D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked

[Parmandur]

I fall somewhere between D & C... with much stronger leanings towards C. Truth be told I started out fairly positive about 4e but the more I ran it the less I liked it (won't get into the why's because I'm not trying to edition war). I think right now I'm at a point where I would probably never run 4e game again but would have no issues playing in someone else's campaign if they invited me. 5e however is my D&D of choice for both running games and playing by a pretty wide margin.

I'm in a similar place. I never had any ill-will against 4E, and played it. I started out positive and excited, but kind of just stopped playing any RPG for a few years pre-Essentials until 5E came along.

 

[cbwjm]

I have a hunter who is a look a like for odin named Wotan a spear using eye patch wolves and ravens for pets.

What makes them better for gold farming?

I'm not really sure why, I think it might be the ease of levelling with the pet. You would see them quite often while out in the world, in the lower level areas following whatever path they'd been programmed with while still wearing the gear they gained in the starting area.

 

[Garthanos]

https://www.worldofwargraphs.com/global-stats/classes

The above one ranks the top 4 as

hunter

paladin

druid

warrior


I rather like the Oath Bound hero Paladins as a type of fighter myself as it was presented in 1e and 2e

In fact in 1e and 2e terms that is 3 fighters and a druid

 

[Retreater]

It's still the strongest version of D&D they've published. It captures classic dungeon crawling and thrilling epic adventure better than anything before or since.
Its biggest detriment was that it tried too much to keep the design of previous editions. For example, the length of time it took to play an encounter and needing like a dozen of them to level a character meant that most of the game was going to be spent fighting and moving figures on a board at the expense of having time to roleplay. Having 4-5 meaningful combats per level would better fit the design of the game.
(I am running into this issue as I'm currently running a 4e campaign.)

 

[Garthanos]

For a real Achilles experience via Boon or Charm, I'd look for inspiration at the War Cleric's 17th Level Subclass Capstone, Avatar of Battle: resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons.

In 4e I think it would also be a boon
And it would be DR to all 5 with +1/2 levels over 5 so that in paragon it would starting to be 10 and in epic 15.

Basically minions would be very frustrated others might find the chinks

 

[Imaro]

I'm in a similar place. I never had any ill-will against 4E, and played it. I started out positive and excited, but kind of just stopped playing any RPG for a few years pre-Essentials until 5E came along.

Strangely enough Essentials became my preferred 4e as opposed to classic which I've gotten rid of most of the books for.

 

[Garthanos]

Strangely enough Essentials became my preferred 4e as opposed to classic which I've gotten rid of most of the books for.

Not strange at all essentials presented bland martial types and nerfed them at high levels- And made wizards more powerful - I generally assume 3e and 5e fans would like that /snark

Actually there were some pretty nice post essentials material like Heros of the Fey wild.

 

[Shasarak]

Yes atleast for the NPCs it could be a RuneQuest game

I also wouldnt put Conan as a level 20 in 5e ... honestly you could play Conan in 4e from level 1 up to level 15... ie Conan the King is Paragon level in my opinion.

I think it is a natural trap to try and stat out your favourite characters as MAX level! awesomeness.

It is fun to do but a trap none the less.

 

[Garthanos]

I think it is a natural trap to try and stat out your favourite characters as MAX level! awesomeness.

It is fun to do but a trap none the less.

Yes I can build Zorro that feels like Zorro at level 1 but put on a few levels and I can get all the stuff

 

[Hussar]

I just finished reading The Tower of the Elephant. Conan fought three enemies in that story:

A Professional Kidnapper - One shot
A Lion - One shot
A Giant Spider - Two shot (One sword blow, one thrown chest)

Taurus of Nemedia, the Prince of Thieves fought three enemies:

A Soldier - One shot
A group of Lions - One shot
A Giant Spider which killed Taurus with....One shot

So from this very small sample size it seems that within the Conan universe any enemy can be effectively one shot - a very deadly place indeed!

D&D is notoriously bad at modeling fiction.

Savage Worlds would do the trick nicely though. And, honestly, it should since pulp fiction is Savage World's bread and butter.

Let's be honest here, D&D models D&D and virtually nothing else. Trying to tie things to genre fiction is an exercise in futility. It just doesn't work because, at its heart, D&D is a wargame. And you don't want one-shots in war-games because it's no fun. Genre emulation was never the goal of D&D.