D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

[Garthanos]

Speaking of the Adventuring Proficiency - ? They call it experience points not training points the generalized advancement of everything an adventurer does makes more sense it is unlikely that you advance in just the saves you like and are good at instead of the things you are challenged by why would that make sense? This reminds me of age old runequest where you check box the items you experience and get an advancement test after the adventure in those checked. Training in RuneQuest also had a limited amount of advancement you had to have real challenges to go past a certain skill rank.

Kind of like getting a static proficiency from a feat to represent training... then getting a level based bonus to all adventuring activities, ie advancement based on experience and represented by level.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The latter part was my own statement sorry for being confusing and having a poor memory // you very much made a comparison with your language // here is the quote I was responding about where you are claiming 4e is having the dm use levelled challenges for a trivial activity.

Oviinomancer: "Meanwhile in 4e, the GM is expected to set the DC according to your level, ...."

sure sounds you were making an inaccurate comparison

Yes, the GM is expected to do this. If the level is 1 and you're 30, the DC should be set to "why am I bothering with this?"

No that is my statement. You do not see value in the numbers supporting the fluff. Because you are happy relying on the DMs little red car except when you arent (see stunts comment)

This is inaccurate. My point from the start is that 4e and 5e both support the fluff, but are aimed in different directions for what fluff they support. The math, however, isn't very divergent at all.

We agree that it is pointless. But that seems inconsistent with the challenge of this npc being viable monster at a broad range of levels. To me 5es does not seem to be saying discard that npc as a challenge "except in opposites land", especially when a dm can see there is a huge chance of PC failure based on the npc and pc stats regardless of level.

No, a wild disparity being a point where you shouldn't bother doesn't mean that smaller disparities should be similarly treated.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's not really very clear. My own view is that intimidation in combat is an action like anything else, perhaps dealing psychic damage and/or an effect like being pushed (ie recoiling in fear) - the best version of this I recall is not based around the intimidation skill at all but rather is an attack power (Horrific Visage) on the Deathlock Wight. Whereas the power vs skill distinction is important for PCs (because of how it feeds into action resolution) it doesn't matter very much for NPCs/monsters (for the same sort of reason as PbtA games don't need monster stats comparable to players' playbooks).

Out of combat, intimidation by a NPC (again somewhat as you might think of it in a PbtA context) is a GM move in the fiction, whether soft (typically as part of framing) or hard (narrating a consequence in a skill challenge). Because the rules are vague and the traditions are strong, I think it's an area where most GMs will benefit by treading lightly - I can't think of an intimidation example straight away, but I do remember that in a skill challenge where the PCs were negotiating with a Pact Hag (who has many verbal manipultion-oriented abilities) at one point I narrated the fighter PC taking a step to where the Hag wanted him, so she could pull the cord that opened the trap door. The player did not have an issue with this in play; but when I posted about it on ENworld it did cause some outrage!


I'm not sure I fully follow your comparisons, because you seem to be equating Easy/Medium/Hard in 4e to Easy/Medium/Hard in 5e, but I don't think that can be right.

In 4e those difficulty judgements are (in some slightly obscure fashion) level relative - the way I personally tend to resolve that obscurity is by treating Medium as the level-appropriate default (be that astral teflon slime or whatever other setting element is generating the DC) and then treat Easy or Hard as reflecting situational adjustments that aren't tied to the particular setting element. But that's my own approach and I can't say I've always followed it utterly consistently. (The Essentials-era skill challenge rules mostly solve the problem by putting the difficulties into the skill challenge structure, which brings it even closer to HeroWars/Quest or Cortex+ Heroic Doom Pool-style resolution.)

Whereas in 5e, I would have thought those difficulty judgements are largely "objective", similar to obstacles in BW or the throws needed for success in Classic Traveller or all the prescribed DCs found in 3E D&D.

