What went so horribly horribly wrong?

>>54177622
>AEDU MMORPG design plus Mearls is a nigger.

A fanbase reaction based on ignorance and misunderstanding, grossly exaggerated sales expectations by Hasbro who thought D&D could become a MTG style earner, without realising the difference between the properties, and the murder suicide of the lead developer which torpedoed the promised online tools.

Also essentials, which took a great game and ruined it.

Is there a better way to run a

>Tactics Ogre
>Disgaea
>Super Robot Wars

System other than 4e?

>>54177661
This.

>>54177746

Theoretically Battle Century G is better for SRW, but my own experience with the system has left me extremely unimpressed.

File: doesn't feel like D&D.png (263KB, 1432x2040px) Image search: [Google]

263KB, 1432x2040px

It just didn't feel like D&D.

>>54177622
people not realizing that the mechanics they so hated had always existed, and 4e just made them more plain to see.

>>54177622
They had a ridiculous publishing schedule (at least one product per month) and attempted to do it all by relying on a lot of permanent staff rather than contracting and freelancing as is usually done with D&D.
That meant that despite continuing the trend of making more money than its predecessor, like every D&D line before it, a lot of it was eaten by overhead and departmental entanglements, and that over time they were competing with themselves for shelf space.
Plus all of the releases intimidated possible new players. Instead of getting the necessary one, two, or three books (depending on just what they needed) they *didn't* get any of the 8 books they thought they needed from a glance.
If anyone tells you Essentials ruined 4e then they were never really paying attention to start with. It's entire goal was to solve the above problems and to give 4e--which was still in print and distributed the entire time that Essentials was--its own 'Basic' equivalent. It gave people a cheap and unintimidating way to start and opportunities to buy the normal 4e books to bootstrap and supplement as they liked.

I didn't like the UX at all; while the power system's card-like presentation was efficient in telling me the exact mechanical ramifications of everything, when you communicate solely in mechanics the narrative elements are mitigated. It directs so much of how you interact with the gamestate, but is all so dry. As someone who's never been a "mechanics first" kind of guy, this turns 4e into more and more of a slog as characters level and things become more preoccupied with the spin of those mechanical touches.
It all would have been wonderfully justified if their digital backend/VTT plans were able to come together, but the whole murder/suicide thing really put the kibosh on that one.

I didn't much care for how they kept 3.X's model for Feats.

>>54177622
A dev team not realizing that flavor and tradition is why D&D is so beloved to this day, throwing away many of the old trappings of D&D in exchange for new mechanics that people didn't all care for, while also changing fluff of beloved settings to add more universal shared races and gods and planes despite no real call for it, while also putting together a purposely-fluff-lite setting instead of expanding on an existing one or creating a new in-depth one that people could truly learn to love like they had with Eberron the edition before.

>>54177746
I prefer how Gamma World 7e streamlines the formula and keeps things a little more open-ended. You can ignore the semi-awkward card mechanics if you like or just find scans and treat them like magic items--or mech loadouts. That's how I handled it for an Armored Core game I ran.

>>54178288

I find this kinda interesting. I adored how clear and direct 4e was in conveying you the mechanics. I can fill in the fluff side just fine, but the rules being clearly laid out and easy to use is something I can't really do myself. It's made me get increasingly annoyed with badly laid out and confusing RPG books which blend fluff and mechanics together or avoid stating things directly, instead of just telling me how everything works under the hood.

>>54177622

Essentials were pretty shit, I guess.

>>54177622
Pissy fanbois.

Also,
Pissing on your fans.

>>54178454
Oh, I can definitely appreciate that. A little bit of clarity and a smart layout can go a loooong way. I mean, just look at FantasyCraft: it's got so many compelling and evocative parts to it, but it doesn't quite know how to teach the actual mechanics to new players and you have to jump all over the place just to get a clear picture of how some things work.

And I'll acknowledge that 4e for the most part can work well with a good GM who knows how to run a scene independent of mechanics--but those aren't always what you get, you know?

>>54178693

But how is that particularly different from earlier editions? Do you think the greater obfuscation and extra fluff sections really made a difference?

>>54178719
The important thing to note is that "the medium is the message"--how you present something and describe something is part of the larger picture of what's communicated. Often the words help build it up into something larger than it otherwise might end up.
Now, don't take any of this to mean that I'm exceptionally attached to 3.X or TSR editions of D&D, they certainly are at least a little more arduous than they could be. But for me 4e's way of it still feels like something's missing. Like, there could be more of a narrative payload baked in or better ways of welcoming players to introduce their own.

It's like if you ask someone what their character is and they say "I'm a lawful-neutral 3rd level Wizard"--that's not untrue, but I wanted to know who the character was, not the statistics that represent the character. That's an uninspiring fragment of what I wanted to get out of that interaction.

>>54178997

I don't know, I guess it might just be a matter of personal preference. I felt sections like this excerpt from the PHB conveyed that side of things very well, better in my eyes than more confusing things full of setting lore or genre concepts.

>Your character is more than a combination of race, class, and feats. He or she is also one of the protagonists in a living, evolving story line. Like the hero of any fantasy novel or film, he or she has ambitions and fears, likes and dislikes, motivations and mannerisms, moments of glory and of failure. The best D&D characters blend the ongoing story of their adventuring careers with memorable characteristics or traits.
>Jaden the 4th-level human fighter is a perfectly playable character even without any embellishment, but Jaden the Grim’s personality—brooding, fatalistic, and honest—suggests a particular approach to negotiating with NPCs or discussing issues with the other characters. A well-crafted character personality expands your experience of the game dramatically.

>>54177746
emulation

>>54177978
Let me guess, you started with 3e.

>>54179242

Look at the picture before replying, anon. It's a classic mockery of the people who sincerely made that complaint.

>>54179251
I'd say I feel stupid now, but I was up all night and I've been feeling stupid for hours already.

Didn't change Forgotten Realms enough.

>>54179505

I've honestly never understood why anyone cares about FR. It's a terrible setting.

>>54177622
It gathered a fandom that loves to rabidly defend it from ignorant 3.PF and 5e lovers but hates to actually talk about the game.

The recent surge in adoration for 4e is just typical 4chan contrarianism.

>>54179577

The problem is that there's less to talk about, since the system generally works and what doesn't is well known and easily tweaked. Given that and the lack of new content, conversations have somewhat run their course.

>>54179565
Because once you've put in $400 in books in the setting and spent 150+ hours reading up on it you've gotta make use of it, you aren't an idiot, so that time and money you spent was REALLY worthwhile.

I don't think it's really all that bad, but I don't know anything about it.

>>54179600
So that's why 3.PF continues to thrive, despite official content for it having slowed to a crawl.

>>54179647

PF still gets loads of third party support, which I think helps perpetuate it.

I have wondered about this in the past though. Whether having some obvious issues to drive conversation and discussion is actually some sort of twisted asset for a system. You certainly hear a hell of a lot of discussion about very flawed systems, and even obscure ones are remembered when other, better games are forgotten. Cthulhutech is a great example of an awful game which is still talked about every now and then, and got a lot of attention back in the day because of the issues it had, perhaps, rather than in spite of them.

>>54177661
Didn't they decide to stop selling digital copies of stuff because of piracy, despite the fact that the first round of PDFs out there were leaked copies of the ones they sent to the publisher that was printing their physical books?

>>54179789

Yeah, that was another incredibly stupid decision which damaged the game.

File: 1414544613269.gif (73KB, 140x140px) Image search: [Google]

73KB, 140x140px

>>54177622
The memetic stickiness of 3e's ivory tower design (creating the same addictive positive feedback of gambling or fremium phone games) combined with the memetic stickiness of 3e coming out right when the internet passed the tipping point between secret clubhouse to normie ubiquity, plus the memetic stickiness of the OGL causing nearly every game published for a decade to play and feel exactly like 3e (raising an entire generation who only associate the feel of 3e with "feeling" like RPG's) meant anything that wasn't either 3e or 3e-in-all-but-name, that still had the name "dungeons and dragons" attached to it was doomed to failure from the get-go. Hell, it wasn't until they released a new edition that WAS 3e-in-all-but-name (5e) that they got those people back. 3e wasn't good, by any menas, but it was memetic-marketing lightning-in-a-bottle. 4e could have been perfect, and it wouldn't have lived up to a scale of "rpg-nes" where "rpg-nes" is defined by how similar a game is to 3e.

Also essentials was a TERRIBLE marketing choice to try and deal with the above issue. They tried to make 4e feel more like 3e, which alienated the people who liked 4e for what it was, but still wasn't 3e-ish enough to get back the people who would (and will) only ever like 3e.

Personally however, I love running 4e. If you give out tax-feats for free, and only use material from that sweet-spot in time, after the MM3 came out, but before essentials came out, you'd be hard pressed to find a better game for running a game in which the PC's genuinely feel like the protagonists of a fantasy novel. I don't see my table changing any time soon, save for our occasional forays into pallet-cleansing one-shots of light systems.

It's dnd

>>54180076
Essentials had good stuff, it's real problem was just class design.

It brought back the worst elements of 3.5

>>54177661
>>54177753
Maybe it was just a shit game. Ever thought of that?

>>54180477
Every time some tard tries to sell me stale memes.

>>54180424
Essentials was awful.
>Let's simplify things, guys!
>Rather than picking up a kit of several combat options with a choice between several per level, you get to pick a class, then between two powers every few levels instead.
>That will make things much simpler!
>What's that you say? Mess with feats, a bloated and byzantine subsystem where you pick off a list of hundreds to get either tiny fucking bonuses or the core features of your character?
>How ridiculous. THAT wouldn't simplify anything.

4E and essentials' biggest problem was not killing sacred cows, it was killing the wrong goddamn sacred cows.

>>54177622
They tried to make it play like a video game, and that worked about as well as a peanut butter and horse cum sandwich.

>>54180642
Those are all class design problems

Essentials feats, magic items and monsters were all good

>>54180424
There are some gems in essentials, and you need to know specifically what material to port from essentials to the "sweet-spot" of 4e that I mentioned here>>54180076.

>>54177661
Essentials came out when it was already dying. It didn't kill it, it just failed to save it.

>>54180076
I know it's cool to harp on 5e for not being 4e, but it's really quite a step up from 3e, and I say this as someone who prefers Savage Worlds and OSR games.

>>54180076
>only after the MM3 came out

You mean after all the fantasy staples were already botched and all the classes were weird bullshit?

