Not a whole lot of activity going on...? [Archive]

Kurald Galain

2019-03-27, 05:46 AM

It strikes me that this is partly due to 4E's penchant for refluffing. If you want a character with an exotic concept in 3E/PF/5E, people will look for a custom build with specific mechanics for the concept; whereas if you want this in 4E, you can take one of the standard builds and refluff it.

...but the main reason why this forum is so empty is probably that few people still play 4E. Local groups here have pretty much all switched to PF or 5E, and conventions in my area cater exclusively to those two by now. Warhorn (https://warhorn.net/campaigns) suggests that 0.4% of games are 4E; a quick search of Roll20 (https://app.roll20.net/lfg/search/?days=&dayhours=&frequency=&timeofday=&timeofday_seconds=&language=Any&avpref=Any&gametype=Any&newplayer=false&yesmaturecontent=false&nopaytoplay=false&playingstructured=dnd_4&sortby=relevance&for_event=&roll20con=) turns up 38 Pathfinder games, about 400 games in 5E, and only three 4E tables. So yeah.

Vhaidara

2019-03-27, 05:53 AM

Huh, interesting point. There are certainly things to optimize around, but 4e's jerry-rigging and kludging potential is pretty low.

Eh, there's plenty of room for some janky stuff. My most recent builds included turning a Rogue into a burst mage, making a fighter who wields 111 different weapons, and porting a Monster Hunter World Insect Glaive.

I also think GitP just doesn't have a big 4e community. This forum started in the days of 3.5 (when OotS did) and has remained a kind of bastion of 3.5. 5e gets a lot of conversation by virtue of being the current edition, while 4e had a lot of controversy.

If you're looking for 4e discussion and possibly play, I recommend The Guild (https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/17445/guild-living-campaign), a Roll20 Living Campaign modeled after 4e's Living Forgotten Realms. At the time of posting the LFG is down, but our admin should be addressing that in the next few hours (awkwardness with how Roll20 does their listings). You're also welcome to hop onto the Guild Discord (https://discord.gg/6FGGhfV) if you want to check out the community ahead of time.

MinotaurWarblad

2019-03-27, 09:54 AM

Ah, so the consensus is pretty much that 4e just has a much smaller range of things to talk about. That makes sense.

On the side of homebrew, I’m actually cooking up something to post for critique but I need to meet the 10 posts count before I can include links.

Tell me about the Guild as far as GMs go. Are the sessions generally 1/3 combat, 1/3 exploration, 1/3 social interaction? Or do they trend towards the 1/2 combat, 1/4 exploration, 1/4 social interaction more common with 4e games?
Also, can I see your burst-mage rogue build?

Vhaidara

2019-03-27, 11:53 AM

There's 20+ DMs, so the exact session composition varies. Some mostly run arenas (all combat) but a lot of us try to weave in my story and narrative elements. I for one have two main story arcs, a few pseudo-one shots, and two series that are connected less by direct plotlines and more by being set in the same world.

Blaster rogue is a fun one. Dragonborn Brutal Scoundrel Rogue, racials go to Dex/Cha (compliments of Kapak Draconian, which also helps with CA and mobility). Theme is Spellscarred Harbinger for the minor action invisibility option (which it refers to as Vanish). Fairly standard off turn rogue play through heroic (Lashing Blade, Riposte Strike, Darting Strike). As prepwork for paragon you grab Hurl Breath and Mark of Storm towards the end of heroic.
Required item is the Scepter of Arkhosia to make Dragon Breath super accurate
In paragon you take Honorable Blade along with Thundering Breath and Dragon Breath Scoundrel. Then at 12 you take Resounding Thunder. Now your nova turn looks like this
Minor Vanish
Minor Dragon Breath with Sneak Attack (you have CA against everything because you're invisible)
AP Free Action Dragon Breath with Sneak Attack (Honorable Blade Feature + Slaying Action)
Standard Lashing Blade
Standard>Move move yourself into the cluster of enemies you just created with the slide 1 from your Mark of Storm Dragon Breaths
Then when the first of those enemies starts their turn next to you, you get to OA them with Lashing Blade. You do NOT Sneak Attack here. When you hit, you slide them into flanking you, which triggers the Honorable Blade E11, allowing you to shift 1 and Dragon Breath again with bonus damage. Slide people back into position to keep getting Lashing Bladed at the start of their turns, and enjoy all those sweet sneak attacks.
At 13 you can upgrade your E1 into Cunning Cyclone as well, which, since you're a thunder typed honorable blade, is a burst 2 that gets to apply 1 die of SA damage to everything. That 1 die still gets Brutal Scoundrel and Footpad's Friend (the weapon of choice) damage added on.
Once you blow all of that, you still have your usual rogue tricks with all the stabbing and the murder.
Saress (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1747739)
Notable that my specific example is STUPIDLY rich for a level 11 character, she's had very good luck with item rolls.

MwaO

2019-03-27, 12:39 PM

Ah, so the consensus is pretty much that 4e just has a much smaller range of things to talk about. That makes sense.

It isn't that there was a much smaller range of things to talk about. Just the range of optimization tends to narrow at the ends of the curve to specific choices. Making multiple damage rolls per standard action, generating damage rolls via use of minor/move actions, that kind of thing. There are really only so many ways to do that.

And if people go there, there are only so many ways to keep up without picking similar choices.

ThePurple

2019-03-27, 02:05 PM

It strikes me that this is partly due to 4E's penchant for refluffing.

I think it also boils down to the sheer amount of things you're required to create for a fully functional homebrew class. In 3.5 and 5e, you choose a few basic options that set numbers (hit die, attack bonus progression, saves, skills, etc) and then build features into the class for 20 levels until it does what you want it to do (and "spellcasting" is gonna cover a lot of that). You don't really need to figure out which stats the class uses because they're baked into mechanics (DEX attacker is gonna be either ranged or finesse weapons, etc.).

