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I've been thinking lately about some of the problems I've had with 4th edition, particularly with Essentials.  While I hate that combat advantage is now just a mechanic of "something I get without working for it" and the incredible power creep, I'd have to say that what sticks in my craw the most are the classes.  I don't understand what a Blackguard is, or frankly a Slayer, or the fact that there have been no Fighters or Rangers in a game I've run for a very long time.

This isn't just semantics, but it's also semantics.  I like that the work on Next so far has been focused on the 4 basic classes, at least until the magic-user variants foray.  Back in second edition days we used have a discussion about a particular multiclass, the figher-cleric.  Specifically, what's the difference between a fighter-cleric and a paladin?  There were always answers, and I don't doubt that many purists would have something to say, but when telling a new player about the game how is that distinction made clear?  Is there enough of a line between the two to warrant calling them truly distinct, and not in mechanics but how you describe who they are and what they do in the fantasy world?

The answer is yes in my worlds.  Even in second edition days when paladins were extraordinarily rare due to stat requirements they were still more common than the figher-cleric, though.  A kings army would have the figher-clerics, adventurers tended to be paladins. 

Why am I rambling on about this?  I find it wonderful that the online gaming environment has reduced class spread back to 4 basic roles, and these roles are so akin to what the 4 basic classes were like for new players.  If you're a fighter, you want to be wearing plate armor from head to toe to get your AC as low as possible (2ed parlance), if you're a rogue you want to get your backstab on, clerics swing their maces and cure light wounds, and wizards always select fireball as a 3rd level spell.  These are the tank - striker - healer - controller that we have all come to recognize.  One of the things that 4ed has been criticized for has been feeling too much like an MMO, and that may be deserved.  Some people have a significant issue with this, but I personally think that not paying attention to how classes fill roles in a different medium, one that has the player base of MMO's, would be grossly negligent.

My next foray into a home game may likely be Next in Menzoberranzan, and if you want to play a ranger you're going to be stuck with a Fighter with rakish background, or multiclass when it's available.  I really like the simplicity that offers, manageability as a DM (oh, players hate making things easy for a DM), and focus this would put on the storyline and roleplay instead of each character build.  That said, I try to never let mechanics get in the way of a good story, but sometimes I fail.

"Or why some character builds offend me so."

( dictionary.reference.com/browse/optimiza... )

I don't have a decent source to define min/maxing, so I'll use this one: "Increasing a stat or ability while shunting the consequences into areas of the character that have little to no impact."

The classic application of min/maxing is to make a fighter with an 18/x strength, very high constitution and dexterity, and let suffer the intelligence, wisdom, and most of all charisma (used to be referred to as the "throw-away stat").  Even if one is  playing a character with both a low intelligence and a low wisdom it's rather unlikely that a player who is making this character is capable of actually roleplaying such a character.  Since current character creation guides make this type of character highly difficult to generate I frequently utilize this last problem into what really bothers me most about the practice, making a mechanically viable character that is either internally inconsistent, inconsistent in the gaming world, or inconsistent or impossible to roleplay.

So what's the point?  Encounters has a benefit for causing 15+ damage in one attack.  There are level 1 character builds in Essentials that can do that easily and regularly, thus that's not a good benchmark for a high-damage threshold.  So there are now characters that can be min/maxed for damage, because the resultant character is no longer interally consistant to the game.

"Aggressive Advantage: You gain combat advantage against all enemies during your first turn in an encounter."  This one doesn't look too bad, but turn it around.  "You're walking through the ruins of a tower, and a group of skeletons jumps out.  You're unprepared for the ferocity of the attack, they have combat advantage during the first round.  You beat them and open a door: a group of skeletons attacks.  You're unprepared for the ferocity of the attack, they have combat advantage during the first round.  You beat them, too.  Later you spot some skeletons who seem unaware of you.  You get a surprise round, then they attack.  You're unprepared for the ferocity of the attack, they have combat advantage during the first round."  Am I the only one who considers it just wrong that no matter how many times you see the skeletons, no matter how much you try to prepare, nothing can possibly overcome the ferocity of the attack?  I disagree.

