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What is the essence of 4E?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7451575" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Its not THAT bounded. 5e's progression is still similar to AD&D's, albeit fighters don't outpace the rest of the PCs in 5e. 4e's pace is pretty much identical to that in AD&D. Its more of a fine-tuning than a huge difference really. One area which seems to give the impression that it is a higher rate of advance is that 4e runs to 30 levels, where 5e ends at level 20, which is not really quite the same thing. In other words, 4e incorporated 'beyond normal levels play' as Epic, which continues the bonus advancement, where 5e's last 5 or 6 levels are sort of not so easy to classify by 4e's standards. </p><p></p><p>In any case, in 4e there's simply much less of a hard concept of a given creature having just a specific level and fixed statblock. There are, potentially and depending on your milieu's conventions, things like 'epic orcs', which sure can pose a threat to epic PCs! It is just less cut-and-dried in that respect. </p><p></p><p>I think this illustrates an important characteristic of 4e. It is less concerned with mere mechanical variation, and more interested in thematic variety and dimensions of design which feed directly into telling stories in interesting ways. 5e is more interested in sort of canonical D&D lore in terms of "this kind of monster is level X and its always higher level than monster Y". It is a far cry from the 'world is the numbers' of 3.5 perhaps, but it shades much more in that direction, where 4e eschews that sort of concept entirely.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7451575, member: 82106"] Its not THAT bounded. 5e's progression is still similar to AD&D's, albeit fighters don't outpace the rest of the PCs in 5e. 4e's pace is pretty much identical to that in AD&D. Its more of a fine-tuning than a huge difference really. One area which seems to give the impression that it is a higher rate of advance is that 4e runs to 30 levels, where 5e ends at level 20, which is not really quite the same thing. In other words, 4e incorporated 'beyond normal levels play' as Epic, which continues the bonus advancement, where 5e's last 5 or 6 levels are sort of not so easy to classify by 4e's standards. In any case, in 4e there's simply much less of a hard concept of a given creature having just a specific level and fixed statblock. There are, potentially and depending on your milieu's conventions, things like 'epic orcs', which sure can pose a threat to epic PCs! It is just less cut-and-dried in that respect. I think this illustrates an important characteristic of 4e. It is less concerned with mere mechanical variation, and more interested in thematic variety and dimensions of design which feed directly into telling stories in interesting ways. 5e is more interested in sort of canonical D&D lore in terms of "this kind of monster is level X and its always higher level than monster Y". It is a far cry from the 'world is the numbers' of 3.5 perhaps, but it shades much more in that direction, where 4e eschews that sort of concept entirely. [/QUOTE]
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