4e was good because it had design goals and achieved them. If those design goals aren't things you want out of a TTRPG then of course you're not going to enjoy it, but 4e was a good well-balanced tactical grid based high fantasy wargame. a lot of people who played it weren't looking for that, though, which is why it has the reputation that it has.

>>97778542
It was pretty shit in 2007, was a great game by 2009. Essentials sucked as a replacement.

>>97778590
*2008, typo.

>>97778542
Sucks, really.

>>97778542
Aight let me see what I can remember from that time. First of all I wanna say I largely agree with >>97778565 that 4e has goals, met those goals, and is good for it.

In the later 3.5 days you could see them beginning to test subsystems and parts of what would become 4e. The Star Wars d20 system which came out in the late 3.5 days had what amounted to healing surges and bloodied. The Book of Nine Swords aka Book of Weeaboo Fightan' Magic was a preview of more Power Use oriented martial classes. The D&D Miniatures Combat Game and their overall push towards use of minis and grids presaged 4e, etc.

Basically what happened is that 4e was an attempt to fix every perceived problem with 3e. But sometimes you forget that things you may perceive as problems are in fact what gives something its character.

>Problem: "Why does the wizard get a whole suite of spells to use while the fighter just runs in and hits stuff?"
Solution: OK now your fighter has a half dozen special attacks, which use the same underlying system as the wizard's spells. Some of these are powerful and can't be used repeatedly. Some of these are niche fillers for special situations.

You can see what they were going for, but the immediate response was
>They changed it, now it sucks!
and that is in part because in order to solve a lot of the "problems" with 3.x they introduced new problems which they hadn't foreseen. Like how now, wizards and fighters worked off the same underlying rules for spells and powers, so "magic" didn't feel like it was "magic" and simultaneously "swinging a sword real good" became a power with a cooldown. A lot of the new systems in 4e were more open about the fact they wre a game, and people hated that. We called it WoW Edition, because once the fighter clicks Bladestorm he can't do it again until he has a nice cup of tea and a sit down.

>>97779793
I was one of the people who said
>They changed it, now it sucks!
but I have since come around to 4e *in the right circumstances*

Part of the problem is that people use D&D as a generic system when it really isn't one. Both 3e and 5e are better as generic systems than 4e, so anyone who was running a game that isn't REALLY what D&D is suited for, was immediately shit out of luck. It was a lot harder to refluff and rearrange 4e because its systems work together for a specific end - somewhat balanced high-fantasy high-power combat with weird shit and defined roles.

At the same time, 4e was a lot more on-rails. There was less opportunity to pick weird shit out of a bunch of books and feel creative. Partly that was because as a new system it didn't HAVE all those extra books yet and partly that was because the system is a lot more on-rails with your "builds" than 3e was.

Another issue 4e had, but one that I think gets overhyped nowadays, is that it was ACTUALLY built for digital play to some extent but the digital implementation never happened. They put all their eggs in one basket, the single programmer who was making their digital tabletop system's internal gubbins murder-suicided himself and his family and they never got his code to work without him. However, this was 2007 and I do not think the digital tabletop would ever have worked WELL. Look at today - hasbro have yet to make a good digital tabletop, and most digital tabletop even for more crunchy RPGs still need you to just know what to do rather than automagically following all the rules for you. A digital 4e tabletop would've been resistant to any homebrew or changes, which would also retroactively make it worse when they fixed abunch of 4e's number problems

and oh yeah that was a real problem

>>97779805
4e had numbers issues. Not like 3e had number issues. When 3e had number issues they were limited to a single part of the game. The Tome of Magic Truenamer class was infamously busted because they tried to base the whole spell system for that class on the skill system. Great idea but terrible execution, like Final Fantasy 2's level-less advancement system. I'm glad someone did it and fucked it up so we could see what not to do next time.

So 4e was the first edition where they sat down and said "numbers should work like this" on a large scale, rather than individually for parts of the system. 3.x had numbers being controlled in some places - like the BAB and save growth for each class being on one of a few tracks - but the way 3e let you multiclass meant characters were ALL OVER THE PLACE. 4e put all the numbers on rails and said "Your stat growth is based on your overall level, not your level within an individual class, because you do not actually change class when you multiclass". And with that control over the numbers they put a lot more care into making sure monster statblocks were more coherently scaled with level and monster role...

and they got the scaling all wrong. The playerbase worked this out and when the 4e Monster Manual 3 came out they fixed the monster scaling, such that things weren't quite so HP Sponge-y, and the players crafted unofficial How 2 Fix It guides for updating old monster statblocks to MM3 standard.

That's how I remember it. 4e came out and it was wildly different, when we were all used to 3rd ed making new stuff happen within the 3.x framework. 3.x had experimented hard with weird classes, new stuff, books like the 9 swords, tome of magic, magic of incarnum. 4e threw it all out and said "we vidya now" and people hated it.

>>97778565
>high fantasy wargame
4e D&D is a fucking terrible war game.
Thing is that 4e wasn't setting out to be a war game. It was setting out to be a combat-heavy roleplaying game. It was setting out to be dungeons and dragons.

And if you want to engage with the core concept of Dungeons and Dragons, that you are heroes fighting monsters? 4th edition is fucking great at it.

You are correct though. 4th edition makes it really clear - you need to play it on a grid. However, every edition of D&D is OBJECTIVELY better when you play it on a grid so this shouldn't be a problem.

>>97778542
It's fantastic to do what it was designed for, but it's pretty rigid in that if you try to use it to do something else you are going to have a bad time. Unfortunately Dnd 3.5 and 5th always had the undeserved reputation of "do everything systems" in that people used them to so things they weren't designed for. DnD 4e completely removed this pretence, and the disconnect caused a gigantic backlash.

If you enjoy crunchy tactical games where your heroes fight monsters with a balanced system, defined roles and need to collaborate and combo with each others it's a fantastic system. I wouldn't use it for anything else however.

>>97779849
Is combat heaviness REALLY D&D? the original editions of the game were deadly, and players would be rewarded for ingenuity, leveling up from the loot rather than the killing of monsters. I would argue 4e is more of what D&D should not be striving to be, superheroes with powerful native abilities not afforded through magic items.

>>97779822
Not OP, but thanks.

>>97780412
>Is combat heaviness REALLY D&D
Yes. Like 60% of the rules are for combat.

>>97780412
All classes are combat capable and more then three quarters of all classes' abilities are devoted to killing things, some having even more or literally nothing that is not combat focused.

>>97780495
>>97780506
Yeah the later editions, I was talking about the game's roots.

>>97780569
That is also true of the game's roots.

>>97780569
AD&D is 95% dungeon delving. All characters' skillsets are based around combat or combat-adjacent things like healing, disarming traps or stealth.

>>97778542
I have a load of 4e books moldering in my back room, since it was the first rpg I ever bought.

Basically, it's shit.
Takes too long to do anything, and doesn't even really resemble Dungeons and Dragons, for good OR ill.

And that includes after they rebalanced the creatures in MM2.

>>97778542
Basically this >>97778565
4e leaned hard into 'go into dungeon and fight a bunch of monsters', and largely does a good job of that. But a lot of people don't use grids, only want to have one combat encounter per day, or otherwise dislike that, and so 4e simply isn't the game for them.

One other factor I'd add is that if you have players who are unfamiliar with the system or are the sort who struggle with basic math, the combat can become incredibly slow. A lot of complaints stem from the fact that there isn't a dumbed-down tutorial class that just gets to roll to attack every round.
In my experience, you do need players who are familiar with their character's abilities and paying attention during other people's turns in order to run combat at a reasonable pace. Even then I still wouldn't describe it as fast combat, but it suffers the most if you have players who aren't on board.

4e was very... gamist? Why does your character have all these abilities? Because it is a game. Why do your abilities churn ever upward in power and you literally lose access to the weaker ones? Because it is a game. And because it is a game, the list of abilities that everyone has are roughly equivalent (not always balanced the best, but that was the intent) ones. Why does the fighter only get to do that cool move once a day? Well why does the wizard only get to do that cool spell once a day? Because those two things are the same kind of ability and only get used once per day, silly.
This rubbed a lot of people the wrong way on a conceptual level. Didn't matter if it was implemented well or not, it's an entirely different presentation from previous editions.

>>97780588
>combat-adjacent things like healing, disarming traps or stealth
uhhhh

>>97780938
Why would you want to heal? Because you just had combat.

Why would you want to stealth? To avoid combat.

Why would you want to disarm traps? To avoid damage that will make you fight worse.

