What is the essence of D&D

[Oofta]

Oh dear lord stow the melodrama. "I'm right" doesn't equate to "you are not entitled to your opinion".

You can think anything you want. What you are never, ever, in any public facing discussion venue, entitled to, is stating that opinion without any chance of someone telling you that you're wrong. Or calling out mistaken factual information.

It's fine that you found the powers too similar for your taste. That doesn't mean they were the same, it just means you had a higher bar for dissimilarity (especially of presentation) than the designers or people who enjoyed 4e.

If your argument has never been that the powers literally did the same things and had no distinction or uniqueness and that classes of the same role all played exactly the same, then nothing in my argument has anything to do with you, and you easily could have just not replied to me with a defensive counter-post calling me a jerk or whatever.

If your argument has been the above, then I was talking about your arguments, and I will maintain and reiterate here that you were wrong about that. Because they powers simply do not do the same things, and make the classes that are thematically similar play more differently than they have in the past. If you can't see how different Come And Get It is in play from Blinding Barrage...then you are actively choosing not to see it, or you haven't actually read the powers with any intent to understand them on even a basic level. It's genuinely as simple as that. There is no negative feeling here, it's just a matter of what the actual game mechanics in question do in the game.

Saying that your opinion is factual does not make it so no matter how often you repeat it.

The verbiage changed slightly. But take off the classification label and tweak the fluff and to me they look much the same.

Which is, of course, just my opinion.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Having the world have had this question asked and a reasonably priced answer determined (like the mast ring) is great! An herb that grants water breathing for a hour would also work great. I just think the game would be better off with some strong systems/advice for DMs to include such in their worlds through faction support, incidental magic, or non-magical equivalents.

I skipped this part last time in my reply. Sorry.

Yes, I absolutely agree! I would also love to see a feat that represents mild hereditary aquatic adaptation, just increased breath holding time and swim speed, with some benefits that are relevant when not underwater.

I love the idea of an herb you can buy or forage that lets you breath water or hold your breath for aquatic mammal lengths of time (ie, hours at a time), and I really wish the Saltmarsh book had gone into that advice you mention. Terrible missed opportunity, there.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

For years!? And it was super easy to cancel! Every time I did to save money for a while and come back or when the group was on a hiatus, it took exactly one minute to do so, including the time it took to navigate to the web page!

I'm sorry, but I cannot fathom taking seriously the notion that even a single whole percent of the subscription base was "I keep meaning to cancel/I still have that subscription?!/whatever" customers. 99.X% were people who absolutely intended to be actively subscribed, and any claim to the contrary is extraordinary to the point that it requires direct, strong, evidence to view it with any attitude other than laughter and the assumption that the speaker is making a joke.

(a) Remember that it wasn't always a paid subscription model.

(b) People do in fact forget to cancel stuff like this. It may sound lazy and irresponsible to you and to me, but it happens a lot. Like @Tony Vargas said, the whole subscription model sort of expects people to do this.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Saying that your opinion is factual does not make it so no matter how often you repeat it.

The verbiage changed slightly. But take off the classification label and tweak the fluff and to me they look much the same.

Which is, of course, just my opinion.

You seem to have trouble parsing fact from opinion in a set of statements. The powers are factually different. I even recognised the validity of them not being different enough for you, which is an entirely different thing.

Again, "they were too similar for me to enjoy" is an opinion. A strange one to hear from someone who likes other editions of dnd, unless maybe you only ever liked spellcasters, since they're the only ones that are at all different from eachother, but still very much an opinion. Or more specifically, a statement of preference.
"The powers are the same." is an objectively incorrect statement of fact. If you never made that claim, then there is no reason for you to be defensively snarking at me over and over in this thread.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

(a) Remember that it wasn't always a paid subscription model.

(b) People do in fact forget to cancel stuff like this. It may sound lazy and irresponsible to you and to me, but it happens a lot. Like @Tony Vargas said, the whole subscription model sort of expects people to do this.

When was it not paid? The entire run of 4e, as long as the CB and the digital magazines were a thing, IIRC, it was a paid sub. Certainly during any time that could possibly be relevant to this discussion.

And there are people who leave subscriptions going that they forget or don't care about, but the majority of people can't afford that behavior, and aren't that out of touch with their bank account. The idea that any significant percentage of DDI subs were accidental is patently absurd. It was brought out as an argument in bad faith.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't really care about nit picking particulars. The wait was long enough that it bothered people. There shouldn't have been any significant wait.

Heh, just say'n. The "Gnome Problem" was addressed within what, 9 mo? And it was still being talked about in 2012. 1e and 5e had a year or more so between books with significant crunch. Artificer? about to come out after 5 years. Psion? Still in the pipeline. Warlord? Yeah, right.

