>Right
Took inspiration from the greatest D&D supplement of all times, Tome of Battle, so it actually made martials fun >Wrong
They basically decided that making the abilities actually make sense within the game world was Not Their Problem. It all feels insanely gamey. It feels like they took a lot more inspiration from MMOs than from Vance and Howard.
>so it actually made martials fun
If you NEED ToB to have fun (which is different from "ToB is just another option") with martials it means you have absolutely no clue about how things are supposed to work.
Which shows that 4e is made for morons that need a named point and click power to carry out a given maneuver.
D&D isn't an RPG. It has never been an RPG. It is a dungeon crawling boardgame and skirmish combat wargame. It's roleplay elements are light at best. The fact that you can't see that says so much more about you than it does anyone else.
D&D as it is written and has always been written actively fights against your ability to render the apple.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
What does D&D (all editions no less!) do that literally every other RPG doesn't do that fights against your ability to imagine during the course of the game?
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Prescriptive simulationism for realities that don't work in any way like our own.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Thank you for getting to it before I could, and wording it better than I would.
What does D&D (all editions no less!) do that literally every other RPG doesn't do that fights against your ability to imagine during the course of the game?
Just go poke your head into /5eg/ or /osrg/ and you will literally see it in action.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Any number of RPGs do this exact thing. Depending on one's reading of of those two five dollar words you used to describe it, ALL RPGs do that exact thing.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
No, they don't. Other rpgs either do not prescribe simulationism or those that do have realities that are actually internally consistent.
>What did it do right?
Basically everything, IF:
You're interested in gamist tactical minis combat
You don't give a frick about Forgotten Realms(you shouldn't)
Contrary to popular belief, sales aren't what killed 4e. WotC pulled a gambit much like what they did with the OGL in 5e, but they pulled it way too early in 4e's life, the game had barely established itself. On top of that they went to paizo first and tried to bully paizo, demanding they follow their OGL to which Paizo said no. Everyone else they went to try and preach the new OGL that they wanted to make "mandatory" said no, so they had to end 4e early, since at that point info was getting out about what they were doing and a boycott that early would have gutted them.
>Contrary to popular belief, sales aren't what killed 4e.
This reminds me of a thread in ENworld. The thread started with a premise: finally numbers were out on the fact that 4e is the edition that sold the least.
The usual 4rrie brigade started their basic passive-aggressive shit derailing the entire thread and using sniping comments to get the OP banned.
I don't even want to name rpg.net, same dynamics 24/7.
I mean, I presume 4rries are busy moderating forums of losers because none plays 4e.
In any case, the damage control is not going to cancel the revelation that 4e was an embarrassing failure.
Or maybe I'm better than you at playing martials and find them unimpressive.
many 4rries, many copes.
Your game is utter shit and failed spectacularly. What was salvageable is now used in PF2e, 5e, and to a lesser extent PF1e. The rest, especially bullshit like minions and other dissociated mechanics, is buried.
It's over, and rightly so.
>Cope. Ben Riggs has shit info on 4E.
Source: your delusional 4rrie ass.
Because this is what you morons are. Delusional.
See this cretin as an example.
>Right
Everything but feeling like D&D to the old grogs. >Wrong
Didn't feel like D&D to the old grogs.
If you don't want your games feeling like a game, play a story instead. Stop being that homosexual.
>Didn't feel like D&D to the old grogs.
Keep repeating this to himself while every fricking new edition is something new.
What turned people away was mainly 3 things
1) People loved 3ed warts and all, and wanted a fixed 3ed no some shit none care about
2) People hated immersion breaking dissociated mechanics
3) The design team and the initial 4rrie shills behave like the condescending smug morons they are, turning people off.
Your game is shit and failed because is bad.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Source: actually reading what he posted.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Copes and seethes this hard >Cries cope
You are pathetic.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>1) People loved 3ed warts and all, and wanted a fixed 3ed no some shit none care about
How'd that work out for Pathfinder? Oh, it had a consumer base of 100k, less than a fourth of Insider accounts? Thought so.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>your shit game failed
then why am i still in two 4e campaigns?
Its no lie, PF2e is just salved 4e.
And its still a failure in play count compared to older eds of D&D.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
PF2e is nothing like 4E.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
>And its still a failure in play count compared to older eds of D&D.
Explain what you mean by this. If you mean at their peak, no shit, every game not named D&D or 90s VtM comes up short compared to D&D. If you mean right now, no it's not.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
In before roll20 metrics from several years ago by a moron who ignores just how bad roll20's support for PF2 and 4E are and Foundry's existence.
4e very well could have sold like shit, but if the info came from Ben "Praise Saint Gary" Riggs, I would be deeply skeptical and wary of it regardless. They guy got to have a few conversations with some random people who worked on D&D at some point and thinks that gives him concrete, unfalsifiable authority of all matters relating to D&D and the RPG industry.
There's also a fundamental difference between getting data from TSR and getting data from Wizards. TSR alumni are happy to provide the data they have. Wizards alumni aren't beyond very very broad strokes.
I don't think we've gotten concrete sales numbers out of WotC ever, come to think of it. Someone could very well work for WotC, but unless they have hard data and actual numbers to show, there's no guarantee that anyone not working in marketing and sales has that info, and knowing Riggs, he probably talked to writers and artists, if he talked to anyone at all.
Fun but bloated. If they had really trimmed it down to fewer but punchier character options and had the monsters balanced correctly on release, it would still piss off 3.5 neckbeards but be an incredible tactical game.
Really all RPGs rulebooks should essentially be skirmish wargame rulesets. The idea of needing more than a reference sheet's worth of rules to run roleplay baffles me.
>Charisma to damage
I love how stats in 4e have absolutely no meaning. You could call charisma "sblurch" and intelligence "splotch" and they would have the same gameworld value.
5e has the same problem. I understand what the creators are trying to accomplish with charisma casting and such but it really needs to be locked behind advanced class features or prestige classes.
Not that non, but, interesting.
Martial caster balance aside, do list these complaints and how 4e solves them.
I'm trying to learn more about the system while trying to find a table to play at.
My favorite is 3.5e, so I'm already biased towards that, so your comparisons will be quite interesting to read.
NTA either, but I played a lot during the 3.5 - 4e times.
The main issues of 4e were >the CR system is SHIT. Can't trust it, you either go off the cuff and change things on the spot, or you basically have to playtest encounters beforehand. >Balance between classes and players is, again, SHIT. Some classes are strong in any scenario, other are situational, other are plain weak, and that's not conductive to telling a story. >and specifically you have people with spells, and people with attacks - spells are specific and cool, attacks are generic and repetitive
4e solves those issues - not completely, the balance at epic levels is still off, but NOT AS MUCH as with 3.5.
You can trust the CR system much more, and the skill challenge system is great if you use it within a combat encounter (because it needs the extra pressure to really shine), something that you'd have to just ad-hoc with 3.5.
And the inter party balance, it's pretty good and you start getting players to execute tag team combos! That's very much on the gamey side, it can feel like a wrestling match, but come on, it's pretty awesome and it doesn't really happen with 3.5 (other than the basic ganging up on 1 opponent at a time, but that's not much of a combo, and it takes the bare minimum of strategy and setup, 4e lets players do much more complex plays).
Part of that is because every attack is a 'power', and can give extra tags and have extra effects, and if a party goes hard for the synergy that can provide, they'll greatly exceed their expected power level (but it's easier than in 3.5 to notice that and compensate) - the downside is that those specific, special attacks can feel pretty samey after a while, none of them feels as special as 3.5 spells, but at the same time not even the basic attacks feel as basic as 3.5 full attacks.
In the end, it's a matter of opinion. I like it because it's easier on the DM (or at least, for me as a DM), especially with dynamic encounters.
>and that's not conductive to telling a story.
You're playing a game not telling a story.
Or maybe you just suck as a storyteller? Why do you need every single humanoid being to be equally capable to tell a good story?
>Why do you need every single humanoid being to be equally capable to tell a good story?
Because that ridiculous hyperbolizing of his actual stance is a more fun game than one that does the best it can to make you feel like a chump or accidentally upstage all your friends, sometimes at their own proposed niche.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>the game is more fun if everyone plays exactly the same
Maybe I wasn't clear - if different classes are wildly different in power levels, players are more likely to choose classes that are powerful.
And even when they are mature enough not to just go for the strongest choice, some classes just appeal more than others, I'd rather DM for a variety of characters.
Then again, the most common character is supposed to be a human fighter, but in my experience it was some kind of wizard, often elven, so maybe it's just me and my friends being weird.
There's nothing wrong with players choosing to play whatever they want to play, the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0. I would argue that making everything perfectly equitable makes the game inherently disinteresting.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
It's telling that you think what determines how a class plays is how powerful it is relative to other classes.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Not that anon while I don't disagree with > the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0
I think that in a good table where everybody is on the same wavelength it wouldn't get to that point because everything would have been discussed even if briefly before it becomes an issue.
At least that's been my experience so far. No player has tried to go too far in our 3.5e game despite the DM allowing almost anything short of homebrew, even homebrew by default. He trusts the party to keep things within the bounds of sanity and to not try and ruin everybody else's fun.
Having varied options that might be imbalanced between those is not really an issue in a table like that.
I was quite impressed when I joined after years of listening to horror stories about 3.5e munchkins and stuff.
Of course, the characters are not balanced as such, but each can do what they were designed to do and don't get in the way of each other's fun, at least that hasn't happened yet.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
What classes are your party rolling with?
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
O crossbow rogue with leadership, a techno-mage (think artificer), a barbarian type with a huge sword, some samurai amalgamation focused on iaijutsu focus, a dmm persist cleric. a warblade kngiht, and a bard sublime chord.
In the past there was a Druid and a more caster-y Cleric too with DMM quicken.
There's also a warlock and a monk sorcerer enlightened fist that some players pick up from time to time, as they are active in the world.
We are seldom all present, usually it´s the dmm cleric, the bard, the rogue and the techno-mage, with the barbarian and the samurai showing up often too.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Well, most of that doesn't look like Core. So you're doing better than my early 2000s 3.5 party.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0
Jesus Christ no. That responsibility falls on the group as a whole, if you're playing with friends in real life.
And once you start discussing it, it's soon apparent that spells are awesome, they are flashy and there's always one that's perfect for the specific occasion or one that's generally more powerful than it should for its level, and full attacks aren't exciting enough. And all the other subsystems are somewhere in between... and often used as add-ons to regular magic, come on that's an obvious sign that there's something of a problem.
It doesn't make the edition unplayable, but it definitely is an issue, and it was addressed in 4e.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>the game is more fun if everyone plays exactly the same
Everyine having roughly the same power level is distinct from everyone playing exactly the same.
Indeed, two Martials can play entirely unlike each other via picking different powers, which does not necessarily involve playing a different Class. And it belabors the obvious to say a Wizard, Fighter and Rogue all play differently, despite all working on the same AEDU system.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>two Martials can play entirely unlike each other via picking different powers
Are the powers in 4e that varied?
The question is genuine, by the way, I truly have no idea.
The other anon pitched powers as a way to solve all full attack focused martials feeling the same in combat in 3.5e, but for that the powers need to be meaningfully different, right?
Seriously, I'd love to find a local table playing 4e to give it a spin.
Well, most of that doesn't look like Core. So you're doing better than my early 2000s 3.5 party.
As I said, the DM really doesn't put many limits on us, and yet in practice the game flows super well.
It's such a god damn delight to play with these guys.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Yeah. Though it depends on what books are and aren't allowed. Each class fills a particular role and has another role as a secondary one. IIRC, Fighters are Defender/Strikers.
A Defender takes damage and keeps enemies focused on attacking him and not the squishier PCs, a Striker just gives out the Hurt. These two Roles and the Leader Role behaving similarly to a Buffer/Healer are what give 4e its reputation of being like WoW or an MMO, along with people's dogged refusal to admit that tabletop RPGs were a major influence on CRPGs and MMOs and the similarities are more like convergeant evolution than an attempt to woo WoWgays.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>The other anon pitched powers as a way to solve all full attack focused martials feeling the same in combat
That was me, so... yes and no.
They give you options, so if you plan ahead, maybe build for it, maybe check what your party can do too, they're really different.
Let's compare, say, a power that deals stat-mod damage to a secondary target, and one that pushes or maybe slides 1.
If your party is playing with vulnerabilities, that small amount of damage might end up being much higher than expected, and that push will pay dividends if the party has put a few zones in play, but otherwise? In a 1v1 fight, in a featureless plain? They're the same power, with an extra line of text that will get ignored.
That's an other way 4e tries to get you to play with the rest of the party, and lean on each other's strengths.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Yes, sometimes to the point that you have some with far more standout function, and others that sound good on paper, but are nigh useless in practice. 4e's power variety is one of the core fundamentals of it's value as a system, because each member of the party will be contributing different things despite contributing to the same general level of efficacy overall.
See, PCs are designed to be team members engaging in tactical battles in 4e. Thus they must be comparable in the sort of level of power they wield complimentary to their party members. But this does not mean they do everything the same. The Fighter can do damaged, but his job is to be sticky while the Wizard debuffs and wipes minions. The Rogue kills the enemies focusing on the Fighter while the Cleric heals the Fighter to make sure he doesn't fall. This sounds 'obvious', but seeing it in practice is like watching cogs of a clock working in tandem to keep it turning. Hell, even the enemy make up can pull off great teamwork aspects. Any DM of the system who knows how to Aid Attack with a group of minions on a Brute boss has probably watched their Rogue almost shit himself at least once.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
(not that anon)
yes but no, the game actually had a lot of different options for every class to make your dude feel unique (for example the fighter's "Fighter talent" that gave you different bonus for using different weapon combinations) but the players at the time were super focused on optimizing the shit out of every class, so if you didn't play the most optimal build you weren't playing the game right. At least that was the vibe back in the day, I hope new 4e players aren't as autistic as players back then.
Still, classes like Fighters, Rogue and Rangers have the potential to playing completly different and taking wildly different roles in battle, so yeah, the games has the potential of giving a ton of variety to martial classes, hell. you can have an entire party with ONLY martial classes and each character would feel different (for example a Dragonborn fighter with a mark build, melee Rogue, Archer Ranger and healer Warlord) so if you want variety in your martial classes the game won't dissapoint
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>but the players at the time were super focused on optimizing the shit out of every class, so if you didn't play the most optimal build you weren't playing the game right.