All of those things are combat adjacent. Nobody was running AD&D campaigns RPing as the Red Cross providing healing to villages afflicted by disease. They had healing to recover from fights.

>>97778542
Just don't lump it in with D&D and it's an okay system for autistic MMORPG feels mixed with a hyper-condensed wargaming angle, think Kill Team

>>97778542
I've only played 5e but that 4e comic that gets posted here sometimes is great.

>>97781310
>Why would you want to heal?
because you are damaged, many ways for that to happen
>Why would you want to stealth? To avoid combat.
yeah, reread what you said as many times as you need, anon
>Why would you want to disarm traps? To avoid damage
that you would need to heal from, yes, traps
>combat adjacent
taking a piss is combat adjacent

>>97782334
The one great thing about 4e, and it got unceremoniously canned.

>>97782356
>because you are damaged, many ways for that to happen
95% of the time this will be combat. harmful weather and traps (which are combat adjacent) are basically the only other things that will harm adventurers. nobody is simulating tripping and spraining your ankle in everyday life.
>yeah, reread what you said as many times as you need, anon
"avoiding combat" is in fact combat adjacent. Stealth is an ability that exists entirely to bypass combat encounters. In a campaign with no need to avoid a combat encounter, there is no need for stealth.
>that you would need to heal from, yes, traps
traps are made to aid combat, to soften up enemies or kill them outright. They are a weapon; a form of corraling or inflicting damage on intruders so your forces can deal with them most effectively or just get rid of them

>>97778542
A bit too gamist, the revised monster math fixed a lot of its initial problems (too little damage across the board). I think minions could've been handled better, say by giving them collective HP as a group or having an HP value and dropping to 1 if they don't get one-shotted.

At the same time its presentation, consistency, and clarity in the rules is unparalleled, and should've set the standard for TTRPGs going forward. Anyone who compares it to a videogame has no fucking idea what they're talking about. If it's so much like a videogame, where's the rules-accurate 4e videogame?

>>97782500
>95% of the time this will be combat
Not in old editions of D&D, combat is notoriously lethal for players. Experience is earned from treasure. Having to get out of a dungeon treasure in hand without dying is a balance act.
>"avoiding combat" is in fact combat adjacent
so is taking a piss >>97781710
>traps are made to aid combat
There's a few things to note about old D&D. Combat is deadly, it's preferable to avoid it. Things like traps can damage a valuable resource, health. Whether engaging in combat or not, having low health is a risk, and risk gets in the way of the true goal, to leave with treasure.

>>97782531
>If it's so much like a videogame, where's the rules-accurate 4e videogame?
There was a murder suicide.

>>97782558
NTA, but it was a war game hacked to find treasure in a diminishing resources game to get better war game stats. Yes, it was pretty much all about combat. The prostitutes table didn't get anywhere near the space that combat matrices, weapons, and armor did, and you carried holy water around as a replacement for grenades, not for religious ceremonies. Acid isn't there for alchemy, but to also be ammunition, especially against trolls and other regenerating monsters.

War Game Supplement is gonna War Game.

>>97782688
Are you familiar with AD&D ?

>>97782558
Do you find that every AD&D party consists of nothing but magic-users and thieves? Since combat is so rare and all.

>>97782688
>>97782777
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdH1Hp3ueck?t=359

>Fourth edition, this one right here is probably one of the best miniature tactical combat games ever made. Uh, the problem is, uh, you know, D&D is more than just tactical combat, uh, to chagrin of the combat fans, but uh, this is a really really good edition of Dungeons and Dragons, uh, if it wasn't Dungeons and Dragons.

This about sums it up. Uh's and all.

>>97782441
fuck I forgot about Fell's Five
yeah, we agreed that thing was great even when we were in full on "dunk on 4e, call its players 4rries" mode

>>97778542
It wasn't bad. It just wasn't for me.

>>97778542
It was a perfectly serviceable system that made the mistake of having D&D on the name and coming off the heels of 3.5. If it had been called 'Dungeon Invader' or something like that nobody wouldve had an issue with it

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>>97778565
>good because it had design goals and achieved them
A pity no one informed the graphic designers that
>4e was a good well-balanced tactical grid based high fantasy wargame
because the cover shows they clearly had different goals to making a wargame

>>97778542
Analog video game that contrarians pretend was good because it was unpopular but don't actually play.

>>97778542
My understanding is it would've been a better videogame than ttrpg

>>97778542
Give it a try, anon!
Just remember to cut MM1 monster's health by half

>>97782531
Isn't D&D Online 4e-based?

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>>97780412
At my table where I play GAMES, we are very combat focused because none of us are faggy theater kids trying to be shitty actors at a community play. We want to play a game with rules, we don't want to engage in group storytelling bullshit

>>97786370
DDO is 3.5, Neverwinter is 4e.

I loved it. 1 and 4 are my favorite editions

4e was fantastic for certain groups. Especially because it stated outright that these books are for the combat stuff, the RP side is up to how you want to play. You don't need us to tell you how to write a story you dumb shits, that's the GMs job. The default world setting is also my favorite one from any edition, and Points of Light is fun.

That all said, the best thing about 4e came after it ended. 4e abilities are the best way to make benefits, magic items, rewards, and other such things for 5e games. Giving 5e characters a level of a 4e character as a reward for completing major quests feels awesome as a player.

4E is my favourite D&D edition next to BECMI *. I like a lot of the ideas it had going, and wished it had gone further with them.
I would have prefered they had called Powers something like Techniques and the Power Sources would have been Themes (Now what should the 4E Themes be called then?).
Putting all the class powers right after the class was a mistake IMO. It would have been better if that had come in a separate chapter.


*(I really should write down all the rule ideas I have in my head for that 4E X BECMI mix)

4e tried to get rid of caster supremacy and for that alone, it should be lauded.

And this is coming from someone who's fave class is wizzy. I love my wizards but I hate obviating 3 class roles at the table. I just made the rogue, fighter and bard useless, oh yaaay. Yay. This is so fun, guys. No, it really is.

>>97787738
I always get the impression WotC shouldn't have completely abandoned 4e, and should have just made a sideline of tactical skirmish games using the system. Call it D&D Tactics

>>97789061
There was something similar for it but it was 3.x. I think it was Chainmail? It was ok. It's had a little push for about two years, maybe three, I forget, but i don't think it sold well. I still have some of the minis

>>97789101
The Miniatures Handbook had some good stuff for 3.5

>>97789310
I think I have that! It's been in storage so long that I have forgot what I have and don't have. Kinda sad really.

Combat is the only thing that really needs dedicated and balanced rules in the end, as well as abilities that change how you engage with or bypass combat. All of the "broken" spells in 3rd and 5th are the ones that can just end a fight outright, because that's the only balance that genuinely matters in the end. All you need for social encounters is a set of guidelines for rolls and a GM who's interacted with a human being besides his parents frequently.

If you need your hand held to play-act out the roleplay with your friends you're the exact kind of blithering retard that 5e was made for.

>>97787607
>Giving 5e characters a level of a 4e character as a reward for completing major quests feels awesome as a player.

Huh?

>>97791659
Exactly what I said. Home brew world but essentially magic is just breaking back into the setting. When the players finish a big feat like save the mayor or plunge a tomb they find a magic mcguffin that let's them take a level in a 4e class. So they would be a Level 4 Fighter in 5th, and have say, 2 levels of 4e warlord. They are still level 4 for game purposes, but now they have genuine power along with it.

>>97789310
War Hulk is such a cool class, it always annoyed me how a massive monster could only hit one target at a time.

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I have been running and playing 4e since 2008. I ran a session of 4e last week and will be doing so again soon.

One thing I really like about 4e is the ability to challenge tactically savvy players with enemy group synergies.

For example, let us consider an encounter against a group of xivort darters (level 1 artilleries) who have tamed a bunch of thornskin frogs (level 1 brutes) and wolf packmates (level 1 minion skirmishers).

http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster5029
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster4879
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster4614

The xivort darters can daze PCs, which is annoying enough. However, the thornskin frogs can move in to deal heavy damage and knock PCs prone. Standing from prone takes a move action, and a dazed creature can take only one action on their turn, so a dazed PC who wants to use a standard action will have to settle for staying prone. Unfortunately, the wolf packmates can then move in to deal extra damage to the prone PCs. Simple but nasty enemy synergy.

