For my current 3.75 house-rules that I'm working on (Basically Pathinder, with some of the changes that 4e did). I still haven't found a good fix for the system math of 3.5 which is one of the main things I liked from 4e, and some of the other fixes are also flawed in their current incarnation, but I've given healing surges a thought, and their basic incarnation, as of now, is that you get surges equal to PFS HP/level (essentially a d12 class gets 7+Con healing surges, a d10 class gets 6+Con Surges, a d8 class gets 5+Con surges, and a d6 class gets 4+Con surges). The number of HP has been tricky to determine, because 4e's system math relies on a different damage distribution, but it shows promise.
As for balance, I don't think anyone is asking for 4e's solution to the problem. Not even 4e players are really asking for that (that I know of at least, I may be wrong, but from my experience). But there are ways to balance classes without homogeneity. One of the core assumptions of 4e was the concept of roles for each class. This ensured that each class filled a necessary role within a party, without becoming useless when that role wasn't needed.
For example, Fighters' main role was to get enemies to attack him and not allies, and provide a bit of battlefield control to help accomplish this. But even when that role wasn't needed, he could still dish out significant damage. A rogue's main goal was to deal lots of damage, and to put down enemies quickly, but when that's not as needed, she still has a ton of skills (including Theivery, which to my knowledge, only the rogue and Warlock got to choose, meaning the rogue's trap disarming niche was pretty secure) and the ability to inflict status effects on enemies. A Cleric's main niche was healing and support, but since healing was a swift action (I forget what 4e called it), they could do it during the same round as other things, and since support was largely incidental, they could heal, buff and deal damage in the same round if they wanted to. And lastly wizards' main role was attacking multiple monsters and inflicting status effects, but also got rituals, including a number per day to do without component cost.
I'm not saying I liked the way they accomplished this. I think they did good by the Fighter and decent by the Cleric(though this was more because of the way Healing Surges Worked), and the wizard and rogue were more hit or miss, IMO. I think I probably would have kept mundanes and casters distinct in mechanics, and I think I would have done a little more to make rogues perform with more out-of-combat versatility. Sure they're more skilled than other classes, but this usually just means they roll skill rolls more often.
For those looking for a blend of Pathfinder & 4e, take a look at Trailblazer by Bad Axe Games for a game that tilts towards PF. As I understand it, 13th Age will tilt towards the 4e side.
PF is already more like 4e than 3.5 was. It should be no surprise. The developers worked together and surely discussed ideas during the partnership between wotc and paizo. They both have a consolidated skill list, one or more additional defense scores, grant feats more frequently, introduced new classes and races, and tried to make certain classes more or less powerful. There are more examples of course.
dot for later perusal.
|
I played D&D 4 once or twice. I don't care for the rules set.
Specifically I do not like the following elements: minions, "per encounter" abilities, healing surges, short rest vs. long rest distinction, the set of action types, and the way diagonal movement is still 5' per square.
On the plus side, a changeling character is a hell of a lot of fun to role play.Can I ask why you didn't like what you didn't like about it? I like per encounter abilities when they're better balanced, lets me use them out of combat as utility too. I like healing surges because it gives a chance to get a second wind and heal outside of combat. I haven't cracked open the rulebook in forever myself...
Glad you liked changeling though!
There certainly is plenty of room for opinion. I suppose I don't like healing surges because it makes everyone a cleric - what's the point of a Cure Light Wounds spell if every character just has to sit down for a few minutes to regain hit points? It felt to me as if everyone could do everything; there was not enough differentiation among classes and their abilities.
"Per encounter" just seems too arbitrary to me.It has been said that the only person who welcomes change is a wet baby; perhaps that is my issue. I am accustomed to the Pathfinder system now, so I do not like a different system.
I suppose I don't like healing surges because it makes everyone a cleric - what's the point of a Cure Light Wounds spell if every character just has to sit down for a few minutes to regain hit points? It felt to me as if everyone could do everything; there was not enough differentiation among classes and their abilities.
