D&D 5E Powers beget powers.

[B.T.]

Something I noticed the other day when leafing through my D&D Essentials book was that flipping from the rogue to the cleric gave me power envy. I was looking at all the options that the wizard had available (at-will, encounter, and daily) and the options the rogue didn't have. Sure, I had my move action powers, but that wasn't the same as the rest of those nifty spells.

Oddly enough, I never had this problem in 3e. I was content with the rogue class because I had so many skills to choose. Even the fighter--with his lackluster "full attack, no skills, final destination"--did not make me envious of other characters' combat options. Yet here I was with a 4e book wanting more powers.

My thinking is that the powers format creates a desire for powers. When your primary options are powers, it creates an expectation for powers to exist. Thus, people want powers because the game centers on them.

Toss out that format, and I think people will be a lot happier with things.

 

[Obryn]

I have to confess - I don't know what you're arguing here.

"The Rogue and Fighter in their Essentials incarnations don't have many powers. Clerics and wizards do. Therefore... take the powers away from someone?" I don't see the connection to your suggestion of "no powers at all" and I don't even really understand it in context - are you saying Clerics and Wizards shouldn't have spells?

The Essentials line of classes was for people who specifically didn't want to deal with all the powers and options. For Rogue and Fighter players who do want that level of options, there's still the very-capable PHB versions of both. Having an AEDU-style version along side the Easy version is, IMO, ideal, and one of 4e's greatest strengths.

-O

 

[Magil]

My thinking is that the powers format creates a desire for powers. When your primary options are powers, it creates an expectation for powers to exist. Thus, people want powers because the game centers on them.

I don't think your antecedental evidence is worth scrapping a reasonably convenient format. Personally, when I played a Slayer, I wasn't envious of other classes for what they had. Also, putting all the spells in a separate section isn't enough to fool most people from realizing that full casters get a bunch of extra options that other classes don't have access to.

(BTW, I think you're kind of missing the point of Essentials, it was designed for people who wanted a more classic-feeling rogue or fighter. If you wanted a rogue or fighter that got as many powers as the wizard and cleric, the PHB is right there.)

Incidentally, however, I do agree that there is probably a mentality that develops from 4E powers that your character is limited to those powers when you decide what it can do. It's not true, of course, but it's definitely something I've noticed and seen, when faced with a situation or their turn in combat, a player thinks "what power should I use" rather than "what should my character do," which is a problem. It's purely psychological, of course, the 4E rules actually support improv well, but that doesn't mean it's not something that should be addressed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Something I noticed the other day when leafing through my D&D Essentials book was that flipping from the rogue to the cleric gave me power envy. I was looking at all the options that the wizard had available (at-will, encounter, and daily) and the options the rogue didn't have. Sure, I had my move action powers, but that wasn't the same as the rest of those nifty spells.

Yep, Essentials was garbage that way. Since you say 'rogue' and 'cleric' instead of 'Thief' and 'Warpriest,' I assume you came to Essentials already familiar with the more equitable approach of 4e.

Oddly enough, I never had this problem in 3e.

It's not that odd. The classes in 3e weren't balanced well, but they were better, and the non-casters had a lot more choice than ever before. It was a huge improvement so the remaining imbalances were easy to take.

With Essentials, we'd already seen reasonable parity among classes for two years with 4e, so the stripping of powers and options from the fighter and rogue didn't feel right. You're probably right that, because the non-casters few remaining abilities were still /formatted/ as powers, the loss of real power was more sort of 'in your face,' while in classic D&D, and now, in 5e, the sense that your non-casters is 'different' masks the reality of his inferiority, because the comparison doesn't come as naturally.

 

[B.T.]

Sounds like you're not a fan of Essentials.

while in classic D&D, and now, in 5e, the sense that your non-casters is 'different' masks the reality of his inferiority, because the comparison doesn't come as naturally.

I got the impression that people were fairly pleased with the 5e fighter thus far despite a few necessary tweaks.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think what you're getting at is that (in most of D&D, but particularly in this case), classes are overused as design elements. Swinging your sword extra hard isn't a feat that you need to train to access (Power Attack), it's something anyone can do. The same problem pervades the entire power system. Class abilities should make you better at what you do, but should not be the gateway to anything. The concept of powers forces you to overbuild your character to get access to system rules that really don't have anything to do with that character, like the ability to swing a sword a certain way.

The solution is to write a really good combat chapter (and rules for noncombat things), with rules for anyone to swing hard/smite/trip/grapple/combine moves, and so on, and write the classes such that they get better at doing those things: higher numbers, more actions in a round, etc.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I never understood the "he's got more powers, abilities, whatever, on his sheet so that some how makes his class better" mentality.

