D&D 4E 4e players who converted to 5th edition

[Cernor]

I started in a one-player game of Keep on the Shadowfell DMed by my older brother... All was going well until I took a detour to get my cleric un-petrified (Damn it, Valthrun... You weren't supposed to have that spell!). When I got back, Kalarel had opened the portal and sent an army of undead at the town. After the ensuing 8-hour combat (to kill 200 out of 2000 assorted undead) the campaign was dropped and we switched to 5e. IMO it's so much more intuitive to learn, and flows much better.

 

[Nebulous]

I started in a one-player game of Keep on the Shadowfell DMed by my older brother... All was going well until I took a detour to get my cleric un-petrified (Damn it, Valthrun... You weren't supposed to have that spell!). When I got back, Kalarel had opened the portal and sent an army of undead at the town. After the ensuing 8-hour combat (to kill 200 out of 2000 assorted undead) the campaign was dropped and we switched to 5e. IMO it's so much more intuitive to learn, and flows much better.

Lol. 8 hours, really? Well, that could be a lengthy fight in ANY game system, fighting 200 undead one on one!

 

[fjw70]

I don't think I came across very clear here, so let me try again. In a typical four hour session in 4e, I could probably run 3 combats (1 hour each) and 3 role playing intermissions (20 minutes each). In 5e I could run 5 combats (28 minutes each) and 5 role playing intermissions (20 minutes each) in the same time. The ratio of combat to role playing ends up being something like 3:1 in 4e and 3:2 in 5e.

In both systems, we role play between combats, but because they take such a long time and the sessions are finite, we ended up role playing less in 4e, and stayed more in combat. Also, in 5e, how you initiate an encounter is really important (since they usually last much fewer rounds), so you often spend more time (relatively) trying to start it off in your favour. This is usually done in character, while pure combat often ends up just being dice rolling, especially when it drags on.

My conclusion is that since we spend less time in combat in 5e, we end up role playing more than in 4e.

I think one of the mistakes of people make in 4e (both WotC and players, including me) is not adjusting adventure planning. If you only want to spend around 1 hr in combat in a session and you know 4e combats last that long then only plan a single encounter for that session. I am not trying to bash anyone since I made this mistake myself.

I really enjoyed 4e but I haven't played in about 6-7 months and the time off has given me time to reflect on the experience. When I run another 4e game I really want to try things differently. For one I want to break things down into minor and major encounters with major being a typical tough 4e fight and minor being something like a small group of minors led by a standard or elite. These minors are typically cakewalks for 4e but I would only allow a short rest after major encounter. So the preliminary fights with guards and such leading up to the major fight would be minors and the major battle would be boss-type fight.

Since you can't use short rest after these minors then if you blow an encounter power you won't get it back until after the major fight. Basically this would turn a dungeons from a series of encounters to one longer extended encounter. I am interested to see how it would work.

Long rests would happen between adventures (or major adventure parts in super adventures).

 

[fjw70]

I started in a one-player game of Keep on the Shadowfell DMed by my older brother... All was going well until I took a detour to get my cleric un-petrified (Damn it, Valthrun... You weren't supposed to have that spell!). When I got back, Kalarel had opened the portal and sent an army of undead at the town. After the ensuing 8-hour combat (to kill 200 out of 2000 assorted undead) the campaign was dropped and we switched to 5e. IMO it's so much more intuitive to learn, and flows much better.

Not sure what the complaint about 4e is here?

 

[the Jester]

The OP specifically asked for people who started in 4e. That's his expressed qualification for a response here. You have to love how enthusiastic people are about 5e (I am too), but let's honor the OP's question. I too am interested in hearing what people who came to D&D through 4e think of 5e. We already know that earlier adopters tend to love 5e.

The OP has also, and repeatedly, expressed his appreciation for the answers he's receiving from people who started in other editions. And this is a discussion forum. So let's discuss instead of being sticks in the mud and getting hung up on something like that.

Unless, of course, you'd prefer the thread to only have the what, one response from someone who actually started in 4e?

To me, that's a pretty boring discussion.

