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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
In Defense of 4E - a New Campaign Perspective
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<blockquote data-quote="Xeviat" data-source="post: 7554522" data-attributes="member: 57494"><p>I'm really happy to have read this thread. Every time I sit down and get ready to prepare for a 5E game, I think to myself "Dang, i wish I was running 4E". I love the 5E character design side but I hate 5E's monster design; I absolutely love 4E's monster design, and I'm mostly okay with 4E's player design. I really think the 4.5 Essentials presentation was a bit better: I too find Daily powers on Martial characters to feel weird and would rather see them be built with more Encounter powers or with static abilities.</p><p></p><p>Every time I see people complain about combat taking forever, part of me says "that's what I liked about 4E". Combat should be meaningful. When you dust off the table and slap down a Huge Dragon miniature, that fight should take more than 3 rounds and 30 minutes of play time. The problem was that 4E fights could DRAG, which is a different complaint than that they were long.</p><p></p><p>For minions, simply giving them 1/4th the HP of their role would have helped. That would have made them drop in a single solid hit, but it would have made it take longer to run them. "HP is a game concept, not a world concept" works for me.</p><p></p><p>I'm very tempted to start playing 4E again, but to rebuild the player side of things since the player side has so much ability bloat if you allow all 4E official sources. I want to steal a lot from 5E in the process. Here's some ideas of how the classes could be built, utilizing pools of abilities for many characters.</p><p></p><p>At-Wills: grouped into cantrips and weapon attacks. There would be some overlap in them between classes, each would choose from them like spell lists.</p><p></p><p>Full Casters: I'd bring in the 9 spell levels. Typically, a spell level is learned as a daily spell and then is eventually upgraded into an encounter spell. Your first level encounter spell slot eventually becomes an at-will spell slot at higher levels (so you end with 4 encounters (2, 3, 4, 5) and 4 dailies (6, 7, 8, 9). This way, spells don't get upgraded and obsoleted. For casters, how to handle utility spells would have to be addressed.</p><p></p><p>Half-Casters: For paladins and rangers, and also things like eldritch knights, their daily spells would be basically other class's encounter spells but cast as a minor action; this way they could mix them with their at-wills to make them as good as dailies. An Eldritch Knight or Paladin would end with up to 5th level spells this way.</p><p></p><p>By utilizing spell lists, bloat would feel lower and less restricted. Non-primary casters would be more defined by their encounter powers. Barbarians would have an encounter rage and daily powers determined by their subclass. Paladins would have encounter smites and daily spells. Fighters would have something like action surge ... and so forth.</p><p></p><p>But I feel like this would be a smaller task for me than updating all of 5E's monsters to be more interesting. Because they're sooooooooo boring, and 5E's monsters make me not want to run 5E.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xeviat, post: 7554522, member: 57494"] I'm really happy to have read this thread. Every time I sit down and get ready to prepare for a 5E game, I think to myself "Dang, i wish I was running 4E". I love the 5E character design side but I hate 5E's monster design; I absolutely love 4E's monster design, and I'm mostly okay with 4E's player design. I really think the 4.5 Essentials presentation was a bit better: I too find Daily powers on Martial characters to feel weird and would rather see them be built with more Encounter powers or with static abilities. Every time I see people complain about combat taking forever, part of me says "that's what I liked about 4E". Combat should be meaningful. When you dust off the table and slap down a Huge Dragon miniature, that fight should take more than 3 rounds and 30 minutes of play time. The problem was that 4E fights could DRAG, which is a different complaint than that they were long. For minions, simply giving them 1/4th the HP of their role would have helped. That would have made them drop in a single solid hit, but it would have made it take longer to run them. "HP is a game concept, not a world concept" works for me. I'm very tempted to start playing 4E again, but to rebuild the player side of things since the player side has so much ability bloat if you allow all 4E official sources. I want to steal a lot from 5E in the process. Here's some ideas of how the classes could be built, utilizing pools of abilities for many characters. At-Wills: grouped into cantrips and weapon attacks. There would be some overlap in them between classes, each would choose from them like spell lists. Full Casters: I'd bring in the 9 spell levels. Typically, a spell level is learned as a daily spell and then is eventually upgraded into an encounter spell. Your first level encounter spell slot eventually becomes an at-will spell slot at higher levels (so you end with 4 encounters (2, 3, 4, 5) and 4 dailies (6, 7, 8, 9). This way, spells don't get upgraded and obsoleted. For casters, how to handle utility spells would have to be addressed. Half-Casters: For paladins and rangers, and also things like eldritch knights, their daily spells would be basically other class's encounter spells but cast as a minor action; this way they could mix them with their at-wills to make them as good as dailies. An Eldritch Knight or Paladin would end with up to 5th level spells this way. By utilizing spell lists, bloat would feel lower and less restricted. Non-primary casters would be more defined by their encounter powers. Barbarians would have an encounter rage and daily powers determined by their subclass. Paladins would have encounter smites and daily spells. Fighters would have something like action surge ... and so forth. But I feel like this would be a smaller task for me than updating all of 5E's monsters to be more interesting. Because they're sooooooooo boring, and 5E's monsters make me not want to run 5E. [/QUOTE]
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