D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Oofta]

Well now... blink blink.
I am one who likes dense choice levels but that is obviously a taste difference.

Inversely looking at 5e martial classes I see the core fighter class as inflexible instead of giving me 4 partly flexible classes with distinctions by roles as a larger choice each with greater flexibility than the battlemaster they gave me 2 who are comparably locked in (and no the sub-classes barely tweak to another battle field role in my opinion ) seems a real problem to me
And yes the milestone based short rest abilities with the battle master its only a mild shifting from that. It seems back to the martial classes by being martial are the least flexible in combat not just out of combat.

Hmm. Let's see. Archery, defense, dueling, great weapon, protection, two-weapon. Then there are 7(?) and counting archetypes. Throw in a variety of weapons, backgrounds (I'm debating having a very thief-like fighter next game) and feats.

You may think they are "all the same" but from a strictly objective point of view there are hundreds of potential build options. Even if talking "optimal" builds it's still dozens of options. All before multi-classing. Oh, and that's a single class.

Now they may feel much the same or inflexible to you. That's fine, it's your opinion. Just like the actual play of most 4E PCs felt to me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hmm. Let's see. Archery, defense, dueling, great weapon, protection, two-weapon. Then there are 7(?) and counting archetypes. Throw in a variety of weapons, backgrounds (I'm debating having a very thief-like fighter next game) and feats.

You may think they are "all the same" but from a strictly objective point of view there are hundreds of potential build options. Even if talking "optimal" builds it's still dozens of options. All before multi-classing. Oh, and that's a single class.

Now they may feel much the same or inflexible to you. That's fine, it's your opinion. Just like the actual play of most 4E PCs felt to me.

I mean, there is objectively less difference between fighting styles than between almost anything you might want to compare. hell, the actual weapons are less different.

ALmost as if degree of similarity isn't the issue, but rather the fact that many folks respond to a certain threshold of options by creating a sort of mental distance from the whole thing where it all blurs together.

 

[Oofta]

I mean, there is objectively less difference between fighting styles than between almost anything you might want to compare. hell, the actual weapons are less different.

ALmost as if degree of similarity isn't the issue, but rather the fact that many folks respond to a certain threshold of options by creating a sort of mental distance from the whole thing where it all blurs together.

I simply disagree. An archer hangs out in the back, the great weapon fighter is probably charging into the fray and is best against single foes as is the duelist. Dual weapon is great if you face a lot of low level mooks and for flexibility. Protection guy is protecting allies and staying close to them. Defense is turtling.

I think that's a decent amount of variation implicit to the styles. Archetypes, feats, multi-classing, racial selection, backgrounds and so on will all add nuances and differences. Feel free to hold a different opinion.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So what? .... I don't mean this to be hostile. I really want you to thing about this for a second.

Two people can have opposite opinions on the quality of a work, and both still have the same opinion as to whether they enjoy it.

Example- A likes Barry Manilow's Mandy as a great piece of music, B like it "ironically" as a guilty pleasure. But enjoy it, but A and B have different opinions as to the quality.

Or, two people can have the same opinions as the quality of a work, and have completely different opinions as to whether they enjoy it.

Example- I have tried, repeatedly, to enjoy Trout Mask Replica ... and I just can't. I know it's "good," and I know why it's good, but ... whatever. Same with 4' 33". Love the concept, would never want to "hear" it again (I've seen performed live once). Other people enjoy both of them.

Or two people can have divergent opinions about the quality of a work, and divergent opinions about whether or not they enjoy it.

Example- I really enjoyed 6ix9ine's Gummo when it came out; I loved the callout to the Harmony Korine movie, I felt that the stripped-down sound and lyrics was a primitive "folk-art-esque" return to the early "New York" late-80s scene, and it was a necessary and real corrective to both the over-produced omnipresence of Kanye West imitators and the staccato "flow above all" of others like Kendrick Lamar. My good friend thought it was unlistenable trash fronted by a tattooed moron.