I guess "get out something even only some players want in less than a year" is not the Essence of D&D.

(Actually, to me, 5e's pace of release /does/ feel like "Really D&D," because 1e is what I acclimated to. Book a year? Sounds comfy.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Heh, just say'n. The "Gnome Problem" was addressed within what, 9 mo? And it was still being talked about in 2012. 1e and 5e had a year or more so between books with significant crunch. Artificer? about to come out after 5 years. Psion? Still in the pipeline. Warlord? Yeah, right.

I guess "get out something even only some players want in less than a year" is not the Essence of D&D.

(Actually, to me, 5e's pace of release /does/ feel like "Really D&D," because 1e is what I acclimated to. Book a year? Sounds comfy.)

Dude, you're ignoring the actual point, again.

Gnomes, Barbarians, Druids, Monks, etc, are a core part of DnD. The Artificer, as much as I love it, isn't.

Waiting a few years for tertiary class and race options is fine. Waiting at all for options that are, for many people, the point of playing dnd instead of Savage Worlds, isn't.

We had to wait for bards and druids, tony. Bards and druids. Not comperable in any way to waiting for Artificers, and not related at the end of the day to the release schedule. The problem wasn't that books didn't come out soon enough. The problem was that core player options that large segments of the player base don't want to play dnd without weren't part of the initial release. They could have decreased the number of powers, items, or even waiting until PHB2 to release epic levels, and reduced the problem, and the base would have been largely fine with waiting longer than a year for PHB2.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Saying that your opinion is factual does not make it so no matter how often you repeat it.

Saying that a false statement of an opinion doesn't save it from being false, either.

(Not that I'm saying you, specifically, do that, below...)

The verbiage changed slightly. But take off the classification label and tweak the fluff and to me they look much the same.
Which is, of course, just my opinion.

You are relating an opinion that sounds like it involves some facts, and you are setting it in the context of 4e being NOT-D&D, but presumably you don't find any similar issue in 5e (or 3.5?). And, that may need some clarification.

Now, within a given source, there are some /very/ similar powers, where you could do exactly that. File off the class & power name, and you have two martial encounter weapon attack powers that, say, let you shift half your speed and attack an enemy for 2W damage. Only the fluff text is that different. OK, maybe one uses STR and the other DEX (in 5e, that's just called a finesse weapon, not much of an issue). There aren't a tremendous number of such powers though, and there really aren't many that cross source lines.

So, like I said above, even I feel the aesthetic impulse to just consolidate powers by Source. I mean, that's my opinion on the matter.

OTOH, you have the Sorcerer, in 3.5 and 5e, alike, he had no spells that were unique to his list ("he" being Hennet, of course), likewise, in 5e, the Sorcerer has no spells that are only sorcerer spells. Not a problem, both eds are Really D&D, neither was Warred against (much, 3.5 caught some flack as a 'money-grab,' and grognards groused about it's 'grid dependence'). Yet, that some sorcerer spells, stripped of identifying marks and fluff text might be close enough to "look much the same," mechanically to Warlock or Wizard spells was an issue in 4e?

Or have the many spell-list duplications in past editions, in general, and the Sorcerer, in particular, always been appalling to you, as well?

Or is this opinion getting into the point Cambell, made, above, about 4e seeming more concerned with differentiating classes from eachother within roles, and other eds seeming more concerned with differentiating between casters & non-casters?

 

[Campbell]

Basically this ad populam argument basically boils down to you cannot have what you want, not just in this world, but in any world that could have possibly existed.

We get told there's this big tent that exists, but any desire that contradicts the final shape Fifth Edition took like wanting more concise design language or a fighter that can be played with skill is strictly verboten.

It feels like accept things as they are and be happy with what you got. Just join the rest of us already. It does not feel like contrary voices are welcome or respected.

I think Fifth Edition is a damn good game and I enjoy playing it. I would not play it otherwise. Still, this notion that it represents an untouchable state of game design perfection, like there is no reason for any other game to exist, is really wearing thin with me.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Dude, you're ignoring the actual point, again.

Who?
Me?

Gnomes, Barbarians, Druids, Monks, etc, are a core part of DnD. The Artificer, as much as I love it, isn't.

Barbarians were a late 1e edition, Druid (much as I love it) was literally the least-popular class on the last D&D Beyond set of statistics I saw pasted up here, and the Barbarian & Monk were left out of 2e. Gnomes, IIRC, were always the least-popular race, too, the Bard was openly mocked for decades.

Waiting a few years

5 years...

for tertiary class and race options is fine. Waiting at all for options that are, for many people, the point of playing dnd instead of Savage Worlds, isn't.

Psionics, though not a class, were in the 1e PH1, and in every ed since. The Warlord was in a PH1. They're not 'tertiary.'