>>54181053
It's got a very small amount of options and monks still suck, I'd rather play 3.5

>>54181074
Yeah, but the options that are there are mostly pretty solid, barring some noteworthy exceptions. The monks have a decentish kit that can at least hold its own, even if the others are garbage, and it's less garbage than the 3.5 monk.

It's also considerably simpler and less clunky than 3.5, which is what I like about it, even over 4th edition (which had a very intricate system that required keeping track of a lot of shit).

File: catsup.jpg (27KB, 566x242px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 566x242px

>>54181053
>5e
>but it's really quite a step up from 3e
>noticeably different from 3e in any meaningful way.
Best joke I've heard all day.

>>54181137
Yeah, OK. It's not like they vastly simplified the core system or anything. I guess it must be 3e because they preserved some of the artifacts and shortcomings of its class design, nevermind the fact that wasn't even in the top 5 for worst aspects of the game.

File: 1436359797649.jpg (16KB, 300x300px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 300x300px

>>54181066
>all the fantasy staples were already botched

Please tell me how 4e "Botched"them in a way that doesn't define "the fantasy staples" by what they were in 3e. I'd love to hear.

>>54177622
Leaned heavily on a digital support system that dies with its creator.

>>54181160
You were the one saying to use only material from that sweet spot, which means that those classes must have botched, you fucking cock waffle.

>>54181053

sure, at least it wasn't the pathfinder take on 3.5.

>>54181156
>I started with 3e, and my "branching out" consisted of playing 3e clones built on the OGL engine called [Insert Franchise]d20, to the point that even the slightest deviations from the OGL format seem like meaningful changes.

Thanks for sharing. I think this >>54177936 would be more your speed.

>>54181220
>savage worlds is an OGL clone

Does your mother know that you're retarded?

>>54177622
It was too soon, should have been released after 5th Edition. And people are just faggots whom don't want change.

Green, red, and grey boxes broke MUH IMMERSION for a lot of people apparently.


>>54181474
Woulda been great to combine the 5e streamlining with the 4e unification.

Its obsessive focus on lengthy tactical combat was a turnoff.

>>54177654
>Mearls is a nigger.
every fucking time this fucking degradation of language

>>54181474
Is it too much to ask that what I purchase D&D I expect something resembling D&D?

4E is like a completely different game.

They should never have branded it as D&D.

>>54181540
Agreed. When a single encounter takes up the majority of your session, something is wrong.

>>54181567
>Agreed. When a single encounter takes up the majority of your session, something is wrong.

Agreed.

Either players are idiots, and/or you are using pre-MM3 math. Both can be fixed though.

>>54181567
What you think of as "something resembling D&D" is not necessarily what everyone else thinks of as "something resembling D&D"

>>54181567
>Agreed. When a single encounter takes up the majority of your session, something is wrong.

Yeah, honestly it was just continuing a trend that was started with 3e (which in my experience was typically run as a sequence of combat encounters) but it exaggerated a feature of 3rd that I already didn't care for.

>>54181594
I'd wager even post-MM3 math encounters take too fucking long.

>>54181602
The market speaks for itself in this regard.

>>54177654
>AEDU MMORPG design
what MMO has encounter-based AEDU design? I'm familiar with the 4e = MMO meme, but it was always in reference to the way the classes were designed with roles to fill like MMO tank or DPS etc.

it annoys me when people compare 4e to MMOs because if there was actually a roleplay-intensive Final Fantasy Tactics MMO out there I'd play the shit out of it

>>54181053
>I know it's cool to harp on 5e for not being 4e, but it's really quite a step up from 3e,

this, for me 5e is an acceptable compromise between the D&D I want to play and the D&D everyone else seems to want to play. Christ I'd be happy to go back to AD&D 1st edition if it meant never having to play 3.5 again

>>54181625
Indeed, 4e outsold 3.5, 5e outsold 4e, 3.5 outsold 3e, 3e outsold 2e

It is fortunate that D&D has such mass appeal that it can keep growing like this, through thick and thin

>>54181602
Sure but it would seem that most people feel the way I do judging by the reception 4E received.

>>54181641
You forgot the part where 4e started to rapidly decline following the release of Pathfinder, and don't blame Essentials, it was already dying.

>>54181641
>4e outsold 3.5
You sure about that anon?

>>54181643
Yes, if you remain in the hugbox

But from what I've seen, outside of people who started with 3.5, 4e is either enjoyed, or seen as a good game that doesn't necessarily appeal to your direct tastes.

Then again, a lot of RPGs are like that, I understand that Mutants and Masterminds is a cool game, but the mechanics aren't my cup of tea

>>54181650
that's according to the man at WOTC who killed 4e and had no reason to lie about its popularity

>>54181650
Mearls said it in an interview (that was quietly removed from the WotC site in the great purges), and he's basically responsible for murdering it.

>>54181666
>>54181669
specifically he said of 4e's popularity that "Every edition of D&D has outsold the previous one."

>>54181664
Okay well if we're going to be anecdotal I don't know anybody outside of /tg/ who likes 4e. Nobody I know plays it while plenty of people still play 3.PF

People on /tg/ just like to be contrarian.

>>54181666
>>54181669
>>54181682
>Mearls killed 4e

wtf I love Mike Mearls now

>>54181695
Very few people I know play it either, although after asking around the reason for that isn't that they dislike it, but because it's not a living game with new material coming out and support from the developers

Maybe you should ask around? You might be surprised

>>54181669
>>54181666
4e was already dying. WotC shat the bed with their marketing. The core was bound to sell well based on sheer market momentum, but they alienated their fanbase on multiple fronts and then Paizo ate it up. 4e was doomed from the start.

>>54181751
Not that guy, but the few people I've heard talk about 4e parroted those old lines about it being WoW on paper and not feeling like D&D.

>>54181775
Because it is WoW on paper.

They copied WoW right down to the monthly subscription model for D&D Insider.

>>54181786
They really didn't. At most, they borrowed from the visual aesthetic to appeal to what's popular in fantasy at the time.

>>54181786
I wish there was a "WoW on paper" game

With proper mechanics for aggro, powers with round-by-round cooldowns, and balanced utility between DPS, Tank and Healer

The official D20 warcraft system was an OGL mess of a system that failed to encapsulate anything distinctly "Warcraft" beyond names

>>54181807
>With proper mechanics for aggro, powers with round-by-round cooldowns, and balanced utility between DPS, Tank and Healer

I think there's a Sword Art RPG that does that, but not sure.

>>54181822
Hmmm... sounds like by definition it must be utterly terrible by association with Sword Art

>>54181832
It most likely is. Japanese "popular IP" based RPGs are universally terrible cash-grabs, from what I know.

>>54181792
you're kidding right? 4e plagiarized wow almost completely.

Fighter, Rogue, Wizard... they barely even bothered changing the names! Not to mention class roles, sure 3.5 had class roles too, but 4e actually said them out loud! Just like warcraft!! Just think about how many utility powers got lifted from WOW directly. WOW's trademark turn-based tactical combat based around shifting is a clear influence. Not to mention Elves, Orcs, Dwarves... honestly WOTC should just consider themselves lucky they never got sued.

>>54181850
So tabletop games can never borrow ideas from video games since tabletop games have been around for longer?

>>54181921
you're an idiot

>>54181921
I know reading sarcasm on the internet is hard anon, but make an effort at least, jeez.

I hope I'm not making the mistake I'm complaining about...

File: 1414529079546.gif (964KB, 400x293px) Image search: [Google]

964KB, 400x293px

>>54181850
I see what you did there!

>>54179565
>TFW no more Greyhawk ever

At least 5e has a few mentions of it in the core rulebook.

I mean Post-Greyhawk Wars is great for a grimdark S&S setting, but I can't keep playing it forever.

>>54180076
>liking 3e is just memes and conservatism
And that arrogance is exactly why nobody likes 4rries.

>>54177622

The murder.

>>54181775
>parroted those old lines about it being WoW on paper and not feeling like D&D.
Maye, just maybe, these old lines get repeated so much because there's something to them?
Unifying power mechanics between each class was a dumb fucking move, and if every single class ends up with a bunch of "push button - receive effect" abilities that are even color coded based on cooldown, of course there are going to be WoW comparisons and of course you lose flavor if a wizard works by the same mechanics as a rogue or a fighter.

>>54177661
SPBP

Why the fuck can't we get a Pathfinder-like of THIS system instead of shitty 3.5?

File: Grognard.jpg (49KB, 500x534px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 500x534px

>>54182244
>Unironically liking hot garbage
>This much gaming Stockholm syndrome
And that is why nobody likes annoying millennial 3aboos who started with OGL and never branched out.

>>54182309
Lack of OGL and opportunism.
Also, do you really want a version of 4e blindly copied by people who don't understand anything about the system?

>>54182312
I don't even play 3.PF, I mostly play WHFRPG and various Chaosium titles.
Nice try, you mongoloid mouth breather.

>>54182320
A copied mediocre thing is better than a copied bad thing

>>54182325
>didn't play the systems
>somehow entitled and educated enough to offer opinion on system comparisons
???

>>54182336
anon, are you literally autistic?

>>54177622
Not calling it dungeons and dragons tactics and hp bloat mostly
the cosmology was also fucking shit.

>>54177978
D&d next was 5e right?
She really let herself go after marriage.

>>54182327
I don't understand why you would want a worse version of 4e.

>>54182309
Because not enough people like 4E for that.

>>54182359
>heh I don't even play the game we're arguing about, but surely my reddit-tier opinions, which are based on the shrieking of /tg/ shitposters, is perfectly valid and sensible

>>54177978
>"I cast an erection spell that makes fighters useless," Mearls said. "It's okay, though. They can roleplay."
lol

>>54182450
>not playing something anymore implies that I never played something and are in no way knowledgeable about that topic
why do 4E posters ALWAYS resort to shitposting? are they this desperate because nobody wants to play their shitty combat boardgame?

>>54182471
damn, you got me on a technicality. here, let me make it better:

3.5 is a bad game and you're an idiot who at least has enough brain cells to have jumped ship on it

>>54182542
I can't even tell if this image is posted ironically anymore.

>>54182471
4rries don't even like 4e that much.

They're mostly butthurt martial players who hate 3.5 with a passion.

Notice how they spend more time criticising 3.5 rather than defending 4e? see>>54182545

>>54182561
I know it's hard to believe but some people genuinely, unironically like 4e. I have trouble comprehending it sometimes as well.

>>54182561
Considering the image itself contains irony, it can only be used ironically.
The question is how many layers of irony the poster is on.

