D&D 4E 4e players, why do you want 5e?

[OnlineDM]

I'm a 4e player, and I wouldn't say that I want D&D Next exactly, but it's happening whether I want it or not! I enjoy having an active community around the game that I play, with good organized play programs, ease of finding games at my FLGS and conventions, ease of finding new material for the game, etc. Pretty soon that's likely to go away for 4e, so I'm learning about D&D Next.

If WotC had decided not to do D&D Next and had instead stuck with 4e (especially in the way they've been doing it for the last two years), I'd have been thrilled. Alas, they've decided to go in a different direction, but I imagine I'll end up pretty happy with that, too.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I've disliked the reliance on magic items since the advent of 3E. I've been playing D&D since the late 70s and have always felt that magic items should be a special bonus - the icing on the cake. Not something you get because you have an open arm slot or foot slot. (When I started playing 4E, I didn't know enough about the rules to know about inherent bonuses)

I liked that 3E and 3.5E made a lot of rules from 1E and 2E more consistent. However, as it got into higher levels, it became a real bear in terms of my prep time as a DM - it was almost like a second full-time job for me, as I was putting 20-40 hours between sessions in trying to prepare interesting, challenging and unique encounters for my large group. (OK, I was a bit anal about trying to plan for every eventuality - I filled out every skill, feat, magic item, spell, etc for each bad guy like it was a PC I was running, only evil.)

So, I made the switch to 4E and love that it's a lot easier on the DM to prepare encounters. I'm now spending 20-40 minutes between sessions building encounters, so have a lot of time to develop NPCs and story.

I liked that healing surges got rid of the 15 minute adventuring day that was so prevalent in prior editions - however, the overall mechanic just didn't feel right to me and I can't quite put my finger on it. My groups always used a good amount of in-combat healing in prior editions, both when I was a player and when I was a DM, so it wasn't the in combat healing.

Plus, magic items in 4E seem bland & flavorless.

What I want to see is:
1) A continuation of the PC ability to adventure for longer than until the wizard's best spell is gone and the cleric's best healing spells are used.
2) A return to the old 9 alignment system.
3) The default system being where magic items are a bonus, not a requirement. It's easier to add magic to a lower magic system than it is to take magic out of a high magic system, IMHO.
4) Some low level magic items can be generic, but everything beyond a certain point should have a certain uniqueness to it.
5) Something for fighters beyond swinging & hitting. I liked the fighters and other classes had "powers" in 4E, but I think they should have not tried to make them equivalent to divine & arcane magic and called them martial powers. Maybe trimmed them down a bit and called them something different depending on if you're a finesse fighter, a sword & board fighter or a great weapon fighter.

I'm sure I will think of some more ideas later tonight & tomorrow.

 

[Sunseeker]

I start this thread with no trollishness or malice, but after reading a thread in which one poster was lamenting the return of save-or-dies and Vancian casting, I have to ask: why are 4e players so interested in 5e?

As a later-edition player, I want to see D&D continue to grow and learn from itsself. There were flaws with 3e that got fixed in 4th, but there were things that 4th didn't do well either.

As far as I can tell, 4e D&D diverged significantly from previous editions of D&D, in essence putting the game on an easier difficulty setting.

I believe the Difficulty of the game is dependent more upon the GM and the way the players want the game to run than the edition. Even with surges and high hit points, I have run some seriously brutal 4e games.

(No snark intended.) Gone was the resource management and brutally unforgiving combat of earlier editions, instead replaced by balanced encounters.

4e lacked resource management!? That's a new one on me!
What do you call deciding when to use a particular power? What do you call healing surges?
Honestly, especially for melee characters, there's a LOT more to track in 4e than previous editions.
And "balanced encounters" exist in all editions. 4e just used a different type of math to achieve it. 3.X had CR. Other editions had their own equations. I'm not sure "unbalanced" encounters would be a good thing.

There are a whole host of changes to the game that 4e players generally see as positive that are a drastic move away from traditional D&D.

There are a host of things that Democrats see as a positive that are a "drastic move away" from Traditional America. Tradition is nothing more than a set of systems that have been employed for a long time. Being good or bad is not part of it's measurement.

