4e's Impact on 5e

[Steampunkette]

4e had some good ideas.

There. I said it. And some of those ideas were carried forward into 5e. Which was a great idea... but did it go far enough?

So what from 4e did 5e take? Short Rest Healing is a big one for a nonmagical healing. The Second Wind for Fighters is much the same. Cantrips as a constant source of at-will damage is another one. Action Economy is also heavily cribbed from 4e, with bonus actions being separate and specific things from other actions. In 3e you could always drop action types from one type to another, anything "Shorter". It also ditched the whole idea of "Move Equivalent Actions"

I feel like these are all good ideas. But to some degree, I still feel like there should have been a bit more taken from 4e.

Things like "Encounter Powers" were a good idea, if a bit roughly implemented. Personally I'd like to see every class able to use it's iconic abilities in every encounter, rather than having to monitor their primary form of activity as an extremely limited resource... Now I'm not talking about Wizards having 3rd level spells ready and able for every single fight or anything that extreme, but some baseline spells (Like Cantrips) is a good start.

What types of things would you like to see from 4e brought back for 5e?

Note: If your post is going to be exclusively "Nothing!" or otherwise noncontributory, please don't bother posting. I'm not trying to create an edition war, here, I'd just like to see if anyone else feels similarly.

[Waazraath]

4e had some good ideas.

So what from 4e did 5e take? Short Rest Healing is a big one for a nonmagical healing. The Second Wind for Fighters is much the same. Cantrips as a constant source of at-will damage is another one. Action Economy is also heavily cribbed from 4e, with bonus actions being separate and specific things from other actions. In 3e you could always drop action types from one type to another, anything "Shorter". It also ditched the whole idea of "Move Equivalent Actions"

...

Things like "Encounter Powers" were a good idea, if a bit roughly implemented. Personally I'd like to see every class able to use it's iconic abilities in every encounter, rather than having to monitor their primary form of activity as an extremely limited resource...

Note: If your post is going to be exclusively "Nothing!" or otherwise noncontributory, please don't bother posting. I'm not trying to create an edition war, here, I'd just like to see if anyone else feels similarly.

I agree these are good ideas. I'm wondering though, the idea of 'encounter power', if it's from 4e? If I remember well, at the end of 3.5, there was a lot of experimenting going on with alternatieve recourse management systems, like soulbinding, incarnum, martial maneuvers, etc. Some of those were often effectively 'once per encounter' maneuvers, like the binder's 'once everty five rounds' abilities (which were a lot of them), or the Tome of Battle maneuvers (depending on the class - a crusader could often use a maneuver only once in practice, in my experience).

These had the advantage of having a less 'gamist' feel (for me at least, because in really long fights, you could use a power sometimes twice), but with the streamlining 4e (and 5e) did, I understand those recharge mechanisms weren't chosen.

Note: this is only semi on topic, if you think this derails the thread just ignore.

[Millstone85]

Stances.

They are being reintroduced with the mystic's psychic focus, but really it was a neat mechanic for any class.

[Steampunkette]

Stances -are- a good idea. Mostly for fighting types. I'd have loved it if the fighter had different stances instead of fighting styles, for example. Go into this stance and versatile weapons are improved this way, this stance does two handed weapons, etc, etc, etc.

I also agree that toward the end of 3.5 there was some movement toward encounter abilities. I think 4e just codified it a bit more heavily.

Something I think should be a baseline encounter ability with maybe a short rest or long rest charge? Barbarian Rage. Sure it would need to have some of it's power taken away, but then you could put that might back into things like special rage types and individual special attacks or whatever that you can only use -while- raging. Maybe they even shorten the duration of the rage?

I'd have loved to see rogues keep their Exploits, rather than just getting flat sneak attack damage, as well. I understand it was part of a move to make the classes simpler to play, and easier to modify through the subclasses, I just feel they might've gone too far.

[AuraTwilight]

Epic Destinies were flavorful as heck. I'd have been super down with, instead of generic Epic Boons or extra feats after 20th level, a player could take an Epic Destiny and eventually retire their character that way.

Also, the Warlord was a thematically interesting class that apparently a lot of people are sad isn't in the 5e PHB. I could've seen it working.

[Honest Tiefling]

Cantrips as a constant source of at-will damage is another one.