Creating a functional homebrew class in 4e is a *completely different beast* (I say this having completely built 4 4e classes as well as a few Heroes variants while 4e was relevant and having built quite a few homebrew 3.5 classes in my youth). You still pick out a few basic number sets (hit points per level, defense bonuses, armor proficiencies, skills) but you then need to create a fully fleshed out set of class features (which varies by role but generally sits at around 3-4; defenders *have* to have a mark and a retributive effect; leaders *have* to have a minor action heal; strikers *have* to have a bonus damage mechanic; controllers are free, but *all* roles need more than that by default to round out their play), 6-8 at-will attack powers, 3-4 encounter powers for each level (1, 3, 7, 13, 17, 23, and 27), 3-4 daily powers for each level (1, 5, 9, 15, 19, 25, and 29), 2-4 utility powers for each level (2, 6, 10, 16, 22, and 26), 2-4 paragon paths (each with an action point feature, a level 11 feature, a level 16 feature, an encounter power, a utility power, and a daily power), and *generally* an 1 epic destiny, on top of a slew of feats because 4e is very feat driven where optimization is concerned and, if you're lacking in feat choices, a class isn't gonna be able to compete. So rather than picking your starting stuff and then filling out 20 levels with a feature or so at each level, you end up with the starting stuff and then at least 60 powers (each of which requires a write up and should be mathematically balanced to ensure viability), along with 3+ advanced options with 6+ things to write up within them (and ensure they are balanced), as well as a highly variable number of feats. You can "cheat" on a lot of this (upgrading powers when they go to the next tier was a favorite of mine), but it's still a lot of work and creative work at that.

You can homebrew up a theme, a PP for an existing class, an epic destiny, a feat, or power for an existing class without too much effort, but those aren't really what people consider to be "proper" homebrew since you're just throwing something new onto an existing chassis. The sheer amount of work that goes into a 4e class blows every other edition out of the water, barring only the creation of a spellcaster with a complete and unique spell list (doesn't happen often since spellcasters tend to just borrow from what already exists).

This barrier of entry to homebrew, coupled with the ability (and encouragement) to refluff rather than build something different, and the wholesale slaughter of numerous sacred cows that perturbed a *lot* of people when 4e came out (on top of some very bad systems that were never fixed and others that deviated so heavily from standard D&D that some people honestly wondered if 4e even counts as D&D any more) all add up to explain 4e's less than massive level of activity even when it was the current system. Now that 5e has been out for a while, 4e doesn't even have new content or the novelty of being "current" to bring people in. The population keeps shrinking while learning more and more, so fewer questions need to be asked. We all just kind of play out own game without needing to consult each other.

PoeticallyPsyco

2019-03-28, 03:17 AM

Now that 5e has been out for a while, 4e doesn't even have new content or the novelty of being "current" to bring people in. The population keeps shrinking while learning more and more, so fewer questions need to be asked.

Honestly, I'm thinking of returning to 4e. Becoming a GitP regular has had the odd side effect of making me jaded towards 5e, because it lacks both the in depth character creation of 3.5 and the in-depth tactical combat of 4e. Almost every encounter I ever fought in 4e involved a clever tactic or trick, be it pushing an enemy into a campfire, taming a dire wolf mid combat, or sliding an ally back a square so he could charge next turn. Most encounters involved multiple such memorable moments. Thinking back on my 5e experience there were certainly some stand out moments like that, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

Coolhart

2019-03-28, 05:40 AM

Going back to play 4e myself as well.
Did some AD&D back in the day started 5e. BUt for some reason 4e just seemed for fun to me.

Never did much online for 4e. so nice to read up and get tools to start up again.

ThePurple

2019-03-28, 07:23 AM

Honestly, I'm thinking of returning to 4e.

Ironically, I've seen a lot of this sentiment elsewhere. Of any D&D edition, 4e is, without a doubt, the best tactical combat engine. Combat in 4e is *fun*, with numerous options for everyone and, generally, the outcome not basically determined in the first round (as 3.5 was wont to do). People that never gave 4e a try are starting to actually, you know, give it a try. It's nice, but it also has this feeling of "too little, too late" since if all of these people had come to 4e before 5e came out, we might've gotten some of the other stuff they promised us before sending 4e out to pasture.

Beoric

2019-03-30, 12:10 AM

I think there are a finite number of optimization issues, which have mostly been resolved. There is also a certain amount of consensus over math patches, so that discussion has dried up. What would normally be left is homebrew and DMing issues.

I find that most people who play 4e have settled on a similar playstyle, and most 4e DMs have been playing it for a while, so the DMing discussions have also dried up.

That leaves homebrew. And, with the exception of monster creation, there are a lot of factors that discourage hacking the system. The three big ones are probably the complexity of the edition, the edition's sacred cows, and the interaction of the two.

As ThePurple points out above, many games elements are very complex, and it can take an fair amount of system mastery to accurately gauge the in-game effect of a proposed power, let alone assessing what level of magic item or class power it should be attached to.

In addition, the presentation of the edition heavily emphasized balance and compliance with the rules as written. Which imposes a lot of limits on any homebrew elements.

Given the complexity of the game, it is hard to make balanced homebrew elements, and given the emphasis on balance, and on complying with existing rules, making homebrew elements can be a challenge.

And, truth be told, people are kind of set in their ways. I rarely see the regulars around here get excited about anything. Discussions about anything other than the application of already existing mechanics don't seem to go anywhere.

Kimera757

2019-04-02, 06:23 PM

As a well-balanced edition, 4e needs less advice. Not none, but less.

