D&D 4E Anyone playing 4e at the moment?

[dave2008]

Boons must have really impressed him.

The boons are OK, what I like, and I have tried to explain to you yet you always seem to ignore, is that the structure of the game changes ( you no longer level, you no longer get hit points or feats or ASI or anything the same way). That is what I am talking about. Heck, you can't even really use the MM any more. I want epic to be different, not just more cool things you can do. Does that make sense now?

 

[Garthanos]

IMHO, I beg to differ that 4e didn't deliver on epic. It's not that it went to 30 levels vs. 20 levels that made it epic.* It was more about the tone, themes, and narrative of these levels. It was how 4e said, "By this point, you should be working towards being a demigod or some other epic destiny.

That is a good point epic tier is not after you have achieved that status... it is in a sense "Progressing towards that destiny"

You should be a big darn deal in this universe now. These are the sort of threats you will be fighting, and these are the issues you will be facing." To me the delivery of epic was less about player abilities and more about the thematic framework. The 4e tier system (i.e., heroic, paragon, epic) was fundamentally about setting up play expectations for both the GM and players.

What could be accomplished via skill challenges and stunts being open ended were also a way the game via the DM and players themselves presented/expressed the expectations of epic tier in 4e. What those could do exactly are not super locked down but rather inspired by that flavor text of knowing you were on the road to being a demigod

I think there are clues in the game which show D&D was always more mythic than it sometimes admits too. The casters get to raise the dead and other very over the top outlandish things discordantly in the heroic tier too which reads very much not this mundane verse version they impose on martial types but is more in keeping with your fighter may someday be taken up into the stars and represent Strength itself being able to wrestle an manifest supernatural Herakles was one of the example fighters mentioned in the 2e phb, I wrote a martial practice with that flavor. In D&D the accomplishment is not flagged as paragon or epic even.

How well 4e manifests epic is something I think asking @Manbearcat is an appropriate call out

 

[Aldarc]

The fact that you still have levels, that you still get hit points, and you still get your powers in the same way is what makes if feel mundane and not epic to me. I guess you would say it is the meta-structure of the game that I want to change when I get to epic. It is not about the story or what the character can do (as much) to me, at least with regard to what I am talking about.

Does that make sense now? I am not asking you to agree with me, just if you understand what I am talking about, where I am coming from.

I want epic to be different, not just more cool things you can do. Does that make sense now?

/snip

I understand your perspective better now, but I don't necessarily agree that it feels mundane and not epic (not that we have to). Also, I prefer consistency rather than some sudden switch of systems between prior play and epic, though obviously your tastes vary in this regard. Again, "epic" is more about story tone and themes rather than mechanics.

I think there are clues in the game which show D&D was always more mythic than it sometimes admits too. The casters get to raise the dead and other very over the top outlandish things discordantly in the heroic tier too which reads very much not this mundane verse version they impose on martial types but is more in keeping with your fighter may someday be taken up into the stars and represent Strength itself being able to wrestle an manifest supernatural Herakles was one of the example fighters mentioned in the 2e phb, I wrote a martial practice with that flavor. In D&D the accomplishment is not flagged as paragon or epic even.

How well 4e manifests epic is something I think asking @Manbearcat is an appropriate call out

I will not make assertions about other editions of D&D in this regard, but I will most definitely say that 4e D&D is fundamentally about mythos and the mythic. That is in all likelihood one of the biggest reasons why I still love 4e even if it mechanically feels like it needed additional playtesting and polishing. The World Axis mythos permeates all aspects of play from Heroic to Paragon to Epic Tiers, Race and Monster Design, Alignment, as well as Classes and Power Sources. Your character's hypothetical "role" in this mythos was very much a product of these various facets.

I would love to see a game that operated with similar design principles.

I still wish that WotC would just open 4e to OGL so that game designers and 4Enthusiasts could do for it what OSE and the OSR movement did for B/X.

 

[Manbearcat]

How well 4e manifests epic is something I think asking @Manbearcat is an appropriate call out

Its true!

It does all the things!

(wanting more than that? )

 

[dave2008]

I still wish that WotC would just open 4e to OGL so that game designers and 4Enthusiasts could do for it what OSE and the OSR movement did for B/X.

Yes, that would be awesome. @Myrhdraak 's 4.5e is pretty fantastic and would love to see it out in the open.

 

[Garthanos]

This is some of the text from the 5e DMG

"Characters who reach 20th level have attained the pinnacle of mortal achievement. Their deeds are recorded in the annals of history and recounted by bards for centuries. Their ultimate destinies come to pass. A cleric might be taken up into the heavens to serve as a god's right hand. A warlock could become a patron to other warlocks. Perhaps a wizard unlocks the secret to immortality (or undeath) and spends eons exploring the farthest reaches of the multiverse. A druid might become one with the land, transforming into a nature spirit of a particular place or an aspect of the wild. "

This in my opinion demonstrates that the 5e final tier is very much intended to be the same as the 4e Epic Tier (where you seek and only achieve your final destiny at 30th level in 4e and 20th in 5e). The references to a character becoming and right hand of a god or the "Chosen" from 4e or a nature spirit "World Serpent's Tooth" and others are virtually identical to 4e Epic Destinies. 5e 20th level is achieving it 4e 20th level is on the road to and achieved at 30th. They use the word Epic to describe something after you achieve the final destiny in 5e and the path which is described as Epic in 4e.

