D&D 5E (2024) So, what does the Artificer "replace"?

[Zardnaar]

The classes were wildly more diverse than 5e classes.

Not in the phb.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not in the phb.

Yeah they were dude. Different classes actually took different game actions with meaningfully different impact on the game state, instead of just rolling a d20 and then rolling a second, fewer-faced die literally every turn.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah they were dude. Different classes actually took different game actions with meaningfully different impact on the game state, instead of just rolling a d20 and then rolling a second, fewer-faced die literally every turn.

All of them were 1,2,3W and a rider. You had two paths and essentially your powers were pre selected. If you dont want to suck.

Had to be a defender, all your powers are sword and board or great weapon iirc.

You can't opt out of not being a defender or not having powers. 5E its opt in via battlemaster.

Similar argument for the rest of the classes. Compare 5E warlock to 4E phb one in options.

Sure you can get more content. But you only get one chance to make a first impression. And yesh sure buy lots of extra books vs 1 or 2 5E.

I highly doubt you would play 4E for 10 years just using the phb? You pretty much have to buy more content

 

[Horwath]

For me the main problem with 4E was the balance. There were different classes, but to me they all felt almost the same.

While all versions have their problems 4E was the only version of D&D that did not really even feel like D&D to me.

if you take a step back, 4E was really class-less system, you could take any power from any class at specific level and not break anything. Minding pre requirements of base class feature and even that you could get with base multiclass feat.

you wanted your fighter to be better at archery? sure, take few ranger powers that are based around ranged weapon and you are good to go.

fireball was so bad, that it did not matter who took it at 5th level.


maybe the biggest problem of 4E is that is tried to be tabletop version of WoW.
but D&D is not WoW and WoW is not D&D. and while many players did play both(I did), games offer completely different things.

and when you remove +1/2 bonus to everything from 4E, you get really good numbers for a big spread of levels.

 

[Charlaquin]

All of them were 1,2,3W and a rider.

And that alone was significantly more variety in actions.

 

[Zardnaar]

And that alone was significantly more variety in actions.

That's not the point. You have the fighter that was versatile and good at killing essentially pit in a straight jacket.

With the missing classes you couldn't even convert your fighter over conceptually like you could 2E to 3E if you were an archer or dual Wielder.

One reason its didnt go down well. We couldnt convert the party over. Bard, archer fighter, druid, cleric and a scout iirc.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Rangers are better archers by far. More uses of spells than BM has superiority dice, and ensaring strike and hail of thorns are more powerful. Hell lightning arrow is more powerful. champion is...good at damage and nothing else.

That depends entirely on how many rests the party takes. A Battlemaster archer who uses Action Surge and Precision Attack to turn Sharpshooter misses to hits will outdamage the Ranger by so much that it's not funny.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's not the point.

That’s precisely the point.

You have the fighter that was versatile and good at killing essentially pit in a straight jacket.

What about rolling a d20 followed by rolling a fewer-faced die turn after turn is “versatile?” They can literally only do one thing.

 

[Horwath]

That depends entirely on how many rests the party takes. A Battlemaster archer who uses Action Surge and Precision Attack to turn Sharpshooter misses to hits will outdamage the Ranger by so much that it's not funny.

for archer, atleast in 2014, I preferred Elven samurai.
Elven accuracy+Fighting spirit+action surge. at 6th level it's awesome.

 

[Mephista]

Rangers are better archers by far. More uses of spells than BM has superiority dice, and ensaring strike and hail of thorns are more powerful. Hell lightning arrow is more powerful. champion is...good at damage and nothing else.

That depends entirely on how many rests the party takes. A Battlemaster archer who uses Action Surge and Precision Attack to turn Sharpshooter misses to hits will outdamage the Ranger by so much that it's not funny.

I've been told by others, and have come to agree with, that expecting a single short rest but a total of 12 rounds of combat a day (3~4 combats with 3~4 rounds each) is a good benchmark to discuss this kind of thing.

So, the Fighter will have 10 superior dice uses per day, but between action surge and the fact you can use one die per attack, you can concentrate your maneuevers over a short time. Especially if you burn four of your five per short rest on the same turn you action surge. In 2024, though, power-attack aspect is gone, though overall damage is actually higher over time thanks to Masteries. Speaking of, with Tactical Master and Tactical Shift, the Fighter is actually better at using bows to control the battlefield while maintaining equal damage through Push and repositioning themselves.

Meanwhile, the Ranger has less nova ability, but more sustained damage and tricks. Hunter's Mark is the best 1st level spell for raw damage, and Entangling Strike is a great trick-arrow ability. Lightning Arrow can turn misses into AoEs. Conjure Barrage and Conjure Volley are AoEs full of arrows. Swift Quiver, Elemental Weapon and Fire Arrows are dps boosts over larger time frames. These are the archer based spells - I'm not going to count Spike Growth and Summon Beasts towards being an "archer" as they might contribute to fights, but they're more related to the trap-setting and animal-empathy aspects of Ranger. Ranger can use Longstrider for better positioning, but then we're not using any of the archer-magics, so kind of a wsh.

So, who's the better Archer? I honestly think that Fighter is probably better at being a raw "archer" - most of the best Ranger tricks to be great in combat involve skills and magics that aren't directly related to archery, while Fighter is better at accuracy, trick shots, and pure speed. This probably shouldn't be a surprise, since "master of weapons" is kind of Fighter's gig.

Meanwhile, I'd say that Ranger is probably better at being a bow hunter. Having magical hunting dogs via Summoned Beast, setting traps via Spiked Growth, etc. Definitely great hunter skills, but I wouldn't call them archer skills.

for archer, atleast in 2014, I preferred Elven samurai.
Elven accuracy+Fighting spirit+action surge. at 6th level it's awesome.

I liked the mechanics behind Samurai. I'm not sure if we could realistically translate it to 5e24 without it being underpowered, since advantage is so much more common now, though I think it might be worth considering how to update the subclass to 2024. Its was a fun subclass.