D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Xetheral]

No, I understand the question. My answer is that the impression of 4e being samey is the result of two things: presentation and lack of knowledge. Of course 4e powers and rituals look samey and less powerful if you only know what 4e Magic Missile, Cleave, and Magic Mouth can do, but are unaware of Mordenkainen’s Mansion, Water’s Gift, and Quick Portal.

Then I'm the one failing to understand your reply. I'm basically asking whether or not you can see my point of view, even though you disagree with it. I don't understand how re-explaining your own point of view is responsive to my question.

 

[Teemu]

Then I'm the one failing to understand your reply. I'm basically asking whether or not you can see my point of view, even though you disagree with it. I don't understand how re-explaining your own point of view is responsive to my question.

I’m saying that your impression is based on a faulty premise where the powers, rituals, and magic items are less numerous and varied than what they actually are in the printed material. For example, you weren’t aware that there’s a ritual to scramble a portal, changing its destination. Or did you know you can lock a portal? I don’t think 5e characters get these strategic options.

And the bypassing of obstacles with spells—the issue with 5e is that the spells are much more often automatic and binary. For example, curing diseases. In both 4e and 5e you can magically remove diseases; in 5e, it just happens; in 4e, you cure the disease, but you also roll a check to see how well the recipient survives the arduous ritual. The 5e version bypasses the challenge with the expenditure of a daily resource, but the 4e version includes variability, even though it still accomplishes the same task.

 

[Hussar]

So I was thinking - is there anything you 4e defenders find samey? Cars? Movies? Music? Other Games?

If so why would you describe them as samey? If not why not?

Nope. Because I don't feel the need to justify why I don't like something by trying to prove that it's bad by using loaded language that is so vague as to be meaningless and is otherwise completely hypocritical because I refuse to apply it to anything other than things I don't like.

IOW, it's yet another edition warring barrel of garbage with no meaning but makes edition warriors feel good about themselves for yet again making sure that everyone knows that 4e is a bad game.

 

[Garthanos]

But given the comparative fates in the market of 4e and 5e, why would WotC do this?

The market was massively different between each for one thing...

 

[Garthanos]

And the bypassing of obstacles with spells—the issue with 5e is that the spells are much more often automatic and binary. For example, curing diseases. In both 4e and 5e you can magically remove diseases; in 5e, it just happens; in 4e, you cure the disease, but you also roll a check to see how well the recipient survives the arduous ritual. The 5e version bypasses the challenge with the expenditure of a daily resource, but the 4e version includes variability, even though it still accomplishes the same task.

The difference in that is 4e made player choices more significant and more difficult in this regards that thread that calls out 5e as the easiest edition I may have to side with yes (but not for the reasons that those who cannot understand how challenge window in one game being a day or two and in another its a week or three and they are not actually any different)

4es better tactical support and strategic make that definite even if other numbers and assumptions are just divide by two.

 

[Hussar]

Thanks for providing another in-depth response. I can't agree with your conclusion, however, that 4e necessarily supports expanding rituals beyond their printed descriptions. Most of the examples you've provided are of DM-placed obstacles that happen to provide for an arcana skill check to circumvent them, and I don't see that as supporting a general conclusion that the rules permit expanding rituals. The example you posted concerning the Speak with Dead ritual also appears to be a DM-placed complication for a ritual, rather than a player trying to add functionality to a ritual.

Similarly, I see nothing on page 42 about expanding printed character abilities like powers or rituals. Instead, the focus on page 42 seems to be about resolving actions that the DM determines to be within a character's abilities, rather than making printed abilities more powerful.

But, as the experience of posters in this thread suggests, there clearly exist tables where rituals are permitted to be more flexible and powerful than the descriptions in the book suggest. Great! Maybe at those tables I wouldn't mind as much that 4e powers feel "samey" to me due to lacking strategic-layer options, becuase the open-ended rituals would better fill the gap than the printed rituals do.

Well, frankly, you'd have to ignore all of the 4e DM advice from front to back to come to this conclusion. The DMG1 (and I think DMG 2 although I never personally owned that book) is stuffed full of advice telling DM's to allow players to expand on the game through skill checks. Page 42 is simply the base mechanic for doing this - what is the DC for altering a portal from one way to two way. But in any case, if you've actually read the DMG 1, I would struggle to think how you would come to the conclusion that skill challenges and various other expansions of rituals and other player facing options aren't open to player expansion. It's the whole "say yes" philosophy that is consistent throughout the edition.

I think this is probably one of the core areas where the whole "samey" argument comes from. People never bothered actually reading the 4e DMG, presuming it was like the 3e DMG and just a reference book to be looked at as needed rather than an actual guide to how the game can be played. So they look at the wall of powers in the 4e PHB, their eyes glaze over and it basically smeared into "samey".

@Teemu 's description above pretty much hits it on the head.

 

[Xetheral]

I’m saying that your impression is based on a faulty premise where the powers, rituals, and magic items are less numerous and varied than what they actually are in the printed material. For example, you weren’t aware that there’s a ritual to scramble a portal, changing its destination. Or did you know you can lock a portal? I don’t think 5e characters get these strategic options.