>>54182570
oh no, edition warring in a thread that literally started with "what went wrong with 4e"

you're right though, I hate 3.5 more than I like 4e. doesn't change the fact that 3.5 is the worst edition and 4e is the best one

>>54182597
So why is 3.PF more popular than 4e and why did WotC revert most of the changes they made in 4e?

>>54182629
>So why is 3.PF more popular than 4e
Marketing and inertia.

>why did WotC revert most of the changes they made in 4e
Inertia-based marketability.

>>54182542
>>54182561
>>54182580
>>54182592
Just read the names of these powers and you'll quickly realise just how ridiculous 4e is.

Crushing Surge? Disheartening Strike? WTF is this anime shit? Those aren't even the worst ones.

>>54182629
>So why is 3.PF more popular than 4e
OGL, good timing, good marketing vs. no OGL, bad timing, bad marketing

>and why did WotC revert most of the changes they made in 4e?

Marketing and appeal to nostalgia, because it's a stronger factor for popularity than game design.

File: sure.gif (483KB, 500x221px) Image search: [Google]

483KB, 500x221px

>>54182650
Or maybe because 3.PF is a better game...

No that can't be it. You have such impeccable tastes right? The only explanantion is that the people who prefer 3.PF are somehow brainwashed by marketing and that 4e didn't receive the proper support it needed or everyone would realise how great it was.

>>54182671
see>>54182673

>>54182673
You are using a thing called circular argument.

3.PF is more popular -> 3.PF is a better game -> 3.PF is more popular

>>54177622
The entire basis for the setting and lore was Elminster's Dream, and even then, it threw coherent content out the window for often, lesser variants of what could have been available, and it's art department actually had the disgusting gall to recycle art from 3.5 in core splatbooks, and in Dragon Magazine Issues, resulting in the like of the bastardization of Kaz the Bloody Handed/Traitor etc...

Also, the Far Realms rewrite is pure disgust that devalues the variant of Cosmic Horror, but because it's evil and not "Ammoral and oh-so above your evolutionary point" removing the idea that the Elves burrowed into the fucking place, letting it in, next to other old facts that basically made it an invasive living plane of concentrated abberrant matter where Elder Evils roamed and Astrally projected to out of the bounds of realmspace. It slowly stopped being D&D's answer to cosmic horror and became that nasty 3rd party kind of hand-me-down lovecraft that doesn't actually understand the correct way to portray itself because it's writer's aren't self aware enough to understand the implicit details behind it's composition, so they come off weaker than they should. The Far Realm being public knowledge extraplanar-wise is one of the glaring issues at hand, as back in the day, it was the most hush-hush subject for a fucking reason, namely the good of all.

Also, because no one gets the idea of a halfling running through a person's legs cutting tendons and the like as he goes kind of like the pygmys in The Mummy 2 with that one type of attack.

Tharizdun, Sharn and the Abyss's Creation lore are spot on, as the Abyss technically had the same aim as Mr Crazy anyhow.

>>54182629
>So why is 3.PF more popular than 4e
because there's more to quality than the shit taste of the masses

>and why did WotC revert most of the changes they made in 4e?
see the above

3.PF was more popular than 2e AD&D too, that doesn't make it the better game

File: Orc-Gruumsh01-1.jpg (17KB, 299x240px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 299x240px

4E was actually the game that got me and my friends into tabletop roleplaying when I was about 16.

We went through the 3.5 books but they were horribly written so we thought it was far too complicated to bother with. 4E however was clean , clear , well laid out and simple to pick up.

Ironically a lot of my friends were big WoW players and found the game understandable and engaging as a result.

So we played , a lot, I GM'd , pretty shitty looking back, railroaded homebrew campaigns but everyone had huge amounts of fun.

Something was nagging at me though , cracks in the mirror. Something didn't feel right. I'd read numerous stories on the internet about D&D and perused some of the older books and this edition just didn't feel like the D&D I had always imagined.

After a fairly disastrous 4E Dark Sun campaign where I found it nearly impossible to run the dangerous setting in a system where everyone had buckets of healing and bitpointless from level one I picked up Pathfinder.

Now this was the D&D I had always read about. Wizards were wizards and fighters were , well, great at early levels at least. I ran a kingmaker campaign to try to recreate that 'old school' feel in a modern frame and it was like nothing else I'd played before. Hilariously random and punishing, the group wiped on the first random encounter with a Giant Centipede and then wiped again when ambushed by bandits. Mostly as I hadn't guaged just how squishy these characters were compared to what I was used to. Then they got chased around by trolls and endless will-o-wisps but managed to triumph and build their kingdoms. Probably one of the most fun campaigns I've ever run.

It's been ten years now. I feel I've outgrown D&D but still

Yet I'm still currently running a 5E game for some normies and everyone is having a blast. I treat it as what it is, a big, silly , dungeon crawler where you drink beer and roll dice.

I'm also running an apocalypse world game to branch out. It's been quite a journey.

File: 1430852772636.jpg (63KB, 438x470px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 438x470px

>>54182706
>my tastes are superior to yours

>>54182720
>After a fairly disastrous 4E Dark Sun campaign where I found it nearly impossible to run the dangerous setting in a system where everyone had buckets of healing and bitpointless from level one I picked up Pathfinder.

I was thinking you were actually sincere up until this point.

Dark Sun in 4e retains deadliness by removing the healing surges (then, when you are out of that, your HP) from everyone using environmental effects. If this didn't happen with your group, you were either doing something wrong, or some of the characters were dedicated to stopping that from happening.

>>54182651
I can definitely see why it would bother you but personally I like it better than 5th edition's "[word] + attack" naming scheme. "Pushing attack, menacing attack, sweeping attack, trip attack." just say what it does and stick "attack" on the end. genius.

Muhammad Ali was a big fan of the "make your opponent become tired attack"

>>54182721
well not to tip my own fedora too hard, but I like 4e and 5e and AD&D, and you like 3.PF. sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade

>>54182720
You didn't try AD&D?

Shame, it does the hardcore stuff much better than pathfinder, definitely worth a look. Leave Pathfinder to silly, crazy games where murdering dragons in a single round is normal

I like all editions of D&D that I've played

2nd edition can be cruel, but is great fun, 3.5 is an insane rollercoaster of bullshit builds that do bonkers things, 4e is the best edition for recreating fantasy novels and the stories you'd find in them and 5e is what most people are playing right now

None of them are really bad games, some are better designed than others, but they're all fun, so long as you're not stuck playing 3.5 with a grognard GM or 4e with a GM who doesn't understand skill challenges

>>54177654
Boss monsters. Encounters. Dungeons centered around the encounters/boss encounters gig. Trifecta of healer/crowd control/tank. Regaining all your HP between encounters. One-click powers you can use once an encounter, or at will. Everything, every single interaction is made through those one-click powers. You don't kick something, you click on the 'kicking' ability. You don't charge something, you click on the 'charge' ability (once per encounter).

The name and design of the powers even comes from WoW.

D&D 4e has all the design staple of WoW. It self evident. It is really obvious if you have played any raid in WoW. I simply don't understand how anyone can say otherwise and not be instantly struck down for dishonesty. It's mind blowing how close minded and stupid you can get.

Take a WoW player. Anyone. Put him into a 4e game and he will click instantly. There's the same abilities, the same pacing, the same way to think about the world and monsters, the same everything. The only true difference is that his character doesn't have to eat between dungeon encounters to regain HP.

This is a GOOD THING. Many WoW players can play 4e without even trying to change their mindset. I know, I have several friends who just did that, and they like it very much.

>>54182758
Arguably I was doing it wrong I'm by no means.perfect then or now. I don't remember making much use of that mechanic. I think I had probably just grown a bit tired of 4E by then having played it for about 3-4 years mostly as a. Forever GM. The Dark Sun campaign was an attempt to try to run something entirely different but I just struggled to do so at the time within the system. Hence switching which worked for me.

I tried after that to get some of my.old players I started with into Pathfinder but they hated how weak they felt in the system , especially playing as martial characters , and I can understand it. 4E gave players a lot of empowerment and DM's very clear guidelines on how to run encounters which wasn't a bad thing by any means even if arguably the flavour of the game was changed in the process.

>>54182908
I wonder how you played before 4e.

>Boss monsters.

did you just throw dragons by the dozens

> Dungeons centered around the encounters/boss encounters gig

Did the dragon/lich never reside at the end of the dungeon? Did dungeons contain no fights?

> Trifecta of healer/crowd control/tank

Did you never heard "we need a healer"?

...

man, I'm replying to pasta, aren't I?

>>54182908
I am unable to determine if you're being serious or not

Your argument is just stupid enough to make me think it's a joke, but carries enough of a believable argument to make me think you might believe it

>>54182948
Yeah, the big thing that really bugs me about 3.5 isn't that martials are weak in comparison to classes, but that martials basically don't have meaningful choices to make in combat which means that even without casters around, they still feel weak.

If martials were weaker than casters, but just as interesting in design, then it wouldn't be a problem, just stick to all martial or all caster and treat it like two different games that use the same basic system, but as it stands that doesn't work so well

>>54182908
Cue screaming 'it's not like an MMORPG at all' fits at this point.

>>54182982
Oh look, here's one now.

>>54183016

>Oh look, here's one now.

So I guess all of those only happened to your group after WoW/4e?

>>54183033
What, you're telling me you used to play with a trifecta of Fighting-man, Magic-user, AND Cleric? All in the same party?! Gygax never intended that! Get your MMO shit out of muh D&D!

>>54182767
>the bite of your weapon is deepened by the sting of your ire
This is complete garbage.

Why can you just make a regular attack roll and roleplay whatever the fuck you want.

>>54177622
Stupid business decisions for 5 years, some terrible pr, some bad luck, and a design paradigm that alienated many of their existing customers to the point that they gave tons of free marketing to the competition to keep people away from 4e.

>>54177746
Id prefer heavily houseruled 5e for disgaea or tactics ogre over 4e.

Aedu is a bad fit for those games, I want everything running off of MP.

>>54183114
Thanks for reminding about how blueballed we were by the prospect of 4e video games

>>54183114
Disgaea is a pretty good example of why MP systems suck. MP costs and MP management adds absolutely 0 to the gameplay. Most of the time it doesn't matter at all, you'll just spam your strongest attack if you can.

The only good take on MP systems I ever saw was FFTA2.

------------------------------

With all the above said, although official rules don't exist for it, I'd bet 4e would handle an MP based system better than the stupid shit that is 5e's system.