How about a positioning challenge for PCs of a slightly higher level? Let us say a couple of centurions of the Iron Circle (level 6 soldiers) have rounded up several dwarf warriors (level 1 minion artilleries) and a couple of extremist wilden ancients (level 4 artilleries [leader]) to stir up trouble.

http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster6025
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster115713
http://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster5027

The Iron Circle centurions are highly accurate against PCs with no other adjacent PCs... but if the PCs cluster up, then they might just be smacked by nasty area attacks from the wilden ancients, who can also buff the centurions. Worse, the dwarf warriors are many in number, and any PC not in cover is liable to be pincushioned by the extra damage from the crossbow attacks.

I like how 4e is a 30-level game, yet even lower-level encounters can have a surprising amount of tactical depth just with some good enemy selection, to say nothing of terrain.

>>97778565
>4e was good
Liar liar pants on fire.

>>97778542
It's a non-RPG that's mechanically shallow and narratively nonsensical. It could have made a cool boardgame in the style of Descent or Imperial Assault except with build-your-own-hero customization, but it was made by actual retards for an audience that never existed, so the entire effort was wasted.

It also insisted on irrevocably fucking up multiple settings in order to insert itself, which just makes it worse.

>>97780495
>le 60% of rules are combat xD
This was always a retarded argument. This is because combat requires and can handle structured arbitration, which is simply not true for most other things. It is and never was indicative of intent or the nature of anything.

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I am a great fan of the D&D 4e fighter due to it having actual crowd control and defender-type abilities. Here is a sample turn for a 4e fighter at level 7:

• Minor Action: Activate Rain of Steel, acquiring an automatic damage stance until the end of the encounter. 1[W] is the weapon's base damage, plus any enhancement bonus from a magic weapon, and other miscellaneous bonuses.
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=power1436

• Move Action Minor Action: Use Kirre's Roar, marking each enemy within 3 squares and gaining Dexterity modifier as resistance to all damage until the end of the fighter's next turn.
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=power12850
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=glossary139

• Standard Action: Charge an enemy, with greater accuracy than normal thanks to Fighter Weapon Talent, marking that enemy with Combat Challenge.
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=glossary139

• Action Point, Standard Action: Come and Get It, pulling enemies within 3 squares, dealing damage to them, and marking them with Combat Challenge as well.
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=glossary177
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=power2177

• The fighter now has damage resistance, several enemies marked, and a whole cluster of enemies adjacent. Rain of Steel deals automatic damage to those enemies, they have a hard time moving away due to Combat Superiority and the fighter's Agile Superiority feat (opportunity actions in 4e are 1/turn, not 1/round, and are completely separate from immediate actions), and even shifting away will trigger an immediate interrupt melee basic attack from the fighter's Combat Challenge. Similarly, if one of those enemies tries to attack one of the fighter's allies, Combat Challenge will likewise go off and give the fighter an immediate interrupt melee basic attack against that foe.
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=class3
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=feat1733
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=glossary119
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=glossary335

This is what a 4e fighter can do at level 7, and this is a 30-level game.

>>97792158
I find a lot of things borrowed from 4e and brought into 5e works wonders. Like minions and the bloodied condition.

>>97778565
>and achieved them
4e didn't have a functional monster manual for years, and skill challenges were redesigned 3 times before the design team just gave up.

>>97793394
>4e didn't have a functional monster manual for years
3aboo agitiprop. It had a functioning MM outside of Brutes being HP sponges at Paragon level. You don't wanna try to cheerleader effect thst with the shit in 3.5 or 5e.

>>97780794
>4e leaned hard into 'go into dungeon and fight a bunch of monsters'
Nah. It leaned into "go into an arena with a dungeon backdrop and fight three pro wrestling matches with a mostly predetermined outcome".

>>97794814
That literally is just D&D.

>>97794819
it isn't

>>97794814
Skill issue on your part

>>97795187
The kayfabe thing is in fact a proeminent aspect of the D&D social contract. If the fight wasn't winnable or resolvable in some way then it shouldn't be here.

>>97792390
All games need structure
If you're just talking out random shit without rules you arent playing a roleplaying GAME, you're just doing improv.

>>97796283
It was important to the story for the villain to flee, get over it.

>>97780412
Ironically, 4e was still pretty deadly. We had more party wipes in 4e than 3.PF mainly because 3.PF had busted spellcaster classes where unless you were intentionally crippling yourself, the only way you were ever losing is if the GM basically decided "fuck it, you all die no save." Even widely touted "caster counters" usually had some way of bypassing or ignoring it. Though it was pretty worth it for the time the GM got mad that were made a spellcaster party again and sicced a bunch of golems on us. We just dropped a few Grease patches and walked away because none of them could beat the Grease DC.

>>97780922
I immediately wrote this game off the second I heard some 4rry say "I cast Melee Basic Attack." I've never wanted to strangle someone so badly in my fucking life.

>>97796545
As opposed to us hearing "I cast Whine About Shit That Never Happened On /tg/"?

>>97796559
Someone theoretically could've said they were going to use a Melee Basic attack that way. Why this would be grounds for strangulation, I couldn't tell you, I don't play 3.5 anymore.

>>97796283
But what about all those megadungeons with traps that just fucking kill you no save that the OSRfags jerk it to?

>>97778565
Some goals are inherently, objectively bad, and some people have better taste than others.

>>97779793
Why should there be an arbitrary division between using magic to deal damage and using a sword to deal damage? Or any other power source?

>>97780922
oh no, the game is gamist! not game mechanics in my fucking game! I might have to make decisions that actually affect things!

>>97782718
Are you?

>>97787014
Try diablo, loser.

>>97788986
What's wrong with that? Those classes are just for hazing the new guys anyway. Since there are only wizards, clerics, and druids in the party, it doesn't matter if the other classes are irrelevant.

>>97792390
Yes it is.

>>97796283
Why are we playing if we can't lose?

>>97797095
That Guy detected.

>>97797126
It's does when my friends are playing the classes I'm eliminating the need for.

File: macho-maam-tranny-savage.png (1.36 MB, 1009x757)

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>>97797123
You're a gay faggot and will never be a woman

>>97796545
If that's your breaking point you've lived a genuinely sheltered life. I genuinely wish hardship upon you.

>>97778542
I like the Essentials

>>97796501
>if the fight wasn't winnable or resolvable in some way
sounds like it got resolved

>>97789061
My opinion has always been that around 4E there should have been 2 version of D&D: Basic D&D (the 4 we knew, or simplified a bit) and a new version of Advanced D&D (I imagine a more well balanced and designed 3'rd edition).

>>97799825
I figured there would be Basic, (like 5e) Advanced (like 5.5e) and Legacy (3.5e) so they could continue to profit off what exists while striving forward.

>>97778542
I like it because its less vibes based. But I'm not really the audience for rpgs because that freeform stuff really annoys me. I like rigid rules

>>97797168
Ironic.

>>97797197
Like I said, you don't let your friends play the fake classes.

>>97800471
Tiresome rhetoric.

>>97800471
How about not having fake classes? If you want to haze the new guys just haze them like a normal person. Why dedicate 1/3rd of the book to intentionally shit content?

>>97800688
Critical thinking isn't in his wheelhouse obvs

>>97800471
They're all fake classes faggot do you think wizards are real?

>>97800799
>>97800688
>>97800638
Clueless.

>>97800925
Do you think wizards are real?

>>97800925
>Doubles down on being a moron
Classic

>>97800948
I do think wizards are real

>>97800948
>>97801271
Clueless.

>>97801377
>Triples down on being a moron
Now you're just handing me Ws

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>>97778542
>What does /tg/ think of the system?
It is actually my favorite edition of D&D. It is also very obvious it was the only edition where actual deep design concepting was used while all of the other editions are slapdash "I dunno, uh, do this?" levels of BS for a lot of it.

>>97801405
Clueless.

>>97802228
Watch out the wizards might get you

>>97778542
The main problems are like this
>3.5fags spent years demanding a balanced game where casters don't outshine martials, every class had something cool to do, and that there was less chance for stupid misreadings of rules. So WotC tried to make exactly that (and pretty much did)
>3.5fags were upset that by asking for a completely different game that they got a new edition of D&D that wasn't exactly like the edition they already played
>Many were willing to give it a try anyways, but WotC fucked up the Monster Manual math with the very first book and nearly everything in there had way more HP than it was supposed to.
>People who played in good faith and didn't autistically scrutinize the stat blocks were treated to a game that worked great at first, until fights started to drag on way too long, which meant spamming your at-will powers over and over after using up encounters and dailies to get through even the "easiest" fights.
>This made the game feel decidedly Not Fun, which gave people cause to find even more stuff to bitch about.
>By the time they fixed it up and also released many new books with lots of 4e's best material in them, most people were already turned off and running for that Pathfinder game that everyone was saying was exactly like 3.5 but better, like they wanted

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>>97804215

>way more HP

A common misconception. HP did not actually change that much between the Monster Manual 1 and the Monster Manual 3, aside from the quintuple HP multiplier on solos going down to a quadruple modifier by the Monster Manual 2.