Yes and no. Optimization covers many aspects of build. You can build an optimized Greatweapon Fighter and an optimized Brawler Fighter and they still don't play the same. Two optimized Greatweapon Fighters might likely play similarly to one another, though it also depends on if they go Heavy Blade, Axe, Polearm or some manner of hybrid weapon type. Even within optimization there's a bit of variance that players can account for to not be super samey. But such cases did tend to 'solve' for the best options with a build, and so such builds were more like recipes than guidelines at times.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
so players are still autistic about optimization, good to know.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
Again, yes and no. Knowing how optimization works doesn't mean all players care. Building something fun gets you further in most games unless you're playing in a high difficulty game typically. Such games hardly resemble vanilla 4e nowadays anyways.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
As a newbie 4e GM who's also played with a hyper optimizer GM — the tactical aspect does tend to push the community towards optimization, but the system itself is flexible enough that there's no explicit reason to optimize unless you're obsessed with beating blatantly unfair fights.
Building balanced encounters is fairly easy and the tactical nature of the game means that even if a player builds their PC pretty badly, they're still greatly contributing to the fight simply through various forms of utility that help the rest of the party.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Depends on the class. For a lot of them, at-wills are largely just attack+rider effect, with encounters and dalies being where the real variance appears.
Here's four different power sets for some hypothetical first-level fighters, plus a class feature choice. While they mostly boil down to "hit guy + status effect", "hit two guys", or "hit one guy extra hard", the four should have distinct enough gameplay. This is also before accounting for race, theme, feats, weapon choice, etc.
Are these four power sets good? Probably not, but it's hard to be nonfunctional out the door in 4e unless you're really trying.
Maybe I wasn't clear - if different classes are wildly different in power levels, players are more likely to choose classes that are powerful.
And even when they are mature enough not to just go for the strongest choice, some classes just appeal more than others, I'd rather DM for a variety of characters.
Then again, the most common character is supposed to be a human fighter, but in my experience it was some kind of wizard, often elven, so maybe it's just me and my friends being weird.
>You can trust the CR system much more
That's one thing I've heard before. A result of balance in general being more of a thing I imagine. >That's very much on the gamey side, it can feel like a wrestling match
That on the other hand is something I never see 4e people admit. Interesting. >special attacks can feel pretty samey after a while
That was my sense reading the game. The homogenization of power system would make things feel samey and "gamey", which is not necessarily a bad thing, as you said, a matter of opinion or taste. As a 3.5e enjoyer I think I like the more simulationist approach better, but I'll only really know after experiencing 4e.
Thank you for that perspective anon.
Can't wait for the other guy to provide his list.
>The homogenization of power system would make things feel samey and "gamey"
That's not the main culprit, while it's on the game side of design.
It's the combos, which are fun and it's great to see a party coordinate to land them, but are a big step towards Final Fantasy Tactics.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
I'd say we need a proper FFT styled rpg. Get some calculators up in here.
Imagine hating on 4e, the single best edition of D&D ever to grace this plane of existence, just because you were too dumb to see its glory or were deceived by the cruel and malicious "sunk cost fallacy" of 3e.
Exactly.
The question isn't "is 4e the best edition ever to exist?", but >do you want Fell's Five to be published again?
Remember that we were almost going to have river pirates.
>The MM1 and MM2 are functional
Factually false. > those two MM still are better to use and run with than any MM from 3e or 5e
I remember when wotc put out the 4e Phane. I compared it to the 3ed epic Phane and immediately fell asleep.
If for "better" you mean "not intimidating for railroading moronic GM" sure, why not.
>unusable setting breaking monster
If you are a complete moron.
Because this is what 4e is, a game and mentality with an embarrassingly limited scope.
And I would almost be ok with that, if you cretins didn't have this smug attitude to consider your limits and shortsightedness a virtue.
I didn't fully do the math, but when comparing red dragon stats across different editions, the 4e one did pitiful damage while having the most HP between editions. Looked as if it was balanced for a 10-round battle, versus 3 rounds in 5e. Is this accurate for early 4e monsters in general?
Literally yes. They were all designed for longer combats than in other editions, based on feedback from players that they didn't like short fights. And then they got complaints from the other direction, because you can't please everyone.
There are way too many various details to go over between the editions but the move from 3e to 4e could best be summed up as >Every race being made more viable >Every class being roughly on parity with one another in in-combat prowess (at least within their role) >A winnowing of skills from approx 35 skills to 17 and changing how one's skills progressed as one leveled >The removal of Vancian magic and a move to the AEDU system (at-will, encounter, daily, utility) which was also applied to all classes with each class having a selection of spells, techniques, maneuvers and more to pick from nearly each level >Feats were altered to eliminate most "feat taxes" as well as giving every character far more feats on average >A move away from "The Great Wheel" cosmology which devs hated since they would need to develop around far more monsters to fill similar roles and challenge ratings for the other planes of existence. In its place a new cosmology was made with 5 "big" planes and a number of smaller, far less focused on planes/regions
There is far, FAR more but those are the big ones I can think of at the moment before I go to bed.
2e was too focused on campaigns, characters, and potentially doing things outside of a dungeon, so what would now be identified as the "OSR" crowd hates it.
I've only played 2e in one campaign so I'll make no further comments.
3e was tabletop Diablo with its procedural loot, immense mechanical minutia blended with poor wording and generally untrue design statements.
There's nothing quite like 3.pf and it needs to be experienced to be understood. No amount of quoting or whiteroom scenario could adequately communicate the strengths and flaws present. There is a reason for the existence and popularity of epic 6.
4e was tabletop FFT, which was honest and forward about all its gamey aspects, which the 3e crowd hated. Especially the standardized, readable formatting.
Ultimately, 4e is the narrowest, only working for certain types and tones of games, but it's the best at actually doing those games.
5e is just watered down 3e. Depending on the splats used and level, many of the 3.x-era issues will arise almost exactly as they were.
If you're going to play 5e, play a dungeon crawl around levels 3-7 and no other part of the game.
I was forced to play 3rd edition for 5 years, and have had to play 5e since a year after its launch when my 4e campaign ended and everyone got busy in their careers. They are the same game, 5e has just been sanded down to have less sharp corners. This was even the design philosophy of 5e's development. You are talking out of your ass.
>Nobody who has played both 3.5/PF and 5e has ever stated that 5e is just watered down 3.5. They don't have the same gamelan or even game feel.
Yes they have lmao. 5e was an intentional backpedal away from everything in 4e, the reason tier 3 and tier 4 gameplay is such a shitshow is because it LITERALLY WASN'T PLAYTESTED, they just copy+pasted a bunch of 3rd edition spells and shoved them into the game as-is. >They don't have the same gamelan or even game feel.
5e is watered down piss compared to 3.5 but they still have a lot of the same problems and discourse, if anything parts are worse since in 3.5 a high level fighter could honestly slaughter a few hundred people pretty easily, meanwhile in 5e a high level fighter can never have more than 20 strength (when he started with 16-18) and a bunch of CR 1/2 Scouts is an existential threat to his life since they only need to roll like a 14+ to hit him and their attacks do not much less damage than the fighter's does.
5e is actually watered down 4e essentials, the warlock class for example is just a 4e character with AEDU powers and a series of regular incremental customization options(invocations).
homie, Warlock EB and Invocations is just OG warlock in all senses from invocations to the typical standard dual prog PRC+Hellfire options wrapped in on base. The only difference is at 17 you can cast a 9th level and UMD was standardized to everyone.
For the general rules,yes. But the DMGs were actually pretty handy for general guides and tips on actually running the game, if that's what you're after. I still hear lots of folks gush over DMG2 to the point where they use hints in it even for whole as other games.
It has all the basics of Character Creation and rules for running the game. You'll still need PhBs and setting books for player facing content, especially Powers.
>right
Every class had cool interesting powers and progression, lots of options for customization, most classes felt relatively balanced so there wasn’t a huge gap like fighter vs wizard in 3rd edition, finally the art is super cool and it had a lot of settings.
>wrong
All the mechanics outside of combat are fricking moronic; there is a huge difference between in combat and out of combat gameplay almost feeling like a final fantasy game so when you enter in combat feels like a break in the flow of the game and you enter in a completely different game; at the time a lot of the players went full autistic, obsessing over optimization and the game as well as dragon magazine kinda incentivized this; to this day the skill test difficulty escalation and skill challenges must be two of the most fricking moronic mechanics I’ve ever read in a AAA game; the combat was super slow and even boring sometimes, this was specially awful since combat was the strongest mechanic in the game and the main focus.
>Right
Combat was an actually fun and interesting part of the game mechanics, rather than an obligation. Martials got to do more than basic attack or spam trip every turn. Despite the sperging you see about it, the skill challenge system was actually a good framework for creating non-combat encounters. Heavily disincentivised the "I cast solve problem" gameplay other editions' spellcasters had. Class balance and viability was at an all time high. The DMG gave actually good advice. Items and abilities were clear in what they did, and formatting was consistent.
>bad
Some homogenization in classes, particularly within roles, though still less than a 5e wizard and sorcerer. Having more than one option for a fighter in combat is too much for most martialgays, as evidenced by the most popular 5e fighter subclass being the "just get more stats" one. Scaling skill check difficulty was not implemented well and lead to some weirdness. There was a strong divide between in and out-of-combat gameplay, which added to the gameyness. The MM1 and 2 problem is overblown IMO - it was a bit off, but pick up a 3rd or 5th edition MM and try to tell me these will create a balanced encounter consistently read as written. The gear treadmill was a bit heavy handed unless you used the alternate base scaling from dark sun.
4e was a system that had an actual goal and unified design focus, which made is very good at what it did (tactical gamey battles) and bad at most other things. This gave it a unique niche, compared to soulless slop like 5e or GURPS, but also meant that the average consumer bounced off ot because they were here to crowbar the one system they use into everything.
>Scaling skill check difficulty was not implemented well
It was implemented fine it's just a litmus test for morons being able to understand what they're reading.
One thing I really like about 4e is the ability to challenge tactically savvy players with enemy group synergies.
For example, let us consider an encounter against a group of xivort darters (level 1 artilleries) who have tamed a bunch of thornskin frogs (level 1 brutes) and wolf packmates (level 1 minion skirmishers).
The xivort darters can daze PCs, which is annoying enough. However, the thornskin frogs can move in to deal heavy damage and knock PCs prone. Standing from prone takes a move action, and a dazed creature can take only one action on their turn, so a dazed PC who wants to use a standard action will have to settle for staying prone. Unfortunately, the wolf packmates can then move in to deal extra damage to the prone PCs. Simple but nasty enemy synergize.
How about a positioning challenge for PCs of a slightly higher level? Let us say a couple of centurions of the Iron Circle (level 6 soldiers) have rounded up several dwarf warriors (level 1 minion artilleries) and a couple of extremist wilden ancients (level 4 artilleries [leader]) to stir up trouble.
The Iron Circle centurions are highly accurate against PCs with no other adjacent PCs... but if the PCs cluster up, then they might just be smacked by nasty area attacks from the wilden ancients, who can also buff the centurions. Worse, the dwarf warriors are many in number, and any PC not in cover is liable to be pincushioned by the extra damage from the crossbow attacks.
I like how 4e is a 30-level game, yet even lower-level encounters can have a surprising amount of tactical depth just with some good enemy selection, to say nothing of terrain.
As a forever DM, I loved the sheer amount of options that 4e had for putting together combat encounters, and just the usefulness of the DM tools overall.
Like you said, even level 1 enouncters have a ton of room for cool and interesting things with a ton of depth in them.
Everytime this thread comes up the same exact autist comes to them all. It's honestly impressive that someone hates 4E to the point of actively seeking out 4E threads just to go 4RRRIE
I'll tell you from step one, thing it did wrong was Wayne Barlowe art on the cover. Frick do I hate his style, and it just made me think of Pathfinder. Which, coincidentally, there's "going for popular" but making the covers of your books look the same as your main competitor at the time must do something subconsciously psychologically for sales. But frick do I hate it.
Frick me, I even searched it to make sure I had the right Wayne, did, posted similarly in another thread, and then my brain just tried to replace him with a favorable artist. I love Barlowe and have used his art in games, a MM by him would be a fricking dream. Reynolds. I meant Reynolds.
I like the Pathfinder Wayne Reynolds designs; they're consistent and have lots of character. I just kinda ignore the boob windows.
He also draws Adventurers how they would actually look, with the amount of gear and trinkets a 3.pf character has.
I'll concede in that to a point - I do truly love how, throughout the books, the designs are consistent and the same adventurers for the same classes. I like the iconic feel of that, and the easy visual language there of who's what. You're also correct with the overloaded gear. However, that and his very sharp-lined style makes shit WAY too goddamn busy, proportions are often completely shifting, his use of color is consistently washed out, and while this may be the fault of Pathfinder there's no internal consistency to the world's designs, even if the designs are identifiable. And for things in motion or "action shots", everything comes off as very flat, undynamic, and not drawn in a way where anything draws your focus, it's just a bunch of shit included because it's supposed to be there or something. He's good on a "identifying silhouettes" level, but everything else is just messy, hard to read, and frustrating to me.
Worst fricking goblins I've ever seen either, by a country mile.
You moronic fricking monkey simulationism means it is attempting to simulate reality with it's rules rather than accomplish the objective of being a game first, e.g. GURPS. It works better for gurps because gurps actually attempts to make an internally consistent world and ruleset that is somewhat in line with our own so that the reality you attempt to simulate makes some modicum of sense for story telling. D&D is a game first, not a narrative creator. It's rules are completely arbitrary and SHOULD be aimed entirely at accomplishing whatever functions the game sets out to achieve (swords & sorcery dungeon crawling, high fantasy adventures, etc.) but instead half of them are warped to try and fit some kind sense of realism in a world that is completely inconsistent both relative to our own and in a vacuum. It's rules tell you that you should pretend it's a simulation of a fictional reality when it's immediately not making the entire experience like pulling fingernails unless you turn your fricking brain off.
D&D wants to pretend like you can do anything with it so it can sell to more people except you can barely even do what you're actually fricking supposed to with it.
Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
In the first case no, by raw you have to battle of attrition the dragon hp to 0 before dressing the scene with a cool narration of the arrow hitting the vulnerable spot and thus killing smaug once for all, with gurps you can re-enact the scene by raw 1:1.
Some people like the first case (d&d) because they're more interested in the game aspect and narration as just a dressing overlay (rendering the apple IN POST), stating to try a desperate 1 in a million strike to win the encounter is seen as a way to bypass the game, the latter (GURPS) is preferred by people that want rules to harmonize with the scene (rendering the apple BEFOREHAND). Simple as.
