D&D 4E How To Clone 4E Using 5E Rules

Xeviat said:

I can't speak for everyone, but 4E for me had a lot of class bloat. I personally disliked the approach of making a class for every source/role pair

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There /wasn't/ a class for every source/role pair. There was, for one instance, no Martial Controller. There was also no … er … well, there was no Martial Controller.

Let me try that again: There wasn't /a/ class for every source/role pair. There were /two/ Martial Strikers, /two/ Arcane Strikers, /two/ Arcane Leaders, /two/ Primal Controllers, and /two/ Divine Leaders... and that's before getting into E+ sub-classes with mixed sources and/or alternate roles, like Ranger(Hunter), Warlock(Binder), Druid(Sentinel), etc...

...yeah, that held up better. Though, it also drove home that there was class (or at least sub-class) bloat.


...OK, to be fair, Shadow & Elemental also weren't proper Sources.

, and I disliked powers being by class instead of being largely shared (for example, look at how many spells in 3E/5E are shared between classes).

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There were a lot shared in 1e, too. And, they were all /spells/, no distinction between spells/prayers/invocation.

I do think it'd've been a cool evolution of 4e if powers had been by Source, and Features had been by Role, with class being primarily conceptual, or perhaps about role in other pillars. So a Ranger is a guy who runs around in the woods, he is /probably/ using Martial powers, and may well pick a Striker Feature, but Controller or Defender is hardly out of the question - Primal powers might be on the table, too.

Xeviat said:

I can't speak for everyone, but 4E for me had a lot of class bloat. I personally disliked the approach of making a class for every source/role pair, and I disliked powers being by class instead of being largely shared (for example, look at how many spells in 3E/5E are shared between classes).

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This is an odd complaint to me. 3.5 didn't break classes up by "role" even though the roles were largely implied, but it certainly broke them up by power source. Only Wizards and Sorcerers share spell lists in 3.5 and it was known for spell bloat for making "That Wizard spell, but for clerics/druids/rangers/paladins."

Garthanos said:

I find myself kind of liking both micro and macro feats any ideas on mixing them?

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Call big feats by the th word?

Garthanos said:

4e heroic begins closer to level 5 in 5e.

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Immortal Sun said:

This is an odd complaint to me. 3.5 didn't break classes up by "role" even though the roles were largely implied, but it certainly broke them up by power source. Only Wizards and Sorcerers share spell lists in 3.5 and it was known for spell bloat for making "That Wizard spell, but for clerics/druids/rangers/paladins."

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Nope each spell had a list of what class can cast it. And clerics got wizard spells via domain.

Using a 4E example if twin strike they basically cloned it for the tempest fighter. Some things like that should be available to multiple classes.



You could condense a 4E class down to 2 or 3 pages and bake some features into that class and instead if a doell list you have power lists. Each power list would indicate what classes can use it. Paladin's and fighters could use the same basic powers for say great weapons while rangers, fighters, perhaps Rogues could use the twf ones. You don't need separate divine and arcane sources when some things are shared by both classes.
You would still have class exclusive powers though but something like fireball might be yseable by Wizards, Sorcerers and some clerics. A Sorcerer of course would have striker mechanics the wizard might be able to impose a penalty on the fireball save

A lot of 4E powers are also repetitive and crud so you can cut them. Use a guide and probably cut gold options and anything below black. Buff or invent new ones to fill in any gaps.

Zardnaar said:

Nope each clone does it's own thing. No one's cloned BECMI

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Dark Dungeons is specifically a clone of BECMI. And it's free.

Immortal Sun said:

This is an odd complaint to me. 3.5 didn't break classes up by "role" even though the roles were largely implied, but it certainly broke them up by power source. Only Wizards and Sorcerers share spell lists in 3.5 and it was known for spell bloat for making "That Wizard spell, but for clerics/druids/rangers/paladins."

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Many spells are shared between all the classes, but some have more sharing than others.

Role was implied in other editions. 4E codified it. But, I personally didn't like having so many classes in 4E. I thought many could have been handled by a more robust class/subclass system. 5E did a lot of the mergers that I thought were appropriate, like putting the Avenger into the Paladin sort of, and the Invoker into the Cleric sort of.