• Hit point mechanics. The introduction of healing surges and overnight healing negated the resource management aspect of HP. With players able to heal themselves (in combat, of all things) and a large pool of "reserve HP" to draw from, it was the expectation that the PCs would start their combats at full health. This greatly contrasted with previous editions where players were expected to manage their HP and healing over the course of an adventure (ignoring the 3e wands of cure light wounds nonsense).

You healed to full in 3e as well with a long rest. And surges as an extension of HP most certainly were HP management. Also: I'm not really sure how you "manage" HP... Choosing to be healed or not healed? You can't really choose to take damage or not.
Healing surges actually LIMITED HP far more than they expanded it, because healing surges limited HP recovery. I just finished a Pathfinder game, ONE cleric, not very optimized, could heal up 99% of all the damage dealt to us, and there was almost NO cap on her healing. Not to mention healing surges could only be used once, maybe twice by most classes during combat.
And now now, we can't ignore the flaws of previous editions in an attempt to make 4e's flaws look more grievous.

On top of this, the introduction of "easy healing"--minor action ranged healing that did not consume resources outside of the combat encounter and healing that triggered off another action (such as an attack)--exacerbated the divergence of healing mechanics until they no longer resembled traditional HP models.

Right, because a Cleric has never been able to "Cure Light Wounds", are we talking about the same game here?

• AEDU power structure. Prior editions of D&D did not have a power structure at all. There were classes, some of which cast spells, some of which received sort-of spells (such as a paladin's remove disease), some that received skills (such as a thief's hide in shadows), and some that received passive bonuses. It was, in essence, a messy system. (And if you go back far enough, there weren't skills at all!) 3e attempted to remedy this by giving everyone skills and allowing them to access feats (some of which granted passive bonuses, some of which modified actions, and some of which offered new actions).

It was still a mess. A imbalanced mechanical nightmare of a mess, but, at the same time, a lovely, wonderful mess of which I have fond memories.

4e took that mess and streamlined it significantly, for better and for worse. Rather than having some players with "powers" (such as spells or smite evil) and those without, 4e gave everyone powers, and the developers made sure that everyone had about the same amount. They also tried to eliminate the fifteen-minute workday by giving everyone renewable powers--no more forcing the fighter and rogue to rest after one fight because the wizard and cleric cast all their spells.

This was a complete departure from prior editions. It had its benefits, of course, but it was a completely different beast.

Alright, WOTC tried something new. SOme people loved it, some people hated it. Some people hated vancian spellcasting from day 1.
I like "powers"(there were Prayers, Spells, Maneuvers, ect... really, powers if very insulting) because it eliminated the linear-quadratic problem. It also provided diversity that martial classes normally didn't have. Sure, not everyone liked it, but again, if D&D never tried anything new, it would have long since died.

• Non-Vancian Spellcasting. This ties in with the above. Some people love Vancian spellcasting, some people hate it. D&D, however, has always had Vancian spellcasting. There were problems with it; balance issues cropped up because spellcasters were potent at the beginning of the day and their power waned as they expended their high-level spell slots and were forced to rely on weaker and weaker spells (and eventually their crossbows). 4e attempted to remedy this by leveling out the power curve. Once a spellcaster (or, indeed, any other class) expended their daily resources, they were weaker, but not without power, as they had backup spells at their disposal: at-will powers and encounter abilities.

Coupled with this was the drastic reduction in spellcasting power. While spellcasters needed to be powered down in 3e--as certain designers removed the limitations of spellcasting in previous editions and drastically increased their power and versatility--4e did this by ripping the guts out of the Vancian spellcasting system, as noted above.

Again, tradition is not inherently "better" as has been proved by the fact that over multiple editions spellcasters have been highly overpowered. WOTC developed a fix, a drastic fix. It did fix the problem, but lets face it, noone likes to get nerfed. This is a problem with Wizards in almost every game every made. It took WoW half a decade to finally bring their classes into balance. And that was with updates on a WEEKLY basis.

