D&D General Maybe I was ALWAYs playing 4e... even in 2e

[Mannahnin]

The only real issue with this argument is that it applied just as much, if not more, to 3e, and yet relatively few people complain about high-level 3e/PF1e fights taking for-bloody-ever to resolve.

That said, I do agree that 4e could have been significantly tightened up in this department. It's a game that benefits a lot from having a VTT. If it had come out 2-3 years later, or had offered a really really robust VTT option (e.g. something to legitimately rival Roll20), a lot of the issues would have gone away. Doubly so if they'd made all PHB1 options free to use for "trial account" members or something like that.

Apart from the VTT side of things though, using MM3/MV math, placing some reasonable limits on off-turn and reaction stuff, cutting out unnecessary dice rolls, and overall "streamlining" the process of play would have done a lot to improve the speed of play without meaningfully affecting the rich tactical experience.

All of this.

I have strong, sad memories of how long and slow high level 3.x combat could get. Of course part of that was my groups usually having 6 players. We played in the neighborhood of 5-6 multi-year campaigns up into the teens (I think our highest around 18th?) of levels, and those high level fights did get to be a terrible slog.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I can respect the notion in the dmg or mm, those are dm tools.

The ph though has to be more. It’s not just there to provide mechanical information, it’s there to inspire players with concepts, spark the imagination.

This is where i feel 4e failed. I have players who actually read the ph cover to cover, whereas my players didn’t do the same in 4e, as it felt like a “chore”

I mean, I kind of question the folks not inspired by people caught in an eternal cycle of reincarnation who can make contact and use of their past lives, or a thief so good they can steal fate, the warrior with the agility to be so smug and evocative so as to goad every enemy to charge them, the peerless commander being able to coordinate with their allies to direct the attack, etc, etc.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have strong, sad memories of how long and slow high level 3.x combat could get.

I have 2 VERY diffrent sets of memory of 3e...

nonoptimized= fights that dragged on a lot like 4e
Optimized = rocket tag where a second round was rare after level 6

I'm sure there is a good halfway point were you are just optimized enough where the fights would be 30mins or less and 6 rounds or less

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I mean, I kind of question the folks not inspired by people caught in an eternal cycle of reincarnation who can make contact and use of their past lives, or a thief so good they can steal fate, the warrior with the agility to be so smug and evocative so as to goad every enemy to charge them, the peerless commander being able to coordinate with their allies to direct the attack, etc, etc.

that too. I LOVED the ideas of these special abilities

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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also imagine how much less of the game would be spell focused if we limited all spells to this small a space.

 

[Undrave]

also all spell description was very short, basically row of numbers without any description, fluff. nothing

3.5e Fireball:
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Fireball 4E:
View attachment 156412

It's a fireball, you throw it and it goes boom, what more do you want? I don't care how you decide to throw it specifically. The 4e Fireball doesn't waste my time with useless faff. Maybe my Wizard fastballs the Fireball like a baseball player, maybe it's fired of the tip of his wand or rod like it was a gun, or maybe he uses his staff like a mortar, or maybe he just rolls it on the ground like a bowling ball... it's all the same explosion, just describe the delivery method you like the best.

 

[Undrave]

First of all, don't go knocking my Firecube! It was simple and effective. Second, if the DM wanted a Firecube to light stuff on fire, they could, and there were guidelines for how much damage that could do, but I mean, even the classic Fireball doesn't inflict ongoing fire damage to it's targets.

I believe in Firecube supremacy!

 

[Undrave]

So I came fresh out of watching Lina Inverse lighting up a volleyball of fire, and throwing it to cause a troll-throwing explosion, roll up my first character, naturally a sorcerer, and look in the book to see when I get fireball.

Well, first, I have to wait four more levels (!), and then I get... 'a pea sized "A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point." (!!).

Okay... so at least it's still an awesome explo...

"The explosion creates almost no pressure." (!!!)

WHO APPROVED THIS BLASPHEMY!?

You think that's bad, guess what happens when you tried to find a Dragon Slave...

I have Slayers D20 at home! Never played it though.

This is where i feel 4e failed. I have players who actually read the ph cover to cover, whereas my players didn’t do the same in 4e, as it felt like a “chore”

You didn't need to read every single powers, sheesh. You just read the class description and moved on. Maybe a couple Paragon Path and Epic Destiny descriptions? Those were like 1 page each.

 

[pemerton]

I kind of question the folks not inspired by people caught in an eternal cycle of reincarnation who can make contact and use of their past lives, or a thief so good they can steal fate, the warrior with the agility to be so smug and evocative so as to goad every enemy to charge them, the peerless commander being able to coordinate with their allies to direct the attack, etc, etc.

Here is a contentious thought: for some people, the fiction they enjoy in a RPG is not the actual fiction that emerges at the table out of the play of the game, but rather the fiction they imagine about their PC based on what they have read in a rulebook or sourcebook, and what they are hoping their PC will become.

I think for that sort of player, 4e is not all that appealing. And this is the same sort of player who will choose (say) a Grappler feat, because it gives them license to imagine their PC as this amazing wrestler, even if in mechanical terms that feat doesn't produce any particularly superlative wrestling action.

The GM version of that RPGer is one who wants text to tell them how to describe how scary an undead monstrosity is, rather than a power that causes PCs to recoil in fear (push 3) on a successful attack vs Will (I'm thinking here of the Deathlock Wight's Horrific Visage).

I don't know the 5e rulebooks well enough to know if they appeal strongly to such RPGers. I think the 2nd ed books often did; I think this was the way in which some 1990s RPGers enjoyed WoD too.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Here is a contentious thought: for some people, the fiction they enjoy in a RPG is not the actual fiction that emerges at the table out of the play of the game, but rather the fiction they imagine about their PC based on what they have read in a rulebook or sourcebook, and what they are hoping their PC will become.

I think for that sort of player, 4e is not all that appealing. And this is the same sort of player who will choose (say) a Grappler feat, because it gives them license to imagine their PC as this amazing wrestler, even if in mechanical terms that feat doesn't produce any particularly superlative wrestling action.

The GM version of that RPGer is one who wants text to tell them how to describe how scary an undead monstrosity is, rather than a power that causes PCs to recoil in fear (push 3) on a successful attack vs Will (I'm thinking here of the Deathlock Wight's Horrific Visage).

I don't know the 5e rulebooks well enough to know if they appeal strongly to such RPGers. I think the 2nd ed books often did; I think this was the way in which some 1990s RPGers enjoyed WoD too.

Why can't you do both? Why can't you have features with strong flavour that is evocatively described so that it gets your imagination going and helps to contextualise the feature in the fiction and rules that actually let you effectively play the thing in the game?

I know communicating primarily via rules clicks to some people. They see "Oh, this rule lets me do this, so in fiction it means that." But to a lot of people it simply doesn't work that way.