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

[Charlaquin]

What do you want the 5e fighter or rogue to do that he cannot?

Affect the encounter in meaningful ways besides reducing monsters’ HP to 0. Fighters should be able to punish opponents who target their allies and force movement. Rogues should be able to debilitate opponents with status conditions. The optimal move shouldn’t be attacking as many times as your extra attacks allow or sneak attack the biggest threat turn after after turn.

I'll solve that one for you - be a cavalier

Great, so for the first two levels I’m just like every other fighter. At third level I get to actually play like a proper tank... three times a day... That’s only once every other encounter on a SHORT adventuring day.

At 7th level, I can give someone an AC boost and damage resistance against an attack instead of making an opportunity attack... twice per day. If I spent my 4th level ASI on Strength, at this point I might be able to do one cool thing per fight.

At 10th level - the endgame of the average campaign - I get the Sentinel Feat. Literally, that’s my capstone, a feat I could have had at 1st level as a variant human or 4th as anyone else (if I didn’t spend that to keep up in accuracy abs damage and get an extra use of my subclass’s core ability), and if I did already get it, this is a dead level.

At 15th level, if the campaign actually goes that long, I can try to knock someone prone as part of an attack whenever I charge. This is a really cool, interesting ability that meaningfully sets me apart from other fighters. Too bad I had to wait fifteen levels to get it.

At 18th level, again, if I even get there, I can finally use more than one reaction per round. The key feature you pitched the subclass for, and it is a very cool feature, doesn’t come until the unicorn 1st to 20th campaign is nearly over.

Subclasses are false class diversity. They show you a list of abilities to make it look like they totally transform the character, but most characters won’t last long enough to see more than two of them, they come several levels apart, and they don’t tend to come up often enough to significantly transform the way the base class plays. Again, subs that grant casting are an exception, but the fact that you need to be able to cast spells to do cool stuff in 5e is part of the problem.

A battlemaster with good Charisma and rallying cry and inspiring leader and healer does a lot more than be a damage (leader)

Anyone can have a good Charisma, Inspiring Leader, and Healer. There’s your “if everyone is special...” There is very little to make Fighters uniquely interesting. Action Surge is nice, but ultimately it boils down to more of the same. Make attacks.

A fighter that grapples can stop an enemy in their tracks (control)
A fighter that trip attacks is slowing an enemy and giving allies bonuses to hit it control)

A fighter that grapples or trips is generally wasting his attacks, because those are less effective strategies than just doing damage. Situationally this can be useful, but again, not unique to Fighters.

A fighter can cast utility spells to buff himself or possibly others (leader)

And again we have the problem of needing magic to do cool stuff in 5e.

There were 2 primary parts of a 4e role

Role Mechanic - The defender ones were the only role mechanics I can think of that had a unique feel between classes in the same role.

I disagree. Characters of different roles played very differently than one another. Characters within the same role generally played pretty similarly at first, but as the game went on, power sources started to develop their own mechanical identities as well. Would be nice to see the role/power-source concept continue to evolve. D&D fans would never accept role and power source replacing class, but that would be a great move from a design perspective.

Powers that supplemented the role - This was your 2[W] + small side effect ability that 90% of all powers were modeled after. You had to really try to not take a samey feeling 2[W] + small side effect power with every character in the group. Heck even most dailies went to 3[W] + moderate side effect or 2[W] + bigger side effect. There were a few gems that if you optimized you could find that would eliminate some of the sameyness - but overall the game was very samey. For example,

I'll use encounter power to do:
Player 1: 2[W] + slide 1
Player 2: 2[W] + grant +1 attack for next ally
Player 3: 2[W] + make enemies next attack be at -1
Player 4: 2[W] + pull 1 (and mark it since I'm a fighter)

These look significantly more distinct to me than:
Player 1: Attack with my axe.
Player 2: Attack with my sword.
Player 3: Cast Sacred Flame.
Player 4: Attack with my bow.

Also, an added layer of sameyness was the encouragement to refluff everything.

