D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Parmandur]

I went from 1e to 4e and loved it. It was still D&D to me.

It seems the real whiplash was for people who were playing 3E in a particular way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think maybe the autohit magic missile came back with the essentials line? I remember seeing that too.

PS - I agree that people just need to relax a bit. I went from 1e to 4e and loved it. It was still D&D to me.

The most amusing part of this is that the ORIGINAL Magic Missile spell in D&D itself says nothing about being auto-hit. Its just a magical arrow that you have to cast using a spell. Basically you're better off just buying a bow! I assume Gary and Co noted this deficiency and made it an automatic hit with no save just to save the spell from total oblivion in 1e. Never played enough Basic to recall how it even works there.

So, the 4e MM is actually pretty much a return to the original idea, except the At-Will makes it actually useful in that form.

 

[Voadam]

Magic missile is just to classic to mess with. It kinda sucks in 5E barely see it cast.

Eh, the original from OE Greyhawk does not even say an autohit.

Magic Missile: This is a conjured missile equivalent to a magic arrow, and it
does full damage (2–7 points) to any creature it strikes. For every five levels the magic-user has attained he may add an additional two missiles when employing this spell, so a 6th-level magic-user may cast three magic missiles at his target, an 11th-level magic-user casts five, and so on. Range 15”.

I remember Holmes Basic being the same way but do not have a PDF to check on.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Magic missile is just to classic to mess with. It kinda sucks in 5E barely see it cast.

Cast it at a high level against high-AC foes and watch it do your work for you no sweat.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, the original from OE Greyhawk does not even say an autohit.

Magic Missile: This is a conjured missile equivalent to a magic arrow, and it
does full damage (2–7 points) to any creature it strikes. For every five levels the magic-user has attained he may add an additional two missiles when employing this spell, so a 6th-level magic-user may cast three magic missiles at his target, an 11th-level magic-user casts five, and so on. Range 15”.

I remember Holmes Basic being the same way but do not have a PDF to check on.

Magic Missile-level
1; Range: 150feet
A conjured missile equal to a magic arrow, and it
does 1 die roll plus 1 point (2-7) to any creature it
strikes. Roll the missile fire like a long bow arrow
(Missile Fire table). Higher level magic-users fire more
than one missile.

Which is not the MOST clear, but pretty convincingly tells me you DO have to make an attack roll. Oh, and Holmes explicitly limits Magic Users to ONLY daggers, nothing else!

 

[Zardnaar]

Cast it at a high level against high-AC foes and watch it do your work for you no sweat.

In 5E? High AC foes what is this?

 

[Thomas Shey]

The most amusing part of this is that the ORIGINAL Magic Missile spell in D&D itself says nothing about being auto-hit. Its just a magical arrow that you have to cast using a spell. Basically you're better off just buying a bow! I assume Gary and Co noted this deficiency and made it an automatic hit with no save just to save the spell from total oblivion in 1e. Never played enough Basic to recall how it even works there.

So, the 4e MM is actually pretty much a return to the original idea, except the At-Will makes it actually useful in that form.

In fact, during the early days, we assumed it made a to-hit roll because of the lack of saying otherwise. Its big advantage was that it was a magic arrow first showing up at a level where those were thin on the ground, and at higher levels was a single target damage spell that didn't have a save.

 

[Zardnaar]

Eh, the original from OE Greyhawk does not even say an autohit.

Magic Missile: This is a conjured missile equivalent to a magic arrow, and it
does full damage (2–7 points) to any creature it strikes. For every five levels the magic-user has attained he may add an additional two missiles when employing this spell, so a 6th-level magic-user may cast three magic missiles at his target, an 11th-level magic-user casts five, and so on. Range 15”.

I remember Holmes Basic being the same way but do not have a PDF to check on.

And how many people played OD&D vs 1E/Basic.

Last I looked OD&D sold 40k or something like that. 1E and Red box a million plus each, then through 11 years of 2E then another 7 or 3E then Pathfinder.

Hence iconic MM woks this way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hence iconic MM woks this way.

On the other hand, being "iconic" is a moving target. I'd say that tieflings have become an iconic D&D race, and there was no sign of them that far back. So if MM had picked up a to-hit roll in 4e and kept it, by now it would probably be well on the way to becoming the "iconic" version because many players would never have seen it otherwise (how much proportion of modern D&D players played 1e or earlier?)

 

[overgeeked]

On the other hand, being "iconic" is a moving target. I'd say that tieflings have become an iconic D&D race, and there was no sign of them that far back. So if MM had picked up a to-hit roll in 4e and kept it, by now it would probably be well on the way to becoming the "iconic" version because many players would never have seen it otherwise (how much proportion of modern D&D players played 1e or earlier?)

Exactly. Maybe iconic for the olds, like me, but the newer players likely don't care one whit whether something is "iconic" or "traditional" or "how it's always been done" in regards to D&D. Grogs are still complaining about changes made to 2E, to say nothing of the "travesty" of dragonborn and tieflings in the PHB. Appealing to grogs is an inevitably self-defeating strategy.