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
Yes. By making Smaug a minion with an inordinately (for a minion) powerful breath attack and flying. It's a bit weird for the Dragon guarding his hoard and main antagonist for much of the story to be a mere minion, but it kind of suits the way the Hobbit played out. The real bastard would be trying to get the Battle of Five Armies going.
Why in the goddamned frick is Martial Power 1 15kb when all the others are like, 3 or 4kb?
i comend you for trying to stay raw but as you can see the result is a bit silly
Black Arrow
Magic item
Never breaks. On a crit, kill the target.
Smaug
Special Trait: Think in the Armor. Whenever a hit exceeds the AC of this creature by 5, it automatically becomes a critical hit.
Also GURPS sucks ass and you can't actually do this scene using GURPS
this is better, althoug you're clearly working backwards in order to fit smaug scenario within the rules contraints (as in rendering the apple in post).
>you can't actually do this scene using GURPS
wtf are you talkin about, smaug case is a near impossible feat but definetly doable, it's a heart called shot modified by other various features (speed/distance and so).
>althoug you're clearly working backwards in order to fit smaug scenario within the rules contraints
Wrong. Plenty of creatures have similar weaknesses and plenty of magic items like that exist. Could've been an arrow of dragon slaying. >wtf are you talkin about, smaug case is a near impossible feat but definetly doable, it's a heart called shot modified by other various features (speed/distance and so).
The other anon is right, it's literally not possible for Bard to have made that shot. Not to mention it would not have killed.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Wrong. Plenty of creatures have similar weaknesses and plenty of magic items like that exist. Could've been an arrow of dragon slaying.
Imagine not having one, imagine you try for an eye shot (because that's the only vulnerable point you can be aware of without deus ex machinas telling you), is it out of the world trying a desperate action as such in a desperate situation?
>The other anon is right, it's literally not possible for Bard to have made that shot. Not to mention it would not have killed.
explain why
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Imagine not having one,
You chose the scenario fricker. The specific scenario was the black arrow killing a red dragon which is presumed magical. >explain why
Burden of proof is on you actually.
But here's a spoonfeed, a called shot to vitals is 3x.
Let's say 80 hit points for the ancient dragon, 1d6 from the arrow, +3 for strength lets say, assume he rolls the 6 and a crit and doubles it for magic arrow. 54 damage.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>You chose the scenario fricker. The specific scenario was the black arrow killing a red dragon which is presumed magical.
None of the arrows traits (extreme durability, shapness) are reconductive of "magic" perse or dragon-slaying in specific
>Burden of proof is on you actually.
Ok, per Fantasy splat, which has a racial template for old Dragons, an average old dragon has 30hp (10 base + ST+20), so your 54dmg would be more than enough to have the dragon roll on HT to try and avoid KO (which failing at would mean having smaug falling inside the lake and drowning as consequence).
Black Arrow
Magic item
Never breaks. On a crit, kill the target.
Smaug
Special Trait: Think in the Armor. Whenever a hit exceeds the AC of this creature by 5, it automatically becomes a critical hit.
Also GURPS sucks ass and you can't actually do this scene using GURPS
>can you pull a Bard vs Smaug
A DMPC pulling out a special kill weapon that one shots the Big Bad Enemy Guy through his only weakness? Sure, the DM narrates how the DMPC knows of a special arrow, in this case a family heirloom, and has the PCs go about getting the BBEG dragon, who cant be killed by any skills the PCs actually have, into the right place for the DM to narrate the sweet kill shot his special NPC, created specifically to kill the bad guy, pulls it off.
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
An NPC killing the BBEG offscreen? Yeah. It'd be kind of shit though.
Do you realise your're literally being the guy that thinks >to try a desperate 1 in a million strike to win the encounter is seen as a way to bypass the game
?
You're implicitly reinforcing my point instead of refuting it.
Hey, you're the one who laid the scenario down with no details beyond reference, I just used the actual scenario as it happened in the book. Bard is an NPC and clearly there to do one thing initially, kill Smaug, as was written in Tolkeins notes. The actual PCs, Bilbo and Thorin's company, do little to nothing in killing Smaug, and Bard goes on to be an antagonist out to claim the PCs new hoard and home, bringing in an army to claim what he thinks is rightfully his.
I can see why youre upset, thinking you created some special scenario that 4e "clearly" fails at, but all you did was post some idiocy that in a real campaign would be entirely a DM contrivance, no matter the system. Besides, its remarkably simple to make it possible even in 4e, Smaug just has a special weakness that kills him instantly that any well-trained, aka mid level, archer could pull off, especially with a "lucky" or magical arrow. He'd still be a high CR enemy, but for the contrivance of the story, he would have a very debilitating weakness.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Hey, you're the one who laid the scenario down with no details beyond reference,
yes, because nothing more is needed
>I just used the actual scenario as it happened in the book. Bard is an NPC
not necessarily, you can take the scenario as-is, assume Bard is a PC
>and clearly there to do one thing initially, kill Smaug, as was written in Tolkeins notes.
See above, in the context of a TTRPG scenario Bard sees a desperate situation an tries an all-or-nothing gambit
>I can see why youre upset,
Why would i be?
>thinking you created some special scenario that 4e "clearly" fails at
No, i made a scenario that wouldn't emerge spontanously in D&D (not 4e specifically) but could in a simulationist rulesystem. Some other anon replyied making examples in how to PROJECT this scenario in D&D (which is entarely possible).
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>i made a scenario that wouldn't emerge spontanously in D&D
Bard vs smaug shit does not spontaneously arise in DnD or any other system. Fighting dragons, yes, but not super special dragons only killable by a single point of weakness that are killed by a super special noble bowman and his maybe magical arrows. Shit like this is entirely done by shit DMs desperate to emulate Tolkien and his books utterly disregarding that they are in many instances arbitrary stories made to please children.
And as I even said, it is still fricking possible to do in 4e, and many other editions of DnD.
Dual Arrows are magical roll twice take best roll arrows, Smaug is an Ancient Red with a special DM made weakness so the PC can kill it at a much lower level than should be normally possible, for some random stupid reason. There, Bard vs Smaug done and dusted and entirely possible in 4e.
4 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Bard vs smaug shit does not spontaneously arise in DnD or any other system.
Wrong, if the rulesystem has rules for called shots and the likes it could.
>Fighting dragons, yes, but not super special dragons only killable by a single point of weakness that are killed by a super special noble bowman and his maybe magical arrows.
Putting destiny aside (which is another element tha could be simulated by gurps btw), shooting an arrow to a dragon is part of the "Fighting dragons" scenarios.
>Shit like this is entirely done by shit DMs desperate to emulate Tolkien and his books utterly disregarding that they are in many instances arbitrary stories made to please children.
Did ever happened to you of having a player saying stuff like "i aim at the monster eye!" or something similar? Imagine the Bard case being one of these.
>And as I even said, it is still fricking possible to do in 4e, and many other editions of DnD.
Yes as a prepared scenario
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
An NPC killing the BBEG offscreen? Yeah. It'd be kind of shit though.
Fair warning, I don't have Psionic Power, no idea why either it wasn't in whatever trove I scraped these from or I just figured "enh, I have it in deadtree."
And I can't add Martial Power 1 Because apparently it's too big for Ganker. Goddamn it.
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
Yes. By making Smaug a minion with an inordinately (for a minion) powerful breath attack and flying. It's a bit weird for the Dragon guarding his hoard and main antagonist for much of the story to be a mere minion, but it kind of suits the way the Hobbit played out. The real bastard would be trying to get the Battle of Five Armies going.
Why in the goddamned frick is Martial Power 1 15kb when all the others are like, 3 or 4kb?
Fair warning, I don't have Psionic Power, no idea why either it wasn't in whatever trove I scraped these from or I just figured "enh, I have it in deadtree."
And I can't add Martial Power 1 Because apparently it's too big for Ganker. Goddamn it.
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
Yes. By making Smaug a minion with an inordinately (for a minion) powerful breath attack and flying. It's a bit weird for the Dragon guarding his hoard and main antagonist for much of the story to be a mere minion, but it kind of suits the way the Hobbit played out. The real bastard would be trying to get the Battle of Five Armies going.
Why in the goddamned frick is Martial Power 1 15kb when all the others are like, 3 or 4kb?
I have all the pdfs except like 4 adventures and about half of the Dragon Magazines (which are all on the Wayback Machine so I'm not that fussed). What's a good place to dump them since the 4e folder on the share thread is shockingly dogshit?
No idea other than said share thread. I had to dig through the archives to find even a few base books. I've heard 4e has a lot of great stuff to steal from for other games, which is where my interest is. So far it is interesting and I feel like it didn't deserve the bad rap it got.
The files are too powerful to post here but here is a link to almost everything. Its missing Dragon/Dungeon Magazines which are easy enough to find and like 3? maybe more? adventures.
https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/rpg(dot)rem(dot)uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/D%26D%204th%20Edition/
Not mine btw. I just had it saved from a 4e thread from like a year or so ago.
The Players Handbook 3, Dungeon Survival Handbook, and the Dark Sun book has a bunch more psionic stuff if you are interested in it.
IWS.mx has a nice index if you just wanna look at the stuff itself
Fair warning, I don't have Psionic Power, no idea why either it wasn't in whatever trove I scraped these from or I just figured "enh, I have it in deadtree."
I'll never understand the "gurps is a realistic simulation" people. in the one session of gurps I played I shot a character in the head with a .44 magnum and he didn't die. no it wasn't a low roll, no he didn't have superhuman abilities, and no he wasn't wearing a helmet or anything.
gurps is more simulationistic than others but that doesn't mean is perfect, another example of rule silliness in gurps is how by default armor dr work: a 13 str individual can cleave through steel armor almost effortlessly
4e is extremely gamey and open about it’s gameyness, but it’s a fricking game, and it’s good at being a game
you don’t need rules to tell you how to roleplay, and 4e actually has better rules for non-combat encounters than other editions, lacking a lot of the spells that let you completely bypass problems and having skill challenges for complex situations that can’t be resolved by a single skill check (although most people are bad at using skill challenges well in their games)
non-combat mechanics are also largely system agnostic so you can easily use skill challenges in other editions or use another editions non-combat mechanics in 4e
i use dungeon and wilderness exploration rules from b/x in 4e and it works perfectly well
the game definitely has its flaws but they’re minor nitpicks compared to everything wrong with 3.5 or 5e
the real reason it drew so much hate is that it slaughtered a lot of d&d’s sacred cows, but it’s unironically closer to original d&d in terms of tone and structure than other modern editions are
what I don't understand is why are you still talking about it
it's been dead for longer than it's been alive. Why do you gain from rehashing old arguments over and over and over
4e is the farthest mechanically & gameplay wise from the TSR era of D&D. that being said as a miniatures combat game it's OK. as a roleplaying game i feel it fails.
Several months ago, my 4e Eberron (Sharn, specifically) game had a rather wild sequence. After a combat against some incorporeal undead, which was necessary to secure a certain MacGuffin, I immediately had the undead return at full hit points and perfect condition. The PCs had to run away across a vast, vast map. While three out of four PCs were able to make it to their skycoach and start it up, one PC was lagging behind due to undead double-running and ganging up on them. That PC, at single digit hit points, had to hurl themselves off a Sharn towertop, and let the rest of the party swoop in with their skycoach and catch them.
(Feather fall consumables do not exist in 4e. Also, they were specifically trying to get away from a mass of incorporeal undead, so they needed to achieve great speed in a freefall.)
Okay, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Personally I remember the "Battle of the Cliffs" where my party scaled some cliffs on a landmote in the elemental chaos where some elemental-powered orcs were encamped. The battle was nuts with knocking foes off of the cliffs, slamming them into each other, stuff like that. The monk was having a crazy wuxia battle with a shaman who was summoning birds, cheetahs, etc.
My most recent character was a Tiefling Bard abolitionist, attending my DM's College/Adventuering Police enclave to hide out from the civilization he managed to piss off helping some slaves escape. He had an extremely lousy southern accent, name was Johnny. Played a fiddle, it was not gold.
Last session before the game ended, a series of bad rolls lead to him being left blind from his eyes being burnt out by some weird magic activated oil.
Neat, a 4e thread.
I'm setting up a 4th Edition campaign and I'm wondering if the usual wisdom of starting at level 3 or 5 holds true for this edition. Any opinions on that and on starting wealth/items at that level? I'd prefer if players found their stuff organically, but I want a ball-park to work with.
There's more options for players at higher starting levels, but starting at level 1 isn't terrible in 4e like it can be in other editions. Ymmv on which level to start with really.
Start at level one. Between your class features, starting powers and any bonuses that someone who picks up a theme gets, there's a lot for players to do at level one and it's good having that first level to learn how their character functions at it's core.
I personally think that a level 6 start in D&D 4e is a good idea. It gets players two encounter attack powers, two daily attack powers, and two utility powers, which lets them experiment with multiple combat options. It also gives them a healthy pool of feats, and unlocks their theme's level 5 feature.
I would start 4e at level 1 if, and only if, your players are very new to tactical RPGs altogether, and lack the intuition necessary to rapidly process the value of any given combat ability.
Twice, now, I have started at level 5 or 6 for players who were entirely new to 4e: and they were controlling two PCs each. They were able to play their characters with good efficiency.
Wrong place at the wrong time, honestly. If critical roll had started during 4e's run, I'm personally willing to bet everybody would be playing it instead of 5e, which would have just been the maligned "new edition that changed too much!"
Everything that 4e does that people b***h about, 5e does just as bad, from stupid game abstractions making it too "gamey" to undercooked non-combat systems. 4e's greatest sin was just being a new edition of D&D at a time when there wasn't a massive influx of new people who didn't know any better.
Funnily WotC jumped in on the real play podcast/YouTube video thing super early. Acquisitions Incorporated started as a prerelease promo of 4e and they also did a like 4ish hour session on camera with the Robot Chicken guys back when that show was relevant and funny. They just didn't push for it so they only had like 5 PA episodes and the one RC one. If they had they could have pre-empted CR and even killed it early like it deserved.
Then again AI back then had Wil Wheaton which was painful and disgusting and I could only take a once a year dose of him.
Chris might be an unrelenting shill but he's a fun writer. WotC should have had him run a weekly game podcast/show instead of the once a year they let him out of the mines.
>Wrong place at the wrong time, honestly. If critical roll had started during 4e's run, I'm personally willing to bet everybody would be playing it instead of 5e
Critical Roll played Pathfinder 1e before 5e, I assume because Mercer fricking hated 4e, like most Pathfinder 1e players
Really doubt he "hated" 4e, his pantheon has much more in common with 4e's than either the official golarion/pathfinder one or Great Wheel cosmology. Plus he's a giant Raven Queen fanboy and she was literally 4e-exclusive and Mearls' waifu who didn't exist in any prior edition. He even does 4e-style Skill Challenges. I assume his home game was Pathfinder for the same reason many people's was, 3.X d20 was what they were more familiar with and could easily run.
