Quote from: GoOrangeWell, skimming through the PHB, I see very little that has anything to do with stuff outside of combat.

That's always been one of my --oh, wait, you're talking about the 4e PHB?

role-playing will be addressed in a follow-along rule book for $39.95.  

it kinda feels like i've come full-circle.  at 40, i'm learning Melee again and the new phb should just have the old tagline "Basic fantasy combat rules".

Yeah, I should have been clearer in the original post that I was referring to the 4E PHB and not the quickstart rules. And James, no worries, I knew what you meant (and I was just heading off to dinner and kept my reply brief.)

If anyone is interested, some people are reporting purchasing the core set from Buy.com today and getting confirmation emails that the books are shipping right away (although expedited shipping will cost you a pretty penny).

Quote from: kregmosierrole-playing will be addressed in a follow-along rule book for $39.95.  

It feels that way.

I don't need rules or explanations to tell me how to roleplay, but I like character options that give some kinds of bonuses or effects that are relevant outside of combat and in social situations. I really like L5R  because it has several courtier schools (classes) and plenty of social and non-combat skills. That's always been largely missing from D&D and seems even more true of 4E.

I'm fairly certain I could run and play a 4E game that focused on political intrigue, social interaction, mystery and investigation but it seems that if I did so, no one would ever need to look at their character sheet.

I'm thinking that if I ran GURPS or L5R, there would be a few more non-combat entries on the character sheet that might come into play.

Perhaps I'm just fooling myself. Perhaps it's been that way all along and I just never noticed.

IIRC Basic D&D had few roleplaying related rules either.

4e has a large chunk of the character creation chapter devoted to fleshing out your character's personality, which is more than I recall in other editions.

I don't remember if it was in this thread, but there was talk about Reaping Strike and how it's a no brainer compared to the basic attack. That's still true, but there are other fighter options that make reaping strike not as clear a choice for them. Sure Strike is a normal damage attack at +2. Tide of Iron lets you push them if you hit. Both will often be much better than a gauranteed Str/2 (Str if wielding a 2-handed weapon).