This was the 1st thing that put me off of 4th edition. I don't care that Bobby the Wizard has more "abilities" due to his class, as long as I am doing what my class was designed to do then I don't care many less "abilities" it has. I play a fighter to swing my sword and wear armor, I don't care how many steps I need to go through or how many less I need to go through to do what my class was designed to do.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sounds like you're not a fan of Essentials.

I rarely use the word 'garbage' to describe things I like, yeah. But, specifically, just of the ill-designed classes in Essentials that deviated too much from the 4e advancement scheme ('AEDU' though that's over-simplified). The Monster Vault is a great resource, for instance, and Heroes of the Feywild and Heroes of the Element Chaos, while technically post-Essentials, were strong supplements.

I got the impression that people were fairly pleased with the 5e fighter thus far despite a few necessary tweaks.

The 5e fighter, like the 3.x fighter, is a pretty darn good design, but one that can't hope to compete with traditional Vancian and similar casting mechanics in the long run.

We won't know until we see the level 1-10 playtest if 5e is going to make any effort to keep the melee types and skill monkeys relevant out of the lower levels by reigning in traditional excesses of higher level casters. So far, there's nothing to indicate it will, and the real test will come beyond 10th level.

 

[Viking Bastard]

The Essentials Thief is a beautiful construct, though. Well oiled machine of a class and on the brink of being overpowered.

 

[Obryn]

Speaking from the other side of the coin, I think the Essentials line is one of the best and most necessary 4e supplements released. I am a huge fan of the original AEDU classes, but adding simpler characters for new players (or old players who like simpler classes) is awesome.

Despite Tony's convinctions, I've never found an imbalance, and I've been running a mixed table since the line was released. Right now, I have a Scout in the party, and I recently had a Hunter too (who was startlingly effective). Before then, we've had Thieves, Knights, and a Sentinel. I think their addition filled a crucial gap, though I'd never want to run an E-Only game myself.

-O

 

[bogmad]

The essentials hate I think says some interesting things about some of the die hard 4e loyalists, and how they might take to different systems. As someone who came back to the game in 4e I was wary of essentials at first for the same "lack of options" reasons, but as someone who likes playing strikers... I came around. Hexblades in particular I'm fond of as the magic abilities mix well without overthinking the basic uncomplicated idea of hitting something with a sword.
And a "basic attack" actually being a viable idea of an action to take... why'd it take so long for that to be a thing?

 

[FireLance]

Kind of skirting the no politics rule here, but ...

I would liken it to someone from a dictatorial regime visiting a democratic country, and suddenly realizing what he's been missing.

Sure, he might have been happy with the occasional concessions granted to him in the past, but that was because he didn't know any better. Now that it's laid out clearly in front of him exactly what the actual difference is, well ...

 

[Magil]

Speaking from the other side of the coin, I think the Essentials line is one of the best and most necessary 4e supplements released. I am a huge fan of the original AEDU classes, but adding simpler characters for new players (or old players who like simpler classes) is awesome.

Despite Tony's convinctions, I've never found an imbalance, and I've been running a mixed table since the line was released. Right now, I have a Scout in the party, and I recently had a Hunter too (who was startlingly effective). Before then, we've had Thieves, Knights, and a Sentinel. I think their addition filled a crucial gap, though I'd never want to run an E-Only game myself.

I'm largely in agreement. I'm a big fan of 4th edition but I wasn't offended by Essentials, as I saw a number of people were. My experience has been that most of the classes are at least competitive with their predecessors from a balance standpoint--removing daily powers from certain fighter and rogue builds didn't drop their power significantly enough such that they could no longer compete (which is in fact one of the primary reasons I'm not calling for something similar on DnD Next martial classes). I don't think the knight is quite as good at defending as the PHB fighter, and I don't think the thief is quite as good at being a striker as a PHB rogue (and gives up most of the secondary controller role), but they perform well enough. There were some gaffs, but I don't think it was for the martial classes (the cavalier, and the poor binder). And personally I loved the mage and the return of school specializations, which I felt were handled very well in 4E, though they really didn't need to continue printing new wizard build after new wizard build after that.

Still, I don't think I'd like to play an essentials-only game either. I liked playing a Slayer in a very short campaign, but I think if I tried to play it from levels 1-30 I'd get bored.

 

[Remathilis]

Its funny how Essentials got pooped up on the 4e community: Essentials would be the ONLY way you'd get me to play 4e. The revised martial classes are a big reason, but there were a few others as well: clerics getting domains (rather than one crappy feat) to distinguish them and mages regaining school selection. Even the names "mage and thief" brought a smile to me. If anything, my problem was Essentials didn't go far enough: I wanted more domains, more classes done Essential/broken AEDU style (Barbarian, Bard, and Monk were just screaming for a non/redone ADEU form) and more magic items done with the rarity setting.

Essentials ALMOST got me to buy 4e. If they had kept with its new format rather than try to reconcile new material with previous 4e, it might have worked better.

