D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[Garthanos]

That is a neat trick. So as the characters rise in tiers one can realign the baseline much the same way 4e could/did - that way you get your equivalent paragon and epic capabilities.

That might be a heuristic but its one that is happening by matter of course with the spell system and explicit abilities of classes like the monk in well defined explicit ways and not even in the games recommendations in 5e.

And one of the ways is being able to reliably expend resources to do it instead of being bound to happen chance. Something like spending Healing surges to succeed on a skill challenge. (or a monk spending ki points to perform a stunt which might be an acrobatics check in a different incarnation)

Resources ARE permission to excel and permission to do so tactically.

 

[FrogReaver]

I assume that there was an edit of the post that you quoted about not debating countless examples. My view is that examples are pretty relevant to the strength of claims about what a RPG system is or isn't like, or does or doesn't permit, but to each their own.

It depends on if your arguing what a system could have done or what it does. Cherry picking a few extreme examples where the rules behaved differently doesn't really counter points about 90% of powers being1[W]+small effect and those feeling samey

 

[Sadras]

That might be a heuristic but its one that is happening by matter of course with the spell system and explicit abilities of classes like the monk in well defined explicit ways and not even in the games recommendations in 5e.

And one of the ways is being able to reliably expend resources to do it instead of being bound to happen chance. Something like spending Healing surges to succeed on a skill challenge. (or a monk spending ki points to perform a stunt which might be an acrobatics check in a different incarnation)

Resources ARE permission to excel and permission to do so tactically.

We were already thinking along these lines with surges in 4e. Given that the powers felt restrictive we VERY briefly experimented with expending a surge to use the power in a different way. If you familiar with VtM, surges almost became something like Willpower.

 

[Garthanos]

It’s been a long time since I DMed 4e, so can you explain how 4e and 5e are different in this respect?

Quoting myself and expanding a tad - note I didnt start 4e till just after the DMG2 came out in 2009 so elements of it like SC handling guidelines I see as integral and others like skill powers I shouted hurrah about.

"But the point of balancing the magical awesome with the non still remains an issue (maybe you tip it the opposite direction by doing Beowulf and now nobody needs that breath water spell). Skill challenges were geared to make skill application as important on scale as using the right ritual AND one could spend healing surges to do it reliably too. Skill powers allowed bursts of skillful effort to achieve similar extreme to utility spells and results choosable by the player, not necessarily demanding DM injection. "

 

[FrogReaver]

And as you're still trying to nail that parrot of yours to the perch I thought I'd point out that the 5e feats were direct descendents of 4e feats and Pathfinder 2e took them in the opposite direction.

In specific a 5e feat is worth roughly two good 4e feats - or a 5e feat that also gives you +1 to a stat is worth a 4e feat. A 4e feat is normally bigger than all but the biggest 3.5 feats and frequently worth at least two of them. And a Pathfinder 2e feat is smaller than a 3.5 feat.

To show this we're going to look at Alertness and Improved Initiative.

• 3.5 had Improved Initiative as one of its stand-out evocative feats for +4 to Initiative. Powerful and meaningful - and one of the most taken feats in the game because it was right on top of the power curve.
• 3.5 had Alertness as one of its most boring feats (+2 to Spot and Listen)
• 4e decided that Improved Initiative was one of the very few 3.5 feats that was powerful and evocative enough to keep.
• 4e had Alertness - +2 to perception checks and you can not be surprised. Far cooler and more evocative than the 3.5 feat.
• 5e decided to merge them into one feat - Alert. +5 to Initiative, can not be surprised, and other creatures don't gain advantage on attack rolls as a result of being hidden from you. Or roughly the two 4e feats combined.
• Pathfinder 2e took things in the literal opposite direction to 4e. Improved Initiative is +2 to Initiative.
• I think the closest to the 3.5 Alertness feat Pathfinder 2e has is Canny Acumen, allowing you to become an expert in Perception. IMO less inspiring than even 3.5.

Unfair? Let's try another:

• Ritual Caster - a well known 5e feat and fairly evocative. It allows non-casters to cast rituals.
• It was of course a 4e feat; ritual spells of this sort were introduced to D&D by 4e.
• But that's the silly way to do it in 4e; if you want to do it you take a multiclass feat - dipping your toes in the water of another class (you can only pick one other class for multiclass feats). This will not only give you ritual caster, but will give you a free skill training.

And another:

• Great Fortitude in 3.5 gave +2 to Fortitude saves - boring
• In 4e this became first Great Fortitude for +2/3/4 to fortitude (increasing by tier) - slightly better but only slightly
• Then you had Superior Fortitude for characters with high Str/Con which had the same bonus to Fortitude and gave resist 3 to ongoing damage - much cooler and more evocative. There were equivalents for Ref and Will.
• 5e went for Resilient - +1 to a stat and proficiency in saving throws in that stat [yawn]. This is about the 4e level complete with some scaling.
• Pathfinder 2e rolled this into Canny Acumen - proficiency granting and thus not terribly evocative.

