Bottom line, chosing none optimized races seems to change your role somewhat because you tend to be good a multiple things and not as specalized. I constantly feel like I am part defender and part controller with my powers because with a 16 con I have the highest healing surge value and can heal myself better then even our fighter.

I’ve just started playing a first-level warlock and have yet to get the hang of playing this class properly. So far she is the weakest contributor to the party, but hopefully that should change once I get more familiar with warlock tactics!

Damn right, it’s peanut butter jelly time!!!

The Warlord is a hell of a good time to play, especially if you’re tactically-minded. We had 2 different ones being played in 2 games on Friday, and they both were tons of fun.

And the Cleric has lots of non-melee options. Almost half of the Cleric powers are non-melee. Seriously, I’m not sure where you’re coming from here.

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The real question, though, is whether the optimization was a deliberate design decision or happy coincidence?

Or the optimization is an emergent property of the ruleset, which is somewhere between the two options.

@Bart: I’ll have to go back and do a deeper analysis, but even with the 2-3 suggested combos that they included in both the Races and Classes descriptions, I got the feeling that there was definitely one combo that had more synergy than the other two. However, of those “most optimized” race/class combos, some fit better than others.

The real question, though, is whether the optimization was a deliberate design decision or happy coincidence? Only the designers can answer that.

You definitely have a good point with that part of the Race blocks in the PHB. However, my argument was not simply one of semantics, it could have a deep effect on how Races are designed if they consider the classes beforehand. Say they game Tieflings a bonus to Dex and Cha becauase they figured most people who played them would be rogues, and they wanted to optimize that option. The may have done this, but they did it with 2-3 classes (as you mentioned) and that greatly reduces the issue. I was talking specifically towards a single class, ie – if Dragonborn were only good as Paladins, and were designed as such. They might make excellent paladins, but I wouldn’t go so far to say that they are ONLY good as Paladins or that the only good Paladins have to be Dragonborn.

Hopefully that clarifies the difference, and how it’s not entirely semantics.

Doug: I love the Warlord, I feel that a lot of the initial dislike by people is that it is very different from the typical D&D class and from most of the others. I think that will go away as people play them. They are the Bards of 4E.

I’m also surprised that you guys gave the Warlord four “Hit!”s. I would give that class a resounding “Miss!”. I thought it had mild potential based on information available before the release. Reading the PhB I expected it to be a crappy class. Seeing one in action on Worldwide D&D Day, and talking to a couple other players who have one in their game seems to have reinforced my early suspicion. Its possible that they’ll suck less at higher levels, and I’ll just have to wait and see if someone in my group plays one to find out. As it is, though, I’d say they’re by far my least favorite class.

I also really lament the loss of the Cleric option of standing back and casting (anything but Lance of Faith that is). With Clerics and Fighters and Warlords all using At-Will powers that are rooted in hitting in melee combat, I’ve really seen a kind of traffic-jam effect in play. We’ll see if becoming savvier 4E players will help mitigate this.

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Isn’t that just semantics? The fact that the one of the “you’d like to play X race” bullet points included 3 class suggestions points toward the designers having built races to favor certain classes over others: Dragonborn make the best paladins, elves excel as rangers, etc.

I suppose with the Cleric blasting issue it’s the feeling that a power is automatically more useful than just a basic attack, which discourages the Cleric from ever melee attacking but may not really be true.

I had this discussion elsewhere, recently. Lance of Faith is essentially the 4e version of Searing Light. Flame Strike, as well, was the classic blasting cleric spell. The elemental domains added more, too.