D&D 5E So whatever happened to the Tactics Variant/Module or Whatever

dave2008 · Jul 20, 2019

Charlaquin said:
The strength of 4e’s monster design, IMO, was not in the design of its individual monsters, but in the way monster roles allows you to build dynamic tactical encounters more easily than in other editions. The individual monster designs were fine, good even, but in 4e one individual monster is only a fraction of what makes up a combat encounter.

Yes, you can do that in 5E too, but thE game doesn't give the names out of the box. Though that would be the easiest thing to add to a tactical module.

Lanefan · Jul 20, 2019

Garthanos said:
You named one right there dude... do you really think you can go and change virtually every monster an easy fix to the game?

Depends how fine-tuned you want to get with it.

The 3e idea of templates might hold water here: tactical templates (say, a forced-move template or a marking template or a minion template or whatever) that you could then apply to whichever monsters you like and in whatever combination you like; without having to go in and change the write-up for every monster in the various MMs which, without question, would be tedious as hell.

Tony Vargas · Jul 20, 2019

Garthanos said:
So whatever happened to the Tactics Variant/Module or Whatever

It's in the DMG, it emphasizes the grid, including flanking, adds /facing/ of all things, and lets anyone mark (or maybe that's a separate variant?).

Anyway, it credibly delivers the "grid dependence/tactical-boardgame" people who didn't like 4e complained about.

Campbell said:
Honestly, I don't think the 5e designers were up to the task. Everytime I hear them talk about 4e I'm amazed by how little they get the appeal of 4e.

They did seem to be working primarily from criticisms of 4e.

Lanefan said:
What we were told and-or led to believe in the pre-playtest and early-playtest days were three things:

1. 5e would be 'modular', the intent being to limit or even eliminate knock-on effects to other modules when making changes to one
2. 5e would be designed with kitbashers in mind, such that a DM could - with more or less effort - massage the game into what she actually wanted to run
3. With enough kitbashing 5e could be largely made to play like any previous edition (the implication being that the 5e design would be robust enough and flexible enough to handle this)

2 & 3 prettymuch go together.

There also really was this claim, Zard alluded to, above, that players with different favorite editions could sit at the same table, playing characters that evoked what they like best about their edition of choice. It seemed an over-ambitious pipe-dream, at the time, and that seeming was borne out. Rather, the 5e Empowered DM can make 5e feel something like his favorite edition - especially if that edition was TSR-era - /absolutely including the way he ran said edition, with all the variants & assumptions and whatnot that made it uniquely awesome for his group, back in the day/.

(And, I do think 5e is kitbash-friendly enough to just turn on MCing, Feats, and add Feats, de-facto PrCs, reams of spells, make/buy rules, etc, and get it back to something like the early WotC era, 3.0/3.5, though it'd be a lot of up-front work, and y'know, PF is right there, so why bother?)

Garthanos · Jul 20, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
It's in the DMG, it emphasizes the grid, including flanking, adds /facing/ of all things, and lets anyone mark (or maybe that's a separate variant?).

Anyway, it credibly delivers the "grid dependence/tactical-boardgame" people who didn't like 4e complained about.

They did seem to be working primarily from criticisms of 4e.

Don't think your snark gets unappreciated...

Tony Vargas · Jul 20, 2019

Garthanos said:
Don't think your snark gets unappreciated...

To be fair, 4e was very much designed based on criticisms of 3e (and earlier) - 'static combat,' LFQW, 5WMD, CoDzilla, Sorcerers inferior to Wizards (heck, everyone but CoDzilla being inferior to Wizards), broken combos/exploits, broken spells, 'Rocket Tag,' /needing/ 20-level builds, whacked Epic-levels, lack of functionality outside the 'sweet spot,' burden of prep & difficulty of running for DMs, excessive impact of system mastery ('win' the game at chargen!), steep learning curve being a barrier to entry, Fighter SUX! (not just LF/QW/CoDzilla, lack of meaningful contribution out of combat, called out as natural 'party leader' & tasked with protecting weaker party members, but with 0 mechanical support for either), BAB & Rank disparities at high level making challenging specialists while including non-specialists virtually impossible...
...anyone wondering why 4e changed so much, mutilated so many sacred cows - it's because people just complained that much about 3e.

(So be careful what you wish for...)

