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

[timASW]

Yeah. I wonder why my approach to 4E is so different from my approach to 3E. I think I'm going to take that approach to my next 3E game and see how it works. We'll see how the group feels about it.

Anyway, thanks for the reply. You've forced me to think about how I run 3E. Do you have any advice for running 3E in a more... "fiction first" manner?

I can tell you what works for me. Basically a couple years into the 3e systems life cycle I moved and forgot the box with all my gaming books somehow. So I just adjudicated the game the same way I did AD&D.

I started by telling everyone "if you want to try something not covered by the the basic rules just say what it is and we'll figure out a way to work it real quick and if the rules say no but you think you should be able to anyway then let me know... and we'll figure out a way to let you at least try it. "

Then I had monsters and NPC's do off the wall stuff a few times a session at least as ongoing examples to everyone.

I wound up using a lot of ability checks, saving throws and skills and nothing complicated.

If they want to try something physical its probably athletics or tumble, if those dont make sense a STR or DEX check. Often opposed ( i like opposed rolls). Its not hard to get everyone to agree on what would be a fair stat or skill for most stuff.

If they want to avoid something happening to them, pick a save. They're pretty clear cut in 99% of cases.


Eventually I bought all the books again but I found I didnt really like using them mid-session so I just kept right on adjudicating stuff on the fly like I did before. Now I do it with most systems I play and I find everything flows much much better and simpler.


*** Theres a couple of times you'll have to tell rules lawyers "Sorry I dont like that so thats not the way I'm working it. " As long as your basically fair, keep the game moving along and everyone having fun you wont have any trouble getting the majority of the group to side with you against him stopping the game to look stuff up and argue minutia.

 

[Neonchameleon]

4e feat-based multi-classing was over-priced. If, as the game seemed to assume, powers of the same level are roughly balanced with eachother, then paying a feat for each power swap was excessive. Theme-based multi-classing might have worked better. Instead of spending a feat per power swap, you just take a class-related Theme and gain selected powers from that class you can swap. The Wizard's Apprentice Theme came very close to that, for instance.

The thing to remember here is that 4e had more than one type of multiclassing. And between them I will absolutely back 4e's total multiclass options against 3.X.

1: Multiclass feat multiclassing. You stay as your primary class and pick up a few tricks and versatility.
2: Power Swap feat multiclassing. Giving fighters fireballs. Generally not worth it.
3: Paragon Multiclassing. A bad plan. Always.
4: Multiclass Paragon Path multiclassing. Well worth it for broadening in a new direction.
5: Hybrid Multiclassing. Classic AD&D multiclassing. And needs keeping an eye on by the DM.
6: Theme multiclassing. The complement of Paragon Multiclassing where you grew up as something different from what you are now and should possibly have been expanded further.

These are all different ways of multiclassing. And with the exception of Paragon Multiclassing all add something different to the game, allowing you to better fit certain PCs.

 

[timASW]

Maybe, in your experience most people think free cantrips for casters was the only thing done right. However, my own anecdotal evidence differs. I and, nearly, every gamer that I know are not 4e fans and prefer 3e for mechanics , but we think they did more things right than that.
1. Removing Level Drain
2. Removing 3e XP costs
3. Balancing spell casters and non-casters (even if we did not like the method of giving everyone AEDU)
4. Constitution score to starting hit points instead of con modifier per level
5. Removing most of the non-biological aspects of race and making them feats
6. Martial types getting more cool things to (however, again, not AEDU)
7. At-will cantrips
8. Ranger as a non-spellcaster
9. Magic Missile requiring a to hit roll
10. Heroic Tier Multiclassing
11. Introduction of the Feywild, but most of us had done something similar for our own campaigns
12. Warlord in concept
13. Most like the Elf/Eladrin split (but not how Fey Step worked)
14. Backgrounds and Themes
15. Disease Track

Out of curiosity I printed this out and I'm gonna bring it to my pathfinder group tomorrow and see if anyone agrees with you.

I know I havent heard a single player outside of a message board saying anything good about any of those with a few exceptions.

Feywild.... okay but your right most of us had a feyworld anyway and they messed up the rest of the cosmology so bad this hardly evens of the scales on that..

Rangers. Lots of people wanted a non-magic ranger yes.... but few of those people were satisfied by the 4e result. So its hard to really count that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e feat-based multi-classing was over-priced. If, as the game seemed to assume, powers of the same level are roughly balanced with eachother, then paying a feat for each power swap was excessive. Theme-based multi-classing might have worked better. Instead of spending a feat per power swap, you just take a class-related Theme and gain selected powers from that class you can swap. The Wizard's Apprentice Theme came very close to that, for instance.

