D&D (2024) 4e design in 5.5e ?

[Krachek]

Another 4ed like concept that can used is to refuel of some ressources when you roll initiative. BM, monk, sorcerer get this at high level for ki point, superiority dice, …
Those features are simply encounter power recharge, and can be use more wisely to help resting problematic.

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, it really was not. The design intent and philosophy are completely different, and you feel it in the way you play the game. It's all about balance (which is fine, but not necessary, at least to that extent) and control, which is fine except when it restricts what you can do. Some people like it, even want it in their game, and it's fine. But some people want more freedom in their game, 4e never gave it and 5e really opened the door back to before 3e.

I 100% agree with the first two sentences here, and then disagree on your analysis of how these games actually worked. To elaborate, 5e's basic philosophy of play is different from 4e's (no matter how you choose to flex 4e) so any "borrowed" mechanics do not do the same things in each. 5e's re-embrace of "the GM decides" as it's core resolution mechanic means that the borrowed mechanics are no longer player-facing and player invoked but rather are now just more tools for the GM to ignore/modify/utilize as they see fit. Individual GMs can redistribute these and give them back to the players, but that's a table choice and not how the system is designed.

However, I once again vehemently disagree with your very narrow views on how 4e works. Not just in the idea that 4e can flex very easily with no needed changes to the rules to a more narrativist/story now approach, but in that you clearly view the game from a strong Trad approach and so devalue the freedoms inherit to 4e because they accrue to the player side rather than the GM side. So those freedoms that help empower the player to have a say in the game reduce the GM's say in the game and are viewed as restrictive from the GM side. This doesn't have to be the case, but it does require evaluating the game from a different standpoint than the one you seem to favor.

 

[darjr]

I always love watching people try to justify why they don't like 4e but do like 5e. The whiff of irony is just too delicious.

Thing is, if they had written 4e like 5e is written virtually none of the problems 4e had would have happened. 5e has so much 4e DNA buried into it, but, people just gloss over that because of how it's presented.

The issue with 4e was never substantive. It was always based on presentation.

I have other points of difference with your post But the big record scratch for me is that playing a game as presented matters. It’s literally the rules.

 

[darjr]

I would like some of the monster powers from 4e in 5e. I think that’s good or at least OK.

I’d love some kind of epic destinies. Some form of Quests would be cool, I think.

Also some things that would help synergies parties or players, both in the fly and in campaigns, but without such tight rigorous rules required.

 

[Umbran]

I always love watching people try to justify why they don't like 4e but do like 5e. The whiff of irony is just too delicious.

Mod Note:
The condescension and dismissiveness issuing forth from you... is not delicious.

If you aren't going to be respectful of others, you can leave the thread now.

 

[Lyxen]

I 100% agree with the first two sentences here, and then disagree on your analysis of how these games actually worked. To elaborate, 5e's basic philosophy of play is different from 4e's (no matter how you choose to flex 4e) so any "borrowed" mechanics do not do the same things in each. 5e's re-embrace of "the GM decides" as it's core resolution mechanic means that the borrowed mechanics are no longer player-facing and player invoked but rather are now just more tools for the GM to ignore/modify/utilize as they see fit. Individual GMs can redistribute these and give them back to the players, but that's a table choice and not how the system is designed.

However, I once again vehemently disagree with your very narrow views on how 4e works. Not just in the idea that 4e can flex very easily with no needed changes to the rules to a more narrativist/story now approach, but in that you clearly view the game from a strong Trad approach and so devalue the freedoms inherit to 4e because they accrue to the player side rather than the GM side. So those freedoms that help empower the player to have a say in the game reduce the GM's say in the game and are viewed as restrictive from the GM side. This doesn't have to be the case, but it does require evaluating the game from a different standpoint than the one you seem to favor.

OK, I think one of the reasons we do not see eye to eye is that you believe that I'm assigning an intrinsic level of quality to the editions, and promoting one over the other. I'm not really, not at all. It's just that the editions have different principles and therefore will suit better some types of games than others.

This does not mean that any type of game cannot be run with any edition, especially if you start adapting the rules, for example, only that it's easier to do with some editions than with some others. And although I believe that it takes more work to do narrative play with 4e than with 5e, it does not mean that it cannot be done and cannot be enjoyed. Again, not disparaging anything here. On the other hand, if you want tactical combat (and some of the players at our table really liked it), 4e is much more suitable because with the fuzziness of 5e, it's hard to be really precise.

As for freedom, you are focussing on the DM's freedom from controlling players, which is part of my argument, although I must point out that this is mostly an attitude that I saw with 3e rather than with 4e. In 4e, the rules and options were tightly controlled so there was less room for argument, and it was already a step forward in resolving the player-centricity of 3e.

