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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6252262" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Board Room at WotC:  "Alright, on today's agenda:  What do 4e player's want to capture their playing experience?<crickets>Uhhhhhhh<more crickets>Designer001:  "I know!  I know!  Tactical Combat with FACING RULES!"<Cheers, fist-bumps, and huzzahs resound!>[sblock]- Not an encounter-based resource system that puts the primary locus of play at the scene (where genre tropes can be more easily framed and then resolved via the mechanics.  - Not a unified, non-combat, conflict resolution system with subjective DCs that generates Story Now.  - Not encounter-based (rather than adventuring day-based) challenge budgeting which provides acute predictive value for GMs on a per-encounter basis.  - Not Forced Movement that creates dynamically mobile combats.  - Not built-in, intra-party synergy.  - Not awesome monsters that have the depth of design (resources and roles) to synergize together to create exciting, dynamic pushback against the PCs.  - Not a robust and user-friendly terrain/hazard/trap system.  - Not a robust, user-friendly stunting system.  - Not a broad descriptor resource system like Healing Surges that unlocks the heroic comeback in combat and allows for all manner of narrative descriptions as PCs lose these or spend these throughout the work day.  - Not deeply thematically-loaded Themes, Paragon Paths, and Epic Destinies which focus play.  - Not an outcome-based design that leverages a Keyword system and makes the math clear such that building all of the various elements couldn't be easier for the GM.  - Not a Quest System built into advancement that again calibrates play toward what the players are interested in engaging with.  - Not moving the magic item rules into the PC build framework that again allows calibration of play interests and makes for a uniquely malleable tool (eg instead of tangible magic items, PCs can get Divine Boons straight from a God or learn a Martial Combat Move via Alternate Advancement) to reward players with story awards while keeping the math in-line.[/sblock]I'm not sure when exactly I became certain that 5e in no way was going to be able to reproduce the 4e experience.  It was no one thing.  But that particular one was early on and I'm pretty sure it was from Mearls himself and I believe it was a specific invocation of how they were going to reproduce the 4e experience.  It may not have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it was probably the tilling of the soil for the seed that produced the straw after the grain and chaff had been removed.It looks to produce a great AD&D 2.5 experience.  It looks to be exactly what I was looking for back when 3e was released.  I think it may do extremely well with that cross-section of the D&D culture.  I think it may do well with the 3e culture that wants a scaled back, streamlined experience, sans splat bloat.  I think it could have easily reproduced both my long-standing AD&D 2e and 3.x games extremely well (and been much more wieldy GM-side than they were).  I also think with some proper modules it can reproduce disposable PC, Pawn Stance, Step On Up, 1e Dungeon Crawls as well.  But in no way (not with a dozen modules) could 5e reasonably reproduce  my 4e game.  AD&D 2.5 and 4e defaults are a world away from one  another.That being said, my game is in its last  few levels of Epic Tier with Demogorgon and Dagon in the PCs' crosshairs at  the bottom of the Abyss!  If they pull the Lair System off right (which its initial iteration looked great) + the BBEG mechanics are robust + the PC build mechanics are robust (with intra-party synergy) + the encounter budgeting turns out to be reasonably tight, fighting Demon Lords in 5e may reach status of a poor-man's 4e BBEG combat (without the 4e staple of the heroic comeback via 4e's Healing Surge mechanics and all the battlefield mobility and positioning via Forced Movement, et al.)</blockquote>

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