I visit the Paizo boards sometimes, because I'm a player in a Pathfinder game. I don't even recognize the classes being mentioned in the rules questions, which just tells you how bad the bloat got. (4e, unfortunately, also suffered from bloat.) So I have little reason to participate in rules discussions for either game.

If I had questions to ask, it would be about things like:

What should the XP of solos be, really? IME 1st-level solos pwn 1st-level PCs, whereas 9th-level PCs can easily defeat a solo of level +4 (but not two solos, or five elites!). These were all MM3 onward monsters too.

Theodoxus

2019-04-08, 11:40 AM

Honestly, I'm thinking of returning to 4e. Becoming a GitP regular has had the odd side effect of making me jaded towards 5e, because it lacks both the in depth character creation of 3.5 and the in-depth tactical combat of 4e. Almost every encounter I ever fought in 4e involved a clever tactic or trick, be it pushing an enemy into a campfire, taming a dire wolf mid combat, or sliding an ally back a square so he could charge next turn. Most encounters involved multiple such memorable moments. Thinking back on my 5e experience there were certainly some stand out moments like that, but they were the exception rather than the rule.

So, I'm modifying 5E/4E (I'm not really sure how to name it... it's 20 levels, keeps 5Es Bounded Accuracy, Proficiency Bonus, no Paragon or Epic tiers, but using 4Es base classes (for the most part), defenses, saving throws only end conditions, etc.

My players all come from 5E, so it's been interesting, and slightly frustrating, that they aren't using their new powers to make combat exciting. I tried using an opposing group of NPCs to showcase what could be done, but I struggle with running detailed combat as a DM from the NPC side... So I just scour the various monster tomes for interesting critters to showcase said abilities instead...

My hope is that eventually the players will relax and start going nuts with the pushes, slides and pulls.

Boci

2019-04-11, 03:32 PM

I think there are a finite number of optimization issues, which have mostly been resolved. There is also a certain amount of consensus over math patches, so that discussion has dried up.

Wouldn't that also imply there's a lack of new players for 4e? Sure, people playing for a while have largely agreed that the issue to X is Y, but shouldn't there be new players asking "So what about X?"

Yes, 4th edition by design doesn't lend itself to forume discussions as well as other editions do, but it does also seem to be a less popular than those systems as well. The numbers on roll20 have already been mentioned, and it mirrors what I've seen elsewhere, for sites with both online play and where people advertise for offline groups. 5th edition, then 3.5 or pathfinder, then other rgp systems, then 4th edition, if at all. I remember noting that no one was offering 4th ed games in my university's roleplaying society, and this was in 2012, before 5th ed even came out.

This would imply that the things 4th ed did well, like the tactical combat, wasn't worth it for the player base as a whole. Those who liked D&D weren't willing to put up with the changes unique to 4th ed, whilst most of who liked such changes likely still found it too D&D-y and therefor left for another game entirly. Its a shame, I liked paragon paths in particular, they had some cool abilities and implied fluff to them that it seems unlikely I will get to explore again.

ThePurple

2019-04-11, 06:06 PM

This would imply that the things 4th ed did well, like the tactical combat, wasn't worth it for the player base as a whole. Those who liked D&D weren't willing to put up with the changes unique to 4th ed, whilst most of who liked such changes likely still found it too D&D-y and therefor left for another game entirly. Its a shame, I liked paragon paths in particular, they had some cool abilities and implied fluff to them that it seems unlikely I will get to explore again.

I think that a lot of the hate that 4e got was actually just 3.X fans not liking change and giving it a bad reputation right from the start without even trying it. I met *so very many* 3.X players who straight up refused to give 4e anything approaching a try because they thought it was too "video game-y" or one of any of a number of other attempted insults (I'm of the opinion that video games have seen more in the way of improvement than PnP games have, even though the PnP games are technically about a decade older; PnP games could stand to learn a few things from video games, so saying that a PnP game is "video game-y" isn't really a bad thing). What's ironic to me about this, of course, is that most of the same insults I saw 3.X-ers throw at 4e (including the "video game-y" one) were the same insults I'd heard longtime 2e players throw at 3e when it came out. I expect that, if the internet had been the cultural powerhouse it is now back when 3e had released, it likely would've experienced a similar effect (rather than a lot of people giving it a try without seeing a billion reviews about how much they hated it first).

I don't think it's so much that the stuff that 4e did well (balance, tactical combat, ease-of-running for GMs, etc) wasn't worth it, but rather that 4e is designed to run a very different kind of game compared to 3.X and, rather than adapting what they were running to fit the capabilities of the system, many players tried to just brute force it and decided against after it didn't work out correctly. Much of this comes from my (and others') experiences running a die-hard 3.X fan that *refused* to believe that 4e was a good game through a 4e game with a competent GM that understood how 4e was supposed to be run (rather than the newbie GM that they were used to). Whenever I've done this, all of those 4e-hater players have said that they can now see that 4e got an unfairly bad rap.

4e did a terrible job of explaining how it was designed to run through an adventure, and it didn't help that it seems like the pre-made adventures were designed without knowing this either (in fact, this likely compounded the first error since people saw the published adventures as examples of how stuff was supposed to be done). Also, it doesn't really help that a lot of the online tools and whatnot that were promised originally bottomed out.

I don't really think that 4e's failure is necessarily the fault of the system itself. It was a confluence of failures from all of the supporting systems (online tools, pre-made adventures, explanations of how to run the system, marketing, etc.) that compounded to make it so that 4e could never really overcome the inevitable obstacles that come with releasing a new edition. Ironically, I also place a lot of 5e's success on 4e's failure, which left the fields fallow for a bit to make things ripe for 5e to flourish.

