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

[HarbingerX]

In the original Deities and Demigods, he was listed as:
F: 11
MU: 3
Th: 15

S: 16
I: 18
W; 14
D: 19
C: 17
CH: 18

So, I think that you'd put him a touch higher on the 5e scale. Then again, it's all pretty arbitrary.


EDIT- Which is to say, no matter what edition you use, mapping literary fantasy characters to D&D has always been an inexact science at best. And pulling stuff out of your posterior at worse.

Deities and Demigods may have beefed up their stats to discourage players going and killing heroes and gods, a problem that cropped up after Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes was published.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[HarbingerX]

And just for fun, here's my Deities & Demigods stats for Cthulhu...

AC 2
Special: Immune to mind control, +2 or better magic weapon to hit, regeneration
Magic Resistance: 80%
HP 400
# Atks: 30
Dmg: d10 (x30)
Fighter 16+ HD Monster
MU: 20

S:25 I:20 W:23 D:20 C:25 CH:-7

So Cthulhu is F16/MU20 multi-class. Funny how his AC's only 2. That's ascending AC 18. See, bounded accuracy was a thing even back then.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Neonchameleon]

Tell me if you need another two dozen pages before we can continue discussing Pathfinder 2...

About the only thing this thread has raised to discuss regarding Pathfinder 2 that I recall is that Pathfinder 2's presentation reminds some people who don't like 4e of 4e - and bears no resemblance to it for almost anyone who does like 4e.

This is ... not good. And is the opposite of what 5e managed - which is to include at least some of the parts people liked from every edition even if all of them are watered down.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I (a) see far more of 4e than 3.X in 5e and (b) the parts I dislike of and associate with 3.X such as the pointless feats (as opposed to 4e's much more pointful ones), absurdly fiddly skill system, fiddly rules everywhere and ridiculous multiclassing, absurd degree of caster supremacy, and even Vancian casting aren't present. But reasonably flavourful characters, meaningful feats with a lack of prerequisite chains, some measure of balance, a sensible and non-fiddly skill system, short rests, and more are. It's hideously watered down 4e - but it's closer to 4e than 3.X.

You're welcome to disagree - and that's the point. You see what puts you off about 4e (even if based on your OP it just about all came from 3.5) when you look at PF2. I see nothing about the parts of 4e I like.

 

[CapnZapp]

Interesting. I'm not going to debate "5E is a watered down 4E" even though the concept is absurd to me (having played both games).

But you have a point in how 5E managed to attract customers from all editions, something I have a hard time seeing PF2 do. That ties right back to my underlying point about PF2 - "what were they thinking making a game like this?"

From where I stand, they made a game with 3.x (i.e. PF1) sensibilities, then took away most of the stuff PF1 players love (and love to hate), venturing far too close to 4E in the process. Even if the resemblances were superficial, and even if you don't subscribe to the point I'm arguing in this thread, it's still enough to scare people away. And of course, they failed to throw the huge massive 5E crowds even a small bone (not only is the game far too cluttery; it is an unapologetic throwback to the pre-5E days in many respects).

 

[Sadras]

I'm not exaggerating when I say I (a) see far more of 4e than 3.X in 5e ...(snip)...

Mechanically I can see that but as a 2e fan, 5e feels (whatever that means) like 2e.
I felt 3e required system mastery and was too heavy, 4e felt locked for the tinkerers, BUT 5e for me gets it right. No system mastery required and very tinker friendly = feels like 2e.

I now have the freedom to incorporate 4e's skill challenges, rituals and change the fighting styles to martial at-wills.
I have the freedom to incorporate 3e's touch attack for incorporeals and whatever else I may want.
Those who do not like feats or even skills can remove them and play 1e styled games.

That for me is why 5e casts the larger net. They did good for the D&D fan-base, not necessarily for specialists of each edition.

 

[Charlaquin]

Interesting. I'm not going to debate "5E is a watered down 4E" even though the concept is absurd to me (having played both games).

