Alright, here's my list of things wrong with fourth edition, it will probably be added to in the future, but this is it for now. (not in any particular order of egregiousness)
1. Dragonborn went from a really cool unique race that you became after dedicating your life to slaying dragons, so you can fight fire with fire, to a lame and uninteresting, very standard 'remnants of a lost dragon-people empire' that is so much less interesting.
2. Two-weapon fighting is replaced with this horrible system where only very certain powers will function with two-weapon fighting, basically two weapons just lets you pick which you're going to attack with without having to sheathe/unsheathe.
3. All the classes have been turned into swordsage-warlock conglomerations with the only difference in fundamental mechanic being between letting you heal others and not letting you heal others. In 3.5 there was
- traditional magic
- incarnum
- psionics/ki (similar)
- pact magic
- shadowmagic
- truespeech
- warlocks and their spell-like abilities
- nine disciplines of the sword
- mundane combat (obviously available to all, with varying degrees of effectiveness)
all of which were very different in their fundamental mechanics and uses. 4.0 simplifies it all down so the only difference is the details of what powers and stats the class has.
4. Healing surges. What the hell. The ability to heal pretty much limitlessly outside of an encounter with only a short rest, without much risk of losing that ability during the next one (because you can only use it once if you're in an encounter) is so mindbogglingly unnecessary and stupid. In 3.5 there is tension because when your healer heals you outside of an encounter, that actually means something if you're in a long dungeon crawl.
Besides, the very concept of a second wind being a common ability to all classes is idiotic. This is a very cool ability that only certain classes known for their badassery should have, like a raging barbarian or an honourbound knight. And making it so that the vast majority of healing spells require the expenditure of a healing surge is just, I can see why they needed it because they had the whole power system, but it's just a clumsy fix to the severe misstep of the universal power system.
5. Alignments. Chaotic and Lawful mean something. And no, Lawful Good is not just the better, nicer version of Neutral or Chaotic Good. Similarly, Chaotic Evil is not more evil than Lawful or Neutral Evil. Lawful Good means that in addition to being kind hearted and helpful, that person appreciates order and discipline, and consistency. Chaotic Good is just as nice, but prefers personal freedom and individuality to order and symmetry. Both of them are just as likely to help a stranger in need, they just have differing views on the Law - Chaos axis. Why the makers of 4.0 decided to remove one axis of alignment and thus turn an already 2-dimensional and flat measure of moral values into a laughably simplistic and dumb spectrum of Really Nice - Nice - Apathetic - Mean - Really Mean, escapes me. There was a tangible difference between Devils and Demons, in that if you read the fine print and was careful, a Devil wouldn't be able to cheat you due to his Lawful nature, whereas the Chaotic Demon doesn't give two shits about your bargain.
6. Skills. Goddamnit WoTC. I mean, really? Did you need to take THAT much complexity out of the game? In 3.5, one could continue to spread out training in skills however you wish as you level up, you can even train in whatever you want, but you'd not be able to train as quickly or to as high of a proficiency (dependent on your level) if your class doesn't specialize in it. Which makes sense, Wizards have to do spellcraft all the time as they cast spells, read scrolls, and are exposed to magic all the time. Fighters, on the other hand, would have to put time aside for it as they don't just already do it as part of their regular experience.
In 4.0, you choose a skill from a list defined by your class and gain a permanent +5 bonus to skills with it. The rest of your roll bonus for that and other skills is based entirely on your level, ability scores, and any miscellaneous feats. That's it. Ugh.
Any comments, agreements, disagreements?
