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Doctor Epitaph posted:The best way to play 4e in 2022 is Lancer, right? A guy in our group had brought it up once our current adventure is over and I'd really like to try playing something like that again. Pathfinder 2e is pretty close, IMO.
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Dec 21, 2022 23:07
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Terrible Opinions posted:I know this point has already been argued to death but 4e's grid dependence and pretty strict turn based setup would translate really badly to mmo mechanics. It should have been adapted into several final fantasy tactics alikes, but sadly there was just one not especially great psp game.
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Dec 21, 2022 23:18
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Terrible Opinions posted:I know this point has already been argued to death but 4e's grid dependence and pretty strict turn based setup would translate really badly to mmo mechanics. It should have been adapted into several final fantasy tactics alikes, but sadly there was just one not especially great psp game. Uh oh looks like someone forgot the freemium Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter! Wait I'm getting a report that everyone everywhere forgot it.
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Dec 21, 2022 23:28
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theironjef posted:Uh oh looks like someone forgot the freemium Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter! I remember it being faithful to the rules but also weirdly single player and small
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Dec 21, 2022 23:51
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Terrible Opinions posted:I know this point has already been argued to death but 4e's grid dependence and pretty strict turn based setup would translate really badly to mmo mechanics. It should have been adapted into several final fantasy tactics alikes, but sadly there was just one not especially great psp game. This is completely accurate, but I gotta say the 4e-based MMO they put together was pretty good. I understand it's a pay-to-win nightmare now but I had fun leveling a control wizard years ago.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:02
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Ferrinus posted:This is completely accurate, but I gotta say the 4e-based MMO they put together was pretty good. I understand it's a pay-to-win nightmare now but I had fun leveling a control wizard years ago. I got heavily into Neverwinter [again] about two weeks before they made their huge cash-shopification overhaul and the shittiness after the update was so stark I dropped it immediately rip
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Dec 22, 2022 00:15
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Doctor Epitaph posted:The best way to play 4e in 2022 is Lancer, right? A guy in our group had brought it up once our current adventure is over and I'd really like to try playing something like that again. Gamma World 7 
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Dec 22, 2022 00:16
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I really liked a lot of what 4e was trying to do, but ultimately its biggest sin wasn't any of the bad-faith counter-arguments about it, instead it's just that it didn't go far enough in separating itself from 3.x D&D. But then again I have a small essay ready on what I'd do to make 4e a better game, so I think maybe it just ain't for me.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:41
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Ferrinus posted:This is completely accurate, but I gotta say the 4e-based MMO they put together was pretty good. I understand it's a pay-to-win nightmare now but I had fun leveling a control wizard years ago. Playing a fighter in that game was a loving blast, too bad about the monetization though yeah. Was genuinely a fun game. PurpleXVI posted:I really liked a lot of what 4e was trying to do, but ultimately its biggest sin wasn't any of the bad-faith counter-arguments about it, instead it's just that it didn't go far enough in separating itself from 3.x D&D. Literally just wanna play 4e but also replace skill checks with a separate aeud or w/e system
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Dec 22, 2022 00:42
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The only 4e mechanic I can think of that might have actually come from WoW is breaking down unused magic items for Residuum, which is a lot like the disenchanting system. I wouldnt be surprised to find that WoW and 4e were just both cribbing off another, older, source for that though.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:05
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One More Fat Nerd posted:The only 4e mechanic I can think of that might have actually come from WoW is breaking down unused magic items for Residuum, which is a lot like the disenchanting system. I wouldnt be surprised to find that WoW and 4e were just both cribbing off another, older, source for that though. I’m willing to bet the concept of fungibility is slightly older than either.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:13
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Doctor Epitaph posted:The best way to play 4e in 2022 is Lancer, right? A guy in our group had brought it up once our current adventure is over and I'd really like to try playing something like that again. Lancer is actually secretly Shadow of the Demon Lord with a mecha coat of paint. The 4e resemblances (other than SotDL having a couple of DnD4e cues) are mostly down to Minerva McJandna's layout work.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:28
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PurpleXVI posted:I really liked a lot of what 4e was trying to do, but ultimately its biggest sin wasn't any of the bad-faith counter-arguments about it, instead it's just that it didn't go far enough in separating itself from 3.x D&D. If the essay is already ready…
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Dec 22, 2022 01:43
