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

[Neonchameleon]

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).

4e is spectacularly more tactical than 5e and your actual positioning matters in relation to everyone else. Off the top of my head major elements are:

• Roughly half of all characters having forced movement abilities. If there's a pit, a scree, something on fire, etc. someone is going to get thrown off, on, over, or into it. This makes the battlefield matter and your position relative to it matter a lot (and deals with "Green Screen" combats that might be taking place anywhere no matter what the official setting).
  • This is particularly important because being pushed into something does damage on top of rather than instead of your normal attack so it's not all or nothing the way standard push/bull rush abilities are.
• A lot of characters have small AoE effects, for example fighters getting a sweeping blow that hits all the enemies next to them or wizards getting a cantrip that's a Scorching Burst. This again makes where you stand matter much more - and combines with the forced movement for extra levels of teamwork and tactics as they work with each other.
• Everyone getting limited use abilities so you don't just spam the same attack (that sweeping blow mentioned above is 1/short rest for a fighter (and short rests are 5 minutes)).
• Triggered abilities. The Sentinel feat in 5e is basically the fighter class abilities in 4e, and it's not unknown for rogues with bonuses against opportunity attacks to simply provoke foes to make opportunity attacks on them so the fighter gets a free swing.
• Modifiers mostly stacking (same named modifiers do not stack). In 5e it's basically Advantage Or Nothing. In 4e you might have combat advantage from one ally and a power bonus from another while your foe has a penalty to their defence before launching your big attack.
• Attacker rolls and you get Fort/Ref/Will defences instead of saving throws. This doesn't sound like much but allows for shenanigans that allow you to switch target defence (normally from AC to Ref)
• Flanking being a thing - opposite sides of your foe gives you Combat Advantage (which doesn't stack with other sources of Combat Advantage but can stack with other bonuses).
• On the DM side
  • Easy to adjudicate improvised actions
  • Easy to make monsters even on the fly (the 4e MM3 on a Business Card gives all the actual rules you need)
  • Well designed monsters (especially in Monster Vault and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale) that never require looking up e.g. a spell in another book as they only use the standard rules.
  • Monster combat roles encourage a diversity of monsters (there's no one "standard orc" in either the Monster Manual or Monster Vault), some focusing on melee, some range, some skirmishing and making it worth pinning down the brutes and soldiers to attack the archers in melee.

 

[Garthanos]

4e is spectacularly more tactical than 5e and your actual positioning matters in relation to everyone else. Off the top of my head major elements are:

• Triggered abilities. The Sentinel feat in 5e is basically the fighter class abilities in 4e, and it's not unknown for rogues with bonuses against opportunity attacks to simply provoke foes to make opportunity attacks on them so the fighter gets a free swing.

Team work for the win, eh. In 5e getting into position is kind of trivialized characters including enemies only get one opportunity attack a round not per turn (this also hamstrings the defender seriously). And disengage instead of being 5 feet of shifting is your entire move the 5e rogue gets shift exactly where they want for a bonus action (like a 4e minor action).

5e flanking rule is kind of insane, as It is a benefit without reasonable risk ie positioning became too easy and quits being a risk you pay for the over sized benefit.

And tactics are generally about things having a price which is sometimes risk (similar to the ubiquitous limited use abilities are a price).

 

[vagabundo]

4e tactical combat blows all other editions out of the water, having run them all. It can get a little finicky, with multiple conditions and whatnot. But over the years of running it it led to some of the best combats I've ever had.

I created a black dragon lair in some caverns beneath the keep from Reavers of Hakenwold (one of 4e best adv). PCs were sneaking in to the keep using the taverns. PCs were 3rd level. This was a 6/7th level solo, so tough encounter. I had some varied terrain like a pool and high ledges and shadows, it had room to fly. The combat was epic. Eventually killing the creature while it had one PC in its talons while flying and it sank to the bottom of the pool. I had a off the fly skill challenge for the PC to get free of the dragon before he drowned with the other PCs helping.

4e really shines when you put a little time into the setup, the ruleset takes care of the rest at the table. Pacing is key though, filler combats should be avoided or done in an offhand way, TotM or with skill challenges, that can be resolved quickly.

 

[TerraDave]

Could be. It also tended to be one long fight after another—to use all those powers and tactics. The problem of optimal combo spamming was also there.

The mirror of this was that it was less strategic. You could get players to hold back on dailies unless really needed and make rituals (non combat spells) more accessible, but it actually took some work by the DM to bring out the non tactical elements.

 

[Garthanos]

The mirror of this was that it was less strategic.

To me that is just completely not correct.

For instance how can one be less strategic than martial classes in 5e? you know those without any expendable daily type resources?
4e where everyone had dailies and action points? and healing surges (a strategic resource) which arent necessarily used for healing (not to mention via martial practices). Particularly since all of which can be used/spent as part of resolving skill challenges

My players often were very inclined to think about those daily resources (no special dm effort that I notice?), A party of three with three ritualists LOL.

Additionally rituals in 4e are truly strategic (beyond just being a daily resource) which is often not true in 5e.

You must mean it is less strategic for casters alone when they ignore the specifically strategic elements everywhere.

Also people who ignore strategic things often seem to be those who are not interested in them. So being able to play it less strategically is sometimes a good thing?

I mean 5e made the tactic/strategy free Champion so they could ignore both, and simultaneously made the core game so position had less meaning for everyone.

Except overwhelming control magics kind of belie that a little, its really just the imbalance of casters only getting the significant tactic and strategy options

 

[Fun Elemental!]

4E was a game ahead of its time that was supposed to come with tools that didn't materialize at the time but we now have. It was basically the virtual table top edition. In short, it was the exact sort of D&D that the roll 20 crowd currently appear to be trying to play. The rules and systems were rather rigid, character builds were optimization combos, and it basically demanded to be played like a miniatures game on a map with a grid.

It was accused of being a video game, and that isn't an inaccurate accusation. However, it was a GOOD video game and the 2E rules existed if you wanted rules as a sketchy guideline and for the GM to just do their own thing in the theater of the mind. People accused the characters built in the system of being like league of legends or street fighter characters... which is exactly what a party of 5E characters on roll20 looks like now.

1/2E and 4E were the only editions of D&D that were not confused about what they were. 4E was just taking the principles introduced to 2E by 3E and taking them to their non-confused logical conclusions. 5E was just them panicking at 4E existing before the online table top ecosystem that it was supposed to exist in was mature.

The one big problem with 4E is that building a character without the online character build tools is basically next to impossible.

 

[Garthanos]

The one big problem with 4E is that building a character without the online character build tools is basically next to impossible.

There are definitely offline tools available (atleast windows ones) and fan supported VTTs that are either already operational like MapTools or in development of 4e support and being updated quickly, its not really a problem or a temporary one if you like electronic tools.

Also my experience is even just grabbing a few books its pretty easy to build characters my niece sat down and built 6 one afternoon with very little guidance and my books (and no electronic tools) and had a blast doing it. The books are generally organized well so when you are building level 1 character you see level one power options though so much content has been released you may need 2 or 3 books(martial) depending on class.