Heck, if you are okay with 5e's system, you are basically already set, as it uses "these spells cost MP, but you can only cast them once" anyway. You obviously care more for the feel than for balance.

>>54183077
>Why can you just make a regular attack roll and roleplay whatever the fuck you want.
in the attack you just pointed out, the way 4e wants you to do it is to make your attack, describe it however you like, then the enemy gets a -2 to attack rolls for a turn because whatever you did, you 'rattled' it. Hardly the end of the world or the death of roleplaying or whatever

yeah instead you could just remove the mechanical description and argue with the DM every single turn about what you feel like the attacks you're describing should be doing, but you'd have to have a really flexible DM for him to agree to you just making up and entire status effect subsystem for your rogue to put on enemies every single turn. the DM has enough bullshit to worry about already without designing a class from the ground up in the middle of a fight

File: 71eab68455381aa46e9e25a672f6da01.jpg (1MB, 1610x910px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1610x910px

>>54182982
For Christ sake. Don't be intentionally stupid. Intentional stupidity is still just stupidity anon.

You could play 3.5 in a vaguely WoW reminiscing way, sure. Things that 3.5 lacks for a WoW player (I know, I have tried to play 3.5 with WoW players):

* One click powers with well defined effects and durations. What's a spell? Why do I need to sleep to regain them? Why the fuck aren't they duration: 7 seconds? This is awfully strange. This whole vancian spellcasting is stupid, and why don't my warrior have powers too?
* Explicit status effect. No stun, no sleep, no nothing.
* Explicit encounters and way of regaining HP between encounters. What, I need to sleep 8 hours between fights? What the fuck. I want to drink to restore my mana and here we go again to fight the next encounter.
* Explicit trifecta. We need a healer. Where's the tank? What, does it mean the warrior can't really tank? How do we manage aggro? 3.5 doesn't even mention the fact that we need a tank and a healer in a party, that's stupid. What class is DPS? What class is crowd control?
* How do I know than that monster is an elite monster? Where are the elite monsters? What do you mean by there's no elite monsters in the book? The fuck.

4e has elite monsters (!), one click powers, explicit encounters with heal between them (many of them WoW inspired), and uses the trifecta at full force in both the party and in the encounters. It also copies a large portion of WoW mechanics.

>Click on bash to stun an enemy for 7 seconds.
>Click on rend to unstun an enemy for massive damage.
>Click on smite to do a DoT that heals you for 18 seconds.
>etc.

It is absolutely obvious to anyone who actually plays WoW. That's why absolutely everyone agrees that D&D is inspired by MMORPG, because it is so self evident, in so many and various ways.

>>54183208

>Explicit status effect. No stun, no sleep, no nothing.

3.5 has a massive list of status effects.

>Explicit encounters and way of regaining HP between encounters. What, I need to sleep 8 hours between fights? What the fuck. I want to drink to restore my mana and here we go again to fight the next encounter.

>How do I know than that monster is an elite monster? Where are the elite monsters? What do you mean by there's no elite monsters in the book? The fuck.

Which was part of the (Many) issues with the CR system. Some monsters (Dragons especially) were overloaded for their CR to MAKE them Elite. Which contributed to it being worthless.

3.5 has that a LOT more than 4e does. 3.5 had a serious issue with 'Just get the wand of cure light wounds' while 4e has a maximum amount a person can be healed per day.

>Click on bash to stun an enemy for 7 seconds.

You mean like Stunning Fist?

>>54183208

>one click powers

Don't we call that 'Spells' in 3.5? You cast fireball, it does the fireball thing and you are done with it.

>>54182545
>3.5 is a bad game
No it's not. It's very much fun to build characters in due to the multitude of subsystems and their interaction.

>>54183236
>3.5 has a massive list of status effects.
because pretty much every ability defined one for itself. You didn't have a standardised core. It's arguable whether that's a good or a bad thing.

The CR system was broken in parts, but 3.5 did not assume a boss/minion system. If you put minions in front of your dragon, your players will die. 3.5 in general made less assumptions about resource expenses and instead left that to the context of the story.

>You mean like Stunning Fist?
>one is an ability with a solid fluff justification and a daily resource that makes sense which can be expanded by a multitude of feats and class abilities
>the other is a narrow power with arbitrary unjustified cooldown that does one thing and will do that one thing forever so you eventually just replace it

sure anon

>>54183355

>because pretty much every ability defined one for itself. You didn't have a standardised core. It's arguable whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Yes it did.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm

Here they are right here.

>one is an ability with a solid fluff justification and a daily resource that makes sense which can be expanded by a multitude of feats and class abilities

How is a 3.5 monk using stunning fist good but a 4e monk using stunning fist bad? Heck, 4e has a lot of feats for expanding your powers. They are stuff like 'With a flail, if you would push someone you can knock them prone' or 'Increasing the radius of thunder powers'.

>>54183244
Spells can be metamagiced, traded, modified by feats or other class features and need to be prepared, have a resource system that is anchored in their background and don't work the same as special melee attacks or other class abilities.

The fundamental diffference is that 4E is designed top down and 3.5 bottom up. People can accept flaws in a bottom up design a lot better if it models what it wants to model, while a top down needs to find its flavor a lot more, which it doesn't in 4E.

4th edition is like WoW because neither game lies to you about mechanics

That's basically it, any other connection between them is shared with other D&D systems

>>54183383
>Yes it did.
And yet there were tons of spells or other abilities that put you in some unique state. This is just the absolute basics.

File: Beebs.jpg (477KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

477KB, 1920x1080px

>>54182629
>So why is 3.PF more popular than 4e
IDK, maybe the same reason Justin Bieber is more popular than.... like.... most other professional singers and bands?

I unironically enjoy 4e.
Granted, it was my first real D&D experience, but still.

>>54183394
I can understand this

People are ok with nothing working if it looks like nothing is supposed to work, but if it's designed first to work and then to look nice, any flaws in it will be immediately obvious

>>54182982
>Did you never heard "we need a healer"?
Often. Which is a hold over from 2e, because you don't NEED one in 3.X

>>54183429
but that's because 3.5 botched balance so bad that healing in combat is functionally worthless and all healing you need to do can be done in between fights with wands of cure light wounds

>>54183394
>while a top down needs to find its flavor a lot more, which it doesn't in 4E.

I'd seriously disagree with that. 4e's flavor is stronger in many areas than it is in 3.5

I mean, Sorcerers and Wizards actually feel like the classes they are supposed to be, rather than basically the same class.

>>54183415

So does 4e. I mean, my desert wind monk for example has a power that puts ongoing fire damage onto a guy and allows me to move him as I will whenever he fails to put the fire out as he's stumbling about in panic. That's a unique mechanic tied to the ongoing fire damage.

Or her item, an Amulet of Seduction. Someone tagged with it will interpose themself in the way of the next attack that heads her way. That's a unique effect.

>>54183208
>One click powers with well defined effects and durations.
literally half the damn PHB is an itemized list of one click powers with well defined effects and durations

>Explicit status effect. No stun, no sleep,
oh, you were rusing all along. 3/10, you only had me until the second bullet point

actually, scratch that. you got some poor idiot >>54183355 to actually agree with you, 9/10

>>54182650
Can someone point out the thoroughly persuading marketability that grounded 3.PF as the defining edition of D&D?

I'm trying to think of the marketing material that I must have been bombarded with as a teenager, but I can't think of any.

>>54183503
Simple

OGL
By making their game system freely available, no one else needed to think about how to make a game system, the system was already there, so soon everyone just made games using that system, the more common it got, the more common it became, because more people knew the system, so more games were made for it

It was a self-perpetuating machine

Then you add on to this the timeframe, 3.5 came out right when internet usage was becoming widespread, so word of mouth suddenly grew massive, these two elements combined turned 3.5 and OGL into the common mindset of what an RPG is

>>54183503
Because there was none.

It's a meme that 4rries like to spread while they grapple with the reality that 4e is a failure of a game on every level.

File: Dude 3.jpg (47KB, 592x320px) Image search: [Google]

47KB, 592x320px

>>54177622
>What went so horribly horribly wrong?
Nothing. It's a great game, the offline builder and all the PDF's are still out there, and it's great to run. I started with AD&D2eRevised in the 90's, we didn't switch to 3e when it came out in 2000, we didn't switch when it came out again in 2003 under a slightly different name, and we're certainly not going to switch now that it came out again in 2014.

4e captured something about the zen of the 2e experience that 3e and its clones never have.

>>54183541
Then can you acknowledge that one of the key errors of 4e's designers was that they tried to declare it the newest iteration of D&D, while drastically separating it from the previous edition that had come to define D&D and according to you, RPGs in their entirety?

By your argument, 4e is anything but quintessentially D&D.

>>54183579
yep

>>54183468
>I mean, Sorcerers and Wizards actually feel like the classes they are supposed to be, rather than basically the same class.
not to mention the hybrid classes. the 4e Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Cleric, and Bard are all a million times more interesting for having their own powers that they don't just crib from a shared pool

never even made sense in fiction for Sorcerers to have the same spells as Wizards, honestly

>>54183440
knowing this retroactively makes me even angrier about when I played 3.5 as a teenager and got stuck playing a healbot cleric. pelor forgive me if I ever use one of my spell slots for anything other than Cure Light Wounds, suddenly it's my fault if a fight goes bad

>>54181762
>4e was doomed from the start.
So doomed it outsold pathfinder until after they stopped making books for it.

>>54182720
>Ironically a lot of my friends were big WoW players and found the game understandable and engaging as a result.

There is nothing ironic about it, 4th edition was DESIGNED to corner the mmorpg players
>millions play wow, imagine we gained 10% of them

Problem is by trying to pander to new demographics they fucked up with the existing ones.

>>54183579
>Then can you acknowledge that one of the key errors of 4e's designers was that they tried to declare it the newest iteration of D&D, while drastically separating it from the previous edition that had come to define D&D and according to you, RPGs in their entirety?

More '3.5's decision kinda fucked both 4e and 5e'. The OGL was a very poor idea that led to the rise of D&D's off-brand rival, Pathfinder.

>>54183587
So, 4e went so wrong because the designers and developers made a game that is quintessentially not D&D and made it the successor to the defining edition of D&D that they were discontinuing.

Feel free to brush that under the table but it's a pretty fucking massive error.

>>54183624
Why would they ditch 4e if it was such a success?

Something doesn't add up here...

>>54183694

You mean like how they ditched AD&D and 3.5?

