D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[MichaelSomething]

I've been DMing for decades. I do a good job. This was an issue distinct to the 4E era and many experienced DMs noted it coming from their groups and from their provision as well. There are a lot of threads that were cricial of 4E that go into this phenomena in detail. Rather than argue with me, you can go find those.I think you meant to say, at least 4E monsters lack a diverse set of abilities to provide a broader range of options for DMs to utilize to craft more interesting encounters.

4E essentally says, "Here is a monster type. They attack, and they have 1 or 2 nuances. Really focus on those nuances and use them over and over every time you use them." Unfortuntely, a lot of those nuances were not that distinct from other monsters that shared similar nuances, so a lot of them blended together. However, once again we're relittigating things that took up significant forum space for half a decade. We do not need to go over this again. If you liek 4E, there are plenty of materials to play - and no need to argue. It works for some - but overall WotC and the community favored abandoning the design in favor of something far more traditional.

I agree that they could have gone crazy with powers but were often times too conservative in their creation. Then again, I can also recall DMs complaining about abilities that are too impactfull, like marking, tiny hut, that -5/+10 feat, etc. It's a hard balance to strike.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That is a subjective assessment that is not shared by many. There was a reason why the 4E design was abandoned for 5E. The 'cookie cutter with a little nuance' nature of the design was a big reason.

The complaints about monsters were usually about the math (fixed in MM3), not being built like PCs (unimportant), minions existing (unimportant) and the lack of 50 angels you'll never use. This is the first time I've seen the cornucopia of varied (even within a species) monsters complained about or described as 'cookie cutter'. Mostly because it's a hard thing to prove when it wasn't a thing.

 

[Undrave]

I've been DMing for decades. I do a good job. This was an issue distinct to the 4E era and many experienced DMs noted it coming from their groups and from their provision as well. There are a lot of threads that were cricial of 4E that go into this phenomena in detail. Rather than argue with me, you can go find those.I think you meant to say, at least 4E monsters lack a diverse set of abilities to provide a broader range of options for DMs to utilize to craft more interesting encounters.

4E essentally says, "Here is a monster type. They attack, and they have 1 or 2 nuances. Really focus on those nuances and use them over and over every time you use them." Unfortuntely, a lot of those nuances were not that distinct from other monsters that shared similar nuances, so a lot of them blended together. However, once again we're relittigating things that took up significant forum space for half a decade. We do not need to go over this again. If you liek 4E, there are plenty of materials to play - and no need to argue. It works for some - but overall WotC and the community favored abandoning the design in favor of something far more traditional.

Honestly this surprises me, because I remember seeing a lot of praises for the 4e Monster design and my impression is that it was generally well liked.

I'm also not sure I see what the 5e stat block does better, but I don't really have a lot of experience with it since I've never been on the other side of the screen. I'm looking at the basic 5e Bandit, for exemple, and it's pretty boring compared to a 4e one, for exemple.

 

[Voadam]

4e did focus first on monster role (brute, lurker, soldier, skirmisher, artillery, etc.) and there was a lot of talk about reskinning things to use something with an appropriate mechanical role to fit in with your current narrative, but 4e also innovated on trying to give each humanoid monster race a standout defining mechanical combat feature that would pair up with the aesthetics of the race.

This was much stronger mechanical differentiation of monster races in 4e than in 3e, and 5e tried to carry some of that across (orcs having their extra charging movement, hobgoblins with their bonuses when attacking as a group, etc.)

A 3e hobgoblin was basically a humanoid baseline with whatever class mostly defining it. Their most defining racial distinctions were +2 dex, +2 con, +4 move silent, and darkvision.

A 4e hobgoblin generally has Hobgoblin resistance and Phalanx soldier. The latter power gives them a +2 AC bonus when adjacent to an ally.

5e hobgoblins liked the 4e racial monster mechanics style and gave their hobgoblins:

Martial advantage. Once per turn, the hobgoblin can deal an extra 7 (2d6) damage to a creature it hits with a weapon attack if that creature is within 5 feet of an ally of the hobgoblin that isn’t incapacitated.

 

[MwaO]

Considering it's both doubly inaccurate (it's neither particularly bounded, nor particularly about accuracy) and directly responsible for at least a solid chunk of the frustrations actual 5e fans have with 5e combats, yeah, I fully agree.

Yeah, "Bounded Accuracy" isn't really used in 5e at all and where it does manage to show up, those are usually the areas that 5e fans all consider the worst parts of 5e. Bad defenses or skills that never go up at all, despite traveling with experts at said skills and lots of traveling downtime off-camera. Sure, a Fighter 20 might not know a ton about Arcana, but having actually fought all kinds of strange creatures and traveling with a Wizard, weird that the Fighter 20 isn't better than a Fighter 1.

