D&D 4e Artwork

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>>55321117

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why the fuck did they get rid of this

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and this

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this too

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oh yeah and this

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>>55321532
Many thanks, that's the one I was looking for!

>>55321570
Because either 4e was badwrongfun and we're not allowed to think otherwise, or it made gnomes look too much like elves and not enough like dwarves.

That said, I think the 5e gnome isn't TOO hideous either. Certainly better than the 5e halfling... gods almighty, now THAT is fucking hideous. Seriously, what's wrong with 4e halflings?

>>55321681
We lost those because we lost the World Axis, because people demanded we had to have the Great Wheel back.

>>55321697
Ehh, the 5e version isn't too bad, but I agree these are better.

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and you better BELIEVE this

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>>55321718
>the 5e gnome isn't TOO hideous
Strongly disagree.

>>55321570
Because 'rarr-I'm-a-monster' was one of the most cringy-as-fuck ad campaigns ever fucking done.
And for the record, when you're swearing to the high heavens that you didn't just make Tieflings into draenei, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't tell your voice actor to do a voice that sounds just like the draenei female. Maybe.
>>55321681
Because they only exist because the people making the came were too fucking boring to make aasimar as stupidly over-the-top as they did the tieflings, so they just threw whatever bits of draenei they hadn't already used to make holy blue people. I have no idea what the other guy is saying, losing the World Axis is no reason to lose these guys; plus, losing the World Axis costs us nothing of value whatsoever.
>>55321697
Eh, every edition of dnd kinda shits the bed on this - just bite the bullet and make orcs playable, instead of pussyfooting around about rape babies and/or unbelievable idiotic hobgoblin empires.
>>55321714
Because for some fucking reason, we can't use any setting but the Forgotten Realms anymore, so no Eberron for anyone.
>>55321740
Man, by the end, Morrison's run on X-Men really got out of control.

>>55321769
Okay, yeah, my memory must have partially blotted that out. Still, it's bad, but at least it's not 5e PHB Halfling bad, yes?

>>55323083
Maybe Blizzard shouldn't have paid a Diabolus - a D&D race, mind you - to have a threeway with a Klingon and a Twi'lek and then kidnapped the result to call it a Draenei.

Except Devas only exist because of the World Axis lore for Angels. Which we can't have anymore, because Angels are Aasimon now.

Eh, I'll give you that; really, I think D&D should have been pushing Orcs and Goblinoids into the PHB for editions now.

Why did we have to get rid of Paragon Paths? They added so much, for pretty much nothing lost. Also they had some sick art, the Zephyr Blade art was fucking fantastic.

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>>55324811
Fuck, forgot image. Damnit.

>>55323083
What's so dumb about hobgoblin empires?

>>55324811
Because everybody wants to bitch about 4e, so of course we're not allowed to have awesome stuff like Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies anymore.

Not helping is that lots of people apparently don't like Prestige Classes, and Paragon Paths are seen as the same thing with a different name.

>>55324890
Nothing, except the idea is A: new, and B: paired with the idea that their traditional animal-taming aptitudes has turned into full-blown eugenics and alchemical flesh-crafting.

It's not a BAD idea, it's just not "traditional", which is what most anti-4es bitch about.

>>55324984
Eh, they're not like Prestige Classes and they have been implemented in a slightly more subtle fashion (the three split paths of the Fighter and the Bardic Colleges, for example). But I wish they were more out there and actually defined the folks as characters more.

Also, why did they have to botch the Primal guys completely? The Barbarian went from "warrior that communes with the spirits, ranging from dumb bag of bricks to an intelligent warlord" to "dumb bag of bricks that sometimes does spirit-ish stuff", for example.

>>55325144
Because we had to get rid of the 4e cosmology, no matter the cool ideas that it brought in, and that means getting rid of the Primal Spirits who finally gave awesome, unique mystical backgrounds to both the Barbarian and the Druid.

Plus, y'know, Barbarians are just dumb martial characters - berserk fighters with less armor - and of course everybody wants the traditional feeling, so barbarians can't have mystical aspects to them at all, oh no, we can't just have Ranger and/or Fighter subclasses for non-magical reavers...

>>55323083
>Because 'rarr-I'm-a-monster' was one of the most cringy-as-fuck ad campaigns ever fucking done.
What does that have to do with gnomes as presented in the PHB2, instead of the MM?
>they only exist because the people making the came were too fucking boring to make aasimar as stupidly over-the-top as they did the tieflings
Sure, Vedic Gandalf is so much more boring then "Aasimars are usually tall, good-looking, and generally pleasant."
>rape babies and/or unbelievable idiotic hobgoblin empires
Or being a race separate from humans and orcs, or being born from the earth and the blood of Gruumsh. Weren't you just complaining that the writers were too boring?

>>55321117
>I really loved the artwork for Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, so I was wondering if anyone else out there missed it too.


No, I hate it and blame it for 4e's poor reception. Everything you've posted confirms me in my opinion, except maybe the pencil sketches which make me think a little better of the dwarf and tiefling designs.

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>>55321117
>I really loved the artwork for Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, so I was wondering if anyone else out there missed it too.
I love it, but I don't "miss" it, in the sense that I'm still playing it.

Funin.space still exists.

The offline builder still exists.

The game PDF's still exist.

The community that played 4e was largely composed of people who at-least didn't care for 3e, and so it's unlikely that many of them would "jump ship" to 5e which is basically 3e repackaged with a new paintjob. So the community that played 4e largely exists. If anything, it's been slightly improved because the math fixes have become a true consensus, rather than something the devs still fight against to sate their egos because they don't want to admit that, yes they made some math mistakes on release.

The only thing missing is a continual release of new content, but with re-fluff-ability of what is already there, there really isn't any need, and towards the end of the essentials erra, the power-creep and content-bloat was starting to show, so it actually ended at just the right point... hell it could have ended roughly 6 months earlier and would have been literally perfect.

I currently run two 4e games, one online and one IRL. If you miss it, run one, and people WILL come. If you're nervous about DMing, don't worry, 4e is a DM's DREAM edition, requiring by far the LEAST amount of prep time to be run properly.

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I'm posting some 4e Dark Sun stuff, since it's also lost to the edition

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I think DS would fit 5e quite well if WotC cared about things that weren't FR

>>55326602
Hey, I need your opinion. I want to start a 4e game and I'm confused by the choice of books. What the fuck is Essentials line and should I use it instead of base books?

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Anyone know what this monster is? Like, is it a thing they just invented for this cover?

>>55326931
That looks like some version of an umber hulk

>>55326883
>using existing settings
>not making your own
>not homebrewing settings they ignore that you liked
For srs anon, RPG rules are best used as setting-agnostic. They're best designed that way too. Make a Dark Sun-like and run with it mang.

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>>55326928
They were basically the existing classes distilled into the purest versions of their role. Strikers now do consistent damage instead of rolling for extra stuff as often, and can stack so many things to do crazy numbers. Controllers now don't even need to hit do do area damage sometimes, and have ways to ruin monsters days in DM infuriating ways. Extend the same to leaders healing/buffing and defenders hitting people for not staying put, and you get super potent and specific characters, that have fewer options (excl mage & warpriest)
IMO I find they can become imbalanced in such a way that one E-Class character may do nearly all the damage for the party, even if there were two strikers.
>>55326950
Can Umber hulks normally use weapons?

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>>55326997
But I love Dark Sun. If I was to make a 'DarkSun-like' it would just be a fan Dark Sun. Why make a setting /like/ the thing I want when I want DS?
That's like telling me to make a sandwich when I want a burger. It's not what I really want, and the actual solution is for me to not be lazy and actually go make the thing I want.

>>55327054
I see, thanks. So it seems that sticking to base books will be fun (plus more opportunities for min max which my players love).

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Gotta love a Gaj

>>55327106
Just make it clear to your players that you don't want to play a super optimized game, and that they should just play fun builds. Communication early and often is the best way for everyone to enjoy themselves.
Also: if you want easy games, use the Dungeon Magazines, lots of maps and adventures you can pull stuff from and either build your own or just be lazy like me and use them straight from the mags.

>>55327095
Well then run Dark Sun nigger. I thought the complaint here was there was no 5e DS. Which is what your post says. So I responded with what I thought you should do. And now you complain. You don't deserve DS.

>>55324709
>Except Devas only exist because of the World Axis lore for Angels. Which we can't have anymore, because Angels are Aasimon now.

Not really. They existed because "Aasimar" was considered a name that seemed cooler to read than to say and the fact that the race didn't have much going for it beyond, "You're part celestial."

They gave them a story in much the same way they gave Tieflings one and a unique hook so that you could kind of go beyond, "I look good and I'm good aligned. I'm a Paladin or Cleric".

>>55324984

Hobgoblins have always been the Klingons of D&D. If anything, it's FR that conflated them with Orcs to the point where they're all dirty primitive tribesmen with superstitious shamans and no culture or technology.

>>55321117
>>55321294
>>55321532

I really like how with the female dwarves, they moved away from making them men in drag and made them look like short stocky women the way males look like short stocky men. And giving them long thick hair to match dwarven men's long thick beards was also a nice touch.

>>55326602
I've tried running 4e again ever since my group split up due to everyone moving out to somewhere else, can't find anyone but newbies who make combat take far too long. Kind of thinking of implementing a 2 minute rule on turns. That said, it's still so much fun, I can focus on the role-playing parts of the RPG since the game parts are so easy yet deep to build. Creating enemies that work in tandem with one another is so much fun.

That said, one of the reasons why I'm still playing 5e is because it's one of the few places where I won't be a GM. I do bring "radical" ideas to there which always seem to surprise, like bards not necessarily being musicians, or barbarians not being berserkers in less armor.

>>55327436
Yeah, that was a touch of genius. Female dwarves actually looking like women is something I absolutely adore.

>>55326931
Hmm... looking it over, my guess would be a Beast-Headed Giant with some sort of bug basis for its head. If you look closely, apart from that monstrous skull, it's otherwise a very humanoid figure - and it's wielding a weapon, which means it can't be an anakore, my first choice.

