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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6564375" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>With the caveat that spells are MUCH more open-ended than in 4e, generally speaking, and that non-casters are considerably more circumscribed, relatively speaking. A 5e fighter is pretty tough and is relatively more capable than a 2e fighter, or a 3e fighter, but the overall 'plot' asymmetry is very evident, and even low level 5e wizards tend to dominate combat from a level of overall tactics (IE my level 4 wizard would hold the bad guys at bay or consistently bottleneck them and set them up for the melee types pretty easily in the majority of fights). </p><p></p><p></p><p>I think this was the prime impetus at the detailed level of 4e design, was the removal of 'I Win buttons' from particularly the casters. 3.5 in particular is rife with them, but even in 2e I recall that my wizard could pretty much end most encounters or at the very least 'ramp up' from 'let the fighters take care of it' to 'beat this thing to a pulp and win this round' mode. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>4e more clearly scales everything, and generally challenges remain relevant only over about 1/10th of the level range, which makes true sandbox play a bit hard. The DM has to thoroughly telegraph the expected difficulty of each area of the sandbox for it to work. You can do it in a limited extent, but the game works best where you have a number of small sandboxes linked together by an overarching plot that drives the action along. </p><p></p><p>The characters explore the nasty woods where they can find level 1-7 monsters, and then they move on to the pirate town where they can mess with levels 4-10 monsters, and then they deal with the dragon's minions at levels 7-15, and the dragon at levels 12-20, and the land beyond the portal in the dragon cave levels 17-24, etc. </p><p></p><p>I think 5e probably would work better for an absolute sandbox, though the difficulty with gauging encounters might thwart it somewhat, much like the same problem dogged older editions sandbox play (you just get LOTS of TPKs, Gygaxian meat grinder play in effect).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6564375, member: 82106"] With the caveat that spells are MUCH more open-ended than in 4e, generally speaking, and that non-casters are considerably more circumscribed, relatively speaking. A 5e fighter is pretty tough and is relatively more capable than a 2e fighter, or a 3e fighter, but the overall 'plot' asymmetry is very evident, and even low level 5e wizards tend to dominate combat from a level of overall tactics (IE my level 4 wizard would hold the bad guys at bay or consistently bottleneck them and set them up for the melee types pretty easily in the majority of fights). I think this was the prime impetus at the detailed level of 4e design, was the removal of 'I Win buttons' from particularly the casters. 3.5 in particular is rife with them, but even in 2e I recall that my wizard could pretty much end most encounters or at the very least 'ramp up' from 'let the fighters take care of it' to 'beat this thing to a pulp and win this round' mode. 4e more clearly scales everything, and generally challenges remain relevant only over about 1/10th of the level range, which makes true sandbox play a bit hard. The DM has to thoroughly telegraph the expected difficulty of each area of the sandbox for it to work. You can do it in a limited extent, but the game works best where you have a number of small sandboxes linked together by an overarching plot that drives the action along. The characters explore the nasty woods where they can find level 1-7 monsters, and then they move on to the pirate town where they can mess with levels 4-10 monsters, and then they deal with the dragon's minions at levels 7-15, and the dragon at levels 12-20, and the land beyond the portal in the dragon cave levels 17-24, etc. I think 5e probably would work better for an absolute sandbox, though the difficulty with gauging encounters might thwart it somewhat, much like the same problem dogged older editions sandbox play (you just get LOTS of TPKs, Gygaxian meat grinder play in effect). [/QUOTE]
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