RangerWickett
Legend
Do people want a PF-esque "this game is exactly like 4e so you can use all your old books" or do they want more of "this game plays like the definitive 4e, with all the subpar options removed and some of the clunkiness fixed"?
My Personal Stance
I dug 4e about 40%. The core ideas were pretty good, but the implementation was often lame. Like, I have very little interest in keeping my 4e books relevant, because they're filled with thousands of marginally-different but narratively-uninspired character options. But I wouldn't mind having a game that played a lot like 4e, just without all the chaff and fiddliness. Let me have interesting mechanical options in combat, but do so with elegance.
("If you're on difficult terrain and are flanked, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with flails," probably was not actually a feat in Dragon magazine, but it could have been. "This necklace lets you get resist 5 psychic against a single attack once per day" actually did exist, and was boring as hell, especially since there were 10,000 other magic items that were equally boring.)
I'd like to take 5e's concept of bounded accuracy, and its impressive feats, but mix in the pushing/maneuvering aspect of 4e, as well as the status conditions (but not as many of them, and with safety valves for solos). Get rid of the slavish adherence to math-balance, throw in a few more broad and flavorful powers (a la, "You can control fire, and here are some examples," instead of "Once per encounter you can use this one particular fire attack and you'll like it!"), and probably shrink the number of levels to 10.
I don't want small mechanical effects that make me incrementally better. I want dramatic and flavorful abilities that are all strong and fun. The game Go is amazing and complex, where tiny moves develop your strategy as you slowly overwhelm your opponent. But God of War is a lot more viscerally exciting.
My Personal Stance
I dug 4e about 40%. The core ideas were pretty good, but the implementation was often lame. Like, I have very little interest in keeping my 4e books relevant, because they're filled with thousands of marginally-different but narratively-uninspired character options. But I wouldn't mind having a game that played a lot like 4e, just without all the chaff and fiddliness. Let me have interesting mechanical options in combat, but do so with elegance.
("If you're on difficult terrain and are flanked, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with flails," probably was not actually a feat in Dragon magazine, but it could have been. "This necklace lets you get resist 5 psychic against a single attack once per day" actually did exist, and was boring as hell, especially since there were 10,000 other magic items that were equally boring.)
I'd like to take 5e's concept of bounded accuracy, and its impressive feats, but mix in the pushing/maneuvering aspect of 4e, as well as the status conditions (but not as many of them, and with safety valves for solos). Get rid of the slavish adherence to math-balance, throw in a few more broad and flavorful powers (a la, "You can control fire, and here are some examples," instead of "Once per encounter you can use this one particular fire attack and you'll like it!"), and probably shrink the number of levels to 10.
I don't want small mechanical effects that make me incrementally better. I want dramatic and flavorful abilities that are all strong and fun. The game Go is amazing and complex, where tiny moves develop your strategy as you slowly overwhelm your opponent. But God of War is a lot more viscerally exciting.