Boci

2019-04-11, 06:28 PM

I don't think it's so much that the stuff that 4e did well (balance, tactical combat, ease-of-running for GMs, etc) wasn't worth it, but rather that 4e is designed to run a very different kind of game compared to 3.X and, rather than adapting what they were running to fit the capabilities of the system, many players tried to just brute force it and decided against after it didn't work out correctly. Much of this comes from my (and others') experiences running a die-hard 3.X fan that *refused* to believe that 4e was a good game through a 4e game with a competent GM that understood how 4e was supposed to be run (rather than the newbie GM that they were used to). Whenever I've done this, all of those 4e-hater players have said that they can now see that 4e got an unfairly bad rap.

My expirience has been different. People gave it a fair chance, and then stopped because of a list of issues with a lot of groups voicing similar problems:

The HP system was wierd even by D&D standards
The shared template of classes limited the desire to try out other classes
Fights often became grind fests
Videogame-y elements like abilities that were cool but hard to visualize in a fight or the labelling of classes, or the pallet swapping of monsters (hyena into cacklefiend hyena, griffon into rimefire griffon)

Notable none of the groups I know who tried 4th ed left thinking "what a terrible system", there just wasn't enough to keep them when 3.5 hadn't actually gone anywhere, pathfinder was still getting new material, and there were other role-playing IPs out there.

Bjarkmundur

2019-04-11, 06:48 PM

I miss 4e.
I might bring it back.
If I do, I warn you.
I'm very trigger happy for creating threads on a forum.
So, be careful what you wish for xD

ThePurple

2019-04-11, 07:30 PM

The HP system was wierd even by D&D standards

Not entirely sure what is meant by this. I've loved the HP/HS system since I first learned about it and still think it's one of the best things that 4e ever did. If you're talking about the 4/5/6 hp (or 7, if you're a Warden) per level thing, it's not that weird imo. It's not as bad as 3.5 would end up since CON made such a huge difference.

The shared template of classes limited the desire to try out other classes

Giving roles a standard kit of capabilities was a good thing, imo. The problem largely arose from trying to give certain classes, like the fighter and wizard, a billion different options such that fighters and wizards were still a massively diversified class while other classes unique to 4e (like wardens, invokers, and swordmages) got very little. A lot of that comes from trying to pander to what D&D did in the past (e.g. fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric) as I see it: when the previous editions have said that *literally anyone* that fights in a way that isn't a rogue is a fighter, you have to make fighter so broad as to be absurd. Imo, 4e classes work better when they're more focused, especially where their powers are concerned (think Wardens and Barbarians) rather than in the hodge-podge anything goes that Wizards and Fighters got.

Fights often became grind fests

Weren't there math fixes to alleviate this somewhat? I recall that early 4e games had way more hp and way less damage because of bad math assumptions and a lack of playtesting at higher levels. Also, like so many other games, there were a lot of options that seemed good but ended up being very bad if you didn't know how to optimize for damage (which is a problem for a lot of new players, which is itself an issue; many players with system mastery aren't willing to abandon their current game which they've mastered for a new game that they'll have to learn).

Videogame-y elements like abilities that were cool but hard to visualize in a fight or the labelling of classes, or the pallet swapping of monsters (hyena into cacklefiend hyena, griffon into rimefire griffon)

The pallet swapping of monsters was pretty bad, especially early on. I'm a much bigger proponent of allowing GMs to just create their own monsters for the adventure needed via the extremely robust monster math and design system rather than having a bunch of premade monsters (which oftentimes ended up being *way* more complicated than they had any need to be). They started providing these tools later on, via the monster themes, but it took the developers a while to learn the lesson.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-12, 03:05 AM

Weren't there math fixes to alleviate this somewhat? I recall that early 4e games had way more hp and way less damage because of bad math assumptions

Sure, but the errata took long enough (for some issues, more than a year; and in some cases the errata needed further errata) that many players didn't stick around for it.

Theodoxus

2019-04-12, 03:56 PM

And I think that's one reason for a resurgence. The issues have been hashed out, at least as much, if not more, than 3.PF, and so the group of gamers who came up with 5E and want something with a bit more teeth are looking around - and why not start with IP you cut your teeth on?

4E has been an amazing system to cull ideas from. One can see a lot of mushy proto-ideas in the basic mechanics that solidified into core ideas in 5E. ("When you use this power, and don't like the d20 roll, you can roll the d20 again and use either result" - hello wordy "Advantage!") Though similarly, a lot of 4E stuff kinda rotted when it was incorporated into 5E - ("When a target is within 5 feet of an ally" - oh, you mean 'Adjacent'? Why the kludgy explanation?)

There's a thread in the 5E forum about what you'd want for 6E, and my #1, 2 and 3 wishes is for a blending of 4th and 5th editions, so I can stop working on it and play this amazing game that's being born from these parents.

Address the 'video-game' concerns (which I also contend were baseless, but were an easy meme to glom onto in early days of internet outrage) by returning to traditional spellcasting for traditional spellcasters. Turn At-Wills into cantrips, have some encounter powers (now using Short Rest nomenclature) akin to Channel Divinity for each class, and some daily powers (now using Long Rest nomenclature), bring back the three saves (I prefer them as defenses, but I'm not willing to die on that hill - a variant rule would be ideal, so everyone can use what they like.) Keep Bounded Accuracy, add proficiency to defenses, if going with saves, grant "expertise" in your good save(s).

Stick with 20 levels (though really, 15 would probably be better, given the lack of long term high level campaigns, but another hill I won't die on). Stick with 4 classes and a $#!^ load of archetypes.

I recently got rid of the wizard, and added Wizardry as an Implement Mastery 1st level option for both Bards and Sorcerers, to use a spellbook and be pure vancian (memorizing a specific spell into each slot and everything). I'd suggest something like that.

Probably have the arcane caster be a sorcerer, and give archetypal and implement usage ways of differentiating into bard, warlock, wizard...

