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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8421371" data-attributes="member: 7032025">And yet the rage for 5e was much less than the one for 4e...And maybe, just maybe, it was also inherently not a change that people welcomed, in itself, in addition to being a change. It was certainly my case. I wanted a change from 3e, but that change was not the right one for me. And it's not a question of radical or not, it's a question of whether the change takes the game in a direction which corresponds to the game I want to play or not.First, spells flavors for class stays in, especially between domains. Second class and especially archetype powers are not shared.Just as a Bladesinger does feel completely different from a fighter.Except for the fact that everyone gort spirit magic and very often the same one, whereas it took a bloody long time to get divine magic, which, I agree, felt very specific. Fortunately, there were more differences than this, but I distinctly remember RQ 2 with very very differences in magic between one character and the other. The roleplaying was extremely varied though, and I'm still very much in love with RQ, but it was not because of variety of spirit magic...I'm not making it negative, you are. I'm saying it's very controlled with all its positive and negative sides. Just as some people want a very much controlled society and others a very free one. They all have advantages and drawbacks, and after that it's a question of personal preferences.And yes, it was a breath of fresh air at start for us, I've already said this, until we realised that it prevented us from narrating the game the way we wanted to, in which case we felt restrained and uncomfortable.|Dying: When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconscious and are dying." and "When you are dying, you need to make a saving throw at the end of your turneach round. The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death." All of this seems pretty non-ambiguous to me. These are not abstract hit points.While I agree that in some cases there might be that kind of explanation, having that kind of power more or less at will means that it will become the standard explanation and that people will just accept it as a technical fact and gloss over it without any narrative support. This is what causes combat and its consequences to be fictionless.As for me, I'd rather a system that makes a bit more narrative sense in particular because the fiction corresponds to that of the genre (once more see healers in Fantasy, for example the Wheel of Time).I don't care about absolute balance, see ? I think once more it's artificial for the game to maintain it that forcefully in its mechanisms and it makes the game poorer, not richer. As a DM I have many other means at my disposal, in particular story means to make it sure that every player gets their spot in the sunlight.Of course, if you get stupid builts a la 3e and entitled ruleslawyers insisting on technical advantages that you need to shut down it's a pain, and that's why 4e was a good thing, but they went way too far in their correction, and thankfully 5 restored some equilibrium. Balance is not perfect, but it's not really bad either, and it does not feel constrained.I have absolutely zero problem playing a demigoddess paladin in 5e, she is an awesome character, and it's not because of the epic path of Odyssey of the Dragonlords, I have not even really touched it yet. But the paragon and epic paths of 4e, while a great idea, always looked technical and uninteresting to me. Examples:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Burning Blood (16th level): When you use your second wind, enemies within 10 squares of you take psychic damage equal to your Constitution modifier." Why, for christ sake, does the fact that you have burning blood cause psychic damage when you recover your breath ?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Invisible Infiltrator (16th level): When you drop a target that is your level or higher to 0 hit points or fewer, or when you score a critical hit against a target that is your level or higher, you become invisible until the end of your next turn." I don't even know where to begin... Why does doing these things even turn you invisible ? Especially when you can't use magic...</li> </ul>As for the epic destinies they are even worse:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Spell Recall (21st level): At the beginning of each  day, choose one daily spell that you know (and have prepared today, if you prepare spells). You can use that spell two times that day, rather than only once." OMG, you can use a spell twice, this really feels epic ! </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Trickster’s Control (24th level): If you roll an 18 or higher on the d20 when making the first attack roll for an encounter or daily attack power, that power is not expended." Same here, you can use a power again. How epic a feel !</li> </ul>I don't doubt that technically these can be fun, but after looking at Permeton's account of a battle, it is extremely technical, probably took hours to run and is only epic because he broke the rules of the game (like jumping on the back of a dragon and wrestling it to the ground, that I did not see at all in the account).All these technicalities make the combat even more fictionless, as they become the focus of the game during combat resolution.And for me, all these technicalities don't make the game epic. I feel absolutely epic playing my level 1 demigoddess half-siren paladin because of the setting, the story and the way the DM narrates things.And neither is he using a level 13 exploit. Or using a technical power like the above.However, in our Odyssey of the Dragonlord game, any oath is really binding, and the story makes it feel that way. Not "Spell Recall". The problem is that what you are mentioning above as a difficulty for 5e is 10 times reinforced by the 4e system but you seem strangely blind to it.Oh sure, looking at the 29th fighter power "No Mercy" which just does a shitload of damage but which is otherwise exactly the same as Brute Strike at Level 1. EXACTLY ! Can you please tell me where the originality is here ? Again, lvl 30 in 4e feels almost exactly like lvl 1 with greater numbers. You do more damage (yay! very epic) to more targets, you move more adversaries further (yay ! Epic !), but it's almost exactly the same principles. The only complexity in 4e is about technically connecting abstract powers to each other so that the push of one triggers the other just as fictionless power of yourself or another character, and dealing with powers that become more and more abstract and unexplainable, like the green dragon who can glare at you if you slide but not if you move. Why ?In summary, the ultimate fictionless combat.</blockquote>

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