>>55326928
The Essentials classes were attempts to "simplify" the 4e classes by stripping them down to their barest bones and losing most of the diverse array of powers that the classes had relied on to give them versatility.

Think of them as "baby's first 4e class" and you're not too far off.

>>55327436
>>55327721
Seconded. Dwarves can be sexy too - shortstack is a thing for a reason, after all. You can damn well bet that after 4e gave us female dwarves who looked like this, as well as muls who weren't so grimderp, I made dwarf/human relationships a lot more common in my games.

Stupid connection keeping me from posting sexy dwarven wizardess pic...

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>>55327185
I /do/ run DS? In 4e. I don't actually know what you we're suggesting. I wanted WotC to finish their psionic shit, and make a balanced way for defiling to be a valid thing. The problem I said was I was too lazy to do all that shit myself.
What I was confused by was why you were saying to make a DS-like instead of just doing the actual setting.

Honestly, I love 4e's fluff, even though I detest its mechanics (no, I don't think switching back to 3e is an acceptable alternative either, that broken pile deserved to be forgotten, 4e just wasn't the fix I wanted).

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This one looks really awkward :T

>>55327876
What type of fix would you have preferred?

>>55327876
Mmm, tell me about it. There are very few 5e fluff things that I'm personally a fan of - and I would take 4e's fluff over most of it in a heartbeat. Seriously, screw the Ordning, screw gnolls as demonic hyena rage-zombies, and screw the return of the Great Wheel.

>>55327876
>Honestly, I love 4e's fluff, even though I detest its mechanics (no, I don't think switching back to 3e is an acceptable alternative either, that broken pile deserved to be forgotten, 4e just wasn't the fix I wanted).

I did enjoy 4e, but I really would have preferred something more like Star Wars Saga Edition.

I really thought that's where 4e was headed and they did take a lot from it.

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I'll stop now

>>55327900
Like Saga Edition except going further in modernizing D&D. 4e hung on to too many of the sacred cows of D&D.

Also something that went a bit more towards the realm of making a game meant to simulate living characters in a fantasy environment; while 4e wasn't especially worse than 3rd in this regard, it didn't really do anything to case of the feel that characters were constructs meant to function in a game environment.

>>55326928
Essentials was Mike Mearls deliberately trying to torpedo 4e because he really loved 3e.

It's 4.5, and ignores some of the principles that made 4e really work.

>>55321769
I'd bed her.

>>55328310
4e was pretty much meant to be the pulpiest, big damn heroes D&D edition, and that's precisely what it does. Not really simulating per se, more akin to creating very, very pulpy stories.

>>55328550
Sure, but it does that in a lot of ways that really highlight the fact these characters are figures in games. Things like enshrining class roles, or structuring the game extensively around such a rigid power system, or the sharp divide between player character design and monster design.

What I'd imaging for a pulp game that doesn't do these would be something along the lines of Savage Worlds.

>>55328610
Fair enough, I guess. To be fair, 4e is full on Strategy RPG, and it kind of has to acknowledge it's a role-playing GAME for that to work properly.

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>>55328550
Very much this. 4e is pulp hero game, and it does it VERY well. It actually is easier to house-rule/refluff it out of fantasy easier than it is to house-rule/refluff it out of the pulpy feels. I LOVE this about it, but honestly, this may be why people were so disconcerted with it. If you're expecting a specific non-pulp feel, and you get 4e pulp, I can see how you'd feel upset.
>>55328550
>enshrining class roles
Personally I'd call this honesty and openness about already existing class roles
>or the sharp divide between player character design and monster design
This, mechanically, is actually my favorite thing about 4e. The fact that PC's and PC-obstacles are built on fundementally different chassis REALLY underlines the fact that the PC's are the big damn heroes, or at the very least, are fundementally different from the mundanes of the world. Honestly, if you want a game in which the PC's fundamentally FEEL like heroes, you kind of HAVE to build them on a different chassis. In-fact this is the one spot where I find that
>Savage Worlds
fails to deliver on the promises of pulpy heroic escapism. In that sense, it's a bit more simulationist than heroic, because everyone is built off of the same chassis; true, there's a difference between Wild-Cards and non-wild-cards, but a GM is kind of obligated to REGULARLY throw wild-cards at their players if they want to keep challenge on-par, so that kind-of waters down the "special-nes" of being a wild-card.

That, of-course, does NOT mean that every game HAS to make the PC's feel like larger than life pulp action heroes.... just that there totally SHOULD be a game out there that does, and in my experience, that game is 4e. SW is more of a simulationist game that more groundedly simulates characters living in the same setting in which your favorite pulp movie/novel occured.

Each does different things: the key is knowing what things you want your campaign to do, and picking the right tool for the job.

>>55328456
Essentials was also a move to stop everyone running over to Pathfinder, which was literally marketing itself as a refuge for 3e players who were "betrayed" by WotC daring to put out a new edition instead of keeping on with 3.x forever and ever.

and like a bunch of irrational jilted women, you all went over to Paizo who'd fuck you and let you call them daddy.

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>>55329167
Okay, as someone who really likes 4e, and HATES 3e and its OGL clones, I think you're being a bit unfair to the 3.X fanbase who jumped ship to PF.

For the better part of a decade, the majority of all games released were OGLd20 games. If you lived in a small town with one game store and one book store, it was fully possible that literally the ONLY TTRPG's you saw during that period were OGL games. This was also when the hobby saw the BIGGEST influx of players to date from the unrelated event of the internet going from a secret clubhouse to THE FUCKING INTERNET. You combine these facts, and you have an entire generation who started on OGLd20, grew up on OGLd20, played nothing but OGLd20, and were expecting more OGLd20. Hell, Wizards even released SwSaga as a sort of soft-preview for 4e, which quite disheartened me because it looked like just more OGLd20, but I can imagine being one of those OGLd20 kids reading through SwSaga and expecting 4e to be 3e-but-fixed, rather than something completely new (and in my opinion, wholly better.)

If you feed a child literally nothing but McDoubles from the moment they start eating solid food, and raise them in a town in which every restaurant serves only variations on the McDouble, you can't spite them for spitting out steak the first time they try it and declaring that they hate steak. Similarly, their opinion doesn't mean that Steak is bad, or that McDoubles are good, but you honestly can't spite them for having that totally understandable opinion given the circumstances of their relationship to food.

They want to keep eating their McDoubles, and they are willing to pay for it. As I pointed out here>>55326602 their love for McDoubles in no way forces us to eat McDoubles or stop eating Steak....

Just leave those poor 3.X-raised kids alone. They will never know the joys of systems outside the OGLd20 purview: that's deserving of sympathy and pity, not hatred.

>>55329335
>>55329167
I love the fact that you can't imagine someone who likes PF/3.5 has played anythign else. Your conceit about your own games blinds you to the fact that some people enjoy the games for what they are and are still capable and have played many other games.

Perhaps it isn't PF and 3.5 that caused the brain damage you claim it's players have, and it's just that you're short sighted, self-involved, stuck up assholes instead. It's a much more likely scenario.

>>55327436
>[autistic screeches from the bearded female dwarf grognards]

>>55329392
you raise a valid point, but the number of people who have only played OGLd20 games and continued to do so outnumbers the people who have tried multiple systems and prefer OGLd20.
People have different tastes. Just because you like spongecake more than carob doesn't mean most people haven't tried carob.

>>55329392
>you can't imagine someone who likes PF/3.5 has played anythign else
I could see how you could read that, but no. If we're to continue down the metaphor of meat, it's no more implausible than someone genuinely loving McDoubles. Hell, both in and out of the metaphor, I've been known to enjoy a McDouble from time to time: I just have a lot of resentment for a damn decade where all anyone was serving was McDoubles. I'm not talking about individual angry outliers on the internet yelling their opinions into the void of image boards, forums, twitter, and comment sections, I'm talking about large market segments that actually spend money on game books. The simple fact remains that there was a significant period of time when MOST games were 3e-in-all-but-name published under the OGL, and you had to go out of your way to find and play something else. The fact remains that the largest money-spending segment of the TTRPG market began playing during that exact period. Maybe you branched out, maybe you didn't, but this huge demographic, for the most part, did not, or at-least did not branch out early enough to be able to enjoy anything else. Hell, personally, I have no problem with WoTC pandering to this block: me and my friends already have what we need to play our games, and most of us haven't actually spent money on a game book since the 90's, (thanks piracy) so I fully acknowledge that, from a making money perspective, our opinions should NOT matter to a publicly traded company.

Finally, if you really are one of the fabled 3.X megafans who branched out, what non-3e-esque games have you given what you consider to be a fair chance? How many years did it take you to give one a chance? Which of these do you count among games you like? These are not attacks, but genuine curiosity friend.

>>55329335
>their love for McDoubles in no way forces us to eat McDoubles or stop eating Steak....
Except they would go into 4e threads for the direct purpose of shitposting them into the ground. And carry on their edition warring IRL, spewing disinfo to anyone who would listen.

>>55323083
>Because 'rarr-I'm-a-monster' was one of the most cringy-as-fuck ad campaigns ever fucking done.

No it wasn't.

>>55328001
The hell is wrong with that leg, and why is he offering it to the lizard-person to eat?

>>55330080
>Except they would go into 4e threads for the direct purpose of shitposting them into the ground
Shitposting is unavoidable on the imageboards.
>And carry on their edition warring IRL, spewing disinfo to anyone who would listen.
I've experienced very little of this IRL shitposting. Maybe get out more, and surround yourself with more mature people.

>4e art
>every dwarf woman was thicc
>every other woman was either lithe and svelte or busty with hips for days
>All the art featured woman built to fuck in some capacity
>All the dudes were either wise and sagely or rip/tear mode engage
>compared to 3e and 5e art where females look like shit and guys look like chumps

>>55330192
>I've experienced very little of this IRL shitposting
I've seen it a few times, more from diehard 3.PF people who really had no idea what 4e was about.
It's mostly an internet thing, tho.

