D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Marandahir]

I think that we're veering a bit off-topic here, and I apologize for my part in it (though I believe I ventured there so as to illustrate what I like and dislike about the power matrix of 4e).

The OP's question wasn't so much "is 5e or 4e better" nor was it "is 4e different from every other edition." The OP asked "Are powers samey." I certainly think that Essentials tried to make even basic actions live shoves framed like a power, so that you knew it was something in your toolbox of maneuvers.

I think perhaps where 4e made a misstep was Power Cards (which 5e has too! For spells and martial adept maneuvers and the like). These are GREAT and useful tools, in both editions. But they make the game feel more like a card game, where I have just these actions in my hand that I can play. At-Will actions I don't discard when I use, but Encounters I discard for the battle, and Dailies I discard for a whole in-game day!

We forget what else we can do. In that sense, the powers are same-y because they're all framed like cards.
In 5e, we still have power cards you can buy or print out your abilities on, but the edition assumes that you have a whole bunch of other actions, not just those on the cards. 4e PHB assumed that too, but it didn't highlight those other actions and choices, and then in Essentials actively hid them from the limelight when they made power-blocks for certain actions but not others over in the later chapters of the PHB.

I wonder what 4e play would look like if it was written like the 5e PHB, and whether this question of samey-ness would even have been asked.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think that we're veering a bit off-topic here, and I apologize for my part in it (though I believe I ventured there so as to illustrate what I like and dislike about the power matrix of 4e).

The OP's question wasn't so much "is 5e or 4e better" nor was it "is 4e different from every other edition." The OP asked "Are powers samey." I certainly think that Essentials tried to make even basic actions live shoves framed like a power, so that you knew it was something in your toolbox of maneuvers.

I think perhaps where 4e made a misstep was Power Cards (which 5e has too! For spells and martial adept maneuvers and the like). These are GREAT and useful tools, in both editions. But they make the game feel more like a card game, where I have just these actions in my hand that I can play. At-Will actions I don't discard when I use, but Encounters I discard for the battle, and Dailies I discard for a whole in-game day!

We forget what else we can do. In that sense, the powers are same-y because they're all framed like cards.
In 5e, we still have power cards you can buy or print out your abilities on, but the edition assumes that you have a whole bunch of other actions, not just those on the cards. 4e PHB assumed that too, but it didn't highlight those other actions and choices, and then in Essentials actively hid them from the limelight when they made power-blocks for certain actions but not others over in the later chapters of the PHB.

I wonder what 4e play would look like if it was written like the 5e PHB, and whether this question of samey-ness would even have been asked.

We have been down this path about 30 pages ago. The answer is that it's not just about presentation. Now the other side will tell me that can't be the case but how can they know what it is or isn't about for me.

 

[pemerton]

I think I would blame this on cadence. I never got into 4ed, but at least with the first player handbook, everyone had the same resource economy. One daily power, 4 encounter powers and 2 at will, so well your doing different things you're doing them in the same order and at the same pace. This would have a double effect because 3ed was really big on using different resource economies to split up classes. Like the warlock is just a wizard with the cadence of a fighter, and my favorite class from 3rd is just cleric but they get spells like a wizard.

This is something that has been discussed quite a bit upthread.

(1) Why would things be done in the same order and at the same pace? Eg if the fighter's encounter power is Passing Attack, that's not useful to use until there are two non-minion foes nearby. If the fighter's daily power is Comeback Strike, that's useful when the fighter has been hurt. Whereas if the wizard's encounter power is Icy Terrain, that's useful when there's a clustered group of enemies and/or when it would be helfpul to slow movement through an area by creating ice there.

(2) I'm continually puzzled by this suggestion that, in a RPG, the most interesting or striking feature of a PC is the rate of recovery of resources. To me that seems secondary to the fiction.

 

[Aldarc]

See, you obviously don't want to understand the other side. You place no value on their opinion and the reasoning behind it. And anyone who dares to speak up for that side you label them as "having an agenda". The only clear agenda at the moment is yours - where you dismiss any opinion that is negative of 4e.

I'm gonna stop you right there. When you are ready to talk in good faith without shoving a thousand negative assumptions down my throat, then maybe the conversation between the two of us can get somewhere fruitful about 4e. I do think that your question was framed unfairly and in a loaded manner. So it may be worth a bit of your time to reflect on why that was the case.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm gonna stop you right there. When you are ready to talk in good faith without shoving a thousand negative assumptions down my throat, then maybe the conversation between the two of us can get somewhere fruitful about 4e. I do think that your question was framed unfairly and in a loaded manner. So it may be worth a bit of your time to reflect on why that was the case.

The only time you get bad faith from me is after you've already given it to me. Did you give me bad faith first?

 

[Maxperson]

Or we can go with the other angle of how the math of 5e is basically the same as 4e divide by two and how huge numbers of the details which people claim made 4e so much different are glaringly in 5e? Which angle do we take? which is convenient for the hostility against 4e?

I have said to you and others numerous times now, degree matters. It's the difference between putting your hand in warm water, and a trip to the hospital for burns caused by scalding water. Saying, "but, but! 5e has it too, but less!" over and over doesn't change that.

 

[Aldarc]

Serious response here. I really haven't seen anyone in this thread say it wasn't D&D or didn't feel like D&D. There was no crucifix here in this thread from, and when there isn't such a crucifix in a thread and you act like there is, you are bringing down the thread and attacking others for no good reason.

I'm speaking more about the general zeitgeist of discussion in our hobby surrounding 4e more than anything else.

The only time you get bad faith from me is after you've already given it to me. Did you give me bad faith first?

I guess that I'm not accustomed to people asking loaded questions in good faith. Perhaps it would help if you went back to my post in question and started from there again and not by asking the same questions that you did or in the manner that you did.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do people normally ask loaded questions in good faith? Perhaps it would help if you went back to my post in question and started from there again and not by asking the same questions that you did or in the manner that you did.

It wasn't a loaded question - which is where your bad faith started.

 

[Aldarc]

It wasn't a loaded question - which is where your bad faith started.

I'm not buying you trying to shift the bad faith to me here.

Can you agree that 4e is much different than any other edition of D&D ever created?

By reasonable standards, that's definitely a loaded question, as it contains the implicit assumption that "4e is much different than any other edition of D&D ever created."

 

[Maxperson]

I'm speaking more about the general zeitgeist of discussion in our hobby surrounding 4e more than anything else.

Yes, you haven't been acting that way about 4e here, but responses in an open discussion are also aimed at all of those here. There have been a few people in this thread who have been treating people having a pleasant discussion about why they felt powers are samey, as if they were crucifying 4e...........upside down! That hasn't been the case here in this thread(though I have seen it in others).

It would be nice if they could leave their hate and anger and return to the light side of the force. The hate and anger doesn't really make them stronger. It does bring down what could have been an enjoyable, civil discussion, though.