 

[SavageCole]

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, Jester.

I loved the OP question, because it was a different take and covered new ground. Let's find out what people who know D&D as 4e think.

Frankly these boards are flooded with people who've been around the game over multiple editions talking about how much they love 5e and how it's getting the game back on track after 4e. To me that conversation has been beaten to death ... and is a pretty boring discussion to rehash here again.

I was looking forward to seeing responses along the lines of the OP's original question, because I'm very curious to hear that perspective. We've all already heard the other one ad nauseam.

 

[Nebulous]

Sorry to be a stick in the mud, Jester.

I loved the OP question, because it was a different take and covered new ground. Let's find out what people who know D&D as 4e think.

Frankly these boards are flooded with people who've been around the game over multiple editions talking about how much they love 5e and how it's getting the game back on track after 4e. To me that conversation has been beaten to death ... and is a pretty boring discussion to rehash here again.

I was looking forward to seeing responses along the lines of the OP's original question, because I'm very curious to hear that perspective. We've all already heard the other one ad nauseam.

It's ok Savage, thank you for your concern. Ideally I'd love to have more 4e to 5e feedback as it targets a very specific subset of gamers who would have a unique perspective. But there might not be that many actually here, or if they are, they lurk and don't post. But if others find the topic interesting and want to comment I'm fine with that. If the thread stays active it might give the target demographic more time to see it.

 

[Nebulous]

I think one of the mistakes of people make in 4e (both WotC and players, including me) is not adjusting adventure planning. If you only want to spend around 1 hr in combat in a session and you know 4e combats last that long then only plan a single encounter for that session. I am not trying to bash anyone since I made this mistake myself.

So this got me thinking, in the past few 5e sessions of Lost Mine i've been rolling for random wilderness encounters. With the DMG last night for the first time, I randomized Forest and Mountain encounters, and then actually rolled randomly on the list (I just assigned numbers). I capped it at d10 (any higher would have been a ridiculously hard Challenge). Well, I rolled a 1 and randomly rolled a jackal. No biggie. But it could have been an ogre or a chimera or a gorgon, etc.

I guess my point is that in 4e, throwing in random encounters could drastically lengthen a scenario. They're great fun, i mean there was so much tension as i was rolling because I told the players how this was going to work. 5e is more streamlined and a little faster, so throwing in one or two random encounters isn't going to take up a whole evening of play.

 

[Cernor]

Not sure what the complaint about 4e is here?

I suppose that I got off-topic sharing my experience with 4e and forgot to actually answer the OP... Let's try again, shall we?

First and foremost, I think that because of the battlemap and the way the powers work, 4e gave us newcomers the impression that it was more of a tactical wargame than anything else. Although roleplaying did happen, it was sparse and squished between large segments of combat. Having played 8-10 sessions of 5e with a small party (only the two of us with a sporadic third player, but better than just me) the roleplaying feels a lot more intuitive, and it feels like the system encourages creative thinking during combat (rather than simply using whatever option seemed the best on my character sheet). For that, I prefer 5th to 4th. On the other hand, because I started 4e when 5e was just about to be released, I was able to trawl through all the different character creation options and make exactly what I wanted, which is still missing from 5e (at the moment).

I think that the 8-hour battle is a perfect (if a bit extreme) example of how new players can view the 4e system and take it to a ridiculous extreme: The character sheet and powers focused on combat, so we had a lot of battles... And as I leveled up and got more powers, there was even more combat for me to use them in, and it just snowballed. Sure it was fun, but it became a battle simulator rather than a roleplaying game.

 

[aramis erak]

Lol. 8 hours, really? Well, that could be a lengthy fight in ANY game system, fighting 200 undead one on one!

Burning Wheel can resolve the whole mess in a single roll, using the RAW... Fight! is an optional module, and a hefty penalty on a bloody versus is more than adequate... Or one could split the difference and each one-on-one is a separate bloody versus, in which case, a group of 4 can do it in about an hour.

And d6 Fantasy can do it, using the many on one rules, as a couple rolls, as well.