D&D 5E Sell 5th edition to a 4th edition fan...

[Remathilis]

To the OP:

What is it that draws you to 4e over other editions?

Your post seems to imply that you like simplicity of Essentials with the tactical richness of 4e's combat system. Well, good news and bad news...

Good:
1. 5e has simplified characters, but with a lot of options for depth. Backgrounds, sub-classes, and such give a good mix of options, and most of which are easy to expand later. I very much see slayer, knight, mage, warpriest, and thief in 5e's classes, moreso than I see the PHB versions of 4e classes.
2. 5e has a customization combat system, that can accommodate everything from simple "I hit" Theater-of-the-mind style play to board-rich tactical combats, including flanking, marking, and more.
3. The DMG has optional rules for eladrin, healing surges, faster rests (for a more 4e-like recovery mechanic) and action points (though the latter are more 3e than 4e).
4. Bounded accuracy removes the need for "level 20, 1 hp minions" by making hordes tougher and the legendary/lair system can create solo-like combats

Bad:
1. Magic is rarer, but its back to being "I win" buttons. Its just a button pressed far less often than it was in 3e or earlier. While there are no save-or-die spells, save-or-suck (hold, charm, sleep) all still work like you remember them.
2. The battle-master is a "if you squint hard" version of the warlord; your more a "fighter with warlordy stuff" than the 4e class, and it lacks healing (though it can grant temp hp). If you really loved the warlord, its the only class not really found in 5e.
3. Emphasis has shifted from "the encounter" to "the adventure" so resource allocation has changed to match it. Your spell slots are no longer siloed , and combat is de-emphasized to support more encounter (traps, puzzles) and social (negotiations) elements.

That said, I like it. Its faster and more free-feeling than the "there's a rule for that" methods of 3e and 4e. The basic rules are free to download, the starter set is 12-20 bucks. Try it if your curious.

 

[Remathilis]

On Roles:

I think the problem was that classically, the four roles for D&D classes were "warrior", "explorer", "healer", and "caster". Warriors were the guys good at killing stuff (and taking blows), explorers were good at skills (and traps), healers restored hp/health, and casters dealed damage, bypassed obstacles, and buffed allies (or debuffed foes). They obviously equated to fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard as well as some classes that blended elements (druid being caster and healer, rangers were warriors and explorers).

The problem was 4e took roles, but didn't use the classic ones. Specifically, there was no explorer role (due how skills were done, but also due to de-emphasizing exploration in favor of set-piece combat). This meant the rogue got shunted to warrior, which divided into defense and offense modes. Additionally, the change in magic really changed the caster role and kinda left it as a "everything else" role of controller. Ultimately, all four roles ended up being "what do I do in combat" vs. "what do I do during the adventure" which previous unspoken role systems measured.

I'm glad that 5e moved back to "what am I doing in the adventure" model of roles while keeping some of the combat effectiveness of 4e's changes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

With that said, I am curious about the concern for losing the defender role and the built in "stickiness" of defenders in the various AEDU powers from 4e. I never noticed this as a concern on any of the message boards & forums over the past ten years, nor from newsgroups back in the 2nd edition era, or letters to the editor in Dragon magazine back in the day. Figthers prior to 4e never had any special powers that kept enemies in the front line back then, why is it an issue over the past 5 years?

Two things kind of dovetail to make it a bigger issue with more recent editions than it was before.

The first is monster survivability. In 3e and 4e, one hit is no longer the difference between a living monster and a dead one anymore. This means that "opportunity attacks" for getting out of melee are less punishing (unless specifically ramped up like a defender's is).

The second is combat mobility. It was pretty fine up until 4e to stand in one place and trade blows with the monsters for the few turns it might've taken you to kill them. After 4e, things move around a lot. And the moving around isn't punished.

5e retains the mobility (move-attack-move!), but ramps up the vulnerability of most monsters. In general, this helps the goal of faster combats (monsters that can survive 3 hits are faster to go through than monsters that can survive 6), but this ALSO helps the defender retain their teeth so that one hit from a Fighter (especially one who tosses a couple dice onto the damage) is nothing to be sniffed at. It would be a little like if, instead of stopping movement, a 4e fighter just did striker damage with OA's. That's still a HUGE disincentive to move, and it doesn't rely on grid positioning and fiddly movement as much.