What were some changes 4e made (that 5e largely abandoned) that you liked? For me, sizing up the halflings was a big one because it made no sense to have them so fricking small as in earlier editions and in 5e.
>halflings are now dwarf sized >it made no sense for people called halflings to be half as tall as a human
4e barely made them taller. Only by like 4-6 inches. Both size options still fit within how Tolkien described Hobbits, with non4e being closer to average and 4e being closer to the higher end which fits the more heroic scale. Dwarves in 4e were still taller with the shortest suggested Dwarf height still being taller than the tallest Halfling height.
The easiest change that 4e made was actually fun Martials but also classes with individual flavor. Sorcerer actually being its own entity instead of Wizard but Charisma is just great.
Warlord. I'm part disappointed and part relieved 5e didn't try to bring it back. Been a minute since I played 3.5, but did it calculate Fortitude, Reflex and Will the same way 4e did? Because losing that is the change I hate most between 4th and 5th.
No, 3.5 used Con for Fort, Dex for Ref, and Wis for Will. You could spend feats or get class features to replace them with other stats, like Keen Intellect for INT to Will or Steadfast Determination for CON to Will.
Also, agreed. There was no benefit to putting 6 saves in the game and making it impossible for anyone to cover all their bases. It forced the creation of Legendary Resistance, which is a shit mechanic even if it's necessary because of how poorly designed 5E is.
No Fort, Ref, Will were saves in 3e. They worked like how 5e does Con, Dex and Wis saves. 3e managed to do it better than 5e at least because it didn't pretend that Str, Int or Cha saves were relevant but both are still worse than 4e's best of two version.
Static defenses instead of saves were just so good in 4e. It made it so you rolled dice on your turn instead of half the classes pointing at things and having the DM roll for you.
The way it handled how saves were calculated was genuinely fricking brilliant, and fixed so many problems with the idea.
5e of course, made the idea much worse.
>aggro
Marking is not at all an aggro mechanic like how MMOs do it
>psuedo weapon/fighting style locking.
What does this even mean?
>Pigeon holes for classes/builds
This only true of PHB 3 and Essentials classes. The early classes had a crazy amount of support to stretch to all sorts of weird places. Unless you are one of those morons who scream about how Fighters can no longer be primarily bow users when you could just play a Ranger and call yourself an archer Fighter.
>Unless you are one of those morons who scream about how Fighters can no longer be primarily bow users when you could just play a Ranger and call yourself an archer Fighter.
NTA, but that there wasn't a Bow Fighter build for ranged marking is honestly a damn shame.
You could mark with a bow. You just couldn't punish those who ignored it when not in melee. There was a build where you used a thrown weapon with a fighting style to turn cleave into a MBA and an RBA to mark two targets, one at range, while staying in melee.
Not much, and, eh, I'd rather play FFT or Fire Emblem than D&D 4e. They're both faster to play and have better stories than the type of DM and player that 4e attracts.
This. The only thing I can think of is maybe making some new races but that's not too hard thankfully.
Sounds based. I'll probably end up stripping the system down to its barebones since that works more with FF's mechanics and feel and then cram it full of the shit I've been theorycrafting for my FFI campaign setting.
>What did it do right? Was it a fun tactical game?
It did most things right. It's only fundamental problem was having mechanics and setting elements that were completely contradictory to established physics within the settings of D&D, such that massive retcons had to occur.
The only other big mistake was the GSL. It's the ENTIRETY of the reason that 4th Edition failed, and all the people who say otherwise are fundamentally ass-mad that 4th Edition outsold 3rd and 3.5 individually (though not if counted as a whole).
It's also worth noting that the supposedly more successful Pathfinder actually outsold 4E was after the D&D Next/5E playtest got released and it became completely clear that there was going to be zero compatibility going forward.
>It's also worth noting that the supposedly more successful Pathfinder actually outsold 4E was after the D&D Next/5E playtest got released and it became completely clear that there was going to be zero compatibility going forward.
Yeah, the actual sales metrics show that while 4th Edition didn't have nearly as deep a stranglehold on the market as 3.5 or 5e had, it was well ahead of its competitors right until the end of the Essentials line. Sales literally died with the D&DNext playtest start, because Next essentially became the new D&D.
The current edition is always the best-selling edition. This is an unbroken pattern of the series (though arguably there was a time that AD&D was being outsold by Basic, but outside that the pattern keeps).
>What did it do right?
Power names, flavor text, simplified high level item advancement than Legacy and narrative items.
Man that was certainly easier to list than what it did wrong. >Was it a fun tactical game?
Fun, if DM redid the entire monster statblocks. Tactical hard no. Sad result of only having maybe 3 real classes, each one just wearing different skins and some having strictly better power versions where the peak of your tactical thinking is not daily resource management but prebuff and then making sure the charisma fire monk doesnt get himself killed by stupidity of triggering the monsters bloodied ability or reaction attack. People that overcome the fundamentally completely fricked up math (so shit that that earlier eds and even 5e dont reach that sheer level of out of the box unplayable even at highest levels) see the potential, but homogenization and lack of detailed mechanical separation is the death of tactics in wargames and tabletop games in general.
>People that overcome the fundamentally completely fricked up math
-3 Hp per Level and 1+ or 2+ damage per level, for monsters above Level 10. And give the players free Expertise and a feat.
This is MM3 math. It's fine.
MM1 and 2 math isn't fundamentally fricked up anyway, they crankes up the HP based on players complaining that fights are over too fast and had to tweak the damage down to compensate for that. Like everything, people blow hearsay out of proportion. See also the Vampire comment above, Vampires aren't top tier but they are perfectly serviceable outside of having too little variety.
That said, I prefer MM3 math, because I want more encounters that go harder.
>they crankes up the HP
Why do you morons keep repeating this shit? One monster type lost like 25% hp. The real math change is that all enemy damage was essentially doubled.
I'm setting up a new game and one of the players is considering playing a Vampire as class. I've been hearing a lot of bad things about it, so I'm considering buffing it a bit. One of the core complaints seems to be that damage is weak, so I'm figuring why not just change [Implement] for [Weapon] and maybe poach some powers from other classes.
If you don't know enough about the system to figure out Vampire's issue at a glance, then you prob ain't gonna be running it at a high enough difficulty for its issues to crop up all that much.
But if you're really worried, then do what the other guy rec'd or look up the Erachima homebrew.
I kinda agree, but things like powers being strictly less interesting and worse versions of other classes in a class with few choices tends to come up (Vampiric Slam vs Crane Kick)
My long running group just moved from 5e to 4e, we'd been playing 5e for like 6 years, after like 5 years of pathfinder. After getting their hands on 4e, they never want to go back.
Didn't fourth have a kind of cool, creative system for resolving noncombat encounters? I vaguely recall this system, where players would act in initiative order as in combat, but would make appropriate skill checks to resolve a situation instead of fighting. The DM would dole out advantages for particularly clever ideas, maybe, then players would collectively accumulate points/lose points against some target encounter value. And this could also happen CONCURRENTLY with combat, so you could make hybrid encounters such as casting a magic ritual while defending the ritual site.
I remember really liking that system, or at least having SOME expanded rules for noncombat encounters beyond a single check... But I have never seen it referenced ever. Did I hallucinate this?
Yeah those are skill challenges. As written in DMG 1 they were dookie but they somewhat improved in DMG 2. I think most people just streamline it further by keeping the Success/Failures chart from DMG 2 and just let their players choose whatever skill they want as long as they can full justify it progressing the task.
Skill challenges are great and super useful for non-combat action scenes in particular. Unfortunately, like the other guy said, the way they were presented initially in the dmg was poorly worded and just ended up confusing the majority of the playerbase.
Honestly the nice thing about Skill Challenges is that they're system-agnostic and very malleable. You can port it directly to other systems and you can modify it as you see fit to make it either fully "gamey" or seamlessly integrated into normal rolling with just the GM keeping track of things.
You kinda want to adapt it to how you and your players prefers things, but either way I feel it really helps with pacing things out for events and scenes without necessitating long prep or railroading.
I think I've seen it in other games to a certain extent too
I know WFRP had a similar concept where some skill checks had a 'persistent' target to be hit over time, and that their skill-checking system, which has varying degrees of success/failure, could see you solving a problem extra fast or extra slow turn-by-turn. That's virtually the same system. And of course you can absolutely port it into any system as a homebrew.
What I should say is, 5E should have really kept it in the DMG. It's simple, but too clever of an idea to throw away entirely. And D&D badly needs meat on the noncombat front.
**1.** Get the Character Builder installer and update from <https://www.dyasdesigns.com/CharacterBuilder/CB-oldbuilder.zip>
**2.** Extract the file from Step 1. It should create a folder named `CB-oldbuilder`.
**3.** Get the 1.4.6.1 CBInstaller.exe and CBLoader.zip from <https://github.com/CBLoader/CBLoader/releases/latest> and save them in the `CB-oldbuilder` folder created in step (2), or save them elsewhere and move them there. This folder should contain these files: `CBLoader.zip`, `CBInstaller.exe`, `Character_Builder_Update_Oct_2010.exe`, and `ddisetup2009April.exe`.
**4.** Run CBInstaller.exe (Windows may complain, and you'll probably have to approve several elevated permissions)
**5.** Delete the "Character Builder" shortcut it creates automatically. (Some people have reported this shortcut does not get created for them; that's fine, move on if that's the case.)
**6.** Move everything from the `CB-oldbuilder` folder created in step (2) into `%APPDATA%CBLoader` (this folder was created during step (4), and is usually found at `C:Users[your username]AppDataRoamingCBLoader`) (see Note below) If the Builder installed properly, but this folder was not created, you can create this folder yourself before this step, but it should not be necessary.
**7.** Run CBInstaller.exe from `%APPDATA%CBLoader`. This should properly install CBLoader and create a "CBLoader" shortcut.
The installation may create another CBLoader.zip file on the desktop when running the shortcut from the desktop the first time. If it does, this extra file can be removed.
Once 1.4.6.1 is installed correctly, it will report itself as 1.4.6 once the Builder's loaded. You can confirm it is installed by creating a character, and looking on the Class tab. The first class should be "Binder" if it has been installed correctly.
4e is pretty cool, but it's hard to play nowadays.
There's an endless pool of 5e drones who can stumble through the rules, and since they're so plentiful you have more options to find a good fit for your table.
There's also a huge amount of pf2e players and the foundry implementation is top notch, which makes play easy.
4e has a small player base, and the people you usually find online are a bunch of autist veterans who derive no pleasure from a regular game and must instead bring forth the most hideous hybrid multiclass abomination with feats and powers from a dozen different sources.
>4e has a small player base, and the people you usually find online are a bunch of autist veterans who derive no pleasure from a regular game and must instead bring forth the most hideous hybrid multiclass abomination with feats and powers from a dozen different sources.
This is a major problem. I've gotten into a couple games from the 4e discord and its always the same 2-3 autists who don't listen to character creation limitations because then they wouldn't have their flavorless jank mechanic abuse character who will then try to crybully you into a meta build if you are running something for fun instead of maximum win the game. And they are all in like 9 games a week.
Anyone got the races and classes or worlds and monsters books?
>This is a major problem. I've gotten into a couple games from the 4e discord and its always the same 2-3 autists who don't listen to character creation limitations because then they wouldn't have their flavorless jank mechanic abuse character who will then try to crybully you into a meta build if you are running something for fun instead of maximum win the game. And they are all in like 9 games a week.
Erachima, RuinsFate?
Erachima and Dr Pepper. Erachima was at least an okay player but Dr Pepper was a giant crybaby who whined and threw hissy fits whenever his character took damage or suffered a status effect.
I tired to make the God Emperor of Mankind before, I remember it was hybrid Paladin/Psion, with the God Emperor Epic, but I can't remember what I picked for Paragon.
>Right
Took inspiration from the greatest D&D supplement of all times, Tome of Battle, so it actually made martials fun
>Wrong
They basically decided that making the abilities actually make sense within the game world was Not Their Problem. It all feels insanely gamey. It feels like they took a lot more inspiration from MMOs than from Vance and Howard.
>so it actually made martials fun
If you NEED ToB to have fun (which is different from "ToB is just another option") with martials it means you have absolutely no clue about how things are supposed to work.
Which shows that 4e is made for morons that need a named point and click power to carry out a given maneuver.
Or maybe I'm better than you at playing martials and find them unimpressive.
>Right
Everything but feeling like D&D to the old grogs.
>Wrong
Didn't feel like D&D to the old grogs.
If you don't want your games feeling like a game, play a story instead. Stop being that homosexual.
>RPGs being immersive is bad
The 4e brain is truly incredible.
>D&D
>Immersive
>EVER
D&D isn't an RPG. It has never been an RPG. It is a dungeon crawling boardgame and skirmish combat wargame. It's roleplay elements are light at best. The fact that you can't see that says so much more about you than it does anyone else.
>can’t render the Apple
D&D as it is written and has always been written actively fights against your ability to render the apple.
What does D&D (all editions no less!) do that literally every other RPG doesn't do that fights against your ability to imagine during the course of the game?
Prescriptive simulationism for realities that don't work in any way like our own.
Thank you for getting to it before I could, and wording it better than I would.
Just go poke your head into /5eg/ or /osrg/ and you will literally see it in action.
Any number of RPGs do this exact thing. Depending on one's reading of of those two five dollar words you used to describe it, ALL RPGs do that exact thing.
No, they don't. Other rpgs either do not prescribe simulationism or those that do have realities that are actually internally consistent.
It literally invented the term. It can’t not be one, because the definition is literally “what D&D is”.
>bb-b-bb-b it FEEL too GAMEY ;_;
because its a game. a dungeon crawling hack n slash. its not a simulation.
>What did it do right?
Basically everything, IF:
You're interested in gamist tactical minis combat
You don't give a frick about Forgotten Realms(you shouldn't)
Contrary to popular belief, sales aren't what killed 4e. WotC pulled a gambit much like what they did with the OGL in 5e, but they pulled it way too early in 4e's life, the game had barely established itself. On top of that they went to paizo first and tried to bully paizo, demanding they follow their OGL to which Paizo said no. Everyone else they went to try and preach the new OGL that they wanted to make "mandatory" said no, so they had to end 4e early, since at that point info was getting out about what they were doing and a boycott that early would have gutted them.
don't forget the murder suicide that killed the VTT they wanted to make causing them to scrap a-lot of their plans as well.
