The biggest argument that 3.5 players use to compare to 4th Ed. is the number of availble ‘options’ and ‘combinations’ for player character creation. However, it was my experience, that this only muddled things as the vast majority of these options were really artificial and weren’t worth a damn. Sure you could make a very different kind of Cleric who specialised in Divination, but, how long would he last in the common adventuring party? How many sessions do you think it would be before he was finally pressured into doing what Clerics needed to do in that game and just take healing spells? How many successful fighters do you know from 3.5 who didn’t have ‘Power Attack’ and ‘Great Cleave’? If you made a Barbarian that didn’t have a Great Axe…what was the point?

I don’t dislike 3.5 and respect people who after making a big financial committment to that game and buying all of those book, decide to stick with it. It could be a very fun game! I played it for quite awhile myself. I just get very disappointed in people panning 4th without ever having really tried it.

@Wimwick: I think they will. One thing we saw in PHB2 is that Wizards is now acknowledging that most classes have a primary and a secondary role, like Bards being leader/controllers. Most of the PHB classes did, too, but it wasn’t called out. I suspect the PHB3 classes will be a little more complex than those in the PHB2, and if nothing else its dual-classing mechanism seems primed to make “blending” roles for a concept much easier.

I wonder if Wizards of the Coast will loosen up the way roles are defined and make them slightly more generic? I think there is still a lot of work and thought that can go into these concepts and I’m eager to see what you and the D&D blogging community (myself included) come up with.

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