Well, we have a 18th level 4th Ed campaign, and trust me, you can't just sit down and rest once you get into the higher levels.
First of all, you'll NEED several healing surges during combat, and you can more or less only give yourself one. Next, when a well built Leader heals you, you will more or less double your healing surge value. And, trust me, you can be running very low on surges after a couple of encounters. A well build Leader is likely the most critical team member- and the least popular, of course (some things never change). And with a CLW spell, you don't burn a healing surge. Trust me, that get important later.
I like the healing surges part of 4th ED, means that the silly meme of wands of CLW after the battle is gone, and altho the leader is still critical, he no longer has to be a healbot.
But yes, your last complaint is valid and has been made by many. Other than fluff, the classes are very similar. This is what happens when you strive too hard for balance, you have to homogenize.
It's true not all the classes in 4th ED are balanced. A Ranger outdoes a Rogue for example. BUT, even at the higher levels, there is no large difference between types of classes. "Full spellcasters' no longer rule- as in a way, all classes are "full spellcasters". So, Martial classes can be as powerful as Arcane.
A Cleric's main niche was healing and support, but since healing was a swift action (I forget what 4e called it), they could do it during the same round as other things, and since support was largely incidental, they could heal, buff and deal damage in the same round if they wanted to.
A Minor" action. You got one Std, one move and one Minor. You could burn a STD to get a Move, and a move to get another minor.
Few things used Minor actions, but yes, mots heals used Minor actions. Thus, the Leader could heal and still have fun doing other stuff.
|
Once bitten, twice shy. 4E came with a lot of change. For some folks enough to make the game no longer recognizable. Traditionally, this hobby has only had room for one leader. People are hypersensitive now to protecting the old way.
Not all 4E implements are bad and shouldn't be discarded blindly. On the other hand, a lot of the design ideas from 4E are "fixes" to issues many gamers do not have problems with. I think that often gets overlooked by folks proposing such changes.
The philosophy of D&D:Next seems to be a good one. They are making sure to preserve tradition while allowing a modular design to provide flexible options. The road is extremely hazy right now. Next success is in question. My hope is that Nest will provide a better source of inspiration for P2 if ever such thing needs to happen.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
4E came with a lot of change.
So did 3e. A fact which tends to be ignored by the "4E sucks! Change is bad!" crowd.
It's gets especially amusing when you can get one of them to acknowledge that 3e was substantially different, and the tune changes to "Old-school sucked! Change is good!"
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really liked 4th ed, to be honest. It was the easiest role play game I've ever DMd for.
If there's one thing paizo could do to make their game better its to summarise the baddies abilities so I'm not having to look up hundreds of spells and tons of feats every time I run a combat. This becomes more true for every expansion they release too.
Their concept of combat design was awesome as well, it really just needed to have more re skinning of opponents to make sense. By creating roles in combat, and providing creatures with the skill sets for those roles, it made designing interesting challenges a breeze. I merely re skinned the combatants to be the same creature with different skill sets most of the time. The concept behind their combat design transitions into pathfinder very easily.
I also liked the mechanic they had for bbeg to have multiple goes in a round. We all know that a single opponent vs a party never works out to be that great a fight. Especially if you have a party of optimised killers. It's all about action economy. Well, imagine how much harder things are when those baddies get more than one set of actions a turn. It's a great mechanic for combat, but very hard to justify for verisimilitude.
Skills were clunky. Skill challenges were mechanically poor, but conceptually were fantastic. It really took away the crowd who just liked to one roll to win for social encounters. It gave DMs a model to follow to make sure out of combat situations could be just as challenging as in combat situations. It was something experienced DM's had been doing for ages, but it made accessible for novice gm's too. Unfortunately, it was poorly handled.
I agree with Rynjins concept. Don't say no to certain changes just because 4th edition tried it. Those of us who actually played or play 4ed know that it has some great mechanics in it. Like every system I've ever played though, it took some house ruling to make it into a game we all liked completely.
