The D&D 4th edition Rennaissaince: A look into the history of the edition, its flaws and its merits

[Zardnaar]

Anyone else reread portions of the 4E phb recently?

Been rereading 3.5 a lot as well. The art has not aged well. Useful maps though.

If you're not a fan of WAR 4E and Pathfinder are not good. 4E landscapes, buildings etc can look good. Characters not so much.

3.5 arts also better than 3.0 generally.

It's been 20 years on some of those 3.5 books.

 

[eyeheartawk]

For me, though, it turned out that the greater complexity and wealth of options available to single-classed martial characters made them exciting to me for the first time. I could play a single-classed Thief all the way to 30th, and a single-classed Fighter to 20th (two examples from two of the first campaigns I played in) and be happy as a clam with them, not needing spells to feel like I had cool abilities.

And then later in the edition they came out with Gestalt characters, who scratched that "true" multiclass itch, but I mostly was enjoying the novelty of satisfying single-classed characters.

I think that's pretty universal. I remember one of the first things I would hear when discussing 5E, when it was new, was people saying they could see themselves playing most classes (with a couple exceptions, Warlock etc) all the way to level 20 without needing/wanting to multiclass.

To be fair, most of them weren't familiar with 4E, in which, I can't really think of any classes, from what I remember, that aren't viable all the way to level 30 just playing it straight.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As the saying goes: first impressions last. So just looking at the three core books:

• Gnomes and half-orcs were removed in favor of tieflings, eladrin, and dragonborn.
• Barbarians, bards, druids, monks, and sorcerers were removed in favor of warlocks and warlords.
• Rangers lost their magic and animal companions in favor of being a purely martial class.
• Fighters lost flexibility and became solely melee-oriented defenders, losing the ability to be heavy-hitters or range-focused.
• People got the impression that many spells were removed, although in many cases they were just reassigned as rituals. But the system could have been clearer that rituals were where non-combat magic lived now.
• Casters had significantly fewer spells to play around with – I believe it topped out at four dailies, four encounters, and two at-wills (and maybe some utilities). By comparison, a 10th level cleric in 3e would likely have 23 spells of level 1 through 5.
• I believe the PHB didn't have any summoning spells. Even once they showed up, they were basically just a reskinned DoT rather than summoning an actual creature with actual stats.
• Metallic dragons.
• Pure elementals – as I recall, the MM1 only had mixed ones.
• Frost, cloud, and storm giants; and the giants that remained were given much more elemental natures.
• Lots of celestials.
• Wish-list magic items to fit builds as opposed to finding what the DM chose to place and then having to sell and buy/make them.
• Lots of magic items were gone to make room for a variety of +X items with a single special ability.
• Great Wheel removed in favor of World Axis, with all of its knock-on effects.

There are probably some other things that got removed that I forgot. Some of these are positive changes, but still feel different. Others got fixed in later supplements, e.g. missing races/classes, but at that time the impression had already been made.

Yup. All of that certainly added up to, "doesn't feel like D&D" to me.

 

[Mannahnin]

This may or may not relate to the “mundane fighter” issue, but 0e, 1st level fighters weren’t normally able to successfully attack a troll; it took four of them making a successful attack roll, all at the same time, in order to score a hit. When a fighter reached level 4 (Hero), however, attacking trolls became possible. At level 8 (Superhero), the fighter could tell if there were an invisible creature nearby, could force morale checks on low HD enemies, and could grant morale bonuses to retainers and mercenaries.
Also, the fighter could attack multiple times each round.

A fighter could cast spells, with the right equipment (a sword of wishes, a ring of spell storing, etc.), but, there were no “fighter-specific” spells.

Well, for certain values of 0E. From the historical accounts I've seen, almost no one actually used the Chainmail rules you're referencing.

The so-called Alternate Combat System of 0E, using d20s and attack rolls against Armor Class, depleting Hit Points, was in practice the default way basically everyone played from the start. Especially new players, who wouldn't want to buy the Chainmail rules in addition to the D&D rules, since they didn't have to.

You're right that Fighters had access to magic powers through magic swords, though. Which they were the only class permitted to use, in the original rules.

 

[TwoSix]

It’s all matters of taste, and tastes are idiosyncratic.

I mean, it is, but it isn't?

"What defines X"? feels like a different question, to me, than "What do I like?" If you like pineapple pizza, and I don't, then sure, our tastes differ and I don't see any way to explain the distinction without doing far more research that such a trivial question needs.

To me, the 4e question is more like asking "Is this band a rock band?" That's not a question of taste, that's a question of "how do we draw categories in our mental models?" I find those questions interesting, even if they're not really solvable.

 

[eyeheartawk]

If you're not a fan of WAR 4E and Pathfinder are not good. 4E landscapes, buildings etc can look good. Characters not so much.

Re-reading 4E right now and I'm a known Reynolds hater. But whatever, it doesn't make the game unplayable or hard to play. But I'm weird with my art. If it were up to me it'd be all like, Brom, DiTerlizzi, Otus, Mulligan, Kovacs, Easley etc.

The problem with art direction for a game line is that you have to pick a lane and be consistent throughout the whole thing. So once you do that you're stuck with that "look" for the entire game line, and if you don't like it, like me, you just gotta deal.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm one of those who detests the idea of Anime Fighting Magic fighters, but as you level and fight more and more powerful foes, that just breaks down. They can't simultaneously be just a built dude with a sword and doing huge chunks of damage to an elder dragon at the same time.

At the end of the day, you're going to have to Naruto run up the side of that dragon with glowing eyes or whatever.

And a game that expects that behavior should IMO be very explicit about it, so prospective players don't feel like they're getting a bait and switch.

 

[Pedantic]

You're right that Fighters had access to magic powers through magic swords, though. Which they were the only class permitted to use, in the original rules.

I put this down as historic evidence that generic systems define mundane classes. Fighters arguably did get magical powers, delivered through a specific carve out in a system that ever character could theoretically interact with.

 

[Zardnaar]

Re-reading 4E right now and I'm a known Reynolds hater. But whatever, it doesn't make the game unplayable or hard to play. But I'm weird with my art. If it were up to me it'd be all like, Brom, DiTerlizzi, Otus, Mulligan, Kovacs, Easley etc.

The problem with art direction for a game line is that you have to pick a lane and be consistent throughout the whole thing. So once you do that you're stuck with that "look" for the entire game line, and if you don't like it, like me, you just gotta deal.

I couldn't go to deep into Pathfinder. Couldn't stand WAR art.

Bought core rules, inner sea guide and 2 or 3 splatbooks (ultimate combat/magic iirc) and left it at that.

Once they ramped up the splat I noped out.

 

[Mannahnin]

I think that's pretty universal. I remember one of the first things I would hear when discussing 5E, when it was new, was people saying they could see themselves playing most classes (with a couple exceptions, Warlock etc) all the way to level 20 without needing/wanting to multiclass.

To be fair, most of them weren't familiar with 4E, in which, I can't really think of any classes, from what I remember, that aren't viable all the way to level 30 just playing it straight.

The Seeker was notoriously underpowered, and the first iteration of the Assassin.

To my recollection some of the Essentials classes also seemed to break down once you got out of Heroic tier, and not to have been properly designed and tested for higher levels.