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

[Garthanos]

One thing I will absolutely credit 5e for is speeding up both player's turns and the rounds as well.

In 4e I would say you are describing teamwork taking some time and for me some of the coolest fun.

In 5e though, I have seen some extremely complex builds like a Bladesinger (with a dip in several others) which even at moderate levels has spells you want to use or swap for depending on the enemies armor class or vulnerabilities and adding up lots of bonuses from many different quasi overlapping abilities including damage resistances or armor of agathys and similar things and it had competing situationally better uses for concentration or bonus actions and I think also reactions for shield or other things. And spells further scale based on what they do based on the slot you use them *(another decision and adjustment to your ability even if you are using the same spell as last round). The internal decision making all by its lonesome somehow did not seem like in play it would be quick.

 

[Mordhau]

In 4e I would say you are describing teamwork taking some time and for me some of the coolest fun.

In 5e though, I have seen some extremely complex builds like a Bladesinger (with a dip in several others) which even at moderate levels has spells you want to use or swap for depending on the enemies armor class or vulnerabilities and adding up lots of bonuses from many different quasi overlapping abilities including damage resistances or armor of agathys and similar things and it had competing situationally better uses for concentration or bonus actions and I think also reactions for shield or other things. And spells further scale based on what they do based on the slot you use them *(another decision and adjustment to your ability even if you are using the same spell as last round). The internal decision making all by its lonesome somehow did not seem like in play it would be quick.

No I don't find that turns are appreciably faster in 5e. The main thing that makes 5e faster is that there are less rounds to combat generally.

(Of course some classes can resolve their turn pretty fast. It usually goes like this. Cleric: what spell do I want to cast? Ok what about this one? Ok I target four of them. GM make saves how many did I hit? Ok, I'll roll damage. Ok now for my bonus action, I'm still concentrating on Spiritual hammer so I'll make that attack again. Sorcerer: pretty much the same, actions, bonus actions, mult-targetting. Fighter: 18 to hit and if that's enough 7 damgage.

So it does depend on what people actually play.)

 

[Hussar]

In 4e I would say you are describing teamwork taking some time and for me some of the coolest fun.

In measured doses.

I agree, the teamwork thing was great. And 4e's breaking of the initiative system was inspired and a fantastic idea that has been ported forward into 5e, although in a more restricted manner.

The trick though was in 4e, it got to ridiculous levels. Not only did you have have different players triggering effects in each other, the monsters could also trigger effects and those triggered effects could trigger effects. And, add to that a bit of analysis paralysis and turns could take bloody forever.

5e might get complicated from time to time, but, nowhere near to that degree. Yes, you might have a cleric casting a spell, taking a bonus action and then moving, sure, and a summoning druid can really slow things down, sure. What you don't have is four different players chaining reactions together after a single action from the monster, resolving those five or six different actions, moving on to the next monster and then having five MORE chained reactions going off.

Yes, I'm exagerating, but, there were times in 4e where it really, REALLY did get old fast. It's a fantastic idea and I love it. It just really did get out of hand towards the end.

 

[Garthanos]

Yes, I'm exagerating, but, there were times in 4e where it really, REALLY did get old fast. It's a fantastic idea and I love it. It just really did get out of hand towards the end.

I have enough issues with anti-fans exaggerating.

Encounter powers in 4e have a 1 encounter window you rarely get the hemming and hawing about resource cost or tracking, and generally even less over should I use it unlike a short rest ability in 5e they took away its benefits and made it basically like a lower time daily. (might as well give everyone a daily use/long rest counter)

 

[Garthanos]

No I don't find that turns are appreciably faster in 5e. The main thing that makes 5e faster is that there are less rounds to combat generally.

this... basically you only have 1/2 combats

(Of course some classes can resolve their turn pretty fast. It usually goes like this. Cleric: what spell do I want to cast? Ok what about this one? Ok I target four of them. GM make saves how many did I hit? Ok, I'll roll damage. Ok now for my bonus action, I'm still concentrating on Spiritual hammer so I'll make that attack again. Sorcerer: pretty much the same, actions, bonus actions, mult-targetting. Fighter: 18 to hit and if that's enough 7 damgage.

So it does depend on what people actually play.)

Sure and End-game in 5e it does seem, unless one has single class characters who are I hit it with my sword types and only one use for reactions, and one use for bonus actions and only one spell for concentration with easy choice on spells in general and only cast spells without scaling them seems to have its own layer of time consumers beconning.

Mileage may vary but I think other than variable complexity it has not gone down.

 

[Campbell]

My personal experience is that it (turn speed) depends on the types of players you have at your table. 4e turns tend to be slow if players spend time during their turn weighing different options. 5e turn speed is primarily about execution. On a turn with Action Surge my Psychic Warrior can make as much as 7 attacks with a possible knockback effect. That takes a lot of execution time, but not a lot of time considering what I will do.

At our 5e table my psychic warrior, the other fighter and the warlock take longer turns than our full casters, but we are generally really on the ball about what our characters can do.

 

[vagabundo]

Read through the thread mentioned earlier:

D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

From http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?333362-Fixing-the-Fighter/page45&p=6073774#post6073774 This is an approach to GMing which I got from Pemerton's discussion of how he runs his games. I've used it in my last two 4e campaigns (one ongoing), albeit initially without full awareness...

www.enworld.org

One I'd missed at the time. I'm half way through and its got some densely packed language but really good advice on a playstyle that 4e excels at. Apart from a thread derail or two from the usual bugbear, or thinly veiled 4e-isnt-real-dndisms, its a keeper!

I realised I'd been kinda running 4e that way, but will lean into it more for my next planned 4e campaign; a conversion of Temple of Elemental Evil (1e).

 

[Lanefan]

I realised I'd been kinda running 4e that way, but will lean into it more for my next planned 4e campaign; a conversion of Temple of Elemental Evil (1e).

Interesting choice.

There's some big set-piece encounters in ToEE which I'd think would play well to 4e's strength in such things, but if memory serves there's also quite a lot of little minor battles designed to slowly weaken the party (while boosting their treasury!) which might become a slog. Curious to know how it goes.

 

[Seule]

I was mostly a fan of 4e flawed as it was, and am now getting my 4e-alike fix from Pathfinder 2. Most of the things that I did like in 4e that were discarded for 5e were incorporated in some way in PF2e. I recommend anyone who like me misses the good bits of 4e to check it out... and the SRD is completely free and open so that's even easy to do.
Incorporating what I want in gaming back into 5.5e would in my opinion be a bad move. I like crunchy decisions when building characters and tactically complex combats. 5e is optimised for new players and for streaming, and it's been amazing for the hobby. I don't want it to change a lot, I just don't really want to play it myself.

 

[Campbell]

Yeah. The parts of 4e I was fond of ended up in PF2 (tight math, unique monster design, rituals, cool stuff for martials, modular character design, skills that matter). The parts I was less fond of ended up in 5e.

I like 5e as it's own thing often despite the 4e like elements it included (hit dice, short and long rest, martial abilities that refresh on a short rest).