4th to 5th Edition Converters - What has been your experience?

[Tony Vargas]

4e does epic quests with a very strong focus on cinematic tactical combat. 4e is The Encounter - usually combat, not always - while 5e is Three Pillars - exploration, social & combat; in 4e the exploration pillar is unsupported and effectively absent in my successful
4e campaigns.

4e covered exploration and interaction via skill challenges.

This was really brought home to me recently using Dyson Logos' lovely dungeon maps - they were working great in my 5e game, so I used one in 4e - it was a complete waste of time, just got in the way of play. 4e really doesn't need or benefit from exploration maps

Nod. 4e had more of a 'cut to the chase' vibe a lot of the time, while 5e harkens back to classic D&D and the CRPGs that imitated it with so-called 'pixel bitching.' I was struck by that, again, running the Death House, actually, the party really did manage to miss one critical thing and, after clearing the place, had to give it once-over to find the entrance to the dungeon.

As I have introduced the 5e Death Save system 3/3 as well as 25% lover hit points in my own 4.5 version of D&D, I am interested to understand the player take on this. We have only gamed a few times with the new rules so I have not had first time experience of multiple death save rolls. My gut feeling is the risk that players get sitting outside of battle, just waiting to roll a new death save (fast getting bored), or has it lead to healers getting closer to combat to be there to help their friends get back into the battle (which I hope is the result)?

Like anything else, it gets 'managed.' There's only a few ways of stabilizing someone, most take actions, and the action economy is pretty tight. So players have to balance the value of their own action and/or slot vs the potential value of getting an ally back up, or even 'merely' stabilizing them if they don't have a slot available. Unless the enemy starts pounding on fallen allies, you can 'safely' let them fail a death save or two before coming to their aid.
There's healing word, but because it uses a slot, and slots can be used for any other spell you have prepared, there's a steep opportunity cost. Adapting the 5e death saves to a homebrew 4.5, you wouldn't have that latter issue.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - you know there was a 4e broadsword, don't you. (Adventurers' Vault: +2, d10, military heavy blade.)

It'd slipped my mind, since I found it quite disappointing. The 'Khopesh,' I think in the same book, at +2, d8, brutal 1, heavy-blade/axe was more interesting, I used it as a 'broadsword' or otherwise re-skinned at times.

 

[Myrhdraak]

I am playing low level 5e and a high level 4e campaign (we are 30th level) with different groups.

I like the speed of 5e. I like the low level play and danger of 5e. I like the focus shifting away from encounters. I have got used to mixture of saves and attack rolls (despite thinking 4e is a much simpler and logical system). Some the classes have a great feel: clerics, paladins, wizards especially. The fact that you can break your movement up actually makes the battle somewhat fluid. The inspiration is basically Action points done in a new way.

I miss the same things as Tony. I am finding martial characters to be powerful but bland - and the advancement issue is a big one (everyone in my 5e party has the same to hit bonus which kind of zaps the feelings of the fighter! They need more toys or powers). The 5e leans very very heavily on hp - while 4e went overboard with conditions, I think 5e could have more effects.

I cant believe that I am going to say this, but I also miss 4e monsters - reactions, attacks when bloodied, Action Points makes them more interesting and unpredictable than their 5e counterparts.

Ultimately 5e went is a good direction but threw out too much.

When I have done my 4.5 Edition conversion of 4th Edition monsters I have taken the opportunity to steal both from 5th Edition, Pathfinder, and 13th Age. What I have found so far is the following:

5th Edition: Monster descriptions are great. Those I use to replace the 4th Edition descriptions. The traits are usually very good and something that adds flavour. It is small things, but they do matter. Example: Lizardfolk can breath underwater for 15 minutes, all Yuan-ti have suggestion ability, etc. Working those into the 4th Edition combat oriented stats create an overall more interesting version, that better fit the old 2nd and 3rd edition monsters. I have also added rituals to my monsters. All those 5th Edition spells that have a 4th Edition counterpart adds flavour to the monsters, and of course the graphics if it is available online.

Pathfinder: Usually I take the italic monster description as well as organization and environment stats. Sometimes also size, weight info from the description. Sometimes they have interesting spells or effects I convert to monster powers or rituals for the monsters.

13th Age: Have some really interesting mechanisms you can add to traditional 4th edition monsters that gives more variation.

End monster is usually something i find is even better than the 4th Edition version - rich with fluff and design ideas - but also fun to run on the table with tactical options.

/Myrhdraak

 

[S'mon]

4e covered exploration and interaction via skill challenges.

A skill challenge does not feel to me like I am exploring anything.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A skill challenge does not feel to me like I am exploring anything.

They were pretty abstract, but they were also significant mechanical support for the interaction & exploration pillars.

 

[Myrhdraak]

They were pretty abstract, but they were also significant mechanical support for the interaction & exploration pillars.

