1E and 4E are similar? Really? (Forked from: 1E Resurgence?)

[Remathilis]

All of which is good observations, Henry.

I said in this thread that WotC tried to to recapture the feel, but tried too hard at doing two very opposite things; recapture the magic and fix the problems. I'm beginning to wonder if those two elements are mutually exclusive.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I can't really comment on 1E. The racial level limits and "oops your dead" parts of it are a deal breaker to me, and I'll stick with 2E thank you. That being said, I find 4E closer to the 2E feel than 3E. Its all about have a good old fashioned action adventure game which 3E lost sight of, and the focus being on the game being played at the table and not the character generation game played before and between sessions.

 

[Lacyon]

All of which is good observations, Henry.

I said in this thread that WotC tried to to recapture the feel, but tried too hard at doing two very opposite things; recapture the magic and fix the problems. I'm beginning to wonder if those two elements are mutually exclusive.

IMO, they're the same thing (or at least concurrent), for a lot of the reasons Henry's been alluding to.

 

[TerraDave]

As noted elsewhere:

Old School:

Dwarf fighter: More focus on (1) race and (1) class for PCs
I can’t find a rule for this: More scope for, and encouragement of, DM adjudication
Bandit monster: NPCs and adversaries as simpler “monsters”, pcs as “charecters”
I listen at door, the village smith makes my dagger: Streamlined skills (and D&D has, since the mid 70’s, always had some kind of skills)
1 column of adventuring gear: old school short equipment section
No one but you can help the villagers: points of light, old style play for kids of today
This cheetoh is the orc: Playing with minis
This is still D&D: fighters, rangers, paladins, clerics, wizards, elves, dwarves, halflings fighting kobolds, goblins, orcs, dragons…

New School:

I move him 1 square! (little) Powers for all!
Its 4th level, we are all +2: completing the streamlining that started 20 years ago
We come together to call the messenger beaver: Rituals (that cover a lot of ground of old spells)
Tails, scales, and hopping elves: the two new races and the eladrin 2E was missing
Warbodies: two new classes
Oh, he’s a defender and she’s a striker: clarifying what some classes are actually about
Its important that everyone has fun: encouragement of DM sensitivity
Are we to the next encounter yet: things keying off encounters, milestones….
This cheetoh is the orc berserker: Playing with minis like we mean it
D&D MIA: frost giants, gold dragons, gnome illusionist, and mondrons, somebody loves you…

 

[crash_beedo]

4E Elements that make it feel like 1E for us...

• Easy DM prep time
• Easy monster creation
• Emphasis on practical stat blocks for monsters, NPCs, etc
• Monster stats and rules are different than player characters
• De-emphasize 5-minute workday
• The small village as a Point-of-Light
• Emphasis on roles and single-classing
• DMG 42 - the wing-it page!

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'm with Umbran.

Deal-breakers for me:

1) Morale;
2) Henchmen and hirelings;
3) Abundance/availability of healing.

A common, run-of-the-mill fight in 1e is where you'll have seven players, their eleven henchmen and six summoned monsters on one side and thirty ogres, a dozen worgs and a shaman on the other, and statistically, the ogres'll flee or surrender after taking 25% losses.

Remember the last time a fight worked out like that in 4e?

No, neither does anyone else.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

By the same token though PapersAndPaychecks, the use of minions in 4e means there can be a much higher level of monsters then in previous editions (besides 1e), hell even ordinary monsters being equal to the PC means more then the 1 monster per party style.

 

[Spatula]

A common, run-of-the-mill fight in 1e is where you'll have seven players, their eleven henchmen and six summoned monsters on one side and thirty ogres, a dozen worgs and a shaman on the other, and statistically, the ogres'll flee or surrender after taking 25% losses.

Remember the last time a fight worked out like that in 4e?

No, neither does anyone else.

I don't remember D&D working out like that in any edition. Morale is basically resolved via Intimidate checks in 4e, in any case.

 

[rounser]

The implied setting is NOTHING LIKE classic D&D, with it's dragonborn warlords claptrap. That alone means 4E bombs spectacularly in terms of feeling like classic D&D. It's that big a deal IMO, and a problem that no splitting hairs over mechanics trivia can help.

 

[FireLance]

The implied setting is NOTHING LIKE classic D&D, with it's dragonborn warlords claptrap. That alone means 4E bombs spectacularly in terms of feeling like classic D&D. It's that big a deal IMO, and a problem that no splitting hairs over mechanics trivia can help.

Heh. Given that MY classic D&D included things like robots that shot lasers and missiles and changed into cars (I was a big Transformers fan), knights that could change into animal forms at will and used staffs to cast spells (I was also a big Visionaries fan) and "wizards" with magic staffs that had access to both druid and magic-user spells (inspired by the wizards of Earthsea which - you guessed it - I was also a big fan of), any version of D&D that defines itself by what it excludes isn't MY classic D&D.