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Babylon Astronaut posted:Without playing other editions, you can't tell how regressive it is. 5e would have been an awesome game in the early 80's. 5E would have been an awesome game in 2007. A huge step back from 4E is still progress over 3E.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:05
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Without playing other editions, you can't tell how regressive it is. 5e would have been an awesome game in the early 80's. Nope. It would have been an awesome game in 2007. But in the early 80s? B/X all the way. 3.0 was in many ways a huge step back and is a mediocre mid-80s game.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:09
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RE: Stealth Chat I've not had much issue with 4e's stealth, at least with respect to characters specifically built around that mechanic. What problems do people have with it?
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Sep 19, 2014 17:10
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Tactical Bonnet posted:So if you play the class you enjoy until you stop enjoying it and don't deliberately gently caress it up for the rest of the table? Also, I think you underestimate how much inertia there is in playing a character. If you get bored of your role it's not always feasible to change if your DM isn't accommodating.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:13
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Well, I know there's a lot of D&D Next hate in this thread, but its inspired me to write so far, at least 10 pages of campaign setting notes in a way that 4e did not. Don't get me wrong, I loved 4e, and had a good run on it. But there's a fundamental disconnect between the verisimilitude that really rubs people the wrong way. In fact, i kind of blame 4e for the poo poo show that is Pathfinder, and the fact that the Pathfinder community is now basically the largest gaming community.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:15
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You could always make stealth only applicable if the surroundings would allow for it. Staying hidden while ambushing a party on alert in the middle of a flat field of short grass and gravel would be probably literally impossible without some magical aid. Even if you came upon a group of people, and managed to take one of them out completely silently and without being seen, they're probably going to notice that Jimbo has vanished into the darkness. Once they know that someone is ninja-ing around and killing them the stealthed individual probably shouldn't have advantage on the opposed checks anymore. If the ambushed individuals happen to all be carrying torches then they might even have disadvantage.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:18
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neonchameleon posted:Nope. It would have been an awesome game in 2007. But in the early 80s? B/X all the way.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:18
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ascendance posted:But there's a fundamental disconnect between the verisimilitude that really rubs people the wrong way. I legit don't know what people mean when they say 4e lacks "verisimilitude".
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Sep 19, 2014 17:19
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I hear everyone say this but I've never understood. What makes 4E less idea-based and creative to so many people?
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Sep 19, 2014 17:19
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The 4e rules were new and scary, and trying to learn them took a lot of people right out of their epic Gor/Xanth crossover world-building. That's verisimilitude.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:23
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ascendance posted:Don't get me wrong, I loved 4e, and had a good run on it. But there's a fundamental disconnect between the verisimilitude that really rubs people the wrong way. In fact, i kind of blame 4e for the poo poo show that is Pathfinder, and the fact that the Pathfinder community is now basically the largest gaming community. I'd actually agree that 4e was a bad move for Wizards, but not because of verisimilitude. It's because 4e is a very focused game. The problem is, for D&D to maintain its position at the head of the industry, it actually does need to try to be all things to all people. That's why the rhetoric behind Next was probably a good direction for them to go in. They just didn't really do a very good job of following up on it, at least IMO. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and the tent ends up being "big enough" for whatever their goals were.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:34
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Without playing other editions, you can't tell how regressive it is. 5e would have been an awesome game in the early 80's. The thing I keep thinking is 'I wish 5e and 4e had been released the other way around' - then 5e could have been what it is (a fairly natural progression and improvement upon 3e and AD&D) and 4e could have come along 5 years later and been what IT is - a new, better game - with 5 more years of grogs dropping off left right and centre under its belt, and got started mining new audiences.