Cheers
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not opposed to things 4e did because 4e did them. Generally speaking, my objections to 4e were that I did not want what they were trying to accomplish. I don't want martial characters to have over-the-top, quasi-magical abilities at low levels. I don't want wizards to be blasters; I want them to cast spells, and I want casting a spell to be a significant decision. I think mixing it up in melee is antithetical to the concept of the sneaky rogue. I don't like gradual resource depletion; I like encounters to be tactical challenges, not grinds. I don't want monsters to have lots of wacky, made-up "role" names. I like gnomes. I prefer tieflings to be rare in the kind of setting I usually assume (in the very last 3.5 game I ran, there was a tiefling rogue as an NPC; for practical purposes, he might as well have been the only one on the continent). I don't like the assumption that exotic weapons are better, and hence better weapons are exotic. I don't like the concession to SAD and DAD; in my view, the only problem with MAD is that it doesn't apply to all classes. An ability score that doesn't do something is a wasted design element.
I don't like the elf split; in fact, in general, I don't like races that are so simplistic that they are designed to conform to a stereotype. I liked the old driders; the idea that they were accursed outcasts made the drow more complex and interest. The idea that they were awesome because SPIDER just made more drow more spidery, spider, spiderish.
There are things that 4e did that are worthwhile, like harmonizing to-hit bonuses and saves (Pathfinder also did this), offering a wider variety of skills and powers to martial characters, simplifying a lot of traits, restoring the PC/monster character sheet divide, tying giants and titans to elemental forces, and enforcing balance between similar abilities (fighters and barbarians should enjoy some parity, for instance), and giving fighters more resources to manage. Also, rituals are a nice idea, though I hate the GP-vending-machine approach.
|
|
4E came with a lot of change.So did 3e. A fact which tends to be ignored by the "4E sucks! Change is bad!" crowd.
It's gets especially amusing when you can get one of them to acknowledge that 3e was substantially different, and the tune changes to "Old-school sucked! Change is good!"
Fair enough. My point though is that I hope modular design can make room for everyone. Hopefully end the lines in the sand. People are always going to argue mechanics/play styles. However, with a plug and play system it wont seem like a fight for one true way.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4E came with a lot of change.So did 3e.
No. Not really.
No. Not really.4E came with a lot of change.So did 3e.
There isn't system shock, races as classes, and searching for bat guano personally... That's always a plus isn't it?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Neither did 4E then.No. Not really.4E came with a lot of change.So did 3e.
That doesn't really follow.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
What saddens me about anti-4e arguments is the terrible ignorance about 4e. I'm not saying it's a great system (I do prefer pathfinder), but the people who knock it only ever seem to understand it on the most superficial level.
For starters, once you get a feel for the game it becomes clear that per-encounter powers are anything but arbitrary. It's not a meta thing.
Pre-4e dungeons and dragons has per-day abilities, which are arbitrary and designed to fit in with a spells-per-day system that didn't ever make much logical sense (not that it really needs to).
4e has abilities that are too difficult to use for your character to just spam them every round, so they are restored when you take a breather, rather than a nap. They are "per encounter" because once you're out of initiative time, tracking the 300 rounds it takes them to refresh becomes a pointless exercise. The GM will deliberately time events before or after the characters are ready to go again.
You want powers that REALLY don't make sense? Look no further than dailies.
Everybody seems to forget that 3.5 had per-encounter powers too, and I'm not talking about the tome of battle, either.
Homogeneous classes is another one I disagree with. How are they? I mean, look at the monk, who has combat powers which come in pairs, one for movement and one for attacks. Look at the psionic classes and the slayer. Look at that infamous build for a dude who rides a giant flying sentient sword familiar.
Healing surges tend to come up a lot too. Everybody confuses them with the little-used Second Wind action, which allows you to recover a small quantity of hp once per encounter at the cost of your turn and some per-day resources (it's a lot like fighting defensively, because you recover about as much hp as you're expected to lose that round).
Healing surges are actually just Reserve Points, straight out of Unearthed Arcana, but bundled into packages. Fast non-magical healing doesn't actually heal you at all, because it costs you surges and surges are your real health.
