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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6369347" data-attributes="member: 6696971">The best of 2e and 3.x, yes.  I think folks looking for a modernized progression of AD&D should by extremely happy with 5e.4e?  I cannot possibly imagine how 5e would produce the game that I've GMed 67 levels or so for.  The 4e aesthetic at my home table is predicated upon:1)  Scene-based, noncombat conflict resolution and all of the infrastructure that supports it.2)  Significant forced movement and hefty battlefield control elements built into each class, built into the NPCs/monsters, built into the battlefield (terrain/hazard system) itself which all serve to make each and every combat extremely dynamic (control and mobility) and tactically rich.3)  The Healing Surge "system" (the whole of it and its context).  There are multiple components to it.  5e's Hit Die do not remotely perform the same pivotal functions of 4e's Healing Surges: (a) Unlocking them in combat is absolutely central to the "rally feel" of 4e play and a big part of the team synergy and solo tactical overhead that the depth of the combat system is built upon.(b) Capping the work days worth of healing.(c) Serving alongside dailies as the primary strategic resource that everyone shares, thus strategic decision-making is built around it.(d) A beautiful open-descriptor resource to tax PCs with during conflict resolution or make offers to them (or them you) for boons.  This feedback loop adds tension to strategic decision-making throughout the entirety of the workday.(4) Unified class resource scheduling which promotes balance across the encounter, balance across the workday and makes it a cinch for the GM to predict just what threat level this encounter will produce (from cakewalk all the way to TPK).  This and the Milestone system also makes conflict and adventure pacing predictable for the GM.(5) Tight adversity/opposition budgeting at the scene/encounter level and all of the infrastructure that supports it.(6) Strategic spellcasting (Rituals) siloed away from the class system such that everyone can gain access at their discretion.(7) Intuitive, transparent roles and mechanics that coherently support those roles for both PCs and monsters.(8) Transparent and simple rest mechanics (Extended and Short) that can easily be perturbed up and down to change conflict/adventure pacing to slow down/speed up or make it as deadly/punitive as you'd like.(9) The Minor and Major Quest system being central to the trajectory of play and the stories that it produces (in the same way it is for MHRP's Milestones and DW's Bonds and Alignment).(10) Significant player fiat embedded into the system for all classes.(11) The intentional, significant impact upon play of the discrete tiers and their accompanying mechanical/aesthetic impactors (Theme, PP, ED and the distinctions made in the DMG and DMG2 about the play continuum through those tiers).(12) Robust stunting and terrain/hazard/trap system.(13) Exception-based and outcome-based design.There is more, but those are the biggies off the top of my head that 5e doesn't possess and why I cannot see that it can coherently produce my home 4e game.  Much of the design intent is actually swimming upstream with respect to, or at odds with, those things.In 5e I see Bounded Math like in 4e.  However, it isn't everywhere.  It certainly isn't in the extremely important saving throw system.  The evolving saving throw disparity through the levels resembles 3.x.  So kinda, but not so much in a very key way.  The Exhaustion Track kinda looks like 4e's Disease Track and I think it could be leveraged in a similar fashion in play.  I actually like that mechanic a fair bit (elegant and coherent) but would need to see it on play to confirm that it isn't too punitive and it doesn't produce an anti-climactic "fatigue spiral."  Backgrounds/Traits are very 4e and tied for my favorite part of the system with Lair/Legendary Monster mechanics.  Both of those are awesome and very, very 4eish.  The skill groupings themselves are fairly broad-descriptor (as in 4e) but their intent is to resolve micro-tasks, process-wise, rather than to interface with a conflict resolution system (as in all editions except 4e).Outside of those few things (and the saving throw system not looking anything like 4e aesthetically or mathematically really hurts the first one...and the skill system being predicated upon task resolution rather than conflict resolution) actually porting over, meaning that their actual siloed nature bears legitimate resemblance through and through and their impact on play (with the infrastructure they interact with) would produce the same aesthetic, there isn't much else.Again, a swell enough system but I can't imagine hacking (or even wanting to attempt to it given WotC ninja's didn't take my books or DDI yet!) my 4e games out of it.  The edition's chassis and the design principles that underwrote the project just don't comport.</blockquote>

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