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Sep 19, 2014 17:38
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Generic Octopus posted:I legit don't know what people mean when they say 4e lacks "verisimilitude". Neither do the people who say it 
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Sep 19, 2014 17:49
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Generic Octopus posted:I legit don't know what people mean when they say 4e lacks "verisimilitude". They mean 'I don't like it'. It's what 'dissociative mechanics' means also.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:00
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thespaceinvader posted:They mean 'I don't like it'. Nah. Versmimilitude: This world doesn't behave the way I expect it to. Disassociative Mechanics: The rules and the dice lead to getting in my character's head being different than it is in other RPGs I've played. As such most people find fighters who need to worry about fatigue to be disassociative if they are used to 3.X.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:06
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neonchameleon posted:Nah. That might have been how it started out but it quickly got co-opted to mean "things I don't like, which is to say 4e/Not The Version I Played When I Was 12" by people without a lick of understanding what those terms actually mean.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:09
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neonchameleon posted:Nah. I'm not sure how this contradicts what thespaceinvader said.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:09
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"I'm not accustomed to imagining things without being explicitly told how they work."
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Sep 19, 2014 18:15
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If anything I feel 4E makes this kind of thing easier, not harder. Half of the boring Generic Evil Humanoid monsters now have interesting powers that tell a bit about their average outlooks and character. Like the shifting differences between goblins and kobolds I saw mentioned in here before.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:17
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Well the 4e verisimilitude is weird because for example powers that recharge per encounter make no sense, logically. As game design it's cool, but a grog has no idea how many acid arrows a wizard can cast per day, and that rubs him wrong.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:21
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RPZip posted:I'm not sure how this contradicts what thespaceinvader said. Contradicts? Depends whether they are a grog or a proto-grog. Versimilitude is generally about not wanting to play in the 4e universe (which is fair enough until it becomes "Mages should do anything, sucks to be mundane"). The Real Foogla posted:Well the 4e verisimilitude is weird because for example powers that recharge per encounter make no sense, logically. As game design it's cool, but a grog has no idea how many acid arrows a wizard can cast per day, and that rubs him wrong. Even most grogs can figure out "5 minute rest lets magic recharge". It's martial encounter powers that confuse them because fatigue isn't a thing.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:27
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The Real Foogla posted:Well the 4e verisimilitude is weird because for example powers that recharge per encounter make no sense, logically. As game design it's cool, but a grog has no idea how many acid arrows a wizard can cast per day, and that rubs him wrong. It makes perfect sense. You can only push yourself so hard and exert so much willpower at a single time. Between fights you can catch your breath and get some strength back. Dailies, meanwhile, are your huge Vancian spells or incredible feats of skill and strength, to the point where overuse can cause serious damage to yourself.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:29
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"What do you mean there's no fatigue mechanic built in?! Why should I have to wait between encounters then, that's so dumb, I should be able to use them all day forever!!!  "
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Sep 19, 2014 18:32
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The Real Foogla posted:Well the 4e verisimilitude is weird because for example powers that recharge per encounter make no sense, logically. As game design it's cool, but a grog has no idea how many acid arrows a wizard can cast per day, and that rubs him wrong. It makes complete logical sense, but the game assumes you have some sort of ability to interpret what's going on around you rather than being explicitly told every little pointless detail. Hence, grogs. e; basically 4e doesn't work well when you have the kinds of lovely, awful, garbage DM's that 3rd edition produced trying to run the game
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Sep 19, 2014 18:32
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Let's not forget that these people clung to GNS because something is impenetrable unless there's a box to shove it into. It's hilarious seeing one-hand-reload heaped on the pyre of dissociative mechanical verisimilitudes, along with anything else not fueled by plausible Magic.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:39
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The Real Foogla posted:Well the 4e verisimilitude is weird because for example powers that recharge per encounter make no sense, logically. As game design it's cool, but a grog has no idea how many acid arrows a wizard can cast per day, and that rubs him wrong. I've never understood that doesn't a hard limit per day seem much more mechanical than the the Wizard being able to throw as many Acid Arrows per day as he needs/when he needs? My wizard can throw 8 acid arrows/day; SO MAGICAL! My wizard can throw as many acid arrows as there are fights; So mechanical! Whenever the 4E wizard needs to fight he consults his book of spells and figures out what he's able to cast. Whenever a non-4E wizard needs to fight he needs to remember how many times he's cast Acid Arrow and whether he has the ability to cast more.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:41
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neonchameleon posted:Nah. A barbarian can end her rage as a free action and is fatigued after rage for a number of rounds equal to 2 times the number of rounds spent in the rage. A barbarian cannot enter a new rage while fatigued or exhausted but can otherwise enter rage multiple times during a single encounter or combat. If a barbarian falls unconscious, her rage immediately ends, placing her in peril of death.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:47
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There's also the issue of narrative control. If you're a 4E rogue, you have powers that pretty much say "You fool the enemy with a dirty trick and then deal a really nasty attack." It makes perfect sense that you can do it once per battle, because they're not going to fall for the same trick twice in a row. But for grogs it is verboten that you can just declare that you successfully deceive your target, you must pay the d20 tax and roll for it. And if your character is clever enough to trick the enemy once, they should be able to roll for it again next round too, possibly with a negative modifier at the DM's discretion. If that's overpowered, then the natural and logical limiting mechanic is that once you use your powers of deception in this specific way you must wait 24 hours before using them again. Verisimilitude!