I took the 5E cleric and gave them 3rd level Archetypes using Avenger, Invoker and Runepriest abilities. Could even slot druid in there (with Shaman) with a little bit of work.

MwaO

2019-04-12, 04:48 PM

The HP system was wierd even by D&D standards
The shared template of classes limited the desire to try out other classes
Fights often became grind fests
Videogame-y elements like abilities that were cool but hard to visualize in a fight or the labelling of classes, or the pallet swapping of monsters (hyena into cacklefiend hyena, griffon into rimefire griffon)

I think there were three main issues:
The Murder-Suicide by head of DDI. (https://kotaku.com/xbox-developer-dead-in-murder-suicide-31088034) Literally 3 weeks before GenCon after the June launch of D&D. Think developers were thinking clearly at that point about paying real attention to any issues at GenCon at that point? Because that's the point where if something showed up, and it did, that's the point to make some course corrections.

4e didn't have a simple Fighter and a complex Wizard. If there was a 4e Fighter who lost all powers, but gained instead Twin Strike with 'Fighter's Strike'(an MBA replacement), I suspect we'd still be playing 4e now. Because unfortunately, there are a number of players who want that kind of no-option PC as a character choice and not having one means they'd rather not play at all. Which wrecks groups in many areas where everyone plays the same game or else nothing happens. Ditto for the complex Wizard, in that if they don't think they can pull a rabbit out of a hat if that's what needs to happen, they feel they aren't really Wizards. Even if they've never pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

Adventures 1st year of 4e sucked. Horrifyingly so. Way too much output, too many writers not understanding 4e, the system. Too many demands by WotC that bad skill challenges be everywhere rather than no skill challenge. Etc...and then Paizo showed up using the old system+good adventure paths.

Boci

2019-04-12, 05:08 PM

4e didn't have a simple Fighter and a complex Wizard. If there was a 4e Fighter who lost all powers, but gained instead Twin Strike with 'Fighter's Strike'(an MBA replacement), I suspect we'd still be playing 4e now. Because unfortunately, there are a number of players who want that kind of no-option PC as a character choice and not having one means they'd rather not play at all.

Why is that unfortunate...? People tend not to play with systems that don't cater to options they enjoy. Time and other resources for RPGs are finite.

NomGarret

2019-04-12, 06:08 PM

To be fair, 4e did eventually have simple fighters once essentials rolled out. Slayer is pretty darn simple. Now I wasn’t on board with that move until the Elementalist came along, since then it became having simple options for those who want simple builds, rather than shoehorning those who want simple builds into specific character concepts.

ThePurple

2019-04-12, 08:20 PM

Stick with 4 classes and a $#!^ load of archetypes.

My own rebuild of 4e ignores classes altogether and just relies upon roles: Defender, Leader, Striker, Controller, and Artillery (I separated Controller from Artillery because I always felt that Controller only got the AoE stuff because Wizards were Controllers and needed to have fireball). Whenever you're creating your character, you pick 2 roles and a power source and that becomes your class. You can only have a single role active at a time and there are limitations on role swapping (once you go Leader, you can't swap back to your other role until the End of the Encounter; you must start as a Defender and, once you leave Defender, you can't return to it until the End of the Encounter; Artillery is the only role that you're allowed to swap between at-will, even if you're a Leader or Defender otherwise). Power source simply provides the pool of utility powers that you get to pull from.

MwaO

2019-04-12, 10:13 PM

Why is that unfortunate...? People tend not to play with systems that don't cater to options they enjoy. Time and other resources for RPGs are finite.

Because if you live in an area where getting a consistent table requires those people to play, you either:
Play a system they're willing to play.
Don't play at all.

Choice #1, given Paizo was releasing new 3.5 material, wasn't too hard to make for many groups.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-13, 02:23 AM

To be fair, 4e did eventually have simple fighters once essentials rolled out.

Sure, but that was way too late for all the people who disliked 4E with only the PHB1; and that was marketed in such a way that it offended numerous 4E fans and players.

I mean, if somebody dislikes a game, he's probably not going to stick around for years hoping that the developers might eventually "patch" it; he's just going to play something else.

ThePurple

2019-04-13, 10:11 AM

Sure, but that was way too late for all the people who disliked 4E with only the PHB1; and that was marketed in such a way that it offended numerous 4E fans and players.

I mean, if somebody dislikes a game, he's probably not going to stick around for years hoping that the developers might eventually "patch" it; he's just going to play something else.

I mean, 3.X really did a lot to make players believe that D&D was all about spending 30 hours building your character (or 1 hour searching the web for a build and copying it) and then instantly winning the combat because you were built properly. All of the technique went into building your character (or, for a spellcaster, choosing the right spells, which happened outside of combat anyways) rather tactics. It definitely shifted an entire generation of D&D players' perceptions and/or sculpted the playerbase to one that thought that tactics were something you did before the fight started not something you came up with based upon the fight itself.

I've met more than a few 3.X players that don't actually want a challenge or to think (including wizard characters). They wanted to just watch their character steamroll stuff after rolling some dice, all of the decisions made beforehand (of course, most of those guys were programmers or engineers who really loved algorithms so it kinda went with that mindset).

Boci

2019-04-13, 10:40 AM

I mean, 3.X really did a lot to make players believe that D&D was all about spending 30 hours building your character (or 1 hour searching the web for a build and copying it) and then instantly winning the combat because you were built properly..

The forums did, but in my expirience at least, the game as a whole did not. I've played D&D 3.5 and 5th ed with die hard optimizers/power gamers (with in game tactics absolutly a thing) and roleplayers who claimed to not care about mechanics at all. In my 4th edition groups the players tended to be clustered more around the mid-optimization point.