But when I'm speaking about freedom, I'm speaking mostly of situational freedom, of the freedom to have fluid situations that go across the three pillars. In 4e, I was unable to run a situation that started social, had a little skirmish, degenerated into a chase then went back to social. Rigid combat structure combined with an attempt at rigid skill resolution hampered me, especially at high/high level with people teleporting across a city or across the back of dragons in the astral plane. And it was not only the rigidity of combat itself, but the rigidity of the powers, which were almost all linked to combat and working in the rigid combat environment, and linked to encounters, as well as the relative poverty of the choices, compared for example to the wealth of possible magic that any spellcaster can have, even a half-one, in addition to the power of magic items, not limited by the 4e structure.

Again, it's not impossible to get that freedom, it's just that it was much harder to do it within the 4e structure than within the 5e structure. Is it a bit more clear this way ?

And, coming back to this thread, this is why most of the rules structure of 4e would be, for me, inappropriate to reimport back into 5e, not that they are bad structures in and of themselves, just that I don't think that 5e needs any more structures.

 

[Campbell]

My personal take is that 3e, 4e, and 5e share superficial mechanical similarities yet are phenomenally different games with phenomenally different design philosophies. In particular wherever 5e implements something mechanically similar to 4e it pretty much removes all the context and features of the 4e implementation that matters to gameplay. Hit dice are basically nothing like healing surges when it comes down to it. Concentration shares very little with sustaining a spell. I like both games, but there is almost none of 4e's core DNA in 5e.

 

[Lyxen]

My personal take is that 3e, 4e, and 5e share superficial mechanical similarities yet are phenomenally different games with phenomenally different design philosophies. In particular wherever 5e implements something mechanically similar to 4e it pretty much removes all the context and features of the 4e implementation that matters to gameplay. Hit dice are basically nothing like healing surges when it comes down to it. Concentration shares very little with sustaining a spell. I like both games, but there is almost none of 4e's core DNA in 5e.

I agree, the thing is that some of the mechanisms might look similar to some degree, and some of the concepts are shared, but conceptually, the games are really different. Again, the differences might seem a bit remote and "airy", but in 3e and 4e, the rules are the rules, and although they speak about house rules, it's clearly not the objective to change them too much, whereas 5e is more about guidelines, and rulings over rules. Same with the role of the DM, in 4e he is first and foremost a referee, whereas his role as a storyteller comes to the fore in 5e. Again, it does not mean that all the games of an edition should be played that way, but it's clear that when making design decisions along the process of designing an edition, all the smaller choices made were along the philosophy of the edition, and the concepts were interpreted within that light.

 

[Aldarc]

I always love watching people try to justify why they don't like 4e but do like 5e. The whiff of irony is just too delicious.

Thing is, if they had written 4e like 5e is written virtually none of the problems 4e had would have happened. 5e has so much 4e DNA buried into it, but, people just gloss over that because of how it's presented.

The issue with 4e was never substantive. It was always based on presentation.

As much of a fan of 4e as I am, I will not say that some issues were never substantive or only a matter of presentation, though this is not to say that the latter didn't have any effect. However, the challenge for me was finding the insightful critiques of 4e amidst the flaming, thread-crapping, emotion-laden, accusations, hyperbole, misinformation, etc. of the Edition Wars. I don't think I really felt like I found the better critiques until afterwards, mainly from fans of 4e who had a better grasp on the strengths and weaknesses of the system without the axe to grind.

While 5e does have a lot of repackaged or recontextualized elements that are similar to design concepts from 4e, 5e does feel more similar to a cross-breed of 2e D&D with 3e D&D, with a greater focus on GM-curated stories and authority from the former.

I think that, overall, we are in a better place to look back and review the game. It's far from perfect. It's no secret that 4e was rushed in playtest development and riddled with problems.

It would be nice, IMHO, if we could get a polished version of the game. I suspect that we would need two different polished versions though: one based on 4e Core and and one on 4e Essentials. Depending on who you ask, Essentials either improved or broke 4e. I'm not sure if WotC would ever open 4e up to retro-clones or for polishing the way the OSR did for B/X and 1e D&D, but I think that it would actually do wonders for the community.

 

[billd91]

My personal take is that 3e, 4e, and 5e share superficial mechanical similarities yet are phenomenally different games with phenomenally different design philosophies. In particular wherever 5e implements something mechanically similar to 4e it pretty much removes all the context and features of the 4e implementation that matters to gameplay. Hit dice are basically nothing like healing surges when it comes down to it. Concentration shares very little with sustaining a spell. I like both games, but there is almost none of 4e's core DNA in 5e.

I wouldn't go nearly as far as saying there's no 4e core DNA in 5e. There's quite a bit - but then humans share 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees and the resulting organisms are quite different.
5e may have some design ideas that have been through the 4e process, but they express themselves very differently in 5e. And no, I don't just mean presentation, Hussar. I mean how they work and integrate together and produce a different game as played at the table.