• No save or lose effects. They exist in the most technical sense possible. Usually, you must fail several consecutive saving throws to die, which puts the odds firmly against the effect sticking. Compounding this are the plethora of effects that allow you to make a saving throw to throw off said effects. Certain builds (orb of imposition wizard) could stack huge penalties to saving throws and stunlock monsters, but the danger of a medusa's gaze was, shall we say, neutered from previous editions.

4e had SSSSoD instead. SoD wasn't fun, at all. Especially when this was also one of the domains where the Caster often made everything it fought pointless and stupid. SoS wasn't fun either, losing levels, draining ability scores, all it served was to make people suck, for a long time.

• Treasure parcels. Depending on the edition of D&D that you are playing, the treasure gods have a significant impact on your character's power. In pre-3e, you rolled for treasure all the time. In 3e, you rolled for treasure but could have a spellcaster craft your magic items if you really wanted that +3 sword. In 4e, you give the DM a wishlist and, if you didn't like what he gave you, you could break down magic items and convert them to what you really wanted in a short period of time.

Oh no no no. DO not go "4e said make up wish lists!" 4e suggested you tell the DM the kinds of things you'd like to have, while 4e was often more explicit in some of it's player empowerment than previous editions, it didn't say "Give your players what they want." Me personally: I don't see the benefit to random treasure, inserting things into the game that have no plot value and no value to my players means I've just given them JUNK.
As for converting them to other things, I never had a single group that did this. Perhaps we didn't have the right class or weren't aware of the rules, but I never was able to convert that +1 bow into a +1 mace.

I would rather give my players things they will use, things they will enjoy, than just random junk they're going to sell.

Long gone were the days of gambling on the loot tables and getting something you didn't want. You had only to ask and you would receive. Everything was precisely configured to give you want you wanted, when you wanted.

No, it wasn't.

That last sentence summarizes 4e versus prior editions of D&D: you get what you want. And for the 4e players, 4e does what they want. It gets rid of the pesky D&D tropes that bothered their games. No more cleric healbots. No more sitting in a swamp for three days waiting to heal. No more wizards running out of spells. No instant death. Heck, no alignment restrictions or paladins falling or clerics losing their spells.

How were those beneficial tropes exactly?
4e had healbot clerics.
You sat in a swamp for 3 days trying to heal if the DM said so.
You ran out of spells, except for at-wills(oh big deal!) every single encounter.
Oh boy instant death is gone. That was so much fun! I love making throwaway characters! /sarcasm
Your were alignment restricted if the DM said you were. Core left it up to TABLE DECISIONS.

It seems that 4e is everything that 4e players wanted. On the other hand, 3e was not everything that I wanted. 3e was a mess that I would like to see simplified and clarified. Thus, my edition of choice needs revising beyond what Pathfinder offers. I am invested in 5e because 3e wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Thus, it seems that 4e must not have been what 4e players want, or else they wouldn't be invested in 5e. So my question to you, 4e players, is what you didn't like with 4e that you hope to see in 5e?

4e isn't the perfect game, neither was 3e, but suffice to say, I want to see D&D learn and grow. And that's the key, I felt 4e was better in enough ways to warrant a switch from 3e, but I still play 3e when 4e simply won't do what I want it to. If 5e can combine the functionality of 4e, the "this is how it works, no need to ask questions of decipher rules" and the creativity of 3rd, I'm certainly going to be looking at it as my new edition.

If it can't, well I've got 2 editions I like and some houserules.

 

[drothgery]

I start this thread with no trollishness or malice, but after reading a thread in which one poster was lamenting the return of save-or-dies and Vancian casting, I have to ask: why are 4e players so interested in 5e?

As far as I can tell, 4e D&D diverged significantly from previous editions of D&D, in essence putting the game on an easier difficulty setting. (No snark intended.) Gone was the resource management and brutally unforgiving combat of earlier editions, instead replaced by balanced encounters. There are a whole host of changes to the game that 4e players generally see as positive that are a drastic move away from traditional D&D.