You can check this for yourself by comparing monsters from the Monster Manual 1 and the (admittedly somewhat milquetoast and lazily written) Monster Vault. In the great, great bulk of cases, hit points do not actually change.

What did change was many other facets of monster math:
• As of the Monster Manual 2, solo hit points were quadruple, not quintuple.
• As of the Monster Manual 2, elites and solos did not receive improved defenses.
• As of the Monster Manual 3, damage values were tremendously revised. This is the really, really big one. It is a minor difference at level 1, and an enormous gap by later levels.
• As of the Monster Manual 3, the weird and janky attack modifiers for brutes (e.g. level + 3 vs. AC), controllers (e.g. level + 4 vs. non-AC defenses), and soldiers (e.g. level + 7 vs. AC) were standardized. Now, attack bonuses are simply level + 5 vs. AC or level + 3 vs. non-AC defenses, though artilleries' ranged attacks instead get to be level + 7 vs. AC or level + 5 vs. non-AC defenses.
• In a gradual progression from the Monster Manual 2 to the Monster Manual 3, monster design simply became... better overall. Monsters became better at performing their stated combat roles. It is hard to explain, but their design grew significantly more elegant overall, in a very satisfying way.

Here is an example of terrible Monster Manual 1 design:
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster1156

Contrast this with the Iron Circle centurion, a level 6 standard soldier built to Monster Manual 3 design guidelines:
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=monster6025

The Iron Circle centurion can actually, meaningfully draw attacks away from allies, while also encouraging PCs to group up (and thus become more susceptible to AoE).

>they fixed it by MM3
Did they ever publish errata'd versions of classic monster like all the chromatic dragons? Because an ancient red dragon does fuck-all damage as published.

>>97778542
4e was the beginning of everything bad that happened to D&D more broadly. The shift of setting and thematic design being the product of a clique of retarded faggots who clearly viewed the setting as a cartoon, rather than reality. The Dragonborn being so prominent were PRECISELY the problem and I pointed it out at the time. Everyone said I was retarded but no, I was right.

In the long run, the result of all of this has been that tranny freakshit. 4e was where it started and everyone who hated it at the time was right, even if they could not place why.

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>>97805300

The Monster Vault contains updates for some of the Monster Manual 1 dragons. Even then, I do not think they ever got solo design quite right.

You can see attempts at experimenting with solo design all the way to 2013, such as in Living Forgotten Realms. Have a look at the Maroon Prince, a solo brute, over in these two adventures, for example:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/ABER0401LFR.zip
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/ABER0403LFR.zip

Or the doom hag, a solo soldier, in this adventure:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/MYTH0602LFR.zip

>>97804741
Let's not forget how a lot of solos got fixed to actuallly do something against being stunlocked and have what became legendary actions and legendary resistance in 5e, in general being much better encounters against a single enemy.

>>97805476
Thanks Edna. This looks like a complete nightmare to run and to design for, with five sets of leveled stat blocks depending on average party level for every single encounter.
>You can see attempts at experimenting with solo design all the way to 2013
So they didn't even get done with their experiments when 4e was already dead and buried.

>>97796283
Wow you're a fucking retard aren't you
>>97796748
Go ahead and name one particular example, I eagerly await

>>97805881
I don't pretend to have played them myself, so I'll give you that off the hop, but I've heard OSRfags (or people who identify as such) mentioned Tomb of Horrors and Tomb of Annihilation as a few examples. They came up, as I recall, in the context of how D&D used to be a real game where you had to think and nobody was guaranteed a win and that's how the hobby was in good old Gary's day and should be today but WotC MCU'd it up.

I eagerly await whatever gotcha you've got prepared to "prove me wrong."

>>97805721
Looks pretty easy to me.

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>>97805699

Yes, that is true. As I said, though, they never quite got it right, and experimented with more and more solo designs all the way to 2013 via Living Forgotten Realms.

>>97805721

>This looks like a complete nightmare to run and to design for, with five sets of leveled stat blocks depending on average party level for every single encounter.
I will give them credit for being thorough about making adventures accessible to all levels of play throughout a single tier.

I have DMed and played through several Living Forgotten Realms adventures. Many of them are rather entertaining and have novel encounter setups. One whose combats I particularly like is this:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/MYTH0603LFR.zip

>So they didn't even get done with their experiments when 4e was already dead and buried.
Yes, standard enemies are easy enough to design. Elites are tougher, but still not so bad. It is solos that are really, really hard to properly write.

I have both DMed and played against the Maroon Prince on multiple occasions. He is certainly much stronger than the vast, vast bulk of solo designs outside of Living Forgotten Realms, though his effect removal mechanic can be frustrating.

>>97787738
I am the opposite on keeping powers in a separate chapter. Having the powers right there lets players read them over, compare them to the class features, and then figure out how they wanted to play the class.

>>97806463
It really comes down to whether you consider a game manual something to be read, or something to be referenced.

>>97806909
No not really. They are a lot easier to find and reference being in the classes part. Having them in their own part works if there are powers that a lot of different classes can take, like spells in other editions, which is not the case.

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>>97805476
>>97805721
>>97806220

Correction: Living Forgotten Realms ran up to 2014, not 2013.

Yes, they were really trying to push the limits of 4e even right before 5e's release.

https://livingforgottenrealms.com/

>>97793482
>agitiprop
mentally ill

>>97807044
Thank you for the archive anon

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>>97809553

You are welcome.

I really do think that Living Forgotten Realms, or at least, many of its later adventures (most of what can be seen in this page), is 4e at its best. Living Forgotten Realms adventures and encounters were late-stage design, where the writers knew what they were actually doing.

>>97796539
To any casual reader this is unfiltered bullshit, FYI

>>97810035
No it's not.

>>97778542
There's a reason there's like 5 different games that have built off what it did. Lancer and Icon, Strike!, Draw Steel, Gamma World 7e, Gubat Banwa, plus a few more in the works like Orcus and TrueSilver.

It's good for what it is, it's just not D&D.
In fact, I would say it's slightly hurt by trying to be D&D and clinging to sacred cows that didn't service it instead of fully committing to the new genre it was creating, it's like if the first PBTA was Dungeon World.

But it's definitely still solidly worth playing if you like the style of game. Plus it's like 20 years old so any design problems it does have the community has hammered out fixes for.

>>97812072
>it's like 20 years old
Man wtf

>>97812561
It got released in 2008 so it's 18 years old.

>>97812072
>Plus it's like 20 years old so any design problems it does have the community has hammered out fixes for.
Show me the fixed ancient red dragon stat block that doesn't take 10 rounds for either side to win.

>>97813561
Check the essentials line

>>97813561
There are multiple possible fixes for pre MM3 monsters, depending hlon how swingy and fast you like encounters. Even the most basic "halve the hp and double the damage" will solve your specific problem.

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>>97813561

The closest you will ever get to a fixed red dragon is the Maroon Prince from Living Forgotten Realms:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/ABER0401LFR.zip
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/ABER0403LFR.zip

I have both DMed and played against the Maroon Prince on multiple occasions. He is certainly much stronger than the vast, vast bulk of solo designs outside of Living Forgotten Realms, though his effect removal mechanic can be frustrating.

>>97813875

>Even the most basic "halve the hp and double the damage"

I do not find this to be a good idea, because it heavily rewards the "optimize party initiative, alpha-strike all enemies during round #1" routine, which is already heavily incentivized to begin with.

>>97813561
Why is a dragon taking a long time to fight a bad thing?

>>97814295
give them legendary actions and resistances

>>97814295
>I do not find this to be a good idea
As I said it depends a lot on what your party likes, and I agree with it not being the greatest of fixes, it was just the easiest one that solved that anon's gripe.

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Rolled 8, 10, 3, 6 + 10 = 37 (4d12 + 10)

>>97814975
Because the signature breath weapon doing less than 40 damage on average when level 30 PCs have 300 HP or more, and then also needing to recharge, is fucking pathetic.
And because we're playing 4e.

>>97778542
It, like most editions of D&D, shined brightest when played as dudes clearing out dungeons of monsters and traps for loot. It could be argued that it was one of the better editions at that style of play and it was inarguably the most balanced and higher powered version of that kind of play style. It, like every other edition of D&D, doesn't handle anything outside of that play style well and, in fact, is probably the absolute worst edition of D&D outside of that play style.