5e instead uses 4e/2 math, except made fuzzy and hard to understand. And it has its own issues with skills feeling really weird after a while. 4e really would not benefit from using it and it isn't clear that 5e benefits either.

 

[Kannik]

I enjoyed the heck out of 4e, and would love to see a 4e2. Lots of great stuff in this thread! Some musings on what I'd tweak:

- Split power source/encounter abilities from professions and roles and themes and archetypes. So you can have a party where there’s a divine warrior (aka Paladin), skirmishing archer (aka Ranger), primal warrior (aka Warden) and primal spellcaster (aka Druid) who all take the “Ranger” profession to gain exploration, tracking, survival, herbalism, and etc abilities.

(My Trades and Professions supplement was born out of an initial idea of this split between “Power Source” mainly for encounters and “Profession” mainly for the other pillars.)

(BTW, it’s also worth noting that 4e was very similar to 1e in this regard, where out of combat stuff was much more nebulous and open to freeform interpretation. Personally, I prefer a bit more support for it, hence the ideas above.)

It might be overkill (would have to test), but I think I'd like Power, Profession, and Themes/Archetypes, along with species traits and upbringing (which may include cultural aspects).

- I think I’d like reworked math with less overall spread than +½ level… maybe +1/3 level?

- More granularity to skill training than a one-time +5.

- Continue to embrace what Essentials started with a variety of ways for classes to use various means of power distribution within the AEDU context without having every class being strictly AEDU. Plenty of the ideas upstream in this thread could be cool to see.

- Also continue to embrace the amazing flavor of the classes, as well as their versatility of purpose.

- And ensure that MAD doesn’t bite a class in the butt.

- Reduce the number of feats, and make them be meaningful by adding new options/abilities more than just flat bonuses to something you can already do. 5e isn't bad in this regard, with most feats providing a few cool things thus making them feel significant.

- Remove the need for magic items as +s to hit/defenses (which can be part and parcel of the reworking of the math above) and allow items to be more flavorful.

- In addition, many of the abilities on many of the magic items could also easily be learned or trained abilities. Lots of these could be included in the character’s profession or theme/archtype as noted above. (Many of the GMs allowed us to refluff magic item powers in that way, so your ability to kip up wasn't because of your boots, it was because you learned how to do it, or that resistance to fire damage was because the artificer carved protection runes all over themselves, rather than because they found some cloak somewhere.)

- Slightly less interrupt powers to keep things flowing better.

- For skill challenges, re-work how they’re described. I was fortunate in that I heard one of the designers describe how they used a skill challenge way in the early days before the game was released, and using that as a template all my skill challenges in games were great. Essentially they were always mechanically hidden from the players, simply that there was a situation described and the first person who went started things and then could say who went next (people could pass) around the table so they each got turns. If the players used a resource, it would count as an extra success. Keep going round until the number of successes or failures were reached or until time ran out (measured by total number of player actions). Made for very inventive and exciting scenarios.

- Fully embrace and expand Rituals and what they do. (I gave a Paladin in our group access to a handful of Rituals that mirrored some of the more traditional Paladin spells or abilities, and they could cast using Healing Surges (or residuum if they wanted). They loved it.)

• Spell Lists. Even if we keep spells as powers, no need a power list to every caster class. Wizards and warlocks, for example, could both take "spells from the arcane power list". Perhaps same idea to martials, like A5e maneuver schools.

I'd not be keen on this, as I see these differences as a feature, not a bug. I'd even say to lean even more into how each Arcane (or whichever power source) wielder does it differently and/or has their shtick. So Wizards would be flexible, with a wide variety of spells they can memorize from every day. (Also add options for different Wizard builds that could be built either as a Controller or Striker.) Sorcerers are more innate casters built around a specific theme, with a set of linked powers -- the Elementalist was an example of this, and we could have plenty of others as well. Ditto with the Warlock and it's specific flavor.

Though... that said... when it comes to Divine or Primal spells, I feel there could be more overlap. But I did appreciate the difference between a 'traditional' Cleric (melee + spells) and the Invoker (full priest caster/wizard equivalent) and the Paladin / Avenger divine warrior type. That last one is a place where I could see some power sharing and or perhaps a rework (a bit like the Wizard suggestion above) of a core class with options for either a Striker or Defender.

So I never played 4e, and the reason I never did was because, when I first read through the books, it was really, really clear it was a combat game, to the point that most spells with non-combat purposes weren't in the PHB, they didn't have good or neutral monsters in the MM, to the point that dryads, I believe, became plant monsters, and they didn't even include the bard because bards are far more face characters than combat characters. Maybe they improved on this later on in the game, I dunno--my initial readings turned me off from the edition completely

That is so interesting; maybe it's because I cut my teeth on 1e and had been playing for so long that it never screamed "COMBAT ONLY!" at me. At all. It was more freeform in that area (like 1e), but I never took it as an implication that they thought there shouldn't be the other stuff. (Though, as noted above, I did like the idea of some mechanical support for it, and I did so with my broad Trades and Profession "skills".) Certainly in all the games I played it never felt any different in that regard to 1e, 2e, or 3e.