 

[Garthanos]

Its true!

It does all the things!

(wanting more than that? )

You snorker dork my thought was you could contribute how different play could become in epic tier and how elements like page 42 based rulings and skill challenges and scaling of story presented results in different feel regardless of there still be levels and hit point progression and the like

sigh

 

[GMforPowergamers]

4e was my favorite edition so far, but nobody I know wants to play it...

 

[Lyxen]

Honestly, just saying that something is supposed to be epic does not make it so. Even playing to lvl 30 in 4e, the characters still felt clumsy and earthbound to their little grids and small scale powers. Yes, these powers did more damage, but that was all, and what's more especially at high level, the descriptions of the effects felt totally artificial to me.

Again, I'm not criticising the game in itself, the structure was great and it's the edition that did the most for balance at high level. But it did not feel epic, just exactly what I had at level 1 with higher numbers. So yes, writing "you are on the path to godhood" might feel nice, but in the end, it falls totally flat. I'll give you just one example, the ultimate capstone of the Archmage is... "You can now cast a daily spell as an encounter spell." And "Shape Magic" is "Effect: You regain one arcane power you have already used." So boring, flat and technical. And all the spells were damage spells, or vague utilities based on manipulating figures on a grid.

And the ultimate trickster power is: "Regain all of your hit points and healing surges, automatically save against all effects on you, recover all expended encounter powers, or recover all expended daily powers except this one. Once you use this power, you cannot recover it except by taking an extended rest" Really sad, honestly.

In terms of "feeling epic, my classification is, in order of rising epicness

• 4e, Lvl 30 is almost exactly like lvl 1 with bigger numbers.
• 5e, lvl 20 really feels wishy-washy, I know that concentration, attunement and limited slots favour balance, but you will very limited all the time
• 3e, lvl 20 feels good, but sooooo complex that it dectracts from the feeling when you need 30 minutes to compute your modifier/
• BECMI, a fighter really tears through armies, and casters have incredible power, and the road to immortality was actually fairly well done, and included dominions, integrated mass combat, etc.
• AD&D (1e, 2e should never have existed): really felt like demi-gods loaded with artefacts and incredible powers, and sneakiness really counted for something whatever the class. FIghting on the back of dragons,

I know, it's probably the way we played it in each edition, and from what you guys are telling you used 4e to get beyond the constraints of the system and play more free form, but again, what's the point of having a system if it's to ignore a lot of it to gain the freedom that you want. In our case, the clear view is that it's better to have the freedom to begin with.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You still gain levels and all that. That alone kills the epic feel for me. I also don't feel epic = gonzo. But I understand that is what some people want.

I do want to be clear hear. I have 2 different types of epic play in mind.

Epic: Motals that can do more.

Immortal: gonzo powerful

I like my immortal games to be gonzo powerful, not my mortal epic games

Right. Honestly, my thoughts on the 4e thing is that 4e overall has too many levels. I think the older progression where by 20th level you are pretty much 'godlike' or at least 'demigodlike' is fine. OTOH both 4e and old school D&D have the flaw that you spend a LONG TIME in this high level part of the game (assuming you play that far).

So, my own 4e-like hack focuses a lot more on 'gonzo' and also compresses things. So heroic tier basically lasts for 8 levels, and you have a 'legendary' group of levels that are another 8, and then there's 3 'Mythic' levels, and 'apotheosis' is basically 20th level (IE 20th is just a capstone adventure where you pretty much retire if you get that far as "trans human" effectively). I'm working on using scaling as a lever to emphasize the narrative 'gonzo' of the higher tiers in a more concrete way, without needing to basically tack a whole other RPG onto the end of the one you have already learned.

So, legends operate in a larger and less rigidly defined set of spaces. Its still nominally a grid (IE it would be exactly a grid if you were in sphereworld) but many of the spaces represent things like "that room" or "the inside of that small building" and the scale is significantly larger, so legendary fighters can control areas that are say 20x20' and the effects of powers and things become that much wider in scope. Mythic action takes place on even larger scales, and level 20 capstone abilities really have few limits in terms of merely "how much space does this cover", being more "whatever is relevant in a narrative sense" This allows you to capture really gonzo kinds of things sort of like how things can work in games like Exalted, or in the higher grades of the web novel Age of Adepts (where the grading system actually goes on up into truly godlike proportions and beyond, though they never really described the very highest grades).

That would allow the enactment of myths like heroes drinking oceans, moving mountains, killing cosmic scale monsters, 200 men with a single blow, etc. The basic structure is pretty much 4e-like though and is really just an extrapolation and refinement of things 4e already does.