>>55330210
And all of that makes 4e art bad... how?

>>55330284
Where are you getting this idea that I'm saying it's bad?

>>55330210
I kinda wanna bring out the fact that they kept badassery on all levels. The Ranger's art, going ultimate rip and tear mode - it's a woman there. And some of the guys honestly looked damn good, too, the Virtuous Paladin in Divine Power coming to mind.

>>55330614
This.
Everyone and thing had a chance to look awesome and be heroic. Don't talk about how you want everyone to feel like they have a place and can be the hero, do it, show it, and let your actions speak for themselves.
White Wolf has a long history of being edgy, counter culture progressives, but I think they spend too much time talking about it rather than letting it show in their work as a natural part of the world they are crafting.

>>55329013
>Personally I'd call this honesty and openness about already existing class roles

Not really, it took something that was kinda sorta there if you squinted (fighters and wizards were expected to be very capable of dealing damage in 2e, clerics weren't exactly slouches either, the closest to a non-striker in 2e was bizarrely the rogue, 4e kinda hammered each into a niche artificially) and exaggerated it for the sake of making them components of a tactics game, which by the way is not conducive to having characters feel like something out of a fantasy novel (try running something meant to feel like Conan or Elric when the game is designed around the expectation of a full party of complimentary support).

>Honestly, if you want a game in which the PC's fundamentally FEEL like heroes, you kind of HAVE to build them on a different chassis. In-fact this is the one spot where I find that

SW does this quite elegantly with the wildcard rules. A wildcard will function fundamentally differently from a regular character.

>fails to deliver on the promises of pulpy heroic escapism. In that sense, it's a bit more simulationist than heroic, because everyone is built off of the same chassis; true, there's a difference between Wild-Cards and non-wild-cards, but a GM is kind of obligated to REGULARLY throw wild-cards at their players if they want to keep challenge on-par, so that kind-of waters down the "special-nes" of being a wild-card.

It fails to deliver on the promise of players being larger than life pulp heroes because they mop the floor with everything that isn't a wildcard, necessitating the occasional wildcard? What kind of dumbass claim is that? That's like claiming that 4e fails to deliver on heroic fantasy because you have to throw the odd dragon at players to threaten them.

You don't need to be the sole group of special characters in the universe to be special. It's like I'm talking to a living example of what 2e grognards claimed 3e players to be.

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>>55331716
>try running something meant to feel like Conan or Elric when the game is designed around the expectation of a full party of complimentary support
It's about as close as you can get if you want to run a game with your friends. I immagine there are other games that can run solo-pulp games, but A: they'd be less effective at giving everyone an opportunity to shine for a GROUP-pulp game and B: you'd be playing a solo game... I mean grats, but that's kinda sad and masturbatory.

... I mean come on... you can't imagine teamwork being pulpy? Some pulp is team-based, and some pulp is solo-. Strange how the former lends itself to a group game better than the later. Strange.

>they mop the floor with everything that isn't a wildcard, necessitating the occasional wildcard?
This doesn't necessitate the OCCASIONAL wild-card, this necessitates every meaningful encounter be a wild-card. That's quite different. 4e has mooks too: they're called minions, but the difference is, in 4e, while they're almost certainly going to be defeated, they meaningfully deplete the party's resources in the form of daily powers and healing surges. In SW, they just waste time between the REAL encounters.

SW isn't a bad game, and it delivers on a lot of things, both intentional and unintentional, but it doesn't deliver on pulp-action. It's mostly simulationist, but with streamlined enough rules to be genre-broad, and to run combats quickly. It offers many, Many, MANY qualities that a game may want, but PC exceptionalism is not one of them.
>what 2e grognards claimed 3e players to be.
Except we were complaining less about PC exceptionalism, and hyper-customization encouraging special-snowflake-ism... which honestly it did. IT just took us a while to realize that that's not necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing that 3e did was promise special snowflakes, then build everything off of literally the exact same chassis, thus undercutting THAT promise, and delivering literally nothing.

>>55327436
>>55327721
>>55330210
So, a question for those who liked the female dwarves of 4e:

With such artwork as inspiration, do you think a culture of dwarven amazons would be impossible?

Likewise, what about a noble dynasty of muls (remember, 4e muls aren't sterile) whose origins lie in an ancient wedding-sealed pact between a human king and a dwarven princess, before either race knew it was possible for them to interbreed?

>>55332434
It's fantasy, anything is possible and is limited only by your imagination or personal restraint.

>>55330832
Yeah, the entire thing just emanated a larger than life thing. They made sure everyone looked reasonably attractive, everyone looked considerably badass in several ways, and everyone felt they could be anyone, not in the sense of "even a chump can be a hero" but rather "a hero can come from anywhere". It was just so damn cool.

>>55332434
That's all really interesting, honestly. And 4e's stuff is so loose you can just go with it. My favorite take on Dwarves and Muld was basically Humans as not!French/not!Italians, Dwarves as not!Germans/not!Czechs/not!Slovaks, and the Muls as the not!Swiss.

>>55331914
>zorro
>the shadow
>green beetle?
>spiderman noir?
Where is the rocketeer? Who is everyone else?

>>55332434
>With such artwork as inspiration, do you think a culture of dwarven amazons would be impossible?

Sure. I've never done pure Amazon cultures, but my 4e Dwarves were totally a matriarchal society. The women led domestic affairs and the most elite warriors were the Royal Guard, a mostly female force that faced off against legions of demons and elementals that managed to get past all other forces in the Underdark tunnels.

The Dwarven religion was also originally centered around an Earthmother figure who urged them to tunnel upwards until they finally emerged on a mountain top and adopted Moradin as their Skyfather god who entered into a symbolic marriage with the Earthmother. To this day, it's Dwarven women who select those that wish to be their mate (they usually choose several) and the would be suitors have to compete with each other to gain her favor.

>>55333536
>Green beetle
Green Hornet, retard. Kato next to him.
The Spider is the last one.

>>55333862
He's called green beetle in my country. Not everyone is from fatland. Thanks anyway.

>>55331914
>savage worlds
>simulationist
Hoo boy. You've never touched shit like Silhouette Core, GURPS or HERO, have you?

>>55334342
Your country is stupid then becuase a Hornet is not a Beetle, and clearly his symbol is a hornet. Also I'm not American and in my country is called Green Hornet (translated).

>>55334399
Yeah, and? I could argue that hornet is a female name in my language (much like ladybug), so they "adapted" it to beetle (a male name).
It is retard, but it is how I came to know him. It is not like we call Pokemon by their japanese names either.

>>55334444
Were are you from?

>>55334484
HUEland.

>>55334371
>You've never touched shit like Silhouette Core

I fucking love Silhouette. It's the kind of simulationist stuff people always seem to be clamoring for, but has enough optional "genre effects" that it really can accommodate the fantasy stuff too.

>>55334521
mmm, odd, I'm from Galicia (Spanish region literally adjacent to Portugal) and in the north of Portugal they call them vespão (masculine) to hornets instead of vespas (femenine) to wasps. In Gallego we call them similarly (avespon and avespa and in Spanish avispón and avispa), dunno if that's the actual Portuguese or was adopted from Gallego/Spanish though.

>>55334582
Actually I may have made me a fool. Hornet is indeed a male name (zangão). Confused it with wasp (vespa). Still, here in HUEland they went for green beetle. Zangão is not a good name for a hero, stylisticly speaking.

>>55321532
Minor query; how do you think a Rampaging Brute character could be pulled off in 5e?

Just multiclass a Berserker Barbarian with a Champion Fighter and take the Great Weapon Fighting Style, Proficiency with the Maul, and the Charger, Durable, Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker and Tough feats?

Stupid connection not letting me contribute some more art...

>>55334521
Color me surprised, another guy from HUEland here, in a fucking 4e thread no less.

>>55321769
literal cagot

>>55321117
I found the 4e artwork annoyingly posey. Everyone looks like they're posing for a camera.

>>55324984
>Because everybody wants to bitch about 4e,
Shut up faggot. People bitched about the game because it dumped a load of new shit that no one wanted or asked for, and when called out on that you all said "LOLOL WELL AT LEAST IT'S MORE BALANCED THAN 3.5 THEREFORE YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT" then threw a huge fit and shit your pants. Paragon paths were just PrCs and archetypes with a different name, they weren't anything new or original. "Le epic destiny" just play a fucking prestige class. LOL. 5e has all of the shit they added and is way better than 4e, and you fags can't get over the fact that D&D is selling better than ever, with Pathfinder in second place, and you morons trailing a distant third. Actually, I think even Starfinder and World of Darkness are ahead of you now, in terms of active games on roll20.

>>55336386
>you fags can't get over the fact that D&D is selling better than ever, with Pathfinder in second place, and you morons trailing a distant third. Actually, I think even Starfinder and World of Darkness are ahead of you now, in terms of active games on roll20.

Isn't 3rd place pretty good for a no longer supported edition that was apparently widely hated?

>>55328001
why doesn't he just slide the peg out...

>>55331716
>Fighters and Wizards were expected to be very capable of dealing damage in 2e, clerics weren't exactly slouches either

They are in 4e too, they're just better at other things

If you have a party with no striker, but does have a blaster wizard, a two-handed weapon fighter or tempest fighter and a strength cleric, you're pretty much set for damage in 4e. This applies to the defender and controller as well. Warlocks make good controllers and monks make good defenders, it's just that even if they can do it well, they're not as good at it as a class dedicated to the role. The only role that can't really be filled by an outside class is leader, and that's because no other classes get attack-granting powers or have the encounter heals

>>55337229
Attack granting isn't even necessary for the leader role, it's just the most obvious expression of it.

Building a group without a dedicated leader would be a challenge though, especially if you don't even cheat with Hybrids. Could work with a heavy divine bent maybe.

>>55337229
I'd say you might be able to replace a Leader by using a Paladin heavily dipping into some Leader, likely Bard or Warlord (or both). But that's a corner case.