Yeah, 4e got pretty refluff-happy, and that’s something I’m glad D&D has moved past a bit. It’s a powerful tool, but needs to be used judiciously.

Most of 5e's choices they give to a player are not samey. Subclass choice is huge.

Not really, for the reasons I gave above. For most characters, subclasses will give them two, maybe three abilities, none of which will come up all that often.

Classes all have a different mechanic - despite nearly all of them using extra attack.

Barbarian = Rage
Fighter = Action Surge + Number of attacks
Paladin = Divine Smite
Ranger = Hunter's Mark
Monk = Flurry of blows

Full casters are alot more samey in mechanics - but there's still a huge difference in playing a bard, a cleric or a wizard because of the types of spells each have access to.

On this I agree. Classes feel and play reasonably differently from each other. The bigger issue for me is that characters of the same class tend to play and feel almost identically.

 

[Maxperson]

On this I agree. Classes feel and play reasonably differently from each other. The bigger issue for me is that characters of the same class tend to play and feel almost identically.

That's why we need more feats and subclasses. Those are what differentiate members of the same class.

 

[FrogReaver]

Can you see how this makes people think you want to make casters better than non-casters? Your complaint isn't that it made non-casters feel like casters (who were far and away the best in 3.5) but that is made casters feel like non-casters (who were far and away inferior in 3.5).

I'm not a fan of 3.5. Caster's stopped feeling like D&D casters in 4e. Trying to equate that to them simply feeling less powerful is a foolish.

They didn't make the other classes too good, they didn't make us good enough, and that is bad.

Who said anything about "being good enough"?

I think you are projecting rather strongly on my post.

Maybe you don't mean it that way, but that is how it sounds. And, if you try and explain how you wanted casters to be more like casters, think about what you might have wanted. Bigger effects? Bigger Area of Effect? Longer term effects? More interesting effect?

Don't you think you should ask first before you project?

All of those would make them better than average. Which would make your desire come across as wanting casters to be better than martials.

Actually, I would have expected something more like:
Martial = At-Will + Encounter Focused
Casters = Daily Focused

No, I'm not wrong and I'm not arguing against a strawman. I'm not arguing against anyone in this thread either. I'm pointing out the philosophy and literature of the source people want to use as a pithy one-liner.

You are arguing against me

He states his goal and his plan. He is going to give technology to everyone so that everyone in the world is superpowered, is special. This is bad, because the supers who were born with their gifts would no longer be special. If everyone is like you, if everyone is as strong as you or as fast as you, then you aren't special anymore. That is his "villainous plot", equality of ability through technology. That is the source of the line people are using.

And the movie presents this as a terrible thing. If everyone is special, if everyone has super powers, then no one is special, there are no icons standing above us and being better than us with their inborn gifts.

you reading into the quote what isn't there.

It is notable that many supervillains, and in fact every Incredible's Villain, uses technology. The Bomber from the beginning, Syndrome, the Miss Mind Control from the second movie. I love the Incredible's movies, they are great, but it is really concerning to realize that all the good guys are born with their gifts and all the bad guys are using technology to make themselves equal and pull the heroes down to their level. To prove that being born with better gifts does not make them better than normal people. I cannot think of a single villainous super from that series, everyone born with powers that set them above is good, the majority of those using technology to make themselves equal are bad.

So, I find the use of the phrase "If everyone is special, no one is" to be philosophically messy. It carries with it a lot of baggage no one really wants to have associated with them.

The PC's aren't the only people in the world. They are special regardless. But every class doesn't have to play like a wizard. Every class doesn't have to play like a fighter. Every class doesn't have to use the same resources. Every class doesn't have to recharge abilities at the same rate.

So yes - we don't want everyone to be special like the wizard is special. Likewise we don't want everyone to be special like the fighter is special. We want these classes to be different and in those differences we see their specialness. But in terms of the larger world - make no mistake - the PC's are all special in a way that isn't achievable by the NPC's.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's why we need more feats and subclasses. Those are what differentiate members of the same class.

I would say just subclasses.