People get confused because they named these concepts poorly, but surges are equivalent to pathfinder's hit points and 4e hp is a measure of how much damage you can take in one go, kinda like massive damage but spread over a few rounds.
People seem to think that all character abilities are combat-based, too. This is false. I've had players ask to trade their wizard's at-will attacks for the ability to detect magic, which you'll know is silly if you ever played the game. It seems like whenever 4e moved anything, people assumed it REmoved it.
Most of the worst problems of 4e go away if you look at it the way the designers did and/or use the right books.
Yes, the builds in the first player's handbook are limited in scope, but the abilities you know and love are out there in the splats. Yes, the first monster manual was boring as hell, but the monster vault is full of cinematic, challenging fights.
Obviously it's flawed (skill challenges are the work of the devil), but virtually every problem was an error in the implementation or presentation of an excellent idea. Tragically, it seems people have no interest in learning from these mistakes, even though any attempt to emulate 4e would invariably mean re-implementing its ideas and presenting them anew, thus removing the old problems and giving them a second chance.
If anybody's reading this thread and thinking "But I hate everything about 4e", please think again, not because I believe you could like it, but because most parts of it could have been so much better, and the second time around they probably will be.
That doesn't really follow.Neither did 4E then.No. Not really.4E came with a lot of change.So did 3e.
Not realy. 3e basically added stuff to 2e's structure, like feats, or expended them (like infinite ability scores or the ever growing ST). But it didn't change much. Once my players understood that now AC goes up instead of going down, 3e was understood. 4e was another beast.
It changed everything. Including the D&D feel. The most important part of the game.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think a looooooot of people would argue that the feel of 2e is radically different from the feel of 3.0.
Okay, seriously? First off, I'm not wholly convinced that 4E is the "Worst thing evar" like many seem to believe, so this is doubly silly to me.
In fact, I can categorically say that 4e is far from the worst thing ever. :)
I believe that [dis]honor goes to F.A.T.A.L. and Memorial Day weekend traffic in the metro area.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
1ed to 2nd ed was a change of let us say level 1. Your system mastery still worked, you could play a 1E PC in a 2E with no changes, etc
2E to 3E was a change of level 2. Many things were the same, but they added many new things- spells, Attacks of Opp, etc.
3E to 4E. Level 3. Names were the same, but that's about it.
|
|
I have to agree, 1 -> 2 wasn't that big.
2 -> 3, seemed bit, but really wasn't that bad. For one, it basically just took almost everything and made it run off of one system rather than off of many different one. It also made things a lot more formulaic, so you really didn't need to look at a chart (or have your DM do actually) for a Saving Throw. It still basically meant the same thing, and still worked very similarly, it was just different. It also took a few things that had appeared before hand in different non-core books and added them in from the start. Dragonlance had the concepts of Prestige Classes way, way back in the day, for example, and there where also the idea of Kits. At the same time, a Cleric could still Turn Undead in both 2nd and 3rd Ed, and for the most part it would have a very similar outcome, over all. A Paladin still appeared about the same in both games, getting a horsey, having great Saves, being a powerful warrior against evil and able to sense it's presence near by, at will.
1/2/3 -> 4th, not so much. In a lot of ways, 4E completely reset a lot of aspects of the game. From the start, it really was almost completely about combat. It just was. Yes, you could reasonably house rule non-combat stuff, social encounters being fairly easy with others debatably not so. It also changed in that almost everything was extremely short term. I want to say the longest lasting effects (those they say for an encounter) max out at 5 minutes, which also really cuts down a lot on their non-combat usefulness. It also completely changed the landscape of the game, like was said, sometimes keeping the name, but that's about it. Obviously, not even talking about how it handled campaign settings, but that was a pretty huge deal and a game breaker for a lot of people, (honestly 4E FR was the first time I actually liked FR, so it's not everyone). A lot of people state that it feels like playing an MMO, (their opinion, and I think a simplistic, but ultimately pretty true one). To me, it plays actually a lot more like a slightly interactive CCG, and it really does feel like playing Magic with a little bit of story added in. If I wanted that, I'd probably play Magic or VtES more likely. Again, not really knocking it, just saying, that is why, in my opinion, whining about how 3E did it too, just does not really fit. It's a very different beast. There are superficial similarities, but it ends there.