I find the major difference is in how the adventures are written. In 5e there is much more details to every room, small discoveries you can make if you take the time. The 4th Edition adventures and the format that was introduced was very combat and encounter oriented with less focus on room detail and extra info what could be found. However, reading some of the 5e adventures, some parts get redicilous as well. "If the players do not say that they search under the rug, they do not find the hidden compartment". Such statements get very hard to mix with the skill system (i.e. a Perception check). Either you throw the whole skill system out the window and go back to 1st edition or you state the DC needed to find the compartment and trust in the characters intelligence to check under the rug - not the players. I don't think you can have it both.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I find the major difference is in how the adventures are written. 4th Edition less focus on room detail and extra info what could be found.

OK. Some early 4e modules also gave the encounter guidelines a miss, doesn't mean they weren't there.

In 5e there is much more details to every room, small discoveries you can make if you take the time. However, reading some of the 5e adventures, some parts get redicilous as well. "If the players do not say that they search under the rug, they do not find the hidden compartment". Such statements get very hard to mix with the skill system (i.e. a Perception check).

That's just the sort of thing you'd find in a classic module. 5e is a compromise between modern and classic, so it has both notations like that in modules adventures and a skill system.

 

[pemerton]

A skill challenge does not feel to me like I am exploring anything.

It's an old post, but here's a link to the only deliberately exploration-focused scenario I've run in 4e.

My feeling is that it is not so much that 4e lacks exploration-focused mechanics that 5e contains; but more that 4e contains mechanics, and hence generates an orientation at the table, that makes exploration not a very attractive focus for play.

What do you think?

 

[S'mon]

It's an old post, but here's a link to the only deliberately exploration-focused scenario I've run in 4e.

My feeling is that it is not so much that 4e lacks exploration-focused mechanics that 5e contains; but more that 4e contains mechanics, and hence generates an orientation at the table, that makes exploration not a very attractive focus for play.

What do you think?

I think that sounds right - 4e has mechanics (eg skill challenges) that get in the way of
exploration - of the *players* exploring the imagined environment. Moreso, the whole tenof 4e is that Exploration is the thing Wyatt says to Skip in order to Get To The Fun - the Encounter. So the tendency is for the session to be a series of dramatic Encounters with weakly experiended linking material. 5e could be drifted that way (4e way), but by default it doesn't care that much about The Encounter, and traditional exploration-focused D&D works ok in 5e. Not because 5e has many exploration-focused mechanics (pre-3e have more, eg the Turn structure), just that it accepts exploration as a viable mode of play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's an old post, but here's a link to the only deliberately exploration-focused scenario I've run in 4e.

My feeling is that it is not so much that 4e lacks exploration-focused mechanics that 5e contains; but more that 4e contains mechanics, and hence generates an orientation at the table, that makes exploration not a very attractive focus for play.

What do you think?

Well, certainly I have to believe people when they SAY that they don't explore things in 4e. Now, personally I just don't run published adventures, so I can't say about what 4e adventures do vs what 5e adventures do. The MECHANICS of 4e however handle the same exploration tasks, and even in the exact same ways, that 5e does! You have the same Perception skill and you can use it to make checks, the same sorts of equipment and resources, etc. 4e has rituals, 5e has spells and rituals, its all 6 of one and half-a-dozen of the other in that sense.

But 4e has this really amazing system for framing up action scenes that is almost completely lacking in 5e. Skill challenges aren't REALLY ideal for exploration/investigation tasks, but they CAN work there (I'd say that usually something like that would be best subsumed as a part of an SC where acting on the info gained is the other part). So it just tends to be that you don't do the 'pixel bitching' kinds of things in 4e because its time to get on with it.

That being said, you could do entire adventures full of that stuff, and oddly 4e will really handle it BETTER mechanically. Not only because you have an option for an SC, but in 5e the game practically falls apart if you have 1 encounter per day. We've been cycling back into our 5e game lately. My 7th level dwarf wizard is part of the group that is exploring and traveling in the wilderness. I literally just fireball everything that we see that looks hostile. There's ZERO incentive to even mess with it. I know I have 3 level 3 slots, and multiple encounters are unlikely, so I just unleash. Its actually kinda rare that the other PCs act while there's still a threat (I was getting really lucky on my init rolls the other day, I nuked 3 encounters in a row and left nothing but pickings). In 4e those tactics wouldn't work. That is you'd USE those tactics, but so would the fighter, the cleric, and the rogue. In 5e the rogue's got zip, her bow is deadly, but its not THAT much better than Fire Bolt, and doesn't hold a candle to a level 3 spell. Same with the fighter, she can easily do nasty damage, but its nothing like my nova. In 4e the rogue would be murderizing, the fighter would be holding back the bad guys, and the wizard would be cleaning up minions or locking down a couple of them while the cleric did leader stuff, no one attack would dominate, and if it was a one-encounter day, so what? We'd all nova.

5e's presentation is better, and its character options are a lot simpler to pick, but at the table I don't find its rules all that easy to use, and the books are just horribly organized. We actually just gave up trying to find the rules for spell failure chances for reading a higher level scroll last week, its just unfindable.