The roots of 4e exposed?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I played 4Ed, I know how PC building worked. I’m saying that it is possible- and IMHO, probable- that a classless, toolbox version of the mechanics could have resulted in a (different but) more popular game.



I have zero idea of how Mearls plays, or how anyone outside of our group did, for that matter.

The main reasons we experienced slow play were:

1) the near absence of iterative attacks. If your attack roll resulted in a miss, you were basically done for the round.

2) too many short duration and/or small value modifiers. That meant a lot of tracking +1s & +2s from a variety of sources, of various durations. You were almost never attacking with the same attack or damage bonuses as the previous round, which meant doing math every turn.

3) some of our less-experienced players struggled with choosing powers, and often were not settled on a course of action when their turn rolled around. I suspect those players would have done better with Essentials classes, but those were not available until after our campaign concluded.

Well, I don't think people really missed a huge amount in practice. I mean, AD&D lacked anything like multi-attacks either, and to-hits were a lot lower, yet it was never called the reason for slow combats (though IME it was no faster than 4e).

2 and 3 are true. The way I found to combat it was to simply turn the game into a crazy action fest where every round of combat presented some unique opportunity or risk and instead of agonizing over the way to use your at-will for the 4th time you were instead leaping onto the moving train or something and lobbing some shot at someone along the way to maybe push them out of the way or knock them back out the window, or something.

That killed off 3 mostly, though I agree that 2 required getting people to be organized and not worrying about it too much. This is a point where some of 5e's design works, though I think it can be done better in some points.

 

[Les Moore]

Sure. My point is, you can’t blame WotC for trying to monetize the crap out of 4e when Hasbro was pressuring them to meet an unreasonably high bottom line. It was anti-consumer for sure, but it was Hasbro’s fault, not WotCs. We’re seeing the same thing in the AAA video game industry right now, with gamers losing all of their goodwill towards developers who are resorting to unsavory monetization schemes like loot boxes, when it’s the publishers who are pressuring them to do so.

It's not about placing blame, here. It's about what got done, why and how it was done, and what we wound up with as a result. IMO, Hasbro and WoTC
(not that it matters, now) could have handled things differently, been a little more forthcoming about the(then) new edition, (4e) and not only would
we have been willing to approach the platform with more realistic expectations, the PHBs and 4e pubs wouldn't be tanking, at 5$ a pop online.

 

[houser2112]

I admit the shell game 5e played with some mechanics was a little odd. Taking caster advancement it making it based on character level instead of class level (an improvement over 3.x, IMHO), but then taking Extra Attack & basing it on class level instead of BAB(character level), for instance. Taking spell scaling from caster level to slot, but then taking DCs from slot scaling to character level. It's ... inconsistent.

With the exception of Concentration (the Highlander-ification part, not the get-hit-make-a-save part), I like the changes that 5E made to the spellcasting system as a whole. The paleovancian sacred cow was finally slaughtered, and if you squint the upcasting mechanic kind of looks like a step in the direction of 3.PF psionics, which is the perfect system (especially if you include Dreamscarred Press' work).

Making allownaces for that perplexing tendency, the oddity of consolidating Feats and Stat increases yet also basing them on class level (even though their virtually universal), instead of character level doesn't seem that extreme a change.

Eh, maybe. Still not a good idea.

In 3e I'd plan my whole build before the character had a single point of xp, so I don't see that as a major downside.

There were people that didn't do this? oO

Yes, we don't have fiddly skill ranks anymore. On balance, I think that has to be a positive, since anything less than maxxing a skill (essentially picking a skill at first level, and keeping it the same level relative to eachother) in 3e resulted in it rapidly becoming useless, the net effect is the same in 3e & 5e, just with less bookkeeping to get there, and less potential for abuse.

Fiddliness obviously doesn't bother me, especially when it allows you to pick up skills later in your character's life without waiting potentially 4 levels and using a very precious resource to do so.

I can't disagree with your bottom line. I just feel like it's due lack of material, more than structural deficiency, but I don't feel the excitement towards character creation when contemplating a possible 5e character that I did with 3e & 4e.

i don't either. I've been in the middle of our 5E session and noticed that I hadn't updated my character sheet with a new level, and it used to be the first thing I did when I got home.

 

[houser2112]

AD&D lacked anything like multi-attacks either

I'm not sure what you're talking about. 2E had multi-attacks, and the schedule of when they happened was accelerated if you specialized. I'm pretty sure this rule went as far back as 1E, as well.

 

[Maxperson]

I was with you until this. 5E is successful, cannot deny that, but to attribute that success to 3E players giving it their blessing couldn't be less true. People who like 3E like it for the density of its rules, and the depth and breadth of its character building options. 5E's rules system is extremely streamlined compared to 3E's, and 5E's character building options are downright anemic. 5E's success is in spite of 3E adherents, not because of it.

As someone who loved 3e, I'm going to disagree with you here. 3e was fantastic in that it added a better skill system, feats, class abilities, and so on. However, it really did start to become cumbersome and break down towards the end with how many options there were and having as many rules as it did. I can't begin to tell you how many fights or even social encounters were disrupted as we had to pour over books to find this rule or that so we could get the wording. The insanely high bonuses to rolls was also an issue. 5e has gone back to that, but in a much more streamlined way.