1/2/3 -> 4th, not so much. In a lot of ways, 4E completely reset a lot of aspects of the game. From the start, it really was almost completely about combat. It just was. Yes, you could reasonably house rule non-combat stuff, social encounters being fairly easy with others debatably not so.
In constrast to "1"? I dont see much non combat stuff in AD&D/0E.
.I never played 2nd edition (we has our own little mini edition war when it came out and refused to "buy everything again"), but the reason I prefer 4E to 3.5 is that it's closer to AD&D in my mind. The focus on DM fiat, monsters being different to PCs and the minimal rules systems being what I like and what reminds me of AD&D.
The biggest change, imo, between 2e and 3e was the addition of the skill system. Now, rather than most skills being primarily a roleplay concern (with the exception of thief skills which were a specific thing), almost every kind of non-combat task is handled by a roll that requires investment.
And suddenly, because they treated skill points like a bonus, instead of the central part of the system they now were, that caused problems.
So I'd say it's a pretty huge change, easily on the level of 4E's move towards standardized powersets. And that's not even getting into the huge changes in multiclassing and experience tables.
Homogeneous classes is another one I disagree with. How are they? I mean, look at the monk, who has combat powers which come in pairs, one for movement and one for attacks. Look at the psionic classes and the slayer. Look at that infamous build for a dude who rides a giant flying sentient sword familiar.
This is the main one that I will disagree with you about. Most of the things you mention didn't come about until much later in 4e's lifespan, and even then, didn't provide radical change to the game's workings, with regards to AEDU powers. (Essentials is a different beast, that to my knowledge, is reviled much more than it is liked, and did next to nothing to do it's intended goal: i.e. win people who didn't like 4e's changes back from pathfinder.)
AEDU powers were the thing that made the game much less appealing to me. It applied a very formulaic template to the classes. Sure, classes played differently, but that was much more due to the role the class had than the power-source. I very much like the introduction of encounter resources, but they could have done it a lot differently and kept more people, I believe. For example, Barbarians have rage-rounds per day, wizards have spells per day, Paladins have smites per day, and Monks have ki points per day, but the mechanics are different for each class, so they play differently. If they had added encounter mechanics in much the same way, I could see them much more well received. I could see something like Wizards being able to prepare certain spells that lie in between cantrips and per-day spells in terms of power and utility, that are prepared like per-day spells, but in only 5 minutes or so and a wizard can only prepare one or two of them, but they don't get used up during the day, the spell just vacates the slot when cast.
I don't see how 3e's skill system could be counted as a major change, since by that point, D&D had already published many, completely different skill systems.
The biggest change, imo, between 2e and 3e was the addition of the skill system. Now, rather than most skills being primarily a roleplay concern (with the exception of thief skills which were a specific thing), almost every kind of non-combat task is handled by a roll that requires investment.
And suddenly, because they treated skill points like a bonus, instead of the central part of the system they now were, that caused problems.
So I'd say it's a pretty huge change, easily on the level of 4E's move towards standardized powersets. And that's not even getting into the huge changes in multiclassing and experience tables.
I'll admit I never played much 2e, and full disclosure, I really don't like AD&D, but I thought Non-weapon Proficiencies came into the game fairly early in 2e's life cycle. They were optional rules, sure, but most of the people I talk to who played a good deal of 2e tended to use them as core.
The biggest change I noticed (though this was in reverse; playing 2e after 3e) was Feats. While in 3e, I never really appreciated them, after playing 2e, they made me realize how feats could really distinguish one character from another of the same class and race.
AEDU powers were the thing that made the game much less appealing to me. It applied a very formulaic template to the classes. Sure, classes played differently, but that was much more due to the role the class had than the power-source.