Honest Tiefling

2019-04-13, 11:54 AM

My expirience has been different. People gave it a fair chance, and then stopped because of a list of issues with a lot of groups voicing similar problems:

The HP system was wierd even by D&D standards
The shared template of classes limited the desire to try out other classes
Fights often became grind fests
Videogame-y elements like abilities that were cool but hard to visualize in a fight or the labelling of classes, or the pallet swapping of monsters (hyena into cacklefiend hyena, griffon into rimefire griffon)

I had a similar experience, through the groups I played with complained mostly about the grindy-ness of combat (WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?!?!?) and classes being a bit too similar. I think a lot of players also didn't like how cookie-cutter character creation was. Sometimes there would be great ideas, but mostly...It seemed like you followed a build and that was that, little point in deviating as the abilities just plain wouldn't work. I could be mistaken as I only played a few games, however.

I think the changes to the setting weren't terribly popular. If you liked Forgotten Realms, too bad, because half of it is nuked and what isn't nuked is changed weirdly. And if you didn't like Forgotten Realms you weren't playing in it anyway and but had to listen to the complaints from people who liked it.

It is notable that when 5th edition rolled around, most of the changes were either retconned or just plain not mentioned.

I personally did like the core pantheon in the player's handbook. Some very solid choices for both adventurers and non-adventurers alike, which I like in my DnD pantheons. I'll also miss the Slayer and Invoker classes, as the first was popular and the second well...Right up my alley.

ThePurple

2019-04-13, 12:14 PM

I had a similar experience, through the groups I played with complained mostly about the grindy-ness of combat (WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?!?!?) and classes being a bit too similar. I think a lot of players also didn't like how cookie-cutter character creation was. Sometimes there would be great ideas, but mostly...It seemed like you followed a build and that was that, little point in deviating as the abilities just plain wouldn't work. I could be mistaken as I only played a few games, however.

From an optimization standpoint, a lot of that was true, largely because they kept releasing like 20 new powers for every level, but none of the new ones were ever as good as the preexisting best option. A lot of it also came from certain weapons basically requiring or emphasizing certain ability scores, which drastically limits your options. It's one of the reasons I was really glad to see them abandon the more restrictive ability score requirements for feats in Essentials.

It's also one of the reasons why I've basically abandoned set ability scores for "classes" in my 4e remake: if you want to be super smart and swing your sword with INT rather than STR (you use your cunning to place the blade in the proper spot), that's perfectly fine by me (and it's the rationale for Swordmages anyways). Classes were always too restrictive in my opinion.

I think the changes to the setting weren't terribly popular. If you liked Forgotten Realms, too bad, because half of it is nuked and what isn't nuked is changed weirdly. And if you didn't like Forgotten Realms you weren't playing in it anyway and but had to listen to the complaints from people who liked it.

It is notable that when 5th edition rolled around, most of the changes were either retconned or just plain not mentioned.

Most of the stuff that was done with Forgotten Realms for 4e was done for either a good reason (to get rid of all of the built up decades of overpowered uber-epic storylines involving massive casts of characters across the entire world that should logically render the PCs largely irrelevant) or for a meh-to-bad reason (to bring in baseline 4e races like the Dragonborn and to force in the 4e Gods v. Primordials stuff). Either way, it was done in a very clumsy and heavy handed manner that didn't really sit well with *anyone*. I liked the Spellplague, which was interesting and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was really nice, but most of the overarching FR things were just really badly done.

I personally did like the core pantheon in the player's handbook. Some very solid choices for both adventurers and non-adventurers alike, which I like in my DnD pantheons. I'll also miss the Slayer and Invoker classes, as the first was popular and the second well...Right up my alley.

Points of Light was a really interesting setting, but I absolutely loved what they did with Eberron. They didn't try to change everything and it got rid of a lot of the meta-game knowledge that could happen with Eberron in 3.X (since Eberron was basically built as "the world operates by these 3.X rules" you could very easily meta a lot).

Honest Tiefling

2019-04-13, 01:35 PM

Most of the stuff that was done with Forgotten Realms for 4e was done for either a good reason (to get rid of all of the built up decades of overpowered uber-epic storylines involving massive casts of characters across the entire world that should logically render the PCs largely irrelevant) or for a meh-to-bad reason (to bring in baseline 4e races like the Dragonborn and to force in the 4e Gods v. Primordials stuff). Either way, it was done in a very clumsy and heavy handed manner that didn't really sit well with *anyone*. I liked the Spellplague, which was interesting and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was really nice, but most of the overarching FR things were just really badly done.

Problem is, that's a bit like taking out the chocolate from a chocolate cake to try to make a salad. The end product is a mess and really unrecognizable and neither salad-eaters or cake-eaters want anything to do with the mess. And it's just more work than just having the stupid cake to begin with. It didn't HAVE to be done, because the people who like the Realms actually like those bits else they would be playing a different setting.

I don't even like the Realms and I hated the changes as it was a giant mess of gutting random bits and changing other bits to make way for things. Dragonborn were a good idea and have proved popular in my personal experience, but did they have to be in the Realms, and did you need some sort of planar event as opposed to 'Hey guys, found a new continent!'?

I really wish the Points of Light setting got fleshed out rather than try to make some sort of Frankenstein setting out of the Realms and whatever bits they found lying around the office that needed to be put out of it's misery.

MeeposFire

2019-04-13, 02:33 PM

Problem is, that's a bit like taking out the chocolate from a chocolate cake to try to make a salad. The end product is a mess and really unrecognizable and neither salad-eaters or cake-eaters want anything to do with the mess. And it's just more work than just having the stupid cake to begin with. It didn't HAVE to be done, because the people who like the Realms actually like those bits else they would be playing a different setting.

I don't even like the Realms and I hated the changes as it was a giant mess of gutting random bits and changing other bits to make way for things. Dragonborn were a good idea and have proved popular in my personal experience, but did they have to be in the Realms, and did you need some sort of planar event as opposed to 'Hey guys, found a new continent!'?

