What is the essence of D&D

[doctorbadwolf]

Funnily enough I kept all my 4e Essentials books and it is actually the only version of 4e I'd run now. Don't tend to discuss it much though since fans of classic 4e tend to dislike at the least (and more often than not hate) that era of 4e.

It's funny I sometimes wonder if more of them had been supportive of Essentials whether 5e would have come as soon as it did.

Oh my friend you’re in welcoming company with me on that point. I love Essentials.

I don’t tend to play E classes much, except for the executioner and hexblade, but I love how much easier running 4e for some of my friends for with Essentials, and I really wish that we’d got to see version of the game that created a more fluid ability to mix the design conceits of it and classic 4e.

I would love to see a 4e PHB but with the ability to just pick the same encounter power several times (or treat encounter and daily power uses like 5e spell slots), and even pick a passive feature instead of a new power, etc. to the point where I could make a full on Slayer Fighter with 1 encounter power I use several times and no daily powers, or a full PHB style Fighter with several options in each power slot and few passive abilities.

 

[Garthanos]

Zio's just ain't what it used to be, unfortunately.

I admit I was reaching to remember that one ... been years

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was told that this was the issue. The heart of what 4e lacked, and why “all classes feel the same”, was that in other editions the magic classes and mundane classes have little similarity of play experience.
I think it’s a strange thing to want in a game, but at least it seems accurate to what the different editions actually do, so far as I can tell.

It's also just a broader than the Primacy of Magic, because it just requires different, not superior. Casters could be terribly hosed basket cases rapidly aging into cadavers, going insane, and/or mutating into blobs of protoplasm, all for casting esoteric spells that have little actual value outside of getting the world destroyed or keeping some other mad nigh-blob-of-protoplasm from getting the world destroyed, while non-casters get to be Big Damn Heroes, trouncing incane cultists, wizened cadavers, and blobs of protoplasm into, well, less animate cadavers and pools of protoplasm, by the dozens. They'd be playing two different games.
Conversely, under this supposition, 4e could have made martial characters be utterly inferior, but as long as they still got the same number of powers &c as casters, it would still have felt 'samey,' and been problematic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would love to see a 4e PHB but with the ability to just pick the same encounter power several times (or treat encounter and daily power uses like 5e spell slots), and even pick a passive feature instead of a new power, etc. to the point where I could make a full on Slayer Fighter with 1 encounter power I use several times and no daily powers, or a full PHB style Fighter with several options in each power slot and few passive abilities.

Would've been well w/in the design space. The problem with getting to pick the same encounter or daily power several times is, of course, that all the powers have to be meticulously balanced, rather than just the power choices of a single class/level. Sleep, for instance, if you have a wizard who can take the same daily more than once, it'll likely be Sleep 3 times, plus whatever he can contrive to grant save penalties, and anything he can do to cheese up a 4th casting of it.
So, a specific power multiple times, instead of choosing from among the listed power: like ePower Attack. That could've been quite workable.
Reducing build & play complexity without sacrificing viability. And, if you ever got bored with it, you could turn in one of your uses of the default power for something else.

 

[Nagol]

I’m quite confused.

First of all, purely combat abilities you will have less, but...ya know...rituals and skills.
And 4e wizards can swap spells from their spellbook. Tome Wizards can even do some swapping during a short rest. And you don’t have to swap combat powers for non-combat powers. You get non-combat abilities separate from the combat ones. No need to choose one or the other. Every day you can do both. Always.

Other wizards just spammed magic missile all day long, btw. Meanwhile we had campaigns where fighting was always the last resort in 4e, and campaigns where it was step one in other editions.

I don’t even know what in my post this was a response to, though?

I know you get separate combat powers. That's the point. I had a single combat power I almost never used. I had a bunch of utility powers. In 4e, I'd have more combat powers and fewer utility powers because there is a focus on combat in 4e unlike 1e. The expectation of combat -- and the balancing of characters for it -- is a feature of the system.

 

[Nagol]

I have characters with far more than a dozen rituals in 4e...

and um yeh that can be at low level by end game those are really cheap

And my character now has several dozen and at least a few combat abilities.

 

[Garthanos]

And my character now has several dozen and at least a few combat abilities.

There are hundreds of rituals with no significant limit on learning them (except the classic is the DM providing access) and they do not compete with those combat abilities. Additionally by end game the Wizard will have 14 slot limited fast castable utility ones that you can select up to seven from.

 

[Nagol]

There are hundreds of rituals with no significant limit on learning them (except the classic is the DM providing access) and they do not compete with those combat abilities. Additionally by end game the Wizard will have 14 slot limited fast castable utility ones that you can select up to seven from.

The reason I'm bringing this up is doctorbadwolf was arguing 4e doesn't have a focus on combat compared to 1e. How may combat abilities does a 3rd level Wizard have? I had 0 -- a single daily I effectively replaced with utility.

 

[Garthanos]

4e did not support accountants and bookkeepers compendium wrt non-combat... ie The DM is asked I am going to use that profession in my characters background and earn as much money as I can in the next 6 months. The DM basically just wings it. Now a party of rogue character personalities working a crowd might very well end up a skill challenge.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just because people like something doesn’t mean it’s nostalgia.

I think it's more when people like something old & busted, because “its from a time or setting that you view through a positive associative lense, such as their childhood or a relationship that they recall fondly.”

And there's nuth'n wrong with that.

The reason I'm bringing this up is doctorbadwolf was arguing 4e doesn't have a focus on combat compared to 1e. How may combat abilities does a 3rd level Wizard have?

Depends. Does he memorize Sleep, Sleep & Web? Or Hold Portal, Charm Person & Fools Gold? Has he found a Wand of Fireballs or one of Metal & Mineral Detection?
Conversely, all the Fighter's class abilities are combat abilities, until, perhaps, 9th level, though, there's really not much along the lines of /abilities/ in owning your own money-pit, there are non-combat concerns.

I know you get separate combat powers. That's the point. I had a single combat power I almost never used. I had a bunch of utility powers.

Sure, because you were a mage, and you faced the choice of learning one sort of spell or another, and you went for an extreme focus. If you'd been a fighter, you'd've been all combat and no utility. A Thief, more utility than combat - but not really enough of either to get by.
Now, if you'd been in a combat-heavy campaign with the same character, under the same system, making the same choices, you'd've hosed yourself. If you were in a non-combat-heavy game, you'd've been outperforming a less focused mage.

In 4e, I'd have more combat powers and fewer utility powers

Well, you might, via rituals have even more utilities in addition to having more combat spells, because wizards still made out, that way - but the best of them probably wouldn't be as impactful, and other characters who really wanted to same utility could've gotten scrolls.
Because 4e made a first, inauspicious, attempt at balancing the as-yet-unarticulated 'pillars' individually, so the campaign could focus on any or two or all of them, either overall, or differently over time. Instead of balancing classes across all pillars, so that any campaign that deviated from the assumed spread would see some dominating and other languishing.
It didn't do it /well/ but it tried.

Something else that 5e didn't entirely abandon: You can't generally trade in your skills for combat options, and non-combat rituals don't cost slots. So there's a bit of silo'ing, there, too.