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

Staffan said:

I don't know. It might be different in 5.5, but 5.0 has a lot of things that superficially look like 4e but actually work quite differently. The main "false friends" are:

• The 4e short rest is 5 minutes, the 5e one is 1 hour. This creates very different effects. 4e encounter powers are literally meant to be used every encounter, with only a short breather after each one. 5e short-rest powers, on the other hand, only get 1-3 uses per day. It also affects healing between encounters, but not as much as the next item.
• Hit Dice are not Healing Surges. Depending on class, healing surges gave you a pool of maybe 2-4 times your nominal hp you could access when short resting and, to some degree, even mid-fight. But it also acted as a limiter on almost all other healing – healing potions and healing powers almost all relied on healing surges to work. This meant that healing magic was primarily used to access the pool mid-fight, not to increase your overall endurance. In addition, the number of healing surges you have are more-or-less constant from level to level, and each one increases in power in proportion to your max hp. Hit dice, on the other hand, have a constant power but increase in number. So an ability that lets you spend a healing surge for healing (or for something else) will always give (or cost) a relevant amount of healing, while a Hit Die will lose in both relative potency and value over time.
• Rituals work very differently. In 4e, almost all non-combat magic is a ritual, and rituals are open to anyone paying the feat tax. Each ritual then costs money both to acquire and to cast. Things like long-range teleport, long-term condition relief, divinations, shelter, and so on – all rituals, which means they don't compete with combat magic for resources. But in 5e, "ritual" is just a tag some spells (almost all 1st level) have that let you cast them without spending a slot at the expense of some time.

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I previously wrote a post about this. It's one of my most highly upvoted posts on this site. I didn't specifically mention rests, I don't think, but it does factor in.

For those curious, a link: How is 5e like 4e?

EzekielRaiden said:

I previously wrote a post about this. It's one of my most highly upvoted posts on this site. I didn't specifically mention rests, I don't think, but it does factor in.

For those curious, a link: How is 5e like 4e?

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That's a neat list. Have another like for it!

That said, I just realized another thing that sets 4e apart from other editions: there are very few class-based passive abilities, and pretty much none you get at higher levels. A 3e rogue would have things like Evasion, Slippery Mind, Uncanny Dodge, and so on. Any similar ability in 4e would probably be a Utility power, and thus (a) a Power you need to actively use and (b) limited in how much you can use it. This definitely adds to the "It's all a list of powers" complaint.

Staffan said:

That's a neat list. Have another like for it!

That said, I just realized another thing that sets 4e apart from other editions: there are very few class-based passive abilities, and pretty much none you get at higher levels. A 3e rogue would have things like Evasion, Slippery Mind, Uncanny Dodge, and so on. Any similar ability in 4e would probably be a Utility power, and thus (a) a Power you need to actively use and (b) limited in how much you can use it. This definitely adds to the "It's all a list of powers" complaint.

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Though, of course, this reveals the irony of complaining that a list of powers makes one "think with your character sheet" while a list of passive class features, or of memorized spells, is somehow totally different and way more immersed and creative etc.

TheSword said:

5e does to some extent. Short rest cool downs were obviously taken from 4e. Before that point powers were limited by a number of uses per day or they weren’t. Nobody is saying it is identical to WoW they are saying it is influenced by it. It’s probably better to say inspired by MMORG be it WoW, Guild Wars or any of the others. I really don’t understand why it enrages fans of 4e. I’m not saying it makes it a worse game. Just not to everyone’s taste.

Perhaps this is related to your point on building blocks but when the wizard can use a power that can does 2d6 + Int in a 15’ cube, a fighter can do 2d6 + Str in a 15’ cube and a rogue can do 2d6 + Dex in a 15’ cube then folks are going to say powers are duplicated.

All this is to say. If you read my original post you will see that I said I’m sure 4e could fun when it isn’t being expected to carry the mantle of D&D. The argument was never that 4e wasn’t a well balanced, combat focused, board-game-like rpg. It was that it departed too far from what fans expectations of D&D were, on a whole host of issues.

You make very good points about why 4e failed. They might have been why the edition ended prematurely. I’m not sure most people got that deep Into it though. It’s simpler than that. In transplant terms the host rejected the edition for being too different.

You’re point about introductory adventures, that is crucial, they are incredibly important. They’re the shop display window of the system. Our group bought all the books, created characters, played an adventure we bought and at the end of the eight hour session, basically said were never doing this again. Then we found Pathfinder.

On a side note, dire adventures is why Eberron never became as big as the forgotten realms. Great ideas but no way of demonstrating how cool they were in practice.

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It was NOT inspired by WoW (or guildwars) that is the point. I made a post #58 where I linked to a video from last year where the 2 lead designers stating that this was not the case.

I also linked to a reddit post where I explain in detail why the mechanics are nothing like a WoW if you look closer than just "oh it can only be used after each X". The similarities are only on a really supericial level.

