The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

[Micah Sweet]

"Supposedly" doing a lot of heavy lifting, there.

You think he was lying? I haven't heard that claim before.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honest question. Disguise self is a spell castable by Wizards, Sorcerers, Bards, Artificers, and Trickery Domain Clerics. Despite being mechanically the same, is it the same spell in the fiction?

Pretty much, yeah. I'm sure you could describe the casting of it in the fiction differently, but if the effects are the same it's going to look the same.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Do 4E abilities have a lot more overlap than class abilities of other editions? Yes, 4E (until Essentials) had one of the most rigid class frameworks in D&D. Are 4E abilities between classes identical to each other outside of flavour? Objectively, no. I've played systems with significantly more homogeneous abilities between classes.

Honestly, I'd just like to stop having to placate people who don't like D&D 4E every time a thread about the system comes up. I haven't really enjoyed the D&D 5E system for years, for a few different reasons (some mechanical, some thematic). I do my absolute best to not poo on the system even when there's a 5E thread I'm interested in participating in (I don't always succeed, but nobody's perfect). 5E enjoyers constantly complain (rightly) about people who don't like 5E coming into their threads just to badmouth the system, then do the exact same thing in 4E threads without a hint of irony.

 

[TwoSix]

Pretty much, yeah. I'm sure you could describe the casting of it in the fiction differently, but if the effects are the same it's going to look the same.

But would the characters recognize a difference?

Like, if a cleric cast Disguise Self, would the wizard say "I can do something like that", or would they say "I can cast that same spell?" Because I view that as being two different things.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Also, abilities/spells/feats/whatever being formatted to easily fit into a printable card format is amazing, and I wish more systems did it. A character sheet is great for knowing what your character can do at a glance, but having a deck of cards that you can skim through that list out the details of each ability your character has access to is amazing, especially for more crunchy systems. D&D 5E (and a lot of other systems before it) have side products that do it for spells (and I THINK class abilities, but I haven't paid much attention to 5E products lately), and it is so useful, especially for newer players who aren't as proficient at skimming the relevant books or holding their character's abilities in memory.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But would the characters recognize a difference?

Like, if a cleric cast Disguise Self, would the wizard say "I can do something like that", or would they say "I can cast that same spell?" Because I view that as being two different things.

Depends on the person, but if they make the second claim I wouldn't object to it.

 

[mamba]

"Supposedly" doing a lot of heavy lifting, there.

not really, it does very light lifting, it’s just that I cannot confirm it

 

[mamba]

Quoting from the article I linked to: "4E was released in June of 2008, with stronger presales and opening sales than 3E, according to both anecdotal gaming store data and Wizards of the Coast (EN World has several articles on this). Sales held strong throughout the edition’s lifetime."

convenient to end it right before they talk about them dropping off as they did for all prior editions as well

“4E enjoyed strong book sales, though they declined over time as all prior editions have declined. And the edition had the DDI (D&D Insider) subscriptions, which at one point were calculated as having more than 65k subscribers, so more than $4M a year in revenue.”

‘at one point’ is also not that great a sign

 

[Micah Sweet]

Also, abilities/spells/feats/whatever being formatted to easily fit into a printable card format is amazing, and I wish more systems did it. A character sheet is great for knowing what your character can do at a glance, but having a deck of cards that you can skim through that list out the details of each ability your character has access to is amazing, especially for more crunchy systems. D&D 5E (and a lot of other systems before it) have side products that do it for spells (and I THINK class abilities, but I haven't paid much attention to 5E products lately), and it is so useful, especially for newer players who aren't as proficient at skimming the relevant books or holding their character's abilities in memory.

My main issues with cards in RPG are asthetic (I'm not playing a card game) and a lack of interest in buying expensive bling I feel is unnecessary.

 

[Reynard]

Man, some folks are really, really invested in refusing to entertain the possibility that 4E might not have been so bad, in retrospect.