GrumpyGamer
First Post
A bit narrowed in focus, but for me I will remember 4e for a return to Dark Sun and the awesome Ashes of Athas campaign.
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With 5e here, what will 4e be remembered for?
- Thread starter wingsandsword
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n00bdragon
First Post
In my game, there was this one fight...
For me 4e will always be remembered as the edition where my party was fighting a beholder on the edge of a pit full of lava. The beholder was hovering just over the edge of the pit to keep pesky melee types off his back. Then, the fighter says "Screw it, I jump at him." He makes the athletics check to reach the beholder and does a bull rush mid air, knocking the beholder prone. Well, when a flying creature goes prone they fall so the beholder and the fighter fall ten feet into the lava pit and by now the table is cracking up except for the wizard player, who is furtively checking his sheet. I start rolling lava damage for both of them and figure that if the fighter is on top of the large size beholder (who probably won't sink immediately) he will take the lesser of the two damage rolls. Turns out even with that he's still badly burned, but conscious enough to take an action point and leap to a wall on the edge of the pit from which he can start to climb up. I let the wizard player know it's his turn and that the beholder (who is a big fat solo end boss type) is now bloodied. He calmly steps up to the edge of the pit and says "Thunder Wave". I let him know about the saving throw for pushing someone into damaging terrain and he's okay with that. I roll it and the beholder fails and is now subject to 10 squares of forced movement while half submerged in a boiling lake of lava. No one at the table has any breath anymore, not even the wizard and all of our sides are officially in orbit. I barely heard the wizard gasp, "It's just like a slip 'n slide, except you die."
It couldn't have happened in any other edition.
For me 4e will always be remembered as the edition where my party was fighting a beholder on the edge of a pit full of lava. The beholder was hovering just over the edge of the pit to keep pesky melee types off his back. Then, the fighter says "Screw it, I jump at him." He makes the athletics check to reach the beholder and does a bull rush mid air, knocking the beholder prone. Well, when a flying creature goes prone they fall so the beholder and the fighter fall ten feet into the lava pit and by now the table is cracking up except for the wizard player, who is furtively checking his sheet. I start rolling lava damage for both of them and figure that if the fighter is on top of the large size beholder (who probably won't sink immediately) he will take the lesser of the two damage rolls. Turns out even with that he's still badly burned, but conscious enough to take an action point and leap to a wall on the edge of the pit from which he can start to climb up. I let the wizard player know it's his turn and that the beholder (who is a big fat solo end boss type) is now bloodied. He calmly steps up to the edge of the pit and says "Thunder Wave". I let him know about the saving throw for pushing someone into damaging terrain and he's okay with that. I roll it and the beholder fails and is now subject to 10 squares of forced movement while half submerged in a boiling lake of lava. No one at the table has any breath anymore, not even the wizard and all of our sides are officially in orbit. I barely heard the wizard gasp, "It's just like a slip 'n slide, except you die."
It couldn't have happened in any other edition.
TwoSix
"Diegetics", by L. Ron Gygax
I am heartily impressed with the Slip 'n Die (tm)!
Emerikol
Adventurer
I liken the dislike for 3e as the West Virginia coal miners strike that hit in 1920. Not insignificant by any means but nothing to compare to the 1860's civil war which is where I put the 4e conflict.
Paizo was an outcome not a catalyst. Sure we know better now because Pathfinder did so well. If not for that I'm sure many would be arguing that there had been no divide at all. Any attempt by us to say otherwise would just be our anecdotal feelings. There would still have been a divide though.
I do think that 4e hit a perfect storm in the sense that people's reasons for disliking that edition are not unified. Martial healing, AEDU, dissociative mechanics, lack of narrative mechanical unity, slowness of combat, and so forth were all probably major contributors but not everyone agreed on all of those things. 5e seems to have split the difference on a few of them.
Paizo was an outcome not a catalyst. Sure we know better now because Pathfinder did so well. If not for that I'm sure many would be arguing that there had been no divide at all. Any attempt by us to say otherwise would just be our anecdotal feelings. There would still have been a divide though.
I do think that 4e hit a perfect storm in the sense that people's reasons for disliking that edition are not unified. Martial healing, AEDU, dissociative mechanics, lack of narrative mechanical unity, slowness of combat, and so forth were all probably major contributors but not everyone agreed on all of those things. 5e seems to have split the difference on a few of them.
stinkomandx
First Post
For my table, 4th Edition had a lot in common with 3rd Edition in a few regards:
1. A simple, fun low-key story through early-tier play
2. An amazing, high-adventure campaign throughout middle-tier play
3. A slog through endless circumstantial effects and "WAIT! I had +1 on that roll. Wait, no, +3." through high-tier play.
At the very least it was the monsters getting constantly debuffed and stun-locked into oblivion in 4e rather than the players.
1. A simple, fun low-key story through early-tier play
2. An amazing, high-adventure campaign throughout middle-tier play
3. A slog through endless circumstantial effects and "WAIT! I had +1 on that roll. Wait, no, +3." through high-tier play.
At the very least it was the monsters getting constantly debuffed and stun-locked into oblivion in 4e rather than the players.
Anastrace
First Post
Pretty cool class balance between casters/non casters.
