D&D 5E Are you going to miss AEDU? (And did you feel a lack in the playtest because of it?)

[Dungeoneer]

Not a knock on 13th Age at all, but I do think its similarity to 4e is often overstated.

Though not by you.

Well, these kind of things are subjective, but here's just a few of the things 13th Age has in common with 4e:

- Positional combat (13A's is much more rules-lite than 4e's, but it exists and it offers tactical options nonetheless).
- A 'bloodied' status ('staggered').
- Healing surges ('recoveries').
- Death saves.
- Flat saves with no modifiers.
- Things that look an awful lot like Powers, in formatted stat blocks.
- At-will attacks, daily attacks, and rechargeable attacks that look an awful lot like Encounter powers.
- Interesting combat options for martial classes.
- Utility spells (for Wizards).
- Why hello, auto-hit magic missile!
- Monsters have roles.
- Monsters come in self-contained stat blocks.
- Dragonborn and Tieflings are races.
- The Warlord, erm, 'Commander', will be in the first splat book.

You get the idea. More important, but harder to quantify, is the 'feel' of the rules. Like 4e, 13A has simple, consistent rules that are iterated on in interesting ways. I get a very strong impression that the same design principles informed both. In fact, 13A really does a better job of exploring that design space in interesting ways. No one would accuse 13A's classes of being samey (I think, anyway, people are weird) and yet they all spring from the same basic rules. There are very few specialized subsystems for the DM to master.

IMHO, 4e players feeling left out in the cold by 5e will find a lot to like in 13A. Even if they don't adopt it wholesale, expect them to steal from it rampantly.

 

[Ichneumon]

AEDU may no longer form the bones of every class, but it's still left its mark on 5e. At-will spells, or cantrips, are here to stay. Encounter powers have transmuted into the abilities that refresh after a short rest. Dailies and utilities are mostly confined to spells, but some class features could be regarded as utilities (e.g. bardic performances).

So I can't truly miss AEDU, as some of it's still here. I don't miss the requirement to shoehorn every class into it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I won't miss them. I never thought that AEDU was the best mechanic. It was just necessary to maintain balance. I was willing to accept a little bit of wonkiness in exchange for balance in my game that I felt was lacking in 2e and 3e.

Once some splat books came out, I noticed that 4e was starting to buckle under the weight of its options and the balance that I'd hope would be maintained due to the AEDU system didn't hold up. We had characters who were essentially unhittable by any monster. We had characters who could kill monsters of their level in one round of attacks by themselves. These were the exact same things that the AEDU system was supposed to prevent due to limiting the stacking of modifiers and the balance of math.

So far D&D Next is maintaining the balance better than 4e did without using the AEDU system to maintain it. We'll once again see what the future holds.

 

[The Human Target]

Well, these kind of things are subjective, but here's just a few of the things 13th Age has in common with 4e:

- Positional combat (13A's is much more rules-lite than 4e's, but it exists and it offers tactical options nonetheless).
- A 'bloodied' status ('staggered').
- Healing surges ('recoveries').
- Death saves.
- Flat saves with no modifiers.
- Things that look an awful lot like Powers, in formatted stat blocks.
- At-will attacks, daily attacks, and rechargeable attacks that look an awful lot like Encounter powers.
- Interesting combat options for martial classes.
- Utility spells (for Wizards).
- Why hello, auto-hit magic missile!
- Monsters have roles.
- Monsters come in self-contained stat blocks.
- Dragonborn and Tieflings are races.
- The Warlord, erm, 'Commander', will be in the first splat book.

You get the idea. More important, but harder to quantify, is the 'feel' of the rules. Like 4e, 13A has simple, consistent rules that are iterated on in interesting ways. I get a very strong impression that the same design principles informed both. In fact, 13A really does a better job of exploring that design space in interesting ways. No one would accuse 13A's classes of being samey (I think, anyway, people are weird) and yet they all spring from the same basic rules. There are very few specialized subsystems for the DM to master.

IMHO, 4e players feeling left out in the cold by 5e will find a lot to like in 13A. Even if they don't adopt it wholesale, expect them to steal from it rampantly.

Sure, it uses some 4e stuff.

It also uses some 3e stuff, and some storytelling game stuff.

But its not close to a 4e retroclone to me, nor an unofficial 4.5e.

The two systems are cousins, not brothers if that makes sense.