But putting that to one side, don't your numbers show that for 4e PCs, the higher the level the harder for the less-focused PC to do well compared to the more-focused, as we move from Easy to Hard; and likewise for 5e PCs, the higher the level the harder for the less-focused PC to do well compared to the more-focused, as we move from Easy to Hard. In 4e this is because Medium and Hard DCs grow at more than the level-bonus rate; in 5e this is because only a focused PC has a growing bonus on the check. So (subject to my comments above about what the difficulties mean in the different systems) I'm not sure I'm seeing the difference that you do.

The guidance in 5e is that DCs should be set based on the action declared and the fictional situation. Of course, prior editions set objective DCs (including 4e for some), so there's a strong continuation of this as tradition. But it's not what the game recommends, and it's why there are no tables of objective DCs in the books. Again, the printed adventures dispense with this and set objective DCs, which is very frustrating.

So, no, in 5e DCs are recommended to be set relative to the situation and the action. This is the basis from which I'm making my comparison. If a GM chooses to set DCs differently, well, that's them. Granted, a number of GMs on this board do so choose.

Kinda.

Stat bonuses tend to max out around +8 to +10 (ie 26 to 30 - people will tell you that a PC with a 16 in his/her prime stat is hosed but that's not true: but Derrik is a fighter with 16 starting STR and so 26 at 28th (the last boost) and is extremely effective - of course a careless build with a lower stat might suck, but part of the point of 4e is avoiding careless builds!). With +20 for proficiency and level that's +28 to + 30. With an epic-tier item granting +6, that's +34 to +36. Another +2 from race or theme or feat is not atypical. So those top bonuses tend to be high 20s to mid 30s, depending on all the elements in the mix. If you look at my chart you'll see the physically-focused Derrik (fighter); the socially-focused Jett and Tillen (sorcerer and paladin; Jett also has reasonable Acro and Stealth as he is a secondary DEX sorcerer and until he lost the ability was a Cloud of Darkness-using Drow); and the archer ranger Ravian (with the typical skills you'd expect - Nature, Perception, Acro - no Steath because he's a hybrid cleric/ranger and so gets only 3 skills by default - from memory the training in Religion, which sits on the lowest possible base, is the result of a paladin multi-class feat).

The most interesting is the "skill monkey" Malstaph, and invoker/wizard who is about as close as you can get in 4e to a non-combat character (which is not to say he sucks in combat - he's not bad given 1x/enc AoE blind and AoE domination). The 40s are the result of his epic destiny, Sage of Ages, which gives +6 in the five knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Religion, Dungeoneering, Nature). Most epic destinies gives +2 to one or two stats, but the Sage of Ages doesn't, granting this big skill bonus instead. It's an interesting design attempt but I think in the end it doesn't work - it's a good fit for certain particular abilities (a feature of the destiny itself, and certain rituals that look for degree of success on an appropriate check), but puts a bit too much pressure on the skill challenge maths. Probably +2 to one of INT or WIS and advantage on those checks would be better, with the destiny feature being appropriately scaled down and the rituals just falling where they lie as a result.

Yup, this is what I was teasing out of your chart. It means that hard checks are still a challenge. For the usual character clocking a +30, they still need a 12 to hit a hard DC. Moderates require not a 1, and easy are automatic. That's for a focused character. For a character that hasn't put much into support and has a +15 in a skill, easy is about the same as when they started out. Hard is impossible. And that's fine, and good design. I'm arguing against the statement that 4e provides growth in skill for characters where 5e doesn't, and pointing to the flat skill bonus numbers in 5e. The actual math doesn't show this -- it shows it stays pretty consistent, but that 4e prices neglected skills out of the hard market fairly quickly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, I play 5e, and that happens in my games. I'm not sure why this is stated with such authority.

It just generally doesn't make sense. D&D is pretty much designed as a high fantasy game. With all the incredible stuff that presented in the material, vast treasures, myriads of vicious monsters, etc. would you spend much time at all dealing with mundane stuff, as a high level PC, that deserves a DC15? Is this really something that needs to be diced for? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt you've got plenty of knowledge about different sorts of games and how they play.

