When 4th Edition came out I was excited after seeing the preview materials at Gencon, playing a few demos in the second floor ballroom, and keeping tabs on it during it's late days of development. Before this edition even hit the shelves, I had to go to two different stores in order to secure a set of book at launch (the first store refused to order the books for me, a paying customer, because "I disagree with 4th Edition").
Throughout the life of the edition, I would find that my local group would slowly sour on the AEDU power system, eventually refusing to play in any games I ran with the system. My personal feelings were the opposite, I loved being able to keep combat to a level where I could focus on the small things to keep my players on their toes, instead of worrying if certain monsters could instantly tee off on unsuspecting players.
The biggest gripe my players had was they felt that AEDU power system took away agency... which made me scratch my head because these were the same players that rarely did anything more than say "I swing" and roll a D20. Suddenly I had players trying to 'break' the system by asking how they can jump off a table, do a cartwheel, and land and attack two enemies. If they failed at whatever check I gave them, they'd blame "these damn limiting powers" and grumble the rest of the session. "I don't like how I have WoW abilities" a player playing a fighter would say as they spend two turns masterfully navigating the battlefield and setting up a knock back that caused the entire party to be in range of a critical foe.
Spells worked on the AEDU power system in 4e, which I can understand made some people apprehensive since it tossed out some utility spells and made a lot of the standby spells Rituals (which were still usable, just required more time and some gold cost). Healing was redone to use Healing Surges, a system where each character can only recover hit points so many times between rests. The game focused on allowing 'healer' based characters to heal allies while attacking foes, and gave temporary hit points a greater focus to help mitigate damage between fights. When you were healed, often you spent a healing surge which meant you healed either a fixed dice type, or a number of dice equal to your class's Hit Dice. This meant heals scaled with level better based on a class's expected hit point pool.
Milestones happened if the party managed to clear multiple fights without taking a rest. A milestone gave players Action Points, essentially allowing them to spend them to gain an extra turn in combat, among other things. This gave incentive to avoid the ten minute workday, and for a party to push forward.
When I type all of this out I get a sick feeling in my stomach because I -love- all of this but know a majority of my friends hated it. From a DMs perspective 4th Edition took the combat of D&D and gave it a much needed work over. Roleplaying has always been a side effect of D&D, and when addressed in past editions has been very slim and relying on player/DM imagination.
I do think though all of the gripes are because 4th Edition did what past editions had tried to do but failed. It offered a combat system that put the tactical aspects past editions had talked about on the pedestal. Powers for each class gave you options to move around the battlefield, move others, shift, and manipulate space around your character from melee or afar to punish enemies and help allies. In other systems often combat boiled down to get near something and swing until it falls, or hope an ally has a spell to neutralize it. The option to knock things back, do a cartwheel off of a table and land on the other side of your target, or grapple someone and fall backwards was always there. When 4th Edition gave everyone the Dummies Guide to Doing More in combat through powers, people lost their minds because now it was the -system- saying they can do more. "Oh I have to spam this ability over and over" was a common complaint, which while there was a such a move for each class it was just "Basic Attack, but better based on your role". The simple act of adding a name to "I swing" and giving it a keyword turned people inside out.
So in retrospect, I don't think 4th Edition took away from player agency or from combat. It paired down the skill list, made combat more tactical, and allowed for staying power of the PCs to scale with level. The system had a section dedicated to doing 'off the wall' actions such as using improvised weapons, skill checks to do extra things, etc. If anything I think 4th Edition better prepared a DM and the party for thinking outside of the box, even if the Powers built a sort of odd 'wall' to see it. Granted 4th Edition had it's issues with horrible modules, bloated HP for some monsters in the first Monster Manual, and skill challenges.
I am sure there are other issues with 4th Edition no listed above, and I am sure there are other mechanics I have glossed over that people enjoyed or hated. Many of the smaller systems from 4th Edition were carried over into 5th Edition (Short Rest healing with Hit Dice, Recharge abilities on monsters being two immediately notable ones).
No system was or is perfect, but I do think 4th Edition received a bad shake. Here's to you 4th Edition, hopefully one day you'll get a revisit by WotC.
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