4e's defender philosophy (as embodied in the fighter) was "I won't let you escape." It was controller-y, negating actions. 5e's defender philosophy (as embodied in the same place) is "If you move, you die." It's striker-y, killing things faster. Which does make it less obvious when you're just looking at the RAW.

Part of what I like about that, as a player and a DM, is that action negation is SUPER BORING in play. Saying "you can't do what you try to do" is part of grind, it turns forward momentum into nothingness, a waste of time to process through, it screws with character authority, and all it does is make the action more stilted and less dynamic. However, with the "you do it and you die" mentality, the game moves forward even if the action is denied. There is a consequence that isn't just "you can't do it" that moves the action toward resolution. It is a little bit like "fail forward" design -- even if the hobgoblin who tries to get to the back ranks takes a hit and doesn't die, you're a LOT closer to ending the combat after that hit than you would be otherwise.

5e's got a lot of sophisticated juice beneath its simple-looking chassis.

 

[Eric V]

If there is any truth to the accusations that 4E is not a roleplaying game it is because combat is SO time-consuming. In 4E you could have a 90 minute combat. In 5E the combat would be thirty minutes, leaving enough time for one or two other battles or an hour of roleplaying. I just find more stuff happens in a game session.

This was my experience as well: Love 4e, but more tends to happen in 5e because of reduced time and cognition demands in combat.

 

[mlund]

I have to concur with people suggesting 13th Age. If you aren't married to 20-30 levels as a paradigm, don't need gridded combat to have fun, and aren't obsessed with building the closest thing to a quadratic wizard you can lay your hands on its definitely your successor edition to 4E - all the good stuff, less bloat, more improve mechanics, and a firm acknowledgment that the mechanics are there to let Players play a Game with their Characters - not to try and be another Mages-and-Muggles worldSim (Ars Magica does that niche nicely, IMO).

Just as D&D games can steal ruthlessly from 13th Age you can borrow anything worth keeping (Advantage, extra exploration mechanics, etc.) from 5E pretty seemlessly.

Let not your heart be troubled.

- Marty Lund

 

[I'm A Banana]

This was my experience as well: Love 4e, but more tends to happen in 5e because of reduced time and cognition demands in combat.

The other side of this is that if you've (a) found a way to curb the grind in 4e that you're happy with or (b) don't see the problem of grind in the first place, that 5e's got little to offer you in that regard.

 

[Henry]

Posting about how much you dislike 4e in a thread about how 5e might be received by a 4e fan isn't welcome, so please don't.

Thanks

Now see what you guys have done? You've brought the top Banana in here.

Two things kind of dovetail to make it a bigger issue with more recent editions than it was before.

The first is monster survivability....
The second is combat mobility....
...5e's got a lot of sophisticated juice beneath its simple-looking chassis.

Thanks for the disection. I can see the point about monsters having more staying power in 3E and 4E - perhaps it's just been the reluctance of DMs at my table to take Op Attacks that's artificially encouraged the "stand and deliver" behavior. I know at most of my tables I encourage a little shock from fellow players by me being afraid as a player to suffer an Op attack or two - only in certain cases will it actually kill me, and if the advantageousness of the position is worth it, I figure why not? I also have a suspicion, based on that WotC research study back in 1998, that a fair amount of 1E and 2E players engaged in "theater of the mind" style play, with very little spatial representation (I know my groups ALWAYS used minis in some fashion) so the questions of "stickiness" or Op attacks may not have come up as often for some people. Perhaps it's actually having every edition laying it on the table in some fashion almost manditorily in the past 15 years made people sit up and take notice? All speculation on my part.

In oD&D and AD&D, withdrawing from combat was very risky and had to be done backwards. Attacks of Opportunity were vicious and based on the attacker's actions rather than getting one action per round. AD&D combat by the book was largely static because of this. There was no need for subconscious metagaming. Fighters could lock people down hard. So could clerics and thieves for that matter. Also in oD&D, BECMI, and 1e you were expected to have a lot of hirelings. And frequently two solid stone walls as anchors.

