e so much, why not simply play 3e and make suggestions for it (have you considered the Paizo boards)?

Ironically, most of the things you complain about in 4e are what I consider some of the stronger changes. And, many of the other things you request are easily (and reasonably) houseruled if you would like them in your campaign (in either edition). But, that is unimportant details. The general truth is, you don't like 4e. You can either continue to rant about it on 4e boards (until you eventually get blocked) or you can play your game and let the people who like 4e play their game.

-SYB

Rant_Casey wrote:

It's in comparison to its predecessor, where 4e falls shortest, for me, because it seems to ignore the strides the previous edition took.

The simplest thing to make the game appeal to me? Give it a different name. Market it as an alternate fantasy RPG. Make it the new D&D miniatures. Make it D&D: Basic. But don't replace an existing framework without improving upon it.

I kind of agree with this.

I think 4th edition and 3rd are different enough that they could've continued to support both product lines. Some would play one system, others the other, but they would still get sales from both groups. It may be interesting to see what Hasbro does after the sales numbers a year out roll in - epecially since they can guage demand for 3.5 products via prices on amazon and ebay.

Things I would have done differently in 4th:

I would've kept the old alignment system.
I would've kept free multiclassing in some form (even if only as an option in the DMG).
I don't really like the NPC and PC disconnect, but it's easy enough to just make every NPC like a PC if you want.
I'm not entirely sold on the loss of Vancian magic, but I understand why they did it - I view this as "different - not better or worse".

Naturally, some powers need to be balanced and stuff like that, but 3.0 had its issues (haste and harm come quickly to mind) along those lines as well. Time and errata will fix those.