D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[mamba]

It doesn't really seems fair a comparaison considering 4e had a much shorter shelf life.

you are confusing cause and effect…

 

[Neonchameleon]

The sense to be made here is that marking - or even DEFENDING - was not something that a big portion of the player base associated with fighters in the narrative of what a fighter was.

So you're saying that a big proportion of the player base don't think the fighter has anything to do with getting in the enemy's face, and forcing them to face the fighter as they beat them down? Really? (Especially for strength based fighters)

So the reaction of a lot of players to the strict "A fighter's job is to be a Defender" was something along the lines of "I never applied for that job!"

No. It was "I don't like the word defender". Tying in with the edition wars.

And for the record, a bow-using wizard, a tank-y rogue, and a bow-using fighter are all relatively viable builds in 5e.

Meanwhile a fighter that can stop two people rushing past him at once is non-viable in 5e. Not even with the Sentinel feat. And tanky rogues are viable in 4e, while bow using wizards are about as viable in 4e as they are in 5e from level 5 onwards.

ESPECIALLY that last one. Not that you wouldn't engage with the spells or sneak attacks in the others, though, just that these might not define your take on the class.

You can easily make a bow wielding fighter in 4e. It just wasn't in the PHB - but bow wielding Slayers happen.

However you still can't make a fighter that can stop more than one person in a conga line in 5e other than by being a roadblock.

 

[niklinna]

I'm not sure what you're going for here, but it seems insulting to the myriad of folks who have actively chosen and enjoy 5e. Including me. You seem to be implying, as have others in this thread, that we're just a bunch of rubes who don't understand why the game we enjoy is actually bad/other versions are better. What's up with that?

I assure you that I am very aware of 5e's strengths and weaknesses, and those of every edition of D&D, and on balance, think 5e does the best job of delivering what I am looking for in a D&D game. That is not to say that it cannot be improved, or isn't being improved (c.f. the updated monk). Or that other people are wrong for liking what they like. Arguments are generally more convincing if you assume that the folks who disagree with you have good reasons for their opinions.

Telling me that I'm a "mushroom" doesn't exactly predispose me to look on your equally subjective opinions about the game with a lot of charity.

Mm, yeah, I was in agreement with that post up until that last line.

Although, there is a difference between being a mushroom, being told you are a mushroom (say, by a poster on enworld), and being treated like a mushroom (which is what a poster on enworld said WotC did to its customers).

 

[Clint_L]

Mm, yeah, I was in agreement with that post up until that last line.

Although, there is a difference between being a mushroom, being told you are a mushroom (say, by a poster on enworld), and being treated like a mushroom (which is what a poster on enworld said WotC did to its customers).

The implication, in the context of the entirety of that poster's argument, is that a substantial portion of us are simply being bamboozled. Which has been a sentiment running through this thread. That we are, in fact, mushrooms. I suppose the implication could be that maybe I am not personally a mushroom, but that there is a decent chance that I am. Or that my players are.

Since, you know, apparently we are being treated like mushrooms and we still like 5e, even though WotC is ignoring "the underlying problems."

There seems to be substantial resistance to the idea that the vast number of folks who simply prefer 5e have good reasons for doing so. Maybe not all of those problems are problems to us. Or that big a deal. Or are lesser problems than we had with 4e. There are a lot of possibilities.

My broader point is that we should stop stereotyping those who disagree with us, and just tackle these arguments on their merits.

 

[Minigiant]

So instead of fixing the OP stuff, you want to break the game by making everything else OP as well…

I guess that also explains why you presumably like 4e when most did not

GWM and SS weren't OP.

The problem was that they were the only fighting styles along with pole arms that were supported in a strong way.

It wasn't that those feet were too strong. It was that defeats for the other side were too weak.

The problem was that the longsword or dual weilder welder who wanted to be a high damage dealer couldn't be because the feats for it were weak.

 

[niklinna]

So you're saying that a big proportion of the player base don't think the fighter has anything to do with getting in the enemy's face, and forcing them to face the fighter as they beat them down? Really? (Especially for strength based fighters)

No. It was "I don't like the word defender". Tying in with the edition wars.

