D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

[Hussar]

There is a point to be remembered as well. 4e was an iteration of 3e. There was a considerable amount of DNA in the 4e design that was from 3e. Yeah, yeah, different games and all that, but, it was there. To the point where someone coming from latter era 3.5 looking at a 4e character sheet probably wouldn't have too many difficulties deciphering most of the character sheet.

Going from 2e to 5e? There's 6 basic stats? That would be about the only similarity and what those stats mean in the game are totally different between 2e and 5e.

4e and 5e are both quite obviously based on the d20 mechanics of 3e. That's undeniable. So, sure, lots of stuff is going to look pretty similar because they're all drawing from the same well.

But, to me, yeah, I look at 5e and see a trimmed down 4e. I most certainly don't see a 2e at all.

 

[Aldarc]

When one of the lead designers explicitly says that a core design assumption--that you'd be getting two to three short rests per day, which is what makes classes like Warlock and subclasses like Champion work in 5e--fails to be true specifically because players take too few short rests per long rest, I don't think it's that weird to say that the length of the short rests vs. long rests might be part of the problem.

And yes, I've crunched the numbers. Champions can keep up with BMs if they get enough rounds of attacking each day. You only see the numbers converge at about 7-8 encounters per day, with 6 the gap is debatable, anything less it's obvious (when looking at aggregate numbers for the day, of course). Warlock is in a more-or-less similar boat; I haven't crunched the numbers as thoroughly as I have with Champ vs BM, but my looser estimates corroborate the "6 (mostly-combat) encounters is good enough, 8 is pretty clearly balanced."

Most groups have fewer than 5 combats per day, and most groups have 1-2 short rests per day. This is negatively affecting the play-experience of 5e, enough that one of the designers explicitly spoke about the problem of short rest vs. long rest frequency. The amount of time taken by short resting three times per day is a full third of the time you'd spend on taking a long rest. It definitely doesn't help matters.

I get that some people like having short-rests come with some kind of "cost." The problem is that they already had the uphill battle of convincing casters and other non-short-rest-based characters to take them. That extra "cost" in time-investment has made the 5MWD problem worse, not better, which isn't a mark in 5e's favor.

I still would consider a design like the Cypher System for recovery/short rests. Have short rests start off short, but then get longer with each new short rest. I believe it's something like 1 minute > 10 minutes > 1 hour > 2 hours > now you need full rest.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Different levels of ability doing a thing based on investment of resources. Same, same.

To say the ridiculously open-ended list of NWPs is

Uh...except they just standardized the BAB. Everyone has the same basic attack bonus, 1/2 level.

As opposed to

Right. In 4E everyone got to use their relevant stat as a mod to attack and damage for their assumed attacks. They don't in 5E.

In many cases they do. You do not e.g. get to use Int on basic attacks as a swordmage without a feat. And there are more than a few powers. Meanwhile you get to use your spellcasting stat for spell attacks in 5e. Sorry, but this doesn't hold.

Interesting selective quotation. Note the first word in your quoted sentence. "Alternately"...as in optionally. As in that's not the default assumption. The bit you didn't quote is where is says you roll your hit dice every time you gain a level. And alternately, optionally, you can take the average. It's core in the same way that flanking, feats, and multiclassing are. They're presented in the core books, but they're optional rules.

OK. Now this is just flat out wrong. "Alternatively" in the PHB means that the player has the choice. Nowhere is it called out as an optional rule - it's simply a choice the player gets to make in the same way they can pick different races. Meanwhile Feats say "Using this optional rule" on p165 of the PHB and Flanking is under "Optional Rule: Flanking" on p251 of the DMG. Feats and flanking are both explicitly presented as optional rules and explicitly use the words "Optional Rule". Using flat hit points is presented as a player chosen alternative, not as an optional rule.

LOL. Pot meet kettle.

Ah, irony.

1st-level party. Assuming 18 +4 in relevant stats.

OK. So you are ignoring the standard array and normal stat spread in 5e; 16 would be normal. And mysteriously you're using a different example to mine where I presented some typical CR2 monsters and instead cherry-picking 1st level. Rather of course than doing it by the official formula in DMG p274 which claims that 71-85hp would be normal for a CR1 monster. (No, it makes no sense to me either but that's what the DMG says).

So a 1st-level party of four vs one CR1 creature (the assumed default of 5E), the fight ends once the group lands four average hits. If you use two CR1/2 creatures instead...the fight ends once the group lands...four average hits. If you use four CR1/4 creatures instead...the fight ends...wait for it...once the group lands...four average hits. Spooky. It's almost like there's math involved.

Indeed. And if you're going to cherry pick level 1 when characters are front loaded you get answers that are outliers.

