D&D 4E D&D Fluff Wars: 4e vs 5e

[Zardnaar]

Great Wheel had a lot of momentum behind it.

Planescape in 2E, Out of the Abyss/Tyrants of the 9 Hells and The Savage Tide towards the end of 3.5.

 

[Parmandur]

Great Wheel had a lot of momentum behind it.



Planescape in 2E, Out of the Abyss/Tyrants of the 9 Hells and The Savage Tide towards the end of 3.5.

Two broad groups of people: those attached to previous default settings, and those doing their own thing (aside from newcomers, obviously). The former is far more likely to be upset by a new default than the latter is to adopt a new default...

 

[Zardnaar]

Heh. I 4venged with the best of 'em. I'm always ready to defend D&D if I think a criticism is unfounded.

I've also never been shy about acknowledging valid criticisms.

You are a bad 4venger though. You at least acknowledge why 4E upset some people rather than dismiss their concerns.

I don't think the Great Wheel is required for D&D (BECMI, Eberron etc). It is required IMHO if you are making an edition in the 1E to 5E lineage. Great Wheel got a fairly big push in 3.5 IMHO.

World Axis was good on its own merits wth perhaps the biggest problem being they retained to many Great Wheel elements.

Other fantasy universes like Magnamund used something similar to thd world axis, Joe Dever being an ex AD&D player.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

D&D cosmologies tend towards making sure there is adequate space to do X, whether X is talking to the dead, fighting demons, or stealing stuff from celestials. If a setting adds a new X that seems cool, some place to do it of it will show up in most other settings. It is why almost everything from the GW had a counterpart in the WA, and the new stuff from the WA got added to the GW.

 

[Tony Vargas]

IIRC that quote is explicitly about the cosmology and somewhat about alignments, not a reference to other possibilities for grid-filling.

So totally on-topic.

(Though I would agree with Tony Vargas that asking for a martial controller in 4e wasn't grid-filling for the sake of grid-filling - I would have liked to see it as an option to have the ability to have no-magic parties where everyone is running a martial character.).

I played in parties like that - one time by accident. We just happened to show up with martial characters across the board. We borked one Skill Challenge, but, apart from that, were fine (Controller was, arguably, the most dispensable formal role).

...totally off-topic:

I'd like to see that become viable in 5e, too, though it'd take more than one new (sub)class. There aren't 4 formal roles in 5e, but there's probably more than 4 informal ones, and the PH arguably-'martial' options each cover 1 adequately. Unfortunately, they're all adequately covering the same one. ;(






Edit: I feel like I wasn't blatantly obvious enough, so: WARLORD!

 

[Parmandur]

6-9 Champions, Thieves, Assassins, Battlemasters, and Berserkers can pretty much take care of anything you need mechanically. There are no necessary roles to fill, even healer.

 

[Tony Vargas]

6-9 Champions, Thieves, Assassins, Battlemasters, and Berserkers can pretty much take care of anything you need mechanically.

"Anything you need mechanically" is here defined as "DPR," apparently. ;P

There are no necessary roles to fill, even healer.

Semantically true. There are no formal roles governing class design or simplifying choices of party composition in 5e.

That does not mean that there are no concrete contributions a party needs to succeed, nor that each & every sub-class is able to provide all such contributions.

In short, a mixed party does better than a homogenous one. Currently a party of all casters can have quite the mix of capabilities (including PCs from any, or if big enough, all classes), while a party with no casters is much more limited, and one with no magical abilities at all (the 5 sub-classes you mention above, if we're talking PH-only), has only a small sub-set of desirable contributions to make (and all of them happen to contribute, primarily, DPR).

 

[Parmandur]

"Anything you need mechanically" is here defined as "DPR," apparently. ;P

Semantically true. There are no formal roles governing class design or simplifying choices of party composition in 5e.

That does not mean that there are no concrete contributions a party needs to succeed, nor that each & every sub-class is able to provide all such contributions.

In short, a mixed party does better than a homogenous one. Currently a party of all casters can have quite the mix of capabilities (including PCs from any, or if big enough, all classes), while a party with no casters is much more limited, and one with no magical abilities at all (the 5 sub-classes you mention above, if we're talking PH-only), has only a small sub-set of desirable contributions to make (and all of them happen to contribute, primarily, DPR).

DPR and Skills, yup: in a theoretical low-magic D&D, the rest is RP.

 

[Tony Vargas]

DPR and Skills, yup.

As long as we're clear.

 

[Parmandur]

As long as we're clear.

Leaving aside spells, it's kind of the whole show mechanically speaking. Mechanics are nice and light here, any and all support elements can be provided by the skill system.