I can't speak for everyone else, but just because I love 4e doesn't mean that everyone I normally play with does; in fact, one of the people my regular group really doesn't like 4e, so we're back to playing 3.5. What I was really hoping for with 5e was to get as much of 4e as possible in a game that's more acceptable its current detractors.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I start this thread with no trollishness or malice, but after reading a thread in which one poster was lamenting the return of save-or-dies and Vancian casting, I have to ask: why are 4e players so interested in 5e?

To see if it can be an actually good game in its own right. I have a lot of respect for 1e - it is a very good game about dungeon exploration. And 4e may be the main RPG I play, but certainly isn't the only one. 2e, 3e, and 3.5 are editions I have a lot less time for because they aren't IMO as good at what they claim to do. If 5e is the best game I've seen at something I want. If not I don't.

As far as I can tell, 4e D&D diverged significantly from previous editions of D&D, in essence putting the game on an easier difficulty setting. (No snark intended.)

Let me stop you right there. I cut my RP teeth on Rolemaster, GURPS and WHFRP - and my third RPG ever was Call of Cthulu using GURPS rules. In my experience, D&D has always been playing on easy mode. You have hit points. You expect before very long to be able to shrug off a crossbow bolt. You have wizards you can trust with reliable spells. The danger generally stays in the dungeon. There aren't permanent or near-permanent debilitating injuries. And you actually seriously expect to slay dragons.

4e is, to me in the same difficulty class post first level D&D has always been in - the game itself being inherently lenient with larger than life PCs and any difficulty there is provided by the setting and the local opposition. If anything it's harder because the wizard is no longer walking round with a handful of "Get out of jail free" spells. 4e simply doesn't pretend to be anything it's not this way.

In D&D communion wine may well cure you 1d8 hit points. In WFRP it's more likely to give you the Galloping Trots.

Gone was the resource management and brutally unforgiving combat of earlier editions,

You've clearly never played Rolemaster and seen what can be done to PCs with lucky dice rolls from the monsters. And 3.0 and 3.5 both took away a lot of resource management.

instead replaced by balanced encounters.

That's actually a legacy of the very early 3.0 era. In the module [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Adventure/dp/0786916443"]The Forge of Fury[/ame] for 3rd level PCs there was an optional location with a [ame="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/roper.htm"]Roper[/ame] (CR 12). [ame="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2050/roleplaying-games/revisiting-encounter-design"]According to The Alexandrian[/ame] there was a huge internet backlash against even putting the Roper in there and after the fan backlash, wizards didn't put such hostile monstes in their modules again. It seems a little harsh to blame 4e for a marketing decision created in the very early 3.0 days.

• Hit point mechanics. The introduction of healing surges and overnight healing negated the resource management aspect of HP.

Wrong on the first count, and a technicality on the second count. I'll deal with the second first.

Overnight healing isn't, I believe, the intent of allowing overnight healing. What overnight healing does is puts the hit points on the same recharge as magic users. This is IMO a good thing. And I'm no more fond of overnight healing than you are - so when I DM I make the trivial houserule that an extended rest is a week at base camp. I can do that without anyone feeling hard done by - and it returns the game to a much older edition feel with returning to the city between adventures - without the clunky attempts such as wandering monsters to prevent wizards resting. That brings the resource management back in a way it hasn't been in D&D for a long time. But politically, I doubt that WoTC could have turned daily abilities into adventure abilities, however trivial it is at the table.

As for healing surges removing resource mangagement, you are IMO emphatically wrong on this one. It's simply that there are now two resource management tracks rather than one.

You're looking in the wrong place for the hit point track and strategic resource management - you should be looking at 4e healing surges, not hit points. That's your strategic resource. And over long tough days it does get worn down - I remember a fight where we had to put the invoker and the warlock in the front lines (think putting the wizard and the rogue there) because our fighty-types were out of surges. And it's worth noting at this point that there is really very little magic that heals surges (or more accurately heals hit points without costing you surges for the privelige). If you treat your "hit points" as your healing surges +4 (to represent your full tactical hit points), this is still around.

4e hit points are about tactical resource management. Healing in combat is a feature, not a bug - it gives you something to actively manage. But almost all intended combat healing costs you healing surges. Which means that it leaves your strategic situation effectively unchanged. You've still taken the damage to your healing surges.