I'd actually wonder if this wasn't stolen 'inspired by' from Pathfinder, actually. The various wizard subclasses are similar to the UA Specialist Wizard Variants, but some abilities are quite similar. The Sorcerer Bloodline thing is also similar to the Bloodline feats thematically, but I do see some resemblance to the Pathfinder Sorcerer bloodlines as well. Sorcerers getting metamagic feats isn't too dissimilar, but again, could be a 3rd edition thing.

One thing I'd like to see were the racial class feats. Yeah, you have to print A LOT of them to make rarer races viable, but it was nice to see the CHA/INT tiefling and gnome get some love to make a perfectly optimized wizard, or STR/Not CON races get feats to become fighters that were as good as other races. It really made these thematic choices as powerful and viable for newcomers as the races with the perfect stat bonuses.

[Steampunkette]

4e was 2007. Pathfinder was 2009.

PF took constant cantrips from 4e.

[Knaight]

4e was 2007. Pathfinder was 2009.

PF took constant cantrips from 4e.

Maybe. The 3.x Warlock predates both of these, and that's before getting into the reams of non-D&D games which make something like this available, videogames, and even some fantasy fiction. 4e clearly didn't take it from Pathfinder, but Pathfinder's source can't be derived this easily.

[Steampunkette]

A fair point!

That said, Racial Feats could be a big deal...

[Honest Tiefling]

4e was 2007. Pathfinder was 2009.

PF took constant cantrips from 4e.

Pathfinder probably took constant powers from 4e, yes, I don't think many people will debate that. But I think the idea of cantrips themselves being a constantly available power is a bit too close to Pathfinder's approach to not make me consider that WOTC might have been looking at a book or two.

If I recall correctly, the ability called cantrips were only spells meant to be used outside of combat for flavor, not attack spells. That's really close to their at-will powers, but not every class got cantrips in 4e. Also the cantrip approach means more variation possible in at-will powers for a potential wizard or sorcerer.

[solidork]

One thing I love is rituals. They were quite different in 4e, but I still think they were an inspiration for their presence in 5e.

[ProphetSword]

As a DM, I miss minions. I wish 5e had minions; because they were my favorite thing from 4e.

[mephnick]

As a DM, I miss minions. I wish 5e had minions; because they were my favorite thing from 4e.

I think they kind of tried with their mob rules in that groups of fodder do what is basically automatic damage each round, but it's not quite the same.

[Honest Tiefling]

As a DM, I miss minions. I wish 5e had minions; because they were my favorite thing from 4e.

As a spellcaster, I hated minions. Having minions be immune to AOEs if they are successful even if they should have taken damage is...Just plain weird in my opinion. I think the minion rules needed a bit more polish, personally, through the idea was good and sometimes hilarious.

[mephnick]

1/8-1/2 CR fodder in 5e works pretty well as minions once you hit mid levels in 5e anyway. If you fight 30 orcs they'll do some damage to you and exert some battlefield control, but you can probably kill them in one hit. I'd definitely let them die from saved AOE's. That seems like an odd rule. I didn't play much 4e so I guess I forgot about it.

[Scaleybob]

Encounter Design. 4E had the best, easiest to use encounter design rules I had found in any version of D&D. The Encounter Design in 5E is awful. It's clunky, awkward and never seems to quite balance verses the party.

I also miss the way Monster powers were done in 4E, the Monsters in 5E can be awkward to run, when you have to flip between the Spell lists, and the Monsters. Having it all in one place in the Monster stat block made things so much easier.

Warlords. I really miss Warlords.

[solidork]

1/8-1/2 CR fodder in 5e works pretty well as minions once you hit mid levels in 5e anyway. If you fight 30 orcs they'll do some damage to you and exert some battlefield control, but you can probably kill them in one hit. I'd definitely let them die from saved AOE's. That seems like an odd rule. I didn't play much 4e so I guess I forgot about it.

Yeah, they don't follow the exact same mechanics but I think they tried to set things up (the much discussed bounded accuracy) in such a way to preserve their spirit, in that that low CR creatures can still remain relevant for a longer amount of time.

Also, I really really wanted to play a Warden at some point but never got to play 4e.

