Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 5958652" data-attributes="member: 1544"><p>DogBackwards already addressed most of my arguments, but here's a couple of additional points.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure about that. I count as part of WotC's current customer based, yet I don't like 4E. Customer base doesn't necessarily mean 'someone who has bought the latest product'. But I will leave this point here because I knew what you mean regardless of the wording.</p><p></p><p>Would you like me to recount the number of times (out of combat) where my character has been completely useless because I didn't have the required skills? I'm quite serious about this. I don't recall a single skill challenge that wasn't a total bore-fest for me. Why? because inevitably the skills required to complete the challenge aren't on my list of trained skills. Or, if they are on the list, someone else is better at them, and they can only be used once in the challenge.</p><p></p><p> And a lot of the time, they don't do it well. Our warlock is a better controller than our wizard, but doesn't kick out a lot of damage. Just <em>an</em> example.</p><p></p><p>Agreed, and you'll note that defining the central theme of each class is something that WotC is trying to do!</p><p></p><p>This is true of any system, but the rest of your point stands, during combat...</p><p></p><p>See my previous point. Often 'what you're best at' is not applicable in a skill challenge. "Mental genius with a flair for knowledge? no use here buddy, we need endurance and athletics to chase the baddies across the rooftops." "Dextrous athlete? Sorry, this is a social skill challenge, go play in the corner." Worse yet, some skill challenges require input from each character, even the ones who have extremely low scores in the required skills. I do not consider this a strong point of 4E. Conceptually yes, in practice, no.</p><p></p><p>As DogBackwards pointed out; EARLY ALPHA. I'd love to know how many powers had been developed at an equivalent stage of 4E.</p><p></p><p>And often unhelpful. Only one bad guy left? I guess the wizard will cast magic missile then, since everything else generally relies on area effect greater than 1x1. On the flip side, in my pathfinder game, the fighter, ranger and rogue spent every available round making basic attacks, and it was <em>intense</em>. There wasn't a single boring moment, despite the 'boring' mechanics. </p><p></p><p> TOUGH, you have options, and you'll have to spend hours picking them each level. Or, admittedly, play an essentials character; but then how long did it take for those to turn up? Remember, you're comparing a 3 year old game with many published books with a game that is over a year away from being released.</p><p></p><p>Ah, another pet peeve. Got a move that pushes your opponent? Cool, is there anything to push him into this battle? No? So... push him anyway. Yeah, that makes sense. And seriously, what happened to open battlefields, large chambers and other normal every day places that don't involve pits, lava, patches of ice etc? I can walk around all day without seeing anything remotely like that, yet in 4E-world, they're around every corner. What's up with that?</p><p></p><p>And has all the improvisation options available to him that any character has in 4E. [Insert page 42 argument here] Also, see my point above about basic attacks not equating to boring combat. Let the situation dictate the excitement, not the mechanics. (Actually, that's a key point of difference between playgroups. It sounds to me like you're firmly in the camp of 'mechanics must provide the fun')</p><p></p><p> Because 4E isn't tedious and grindy? What?? Escalated hit points? Compared with what? 4E? Are you serious?</p><p></p><p>Which is why character sheets are 8+ pages long!!! I'm highly in favour of simple characters fitting on a single page again. Let the complex characters write out their spells/whatever on extra pages. There was never anything stopping 3E players from doing that you know...</p><p></p><p>That's nice. We have to look up rules every game. I'm honestly not trying to be snarky in this post, but you're talking from a very coloured viewpoint (as am I). I like the cohesiveness of 4E's rules, but not all of them make sense. Plus we keep finding ourselves in obscure situations. Also, having played 2e, 3.0, 3.5, pathfinder and 4E, it's easy to forget which version of a rule you need in a given game. The only reason that I'm having to look up pathfinder rules more than 4E rules right now is that I hadn't played pathfinder in over 18 months.</p><p></p><p>So write out a summary of your spells on your character sheet. Fixed for players! Didn't even need software to do it. Yeah, I agree with this. I was against 'monsters don't have to follow the same rules as PCs' for a long time, but I'm a convert.</p><p></p><p>From what I've seen, Next handles this even better. No more needing to remember the right numbers for the party's level.</p><p></p><p> That third point irritates me, as mentioned above. Having interactive terrain for every battle comes with two problems:</p><p>1) As a DM, I'd have to come up with them for every battle (something I'm not good at)</p><p>2) Having these features present in such quantity (as much as every room in published adventures...) contributes to my broken verisimilitude. </p><p></p><p>Ok, that I can agree with, but I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing. Interesting critters have to be survivable so that their points of interest can come to light. Try thinking of other editions as Minion-Heavy 4E and you won't be so off track. Not every creature has to have some fantastical power. A lot of creatures and NPCs <em>should</em> behave like fairly normal humans. Let their base stats and damage do <em>some</em> of the talking. Why are orcs scarey? Because they're strong so they hit hard. I'm sure the 'warriors surge' ability only exists because 'all monsters have to have a special feature'.</p><p>Making all monsters and NPCs feature-ific takes away from the interest of the PCs themselves. "Hey guys, once per encounter I get to shift as a reaction if someone stops next to me." "Yeah, so what, kobolds do that AT WILL" "Oh, so I'm not as cool as a kobold. Bugger"</p><p></p><p>Again, I find 4E to not be that interesting in this regard. All monsters having special features means that it often doesn't matter which one you take out first. </p><p></p><p>Ok, so that was more than a couple of points... I didn't notice so many points of disagreement on the first read-through. I'm actually very impressed with your post over-all. You certainly did a good job of describing 4E, but your impressions of where 5E is going, and your feelings as to which direction is the right direction... well that's where we disagree.