D&D General Why is D&D 4E a "tactical" game?

[Thomas Shey]

I'll let @Lyxen respond to that accusation. Even if true (I never saw them state that, it seems like a misinterpretation of what was stated) does it really matter if they forgot some minor aspect of the game they haven't played in years?

If you're going to make an argument about a flaw in a game based on a design element, yes, I think it matters if you get that right.

Again. I'm just pushing back on the claims of conspiracy and that people that disliked the game never played it. Forgetting minor details does not change the overall narrative.

And misstating things and then not expecting to be challenged on it doesn't either.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'd add to this that Keep on the Shadowfell, which was the 4e opening adventure, was a significantly worse adventure than The Forest Oracle and would have been bad in any edition. It's great through Irontooth ... up until you reach the Keep itself. Inside the keep is (from memory - I did count at one point) 17 combats in a row with basically nothing between them and not even any interesting combat environments. It would be bad in any edition, but 4e makes up for the long combats with dynamism and tactics. But when all you have is cramped rooms with no fun terrain the length of 4e combats is made even more of a problem.

There's a strong tendency for early adventures in new editions of D&D and offshoots to range from problematic to outright bad. You saw some of that with D&D3e, and there's some notorious cases with the early APs for PF2e, too. My hypothesis is that the adventure writers--even if they include people who helped design the new edition--have not entirely internalized how the new edition they're writing for works, and I also suspect those early adventures are also rushed.

 

[Oofta]

If you're going to make an argument about a flaw in a game based on a design element, yes, I think it matters if you get that right.

I think it's a logical fallacy to point out minor errors (if they even made the error, you have yet to provide a link to the post) to invalidate an entire argument when the mistake has little or no impact on the overall argument or opinion being discussed.

I'm done arguing this, have a good one.

 

[Oofta]

However, claiming that the people who disliked it had played it (or valuable experience with the game) would also be false, because proving that there were people who played it and disliked it doesn't disprove the fact that there were definitely people who never played it and propagating falsehoods about the edition, including one of my friends and old DMs, who had never played the game but who was spouting of anti-4e rhetoric from the internet. It's easy to prove that there are people who had played it and disliked it. The problem is, however, when one therefore asserts that people have played it and disliked it that this somehow erases how many had not played the game yet propagated falsehoods or a lot hateful rhetoric towards the edition. The former is the motte to the later argument's bailey.

Have some people made unjustified claims over the years? Sure. But roughly 9 out of 10 of the people from my gaming circle either tried 4E at least a few times or gladly switched to 5E and never wanted to play 4E again after years of playing. Some things, no matter how much I personally enjoy them, are just not successful and lack broad appeal.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Unless he whips a dagger at the target from across the room. Yet it still works the same. Narrative fail.

So your problem is with a corner case. OK. I can accept the view that fighters shouldn't be able to mark on the rare cases they make ranged attacks.

Not like combat challenge since the fighter never imposes an irresistible penalty to his target's behavior. Equivalence fail.

Interesting that you think that someone having a fighter right in their face shouldn't have a penalty to do things that ignore them; to me I find that equivalent to saying that you should be allowed a reflex (or other) save to ignore cover penalties. Especially when that thing is an attack roll penalty - the "resistance" to it is called "Hitting anyway". There is no narrative need to break things out into fiddly extra rolls and force a resistance roll or attack with disadvantage. Rolling the thing into a simple penalty rather than a roll to see if you get a penalty is much smoother and more streamlined.

Like I said, 4e never worked for me. So we dumped it and I've explained some of the reasons why relevant to the post to which I replied. Why 4e worked for you is your affair and your arguments in that favor aren't swaying me.

I don't expect you to be swayed. But this is a public message board - on a massive digression from the OP. If you can't do something then if there's a meaningful point to you saying that you can't then there's also a meaningful point to those of us who like it saying why we can and how actually works better.

I'm just not sure how or why the still-simmering anti-4e edition warriors decided to turn this thread from one about the tactics of 4e and possibly what can be learned into yet another whingefest about what didn't work for them

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think it's a logical fallacy to point out minor errors (if they even made the error, you have yet to provide a link to the post) to invalidate an entire argument when the mistake has little or no impact on the overall argument or opinion being discussed.

I don't think point out when someone is wrong is ever a "logical fallacy". It might have been jumping to conclusions on the part of the one poster to assume the first didn't know the game, but given how common it is for people to make claims about games they don't know, it doesn't seem out of line to suggest this may be another case of it.

And I don't recall every claiming it invalidated an entire argument. But if you're going to say "I don't like X because of Y" and that statement is either factually wrong or is based on unstated assumptions (like Rituals not counting as noncombat magic because they aren't baked into the direct character powers) then you ought to expect to be challenged on it.

 

[billd91]

I'm just not sure how or why the still-simmering anti-4e edition warriors decided to turn this thread from one about the tactics of 4e and possibly what can be learned into yet another whingefest about what didn't work for them

In some cases, it's because pro-4e edition warriors keep trotting out misconceptions and overgeneralizations about 4e's critics. And so it goes on and on...

 

[Mannahnin]

Bill do you have the same kind of issue with Sneak Attack working on Undead and Oozes and Constructs and such?

I used to, and gradually got accustomed to it.

 

[MwaO]

There are those of us who like fighters getting abilities like this but still dislike various implementations of them. In the case of goading attack, a target may be unaffected due to a Wisdom save and strong-willed ones will resist better than weak-willed ones. For me, that method makes narrative sense inherently and works far better than things like the 4e fighter's combat challenge or powers like Come and Get It which just... happen... because whatever and not because someone's defenses/better sense were overcome.
So it's not always about magic vs mundane. Sometimes it's about how the ability is structured and resisted.

You do realize Goading Attack is an 'after the attack hits, I decide it does more damage and goads the target, potentially causing the target to die of embarrassment, regardless of how strong-willed they are', right?

 

[billd91]

Bill do you have the same kind of issue with Sneak Attack working on Undead and Oozes and Constructs and such?

I used to, and gradually got accustomed to it.

I'm not too keen on it with undifferentiated goo/elementals but have absolutely no problem with accepting it with undead and constructs because those can all have structural vulnerabilities that matter. Ultimately, I think PF1 probably had the best conception for both sneak attack and critical hits in any of the D&D family editions. But I accept it in 5e because there are so many other ways 5e wins me over that a few things aren't going to bother me enough to sweat it.