[JAL_1138]

Hm...what few things did I like from 4th that 5th didn't already crib...breaking away (again—pre 3.0 (A)D&D didn't generally put monsters on precisely the same chassis as PCs either) from having enemies and npcs on the same chassis as player characters was a really, really good move that makes the DM's job a lot easier. Glad 5e carried on with that; I do like 5e's implementation better, but 4e made that break first among the WotC editions and influenced 5e's.

Doing away with weapon damage types was one of the things I thought 4e got right. That was a good move. D&D isn't granular enough to go into which weapon designs cut, stab, or thwack better than others, and at other times is nonsensical in its choice of damage types. Longswords can bludgeon quite effectively when held upside-down and using the quillons and/or pommel as a mace; most longswords in medieval and renaissance europe were more oriented towards thrusts than cuts; even the rapier can cut, albeit not well; axes can bludgeon and may be able to stab depending on the shape of the particular weapon, etc., etc., so on and so forth--

Unless you develop a combat system closer to Riddle of Steel's that evaluates weapons by having different stats on each type of attack (and defense? I can't remember RoS too clearly since I never played it, just read a bit once), it's probably better to abstract it out and just call it "weapon damage" instead of the poor middle ground that D&D has used (and often gotten wrong) for most of its history, and even moreso than 5e's rather ludicrous restriction of most weapons to a single type of damage ever.

[JumboWheat01]

The shorter Short Rest. The thing about Encounter Powers is that they were pretty much meant to be used every encounter, which necessitated "stopping and catching your breath." 5e's Short Rests are very long, and often seen as a problem.

Look at the Warlock, for example. It's pretty much 4e brought over to 5e, it's a Short Rest caster. But that raises a problem when Short Rests take so much time out of the adventuring day that most don't want to use them.

Admittedly, things would need to be rebalanced a bit if Short Rests were shorter. Warlocks would be casting all day, for example, and make normal casters feel left out.

[Knaight]

Encounter Design. 4E had the best, easiest to use encounter design rules I had found in any version of D&D. The Encounter Design in 5E is awful. It's clunky, awkward and never seems to quite balance verses the party.

I also miss the way Monster powers were done in 4E, the Monsters in 5E can be awkward to run, when you have to flip between the Spell lists, and the Monsters. Having it all in one place in the Monster stat block made things so much easier.

Warlords. I really miss Warlords.

I didn't like 4e, but from a document design perspective they did a really good job (by RPG standards) making a reference text.

[Zalabim]

The lineage of 4E's At-will powers to 5E's cantrips probably starts back earlier in late 3.5's Reserve Feats for spellcasters. Wizards also got extra at-wills for their cantrips, so it's definitely something that was brought forward from 4E.

I think Marshals have a lot of inspiration for a simpler to play Warlord that would have fit in well in the PHB. If it's something to be added later on now, it might as well be a more complex class.

The encounter-power/short-rest power situation has one benefit for 5E's method, which is that it allows greater flexibility in encounter difficulty and class resources. 4E's method of handling a harder encounter is to expect the PCs to use daily abilities as well. 5E's method of handling a harder encounter allows for a class using only short rest resources by using "two medium encounters" worth of their short rest resource in one harder encounter.

It's a bit of a trade off, and there's still no need for short rests to actually be an hour the way they are. It's easy for a second encounter to quickly follow after the first one when that's the pacing you want and otherwise basically handwave the requirements for a short rest like 4E did.

I seem to recall 4E still let you trade down action types, but I'd have to double check to be sure. Yes, 4E still let you trade down actions. The rigid action types are part of making combat more streamlined that works well. Not from 4E.

No more infinite healing was a neat idea. Almost all healing in 4E was tied to a long rest recharge mechanic eventually. Shame that got dropped. The healing surge variant in 5E is completely backwards from that. The healer feat is criminally underrated though.

[Cazero]

Nonrandom HP and bonus HP at first level. Rolling for HP is so painfuly stupid when you roll low, and doubling your HP from 1st to 2nd level can really wreck low level encounter design.

Class "change". Not that it is strictly necessary, but I like how it can help fight issues like the guy at the gym fallacy and the flavorless fighter syndrome.

