D&D 4E Am I crazy? I've just gotten a hankering to play 4e again...

[Tony Vargas]

...

I just checked it out and it does look a lot like 4e layout/ graphic design. I hated the 3e/3.5e graphic design/layout,

Hmm... I can't say either made a strong impression on me.

 

[dave2008]

...

Hmm... I can't say either made a strong impression on me.

Everyone is different! I know several people who didn't like the 4e graphic design.

However, for me 3e/3,5 was the worst. I have stopped reading 3e books on multiple occasions because I am so irritated by the graphic design. If I want to read something from most 3e era books, I really have to force myself or keep to a very limited amount of time.

 

[Don Durito]

4E is my favourite D&D edition and the one that I currently run.

I sometimes think I like it because I'm naturally contrarian and assume that anything as apparently unpopular as 4E must be good.



I'm pretty sure that was Mike Mearls' influence which resulted in the absolute weakest of the three core books. I recall him explaining at the time that he thought it best that each table have its own monster lore. He also wanted more 1E Fiend Folio monsters in the Monster Manual so we ended up with crap like the berbalang instead of the much more commonly encountered frost giants.

Don't forget, the MM stat blocks were also crap (thanks, Mike!). If you study them closely, they seem to be based on three different sets of monster creation rules with little overlap with the ones in the DMG. I began 4E by building my own monsters from scratch according to the DMG rules as it seemed like I had a better grasp of how stat blocks were supposed to be created than Mike and his team who were paid to create the 4E Monster Manual.

Anyway, it's just spilt milk now.

I imagine leaving out monsters for the next Monster Manual was ultimately a corporate decision, whatever spin Mearls might have felt he needed to put on it.

And as for the monsters not using the rules from the DMG, that's probably because they hadn't been written yet, or were written simultaneously, or were written as a product of lessons learnt from the monster design, while the rules were still being tweaked and finalised.

4E as a whole wasn't really fully ready by the time of its release. I'm pretty sure some of the designers have admitted that since.

 

[Tony Vargas]

However, for me 3e/3,5 was the worst. I have stopped reading 3e books on multiple occasions because I am so irritated by the graphic design. If I want to read something from most 3e era books, I really have to force myself or keep to a very limited amount of time.

So, we're talking illos, color schemes, fonts, page layouts?

I can kinda understand the organization and writing style - being a dry rules manual rather than an entertaining cover-to-cover read, for instance.

And as for the monsters not using the rules from the DMG, that's probably because they hadn't been written yet, or were written simultaneously,

Sure, like encounter designs in HotDQ disastrously not following the DM guidelines, because they weren't even written yet.
Seems like an early-in-an-ed hazard, in general.

4E as a whole wasn't really fully ready by the time of its release. I'm pretty sure some of the designers have admitted that since.

I've heard the excuse. Not sure I buy it, entirely.

 

[Panda-s1]

Everyone is different! I know several people who didn't like the 4e graphic design.

However, for me 3e/3,5 was the worst. I have stopped reading 3e books on multiple occasions because I am so irritated by the graphic design. If I want to read something from most 3e era books, I really have to force myself or keep to a very limited amount of time.

So, we're talking illos, color schemes, fonts, page layouts?

I can kinda understand the organization and writing style - being a dry rules manual rather than an entertaining cover-to-cover read, for instance.

Sure, like encounter designs in HotDQ disastrously not following the DM guidelines, because they weren't even written yet.
Seems like an early-in-an-ed hazard, in general.

I've heard the excuse. Not sure I buy it, entirely.

it has little to do with the writing. for starters the page layouts almost always had borders*. with the smaller text size I always felt a little claustrophobic whenever I read a 3.5 book. it also didn't help that they had those weird text lines as a background. everything about the design felt overdone, like I get that they're trying to make the books like old wizardy tomes, but the covers already convey that idea fairly well, and I'm surprised they didn't go all in and make the pages look like parchment like they did with 5e.

in contrast, 4e had blank pages and well defined and colored blocks. the text was larger as well, which made it a lot easier to read. a lot of people derided this as meaning less content, but that's a little too cynical imo.

