EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
No. There's plenty of superficially 4e-like things in 5e.There is plenty of 4e in 5e, (and even more in 2024) and plenty of 1e, 2e, and 3e that are not in it. And goodness for that!
That's the key difference here. The substantive similarities are almost entirely to 3e. Nearly everything--not truly everything, but nearly everything--"taken" from 4e only looks like 4e if you're someone who never/minimally played it and, in most cases, generally disliked it.
Hit dice are literally opposite of healing surges in every way other than "they do healing."
Cantrips are actively opposed to the actual benefit of at-wills, which was that EVERYONE got solid, reliable, useful attacks they could use any time.
Subclasses are a direct and active rejection of 4e's design ethos.
Races/species actively rejected the "what defines you is what your physiology DOES, not your stat bonuses" concept, only to then drop the stat bonuses too, making species nearly entirely fluff.
Proficiency only "resembles" 4e in that it's similar to 4e math cut in half. In actual function, it often works exactly the opposite, specifically because the half-level bonus was universal and training happened ON TOP OF that. Hence why we had years of people grumbling about how crappy saving throws were. (And remember, prior to what I have called the "Ghoul Surprise", you didn't even get proficiency with saves!)
You have to sacrifice core competency growth (stat bonuses) in order to get feats, directly punishing anyone who chooses cool/flavorful options over powerful but boring ones.
The only things actually taken from 4e, as in, really using the same mechanical concepts within a new system, are its spin on feats (they're much more similar to 4e feats than 3e ones, despite the "choose competency OR cool features" issue), the skill system (which people then run as if it was 3e anyway...), and Backgrounds (which 5.5e then went out of its way to neuter all the things that actually made them similar to the combo of 4e BGs and Themes.)
Last edited: