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

OK on this "I would’ve much preferred the ability to adopt any role within the core 4 by giving players a big choice at level 1, an option that placed an overlay on every power you used or that gave you a new way to use them."
Basically have Source Specific Powers and less class powers. But I think combining that with having BIG differing stances to dynamically switch role might be a better idea so that your hero can adjust role to circumstance. I have to defend this NPC right now vs I have to take down the big bad right now vs I have to do minion cleaning right now, I am inspiring allies in my interesting way, who need it right now.

and the obligatory
Argghhhh on this. " I wanted classes to have different power acquisition schedules"

And thematic differences seemed to have been carried fine.

 

[Jester David]

I am deeply amused how this thread has become a thread where 4e grognards complain about 5e despite apparently never having seriously played it, echoing every thread in 2009 where 3e grognards complain about 4e Despite never having played it...

 

[Garthanos]

I am deeply amused how this thread has become a thread where 4e grognards complain about 5e despite apparently never having seriously played it, echoing every thread in 2009 where 3e grognards complain about 4e Despite never having played it...

Shas is talking 1e as much as I can't tell...ie thief having a percentage to climb walls

 

[Garthanos]

Eh it could be either or... you can prefer one method or the other but ultimately it is a trope that can be simulated with both. Crist with massive damage or attrition with bounded accuracy.

hence why I said OR this on your narrating the the arrows bouncing off the armor of and narrowly missing Smaug ie as hit point ablation.

And modelling a swarm of soldiers/minion orcs shooting up Borromir could also do it with fewer die rolls without a bounded accuracy whether 5e has a successfully implemented that or not.

 

[Shasarak]

But you can't have hits bouncing off armor..... Like they were misses... Cause that isn't a hit... Ask Shas

So hits bounce off Armour and misses bounce off Armour and fireballs bounce off Armour and Black Arrows go straight through the narrative gap in Armour.

Man that was lucky.

 

[Garthanos]

I am deeply amused how this thread has become a thread where 4e grognards complain about 5e despite apparently never having seriously played it, echoing every thread in 2009 where 3e grognards complain about 4e Despite never having played it...

Also note the post is under 4e and how its 5e people coming into this space who ... its not us in 5e space.

 

[Garthanos]

So hits bounce off Armour and misses bounce off Armour and fireballs bounce off Armour and Black Arrows go straight through the narrative gap in Armour.

Man that was lucky.

The last hit takes you down after no appreciable loss of ability before that call it what you want.

The last hit is both a crit discovered with a heros skills and was preceded by many many many attempts all bouncing off armor.. D&D ablates hit points as luck runs out (and now has relatively minor crits)

And for you every every every every single attack is a wound.. AND every every every every hero is a tough guy hero.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz how fun you get to decide for your game play and not for everyone else.

My characters I will continue picture turning accurate attacks into some sort of miss causing fatigue/luck loss and sometimes minor wounds. OR even if I have a regenerative hero
like a long tooth shifter not so minor wounds.

 

[pemerton]

The claim was that in 5e a goblin can still hit a 10th level character due to mostly static AC whereas in 4e the AC improvement due to level makes this unlikely to impossible.

If you want to talk damage, debuffs and interesting conditions that is a separate conversation.

Here's Garthanos's post:

Yes your skill at fighting somehow doesnt decrease the chance of you being hit by stupid goblin.... you are prevented from that by magical forces apparently and it didnt make sense in 1e doesn't make sense in 5e.

Garthanos was talking about AD&D/3E - skill at fighting doesn't change your chance of being hit by the goblin (it does increase your hp). When talking about 4e, minions and their damage rules are absolutely pertinent to this - your fighting skill is expressed mechanically through a debuff on the goblin - reduced damage and dead-on-a-hit.

EDIT: I see that [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] has also posted making much the same point.

 

[Shasarak]

You never watch action movies do you?
The chump is the one who thinks it makes sense that a skilled and experienced combatant cannot avoid attacks any better than he could as an apprentice .

Winded lol we are talking high level arent we? he isnt moving noticeably slower till he is pretty beaten down nor is muscle fatigue super obvious or completely negligible.

Luck loss is also mentioned as is many ways hit points can work to not leave the fighter looking like he stands around being beat on instead of parrying blocking and evading AND effectively defending himself.

There is nothing in DnD that screams 'action movie" to me. Do action movies have one person acting at a time while everyone else is waiting patiently for their turn? Do action movies have the boss fight last for an hour while everyone is chipping away at each other? Do DnD fights end by the monster throwing itself on a conveniently placed pointy object because the PCs are just too sad to get the job done themselves?

Maybe I just watch the wrong action movies. Maybe DnD is not designed to emulate action movies with any high degree of accuracy.

 

[pemerton]

What I read into this is that it is somehow more difficult to adjudicate difficulty in 4e than 5e and a table is needed.

OK - so what's the DC, in 5e, for a mid-teens level fighter to shove his hands into a forge to hold a magic hammer steady so that the artificers can grasp and work it with their tools?

The difference is that because they don't autoscale in everything like PC's in 4e...5e PC's can still be challenged by lower level DC's, foes, hazards, etc... so why create an unnecessary & artificial division by level for DC's as opposed to just having difficulty based on the in-game fiction?

Which goes back to my original point - if there is no sense of what sorts of things can be done by various tiers of PCs (because everything is possible to everyone at all levels) then martial PCs will be the victims of that. There will be no tasks that are feasible for the 15th level fighter but off the table for the 1st level fighter.

 

[Garthanos]

There is nothing in DnD that screams 'action movie" to me. Do action movies have one person acting at a time while everyone else is waiting patiently for their turn? .

Do you remember 1e or do you just play it different the 1e players described what they planned to do and had their spokes person announce it to the dm and the dm adjudicated the order and interaction there of with regards to monsters actions using those player turns was really a 3e introduced very explicit turn taking before that it was very much trying to be emulating everyone acting at once...

You might even find that everyone is actually acting at once mentioned in the narrative elements of the game even though they succumbed to taking turns.

Shrug the idea of someone never successfully turning aside an accurate attack when they are highly skilled is crap not just in movies but in real life. I had teachers in Karate show me I couldnt touch really them... instead of playing punching dummy