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The following is a rant. Undoubtably people are going to disagree with me. That's fine. I'm just writing it out of the frustrating of having played this game and getting the feeling that something was missing.

However I'm not trying to say "4e sux." Far from it. In many ways, 4e got a lot right. However, there are a number of ways in which it just failed to live up to the promise I felt it had.

Keep in mind, these are my own personal desires, based on the preview material and the preconceptions I had from 3.5. Not everyone will agree. Maybe I'm seeing it wrong. But the game plays like something is missing.

This, for me, is what could have been.

Ability Scores
Is it just me, or does every edition of D&D have even more stat creep than before? I think the big culprit here are powers which read things like "you may move a target a number of squares equal to your wisdom modifier" or even 3.5's "you may make a number of AoOs equal to your dex modifier."

The problem is that most of those powers are only useful if you've got a stat of at least 12, and in many cases more. There is an assumption that heroic characters have mostly positive modifiers, and maybe one negative modifier.

This assumption needs to die.

Would it really be that hard to rebalance the scores such that an 18 really meant something? Would it be so difficult to set up so that 3d6 down the line didn't result in characters that couldn't use half their powers due to non-existant secondary effects?

I actually got fooled into believing this would change. Some preview material for 4th edition showed a monster, and the level modifier was baked into the ability modifiers. Of course, no one knew that was the case, so the speculation was that positive bonuses started at 5 -- and a 10 would net you a +3.

This, for me, would have been a huge win. Now characters could have those important modifiers and still have scores in the normal range. Alas, it was not to be, and now I can't even make a character with two scores below ten without it being house ruled.

The next time an edition rolls around, how about putting the modifiers at +2 for 10, or whatever playtesting shows works. That way wearing heavy armour might hamper all sort of characters, not just the ones with superb dexterity.


Power Sources
Here's a thought. What would happen if you removed power sources from any gameplay mechanic? As best I can tell, the answer is nothing. Sure, martial power rarely has conjurations, and divine power is almost always linked to a god, but there's nothing -unique- about a power source.

In 3e, at least, the difference between a supernatural ability and an extraordinary one was important. Arcane and divine magic was more or less transparent, but martial power and magic was different.

I kind of expected this in 4e.

Imagine what could have been. What if the definition of Arcane power had consequences? What if arcane power sources could be affected by an anti-magic field? What if the magic wrought by words of power and deep knowledge was fundamentally different than magic granted by the Gods -- one vulnerable to counterspells and fields, the other with codes of conduct?

What if martial power never granted daily powers, but tended to have at-will powers of more potency? What if martial healing was -different- from divine healing -- triggering healing surges and granting temporary HP, but never restoring battle damage above what a character could normally take?

In short, what if being the wizard meant something other than being a controller (which means nothing now that PHB2 has introduced a few more controllers.)


Classes
This is almost the same as power sources -- everything seems the same.

In my mind, the fighter would have a slew of at-will powers, interchangeable based on his weapon. The encounter powers "that kind of trick would only work once" would be his flashy moves -- the kind saved for a finishing blow or a perfect opportunity. Tactical powers, usable only in certain situations like charging, flanking, or attacking a prone enemy would have been a natural fit.

Class features could have gone so far here. I mean, I really love the Fighter's class features. The ability to lock a target down? Great. There needs to be more of that. But, really, all those class features kick in at level one, and then there's almost no progression of features beyond that. That doesn't seem right. There should be more to a class than its power selection: class features seem interesting because they are special. Powers feel like an additional way to deal 3[w] damage once per day.

I really noticed this when I looked at the wizard. The spellbook class feature felt like a quick tack-on to give the wizard a little more versatility. In my mind, daily powers should have fallen under "class feature." Casting daily power is entirely boring when every class can do it. Warlock vs Wizard in 3.5 was a serious difference. Warlock vs Wizard in 4e is... not much of anything. A few hit points. A curse feature. Nevertheless, the fundamental mechanics don't support a real difference in feel. Everyone has the same power set. Everyone is special. And thus, no one is.


Multiclassing
I've only GMed at the heroic level, but I've already noticed something. Multiclassing is sub-optimal. Swapping one power for another -- and spending a feat to do so -- has yet to attract a single player.

Even presuming one takes two classes which work together well -- say a barbarian and a fighter -- the tradeoff between one power and another is entirely meh. Spending feats to gain additional powers would be a useful choice -- spending a feat to swap a whole slew of powers would be interesting -- but the current choice doesn't work.

