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D&D and real life does have some similarities. There's only so much money I can spend on entertainment; and during the course of a year, I can expect that there's going to be a lot of high quality stuff that is going to be released. This year, it's Stronghold 3. I can't wait till September 27th. It's going to be ~awesome~. And I have no problem shelling out $50 for it; even though Stronghold 2 was disappointing and Stronghold Legends was Stronghold 2 with dragons that were less than terrifying.

Stronghold 2 wasn't a terrible game mind you. Most of the game was fairly well designed and there was enough new stuff that made me go "ooh". But there were a lot of simple flaws. Without patches, your Lord's popularity would turn into a death spiral if you weren't careful or if you were unlucky (Your castle would get filled with rats, crap piles, and criminals, literally.) I wouldn't buy Stronghold 3 if I thought that the same errors would be made. In fact, if I hadn't read some of the interviews with the designers of Stronghold 3, I might give it a miss or wait until it's $20-30. The interviews showed a couple of things: That they knew what the problems were and that they were making an honest effort to fix those issues. They didn't need to impress me with the new stuff, which they did. I can expect that there is going to be cool new stuff.

D&D is the same way. I remember when I was creating my first Artificer, I was having problems choosing a weapon. I knew I wanted to be a melee character and cast spells, but every option for doing so required me to have subpar damage and/or accuracy or spend two or three feats. That's not fun at all. I looked through my DM's Dragon Magazines to see if there was anything to help. I didn't find anything that would help my weapon/implement problem, but I did find this in Dragon #376 in the Design and Development article on the Artificer.

The artificer has both weapon powers and implement powers, but not very many ways to use both through the same item. ... We’ve also had discussions about creating feats or other options to blend the two together, which would serve more than just the artificer. As it stands, the artificer could still just use a staff, or get a blade using Arcane Implement Proficiency from Arcane Power to take the swordmage’s implement, but that solution seems a bit convoluted, and I think there’s space for a better solution.

It's a little thing. But it told me that the people who were making the game knew that I was having a problem and that they were trying to fix it. However, now we're on issue #401 of Dragon, so it's been a good 2 years. They've made "Crossbow Caster" (which I would put under the category of "convoluted solutions", but it's better than nothing), but nothing new in the implement world for those Arties that used melee weapons. Tough luck, Mr. Artificer.

And then there's other little things that tend to poison the waters. In PHB3, they seemed to understand that issues that people were having with Weapliment classes when they made "Versatile Expertise". I was rather happy with this. But then, come Heroes of the Fallen Lands, here comes the new expertise feats, large, in charge, and with the same problems. It's a little issue, I can just take Versatile Expertise and have a little bit smaller of bonus. But it shows that the designers don't understand the problems that players have. The same can be said of the errata to Weapon/Implement Focus. They've thrown weapon+implement users under the bus again. While I can play a perfectly effective character without it, there was nothing wrong with it before.

So, designers: These are the little things that make me think that you haven't rolled up a character of a class that you've made. They're not game breaking issues, but it's like someone whistling while you're trying to pee or taking a test or sleeping: it's annoying and if you would cut it out, that would be great.

1. When you changed "Surgeless Healing" and the items that gave a bonus to healing, you made it so Artificers can't use those items on their Curative Admixture and Paladins can't use those items on their Lay on Hands. In addition, what kind of silly world is it that every other leader class except the Artificer has a main healing power that they can add a magic item bonus to healing to? Really? Come on.

2. You need to have a "Focus" feat that applies to all attacks, whether implement or weapon.

3. You need to have a "Critical Range Expansion" feat that any class can take at epic tier.

4. You need to have "Expertise" feats apply for Weapon and Implement attacks equally, or even better, put expertise in the game math.

5. You need to give Artificers weapon proficency with Military Weapons, and implement proficency with Crossbows/something else. They've got weapon powers, so it's not like you didn't mean for them to kick ass, take names, and run out of bubble gum while wielding swords and axes. See also: Bard, Rogue (Rapiers, come on!)

6. Swordmages should be able to use any weapon as an implement. You've done the same thing with the bladesinger: You're cutting off legitimate concepts because you haven't fixed dual-typed weapons yet. See also: Rogues (Sneak Attack)