How important is "realism"?

[Gorgon Zee]

The problem with 4E healing for me as a player was that it used your healing surges... So the cleric casts CLW at me, and I lose a healing surge. If the character is invoking the divine, it being limited by my level makes no sense to me.

Well, as a real-world Christian, pretty traditional theology asserts that God’s ability to help you is limited by you yourself. For evangelicals, God will not “save you” unless you allow it, and there are numerous biblical and theological positions that say that God rewards people according to their faith. I’m not solidly in line with that way if thinking, but it is a very common doctrine that as you grow in faith, God helps you more.

So, for me, the concept that as you grow in level, the divine grants you more power/healing is the more realistic option.

My knowledge of other real-world religions is not deep, but my impression is that this is a pretty common position.

 

[Argyle King]

What level are some characters (who chose for that) flying under their own power aka via spells? It happens in 4e around mid paragon like 16 which is when flying mounts are du jour. This would be analogous to level 13 in 5e. A Fly spell is around at 5th level in 5e?

...

Flight wasn't much of an issue.

Back when I was consistently playing 4E with the home group, the main "problem" was that antagonists rarely got a turn (or even much of an action) during combat.

Later monster math started to help with that, but 4E was on life support by then.

I liked the concept of skill challenges, but felt that they functioned best if I ignored the official WoTC advice on how they should work.

On the player side of things, the combat strength of PCs seemed to make even engaging in a skill challenge undesirable sometimes.

Risk getting X before Y failures OR stunlock the room and murder everything?

A lot of the people I gamed with at the time would choose the latter as much as possible.

Later, when I would DM 4E, I handled skill challenges differently and reworked how Solos and Elites were built. That helped, but eventually 4E became Essentials (which I didn't particularly care for) and then 4E was dead.

 

[payn]

The problem with 4E healing for me as a player was that it used your healing surges... So the cleric casts CLW at me, and I lose a healing surge. If the character is invoking the divine, it being limited by my level makes no sense to me.

This was an attempt to provide a resource to manage on healing to pace the adventure day. In past, divine magic worked as long as you could muster it. So, I can understand how that might seem strange.

 

[jdrakeh]

In D&D? Not at all. For instance, some of the most popular D&D settings have historically been "high unreality" settings (Eberron, Mystara, Planescape, Spelljammer), to borrow a term from somebody else. Now, if I'm playing in a setting like Harn, I expect much more "reality" or, at least, verisimilitude.

 

[loverdrive]

I'm all for realism when:

• There is someone at the table who actually knows how it is in real life, and not just "it's common knowledge!"
• The system we use doesn't oppose it and there's no need for a mechanical change
• It still lies within genre conventions

If any one of these doesn't apply, hard pass.

 

[aramis erak]

This was an attempt to provide a resource to manage on healing to pace the adventure day. In past, divine magic worked as long as you could muster it. So, I can understand how that might seem strange.

Not strange, per se, but very "Un-D&D"...

I mean, I played GW's Inquisitor with friends in RP mode... I like tactical games...
D&D 4 didn't feel at all like D&D to me. It wasn't a bad game, but my expectations for D&D were largely unmet,

 

[Garthanos]

On the player side of things, the combat strength of PCs seemed to make even engaging in a skill challenge undesirable sometimes.

You sound like you had uber optimizers... later monster math actually made monsters less hearty but do more damage. They started introducing a few more ways built in for solos to prevent ahem so much locking. But level 12 I don't recall having but a few lock gambits (harder control just wasn't so available earlier). I guess you did say "started to show up" and I didnt have extreme optimizers.

but

In contrast I know DMs who killed more PCs in 4e than any edition previously because they felt they could pull out the stops and feel it was fair to do so not a product of random chance.

 

[Garthanos]

This was an attempt to provide a resource to manage on healing to pace the adventure day. In past, divine magic worked as long as you could muster it. So, I can understand how that might seem strange.

Or just raw cheap as hell potions ... though that is mostly a 3.x ism.

 

[Garthanos]

Not strange, per se, but very "Un-D&D"...

I mean, I played GW's Inquisitor with friends in RP mode... I like tactical games...
D&D 4 didn't feel at all like D&D to me. It wasn't a bad game, but my expectations for D&D were largely unmet,

4e felt very much like D&D to me and more like D&D which was following through on promises. It finally allowed me to play an effective Defender as inspired in part by Gygax writing in AD&D about the role of the fighter and a Warlord archetype promised in part by the 2e descriptions of character types one could be which very much evoke Warlord (the Clever/Tactical/Strategic Alexander the Great and Bellesaurus) but also advancing to the point where one was feeling more like Heracles and Perseus and Cu Cuhlaine mentioned alongside those. Very much promises kept. I was surprised it felt balanced instead of being a one wizard show at higher levels, so that it felt more like teamwork was the key, as it was always supposed to be (and the best optimization was now at a whole party level). I was pleased to have the tactical/strategic choices in the players hands (who weren't always the casters) instead of locked up in figuring out what a DM considered a good plan. I was pleased the game now tied gaining experience to challenging situations whether they involved combat or not. I was pleased that D&D could better model action adventure now and had finally caught up to how we used to try and play it with less drudging through nonsense tunnels but rather bigger feature combats at a pace that matched story.

 

[Umbran]

Ultimately, I've played D&D since the days where the DMG hadn't come out yet. I've never found such a boring, flavourless version than 4E.

Mod note:
Folks,

This thread is not titled "General Criticism and Game Bashing". Keep to the topic, and keep it constructive, please.