Sutek said:
If you're thinking about this math crap this much, I'm sure that's what's really the problem with your game.
Hearing this kind of argumentation infuriates me a little. Understanding the mathematics and probabilities of a matter does not automatically make me a bad person. For me, it's simply not enough to play and pretend that the system is allright when actual in-game combat is badly skewed.
Let me illustrate. I play in Mj7's campaign and have made my character in more of a concept sense. I play a son of a merchant exiled for dabbling with the arcane. Game mechanically that is a soldier 1 / scholar X with touch spells and a large emphasis on defense. It's just that the game mechanics just make this kind of builds useless. Even min-maxed, a scholar just cannot raise his defense enough for it to matter, and while I have some weak DC 18 incapacitative attacks that require me to both hit (with a weak BAB) and have the target fail his save, a fighter of the same level in close combat has an equivalent of three DC30 instakills per turn that don't really care whether I make the saves because I'll be dead by sheer damage alone.
As a player, I simply want the combat to be reasonable, which it simply is not. Just lowering the BABs by some 4 points is not sufficient, as then I may have some 10% chance of being alive at the end of the combat turn instead of a 2% chance. Essentially, the fighter should have around the same difficulty of landing an instakill as a mighty scholar commanding the powers of death (or perhaps a bit more difficult, since the fighter's combat ability is a lot more universal). In actual probabilities, this should be 25% or less, which is true for scholars, but not fighters. In AE, using the necessary amount of power attack lowers the probability around there for fighters too.
You're not even saying what the problem in your mind actually is, just that it's 'bad'. Instead of some concrete changes, you suggest esoteric, difficult-to-apply house rules that change the beginning of the progression, say that fighting defensively solves the problem or claim that others are playing the game incorrectly by actually using characters that do damage.
These are not simple,
elegant solutions. People in this thread have time and time again explained that the changes were made with simplicity in mind. 4th edition has put much thought in game balance of the system and having played and tested it, I agree with the philosophy. Giving static bonuses in that system gives classes a constant, easily measurable edge over others with the same probabilities in all levels. The whole game desing concept is cleaner and less prone to abuse.
I understand very well that everybody does not like or need game balance, especially as roleplaying games are not just about rolling dice. However, cooperative tactical play through combat has always been fun for me in RPGs - I simply want it to work.
(edit) chanse -> chance