Well, the simple solution there is to just get rid of classes....


Well, unless the DM encouraged munchkins, 2nd Ed. stats could not realistically rise past 20 anyway, and only get that high for demi-human characters who pushed the stat where they got a +1 bonus all the way to 19, then found an Ioun Stone and/or used a 9th level Wish spell, and any DM who will let a character with a 19 stat do that is probably running a munchkin campaign. In that case, it really does not matter what system is used, because the players will demand and the DM allow munchkin characters under any "rules" (to the extent those even remain relevant.) I will not say their extensive line of Munchkin parodies sold me on Steve Jackson Games (because Illuminati and GURPS did that,) but they did not hurt.

Fourth edition... honestly, it sounds like I would hate it, because all of the old AD&D munchkinizing tendencies are exacerbated by attempts to cater to console gamers looking for naught but XP and powerups.


Nature of the beast; make characters progressively harder to kill as they advance and they soon become very difficult to kill.


Oh, good; I was worried we were power-gaming.


Yeah, I started not to say, "not resisting," because I did not mean simply standing still awaiting a coup de grâce, just not fighting back at all. Couple things there sound familiar; Dodge is often a GURPS characters best Active Defense, because weapon skill must be fairly high before Parry is effective (most people do not use Block, because then you have to carry around an encumbering shield.) Without at least minimal armor to add a point or two of Passive Defense to those rolls combat is still (pardon the pun) dicey. The DC check sounds like the HT check, except evidently based on damage rather than HP in 4th Ed. (which actually speaks to my complaints against ever inflating AD&D HP, though the simpler solution is still to just say no character is ever "experienced" enough to survive being shot in the face.)

So mid level characters cannot ignore thrashings by high levels ones for a full minute; I guess that is some improvement. The core problem remains though: The mid level character can still absorb far more damage than a low level one; the high level character just inflicts such an overwhelming amount of damage it does no matter. Against anyone less, like the low level character or even an equal level character, we still have a scenario where even if the attacker is consistently hitting an opponent doing nothing more than trying to avoid the blows it will take a while to kill him.


I am not saying it should never be an option, can never make sense within any gameworld, but it should not be the norm for ALL gameworlds where characters survive long enough. And even if someone like Lan took an Aes Sedais fireball to the face or got hit with balefire he would be as dead as quickly as Baerlon drover.


Makes sense; IIRC Monks were originally a separate class in AD&D 1st Ed. too, but very unbalanced.