But, I also think of class as something more readily apparent in the world. Fighters and rogues should operate very differently from each other, even a rogue and a high Dex light armor fighter.

Xeviat said:

5E did a lot of the mergers that I thought were appropriate, like putting the Avenger into the Paladin sort of .

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Armorless Paladin?

UngeheuerLich said:

No. To you. Some were happy enough with battle master options and the healer and inspiring leader feat.
Add in a warlord fighting style (which indeed is lacking) and you are good to go. .

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Tony used up so many snark surges recently I may not be able to properly respond as he and I draw on similar sources at times.

Seriously that you had to construct a fighting style with more components than any existing ones and of unclear balance should say something to you (not that I hate it).

I grant the Battlemaster has potential even a couple of benefits, a solid name with implied versatility an impressive feat given how people hem and haw over "Warlord" , and as a fighter type it rather brings the clever tactical strategy using fighter of 2e back to the "Fighting Man' something which I actually approve of in spite of those saying it needs to be a //class//.

That said I think it is sorely lacking. A significant factor it lacks is "group benefiting maneuvers" and the popular Intelligence build or a less so Wisdom build are non-existent.

The system of maneuvers while fairly cool leave the character doing very infrequent Warlord feeling moves. The Variant Fighter I have seen out there in the wild actually seems to solve this problem making it a choice, so I am not saying it's not solvable.

The system also fights letting any fighter not be a dumb jock. I might be wrong but Putting points in Intelligence/Charisma is like messing over your saves on purpose which somehow feels wrong.

Yaarel said:

Suppose, a level 1 character can kick thru a very heavy metal door with a mass of about 100 kg.

Mount Everest is roughly 3,000,000,000,000 kg of mass.

Thus the mountain is about 30,000,000,000 times more massive than a door.

If leveling according to the curve of magnitude: 1, 3, 10, 30, 100, 300, 1000 ...

Then a character can break thru a mountain at level 22, with about the same difficulty as a character can break thru a door at level 1.

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lets see using your metric a level 12 version comparable to the wizard spell that lets you passwall, would be 300,000 lbs of penetration not trivial visualizing that meaning.

Zardnaar said:

Using a 4E example if twin strike they basically cloned it for the tempest fighter. Some things like that should be available to multiple classes.

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Nope. The tempest fighter's signature at-will ("Dual Strike" IIRC - I actually played a Brawling fighter build that took several tempest-intended powers, they could be pretty cool) could only target two separate enemies, not focus on one. Since fighters mark anyone they swing at and Rangers got their damage buff from Hunter's Quarry by hitting, just like that, it became a solid Defender power, while Twin Strike stayed the Ranger's striker bread-and-butter.

In an evolved 4e, you /could/ meld them into a single double-attack power, with Role changing exactly how it worked to suit. It'd be elegant, but also less accessible to new players.

One thing 1e and 4e got right, and one of the few things I'll venture 5e got wrong, for new players and old goats like me, alike, was grouping spells and powers by class.
It's very friendly and intuitive to just look at the options available to your class, at your level, without filtering through every other spell that starts with the same letter.

Not only that, but there's a precious, fleeting "immersions" experience you get when you know what your class can do, but everyone else at the table is a mystery. 3e/5e alphabetical unified spell list kills that the moment you build a caster (and thats almost everyone in 5e, too).

So, it's be a mixed blessing to consolidate powers, whether by Source or some other criterion.

Garthanos said:

I grant the Battlemaster has potential … A significant factor it lacks is "group benefiting maneuvers" and the popular Intelligence build or a less so Wisdom build are non-existent.

The system of maneuvers while fairly cool leave the character doing very infrequent Warlord feeling moves.

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BM Manuevers are like a taste of what a 5e Warlord might reasonably be built around. The way an EK would be a taste of what a Wizard'd be like if there were no Wizard - just much less so. Like, if an EK only ever learned 6 spells in his whole career, and they were all 1st level.