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CitizenKeen posted:If the essay is already ready… It's nothing incredibly spicy. I just feel like the X uses /day or /encounter mechanics really started breaking down if enemies were even slightly miscalculated in their toughness, and you often ended up just spamming basic at/wills, of which you never got more, so there was never any variety there, which made fights insanely dull if you ended up there. And you were extra likely to end up there because of how pretty much every attack had a chance to just outright fail and do nothing, at the very least if you're going to change nothing else, every ability with a limited number of uses should also have come with some on-miss effects or other ways for them to have some sort of minimum effect when used. I feel like the game would've worked better if abilities had infinite uses, but instead either ran off cooldowns or a regenerating resource pool, it would've made fights less same-y, given players more options and prevented things from ending up in the at-will gutter way too often. I was also hugely not a fan of the insane splat bloat or in general the way powers were designed. I would've preferred to have maybe 20% of the splats, but give them "wider" selections of powers, and rather than super-wordy clunky abilities, just make the powers more like Magic cards: A selection of keywords with clear effects and interactions, rather than the short essays some powers had to explain their interactions.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:51
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Xiahou Dun posted:In anno loving domini 20-god drat 22, how did you really expect that to go. Much like it does in most 5e dominated spaces, that narrative got passed down wholesale to the newer dnd players who weren’t around for 4e and they have no reason to not accept it
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Dec 22, 2022 03:01
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Less passed down and more "Did a D&D youtuber or podcaster say it"
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Dec 22, 2022 03:14
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Xiahou Dun posted:In anno loving domini 20-god drat 22, how did you really expect that to go. drat I seem to have stirred something up haha. I'm not even that big of a hater (I don't have a problem with "combat being on a grid" - I prefer it!) and I thought 5e looked like rear end, never bothered to play it. I played a couple of seasons in this crazy 10 year long 4E game, and I'm sorry but the combat was just tedious, took too long and had too much crap to keep track of. That mess of status modifiers definitely belonged in a videogame. Tbh I've never liked the combat systems of any system I've played, I dislike the combat system in wod as well. My ideal would be someone building or iterating on the combat in Gloomhaven and making a roleplaying system around it.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:11
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Now I'm mentally weighing what VtM vampire clan would be Mila Kunis' favorite. I could see Gangrel. e- Gloomhaven is getting an RPG soon btw.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:40
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One thing that surprised me recently was the attachment to 3e. An older player I spoke to elsewhere nearly got offended when I pointed out that “rolling a Fortitude save” has not been an official part of D&D for more than a decade (in 5e it’s a Constitution save, in 4e Fortitude was not rolled) and in fact is pretty much a blip in D&D history by now. And Pathfinder 2e looks like 4e but plays a lot more like 3e with an attempt at reducing rules mastery that in fact has made rules mastery even more intense, just more specific; and went full Battlefield 2042 on character options. Oh and re Purple: Don’t forget that the Reliable trait was a thing.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:51
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hyphz posted:went full Battlefield 2042 on character options. beg pardon?
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Dec 22, 2022 05:12
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Imo PF2e felt almost nothing like 4e to me. Itemization felt like the primary way to build your character a lot of the time and 4e let me ignore that except in broad strokes very easily. Maybe I didn't sit with it enough though.
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Dec 22, 2022 05:26
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hyphz posted:One thing that surprised me recently was the attachment to 3e. Yeah that’s what I’m talking about. Nobody actually PLAYS 3.5 but the 3.5 grogs are still out there, they just assimilated with either the OSR or 5e crowds S.J. posted:Imo PF2e felt almost nothing like 4e to me. Itemization felt like the primary way to build your character a lot of the time and 4e let me ignore that except in broad strokes very easily. Maybe I didn't sit with it enough though. I think this is backwards in that 4e had way more impactful and build-defining items than PF2, but they’re still not remotely the same system. PF2 is much closer to a Paizo take on 5e with all that entails in terms of everything-is-feats
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Dec 22, 2022 05:27
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Mister Olympus posted:Yeah that’s what I’m talking about. Nobody actually PLAYS 3.5 but the 3.5 grogs are still out there, they just assimilated with either the OSR or 5e crowds 4e certainly had particular builds that required particular items, but itemization wasn't required to build any particular class. To be more specific, you had broad strokes kinds of itemization (like sword and board fighter) but it didn't require you to have a particular sword or shield unless you really wanted to get into the weeds of it. There were a wide variety of options for each of the kinds of weapons you could take and PF2e really just felt like your entire character build was semi pre-determined based on what items had the keywords you were looking for. But again, I didn't spend as much time with it, and they're still releasing plenty of content for it, so
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Dec 22, 2022 05:38
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Mister Olympus posted:Yeah that’s what I’m talking about. Nobody actually PLAYS 3.5 but the 3.5 grogs are still out there, they just assimilated with either the OSR or 5e crowds I’m guessing they played with inherent bonuses enough they consider it “default”. I have a lazy habit of saying “4e” when I really mean “4e with the MM3 math, inherent bonuses and my low-effort DtAS hack” so I can sympathize. That sounds like a lot of house rules (because it is), but it’s really just part of “making the math not bullshit” which is why I also just have a little chart of what the optimal to-hit is per level so players just have that instead of paying feat taxes. God a proper 4.5 ed would’ve been great.
