What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

4e, 1st level = 'Heroic' Tier
5e, 1st level = 'Apprentice' Tier

I know, they're just labels, but in both cases they're fairly accurate ones.

Sure but you can with not more than flavor work turn down the volume at level 1 - players on board not picking certain style of abilities. But yes the descriptive labels do work pretty well in default.

 

[Lanefan]

More on this...

However:
Chance to Know Each Listed Spell pertains to the percentage chance the character has by reason of his or her intelligence to learn any given spell in the level group. The character may select spells desired in any order he or she wishes. Each spell may be checked only once. Percentile dice are rolled, and if the number generated is equal to or less than the percentage chance shown, then the character can learn and thus know that spell (it may be in his or her spell books - explained hereafter). Example: A character with an intelligence of 12 desires to know a charm person spell that he finds in a book or scroll, percentile dice are rolled, but the number generated is 52, so that spell is not understood and can not be used by the character

At that time. Nothing is said (either way) about later attempts at a different level, at different intelligence, or even just off of a different scroll.

Now, read the Minimum Number of Spells:

Example: The magic-user mentioned above who was unable to learn a charm person spell also fails to meet the minimum number of spells he or she can learn. The character then begins again on the list of 1st level spells, opts to see if this time charm person is able to be learned, rolls 04, and has acquired the ability to learn the spell. If and when the character locates such a spell, he or she will be capable of learning it.

This is still only referring to that initial roll-through*.

Together, they mean that you get one shot to learn a spell; if you fail, you can never learn it again unless you increase your intelligence or fail to have the minimum number of known spells.

I don't read it that way.

* - this initial roll-through is something we've never done, as it in fact turns out to be an unnecessary and redundant step (actually, come to think of it the whole idea of minimum knowable per level is redundant).

At first level you get Read Magic (automatic) plus one random spell off each of the three lists as shown in the DMG (I almost always give a 5th completely random spell, this is a DMG option). That's it. After that, there's no need to roll comprehension until-unless a new spell is encountered - be it on a scroll, in a spellbook, traded from another MU, or wherever - at which point if the player/PC decides to try to understand/learn the spell a roll is given.

So, if a MU starts out with Read Magic, Charm Person, Hold Portal, Identify and Featherfall then later encounters Magic Missile on a scroll and tries to copy/learn it, only then is a roll made to comprehend MM.
Let's say her max limit is 9 spells per level; she gets MM, so now she's at 6 firsts - lots of headroom.

Next adventure she finds a scroll that has Nystul's Aura, Detect Magic, Tenser's Disc, Mending, and Write. She can only end up learning three of those before she hits her ceiling, and might even want to leave a spot open in case she ever finds this Sleep spell she keeps hearing about. So she prioritizes the five on the scroll, and starts studying and copying. She blows Detect Magic, then succeeds on Write and Tenser's Disc and is at 8 spells known.

Now, she's got a choice to make: does she keep that last spot open for Sleep, or does she go for Mending right now?

 

[Nagol]

Do you really not see at all how stuff like this makes it seem like you never interacted with 4e in a way that included giving it anything like a chance, in the first place? It really comes across like you just...decided it was garbage before you even read anything in the book, and went from there.

I grokked the rules. I ran several sessions. I played in others. Frankly I don't care how it appears to you.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Oh certainly just like you do not roll to walk unless you have awesome hips you must show off

Lol. I am waiting for the dm to make me mama a check to walk across the lawn on a calm summers day. Hurricane yes.

 

[Arnwolf666]

My problems is I kinda like having most skills divorced from level. You can be a kickass weapon Smith or linguist at level 1. That’s what I like anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My problems is I kinda like having most skills divorced from level. You can be a kickass weapon Smith or linguist at level 1. That’s what I like anyway.

That is swimming against the class/level current a bit. Make a check.

 

[Lanefan]

What laser-like focus on combat? Are skills, utility powers, rituals, magic items with no direct combat use (or movement stuff that clearly has use just as much in as out of combat), feats that do social or exploration/travel stuff, the mountains and mountains of lore in every single book and mag issue, skill challenges, etc all somehow focused on combat in a way that I missed?

I'm not the person who posited this idea but I'll take a stab at answering anyway:

Not that they're always used for this, but skill challenges in 4e can take what in prior editions would have potentially been half a session's worth of exploration, dice rolling, resource attrition, and maybe mapping and concatenate it down to a ten-minute affair where the players say how they're approaching said challenge, some dice are rolled, success or failure is declared, and on we go. (my go-to example for this is the sandstorm scenario in Marauders of the Dune Sea - the module says to just run it as a skill challenge, where doing it the long (i.e. 0-1-2e) way could provide hours of potential fun and entertainment)

Ditto for social challenges. All the role-playing and conversation can, if desired, be neatly streamlined down to a goal, an approach, and some dice.

And what does all this streamlining accomplish? It lets you get back to combat sooner! Thus, it feels like the game is focused on combat because that's what you're doing (and what the system seems to expect you to be doing) most of the time at the table.

 

[Garthanos]

My problems is I kinda like having most skills divorced from level. You can be a kickass weapon Smith or linguist at level 1. That’s what I like anyway.

Primarily having that kind of skill as defined background options was the primary 4e take too - not linguist but I think that was an error given how the rest of the system works . I think looking at the skills on the player sheet as Adventurer Skills puts a different cast on it really. But they did say if you want to step it up a notch for that weapon smith they introduced Martial Practices one of which included that smithing so good your items were "magic" and that was tied to level.

 

[Nagol]

It wasn't a terrible idea, just a terrible initial implementation, a prime example of a genuinely-broken rule. SCs got /easier/ the higher the complexity and the greater the supposed challenge! OOPS!
It over-compensated with the first update, and was useable after that. The RC version was comparatively polished, even. It aimed higher and improved more in two years than D&D had in the previous 30. (I mean, you're willing to credit the desultory NWP system to 1e, when that was /six years/ into it's run, and fairly obscure, but want to judge 4e SCs by their state at release, not even a few months in?)
But it was never developed to anywhere near potential.

Oh, wait, or do you mean getting the whole party engaged in a challenge instead of one specialist character dominating play outside of combat was a terrible idea?

I judge every game in front of me based on what's in front of me. I wasn't willing to wait on tenterhooks for 4e to fix its math and judge it then.

Single character domination a la Cyberpunk's Decker is a terrible idea. Getting every member involved regardless of their preferences and specialities is a bad idea. Sometimes the best role is not to participate Skill challenges are by-and-large a fine idea that has roots or similarities in a lot of different systems. I think the enforced static nature of the opposition coupled with the relatively narrow band of 2x success/1x failure structure limited their potential usefulness. I think they needed a lot more helpful examples and potentially instructions for DMs new to the concept especially with guidance about how to manipulate the fiction to account for incremental successes and failures and stake setting.

 

[Garthanos]

Ditto for social challenges. All the role-playing and conversation can, if desired, be neatly streamlined down to a goal, an approach, and some dice.

A skill challenge is time agnostic in more than one sense you can work through minor details people still want to experience and enumerate (sometimes finding ones that are actually major and call for a redirection of the challenge) and only log the major ones.... as being the significant progress.
Its often an in the background thing my playes sometimes asked me wait are we in a skill challenge (or the one interested in DMing did)