I mean, sure, if you insist on playing 5e as some sort of gritty procedural or something. I'm not sure WHY one would use that rule set for it though, it seems rather inappropriate overall to me.

Are you spending those on your untrained skills, though? You can, but are you? There are ways to improve skill in 5e as well. We're talking about those skills you aren't beefing up.

It isn't that hard to build highly skill focused characters who can excel at the majority of skill checks in 4e. Obviously you're not picking the utmost combat focused options at that point, but its a solid game, you'll still be able to fight well enough. I had a 'tool wizard' that was like that, he was pretty good at a lot of skills (12 IIRC, out of the 17 in 4e's list).

And, even if you do spend the effort for the bonuses, unless they're really big from outside sources (like items or boons), you're just keeping up with the hard DC treadmill. Looking at @pemerton's characters, except for the notably large bonuses in the 40's, the next highest tier in the mid 30's gives a worse chance at success at level 30 hard tasks than a 5e character with expertise and max stat has very hard tasks (+35 needs a 7 for 4e, +17 needs an 8 for very hard). And that 5e character has no outside help from items or boons which the 4e character needs to get that bonus!

Well, don't go strictly by what @pemerton did. He barely scratched the surface of skill optimization!

Again, outside of really large bonuses to 4e characters, they're actually not moving much at all. The bottom of the 4e DC treadmill keeps up with +1/2 levels, but the top is on a different track and keeps up with ASIs and with most bonuses. If you're great at something, you stay in about the same place with hard tasks but start crushing easy and medium tasks. In 5e, you actually get better at doing hard stuff, and always crush the easy stuff. If you're mediocre at stuff in 4e, easy stuff gets easier, a bit, but hard stuff gets harder. In 5e, you get a bit better at all of it. If you suck as something in 4e, good news, you won't get worse at the easy stuff, but the medium stuff gets real hard and the hard stuff gets impossible. In 5e, you stay in the same place.

Nearly every 4e character is very likely to have at least 1 or 2 skills in which he will have come close to running off the end of the chart on by level 30. I've seen wizards with +60 or more on Arcane, etc. Now strategically divide that up around the party, you need not worry about not seeming amazing. Nor should every single check be considered 'hard' for these sorts of characters. Anyway, there's real differentiation, at least IME.

I do not see how this state of affairs translates into "4e characters grow in ability and 5e characters don't!" The math is right there.

Again, this isn't something I've actually noticed. There are official adventures where you go to literal hell at level 5. The new one has your traipsing around the feywild dealing with exotic fey. There's one where you're in a frozen hellscape, but not literal hell. And that's just the published stuff. My games have been some rather wild places, and my world are plenty wonderous. This accusation feels extremely unfounded.

Look, I cannot possibly say who exactly runs what. The 5e adventures I've played in, and the couple of 5e campaigns I've experienced, plus other games, really were NOT all that fantastical at all. There was an exception here and there. Once we time traveled to ancient 'not-Egypt' and lifted a curse. Another time we went into a dream world, basically (traveled to the Moon, which was rather surreal). The rest of it has been straight up faux Medieval not-Europe kind of stuff, and always with the given that the PCs are kind of 'small fry' in the world. Heck, even when we were getting up to high level in the first campaign we never really ran into anything all THAT fantastic. The 2nd game was pretty much all straight delves of various flavors.

I'm not seeing a ton of inherent flavor pushing towards really fantastical stuff. I mean, you can do it, its not discouraged, but its not at all like 4e where it was plain as day you were not adventuring in Kansas anymore!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think what the assumption actually is is that there is such a thing as a fixed skill DC or saving throw.

Which there is - it's written in numerous monster statblocks such as the Gelatinous Cube (CR2 DC12 Strength to escape) or the Glabrezu (CR9 escape from grapple DC 15) or the Froghemoth (CR 10 escape from grapple DC 16).

