D&D 4E Using 4E to make 5E Combat more fun

[Jester David]

Matthew Colville - a DM YouTuber that does videos on DMing - talks at length about bringing 4e monster mechanics and tricks to 5e monsters.
Useful advice for those unhappy with monsters being big bags of hit points...

[video]https://youtu.be/QoELQ7px9ws[/video]

It is pretty long though. Be warned.

 

[Dualazi]

Not a bad video by any stretch, but I wished he had saved the waxing about the edition change for another video and focused on more on practical ways of transitioning 4e concepts to a 5th edition game, doubly so since Dragons (his example creature) are probably some of the best 5e has to offer in terms of complex offerings. His suggestions aren't bad, but at the same time focusing on dragons seems like treating someone's broken finger when the guy next to him as been stabbed, there are more pressing issues. Likewise, he doesn't mention some of the other mechanics that can be used to equal the playing field for solo monsters, such as multiple initiative passes to simply give them more turns.

Good advice for people unfamiliar with that edition though, which is probably the intent, so I'll take a look around his other videos as well.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I love Matt Colville's videos. They're all good.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

 

[Jester David]

Not a bad video by any stretch, but I wished he had saved the waxing about the edition change for another video and focused on more on practical ways of transitioning 4e concepts to a 5th edition game, doubly so since Dragons (his example creature) are probably some of the best 5e has to offer in terms of complex offerings. His suggestions aren't bad, but at the same time focusing on dragons seems like treating someone's broken finger when the guy next to him as been stabbed, there are more pressing issues. Likewise, he doesn't mention some of the other mechanics that can be used to equal the playing field for solo monsters, such as multiple initiative passes to simply give them more turns.

Good advice for people unfamiliar with that edition though, which is probably the intent, so I'll take a look around his other videos as well.

I agree. He does get chatty about 4e at the end and drifts fairly off the topic of applying things to 5e.
But the beginning is solid.

 

[76512390ag12]

This is the video, plus one of the Wizard of the Coast podcasts, that make me realise I need to read 4e!!

Posted by C4-D4RS on the MetroLiberal HoloNet

 

[cbwjm]

I agree. He does get chatty about 4e at the end and drifts fairly off the topic of applying things to 5e.
But the beginning is solid.

Mind you, he does state that the crunchy bits will be at the start of the video.

I have kept some 4e designs for my games and do sometimes look back through the monster manuals for ideas (also, there is a whole host of things that can be used as inspiration for subclasses). Mainly in my games I use the bloodied term and rather than having a list of spells to choose from for casters, I create a single spell with description for each spell level since most of the time they won't use all of their spells anyway. I've also noted somethings down as "Twinned Firebolt - 4/day can choose 2 targets when casting the firebolt spell". I find this approach requires less looking through the books during play since all the information is in front of me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

This is the video, plus one of the Wizard of the Coast podcasts, that make me realise I need to read 4e!!

If you haven't read 4E, then it's definitely worth your time. There were a lot of great innovations in 4E, which they chose to ignore when it came to 5E.

 

[Creamsteak]

4th edition definitely has cool bits I've liked. I definitely bring some of the monster design into my game in places... stuff like having 4 or 5 variants of kobold with different skills is exciting. Volo's brings some of that back as well. I don't have any reason to go back to the 4e books specifically though, whereas I still use my 3e books at times since I have some hyper-specialized books like libris mortis or draconomicon to draw from for fluff and ideas.

I'm surprised he never got "tired" of 4e. I sure did. I wasn't the biggest fan at the start, but I played it extensively and eventually it felt like despite all the differences with unique creatures and such all encounters and combat and ideas started to feel extremely homogeneous. Every character had about the same amount of powers. Playing at 9th, 19th, or 29th level the encounters were all kinda the same with slightly different numbers.

On a related note I still feel largely like 5e is still "under construction." I mean, I've run multiple games and campaigns with just the core rules, but it definitely feels like it's all still a little bit in beta.

 

[Mark Hart]

I greatly enjoyed the various monster traits and powers in 4th edition. I love 5th edition, but there are some opportunities for mixing and matching.

I've been working on a similar concept the past couple months, and put it up on DMs Guild, "The Monster's Arsenal."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

On a related note I still feel largely like 5e is still "under construction." I mean, I've run multiple games and campaigns with just the core rules, but it definitely feels like it's all still a little bit in beta.

Good observation. That's a better way of explaining the situation than I'd previously been doing.