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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6258196" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'd call what you're talking about just basic tactics, its hardly colorable as 'planning' at all, though it often does involve a bit of basic "I'll do X this round so I can do Y next round". The planning I'm talking about is a whole other thing. Lets imagine you are playing 1e and your party has decided to go beard the dragon in his lair. Would you just march in, expecting to duke it out and prevail? You'd be rudely toasted in round one if you did that. No, instead the party will go look for some sort of fire protection magic (potions or whatnot, maybe even brewing some if the DM doesn't make it TOO onerous). They'll probably scout out the area, looking for the best ground to fight on, research spells that would be handy to use in the upcoming fight, etc. They might even hire some mercenaries or possibly dream up any of a dozen other tactics designed to get them in striking distance of said dragon without taking the horrific and usually fatal levels of damage dragon breath would usually dish out. A 4e party wouldn't bother. They MIGHT, if they thought the challenge level was extreme, pick up some consumables, change the wizard's spell load-out a bit, etc, but the game is oriented towards simply being able to march into a situation and meet the challenge without elaborate pre-planning. Furthermore you won't really gain a huge advantage by planning ahead. Protective magic is temporary and marginal, surprise has modest  advantages, terrain likewise, and no one attack or spell is overwhelmingly effective. This was a mistake in the design of 4e. It swings too far in this direction. I'm pretty sure the 5e designers, the guys who wrote 13a, etc all pretty much agree on that. Frankly I think throwing out the way 4e was designed is a poor short-sighted overreaction, but I don't think they were wrong to believe that 4e went too far in some sense.As for rituals, I have two observations. 1st they are far more effective, useful and worthwhile than most players give them credit for. This is more a presentation issue than a problem with the implementation (though there is always room for improvement in some aspects). I think in a game which engages the players in strategic thinking to a higher degree this will also be less of an issue. Of course there's always the real question, how far outside of the box of 4e design can you go and still call a game "4.5E". How much does it have to hew to the original design? This is my real difficulty with all the work in this area that people have done. It seems like games either sacrificed the good elements of 4e (13a certainly did), or they're minor tweaks that don't really go far enough. For my tastes nobody has both revised the game sufficiently in the ways that it really needs, nor managed to keep what was essential about it if they did rework it. Of course everyone has their own tastes, mine might not be very widely shared.</blockquote>

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