 

[Obryn]

Its funny how Essentials got pooped up on the 4e community: Essentials would be the ONLY way you'd get me to play 4e. The revised martial classes are a big reason, but there were a few others as well: clerics getting domains (rather than one crappy feat) to distinguish them and mages regaining school selection. Even the names "mage and thief" brought a smile to me. If anything, my problem was Essentials didn't go far enough: I wanted more domains, more classes done Essential/broken AEDU style (Barbarian, Bard, and Monk were just screaming for a non/redone ADEU form) and more magic items done with the rarity setting.

Essentials ALMOST got me to buy 4e. If they had kept with its new format rather than try to reconcile new material with previous 4e, it might have worked better.

IMO, 4e right now - at the end of its product line - is a far, far better game than it was at release. Some of the things you're mentioning here are big parts of that.

FWlittleIW, new Bards and Barbarians were released in Heroes of the Feywild. The new Bard is a basic-attack character ... kinda. The new Barbarian switches from Defender to Striker mid-combat. I've not seen the former in action (it's just weird), but the latter is really effective and IMO better represents the "beefy pseudo-martial raging" barbarian of 1e & 3e than the PHB2 version did.

-O

 

[the Jester]

Interesting observation. I do think that the 4e power format turns off a lot of people for some reason (I believe that it's the source of a lot of the "videogamey" criticism, for instance). Personally, once I learned to read it, I found it to be fairly good at conveying information, but it's easy for novice players to overlook what makes a power cool and effective ("oh, this one targets Reflex!" "oh, this one is a close burst 1 instead of melee 1!" etc).

IMO, 4e right now - at the end of its product line - is a far, far better game than it was at release.

Ohhhhhhh yes!

Mind you, I speak as a fan of 4e- heck, as a fan (to varying degrees) of ALL D&D editions and variants- but 4e's blemishes became far more visible over time, as my campaign leveled up into paragon, where the original math problems (too low damage for monsters, crappy attack boni/defenses for pcs) really reared their heads.

It seems like a lot of the math was initially off (skill challenge DCs, I'm also looking askance in your direction).

With the fixes in place, it's much smoother.

 

[Obryn]

It seems like a lot of the math was initially off (skill challenge DCs, I'm also looking askance in your direction).

It is immensely clear that the system wasn't adequately playtested out of the gate - or not changed to fix the stuff playtesting uncovered. I mean, some of the bugs - monster math, V-shaped classes, expertise gap, skill challenge DCs, etc. - are pretty shallow and should have been caught before release.

-O

 

[B.T.]

Kind of skirting the no politics rule here, but ...

I would liken it to someone from a dictatorial regime visiting a democratic country, and suddenly realizing what he's been missing.

Sure, he might have been happy with the occasional concessions granted to him in the past, but that was because he didn't know any better. Now that it's laid out clearly in front of him exactly what the actual difference is, well ...

I wouldn't say this at all. For instance, let's take the Slayer's class feature that lets him add his Dexterity bonus to damage rolls. What if this were an at-will melee power? It would be worse because the Slayer couldn't use it on his MBAs or ranged attacks. The Slayer is better off that the power is a passive bonus, but it feels like has "less" because he doesn't have as many powers.

It's a psychological issue.

 

[D'karr]

It's a psychological issue.

I would agree very much. I've played both a fighter and a slayer to high level (paragon) and the differences between the two classes are absolutely there. However, playing a slayer I never felt that I was any less capable than the fighter.

I've also played rangers and rogues to paragon level and the slayer was as fun as playing those classes. He just operated differently than other strikers. It was a good thing to add classes like the ones in essentials for those that wanted to have simpler, but still capable classes.

There are many people that think that they can make a good assessment of a class simply by reading about it. I remember the many threads on these boards of how "broken" both the monk, and the mystic theurge were in 3.x. When the actual play reports started to come in, it was obvious that was not the case for either class. The monk, if anything, was underpowered, and the mystic theurge was not anywhere as broken as the "experts" claimed. Splitting caster levels in 3.x was really punishing.

I remember reading the 4e warlord for the first time and thinking, this looks like an interesting class but it doesn't really appeal to me. At Origins that year, I had to fill in for a player for the D&D Open. Since I was a last minute alternate everyone got to pick their classes first, and I was left with the warlord. I was not too excited but decided to give it a good shot for the sake of the other players competing. I had an absolute blast with that character. It played a lot differently than I had imagined from my initial read through of the class. At this time if I'm going to play a leader, warlord is my first choice almost everytime.

So yeah, I agree that it's mostly a psychological issue. Reading about a class almost never gives a good assessment of how that class actually performs in play.

 

[Klaus]

IMO, 4e right now - at the end of its product line - is a far, far better game than it was at release.

I agree. Not only from the books published post-Essentials, but from several Dragon additions to the game. Rob Schwalb's article on Ritual-based feats let you pretty much make a spell-component-based caster, very reminiscent of old magic-users.