[Kryx]

Stances -are- a good idea. Mostly for fighting types. I'd have loved it if the fighter had different stances instead of fighting styles, for example. Go into this stance and versatile weapons are improved this way, this stance does two handed weapons, etc, etc, etc.
My Fighter Rework (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxGh_mU9ihaPQXdxOE44VWFibU0) does exactly that. :)

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Nonrandom HP and bonus HP at first level. Rolling for HP is so painfuly stupid when you roll low, and doubling your HP from 1st to 2nd level can really wreck low level encounter design.

Class "change". Not that it is strictly necessary, but I like how it can help fight issues like the guy at the gym fallacy and the flavorless fighter syndrome.

Max hp at 1st level was already a thing in 3.5. I am glad they codified fixed hp at level up as a thing, though.

I don't quite understand what you're referring to in the second sentence. Subclasses?

Also, it may not be exactly in line with the design stuff everyone's been talking about, but Tieflings, Dragonborn and Warlocks being core is definitely a 4e inheritance.

Edit: Also also, there's point buy and stat arrays being listed as standard means of chargen rather than being relegated to the DMG.

[Steampunkette]

These are all great points and I'm making sure to add them all in as best I can.

I'm currently homebrewing a 5e based system that incorporates the babies of 4e rather than chucking them out with the bathwater.

[Honest Tiefling]

These are all great points and I'm making sure to add them all in as best I can.

I'm currently homebrewing a 5e based system that incorporates the babies of 4e rather than chucking them out with the bathwater.

Warlord + STR/INT race. There might already be a STR/INT race, but I can't find it, darn it.

Also, I rather liked the more flexible ability score choices of 4e. Perhaps an optional system for that?

[ThurlRavenscrof]

I like skill tests. I still use them in my games any time there's a chase scene or the players are investigating the scene of a crime
And I miss the warlord too!

[Honest Tiefling]

Here's a funky idea: A INT/CHA bard or other class. You have several INT/CHA races (Vampires from Zenidkar give us another choice), and I could easily see someone wanting to play a intelligent, charming mastermind that might be lacking in the physical department. Or a charming wizard or tactical sorcerer.

I think that 4e was pretty good at having a lot of classes to suit many different ability score needs, some good, and some...Bizarre.

[Steampunkette]

I'm actually working on a Warlord, right now, as an intentionally MAD class that needs Charisma and Intelligence.

Intelligence will come into play when you're moving people around or granting them opportunities, while Charisma will be for the healing and buffing aspects.

[Honest Tiefling]

Intelligence will come into play when you're moving people around or granting them opportunities, while Charisma will be for the healing and buffing aspects.

That sounds like one could ignore the other stat if it didn't appeal to them...Making it a STR/CHA class without divine abilities, a STR/INT class for those who want to be a smrt fighter, or a INT/CHA Lazylord class.

If so, I'm liking it already.

[Steampunkette]

That sounds like one could ignore the other stat if it didn't appeal to them...Making it a STR/CHA class without divine abilities, a STR/INT class for those who want to be a smrt fighter, or a INT/CHA Lazylord class.

If so, I'm liking it already.

Pretty much! Though you -could- use Dex, instead.

[Cazero]

I don't quite understand what you're referring to in the second sentence. Subclasses?
I'm talking about Paragon Path/Epic Destinies. Specificaly the part where someone saying that "you can't do X, you're just a mundane fighter" is instantly shut down if your class have a name that explicitly calls out the superhuman power you have past level 5.

[The Ship's dog]

I'm talking about Paragon Path/Epic Destinies. Specificaly the part where someone saying that "you can't do X, you're just a mundane fighter" is instantly shut down if your class have a name that explicitly calls out the superhuman power you have past level 5.

This. I love the Paragon Path/Epic Destiny system from 4e and in fact going to implement them into my games when my players hit level 5 and onwards. I saw the subclasses in 5e and thought
'Yes! I love it!' But then I realised that 5e doesn't have much stuff that keeps people interested in their characters at really high levels, which is where Epic Destinies come into play. I was talking to some other DMs about the logistics of this, but one of them just said
"Just give them a bunch of Epic Boons from the DMG" and it sadly devolved in them not understanding that it just doesn't cut the mustard in the Epic and Unique department.