>>55337398
Half-Elf Paladin, high Wisdom. Pick up some attack granter at first level, I like the Bard's Staggering Note. Add in a theme, maybe something like Noble. Multiclass someone for some boost, probably Skald, honestly. Not gonna be perfect, but you've heals and an attack granter+repositioning tool and a separate repositioning tool.

>>55337544
if you're multiclassing for a heal, the best choice is shaman

It takes 2 feats, but it's the only leader multiclass option that gives an encounter heal rather than a daily heal

>>55337591
Yeah, for some reason I thought Skald was an once per encounter heal, not an once per day heal. Also Shaman has Soul Igniter and that's just such a fun Paragon Path.

>>55337665
If you go half elf + skald you can go with Hunter and abuse the skald aura + at-will stances + hunter AoE.

>>55331914
>... I mean come on... you can't imagine teamwork being pulpy?

I can't imagine a game that forces you to operate as a team being pulpy. That's more of a thing for cartoons.

>This doesn't necessitate the OCCASIONAL wild-card, this necessitates every meaningful encounter be a wild-card.

No, it absolutely does not. A horde of zombies will function just fine.

>they meaningfully deplete the party's resources in the form of daily powers and healing surges

If players need to have their resources depeleted, they need to be given fewer resources, we call that wasting time, son.

>but it doesn't deliver on pulp-action.

But you are wrong. PCs are highly capable pulp heroes that can do some impressive things. They're just more fragile than 4e's padded sumo wrestlers that need arbitrary resource wasting encounters. Goddamn, fucking 4rries. It's like every game that isn't 4e isn't as good as 4e to you fucking people. Go drink some more kool-aid.

>but PC exceptionalism is not one of them.

But PC's are exceptional. Most things you encounter will be extras, and thus both fragile and substantially less capable (the inclusion of a wild die makes a big difference), they also wont receive bennies. They're just not the only exceptional beings in the universe, and are expected to gain experience to become noteworthy, rather than starting out on their own special build to show off how special they are (which seems to mean being a bloated mass of hitpoints, healing surges, and stuck to a rigid power system to you).

>IT just took us a while to realize that that's not necessarily a bad thing.

No, it's a pretty awful thing, and it seems 4e causes the same sort of brain damage (I'm not special if literally anyone else in the universe is special, waa waa waa!).

>>55337867
I mean at that point what you wanna do anyhow is go with an Elementalist because you have no reason not to spam your basic attack that way.

>>55337911
You can build solo heroes in 4e if you want

Bow rangers, straladins, wildblood wardens, pursuit avengers, there's plenty of class options that can be built to operate alone. Just that doing so tends to make you worse at operating as a team, and it's still a ttrpg, so solo games are extremely rare

>>55337911
>No, it absolutely does not. A horde of zombies will function just fine.

No it doesn't.

As long as a single character knows you have to headshot zombies they can be kited to death and pose 0 threat.

A horde of mooks, maybe, but gang up rules makes them stupid (then again, a wild attack/burst will kill 3 a turn so IDK).

>If players need to have their resources depeleted, they need to be given fewer resources, we call that wasting time, son.

>But you are wrong. PCs are highly capable pulp heroes that can do some impressive things. They're just more fragile than 4e's padded sumo wrestlers that need arbitrary resource wasting encounters. Goddamn, fucking 4rries. It's like every game that isn't 4e isn't as good as 4e to you fucking people. Go drink some more kool-aid.

The nice thing about 4e is that even if your surges aren't depleted, basically all the surge spending options (the good heals) are encounters anyway; meaning you don't actually have this situation where the HP on the player side is infinite, because the cleric can just pick you up with a spell until he has slots.

That and dailies don't win encounters in themselves, and are still limited by your action economy.

Basically, the difference between "I only have 1 fight a day" and "I have 4 fights a day" party in 4e isn't as big as any other edition in D&D.

Not disputing your claims about SW, I like that game, but your brain seems to be clouded by the hateboner you have for 4e.

>>55337957
Nah, the idea is that the Hunter repeats his attack when he does the AoE, which triggers his skald stance buff multiple times. The Elementalist doesn't do that, from what I remember. At best, he can make his thing bounce with his empowerment.

>>55338105
The fact you have to build them specifically to function solo shows that the system wasn't built around it. Teamwork should be nice, not something that the game can't function without except in bizarre, hyper optimized edge cases..

>>55338156
>As long as a single character knows you have to headshot zombies they can be kited to death and pose 0 threat.

Because zombies always attack in an open plain where you can run endlessly.

>A horde of mooks, maybe, but gang up rules makes them stupid

Gang up rules work for zombies just fine.

>(then again, a wild attack/burst will kill 3 a turn so IDK).

Mooks can use automatic weapons too.

>The nice thing about 4e is that even if your surges aren't depleted, basically all the surge spending options (the good heals) are encounters anyway; meaning you don't actually have this situation where the HP on the player side is infinite, because the cleric can just pick you up with a spell until he has slots.

But if they're limited by slots, it's hardly infinite, now is it?

>Basically, the difference between "I only have 1 fight a day" and "I have 4 fights a day" party in 4e isn't as big as any other edition in D&D.

I don't disagree there, but as I said in my opening post, I'd have preferred it went further in modernizing D&D. So I'm not championing for an older edition of D&D.

The only reason I've brought up older editions of D&D is to show that certain features (namely the enshrinement of roles) aren't organic outgrowths of previous editions (the roles in 4e are actually mostly an MMO creation; clerics in pre-3e editions were out of combat medics with some in combat options to kick ass; fighters and wizards were the strikers, and rogues were expected to be an out of combat specialist, which fell flat in my opinion).

>hateboner you have for 4e.

4e's mechanics were a step back, into parts of D&D that should have been forgotten rather than emphasized.

>>55338561
>Teamwork should be nice, not something the game can't function without except in bizarre, hyper-optimized edge cases

Why not?

It's a TTRPG, how often do you really play with just one player and one dungeon master? Assuming that there's a party at all times is totally fine, that's just how people play D&D.

Besides, it's not like you're totally useless without a party (except in bizarre, hyper-optimized edge cases), it's just that the party is always greater than the sum of it's parts. A leader alone can still heal itself, a defender alone is still tanky, a striker alone can still deal good damage, a controller alone can still pin a battlefield down. The game can function without teamwork, it's just not as good at it because really, if you're not using teamwork, why are you playing dungeons and dragons?

>>55338561
ok then, in your opinion, what parts should have been emphasized?

>>55338561
>Because zombies always attack in an open plain where you can run endlessly.

Zombies are mindless. Unless the players get dropped into a zombie pit, they usually dictate terms of engagement. But w/e, I'm not here to argue about the fine points of SW tactics.

>But if they're limited by slots, it's hardly infinite, now is it?

It's sort of a theoretical point, because in-combat healing is almost never worth it in any other edition, aside from picking someone up from negatives (which is any little heal will do), and if you have healing potential that outdoes potential enemy attacks fully...

BUT! If we assume you want to heal for some reason want to prolong the battle as long as possible, it's the difference between 2-3 vs as many slots you got.

>the roles in 4e are actually mostly an MMO creation;

The 3e playtests were already using these "MMO creation" roles. They are a natural development.

>clerics in pre-3e editions were out of combat medics with some in combat options to kick ass;

I remember OD&D cleric having battle blessings on his spell list. It's true he was supposed to use it before a fight, though, and then use heals after the fight, but he was still support.

> fighters and wizards were the strikers

Fighters and wizard are still strikers as a secondary role, they can just also defend/control (saying Wizards weren't controllers when they got AoE damage spells and things like charm/hold person is also pretty steep claim but w/e). Either way, what a CLASS does matters diddly, it's the characters are which matter, so if you want "fighty guy who does a lot of damage" you can just use a Slayer or Ranger for it.

> and rogues were expected to be an out of combat specialist, which fell flat in my opinion

Good thing they instead got an in-combat role on top of that, just like the other classes, then.

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>>55336869
Actually not really because 3.5 has almost THREE TIMES the number of players as 4e.
>inb4 you question the representative validity of roll20
>inb4 you act like roll20 is a shitty place to play 4e cause of grid combat even thought roll20's grid software is almost better than a real grid and miniatures
>inb4 you start autistically moving the goalposts
4e has slightly more players so it makes it to 3rd (really 4th) place. D&D 3.5 has triple the number of games compared to 4e. That becomes just over TEN times when you include Pathfinder.
>inb4 you scroll down on the page and try to copy the argument about dead games
Do what you want, man. 4e is pretty much dead. Sorry. Even the shitheap that was 3.5 survived longer. Lol.

>>55338906
Honestly it's still pretty impressive

Remember, 3.5 was the end-all-be-all of RPGs for 5 years, and everything else above 4e on that list is a living game in some form. Hell, 4e beats freaking Shadowrun and all of WoD. I'm glad there's still thousands of players for 4e on roll20 alone.

>>55338906
Do you really not understand that 3.PF and 3.5 have almost the same number of players because one player can play multiple systems? By the same token, it's entirely possible that all the 4e players are ALSO counted for 3.5 and 3.PF (and all the other RPGs, for that matter). We don't even know which their main game is.

That graph only proves that you have no idea what the statistics mean (or don't mean, in this case).

>>55339003
>Honestly it's still pretty impressive
No, no, it's really not. 4e had the most privilege an RPG could possibly have: the Dungeons and Dragons brand name. It took that, wiped its ass with it, then laid on the floor crying.
>Remember, 3.5 was the end-all-be-all of RPGs for 5 years
So? People took to 5e pretty well. Maybe because it was actually D&D.
>everything else above 4e on that list is a living game in some form.
Not 3.5. What the fuck do you mean by "living game"? Yeah, 4e got abandoned, because it was crap. And the number of 4e players is only going down. Remember, this was an edition of dungeons and dragons. Only AD&D is worse than 4e, and it has the "old and obscure" excuse. 4e doesn't.
>Hell, 4e beats freaking Shadowrun and all of WoD.
I would certainly hope so. But give it a few years....4e is really dying off now. My group stopped playing 2 years ago and back-converted to 3.5 after I introduced them to it. I also got a 4e player to join my 5e campaign recently, and he said he likes it a lot better. Your game is being cucked by the superior cocks of 3.5 and 5e. Deal with it.

