The thing I like best about 4E is not how everyone has a chance to shine now, but the fact that no one is sitting on the sidelines back in the inn, recharing their spells and health while the other half of the party runs around having fun without them. Downtime for characters is now a more measured and consistent affair, and half the game’s classes are not functionally impaired after using their “big guns” in one encounter (barring the dailies issue, of course).

I also like the way skill challenges offer rewards and penalties - too often in 3.x if the players missed a skill check the whole party would “lose the thread” of the plot and you’d have to scramble as a DM to offer a way to get them back on track (which makes the check meaningless) or else abandon the whole rest of the adventure, which is unfortunate if that’s not what the players want to do.

Overall, i’ve been surprised at how different the classes feel different in practice despite having the same mechanics and rules framework.

Also, I think that 4e is even more combat-oriented than the 3.x editions used to be, but this wasn’t the main topic of the post.

If your GM only puts you only in battles, then it’s his own doing. I DM’d a whole session of roleplaying, exploring the town and talking to people. I do agree that the first interest of my group (2 teens) was mostly for combat, but they did like talking to the lord, the inn manager, the blacksmith, the local sage, the old man and the wildflower merchant in town. My son was itching for battle at the end of the session, but his friend reminded him that “intel” is necessary to find out where the kobolds lair, the dragon’s tomb and the old ruined fort was in the region.

So, the only part of DnD that changed in 4e for me, is the combat mechanics. All the roleplaying is still there, even with a mechanic for deciding the outcome, but imho that’s not needed if the players roleplay the encounter. I do rely on some skills to determine on the fly what a PC’s might know or interpret. Insight, history, arcana, religion and nature are great skills in 4e because i find them concise and just rolling against a DC (i use the 15 easy, 20 hard for first levels) is easy for the me as DM.

So yes, combat is changed in 4e, but roleplay was not sacrificed. It is still there for DM’s and players who do want a story. For DM’s who want a tactical combat game, well 4e can provide that too.

So that’s my take on it. I do hope you find a good roleplaying DM who can make all the PC’s shine in non-combat and combat situations.

If you run under the assumption that everything is combat oriented, you’ll run into combat, use your powers strategically, take a short or extended rest based solely on how many powers, surges, action points, and second winds used.

My wizard prevented one encounter entirely with a cantrip, sleeped an entire (small) tavern to avoid a barfight (rogue planted a stolen coinpurse on him), foraged up breakfast during his watch while on the road (Nature ftw), and fooled a bunch of goblins into abandoning their post (Linguist+Ghost Sound ftw). And he doesn’t “shine” any more than the rest of the group.

I haven’t counted, but it seems like proportion of combat to non-combat feats are about the same as they used to be.

In 4th Edition, a GM can put in environmental hazards to highlight a rogue’s abilities, or put in some lower-level minions to help the wizard shine. And clerics still own undead.