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What is the essence of 4E?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7455135" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>4e classes really ARE very different though. The notion that there is a 'sameness' to them is extremely shallow. Nor is it exactly rocket-science what the differences are. The fighter has lots of hit points, many surges, usually a high AC, and a pretty 'right up front there' punishment mechanic. 4e even goes so far as to write 'defender' right on the lid of the thing! Its pretty clear what it does and how it does it. You don't even have the option to stand back and shoot arrows or something, you go in, you mix it up toe-to-toe with the heavies, and you pin them down. If they won't stay pinned, then you get to do beyond-striker-level damage to them instead. </p><p></p><p>Now, how would you confuse that with a Wizard? If you played your 4e wizard like a fighter, he would be reduced to a mashed up stain on the floor on round 2. Its kinda hard not to notice that he's intended to mostly avoid being pounded on and interfere with the bad guys so they don't all swarm the fighter at once. </p><p></p><p>IMHO where 4e does get bogged down in more in the details of character build. Where in 5e you make basically just a few elemental choices, to be a certain class and a certain build, and then maybe whether or not to grab a feat or an ABI as a secondary thing, in 4e you keep constantly making small choices which add up to the different minor variations on your character. So in 5e you would just choose, dwarf (mountain), fighter, champion, and carry around a big axe. In 4e you might have to pick dwarf, fighter, DWT, Giant Slayer, Axe Expertise, Axe Specialization, Mordenkrad Proficiency, find an enchanted mordenkrad, the enhanced CS feat, the right PP, more feats, the right ED, and 10 different power choices made correctly in order to be on and stay on that path.</p><p></p><p>So, this is one area where I think 4e was open to improvement. While I disagree with the notion that you have to build some crazy entirely different subsystem for every class 'just because', there's a perfectly good argument that the choices should be more basic and less granular. So maybe instead of just 2 variations of FWT there should have been 4 or 5 'styles' that subsumed a lot of the more obvious choices you would make as a package. Thus you could have 'dwarf, fighter, axe master, and then maybe a smattering of 'feat' choices to give you the tweaks you might like to have (do I like to charge into battle, do I like to make big uncontrolled swings with my axe, do I like to knock people down and decapitate them, etc.). </p><p></p><p>When I wrote my own game I set out to do this. Its BASICALLY 4e, but the choices are more 'broad strokes', and the idea is you don't have to keep paying close attention to EXACTLY what feat you need next in order to add to the tower of stuff that is 'axe dwarf' in PHB1 vintage 4e. Yet at the same time not sacrificing the ability of different classes mechanics to mesh, or the resource model symmetry, as Essentials and 5e did (big sin there). I think I will prove that you can have both the essential advantages of 4e and simplify the sets of choices like 5e did. I think I will prove you can do it without any less diversity of play options and distinctions in classes too.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7455135, member: 82106"] 4e classes really ARE very different though. The notion that there is a 'sameness' to them is extremely shallow. Nor is it exactly rocket-science what the differences are. The fighter has lots of hit points, many surges, usually a high AC, and a pretty 'right up front there' punishment mechanic. 4e even goes so far as to write 'defender' right on the lid of the thing! Its pretty clear what it does and how it does it. You don't even have the option to stand back and shoot arrows or something, you go in, you mix it up toe-to-toe with the heavies, and you pin them down. If they won't stay pinned, then you get to do beyond-striker-level damage to them instead. Now, how would you confuse that with a Wizard? If you played your 4e wizard like a fighter, he would be reduced to a mashed up stain on the floor on round 2. Its kinda hard not to notice that he's intended to mostly avoid being pounded on and interfere with the bad guys so they don't all swarm the fighter at once. IMHO where 4e does get bogged down in more in the details of character build. Where in 5e you make basically just a few elemental choices, to be a certain class and a certain build, and then maybe whether or not to grab a feat or an ABI as a secondary thing, in 4e you keep constantly making small choices which add up to the different minor variations on your character. So in 5e you would just choose, dwarf (mountain), fighter, champion, and carry around a big axe. In 4e you might have to pick dwarf, fighter, DWT, Giant Slayer, Axe Expertise, Axe Specialization, Mordenkrad Proficiency, find an enchanted mordenkrad, the enhanced CS feat, the right PP, more feats, the right ED, and 10 different power choices made correctly in order to be on and stay on that path. So, this is one area where I think 4e was open to improvement. While I disagree with the notion that you have to build some crazy entirely different subsystem for every class 'just because', there's a perfectly good argument that the choices should be more basic and less granular. So maybe instead of just 2 variations of FWT there should have been 4 or 5 'styles' that subsumed a lot of the more obvious choices you would make as a package. Thus you could have 'dwarf, fighter, axe master, and then maybe a smattering of 'feat' choices to give you the tweaks you might like to have (do I like to charge into battle, do I like to make big uncontrolled swings with my axe, do I like to knock people down and decapitate them, etc.). When I wrote my own game I set out to do this. Its BASICALLY 4e, but the choices are more 'broad strokes', and the idea is you don't have to keep paying close attention to EXACTLY what feat you need next in order to add to the tower of stuff that is 'axe dwarf' in PHB1 vintage 4e. Yet at the same time not sacrificing the ability of different classes mechanics to mesh, or the resource model symmetry, as Essentials and 5e did (big sin there). I think I will prove that you can have both the essential advantages of 4e and simplify the sets of choices like 5e did. I think I will prove you can do it without any less diversity of play options and distinctions in classes too. [/QUOTE]
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