One thing playtest feedback is showing about "simulation" is.....

[Klaus]

I find it ironic that 4E finally gave D&D the higher level of simulation for melee, with actual movement on the battlefield, like circling and forcing enemies' moves, and it was accused by many grognards as being gamist and unrealistic. And it also showed that increased simulation could be even more epic and still run as fast as 3.5 combats. Hilarious.



Reaping Strike is not a "power". It's a side effect, and slightly more powerful than a Feat. The pregen Fighter looks about as much fun as playing chess with a potted plant.

Yet it is listed as a Martial Exploit in the first PHB. So yes, it is a "power".

As for precise battlefield simulation, I think that might be an optional module for those who prefer to focus on the combat side of D&D.

 

[Neuroglyph]

Yet it is listed as a Martial Exploit in the first PHB. So yes, it is a "power".

As for precise battlefield simulation, I think that might be an optional module for those who prefer to focus on the combat side of D&D.

Think you're kinda missing my point... sure, it's a power in 4E, and now its in 5E. But compared with the pile of powers (spells) they dropped on the pregen Wizard, Reaping Strike is just a side effect of missing with your one melee attack.

And I certainly hope WotC manages to make enough modules in Next so a campaign is capable of reaching the elegance of 4E combat and battle simulation... but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

A person that has bothered to build a conception in his or her head of how combat might work, is necessarily limited by influences and imagination at any given point. Thus, plenty of people have, for example, assigned more "reality" to a given ruleset than is warranted, because it is a ruleset that they encountered early, while the conception was still being built. To revisit it requires a jog in some form, and a competing game structure is rarely going to provide such. There has to be a sport, SCA, weapon study, tactics study--something--to make it move.

Nor is this anything new. Writers with more varied and applicable experiences were mocking the likes of L. Sprague de Camp on this very issue decades ago. Katana worship is not new. Picturing platemail as Henry the VIII being lifted onto a horse with a crane is not new. It's the same kind of surface appreciation that caused that guy to say he couldn't understand why Shakespeare was so hot, since he wrote in nothing but cliches.

And of course "fantasy" and "magic" is the great excuse--sometimes justly so.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've closed this thread because its entire purpose seems to be to stir up an edition-war based argument.