D&D 4E How To Clone 4E Using 5E Rules
Tony Vargas
Legend
Xeviat
Hero
Why not? There's more too a class than what armor they wear. An Avenger Paladin would have a striker Rider on its Divine Challenge, for instance.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
Different strokes, I guess. I've found my experiences with every edition of D&D to be similar to what you're describing. I find the systems that procedurally acknowledge the negotiation of what each roll means to be infinitely superior for just that reason. D&D always seems to preserve a DMs ability to screw with your success (or not) after the roll. Even with 4e, I couldn't trust what a given DM would categorize as "hard" or not, with the added bonus of that target number changing with level. Similarly for re-skinned monsters, etc. Not to mention the tedium of having to at least read through all the various lists of spells, abilities, weapons, etc. for each new and/or slightly-different version of a traditional rpg. ("Wait, how much does Cure Light do in this version?") Let alone the breaks in play when someone has to look up how some obscure or corner-case rule is supposed to work. I'm a huge fan of all the modern games (BITD, PbtA, etc.) where most, if not all, the information you need about a character's mechanics fits on one or two sheets.
Best of luck with your efforts, though.
I think that a robust set of rules makes for a better game, overall, as it aids DMs and Players both in interpreting what exactly happens at the table when it comes to the mechanical bits. A well written ruleset makes things very clear in how they work, so there is less confusion at the table.
And yes, bad and adversarial DMs will ruin any system or game regardless of ruleset. However, I enjoyed the more structured rules of games like 4th Edition because it was easy to go from group to group without having to relearn how everyone does things. The game was much more...transferable, I guess? Probably not the right word I want to use. But I could go to any table and expect the rules to be interpreted a certain way (especially for combat) because the RAW was very clear.
Obviously, if you've a steady regular group you've been playing with for 10+ years? This is much less of an issue. You all have your table rules, and you know them, because you've been playing with them. However, for those who move a lot or don't have the luxury of a regular group, leaving the role up to 'negotiation' creates...problems. Again, with great GMs it does not. But theres far more bad/mediocre GMs out there than great ones.
Just my 2 cents.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
But why would condensing things into 20 levels help any of that? If anything it would make the system more bloated, as you'd be needing to make decisions every single level even if you DID cut things out. You'd have 20 much busier levels! Why not just...not do Epic at all? It seems like a lot less work to just say "I'm not going to bother re-doing Epic tier right now" and instead simplify only 4e's first 20 levels.
As for the source/role thing, frankly I think almost everyone who complains about that makes a ton more out of it than it really is. Because it wasn't "every source/role pair must have one class." There never was a proper Martial controller--Essentials back-ported a semi-Martial semi-Controller through a ranger subclass, but there was never a formal class for it. Divine and Arcane got two different leader classes, and they're the only ones (though Primal got a leader subclass for Druid). Primal got two Controllers (Druid and Seeker), but Arcane--theoretically the "controller source"--didn't. Martial started with two different striker classes. Shadow never got more than two dedicated classes, both strikers (Assassin and Vampire). Elemental never got dedicated classes at all.
There never was a commitment to "filling" every role/class pair. Even the Psionic classes had precedent already (Battlemind = Psychic Warrior, and Ardent and Psion already existed from 3e.)
Besides, several really cool combos with their own new flavor and ideas came out of this supposed "bloat." The Warden, 4e-style Shaman (that is, with a spirit pet), Avenger, Invoker, Warlord. All great ideas that came, not from "f**k, we HAVE to fill our grid!" thinking, but from "well...what WOULD a Divine Striker[/Martial Leader/etc.] look like? What would it do? Why would it exist?" Incarnate forces of nature, communers-with-spirits, church Internal Affairs, Moses-esque plaguebringers/sea-parters, fantastical drill sergeants. All genuine and (IMO at least) exciting fluff evolving from asking what ways the classic sources of strength and skill (the gods, nature, esoterica, grit, the mind, darkness, raw elements) could be channeled into the things adventuers do.
I get that all of this is very very much a matter of aesthetics, of taste and preference, so it's not exactly something that can be argued. But there really never was a "make a class for every box" attitude. Almost all of the classes that appeared in 4e were either well-precedented (Psionics being the poster child), or had real and novel ideas going into why they would exist. Honestly, the only one I can think of that doesn't fit that mold is Vampire!
Garthanos
Arcadian Knight
I consider it quite valid but in 4e you had rules that supported it wrapped up in that other class. Strikers like the Avengers also often get more mobility too.
Though I usually argue letting any class build towards mobility
Ratskinner
Adventurer
No disagreement there, but I haven't noticed any particular positive correlation with the "robustness" of a ruleset and its complexity or listiness. If anything, I think that the more bloated/complicated systems work against robustness by creating more opportunities for unintended exploits to show up.
Don't even need bad or adversarial GMs for what I'm talking about. However, I certainly recognize the rather plain internal consistency of the 4e combat rules gestalt.
Yeah. I've got the steady group, but we switch systems and GMs a lot and that leads directly to the problem I'm pointing at. Sure, if you're table only ever plays a particular version of a particular game, then you're going to have that kind of intimacy with the rules. However, I don't think I've seen a campaign last more than about 2 IRL years, and a new GM often means a new system.
Still, though, I'm not trying to be One True Wayist, here. There's perfectly good reasons why people like bigger complicated rulesets.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Bad (malicious) DMs can always run bad games, good rules can't stop them, but they do tend to make what they're doing a little more obvious.
To be fair, you got much the same kind of transferability in organized play - RPGA's Living Greyhawk in 3.x, Pathfinder Society - it just required the organizers to settle on a common set of interpretations, rulings, banned lists &c. Same goes for 5e AL, now. AL-legal is an important hurdle, like Core-Only was in the 3.x RaW era.
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*nods* You are correct. Thats a reasonable point and one I honestly did not consider. Of course, the reason I didn't consider it is I've never participated, in any edition, in any form of 'organized play'. So I am unfamiliar how those go. Now, that said, I'd like to think that games I run are 'organized' but thats a different kind of organized
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