D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[Oofta]

Because the fighter is the one who specialises in taking advantage in small gaps in the opponent's guard. Take your eyes off the barbarian and he will wind up for another swing. Take your eyes off the fighter and he'll try to slip a sword point through your defences in the same amount of time.

You should only not be more afraid of taking your attention off the fighter if (a) you are immune to being stabbed (in which case you shouldn't fear the barbarian either), (b) you are immune to fear (in which case who cares?) or (c) you suck at threat assessment.

You can't intimidate a golem. But you can stab them. If the golem attacks the barbarian the fighter is likely to stab them, knocking them off balance in the process. Golems can ignore the fear effect. They can not ignore the stabbed and pushed off balance effect.

Or you can work out what they actually do. And that effects like Marking and Combat Challenge (the two go together for a fighter) would be entirely at home in a grittily realistic game. 4e is (like all D&D) a game that runs on what can charitably called action movie physics

Or is it impossible in your universe to (a) get in people's faces and knock them off balance or (b) be better than other characters at taking advantage of minor lapses in concentration?

Then for the love of Gygax stop demonstrating that you just don't understand how these things work to the point that you think that people only get distracted by people who test their guard and physically bully them if you are using action movie physics.

We have different thoughts and opinions on this. I played 4E for it's life cycle I understand how it works. I thought many of the 4E fighter powers were supernatural. Feel free to differ.

 

[Clint_L]

I think you misunderstand @pemerton; I don't think he's saying that classes are a bad thing. I think he's saying that the specific set of classes used by D&D are arbitrary. And there's no specific reason to break them the way they are by spells.

Yes, I understand that the specific set of classes used by D&D are, if not arbitrary, not ordained by God or something. I'm not stupid. I just don't agree that the specific decision to keep wizard-style classes away from healing spells is down to mere legacy. I think it is an intentional design choice that has been evaluated, experimented with, and renewed for 5e.

It is possible for people to have all the same information, and be smart, and have good intentions, and come to a different conclusion. Especially about art. Please don't dismiss my failure to agree to a fairly simple proposition as down to my misunderstanding.

Keeping wizards away from most healing magic is a design choice that has been assessed by the designers and continues to be seen as good design for D&D. It is not kept just because of legacy, other than to the extent that D&D originally chose to call the class with fireball magic-user and the class with cure light wounds cleric, and has broadly stuck with that nomenclature, other than allowing "magic-users" to evolve into "wizards." But the design decision, to use healing spells as a distinct dividing point between certain types of classes, is the issue here, not the names of the classes. That design decision is not mere legacy.

Nor, for that matter, is the nomenclature, not really. The notion of holy magic being healing and arcane magic being...other...is a long tradition across many cultures, particularly Christianized ones, though it goes back further. So really, all Gygax and co. did was see a gap in their game design (healing magic), take a common tradition (healing magic associated with Gods), and create a new class. The game has experimented with that basic starting point in many ways, and the 5e cleric bears little resemblance to that original iteration, but that core class distinction has been preserved after 4e experimented with greatly reducing it through healing surges, etc..

Obviously, you could do things differently. 4e did. Other games do. I prefer the 5e design decision to go back to making a clearer distinction around healing magic and class identity. I have issues with other aspects of 5e design and healing magic (e.g. healing word and pop-up healing), but that is another story.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

My swashbuckler rogue is a great Erol Flynn type.

I really tried to leave this with the rest joke so we wouldn't do this... I have been bearly here for months and here I am about to re do the same argument for years...

My champion fighter (first PC in 5E) didn't have anything supernatural, m

if you in real life jump down 75ft how hurt and weakened do you think you would be? would you be able to run and jump and fight exactly the same as if you had not?

that is 7d6 damage... the fighter by level 5 (5d10+x) or the rogue by 8th (8d6+x) can.

that champion fighter already has action surge, second wind and other 'gamest' things

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That...would be a huge improvement, yeah. I never minded the division into AEDU,

I think that 4e needed an updated edition over all... another version learning from it's flaws (and even as a HUGE 4e fan I can name half a dozen flaws)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

How much work would it be to put 4e under the OGL now? Is that amount above zero?

I doubt it...at least in any useable way.

