Conversations like this would probably be a lot more productive if people like yourself would stop taking any commentary about 4e that doesn't praise it as some sort of personal attack against you or the game. Saying that a class that does what it did in 4e wouldn't work well in 5e doesn't mean in any way that I dislike 4e. Just that it's different. "Being different" =/= "hating on it". It's entirely reasonable to point out that 4e and 5e are two very different games, and thus emulating something the way it worked in 4e wouldn't necessarily work in 5e is an entirely reasonable statement to make that doesn't make it hating. Just like if I said I wanted a class in 5e that worked exactly the same as a caster in 3e wouldn't balance well. Or if I said I wanting a 5e class that worked just like a 1e thief would be problematic. It doesn't mean I'm hating on those other editions.
The "screams special snowflake" and "[fans] want it to be better than every other class" lines were the parts I was primarily responding to. Even with a wink smiley, these strike you as being identical to saying that the class is simply a thematic mismatch, and imply nothing about your opinion (positive or negative) about the class and those who like it? I'd also argue that at least the "exactly the same as a caster in 3e" thing is a rather fundamentally different matter, but that's probably not a useful contribution to this discussion. (Originally, I hadn't expected even this--that is, my own--response to be seen as a useful contribution, but given El Mahdi's implicit permission, I figure I have no excuse not to make it now.)
And it's not like the response I'm describing is unprecedented. I have been directly told, elsewhere on the internet, that as a 4e fan I should suck it up and learn to like it, because 4e "had its time," or has even been "rejected" by the devs themselves. I can't recall having heard that specifically here on ENWorld, but it's not a thing I'm just making up either. Besides, I specifically endeavored to include a wide variety of responses--hence the parenthetical "seem to" and the quotes around "hate." Certainly, looking at the responses as they roll in, I don't think it's wrong to say that most of the people weighing in on something purely optional have a negative perception of it, to the point of
I'll also note that 5e does have a lot of tactical elements in it. What specifically do you want added from 4e, and can you explain how that could be done without changing the core of the game completely? There are a lot of things pulled in from 4e; certainly as much as any other edition. So comments like yours that imply 4e fans are forsaken always make me raise my eyebrows.
Since you asked, @
Imaro, this is for you too. Not knowing what you, Sacrosanct, mean by "how that could be done without changing the core of the game completely," this is an exceptionally difficult question to answer. By definition, adding additional layers of mechanics changes the game changes something. However, a few options--and I stress,
options--which would probably help:
1) A more rigorous monster construction system, especially if it provided something like tables or..."palettes" of suggested abilities that creatures can use, hopefully including lots of things like forced movement, condition-triggered actions (e.g. changes of behavior or stats when Bloodied), . I don't think it's unfair to call 5e's CR system "rather loose," and part of the appeal of 4e was its fairly "tight" rules in this regard. It appealed to DMs by being
relatively easy to use (no more difficult than 3e and often much less, e.g. "MM3 on a business card") while producing very reliable results with few corner cases (usually the result of scaling down a high-level creature without considering the effects of its abilities). And it, at least in theory, appealed to players by enabling every monster to have Some Cool Thing it did, rather than trending more toward "large sacks of HP."* This, in theory, should have no direct effect on your "core of the game," as it is merely a tool the DM can elect to use for directly and personally creating content for their own games.
2) Significantly increased integration of forced movement, extra mobility, and "zone" effects (persistent, or semi-persisent, effects targeting a particular area). Pushing, Pulling, Sliding, Shifting, and Teleporting were all very important elements of the 4e experience, such that some races had things affecting them as their core active (Eladrin,
Fey Step, a per-encounter teleport) or passive (Dwarf,
Stand Your Ground, reduce all pushes/pulls/slides by 1 if you wish, min 0). Some classes or builds even had personal mobility as a deeply-ingrained feature (Chaos Sorcerer, Pursuing Avenger). Exactly how this would be implemented, I am not entirely sure--I'm not a designer and do not even remotely profess to be one. One possible option would be a selection of new spells, maneuvers, and class features (possibly including native support for Marking on Paladins and Fighters), or a list of features, or both, which could be given forced movement/extra mobility/zone effects.
Additional sources of forced movement couldn't change "the core of the game," whatever is meant by the phrase,
that fundamentally, as Warlocks can opt into at-will forced movement and (IIRC) there are Wizard spells that do a small amount of it already. As long as the extra mobility is made to take into account rules differences of 5e (e.g. that you can move between attacks natively), I don't feel that would be a dramatic change. The zone effects would need to be carefully balanced, of course, but again I don't see a reason why they would be automatically a problem. I definitely think it is the combination of zones
and forced movement, as well as the fairly key point that anything other than a generic Push or Grapple
is magic, which contributes to noticeable tactical differences between the games.
3) Small tweaks to certain parts of the mechanics, to enable a more-4e-like approach to resource expenditures. For example, advice on ways to make short-rest-based abilities hew closer to the "encounter" model of 4e, as well as ways to tweak the long-rest-based classes to avert the more intense applications of "going nova" on something. Technically, this could be useful to everyone, not just those looking for the "4e style tactics" stuff, and since it would take the form of advice and example tweaks, it would alter "the core of the game" no more than any particular DM wished it to--just as the advice/tweaks about healing in the DMG currently do.
Edit: On reflection, #2 might be best split into three individual points, though ones very closely allied to each other: 2a, Forced Movement Support and Stickiness; 2b, Ability-derived Player Mobility; and 2c, Zones and Persistent Area Effects.
*As I understand it, this can occasionally be an issue with 5e monsters, so having this optional tool might even improve the game experience for people
not interested in 4e.
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I don't particularly feel there's a need for one, but wouldn't object to an official one.
I do resent the "lemon curry" answer as bad form and essentially a group attack on those who don't want a warlord. Proper construction would be 3 answers: Yes, No, and other, possibly also Don't want but wouldn't mind.
The quality of polls on EnWorld is pretty low, and they tend to be blatantly slanted.
I have previously made rather clear my perspective on forum polls of any kind, and it applies just as much to this one as it does to any other. Forum polls are, were, and probably always will be garbage data--prey to several of the worst biases possible, and even a few that are atypical of survey data (such as being able to check the results before voting, and being able to retract your vote after the fact). This poll is worthless as a statistical tool. It would be worthless as a statistical tool even if it were structured as you present it
and had an amazingly dramatic, landslide victory for one of those answers.
At least in this case, though, I feel the poll is being honest about its function--it's not statistical at all, but rather petition-like. It is not about showing
that "most people" feel any particular way, or saying anything about the community at large. It's simply an interest check--"we have X people who have directly said that yes, they do in fact wish to see this option." That's why there's no "no" option--hence why I call it "petition-like." El Mahdi, for what should be fairly obvious reasons,
doesn't care how many people don't want it, but he's very interested in even the vaguest hint of an idea of how many people
do want it.
Edit:
The only "statistically" (note quotes) interesting thing about the poll is how closely the two sides have remained over its (relatively short) life. I haven't seen them be more than 11 or less than 9 votes apart since...well, since each side had at least 10 votes!