>Contrary to popular belief, sales aren't what killed 4e.
This reminds me of a thread in ENworld. The thread started with a premise: finally numbers were out on the fact that 4e is the edition that sold the least.
The usual 4rrie brigade started their basic passive-aggressive shit derailing the entire thread and using sniping comments to get the OP banned.
I don't even want to name rpg.net, same dynamics 24/7.
damn, sounds like 3.5e fans are weak and incapable of defeat 4chads.
I mean, I presume 4rries are busy moderating forums of losers because none plays 4e.
In any case, the damage control is not going to cancel the revelation that 4e was an embarrassing failure.
>incapable of defeat
Maybe you should try doing that some time.
Ben Riggs is wrong. End of story.
many 4rries, many copes.
Your game is utter shit and failed spectacularly. What was salvageable is now used in PF2e, 5e, and to a lesser extent PF1e. The rest, especially bullshit like minions and other dissociated mechanics, is buried.
It's over, and rightly so.
Cope. Ben Riggs has shit info on 4E.
>Cope. Ben Riggs has shit info on 4E.
Source: your delusional 4rrie ass.
Because this is what you morons are. Delusional.
See this cretin as an example.
>Didn't feel like D&D to the old grogs.
Keep repeating this to himself while every fricking new edition is something new.
What turned people away was mainly 3 things
1) People loved 3ed warts and all, and wanted a fixed 3ed no some shit none care about
2) People hated immersion breaking dissociated mechanics
3) The design team and the initial 4rrie shills behave like the condescending smug morons they are, turning people off.
Your game is shit and failed because is bad.
Source: actually reading what he posted.
>Copes and seethes this hard
>Cries cope
You are pathetic.
>1) People loved 3ed warts and all, and wanted a fixed 3ed no some shit none care about
How'd that work out for Pathfinder? Oh, it had a consumer base of 100k, less than a fourth of Insider accounts? Thought so.
>your shit game failed
then why am i still in two 4e campaigns?
Denial?
It's been a decade. You don't still have to keep lying this hard to cope.
Its no lie, PF2e is just salved 4e.
And its still a failure in play count compared to older eds of D&D.
PF2e is nothing like 4E.
>And its still a failure in play count compared to older eds of D&D.
Explain what you mean by this. If you mean at their peak, no shit, every game not named D&D or 90s VtM comes up short compared to D&D. If you mean right now, no it's not.
In before roll20 metrics from several years ago by a moron who ignores just how bad roll20's support for PF2 and 4E are and Foundry's existence.
4e very well could have sold like shit, but if the info came from Ben "Praise Saint Gary" Riggs, I would be deeply skeptical and wary of it regardless. They guy got to have a few conversations with some random people who worked on D&D at some point and thinks that gives him concrete, unfalsifiable authority of all matters relating to D&D and the RPG industry.
There's also a fundamental difference between getting data from TSR and getting data from Wizards. TSR alumni are happy to provide the data they have. Wizards alumni aren't beyond very very broad strokes.
I don't think we've gotten concrete sales numbers out of WotC ever, come to think of it. Someone could very well work for WotC, but unless they have hard data and actual numbers to show, there's no guarantee that anyone not working in marketing and sales has that info, and knowing Riggs, he probably talked to writers and artists, if he talked to anyone at all.
Fun but bloated. If they had really trimmed it down to fewer but punchier character options and had the monsters balanced correctly on release, it would still piss off 3.5 neckbeards but be an incredible tactical game.
Really all RPGs rulebooks should essentially be skirmish wargame rulesets. The idea of needing more than a reference sheet's worth of rules to run roleplay baffles me.
To this day it is still the best D&D edition
>Charisma to damage
I love how stats in 4e have absolutely no meaning. You could call charisma "sblurch" and intelligence "splotch" and they would have the same gameworld value.
Agonizing Blast.
Why yes i do like having all stats being viable.
>Arcane
5e has the same problem. I understand what the creators are trying to accomplish with charisma casting and such but it really needs to be locked behind advanced class features or prestige classes.
3.5 was peak and it's been downhill ever since
>3.5 was peak
Every complaint I've heard about 4e applies to 3.5e, and every complaint I've experienced with 3.5e and 5 is apparently solved in 4e
Not that non, but, interesting.
Martial caster balance aside, do list these complaints and how 4e solves them.
I'm trying to learn more about the system while trying to find a table to play at.
My favorite is 3.5e, so I'm already biased towards that, so your comparisons will be quite interesting to read.
NTA either, but I played a lot during the 3.5 - 4e times.
The main issues of 4e were
>the CR system is SHIT. Can't trust it, you either go off the cuff and change things on the spot, or you basically have to playtest encounters beforehand.
>Balance between classes and players is, again, SHIT. Some classes are strong in any scenario, other are situational, other are plain weak, and that's not conductive to telling a story.
>and specifically you have people with spells, and people with attacks - spells are specific and cool, attacks are generic and repetitive
4e solves those issues - not completely, the balance at epic levels is still off, but NOT AS MUCH as with 3.5.
You can trust the CR system much more, and the skill challenge system is great if you use it within a combat encounter (because it needs the extra pressure to really shine), something that you'd have to just ad-hoc with 3.5.
And the inter party balance, it's pretty good and you start getting players to execute tag team combos! That's very much on the gamey side, it can feel like a wrestling match, but come on, it's pretty awesome and it doesn't really happen with 3.5 (other than the basic ganging up on 1 opponent at a time, but that's not much of a combo, and it takes the bare minimum of strategy and setup, 4e lets players do much more complex plays).
Part of that is because every attack is a 'power', and can give extra tags and have extra effects, and if a party goes hard for the synergy that can provide, they'll greatly exceed their expected power level (but it's easier than in 3.5 to notice that and compensate) - the downside is that those specific, special attacks can feel pretty samey after a while, none of them feels as special as 3.5 spells, but at the same time not even the basic attacks feel as basic as 3.5 full attacks.
In the end, it's a matter of opinion. I like it because it's easier on the DM (or at least, for me as a DM), especially with dynamic encounters.
>and that's not conductive to telling a story.
You're playing a game not telling a story.
Or maybe you just suck as a storyteller? Why do you need every single humanoid being to be equally capable to tell a good story?
>Why do you need every single humanoid being to be equally capable to tell a good story?
Because that ridiculous hyperbolizing of his actual stance is a more fun game than one that does the best it can to make you feel like a chump or accidentally upstage all your friends, sometimes at their own proposed niche.
>the game is more fun if everyone plays exactly the same
There's nothing wrong with players choosing to play whatever they want to play, the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0. I would argue that making everything perfectly equitable makes the game inherently disinteresting.
It's telling that you think what determines how a class plays is how powerful it is relative to other classes.
Not that anon while I don't disagree with
> the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0
I think that in a good table where everybody is on the same wavelength it wouldn't get to that point because everything would have been discussed even if briefly before it becomes an issue.
At least that's been my experience so far. No player has tried to go too far in our 3.5e game despite the DM allowing almost anything short of homebrew, even homebrew by default. He trusts the party to keep things within the bounds of sanity and to not try and ruin everybody else's fun.
Having varied options that might be imbalanced between those is not really an issue in a table like that.
I was quite impressed when I joined after years of listening to horror stories about 3.5e munchkins and stuff.
Of course, the characters are not balanced as such, but each can do what they were designed to do and don't get in the way of each other's fun, at least that hasn't happened yet.
What classes are your party rolling with?
O crossbow rogue with leadership, a techno-mage (think artificer), a barbarian type with a huge sword, some samurai amalgamation focused on iaijutsu focus, a dmm persist cleric. a warblade kngiht, and a bard sublime chord.
In the past there was a Druid and a more caster-y Cleric too with DMM quicken.
There's also a warlock and a monk sorcerer enlightened fist that some players pick up from time to time, as they are active in the world.
We are seldom all present, usually it´s the dmm cleric, the bard, the rogue and the techno-mage, with the barbarian and the samurai showing up often too.
Well, most of that doesn't look like Core. So you're doing better than my early 2000s 3.5 party.
>the DM has the responsibility of adjudicating when metagaming has gone too far and institute solutions like rolling for stats or pulling a rule 0
Jesus Christ no. That responsibility falls on the group as a whole, if you're playing with friends in real life.
And once you start discussing it, it's soon apparent that spells are awesome, they are flashy and there's always one that's perfect for the specific occasion or one that's generally more powerful than it should for its level, and full attacks aren't exciting enough. And all the other subsystems are somewhere in between... and often used as add-ons to regular magic, come on that's an obvious sign that there's something of a problem.
It doesn't make the edition unplayable, but it definitely is an issue, and it was addressed in 4e.
>the game is more fun if everyone plays exactly the same
Everyine having roughly the same power level is distinct from everyone playing exactly the same.
Indeed, two Martials can play entirely unlike each other via picking different powers, which does not necessarily involve playing a different Class. And it belabors the obvious to say a Wizard, Fighter and Rogue all play differently, despite all working on the same AEDU system.
>two Martials can play entirely unlike each other via picking different powers
Are the powers in 4e that varied?
The question is genuine, by the way, I truly have no idea.
The other anon pitched powers as a way to solve all full attack focused martials feeling the same in combat in 3.5e, but for that the powers need to be meaningfully different, right?
Seriously, I'd love to find a local table playing 4e to give it a spin.
As I said, the DM really doesn't put many limits on us, and yet in practice the game flows super well.
It's such a god damn delight to play with these guys.
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Yeah. Though it depends on what books are and aren't allowed. Each class fills a particular role and has another role as a secondary one. IIRC, Fighters are Defender/Strikers.
A Defender takes damage and keeps enemies focused on attacking him and not the squishier PCs, a Striker just gives out the Hurt. These two Roles and the Leader Role behaving similarly to a Buffer/Healer are what give 4e its reputation of being like WoW or an MMO, along with people's dogged refusal to admit that tabletop RPGs were a major influence on CRPGs and MMOs and the similarities are more like convergeant evolution than an attempt to woo WoWgays.
>The other anon pitched powers as a way to solve all full attack focused martials feeling the same in combat
That was me, so... yes and no.
They give you options, so if you plan ahead, maybe build for it, maybe check what your party can do too, they're really different.
Let's compare, say, a power that deals stat-mod damage to a secondary target, and one that pushes or maybe slides 1.
If your party is playing with vulnerabilities, that small amount of damage might end up being much higher than expected, and that push will pay dividends if the party has put a few zones in play, but otherwise? In a 1v1 fight, in a featureless plain? They're the same power, with an extra line of text that will get ignored.
That's an other way 4e tries to get you to play with the rest of the party, and lean on each other's strengths.
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Yes, sometimes to the point that you have some with far more standout function, and others that sound good on paper, but are nigh useless in practice. 4e's power variety is one of the core fundamentals of it's value as a system, because each member of the party will be contributing different things despite contributing to the same general level of efficacy overall.
See, PCs are designed to be team members engaging in tactical battles in 4e. Thus they must be comparable in the sort of level of power they wield complimentary to their party members. But this does not mean they do everything the same. The Fighter can do damaged, but his job is to be sticky while the Wizard debuffs and wipes minions. The Rogue kills the enemies focusing on the Fighter while the Cleric heals the Fighter to make sure he doesn't fall. This sounds 'obvious', but seeing it in practice is like watching cogs of a clock working in tandem to keep it turning. Hell, even the enemy make up can pull off great teamwork aspects. Any DM of the system who knows how to Aid Attack with a group of minions on a Brute boss has probably watched their Rogue almost shit himself at least once.
(not that anon)
yes but no, the game actually had a lot of different options for every class to make your dude feel unique (for example the fighter's "Fighter talent" that gave you different bonus for using different weapon combinations) but the players at the time were super focused on optimizing the shit out of every class, so if you didn't play the most optimal build you weren't playing the game right. At least that was the vibe back in the day, I hope new 4e players aren't as autistic as players back then.
Still, classes like Fighters, Rogue and Rangers have the potential to playing completly different and taking wildly different roles in battle, so yeah, the games has the potential of giving a ton of variety to martial classes, hell. you can have an entire party with ONLY martial classes and each character would feel different (for example a Dragonborn fighter with a mark build, melee Rogue, Archer Ranger and healer Warlord) so if you want variety in your martial classes the game won't dissapoint
>but the players at the time were super focused on optimizing the shit out of every class, so if you didn't play the most optimal build you weren't playing the game right.
Yes and no. Optimization covers many aspects of build. You can build an optimized Greatweapon Fighter and an optimized Brawler Fighter and they still don't play the same. Two optimized Greatweapon Fighters might likely play similarly to one another, though it also depends on if they go Heavy Blade, Axe, Polearm or some manner of hybrid weapon type. Even within optimization there's a bit of variance that players can account for to not be super samey. But such cases did tend to 'solve' for the best options with a build, and so such builds were more like recipes than guidelines at times.
so players are still autistic about optimization, good to know.
Again, yes and no. Knowing how optimization works doesn't mean all players care. Building something fun gets you further in most games unless you're playing in a high difficulty game typically. Such games hardly resemble vanilla 4e nowadays anyways.
As a newbie 4e GM who's also played with a hyper optimizer GM — the tactical aspect does tend to push the community towards optimization, but the system itself is flexible enough that there's no explicit reason to optimize unless you're obsessed with beating blatantly unfair fights.
Building balanced encounters is fairly easy and the tactical nature of the game means that even if a player builds their PC pretty badly, they're still greatly contributing to the fight simply through various forms of utility that help the rest of the party.
>Are the powers in 4e that varied?
Depends on the class. For a lot of them, at-wills are largely just attack+rider effect, with encounters and dalies being where the real variance appears.
Here's four different power sets for some hypothetical first-level fighters, plus a class feature choice. While they mostly boil down to "hit guy + status effect", "hit two guys", or "hit one guy extra hard", the four should have distinct enough gameplay. This is also before accounting for race, theme, feats, weapon choice, etc.
Are these four power sets good? Probably not, but it's hard to be nonfunctional out the door in 4e unless you're really trying.
Maybe I wasn't clear - if different classes are wildly different in power levels, players are more likely to choose classes that are powerful.
And even when they are mature enough not to just go for the strongest choice, some classes just appeal more than others, I'd rather DM for a variety of characters.
Then again, the most common character is supposed to be a human fighter, but in my experience it was some kind of wizard, often elven, so maybe it's just me and my friends being weird.
>You can trust the CR system much more
That's one thing I've heard before. A result of balance in general being more of a thing I imagine.
