D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[Garthanos]

I really like how the game plays. The 3 action economy, for example, is really good.

I do find that very interesting and would like to see it in action, I am wondering giving fighters (and others with extra attacks) in 5e things to trade out extra attacks for can bring some of that into 5e.

 

[Arilyn]

I do find that very interesting and would like to see it in action, I am wondering giving fighters (and others with extra attacks) in 5e things to trade out extra attacks for can bring some of that into 5e.

Yeah, and you could maybe do something more interesting with concentration too.

 

[ccs]

Which is all well and good. We all have different preferences, and there’s no denying that 4e had a distinctly different feel than past editions of D&D. It’s just that when you phrase it as “it didn’t feel like D&D to me” that is implicitly invalidating to the opinions of the many folks to whom it did “feel like D&D.” I think the conversation would go smoother if you would say “didn’t feel like what I want out of D&D” or “didn’t feel like I expect D&D to” or something along those lines. To your credit, “didn’t feel like D&D to me is a marked improvement over “wasn’t D&D,” but it still does set up some views of what D&D feels like as more valid than others.


I’m not asking you to do that. Your experience and preferences are valid, whatever your reasons for them may be. In fact, I think asking people to cite specific reasons 4e didn’t “feel like D&D to them” just tends to invite argument. For one thing, people are generally not very good at identifying why they do or don’t like something. You could cite reasons you think might have contributed to the feel not being right for you and I could nitpick and point out why I don’t think those reasons make sense all day long, but at the end of the day it doesn’t get us anywhere. Feel is intensely subjective, trying to rationalize it and form objective arguments about it will only lead to trouble.


I get it. I don’t share your assessments, but like I said, feel is subjective. If it didn’t feel like what you think of as D&D, it didn’t feel that way, and that’s fine and understandable. Heck, I liked it precisely because it didn’t feel like what I had experienced playing 3.5. I only object to defining that feeling as “like D&D” and the feeling 4e had as something not D&D. They’re both D&D, they’re just different styles of D&D.

Still didn't feel like D&D to me.

 

[Minigiant]

To me. Olden days D&D had a lot of rules and design foci that felt arbitary and were houseruled at many tables. Add in people coming to D&D at different times and having different RP and fantasy experiences (CRPGs, MMOs, APGs, other miniatures games,fantasy books, fantasy movies, fantasy TV shows) you have many different ideas of D&D floating around.

2e,3e, 4e, PF, 13 Age, and the rest show the different mindsets and mindscapes of D&D-like games in the community.

Basically, there are multiple subgenre of fantasy in the pure structural form. And for a long time, D&D was so dominant that it cugdel into several subgenre structures.

So we ended up with 15 different feels of D&D and all of them were somewhat valid.

 

[Beleriphon]

4E and PF2 wanted balance above all else. And they went with the wrong road doing that.
They went with the mirror balance. That is all classes are the same at all levels.

Now, that would be great if we didn't already had balance made through non-mirror balance.

And non-mirror balance is better than mirror balance. At least it does not scream laziness and lack of imagination.

AED was a great idea in 4E, but it would have been far better if different classes had different amount of A, E or D powers with different rate of aquiring them.

I think it would have been interesting to see say fighters get a bunch of at-will abilities and as they leveled up could start to chain them together.

the +1/2 per level on EVERYTHING didn't helped either.
4E is even better if you remove that.

I don't mind +1/2 level to most rolls. Star Wars SAGA did the same thing and it pretty much made sure most characters were at least moderately competent at most tasks.

 

[FrozenNorth]

These are all things I got excited about 5e. What am I supposed to get excited about for PF2?

It is truly a sad situation where I am defending P2, but both the 3 action system and degrees of success and failure are cool ideas with potential.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Classes felt right - different and not samey

How do you feel about the spellcasters?

 

[Charlaquin]

Still didn't feel like D&D to me.

ಠ_ಠ

 

[Charlaquin]

I think it would have been interesting to see say fighters get a bunch of at-will abilities and as they leveled up could start to chain them together.



I don't mind +1/2 level to most rolls. Star Wars SAGA did the same thing and it pretty much made sure most characters were at least moderately competent at most tasks.

You could accomplish the same goal with less math by just not adding +1/2 level to anything though.

 

[Charlaquin]

Classes felt right - different and not samey
Characters from a class could often be made drastically different

These are very debatable as selling points of 5e.