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

[payn]

I recall looking into 4e shortly after starting with 5e, and mostly being turned off by the power presentation being so different. I've been thinking of giving the PHB another go recently, but I've heard a lot that the math was all broken on release, so never really felt like it was worth the trouble, mostly just focusing on PF2, that seems pretty similar.

4E fans can correct me if im wrong here, but isnt the bad math in MM1 and not the PHB?

 

[payn]

It feels like the goalposts have now been shifted from arguing that it is design that restricts a character class to one lane (i.e., "stay in your lane") to argue simply that classes exist within in a lane at all.

If you say so.

 

[James Gasik]

4E fans can correct me if im wrong here, but isnt the bad math in MM1 and not the PHB?

The problem came with how your defenses scaled, you'd end up down a few points from where you were intended to be over the course of your career. Rather than update the math, WotC took the very silly approach of creating Feats to patch your defenses...twice (with the final iteration being found in Essentials, with Feats that give you +1 per tier to a particular defense and a nice passive buff, like resistance to ongoing damage).

 

[Red Castle]

I recall looking into 4e shortly after starting with 5e, and mostly being turned off by the power presentation being so different. I've been thinking of giving the PHB another go recently, but I've heard a lot that the math was all broken on release, so never really felt like it was worth the trouble, mostly just focusing on PF2, that seems pretty similar.

Never felt broken to me, especially in heroic tier (1-10 level). In fact, looking through the monster manual 1 (first one release) and Monster Vault (release near the end where the math is corrected), there is not a lot of difference when you compare creatures that are in both and I still use creatures from the Monster Manual in my campaigns without any problem.

So I think the ‘problem’ came up once you reach paragon or epic tier…. Admittedly, I never really played in those tiers.

 

[pemerton]

You say:
‘Hard coded roles for PC’, but that doesn’t equal class.

“fighter” but that really equals concept of martial that doesn’t cast spells to fight and doesn’t equal class in this context.

——
Except the argument you are countering was that 5e PCs don’t have hard coded roles based on their class. A 4e Warlord that you just mentioned is a class, it’s not the 4e Fighter class, and both of those have hard coded roles in 4e. 4e Fighters (the class) didn’t have the ability to specialize in healing others - not ‘fighter’ the generic concept.

Being so loosey goosey with the language actually undermines your point.

I'm trying to understand what the functional difference is supposed to be.

4e D&D supports a weapon-and-armour, STR-based character who makes an important contribution by buffing and healing allies. And also supports a fast-moving, stealthy non-magical ninja-type who makes an important contribution in the form of battlefield control (blinding enemies, forced movement on them, etc).

Do these contradict the claim about "hard coded role"? Or are they illustrations of it? Does 5e D&D allow these PCs? And if not, in what way is 5e better off for having got rid of "hard coded role"?

In 3E/5E you can just take a level of cleric/bard/etc with your fighter to get some healing.

So you can dilute your character's STR-based, weapon-and-armour nature and become a magic-user instead?

4e supports this too, via multi-class feats and hybridisation.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm trying to understand what the functional difference is supposed to be.

4e D&D supports a weapon-and-armour, STR-based character who makes an important contribution by buffing and healing allies. And also supports a fast-moving, stealthy non-magical ninja-type who makes an important contribution in the form of battlefield control (blinding enemies, forced movement on them, etc).

Do these contradict the claim about "hard coded role"? Or are they illustrations of it? Does 5e D&D allow these PCs? And if not, in what way is 5e better off for having got rid of "hard coded role"?

The initial claim was about being hard coded into class. You seem to be unintentionally twisting that claim into some other claim that was never made.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Eh, I'm pretty familiar with 3E/PF1 I'm gonna needs some good examples of this. I mean, the most popular dips are considered the most underpowered classes. Does 1-2 feats from fighter make you overpowered? Getting evasion from 2 levels of Rogue or Monk? Even the tier 1 classes are not considered powerful dips because of limited spell casting like cleric/wizard.

Uncanny Dodge comes to mind, but I'm not going to dig back into a game I haven't used in probably two decades at this point. I just will note a set of pretty heavy duty power gamers pretty consistently did some dips into other classes and never seemed to even vaguely regret various cross-dips, and I find that pretty telling.

(Again, with the exception of spellcasters, since a few levels in a spellcasting class became progressively useless as you advanced and even loss of a level or two there could be pretty annoying).

 

[payn]

Uncanny Dodge comes to mind, but I'm not going to dig back into a game I haven't used in probably two decades at this point. I just will note a set of pretty heavy duty power gamers pretty consistently did some dips into other classes and never seemed to even vaguely regret various cross-dips, and I find that pretty telling.

(Again, with the exception of spellcasters, since a few levels in a spellcasting class became progressively useless as you advanced and even loss of a level or two there could be pretty annoying).

Sure, I guess in the power gamer breaking crowds I saw more shenanigans with magic items, races, and feats than ever with multiclassing.

 

[payn]

So you can dilute your character's STR-based, weapon-and-armour nature and become a magic-user instead?

I see it as expanding.

4e supports this too, via multi-class feats and hybridisation.

No, this is the diluting in design keeping you in your lane.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, I guess in the power gamer breaking crowds I saw more shenanigans with magic items, races, and feats than ever with multiclassing.

There's nothing stopping doing both, and while I kept an eye on magic items and races, I wasn't likely to start getting into the weeds about people doing basic multiclassing.