And the bypassing of obstacles with spells—the issue with 5e is that the spells are much more often automatic and binary. For example, curing diseases. In both 4e and 5e you can magically remove diseases; in 5e, it just happens; in 4e, you cure the disease, but you also roll a check to see how well the recipient survives the arduous ritual. The 5e version bypasses the challenge with the expenditure of a daily resource, but the 4e version includes variability, even though it still accomplishes the same task.

Now I'm really confused. Earlier, you said:

Now, I still agree with one aspect of your argument, which is that 4e powers or rituals are not as good at simply bypassing things like 5e spells can.

I asked whether, given our agreement on the above point, you could see how that could lead someone other than you to view the 4e powers as "samey".

Now you're claiming that my impression isn't based on the comparative inability to bypass encounters (as an example of comparatively lacking strategic scope) as I've stated, but is instead based on a premise that there isn't a large enough number of powers, rituals, and magic items, and that they don't have enough variety? Did I say something to make you believe that my stated premise is a lie? Or are we just having a massive miscommunication?

To try to clarify: I'm not saying that my perception of "samey-ness" is caused by an insufficient number of 4e powers, nor am I saying that my perception is caused by 4e powers having insufficient variety. I'm saying that 4e powers feel "samey" to me because they cover an insufficient scope. I'm further saying that I find this problematic because other aspects of 4e, such as the printed versions of the rituals, aren't a complete substitute.

Where are we failing to communicate here? What makes you think that my perception of "samey-ness" is based on insufficient quantity or variety?

 

[Garthanos]

I agree that you've identified many of the ways that 4e powers are distinctively "samey". I think you left out how 4e powers distinctively use a unified mechanical structure for both magical and mundane abilities.

Let me see I see the 5e everyman ability grapple (with a clause that modifies how it works with every class with extra attacks as structurally different than everyone being able to grapple in 4e and the specialist fighter having a grab and strike maneuver. As being functionally the same. One however makes the specialist feel well special and the other makes all martial classes the same.

 

[Teemu]

Now I'm really confused. Earlier, you said:



I asked whether, given our agreement on the above point, you could see how that could lead someone other than you to view the 4e powers as "samey".

Now you're claiming that my impression isn't based on the comparative inability to bypass encounters (as an example of comparatively lacking strategic scope) as I've stated, but is instead based on a premise that there isn't a large enough number of powers, rituals, and magic items, and that they don't have enough variety? Did I say something to make you believe that my stated premise is a lie? Or are we just having a massive miscommunication?

To try to clarify: I'm not saying that my perception of "samey-ness" is caused by an insufficient number of 4e powers, nor am I saying that my perception is caused by 4e powers having insufficient variety. I'm saying that 4e powers feel "samey" to me because they cover an insufficient scope. I'm further saying that I find this problematic because other aspects of 4e, such as the printed versions of the rituals, aren't a complete substitute.

Where are we failing to communicate here? What makes you think that my perception of "samey-ness" is based on insufficient quantity or variety?

I talked about this in the part you left out. 5e spells are better at bypassing challenges because they are more likely to be binary and don’t require checks nearly as often. Curing diseases is a great example that happens in lower to mid level play. The 5e phantom steed has no checks involved to determine how powerful the mount is.

The reason why I think your impression is colored by lack of knowledge is because you’ve pointed out a scenario that is supposedly not possible in 4e as an argument to support the claim that 5e feels less samey; but that scenario is in fact possible in 4e. And there are scenarios in 4e that can’t happen in 5e.

 

[Xetheral]

Well, frankly, you'd have to ignore all of the 4e DM advice from front to back to come to this conclusion. The DMG1 (and I think DMG 2 although I never personally owned that book) is stuffed full of advice telling DM's to allow players to expand on the game through skill checks. Page 42 is simply the base mechanic for doing this - what is the DC for altering a portal from one way to two way. But in any case, if you've actually read the DMG 1, I would struggle to think how you would come to the conclusion that skill challenges and various other expansions of rituals and other player facing options aren't open to player expansion. It's the whole "say yes" philosophy that is consistent throughout the edition.

I think this is probably one of the core areas where the whole "samey" argument comes from. People never bothered actually reading the 4e DMG, presuming it was like the 3e DMG and just a reference book to be looked at as needed rather than an actual guide to how the game can be played. So they look at the wall of powers in the 4e PHB, their eyes glaze over and it basically smeared into "samey".

@Teemu 's description above pretty much hits it on the head.

Yes, I've read the 4e DMG, although I've probably only read it cover to cover once, back when I was playing 4e. Until this thread I interpreted page 42 and "say yes" as applying to abilities that the characters arguably have, but for which no specific rule exists. In other words: mundane abilities that we know the characters have based on the DM's interpretation of what a normal person (or, depending on campaign tone, a cinematic or mythological character) could accomplish. It simply did not occur to me that anyone might interpret page 42 and "say yes" as giving the PCs magical abilities in excess of the descriptions of the rituals and magical powers/items.

I apparently place a much higher value on the distinction between magical and mundane abilities than many posters in this thread, so I can see where my own biases likely affected my reading of page 42.