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Sep 19, 2014 18:51
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You can just decide you're not in a rage? What kind of rage is that? My vermississittude.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:52
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In pathfinder only barbarians ever get fatigued as a result of physical activity. Hell, a lot of this thread belongs in Murphy's Rules at this point.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:54
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Clinton1011 posted:I'm glad I didn't read this thread before playing d&d for the first time. Most people in this thread make 5e out to be a horribly balanced & broken game. Maybe I just don't have the required experience with previous versions to understand how horrible 5e is but I haven't heard any complaints from anyone else in my current game about how they feel weaker then the casters. The only issue that was brought up was the fact that all classes are equal in regards to chance to hit with melee and ranged if they are proficient with the weapon in question. A competent/experienced DM will get this, and when faced with something like a player lagging behind because perhaps his peers made far more mechanically optimized decisions early on and they are now compounding, or the person who rolled up a rogue only to realize surprise rounds aren't really supported for them, or that after level 12 the whole party is deflated by the constant dread of having to make serious saving throws on non-proficient stats against increasingly high DCs, etc, the seasoned DM will be capable of making adjustments as the game goes on to bring things back into balance in a non-jarring way so that everyone is having fun again. But the system should support and carry a lot of that to begin with, a foundation of rules that "feel right" and rarely if ever need to be fudged to make sense or be fair. 5e in that regard has some worrying gaps that can be explored and verified very quickly, be it through some spreadsheets or just cross referencing multiple rules and seeing the inconsistencies. Meanwhile greener DMs are going to be walking into problems they probably won't even see coming, much less be prepared to know how to deal with it, and the system isn't going to give them much of a leg-up to figure out how to resolve it. If 5e were a wild and new experimental rule model, this maybe could be forgiven a bit, but so much of it is a familiar regression to the 3x family of rules that it is pretty surprising that they weren't able to come up with something a little more unassailable than what we have. That said, my group is waiting for the MM to come out before we transition, but all told we're excited to try it out because we're a little fatigued from the tactical tedium of 4e. And 5e isn't a complete ruin in my book, more that it's turned into a sort of antici-pointment where I am realizing I had higher hopes than what was delivered. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Sep 19, 2014 |
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Sep 19, 2014 20:00
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Generic Octopus posted:I legit don't know what people mean when they say 4e lacks "verisimilitude". It means they aren't imaginative enough to figure out how a non magical Fighter can suck in a bunch of mooks like a magnet and then smash them all.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:18
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ImpactVector posted:You going to get a lot of heat for that, but I think you're at least partially right, if for a totally different reason. Problem is, people use D&D from everything from freeform story game to some kind of sadistic torture simulator. Incidentally, I think I dropped some important words from my previous statement that make it now very hard to understand what I was getting at, which was that in 4e, they didn't really bother thinking through how the different martial effects work in-world, focusing entirely on their game effects. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:29
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The Bee posted:I hear everyone say this but I've never understood. What makes 4E less idea-based and creative to so many people? All the complicated interacting rule bits make it much harder to tinker with the system. The assumption of game balance means that I won't, say, arbitrarily decide martial characters can start off with guns and magic weapons in exchange for debt.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:32
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ascendance posted:All the complicated interacting rule bits make it much harder to tinker with the system. The assumption of game balance means that I won't, say, arbitrarily decide martial characters can start off with guns and magic weapons in exchange for debt. Sure you can. Why not? Giving sweet loot to martial types in 4e will have the exact same impact as it does in any other modern D&D edition. The only difference is that 4e is so transparent that you can see what would happen. And what would happen is this: the game's default sense of balance would be disturbed. That's all. Doesn't mean the game crashes, doesn't mean a good DM or campaign-specific story can't handle it, just means you're no longer guaranteed the predictability of balance. I swear, some people out there have some very strange ideas about what "balance" really means...
