Neverwinter includes a new class for 4E: The Bladesinger. Bladesingers were one of the legendary "kits" for AD&D 2E as they were rather overpowered and were exhibit A whenever someone wanted to point out that the splatbooks were beyond "power creep". I saw more of them than any other Elf kit during the 2E days and there was a good reasona as to why: Bladesingers were specialist fighter-mages who were just better in almost every way. However, fighter-mages were already awesome and popular...
Basic D&D: Elves. Most people liked elves. Sure, you advanced slower than the stupid thief but you were a better fighter, had more hit points, and could throw spells - who cared if you needed 4000XP to make 2nd level? A bigger bonus, and one not instantly apparent to new players, was that you had full use of all fighter magic items AND full use of all magic-user items. Attacked by flying creatures? Out comes the wand of lightning bolts! Ambushed by orcs? Shocking grasp followed up by a smack from the +2 sword while protected by your +3 chainmail and +2 shield! Sure, advancement was slower but being able to use all those magic items upped your power exponentially over other classes. Plus, the M-U was likely to get croaked more than once at low levels and if you collected his magic items when that inevitably happened, well, you were even more powerful afterwards...
AD&D Fighter/Magic-User - this was just awesome. Slower advancement yeah yeah, but it had all of the benefits of both classes and none of the drawbacks! Plus the magic item synergy described under Basic still applied! Now there was the potential level cap issue but considering the duration of most campaigns that was less of a problem than it might appear and capping at 6th level spells was not that much of a disadvantage most of the time. Making it to Ftr 7/ M-U 11 was still going to take a while but you were still quite formidable into the teen levels at least, and in any case you weren't item-capped...
2E Fighter / Mage - Still awesome but TSR started messing with them in this edition by putting in rules like "you can't cast spells in armor even if you're an elf" and other nonsense. The loophole to this rule was Elven Chain, which unlike in 1E could be magically enhanced, and so despite all kinds of non-mechanical roleplaying type reasons for it to be rare, pretty soon every Ftr/M-U was running around in elven chain, usually of the +1 variety at least*. You still had the limited advancement speed but you also still had the wide-open item flexibility, less some of the armor. When you added in certain kits (Bladesinger!) It was a very strong character type and the level limits were even higher, especially if you had decent stats - and c'mon, most of us had darn good stats back then...
3E Fighter 1 / Wizard 1 - OK this is where it started to really go downhill. The fighter/mage was perhaps the most-gimped type of character in making the 2E to 3E transition. No longer could you advance simultaneously in two classes at a reduced rate. Now I view unlimited multiclassing as one of the cooler innovations of 3E as it allowed an impressive degree of customization, but the way the rules were set up it severely damaged spellcasters. Conventional attack bonuses continued to increase across classes but wizards and clerics lost both spell power advancement (saving throw targets did not increase) and spell knowledge advancement (as they got no new spell levels if they didn't level up in an existing class), effectively losing out in two aspects of character advancement. I've always wondered if allowing the spell power to advance with overall level instead of specific class level would have smoothed this out but I never had a chance to try it out in play. Whereas in earlier editions a 9th level party might include a Ftr 7/M-U 8 character** who could still contribute in a big way, in 3E that would probably translate into a Ftr 4 / Wizard 5 in 3E terms and alongside a 9th lvl Fighter and a 9th level Wizard that is just pathetic when it comes to combat effectiveness. On top of the power issues the armor loophole was closed meaning that wearing almost any decent type of armor inflicted a chance for spell failure, even if you were an elf. With the leveling ules killing the offensive potential and the armor rules killing the defensive potential, the fighter-mage became a rare bird indeed. Sure there were prestige classes like the Spellsword but anyone going for one of those tended to be mostly fighter with a few wizard levels sprinkled in, rather than a full-on split power type.
4E - now this is where things turn around. The initial PHB had the traditional classes and very limited multiclassing but dropped the armor issues - you could make a fully armored wizard if you wanted to spend the feats on it! Not a bad start, but then the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide came out and included the Swordmage...oh yeah! Not only was he a fighter type that threw magic he was a full-on defender, the toughest of fighter types - a new wrinkle for the fighter-mage fan because they had never been the most durable of characters. Teleporting around the battlefield smacking enemies with a sword, dumping spell effects out through the sword, and even hitting things at range on occasion, the Swordmage was a lot of fun. It definitely leaned more towards the "Fighter" side of the spectrum but it was unlike a conventional fighter in many ways. Other classes came out in other books and some of them leaned in the fighter-mage direction with various elemental or magical effects like the Warden or the Hexblade Warlock, and multiclassing plus the right paragon path could add some pizzazz as well. Now though, the Neverwinter book is out and it gives us the Bladesinger...
The Bladesinger class is the return of the fighter/magic-user in all of its glory. Not since 2E have you been able to fight up close with a decent weapon and armor class then turn and blast someone across the room with a lightning bolt! Their utility powers are almost all magic-user flavored too, consisting of wonderful things like Mirror Image, Shield, Expeditious Retreat, etc. They also have some of the teleport abilities of the swordmage but it's not as pronounced as with that class. The key mechanical limitation on them is that they choose wizard encounter powers at most levels, but they are treated as dailies, meaning they do give up some power for flexibility - just like the old days - but with dailies like lighning bolt and charm monster and with magic missile as an at-will power they are not giving up a lot. In short, they will play very much like an old school elven fighter-mage (and they no longer have to be an elf although that is the typical background) and I like that very much.
So there we go - after my trashing of Traits here's something that the 4E Neverwinter book got right. Note that it's not just because it's an old-school type of character, it's because they did it right! Now, I'm off to roll one up and see if I can talk my player who occasionally DM's into letting me take it on his next run...
*Another good choice was Drow armor if you were going through those adventures. "Oh but it loses it's power in sunlight!" - hey, you know what? Once I get back up into the sunlight then I'm not going to care because I won't have a bunch of Drow shooting at me! "Oh but if they see you wearing Drow armor they will hate you!" - I'm a surface elf, they already hate me. Besides it might make them realize that I'm both practical and ruthless - like them.
** Figure a fighter needed 250,001 XP's to hit 9th. Give hime 251,000 split evenly and you have a level 8 fighter and a level 8 M-U, but Elves could only advance to 7th as a fighter anyway.
