Half of those examples are garbage. It doesn't matter what class you have to write on your sheet to achieve a certain class concept, as long as that concept is available. "A ranged Fighter" and "A two-weapon Fighter" are NOT character archetypes. At best, they're "Fighter builds." And I honestly don't care how many "Fighter builds" a game has (although given how strictly 4E locks you into a class, more than one might actually be good).Psychic Robot wrote:I'll give you some examples of characters I could play in 3e with just the Core books that I can't play in 4e with the PHB, DMG, and MM:
Necromancer, summoner, enchanter. A guy with an animal companion. A druid, bard, barbarian, sorcerer, and monk. A guy with a familiar. A ranged fighter. A ranged paladin. A ranged cleric. A gish. A character with a useful mount. A two-weapon fighter. A ranger using a two-handed weapon.
And you can absolutely play a bow guy or a two weapon guy in 4E. You probably have to write Ranger or something on your character sheet, I don't even know. It's like Franks 3.0 example swashbuckler, that was Fighter2/Rogue3/Ranger1/Paladin2. In game, it didn't even matter, because you have a set of character abilities that allows you to swash and buckle. Concept achieved.
The overall point may well be correct (how many 4E characters can contribute to fights without doing hit point damage? how many can bypass combat encounters? how many can alter the terrain and battlefield conditions with advanced notice? etc etc). THOSE are closer to the missing archetypes, but mixing them in with nonsense about how you can't write "Fighter" on your character sheet and still be Legolas just dilutes your point.