>>55338660
>Why not?

Because the 4 player party is a pointless sacred cow.

>It's a TTRPG, how often do you really play with just one player and one dungeon master?

Frequently.

>Besides, it's not like you're totally useless without a party (except in bizarre, hyper-optimized edge cases), it's just that the party is always greater than the sum of it's parts. A leader alone can still heal itself, a defender alone is still tanky, a striker alone can still deal good damage, a controller alone can still pin a battlefield down.

And they'll all be lacking in a vital component to actually function, throwing any pretense of encounter balance out the window.

>The game can function without teamwork, it's just not as good at it because really, if you're not using teamwork, why are you playing dungeons and dragons?

To play a fantasy characters in fantasy settings ala the creations of Howard, Lieber, and Moorcock.

>>55338821
Pulp fantasy meant to model playing fantasy characters in fantasy settings.

>>55338879
Players aren't always going to be in an open plain is my point. How often do zombie films feature people getting cornered in tight spaces?

I'm just saying, if they're limited by slots, the healing isn't infinite.

>The 3e playtests were already using these "MMO creation" roles. They are a natural development.

You mean well after Everquest had already entered the zeitgeist of gaming? There's a reason I referred to second edition.

>I remember OD&D cleric having battle blessings on his spell list. It's true he was supposed to use it before a fight, though, and then use heals after the fight, but he was still support.

He had a small handful of such spells (three over five levels of spells, and six healing spells), compared to a diverse list that was predominantly utility.

>Either way, what a CLASS does matters diddly

That's hogwash. What your class does determines what you'll be capable of doing.

Personally I'm in the "thief was a mistake" camp.

>>55339005
It doesn't really matter because even if all the 3.5 players also played Pathfinder, 3.5 would still have triple the number of players as 4e. That means it's not just better, it's DECISIVELY better. You can whine about your argumentum ad populentum all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is, that many people can't be wrong.

>>55339076
Can you cool it with the obnoxious reddit spacing? I can hardly even read your post because the lines are spaced out so much. Like you know you have nothing interesting to say so you figure if you hit enter between every line like your high school teacher taught you to double space, you'll look smarter. In fact, your post looks fucking awful.
>Because the 4 player party is a pointless sacred cow.
Not really. It's what the game is usually balanced around so the game usually functions best with a 4 person party.

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Can we at least have images posted if we're going to pay attention to the anti-4e trolls?

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Anyone got any of the "monstrous female" artworks from 4e? Dragonborn, Minotaur, Gith, Wilden, Shardmind, etc?

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You know, as much as I didn't LIKE Heroes of Shadow for being ruined by Essentials, I still thought that Vrylokas were an interesting racial concept. Great for a Dark Fantasy sort of setting, too.

>>55339120
>We pull our data from two locations within Roll20 member profiles. Player numbers are drawn from the “Enjoys Playing” and “Seeks Group For” sections, while Game numbers come from the “My Campaigns” section. Our percentages can total more than 100%, particularly Player numbers, since each player will list their interest in multiple games.

Counting a player fully as a "3.5 player" is fucking stupid because a player will list multiple games as "Enjoys playing" and "Seeks game for". You can't tell if a player that puts that game on that list plays a game primarily, unless it's the only game on his list. It's entirely possible (although unlikely) that there are only 2 times as many players who didn't put 4e on their list but did put 3.5, which would mean that there's less than twice as many of those players, instead of "3 times as many".

>>55339076
>That's hogwash. What your class does determines what you'll be capable of doing.

Okay hear me out.

Either you choose a class that fits the character you have in mind OR you chose a class and THEN fit your character to it. Either of these options, you can just use 4e as is. The problems only come when you go "I want to play a character who does Y but is X class", in which case you are basically purposefully sabotaging yourself to have something to be upset about.

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>>55339364
Vrylokas were cool. It's a shame they didn't get any support outside of that one book.

>>55339442
>less than twice
>instead of 3 times as many
There are still more people playing actual 3.5 than actual 4e, and 3.5 has been dead LONGER than 4e. Quit whining because your game was so bad that no major company wanted to pick it up and make a continuation of it. The best you faggots got was Strike and 13th Age.

>>55339587
>There are still more people playing actual 3.5 than actual 4e, and 3.5 has been dead LONGER than 4e.

This is where the 3.PF/3.5 thing comes in, since it's VERY unlikely if you list one you don't list the other, and PF is still supported.

> Quit whining because your game was so bad that no major company wanted to pick it up and make a continuation of it.

They can't, it's not OGL.

>The best you faggots got was Strike and 13th Age.

They are both pretty good, if a flawed in their own ways. Not saying I1m satisfied, but could be worse.

>>55334371
Just because there are games out there that are even MORE simulationist doesn't make it not also simulationist.

Being less simulationist than FREAKING GURPS does not say much. That's like saying you're shorter than Yao Ming. It's a mostly meaningless statement.

>>55337911
>I can't imagine a game that forces you to operate as a team being pulpy.
And I can't imagine a game where the biggest optimizer functionally solos every encounter while the rest of the party is mukin' about feeling like pulp for anyone but the biggest optimizer. I'm looking at it from the perspective of a DM, not an optimizer, and I want every player to have a chance to shine: making parties me mechanicly more effective than the sum of their parts does this, and yes, in 4e every PC gets a chance to shine and feel pulpy. Games that try to balance team-play with solo-play generally either A: do both poorly, B: make team play better, so it's really a team play game C: make solo play better, so it's really a solo-play game.... and honestly, why would you balance for solo play? It's a group game. It's less "enforcing" team play, and more acknowledging that the way most people actually play is team play, and making that the most effective.
>if players need to have their resources depeleted, they need to be given fewer resources, we call that wasting time, son
.... are you saying there should only ever be one encounter in a day, because that's what I'm getting from this, and that's just silly. Depleeting resources are an important part of the adventuring day: they allow you to grow the tension without building a single encounter that seriously risks TPK game-over each time.
>They're just more fragile than 4e's padded sumo wrestlers
MM3 math fixes this
>But PC's are exceptional. Most things you encounter will be extras, and thus both fragile and substantially less capable
Except they won't, not really. Non-wild-card encounters are largely time-wasters, like the resource-depletion encounters you just said were stupid. If everything meaningfully threatening is exactly as special as the PC's, yeah that does water it down. Is it so wrong that the mechanics focus in more detail on how the world interacts with the PROTAGONISTS?

>>55339166
Can you go read a 4chan archive? Old posts were formatted like this, and you're supposed to put a line break between paragraphs if you aren't using a line indentation.

>the game usually functions best with a 4 person party

Because it was designed that way to sustain this idiotic sacred cow.

>>55339541
Several of the classes have baked in flavour that require houseruling to fix.

>>55339120
>That means it's not just better, it's DECISIVELY better.
No that means its decisively more popular, which is pretty obvious. To continue with the metaphor >>55329335 McDoubles sell more daily than prime rib, but that doesn't mean McDoubles are decisively better.
>Quit whining because your game was so bad that no major company wanted to pick it up and make a continuation of it.
And I'm sorry you're so programmed by the OGL to think that a game needs to have a new book coming out every month to be playable.

>>55340619
>the game usually functions best with a 4 person party
>Because it was designed that way to sustain this idiotic sacred cow.
There are a lot of sacred cows that anchored 4e from achieving its true potential: role+source combination having to have specific names of existing classes, rather than just being a combination of role+source. Having six different ability scores, when "Power, Finesse, and Spirit" would suffice. Trying to fix the math with feats and feat bonuses rather than just plain errata. Those are the first that come to mind. However, TTRPG being a group where there are usually about 4 players is not a sacred cow. Do you really want to play a solo game?

>>55340619
>Several of the classes have baked in flavour that require houseruling to fix.

Such as?

>>55340576
>And I can't imagine a game where the biggest optimizer functionally solos every encounter while the rest of the party is mukin' about feeling like pulp for anyone but the biggest optimizer.

False dichotomy. You can just design a game to reflect the capabilities of fantasy characters and then let them sort out how they function as a team rather than requiring that they be part of a fleshed out team to function.

>.... are you saying there should only ever be one encounter in a day, because that's what I'm getting from this, and that's just silly.

I'm saying that a game shouldn't require encounters specifically designed to deplete resources to function.

>MM3 math fixes this

They're still padded sumos compared to most games.

>Except they won't, not really.

Yes, really. Extras are still quite capable of being dangerous. A group of extras with automatic weapons can be a capable threat.

>If everything meaningfully threatening is exactly as special as the PC's, yeah that does water it down.

Not really. Conan bests sorcerers, swordsmen, kings, and stranglers that were all described as quite special, but he didn't stop being special for it.

>Is it so wrong that the mechanics focus in more detail on how the world interacts with the PROTAGONISTS?

Absolutely, because it requires an arbitrary divide between player and NPC that requires the DM to understand two separate design philosophies. Besides the idea of PCs as some sort of special chosen protagonist is stupid; they should just be features of a world.

>>55340667
>However, TTRPG being a group where there are usually about 4 players is not a sacred cow.

It totally is. It's enshrined because its expected and its expected because that's the way it was done, there's no reason beyond that.

>Do you really want to play a solo game?

I do it all the time (Scarlet Heroes is designed for it from the ground up, and most generic systems can do it just fine). The game basically requiring a four person party limits its utility. I know as an adult with a job trying to work out the schedules of four other people is a hair pulling nightmare.

It also does poorly at emulating genre. Or maybe I forgot the part in the Elric saga where Moonglum exploded into three people to ensure that the climactic fight with Jagreen Lern functioned correctly.

>>55340670
Off the top of my head, Rangers have nature as a skill baked in.

It's a minor example, but you're still going to have to make little tweaks that simply shouldn't be necessary, as the classes should have been turned into broad skill sets that could have been used for a wide variety of archetypes.