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Zustiur, post: 5958652, member: 1544"] DogBackwards already addressed most of my arguments, but here's a couple of additional points. I'm not sure about that. I count as part of WotC's current customer based, yet I don't like 4E. Customer base doesn't necessarily mean 'someone who has bought the latest product'. But I will leave this point here because I knew what you mean regardless of the wording. Would you like me to recount the number of times (out of combat) where my character has been completely useless because I didn't have the required skills? I'm quite serious about this. I don't recall a single skill challenge that wasn't a total bore-fest for me. Why? because inevitably the skills required to complete the challenge aren't on my list of trained skills. Or, if they are on the list, someone else is better at them, and they can only be used once in the challenge. And a lot of the time, they don't do it well. Our warlock is a better controller than our wizard, but doesn't kick out a lot of damage. Just [I]an[/I] example. Agreed, and you'll note that defining the central theme of each class is something that WotC is trying to do! This is true of any system, but the rest of your point stands, during combat... See my previous point. Often 'what you're best at' is not applicable in a skill challenge. "Mental genius with a flair for knowledge? no use here buddy, we need endurance and athletics to chase the baddies across the rooftops." "Dextrous athlete? Sorry, this is a social skill challenge, go play in the corner." Worse yet, some skill challenges require input from each character, even the ones who have extremely low scores in the required skills. I do not consider this a strong point of 4E. Conceptually yes, in practice, no. As DogBackwards pointed out; EARLY ALPHA. I'd love to know how many powers had been developed at an equivalent stage of 4E. And often unhelpful. Only one bad guy left? I guess the wizard will cast magic missile then, since everything else generally relies on area effect greater than 1x1. On the flip side, in my pathfinder game, the fighter, ranger and rogue spent every available round making basic attacks, and it was [I]intense[/I]. There wasn't a single boring moment, despite the 'boring' mechanics. TOUGH, you have options, and you'll have to spend hours picking them each level. Or, admittedly, play an essentials character; but then how long did it take for those to turn up? Remember, you're comparing a 3 year old game with many published books with a game that is over a year away from being released. Ah, another pet peeve. Got a move that pushes your opponent? Cool, is there anything to push him into this battle? No? So... push him anyway. Yeah, that makes sense. And seriously, what happened to open battlefields, large chambers and other normal every day places that don't involve pits, lava, patches of ice etc? I can walk around all day without seeing anything remotely like that, yet in 4E-world, they're around every corner. What's up with that? And has all the improvisation options available to him that any character has in 4E. [Insert page 42 argument here] Also, see my point above about basic attacks not equating to boring combat. Let the situation dictate the excitement, not the mechanics. (Actually, that's a key point of difference between playgroups. It sounds to me like you're firmly in the camp of 'mechanics must provide the fun') Because 4E isn't tedious and grindy? What?? Escalated hit points? Compared with what? 4E? Are you serious? Which is why character sheets are 8+ pages long!!! I'm highly in favour of simple characters fitting on a single page again. Let the complex characters write out their spells/whatever on extra pages. There was never anything stopping 3E players from doing that you know... That's nice. We have to look up rules every game. I'm honestly not trying to be snarky in this post, but you're talking from a very coloured viewpoint (as am I). I like the cohesiveness of 4E's rules, but not all of them make sense. Plus we keep finding ourselves in obscure situations. Also, having played 2e, 3.0, 3.5, pathfinder and 4E, it's easy to forget which version of a rule you need in a given game. The only reason that I'm having to look up pathfinder rules more than 4E rules right now is that I hadn't played pathfinder in over 18 months. So write out a summary of your spells on your character sheet. Fixed for players! Didn't even need software to do it. Yeah, I agree with this. I was against 'monsters don't have to follow the same rules as PCs' for a long time, but I'm a convert. From what I've seen, Next handles this even better. No more needing to remember the right numbers for the party's level. That third point irritates me, as mentioned above. Having interactive terrain for every battle comes with two problems: 1) As a DM, I'd have to come up with them for every battle (something I'm not good at) 2) Having these features present in such quantity (as much as every room in published adventures...) contributes to my broken verisimilitude. Ok, that I can agree with, but I'm not entirely sure it's a bad thing. Interesting critters have to be survivable so that their points of interest can come to light. Try thinking of other editions as Minion-Heavy 4E and you won't be so off track. Not every creature has to have some fantastical power. A lot of creatures and NPCs [I]should[/I] behave like fairly normal humans. Let their base stats and damage do [I]some[/I] of the talking. Why are orcs scarey? Because they're strong so they hit hard. I'm sure the 'warriors surge' ability only exists because 'all monsters have to have a special feature'. Making all monsters and NPCs feature-ific takes away from the interest of the PCs themselves. "Hey guys, once per encounter I get to shift as a reaction if someone stops next to me." "Yeah, so what, kobolds do that AT WILL" "Oh, so I'm not as cool as a kobold. Bugger" Again, I find 4E to not be that interesting in this regard. All monsters having special features means that it often doesn't matter which one you take out first. Ok, so that was more than a couple of points... I didn't notice so many points of disagreement on the first read-through. I'm actually very impressed with your post over-all. You certainly did a good job of describing 4E, but your impressions of where 5E is going, and your feelings as to which direction is the right direction... well that's where we disagree. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition
Top