This is a very valid perspective, I think. What I suspect Mortuum was referring to was people who have clearly read the books but not played very much. (You saw frequent references to 'a wizard is just the same as a fighter' which may have been how it appeared but wasnt borne out in play). As you mention here, the role of the character was an actual "thing" in 4E - classes with different roles felt very different to play, even if they were shoehorned into an identically presented template.
|
Person A: "The classes should be balanced with each other, let's try to do that."
Person B: "4E tried to balance the classes and homogenized them! Obviously any attempts to balance the classes will result in the same!"
Making the attempt to balance classes against each other by giving everybody the same mechanics created a game that is not D&D regardless of what they choose to label it.
A great many people agreed. Enough to create demand for published rules that continued the evolution of the old system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Person A: "The classes should be balanced with each other, let's try to do that."
Person B: "4E tried to balance the classes and homogenized them! Obviously any attempts to balance the classes will result in the same!"Making the attempt to balance classes against each other by giving everybody the same mechanics created a game that is not D&D regardless of what they choose to label it.
A great many people agreed. Enough to create demand for published rules that continued the evolution of the old system.
I think the point was "You can balance without giving everyone the same mechanics", or something like that anyway. I do disagree with homogenizing in a class based system, however I'm big on relative balance myself.
In constrast to "1"? I dont see much non combat stuff in AD&D/0E.
Where are you looking? Many spells are non-combat and the theives powerset was entirely non-combat. Also, the gygaxian dungeon ecology was incredibly prevalent in both the DMG and the MM, but also in the PC classes themselves (druid's heirarchy the most obvious). The games rules and materials were encouraging world building and roleplaying in a way 4e does not. At the time, this was revolutionary, despite this stuff now being assumed in design (a mistake, IMHO). While rules are often guidelines, their existence encourages play options. Gygax offered what societies of mushroom men could look like, 4e doesn't really.
I never played 2nd edition (we has our own little mini edition war when it came out and refused to "buy everything again"), but the reason I prefer 4E to 3.5 is that it's closer to AD&D in my mind. The focus on DM fiat, monsters being different to PCs and the minimal rules systems being what I like and what reminds me of AD&D.
I will agree that 4e felt closer to 2e, but without a lot of the flavour. Skill checks felt like NWPs and just plain ability checks. However, with the "everybody levels up the same" paradigm, plus the "all attacks work the same way, just with a different base stat" and a dash of "deadliness and cripplings aren't welcome here" and all the flavour of 2e got watered down. At least to me.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the point was "You can balance without giving everyone the same mechanics", or something like that anyway. I do disagree with homogenizing in a class based system, however I'm big on relative balance myself.Person A: "The classes should be balanced with each other, let's try to do that."
Person B: "4E tried to balance the classes and homogenized them! Obviously any attempts to balance the classes will result in the same!"Making the attempt to balance classes against each other by giving everybody the same mechanics created a game that is not D&D regardless of what they choose to label it.
A great many people agreed. Enough to create demand for published rules that continued the evolution of the old system.
Got it in one. "Balanced" does not mean "Everyone is just as good as each other in every scenario". Balanced simply means that every class has a niche (a USEFUL niche) without being so hyper-specialized as to be useless elsewhere, but without being so spread out as to be all around mediocre.
If you have a class that does A well, B okay, and C, D, and E badly, but can work it in a pinch, that class is pretty balanced.
The problem comes when you have classes that:
1.) Do A well, but do B poorly and can't participate in C, D, and E AT ALL. A classic example of something mildly underpowered, easily fixable by boosting their ability at B slightly and giving them something to do with C-E.
2.) Do A, B, and C okay (but not nearly as good as any other given class can) and D/E extremely poorly or not at all to "balance" their mediocrity at the other three. An example of a class that is fundamentally flawed, being spread too thin to be useful and would require extensive reworking.
3.) Can do A, B, and C well, and D and E okay to poorly, but can still participate. An example of a severely overpowered class that merits immediate action.