I didn't realise the switch from skills (most of which don't level up for most people) to saves (most of which don't level up for most people) when both get harder on the same schedule would be seen as some sort of goalpost shifting. It wasn't intended as such, just the first examples that come to mind. And when we use only the area of the goal that you think is appropriate the answer is still the same - there are actual hard coded DCs in 5e (just as in any other edition) and if the PCs don't level up they fall further and further behind and get less and less able to be competent against equivalent threats.

Where did this come from?

My argument is threefold:

1. Skill DCs have meanings that are hard-coded into the game. This applies in 4e and in 5e - as demonstrated by grapple checks.
2. Related to this if it's a DC 15 check to leap between rooftops in one adventure the players will be surprised when you make it DC 10 to leap between the same two rooftops in a later one. Consistency helps
3. Characters generally in my experience like to have a base of operations rather than bouncing from adventure to adventure with no home. So you may well reuse environments.

But being able to reuse the low level bad guys in large numbers is part of the point of Bounded Accuracy. Levelling up from fighting for your lives against a few orc scouts to taking on a small orc army lead by a dark paladin with warlock support is a perfectly decent adventure chain. In 4e you're eventually going to turn the orcs into minions of course.

Easier. +2 for something to grab on to.

No necessary practice avoiding being swallowed - but plenty of physical activity. Are you genuinely and sincerely telling me that a pasty bookworm who's barely been out of the library is going to be every bit as good as wrestling and wriggling out of things as a hardened adventurer used to rough sleeping, who's been in physical fights, and forced by their party to take exercise?

Yes, of course a gelatinous cube is just as dangerous to a level 1 wizard as a level 20 archmage in 5e. Riiiiight.

A purple worm has static DCs in both 4e and 5e.

The difference is that in 5e if you aren't explicitly competent at something you're incompetent at it. In 4e it's assumed that as you adventure you get better at things like knowing what signs to spot, you get fitter physically, and more knowledgeable about the world in general because you've been more places, seen more, done more, and pushed yourself harder.

In 5e the wizard taking excercise doesn't make them any fitter. The fighter picks up nothing from the campfire arguments between the wizard and the cleric. You are assumed to effectively be in a bubble as you only level up what you specialise in, being blind and incurious as to everything else.

Nope. The worm is not "hard" whenever you encounter it. It's DC 19. In 4e it's DC 21. In neither case do they use the Easy/Medium/Hard scaling - in both cases it's a static property of the worm. The only difference is that in 4e characters are expected to get more physically competent as they level up, do more, and see more. In 5e the pasty faced nerd of a wizard never gets a tan or any muscle tone and the barbarian never learns anything from watching the wizard work.

And a character that doesn't put build choices into improving that save might as well never have left the library for all they've learned. This is the problem. Now there's a strong argument that the scaling in 4e is too strong and should be a point every four levels rather than every two. But if you've been grappled by zombies, had to run out of a collapsing castle, hiked dozens of miles a day, and other things then escaping from a purple worm is going to be more like things you've done than if you're a scribe who never leaves the library.

I started to reply in parts to this, but realized something along the way. Bear with me.

4e assumes competence for all characters, right -- this is your argument that you just keep getting better as you level at all things because you're out there doing them. But, the assumption is that you'll be doing things that are level appropriate. The upshot of this is that your assumed competence puts you on a treadmill -- the DCs increase at the easy end in perfect tune with the baseline improvement, while the hard end they increase with the "normal" invested skill increases (ASIs, feats, race bonuses, etc.). So, you really maintain the level of competence you start with, you're just doing more leveled things as you go along.

The odd thing to this is that your chance of success at the easy end for neglected skills is always pretty much the same. It doesn't move. And hard challenges rapidly outpace your ability, getting harder and harder until they become impossible.

So, then, let's look to 5e. It's very similar, actually, in that if you neglect a skill, your odds of success remain the same for easy challenges. They also remain the same for medium and hard challenges. If you're good at a skill, you actually improve over time, making hard challenges easier -- to the point that you can even trivialize them without more than the class abilities. And there's still the assumption that you'll be dealing mostly with level appropriate things, although that window is wider.