>>54183649

>>54183649

>There is nothing ironic about it, 4th edition was DESIGNED to corner the mmorpg players

Citation required? Somehow I doubt a tabletop game was created to corner a market it's not actually part of.

>>54183656
>So, 4e went so wrong because the designers and developers made a game that is quintessentially not D&D

But it IS D&D. Seriously, people seem to be unable to provide a decent argument for how 4e wasn't D&D but all other editions were.

>>54183649
>There is nothing ironic about it, 4th edition was DESIGNED to corner the mmorpg players

You mean like how 3.5 had literal splatbooks for WoW and Diablo?

>>54183700
There's a logical progression there though.

4e breaks the mould. It took D&D in a completely new direction.

With 4e they altered their course and reverted back to the more "traditional" approach to D&D.

Why do you think they did that? WotC are a savvy bunch. They know what their customers want and they learned from their mistakes with 4e.

>>54183733

>With 4e they altered their course and reverted back to the more "traditional" approach to D&D.

Agreed. It was closer to AD&D than it was to 3.5 and I liked that.

I never got the lacking flavor argument against 4e. Everything had flavor. The emphasis on power sources encouraged flavor. The paragon path/epic destiny progression encouraged flavor. The power cards had flavor descriptors written right on them. And all the dragon magazine material they drowned you in was dedicated to giving more and more diverse flavor

Switching to 5e I'm surprised at how bland it feels given all the arguments that were driven at 4e complaining of that very same issue. It just seems like its always referring to some greater background that it never really tells you about, and the way it describes spells and other effects is this odd blend of literal description mixed with mechanical effects. It doesn't have the narrative flare of 4e's flavor descriptors nor is it VA's clear and precise at it's mechanics descriptors. It's just...dull.

>>54183706
You don't think there's overlap between MMOs and TTRPG's?

I know tons of people who play both. We're all fantasy geeks at the end of the day. Anything with elves, wizards and dragons appeals to us.

The younger generation that grew up with video games might not have had the opportunity to experience tabletop roleplaying. Don't you think that a company like Hasbro would try to capitalise on that?

>>54183656
If I wanted to play the same game I did before I wouldn't switch editions ever

>>54183751
How was 4e closer to AD&D?

>>54183761
If I want to play a drastically different game to the one I'm currently playing, I'll play a completely different game rather than play its sequel or its next edition.

>>54183656
No no

They made a game that was quintessentially D&D by the standards of ALL D&D, but the mindset of the playerbase is that 3.5 was the ONLY D&D

From a marketing standpoint it absolutely was a terrible decision, but since it produced a good game I'm not going to kick up a fuss about WotC making a poor marketing decision

>>54182651
>he doesn't think blade cascade sounds badass as fuck
Tasteless troglodyte

>>54183706
>>54183726
In 3rd edition you can see the sings of it, the increasing gaming market the desire to gain more followers from them

in 4th it was obivious, video games had a huge potential to convert people, wow especially, they couldnt put tauren and night elf on the cover,, but boy they could make the tabletop as pc gamey as they could and they did.

hence your wow playing friends felt at ease.
but the backfire pissed a lot of grognards and those who started from 3rd edition, all of them see a different beast

no citation i know 5 am here but do google this thing i think it was confessed albeit not in a loud manner by some wotc employers

>>54183763

Well, for one: You actually could have people do a dungeon crawl and have HP be a factor.

In AD&D you had to worry about the constant grind of opposition. 3.5 killed that dead and 4e brought it back.

4e's skills were also a lot better for GMs to go 'Work out how you are going to solve this and I'll tell you to roll something' than 3.5's endless listing of the exact rules and DCs for every single thing.

Rituals were fantastic on that front, making it so that how players reacted when shit was happening right now mattered a lot more. In 3.5 with just how many spells the average spellcaster had, how common wands and scrolls were and how quick they were to cast it was just a case of the spellcaster pulling out the right spell.

4e's skill challenge system was a great way of codifying that, going 'I'll try X' and have the group work for a solution to a current problem.

It really got back to the core of what made AD&D dungeon crawls a lot of fun. Making them an endurance event where quick thinking mattered more than always having the exact tool for the situation.

>>54183656
>So, 3e went so wrong because the designers and developers made a game that is quintessentially not D&D and made it the successor to the defining edition of D&D that they were discontinuing.
I'm old enough to remember people grumbling how 3e was not "true" D&D, anon, that it was "Diablo" edition that was abandoning all the things that gave D&D it's soul for phat loot and bigger numbers.
In absolute hindsight, they were pretty much right, the party survival focus disappeared,

>>54183780
>implying any edition is drastically different from another
When dnd becomes a shadowrun clone then perhaps you'll have a point

File: WarcraftRPG.jpg (42KB, 375x501px) Image search: [Google]

42KB, 375x501px

>>54183803
>in 4th it was obivious, video games had a huge potential to convert people, wow especially, they couldnt put tauren and night elf on the cover

Why not? They did that in 3.5

>>54183752
Part of the problem was that 4e's setting was an unfinished piece of shit that they never made an actual setting book for, just some piecemeal information scattered over dozens of adventures. Part of it was that it was tonally inconsistent - the themes of the setting didn't match the way the rules worked at all. But mostly it was having much less transparent rules that made it harder to suspend disbelief. The main factors that affected your character's life were game rules that your character wasn't supposed to know about.

>>54183804
I just don't see it man.

I started with 2e back in the late 90s and honestly 4e feels NOTHING like it.

>>54183826
Funny, throughout all of 3.5, I don't think i ever played in a pre-established setting

sure we used pre-established gods and stuff, but the world itself was always made up by the DM, it was only when 4e rolled around that we picked up Eberron and Dark Sun that we actualy started using D&D official settings

>>54183826
Can't say I agree with anything you just said. I like PoL, I don't see how the tone clashed with the mechanics, and I don't even understand your argument about suspending disbelief

>>54183831

Likewise. My first ever experience with it was Eye of the Beholder, then I moved into the actual RPG.

3.5 always felt like this theme park version of D&D where all the problems of adventuring didn't exist and could be solved instantly.

4e gave me shit like it's disease rules, where they were long multi-step things so someone catching a disease could hound someone for day after day and trying a healing ritual for it risked killing the guy if the disease was powerful enough.

Or environmental effects draining away healing surges so that people actually had to deal with the environment being a threat, not just fights. In 3.5 if it wasn't a fight, it wasn't really a threat as all the 'protect from environmental stuff' spells were very low level and lasted ages.

>>54183826

Did 3.5 ever actually release a Greyhawk setting book?

>>54183804
>In AD&D you had to worry about the constant grind of opposition. 3.5 killed that dead and 4e brought it back.
Wat.

>4e's skills were also a lot better for GMs to go 'Work out how you are going to solve this and I'll tell you to roll something' than 3.5's endless listing of the exact rules and DCs for every single thing.
BEAR LORE.

>4e's skill challenge system was a great way of codifying that, going 'I'll try X' and have the group work for a solution to a current problem.
you mean that nonfunctional system that a player had to homebrew before it approximated working?

>It really got back to the core of what made AD&D dungeon crawls a lot of fun. Making them an endurance event where quick thinking mattered more than always having the exact tool for the situation.
Oh, so what you're really saying is that wizards are OP in 3.5 and not that there is really anything different in AD&D and 4e. You could have just said so in the beginning you know.

>>54183826
So very much this.

>>54183869
>BEAR LORE.

You want to bring up silly 3.5 memes too? Like how drowning a guy heals the dying?

>>54183831
4e has a number of similar motes from behind the DM screen, and it also may be when you actually could understand the game from an adult's perspective, rather than a child's.
2e and 4e both share the heroic framework, 2e being pulp, 4e being high heroics, the focus of the game on the players being the mighty group greater than the sum of it's parts that are HEROES doing heroic things (while incidentally surviving).
Also, can you lot PLEASE stop feeding the troll?
It's the exact same arguments and half of them are the exact same posts as last time.

Played 3.5 in School, played 5e more recently.

Red Pill me on 4e.

>>54182908
Most of this stuff exists in games already but by accepting it and working with the ideas it improved on it all.

The rest of this is just wrong really.

>>54183869
but wizards being OP is what sets 3.5 apart from AD&D and 4e

the wizard and other casters are so strong that the concept of party roles simply does not work, because full casters can fulfill all roles alone, if they're not breaking the system in some other way that destroys the concept itself.

This means that a party in AD&D will function more like a party in 4e than it will like a party in 3.5, the same sort of non-combat challenges are effective against them, the class makeup will be similar, the positioning order as they traverse the dungeon matters in the same way, etc.

>>54183892
>a bizzare interpretation of rules means you heal instead of just dying!
You have to make a leap of impossible logic to manage that. If you're already in negatives, your hitpoints don't jump up to -1 when you are already dying.

>>54183892
How about how by RaW monks aren't proficient in unarmed strikes? so a monk making an unarmed strike provokes an opportunity attack?

>>54183929
The issue is that the almighty Rules As Written, which 3.5 fans generally swear to, say precisely that, which is the problem.
You want a good one?
Polymorph effects had TEN(10) PAGES of errata and was STILL broken when the game went out of print.

>>54183914

God, I can't remember the last time a 3.5 rogue was actually a valuable party member. With how few slots there are in AD&D, wasting it on Knock was a very situational tool but 3.5 let you just make scrolls of stuff easily and there are so many more spells available.

4e's rituals didn't do it in the same way but they did a good job of going back to the basic idea of 'Spellcasters can solve a problem but they are not the first choice if you can do it otherwise'.

can't we all agree that 5e is the best?

>>54183947
Not in the slightest.
4e > 2e> Moldvay. Everything else is basically the same tier.

>>54183947
Fuck no.

>>54183947

Not really? I'll agree I hold it no ill will but it doesn't inspire much either. It falls solidly into 'Fine but lacks a spark that draws me to it'. Soulless feels like a bit too hard a term for it but it's not entirely inaccurate either.

I'm happy to play it but it will never really get a great mark from me because it feels mostly just 'Competent'.

>>54183947
Personally I prefer both 3.5 and 4e over 5e

>>54183947
5e is the most boring edition

>>54183938
By RAW monks unarmed strikes count as 'armed unarmed attacks' and do not provoke and also allow you to make AoO's normally with unarmed strikes. Do you even read the rules you are citing?

>>54183992
Fuck off, retard.

Yeah, I can see how it's a bit boring. Just gotta make it interesting.

