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In 4th, you find there are maybe five powers:
1) Deal damage
2) Deal damage + move,
3) Damage + move foe
4) Damage + heal yourself
5) Damage + status effect
.

now look at 3.5 powers
damage
status effect
sv or die
for the most part that's it, seriously look at the spells and abilities.

So, here's the thing, the formatting of the powers makes it easy to discern the mechanics of the action, but it doesn't really tell you what the power does! There is a snippet of flavor text, but outside of that, you basically have a power block that looks bland and lifeless and is the same across all of the classes. So, many people have boiled the powers down to being different names for the same thing across all of the classes.

Here is an example: Confounding Arrows - Ranger Attack 15 - Your targets won't know what hit them.

That's it, sure there is the mechanics below, but that is just like the mechanics of EVERY other power for EVERY other class. There is nothing that makes it FEEL ranger, or gives you a clue as to how you could use it a different way. I think if the powers were fleshed out quite a bit more, especially with a broader overall description of what is actually going on, (coupled with different formatting for each class, or for each power source maybe) I think a power like confounding arrows would have a lot of stuff it could do, and flesh out the description to be used creatively by a player in combat and non-combat situations alike.

Want more? Read the description of the WEB spell from 2e to 3e to 4e, it leaves a lot to be desired in its new iteration IMHO. I like the idea of using powers outside of combat and I like the idea of powers having a lot of class-centric flavor (which you got in a haphazard fashion simply by DESIGN in the older editions)

I think that is the main bone I have to pick with the game, and why I don't get the same feeling when choosing to play a Wizard in this iteration as opposed to a Wizard in a prior edition. Playing the game is still a lot of fun, however (from a DM's perspective)

I also really really really miss the spell "rope trick" and wished 4e had more of those type of utility spells.

What do you think?

Mar 14, 2011 -- 5:28PM, excalainen wrote:

I think a lot of this could have been avoided if they had just made the layout for each class different. I point to the 3.5 book Tome of Magic which had three new classes, each having completely different layout to their chapters. This simple trick would fool many people out of thinking "every class is the same".

I almost guarantee if the designers had taken this approach to incorporating the drastic change which is D&D 4e, the naysayers would have had much less to complain about. You could have kept the format of the "spells" for the wizard vastly different than the "exploits" for the fighter and kept the mechanics the same, thus alleviating some of the heartburn many people had with 4e.


"Ah! Run for the hills! We need to use our imagination more in 4E! Gadzooks!"

Well, considering you use your imagination for ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME, it would be nice to have the written material that is framework for the imagintation GIVE ME SOMETHING TO IMAGINE. Adding more description to the powers (be it mechanical or just fluff) does in no way detract from ones imagination of said power.

Mar 14, 2011 -- 5:54PM, Garthanos wrote:

Mar 14, 2011 -- 5:35PM, Endrek03 wrote:

OMG = no wait I love using imagination and having 1 spell potentially mean ... well

 community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

Point. Set. Match.