[DragonSorcererX]

The few good things 4e did was making Dragonborn core and making the Cantrips At-Will, now about the powers, they are stupid... Tome of Battle maneuvers were cool, and they gave martial characters flavor and coolness instead of "just hitting with a sword every round", and instead of stupid powers that you, for some reason, could use once per encounter without any explanation... I want Tome of Battle back in 5e, the Battle Master is not enough...

Edit: Oh... you guys already mentioned ToB... :smalltongue:

[Draz74]

One thing I love is rituals. They were quite different in 4e, but I still think they were an inspiration for their presence in 5e.

Rituals were the best thing about 4e. Spells should be things with short casting times that are useful in combat. Rituals should be everything else you can do with magic.

Unfortunately, the 5e "ritual" tag doesn't nearly accomplish this. There are tons of 5e spells that should be rituals instead; they may or may not require spending spell slots (not spending a spell slot is a dumb "main benefit" for the Ritual tag to have), but they should have expensive material components, take more than a round to cast, and be available to any class that picks up the Ritual Caster feat and gets the effect scribed into their spellbook. Teleport, for example, should be this kind of a ritual and not a spell.

[Jacquerel]

I think it's been mentioned before, but having monster roles and multiple stat blocks per monster type, alongside a more diverse amount of monster abilities, was very useful. I liked the 4e Monster Manual a lot.

[BeefGood]

Encounter Design. 4E had the best, easiest to use encounter design rules I had found in any version of D&D. The Encounter Design in 5E is awful. It's clunky, awkward and never seems to quite balance verses the party.


Can you give one or two examples of how the 4E encounter design rules were better? I don't know anything about 4E.

[Sir cryosin]

At lot of wording was changed but effect stayed the same. For example if a fighter push the enemy in 4e it was push enemy 4 squares. In 5e it 20ft. I haven't never played 4e but I have talked with people who have and they all have said. a lot of 5e is just reworded 4e with cool things from other edtions.

[Steampunkette]

At lot of wording was changed but effect stayed the same. For example if a fighter push the enemy in 4e it was push enemy 4 squares. In 5e it 20ft. I haven't never played 4e but I have talked with people who have and they all have said. a lot of 5e is just reworded 4e with cool things from other edtions.

In that respect, 4e just reworded 3.5, and 3.5 just reworded 3e. Which reworded 2e.

There's plenty of knockback effects in previous editions that listed the distance in feet. Or yards.

[solidork]

Rituals were the best thing about 4e. Spells should be things with short casting times that are useful in combat. Rituals should be everything else you can do with magic.

Unfortunately, the 5e "ritual" tag doesn't nearly accomplish this. There are tons of 5e spells that should be rituals instead; they may or may not require spending spell slots (not spending a spell slot is a dumb "main benefit" for the Ritual tag to have), but they should have expensive material components, take more than a round to cast, and be available to any class that picks up the Ritual Caster feat and gets the effect scribed into their spellbook. Teleport, for example, should be this kind of a ritual and not a spell.

I sort of agree. Some people complain about the lack of things to do with gold in 5e, and funneling that into ritual components might have been interesting.

Personally, I still like the 5e ritual mechanics and use them quite a bit. I had a Rogue with Ritual Caster and my current War Cleric has used the various divinations/water walking to great effect. I'm slightly salty that Sending isn't a ritual, but other than that I am pretty content.

[Demonslayer666]

I liked the forced movement and I really liked the encounter abilities of monsters.

Forced Movement seems to have been toned down a bit, and monster special abilities pretty much went away. I like that they added in Legendary actions, but those only help out the big guys.

[Rawrawrawr]

Healing:
I liked the design philosophy behind 4e healing a lot better. First of all, it was large enough that healing in combat was worthwhile instead of usually being a trap. Secondly, the amount healed scaled with a character's HP, so heals were pretty much always relevant, and you didn't have to burn a lot more heals to get the tank up to max HP than the wizard. Third of all, second wind meant that the impetus wasn't always on the healer to spend their resources to heal someone, and you didn't have to feel obligated to even have a healer. Fourth, since healing usually used the healee's healing surges, that meant that the healee was actually using some of their resources (i.e., the healee spends a healing surge to be healed, instead of the healer having to waste one of their spell slots). Lastly, healing was usually either the equivalent of a bonus action, or baked into another action (e.g., call down a holy light AOE that blinds enemies caught in it and heals allies caught in it), so were always doing something fun/meaningful the same round you were healing.