Powers such as Cure Light Wounds (which allow someone to recover hit points as if they had spent a healing surge without actually spending one) first are rare and on a daily recharge cycle (meaning they recover with the surges) and secondly normally cost a standard action, meaning they have a very high opportunity cost in combat.

This is a world away from 3.X where you had the wand of Cure Light Wounds. After 3 years of 3.0 and a further 5 of 3.5 it was a return to the strategic resource management of older D&D while keeping the derring-do that the wands enabled. IMO the best of both worlds.

So to recap, we have a traditional long term healing resource management model in healing surges. We also have something that can be topped up each fight without getting in the way of this in hit points. And because the tactical resource is topped up you can have much more daring fights while keeping the strategic resource management running.

• AEDU power structure.
...
4e took that mess and streamlined it significantly, for better and for worse. Rather than having some players with "powers" (such as spells or smite evil) and those without, 4e gave everyone powers, and the developers made sure that everyone had about the same amount. They also tried to eliminate the fifteen-minute workday by giving everyone renewable powers--no more forcing the fighter and rogue to rest after one fight because the wizard and cleric cast all their spells.

And the at wills wandered across to Pathfinder and into the 5e playtest for a good reason.

This was a complete departure from prior editions. It had its benefits, of course, but it was a completely different beast.

That it was. It's the significant change I'll agree with

• Non-Vancian Spellcasting. This ties in with the above. Some people love Vancian spellcasting, some people hate it. D&D, however, has always had Vancian spellcasting.

People only half joke that 4e so loved Vancian cycles that it made all classes Vancian.

Coupled with this was the drastic reduction in spellcasting power. While spellcasters needed to be powered down in 3e--as certain designers removed the limitations of spellcasting in previous editions and drastically increased their power and versatility

Certain designers from Gygax and Arneson onwards. Caster power creep has been a thing in literally every edition of D&D and Gygax put Weapon Specialisation into UA to try to bring the fighters up to balance. The 2e wizard gained a lot - specialisation gave him between 25% and 100% more spells, and the loss of the Illusionist meant that he got the best of the wizard and illusionist spell lists.

• No save or lose effects. They exist in the most technical sense possible.

What ultimately this means IME is that DMs are a lot less gun-shy in 4e than earlier editions. And TPKs are actually probably more common.

Certain builds (orb of imposition wizard) could stack huge penalties

That got hit by errata.

• Treasure parcels.

I've never found asking people what they want to be a bad idea. And they get some of it. But what treasure parcels ultimately are is a note to adventure designers as to how much treasure you'd expect to put in to the adventure. For a beginning DM this is not bad advice.

In 4e, you give the DM a wishlist and, if you didn't like what he gave you, you could break down magic items and convert them to what you really wanted in a short period of time.

Really? Because you broke it down to 20% of its value. And these days you can only craft common items.

Long gone were the days of gambling on the loot tables and getting something you didn't want.

Last time I remember giving out treasure in 4e I rolled on the loot table in the back of the 4e compendium. And my PCs ended up with a handful of jewels, a painting, and a statuette. Which wasn't what they wanted. This has sneaked back into D&D and it's one I'm happy to use.

That last sentence summarizes 4e versus prior editions of D&D: you get what you want.

I disagree. What to me summarises 4e vs prior editions of D&D is: You can play who you want to.

I want to be a wizard who feels magical and doesn't run out of spells? I can. I want to be sneaky mcsneak the thief? I can. And I'm not overshadowed by the wizard using knock. I want to be Thorgar The Mighty, fighter, who no one dares turn their back on even with the wizard back there? As trivial as the wire-fu monk who was inspired by me falling asleep in front of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Hell, I want to play the damsel in distress or the party lucky charm who never appears to actually do anything but makes the party much stronger coming to my rescue? Lazy warlord.

All these are directly supported concepts and about equally strong. So I'm not feeling guilty about playing any of them rather than picking a cleric or wizard.

And for the 4e players, 4e does what they want. It gets rid of the pesky D&D tropes that bothered their games.