>>54184008
Don't you provoke opportunity attacks when you attack using a weapon you aren't proficient in?

Or was that a houserule?

>>54184008
RAW monks do not have the Unarmed Attack feat which grants all of the things you are talking about, and the precedent stands that classes will possess the relevant feats to enable their class features.
Rangers, for example, WILL get Two Weapon Fighting as a feat to enable that specialization tree.

>>54184008

>Unarmed Strike
>At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

>Weapon and Armor Proficiency
>Monks are proficient with club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger, handaxe, javelin, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, and sling.

By not giving them full Simple weapon prof they didn't give them proficiency in a very important weapon on that list. Unarmed Strike

>>54184024

He's semi-right and semi-wrong. Monks don't provoke due to Improved Unarmed Strike but also don't have proficiency in their own fists so they eat the -4 penalty.

>>54183938
That isn't what nonproficiency means you mong. Nonproficiency means you have a -4 on the attack roll. Also that only applies to humanoid monks, all other creature types have baked-in proficiency.

>>54183859
>3.5 always felt like this theme park version of D&D where all the problems of adventuring didn't exist and could be solved instantly.

This is, pure, unadulterated bullshit.

>>54184059

Why do you say that? I've stated my reasons why I feel so (Functionally unlimited healing, easy access to spells to solve problems very quickly etc).

>>54183914
>the concept of party roles simply does not work
good, party roles is a dumb concept.

>>54184059
The only time environmental issues were a threat was if the party was either incompetent or made of martials.
The ease of using magic to render them moot was too omnipresent on EVERY class.
Maybe if the stuff was restricted to druid, but every core caster could do it, and that made it virtually nonissue. In fact, the only time it was a problem was in a game where the party consisted of 2 paladins, a marshal, and a crusader.

>>54184078

Yes but it's also a part of AD&D that 3.5 didn't remotely hold to. You can say that you don't like and that's fine but it's an area in which 4e is a better successor than 3.5 is.

>>54183946
>What is a closed door/mechanical trap in a AMF
At low levels you cannot spam knock.
At higher level the bullshit you can find could make it useful but not bulletproof.
Other times you thank the gods that you can start a sneaky sub-mission with the rogue using skills and the wiz along with invisibility and knock.
Don't blame the system because you cannot build challenges for shit.

You know, this is why you people love 4ed. You have a point and click mentality so you cannot grasp a world, or an encounter, more complex than that.

>>54184074
see >>54184107
I bet you are the same faggot that assumes unlimited CLW wands.
There is no redemption for people like you.

>>54184096
>Yes but it's also a part of AD&D
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH OH MY GOD

>>54184107

>What is a closed door/mechanical trap in a AMF

How do you propose to do that? AMF lasts 10 mins/level, is centered on the spellcaster and isn't on the permanency list.

>>54184107
>At low levels you cannot spam knock.
You don't need to, you save knock for the magical locks the rogue can't functionally do anything about when the DM is trying to force you to bash a door down and trigger the trap.
>Don't blame the system because you cannot build challenges for shit.
Aww, how droll, a 3.PF apologist!

File: This.gif (446KB, 300x186px) Image search: [Google]

446KB, 300x186px

>>54183804
>It really got back to the core of what made AD&D dungeon crawls a lot of fun. Making them an endurance event where quick thinking mattered more than always having the exact tool for the situation.

>>54183914
>a party in AD&D will function more like a party in 4e than it will like a party in 3.5,

Discounting people claiming to be pre-3.5 grognards on /tg/, every 2e-veteran I know agrees that, for better or worse, 4e captured the feel of 2e much better than 3.PF or 5e ever could.

>>54184150
He means one just occurring naturally.

>>54184107

>You have a point and click mentality so you cannot grasp a world, or an encounter, more complex than that.

As an aside: Wouldn't point and click be a bad example if you want to say someone thinks in a video game way? Point and click games are puzzle games, generally with very odd solutions.

Did you ever play Monkey Island?

>>54184078
>good, party roles is a dumb concept.
as opposed to what? Everyone can do everything, and some of them do everything better?

>>54184107
A wand of knock costs 4500 gp

You should be able to afford one at level 6

It has 50 charges, the amount of money you save by buying one of these instead of bringing a rogue along is significant

>>54184167

Ah, yes. The naturally occurring AMF, attracted to locks and other locations the GM desperately needs to prevent a wizard invalidating other team members (Unless of course this occurs in Forgotten Realms in which case not even AMFs will save you because Fuck You, Mystra)

>>54182309
Overwhelming amounts of material needed and very tight maths, honestly.

>>54184187

Yeah. I love to do homebrew but my homebrew for 4e is mostly in the areas of individual powers (Expanding on the Artificer's minor summoning theme) and themes (Stuff like Soulknives and a PC who wanted one for being a perfect servant to another PC Jarvis/Alfred style) because the amount needed for a full class is staggering, let alone a whole book of classes.

>>54184150
>>54184167
One can be very liberal in dungeon design, even published adventures don't follow the rules literally. Creativity in the way the challenges are posed pressure the party to work together because you ned many people sometimes doing things in the same moment to overcome the challenge.
>>54184173
I was thinking about "tab to select and then press the key with the power" but yes I see your point.
And I grew up in the period Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Fate of Atlantis were the hot shit.
I love them.

File: 1441003968622.gif (428KB, 200x183px) Image search: [Google]

428KB, 200x183px

>>54184011
>Just gotta make it interesting.
Yeah, a good DM can make any game interresting, but a good DM can make diceless play-pretend fun. If the highest praise you can give to a system is that a good DM can make it good, then that's pretty pathetic, because that's true of literally anything. The mark of a good game is one that can help/guide newbie or moderate DM's perform above their ability.

>>54184180
>You should be able to afford one at level 6
>le magic shop meme.

>>54184180
>knock is foiled by a simple piece of string tying something closed
>does not disable any traps that might exist
>Find Traps is a clerical spell
>doesn't disable them either
It's pathetic how often people crow about superwizards and not realize how often they have to ignore rules to be superwizards

>>54184216
Doesn't the wizard get a crafting bonus feat at 5 anyway?

>>54177622
Bad marketing, mostly.

It lacks options for players who prefer a simpler game compared to other editions.

The books's writing and layout heavily emphasises combat mechanics over fluff and roleplaying, though the mechanics themselves aren't really any more or less roleplaying focused than previous editions.

Everything else is just subjective taste.

>>54184221

They do, yeah. Well, that or metamagic.

>>54184216
Magic shops are a core component of 3.PF, rules for them are found in both the PF core rulebook and the 3.5 DMG

>>54184219
knock opens the locked thing

the string is counted as a lock, so it's opened, and the spell has a range of 100+ft, so there's no reason to be within range of any traps on the locked thing

>developing cool computer program to assist games
>Use a guys murder-suicide as an excuse to drop the project
Wizards are retards who can barely into computers, realized they had backed themselves into a corner and were looking for any excuse for an out.

>>54183859
>Did 3.5 ever actually release a Greyhawk setting book?

A couple, most notably the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. But you could still use the old AD&D guides. When you invent a new setting the first thing you have to do is fucking explain it. You know, like 3.5 did with Eberron.

>>54184236
every fucking time.
If you have the guidelines for price and size of the settlement adequate for a given item, doesn't mean that you would NECESSARILY find such item in the specific settlement.
Also, find the right Rogue Guild of deal with a shady church to get the item could be an adventure on its own.
This stuff must be a tool to enhance your games, not to break them.
These are memes spread by Gitp, Brilliant Gameologist, RPG.net, ENworld, and all that star cluster of retards. Believe me I was one of them.

>>54184257
Actually, the spell specifically says that tied closures are not opened.

>>54184278
>These are memes spread by Gitp, Brilliant Gameologist, RPG.net, ENworld, and all that star cluster of retards. Believe me I was one of them.

Should we go back to the /tg/ memes like Bear Lore or how 4e takes the part of your brain that allows roleplay and cuts it out?

>>54184295
Triggered, anon?

>>54184278
the rules state that in a major city, you will find any minor magic item you look for

the knock wand is a minor magic item, and by level 6 chances are you've entered a major city.

Sure it's not certain, but the only way to avoid it is DM fiat, keeping the party away from major cities or houseruling away what the book says about magic item shops

Of course, you also have to deal with the fact that a wizard or sorcerer might just take create wand as a feat and make their own wands of knock for less money, which requires even more fiat to stop

>>54184294
Huh, you're right

it opens things tied shut with chains, but not with ropes

That is fucking weird

>>54184309

Honestly, I am a bit irked. If something is bad with 3.5 it's 'The GM can fix this' or 'You are not being creative enough' or 'It doesn't matter in play' but people spout similar things about 4e (Including a good number of false ones) and hold to them like they came from Muhammad on the mountain.

>>54184216
Setting aside "le magic shop meme", 3.5 Wizards come preloaded with Scribe Scroll, and Craft Wand is up there with CWI as one of the best choices for the lvl 5 bonus ffeat.

>>54184314
>Of course, you also have to deal with the fact that a wizard or sorcerer might just take create wand as a feat and make their own wands of knock for less money, which requires even more fiat to stop
If the Wiz wants to do all of that just to fuck with the Rogue, is not my problem. The system allows you to do that when the rogue player is missing.
But still knock will be a pain in any non-standard lock situation like what has been described above.
Then, you will miss the good old rogue.
>>54184326
You know, this is just another "spells are broken" thread with people misinterpreting the rules and assuming the best case scenario.

>>54184333
Considering how often 4e players told 3.5 players "you can't do that it's homebrew and means the gsame is bad" right before the7y turned around and said "you can fix this """totally minor issue""" in 4e by doing such and such BUT IT'S TOTALLY NOT HOMEBREW GUIZE IT'S A FEATURE NOT A BUG", I'm rather surprised you're even trying to bring it up.

>>54183851

>I like PoL
You're proving my point for me. Points of Light isn't even the name of the setting; it's the fan-created nickname for the setting because THEY NEVER EVEN GAVE THE SETTING A NAME. That's just one example of how unfinished it is. And the tone clashed with the game rules because the tone is "low fantasy where humanity has failed and is joining the older races in the slow slide to extinction" but the rules are for a superhero MMO where absolutely everyone is a perfect almost-unkillable Mary Sue with a level-mandated arsenal of magic items. Like, under these rules humanity would never, ever lose to monsters (or perhaps I should call them "mobs."