...can you tell I've played a cleric in both 4e and 5e? :smalltongue:


Monster/Encounter design:
Multi-monster encounters are almost always better, so I liked that 4e assumed right from the start that you'd be fighting a team of enemies in its encounter design (the CR system defaulted to a 1:1 ratio of monsters to players, so a party of four level 5 characters were expected to fight four CR 5 enemies, instead one CR 5 enemy). Monsters in 5e are also a bit boring, with a lot of "bag of hitpoints with multiattack" or "spellcasting" (which, if a monster's casting spells the whole encounter, can make it hard to feel different from a generic wizard). I liked that monsters were designed with roles right from the start, would usually get abilities that would make strategy a little more interesting than "walk up to the enemy and hit it a bunch," would have variations so it wouldn't feel redundant to fight the same type of enemy several times/you could have an interesting encounter with only one type of enemy, and had all their abilities defined in the scope of their statblock.


Then there's also a few smaller things here and there, like one-round effects from encounter powers provided a happy medium between 3.5's "stack every buff/debuff you can" and 5e's "you can only have 1 buff/debuff going at once," the lack of a "sticky" class like the 4e fighter out of the box, and no warlord! :smallfrown:

[Ralanr]

Flavor wise, I love the warlord (never got to play one). I think Wizards is trying to bring it back through a fighter subclass (like purple dragon knight) but to be honest, I don't think that's a good idea. Fighter subclasses do not scale very well and I felt very bored of the purple dragon knight I was playing because of this.

[ruy343]

I hear you wanted a warlord-like character in 5e (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E7oH7HNwN6ekpoCqtXDCeVm0ITuJw3g_3LkgqFNZjgk/edit?usp=sharing)...

[DragonBaneDM]

Hey, 'member Monster Manual III on a Business Card? Cause boy, do I 'member Monster Manual III on a Business Card.


While more precise monster math came out later, that single .jpg file made DMing the most fun and creative thing I think I did in college besides my Math of Games class.

Seriously, it was so much fun. I did about 2 minutes of math, and then spent time figuring out cool mechanics, fun fluff, and building the monster however I wanted. I've seen, and still see, more creative and mechanically complex monsters coming out of 4E than anywhere else.

Then I look at 5E's monster design, and I weep. Two factors for a sliding Defensive and Offensive CR. A huge list of abilities and traits that can drag either number up or down, and not a ton of support for customization. I've refluffed so many custom monsters.

The Angry DM's article on 5E monster design helped me a ton, but that was a 10 minute read with a lot of going back to make sure I understood. MM3oaBC was a 2''x5'' piece of paper. I still prefer to just use quick CR calculators online.

[jaappleton]

If 4E was called absolutely anything else, like D&D Tactics, it would not have received even 1/3rd of the hate that it got.

I firmly believe that to be a fact. If it weren't called 4th Edition, if it was like a side game and not a main edition, it would've been received totally differently. But because it was a whole new edition, and thus ended official support for 3.X, and was so radically different, it got the hate that it got.

I started with 4E. And while it has a special place in my heart because it was my introduction, I have to say, I don't miss playing it. I really don't.

Combat was a slog. Fights taking hours to finish. Too many rules. Such a huge emphasis on positioning made running it TotM style was a huge pain.

But... It wasn't bad. It was different. And to some, innately, that itself makes it bad, right?

Anyways...

There's an article I read awhile back. Years ago. Honestly, I doubt I could find it again if I tried. But I want to share the gist of it, because I remember quite distinctly what it was about.

During the initial conception of 4E, it was designed from the ground up to be played with a digital companion. Completely. It was never designed to be play without that digital companion app. They were a pair. The person leading the digital end of it eventually, through a series of unfortunate events, committed suicide. Essentially, they were too far along to scrap 4E completely, and adapted it to a more traditional tabletop style.

So that's the gist of it. I don't know how much of it is true, but I personally believe it. What I just relayed was a very condensed version of it, but I do remember realizing that it all made sense when I read the article as a whole.