Nifty powers
Points of Light
Poor Multiclassing
Really good adaptation to other settings. (It works really good for settings like Amethyst or Modern, really, really well actually)
edit: 16:49. 7/14/2014: I will say as far editions go, mechanically I'm platform agnostic. Mechanics really don't change much as far as the campaigns go, though it did add a couple races to our campaign. Which was pretty popular. Tieflings especially, though the dragonborn weren't too far behind. Still our groups did like 4e quite a bit, quick poll I just did said they liked it more than 1e/2e, but lower than pathfinder and 3e/3.5e. That bears out with my experience, since I was a heavy multiclasser. Though I loved playing Amethyst.
Nifty powers
Points of Light
Poor Multiclassing
Really good adaptation to other settings. (It works really good for settings like Amethyst or Modern, really, really well actually)
edit: 16:49. 7/14/2014: I will say as far editions go, mechanically I'm platform agnostic. Mechanics really don't change much as far as the campaigns go, though it did add a couple races to our campaign. Which was pretty popular. Tieflings especially, though the dragonborn weren't too far behind. Still our groups did like 4e quite a bit, quick poll I just did said they liked it more than 1e/2e, but lower than pathfinder and 3e/3.5e. That bears out with my experience, since I was a heavy multiclasser. Though I loved playing Amethyst.
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Tony Vargas
Legend
The Edition War
As in any other war, the history books are being written by the victors. 4e will be remembered as that time WotC made the 'mistake' of deviating from 'Real D&D.'
As in any other war, the history books are being written by the victors. 4e will be remembered as that time WotC made the 'mistake' of deviating from 'Real D&D.'
Michael Morris
First Post
I bought 4 of the 4e books and ran a game for 2 months in it. I tried to like it, honestly.
But my players disliked the system and how mind-numbingly slow the combats where compared to 3e. I told them it would get better once they learned the system, but that never happened.
What finally broke me is when I did the math of how many powers would have to be written to insure every class had at least 2 powers / color at each level. It was just, overwhelming. I could move away from colored alignment, but the work was already done in 3e and I saw no compelling reason to abandon that work and storytelling history in the setting.
As it stands I'm still unsure of using 5e. There are things I want to do with my game that may not mesh well with the system. At the moment, I'm in a wait and see mode - I'll at least get the core books but beyond that I dunno.
But my players disliked the system and how mind-numbingly slow the combats where compared to 3e. I told them it would get better once they learned the system, but that never happened.
What finally broke me is when I did the math of how many powers would have to be written to insure every class had at least 2 powers / color at each level. It was just, overwhelming. I could move away from colored alignment, but the work was already done in 3e and I saw no compelling reason to abandon that work and storytelling history in the setting.
As it stands I'm still unsure of using 5e. There are things I want to do with my game that may not mesh well with the system. At the moment, I'm in a wait and see mode - I'll at least get the core books but beyond that I dunno.
For myself as a non 4e player, here is what I will remember (sticking to what I find to be positives)
1. Removing Level Drain
2. Removing 3e XP costs
3. One time constitution score to hit points rather than con modifier per level
4. Removing most non-biological aspects of race and making them feats
5. Elf/Eladrin split
6. non-spell casting rangers as core
7. Fighters getting cool things to do in core (even I prefer the maneuver system from the Book of Iron Might for 3e)
8. Warlord (in concept)
9. Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger Builds
10. Heroic Tier Multi-classing
11 Healing Surges and Second Wind (although I would preferred Healing Surges being 1+Con Modifier rather than the base being based upon class).
12. Disease Track.
13. Magic Missile needing a to hit roll (before Essentials ruined this)
14. The Feywild
1. Removing Level Drain
2. Removing 3e XP costs
3. One time constitution score to hit points rather than con modifier per level
4. Removing most non-biological aspects of race and making them feats
5. Elf/Eladrin split
6. non-spell casting rangers as core
7. Fighters getting cool things to do in core (even I prefer the maneuver system from the Book of Iron Might for 3e)
8. Warlord (in concept)
9. Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger Builds
10. Heroic Tier Multi-classing
11 Healing Surges and Second Wind (although I would preferred Healing Surges being 1+Con Modifier rather than the base being based upon class).
12. Disease Track.
13. Magic Missile needing a to hit roll (before Essentials ruined this)
14. The Feywild
DaveMage
Slumbering in Tsar
4e will be remembered by me as the edition that broke me of the need to be a D&D RPG completest.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that had the worst marketing in D&D history.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that changed things for the benefit of the authors rather than the fans (see 4E Forgotten Realms).
It will be remembered by me as the edition that expected you to buy more than three core books to play the core game.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that, try as they may, even Necromancer Games couldn't support.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that had less content per page (and more whitespace) and yet continued to raise the price for products.
It will be remembered by me the edition that made EN World a very difficult place to visit for about 4 years.
However, since I don't want to be all negative (ha!), it did add one concept (which has been brought to 5E as well) that I like: the idea that a creature can be "unaligned".
Goodbye, 4E - and HUGE kudos to WotC for the 5E rollout. Everything is better this time around.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that had the worst marketing in D&D history.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that changed things for the benefit of the authors rather than the fans (see 4E Forgotten Realms).
It will be remembered by me as the edition that expected you to buy more than three core books to play the core game.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that, try as they may, even Necromancer Games couldn't support.
It will be remembered by me as the edition that had less content per page (and more whitespace) and yet continued to raise the price for products.
It will be remembered by me the edition that made EN World a very difficult place to visit for about 4 years.
However, since I don't want to be all negative (ha!), it did add one concept (which has been brought to 5E as well) that I like: the idea that a creature can be "unaligned".
Goodbye, 4E - and HUGE kudos to WotC for the 5E rollout. Everything is better this time around.