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Sep 19, 2014 20:40
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ascendance posted:All the complicated interacting rule bits make it much harder to tinker with the system. The assumption of game balance means that I won't, say, arbitrarily decide martial characters can start off with guns and magic weapons in exchange for debt. Guns: refluff crossbows. Hand becomes pistols, heavier ones rifles. If you want the gun as strongest shooty thing feeling just boost some stats and make them superior weapons. As for magic weapons, those would heavily imbalance 3.5 or 5 just as much as 4. Heck, maybe even less so in 4. Healing potions pull from existing resources rather than healing from nowhere. Magic weapons rarely have effects like flat +1d6 to damage, which wrecks balance at low levels but is a drop in the bucket at high. Also the list is actually scaled sensibly. Awesome sword too high level? Give them teeny tiny baby sword.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:41
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Sage Genesis posted:Sure you can. Why not? Giving sweet loot to martial types in 4e will have the exact same impact as it does in any other modern D&D edition. The only difference is that 4e is so transparent that you can see what would happen. And what would happen is this: the game's default sense of balance would be disturbed. That's all. Doesn't mean the game crashes, doesn't mean a good DM or campaign-specific story can't handle it, just means you're no longer guaranteed the predictability of balance.
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Sep 19, 2014 20:49
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ascendance posted:Incidentally, I think I dropped some important words from my previous statement that make it now very hard to understand what I was getting at, which was that in 4e, they didn't really bother thinking through how the different martial effects work in-world, focusing entirely on their game effects. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way. A giant burly dude swinging a huge one-handed hammer into the knees of his enemies, making them less able to run away from him; and focused enough at his job that should the guy he just leg-broke look away from him, he'll bash the guy with the hammer again. What's more, the burly guy, due to years of practice, can hurt people more when he's using his favorite hammer to bust their knees. In what way does that not work in world? (Hint; that's a Warden with a Craghammer, using Weight Of Earth, and a warden feat that deals extra damage on a slowing attack.) How does "Fight-Man Is So Good At Fight That If Foe Looks At Fight-Man's Friends Instead Of Fight-Man, Fight-Man Can Smack Them For Not Paying Attention To The Guy With a Bigass Sword" "Work" less, in world, than "I wave my hand, chaotic energy streaks across the field, and if I rolled even on my attack roll, I can make the attack again against a foe within ten squares." Martial Characters having Narrative Agency works just as well as arcane bullshit works; what rubs these folks the wrong way is "Martial Characters can just say "Things Happen", and that Right is only reserved for someone who casts spells."
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Sep 19, 2014 20:51
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ascendance posted:In 5e, the balance is once again tilted in favor of casters, so giving better gear to non-casters is more a way of adding balance back into the game. Not sure if that's true, and also not sure what it has to do with the idea that it would be hard to do such a thing in 4e. Even if it were true that it would be a good idea in 5e... how does that reflect at all on the difficulty of doing it in 4e?
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Sep 19, 2014 21:02
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ascendance posted:All the complicated interacting rule bits make it much harder to tinker with the system. The assumption of game balance means that I won't, say, arbitrarily decide martial characters can start off with guns and magic weapons in exchange for debt. 1) Martial Characters do start with Magic Weapons. All builds have three magical items available to them. One at level, one at one level below current level, one at one level above current level. 2) All builds have starting cash. If you want to extend them further credit beyond the money they already get, go hog-wild. Debt can be a great plot hook. 3) Take a hand-crossbow. Key it off of whatever the character's primary stat is. Call it a gun. Boom. Done. Reskinning is about the easiest thing in 4e. You want 'em to have guns, give 'em guns. The system is built to handle that!
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Sep 19, 2014 21:03
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