My point? 5e is also assuming competence, they've just moved where it exists. In 4e, there's a constant increase in skill bonus, yes, but there's also a similar constant increase in DC -- you stay in about the same place. 4e retains parity in challenges. 5e fixes DCs, and so needs to fix automatic increases as well to maintain that parity in challenges. Both systems are actually simulating competence, they're just doing it in different ways. And people are getting hung up on whether or not the number next to the skill goes up.

As for fixed DC monsters, I think you're missing a point, here. In 4e, you determine what level the adventure is, and then pick monsters within that level choice. So, you're only going to get a purple worm with their +X attack vs non-AC to swallow whole (saves work very differently) when it's level appropriate and not when it's not. Adventure level picks monsters to support it in 4e. 5e, on the other hand, picks monsters and those inform the adventure difficulty -- the process is reversed. So, you shouldn't be fighting a purple worm until it's level appropriate.

And, if you run the numbers against characters, you'll find that the chances of success are slightly better in 5e for neglected skills/defenses and still slightly better for moderate investment, and way better for heavy investment. I assumed that the purple worm was fought by a level 16 party (it's a 16 solo), while the 5e party was fighting at level 10 (it's CR 15 in 5e). What I saw was that an neglected REF defense for 4e meant that the purple worm could only miss on a 1, while the same neglected defense for 5e was the same (+21 vs 18 in 4e and +9 vs 10 in 5e) Any modest improvements to both, like boost a stat up to 14, has a bigger impact in 5e because it immediately reduces miss chances while you have to climb over a +3 in 4e to start to see benefits. Similarly, on the attack to swallow whole in 4e vs save to avoid in 5e, the 5e character with with neglected skill fairs better -- they have a 10% chance to save versus the 5% chance to miss the attack. Bonuses here immediately help the 5e character while you still need better than +3 before the 4e character sees any benefit.

This isn't a completely fair evaluation, of course, because systems do things differently, I tried to account for this by making the 5e numbers based on a deadly encounter, and you can drop the levels even further and it doesn't change. Still, I don't think this is a terribly worthwhile comparison, but it doesn't show that 4e is really shining in making neglected skills represent a clear improvement in ability.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It just generally doesn't make sense. D&D is pretty much designed as a high fantasy game. With all the incredible stuff that presented in the material, vast treasures, myriads of vicious monsters, etc. would you spend much time at all dealing with mundane stuff, as a high level PC, that deserves a DC15? Is this really something that needs to be diced for? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt you've got plenty of knowledge about different sorts of games and how they play.

I'm questioning the experience you may have at this point, because DC 15 is still a very useful DC for a large number of situations at 20th level. DC 10 is still useful. You seem to be assuming that bonuses are so high across the board, but this is a design feature of 5e -- they just stopped the treadmill and kept everything centered at 0 rather that the lockstep increases of 4e. A character with no proficiency is between -1 and +5 on an ability check at 20th level. DC 10 and 15 are very reasonable to set. Sure, a skilled character can be +17, but there's no problem in 4e when the skilled character automatically beats the easy and medium DCs, so I fail to see the complaint. If you're bonus is higher than the DC I set, you can tell me you succeed without rolling. It's cool. I usually don't even bother trying to remember which character has what bonus -- they tell me what they do, and if I think the outcome is uncertain and has a consequence for failure, I'll call for a check and set a DC (and the stakes). I do not need to pay attention to the PC's bonuses. Game works just fine.

I mean, sure, if you insist on playing 5e as some sort of gritty procedural or something. I'm not sure WHY one would use that rule set for it though, it seems rather inappropriate overall to me.

I very much don't do this -- not even close. 5e would be terrible at this.

It isn't that hard to build highly skill focused characters who can excel at the majority of skill checks in 4e. Obviously you're not picking the utmost combat focused options at that point, but its a solid game, you'll still be able to fight well enough. I had a 'tool wizard' that was like that, he was pretty good at a lot of skills (12 IIRC, out of the 17 in 4e's list).