Yeah, I don't agree at all. If something is objective, then you should be able to point to measurable facts to support it. Quality of music (or art, or literature) doesn't have those. It's why The Room can be enjoyed the same as The Forbidden Room, even though the intent behind the two is very different.

I honestly cannot believe we are having this argument? I mean, how would you compare, for example, loves "classical" music and says that anything after Stravinsky and Shostakovich is trash.

It's subjective. It's opinions. It's what people like and don't like.




I ... don't understand this. You go to parties, right? You converse with other people with preferences different than you, right?

And you're telling me that you've never encountered someone in your life who disagrees with you about the quality of something. Or someone who just thinks something you like sucks.


EDIT- It's like the worst episode of Judge John Hodgman, ever, wherein the judgment is, "People like what they like," but weird dad keeps saying, "NOT IF WHAT THEY LIKE IS OBJECTIVELY NOT SAME-Y!!!!"

You're missing the point of what I've been saying, so I'll try again. I know you're missing the point, because your edit has literally no relation to anything I've said.

I'm not sure where your question about parties is even coming from, btw. Of course I encounter people with different preferences from my own. Your questions doesn't make any sense to me as a response to any post I've ever made on these or any forum. I don't know what's missing in between my post and yours, but there clearly is a step that is obvious to you, and simply not there from my POV. It...seems like a complete nonsequitor.

How does, "I don't care if someone dislikes or likes a given thing, outside of discussing things we like" lead to "you don't go to parties?"?

And...yeah, obviously people can have different reasons they like a thing. What's that have to do with what I said? I never suggested otherwise.

In fact, my point is exactly that the objective measures of a thing are largely divorced from whether and to what degree most people like or dislike the thing. People don't examine Freebird before deciding if they like it. Liking something is purely subjective. How good Freebird is as a southern rock song meant to be fun to sing along to and do weird country dances to, or how well composed the song is, or even how effective it is at garnering the love of it's target audience, is a matter of objectively discernible qualities. They are two separate considerations.

I don't like Jaguars (the cars. the animal is rad as hell). I have a friend who has an s-type. It is objectively a very well made car. If i said it was a crappy car, I'd be objectively wrong. If i said, I hate that car, Jaguars are overrated and overpriced, the difference in quality from cheaper luxury cars to the s-type doesn't justify the price difference, I'd be making subjective statements that can't be right or wrong. Some of the pricing stuff is debatable based on teh work that goes into the car, and one could make a sensible argument for objective truth, but at the very least "I don't like the car and don't understand why they're popular outside of 'hey look I have a lot of money'" is 100% subjective.

Expecting someone who knows about cars and has owned Jaguars to not roll their eyes and explain some amount of why I'm wrong when I say it's a bad car is unreasonable.

 

[Garthanos]

You may think they are "all the same" but from a strictly objective point of view there are hundreds of potential build options.

Fighting style is barely a tweak (and not something new but you made it so every class with martial now has it so how does that make the fighter special) pick up a bow and even without that choice you are still pretty much the same tough not particularly striker (4e ranger was also mobile) whether you chose to stay back or not... very few of those options have impact at the ability level (oops now I am the archer cause I loaded a bow and my battle master can still use the same precision strike on it he was using once in a while on his melee attacks to assure he can do the Robinhood trick).

Could not even build a defender at all out of the PHB honestly the protection style sucks and interferes with the sentinel feat on top.

I think that's a decent amount of variation implicit to the styles.

Implies is the right word.
It has no... backing +1 on my AC oh oh I am going to feint. (they copied this part from 4e but 4e layers other things on). A protection option that is lame and interferes with the most likely feat you might want to go with it by eating your reaction and is still easy to be out right waste for all its price tag.

Archetypes,

The Champion gets ooh 1 more crit over the course of a day...shrug
The Battlemasters "Short Rest" abilities kick in like once ever other fight so meh.