The more I play 5e - the less and less I am a fan of their feats.

 

[Garthanos]

I think a lot of the things 4e powers could do are covered by giving up an attack from your attack action in 5e.

Maybe at-wills. Can be made that way... i wasnt aware shove had done it for Trip.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say just subclasses.

The more I play 5e - the less and less I am a fan of their feats.

Well, they are optional.

My players and I like feats and it would be nice to have a choice of more than the same handful.

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe at-wills.

Okay - so what encounter powers aren't reasonably covered by battlemaster maneuvers?

Now dailies I agree - but I'm personally glad they went away from fighter dailies. More diversity.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, they are optional.

My players and I like feats and it would be nice to have a choice of more than the same handful.

I like feats too. I like making builds with feats. I like playing with feats. I just find the game runs much smoother and I focus much more on the game instead of the build when I don't have feats.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is a great point and I want to highlight it a bit.

I may not have played much of 4e, but what I did play supports this idea. A defender and their contribution to the party could not be fully matched by another role. Now, a lot of class did have a prime and secondary role. I think Paladins, going off memory, were Defenders who had a bit of Leader mixed in.

Now, I'd have to go and do much more in-depth research than I'm willing to do, but a part of me suspects that all Divine characters shared a similar focus. There was something that a divine Defender could do, that matched the idea of Divine characters, that a Primal Defender couldn't. I'd have to dig far deeper into the abilities and categorize them, but I suspect that is the case.

And so, the "niche" was actually double-layered, but you'll notice the part I didn't talk about. Class. Class was just the intersection of the other two. It wasn't the focus of the protected design. So, a Warlord could contribute in a very similar way to a Cleric and the Paladin had a very similar feel to the Cleric. This could have made the cleric not seem unique, but misses that the point was that Leaders had a role and that was the part they were protecting, not the Cleric itself.

This was the idea. It took a couple PHBs before they really nailed the feel of each power source, which probably further contributed to the feeling of samey-ness. Early on, a Warlord felt pretty much like a Cleric with a Fighter paint job, and a Paladin felt pretty much like a Fighter with a Cleric paint job. Even then though, characters of different roles played very differently from each other, and as the game developed and new powers were released, the power sources started to be able to be played differently from each other, culminating in Essentials, which I adored. Too bad most of the 4e crowd didn’t like it very much.

I also would like to chime in and confirm, almost every time I hear people talking about 4e being too "samey" it is closely followed or explicitly paired with "Everyone was a caster". So, it is a very fair assessment of someone using the phrase "If everyone is special then no one is" and taking it in that direction.

Yup.

Also Also, can we acknowledge that using that phrase as a negative is a horrible position to take? Syndrome's position was to ruing superheroes by making everyone into superheroes. If every persona has super strength, you aren't special anymore are you Mr. Incredible. And that is portrayed as a bad thing, but lets be clear, a world where every construction worker could strap on a suit of power armor and safely tear things up? A world where every firefighter had the technology to control fire, absorb it, stop it from burning down a house? A world were every deep sea diver was aquaman? Everyone could fly?

That is the goal of technology, to make everyone special. The idea that that is a negative, and that power and abilities should be hoarded so that "Only I am special" is a terrible philosophy to take.

And sure, I know some people are going to say "what we mean is that everyone is going to be special in their own way, not in the same way" I'll go ahead and repost the quote, so you can read it again.

"If everyone is special then no one is" This doesn't mean if everyone is special in their own way. That isn't included in the line. If everyone is special, even in their own unique and quirky way, then no one is special.

Also yup. And also also, anyone who thought Syndrome was right, I’d highly encourage taking a look at My Hero Academia.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's why we need more feats and subclasses. Those are what differentiate members of the same class.

More Feats and subclasses won’t fix the issue of them being so few and far-between. The reason casters are able to feel more diverse than non-casters do is they get a choice to make to differentiate themselves every level (what new spell to learn). Non-casters only get to choose their subclass at 1st or 3rd level and a Feat every 4 levels, and that’s if they never take a bump to their ability scores.