All of these can be fixed without homogenization. As I posted earlier, the Paladin, Barbarian, and Ranger are good examples of classes that have a defined niche (combat) but can participate in other aspects of the game (Skill checks, social interactions, and so forth) in different ways with roughly the same effectiveness.
Paladin has better saves balanced against the Ranger's better skills balanced against the Barbarian's better damage output (vs non-Smite targets) and so forth.
In constrast to "1"? I dont see much non combat stuff in AD&D/0E.Where are you looking? Many spells are non-combat and the theives powerset was entirely non-combat. Also, the gygaxian dungeon ecology was incredibly prevalent in both the DMG and the MM, but also in the PC classes themselves (druid's heirarchy the most obvious). The games rules and materials were encouraging world building and roleplaying in a way 4e does not. At the time, this was revolutionary, despite this stuff now being assumed in design (a mistake, IMHO). While rules are often guidelines, their existence encourages play options. Gygax offered what societies of mushroom men could look like, 4e doesn't really.
4e comes at it with a different design philosophy. The Druid hierarchy may have contained a lot of flavor of the setting, but that's something that nowadays belongs in a setting book, not the rules. 4e's goal in many ways was to be completely setting neutral in terms of the mechanical rules. Certain class or race flavor remained, but it's the reason there were no "domains" for clerics, and their channel Divinity options included options besides those provided by the specific deity. Pathfinder's a bit along the middle. They still provide bonuses like Dwarves' hatred bonus, which holds a specific flavor, but Pathfinder rules could be used to run a game in Dark Sun or Eberron or Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms just as well as it could in Golarion. It's why the Death domain doesn't get rid of Animate dead, even though Phasmara despises undead. Instead, that was done in a setting book.
In constrast to "1"? I dont see much non combat stuff in AD&D/0E.Where are you looking? Many spells are non-combat and the theives powerset was entirely non-combat. Also, the gygaxian dungeon ecology was incredibly prevalent in both the DMG and the MM, but also in the PC classes themselves (druid's heirarchy the most obvious). The games rules and materials were encouraging world building and roleplaying in a way 4e does not. At the time, this was revolutionary, despite this stuff now being assumed in design (a mistake, IMHO). While rules are often guidelines, their existence encourages play options. Gygax offered what societies of mushroom men could look like, 4e doesn't really.
Aren't the non-combat spells and rituals are pretty much the same thing (similarly with thieves skills vs 4E's broader skills)? There is a little bit of non-combat mechanics in both AD&D and 4E, but not a lot. The non combat stuff is pretty much left to DM discretion as to how to resolve it mechanically.
...As I posted earlier, the Paladin, Barbarian, and Ranger are good examples of classes that have a defined niche (combat) but can participate in other aspects of the game (Skill checks, social interactions, and so forth) in different ways with roughly the same effectiveness.
Pally has 2SkP lvl, just like FTR, and since they also need CHA, they rarely have any INT. Now then other than the fact that the Pally gets Diplomacy and the FTR get Intimidate (both social skills, but out of combat Dipl is better), how is the Pally so much better at skill checks, social interactions and so forth?
And, honestly, getting a +1 or 2 and Diplomacy as a class skill is as easy as taking a trait or a Background feat.
True, if you MIN your FTR's INT, WIS & CHA to 7, then yes, THAT Fighter can't do much out of combat. That's that players choice. The rules don't require you to MIN stats, that's a choice.
You can make a decent FtR with 12's or even a 13 in those scores. And of course a 12 in WIS gets you a +1 to you Will, too.
And if you claim the FtR has MAD and must MIN scores, then how much worse is the Pally, who not only can't MIN CHA but has to invest a decent number there? The Pally still needs STR, DEX & CON, maybe only a 12 in Con rather than a 14, sure.
So let us take Diplomacy. The FTR has a mere 12, the Pally a 16.
The FTR takes World Traveler. Both can only afford to put one rank in the skill. The Pally is just +1 in Diplomacy over the FtR.
Now sure, I think the Pally is a better class than the Ftr, but the alignment restrictions are just killer in some campaigns or with certain parties or DMs.