The Cavalier has spread out over its entire range of career things the 4e fighter defender could do at level 1... and is really unable to do any of the rest. Want to yank people in with a deceptive opening and mark them all or rush into a clump and do the same nope sure a small part of that is a battle-master move which affects again 1 guy and even if you did spend a feat to get that inferior version you are so restricted from marking them that a level 1 4e fighter at-will move can do after a charge better. But you do have a bonus you are still very good at being that tough striker.

I am talking effective actual differences not nods and dips of differences

feats, multi-classing,

the latter seem easily a trap because huge amounts of class power for martial types are dependent on you not doing that MCing you better be getting something awesome for your buck.

racial selection, backgrounds and so on will all add nuances and differences. .

They do add nuances to your character not so much anything about that which affects the aspect of how you fight

 

[doctorbadwolf]

that they are wrong about the food that they like and they don't like.

This idea seems to be the basic underpinning of how you view a certain side of the argument, and it...isn't correct. I'm sorry, but it isn't.

No one expects to change anyone's mind about what they like. NO one is here to make someone like 4e DnD. It isn't about whether or not anyone likes the thing.

Literaly the only relevance of whether or not someone likes 4e is in trying to get someone to just say, "i don't like 4e", so we can say, "Okay." and then go back to talking about what is interesting to us, which is what causes the feeling of sameyness, why some people experience it where others don't, why some people who like it experience sameyness in it and some people who don't like it don't experience sameyness and what the hell to make of that, etc.

When I say I don't care if you like 4e, I really do mean it. I don't care. I don't understand why anyone would care. I will never care, and have never cared. I just want to discuss 4e without being bombarded with "4e sucks!" commentary that can't even be bothered to examine what the speaking dislikes about it, or contribute anything meaningful or interesting to the discussion. Because I also will never care about the opinions on a thing, of people who have a strong dislike for the thing. IME, no one has ever, not even one time, contributed something interesting or useful to a discussion of a thing they strongly dislike or have only negative opinions of.

The thread isn't "DO you dislike 4e?" it's "are 4e Powers samey?" Not, "What do you experience" but what are the actual qualities of the powers, is there any objective measure or rational explanation that points toward sameyness?

Whether someone likes 4e literally isn't relevant to that.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Oofta]

Fighting style is barely a tweak (and not something new but you made it so every class with martial now has it so how does that make the fighter special) pick up a bow and even without that choice you are still pretty much the same tough not particularly striker (4e ranger was also mobile) whether you chose to stay back or not... very few of those options have impact at the ability level (oops now I am the archer cause I loaded a bow and my battle master can still use the same precision strike on it he was using once in a while on his melee attacks to assure he can do the Robinhood trick).

Could not even build a defender at all out of the PHB honestly the protection style sucks and interferes with the sentinel feat on top.

Implies is the right word.
It has no... backing +1 on my AC oh oh I am going to feint. (they copied this part from 4e but 4e layers other things on). A protection option that is lame and interferes with the most likely feat you might want to go with it by eating your reaction and is still easy to be out right waste for all its price tag.

The Champion gets ooh 1 more crit over the course of a day...shrug
The Battlemasters "Short Rest" abilities kick in like once ever other fight so meh.

The Cavalier has spread out over its entire range of career things the 4e fighter defender could do at level 1... and is really unable to do any of the rest. Want to yank people in with a deceptive opening and mark them all or rush into a clump and do the same nope sure a small part of that is a battle-master move which affects again 1 guy and even if you did spend a feat to get that inferior version you are so restricted from marking them that a level 1 4e fighter at-will move can do after a charge better. But you do have a bonus you are still very good at being that tough striker.

I am talking effective actual differences not nods and dips of differences


the latter seem easily a trap because huge amounts of class power for martial types are dependent on you not doing that MCing you better be getting something awesome for your buck.


They do add nuances to your character not so much anything about that which affects the aspect of how you fight

So what you're saying is that in your opinion they're much the same. I disagree. Now flip that around to 4E powers and we can agree that all of this is all just personal opinion and a meaningless discussion.