The dual classing preview stuff I've seen has fixed this problem somewhat, but honestly, multi-classing feels like such an afterthought.


Trip, Grapple, Sunder, Disarm
When Wizards said they were going to try to fix the grapple rules, I was pleased. Unfortunately, much like multiclassing, I find that "fix" means remove.

From a game design perspective, removing Sunder and Disarm makes some degree of sense -- sundering someone's magic weapon just sucks, and disarming can be broken. However, removing the rules has not fixed my players, and inevitably someone asks "Well, can I just take the wand -away- from the necromancer?"

I don't know what the right solution to the sunder problem, but I'm fairly sure that setting the hardness and HP of items such that a +5 sword was harder to break than a mundane one -- combined with a ritual to easily repair sundered magical items -- would have fixed the problem much better than pretending it wasn't there.

Trip needs to be in the game. Considering getting up no longer provokes opportunity attacks, it could have been thrown into the game as a non-broken option. Instead, fighters get an occasional encounter power to knock a target prone. That's it?

Grapple, well, I like the grab rules, but grabbing someone in no way prevents them from attacking. Less is more, sure, but if I grab someone with a longsword and I'm using a dagger, shouldn't I be getting some kind of advantage? What if I want to prevent him from attacking? How do I pin?

The game is a game about imagination and creative ideas. Removing the rules about doing something doesn't mean my players won't still think about it.


Rituals
Someone needs to make everyone at WOTC convert every ritual into a dollar figure and then say "Would you cast this if you could do it?" I mean, 10 gp is nothing for a high level character, but in the game mechanic world, it's the cost of a cow

So when I see a ritual marked "Fastidiousness" and it costs 10 gp -- and keeps my clothing clean for exactly one day -- I cannot justify the cost. If the enchantment was permanent i might consider it -- but per day? I'm looking at those ten gold coins and seeing $1000 of value. As a result, an otherwise interesting ritual to create the extremely expensive pants that never get dirty gets overlooked for the far more useful prestidigitation.


Weapons
To some extent, weapons make a difference. For the most part though? No, they really don't. At first level, a fighter with a greatsword and a fighter with a great axe look more or less the same. This should not be!

Even basing powers on the option to cut, thrust, or crush would have meant something. Hammers are for knocking people back. Swords and axes are for cleaving. These kinds of choices would have made fighters interesting. They could have made -every- martial class interesting.

Sometimes the loss from 3e was just obvious. Longbows lack any kind of strength requirement -- meaning that the difference between a long bow and a short bow is minimal -- if you can use the longbow you take it and that's that. I would love it if having a high strength score actually mattered when you used longbows, but alas, this is not the case.

Also, the longbow range is weird. There really needs to be an extra rule for "longbow aimed accurately and in combat" and "longbow fired at maximum range to hit a house." Sooner or later, a player asks, and I am left having to make it up; something which happened a lot less in earlier editions.


Skills
Trained. Not trained. No in-between.

This just makes me sigh. They got some parts right -- the 1/2 level bonus applying to skills helps. Still, the idea of being "partially trained" in skills would be nice.

The lack of background skills is depressing. Sure, in PHB2 it's somewhat fixed with backgrounds -- but this could have been done better. Letting a character gain some training in backgrounds, professions, and languages outside of the usual progression could have gone a long way. It would only take a moment for a player to say "now that I picked out endurance, athletics, and history as skills for my military warlord, which background skills do i want? Profession: Soldier seems obvious..."


What it Got Right
Really, in the end, the problem with 4e is just a general impression that homogeneity is the name of the game. Classes don't feel special. Power sources don't feel special.

This hurts not because the game is bad, far from it. It hurts because the game is good in so many areas. The math is solid. Encounters balance well, the assumptions of how the game is played pan out nicely.


How to Fix?
Some parts of 4e, I've been able to fix pretty easily. I've got house rules for tripping and sundering, and I've redefined the world such that the average person has a 14 in a stat -- 18 is exceptional for an average person, but hardly the upper limit for anyone.

Some parts just can't be fixed, not without redefining the entire game. The idea of playing fighters without daily powers seems crazy. The careful balance of the game makes it near impossible to hack apart without far reaching consequences.

So what, am I just applying old expectations to a new game?