*sidenote: I realize now that this actually made it a bit harder to flip through the books as well. with 5e books I might catch the edge of a full page illustration and have a good idea of where I am in the book, and 4e and 2nd ed. had this going on as well. I can't say the same for 3.5 books.

 

[dave2008]

So, we're talking illos, color schemes, fonts, page layouts?

Yes

I can kinda understand the organization and writing style - being a dry rules manual rather than an entertaining cover-to-cover read, for instance.

Are you talking about 3e or 4e?

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

There's definitely a bit of a rushed feeling to the core books. It's why I think the books that came out in 2009 and 2010 were the real high point of the system.

Definitely. With the exception of Heroes of Shadow (Mike Mearls, lead designer), the design team seemed to finally grok 4E after about two years.

(snip) But I don't know who deserves the most blame here. I know they were under a lot of pressure to build in reasons to sell product and, as I stated before, that they pushed the system out before they were ready. Reportedly the whole daily/encounter/at-will structure was designed for wizards and was never meant to apply to every class.

Whether that structure was a good thing or not is a matter of preference.

I have always liked the AEDU system and still do. But that's a question of taste rather than it being an objectively superior model.

Just use the Monster Vault and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. Both very good books. The nentir vale one had great lore.

Actually, I continue to build all my own monsters in Masterplan even though I also have all the stat blocks loaded for use. That said, I like the MVs for some of their lore and I do steal various powers and traits for my own monsters. (Three cheers for the offline tools!)

I imagine leaving out monsters for the next Monster Manual was ultimately a corporate decision, whatever spin Mearls might have felt he needed to put on it.

And as for the monsters not using the rules from the DMG, that's probably because they hadn't been written yet, or were written simultaneously, or were written as a product of lessons learnt from the monster design, while the rules were still being tweaked and finalised.

4E as a whole wasn't really fully ready by the time of its release. I'm pretty sure some of the designers have admitted that since.

That is largely true but it's clear that the MM is the "least ready" of the core books. I can still use the other two (although I normally just use the offline tools I have been using for five years) but the MM is basically useless. The stat blocks are crap and the lore is crap. There is no reason to turn to it.

 

[dave2008]

Actually, I continue to build all my own monsters in Masterplan even though I also have all the stat blocks loaded for use. That said, I like the MVs for some of their lore and I do steal various powers and traits for my own monsters. (Three cheers for the offline tools!)

I tended to us the monsters from the book mostly, except boss monsters. Of course I did do a whole series of custom epic monsters on this forum: 4e Epic Monster Updates

 

[ChaosOS]

One of the more cynical things they did was the selection of monsters for the first MM and races for the PHB. They purposely left out canonical monsters and races (although some people may disagree that gnomes were important) so that people would have a reason to buy the version 2 of the book.

But I don't know who deserves the most blame here. I know they were under a lot of pressure to build in reasons to sell product and, as I stated before, that they pushed the system out before they were ready. Reportedly the whole daily/encounter/at-will structure was designed for wizards and was never meant to apply to every class.

Whether that structure was a good thing or not is a matter of preference.

At the same time, the stated reason for the PHB2 delays of "These guys have a troubled history and needed more time for hashing out" really was and is true for gnomes and half-orcs. In fact, one of my biggest issues with 5e is they got rid of the interesting "fey gnome" angle and went back to the half-baked 3.5 gnomes. Half-orcs similarly have always had issues (tied up in the general issues with the way orcs are presented), although I'm not sure 4e fixed that (Eberron to me is the actual fix).

I also think it's hard to argue that bards and sorcerers didn't have mechanical identity issues coming out of 3.5, but I will totally grant that Barbarians and Druids being held back was kinda arbitrary other than "power sources".

 

[Undrave]

I also think it's hard to argue that bards and sorcerers didn't have mechanical identity issues coming out of 3.5, but I will totally grant that Barbarians and Druids being held back was kinda arbitrary other than "power sources".

The Druid had its whole Wild Shape thing to figure out so I totally get that.

As for the Barbarian, I think they had trouble figuring out how it meshed with 4e's roles and how to make it interesting compared to a Fighter. Also, I think it ended up a way better class than it would have been if they had rushed it out for PHB1.