>That's very much on the gamey side, it can feel like a wrestling match
That on the other hand is something I never see 4e people admit. Interesting.
>special attacks can feel pretty samey after a while
That was my sense reading the game. The homogenization of power system would make things feel samey and "gamey", which is not necessarily a bad thing, as you said, a matter of opinion or taste. As a 3.5e enjoyer I think I like the more simulationist approach better, but I'll only really know after experiencing 4e.
Thank you for that perspective anon.
Can't wait for the other guy to provide his list.
>The homogenization of power system would make things feel samey and "gamey"
That's not the main culprit, while it's on the game side of design.
It's the combos, which are fun and it's great to see a party coordinate to land them, but are a big step towards Final Fantasy Tactics.
I'd say we need a proper FFT styled rpg. Get some calculators up in here.
Imagine hating on 4e, the single best edition of D&D ever to grace this plane of existence, just because you were too dumb to see its glory or were deceived by the cruel and malicious "sunk cost fallacy" of 3e.
Exactly.
The question isn't "is 4e the best edition ever to exist?", but
>do you want Fell's Five to be published again?
Remember that we were almost going to have river pirates.
That comic was way better than it had any right to be.
Ain't that the truth. I wish it had continued on even after 4e wrapped, was getting incredible there near the end.
4ed didn't even have a functional monster manual halfway its existence.
The MM1 and MM2 are functional, just not as refined as MM3. Even then, those two MM still are better to use and run with than any MM from 3e or 5e.
>The MM1 and MM2 are functional
Factually false.
> those two MM still are better to use and run with than any MM from 3e or 5e
I remember when wotc put out the 4e Phane. I compared it to the 3ed epic Phane and immediately fell asleep.
If for "better" you mean "not intimidating for railroading moronic GM" sure, why not.
>unusable setting breaking monster
vs
>usable monster
>unusable setting breaking monster
If you are a complete moron.
Because this is what 4e is, a game and mentality with an embarrassingly limited scope.
And I would almost be ok with that, if you cretins didn't have this smug attitude to consider your limits and shortsightedness a virtue.
>He doesn't understand the applications of Summon Past Time Duplicate
>Because this is what 4e is, a game
They're all games, George. Every edition.
I didn't fully do the math, but when comparing red dragon stats across different editions, the 4e one did pitiful damage while having the most HP between editions. Looked as if it was balanced for a 10-round battle, versus 3 rounds in 5e. Is this accurate for early 4e monsters in general?
Literally yes. They were all designed for longer combats than in other editions, based on feedback from players that they didn't like short fights. And then they got complaints from the other direction, because you can't please everyone.
So, was 4e to 3.x what 3.x was to AD&D? Did 4e moved more to minigames and 3e was going to another direction?
What is the essential difference between editions anyway?
There are way too many various details to go over between the editions but the move from 3e to 4e could best be summed up as
>Every race being made more viable
>Every class being roughly on parity with one another in in-combat prowess (at least within their role)
>A winnowing of skills from approx 35 skills to 17 and changing how one's skills progressed as one leveled
>The removal of Vancian magic and a move to the AEDU system (at-will, encounter, daily, utility) which was also applied to all classes with each class having a selection of spells, techniques, maneuvers and more to pick from nearly each level
>Feats were altered to eliminate most "feat taxes" as well as giving every character far more feats on average
>A move away from "The Great Wheel" cosmology which devs hated since they would need to develop around far more monsters to fill similar roles and challenge ratings for the other planes of existence. In its place a new cosmology was made with 5 "big" planes and a number of smaller, far less focused on planes/regions
There is far, FAR more but those are the big ones I can think of at the moment before I go to bed.
2e was too focused on campaigns, characters, and potentially doing things outside of a dungeon, so what would now be identified as the "OSR" crowd hates it.
I've only played 2e in one campaign so I'll make no further comments.
3e was tabletop Diablo with its procedural loot, immense mechanical minutia blended with poor wording and generally untrue design statements.
There's nothing quite like 3.pf and it needs to be experienced to be understood. No amount of quoting or whiteroom scenario could adequately communicate the strengths and flaws present. There is a reason for the existence and popularity of epic 6.
4e was tabletop FFT, which was honest and forward about all its gamey aspects, which the 3e crowd hated. Especially the standardized, readable formatting.
Ultimately, 4e is the narrowest, only working for certain types and tones of games, but it's the best at actually doing those games.
5e is just watered down 3e. Depending on the splats used and level, many of the 3.x-era issues will arise almost exactly as they were.
If you're going to play 5e, play a dungeon crawl around levels 3-7 and no other part of the game.
Nobody who has played both 3.5/PF and 5e has ever stated that 5e is just watered down 3.5. They don't have the same gamelan or even game feel.
I was forced to play 3rd edition for 5 years, and have had to play 5e since a year after its launch when my 4e campaign ended and everyone got busy in their careers. They are the same game, 5e has just been sanded down to have less sharp corners. This was even the design philosophy of 5e's development. You are talking out of your ass.
They are not even remotely the same.
I think I'll trust the design documents and my own experiences more than your one-sentence shitposting.
Design documents produced by morons and the experiences of morons don't mean anything. 5E plays nothing like 3.5.
>Nobody who has played both 3.5/PF and 5e has ever stated that 5e is just watered down 3.5. They don't have the same gamelan or even game feel.
Yes they have lmao. 5e was an intentional backpedal away from everything in 4e, the reason tier 3 and tier 4 gameplay is such a shitshow is because it LITERALLY WASN'T PLAYTESTED, they just copy+pasted a bunch of 3rd edition spells and shoved them into the game as-is.
>They don't have the same gamelan or even game feel.
5e is watered down piss compared to 3.5 but they still have a lot of the same problems and discourse, if anything parts are worse since in 3.5 a high level fighter could honestly slaughter a few hundred people pretty easily, meanwhile in 5e a high level fighter can never have more than 20 strength (when he started with 16-18) and a bunch of CR 1/2 Scouts is an existential threat to his life since they only need to roll like a 14+ to hit him and their attacks do not much less damage than the fighter's does.
5e is actually watered down 4e essentials, the warlock class for example is just a 4e character with AEDU powers and a series of regular incremental customization options(invocations).
homie, Warlock EB and Invocations is just OG warlock in all senses from invocations to the typical standard dual prog PRC+Hellfire options wrapped in on base. The only difference is at 17 you can cast a 9th level and UMD was standardized to everyone.
5e warlock is 3.5 warlock with pact options other than Fiend, though.
The first edition since 2e that felt like D&D
Is the Rules Compendium from 4e the best source for the edition?
By and large. I keep a copy of it next to me at all times when I run or play.
For the general rules,yes. But the DMGs were actually pretty handy for general guides and tips on actually running the game, if that's what you're after. I still hear lots of folks gush over DMG2 to the point where they use hints in it even for whole as other games.
What sort of hints?
It has all the basics of Character Creation and rules for running the game. You'll still need PhBs and setting books for player facing content, especially Powers.
>right
Every class had cool interesting powers and progression, lots of options for customization, most classes felt relatively balanced so there wasn’t a huge gap like fighter vs wizard in 3rd edition, finally the art is super cool and it had a lot of settings.
>wrong
All the mechanics outside of combat are fricking moronic; there is a huge difference between in combat and out of combat gameplay almost feeling like a final fantasy game so when you enter in combat feels like a break in the flow of the game and you enter in a completely different game; at the time a lot of the players went full autistic, obsessing over optimization and the game as well as dragon magazine kinda incentivized this; to this day the skill test difficulty escalation and skill challenges must be two of the most fricking moronic mechanics I’ve ever read in a AAA game; the combat was super slow and even boring sometimes, this was specially awful since combat was the strongest mechanic in the game and the main focus.
4e dmg recommends fudging dice which is cringe and not based at all.
>Right
Combat was an actually fun and interesting part of the game mechanics, rather than an obligation. Martials got to do more than basic attack or spam trip every turn. Despite the sperging you see about it, the skill challenge system was actually a good framework for creating non-combat encounters. Heavily disincentivised the "I cast solve problem" gameplay other editions' spellcasters had. Class balance and viability was at an all time high. The DMG gave actually good advice. Items and abilities were clear in what they did, and formatting was consistent.
>bad
Some homogenization in classes, particularly within roles, though still less than a 5e wizard and sorcerer. Having more than one option for a fighter in combat is too much for most martialgays, as evidenced by the most popular 5e fighter subclass being the "just get more stats" one. Scaling skill check difficulty was not implemented well and lead to some weirdness. There was a strong divide between in and out-of-combat gameplay, which added to the gameyness. The MM1 and 2 problem is overblown IMO - it was a bit off, but pick up a 3rd or 5th edition MM and try to tell me these will create a balanced encounter consistently read as written. The gear treadmill was a bit heavy handed unless you used the alternate base scaling from dark sun.
4e was a system that had an actual goal and unified design focus, which made is very good at what it did (tactical gamey battles) and bad at most other things. This gave it a unique niche, compared to soulless slop like 5e or GURPS, but also meant that the average consumer bounced off ot because they were here to crowbar the one system they use into everything.
>Scaling skill check difficulty was not implemented well
It was implemented fine it's just a litmus test for morons being able to understand what they're reading.
One thing I really like about 4e is the ability to challenge tactically savvy players with enemy group synergies.
For example, let us consider an encounter against a group of xivort darters (level 1 artilleries) who have tamed a bunch of thornskin frogs (level 1 brutes) and wolf packmates (level 1 minion skirmishers).
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster5029
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster4879
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster4614
The xivort darters can daze PCs, which is annoying enough. However, the thornskin frogs can move in to deal heavy damage and knock PCs prone. Standing from prone takes a move action, and a dazed creature can take only one action on their turn, so a dazed PC who wants to use a standard action will have to settle for staying prone. Unfortunately, the wolf packmates can then move in to deal extra damage to the prone PCs. Simple but nasty enemy synergize.
How about a positioning challenge for PCs of a slightly higher level? Let us say a couple of centurions of the Iron Circle (level 6 soldiers) have rounded up several dwarf warriors (level 1 minion artilleries) and a couple of extremist wilden ancients (level 4 artilleries [leader]) to stir up trouble.
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster6025
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster115713
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster5027
The Iron Circle centurions are highly accurate against PCs with no other adjacent PCs... but if the PCs cluster up, then they might just be smacked by nasty area attacks from the wilden ancients, who can also buff the centurions. Worse, the dwarf warriors are many in number, and any PC not in cover is liable to be pincushioned by the extra damage from the crossbow attacks.
I like how 4e is a 30-level game, yet even lower-level encounters can have a surprising amount of tactical depth just with some good enemy selection, to say nothing of terrain.
As a forever DM, I loved the sheer amount of options that 4e had for putting together combat encounters, and just the usefulness of the DM tools overall.
Like you said, even level 1 enouncters have a ton of room for cool and interesting things with a ton of depth in them.
Everytime this thread comes up the same exact autist comes to them all. It's honestly impressive that someone hates 4E to the point of actively seeking out 4E threads just to go 4RRRIE
Maybe he treats it like punching a pillow, his life sucks so he needs to cope lmao
Pic related alone makes running this system the best of any D&D edition.
I'll tell you from step one, thing it did wrong was Wayne Barlowe art on the cover. Frick do I hate his style, and it just made me think of Pathfinder. Which, coincidentally, there's "going for popular" but making the covers of your books look the same as your main competitor at the time must do something subconsciously psychologically for sales. But frick do I hate it.
I like the Pathfinder Wayne Reynolds designs; they're consistent and have lots of character. I just kinda ignore the boob windows.
He also draws Adventurers how they would actually look, with the amount of gear and trinkets a 3.pf character has.
>Wayne Barlowe
I wouldn't mind a monster manual illustrated by Wayne Barlow, but I think you mean the other Wayne who draws.
Frick me, I even searched it to make sure I had the right Wayne, did, posted similarly in another thread, and then my brain just tried to replace him with a favorable artist. I love Barlowe and have used his art in games, a MM by him would be a fricking dream. Reynolds. I meant Reynolds.
I'll concede in that to a point - I do truly love how, throughout the books, the designs are consistent and the same adventurers for the same classes. I like the iconic feel of that, and the easy visual language there of who's what. You're also correct with the overloaded gear. However, that and his very sharp-lined style makes shit WAY too goddamn busy, proportions are often completely shifting, his use of color is consistently washed out, and while this may be the fault of Pathfinder there's no internal consistency to the world's designs, even if the designs are identifiable. And for things in motion or "action shots", everything comes off as very flat, undynamic, and not drawn in a way where anything draws your focus, it's just a bunch of shit included because it's supposed to be there or something. He's good on a "identifying silhouettes" level, but everything else is just messy, hard to read, and frustrating to me.
Worst fricking goblins I've ever seen either, by a country mile.
You moronic fricking monkey simulationism means it is attempting to simulate reality with it's rules rather than accomplish the objective of being a game first, e.g. GURPS. It works better for gurps because gurps actually attempts to make an internally consistent world and ruleset that is somewhat in line with our own so that the reality you attempt to simulate makes some modicum of sense for story telling. D&D is a game first, not a narrative creator. It's rules are completely arbitrary and SHOULD be aimed entirely at accomplishing whatever functions the game sets out to achieve (swords & sorcery dungeon crawling, high fantasy adventures, etc.) but instead half of them are warped to try and fit some kind sense of realism in a world that is completely inconsistent both relative to our own and in a vacuum. It's rules tell you that you should pretend it's a simulation of a fictional reality when it's immediately not making the entire experience like pulling fingernails unless you turn your fricking brain off.
D&D wants to pretend like you can do anything with it so it can sell to more people except you can barely even do what you're actually fricking supposed to with it.
>still can't render apples but now is mad about it an arguing GNS theory like it fricking matters at all when rendering apples
Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
In the first case no, by raw you have to battle of attrition the dragon hp to 0 before dressing the scene with a cool narration of the arrow hitting the vulnerable spot and thus killing smaug once for all, with gurps you can re-enact the scene by raw 1:1.
Some people like the first case (d&d) because they're more interested in the game aspect and narration as just a dressing overlay (rendering the apple IN POST), stating to try a desperate 1 in a million strike to win the encounter is seen as a way to bypass the game, the latter (GURPS) is preferred by people that want rules to harmonize with the scene (rendering the apple BEFOREHAND). Simple as.
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
Yes. By making Smaug a minion with an inordinately (for a minion) powerful breath attack and flying. It's a bit weird for the Dragon guarding his hoard and main antagonist for much of the story to be a mere minion, but it kind of suits the way the Hobbit played out. The real bastard would be trying to get the Battle of Five Armies going.
