Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
I really wish you wouldn't make these vague edition comparisons. Terrain is sometimes important in 3e. Terrain is sometimes important in 4e. In both cases it depends upon the DM. Saying that a 4e DM "must" use terrain while for a 3e DM it's an "afterthought" is just your own preferences generalised to a rule.
Hmm... perhaps I'll expand a bit then.

The reason why I said terrain is less important in 3E is because there weren't many ways to interact with it - unless you were a wizard. It was difficult (and rare) to have abilities that allowed you to move enemies about freely, or to better position your own allies. At best you used a collection of scrolls and items to achieve battlefield superiority (by flying, usually) - things like moving bad guys out of cover or placing difficult terrain between you and your opponents weren't really optimal strategies.

In any case, I see little mention of terrain effects in the 3E Core, and none of the modules I've played make substantial use of terrain effects. It just never seemed to be a central concern of the system as a whole. Has your experience been different?