You are indeed correct, my experience with the system is very limited. To date, I’ve only run one session, and that’s at 1st level, so I haven’t run into the problems you’ve described, and perhaps when I do, my opinion will change.

What you describe as “pigeon-holing,” however, sound like extreme anti-pigeon-holing. What you describe is the tendency for characters to advance to become generalists — where they can break out of the rut of character classes.

My experience with D&D until now was limited to first edition — the last time I played D&D was in the very early 1980s, so I have no experience at all with 3 or 3.5 (or 2 for that matter).

From that perspective, I must disagree and say the 4th edition is a marked improvement from the original, where clerics did nothing but heal and turn the occasional undead and magic users cast magic missile once per day with less that spectacular results — at least in low-level games. I can’t speak at all as to how 4th ed compares to later editions.

The fact that every character can contribute meaningfully to the game seems to be at first blush to be a plus.

Like I said, my opinion may change. I was never a big fan of D&D (my games of choice were Traveller and GURPS). I chose 4e because I was very much out of the RPG loop, and by the sheer number of people playing it, a few emails got me seven players for my starting game.

Again, I appreciate your comments, and as my game advances I’ll keep and eye out for the problems you’ve enumerated. Perhaps I can avert some of the problems by house-ruling multiclassing and such.

Although other games, especially D&D, have class restrictions they are not akin to this type of pigeon holing. In 2, 3.0, and 3.5 D&D, you choose a class and as you level you become specialized in a certain type of career and combat. Thus, the fighter and the wizard will have very different roles, but are both equally needed to balance out a party. In 4.0 this is not the case. In 4th edition the fighter and the wizard start with virtually the same hit points, can do virtually the same amount and type of damage and are equally useful in any fight. Furthermore, they also have similar AC’s thus allowing the wizard to be the meat shield.

In essence what 4.0 has done is made everyone equal. Every character is as useful and versatile as every other. There’s no need for a team any more. Your party of adventurers is no longer a close knit team that needs to work together, instead it is a group of solo characters that happen to be working together. BORING!

I know what you’re thinking though. “Surely this is only in combat. No one can replace the useful spells of the wizard or the healing powers of a cleric!” Wrong! The fighter gets the skill ‘Heal’, with this he can take a feat that allows him to CAST rituals. Removing poison may be something that your average fighter can do. Perhaps a skill left over from his soldiering days, but Cure Disease? Gentle Repose? RAISE DEAD?! The madness continues.

Lets say that my fighter is tired of losing his horse every time he’s forced to tie his faithful steed up outside a dungeon. No problem! I’ll take a skill focus feat into knowledge (arcana), then take the ritual feat again. Now I can summon a Phantom Steed, or create a Linked Portal, or cast a few scrying spells, heck why have a horse, I’ll planar travel where I want to go.

The biggest issue with 4th edition is that by making everyone special, they have made no one special. There is no reason to play any one class over any other class. This gets exceptionally boring at about level 6 in a campaign. By the time you get to level 18 the game is nearly unbearable. When level 24 roles around and you look about the party to see gods and know that each of you is expendable, you’ll know it’s time to downgrade back to 3.5.

I have friends that will only play gurps or Hero system, because they hate character classes. I don’t particularity care for character classes, either, but I have also never felt particularly constrained by them. Would these players feel differently if “classes” were called “power frameworks”? My guess is probably.

The new world of darkness system is another very good role-playing system, that has other hallmarks of what I define as a “modern” system. Streamlined rules, synergy between social attributes/traits and the role-playing experience, as well as looking at a dice roll not as a single event, but as the resolution of the role-played event.

these are the two systems that are looking to the future. most systems are still looking to D&D 3.0 and 3.5 for how a roleplaying game is supposed to work, but those games are sadly behind the times. Unfortunately, Hero and Gurps are way behind the times as well, as they are throwbacks to the days where role-players were crawling out of the primordial sludge called AD&D.

There are better ways to write a system that ENHANCES the role-playing experience, and the Wizards of the coast guys really found some gems in this new edition. I agree with Stu’s gripes about the books, but this is a new dawn for how role-playing games are executed, and I really hope that they will make my pen-and-paper experiences even more fun.

Cheers