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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8549368" data-attributes="member: 19857">It worked then - they were trying to package up their mechanics in a 3e framework to get people to reconsider the game.But if you look from where Essentials had the game to where 5e did (instead of the 4e core rules) you see a lot more similarities than differences in how the class mechanics work EXCEPT in presentation.  Essentials weakened the AEDU idea across classes and had classes that had only at-will/encounter powers.A lot of the differences you indicate come from halving the power curve - the so-called "bounded accuracy" which means that the math for 5e works out to where a 20th level character in 5e has "roughly" the bonuses for a 10th level character in 4e.  And actually that math isn't even quite correct because 1st level 5e characters start at a lower power level than 4e characters did. They also separated out AC defense and made them NOT improve directly with level. That changes the needs for things like minions because you don't need to explicitly call them out to get them - throw a squad of low AC 5 hp monsters at a 5th level party and you get minions.  You needed explicit minion rules in 4e because of the power scale and because AC progressed at the same rate as attack bonuses. Untying AC from level means that you can throw a "level 1" monster (in 4e parlance) at a 5th level party and it will act like a minion - dying quickly but still potentially able to do some damage. A level 1 monster in 4e terms would be likely to miss their attacks every time, which is why you needed the scaled up minions with more attack bonus but not so much in the hp department. And the legendary and solo actions for monsters come squarely out of 4e monster design - one of the best parts of the 5e MM as a DM IMO.They also hid the AEDU mechanics better in natural language text and put wizard superiority back into the game and that second part is a nod to 3e, but the classes are designed much in a daily/short-rest/at-will mechanic selection than folks think (in fact most of the pushback on short rest abilities tends to be because of how they kept hat format but changed the resting mechanics without considering what that meant for the rest of the game).The various subclasses are designed for specific combat roles if you play with people who optimize - it's just not as noticable because they don't tell you outright how the classes are "supposed" to be played and so you have the 3e thrill of discovering an optimal build that the designers hid there instead of the 4e experience of having the designers not hide it in the first place. Also losing the tactical system means its less noticable that certain classes are playing certain roles (also the misguided attempt to create a "Controller" role for the wizard class was dropped - that role never made sense.  The Wizard should have been a half Support/half Striker role but they hadn't gotten the idea of half roles when the edition dropped yet).Saving throws just move back from fixed bonus to variable bonus and the math is scaled down to 5e levels.  Mathematically there's not a real difference between having 10+1/4 level Fortitude Defense vs. rolling a d20 + 1/4 CON defense.  It's swingier and might make for a more exciting game feel to make a save rather than have a defense but the explicit tying of your saving throws to the same bonus progression regardless of the type of save is absolutely a 4e thing, not a 3e thing where every save had its own progression. (Also you can see the effect of the changes of scale and the lower power level by the fact that they made it 8+prof bonus for saves instead of 10).(Also to reveal my bias - IMO 5e saving throws are the single worst aspect to the entire game.  Expanding from 3 saving throws to 6 saving throws was a bad move and then having skill checks as well as saving throws for many things makes for annoying rules calls.  If anything were to lead me to ask for a 6th edition it would be to remove ability score saving throws from the game).Everyone having the same attack bonus of +1/4 level +1 feels a lot more like 4e's +1/2 level attack bonus than 3e's variable bonsues across classes as well.</blockquote>

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