AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, I mean no version of d20 has been super simple. That went out with "we play 2e without proficiencies and don't use all the supplements" around 1994...
Still, 4e is much fiddlier than 5e. I've played a decent amount of each. Think of it this way, to make your 'Axe Dwarf' in 4e, you have to obviously start out figuring out what race (well, that's axiomatic here, mostly), class (there are a few options here), build, what powers synergize with that, the correct feat(s), a theme that works with your stuff, a background or 3, etc. This is not so bad, you'd make almost as many choices in 5e by 3rd level. However, with 5e you're done. Yeah, maybe your a battlemaster and you gotta pick 3 'powers'. Later on you're going to choose ASIs or maybe at some point a feat or two, and eventually a couple more battlemaster powers. But the APPLICATION of these, and any interactions between them and say equipment, is very straightforward and minimal. It is pretty darn clear what makes an Axe Dwarf, and your choices are fairly peripheral to the core of that.
4e is different. In order to get proper damage and weapon bonuses, you need to pick the right feats, and devise a way to make them synergize with your powers and equipment. Yeah, you can just do 'whatever' and your character will 'sort of work', but if you're wanting to be Karl the Mighty, Axe Dwarf Extraordinaire, you should do better than that. And its fiddly, because what works together depends on action economy considerations, attack types, keywords, bonus stacking rules, etc. And you have to keep making key choices at pretty much every level, otherwise you will start to fall behind on those critical bonuses, off-turn attacks, etc. The choices are multi-faceted too. Do I increase CON, or WIS? Well, WIS ties into a feat that increases your off-turn punishment damage, but CON obviously ties into hardiness. Each one needs to hit a certain threshold to enable various feats, etc.
And that isn't counting the 'tactical fiddliness' of 4e where if you happen to be in a certain spot then some power gets some sort of bonus, or you can trigger a power with some added feature, whatever. There are a lot of very rules-dependent choices here, which often don't really relate in a very coherent way to the fiction.
This is why we play HoML now, instead of 4e. It is simply taking some of the less fiddly ideas on builds and certain rules elements from other games and applying them in the context of a really action-oriented d20 type game with solid tactics. No abandoning grids like 5e or 13a, no abandoning unified resource economy like those games either, and doubling down on 'story now' type play instead of giving up on it like 5e did.
