4e "getting back to D&D's roots" how?

[The Little Raven]

True, but even when you can describe your solution to the problem, you're still boned if you don't roll well enough. In OD&D, for example, you could describe how to avoid or disable a trap or lie to the king without rolling any dice.

Being able to think of the solution doesn't mean you can necessarily implement that solution well. I know that I can win more tickets by rolling a skee ball up into the 50 point opening, but that doesn't mean I can do it every time. That's what the dice roll represents: the effect chance can have on your skills.

 

[SteveC]

If I wanted to get back to the roots of D&D with 4E, here's what I would do:

• Roll 3D6 in order for stats.
• Races are human, elf, dwarf and halfling.
• To qualify for a class, you must have a 14 in one of its key abilities and 12 in the others. Paladins must have a minimum 17 charisma.
• Start with Hit Points equal to what you normally get at level up + Con modifier, so a Fighter starts with 6+con mod HP, a wizard gets 4+con and so on.
• Martial classes get no powers at all, and may choose one of their class abilities.
• All Spells for arcane and divine characters are daily.
• Channel Divinity for clerics is usable twice per day.
• Death happens at 0 HP. The only time you can use a healing surge is when you are affected by a healing power.
• Natural healing is 1 HP per day.

That would be a pretty good start for establishing the feeling of an earlier edition. I don't know if anyone would actually want to play that game (I know I wouldn't), but it isn't that hard to do.

--Steve

 

[Aeolius]

Given the nature of the core races and classes 4e removed (in the initial 3 books), 4e seems to be getting back to 2e's roots.

Heck, I can't even roll up a simple Spellstitched Swarm-Shifter Dread Necromancer Emancipated Spawn Sea Kin Lacedon PC in 4e... what's up with that?

 

[Ourph]

True, but even when you can describe your solution to the problem, you're still boned if you don't roll well enough. In OD&D, for example, you could describe how to avoid or disable a trap or lie to the king without rolling any dice.

There were reaction rolls in OD&D and find/remove traps rolls were introduced in Supplement I. Playing without those rolls may very well be how you choose to referee your games, but claiming that the rules specifically support that style is erroneous.

 

[Engilbrand]

Contrary to SteveC's post a few above me, those changes will not change the "feel" of the game and give it the "feel" of 1st edition. It will just bring the mechanics a little more in line. Then again, with such massive changes, you might as well just be playing 1st edition.
I've said it a lot recently. I have a couple of players who keep telling me that they love how 4th edition has truly gone back to the basics and gives them good feelings like they had in 1st edition. Feel and mechanics are 2 different thigns. Hell, you could play Exalted very easily using the 4th edition rules. You really can. And you know what, I would call it Exalted. I've played an Underdark game using the New World of Darkness rules. I said that I was playing an Underdark campaign. Why? The mechanics were different, but the "feel" of the game was definitely where it should have been.
If people aren't getting the "feel" of 1st edition, but that's what they're craving, then they're doing it wrong.

 

[Halivar]

In response to "kewl powers:" Smite evil was a kewl power. Rage was a kewl power. Inspire courage was a kewl power. Power attack was an at-will kewl power (it's even got "power" in the name). EVERYONE got kewl powers in 3.x. To argue otherwise either revisionist history or semantics.

 

[Halivar]

If people aren't getting the "feel" of 1st edition, but that's what they're craving, then they're doing it wrong.

Alright Engilbrand, there's only one way to prove your statement: we must play 1st Edition D&D, using FATAL as the ruleset.

Will anyone volunteer to DM for this horrific experiment?

 

[SteveC]

Contrary to SteveC's post a few above me, those changes will not change the "feel" of the game and give it the "feel" of 1st edition. It will just bring the mechanics a little more in line. Then again, with such massive changes, you might as well just be playing 1st edition.

Interesting: what part of the "feel" would be missing, then?

For me, as someone who played OE, AD&D1, BECMI ... you name it, the feel comes very little from the rules, and a lot more from how the characters and campaign is designed. I suppose that more than a little of the feeling comes from the randomness of some of the mechanics, but is that truly something anyone would want to recreate today?

I'm genuinely interested in what you mean here.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In some ways 4E is a step back to school principles and in others its ventured into non-D&D-like territory.

In old school D&D (OD&D,Basic, 1E) NPC's and monsters were given abilities during design as needed. There was no template, or code for assigning this stuff. 4E is back to that principle which is nice.

3E D&D was very building block oriented. Every ability, power, ect. had to be codified as a skill, feat, racial power, ect. It was very complex, allowed for a large variety of options, and very cumbersome. It was also the days where a DM feared an ability audit of his monsters from an organization more feared than the IRS-THE PLAYERS!

The tactics myth:

What 4E brings that isn't new is tactics and cooperation between players. This has always been possible although not everyone took advantage of that.

The 4E tactics thing " Now we all have powers to help and support each other" just doesn't stand up as being tactics to me.

In old school games, you could use tactics to get enemies in position, hold back some party members to flank an enemy once engaged, find defensible positions, and other such things. The type of things a pseudo medieval small unit might do if there were magic.

New school "tactics" are exercises in game logic. "Hey Bob don't move on your turn. I'm gonna smack that guy with a power that will give you +2 to hit him."

To me thats more board game mastery than tactics.

There are other differences that keep the feel of old school out of 4E.
Character growth and development:
Old school:
Characters grew as they gained levels. New abilities built on what what was learned before.

New school:
Characters are rebuilt at a new level, abilities are swapped out when they are no longer kewl enough. By the time level 30 is reached the character may no longer be able to use many powers that were used throughout his career.

Reckoning of distance and time:
Old school: feet,yards, miles, hours, days.

New school: squares, per encounter, milestones.

These are things that keep the feel from being close at all.

 

[crash_beedo]

I see it more from the DM side of the screen than the player side. The ease of prep and the stronger reliance on DM adjudication rather than specific rules remind me a lot of pre-2000 D&D. I also feel that "the rules aren't the physics of the game world" is a very old-school philosophy.

For me, its a combination of how monsters are created and run, and how the rules are broader, simpler. 3.x had a rule for everything, and it was easy to feel you had to use said rules, instead of relying on your improv skills and sound judgement, as we had before.

First two replies pretty much hit it on the head - as a DM, 4E feels like a throwback by dropping the simulationist approach (ie, logically consistent rules for PCs, NPCs, and monsters) and giving the DM a freer hand with monsters, prep, encounter design, NPC creation, and situations 'not covered by the rules' (ie, DMG pg 42).

Plus the H1-H3 modules have been thinly veiled homages to various old-school dungeon crawls.