>>55340715
>False dichotomy. You can just design a game to reflect the capabilities of fantasy characters and then let them sort out how they function as a team

You know this just leads to everyone dropping into the same damn roles, right?

> rather than requiring that they be part of a fleshed out team to function.

You know the only thing 4e requires from you is "have a leader", everything else is secondary, and they can patch it up with feats and magic items. If a party doesn't have any team synergy you can just throw monsters at them who also don't and have them work it out.

>Absolutely, because it requires an arbitrary divide between player and NPC that requires the DM to understand two separate design philosophies. Besides the idea of PCs as some sort of special chosen protagonist is stupid; they should just be features of a world.

I understand the sentiment, but no matter how much you rile against it, the PCs will be the protagonists of the world, since they are the ones interacting with it.

>>55340789
They can exchange it for dungeoneering.

What concept do you have that only a nature and dungeoneering-less ranger (and not even "only okay in these skills" but "absolutely 0 proficiency at these") can fulfill?

>>55340715
>I'm saying that a game shouldn't require encounters specifically designed to deplete resources to function.
And 4e doesn't, but I have the option of throwing an encounter that I'm fairly certain the players WILL defeat, but still have it meaningfully increase the tension. That's not a bad thing, that's more options.
>If everything meaningfully threatening is exactly as special as the PC's, yeah that does water it down.
>Not really. Conan bests sorcerers, swordsmen, kings, and stranglers that were all described as quite special, but he didn't stop being special for it.
This right here is the perfect illustration for why 4e mechanically lends itself to pulp tone, and savage worlds doesn't. In a 4e type game, Connan went up against fluff-special opponents, and beat them because he's the goddamned PC. In SW, he got really lucky 4 times in a row, and the game only gets to FEEL like Conan 6.25% of the time, with the other 93.75% of the time the game is cut short and just ends anticlimactically.
>Absolutely, because it requires an arbitrary divide between player and NPC that requires the DM to understand two separate design philosophies.
As someone who regularly runs multiple 4e games, this is not hard. By a large margin, 4e is one of the easiest games to DM.
>Besides the idea of PCs as some sort of special chosen protagonist is stupid; they should just be features of a world.
You literally just described one of the core philosophies behind non-heroic simulationism. SW does that, and 4e does something different: YAY. There are different games that do different things as appropriate for the tone and feel the GM is going for. If I want my players to feel like just pieces in a living breathing world that could go on without them just fine, I'll run something like SW or GURPS. If I want my players to feel like the chosen protagonists of the novels and movies that got us into the genre in the first place, I'll run something like 4e, or PBTA.

>>55340836
>You know this just leads to everyone dropping into the same damn roles, right?

Not in my experience. Everyone will typically be an OK combatant and then have a bunch of other skills that set them apart. This isn't a bad thing, and is quite true to genre.

>You know the only thing 4e requires from you is "have a leader", everything else is secondary, and they can patch it up with feats and magic items. If a party doesn't have any team synergy you can just throw monsters at them who also don't and have them work it out.

I forgot how Elric needed Moonglum to act as cheerleader for him.

>I understand the sentiment, but no matter how much you rile against it, the PCs will be the protagonists of the world, since they are the ones interacting with it.

Sure, but you don't need to enshrine it in mechanics by having them constructed in an entirely different fashion from the rest of the game. Very few games do this in fact. Even in old-school D&D the monster statblocks were just a vastly simplified player statblock (this is demonstrated with Searchers of the Unknown).

>What concept do you have that only a nature and dungeoneering-less ranger (and not even "only okay in these skills" but "absolutely 0 proficiency at these") can fulfill?

"A swordsman who doesn't know shit about nature or dungeons."

>>55340902
>Not in my experience. Everyone will typically be an OK combatant and then have a bunch of other skills that set them apart.

You mean like in 4e?

>I forgot how Elric needed Moonglum to act as cheerleader for him.

I like how you ignore that part where I mention you can still replace them with items and feats. For example a high level/epic magic item that gives you special abilities and bonuses larger than your level.

I wonder if Elric had one of those...?

>Sure, but you don't need to enshrine it in mechanics by having them constructed in an entirely different fashion from the rest of the game.

It's not THAT different though. Monsters still have stats, defenses, skills, powers, etc. It's just not as indepth because while you will be playing the same PCs for 30 levels, you'll probably face 20 million antagonists,

>"A swordsman who doesn't know shit about nature or dungeons."

Fighter? Rogue?

>>55340883
>This right here is the perfect illustration for why 4e mechanically lends itself to pulp tone, and savage worlds doesn't. In a 4e type game, Connan went up against fluff-special opponents, and beat them because he's the goddamned PC. In SW, he got really lucky 4 times in a row, and the game only gets to FEEL like Conan 6.25% of the time, with the other 93.75% of the time the game is cut short and just ends anticlimactically.

So what you're saying is you're a bit thick and are trying your hardest to make the other game look bad? Conan would have been a higher rank challenge than any of them. He was special by being capable, not by being built on a different chassis than the rest.

>As someone who regularly runs multiple 4e games, this is not hard. By a large margin, 4e is one of the easiest games to DM.

GURPS fans say the same thing about their game. The fact you're invested enough to be familiar with it doesn't make it especially easy to run.

>You literally just described one of the core philosophies behind non-heroic simulationism.

You can be special without being the only special thing in the universe. Indiana Jones wasn't the chosen one from heaven or some shit; he was just a capable dude, and not even the most capable dude in the world. I said it earlier, I'll say it again, you're acting exactly like 2e grognards insisted 3e players were like. Your characters should be special by their capabilities and their accomplishments, not some arbitrary divide in design philosophy.

>>55340769
>I genuinely want to play a solo game, and use the fact that 4e can't do that well as a criticism.
Then play a different game when you want to play a solo game I guess? Personally I think that "min-maxing" the system to best perform the way that well over 90% of games function is not a poor choice in general.
>It also does poorly at emulating genre. Or maybe I forgot the part in the Elric saga where Moonglum exploded into three people to ensure that the climactic fight with Jagreen Lern functioned correctly.
Again, to quote myself, there is solo-pulp out there, and there is team-pulp out there. If you are creating a game designed to be played by a group of friends, which of the two do you think is the better to emulate more strongly? Some concessions have to be made to the fact that D&D is a group game, and kneecapping its team play so that it's ABLE to run solo games would be a very poor design choice indeed, especially when there are already games that do solo better than party play.

>>55340990
>Indiana Jones wasn't the chosen one from heaven or some shit

Yes, he was. He was chosen by the mightiest powers of all, Plot.

I also don't get why you think 4e characters don't fit that mold, in heroic at least.

>>55340968
>You mean like in 4e?

No. In 4e they'd be shackled to a class role and only able to do what that class said they could.

>I like how you ignore that part where I mention you can still replace them with items and feats. For example a high level/epic magic item that gives you special abilities and bonuses larger than your level.

So in other words if you ignore the design philosophy of the game. Gotcha.

>I wonder if Elric had one those...?

Fair. But he'd have still been hooped in 4e what with having no support whatsoever.

>It's not THAT different though. Monsters still have stats, defenses, skills, powers, etc. It's just not as indepth because while you will be playing the same PCs for 30 levels, you'll probably face 20 million antagonists,

It also requires a different build philosophy in regards to damage and HP.

>Fighter? Rogue?

I don't want to be a defender, and I don't want sneak attack.

>>55341020
I'm not proposing kneecapping its team play, I'm proposing not making it the sole focus of the game, leaving it unable to actually emulate anything outside of young adult fantasy where the team discovers the power of friendship or some shit.

4e fans will not in a million years admit their game is anything less than perfect unless they're talking to someone already invested in the game, in which case they'll gleefully admit it's a mess built on broken math.

>>55341047
>No. In 4e they'd be shackled to a class role and only able to do what that class said they could.

BUT THEY CAN SELECT WHAT CLASS THEY ARE. THEY SELECT WHAT THEY WANT IN THE FIRST PLACE. THEY CAN ALSO MULTICLASS. CLASSES CAN ALSO SELECT FROM LIKE 3 ROLES AT MINIMUM.

FFS, you are driving me mad. If that was your goal, good fucking job.

>So in other words if you ignore the design philosophy of the game. Gotcha.

>Fair. But he'd have still been hooped in 4e what with having no support whatsoever.

Which is okay, because 4e never wants to be a solo game, emulating stories with solo protags.

>>55341047
>I don't want to be a defender, and I don't want sneak attack.

Why? How does that not fit your vision of "swordsman"? Does capitalizing on openings not a thing he does? This is getting stupid, but okay, how about Slayer then?

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>>55340883
>SW does that, and 4e does something different: YAY. There are different games that do different things as appropriate for the tone and feel the GM is going for.
>>55340990
>trying your hardest to make the other game look bad?
Reading comprehension. I'm not saying it's bad at all; I'm saying it does something specific, just like other games, and if you want to do that specific thing, you pick SW.
>GURPS fans say the same thing about their game.
I've heard GURPSfags say LOTS of things about their system, some valid and some bullshit, but it being easy to GM is not something I've ever heard. The closest I've heard is "when I want to run something VERY SPECIFIC, while it still takes a long time, it's easier to create exactly what I want with GURPS than to twist another system into doing exactly what I want."
>>55340990
>You can be special without being the only special thing in the universe.
Yes, there exist levels on the spectrum between simulationism and narrativism, and it's possible to be somewhere in the middle. I'd say that SW is probably somewhere in the middle, but closer to the simulationism extreme than the narrativism extreme. It's ALSO possible, and perfectly acceptable, to run a game where the PC's are the definitive protagonists of the setting. 4e does this better than anything else I've ever encountered.

Different games do different things, and you pick the game that runs the type of game you want. Oh what a wonderful world we live in where we have a selection of games and can run games with the exact feel we want.