Meanwhile a fighter that can stop two people rushing past him at once is non-viable in 5e. Not even with the Sentinel feat. And tanky rogues are viable in 4e, while bow using wizards are about as viable in 4e as they are in 5e from level 5 onwards.

You can easily make a bow wielding fighter in 4e. It just wasn't in the PHB - but bow wielding Slayers happen.

However you still can't make a fighter that can stop more than one person in a conga line in 5e other than by being a roadblock.

Well, my exposure to the player base is pretty small, but I don't actually see a lot of people asking for much of that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I never choose a character based on combat role. I choose based on the type of character I want to play.

A DEX-based fighter is easily viable in 5e. They can be a much better archer than a ranger.

I never, ever think about the combat role I play when picking a character. The concept of defender, controller, leader, or striker is so foreign to how I go about choosing what to play.

So because you choose not to use a piece of information no one should ever be given it? You don't think that if someone wants to make sure that the party has a protective front line or a combat medic there is any value in spending literally a word or two pointing this out to those that want it?

 

[Belen]

However you still can't make a fighter that can stop more than one person in a conga line in 5e other than by being a roadblock.

Battlemaster, Goading Attack, and polearm master for reach and extra attacks.

 

[Clint_L]

So because you choose not to use a piece of information no one should ever be given it? You don't think that if someone wants to make sure that the party has a protective front line or a combat medic there is any value in spending literally a word or two pointing this out to those that want it?

What you seem to be specifically arguing for here, in terms of your example of a fighter being able to prevent multiple enemies from simply going around them, is an excellent illustration of what I didn't like about 4e: the extent to which it tried to realize MMORPG dynamics in a TTRPG setting.

Basically, the ability of the defender, or "tank" to hold aggro while the rest of the party acts with relative impunity. I hate that about MMORPG fights. I recognize that it is to some extent necessary, given the limitations imposed by the medium, but it always feels so dumb that the healer is spamming heals, the DPS are doing huge numbers, and the boss just keeps pounding uselessly away on the tank. I don't want even a lite form of that in my TTRPGs. As DM, I want to play my antagonists as believably as I can, and in most cases that means they will definitely try to get at the wizard in the back and it is up to the party to figure out how to handle that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Here I really strongly disagree. In WoW, every fight looks basically the same for each player, and it is determined 100% by their role. In our raid group, I was typically melee DPS, and my job was to manage my cooldowns to absolutely maximize my DPS, while making sure to hit a few, very specifically prescribed mechanics (typically something like an interrupt, or moving to the right spot at exactly the right time).

And then we would run the fight over and over until we could execute well enough to finally get down a tough boss. For Lich King 25, we literally spent months getting it right.

That would be incredibly boring for a TTRPG. The fun of a cooperative tabletop game is that you have the freedom of imagination. Trapping everyone within a narrowly defined role is the antithesis of what makes games like D&D so fun, IMO. The best combats are where things go completely sideways and everyone is improvising. In WoW, that is a guaranteed wipe. In D&D, it is where the magic happens.

Trying to restrict players to MMORPG roles, complete with encounter powers that echo cooldowns, and so on, is my biggest single beef with 4e's design.

Of course you could ... just not spending months doing the same fight. It's doing the same fight with the same characters that makes things samey, irrespective of the existence of roles. Why do you expect 4e fights to be the same twice? Each done half-competently should present a different tactical challenge.

And this is what makes 5e combat far far more repetitive than 4e in my experience. With minimal forced movement in 5e almost all environments are basically the same - backdrops with places marked where you don't stand. And with no flanking, minimal setting the ground on fire (don't stand in the fire!), and a ludicrous number of foes doing almost exactly the same numbers in melee as at range (spells forcing saves being unchanged, a scimitar doing the same damage for a Dex based character as a shortbow, and a javelin at least using the same stat as a great club) and minimal "Melee AoE" the effect of tactics is minimised.