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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E
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<blockquote data-quote="Herobizkit" data-source="post: 6878129" data-attributes="member: 36150"><p>Not me. When I said 4e was combat-centric, I meant that the system/engine's focus is deliberately written to highlight combat and the tactical encounter as the 'meat' of the game. In my experience, it doesn't simulate a fantasy 'reality' well, something that many players turned up their noses by stating that 4e was "too videogamey" - more Diablo/WoW, less Lord of the Rings.</p><p></p><p>Personally, I see 4e as more superheroes/X-Men than traditional fantasy D&D. thecasualoblivion's comment about (and I'm paraphrasing here) how low-level 5e characters are scrubs while 4e starts the players as Big Bad Heroes out of the gate is correct - 1st level 4e guys are equivalent to level 3-4 characters in other editions.</p><p></p><p>Put in a different context, he may have what I call the "low-level blues".</p><p></p><p>When I say 'back to the role-playing', I mean that 5e's design focus seems to be more on the character's role in the game 'world' over what he can DO in said world.</p><p></p><p>As you proceed through character creation in 5e, there are a lot of questions asked to help a new player create a persona. When they pick a race or class, there are suggestions as to why they became a Ranger, or where they got their Wizard training. Background, Ideals, Flaws; all additional tools to round out your persona. Max scores for level 1 are 15 before mods with point buy. Feats and multi-classing are optional. All of this designed to take your head out of the mechanics of the game and into your ROLE.</p><p></p><p>In my experience, 4e gives you a paragraph about your class and then 3-5 pages of "here's all your powers and how they work in a fight." Here's all your actions and how they help you fight. Here's how you can use your skills in a fight. Here's how you roll multiple skill checks in order to beat a non-combat encounter like it was a fight. Here's a a rack of feats to help you fight better. And the worst part, no matter how much you played with the mechanics, the players often fell behind in scale compared to the monsters (prior to the 'monster math' fix and the inclusion of Essentials/Heroes of X books) to make those fights LONGER.</p><p></p><p>To be fair, my DM insisted on adding massive chunks of story to his game, so much so that games went by where we didn't roll dice at all - the exact opposite of 4e's design/intent.</p><p></p><p>As a graybeard, I think back on 1/2e's wonky imbalance and remember that it didn't matter, the story and the adventures with friends were all that mattered. I feel that 5e is now swinging back to that middle ground where combat and story can be married and have equal shares of attention.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Herobizkit, post: 6878129, member: 36150"] Not me. When I said 4e was combat-centric, I meant that the system/engine's focus is deliberately written to highlight combat and the tactical encounter as the 'meat' of the game. In my experience, it doesn't simulate a fantasy 'reality' well, something that many players turned up their noses by stating that 4e was "too videogamey" - more Diablo/WoW, less Lord of the Rings. Personally, I see 4e as more superheroes/X-Men than traditional fantasy D&D. thecasualoblivion's comment about (and I'm paraphrasing here) how low-level 5e characters are scrubs while 4e starts the players as Big Bad Heroes out of the gate is correct - 1st level 4e guys are equivalent to level 3-4 characters in other editions. Put in a different context, he may have what I call the "low-level blues". When I say 'back to the role-playing', I mean that 5e's design focus seems to be more on the character's role in the game 'world' over what he can DO in said world. As you proceed through character creation in 5e, there are a lot of questions asked to help a new player create a persona. When they pick a race or class, there are suggestions as to why they became a Ranger, or where they got their Wizard training. Background, Ideals, Flaws; all additional tools to round out your persona. Max scores for level 1 are 15 before mods with point buy. Feats and multi-classing are optional. All of this designed to take your head out of the mechanics of the game and into your ROLE. In my experience, 4e gives you a paragraph about your class and then 3-5 pages of "here's all your powers and how they work in a fight." Here's all your actions and how they help you fight. Here's how you can use your skills in a fight. Here's how you roll multiple skill checks in order to beat a non-combat encounter like it was a fight. Here's a a rack of feats to help you fight better. And the worst part, no matter how much you played with the mechanics, the players often fell behind in scale compared to the monsters (prior to the 'monster math' fix and the inclusion of Essentials/Heroes of X books) to make those fights LONGER. To be fair, my DM insisted on adding massive chunks of story to his game, so much so that games went by where we didn't roll dice at all - the exact opposite of 4e's design/intent. As a graybeard, I think back on 1/2e's wonky imbalance and remember that it didn't matter, the story and the adventures with friends were all that mattered. I feel that 5e is now swinging back to that middle ground where combat and story can be married and have equal shares of attention. [/QUOTE]
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