Regardless, back to my main point: Had 4E been anything else, had it been a side game in the spirit of D&D like Dungeon Command or something, it would've received a totally different, and likely very positive, reception.


EDIT: Right, I forgot some things!

Design mentality shifted near the end of 4E. Mike Mearls was brought in to take over. He led the Essentials line, and I believe the 'Heroes of...' series. This is when you saw all sorts of streamlined 4E characters. Bladesinger, Hexblade, Blackguard, Slayer, etc. All of that was with Mearls at the helm. And due to that big shift, from the original design to the new design, a lot got left in the cracks. Remember, Weapon Expertise and Improved Defenses were damn near required. The first MM and the second MM has different 'challenge ratings' for creatures, as creatures in the first would basically outscale what PCs could do. So some Feats were introduced as borderline required to take, because without it, you were kinda porked.

I had just wanted to say, if you look at Essentials from 4E, you can really see a ton of design influence for 5E. But... not so much with the original 4E stuff.

[Honest Tiefling]

This. I love the Paragon Path/Epic Destiny system from 4e and in fact going to implement them into my games when my players hit level 5 and onwards. I saw the subclasses in 5e and thought
'Yes! I love it!' But then I realised that 5e doesn't have much stuff that keeps people interested in their characters at really high levels, which is where Epic Destinies come into play. I was talking to some other DMs about the logistics of this, but one of them just said
"Just give them a bunch of Epic Boons from the DMG" and it sadly devolved in them not understanding that it just doesn't cut the mustard in the Epic and Unique department.

I feel like Paragon Paths/Epic Destinies could be a cool way to do the epic character/mythic character thing. I had a bit of a problem with the PP/ED in that if one had bad abilities or something that didn't work for your character, it could be quite a pickle. Less paths with some degree of flexibility and maybe less limited to a particular class might be nice. That way, newer classes can still take advantage of previous material, which was a HUGE problem for 4e.

RIP, Seeker.

[Steampunkette]

Hokayso.

Right now I'm looking at making the Warlord into a more or less straight leader class, but giving them extra attack and a weapon benefit like Fighters get, now. They'll get Command and Order dice and give allies the ability to do special things like the current Battlemaster's maneuvers.

For the Fighter I'm going with Stances that have small benefits and looking at making the idea behind maneuvers baseline, but not using Maneuver Dice. Instead you'll have a certain number of maneuvers per encounter, trade attacks for maneuvers within the attack action (so two weapon fighting is still an option), and have maneuvers that key off of -either- your current stance or the weapon you're using in categories...

I actually really like that design for Fighters 'cause it allows versatile weapons to -be- versatile, allowing you to use both one handed sword maneuvers and two handed sword maneuvers with the same weapon.

Rituals will be made available and have some very minor benefits and some massive ones as well (With appropriate time and money costs for each).

I'm also looking at divorcing the different spellcasting types to make them different in a mechanical way.

Divine Spellcasting would be the closest to the current "Prepare spells, cast in slots" dynamic.

Primal Spellcasting (Druids/Rangers) will instead rely on ambient power, having spell slots granted by the land itself rather than carrying it with them (So two Druids fighting quickly steal all the magic from the land and both run out of spell slots).

Arcane Casters as Skillcasters (Make a spellcasting check like you'd make an attack roll against the Enemy's static save defenses)

And Psionics as PPs and Disciplines but also with the 2e and earlier twist of purely mental effects basing their DC not on the Psionicist's intelligence, but the Target's (Dumb enemies are harder to really mess with mentally while smart people can get trapped in their own logic)

I'm also bringing back the Spellblade as a Caster-Fighter like an Arcane Paladin. They get War Magic instead of Extra Attack and then Spellstrike comes later.

I realize that by taking Maneuvers from Battlemasters and Spellcasting Warriors from Eldritch Knights I'm kind of killing their subclasses, so why stop there?! No Champions.

Instead I'm planning on making Weaponmasters (Who focus on getting more Weapon Maneuvers), the Master of Forms (Who focus on getting more Stances and Stance Maneuvers), and the Gladiator. There's also going to be the human Racial Class of Chevalier and the Daeva racial class of Arahant. (Daeva being 4 armed fallen celestials and arahant being a fighting style that uses weapons in each hand).

...

There's a ton of work left to do.