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

[billd91]

No, on this I 100% agree with you. I would even add that 3e was WAY WORSE then 4e at high level, because every little circumstance chance caused a recomputation of bonuses, and you kept forgetting about some of them, which then caused backtracks, etc. It was bloody awful, first with 3e, then with Pathfinder when it became as bloated. For me, it also comes from the fact that 4e was designed as very linear in particular because although you gained a few powers, you mostly replaced them, which led to much less inflation of complexity than with 3e where everything was additive and became geometrically more complex because of combinations.

While that certainly could be an issue, I found it a lot less problematic in 3e than in 4e. In 3e, if I missed a bonus for a round it wasn't a huge problem - most of them persisted a while and if I missed once, I'd could be remember it or be reminded of it the next round. So many were popping on and off in 4e that had an even more transient duration. Forget to apply it and it was probably gone, it was less of a learning curve and more of individual spikes. I hated that aspect of it.

 

[Garthanos]

• Magic Items: I think 4e had the most bland magic items of any system to date. I still remember to this day, my group of 12th level characters were given a special boon.... each of them could have any 14th level magic item they wanted...no holds barred. I was expecting my players to be buzzing with excitement. Instead, at the next session....not a single one of them had even looked, and once pressed, most just picked up some 3rd level item or something. Magic h

I kind of thought from the beginning it was my job as DM to make more badass magic items. In AD&D I made a flaming sword... that its holder received fire resistances and ones which could be enhanced to burn normally non-flammable things. like make the subject vulnerable once per day or the like. I also think the story is a major part of what makes magic items interesting.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I have argued multiple times that 4e's biggest problem was not mechanical....but narrative. For example, just skim through the 3.5 PH, now do the 5e one. They both read more like tomes or novels, yes filled with mechanics, but there is a narrative flow to them.

oh yes, becuse I don't have novels I can read, and I want to have to push through a novel to find hidden rules...
more reason I always wanted 4e

Now look at 4e's....it reads like a textbook. There is a mechanical "dryness" to 4e that is hard to shake.

yeah... cause they are rules. easy to access mid game, easy to parse.

That said, I do think 4e dropped the mechanical ball in a few areas:

• Grindy Combats:

yup... cutting everyones hitpoints would help...

• Magic Items:

I think it could use some work but I think you oversell this... I mean really why would 12th level party ALL want a 3rd level item?

• Skill Challenges: The original core math of the skill challenge was fundamentally broken, and WOTC had to errata it some time later. But the thing with skill challenges is they are really easy to run badly....and when you do I would rather watch paint dry. It actually takes some real work to make a skill challenge cool and engaging, and when you do its great...but I think WOTC really underestimated the work that needs to go here and didn't spend enough time coaching DMs and providing lots of good examples of how to make great skill challenges. Instead they just threw out the toolkit and assumed DMs would instantly use them well....and a lot of people didn't.

this is what annoys me the most out of 5e... I had to wait 7-8 years until strixhaven came out before I saw anyone working on skill challenges. this is the #1 thing 5.5/6/anniversary edition needs to playtest ASAP... this is what can bring D&D into the new best game ever

 

[Vaalingrade]

• Magic Items: I think 4e had the most bland magic items of any system to date. I still remember to this day, my group of 12th level characters were given a special boon.... each of them could have any 14th level magic item they wanted...no holds barred. I was expecting my players to be buzzing with excitement. Instead, at the next session....not a single one of them had even looked, and once pressed, most just picked up some 3rd level item or something. Magic had become so boring, that the thought of getting a high level item didn't excite a single one of them. This was the greatest fail of 4e to me.

Have to agree.

I was delighted to see magic items moved ot the PH where they belonged, far away from stingy, grabby hands that want to make magic 'special' by making it inexcessable like your grandma's ceramic figurines or worse, rolled for treasure so no one ever got anything they could use.

Then I saw the actual items. Sad bonuses, daily uses of ANYTHING interesting, almost no encounter powers in the first edition to correctly move to a per-encounter model for the most part...gag. And this is one issue that NEVER got fixed! They fixed monsters, they fixed skill encounters, hell they even 'fixed' all classes being good and the design being coherent with with Essentials, but magic items sucked the whole way through.

 

[Jer]

Then I saw the actual items. Sad bonuses, daily uses of ANYTHING interesting, almost no encounter powers in the first edition to correctly move to a per-encounter model for the most part...gag. And this is one issue that NEVER got fixed! They fixed monsters, they fixed skill encounters, hell they even 'fixed' all classes being good and the design being coherent with with Essentials, but magic items sucked the whole way through.

I think this is largely because character abilities took over the space for magic items in 4e. And the 4e desire to get rid of the 3e "christmas tree effect" meant also that while there was a de-emphasis on magic items in favor of powers, you were also required to have magic items because the math assumed they'd be there. From our second 4e campaign onward I ditched bonuses for magic items entirely, baked them into the level progression so they weren't required, and gave out more "wondrous" items and the players liked that more. It's definitely one of the flaws in the setup that could have used some more baking time in the playtest kitchen before they released it.

 

[Stalker0]

oh yes, becuse I don't have novels I can read, and I want to have to push through a novel to find hidden rules...
more reason I always wanted 4e

yeah... cause they are rules. easy to access mid game, easy to parse.

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”

 

[GMforPowergamers]

One of my favorite campaigns I was a Half elf warlord (tactical) and the group had a go to plan for most encounters. We would all open with an encounter power (depending on circumstances, sometimes we would have at wills that were better) then 1 of us would on round 2 drop a daily. Doing so made sure that every encounter someone had a big boom moment, but that only if things went bad would we drop multi dailies. The use of milestones and extra magic item usages played into this, and we would do the same with that.

Now we didn't have a patter "First kurt, then me, then jon" but we would talk as the round went on for who was taking the spot light.

we tried to do this a few times in 5e and found it was WAY to easy for full casters to take the lead everytime.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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

the PHB is a DM tool as well... and also the single most refrenced book in any edition

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.

no
just no
I have dresden file, I have wheel of time, I have thundar and heman, I have thundercats, I have lord of the rings... I don't need those melded into my rulebooks

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”

then don't read it cover to cover (I mean most of my friends did... but you didn't have to) pick a race... read it. pick a class read that... pick some equipment read those... done. that is it.

 

[James Gasik]

There is something to be said about a rulebook full of ideas and anecdotes as well as guidance and systems. For all his hyperbolic rambling and one true wayism, Gary's DMG is still one of my all time favorite game books, and I still refer to it to this very day. Like the Maltese Falcon, to young me, it was what dreams were made of.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Gary's DMG is still one of my all time favorite game books, and I still refer to it to this very day. Like the Maltese Falcon, to young me, it was what dreams were made of.

pre internet maybe... but you can look up inspiration and read stories many ways