D&D 4E What 5E needs to learn from 4E

[B.T.]

You raise an interesting issue. I think, perhaps, that there should be "basic" monsters that are very quick and easy to use and there should be "setpiece" monsters that are more complicated. An orc vs. an orc chieftain, perhaps. Whereas the orc might might have only standard melee/ranged attacks, the orc chieftain might have several special abilities. That way the majority of fights with "basic" monsters can go quickly and easily, but if you want to throw in the "setpiece" monster to distinguish them, you can.

 

[Herschel]

My grudge with 4E fights is that it provides a player with a very limited set of choices. Like in WoW you have a number of powers and all you need to do is "press the corresponding button" at the right time. DMs experience pretty much the same thing with monsters. So all creativity boils down to resource management and maybe using terrain to your advantage. Every option you might take outside using a power is usually highly suboptimal (unless DM fiat kicks in). I miss the "candelabra swings" we managed to cram even in our 3E games.

That's on you, not teh system. 4E gave you a larger set of options with some cool moves already baked in, but certainly didn't limit you to them. It gave you MORE options than previous editions because of this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You raise an interesting issue. I think, perhaps, that there should be "basic" monsters that are very quick and easy to use and there should be "setpiece" monsters that are more complicated. An orc vs. an orc chieftain, perhaps. Whereas the orc might might have only standard melee/ranged attacks, the orc chieftain might have several special abilities. That way the majority of fights with "basic" monsters can go quickly and easily, but if you want to throw in the "setpiece" monster to distinguish them, you can.

I don't think monster complexity is the issue, at least not within reason. I can run an encounter with say 1 simple type of monster, one with say 2 attack options and a minor option, and a 3rd monster with several options or more complicated options. My total turn time will average no more than half that of the players, usually even much less. Remember too, as the DM I don't have to be too concerned about using the monsters in some optimum way. As long as I follow whatever strategy I had in mind and don't do utterly stupid things (at least out of character for the monster) it isn't like I'm expecting to win or have a stake in winning the fight. The players have a big stake there, so their decisions are more significant, on top of them having more options and adventure-long resource management to consider.

I'd say in my games players turns are about 80% of combat time, monsters about 20%. I've just pushed things so that everyone knows when they are about to be up, has picked something to do already, and that nit picky little tactical tricks are less the focus than the whole big picture of the fight. Players can quickly make decisions based on story considerations that take them a lot longer when they're trying to dope out what sequence of powers to use to get the most bonus.

In a 3 hour session we can do 3 or even 5 encounters depending on how big they are. Sometimes we do only one, but the other week we did a bunch of RP and still handled 3 combat encounters and several trap/puzzle ones.

 

[The Choice]

That's on you, not teh system. 4E gave you a larger set of options with some cool moves already baked in, but certainly didn't limit you to them. It gave you MORE options than previous editions because of this.

I'd argue that the number of options didn't increase that much, just that their relative effectiveness was increased dramatically compared to 1st/2nd edition's dependency on DM fiat, and 3E sim-lite bent that made everything that wasn't a spell really hard to pull off consistently.

I mean, you could knock an opponent prone back in 2nd Edition, but how you did it and what the consequences were was completely in the hands of the DM. You can try and do the same thing in 3E - there certainly are rules pertaining to such an action - but attempt to trip anything big, anything not a biped or something the DM judges impossible to knock down, and that "option" becomes much more like a trap.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You raise an interesting issue. I think, perhaps, that there should be "basic" monsters that are very quick and easy to use and there should be "setpiece" monsters that are more complicated. An orc vs. an orc chieftain, perhaps. Whereas the orc might might have only standard melee/ranged attacks, the orc chieftain might have several special abilities. That way the majority of fights with "basic" monsters can go quickly and easily, but if you want to throw in the "setpiece" monster to distinguish them, you can.