>>97815848
4E PCs don't have over 300 HP by 30.

>>97815981
I was under the impression 4e used CON mod as part of its HP per level calculation, rather than just the score once. I guess 200 max HP is more realistic for level 30 PCs. And then you have your healing surges.
So 40 damage is still pitiful in proportion.

>>97815848
Okay so you didn't actually answer the question. Why is a long fight against a big scary high level boss bad?

>>97816110
NTA but the problem 4e had with long fights is that most PC options in combat had limited uses and Monsters didn't have that many actions they could do, so if the encounter takes too long it ends up with people spamming basic unlimited actions and the monster repeating itself, which is not that interesting.

>>97816110
Because being slowly whittled down and losing to attrition isn't just scary, it's just soul-crushing.

>>97814295
Considering you obviously know your stuff, is there somewhere in Living Forgotten Realms a star lock for an interesting encounter against a Blue Dragon or something that can be reflavoured as one? I often uses 4e ideas for spicing up the encounters I prepare for my players.

>>97816243
>star lock
Fucking autocorrect. I meant a Statblock.

>>97778565
>x was good because it achieved its bad design
You are truly retarded. An excellent example of the oversocialized man.

I've said it before, but most people are bad at D&D. They have inefficient resource management, poor decision making skills, a bad understanding of the underlying math, and are incapable of judging the actual value of many rules elements. In other editions, you can kind of get away with just showing up to the table to vibe because not even the developers were good at D&D; nobody was paying attention to you flubbing it. But 4e? If you don't know what you're doing as a player, if you don't know what you're doing as DM, and if you don't know what you're doing as a designer for the system, it's extremely obvious that you don't get it and the game doesn't work very well for you if you don't.

>>97816232
Oh ok. Rocks fall you die. Good game everyone.

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>>97816243

Living Forgotten Realms attempted many, many experiments with making solos that were actually worth their XP value. Blue dragons were no exception.

For a heroic-tier blue dragon solo, consider the thundering wind scarab here:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/SPEC0403LFR.zip

For a paragon-tier blue dragon solo, have a look at Sapphiraktar here:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/CALI0402LFR.zip

There are several high-epic-tier dragons here:
https://livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures/EPIC0502LFR.zip

I have actually played through this high-epic-tier adventure and have fought the dragons there. However, I have not played through the other two adventures I have just linked, so I cannot attest to their quality compared to, say, the Maroon Prince (and even he has a very janky and inelegant effect-removal mechanic).

>>97778542
Most of the 4e hate is by people who never played it and by this point have only ever heard hate through the grapevine from other people who also hated it without playing it 18 years ago. They will claim they played it but then when pushed can't actually form any real argument and devolve into spouting the memes. Especially the retards on /tg/ who behave like 4e murdered their parents for no real reason other than being a salty autist.

4e is a good game that was held back by corporate meddling and a faggot named Mike Mearls from becoming an actually great game. Unfortunately it still is a better game than its most obvious children like 13th Age and Draw Steel. Also unfortunately its the only WotC edition that is actually any fun to play.

>>97816362
4e was one of the most noob DM friendly editions of the WorC era, the fuck are you on about?

>>97818303
Thanks a lot

>>97796539
>>97810157
I remember when I played 4e I rolled up a paladin/warlord who by level 12 could give allies something like +14 ac just by standing next to them
4e was not hard, it just filtered buildlets

>>97819387
4e is noob friendly (it is an actual game that bothers teaching you how to play it)

5e and other editions are noob friendly (the game is half designed and you are encouraged to basically just play pretend and call it D&D)

>>97819387
for players

>>97819548
No, for DMs. 4E is extremely DM friendly.

>>97820725
The 4e haters will never admit this. NEVER. 4e is the apocalypse, the beginning of woke along with an emphasis on freakshit, plus WoW advancement assessment adjacent play functions means they can never be unbiased about this edition. It's part of their personality now. D&D is hated here, much less the most divisive edition.

>>97780412
I play it with measuring tapes and minus and it works just fine.

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>>97819390

You are welcome.

>>97819423

I am unfamiliar with this build, and I have seen my share of absolutely wacky paragon-tier builds. What is it?

>>97819387
It was almost impossible to actually just bullshit things together in 4e unless you had a good understanding of what worked and why it worked. You couldn't, say, forget how bloody it worked or just fudge grabbing because it was incredibly important how those actually functioned. The vast majority of tables running other editions basically only remember a handful of core mechanics, and that's okay because the game is basically barely designed past that. and
Not only that, it's really hard to Homebrew for 4e. If you want to make a new bullshit class in other versions, you probably can and nobody will notice too much if it's really good or really bad unless they are good at the game. In 4th edition, it will be incredibly obvious that you don't get how the game works if you just slap dash things that sound good together.

>>97821944
This is not the same thing as being hard to DM.

>>97820725
Then why are wilderness rules non-existent?

>>97824276
What would you need them for that would be so important for the game?

>>97821063
I don't remember the exact build beyond that it was a human paladin/warlord, this was a long time ago and the character builder doesn't exist anymore

>>97825069
To not have D&D be a fucking hallway simulator.

>>97825317
What rules do the travel and exploration rules in the PHB not cover that you would need detailed out?

>>97825722
Go look at 3rd edition and see how much 4th edition pales.

>>97825760
I'm aware the glut of information 3.x provides about various minutia such as this. What I'm asking is how would any of that actually help flesh a 4e game out and help a DM play to its strengths? What is lacking in PHB1, DMG1, the Rules Compendium, or any setting specific other book that would be necessary for a DM to provide for interesting roleplay or exciting encounter building, if not both? Part of what makes 4e so DM friendly is it doesn't concern itself with such things as rote standard, but provides just enough in case the DM wants to make things difficult. What is missing that a DM has to have to make 4e work better for what it does? Not what is missing that makes 4e inferior to your system of choice.

>>97816081
A level 30 Defender will have about 194 hp at 30 while and level 30 Controller will have ~128 hp at that level. At 30 an Ancient Red Dragon is meant to be a standard solo opponent rather than a solo boss fight. Compare it to level 26 characters if you want an Ancient red Dragon to be a boss fight.

>>97778542
If 4e was an automated campaign dungeon crawler type game like gloomhaven, it could have been one of the best board games ever made

>>97825956
There were attempts. Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Dritzz. Dungeon Commander even made an attempt to dust off the old concepts from the Miniature Handbook, create a variety of warbands and go at it with another player using the very same combat mechanics of 4e while collecting treasure and managing army morale. Very fun stuff, but they also were very codified, and didn't scratch the same itch 4e could with how many different characters you could create using just one single class. Marketing outside of the 4e crowd was also slim, so the die hards probably only pulled them out when time for a full night of campaign play was limited.

>>97825183
>the character builder doesn't exist anymore
I am pretty sure it's still somewhere around

>>97826146
Maybe some version of it got saved to some discord or something but the official WOTC tool I had all my characters on is gone

>>97825846
>What is lacking in PHB1, DMG1, the Rules Compendium, or any setting specific other book that would be necessary for a DM to provide for interesting roleplay or exciting encounter building, if not both?
Information on wilderness travel and encounters. 4th edition recommends treating it as an extended skill challenge, which is a boring railroad design. The traditional setting of the Forgotten Realms has a lot of rich history and lore, and 4e doesn't do jack and shit with it. It actually is credited for ruining various settings during its era.

>>97826242
So you actually do not intend to address the real meat of my question, which is how does any of that improve 4e in its function and to its strengths? Is there a specific reason to detail the exact percentage of trees and of what type to forests in the game? Or the number and depth of hills within the area between flatland and mountain ranges? If you want setting specific details, those are covered within the setting books, and DMs can use such description to carry the idea for what PCs will need to prepare for navigating the wild item and/or skill wise. If you're looking for general terrain issues and hazards that might make the navigation itself dangerous, those too are covered within much of the DM's content side of things. If all you seek is the pedantry of charts and boilerplate information as though any of that actually makes roleplay, exploration or combat more interesting on its own merits, then yes, 4e failed you. Though I'd argue that was to great success, as all that information is ultimately useless for a game that treats itself as a game.

As for the settings, beginner level DMs for the game probably don't care about established lore so long as they can make use of the setting to run a fun adventure for their tables. Experienced DMs don't need established settings or lore to make compelling adventurers, so it's not likely they would care either. This is just a problem for fans of the novels/games at best, and lore pedantry at worst.

>>97826157
Oh yeah, that was closed.