4E was inspired by Soccer, Magic the Gathering (and other trading card games), and wargames (like chainmail). It was verry much made for play in person with physical props (thats why the powers are made for cards. Even the at will daily and encounter structure works best with cards to track it).



Similar your example with powers is wrong and it feels like you never tried to understand the 4E class differences different. Have you ever played Magic the Gathering or a trading card game? Because there also all 5 colours have access to the same "features" (same card types, and same rules and in theory same mechanics). There is also an overlap in cards between colours.


Still it is one of the best designed games and is known for making the colours (and even 2 colour combinations) be really different thanks to their colour pie. And this is a reason almost all modern games copy Magic the Gathering.


Similar to Magic the gathering there is a base which all classes can do. This is deal damage (and in Magic it is having creatures). However there are things which not all colours have access to. Blue has counters and card draw and hard to block creatures. Green also has some card draw, but big creatures and creature enhancements and normally no counters. (There are some specific exceptions but thats too complicated for now). White also has some hard to block creatures (flying, but no unblockable), but is more specialized in having better small creatures. It can only draw single cards. And it can also increase power of creatures, but more wide (several creatures) instead of focused like green.


Similar in D&D 4E different classes had access to different effects. Rogue are specialized in just dealing lot of damage, mostly single target, but as high damage as their main goal they also have some "square" attacks. A fighter on the other side will not just have a damage square attack. And especially not with 2d6. Thats the big difference between weapon attacks and spells in 4E. Spells have fixed damage. Weapon attacks scale with the weapon size and take their properties, weapon attacks might even REQUIRE a specific weapon. While spells dont require speciic implements. (There is a wizard class feature to specialize in a certain implement, but its not specific spells)


Both a wizard and a fighter can deal damage to an enemy and slow them, but for different reasons and in different ways. A fighter can slow enemies standing next to them. To make them not get away from the fighter. The goal is "attack me!"


Wizards can slow enemies at range (several ones at once). They do this to make enemies need more turns to reach the allies at all. So its goal is "Dont attack"


And even with overlap, each (non simplified) class has some really unique abilities. Some of which became really iconic. In 5E a sorcerer has no single unique spell.

EzekielRaiden said:

It didn't fail, except by failing to meet utterly unreasonable production targets.

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it was the worst selling edition with sales falling off a cliff pretty soon, resulting in a rush to first fix things (Essentials) and soon after a new edition to move on from 4e after sales could not be resuscitated

Did 4e have some fans, clearly, we still have them lamenting the fact that it failed and even claiming that it did not fail, that WotC was just unreasonable and shelved it. They still take every chance to point at things and say ‘4e did that first’, whether accurate or not.

Is there a 4e resurgence, no idea, I guess time will tell. Counting Draw Steel among the 4e resurgence feels like a stretch though. It shares some of the goals but the mechanics are very different from my understanding. If the other games mentioned as part of the resurgence are as far off, then I am not sure this qualifies as anything but proof that TTRPGs are a wide and varied subject

mamba said:

it was the worst selling edition with sales falling off a cliff pretty soon, resulting in a rush to first fix things (Essentials) and soon after a new edition to move on from 4e after sales could not be resuscitated

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Please let's not recycle these debunked claims!

@Alphastream does a good job in covering 4e's financial success here (scroll down to the 4E Was a Financial Success heading).

Edit: This was a double post because of the current server issues. I've edited it to replace it with what I hope is an aesthetically pleasing picture of all of the 4e hardcovers arranged according to spine colour.

Edit: This was a triple post, so I'm replacing it with an arbitrary photo of the nine 4e Adventure Path folders, on the assumption that a colourful picture is slightly nicer to scroll past than the words "Triple post".

Nightfly said:

What is it about 4e that makes people take everything so personally?

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The deliberately mocking and edition war-y complaints people continue to make about 4e, SIXTEEN YEARS after its release and A DECADE after its death.

The fact that, alone among old editions, 4e fan are the only one who are asked repeatedly to justify their love for it.

You NEVER see an OD&D, 1e, 2e, or 3e fan asked to justify why they bother to like that old non-5e game.

Nightfly said:

BOB: 4th edition had many good points, but also some bad points
FRAN: My mother is a what???

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This is in no way an accurate shorthand and you know it.

Bob would be trotting out well established dog whistles of edition warring that stay just this side of getting him warned. While hoping to provoke Fran into an outburst.

Echohawk said:

Please let's not recycle these debunked claims!

@Alphastream does a good job in covering 4e's financial success here (scroll down to the 4E Was a Financial Success heading).

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Yeah, it certainly seems plausible that PF won via only the metrics ICV2 looks at and in the total aggregate picture 4E was still tops.

That all being said, this reminds me of the old Norm Macdonald joke about Germany fighting the world twice "But this time, it was really close". Like, the fact that it was that close is in and of itself notable. The last time D&D was anywhere near that place in the market was in the late 90s when 2E was on life support and TSR ceased to exist.