3.0 made Attacks of Opportunity dependent on the attacker - 1/round, and removed the withdrawing from combat rules. (3.5 left this unchanged) while adding the full round attack to the game, locking the fighter down a lot. It also nerfed the fighter hard in a lot of other places that were more crippling (e.g. the saving throw system). A common question for optimisation in 3.X was how to make the Fighter as sticky as possible (Polearm/Spiked Chain Trippers - and a few other things). This became more noticeable as the 3.X lifecycle went on for two reasons; firstly because people were playing 3.X as 3.X rather than as 2E with a cleaned up and consistent rules set (go into 3.X with an evoker wizard and healbot cleric and a lot of the issues vanish; in 2e that's both good and expected play) and secondly because of the popularity of WoW where hard coded tanking is SOP so more people starting the game expect it to work.

I suppose that's true (with regard to the 1E and OD&D retreats) but both Basic D&D and AD&D did have a "withdraw" rule -- it was just in the PHB instead of the DMG (y'know, where you'd expect to find it instead of where you WOULDN'T expect to find it, the DMG, which is where you find all the REST of the combat rules! Greatest regret of Gary's company troubles is that no one paid attention to the base rule books for TEN YEARS! but I digress.) So you could fighting-withdraw and go to the squishies -- it's just that with all that trouble to get in and out of melee no one bothered to. I'm not sure what you refer to with "removing withraw from combat rules in 3.0" though -- They were there under "double move" as the first square you started under didn't provoke Op attacks. Maybe I'm misunderstanding where you're referring to though?

Polearm/Spiked Chain Trippers? We have a name for them at my table -- "Jerks", actually. The DMs and Players at my tables have always had a SALT treaty over spiked chain tripper characters - namely when they appear at the table used by the players, the DM has them start showing up, too, and vice versa. Not because it's an ineffective tactic baked into the rules -- far from it. Instead it's because every time such a character shows up, they're a damned one-trick pony, it's all they do and it gets boring quickly. Much like a mage who all he does is magic missile or Fireball, it's frankly boring, no matter how effective it is.

 

[Eric V]

The other side of this is that if you've (a) found a way to curb the grind in 4e that you're happy with or (b) don't see the problem of grind in the first place, that 5e's got little to offer you in that regard.

Oh, for sure. I just wish I had found one of those ways... :/

 

[Vael]

I've heard a lot of ridiculous accusations that 4E is as much a roleplaying game as Monopoly. That's not true. You can have an awesome 4E game without any combat. I find these to be the best 4E games.

But honestly I roleplay more when I play other games. If there is any truth to the accusations that 4E is not a roleplaying game it is because combat is SO time-consuming. In 4E you could have a 90 minute combat. In 5E the combat would be thirty minutes, leaving enough time for one or two other battles or an hour of roleplaying. I just find more stuff happens in a game session.

I'd agree with this, with the caveat that at least 4e combat was more engaging than 3.5. The combat engine was just really good. DMs could throw tough challenges and PCs could take it, but the players needed to work together to win. I've seen 3.5 battles grind to a halt because a spell forced a player to practically recalculate their whole character. 4e combat took time, but generally turn resolution was much faster.

This is why we'll keep playing 4e. Most of my group started with 4e, and the combat system is something they like. I do find that 5e loses some of that. But, being able to run combats (more easily) without minis and faster in 5e is a definite boon.

I'm definitely thinking of porting back some 5e'isms into 4e. I prefer 5e's background system, and I'm tempted to use Inspiration as the method of regaining action points (as in, everyone gets an action point after an extended rest. But while 4e recharges them on the milestone (after two major encounters), I'd be tempted to give an action point as I would give Inspiration in 5e)

 

[Henry]

This was my experience as well: Love 4e, but more tends to happen in 5e because of reduced time and cognition demands in combat.

Weirdest thing -- when I played 4E, we never had that. We'd get in 2 or 3 combats per 4 hour session, and get plenty of roleplay opportunities in, besides. Even back when I was playtesting 4E 6 years ago, my combats from first to 10th level (my range) lasted 30 to 45 minutes, tops. However, I have heard combats above that level range taking longer. I don't think I ever ran a 4E game above 10th level.