And another of the evocative and popular 5e feats:

• Polearm Master comes in two parts; one part makes the polearm into a double weapon with a d4 off-hand attack. And the other allows you to make an attack of opportunity when an enemy comes close.
• In 4e the first half of that doesn't fit; the second half is a feat called Polearm Gamble (where you also grant combat advantage to the enemy until the end of their turn). The evocative part was a lift from 4e.
• Polearm Gamble was one part of a really nasty combination in 4e with spear push, polearm momentum, and IIRC Heavy Blade Opportunity. Heavy Blade Opportunity let you push on an opportunity attack Spear Push Increased the push by 1. Polearm momentum meant that when you pushed the enemy two squares you knocked them over. But this meant that there was one phrase to describe a polearm build: "Batter up!"
• 5e of course has no feat combinations remotely that evocative and synergistic although Battlemaster Fighters with polearms can at least do something. 3.5 has trippy spiked chain spam that requires a nest of feats but doesn't send anyone flying.

I'm also amused by how many of the Xanathar's Guide racial feats are neither more nor less than 4e racial features.

But with any luck this should put a final stake through any credibility the OP posting has and bury it under a crossroads.

Very few dispute that 4e had some influence on 5e - and those are great examples of that. However, in 5e, unlike 4e and 3.5e - feats are an optional addition to any character. That's a huge paradigm shift - and much larger than any feat similarities between 4e and 5e.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It depends on if your arguing what a system could have done or what it does. Cherry picking a few extreme examples where the rules behaved differently doesn't really counter points about 90% of powers being1[W]+small effect and those feeling samey

If you think two characters moving differently or trying to do different things to enemies and thus having different fighting styles and different psychologies is samey that's on you - it doesn't apply to everyone. Why is the fact that other people are finding value in something you don't enough to make you complain about that thing? Do you really hate that you personally don't enjoy all the options? Because me, I love it. I love that different people get things out of things I don't when we share what we are doing. The chance of me playing a slayer in a 4e game is approximately nil because I find it utterly boring. But I appreciate it being in the game because it gives other people stuff that resonates with them.

And if two alternatives within a class feel samey to you so what? Just pick one of them - or pick one of the ones that's very different. If they are samey to you then why aren't you happy with both of them or happy just to pick one?

 

[Garthanos]

We were already thinking along these lines with surges in 4e. Given that the powers felt restrictive we VERY briefly experimented with expending a surge to use the power in a different way. If you familiar with VtM, surges almost became something like Willpower.

As a daily resource that is universal its pretty handy ...

Using a power expenditure as a power boost in a page 42 improvisation opens up things too... if you don't like the restrictiveness.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Very few dispute that 4e had some influence on 5e - and those are great examples of that. However, in 5e, unlike 4e and 3.5e - feats are an optional addition to any character. That's a huge paradigm shift - and much larger than any feat similarities between 4e and 5e.

And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

The issue is the counterfactual premise of this thread that Pathfinder 2e was influenced by 4e and was influenced because the feats were boring.

As I showed, common 4e feats were more interesting and impactful than the equivalent 3.5 feats - and Pathfinder 2e went in the other direction. Pathfinder 2e takes Pathfinder 1e (a direct reaction against 4e) and doubles down. If it were trying to be 4e it would have made feats bigger.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you think two characters moving differently or trying to do different things to enemies and thus having different fighting styles and different psychologies is samey that's on you - it doesn't apply to everyone. Why is the fact that other people are finding value in something you don't enough to make you complain about that thing?

You have a bad problem with prescribing negative motives that don't exist.

Do you really hate that you personally don't enjoy all the options? Because me, I love it. I love that different people get things out of things I don't when we share what we are doing. The chance of me playing a slayer in a 4e game is approximately nil because I find it utterly boring. But I appreciate it being in the game because it gives other people stuff that resonates with them.

Okay, but how is that relevant to you wanting to talk about samey powers?

And if two alternatives within a class feel samey to you so what? Just pick one of them - or pick one of the ones that's very different. If they are samey to you then why aren't you happy with both of them or happy just to pick one?

It's not about 2 alternatives within a class. It's the cross class sameyness.

 

[FrogReaver]

And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

The issue is the counterfactual premise of this thread that Pathfinder 2e was influenced by 4e and was influenced because the feats were boring.

As I showed, common 4e feats were more interesting and impactful than the equivalent 3.5 feats - and Pathfinder 2e went in the other direction. Pathfinder 2e takes Pathfinder 1e (a direct reaction against 4e) and doubles down. If it were trying to be 4e it would have made feats bigger.

You seem to be hung up on comparing feats to feats. The argument was 4e powers to pathfinder 2 feats.