>>97826385
>how does any of that improve 4e in its function and to its strengths?
Gee idk anon, maybe the game with robust combat focus should have wilderness encounters. Retard.

>>97826550
Yes, and the parts that play to that strength are covered. So, back to my original question; What is missing that isn't already covered that you feel is important?

>>97778542
This may be of interest to some younger anons. Or not. Some of us had just got back into D&D when 3e came out. 4e felt like it came sooner than many of us even had to time to play 3e. I think people just assume that a new edition comes out and everybody drops their life to play it but work and exams and dating get in the way. So anyhow, I blinked and 4e was out! I couldn't believe it. It felt like I had two sessions in with 3e. The same feeling was felt by a not insignificant amount of us who have been around since AD&D. I didn't hate 4e. I simply didn't have room for it. Though it did kill my enthusiasm for the brand for some time because I felt sort of left behind when I saw it happen so soon. 5e felt like it came at the right time and I'm glad people enjoyed it. It wasn't really my thing and I since moved on to games that fit my old man life better. Only sharing so some other perspective gets out there. There are a lot of people complaining about 4e that never played it. Ii guarantee you. These days though there are a lot of people praising it that also have never played it.

>>97826550
Never once have I played any TTRPG and thought "man I wish I had to fight a handful of worthless fodder every time I wanted to go anywhere"

>>97825069
PFFFF HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>97826621
Sorry about your mental illness anon. You'll get better one day I'm sure.

>>97826651
You have literally no sense of adventure or exploration. These 4rrie threads are always amazing because they always show the monumental blind spots in design and priorities.
This is why you have both 3etards and OSRfags laugh at you.

>>97826835
Sorry your reading comprehension is bad anon. Try reading further than that next time, maybe you'll be able to actually piece the conversation together.

>>97826564
God you're retarded.

>>97826571
cool story actually

>>97826872
So you have nothing actually. Got it. Thanks for playing.

>>97826835
Honestly, I hate how true this is. I was taking a genuine interest in 4e right up until I realize how paltry the system offerings are for, D&D. It's a fine tactical skirmish game, but it's not D&D that's for sure.

>>97826385
I wish 4e had real meat.

>>97820924
I believe it

>>97826242
good post

>>97826882
The reality is no one who enjoys 4e will call it D&D. It's a constant complaint that tying it in with the D&D brand did more damage to it than aided it. It has its strengths, it has its weaknesses. One can either take it as it or leave it.

>>97826889
Such as?

>>97824276
They're not. They're expanded on in the Rules Compendium, a few Dragon Magazine articles, and the Dark Sun material.

>>97826997
nta The Rules Compendium came out in late 2010. Dark Sun campaign book came out in mid to late 2010, if that's even the book it's in. 4e came out in mid 2008. I found half a column in the 4e DMG, that was it. There were a couple f skills or something in the PHB that were good for wilderness.

Having to wait more than two years for a book to be published, or regularly read a magazine in the hopes of stumbling across an article or two, or having to buy a setting book that also came out more than 2 years later, for something that was a core D&D feature is a dumb way of doing things.

There's very little obvious wilderness rules material in the Dark Sun campaign book. There are two pages about travel and survival. Is there more?

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>>97826997
The word wilderness is mentioned 45 times in the guide book, disorganized as fuck, and it asks you to think about outdoor travel is as an extended skill challenge using a few paragraph example on page 79. Fuck off you know nothing retard. 3e has a huge chapter on wilderness. 5e has a chapter and multiple supplements to boot. This image is practically the extent of 4e considerations for it. You got retards like you and the anon above wondering how wilderness is even important, you're fucked.

>>97827465
3e may have had a huge chapter on the wilderness but that doesn't make it good. Nothing in the 3e DMG is good.

>>97826242
4e suffered heavily from trying to force all skill challenges to be "X successes before Y failures" complex skill checks. That works great for things like "Rogue disarms a stand monster grade trap while rest of party is fighting a battle" but doesn't really work for other types of skill challenges. They also messed up initially by scaling X and Y based on the level of the challenge rather than having them fixed based on being minion/standard/elite/solo challenges.

>>97822076
I don't think anybody said it was hard to dm, what people said was that if you didn't know the rules it was obvious that you didn't and that if you did not understand the design behind the game there was no way you could make your own content that was actually competent. Most people ARE bad at D&D, but the game is usually so loosely designed that you don't need to know or correctly apply the rules to appear competent. 4th isn't like that. Don't conflate the ineptitude of the average player or dungeon master with the complexity of the game.

>>97827962
>and that if you did not understand the design behind the game there was no way you could make your own content that was actually competent.
This is true of every game ever printed.

>>97827984
You can kind of get away with it in some other games if you don't really grasp the fundamentals. 3.x is full of mid (not bad) classes that were designed by people who clearly didn't know how to play the game.

>>97827984
9 out of 10 5th edition subclasses disagree with you.

Alright, question for the 4e experts. Are there monster creation guidelines in the books or Dragon Magazine? And rules to calculate CR for them? How about rules for PCs playing dragons?

>>97827465
>disorganized as fuck
I think that describes the basic 4e books pretty well...

>>97828017
>I think that describes the basic 4e books pretty well...
Wasn't a major complaint that they were actually too organized and too clean and that killed the vibe of looking like a magical tome?

>>97828017
M&M3 has the rules for making generic monster numbers, IIRC, although if you go find the electronic tools there is a builder that will do it for you. You could make a PC race that is very dragon-like, but monsters and players do not share the same rules and are not built the same way, so you would need to be writing that from scratch if you don't like dragonborn

>>97826571
I think the timing is important to consider.
3E came out after TSR went under and there had been no new official D&D for years.
5E similarly came out after mainline D&D produced nothing new for years.
With 4E WotC tried to follow up the previous edition with little pause in between. So a lot of people were still deep in their 3.5 activities and might stii have had stuff to try out from the newest books they bought. So 4E didn't move to filla demand, but instead to fill the demand that was already served by 3.5.
And 2008 was the year of the big economic crisis, where people lost their jobs and savings, so even if 4th was relatively affordable, there was another incentive to not move on from 3rd.

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>>97828017
There's also this thing

>>97828017
>And rules to calculate CR for them?
4e doesn't use CR. It uses levels and tiers for its monsters. 1 level 1 standard monster is an equal threat to 1 level 1 PC. 1 level 1 elite is equal to 2 PCs. Etc. When you build a monster you decide its level, tier and role first and that determines the math.

Its an infinitely better system than the dogshit that is CR. CR is a vague useless suggestion and even things within the same CR have wildly different power levels in both 3e and 5e.

>How about rules for PCs playing dragons?
There is an epic destiny for Sorcerers that lets you turn into a dragon but no the core game expects you to play a humanoid. You could also run a druid focused on wildshape as a dragon if you really wanted to since Druids can stay in Wildshape forever.

>>97828027
That was a complaint from the 3.x crowd, yes.
The books were for information, not reading and pretending you played the game.

>>97829831
The XP buy system for making fights was the best thing about the game, from the DM side.
It was easy as hell to put together varied enemies on the fly.

>>97829876
The fact that every enemy also had a specific role and tier made extremely fun and intuitive to make encounters.

>I want the Bandit leader to be a big burly dude able to take more than one PC alone, then I'll put two guys with crossbows giving support and a few small fries around
>So an elite soldier, two artilleries, and some minions.

>>97821944
Skill Issue.

I'd like to read the rule books for 5E or GURPS online. There a place to find that?

>>97821063
what are some of the wackiest builds?

>>97828027
>actually too organized
It's completely disorganized, what the fuck are you smoking.

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>>97829831

>1 level 1 standard monster is an equal threat to 1 level 1 PC. 1 level 1 elite is equal to 2 PCs.
No, a standard monster of level X is, in theory, a vaguely threatening challenge for a PC of level X.

Given even moderate optimization, a party of four level X PCs will completely crush an enemy group of four level X standard monsters.

>>97830710

There are way, way, way too many to meaningfully lay out.

One that works even at low heroic involves a Flensing Weapon, the Yakuza theme, and a cranked-up Intimidate modifier (e.g. Wandering Duelist background, warlock Beguiling Tongue/Wrathful Aspect).

Hit an enemy, even a solo, with your Flensing Weapon. Activate its daily power. Now, use your jacked-up Intimidate modifier and the Yakuza theme's Ruthless Demonstration power to force the enemy to instantly surrender.

https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=weapon1317
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=theme936
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=background29
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=power1299
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=power13640
https://iws.mx/dnd/?view=skill14

>>97827781
It also suffers from treating wilderness as a minigame.