Now let's take level 4 adventurers and assume feats are an optional rule and not in use. What's changed about their damage from your example? The cantrips are still doing exactly the same amount of damage. The fighter is doing a single point more damage - but that only brings them up to the mark you set as using the standard array they have only now hit Str 18. And the rogue is only doing 1d6 more points of damage (and has a Dex of 18).

So with almost unchanged damage output assuming they aren't blowing much in the way of limited use resources (because this is not intended to be a hard fight) the damage that could work on a CR1 creature doesn't go that far against a CR4 one. (I'm also not counting the martial classes getting multiple attacks at level 5 and above as multiple attacks as it's one action).

Spooky. It's almost as if there are extreme damage spikes at various levels rather than a smooth progression and you cherry picked an example that is an outlier. Level 4 is of course also an outlier as it's the level before level 5 which comes with a massive damage spike.

As for there being math involved, it's a pity the DMG monster creation rules appear to have been created by an entirely different group to those that created the MM (the MM did a better job).

And note none of this involves expending resources. This is all at-wills/cantrips and basically infinite use weapon attacks.

Agreed. That said short rest resources are much easier to recover in 4e

Now let's compare the above to the same from 4E.

1st-level party. Assuming 18 +4 in relevant stats.

Which is normal thanks to the point buy allowed going up to 18 rather than 15. I've seen a lot of 20s in 4e and no 18s in 5e at first level.

Fighter: heavy flail or maul for 2d6+4, averages 11 hp per. Cleric: lance of faith for 1d8+4, averages 8.5 per. Wizard: magic missile for 2d4+4, averages 9. Rogue: sneak attack on any 1d6 weapon for 3d6+4, averages 14.5. Adding that up...11+8.5+9+14.5=43. And that ignores all the riders along with the rogue using a more damaging weapon. So in four average hits the classic D&D party deals 43 damage. The actual range is 24-62 damage from four hits.

So you've no relevant feats there. Your magic missile is massively pre-errata and I've literally never seen a wizard take that. That said it does more damage than some of the things they do take - but most of those are multi-target. Oh, and you're using basic attacks for the fighter and rogue? Rather than e.g. Sly Flourish for the Rogue and Cleave or Reaping Strike for the fighter?

For comparison I'd expect an actual play PHB-only 4e rogue to take the Backstabber feat at first level, and be a charismatic rather than brawny rogue (the lower damage archetype) but have Cha 14 and Sly Flourish for an at will damage of 1d6+2d8+4+2 = 18.5 average. This isn't razor-optimisation, merely what I'd expect from a random walk-in player based on experience. But low level rogues are at the high end of the 4e damage curve even for strikers so it's a bit of a special case; it's not only 5e that front-loads.

I don't need to list various creatures from 4E because the devs were nice enough to give us the math.
The average is 8+Con+(levelx8). So assuming a 16 Con, a 1st-level standard monster averages 32 hp. (Weird. That's almost exactly what a CR1 5E monster has. Hmm.) So the average party of four can down one standard monster in 3-4 hits. But...in 4E the encounter design was balanced around 1 standard monster per 1 PC. So our four heroes would face off against four standard monsters (or their equivalents, i.e. 1 elite for 2 standard, 1 solo for 4 standard, 4 minions for 1 standard, and/or traps, skill challenges, etc). So if it will take four average hits to down one standard monster and the party is facing four standard monsters...it will take about 16 hits to end the fight. Roughly four times as long as a 5E fight. Give or take

OK. Using your own math. If it's 32 hit points per monster and 4 hits do 43 then on average you'll take a monster down in 3 hits if you're using the same death margins you were in 5e for your 1st level characters.

And note none of that involves even using encounter powers, the assumed resources you're meant to spend. On average they simply do double damage vs at-wills...2[W] instead of 1[W] or 2d10 instead of 1d10. So using encounter powers would halve the number of hits. So the four encounter hits would be 2 each, and the at-wills would be 1 each. So you're talking about 12 average hits including encounter powers.

There's a lot more to it than that - including that the wizard should be using AoE at wills like Scorching Burst or Freezing Burst (or even two target at will attacks like Arc Lightning), the amount of damage added by feats, and more (including that [2W] is not twice [1W] but good encounter powers do do twice baseline damage). And given that we start with three hits not four so 12 average hits to start with we're down to 8. Which is still longer than 5e - but nothing like four times as long.

 

[Hussar]

I've long been a proponent that the primary difference between 4e and 5e is verbiage. So much of it is simply how things are presented, rather than substantive differences. Skills from 4e to 5e are effectively the same - the treadmill is replaced by bounded accuracy but, at the end of the day, the proficient character attempting level appropriate actions (which, yes, does vary by level in 5e - you rarely see DC's in the 20's at 1st level, but, look at 15th level adventures and suddenly they're all over the place) you wind up with (roughly) a 66% chance of success. This can be varied by things like feats and whatnot. But, by and large, that's what's going to happen and non-proficient characters are still able to do most actions, barring extremely difficult ones, routinely, just like in 4e.