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Dec 22, 2022 05:38
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We played with and without inherent bonuses, if anything I'd say it's easier to get into the really crazy item-specific builds in 4e WITH inherent bonuses because you could just spend cash on getting specific rider effects rather than worrying about keeping up with the + bonuses e: Which is a lot to say that building a fighter in PF2e just felt like basically everything I was capable of was thanks to the keywords on my weapon rather than just the qualities of my character abilities. Playing around with magic items is one of my least favorite things in TT RPGs tho, and 4e taught me that if nothing else
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Dec 22, 2022 05:40
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S.J. posted:We played with and without inherent bonuses, if anything I'd say it's easier to get into the really crazy item-specific builds in 4e WITH inherent bonuses because you could just spend cash on getting specific rider effects rather than worrying about keeping up with the + bonuses Exactly. Same reason I love DtAS because then the biggest reason to pick a race (besides fluff) is that sweet racial power. If all the Play a Thri-Keen if…
And/Or Your choice of the Extra Limbs, Segmented Eyes or Cannibalism powers.
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Dec 22, 2022 05:50
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I really do want to just build a 4e ripoff without the skill system/ability scores and a drastically cut down style of itemization. I just don't have the loving energy.
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Dec 22, 2022 05:52
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It'd cut down on both mechanical customization and roleplaying dramatically, but you could just cut the Gordian Knot and run 4e as-is except there are no feats at all and no magic items at all. You'd have to bundle in a few inherent bonus-style rules to make up for enhancement bonuses and expertise feats and so on, and characters on the whole would be much weaker, but that second bit's not really a problem since well-played 4e characters tend to punch above their weight class by default.
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Dec 22, 2022 06:07
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Yeah that wouldn't be a big deal I'd think. You could easily pick through most classes for 4-6 feats that feel necessary and just give those to the characters at specific points if you really felt like it, they're usually very obvious.
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Dec 22, 2022 06:09
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My main worry would actually be for out-of-combat roleplaying, since feats are often the mechanism by which you access stuff like ritual magic, telepathy, frequently-useless-but-thematically-appropriate damage resistances, etc. You'd either have to just write that stuff off along with the potential to build a radiant mafia, or start working out tolerance levels of handing out trinket feats or just handwaving narrative stuff "One Unique Thing" style, and either way you're falling into the trap of actually having to roll up your sleeves and do game design rather than just sweep away some clutter and go for it.
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Dec 22, 2022 06:13
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S.J. posted:I really do want to just build a 4e ripoff without the skill system/ability scores and a drastically cut down style of itemization. I just don't have the loving energy. Oh hey, are we designing Strike! again?
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Dec 22, 2022 06:15
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Jimbozig posted:Oh hey, are we designing Strike! again? Is 2e out yet? 
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Dec 22, 2022 06:29
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CitizenKeen posted:If the essay is already ready… 
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Dec 22, 2022 09:10
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mila kunis posted:drat I seem to have stirred something up haha. I'm not even that big of a hater (I don't have a problem with "combat being on a grid" - I prefer it!) and I thought 5e looked like rear end, never bothered to play it.
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Dec 22, 2022 13:44
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digging up this post from 2020:gradenko_2000 posted:One of the fundamental differences between WoW and D&D is that the latter operates on a model of long-term attrition, whereas the former encapsulates its fight difficulty within individual encounters.