 

[pemerton]

I think that when I miss AEDU, what I'm actually missing is a combination of is feeling like I'm being a [class] with every attack and that my character has combat functionality.

<snip>

My take from the AEDU system is the philosophy of trying to make a cleric/fighter/bard/wizard be a cleric/fighter/bard/wizard every turn and that while being that in combat, it is a meaningful contribution and gives them a few things to choose from.

This is a pretty key idea. Well expressed.

Agreed. Sorry Larrin, I couldn't XP you.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Sure, it uses some 4e stuff.

It also uses some 3e stuff, and some storytelling game stuff.

But its not close to a 4e retroclone to me, nor an unofficial 4.5e.

The two systems are cousins, not brothers if that makes sense.

Sure. It's definitely not a clone. It has its own elements, especially the storytelling tools, which are something you'll probably never see in ANY edition of D&D. Which, honestly, is too bad, but it is what it is.

But what I really like about 13A is that it borrows a lot of the things that I loved from 4e and then adds its own cool new stuff on top of that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

As I've played the 4E game more and more... I've found that my experience has been tainted by my own desire-- the desire to buy more 4E product. What I mean by that is that the more products I've bought (and even worse... the product I receive as part of subscribing to DDI and gaining the use of in the Character Builder)... the more powers I have gained access to for all of the classes. The downside of this is that when you only have a certain number of game mechanics available to make powers out of... the more powers you create for a class at a certain level... the more you end up using mechanics that would be better served only for other classes to keep them unique. As a result, the more homogenized the classes become.

When all you had was four powers per level for each class (like from just the original PH)... you could have a much greater demarcation between ones whose mechanics were more martial based versus arcane based or more striker based versus leader based etc. It was much easier for designers to say "these types of bonuses or abilities are ONLY going to be for Leaders." Or that "these mechanics will ONLY be for heavy-hitting martial types". But when you keep designing and adding more and more powers from a finite list of possibly game mechanics... soon those demarcations begin to bend.

I mean... according to the CB there are eighteen Level 1 Fighter Encounter powers. And they include abilities of pushing, pulling, sliding, higher damage, shifting self, shifting allies, dazing, making enemies grant CA, marking, self Temp HP, charge bonuses, reach bonuses, multiple targeting, penalty to target attack rolls, knocking prone, slowing, and grabbing. Like the only mechanics you can't do are Area attacks and granting other characters HP or Temp HP.

Now how can you expect to keep a Fighter differentiated from other classes when he has access to seventeen different mechanics at Level 1 for Encounter powers? And this doesn't even get into the 17 Daily powers the Fighter also has to choose from. You can't. And as a result, I've reached a place of diminishing returns through no one's fault but my own. I have voluntarily availed myself to these powers, and l voluntarily flip through all of them when creating or leveling characters for myself or my players. So it's entirely a problem of my own design.

But unfortunately, the genie is out of the bottle for me now. I see all these classes as homogenized as a matter of course, even if I was to go back and start a new campaign where I specifically told players "only allowing powers from the specific PH from which your class came from". Wouldn't matter. My visualization of a 4E Fighter versus a 4E Warlord versus a 4E ranger has been tainted irreparably for at least many years of not playing it. Which is why 5E is going to be good for me. It's going to bring back the demarcation between what classes can do and how they can do it. And if WotC follows through with their idea of NOT flooding the marketplace with additional splat material... then I suspect I'm going to be a lot better off.

And then maybe after five, six years of that game, I'll go back and try out a "PH1 only!" 4E game again and see if my palate has been cleansed. I'd love it if that was the case.

(And in case anyone thinks this is purely a 4E problem... I had the exact same issue with 3E and the proliferation of Prestige Classes. We got so many of them that they all started running together both thematically and in what they did-- thus destroying for me what they were good for. And again... this was no one's fault but my own.)

 

[Dausuul]

I dislike dissociated mechanics, and I felt that the rigid AEDU structure led to a lot of bloat. WotC wanted fighters to have as many options as wizards, but they couldn't actually come up with very much, so you got a hundred slightly different variations on "I hit it with my sword."

So, no, I'm not going to miss AEDU and I'm glad it's gone. I do want interesting combat options for fighters, but I don't believe AEDU was the way to do that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, no, I'm not going to miss AEDU and I'm glad it's gone. I do want interesting combat options for fighters, but I don't believe AEDU was the way to do that.

essentials and Bo9S both managed to have interesting options with out AEUD

 

[Yora]

What's AEDU?