Garthanos · Jul 20, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
To be fair, 4e was very much designed based on criticisms of 3e (and earlier)

Question is does the design team actually understand the material well enough to change it or evoke what was liked about the earlier edition and currently we keep getting all the signs of no not really *you dont make offerings of things that were barely background and just complained about by others if you are really after the previous edition audience you claim to be designing this module X for. You introduce easy multiclassing AND maybe try to fix front loading level dipping to attract 3e fans you do not make CoDzilla happen ... that is the difference. And why I say 5e actually does try to appeal to 3e fans.

Though I am sure 3e fans are better able to answer their editions support question.

Tony Vargas · Jul 20, 2019

Garthanos said:
Question is does the design team actually understand the material well enough to change it or evoke what was liked about the earlier edition

The answer to the question of ignorance or expediency or malice is really kinda moot. (But my guess is expediency.)

if you are really after the previous edition audience you claim to be designing this module X for. You introduce easy multiclassing AND maybe try to fix front loading level dipping to attract 3e fans you do not make CoDzilla happen ... that is the difference. And why I say 5e actually does try to appeal to 3e fans.

3e fans have PF. When PF rolls rev, anyone else can publish a 3.875 under the OGL and the party keeps rolling.
The things built into 5e to appeal to them seem more like olive branches - they're there to keep those fans from warring against 5e by validating their preferences, not with much hope they'd actually play or appreciate it.

Garthanos · Jul 20, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
The answer to the question of ignorance or expediency or malice is really kinda moot. (But my guess is expediency.)

3e fans have PF. When PF rolls rev, anyone else can publish a 3.875 under the OGL and the party keeps rolling.

The things built into 5e to appeal to them seem more like olive branches - they're there to keep those fans from warring against 5e by validating their preferences, not with much hope they'd actually play or appreciate it.

Maybe, but I do think there are advantages to some of the 3e nods in 5e which indicate actual sympathy for positive elements in that earlier system.

Monayuris · Jul 20, 2019

As someone who ran 4e for over 6 years, i’m actually glad that 5E is what it is. 5E is a very accessible. (All my 4e players felt they had to scour the books and spreadsheet their characters to optimize them... in 5E that’s not necessary).

if you want the tactical richness of 4e, you are probably better served just playing 4e, instead of wishing 5E would change. This is no slight... I still play B/X for the same basic reason. i actually would prefer 5E stay the way it is and not introduce anything from 4e. The game is fine as it is. It doesn’t need that. There is nothing wrong with sticking to the game that works for you.

5E will never be the game you want it to be. And that is a good thing. I say let 5E be good at being 5E, let OSR be good at being OSR, and let 4e be good at being 4e.

Tony Vargas · Jul 20, 2019

Monayuris said:
As someone who ran 4e for over 6 years, i’m actually glad that 5E is what it is. 5E is a very accessible. (All my 4e players felt they had to scour the books and spreadsheet their characters to optimize them... in 5E that’s not necessary).

I ran 4e, for the run of Encounters (and beyond, but with an established group), so that's a /lot/ of introducing the game to brand-new players. Something I'd done back in the day, and done, since, as Encounters opened up to the Next playtest, then 5e.

4e is /easily/ the most accessible of the WotC editions, to brand-new players. Now, sure, you /could/ do 30-level builds if you were so inclined, but it wasn't /necessary/, you could just pick whatever looked cool each level, and you'd be fine, you could build highly-customized build-to-concept, highly optimized, or just obvious/intuitive and you'd have a comparatively viable character. The rewards for system mastery were just marginal.
In 3.5 it was "necessary," to generally be on roughly the same system-mastery page, preferably similar-Tier classes, if you wanted a fully-participatory campaign, and if that page as PvP or CharOP, genuinely necessary to go full-on optimization - but if that page showed more restraint & was core only, or if it was E6, such optimization was not necessary, at all.

In 5e, it's simply not possible to build characters to that level of customization or optimization, because the options aren't there.

if you want the tactical richness of 4e, you are probably better served just playing 4e, instead of wishing 5E would change. This is no slight...

It is. It is a slight to 5e and it's goal of 'big tent' inclusion of fans of all past editions.

(And the idea of 'tactical richness' as defining 4e is also a bit of faint praise, since it was also the only version of D&D to at least /try/ to cover out-of-combat in a functional full-party-participation way, that was weighted the same as combat. Yes, 4e got away from 3.5 'static combats' - but that was far from the only thing it did.)