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Dec 22, 2022 13:57
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Splicer posted:The issue is that 4E is absolutely nothing like WoW so saying "They were trying to make it like WoW" implies the player knows nothing about 4E, or knows nothing about WoW, or possibly both. It's like accusing nWoD of trying to the ape the success of Duke Nukem 3D. I knew people irl whose immediate reaction to reading playtest notes for 4e was to draw a WoW comparison, and others who had the same reaction to playing the first time. My theory is these folks just picked WoW as their reference because it was an incredibly popular fantasy videogame at the time. They weren't writing up a 3000 word essay on exactly why, it was an immediate gut reaction. What I think they were actually feeling was that 4e felt like it was built to run on/with a computer. If I'm remembering right, it actually was designed that way, but the tool never materialized cause the person making it died or something? If you want an example of DnD actually cribbing from videogames, in 3.0 the magic weapon/armor system is obviously inspired by Diablo. That was also noted by my groups at the time, and the general reaction was "Thats awesome, I love Diablo!" There are also similarities between Diablo 2's skill trees and 3.X feat trees, but I don't think the release dates line up for them to have copied D2.
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Dec 22, 2022 14:34
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One More Fat Nerd posted:What I think they were actually feeling was that 4e felt like it was built to run on/with a computer. If I'm remembering right, it actually was designed that way, but the tool never materialized cause the person making it died or something? D&D has been trying to develop computerized tools (at the minimum, a computerized character sheet and character creation) since at least AD&D 2e 4e did try to "ramp-up" the experience, but it wasn't the first time that this was attempted - though perhaps it was the first time that the tools actually worked well enough to make it an ideal way of creating and maintaining one's character that being said, I do not think 4e was "built to run on a computer" - the game is completely playable with pen-and-paper, and the designers did not, for example, go with a math model that would have required a computer*; the 4e digital tools were simply more convenient, and a monthly subscription to their online service gave one access to splatbooks without having to pay for the books (sort of like a Game Pass for TRPGs) and yes, tragically, further development of the online tools was cut after the developer killed his family then himself ___ * there are certain things you can do with health/damage models that would benefit from the kind of fine-grained granularity of playing with three-digit or larger numbers, but we don't do that because you'd need a calculator all the time. That 4e didn't is not exactly conclusive proof, but it's a strong indicator
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Dec 22, 2022 14:46
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hyphz posted:Oh and re Purple: Don’t forget that the Reliable trait was a thing. It should absolutely have been on every limited-use ability, if you weren't going to do deeper and more meaningful changes to 4e, though it also still doesn't change how swingy and unreliable 4e combat is. Ferrinus posted:It'd cut down on both mechanical customization and roleplaying dramatically, but you could just cut the Gordian Knot and run 4e as-is except there are no feats at all and no magic items at all. You'd have to bundle in a few inherent bonus-style rules to make up for enhancement bonuses and expertise feats and so on, and characters on the whole would be much weaker, but that second bit's not really a problem since well-played 4e characters tend to punch above their weight class by default. 4e impressed me by somehow having worse feats than 3e. In 3e I could more or less always find a feat that sounded cool or mechanically useful(even if only marginally), in 4e I just looked at the list of feats and regularly couldn't think of anything to pick. It was just such an insanely dull list that very rarely ever gave you interesting new options or changed how your class played. It was like they decided that the "get a +1 to a thing"-type of feats from 3e was what everyone wanted more of.
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Dec 22, 2022 14:57
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Splicer posted:The issue is that 4E is absolutely nothing like WoW so saying "They were trying to make it like WoW" implies the player knows nothing about 4E, or knows nothing about WoW, or possibly both. It's like accusing nWoD of trying to the ape the success of Duke Nukem 3D. I think the most defensible similarity between 4E and WoW is that 4E has role division (and that role division actually functions and preserves everyone's niche pretty well) which is an absolutely wild thing to complain about. e: beaten, at that
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Dec 22, 2022 15:02
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PurpleXVI posted:4e impressed me by somehow having worse feats than 3e. I tend to agree. The whole rest of 4e's character design was so good that feats were in a position that they couldn't offer anything significant, while at the same time they couldn't let feats go as a concept, so they ended up in this limbo where they're adding very marginal bonuses even though they still exist and still have to be picked from. The Essentials books were especially bad about this, because the characters were streamlined into locked progression paths where everything was preselected for you (as in 3e)... EXCEPT FEATS!!!
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Dec 22, 2022 15:06
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