>>54184333
I was talking about the shit I said about Gitp, BG etc. Nevermind.
>>54184339
But this does not fix the simple or complex ways Knock can be fucked.
Knock is fantastic, is great but is not a substitute for the rogue. Is a palliative, a very good one, for when the Rogue is not there, or you have to do something in the same moment the rogue disables another mechanism.

>>54184358
>If the Wiz wants to do all of that just to fuck with the Rogue, is not my problem. The system allows you to do that when the rogue player is missing.

The fact that you think every group will have a rogue player in 3.5 is adorable.

>Then, you will miss the good old rogue.

Actually, what will the rogue do?

The door is tied up with a knot from the other end. How will he "pick" it?

>You know, this is just another "spells are broken" thread with people misinterpreting the rules and assuming the best case scenario.

I don't think I have ever seen a door being tied down. If it did happen, and I wasted a shot of Knock on it, I'd then read the spell description and probably figure it out pretty quick anyway.

>>54183892
>3.5 has flaws
>therefore 4e has no flaws

Every time someone tries to use this argument.

Now let's talk about bear lore. It wasn't an unintended consequence of the interaction between two poorly-thought-out rules that were never meant to be used together, like most of the 3.5 hacks. It was written that way, and the comedy comes not from putting it in the context of other rules but from using it alone on its own terms. That's why it's ten times funnier than Pun-Pun or the Locate City nuke.

>>54184399
That's what thieves tools are for, bypassing issues like that. A blade on the end of a wire can actually cut though something like that.

>>54184358
The point is not that you're doing this to "fuck with the rogue", you're doing this so you don't need a rogue at all

The rogue is a superfluous class, everything it does is done better by the wizard, that is the point

>>54177622
Took the special snowflake bullshit from 3.0 and kicked it into overdrive with everyone becoming some equally balanced anime bullshit.

>>54177661
Got it.

>>54180477
I did, until I actually played it. It's better than 5e is.

>>54182720
Dark Sun has never actually been gritty. If anything, 4e is where it's the hardest to survive. You should consider yourself lucky you ran it there first./

Dark Sun has always been a high-powered ezmode setting.

>>54184423

I dunno, monks not being proficient with their own fists is there right from the start and a result of it's own terms. That makes it fucking hilarious and really sets the stage for the entire monk experience.

Bear Lore sort of runs into a multi-edition issue with Knowledge Skills. You want knowledge skills to scale in some degree with a character so they stay relevant but that really isn't how a world works. Some powerful monsters are well known and some rare monsters are weak.

It's like how a 3.5 Archivist found it harder to identify a bear with his own monster lore ability than he did a MM4 CR 1 demon that is almost never seen outside the hells.

Which is funny in every single edition it turns up in.

>>54184381
>Considering how often 4e players told 3.5 players "you can't do that it's homebrew and means the gsame is bad" right before the7y turned around and said "you can fix this """totally minor issue""" in 4e by doing such and such BUT IT'S TOTALLY NOT HOMEBREW GUIZE IT'S A FEATURE NOT A BUG", I'm rather surprised you're even trying to bring it up.

When did that happen? I'm a massive 4e fan and I have a list of complaints with 4e. I think it's the best D&D but far from a perfect system.

>Took them a few too many books to start playing with the AEDU system.
>MM3 math was how it should have been from the start, they didn't play with minor actions or reactions for monsters anywhere near enough to start.
>Skill challenges ended up good in the end but took forever to get there, as a starting part of the game. That's a fucking shame.
>Gold costs for Rituals was a bad idea and they needed more of them/to scrap the ritual caster tax. They were a great idea hampered by issues about 'Is this really worth the cost when they'll eat into other stuff I wanna buy?'
>Uneven support for classes. Martials and Arcanists got multiple books of support but we never got a Primal Power.

>>54184383

No it's theme was 'Fight against the dying of the light'. A setting can be in a bad place but improvable. It's why half the Epic Destinies are about the method you are using to help push back the darkness.

>>54184381

As someone who loves 4e, I've never said this and can't really remember having seen it said.

We're all pretty open about the flaws of the game, because they're important to know but thankfully easy to fix. You just use the Monster Manual 3/Monster Vault math (pic related) along with giving every PC an Expertise feat and Improved Defences.

With that, you've got what is probably the best game for playing heroic high fantasy adventurers with a focus on engaging tactical combat. It's what the system is good at. It doesn't try to go beyond that, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

Although beyond that there are more subjective complaints. I wish the non-combat side of the system was stronger, for example.

>>54183652
It ended up being a "poor idea" because they got outcompeted by their own previous edition. The main cause of something like that happening isn't that Paizo was legally allowed to do so, it's because they fucked up. Lots of people just stuck with their old 3.x books even with Pathfinder around and lots of people dropped out of playing RPGs altogether. If Pathfinder wasn't legally allowed to exist presumably some people would have switched to 4th, but mostly they would have just not switched at all.

Compare to Windows 8/10 or Windows Vista. If anyone was legally allowed to make a clone of Windows 7 and somehow got around Microsoft's structural ability to pressure vendors they'd be making a fortune right now. Instead they can't, but Microsoft still can't get people to upgrade to 8 or 10, even though 10 was free and pushed by ridiculous upgrade tactics that got Microsoft sued.

>>54184541

If it's not the same poster I saw before it's one with a similar misunderstanding. Obsessing over the idea that Points of Light was some ultra gritty despair filled and hopeless setting despite direct evidence to the contrary, effectively asserting their fanon version over the published material as the 'true' setting.

>>54184578
>We're all pretty open about the flaws of the game

Ironically, 4e players are the only ones I see actually bringing up flaws with the game instead of meme shitposting.

File: printablemm3businessfront.gif (27KB, 1050x600px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 1050x600px

>>54184578

Shit, lost picture in the weird posting errors

>>54184521
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Monks who accidentally didn't get the ability to do their main thing are funny, and so is bear lore. The monk thing was clearly an accident, though, and Bear Lore was not.

>>54184639
Learning what is wrong is good. Allows it to be fixed. The clear design meant it is easy for players to identify it.

Other systems that work on obfuscation of game terms hide the flaws.

4e isn't perfect, but it is the most balanced edition thus far. It may not be your kind of game (fantasy Avengers), and that's fine.

>>54184724

I think it's pretty clear bear lore was an accident, tasking someone to write it without giving them clear context for what the various DCs meant or how hard they were to achieve.

>>54184730
4e was absolutely my game as a matter of fact. It's what brought me back to D&D after 3rd edition killed what interest I still had.

I was interested in 5e, but I followed the playtest for a while and that was a fucking train wreck I wanted no part of.

>>54184541
Did you mean "we never got another primal power"?

Because there is a primal power

>>54184753

Yeah. Sorry. We never got a Shadow Power (Or even half the roles for Shadow)

>>54184750

5e is kinda meh after all the cool stuff they removed, although a 5e version of the Tome of Battle would at least give me a non-caster class that would actually be fun to play. The Battlemaster just isn't enough.

>>54184541
They forgot to include the "bad place," and you can't fix whaty isn't broken. Never once in any published 4e adventure do they take a moment to establish the themes outlined in the DMG and the articles they wrote about it as they were developing it: that civilization has collapsed and no one is safe. Everyone, especially every PC, is a superbeing who has to take absolutely no risks to defeat the paltry threats to the comfortable status quo. No matter where the PCs go adventuring and for how long, the places they leave behind are perfectly safe because they are MMO towns. Everyone is armed to the teeth with magical treasure, and small deprivations are never an issue because there are barely rules for them. No setback, large or small, can bring the seriousness of the situation home to the PCs, and if a DM tried to do it himself he'd be informed that he was being unfair.

>>54184815

What the fuck are you even talking about?

>>54184815

>Everyone is armed to the teeth with magical treasure,

Well, they ARE in the aftermath of the collapse of multiple incredibly magical empires. That shit is all over the place because there are entire tiefling and dragonborn legions that are now dead.

>>54184748
"cave bears live in caves" and "sire bears attack with their natural weapons" are not appropriate results for a knowledge check of any kind of difficulty. No writer could have produced that through not knowing exactly what each DC represented. Bear lore exists because they mandated that the DC of each monster knowledge check be based on the monster's level and nothing else, and that each monster have lore listed no matter how little there is to say about it.

>>54184834
Combat as sport vs. combat as war. 4e combat is built for sport but the setting is built for war. It doesn't match, and that's part of why 4e has bad flavor.

>>54184932

What the fuck are you even talking about?

>>54184913

So, essentially, an accident. Just a procedural and systemic one.

>>54184913

>Bear lore exists because they mandated that the DC of each monster knowledge check be based on the monster's level and nothing else, and that each monster have lore listed no matter how little there is to say about it.

Mind you, the 3.5 Archivist managed the same thing with it's lore ability. It's a pretty common issue with knowledge skills in a lot of stuff.

>>54184963
Archivist was a mistake. It doesn't change the fact that 4e was also a mistake. You can stop pretending that you can defend your bad taste by attacking something else.

>>54184983

A minor fluff thing that's easily ignored makes the whole system a mistake?

>>54181649
>following the release of Pathfinder
No it didn't.

>>54184781
Never liked Shadow Power. It is like making Elemental Power, and then we get a Power bloat.

>>54185069

I honestly think Shadow is good in concept, but came a little late and was too focused.

I like the idea of 'Shadow' or equivalent as a power source of indirect, subtle and cunning power. Rogue could fit as Shadow rather than Martial, as could Warlock.

>>54184999
There's also the fact that it's made for optimizers and theorycrafters, being an Int-based divine caster that can learn all the most broken spells in the game.

File: fighters_are_wizards.png (7KB, 317x205px) Image search: [Google]

7KB, 317x205px

>>54177622
>What went so horribly horribly wrong?
The formatted all powers uniformly, but didn't realize this made everything literally spells.

>>54185196
Ah yes, I remember when my Fighter started lobbing fireballs and wearing robes.

>>54184448
>special snowflake
>everyone equally balanced

>>54185196
I liked it. But too verbose for a single attack.

The framework of game terms is independent from the fluff it represents. A spell is a product of arcane energies, not a product of a style of formatting the text.

File: 1430290265679.jpg (14KB, 251x242px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 251x242px

>>54184470
If by better you mean worse in every way, then sure.

>decide to try 4e
>roll a wizard
>turns out wizards are just the cc dudes from an MMO
>combat encounters take 3 hours to resolve

Fuck 4e. Glad that shit is dead and buried.

>>54185444
>3 hours

What in the fuck were you guys even doing. I've played up to epic and never seen a fight go past 45 minutes.