I want to make a wizard.  I like the ranged attacks, the ranged area attacks, the arcane, all of this.  But I don't like that if someone gets close to me I have to move away or give up opportunity attacks, so I'll take the feat Staff Expertise.  Now I'm a wonderful level 1 wizard, and I shoot magic missle.  (A short distance away a level 9 elven archer witnesses this and turns to Corellon, praying for guidance on why if his family has been using bows since the elves were first created in the feywild he still has to deal with how to actually get away from monsters to shoot freely, but yet again receives no reply.)  So I made a character that removed the penalty for that character in a way that is not internally consistent in the world.

I hate feats and character builds that mitigate the challenges of the character.  I hate seeing combat advantage becoming just some benefit that has nothing to do with imparing your enemies' combat readiness.  I hate trying to run a world or a game where the damage output and potential no longer corresponds to what is expected.

The obvious solutions are to limit character builds, adjust the world to compensate, or just get over it.  The last is the solution I lean towards most frequently, and feels worst to do.

On the other side is optomization.  If someone wants to make an archer, the elf immediately springs to mind either because of a +1 attack with a bow or elven accuracy or any other mechanic that happens to be in place.  This is because elves make the best archers, and this is internally consistent in the game, the world, and obviously ease of roleplay.  Most character builds are of this nature.

A band of adventurers fends off the group of the group of goblins that have been pillaging the farmyards, saving the day.

Why didn't the farmhands just take care of it?  What's the difference between a level 1 fighter and a farmhand?  It's not strength, or go throw bales of hay for an hour then practice sword fighting for an hour and tell me which one makes you more tired.  It's might be that the fighter knows how to use a sword whereas the farmhand doesn't.  But they do know how to use a club, or other simple weapon.  Or the pitchfork.  Is it because the fighter knows how to fight?

Taking a look at charactger backgrounds over the decades very few players make their characters ex-military.  Seldom are you a novice wizard from the few mage towers that take youths and make them wizards, more often learned from some hedge wizard or just never explained.  Sorcerer?  Muddled through having inborn magic with no master to teach them.  Fighter?  Maybe an ex-bandit, but in all likelihood no different from what any farmhand would learn brawling at the pub.  Cleric?  Well, that's the one place where most players who make characters instead of stat sheets tend towards a central theme of "serving the temple."

Are adventurers naturally "a cut above?"  That one very strong farmer who had a low intelligence but picked up a sword one day and joined a party as a fighter just never fit in, was always that much better than his friends?

I don't buy it.  I look at the current iterations of adventurers and I just don't buy it.  If a small group of level 1 characters can do the things they do then there is no need for them to do it, because everyone else should be on the cusp of accomplishing the same status.  So there are no goblins.

Or are there?  Would the monsters then become that much stronger?  If there's a cadre of feats that allow level 1 characters to be that much stronger, would monsters also become that much stronger?  Every time there's a feat that empowers a first level character would the monsters all start to get that sort of effect just to survive?

In 4ed anytime I get my hands on a solo creature, ever since last Halloween, it has become either immune to daze and daze-like effects or recovers at the end of each turn automatically, just to justify its existance.  In my home games I like minions, but I only use them VERY sparingly.  Why?  That farmhand over there learned magic missle one day, then all the minions either grew stronger or died automatically.  Minions are a joke, ever since magic missle returned to being an auto-hit, Vancian magic or no.

There's a feat at level 1 that allows characters to have combat advantage on the first round?  How long will it take before a monster never gives up CA?  Or a phalanx of hobgoblins ALWAYS has combat advantage in an entire fight as long as they are adjacent to another hobgoblin?  Level 2?  3?

If these are options that farmers don't have, if these are developments that monsters don't have, then the adventurer is no longer an interesting character.  The adventurer cannot be an ex-bandit, because bandits are in the monster manual.  The adventurer must learn from other adventurers only because that's the only place those skills can be learned.  Never again the sad lone survivor of a goblin raid on the farm.  Those stories become very boring to tell.