I really wish the Points of Light setting got fleshed out rather than try to make some sort of Frankenstein setting out of the Realms and whatever bits they found lying around the office that needed to be put out of it's misery.

Sadly that is a Realms trope and one that I have said over the years would be better off not doing. It has been a thing for that setting to have all mechanical changes have a corresponding lore rational for it (well most of the time anyway) for instance going from 1e to 2e they had the Time of Troubles where they had all assassins in the entire world killed off in a ritual and eliminated Bhaal the god most associated with them all because they decided that the assassin class was no longer going to be a thing.

Notice this is from 1e to 2e which is similar enough you can run an adventure made for one in the other and probably would not even notice unless you look at some fine details and yet they still felt compelled to make a big event out of it.

Other settings that do not have a history of doing that did not get that treatment. Eberron did not have its timeline moved around or had any huge changes made to it (well that is my opinion on that there are other people who I have found on the 5e board here who will rant for a novel's length of time in a really negative manner about all the changes made to Ebberon in 4e and have me start questioning why I am an Eberron fan but hey every setting will have those right?). Dark Sun actually went back in time almost to its start in 2e which I think was a great idea (the original Dark Sun set took place with all the sorcerer kings alive and well but in the first set of adventures they killed the king of Tyr among other things and later in 2e they came out with a revised set which made that whole series of events an official part of the story which made it a bit unpopular at the time, 4e reverted it back to almost the original with the only big change being that Tyr's king had fallen so that there was still a default starting place for your typical group).

I actually rather liked many things in the essentials line and similar products. It started to show that the game system was versatile enough to handle more variety of mechanical elements and I think if the game had those options from the start the game would have been improved. However I do think it was a mistake in that they did not give them the ability to just take standard class encounter powers. Not in the book they came in of course but in a Dragon article instead of using feats which frankly they did too much then. A class from the essentials book with a nice selection of good encounter powers is pretty nice. I also would have been a fan of making more powers have the same effects but use basic attacks as the basis for the attacks themselves. Too much work for a supplement but it would be something I would want on a rewrite.

NomGarret

2019-04-13, 03:19 PM

That’s the double-edged sword of it all. They tried a lot of new things in 4e and it took a while and a lot of revisions to get them right. Some of them they never got around to. PF and 5e have been able to avoid that mostly because they’ve each done so few big, new things. It’s sad that 4e won’t get the benefit of a cleaned up edition of its own.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-13, 04:46 PM

I mean, 3.X really did a lot to make players believe that D&D was all about spending 30 hours building your character (or 1 hour searching the web for a build and copying it) and then instantly winning the combat because you were built properly.
I've never met anyone who plays like that, nor who wants to. I don't think your experience is a common one.

Morty

2019-04-14, 08:25 AM

It took me too long to appreciate 4E, and by then the train had mostly left the station. It's not my favorite game by any means, but I think it's the best incarnation of D&D, that actually tries to accomplish its goals in a planned manner... but whether or not it succeeds varies.

It definitely had a very rough start that drove many people off. Its marketing was honestly atrocious - when you make a new game that you know will be controversial, you don't try to purposely stoke the controversy. And a lot of the time that's what it felt like WotC were doing. The PHB was stuck between being its own game and trying to emulate past editions, so it was really neither. The core class list is a bit of a mess because of that. It took the game a while to reach its full potential and by that time not that many people were left.

Dimers

2019-04-15, 07:39 PM

It definitely had a very rough start that drove many people off ... It took the game a while to reach its full potential and by that time not that many people were left.

Hm. Do you think it would have been accepted/used more if it were developed "on the side"? There are some videogame series that produced a "Tactics" variant without interrupting progress in other areas, and 4e strikes me as being "D&D Tactics".

Boci

2019-04-15, 07:50 PM

Hm. Do you think it would have been accepted/used more if it were developed "on the side"? There are some videogame series that produced a "Tactics" variant without interrupting progress in other areas, and 4e strikes me as being "D&D Tactics".

I think it would have been a very hard sell for the D&D division of WotC to say, "No no, don't worry, we absolutly did not need to pull a significant amount of resources -talent, money or man hours- away from the main D&D game to make this,"

Maybe is they got another company to do the work they could have pulled it off, but I dunno if they'd want to do that after what happened paizo.

tiornys

2019-04-15, 08:22 PM

Practical difficulties aside, yes. I think 4E would have met a much better reception overall if it had been "D&D Tactics" instead of "the next edition of D&D".

NomGarret

2019-04-16, 10:05 AM

You would still need to put “regular” D&D more or less on hiatus during that time to give enough focus on the product to justify the resources. Sure, maybe you keep plunking out smaller books for 3.5. Flesh out some unfinished corners. Add a little more support for the fringe classes and races.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-16, 10:13 AM

Practical difficulties aside, yes. I think 4E would have met a much better reception overall if it had been "D&D Tactics" instead of "the next edition of D&D".

And this would have forced them to use better marketing than "OMG 3E sucks so bad!" :smallamused:

Morty

2019-04-16, 10:45 AM

Hm. Do you think it would have been accepted/used more if it were developed "on the side"? There are some videogame series that produced a "Tactics" variant without interrupting progress in other areas, and 4e strikes me as being "D&D Tactics".

Practical difficulties aside, yes. I think 4E would have met a much better reception overall if it had been "D&D Tactics" instead of "the next edition of D&D".

It might have made the edition wars a bit less vitriolic, but ultimately people would have kept on playing 3E and 4E would have just fallen by the wayside quicker. Probably with less material, too.

NomGarret

2019-04-16, 11:39 AM

I agree. It’s doubtful such a move would would be better for the life of the edition itself. At best, it would have allowed 5e to go in less of a reactionary direction.

