• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

With 5e here, what will 4e be remembered for?

That chart in the link is referring to online trends - i.e. people searching for information about the game online and/or media reports, not sales numbers. Moreover, it’s trend relates to a highpoint in 2004-5. 3.5 edition came out in 2003, let alone 3E in 2000, and presumably had a ‘spike’ of interest at the point it was released too.

This is why the numbers I quoted for the 4E era start six months after it was released - for parity. The "highpoint" you cite is merely the oldest Google Trends offered me. As close to effective parity as we can get. (And we don't know that that was the highpoint - I believe that 6 months earlier, round the release of 3.5 will have been higher)

And yes, I believe that the interest in 3.0 was much much higher with the OGL and with no World of Warcraft. It too lost a lot of interest over the course of the edition.

The release of 4E hardly altered the declining trend - certainly in any long term way.

3.5 lost more than 50% in four years. 4E lost less than 25% in five. It didn't reverse the trend, but I'd call that a meaningful change.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Anybody who wishes to deny that 4e was a divisive edition that spawned lots of vehement arguments about it’s legitimacy and purpose, merely needs to take the microcosm of this very thread as evidence. We’ve had five years of this - thank goodness it’s coming to an end!

Actually, I think the microcosm of this thread rather demonstrates the opposite. This has nothing to do with games. It has to do with the human need to have an Us vs Them. A need to be *right* when everyone else is wrong.

There is not a soul posting here that is so weak of will that the mere existence of a book detailing a way to pretend to be an elf overwhelms their better nature, and *forces* them to act like jerks. We all *choose* to behave this way, and treat each other badly. When given a perfect excuse to walk away from the old conflict, we do not. We choose to continue to take potshots at the games and each other. *YOU* choose to do this, alongside everyone else.

Don't blame the books. The books lack any force of will. It is the *people* who do this. Wonderfully creative, and unfortunately flawed people.
 

stinkomandx

First Post
I'm glad there's finally a thread on the Internet for debating OGL ramifications, Pathfinder's origins, and the realism of martial healing. But as much as inciting those debates is something 4e will be woefully known for, I miss the first half of this thread. 4e wasn't everything I wanted it to be, but DANG folks. There's no benefit to your life to repeatedly arguing with folks who believe something was good that you don't. No one's going to change their mind, it's just a huge waste of time raining on others' parades.
 

Gargoyle

Adventurer
It definitely says not to in 1e.



If someone is on one single hit point they are still fully as physically capable as if they were on all their hit points. You should never have a PC on one hit point with a gruesome wound because a gruesome wound would impede them. If you want to shrug and go for action movie wounds, fine. But then you can have action movie healing.

The mechanics do not support gruesome wounds when you have hit points. So complaining they don't is something I see as not a problem.

So clerics don't really heal? They just remove fatigue? Not in my game. And who says you can't be heroic while gravely wounded? Ignoring a serious injury while pushing yourself to your limits is heroic. Hit points are an abstraction, I know that. But that's a good thing, I can describe it any way I want. Saying that I can't describe a massive loss of hit points as a wound is just as silly as saying that hit points always represent blood spilled.
 

Minigiant

Legend
Supporter
Man. Those 4e set piece battles were GREAT when they got going.

The hobgoblin captain says "Kill them all!"
The fighter pounds one bugbear into the ground and pushes the other into poison vines.
The goblins rush the wizard who freezes half to the floor with a blast of cold.
One goblin escapes the icy terrain and bashes the mage over the head.
The warlord flies forward and guts this sneak and shouts "Get up. Its just a bump on the head"
The warlock covers the fighters flank with a dread invocation which causes a black mist of raw magic hunger to lash at any goblins who attempt an ambush. She then curses those visible with infernal words.
And suddenly the rogue leaps out the mist, chucks daggers at every enemy in front of the fighter, the quickly draws a crossbow and fires a shot into the hobgoblin captain's gut with a slick taunt, slowing him.
 

So clerics don't really heal? They just remove fatigue? Not in my game.

They do heal. But unless someone goes below 0hp it's scratches and scrapes. Many RPGs have actual wounds - including GURPS and Storyteller, and even Fate. D&D hit points were designed for swashbuckling.

And who says you can't be heroic while gravely wounded? Ignoring a serious injury while pushing yourself to your limits is heroic.

But you aren't pushing yourself. You're just behaving as you did before, unimpeded.

Saying that I can't describe a massive loss of hit points as a wound is just as silly as saying that hit points always represent blood spilled.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying you can't represent it as a grievous wound if it doesn't actually slow the person receiving it. A gash to the cheek an inch from your eye, sure. A shattered hand? Nope. Nor a stab through the guts. Either that or you can go all out with the action movie physics - at which point martial healing should also work.
 

It doesn't. However, where does it say never do it? Furthermore, I believe I've seen examples of such dialogue in earlier editions, but I'm at work and can't quote anything.

When a player character can heal someone up to full hit points with a few words of encouragement, the only way to avoid the situation of describing a gruesome wound and then having them heal it in a way that defies suspension of disbelief is to never describe such a wound. You must talk around it. I think it's fun to describe combat, and sometimes I like to describe a nasty wound. Sometimes losing hit points, especially a lot of hit points, is a wound, not fatigue, or narrowly dodging something, or luck running out, but a gushing wound. But non-magical healing makes that problematic. The mechanic works against the narrative that I sometimes choose, and I don't like that. I could choose another narrative, but I feel that I shouldn't have to in this case.

