Fanaelialae
Legend
Disclaimer:
While many people disliked 4th edition for many valid reasons, I'll ask that you bear with me on this. My group and I really loved it, in fact it was our best edition ever. We play together since 1st edition mostly. For us, we did not care that the game encourages combat, because we can do roleplay by our own. By comparison, it seems to us that all other editions (including Pathfinder, which we played for a couple of years) is just boring or broken in some ways (control magic arg!). The inclusion of solos, elites and minions, of Action Points, of Essentials-type classes and powers (which we played much more than standard classes), etc made the game and the fights much more interesting to us.
I understand not everyone feels the same way, but my group is really attached to 4th edition for these reasons and others.
So, with that out of the way, can people who really got to play 5th edition help me get enthused by this edition??
In our eyes, 5th is simply going back to older editions that we clearly banned from the table as soon as we really got into 4th edition.
I read the 5th books quickly and I cannot seem to sell it to my group.
We're concerned about the lack of support to 4th edition and the coming disappearance of Compendium and Character Builder (they cannot keep it up for long now that they promote 5th, I guess), and we worry that we won't be able to switch to 5th edition and still have the same fun...
Please tell me we're wrong. Explain to me why we don't see the 5th edition in the right way, what we can find satisfactory, keeping in mind what we loved about 4th edition.
Again, my point is not to start a troll fight about editions. Real genuine concern about the eventual inevitability of switching editions.
Thanks!
Last I'd heard they were keeping the Compendium and the Character Builder around indefinitely, although nothing new would be added. Unless I missed something, you should be able to continue with 4e as long as you want, you just won't be seeing any non-homebrewed new material for it. (But currently there's tons more material for 4e than 5e, and due to the slow release schedule, it'll be that way for at least a few years to come.)
That said, my group felt the same way about fourth edition. We loved it, and even created several variant systems based on the 4e core. But when we tried 5e, we liked it even better. It feels like a cross between 4e and older editions. It feels a lot like 4th but somewhat... more open? It's hard to put into words.
The fights are still fun, but run much more quickly. When we first switched, my players were constantly surprised that it was their turn again already. Because of the way bounded accuracy and xp work, you still can do large fights against what are, essentially, minions (and these fights can seriously challenge the players). The Concentration mechanic (you can only maintain one concentration spell at a time) prevents excessive pre-buffing, so you're never dealing with characters that have onion-like layers of spells. Martial characters can compete with their spellcasting compatriots. With Hit Dice (healing on a short rest), you can go longer each day, much as you could with healing surges. If you want to make your 5e game even more like 4e, they have optional rules for marking and second wind in the DMG.
My recommendation, if you can convince your group to try it, would be to start the PCs at third level. This gives them a much closer feel to 1st level 4e characters. My group tried starting at level 1, but afterwards we all felt it was a little boring without enough options, to the point where it almost turned them off 5e entirely. Starting at 3rd level fixed that. Also, I'd steer the players away from barbarian. It's a solid class in play, but my player who tried it felt it just didn't have enough interesting options for him.
I can't promise that you'll like it, but I certainly think it's worth a shot.
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