This is VERY different from 2e skills where you either were proficient (in which case you could do something) or you weren't (in which case, most of the time, you can't even try to do it). It's also quite different from 3e where, because of the leveling nature of skills, untrained might as well be a "no you can't even try" after a few levels.

The class structure might be a bit looser than 4e, but, not that much. Instead of a single chasis (which got altered in later supplements), you basically have 3 - non-caster, half caster and caster. Still completely different from 2e where there was no standardization at all between classes. Some classes got bennies at different levels, and some got none at all.

It always baffles me that people look at 4e and 5e and don't see the similarities.

But, then, I always base it on the character sheet test. Put two editions character sheets side by side and see how many commonalities there are. Could someone who played 2e pick up a 3e character sheet and even begin to read it? Without knowing the 3e system, I wouldn't even suspect they were for the same game. Never minding a 5e character sheet which might as well be in Greek for all a 2e player would understand it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I've long been a proponent that the primary difference between 4e and 5e is verbiage. So much of it is simply how things are presented, rather than substantive differences.

I wouldn't go remotely that far - 5e is a much more rules light game (which in many ways 4e needed) and one that almost completely cut the tactical elements from 4e.

The class structure might be a bit looser than 4e, but, not that much. Instead of a single chasis (which got altered in later supplements), you basically have 3 - non-caster, half caster and caster. Still completely different from 2e where there was no standardization at all between classes. Some classes got bennies at different levels, and some got none at all.

I'd also say that the warlock is very much its own chassis - and the artificer comes close to being a half-caster warlock.

 

[Garthanos]

I think that's where the idea of 4E/2=5E comes from. Because that's almost literally the math. In 4E it's +1/2 level; in 5E it's 1 + 1/4 level. In combat, most 5E character are doing about 1/2 the damage they were in 4E, but monster hp (or rather encounter hp) is about 1/4 what it was in 4E.

That may be the base but I see more to it. A few more broad examples that people might see more easily. Your 5e fight assuming 3 rounds is really just half a fight in 4e (*yes that is sort of what you mention with encounter hp too) and the 1 hour break opportunity "short rest" happens about half as many times a day ok very approx. The heroic to epic range has one fewer tiers of progression that is a real difference 4e has no analog to 5es lowest tier (15 latter levels of 5e can however thus be seen as analogous to the 30 levels of 4e, note also player character hit points in this range are very close to identical *ie my 4e level 1 has hp like a level 5, 5e. You can see it in magic items too my 4e magic item is up to +6 vs almost always +3 in 5e. There are so ons and so forths.

To me, both are the latter.

In 5e, there are many features which are not tightly narrative based. How is it possible for a rogue to sneak attack an ooze or a fire elemental? And how is it possible that by standing near your paladin you become literally better at dodging fireballs?

However, from a mechanical standpoint, they are acceptable.

People thinking narrative drove 5e seems like buying into a marketing ploy.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For the warlord, wouldn't you really just need to give the BM a version of the bard's inspiration and cutting words mechanic as a maneuver the BM can learn? You can spend superiority dice to inspire a party member or hinder an enemy to blah blah. Just cut out whatever overlap there is with other BM maneuvers.

My current "5e Warlord" is a fighter modification with three parts:

1. Fighting Style: Direct the Strike. In practice it's more like Commander's Strike; you can give up one of your attacks to allow an ally adjacent to you or your melee target to use their reaction to make a melee attack as an at will ability (also putting you behind the fighter as a fighter as a feature)
2. Battlemaster Maneuver: Inspiring Word. As a bonus action spend a superiority dice and target one ally within earshot. If the ally spends one of their hit dice they regain hit points equal to the sum of the superiority dice and the hit dice, if not they regain 1hp.
3. Battlemaster Maneuver: Powerful Warning (a.k.a. "Duck!") After an attack roll is made against an ally as a reaction spend a superiority dice. They gain that as a bonus to their AC. If the attack misses the next ally to attack the foe who just missed gets advantage.

 

[Garthanos]

I wouldn't go remotely that far - 5e is a much more rules light game (which in many ways 4e needed) and one that almost completely cut the tactical elements from 4e.

Definitely the latter is obvious. I am too used to actual rules light to not balk at the former though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Vaguely similar, but shorn of critical parts: Half-Level Bonus vs Proficiency

I think I'd agree with everything in your post except this - it's beyond vaguely similar. It's more like "Quite similar, with one major change". But yeah good analysis otherwise.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Definitely the latter is obvious. I am too used to actual rules light to not balk at the former though.

I said more not actually 5e is not a rules light game (and in its core mechanics there's little difference to 4e - it's simply that about one power in two in 4e gives a modifier).