Indeed. If I want to play Appendix N rather than D&D, 4e kicks the arse even of the editions supposedly based on Appendix N. My "Grey Ratter" rogue can cast rituals. My gritty sergeants inspiring the men to greater deeds do so.

Also as DM, if I want to play a low magic campaign, I can simply ban all non-martial classes. And there's still plenty left including combat leaders - the party isn't going to feel as if there's a gaping void.

No more cleric healbots.

The Pacifist Cleric is actually pretty popular. But no one is forced to be a cleric healbot. They can just choose to play one.

Thus, it seems that 4e must not have been what 4e players want, or else they wouldn't be invested in 5e. So my question to you, 4e players, is what you didn't like with 4e that you hope to see in 5e?

I like 4e. But it isn't the only game on my bookshelf. There's a rack of GURPS sourcebooks, Dread, Fiasco, two editions of WFRP, Spirit of the Century, Legends of Anglerre, Feng Shui, Wushu, Dr Who: Adventures in Time and Space, Leverage, and probably a few more I've forgotten.

What I want from 5e is a balanced game that offers zero to hero progression, fast combat (a failing of 4e which has taken the alternative of tactical combat), a streamlined and easy to use rules system, and is the best game there is at whatever it decides it wants to be.

And does part of my post explain what I see in 4e a bit better to you? I'll agree that a lot of what is in 4e isn't spelled out in the rulebook.

 

[Paraxis]

First because I like having the current game I play being supported it is why I moved from 3.5 to pathfinder. Second because my group fractured into pathfinder people and 4e people, hoping it will unit us all again.

Let me ask you a question, "Why do you want 5E?" or for that matter why does anyone that enjoys an older edition or a current retro clone want 5E? It looks like is a retro clone of itself at this point there are plenty availble for free or dirt cheap that are very good, or heck I still have a tone of old books in the garage I imagine most of us do.

 

[Campbell]

4e Classic (4eC) sings with the right group, but requires a high degree of player buy-in to get the results that I want out of it. I tend to view 4eC as a visceral game about violently capable individuals who set out willingly or not to irrevocably enact change in their worlds who end up becoming mythic figures in their own right. This is highly reinforced in the assumed setting of the game with the backdrop of the Dawn War, tales of the fall of civilizations, and highly active Gods, Demon Princes, Primordials, etc. 4eC presents a world on fire in desperate need of heroes. Thematically it strikes the same currents that Greek Myth, the Diablo games, and Exalted does though tied to a more mortal perspective.

Of course to really embrace these aspects players need to be able to shift between awareness of the game's narrative to engaging its combat encounter mini-game while remaining focused on the underlying fiction. 4eC asks a lot out of the players, but I find the relatively unique combination of satisfying my narrative jones while engaging my tactical/strategic mind incredibly refreshing. That being said sometimes I want other things from games.

I'm not interested in 5e because I want a replacement for any particular game. I don't want AD&D. I don't want 3e/PF. I don't want 4e. The label Dungeons and Dragons doesn't really mean that much to me. Every version I've played has felt remarkably different even during the course of the edition's life cycle. What I want is a game that skews closer to Classic D&D/AD&D's core narrative of brave/foolish people who wander the world bravely exploring the unexplored reaches and I want it to stay more grounded to the fiction than 4eC. I want something more grounded in the wild west than greek myth. Still I don't want to give up balanced classes, levels as a meaningful measure of power, or the ability to add some narrative flushes. What can I say - I'm incredibly picky.

That being said what I've seen of the play test does fix some of the issues that I have with 4e

