Ranger only for ranged combat? Which version are you reading. Rangers have a few specializations they can have… ranged combat is one. Dual melee weapon combat is another. Beast master is another where they have a creature sidekick (i.e. think of Drizzt), and a few more.

And from a 1st or 2nd edition player, I might slightly see the complaint about miniatures. Although most of us all used them back then too. (Otherwise how do you know ranged and area affects?) But for 3rd edition, the miniatures were absolutely necessary. You had attacks of opportunity, bull rushing, etc. that all required miniatures. 4th edition is no different from 3rd in this way.

I am admittedly of the other extreme though…I loved 1st and 2nd edition, played 3rd edition during the entire release, but hated it the entire time. 3rd edition just didn’t have any direction or consistency and didn’t know what it wanted to do (just the release of a 3.5 version shows that…this is not a computer program!) But 4th edition is light years ahead in improving the game over 3rd.

Rangers – only good a ranged attacks now… sorry that was never what a “Ranger” meant, period. To be a Ranger, one “ranged” across the open wilderness. Like a gillie, or games warden, but not tied to a laird or lord. A ranger is a “mountain man” a trapper, a hunter, who can handle both blade and bow, because living in the wild means that sometimes things will get the drop on you and you better be able to take it down in close combat.
Limits to “powers” – for game “balance” it plays too much with my “suspension of disbelief” as having taken various self-defense classes in real life – I know that just because I failed to perform a maneuver once on an opponent, does not mean I will never get the opportunity again, in the same fight or even the same day. This is a defect that carried over from 3.x and carried over into 4th.
This is not to say that everything is bad… I like the elimination of “metamagic” feats… those were just totally stupid, but then again I think there is once again a problem with magic… While getting rid of the “Vancian System” is fine and an admirable endeavor it suffers once again from the artificial limitations used in the “powers” in general. Something that hampers the “suspension of disbelief.”
Use of miniatures – well having been introduced to the use of minis in my days 2nd Edition and Ravenloft, I like minis. What I do not like is the overblown chess-like game that it seems to have become. If I wanted to play Chess with a d20, those rules were out YEARS ago, and are so much simpler to boot!
What many people seem to forget in design is that limits for “playability” are really artificial, because what the PCs can do, the NPCs can do too, and if need be the NPCs can do it better to boot!
I see myself potentially incorporating some elements of 4ed into my game or next game but to adopt the whole system? No. But I thank you John for the primer… something much needed.

The best thing about 4e in my experience is how easy it is to get new players into it. We’ve got 3 novices in my group, and they’re taking right to it. Somehow, I don’t think the woman playing the wizard would be having much fun if she could only cast Magic Missile 3 times before running in terror. The at-will power/exploit idea was brilliant.

. . . just in time to have WotC step up and announce a BRAND NEW system – 4th ED.

So, just chunk all your 3.5 books (as well as your stat cards for the mini’s since they won’t work with the new system) and go out and buy all NEW stuff (so that WotC can get wealthier) . . .

I don’t think so.

They also tried to take us back to the 1st ed style dungeon crawls by vandlaising faerun and creating their points of light setting. Bleh.

Sorry the whole edition is insipid and flavourless, and is not D&D.

We are now playing Pathfinder from Paizo, which IS D&D, even if it cant use the name, in addition to adding things from Monte Cook’s arcana evolved and iron heroes, both of which are also recognisably D&D. 4th ed is tabletop WoW or something.

Looking at Play by Post forums, 3.5 dominates over 4th even now by a factor of 5:1. I sincerely hope wizards will fail and the license go to a more useful company. Or maybe just scrap 4th and bring out 5th in a more traditional way.