Well then, I can see why WotC wouldn't bother. There's nothing in it for them, not even goodwill, probably, as far as they can tell.

I don't know being able to say "We promised X and delivered X" will bring some good will.



if they took the 3 PHBs and took all the flavor names out (I don't think there is much) and dropped all the races and classes into the OGL/Commons, you could make roll20 database and make it easier to make a 4e online game, and someone could teach new players... but that isn't 0 work by a long shot

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I do that once a year. Pull them down and flip through them. Give a little thought to this or that house rule, how to incorporate the best of 4E into 5E, etc. 4E is still hands down my favorite edition of WotC D&D. I’d love to have a 4.5E that streamlined combat like 5E but kept just about everything else from 4E.

I would love a 4e redone in 5e standard... use the Warlock as a template for the classes. Keep the 5e advantage/disadvantage and the HD instead of HS... but redo the 4e classes that way along with powers...

a warlock starts with 1 short rest power, and then goes to 2 3 and finally 4 and they get a few tricks here and there...

 

[Neonchameleon]

We have different thoughts and opinions on this. I played 4E for it's life cycle I understand how it works. I thought many of the 4E fighter powers were supernatural. Feel free to differ.

Come And Get It I'll agree is supernatural. And Tide of Iron action movie physics. But the basic mark/combat challenge would be at home in a grittily realistic game.

 

[Oofta]

I really tried to leave this with the rest joke so we wouldn't do this... I have been bearly here for months and here I am about to re do the same argument for years...

if you in real life jump down 75ft how hurt and weakened do you think you would be? would you be able to run and jump and fight exactly the same as if you had not?

that is 7d6 damage... the fighter by level 5 (5d10+x) or the rogue by 8th (8d6+x) can.

that champion fighter already has action surge, second wind and other 'gamest' things

Well in my game you'd likely be dead if you fell 75 feet, I think that's a stupid rule. But there's a difference between game rules that I think are over-simplified (falling damage is one) and labeling what I consider supernatural abilities martial somehow makes them martial.

The thing is, it doesn't matter! If it works for you, if you liked how fighters worked in 4E, fantastic! I just happen to have different preferences. Second wind is a really, really common trope in action movies and something I've experienced myself in a way. There have been times when I was at what I thought was at the end of my rope physically and I managed to push on and found a reserve of power I didn't know I had. Getting your second wind is a term commonly used by runners, I get it sometimes riding bicycle or hiking.

There will always be gamist aspects to a game because it's a game. What bothers me is that if I say that 4E went too far in that direction for my tasted I get told repeatedly that I'm just mistaken, that I'm just too stupid to understand. Stop making excuses for enjoying a game! It's not necessary, just say you liked how the game worked and be done with it.

 

[Oofta]

Come And Get It I'll agree is supernatural. And Tide of Iron action movie physics. But the basic mark/combat challenge would be at home in a grittily realistic game.

Which is why I call marking borderline.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well in my game you'd likely be dead if you fell 75 feet, I think that's a stupid rule. But there's a difference between game rules that I think are over-simplified (falling damage is one) and labeling what I consider supernatural abilities martial somehow makes them martial.

don't want to go case for case house rule by house rule and stat for stat... but characters in this game do things no one can do in real life and as such in real life we would call it supernatural... the 'tags' we use just say "in this D&D world a trained blank can do that"

The thing is, it doesn't matter! If it works for you, if you liked how fighters worked in 4E, fantastic!

I do it is my favorite edition of the game

I just happen to have different preferences. Second wind is a really, really common trope in action movies and something I've experienced myself in a way.

so is challenging a ton of guys to charge you then... look I don't want to go point by point this is dumb... can we agree that action movies have a wide array of things happen (along with every type of story) that in the real world would be un able to be done.

There will always be gamist aspects to a game because it's a game. What bothers me is that if I say that 4E went too far in that direction for my tasted I get told repeatedly that I'm just mistaken, that I'm just too stupid to understand. Stop making excuses for enjoying a game! It's not necessary, just say you liked how the game worked and be done with it.

no one (that I have ever seen going back and forth for 10 years with you and others about this) says you are wrong to dislike it... you are wrong to say it "HAS to be supernatural"