But you have a point in how 5E managed to attract customers from all editions, something I have a hard time seeing PF2 do. That ties right back to my underlying point about PF2 - "what were they thinking making a game like this?"

Maybe the reason you’re not getting much discussion on this topic is because it has a pretty straightforward answer, which has been given multiple times. There’s only so many ways you can say “they wanted to corner a niche they thought 5e wasn’t catering to rather than trying to directly compete with it, and its only natural that some of the same designers working to develop an evolution of basically the same system are naturally going to produce something that looks similar in some ways.” You may not like that answer, but it is the right one to the question you’ve asked.

 

[Manbearcat]

All right, so not the same thing then, yes?

And yeah, "there are plenty of stories of people with no magical or supernatural abilities confronting and winning fights against dragons." They break a lot of the laws of our real-world physics to do so, and perform far beyond what we typically think of normal humans can do in the real world. Yet, they remain distinctly non-magical from the point of view of the narrative that they are in.

So, we can say they perform truly extraordinary feats, but make no access to actual magic.

Like the 4e maneuvers allow the characters to do...even if mechanically, it's found under the same structure (AEDU) as the magic-wielding heroes.

Although I already laid out my case for this twice-over (but my case was in terms of model physics and attendant narrative), I want to go back to this again for a moment.

The problem I have with saying “but stories showed mundane, martial characters slaying beasts” is this:

1) Those stories do this by way of unilateral authorial control over the fiction. The author does not need to mediate disputes over “what happens” when mundane, martial characters meet Ancient Red Dragons in mortal, melee combat. They simply write their vision.

2) TTRPG mechanics don’t remotely look anything like the above.

a) They don’t have unilateral vision by the PC playing the Fighter vs the Ancient Red Dragon.

b) They do have the requirement to pass the litmus test of a GM when they make the action declaration.

c) They do have the requirement to have their vision mediated through a dispute process of action resolution mechanics that can be either punitive in terms of 1st order interaction (one instance of action resolution being difficult to accomplish and extreme in fallout) or, more likely historically, the interaction of multiple instances of action resolution and their interactions and downstream effects.


TLDR - The existence of an author’s unilateral vision tells us nothing about what story one should expect to unfold at a classic D&D table when Epic Tier Martial Hero meets Ancient Red Dragon in mortal, melee combat. Doesn’t tell us about the outcome or the process (what permissible action declarations and how action resolution should expect to mathematically resolve).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Mechanically I can see that but as a 2e fan, 5e feels (whatever that means) like 2e.
I felt 3e required system mastery and was too heavy, 4e felt locked for the tinkerers, BUT 5e for me gets it right. No system mastery required and very tinker friendly = feels like 2e.

Whereas to me I absolutely can not stand 2e - but it's because of the bits 5e took out. THAC0, Non Weapon Proficiencies, Thief Skills, and Saving Throws all using separate mechanics for no good reason might as well be nails on a blackboard to me. (Note that it's the "for no good reason" part; I have no trouble at all with e.g. what the saving throws are). And given that THAC0 and Non Weapon Proficiencies manages to be the basline in-combat mechanics and the out of combat mechanics I'm never going to have a good time with 2e. But I can see how 5e resembles it to someone who likes that game.

Here again what you see if you like something is different from what you see if you don't, even if you've played both games (as I have). For you the stuff I can't stand is no big deal - but for me it's nails on a blackboard. And this was the thing 5e got right.

And what people consider tinker friendly differs; in another thread I showed how to make a goblin on a pogo stick as a character entirely by the 4e RAW and have it feel like one in play Tinkering with 4e is a different art to 2e.

Which brings me on to my biggest disappointment in 5e - it's a level of clean to run that I only otherwise get in 4e in D&D, but the monster creation rules absolutely drive me up the wall. I can create just about any monsters I like but creating my own monsters by the book is, after 4e's MM3 on a business card horrible. So I'd far rather tinker in 4e.