>>55341047
>I don't want to be a defender, and I don't want sneak attack.
How about you play a minion from the monster manual with no special abilities and just a basic attack? Would that be bland enough for you\/

>>55341047
>No. In 4e they'd be shackled to a class role and only able to do what that class said they could.
You mean the class they picked during character creation, with its role clearly labeled? You mean the other classes that they multiclassed and/or hybrided into, also with the roles clearly labeled?
>So in other words if you ignore the design philosophy of the game. Gotcha.
>Options=Ignoring design philosophy
what?
>It also requires a different build philosophy in regards to damage and HP.
Yes.... so? It's a different game, with a different design philosophy, of course it would require a different build philosophy.
>>55340902
>A swordsman who doesn't know shit about nature or dungeons."
>I don't want to be a defender, and I don't want sneak attack.
Ranger with some simple permission from the DM. A barbarian with his dailies refluffed to be a bit more mundane. An avenger who doesn't take any radiant ranged powers and doesn't role-play as religious. A slayer fighter from essentials. A "monk" who uses a sword as his implement? That's just off the top of my head.

>>55321740
Damn I love this image.

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>>55341071
And I'd counter-propose that it'd be better to have a different system custom tailored to solo play, and leave 4e custom tailored to team play, so that any given game can be custom tailored to the play experience that the DM and Players are looking for.

>>55341258
>Ranger with some simple permission from the DM. A barbarian with his dailies refluffed to be a bit more mundane. An avenger who doesn't take any radiant ranged powers and doesn't role-play as religious. A slayer fighter from essentials. A "monk" who uses a sword as his implement? That's just off the top of my head.

He was asking for "no houserules", because that's extra work.

>>55325653
Primal Spirits saved us from the Gods and Elementals fucking everything up in their eternal war. They deserve better than being written out.

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>>55341322
"Okay, you can fluff your dungeoneering as knowledge of urban squalor"
"Okay, you can switch out your dungeoneering for something else you want"
"Just describe your rages as something more mundane, like a fighting style"
"Just don't take any ranged radiant powers"

Oh my goodness, that took SO much extra work.

>>55341376
I know, but I'm trying to engage him on his own terms.

I want to see how ridiculous it gets.

"4e doesn't let me make a swordsman who doesn't know nature or dungeoneering, and also doesn't capitalize on openings, so I don't like it"... and I guess I'll go ahead and say he also doesn't inspire or lead people, since that'd be a Warlord, so we cross off all the martial classes.

Still, for what little it's worth, Slayer should still be satisfying that criteria.

>>55339364
>mfw witch cursed my ancestors and now I'm stuck trying to impress my family because anybody else will assume I'm a bloodsucking edgelord

>>55340619
>Because it was designed that way to sustain this idiotic sacred cow.
How were they supposed to design it then? Without any sturcture whatsoever?

Wait, why someone doesn't understand that 4e is team play? If you want solo, go play something else. It is like complaining your oven doesn't microwave: It was not made for that.

4e also is meant to be pulpy, not realistic. You want a "PC are just some people in the world" world-as-protagonist, go play something else. 4e is PC-as-protagonists.

>>55342039
I actually agree with you, but I feel the need to point out that I have a combo oven/microwave. You might want a better analogy.

>>55342071
Well, there ARE oven/microwave, the same way there are systems that do team/solo play. The analogy stands.

>>55342535
Eh, I'm personally not that familiar with combo microwave/ovens, but I doubt they're mediocre at both their jobs as generalized systems tend to be at all of the jobs they try to take on.

Favorite Paragon Path? Mine is War Chanter, that stuff just screams out flavor.

>>55342039
The whole point of this discussion is 4e was a step back on design that could have emphasized better parts of D&D. Nobody expects 4e to do anything but what it was supposed to, we just need to acknowledge that it's design was indeed limited.

>>55342561
GURPS does pretty OK at most things, as does Fate, or Savage Worlds. They certainly don't do fantasy any worse than any edition of D&D, which can really only do a very specific form of fantasy only found in D&D.

>>55344171
A step back to where? What would be a step forward?
Which better parts? Why "better"?

How can you be sure your vision of the "path" is what it was meant to be? Probably D&D didn't have a path to trail, it walked like a drunk.

>>55343693
Torn between the Sword of Assault, Primordial Channeler and War Wizard (of Cormyr, but I always de-specified that and used it as a general "evoker specialist" type PP).

>>55344319
A step back into the absurd gamey bullshit that has been holding D&D down for decades. A step forward would be removing more of the sacred cows and implicit assumptions about playstyle towards something truly modern in design.

I'm not, but D&D can't really be said to have been meant to be anything besides a vaguely sword and sorcery RPG about fantasy adventures in the tradition of Burroughs, Howard, Lieber, Moorcock, Anderson, etc. 4th edition represents not just the game become self-referential but absolutely revelling in that, becoming a D&D themed fantasy game.

>>55342561
They may be less energy-efficient, or at least occupy more space than a common oven or microwave or cost more.

So why use an oven/microwave if you only use one of those functions?

It is not bad. GURPS is good, but a system tailored for one kind of setting and tone will be better, of course.

>>55344445
>gamey bullshit
>modern design
Can you give examples of both? Vague "it sucks, needs improvement" is lame.

>>55321740
i like how everyone seems to be doing something tot he off screen dragon/giant mawed enemy thing and then the goliath is just standing in the back like he's gonna scream it to death

>>55344581
>Gamey bullshit

Enshrinement of arbitrary class roles.
The loot mill.
Hitpoint bloat.
Rigid class design.
Gameplay designed structured around team combat to the point that every single little combat is an end in and of itself (every combat needs to be "meaningful" and "balanced" rather than a natural outgrowth of narrative).

>Ways to fix.
Design classes organically to represent elements of a fantasy universe rather than game constructs.
There's been lots of attempts to address that; 4e even had some good ones outside of it's core. The obvious solution would be to not design the game around magic items and the restructure how they work (They should either be major facets of a character or something they hold on to temporarily).
Give less HP to everything, it's not hard.
Expand classes to represent broad, versatile archetypes that can be readily customized, or do away with classes entirely (classes as a frontloaded package could work as well).
Make sure the combat system works, and then don't structure the entire game around it.

>Be more specific!

Look man, I'm a guy who likes the fluff of 4e but was disappointed in it as a fix, not an expert game designer.

>But that stuff is too far away from D&D!

As evidence by its abysmal failure, so was 4e.

>>55345165
>Enshrinement of arbitrary class roles
Not a flaw, merely something you personally don't like
>Loot mill
Fixed in-game by inherent bonuses
>Hitpoint bloat
Fixed in-game by MM3 monster design
>Rigid class design
Subjective, also I'm not really sure that's a problem with 4e at all, it's got enough classes that you'd be hard pressed to find a concept that does not fit into an available class or a refluffed version of an available class
>Gameplay structured around team combat to the point that every little combat is an end in and of itself
I'm not sure what you're talking about is really a problem, the importance of a battle is decided by the DM, all this really means is that you aren't going to be jumped by giant rats or something

I get the feeling that the reason you dislike 4e is strictly due to it not fitting your tastes exactly, but not every game can fit everyone's tastes. I personally hate how 5e makes character building so boring, and how in 5e and 3e the same spells are accessible by different classes, meaning there's no mechanical difference between a sorcerer casting fireball and a wizard casting fireball. But those aren't problems with the systems, they're my personal opinions on aspects of those systems that don't agree with me

>>55346135
Well, bravo skippy, you figured out that this post, which exercised no academic or scientific rigor was just an opinion. Gold star to you!

>>55346342
Fair enough
Word of advice for the future, when complaining about aspects of something you personally don't like but aren't objectively wrong, don't say the system is bad because of it, because those same aspects may be exactly why other people like it. Otherwise it just makes you look like a loud idiot who confuses his opinion for hard fact

>>55346404
Likewise a word of advice to you: when someone is talking about an obviously subjective matter like a game, don't require them to couch things in mealy mouthed language to understand it to be opinion. This whole thing was me saying that I detest 4e's mechanics, which is obviously a subjective judgment that can only be opinion.

>>55346475
No it isn't, it's you saying 4e's mechanics are bad, the implication is very different

Saying "I don't like thing" is subjective, saying "thing is bad" is objective. If you say the latter and claim the former, it is your fault you are being misunderstood

>>55344279
>They certainly don't do fantasy any worse than any edition of D&D
I'm less talking about SETTING, and more about TONE. GURPS can do absolutely any setting, no sweat, but breaking away from the gritty simulationist tone (which may or may not be what you want for a given game) takes much more work than switching settings, to the point that you'd be better off finding a different game that does the tone you want better.

>>55344450
>but a system tailored for one kind of setting and tone will be better, of course.
Again, tailoring to setting and tailoring to tone are two very different things. In my experience, generic/versatile/hackable systems do a very good job switching from genre to genre, but breaking away from the mechanical tone they inform is neigh impossible.