You can do the same in 5e. Was there a point to this?

Well, don't go strictly by what @pemerton did. He barely scratched the surface of skill optimization!

His high end numbers required significant investment to be good at skills. The more normal numbers align with my understanding of what the system can do -- top skills are usually in the mid to high 30's at 30th.

Nearly every 4e character is very likely to have at least 1 or 2 skills in which he will have come close to running off the end of the chart on by level 30. I've seen wizards with +60 or more on Arcane, etc. Now strategically divide that up around the party, you need not worry about not seeming amazing. Nor should every single check be considered 'hard' for these sorts of characters. Anyway, there's real differentiation, at least IME.

Those kinds of bonuses rely on some very specific assumptions, including using Dragon magazine content and specific items that might not feature in a campaign (unless a large part of play is about you getting a high arcana check). Doing a sanity check on the build I say ended up in the mid-40's without the host of Dragon content. Like what @pemerton has. I prefer my optimization to not rely on permissions from the GM to use specific sources of essentially playtest material and/or extensive questing rewards. YMMV.

Look, I cannot possibly say who exactly runs what. The 5e adventures I've played in, and the couple of 5e campaigns I've experienced, plus other games, really were NOT all that fantastical at all. There was an exception here and there. Once we time traveled to ancient 'not-Egypt' and lifted a curse. Another time we went into a dream world, basically (traveled to the Moon, which was rather surreal). The rest of it has been straight up faux Medieval not-Europe kind of stuff, and always with the given that the PCs are kind of 'small fry' in the world. Heck, even when we were getting up to high level in the first campaign we never really ran into anything all THAT fantastic. The 2nd game was pretty much all straight delves of various flavors.

Yeah, I hear you, it's a traditional thing for D&D to do this, but it's not required. You can see the pushback against anything that moves away from faux medieval England/France/Germany in the recent thread about the tyranny of novelty. They're complaining about the recent adventures set in hell, the frozen north (which is still quasi-medieval England), or the Feywild. However, not everyone is beholden to this concept, and 5e as a system isn't beholden to it either.

I'm not seeing a ton of inherent flavor pushing towards really fantastical stuff. I mean, you can do it, its not discouraged, but its not at all like 4e where it was plain as day you were not adventuring in Kansas anymore!

Okay. I'd suggest rereading the DMG sections on adventure building. It's sufficiently there. The problem here may also be that D&D as a genre is old hat -- it's lost it's shine? Would you consider the Underdark to be a fantastical place?

 

[pemerton]

4e assumes competence for all characters, right -- this is your argument that you just keep getting better as you level at all things because you're out there doing them. But, the assumption is that you'll be doing things that are level appropriate. The upshot of this is that your assumed competence puts you on a treadmill -- the DCs increase at the easy end in perfect tune with the baseline improvement, while the hard end they increase with the "normal" invested skill increases (ASIs, feats, race bonuses, etc.). So, you really maintain the level of competence you start with, you're just doing more leveled things as you go along.

The odd thing to this is that your chance of success at the easy end for neglected skills is always pretty much the same. It doesn't move. And hard challenges rapidly outpace your ability, getting harder and harder until they become impossible.

So, then, let's look to 5e. It's very similar, actually, in that if you neglect a skill, your odds of success remain the same for easy challenges. They also remain the same for medium and hard challenges. If you're good at a skill, you actually improve over time, making hard challenges easier -- to the point that you can even trivialize them without more than the class abilities. And there's still the assumption that you'll be dealing mostly with level appropriate things, although that window is wider.

My point? 5e is also assuming competence, they've just moved where it exists.

I think this is the same as what I posted upthread? Ie there's no big difference between 4e and 5e, except 4e does it by scaling DCs (above Easy) more steeply than default growth - so as you gain levels, you will need to focus to succeed on things that are more than Easy - whereas 5e does it by having only focused people grow, so to be able to face stuff above Easy with some reasonable prospect of success you will have to focus.

