D&D 4E 4e far more tactical than 5e? or just a little

[bennet]

I missed the 4e years being busy with life. I know 5e and 2e well and I find them very similar in playstyle.

But what I find 5e lacking in, is being tactical enough, it doesn't take much to determine an optimal set of actions each round.

Is 4e more tactical in this respect? Significantly more?

OSR retclones seem to back off combat tactics so I'm looking for something D&D that makes combat a mental exercise (like chess).

 

[thullgrim]

4e is absolutely more tactically challenging and deep than 5e. Just the party teamwork component alone makes it so. When you combine monster roles, power usage, forced movement, ongoing damage and conditions it adds up to a game where turn by turn character decisions really matter and can be challenging.

 

[bennet]

4e is absolutely more tactically challenging and deep than 5e. Just the party teamwork component alone makes it so. When you combine monster roles, power usage, forced movement, ongoing damage and conditions it adds up to a game where turn by turn character decisions really matter and can be challenging.

Nice. The followup question I would have is whether WOTC would sue anyone throwing up a character builder and a place for people to fight each other under 4e rules. As far as I can tell they lost their digital tools. Would they really care that much if someone replaced them? Assuming it still required the 4e books for you to understand the replacement web based builder/battle app.

 

[shah_0]

Wow, I love that idea. I actually played 4e for a while and miss the tactics aspect of it a lot...PF2e fills that for me much more than 5e does (I play both and not trying to start an argument of which is "better," just my opinion in this respect). You should look into the D&D miniatures game which was exactly this based on 4e rules. That game is no longer supported but there is a fan community that keeps things going.

 

[RangerWickett]

Nice. The followup question I would have is whether WOTC would sue anyone throwing up a character builder and a place for people to fight each other under 4e rules. As far as I can tell they lost their digital tools. Would they really care that much if someone replaced them? Assuming it still required the 4e books for you to understand the replacement web based builder/battle app.

Sue? Almost certainly not. Cease & desist? Maaaaybe, but I doubt it unless you're monetizing it. There are plenty of fan tools online for building character sheets and such.

If you wanted to be really safe, you could rewrite the abilities so they work basically the same but have different phrasing. You cannot copyright game mechanics, just specific documents.

IANAL.

 

[BigZebra]

Nice. The followup question I would have is whether WOTC would sue anyone throwing up a character builder and a place for people to fight each other under 4e rules. As far as I can tell they lost their digital tools. Would they really care that much if someone replaced them? Assuming it still required the 4e books for you to understand the replacement web based builder/battle app.

Wotc has shown itself quite benign in this regard. The problem is that to make 4e work you would need a system with all the powers built in. That’s a lot of copyrighted text.
I have thought about this myself. Would be a very fun project and 4e just screams for digital tools.

 

[bennet]

Wotc has shown itself quite benign in this regard. The problem is that to make 4e work you would need a system with all the powers built in. That’s a lot of copyrighted text.
I have thought about this myself. Would be a very fun project and 4e just screams for digital tools.

You don't need the text though, the assumption would be the users would have purchased the 4e books, so they know what the copyright text says. All you need to present to them is a list of actions to pick from - fireball, magic missile etc. The game would take care of casting specifics.

 

[Randomthoughts]

Wow, I love that idea. I actually played 4e for a while and miss the tactics aspect of it a lot...PF2e fills that for me much more than 5e does (I play both and not trying to start an argument of which is "better," just my opinion in this respect). You should look into the D&D miniatures game which was exactly this based on 4e rules. That game is no longer supported but there is a fan community that keeps things going.

I’m not going to comment about what WotC would do. But the Fantasy Grounds VTT for example has the 4e rule set built in (as rules cannot be copyrighted). But one does need to enter in stuff like classes, powers, etc. That’s the laborious part.

There’s also a 4e Discord I’d search for (don’t have a link atm).

 

[Voadam]

4e generally had more tactical character mechanics for characters than 5e. Before essentials everybody had more than one at will attack power, at least one more powerful encounter power, and one even more powerful daily power. There were a lot of movement and forced movement powers in the game and more control type mechanics such as defender mechanics to protect squishy comrades.

Monsters in particular had a vastly wider array of tactical options than 5e monsters which tend to be bags of hp, spellcasters, or specials. 4e monsters were designed around combat role (tough and strong brutes, mobile skirmishers, ambusher lurkers, controllers, artillery, etc.) and having both combat role specific mechanics and monster type specific mechanics (all gnolls do x) and also the split of normal monsters, minions, elites, and solos which can add variety to combat flow dynamics and optimal power applications.

4e could still get into 'this is the optimal tactical order of operations for your character most every fight." and that was one of my friend's complaints about 4e.

 

[Garthanos]

4e could still get into 'this is the optimal tactical order of operations for your character most every fight." and that was one of my friend's complaints about 4e.

I think this may be the overly specialized capability issue I have identified.

Situational benefits need to be sufficient to tempt one out of your norms and more than one norm also needs to remain viable.( if a character becomes overly specialized they don't )
Some of this can occur because of terrain and environmental effects in general so its partly on the dms head (if you have a bottomless pit to press people into abilities built to do that can swiftly take precedence for a simplistic example).