Li Shenron
Legend
Played.
DMed.
Hated.
DMed.
Hated.
Just wanted to highlight these 3 because I think the PHB2 might be one of the single best D&D books ever published. Every single class published in that book was just stellar. I mean, it introduced the Avenger, the Warden, and the Invoker, which is an incredible batting average for introducing new classes that are both novel and immediately recognizable as a fantasy trope.Back on to good points of 4E, can we talk about how totally awesome a lot of the 4E classes were?
Bards were amazing. They weren't as powerful as 5E Bards (hilariously, the 5E Bard is like what my 2E Bard, in wildest dreams, wished to be), but they were REALLY Bard-y, with their whole own deal that worked really well.
Avengers - Nothing like them in any other edition. Terrifying constantly teleporting two-hander wielding killers who could pull off incredible badguy assassinations. The 5E Paladin subclass is cute but it's not even a shadow of these wonders.
Warden - Ahhhh yes, another unmatched in other editions, a weird and wonderful combination of partial shapeshifting, druid-style combat magic, and a tremendous primal vibe.
Rituals were introduced in 3.5e as an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana from 2004 (after first appearing in d20 Modern in the Urban Arcana sourcebook/setting book). (Thus it's even OGC: UA:Incantations - D&D Wiki)I genuinely liked some of the things it did. It was the first edition to introduce rituals, AFAIK, and that was a great change.
Rituals were introduced in 3.5e as an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana from 2004 (after first appearing in d20 Modern in the Urban Arcana sourcebook/setting book). (Thus it's even OGC: UA:Incantations - D&D Wiki)
They called them "Incantations", but it was the same concept.
I didn't like the sweeping changes to the lore. The rearrangement of planes, the dividing of Elves into Elves and Eladrin, the dividing of Fighters into Fighters and Warlords, the extreme focus on mechanical balance over all other concerns, nor the implied grimdark tone that the game seemed designed to convey (making Tieflings into a core race, Warlocks into a core class, the post-apocalyptic "points of light" setting, the Spellplague in the Realms all just exuded a "dark and edgy" vibe I didn't like). It seemed custom-designed to divorce D&D from the lore and expectations of everything that came before.
I really, really did NOT like the changes it brought to the Forgotten Realms
I played it and didn't care for it very much because it felt like an MMORPG. Suddenly we had defenders, strikers, and controllers all felt too similar to roles characters had in World of Warcraft.
The at-will, per-encounter, and daily powers all felt like I was pressing a button on my keyboard and waiting for the cool down so I could press it again.
For me it was the first version ever to give me the experience that D&D had promised me for over three decades. I switched over from 3.5 almost immediately and never looked back.
As we played it, we still found a few proud nails annoying us, so when the edition was abandoned by WoTC, I created my own clone which is something like 30% 3.x basics, 40% ideas from 4E, and 30% my own ideas.