6- Rework the Controller role so it feels more like a proper role and have the controllers more consistent.

Also interesting to me! At our table we found the following adage quite true: "A striker's role is to do damage. A defender's role is to eat damage. A leader's role is to make people shine. And a controller's role is to make the DM pull their hair out." The controllers in my groups were most effective in messing up my battlefield plans or denying my grand moments of power in a variety of ways.

 

[Undrave]

- In addition, many of the abilities on many of the magic items could also easily be learned or trained abilities. Lots of these could be included in the character’s profession or theme/archtype as noted above. (Many of the GMs allowed us to refluff magic item powers in that way, so your ability to kip up wasn't because of your boots, it was because you learned how to do it, or that resistance to fire damage was because the artificer carved protection runes all over themselves, rather than because they found some cloak somewhere.)

Go the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance way and have items that teach you your class abilities

Also interesting to me! At our table we found the following adage quite true: "A striker's role is to do damage. A defender's role is to eat damage. A leader's role is to make people shine. And a controller's role is to make the DM pull their hair out." The controllers in my groups were most effective in messing up my battlefield plans or denying my grand moments of power in a variety of ways.

The problem is that the Controller role never felt as concrete as the other roles.

 

[Faolyn]

That is so interesting; maybe it's because I cut my teeth on 1e and had been playing for so long that it never screamed "COMBAT ONLY!" at me. At all. It was more freeform in that area (like 1e), but I never took it as an implication that they thought there shouldn't be the other stuff. (Though, as noted above, I did like the idea of some mechanical support for it, and I did so with my broad Trades and Profession "skills".) Certainly in all the games I played it never felt any different in that regard to 1e, 2e, or 3e.

I've been playing since 2e, and it felt so different. 2e and 3e were far richer in non-combat mechanics and options, to my eyes.

 

[jgsugden]

The complaints about monsters were usually about the math (fixed in MM3), not being built like PCs (unimportant), minions existing (unimportant) and the lack of 50 angels you'll never use. This is the first time I've seen the cornucopia of varied (even within a species) monsters complained about or described as 'cookie cutter'. Mostly because it's a hard thing to prove when it wasn't a thing.

I have no interest in relitigating this again, especially when you should either already be aware or can just go look for yourself, but while I'd say there were more complaints about the cookie cutter nature of PCs, it was also noted (and a source of complaints) that the monsters suffered from the same phenomena.

While the general phenomena has been around since the beginning (AD&D orcs, goblins and hobglins are effectively more alike than any subsequent edition), in 4E the problem was focused around fewer monster options on monstrs previously seen as complex. Rather than a series of spells or special abilities, they had between one and five types of actions they could take. However, each of those abilities, much like PC abilities, often (but not always) tended to be a variantion on damage plus push, pull, prone, etc... Even the non attack+X abilities tended to have similar structures. The game was designed to be run more like MMORPG. That limits options. It was an intentional design feature. They had the intention to create more differentiation by giving goblins a one square shift when missed, etc... but so many of those abilities just ended up being non-distinctive and blending together.

Yes, a great DM could fight the waves of beige monsters by infusing them with colorful descriptions ... but in 4E that wore on people faster, likely because Many DMs and players felt it was more like playing a 'pick your action from this list' video game thna a 'create a story' RPG.

 

[Kannik]

Go the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance way and have items that teach you your class abilities

"My boots.... they're talking to me again! Telling me how to do things!"

"Ok Brill, clearly you're tired, you need to go and get a long rest right now."

The problem is that the Controller role never felt as concrete as the other roles.

Hmm, I'd understood it as multiple target damage, battlefield shaping, and debuffing/position control/action denial. Would there be something else you think would aid in clarifying the role? (and/or did I misunderstand it?)

I've been playing since 2e, and it felt so different. 2e and 3e were far richer in non-combat mechanics and options, to my eyes.

Very interesting. For me, playing in 2e I wouldn't say there was much in the way of RP support or, unless you were a Thief or Ranger, many non-combat abilities. NWPs helped a little there (though they were optional, you got very few of them, they were very INT/WIS heavy, and none were social based), and a smidge from Kits if you used the optional handbooks. So I wouldn't say 2e was particularly rich in that regard. (And in no way am I saying that it was a problem for us at the time; we RPed and explored things just fine.)

4e's rituals (which absorbed many of the non-combat/adventuring spells from 2e/3e), the classes' Utility Powers, skill challenges, and the PHB's good intro all led me to view 4e as being supportive of RP and non-combat stuff, even if they removed the non-adventuring skills. (Which, again, led me to write something to add them back in, albeit in a (clearly biased since I wrote it) richer way.)