>>55345165
I'm just going to go through your solution and explain why I think 4e's in-game solution works better in each instance.
>Enshrinement of arbitrary class roles.
>Design classes organically to represent elements of a fantasy universe rather than game constructs.
You see then you'd have a bunch of classes that inform the fluff of your character, rather than role+source combos that suggest fluff that can easily be changed with no trouble. In 4e, a Shaman could be a literal shaman, an astrally projecting warrior (ala Barsoom,) an old-school necromancer who relies on undead guardians, an wizard specialized in the conjuration school, a drone-focused artificer, or any other number of options. All feel just as appropriate. If they had "built the classes organically" based on the "elements of the fantasy world" then by picking a sham, you're playing a shaman, and nothing else. This, to me, means less versatility. Also, I wouldn't be able to run different settings as easilly with 4e as I do now. As it stands, I can (and have) run 4e as, Giant Robot Fights, Magical Girls, Scott Pilgrim Universe, Space Opera with laser swords, Victorian Monster Hunters, just to name a few. Setting versatility and character concept versatility are two of the greatest strengths of 4e that would not be worth giving up.
>The loot mill.
>There's been lots of attempts to address that; 4e even had some good ones outside of it's core. The obvious solution would be to not design the game around magic items and the restructure how they work
You see, again, versatility. As it stands, you can either give out magic equipment like crazy, or simply say the words "inherent bonuses" and hand out magic equipment as you describe. If they removed magical equipment as a design assumption, but didn't remove magical equipment, in a game based on such tight math, it would basically obligate a DM to not hand out magical loot at all, without the versatility.
....TBC

>>55345165
>>55346696
>Hitpoint bloat.
>Give less HP to everything, it's not hard.
This becomes less of a problem when you represent HP as plot-shield, gumption, grit, and pluck, rather than pure meat-points... actually the way it was described since the beginning if I might add. Then you don't have different iteration of marv trading axes to the chest, you have action heroes and villians parrying each other and turning telling blows into near misses until one lands a DECISIVE BLOW.... you know... like an action movie. Also MM3 math.
>Rigid class design.
>Expand classes to represent broad, versatile archetypes that can be readily customized
I guess you could look at my answer to your first issue: I, and most current 4e DM's, already do and encourage this. A class name is just a class name, and nothing more. What is in a name, a "fighter" by any other name would be just as much of a high-damage defender. Most DM's just look at classes as Role+Source combos, and the name is just a vague suggestion.... so in this instance, that's kind of already happening (though it seems a bit at odds with your first suggestion, but whatever.)
>Make sure the combat system works, and then don't structure the entire game around it.
I like that the locus of the game in a game about action focuses on action. Others may disagree, but me and my friends have always had no problem going largely diceless for non-combat role-playing, just using the mechanics as a combat-simulator for when the game "zooms in" to combat. Solid crunch balances combat, but the same level of crunch can bog down noncombat role-playing. Others might disagree, but in my humble opinion, freeform noncombat and crunchy combat that's fun enough to be a wargame in and of itself is the best combination possible.

>>55341140
>>55341441
So I'm guessing slayer fits your criteria, cool.

>>55347737
Also Berserker Barbarian would work too.

>>55348190
Nah, that's also a defender, or possibly too angry for him.

>>55349444
It's not like it matters much in the grand scheme of things.

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>>55328095
?!

>>55351048
What the fuck is this?

>>55352966
A bunch of trash, wreckage, and silk assembled into a roughly draconic form.

>>55328095
Moar Wayne Reynolds.

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Can we please drop the meaningless edition wars and get back to 4e artwork?

>>55354567
Isn't that PF?

I'd rather have the idiot above with the nature and dungeoneering-less ranger keep getting BTFO'd.

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4e's version of Dark-Sun was fundamentally different from AD&D Dark-Sun, but it was at-least equally awesome.

>>55355488
That looks pretty 4e to me. And yes, I'm trying to figure out why you'd want a Nature and Dungeoneering-less Ranger. Do you want a Rogue with no Stealth or Thievery too?

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>>55358550
That's definitely PF.

>>55358550
Because they represent baked-in flavour to the class.

>>55347737
It fails for being buried in a splat. Core only; most people don't own every book ever for the game. It's also why using the variant systems to do away with the Christmas tree effect or MM3 math fall flat.

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>>55359216
>It's also why ... MM3 math fall flat.
But the MM3 rules are such a simply fix that you can fit it on a goddamn business card

>>55361514
But are none the less, not in the core game. If we're going to talk about 4e as a disappointment, we must talk about it as it was released.

Also, even with MM3 math, the PCs are padded sumos compared to just about every other game.

>>55361805
>even with MM3 math, the PCs are padded sumos
Not really, a fighter a level 30 that starts with 18 COM only needs 6 average hits to knock it down to 0- HP, and that's the class designed to take hits and assuming no resistance items or weaknesses

I haven't done the math for something like the wizard yet, I just chose a PHB class that would reasonably have good HP, but the players don't need too much to fuck them up

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>>55359216
>t. Core only; most people don't own every book ever for the game.
Most 4e players I know don't own ANY books, but have all the PDF's and/or the offline builder and/or basic internet access with funin.space. This is why I love the 4e community, and also why I totally understand why a publicly traded company that has an obligation to its shareholders to serve proffit first switched back to making more 3.P content.


>>55361774
At release the math worked relative to release. it was the unfortunate up-scaling of numbers from feat-bloat that necessitated MM3 math. Expertise feats, which are a big part of the numbers escalation, didn't even come out until PHB2.

>>55361805
Relative to gritty games that use wound-points or HP as meat-points? Yes. Relative to other games with PC-protagonist plot-shield? No. This is good and appropriate for different games trying to do different things.
Finally: more 4e art. People complain about the "Super-Hero-Nes" of 4e, but I personally enjoyed it from the DM's perspective.

>>55362327
Is that really a 4e piece? I don't recognize this art at all...

>>55362115
In a game where healing surges bring back a quarter of your health. Most games don't even have particularly effective combat healing.

>>55362327
I defy you to name a single game that isn't a D&D derivative that has PCs even close to that durable. Palladium (which is largely AD&D with the serial numbers filed off) is the closest I can think of.

>>55362636
Except those can only be used a limited number of times, usually once an encounter + the 2 encounter healing minors a leader has, and that requires the use of actions and, more importantly, for it to be the PCs turn, and since encounters are designed around roughly one monster a pc it's pretty reasonable that a pc could get ganked in a larger group at high levels or a smaller group at low levels

>>55362636
I think you need to look at the numbers some more.
Even the beefiest classes designed to take a hit go down under a relatively dedicated assault, and healing isn't as effective as you think. I have more dead pcs from 4e than any other version of D&D

>>55362721
It still makes them more durable than characters in 90% of games.

>>55362831
I think you need to take a look outside D&D.

>>55358550
>That looks pretty 4e to me
Look harder.

>>55362989
Now you are moving goalposts.
What exactly are you arguing?
I can make a starting pc in DH that is able to eat a full auto spray at point blank range, and that isn't any kind of minmaxing, it's basic equipment. Hell, as a GM, I watched it happen, and this is a system people jerk off over on how "deadly" it is.
You seem like you are arguing for something that isn't a part of the playstyle of later D&D (heroic/pulp narrative) and implying that the game is bad because it doesn't work like a different game (that you don't even play because you are trolling trash).
>your last you from me

>>55359177
Yes, and?

This is only a problem if you intentionally want to make a character that combines fluff with a class which has fluff that doesn't fit. Basically, unless you are setting yourself up to fail, it works.

See the whole thing above with the guy making more and more nonsensical restrictions just so he can't make "diude with a sword" to prove some kind of point (and still fail because you can't get more vanilla than Slayer).

>>55362589
It's a Dragon Mag piece. I snipped it from a PDF of Dragon Mag 378

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>>55363700
>Sugar Rush Stabby Stab
>Sparkly Crossbow Bolt of Doom
>My Super Sneaky Strike
>Dance Party Dagger Attack

Explain yourselves right now 4E apologists.

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>>55362636
>I defy you to name a single game that isn't a D&D derivative that has PCs even close to that durable.
Scion at Demigod and Higher
Busty Barbarian Bimbos
Bloodpouch
Final Fantasy d6
Legends of The Wulin
Straight to VHS

Now, yes, that DOES still put it in the top 10%-20% of survivable PC's, but god forbid a game specializing in high-powered plot-shielded pulp protagonists be high on the survivability scale.

Also, here's some more cool 4e art

And this is why 4e died. It's players are stupid raging babbies who fall for almost century old bait

>>55365296
You have the causation backwards

Constant, unending badmouthing and bait killed 4e, and has left those who like the game extremely sensitive.

There are quite a few people I know who never played 4e because "all classes look the same" or "it's WoW edition" or "healing is too easy". That is why 4e died, because there's so much bullshit about 4e that people just assume it's terrible without ever actually touching it

>>55365352
Great job, you're doing it again

>>55365370
Indeed

It is about 10 years worth of reactionary instincts, driving me to try and fight for a cause already lost simply because it was destroyed before it's time by ignorance and a fear of change. Leaving a wonderful system behind that has only been imitated by idiots who had no idea what made the original so good

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>>55365439
>destroyed before it's time
Eh, as I've pointed out before in this thread ( >>55326602 ) it ended at just about the perfect time. Maybe even a year earlier would have been the perfect sweet-spot.

The fun of 4e is nowhere near as driven by a constant stream of new content as was 3.PF or any of its game-design-genetic-relatives. With conservative application of houserules, and liberal application of refluff, we already have the tools necessary to run most of the things we could ever want to run with 4e.

Go forth and play young man.

>>55365573
The only issue being that the only people I've found who are willing to go with 4e's style are already playing 4e. Most people I know tend to be very conservative in refluffing.

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>>55339264
Dragonborn are a curious race

>>55364946
It's from D&D for 8 year olds, an adaption a guy made for his kids.

>>55365839
I get why. 4e is the kind of thing that is pretty clear in its language and some people extend this into how things are expressed in fluff as well.

>>55327106

Yes, the essentials classes are basically pre-built versions of the iconic classes and they are very powerful. It is nice if you have a player that is lazy and wants to powergame, but most campaigns and groups like actually customizing characters and not tilting the power-scale to rofl-stomping encounters all day.

>>55326928
Nobody I know who runs 4e uses books. Use the character builder (either the online one if you want to pay for Insider or the pirated off-line one) and funin.space for your stuff. Read PHB and DMG only to get a handle on the rules and how the game is played.

>>55367297
>Yes, the essentials classes are basically pre-built versions of the iconic classes and they are very powerful.

The essentials classes are dumbed down versions, and drop off after an admittedly strong start.

I sorta like them, because sometimes you really just want to hit things, but they are in no way stronger than the non-essentials versions.

Their hybrids, however...

>>55327436

They nailed female dwarves aesthetics in 4e. Short, thick girls was perfect. Also came at a time when thick was coming into it's own culturally.

My intro games went from literally 0 women chiding dwarves for 15 years to about 15-20% dwarves.

>>55327942

Just read about the Ordning. REEEEEEE'd hard.

All of that was much better left unsaid and softly implied...

>>55365573
I think a bit more fleshing out for some late classes would have been good.

Of course, I'm not sure the dev team headed by Mearls could have done that.

>>55341278
Why?