>>97827530
Bitch, 3e gives you the entire setting of Saltmarsh because why the fuck not have a grand example of a town with shit tons of potential for adventures. 4e clearly just wanted to be a platform to keep selling you supplements so you could actually just fucking play. It will always be an example in what not to do with your brand and game.

>>97828622
Lol wow

>>97828027
I went through the PHB a bit and it read like a mess. Though I read tons of 2e, then 3e, so it's coming from both of these perspectives.

>>97828045
>>97828622
>>97829831
Thank you. I had been collecting monster creation rules (sort of) from different editions and was curious about how well figured out it might be in 4e.

I was also curious if 4e would have at least a marginal take for hypothetically running Council of the Wyrms.

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Oh? do they? I wouldn't know!

>>97828472
>3E came out after TSR went under and there had been no new official D&D for years.

In 1995 through 1999 TSR released 27 box sets, 8 hard covers, 84 adventure modules and 121 accessories for D&D. That's an average of 48 new items every calendar year for 5 years. That's not bad for a company that didn't make any new D&D for years before 3e came out in 2000.

The last big revision to the rules was years before 3e, in the form of Player's Options in 1995 and 1996 which was very much new D&D, and there was a whole new campaign setting in 1999. 1995 to 2000 without a new edition would be years but there being no new edition can't be what you mean because that's a hollow statement that has been true for most editions of D&D, starting with 2e's release about 5 years after BECMI. The only time it really wasn't true was the first few years from OD&D to BECMI which included AD&D and B/X and Holmes.

TSR didn't go under in 1997. It was in severe debt with no means of servicing that debt but it was acquired by WOTC and its debts assumed and settled by WOTC before TSR went under.

>>97778542
It's got the best combat system if you use a grid, and some of the updated monster math. It has the best DMG that Wizards has ever put out because it actually teaches someone who may have never actually played an RPG how to run a session.

It's out-of-combat stuff tended towards abstract. Skill challenges never quite felt right, but overall the out-of-combat skill usage felt almost OSR in how abstract it was with the skill challenge minigame making extended non-combat sequences more collaborative and interesting. It probably provided the most playable out of combat experience of any WotC edition.

I like 4e. If I were just "running D&D" without some specific campaign vision that highlighted the strengths of 3.PF, 4e would be my second choice - after my preferred OSR system which is Worlds Without Number.

>>97780412
>Is combat heaviness REALLY D&D?
Yes, since late AD&D2e, absolutely.

>players would be rewarded for ingenuity, leveling up from the loot rather than the killing of monsters
This is kinda OSR revisionism and creating a modality of play from the first principles and systems-based thinking about the rules.

By the early 80s, especially after Dragonlance, many tables gravitated toward a combat and narrative heavy approach you would recognize today. The OSR style was frankly a bit of a blip that was not the dominant style of play for the vast majority of TSR D&D's publication.

>>97831152
No version of D&D is actually built for Council of Wyrms but 2e has some adjustments made to maybe do it, since it was written for 2e.

>>97830877
It also thinks that Strength is inherently more important than other assigned or rolled Ability scores when the cleric and druid exist.

>>97833944
I'm not sure we're on the same page, but I meant like Council of the Wyrms had rules for dragon PCs, and 3e got adaptations in Dragon Magazine, Draconomicon, Dragon Magic etc.

>>97833891
>By the early 80s, especially after Dragonlance, many tables gravitated toward a combat and narrative heavy approach
Yes, we call that storyshitting, and just because you and them played wrong back in the day, it doesn't make you any less stupid, or somehow correct.

>>97778542
why are there 225 replies about a dead system no one plays

>>97833891
There's a reason 2e isn't considered OSR.

>>97836597
Yup

>>97836153
NTA, but it shouldn't be hard to homebrew a PC Dragon race. Rely heavily on Dragonborn, throw in Pixie flight, maybe add the Shifter's natural weapons, and balance it out with starting ability and equipment restrictions (who makes armor for dragons?) and that you're starting as a juvenile dragon. Shouldn't be too difficult. Homebrew should be made to solve problems or accomodate players. Knowing why a player wants to play a dragon is helpful to making a dragon race for the player to enjoy.
There's not much 4e homebrew regardless.

>>97836746
There's actually quite a substantial amount of 4e homebrew.

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/4e_Races

This is just the race options people have made on one site. It just didn't have the PDF presentation of most 5e homebrews or sheer volume of 3.X homebrew.

>>97780922
This was honestly the biggest pisser for me.

>Fighter does a move where he cuts apart all the Goblins around him.
Peasant: "Wow! Do that again!"
Fighter: "Na, don't feel like it right now. I'll maybe try it again later today, probably tomorrow."

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The part that will forever piss me off is that I really like 4e, but it came out during a time in my life where I was a bee's dick away from being homeless, nearly barren cupboard, and was doing everything in my power to pay tuition after getting fucked from the 2008 housing crash and home renovator who took the money my family gave him and gambled it away.

By the time I was in a stable position again with steady job and food, 5e came out, I hated it, but that's all anyone would ever play.

I feel like I missed the fucking boat as I was forced to work at the docks to avoid starving to death. At least the people who played and hated 4e actually played the fucking game.

>>97838265
Speaking off, was this homebrew of Elementalist ever completed? It was an Elementalist that revolved around summoning elements en masse, which seemed really cool.

https://files.catbox.moe/s9cfej.pdf

>>97838265
>likes 4e
>hates 5e
for what purpose

>>97838299
Seeing the wealth of options you could do in 4e rendered down to merely what archtype you pick for your class with feats being optional fills my mouth with bile to this day. While the 4rry poster here >>97792242 may be a sperg, he's right in that 4e allowed a major wealth of options.

I'd rather play fantasycraft or lancer any day of the week over 5e.

Part of it is also spite for me missing the 4e train.

>>97778542
Imagine spending a decade on intense marketing of A Thing. You keep telling people on every possible step and venue that A Thing is the best shit ever, pouring millions of dollars into that message. On top of that, you keep delivering more material that accompanies A Thing.
... and then, once you secure for good market for A Thing and slavishly loyal fanbase of consumers, you deliver A Different Thing. While trying to sell it to the drones you fostered around A Thing.
That's basically the story of 4e coming after 3e as its replacement.

>>97838331
Too many options and we might as well play 3e, it's better.

>>97833884
>but overall the out-of-combat skill usage felt almost OSR in how abstract it was with the skill challenge minigame
That's not OSR. The opposite I would argue.

Prefered previous 4e deep discussions, this thread just feels wrong somehow
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/96885732/#96885825

>>97779805
>the single programmer who was making their digital tabletop system's internal gubbins murder-suicided himself and his family and they never got his code to work without him.
Excuse me?

>>97778542
It came out when WoW was just this titanic, all-consuming entity in any remotely nerd-related hobby. At that time it seemed like it would never be stopped, that everything would just be chasing WoWbux for all eternity. So then here comes this new edition, super gamefied, and seems to be leaning towards MMO mechanics. Even it's artstyle felt too WoW-like for many people. Lots of people were therefore poorly disposed to the game before it even came out.

>>97838299
Not that anon but I also hate 5e but loves 4e. 4e at least sets out to be something and mostly accomplishes it. 5e is just bland grey sludge that isn't good at anything at all.

It has sloggy combat with no interesting mechanics, it has essentially 0 character building potential, it has the same amount of out of combat material as 4e (arguably less because of less rituals and the lack of martial practices and no skill challenge system) and there is essentially no balance between classes and subclasses and not even in the cartoonish extremes of 3e, just in the "you're not completely worthless but someone who chose a better class (probably a caster because martials went back to being boring) just outshines you all the time" sort of way.

Also its extremely gay. The art is gay. Its adventure paths are gay. Everything WotC has released in the last decade is just so fucking gay. Not as gay as Paizo but nearing it.

>>97838370
Imagine starting a sentence with imagine.

>>97839106
5e is a simple 3e, it's a great asset to onboard newcomers to RPGs.

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>>97839106
Also if you want to homebrew 4e, forget about it. Everything is locked down like fort knox. homebrewing in 5e is much much easier than other editions. Never underestimate wiggle room.

>>97839173
Its not though. Its genuinely a bad game to teach new people in all ways except it being D&D brand and thus what normies instantly crawl to. 3e was dogshit as well. We should not be teaching new people any edition of D&D.

>>97839184
This is a good thing. 99.99% of homebrew is dogshit and people only want to use it to either break the game and bash a square peg into a round hole by making a system bend a direction its not supposed to.