You are correct that the building options are anemic compared to 3e, and I would like to see more options than we have been given, but it still needs to be a lot less than 3e gave us. WotC has a history of overreacting to issues, though. You can see it in 5e with the over reduced options being put out, and in bounded accuracy, which while needed, has been bounded too much. People like a feeling of advancement and bonuses provided a clearer view of that. I think +10 over 20 levels would have been a better way to go.

 

[houser2112]

As someone who loved 3e, I'm going to disagree with you here. 3e was fantastic in that it added a better skill system, feats, class abilities, and so on. However, it really did start to become cumbersome and break down towards the end with how many options there were and having as many rules as it did. I can't begin to tell you how many fights or even social encounters were disrupted as we had to pour over books to find this rule or that so we could get the wording.

I won't dispute your (and many others') experience regarding high-level play, although I will say that I had a blast playing a sorcerer to level 30 (yeah, the epic level rules sucked, but they were all we had!). That group had 12 (!) people, so even the low-level combat was tedious, so it's hard for me to separate system issues from just having a cumbersome group to begin with. I've never been part of a group since that was able to avoid disintegrating long enough to get that high again.

The insanely high bonuses to rolls was also an issue. 5e has gone back to that, but in a much more streamlined way.

Are we talking about the same game? 5E has very low bonuses to die rolls. How you can say this and then in the next paragraph talk about Bounded Accuracy (5E's answer to the high bonuses) escapes me.

You are correct that the building options are anemic compared to 3e, and I would like to see more options than we have been given, but it still needs to be a lot less than 3e gave us. WotC has a history of overreacting to issues, though. You can see it in 5e with the over reduced options being put out, and in bounded accuracy, which while needed, has been bounded too much. People like a feeling of advancement and bonuses provided a clearer view of that. I think +10 over 20 levels would have been a better way to go.

As I've said above, the problem I have with 5E is the variety of "hooks" for character building in the system, not the number of options using those hooks. The latter problem can be fixed by either not allowing books if you feel there are too many, or making your own if you feel there are too few. The former problem can only be fixed by tweaking the system itself, a much more daunting task.

 

[Maxperson]

But, they take more time to resolve, especially when each is at a different attack bonus.

Seconds only. I had the bonuses written down on my sheet as something like +12, +7, +2. It doesn't take more than a few seconds of time to roll another 20 sided and add the next number to it. So in a group like that, you'd have the fighter with his 3 attacks, the paladin with his 3 attacks, the cleric with his 2 attacks OR a nasty spell that as effective as 3 or 4(or more) attacks at destroying monsters, and the wizard with his spell that's as nasty as 2-4(or more) attacks at destroying monsters. That will save time in the long run over each person gets one attack that might miss and do nothing. Addition rounds of combat add a lot more time than the extra seconds that the extra attacks added to 3e.

 

[houser2112]

I had the bonuses written down on my sheet as something like +12, +7, +2. It doesn't take more than a few seconds of time to roll another 20 sided and add the next number to it.

i went even further, baking all the bonuses that would go into rolling attacks into the final number (BAB, Weapon Focus, magic weapon bonus, ability bonus, etc). I had a table with a row for each weapon, and multiple rows if I was a ranged specialist for Rapid Shot and the like.

 

[Maxperson]

I won't dispute your (and many others') experience regarding high-level play, although I will say that I had a blast playing a sorcerer to level 30 (yeah, the epic level rules sucked, but they were all we had!). That group had 12 (!) people, so even the low-level combat was tedious, so it's hard for me to separate system issues from just having a cumbersome group to begin with. I've never been part of a group since that was able to avoid disintegrating long enough to get that high again.

A large group will definitely color game play. We played with 4-5 players and a DM.

Are we talking about the same game? 5E has very low bonuses to die rolls. How you can say this and then in the next paragraph talk about Bounded Accuracy (5E's answer to the high bonuses) escapes me.

Yes we are. As I said, 3e went waaaaaay too high with bonuses. 5e goes too low, but the bonuses really needed(in my opinion) to be lowered from where 3e and 4e took them.

As I've said above, the problem I have with 5E is the variety of "hooks" for character building in the system, not the number of options using those hooks. The latter problem can be fixed by either not allowing books if you feel there are too many, or making your own if you feel there are too few. The former problem can only be fixed by tweaking the system itself, a much more daunting task.

Unless the book was broken, like Nine Swords, I had trouble not allowing books. Players like different books and to arbitrarily ax this book, but not that one usually ended up making one player unhappy. The alternative of axing all extra books to be fair just ended up reducing the options too much.

 

[Maxperson]

i went even further, baking all the bonuses that would go into rolling attacks into the final number (BAB, Weapon Focus, magic weapon bonus, ability bonus, etc). I had a table with a row for each weapon, and multiple rows if I was a ranged specialist for Rapid Shot and the like.

I did, too. I just threw out arbitrary numbers there, which after seeing your response, looks like it was just the base attack. I added them all in with the exception of spell bonuses, which varied from combat to combat. Most of those came before combat began, though, and it was easy enough to just add +5 to my attack and damage numbers, and write the final number on a piece of scratch paper if bull's strength or that cleric spell(can't remember the name) that gave +3, +3 and an extra attack was cast.