D&D 5E (2024) This Feels Like 4E

EzekielRaiden said:

Camaraderie is witchcraft!

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Platonic bonding is the gateway to abilities some may consider.... unnatural.

Charlaquin said:

Care to place your bets on how long before this thread devolves into edition warring?

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Spelljammer Confirmed!!!

Paul Farquhar said:

It’s less fun, makes no narrative sense, and there is no point since you are going to win anyway. So no, player’s fault, not the system.

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If a system does not account for common human behavior I’d consider the system at fault

mamba said:

If a system does not account for common human behavior I’d consider the system at fault

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On the other hand a trivial and blatant exploit is far from the worst sin; the GM is entirely recommended to apply the rolled up newspaper to that as they would a bag of rats.

It's systems that encourage bad behaviour I object to.

tetrasodium said:

The mechanics alone are responsible and many people pointed it out during the play test. When an at will passively applied effect lasts for one round and can't be stacked it becomes logical to swap to a different weapon on the second attack and if someone already applied it before your turn.

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I think there is a large difference between the game presenting a no-brainer choice, and the game punishing you if you don't make that choice.

In the latter case, yeah, the game is pretty much responsible. If the PC will be just fine if they don't make that choice, though, it isn't the game's fault if the player makes it.

Umbran said:

I think there is a large difference between the game presenting a no-brainer choice, and the game punishing you if you don't make that choice.

In the latter case, yeah, the game is pretty much responsible. If the PC will be just fine if they don't make that choice, though, it isn't the game's fault if the player makes it.

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Agreed; the arguments here have a similar tenor to the "racial stat adjustments" discussions of the last few years. It's a question of how much of a "choice" is present in choosing (or not choosing) the mechanically strongest option. And a lot of the weight of that choice boils down to psychological preferences.

TwoSix said:

And a lot of the weight of that choice boils down to psychological preferences.

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Yeah. And, to me, this sounds like, "My players are thinking tactically, this feels like 4e."

And my thought is then, "What, your players didn't think tactically in 3e? What game were you playing that I wasn't?"

Umbran said:

Yeah. And, to me, this sounds like, "My players are thinking tactically, this feels like 4e."

And my thought is then, "What, your players didn't think tactically in 3e? What game were you playing that I wasn't?"

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I can't speak for others than myself, but I have an idea what it might be...

Tactics in 3E were ... well, maybe not tactics at all, and more like strategy or logistics? Working out which buff spells t use and when, how to max out on the different bonus types (and avoiding, but definitely accounting for overlaping modifiers). In an individual encounter, you mostly looked at what short-term buffs you still need to cast, and then you play your script -tripping with iterative attacks to either gain +4 to attacks or force the enemy to provoke an opportunity attack, power-attacking the right amount when you could guesstimate the enemies AC (or not doing it all) ,the occassional cleave. Cast low level offensive spells like Magic Missile when everythnig seems find, maybe the occassional conditional buff to thwart a death effect or charm/dominate, pull out bigger guns when it seems neccessary.


Tactics in 4E are much more movement focused and depend more on the environment. You can have a ledge or a fireplace in 3E and 4E, and in both games you might be able to push the enemy onto. it: But it's far more likely to happen in 4E, because if the enemy isn't already adjacent to the ledge or fireplace, you would need to spend multiple turns with bull-rush in 3E, and you lose all your damage doing so!
Also, somethinglike triping or disarming in 3E? If you can do it, you can do it every round, and it migh be the best choice to do so in 3E (and if you don't have the right feats, it's probably a bad idea and you should never do it). In 4E - only some of your encounter or daily powers can do it - so you must choose when and where, and then have a good chance of doing it.

That said - 5E stil has the "always on" aspect of the weapon masteries, so for me, it might not be that close to 4E yet.

Umbran said:

I think there is a large difference between the game presenting a no-brainer choice, and the game punishing you if you don't make that choice.

In the latter case, yeah, the game is pretty much responsible. If the PC will be just fine if they don't make that choice, though, it isn't the game's fault if the player makes it.

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Huh

I don't even know how to respond to this because it sounds like a massively flawed understanding of pre4e tactical positioning action based consequences and so on. I seem to recall both monsters and players benefitting from it pretty equally to protect their squishy types with sticky martials and both benefiting when their more mobile types got past to put the hurt on Squishies.

I don't know what you are labeling as punishment but riffing on 26 & maybe the last paragraph of 35.... Perhaps if someone's players can only see the "punishment" when a neutral system hampers them it's a player problem when they are either neglecting to make use of it to their benefit as well or a player problem if they are unable to look past the hurdles to find pride in the times they made use of it to their benefit?

I'm the past there was opportunity cost and benefit to the 5ft step vrs move action at the cost of an AoO, but neither choice was free either∆. The choice to juggle weapons is free & most of the new weapon effects are applied automatically at no opportunity cost beyond not attacking with some other weapon

∆ Move action could be used for a lot of sometimes build specific things and then you had single attack vrs full attack action hinging on build

Edit: maybe there's a different reading that makes sense and I just need some clarification on what is being referred to by punished ?

Umbran said:

Yeah. And, to me, this sounds like, "My players are thinking tactically, this feels like 4e."

And my thought is then, "What, your players didn't think tactically in 3e? What game were you playing that I wasn't?"

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To me there were tactics in 3e - but it was more strategy. Bringing the right spells to the fight. 5.14 had less in the way of tactics than 3e due to archers switching to finesse shortswords and casters just using anti-save spells in melee rather than taking opportunity attacks or being nerfed heavily. But there was less in the way of tactics in 3.X than in 4e just as 5.14 was fairly low for a grid skirmish game.