If 5e had retained the concept of a common advancement structure, something like that could have been done quite easily, and they wouldn't have to have both full-class and half-class (multi-class) versions of classes as some sort of compromise between classic and 3e multiclassing...

I think having hybrids to cover "I'm not really exactly either of these 2 classes" and feat based MCing to cover "I decided to learn some of that other class" is OK. I'm not fond of the need have a whole hybrid class for every class though. I'd consider having just feat or theme based MCing at a cheaper price to be possibly a solution. You could have both for more or less amount of MCing. (a feat to let you just do a bit of swapping, a theme to give you some class features, both to do a true half-n-half).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Out of curiosity I printed this out and I'm gonna bring it to my pathfinder group tomorrow and see if anyone agrees with you.

I know I havent heard a single player outside of a message board saying anything good about any of those with a few exceptions.

Feywild.... okay but your right most of us had a feyworld anyway and they messed up the rest of the cosmology so bad this hardly evens of the scales on that..

Rangers. Lots of people wanted a non-magic ranger yes.... but few of those people were satisfied by the 4e result. So its hard to really count that.

I think when you bring a highly prejudiced attitude to your table you'll find that usually DMs are thought leaders. Even if the players have different opinions or might not really have much opinion at all they're going to go along with you when what they perceive is basically you're saying "look at this list of sucky features that these 4e guys think make it a good game!" You may not THINK you're pushing that message, but at some level its quite likely.

 

[keterys]

3: Paragon Multiclassing. A bad plan. Always.

There are actually situations in which it can work, surprisingly enough - but it requires going for fairly sketchy things, and/or an epic game where you can take Martial Archetype.

It actually wouldn't take more than a couple tweaks to make it a good option, though. To be honest, I also suspect paragon paths ended up being a much stronger swing than initially planned - that or some folks got very different memos from other folks

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are actually situations in which it can work, surprisingly enough - but it requires going for fairly sketchy things, and/or an epic game where you can take Martial Archetype.

It actually wouldn't take more than a couple tweaks to make it a good option, though. To be honest, I also suspect paragon paths ended up being a much stronger swing than initially planned - that or some folks got very different memos from other folks

Yeah, I don't know about PPs. I think PMC would start to get close if the total cost to get there was about 2 feats, and maybe there's be some sort of action point mechanic you would pick up.

 

[timASW]

I think when you bring a highly prejudiced attitude to your table you'll find that usually DMs are thought leaders. Even if the players have different opinions or might not really have much opinion at all they're going to go along with you when what they perceive is basically you're saying "look at this list of sucky features that these 4e guys think make it a good game!" You may not THINK you're pushing that message, but at some level its quite likely.

Actually what I said was "heya, what does everything think about this"? And then I shut up and waited.

Turns out your opinion is not representative. At least of my group. They either didnt care one way or another or thought the 4e way was worse.

 

[FireLance]

You may not THINK you're pushing that message, but at some level its quite likely.

This kind of relates to a phenomenon known as the Clever Hans effect, although it is more of an issue for psychological research.

EDIT: As a side issue, consider the possibility that all those times that your players seemed to know what you were thinking as a DM, they were simply picking up cues that you were giving out involuntarily and without even being conscious of the fact.

EDIT2: And if you add to that the not-unlikely possibility that players who have gamed for a long time with one particular DM get very good at picking up his cues - perhaps involuntarily and without being conscious of the fact themselves ...

 

[Greg K]

While overall it was a good list I find this one to be a shocker. I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone I long for the days of fighter/barbarian/rogue/hearthguard/favored soul multilclassing, yet I find 4E multiclassing to be so lackluster it should be renamed to meaninglessclassing. There has to be a happy medium out there somewhere...

You find it lackluster. It works closer to how I an my gamer friends think 3e should have worked when taking a new class after first level. We disliked that a character in 3e could multiclass after first level and get all of a clases armor and weapons + other abilities and/or gain 1st level spells without first having have had to have known 0-level spells.
To fix it, we took numerous steps. For instance:
1 Multiclassing did not grant the new classes armor and weapon proficiencies. A character needed to spend a feat (could be the use of a fighter class bonus feat) to get proficiency in one armor category or weapon for which the character meets the pre-requisites
2. Multiclassing into a class that grants 1st level spells at level 1 requires the character to first have taken a feat granting 3-0 level first arcane spells representing learning the basics
(the above is in addition to requiring a trainer to pick up a new class)

This does not mean I don't want a representation of something more like hybrid multiclasing or AD&D multicilassing for first level characters starting off as two classes (I use 0/0 level multi-classing from the 3.0 DMG, UA style class variants, and third party classes to cover this when I run 3e). It is just that I want something with more verisimilitude for a character gaining a new class after first level. The same for those with whom I game and other gamers with whom I have discussed this.