MoiMagnus

2019-04-16, 12:02 PM

"Homebrew 4e" is by far the edition of D&D I've played (and probably will continue to play)
However, most of my post are in the 5e forum.

Why? Because my 5e games are almost RAW, while my 4e games are so far from RAW it is barely the same game, and I don't even remember how 4e plays without the changes. And since our homebrew are in French, I can't post them here without a lot of work.

We changed the classes, we changed the races, we literally rewrite every power to balance them around a mana-system, ...
In fact, it would be easier to list the things we kept:
1) The 4e roles (Defender/Leader/...), and the "tactical RPG" spirit of classes
2) The D&D abilities, the 4e defenses
3) The 4e skill system (with a different skill list), and the idea of skill challenges
4) The idea that every class should have at will powers, and resource consuming powers.
5) The 4e sbire/regular/elite/solo system for monsters. In general, a lot of ideas from the monster manual.
6) The 4e action system
7) The 4e heroic/parangonic/epic tiers, with their underlying ideas.
8) The "bloodied" condition, flanking, difficult terrain, ...

So not much more than the core concepts of 4e. But those are concepts I love.

Beoric

2019-04-16, 07:39 PM

I think it would have been a very hard sell for the D&D division of WotC to say, "No no, don't worry, we absolutly did not need to pull a significant amount of resources -talent, money or man hours- away from the main D&D game to make this,"

Maybe is they got another company to do the work they could have pulled it off, but I dunno if they'd want to do that after what happened paizo.

There is a pretty good precedent for this, with AD&D 1e being marketed alongside B/X and both doing well.

MwaO

2019-04-17, 10:16 AM

Practical difficulties aside, yes. I think 4E would have met a much better reception overall if it had been "D&D Tactics" instead of "the next edition of D&D".

Eh, really, if there's a reason why 5e marketing is genius and 4e's marketing an abomination, it is that it convinced people that you can play in ToTM for 5e, but not 4e, even though ToTM is equally plausible in both editions.

Just don't take forced movement options in 4e. Boom. Done.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-17, 12:03 PM

Eh, really, if there's a reason why 5e marketing is genius and 4e's marketing an abomination, it is that it convinced people that you can play in ToTM for 5e, but not 4e
Well you can, technically, but the whole 4E ruleset is a really bad match for theatre of the mind. Aside from throwing out forced movement, you also need to throw out all ranges and areas of powers, and flanking, and bonuses for adjacent characters, and warlord positioning powers, and probably some other things.

That is, most players don't approach this combination from the view that "we love 4E, what settings can we use it with?", but the opposite: "we love TOTM, what systems work well with it?" And if you answer the latter, 4E is really nowhere near the top of the list.

Honest Tiefling

2019-04-17, 12:15 PM

Why? Because my 5e games are almost RAW, while my 4e games are so far from RAW it is barely the same game, and I don't even remember how 4e plays without the changes. And since our homebrew are in French, I can't post them here without a lot of work.

A pity. From what you posted it sounds like a pretty nifty system. I guess I gotta learn French even if my stupid American brain rejects learning other languages.

Dimers

2019-04-17, 02:16 PM

A pity. From what you posted it sounds like a pretty nifty system. I guess I gotta learn French even if my stupid American brain rejects learning other languages.

Heck, I learned one French word just from reading the post! "Sbire" instead of "minion". Trying to translate that also led to me getting a better understanding of what "myrmidon" is supposed to mean, so, two for the price of one. :smallsmile:

ve4grm

2019-04-17, 03:57 PM

Eh, really, if there's a reason why 5e marketing is genius and 4e's marketing an abomination, it is that it convinced people that you can play in ToTM for 5e, but not 4e, even though ToTM is equally plausible in both editions.

Just don't take forced movement options in 4e. Boom. Done.

Well you can, technically, but the whole 4E ruleset is a really bad match for theatre of the mind. Aside from throwing out forced movement, you also need to throw out all ranges and areas of powers, and flanking, and bonuses for adjacent characters, and warlord positioning powers, and probably some other things.

That is, most players don't approach this combination from the view that "we love 4E, what settings can we use it with?", but the opposite: "we love TOTM, what systems work well with it?" And if you answer the latter, 4E is really nowhere near the top of the list.

I mean, neither is 5e. I know plenty of people who had an easier time with 4e's "squares" than with actually visualizing ranges and areas in feet. Not to mention, 5e still has a variety of forced movement (although much less than 4e).

In any case, 5e sucks for ToTM too. If you want that, find a system built for it, like FATE or 13th Age.

Kurald Galain

2019-04-17, 04:02 PM

I mean, neither is 5e. I know plenty of people who had an easier time with 4e's "squares" than with actually visualizing ranges and areas in feet. Not to mention, 5e still has a variety of forced movement (although much less than 4e).

I've had good experience playing 2E as TOTM. As well as every RPG that isn't D&D :smallbiggrin:

MwaO

2019-04-17, 04:13 PM

Well you can, technically, but the whole 4E ruleset is a really bad match for theatre of the mind. Aside from throwing out forced movement, you also need to throw out all ranges and areas of powers, and flanking, and bonuses for adjacent characters, and warlord positioning powers, and probably some other things.

All of that is really in 5E too. The only reason I actually focus on Forced Movement is that's the one group of powers where players might actually try to figure out exact positioning and therefore, probably should be shot.

That is, most players don't approach this combination from the view that "we love 4E, what settings can we use it with?", but the opposite: "we love TOTM, what systems work well with it?" And if you answer the latter, 4E is really nowhere near the top of the list.

Right. Saying also 5E is about at the exact same spot. And the only reason anyone thinks differently about this is really marketing and that the people most likely to get confused by D&D have simple martials to play.