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

[Charlaquin]

The fact that I'm curious if they have a feat that allows you to do a nasty effect on a creature that moves 5ft while in your range, meaning that if you combine these effects you could have them move and get hit with an effect or stand still and take more damage?

There’s Attack of Opportunity at least, and I think a few similar effects.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

IME, I can confirm that this is 100% true. All else being equal, the Divine Classes tended to have a Leader sub-focus, the Martial characters tended to have a Striker sub-focus, the Arcane classes tended to have Controller sub-focus and the Primal characters had a Defender sub-focus.

By way of example, for Defenders, Fighters did above-average damage, Paladins could hand out small buffs, Wardens were ridiculously sticky, and Swordmages had lots of teleports and other small controllery effects.

 

[Charlaquin]

IME, I can confirm that this is 100% true. All else being equal, the Divine Classes tended to have a Leader sub-focus, the Martial characters tended to have a Striker sub-focus, the Arcane classes tended to have Controller sub-focus and the Primal characters had a Defender sub-focus.

By way of example, for Defenders, Fighters did above-average damage, Paladins could hand out small buffs, Wardens were ridiculously sticky, and Swordmages had lots of teleports and other small controllery effects.

I think PHB3 kinda broke this mold, and then the Essentials line tried to run with the ideas that started there. Instead of power source acting as a secondary role, secondary roles became a codified thing, and power source defined a class’s resource game. Martial became at-will with a few encounter powers as their novas, Arcane and Divine became primarily Daily based, Psionics used the Power Points system, etc.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Of course, it has a similiar issue with the majority of the villains being physically ugly or deformed. But, I'm still loving it.

This was an issue for me in “The Cape”. It was supposed to be “what if Batman was done realistically”. It turned out to be “White Abled Police Officer beats up a bunch of people with explicit physical and mental disabilities”.

 

[Garthanos]

Also, P2e really needs a Characterbuilder equivalent.

That might be intriguing.

 

[Don Durito]

I'm afraid I'm still not getting what "if everyone is special, no one is" is actually supposed to mean.

I can't say I agree with it or not, because I just don't think it communicates anything at all.

"Special" can mean just about anything, and as far as I can see this thread has a lot of people arguing with each who apparently can't see that whatever meaning they're applying to 'special' in this context is not shared by the people they're arguing with.

 

[Eric V]

I still don't understand how anyone can legitimately push back at the idea that 4e was very samey.

LOL because it really wasn't. I mostly DM'd but even with the opportunities I got to play, the characters felt very different. My players all wanted to try different classes for the different experiences.

 

[FrozenNorth]

It was functionally 4.5e, yeah. But it used all the same design tools and produced a result that I think addressed most of the common problems 4e detractors has with the game. Unfortunately it was too little too late, as the crowd it was meant to win back had long since moved on and didn’t really bother looking into Essentials, and the folks who were still playing 4e didn’t like the changes (except me, apparently).

Essentials was seriously more problematic than that. 4e was balanced around your basic attack doing small consistent damage. Essentials was balanced around your basic attack replacing encounter and daily powers. The two systems did not mix well, with for instance) warlords giving free basic melee attacks that did considerably more damage than the system was designed for.

 

[Charlaquin]

Essentials was seriously more problematic than that. 4e was balanced around your basic attack doing small consistent damage. Essentials was balanced around your basic attack replacing encounter and daily powers. The two systems did not mix well, with for instance) warlords giving free basic melee attacks that did considerably more damage than the system was designed for.

Sure, they played better separately than they did together.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm afraid I'm still not getting what "if everyone is special, no one is" is actually supposed to mean.

I can't say I agree with it or not, because I just don't think it communicates anything at all.

"Special" can mean just about anything, and as far as I can see this thread has a lot of people arguing with each who apparently can't see that whatever meaning they're applying to 'special' in this context is not shared by the people they're arguing with.

It’s a pretty meaningless statement, yeah. Generally what I think it’s being used to mean here is that if it’s not possible to make a suboptimal character, then character building choices don’t matter. Which is absurd, in my opinion.