>>54185444
>combat encounters take 3 hours to resolve
I'm sorry you and your party are retarded, it's okay, I had a retarded player in my 4e group, took him 5-15 minutes to decide what to do one his turn, only had 4 options to choose from.

>>54185444
But that's what wizards were in 3.5 as well

Just in 3.5 they were broken op CC dudes who's most basic CC options were pretty much instant encounter-enders

>>54185510

They might've been stuck with the MM1 math, which does extend things a bit, but nowhere near that much.

Then again, you're replying to a frogposter. That's always a mistake.

>>54185525
>b-but 3.5...
Nobody's talking about 3.5 you silly 4rrie

>>54185444
Egad, a wizard using spells to CC his enemies. What a frightening departure from every other edition of D&D!

>>54185570
then where did your pre-conceived idea of what a wizard should be come from?

If it's anything other than AD&D or OD&D, you have no one to blame but yourself

>>54185592
In other editions, wizards can actually blow stuff up with fireballs and shit.

In 4e wizards are useless CC cucks.

>>54185637

http://funin.space/compendium/power/Fireball.htm

>>54185637
So why didn't you pick sorcerer?

You know, the class with the "striker" label, letting you know from the very beginning that it's there to do damage with fireballs and shit

>>54185637
4e was made based on a specific 3.5 playstyle, where wizards mainly used CC instead of blasting. 4e toned it down a bit, though, so wizards couldn't solve everything in 6 six seconds.

>>54185399
Evidently there is some disagreement on this point, given that the idea that fighters were basically just casting spells was one of the major complaints with 4e.

It's pretty simple, really. D&D players what different subsystems for different classes, not the same subsystem with the serial numbers filed off.

>>54185637
You what?

Wizards are still by far one of the best classes in 4e, they just can't do literally everything anymore.

>>54185677
Presumably because he wanted to play a wizard.

Which is another complaint I have with 4e: it should be possible to fill any role with any class, or at least every class should be capable of filling at least 2 or 3 of them. There is no inherent reason why rogues should be able to control or defend, or a wizard be able to defend or blast, other than a MMO sense of class balance.

Likewise, D&D's earlier editions had always acknowledged and enabled a fifth party role - the Face. 4e excised the Face. It took the Face...off. That's some Travolta/Cage shit right there.

>>54185758
>It should be possible to fill any role with any class

No it fucking shouldn't

If that's the case, why do you even have classes anymore? Classes represent your role in the party on a basic level, if you want every class to be able to fill every role, you'd be better off ignoring the concept of a "class" altogether

>>54185703

But the thing is, within the overall powers system there are different subsystems that different classes interact with in different ways, creating unique and distinct playstyles. You just need to, you know, play the game to actually really figure them out.

>>54185758
Face has always been something you do on top of your main role. Unless you were doing some diplomancer garbage in 3.5, you just had the party member who already had the highest Cha/diplomacy do the talking regardless of what their actual specialty was.

>>54185758
Why is the class label so important to you? If you want to be a defender wizard, can't you just play a swordmage instead. Is it required that your character sheet reads wizard.

Regarding the face, 4e roles are strictly combat roles, so face doesn't fit. Skillmonkey isn't a role either, though I'm not happy they needlessly gave some classes fewer skills than others.

>>54185758
>>54185798

Tying class to role is also great from a design perspective, as it lets you make focused, interesting mechanics around doing that one thing.

Strike removes the direct link between classes and roles, and IMO loses a lot as a result.

>>54185758
>it should be possible to fill any role with any class, or at least every class should be capable of filling at least 2 or 3 of them

This has never been much of a thing outside of 3rd edition spellcasters.

Even then its silly because most 4e classes overlap on secondary roles. Warlocks for example are primary strikers, but have plenty of controller in their class, and can even dip into leader a bit with the Sorcerer-King pact.

File: faerie_dragon_by_carolina_eade-d4o8omm.jpg (88KB, 600x792px) Image search: [Google]

88KB, 600x792px

>>54177622
too many hitpoints.
too much healing.
the game wasnt dangerous.
it was a healing resource management game.
not a RPG.
and it was boring because of that.

the art and the overall feel and polish of the game was amazing tho. they really hit a home run with the feeling of mystery. but then you actually play the actual game, and there was no mystery, because it was just being a hospital administrator. it was boring.

>>54185758

You're wrong, but you're almost right.

The system never achieved it, but you should have been able to play every role in every power source. From there, you can basically fill in all the concepts you'd care about. Unless you're obsessed over which class name you write on your sheet, which is just weird.

>>54185854

Fixed with MM3 math

Also what does

>it was a healing resource management game.
>not a RPG.

even mean? That's a nonsense statement.

>>54185891
somehow, to him, those are mutually exclusive.

File: e83112cf6dd5101f8327479e19c00e99-d98kfta.jpg (175KB, 1000x1100px) Image search: [Google]

175KB, 1000x1100px

>>54185891
>>54185910
a rpg has to be dangerous and exciting to be fun. 4th wasnt. it wasnt dangerous and exciting because the game wasnt about taking risks and being rewarded. it was about husbanding your healing resources. it wasnt about killing monsters and getting loot. it was about correct card selection. it sucked.

>>54185872
I can't even begin to tell you how often the "I want to play a lightly armored two weapon fighter that's a striker, but it had to be the fighter class" threads the 4e forum would get flooded with

>>54186005

Nope. With the math fixes and later monster design, individual combat encounters can be extremely dangerous.

Then again, you're also being a badwrongfun asshole and claiming there's only one way to enjoy a game, which means you have even less of a point than the falsehood you're trying to assert.

>>54186005
This is a sentiment I never understood, since I've had waymore party wipes in 4e than any other edition.

>>54186005
>a rpg has to be dangerous and exciting to be fun
maybe to be fun FOR YOU, but, and hear me out on this, OTHER people can have fun in DIFFERENT ways.

>>54186010
You can't even escape that now. Pathfinder General gets the same thing every so often.

>I want to play an outdoorsy-type who is good with animals and uses a bow, but I don't want to play a Ranger
>I want to play a really smart Fighter

Then you put them in a classless game and they are blank

File: gold_dragon__rev__by_christopheronciu-d9d1kbu.png.jpg (71KB, 943x847px) Image search: [Google]

71KB, 943x847px

>>54186038
>>54186039
>>54186042
im just saying my opinion too guys. feel free to enjoy your 4th ed. dont let me stop you. if you like card management, good for you.

>>54185758

Face is a non-combat role. Most cha-based classes can still be a fantastic face.

>>54186099
Well, since I like good game design, I will certainly stick with 4e. I'm sure your system of choice is adequate.

>>54186005
Please explain how an RPG without resource management can be "exciting"

the excitement of turn-based games is all about resource management, from chess to Xcom

>>54186005
Did your DM never put you in a hard fight or what? It is perfectly possible to make a difficult combat encounter.

>>54186181

I remember a couple of months ago going up against some fucking werecreatures (Jackels iirc) that got a heap of extra damage against prone targets or on a crit.

That led to some serious worry, as they were rather unpredictably dangerous foes.

File: sword_in_stone_by_smolin-d387e6z.jpg (91KB, 900x542px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 900x542px

>>54184383
>>54184383
>ou're proving my point for me. Points of Light isn't even the name of the setting; it's the fan-created nickname for the setting because THEY NEVER EVEN GAVE THE SETTING A NAME. That's just one example of how unfinished it is.
One could argue it's intentionally vague enough to run any campaign you want in without having to come up with an excuse for why [named character #73] didn't solve the problem already.

>And the tone clashed with the game rules because the tone is "low fantasy where humanity has failed and is joining the older races in the slow slide to extinction" but the rules are for a superhero MMO where absolutely everyone is a perfect almost-unkillable Mary Sue with a level-mandated arsenal of magic items. Like, under these rules humanity would never, ever lose to monsters
It's called NobleDark. I would argue that when run properly, the PC's aren't "unkillable mary-sues" thanks to diminishing surges over the course of the day (a single encounter isn't the thread, it's the grind of the adventuring day,) however even if we concede that the PC's are superhero-tier, that's not "everyone" that's the PC's... you know, the heroes of the story... the protagonists of the novel/series/movie. Humanity "lost" to monsters because the average person is not a heroic PC, but the world has fallen into enough darkness that heroes are needed, and so heroes rise, and because we're playing escapist play-pretend, the players take on the roles of those heroes.

That might not be a playstyle you like, which is valid, but 4e does the protagonist-driven fantasy-action genre better than anything else I've found.

>>54186099

It's not about opinions, what we like or don't like. It's that your talking about stuff in the game with no actual understanding of it.

>>54186181
I think part of it had to do with 3rd edition, no individual fight is supposed to be dangerous, and more about wearing down party hp and resources, how well it does that is debatable of course.

People probably carried that into 4e, where each fight assumes the party is healed up and individually threatening.

>>54185798
>No it fucking shouldn't

Yes it fucking should.

>Classes represent your role in the party on a basic level

The thing is that the role they represented in D&D prior to 4e was very different. It wasn't Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader, it was Warrior/Expert/Priest/Mage. And yes, they have very different meanings.

- Warriors fight and are experts with weapons and armor. This could mean offensively or defensively.
- Experts sneak, make the best use of skills (traditionally opening locks and disabling traps), and backstab opponents.
- Priests heal, buff, debuff, deal with undead, and interact with the beings of the Outer Planes.
- Mages cast damage spells and utility spells
- Face was a fifth role that each of the above could focus on in order to avoid combat, buff allies, and talk their way through stuff rather than kill it.

Note that it describes WHAT they do without pigeon-holing them into HOW they go about doing it, and that each encompassed areas OUTSIDE of combat as well as within it. The roles described your purpose in a dungeon delve, not a SpecOps squad. Dungeon delving requires more than just fighting ability.

The roles were then, traditionally, combined in the following way across the various classes:

- Barbarian: Warrior
- Bard: Face/Expert/Mage
- Cleric: Priest/Face
- Druid: Priest/Expert/Mage
- Fighter: Warrior
- Monk: Expert/Priest
- Paladin: Warrior/Priest/Face
- Ranger: Warrior/Expert
- Rogue: Expert/Face
- Sorcerer: Mage/Face
- Wizard: Mage/Face if Enchanter

>If that's the case, why do you even have classes anymore?

To limit certain abilities to certain levels of access and to help prevent certain abilities from interacting with each other when they shouldn't.

Also, sacred cows.