Why in the goddamned frick is Martial Power 1 15kb when all the others are like, 3 or 4kb?
i comend you for trying to stay raw but as you can see the result is a bit silly
this is better, althoug you're clearly working backwards in order to fit smaug scenario within the rules contraints (as in rendering the apple in post).
>you can't actually do this scene using GURPS
wtf are you talkin about, smaug case is a near impossible feat but definetly doable, it's a heart called shot modified by other various features (speed/distance and so).
>althoug you're clearly working backwards in order to fit smaug scenario within the rules contraints
Wrong. Plenty of creatures have similar weaknesses and plenty of magic items like that exist. Could've been an arrow of dragon slaying.
>wtf are you talkin about, smaug case is a near impossible feat but definetly doable, it's a heart called shot modified by other various features (speed/distance and so).
The other anon is right, it's literally not possible for Bard to have made that shot. Not to mention it would not have killed.
>Wrong. Plenty of creatures have similar weaknesses and plenty of magic items like that exist. Could've been an arrow of dragon slaying.
Imagine not having one, imagine you try for an eye shot (because that's the only vulnerable point you can be aware of without deus ex machinas telling you), is it out of the world trying a desperate action as such in a desperate situation?
>The other anon is right, it's literally not possible for Bard to have made that shot. Not to mention it would not have killed.
explain why
>Imagine not having one,
You chose the scenario fricker. The specific scenario was the black arrow killing a red dragon which is presumed magical.
>explain why
Burden of proof is on you actually.
But here's a spoonfeed, a called shot to vitals is 3x.
Let's say 80 hit points for the ancient dragon, 1d6 from the arrow, +3 for strength lets say, assume he rolls the 6 and a crit and doubles it for magic arrow. 54 damage.
>You chose the scenario fricker. The specific scenario was the black arrow killing a red dragon which is presumed magical.
None of the arrows traits (extreme durability, shapness) are reconductive of "magic" perse or dragon-slaying in specific
>Burden of proof is on you actually.
Ok, per Fantasy splat, which has a racial template for old Dragons, an average old dragon has 30hp (10 base + ST+20), so your 54dmg would be more than enough to have the dragon roll on HT to try and avoid KO (which failing at would mean having smaug falling inside the lake and drowning as consequence).
Black Arrow
Magic item
Never breaks. On a crit, kill the target.
Smaug
Special Trait: Think in the Armor. Whenever a hit exceeds the AC of this creature by 5, it automatically becomes a critical hit.
Also GURPS sucks ass and you can't actually do this scene using GURPS
>can you pull a Bard vs Smaug
A DMPC pulling out a special kill weapon that one shots the Big Bad Enemy Guy through his only weakness? Sure, the DM narrates how the DMPC knows of a special arrow, in this case a family heirloom, and has the PCs go about getting the BBEG dragon, who cant be killed by any skills the PCs actually have, into the right place for the DM to narrate the sweet kill shot his special NPC, created specifically to kill the bad guy, pulls it off.
Its literally doable in every system.
Do you realise your're literally being the guy that thinks
>to try a desperate 1 in a million strike to win the encounter is seen as a way to bypass the game
?
You're implicitly reinforcing my point instead of refuting it.
Hey, you're the one who laid the scenario down with no details beyond reference, I just used the actual scenario as it happened in the book. Bard is an NPC and clearly there to do one thing initially, kill Smaug, as was written in Tolkeins notes. The actual PCs, Bilbo and Thorin's company, do little to nothing in killing Smaug, and Bard goes on to be an antagonist out to claim the PCs new hoard and home, bringing in an army to claim what he thinks is rightfully his.
I can see why youre upset, thinking you created some special scenario that 4e "clearly" fails at, but all you did was post some idiocy that in a real campaign would be entirely a DM contrivance, no matter the system. Besides, its remarkably simple to make it possible even in 4e, Smaug just has a special weakness that kills him instantly that any well-trained, aka mid level, archer could pull off, especially with a "lucky" or magical arrow. He'd still be a high CR enemy, but for the contrivance of the story, he would have a very debilitating weakness.
>Hey, you're the one who laid the scenario down with no details beyond reference,
yes, because nothing more is needed
>I just used the actual scenario as it happened in the book. Bard is an NPC
not necessarily, you can take the scenario as-is, assume Bard is a PC
>and clearly there to do one thing initially, kill Smaug, as was written in Tolkeins notes.
See above, in the context of a TTRPG scenario Bard sees a desperate situation an tries an all-or-nothing gambit
>I can see why youre upset,
Why would i be?
>thinking you created some special scenario that 4e "clearly" fails at
No, i made a scenario that wouldn't emerge spontanously in D&D (not 4e specifically) but could in a simulationist rulesystem. Some other anon replyied making examples in how to PROJECT this scenario in D&D (which is entarely possible).
>i made a scenario that wouldn't emerge spontanously in D&D
Bard vs smaug shit does not spontaneously arise in DnD or any other system. Fighting dragons, yes, but not super special dragons only killable by a single point of weakness that are killed by a super special noble bowman and his maybe magical arrows. Shit like this is entirely done by shit DMs desperate to emulate Tolkien and his books utterly disregarding that they are in many instances arbitrary stories made to please children.
And as I even said, it is still fricking possible to do in 4e, and many other editions of DnD.
Dual Arrows are magical roll twice take best roll arrows, Smaug is an Ancient Red with a special DM made weakness so the PC can kill it at a much lower level than should be normally possible, for some random stupid reason. There, Bard vs Smaug done and dusted and entirely possible in 4e.
>Bard vs smaug shit does not spontaneously arise in DnD or any other system.
Wrong, if the rulesystem has rules for called shots and the likes it could.
>Fighting dragons, yes, but not super special dragons only killable by a single point of weakness that are killed by a super special noble bowman and his maybe magical arrows.
Putting destiny aside (which is another element tha could be simulated by gurps btw), shooting an arrow to a dragon is part of the "Fighting dragons" scenarios.
>Shit like this is entirely done by shit DMs desperate to emulate Tolkien and his books utterly disregarding that they are in many instances arbitrary stories made to please children.
Did ever happened to you of having a player saying stuff like "i aim at the monster eye!" or something similar? Imagine the Bard case being one of these.
>And as I even said, it is still fricking possible to do in 4e, and many other editions of DnD.
Yes as a prepared scenario
>Not him but here's an actual example: can you pull a Bard vs Smaug in D&D or GURPS?
An NPC killing the BBEG offscreen? Yeah. It'd be kind of shit though.
Write a novel, homosexual.
Captcha: TSR2S
Is there any chance to get the Powers pdfs still? Already looked into the archive, no luck there.
Sure, let's give it a go.
Thanks for your magic, anon. Bless you.
Thanks for the pdfs. 4E pdfs are tricky to find.
I have all the pdfs except like 4 adventures and about half of the Dragon Magazines (which are all on the Wayback Machine so I'm not that fussed). What's a good place to dump them since the 4e folder on the share thread is shockingly dogshit?
No idea other than said share thread. I had to dig through the archives to find even a few base books. I've heard 4e has a lot of great stuff to steal from for other games, which is where my interest is. So far it is interesting and I feel like it didn't deserve the bad rap it got.
Honestly? Here. Safer that way than dropping a link some assclown can follow back and fire up and get shut down like the Zweihander.
The files are too powerful to post here but here is a link to almost everything. Its missing Dragon/Dungeon Magazines which are easy enough to find and like 3? maybe more? adventures.
https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/rpg(dot)rem(dot)uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/D%26D%204th%20Edition/
Not mine btw. I just had it saved from a 4e thread from like a year or so ago.
Here is the Psionic Book: https://files.catbox.moe/la19gm.pdf
The Players Handbook 3, Dungeon Survival Handbook, and the Dark Sun book has a bunch more psionic stuff if you are interested in it.
IWS.mx has a nice index if you just wanna look at the stuff itself
Fair warning, I don't have Psionic Power, no idea why either it wasn't in whatever trove I scraped these from or I just figured "enh, I have it in deadtree."
And I can't add Martial Power 1 Because apparently it's too big for Ganker. Goddamn it.
I'll never understand the "gurps is a realistic simulation" people. in the one session of gurps I played I shot a character in the head with a .44 magnum and he didn't die. no it wasn't a low roll, no he didn't have superhuman abilities, and no he wasn't wearing a helmet or anything.
gurps is more simulationistic than others but that doesn't mean is perfect, another example of rule silliness in gurps is how by default armor dr work: a 13 str individual can cleave through steel armor almost effortlessly
4e is extremely gamey and open about it’s gameyness, but it’s a fricking game, and it’s good at being a game
you don’t need rules to tell you how to roleplay, and 4e actually has better rules for non-combat encounters than other editions, lacking a lot of the spells that let you completely bypass problems and having skill challenges for complex situations that can’t be resolved by a single skill check (although most people are bad at using skill challenges well in their games)
non-combat mechanics are also largely system agnostic so you can easily use skill challenges in other editions or use another editions non-combat mechanics in 4e
i use dungeon and wilderness exploration rules from b/x in 4e and it works perfectly well
the game definitely has its flaws but they’re minor nitpicks compared to everything wrong with 3.5 or 5e
the real reason it drew so much hate is that it slaughtered a lot of d&d’s sacred cows, but it’s unironically closer to original d&d in terms of tone and structure than other modern editions are
It seems to be getting something of a reevaluation with several new(ish) games taking strongly after it. That seems like vindication.
There's a few good ideas that can be applied to any version of D&D from 3rd on.
Such as basing the three saves on the higher of two stats, at least lessening Dex's god-stat status somewhat.
But, the base game itself is honestly pretty boring and overtuned.
what I don't understand is why are you still talking about it
it's been dead for longer than it's been alive. Why do you gain from rehashing old arguments over and over and over
There's a wholee ass general about even older and deader systems, from a dead company, who's founders are dead.
MCMD or whatever is called is probably a revival of 4e, knowing how much the author loves that edition.
Not really, it pretty much fails to catch the appeal of 4e based on what's been revealed so far. Too much of a blatant "streamer game".
4e is the farthest mechanically & gameplay wise from the TSR era of D&D. that being said as a miniatures combat game it's OK. as a roleplaying game i feel it fails.
Anyone have fun stories about their 4e characters or campaigns? Looking for some inspiration right now.
Several months ago, my 4e Eberron (Sharn, specifically) game had a rather wild sequence. After a combat against some incorporeal undead, which was necessary to secure a certain MacGuffin, I immediately had the undead return at full hit points and perfect condition. The PCs had to run away across a vast, vast map. While three out of four PCs were able to make it to their skycoach and start it up, one PC was lagging behind due to undead double-running and ganging up on them. That PC, at single digit hit points, had to hurl themselves off a Sharn towertop, and let the rest of the party swoop in with their skycoach and catch them.
(Feather fall consumables do not exist in 4e. Also, they were specifically trying to get away from a mass of incorporeal undead, so they needed to achieve great speed in a freefall.)
Felt very action movie.
Okay, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Personally I remember the "Battle of the Cliffs" where my party scaled some cliffs on a landmote in the elemental chaos where some elemental-powered orcs were encamped. The battle was nuts with knocking foes off of the cliffs, slamming them into each other, stuff like that. The monk was having a crazy wuxia battle with a shaman who was summoning birds, cheetahs, etc.
My most recent character was a Tiefling Bard abolitionist, attending my DM's College/Adventuering Police enclave to hide out from the civilization he managed to piss off helping some slaves escape. He had an extremely lousy southern accent, name was Johnny. Played a fiddle, it was not gold.
Last session before the game ended, a series of bad rolls lead to him being left blind from his eyes being burnt out by some weird magic activated oil.
Hello, can you guys please keep your autistic moron off /vrpg/? Thanks!
If you wanted an autistic moron off of /vrpg/ there's a pill to help with that.
>there's a pill to help with that.
I'm sure you would know.
As mentioned. He travels to anywhere 4E is mentioned.
You're on /tg/, we're all autistic morons.
Neat, a 4e thread.
I'm setting up a 4th Edition campaign and I'm wondering if the usual wisdom of starting at level 3 or 5 holds true for this edition. Any opinions on that and on starting wealth/items at that level? I'd prefer if players found their stuff organically, but I want a ball-park to work with.
Level 1 in 4E is like 3 in other editions.
There's more options for players at higher starting levels, but starting at level 1 isn't terrible in 4e like it can be in other editions. Ymmv on which level to start with really.
Start at level one. Between your class features, starting powers and any bonuses that someone who picks up a theme gets, there's a lot for players to do at level one and it's good having that first level to learn how their character functions at it's core.
I like starting at level 2 so that everyone has a Utility power and at least 2 feats. Sometimes someone needs that second feat to come online.
Level 1 is fine though. Its not the boring slog of 3rd and 5th editions
I personally think that a level 6 start in D&D 4e is a good idea. It gets players two encounter attack powers, two daily attack powers, and two utility powers, which lets them experiment with multiple combat options. It also gives them a healthy pool of feats, and unlocks their theme's level 5 feature.
I would start 4e at level 1 if, and only if, your players are very new to tactical RPGs altogether, and lack the intuition necessary to rapidly process the value of any given combat ability.
Twice, now, I have started at level 5 or 6 for players who were entirely new to 4e: and they were controlling two PCs each. They were able to play their characters with good efficiency.
That's way too much character creation for anyone new to the game. Your playgroup is clearly biased to hardcore tactics RPG nerds.
Wrong place at the wrong time, honestly. If critical roll had started during 4e's run, I'm personally willing to bet everybody would be playing it instead of 5e, which would have just been the maligned "new edition that changed too much!"
Everything that 4e does that people b***h about, 5e does just as bad, from stupid game abstractions making it too "gamey" to undercooked non-combat systems. 4e's greatest sin was just being a new edition of D&D at a time when there wasn't a massive influx of new people who didn't know any better.
Funnily WotC jumped in on the real play podcast/YouTube video thing super early. Acquisitions Incorporated started as a prerelease promo of 4e and they also did a like 4ish hour session on camera with the Robot Chicken guys back when that show was relevant and funny. They just didn't push for it so they only had like 5 PA episodes and the one RC one. If they had they could have pre-empted CR and even killed it early like it deserved.
Then again AI back then had Wil Wheaton which was painful and disgusting and I could only take a once a year dose of him.
I still think it's hilarious that Perkins brought back Wil's character as a villain later on without him.
Chris might be an unrelenting shill but he's a fun writer. WotC should have had him run a weekly game podcast/show instead of the once a year they let him out of the mines.