Describing a gruesome wound using hit points defies suspension of disbelief.

Quick anecdote. I've had a pretty bad year and a half (extraordinarily bad for most people but this is just pretty bad for me) with sports related injuries. These put me on the shelf for certain activities in some way, shape, or form for 14 out of those 18 months. In order:

1) 5th metacarpal fracture with partial ligament tear of the right hand. 6 weeks, I pushed the recovery time, reinjured, then 4 more weeks.

2) Traumatic left patellar (kneecap) bone bruise. Brutal injury but only 3 weeks.

3) High grade 2 (more than partial tear - could have had surgery) left ankle sprain. 4.5 weeks. I again pushed the recovery time but both of my ankles are toast so it doesn't really matter at this point.

4) Disgusting dislocation of my index finger on my right hand. Horrible volar plate injury that will never, ever, ever be right again. The rest of my life I'm going to deal with terrible pain and some lack of grip strength, dexterity, and flexion with that finger/knuckle infrastructure. This has been a hellish injury that was ongoing for 6 months before I could do much of anything with that hand. 9 months later and I'm using it with a resignation of its diminished capacity (and terrible pain). This is the infamous "turf toe" injury (but on my hand) that has ended many a football players' career (Deion Sanders being the prime...time...example).

5) Horrible Illiac Crest (vertically ascending part of hip) bone bruise with a crushing damage to the soft tissue across the front of it. The infamous "hip pointer." This was only 2 weeks (I pushed it) but it was worse than number 2 above.

6) Weird small shoulder fracture on the stem of my left acromion bone right where it meets the clavicle. 5 weeks.


Any sort of "gruesome wound" is not remotely modeled by HPs. Not even in the same universe. Certainly none of the above would be modeled by hit points and these are probably relatively minor compared to what you have in mind. The actor's capacity isn't even remotely inhibited let alone outright nullified by any HP loss except the loss of the last one. A death spiral mechanic on top of them or some kind of condition/injury track sufficiently does the job, but those aren't terribly fun. So we have hit points. And we each do with them as we may to tell our stories as we might. So narrate the resolution of your action declarations as you will but its not very tenable to tell folks that this or that mechanic ON TOP OF or INTERFACING WITH hit points reduce your ability to model "gruesome wounds." Hit points do all the work themselves to make it problematic for you. They don't need any help. Just look at it with squinted eyes, or outright avert your eyes, the same way we've always done.
 

It doesn't. However, where does it say never do it? Furthermore, I believe I've seen examples of such dialogue in earlier editions, but I'm at work and can't quote anything.

It describes what HP are and they are explicitly not "meat points", nor representative of serious wounds in all cases. There's a reason 50% HP is called "Bloodied" in 4E. It rather strongly implies that north of that, you are not "bloodied".

With your example, the attack you insisted on describing as a bleeding gash was healed to full in a single Warlord shout - which is unlikely to be more than 33% of a character's HP - so you were making someone "Bloodied" when the game was indicating that they weren't.

I get that you don't enjoy this kind of argument and I don't mean to force it on you, but you're blaming 4E for a decision you made re: describing HP loss. HP as meat is not a D&D default. People frequently quote 1E and the like which makes it clear HP are NOT meat.

When a player character can heal someone up to full hit points with a few words of encouragement, the only way to avoid the situation of describing a gruesome wound and then having them heal it in a way that defies suspension of disbelief is to never describe such a wound. You must talk around it. I think it's fun to describe combat, and sometimes I like to describe a nasty wound. Sometimes losing hit points, especially a lot of hit points, is a wound, not fatigue, or narrowly dodging something, or luck running out, but a gushing wound. But non-magical healing makes that problematic. The mechanic works against the narrative that I sometimes choose, and I don't like that. I could choose another narrative, but I feel that I shouldn't have to in this case.

This is true, but that's your decision, and 4E didn't go with HP as meat, nor does 5E (by default), nor, importantly, did earlier editions. If you feel a deep need to describe HP loss as "gruesome wounds", which, mysteriously, have no effect whatsoever on combat performance, do not ever bleed, get infected or the like, that's on you, not on D&D, which I do not think has ever actually encouraged you to do that.
 

To put things into perspective, I'm not sure that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] even suffered any broken bones there. A competitive marathon will take a month for the athlete to recover from. Gruesome wounds? Not even close.
 

Gargoyle

Adventurer
They do heal. But unless someone goes below 0hp it's scratches and scrapes. Many RPGs have actual wounds - including GURPS and Storyteller, and even Fate. D&D hit points were designed for swashbuckling.



But you aren't pushing yourself. You're just behaving as you did before, unimpeded.



I'm not saying that. I'm saying you can't represent it as a grievous wound if it doesn't actually slow the person receiving it. A gash to the cheek an inch from your eye, sure. A shattered hand? Nope. Nor a stab through the guts. Either that or you can go all out with the action movie physics - at which point martial healing should also work.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you did.

This is not a bad point, even with just magical healing I'm not one to describe people getting eviscerated or limbs lopped off. Perhaps my definition of "grievous wounds" isn't really that grievous, I just like to describe some blood now and then, so in that sense it could work for either type of healing. Martial healing is still a stretch for me, but I'll take that viewpoint into account.
 

Voidrunner's Codex

Remove ads

Top