It's not the complexity of the monsters that's the problem. There are plenty of basic monsters (about half of the skirmishers* and three quarters of brutes, soldiers, and artillery). It's the hit points and number of hits it takes to put a monster down. I'd use something based on healing surges for PC damage, and giving most monsters 4 points of damage for a quick combat.

* Skirmishers come in two flavours IME: Vanilla (which is about as generic as you can get and always does average damge) and tricksy - where if the conditions are met they do 25% more than baseline damage, whereas if not they do 25% less. Sneak Attack would be a good example of this.

 

[B.T.]

Giving people a set of choices is in a way limiting their choices because they'll tend to default to those choices. If you offer someone Coke or Pepsi, chances are that he's not going to ask for lemonade. Likewise, the stunting system is still largely DM fiat. In the encounters game, I considered running behind the bar, splashing ale around, and having the wizard light it aflame. Then I realized that I'd probably have to spend two turns doing that and make some kind of skill check, and I used Cleave instead.

In retrospect, I wish I had lit the bar on fire anyway.

 

[Herschel]

Yep, just light that mother up, regardless of edition.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's not the complexity of the monsters that's the problem. There are plenty of basic monsters (about half of the skirmishers* and three quarters of brutes, soldiers, and artillery). It's the hit points and number of hits it takes to put a monster down. I'd use something based on healing surges for PC damage, and giving most monsters 4 points of damage for a quick combat.

* Skirmishers come in two flavours IME: Vanilla (which is about as generic as you can get and always does average damge) and tricksy - where if the conditions are met they do 25% more than baseline damage, whereas if not they do 25% less. Sneak Attack would be a good example of this.

It takes about the same number of attacks to kill a monster in 4e as it did in 1e, etc. Your average fighter taking on a 1e orc at level 1 was going to hit around 35% of the time and on average it would take 2 hits to kill (maybe slightly less), so you're around 4-5 rounds per kill, just about exactly what it will take for your average striker to kill a level 1 monster in 4e (and they can generally do it a bit faster if they spend their encounter power etc).

It is the perception that it is quick. In 1e you missed a whole lot and then you whacked your target with one or maybe 2 hits. In 4e you hit a lot but it takes several hits to kill something. I find that decreasing monster hit points just devalues tactics. Things MAY go faster (except you'll just up the challenge level to get the same difficulty) but it will be a bit more swingy and imposing control/conditions is fairly pointless.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Likewise, the stunting system is still largely DM fiat.

This is true. But 4e also comes with guidelines for the stunting system to make it worthwhile at all levels - this is one of the advantages of a narrativist damage-by-level over a simulationist damage-by-effect system. So I feel much more confident stunting with a RAW 4e DM than a RAW DM in any other D&D edition - but this effect is nothing like as great as the difference between different DMs or even the same DM running different campaigns with different tones.

In retrospect, I wish I had lit the bar on fire anyway.

I know the feeling

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Giving people a set of choices is in a way limiting their choices because they'll tend to default to those choices. If you offer someone Coke or Pepsi, chances are that he's not going to ask for lemonade. Likewise, the stunting system is still largely DM fiat. In the encounters game, I considered running behind the bar, splashing ale around, and having the wizard light it aflame. Then I realized that I'd probably have to spend two turns doing that and make some kind of skill check, and I used Cleave instead.

In retrospect, I wish I had lit the bar on fire anyway.

This is one change I kind of like in the playtest over previous editions: by NOT including a list of standard combat stunts (trip, disarm, bull rush, grapple, etc), you make stunting a lot simpler. The player can just come up with a cool idea and you decide what kind of check it is and whether they get advantage (or disadvantage) on the attempt.

In 3e I almost never grappled anyone, because the rules were complex and my characters weren't specifically built to be good at it. In 5e, if I wanted my fighter to grab a goblin by the shirt and slam him against a wall, I'd just say so and roll the Strength vs. Strength check. And hey, if I've got Jab, I can even give him a quick shot in the gut along with it!