I think there are some points of difference, eg Hard DCs at lower levels. Most 4e PCs at 1st level will have one skill which has a reasonable chance against these (+3 or +4 stat, +5 proficiency, maybe +2 from some other build feature) whereas in 5e few 1st level PCs will have a skill that is reasonable against these (+3 stat, +2 prof - even another +2 from Expertise doesn't make the bonus as big as the 4e one). This matters to 4e play - because 1st level PCs will encounter Hard DCs if a GM is following the default framework for skill challenges - but I don't know if it matters in 5e. I get the impression that it does come up a bit (maybe against Medium rather than Hard) because I read posts which assert that dice rolls swamp character ability - which looks like a claim that is most credible if we're looking at bonuses of +0 to +5 vs DC 15. That doesn't tend to be a thing in 4e, because the skill gap between focused and unfocused at 1st level tends to be wider. But my understanding is that this is supposed to be a feature of 5e, making it a bit more "rollicking" and forgiving of build differences. (I initially thought about expressing this as favouring play over build but it only does that in the sense that hoping to roll well on a d20 is part of play; hence why I went for "rollicking" instead.)

This isn't a completely fair evaluation, of course, because systems do things differently

One feature of 4e is that - at least as I experienced it - it has fewer Bardic Inspiration/Bless/Guidance-style buffs (which obviously change the 5e maths a bit in practice) but (at least if played in the spirit suggested in the DMG's discussion of skill challenges and further developed in the DMG2) features more "improvised"/creative deployments of powers to get ad hoc augmentation (the default currency is +2 to a bonus for one encounter power or one healing surge; the uniform build structure is what allows a default currency to be established; how this translates into fictional positioning and mechanics-fiction interplay is a whole other thing which has been the focus of many a 4e flame war!).

I'm not able to say exactly how these differences affect feel in play, but I think they must have some effect.

Another difference that is relevant pertains to your purple worm maths example. 4e PCs, at least once they're at the level of fighting a purple worm, are more likely to have abilities that don't necessarily buff a relevant defence but may permit escaping or evading or negating the worm's attack in other ways - this is the whole interrupt/off-turn action aspect of 4e that is frequently discussed. (I know that 5e has the Shield spell, but to the best of my knowledge 4e has more, and more varied, sort of stuff performing that sort of function.)

Again, without knowing exactly how I think this would have some effect on play. For lack of a better word, I think it pushes 4e in the direction of more intricate play.

 

[pemerton]

@AbdulAlhazred, @Ovinomancer

Here is the breakdown on Malstaph's Arcana skill:

+15 level
+7 INT of 24
+5 proficiency
+6 Sage of Ages
+3 feat (Skill Focus)
+3 item (Ring of Wizardry)
+4 familiar (this is from a Book Imp familiar; +2 is a base feature of it, and the other +2 is because the familiar has the Eye of Vecna implanted in it)

The extra +2 in brackets applies to checks made in relation to rituals, and is the result of the Expert Ritualist feat.

In our game we use themes but not backgrounds (which can grant +2). If the character was a wizard rather than invoker as his main class we could expect +9 for INT of 28. That gets the bonus up towards +50. I don't think it's all that trivial to push it higher to +60 as a permanent feature.

 

[Garthanos]

But my understanding is that this is supposed to be a feature of 5e, making it a bit more "rollicking" and forgiving of build differences. (I initially thought about expressing this as favouring play over build but it only does that in the sense that hoping to roll well on a d20 is part of play; hence why I went for "rollicking" instead.)

I think this is describing the effect of favoring random chance over decisions.

 

[Garthanos]

5e, on the other hand, picks monsters and those inform the adventure difficulty -- the process is reversed. So, you shouldn't be fighting a purple worm until it's level appropriate.

so the adventure is picking them? oh right the DM picks them based on what? I do not buy the supposed reversal ... its mirrors and smoke