D&D 5E Essentials: More like 3.9e than 4.5e (link inside)

[WalterKovacs]

Yeah, I gotta agree that the 4e fighter is not the simplest of classes. I'd say that would either be the 4e ranger or the 4e warlock. And, really, I'd give the nod more to the warlock. Very straight forward powers, not a whole lot of reactive powers, and most of the effects are pretty much straight damage, depending on the build.

I'm still not really convinced we need a "training wheels" class. If you start small enough, and then grow complexity over the course of the campaign, any class can be a "training wheel" class.

If anything, I'd say that generally strikers are the "simple" role.

Leaders need to pay attention to their party, tracking hit points and finding the best use of bonuses. They also have immediate actions to enhance their allies so they have to pay attention during other people's turns.

Defenders need to pay attention to their party and the enemies, seeing who needs protection, and using immediate actions to keep their enemies attention and hamper their movement.

Controllers need to pay attention to their own party (in terms of targetting for bursts and blasts) as well as their enemies. Their job is to be an anti-leader to the enemy, applying status effects to hinder the opponent's and help their allies.

Meanwhile, strikers, for the most part, have to keep themselves alive, and kill off their prey, making for the most focused of the classes. There are some exceptions (specifically the sorceror who is an blasting/bursting striker) but most go after a single target and take them apart piece by piece.

 

[cdrcjsn]

On the other hand, optimized characters in 4e look to take a lot of work. What little I have played 4e it feels like when I was playing WOW - I needed to frequent the equivalent of Elitist Jerks to get the build/rotation right.

This is true.

But what a lot of players tend to gloss over is that the difference between an optimal build and an average build is not that great compared to previous system.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The 4e powers system is pretty Vancian. There's differences, but the system is, literally, "You can do this once per (time span)."

4e combat is also not very abstract. More so than most wargames, maybe, but it's pretty particular, still.

The problem here is that you're working on the theory that powers are an explicit thing that exists in the game world itself. This is just not true. Powers are a mechanical device that the PLAYER has available to him in order to mediate his ability to take narrative control of the game.

In the context of the fighter he's just swinging away all the time attempting to do the maximum possible damage and best disabling tricks he's capable of every single round. The PLAYER has the option of stepping a certain number of times per encounter/day to alter the narrative of the story and say "this time when I hit the ogre its a crushing blow and does 3x normal damage". You can obviously fluff this in game that the character took an especially powerful swing, but that doesn't mean it was more powerful than the last 3 swings he made, it just means that in this particular case it connected especially well and that's a function of the player's narrative control.

You can look at wizard spells similarly in a lot of cases.

It simply isn't NECESSARY to have an in-game explanation of daily powers. They're a PLAYER resource.

Beyond that the concept of situationally better at-will powers is a recipe for problems down the road. It leads to the 3e kind of "I always trip/grapple/sunder everything" because any such conditionals WILL be exploitable. The right item or feat or whatever combination is required will lead to some condition being easily applied by the character ALL THE TIME. So what you end up with isn't a character that can pull off some extra tricks situationally, you end up with a trick monkey that repeats the same 1 (or 2 or 3) tricks every single round. It creates a really large hassle for the game designers too, because they have to insure that every time they add some new element to the game that could be combined with these at-wills in various permutations they have to insure that none of them can lead to this kind of abuse. It rapidly becomes impossible. If instead the super cool thing is a daily then its naturally limited. Even if its awesome and even if some feat makes it more awesome it still only gets to be used once a day, it doesn't create a one-trick pony. At worst it may need to be nerfed if it is really seriously overpowered.

You can see this in the game now. The worst abuses exist when players learn to trick out an at-will or a basic attack somehow (or figure out a way to make a less often useful power into effectively an at-will).

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's a lot of ways you could look at dailies. I'm going to slice it by power source, and by hmmm....

Well, powers in an RPG can represent several things. They can simulate or model something happening in the game in as realistic a manner as possible. They can convey drama as in a movie or book. And, they can help paint a picture of the character.


Arcane Dailies:

Simulate: Classic 'Vancian' magic that must be 'prepared' or memorized ahead of time, then released. Spells so dangerous or draining they should only be attempted in extremis. Spells powered by pacts with beings or other arbitrary forces that require special circumstances to cast or re-gain access to.

Drama: The deus-ex-machina that saves the day. The 'mcguffin' that enables a plot point or storyline that would otherwise stall out.

Character: Establishes the might, scope, danger and mystery of the arcane power source.


Divine Dailies:

Simulate: Divine miracles that the faithful hope for more than demand or control. Divine intervention that carries a heavy price or requires the most extreme need or selfless conviction to invoke.

Drama: The deus-ex-machina that saves the day. The meting out of divine justice. Faith rewarded. The triumph of hope over adversity.

Character: Establishes the existance and power of the gods, and the character's link to them.



Martial Dailies:

Simulate: Feats of the most extreme skill/luck/determination. Combat tricks that can succeed in only certain circumstance or with just the right set-up. Tactical manuevering, preparation, and double-think that is 'revealed' at the moment the power is 'used.'

Drama: The 'finishing move.' The tactical master stroke that wins the battle. The hoary 'sudden reversal of fortune.' The calvary coming of the hill in the nick of time.

Character: Establishes the character's preternatural skill/luck/talent/strength/brilliance/etc.

 

[weiknarf]

I share your enthusiasm here, but with two caveats...

2.) Similarly, Future stuff will have to serve two masters; compatible with the new classes, and the old. Will a power that works fine for the mage's enchantment school bonus break when combined with the wizard's orb of imposition, for example? Will we get redone monsters (new "red dragon") for example and if so, which version will be used in the next upcoming module to feature a big-red? Will the compendium even keep the old RD or replace it with the new essential RD?

I'm listening to the podcast right now and Mearls and Crawford stated that a warpriest for example can retrain a domain power to take a regular cleric power if desired. So they intend for stuff to be compatible.

 

[mach1.9pants]

What podcast please?

 

[weiknarf]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (D&D Podcast: Essentials)

 

[cdrcjsn]

I'm listening to the podcast right now and Mearls and Crawford stated that a warpriest for example can retrain a domain power to take a regular cleric power if desired. So they intend for stuff to be compatible.

The more I hear about essentials, the more I'm convinced that it's just a combination of new powers, a new class build, the addition of a theme, and just reformatted into a new table to make it easy to read.

 

[Zaran]

The more I hear about essentials, the more I'm convinced that it's just a combination of new powers, a new class build, the addition of a theme, and just reformatted into a new table to make it easy to read.

It's not. If you have an Essentials Fighter and want to get say "Rain of Steel" you pretty much have to redesign your character.

 

[MrMyth]

It's not. If you have an Essentials Fighter and want to get say "Rain of Steel" you pretty much have to redesign your character.

Or you trade out your level 5 Class Feature for a standard level 5 Daily.

At least, that's how I'm expecting it will work, and seems to mesh with what they've said so far. I could be wrong, but I guess we'll (hopefully) know a bit more tomorrow.

Or are you operating out of some actual knowledge of the books, rather than randomly guessing?