>Wrong place at the wrong time, honestly. If critical roll had started during 4e's run, I'm personally willing to bet everybody would be playing it instead of 5e
Critical Roll played Pathfinder 1e before 5e, I assume because Mercer fricking hated 4e, like most Pathfinder 1e players
>because Mercer fricking hated 4e
Isn't he shilling it all the time or is that someone else? I don't keep up with ecelebs.
It's the other Matt, Matt Coleville
Really doubt he "hated" 4e, his pantheon has much more in common with 4e's than either the official golarion/pathfinder one or Great Wheel cosmology. Plus he's a giant Raven Queen fanboy and she was literally 4e-exclusive and Mearls' waifu who didn't exist in any prior edition. He even does 4e-style Skill Challenges. I assume his home game was Pathfinder for the same reason many people's was, 3.X d20 was what they were more familiar with and could easily run.
What were some changes 4e made (that 5e largely abandoned) that you liked? For me, sizing up the halflings was a big one because it made no sense to have them so fricking small as in earlier editions and in 5e.
>halflings are now dwarf sized
>it made no sense for people called halflings to be half as tall as a human
4e barely made them taller. Only by like 4-6 inches. Both size options still fit within how Tolkien described Hobbits, with non4e being closer to average and 4e being closer to the higher end which fits the more heroic scale. Dwarves in 4e were still taller with the shortest suggested Dwarf height still being taller than the tallest Halfling height.
The easiest change that 4e made was actually fun Martials but also classes with individual flavor. Sorcerer actually being its own entity instead of Wizard but Charisma is just great.
>What were some changes 4e made (that 5e largely abandoned) that you liked?
All of them.
Warlord. I'm part disappointed and part relieved 5e didn't try to bring it back. Been a minute since I played 3.5, but did it calculate Fortitude, Reflex and Will the same way 4e did? Because losing that is the change I hate most between 4th and 5th.
No, 3.5 used Con for Fort, Dex for Ref, and Wis for Will. You could spend feats or get class features to replace them with other stats, like Keen Intellect for INT to Will or Steadfast Determination for CON to Will.
Also, agreed. There was no benefit to putting 6 saves in the game and making it impossible for anyone to cover all their bases. It forced the creation of Legendary Resistance, which is a shit mechanic even if it's necessary because of how poorly designed 5E is.
No Fort, Ref, Will were saves in 3e. They worked like how 5e does Con, Dex and Wis saves. 3e managed to do it better than 5e at least because it didn't pretend that Str, Int or Cha saves were relevant but both are still worse than 4e's best of two version.
Static defenses instead of saves were just so good in 4e. It made it so you rolled dice on your turn instead of half the classes pointing at things and having the DM roll for you.
Almost every 4e campaign I've played in or DM'd has had a Warlord player and when the party doesn't have one I'm genuinely disappointed.
It's such a cool and interesting class.
The way it handled how saves were calculated was genuinely fricking brilliant, and fixed so many problems with the idea.
5e of course, made the idea much worse.
>Right
Brought martial and casters within a semblance of equality between each other.
Sped up combat to something tolerable.
Encouraged party synergy within the playgroup.
Gave even the worst role players something in terms of flavour and description text to use.
>Wrong
Stuck D&D on it.
Snowflake races as core choices.
Aggro and other MMO like mechanics like psuedo weapon/fighting style locking.
Pigeon holes for classes/builds
The "board gamey" feel of tactical combat
>Neutral
The daily/encounter/at-will division.
Short vs. Long rest.
Healing surges.
>aggro
Marking is not at all an aggro mechanic like how MMOs do it
>psuedo weapon/fighting style locking.
What does this even mean?
>Pigeon holes for classes/builds
This only true of PHB 3 and Essentials classes. The early classes had a crazy amount of support to stretch to all sorts of weird places. Unless you are one of those morons who scream about how Fighters can no longer be primarily bow users when you could just play a Ranger and call yourself an archer Fighter.
>Unless you are one of those morons who scream about how Fighters can no longer be primarily bow users when you could just play a Ranger and call yourself an archer Fighter.
NTA, but that there wasn't a Bow Fighter build for ranged marking is honestly a damn shame.
You could mark with a bow. You just couldn't punish those who ignored it when not in melee. There was a build where you used a thrown weapon with a fighting style to turn cleave into a MBA and an RBA to mark two targets, one at range, while staying in melee.
It inspired a lot of good games like Valor (ValorousGames) and Maiesta
Not much, and, eh, I'd rather play FFT or Fire Emblem than D&D 4e. They're both faster to play and have better stories than the type of DM and player that 4e attracts.
All the people calling 4e FFT or comparing the two have me convinced I should try to run some homebrewed 4e abomination for my FF campaign.
You probably don't even need homebrew. Some refluffing and clever use of hybrids will probably get you essentially there
This. The only thing I can think of is maybe making some new races but that's not too hard thankfully.
Sounds based. I'll probably end up stripping the system down to its barebones since that works more with FF's mechanics and feel and then cram it full of the shit I've been theorycrafting for my FFI campaign setting.
>What did it do right? Was it a fun tactical game?
It did most things right. It's only fundamental problem was having mechanics and setting elements that were completely contradictory to established physics within the settings of D&D, such that massive retcons had to occur.
The only other big mistake was the GSL. It's the ENTIRETY of the reason that 4th Edition failed, and all the people who say otherwise are fundamentally ass-mad that 4th Edition outsold 3rd and 3.5 individually (though not if counted as a whole).
It's also worth noting that the supposedly more successful Pathfinder actually outsold 4E was after the D&D Next/5E playtest got released and it became completely clear that there was going to be zero compatibility going forward.
>It's also worth noting that the supposedly more successful Pathfinder actually outsold 4E was after the D&D Next/5E playtest got released and it became completely clear that there was going to be zero compatibility going forward.
Yeah, the actual sales metrics show that while 4th Edition didn't have nearly as deep a stranglehold on the market as 3.5 or 5e had, it was well ahead of its competitors right until the end of the Essentials line. Sales literally died with the D&DNext playtest start, because Next essentially became the new D&D.
The current edition is always the best-selling edition. This is an unbroken pattern of the series (though arguably there was a time that AD&D was being outsold by Basic, but outside that the pattern keeps).
>What did it do right?
Power names, flavor text, simplified high level item advancement than Legacy and narrative items.
Man that was certainly easier to list than what it did wrong.
>Was it a fun tactical game?
Fun, if DM redid the entire monster statblocks. Tactical hard no. Sad result of only having maybe 3 real classes, each one just wearing different skins and some having strictly better power versions where the peak of your tactical thinking is not daily resource management but prebuff and then making sure the charisma fire monk doesnt get himself killed by stupidity of triggering the monsters bloodied ability or reaction attack. People that overcome the fundamentally completely fricked up math (so shit that that earlier eds and even 5e dont reach that sheer level of out of the box unplayable even at highest levels) see the potential, but homogenization and lack of detailed mechanical separation is the death of tactics in wargames and tabletop games in general.
>People that overcome the fundamentally completely fricked up math
-3 Hp per Level and 1+ or 2+ damage per level, for monsters above Level 10. And give the players free Expertise and a feat.
>-3 Hp per Level
Dumb idea. Too much alpha striking.
This is MM3 math. It's fine.
MM1 and 2 math isn't fundamentally fricked up anyway, they crankes up the HP based on players complaining that fights are over too fast and had to tweak the damage down to compensate for that. Like everything, people blow hearsay out of proportion. See also the Vampire comment above, Vampires aren't top tier but they are perfectly serviceable outside of having too little variety.
That said, I prefer MM3 math, because I want more encounters that go harder.
MM3 doesn't reduce HP.
>they crankes up the HP
Why do you morons keep repeating this shit? One monster type lost like 25% hp. The real math change is that all enemy damage was essentially doubled.
>Why do you morons keep repeating this shit?
From 3.5 to 4e, speedreader-kun.
I'm setting up a new game and one of the players is considering playing a Vampire as class. I've been hearing a lot of bad things about it, so I'm considering buffing it a bit. One of the core complaints seems to be that damage is weak, so I'm figuring why not just change [Implement] for [Weapon] and maybe poach some powers from other classes.
Just have them take this MC feat rather than play the full dogshit class
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=feat3626
You get all the fluffy features without being stuck with its bad and boring powers. And you can take more MC feats to get the few powers you do want.
If you don't know enough about the system to figure out Vampire's issue at a glance, then you prob ain't gonna be running it at a high enough difficulty for its issues to crop up all that much.
But if you're really worried, then do what the other guy rec'd or look up the Erachima homebrew.
I kinda agree, but things like powers being strictly less interesting and worse versions of other classes in a class with few choices tends to come up (Vampiric Slam vs Crane Kick)
My long running group just moved from 5e to 4e, we'd been playing 5e for like 6 years, after like 5 years of pathfinder. After getting their hands on 4e, they never want to go back.
Didn't fourth have a kind of cool, creative system for resolving noncombat encounters? I vaguely recall this system, where players would act in initiative order as in combat, but would make appropriate skill checks to resolve a situation instead of fighting. The DM would dole out advantages for particularly clever ideas, maybe, then players would collectively accumulate points/lose points against some target encounter value. And this could also happen CONCURRENTLY with combat, so you could make hybrid encounters such as casting a magic ritual while defending the ritual site.
I remember really liking that system, or at least having SOME expanded rules for noncombat encounters beyond a single check... But I have never seen it referenced ever. Did I hallucinate this?
Yeah those are skill challenges. As written in DMG 1 they were dookie but they somewhat improved in DMG 2. I think most people just streamline it further by keeping the Success/Failures chart from DMG 2 and just let their players choose whatever skill they want as long as they can full justify it progressing the task.
Skill challenges are great and super useful for non-combat action scenes in particular. Unfortunately, like the other guy said, the way they were presented initially in the dmg was poorly worded and just ended up confusing the majority of the playerbase.
Honestly the nice thing about Skill Challenges is that they're system-agnostic and very malleable. You can port it directly to other systems and you can modify it as you see fit to make it either fully "gamey" or seamlessly integrated into normal rolling with just the GM keeping track of things.
You kinda want to adapt it to how you and your players prefers things, but either way I feel it really helps with pacing things out for events and scenes without necessitating long prep or railroading.
I think I've seen it in other games to a certain extent too
I know WFRP had a similar concept where some skill checks had a 'persistent' target to be hit over time, and that their skill-checking system, which has varying degrees of success/failure, could see you solving a problem extra fast or extra slow turn-by-turn. That's virtually the same system. And of course you can absolutely port it into any system as a homebrew.
What I should say is, 5E should have really kept it in the DMG. It's simple, but too clever of an idea to throw away entirely. And D&D badly needs meat on the noncombat front.
Anybody have the .zip for the character builder?
**1.** Get the Character Builder installer and update from <https://www.dyasdesigns.com/CharacterBuilder/CB-oldbuilder.zip>
**2.** Extract the file from Step 1. It should create a folder named `CB-oldbuilder`.
**3.** Get the 1.4.6.1 CBInstaller.exe and CBLoader.zip from <https://github.com/CBLoader/CBLoader/releases/latest> and save them in the `CB-oldbuilder` folder created in step (2), or save them elsewhere and move them there. This folder should contain these files: `CBLoader.zip`, `CBInstaller.exe`, `Character_Builder_Update_Oct_2010.exe`, and `ddisetup2009April.exe`.
**4.** Run CBInstaller.exe (Windows may complain, and you'll probably have to approve several elevated permissions)
**5.** Delete the "Character Builder" shortcut it creates automatically. (Some people have reported this shortcut does not get created for them; that's fine, move on if that's the case.)
**6.** Move everything from the `CB-oldbuilder` folder created in step (2) into `%APPDATA%CBLoader` (this folder was created during step (4), and is usually found at `C:Users[your username]AppDataRoamingCBLoader`) (see Note below) If the Builder installed properly, but this folder was not created, you can create this folder yourself before this step, but it should not be necessary.
**7.** Run CBInstaller.exe from `%APPDATA%CBLoader`. This should properly install CBLoader and create a "CBLoader" shortcut.
The installation may create another CBLoader.zip file on the desktop when running the shortcut from the desktop the first time. If it does, this extra file can be removed.
Once 1.4.6.1 is installed correctly, it will report itself as 1.4.6 once the Builder's loaded. You can confirm it is installed by creating a character, and looking on the Class tab. The first class should be "Binder" if it has been installed correctly.
hell yeah, thanks man
4e is pretty cool, but it's hard to play nowadays.
There's an endless pool of 5e drones who can stumble through the rules, and since they're so plentiful you have more options to find a good fit for your table.
There's also a huge amount of pf2e players and the foundry implementation is top notch, which makes play easy.
4e has a small player base, and the people you usually find online are a bunch of autist veterans who derive no pleasure from a regular game and must instead bring forth the most hideous hybrid multiclass abomination with feats and powers from a dozen different sources.
>4e has a small player base, and the people you usually find online are a bunch of autist veterans who derive no pleasure from a regular game and must instead bring forth the most hideous hybrid multiclass abomination with feats and powers from a dozen different sources.
This is a major problem. I've gotten into a couple games from the 4e discord and its always the same 2-3 autists who don't listen to character creation limitations because then they wouldn't have their flavorless jank mechanic abuse character who will then try to crybully you into a meta build if you are running something for fun instead of maximum win the game. And they are all in like 9 games a week.
Those are not 4e books.
>This is a major problem. I've gotten into a couple games from the 4e discord and its always the same 2-3 autists who don't listen to character creation limitations because then they wouldn't have their flavorless jank mechanic abuse character who will then try to crybully you into a meta build if you are running something for fun instead of maximum win the game. And they are all in like 9 games a week.
Erachima, RuinsFate?
Erachima and Dr Pepper. Erachima was at least an okay player but Dr Pepper was a giant crybaby who whined and threw hissy fits whenever his character took damage or suffered a status effect.
>Those are not 4e books
NAYRT but they are 4e preview books that gave insight into the direction and scope of the game.
Anyone got the races and classes or worlds and monsters books?
They are the final few books here
https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/D%26D%204th%20Edition/Core/
many thanks friend.
Ever make a character just to make the absolute most out of your race choice? Like a Dragonborn Sorcerer (Dragon), Ninefold Master, Avatar of Io?
I tired to make the God Emperor of Mankind before, I remember it was hybrid Paladin/Psion, with the God Emperor Epic, but I can't remember what I picked for Paragon.
Looks like we hit autosage. Honestly, this has been the best 4e thread in ages. Keep it up everyone.