• Removing scaling of attacks and defenses. Scaling issues have mucked up every edition of D&D since the beginning of time. Scaling both accuracy/defense and hp/damage isn't aestheticly pleasing to me, espicially with the mixed metaphor that hp represent in all editions of D&D. It also leads to game elements that cannot reasonably be intereacted with. I really like the idea that I can use the same stat block to represent a minimal threat as a life threatening one at different parts of a character's life cycle and still have that creature meaningfully interact with the PCs in the rules.
• The end of pick and choose feats. I'm a fan of character customization, but found the implementation of feats in both 3e and 4e decidely lacking. The morass of surfing through prerequisites in 3e was a headache that required way too much time and effort on a player's part. 4e feats drifted into being way too class specific. In both the balance point of individual feats was way too granular. Plus in a class based system not typed strongly enough towards actual archetypes.
• I heart 5e backgrounds. We finally have skills that are not tied to explicitly to class. My fighter can be a priest without possessing divine powers. My cleric can be a divinely inspired knight. It also ties skills together into meaningful packages that mean something in the game world. I also really dig traits.
• 4e showed me that there is something left to be desired when we silo abilities too strongly. 4e balanced characters in combat, but certain archetypes don't have a lot of conceptual space for out of combat viability. This left the fighter in somewhat of a rut. I prefer characters that are competent in all 3 pillars but who excel in their specialty.

 

[beej]

One thing that really bothers me in 4E is the false sense of improvement that comes with level increases. The magic item arms-race is also connected to this issue. Yes, you're getting that bonus to attack rolls as you go from levels 1-30; but then so does the monster defenses of the creatures you face. Even the players expected it to the point where they believe that weapon expertise (which keeps your attack roll math on par with monster defense) is a feat tax.

This problem has been discussed elsewhere by different people, but in the realm of monster-player dynamics, at least, there is some sense of actual improvement in the fluff department. Sure, hitting a kobold at level 1 requires more-or-less the same raw d20 roll as hitting a githyanki at level 14, but at least you went from little, dragon-worshipping reptiles who hid in holes to pirates in space*. A personal quirk that I do as DM to instill a sense of improvement is to represent a well-known solo as a non-solo, higher level version as you go up in tiers. If a young blue dragon, all on its own, took all 5 of you to beat at level 6, it made my players happy to take down young blue dragons left and right as level 21 minions.

The problem is also apparent in the 4E skill system. From the way DM advice is written in 4E, if the DM thinks something is hard, then it should have a hard DC. In practice, I've seen this translate into balancing on an inch-long ropeline requiring a DC 19 at level 1 and a DC 26 at level 10. The DM thinks the task is "hard," after all, regardless of what level you're on. So why even bother with increasing numbers?

So far, Next looks to address this by keeping both DCs and skill numbers relatively flat. There's no need for skill DC tables that advance with PC level; if balancing on a tight rope is a DC 19 Dex check at level 1, it looks like it'll still be a DC 19 Dex check at level 10. I'm currently loving that idea.

It doesn't completely address the issue, of course. Shouldn't a level 10 rogue be somehow better at walking on a ropeline than its level 1 counterpart? Will this be adequately represented by getting more class features as you advance in level? And if so, wouldn't this result in class feature bloating, where there are too many extraneous abilities you have to dig through in your sheet to get to that one class feature that is pertinent to the situation at hand? Does this mean that to get better, I can only rely on magic boots that increase my dex modifier?

* - This is why I hated the Neverwinter book. Having heroic-tier aboleths when the norm was that they were paragon tier did not make sense to me at all.

 

[Fobok]

I loved 4e when it came out. I played it for nearly two years online. And it was a fun... battle game. I hated the skill test system more every time one came up, so most of the enjoyment I got out of the game came from the battle itself. And, after a while, the lack of freedom of action (having to look at a list of what I'm capable of doing) and the feeling that it was all dungeon-delving with little else to do that I enjoyed.

Also, having to use a battle grid limits the game. To play online, the DM has to spend so much time setting up maps in, say, Maptool, that as much as I wanted to DM, I just don't have the time. I love playing, but I'm a storyteller by nature and I want to DM sometimes. (Much of what I loved about 4e is how it simplified things for the DM.)

So, when my online group broke up in 2010, I stopped playing 4e. (And D&D altogether.)

I'm starting to crave some D&D again, though, and 5e looks like it's going to bring what I'm looking for.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Freedom.

4e designed a mechanically functional game, but at the cost of character design freedom. In order to balance the game, they removed a lot of variables that were available in 3e. There was still more freedom than in OD&D through 2e, sure, but still not enough, and even 3e wasn't enough for me in the end.

Then you might as well play a point buy system like Mutants and Masterminds or maybe GURPS if you want freedom that badly...