>>97839200
>Its not though.
(it is though)
>This is a good thing.
(this is a bad thing)

>>97838528
To be honest with you, going around the table, asking each player how they're using a skill (or NWP or secondary skill or profession in TSR D&D) how they're contributing to solving a complex situation and having them do a simple roll feels very OSR in spirit.

I find that it engages players into thinking creatively about how to contribute to a situation, especially if they can't double up on skills, in a very OSR way.

>>97836287
>>97836597
And yet storyshitting was the dominant mode of play for most TSR D&D's existence. I like how the OSR approached old school D&D at face value and applied systems-based thinking to discover the satisfying gameplay loop that had been there all along and playing into that strength. However, as a matter of history, I think they're full of shit when they act like this was the most common mode of play which people engaged with the game for most of its publication run.

>>97839184
It's true I tried to homebrew 4e and armed guards shot me dead. It's truly impossible despite links in this very thread proving this wrong.

>>97839438
Fuck off with your useless meme buzzword. It has no value.

>>97839438
I don't think that's the case, anon.

>>97839106
>Not as gay as Paizo but nearing it.
I had no clue Paizo became THAT bad.

>>97838955
I think it was just his wife, actually.

>>97838370
I'm pretty sure most of the hype around The Thing came from the players, and the hate for The Different Thing came from them looking at it. Lots of 2e players just went on to play 3e without too much problem, and even on to other d20 games.

>>97838265
Geez fuck, anon

>>97836746
I had just been listing official takes on settings across the various editions. I have strange hobbies that usually amount to stuff that no one ever has any use for.

>>97840769
And lots of 3.5 groups played 4e without much problem. My real life group was one of them. Unless you have some numbers to back up the claim, anecdotes don't mean much here.

>>97840852
Truth. The same goes for >>97838370, though.
I guess you can always set up a poll or something if you're curious, like, how many people went from before 3e and dropped before 4e or not, why they didn't care for it or whatever.

>>97838955
Here's what happened. The guy they hired to do the VTT 4e was supposed to launch with, and all backend integration for 4e, found out his more successful wife who worked for Microsoft had an affair. She left him, got a restraining order and went to stay with friends. He found her in a parking lot, shot her repeatedly with a 9mm and fatally turned the gun on himself. This happened after 4e was heavily promoted to have an integrated VTT, and no one was able to make the murder-suicide devs code work, I vaguely recall it being called 'spaghetti code'.So 4e launched without the VTT and failed to hit the M:tG sales numbers WotC promised the execs it would hit.

>>97838955
>>97842360
Part of the tipping point too was that the VTT was supposed to tie in with Gleemax, a social media site for exclusively for tabletop gamers. Except it was owned by WotC so it was in reality it was only for D&D and MtG fans. Unsurprisingly people weren't really interested in joining a social media site with such a tiny scope and also a soon to be subscription to use half of its features so it failed to gain any interest and was scrapped. The VTT was deeply entwinned with Gleemax and also yeah was a spaghetti code nightmare that only the now dead guy knew how to untangle so they just threw out what they had and quickly built the D&D Insider we got.

>>97842360
>>97842427
That's so horrific, yet somehow in line with my expectations for WotC.

>>97838238
>"Na, don't feel like it right now. I'll maybe try it again later today, probably tomorrow."
Me after doing one thing at work.

>>97844516
If WotC was any worse they would have been out there murdering people. We're not far off.

I know they won't because they are nothing but liars and shitheads but a few years ago when they were in trouble WotC promised 4e would be released from its current mega restrictive license and into the same really loose license that 3e and 5e are under. It would be great if they did though because then people would be able to openly make a 4.5 that's actually like 4e and not just kind of adjacent without scratching the same itch like Draw Steel.

>>97842360
You forgot he also shot her lover.

>>97848813
>If WotC was any worse they would have been out there murdering people

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>>97852158
God damn it.

Just hang on baby. 2 more days and I'll be back. I'll bump tf outta you then. Just 2 more days

>>97855749
idk, I think it's time for 4e to finally die

>>97855832
4e is easily the second best edition so I refuse, I REFUSE, to just let it die like some orphan

>>97855832
Why? If retards get to keep jerking off 3e until the end of time even though its a broken game on a fundamental level and caused actual damage to TTRPGs as a whole with the d20 OGL cancer then why would the game that actually managed to be good at something need to die? Because it makes some autists unreasonably mad?

>>97842360
>So 4e launched without the VTT and failed to hit the M:tG sales numbers WotC promised the execs it would hit.
Would it have ever done that. Promising MtG sales numbers for any product sounds crazy

>>97855845
4e is the second worst, with first worst contended between 5e and 2e.

>>97839173
>5e is a simple 3e
Superficially. There is a rotten 4e core in it and the smell of the corpse of OSR (by people that didn't understand why certain things work in OSR).

>>97827530
The weather and wilderness part of the 3.5 DMG is great. The 3.5 DMG lost something compared to the 3.0 on game "philosophy" but is full of content.

>>97855899
The thought they could strong arm all of the 3rd party people into a specific license and create their own niche internet environment that restricts basically everyone to just D&D (all of the bits and bobs being monetized of course) which would have, had it gone through, MAYBE gotten them numbers near MtG. As is, 4e was still successful, just not MtG successful, and with the death of the VTT and the D&D social media site Gleemax, they just couldn't get near the numbers promised.

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>>97855845
>4e is easily the second best edition
>>97855890
>keep jerking off 3e
Good

>>97856040
I do not believe this to be the case, we'll need a thread to discuss 5e on launch, because the sentiment now does not match what people experienced when it was new. There's a lot of lost knowledge, in your own words
>people that didn't understand why certain things work in OSR
This isn't the case.

>>97856366
My sentiment towards 5E is exactly what it was on launch. It's a shit game that doesn't do anything right except for appeal to the exact kind of shitheads I didn't want in the hobby at all.

>>97856401
A lot of people have seemingly forgotten a very basic first thing about 5e, it released right after 4e. After 11 years of 5th edition they seem to forget why 5e is so good. There's more factors too, like copycat systems that have borrowed and stemmed from it as well.

>>97856433
How would I forget that? 4E was a better game in every respect.

>>97856434
lmfao

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>>97855917
I would be embarrassed by this post but ok, you hate fun.

>>97856357
You know I'm right though.

>>97779793
>4e has goals, met those goals
Well aside from sales goals. Or game design goals. Or player retention goals. Or... Alot of things really.

>>97855845
This is what makes 4e the absolute worst edition.

You can put either B/X, 2e, or 3.5e in second place. B/X can earn that spot from sheer objective numbers. But 2e and 3.5e, while less impressive in imperial metrics, are still highly valuable for providing the greatest and best lessons on ttrpg design and innovating the genre by killing the things they tried to propagate. 3.5 in particular killed the dull simulationist approach to tabletop roleplaying games which is why I'd put it in 2nd place.

The only way 4e, with its pitiful sales and failure to innovate, could even hope to aspire to the same ranking would be if it successfully killed the "tabletop as a shitty skirmish wargame" concept and buried it so we didn't have to keep rehashing the same bad arguments and poor designs over and over again. But due to the niche of wargaming autists it has retained, that's not possible.

>>97857528
First it'd have to be a worse design than the games around it, which it isn't.

>>97857741
Proof?

>>97855899
It will work, all we have to do is make D&D even more like MtG. Just trust me.

>>97857747
Right before your eyes

>>97858717
So no proof and no arguments. I'm glad you've conceded that 4th is the worst edition.

>>97860170
The proof is right before your eyes, anon, but like the Pharisees and Jesus, you refuse the Truth

>>97857747
>>97860170
Asking a 4rry to make an argument is hopeless. They've hashed this out every day for over a decade and lost everytime they tried to engage in discourse because the game itself pretty obviously failed and sucks cock. So now the only ones who don't just shut up are the bad faith copers.

>>97860454
Says the retard who never explains why the game is bad and just goes "nuh uh you're the one coping" without forming any intelligent thought.

You stay alive, 4e thread

>>97778542
it's become a meme to defend it but it really is shit

>>97865536
Nah. It has one of the tightest rulesets of any edition of d&d, period full-stop

>>97865536
The meme is to hate it. Most of its haters haven't played it and can't form a coherent argument for why its "shit". They hate it because they've been told by others to hate it who also haven't played it or even read the books.

>>97840769
>I'm pretty sure most of the hype around The Thing came from the players, and the hate for The Different Thing came from them looking at it. Lots of 2e players just went on to play 3e without too much problem, and even on to other d20 games.

The 3.5 to 4e was a mess because the 4e ad campaign was antagonistic to 3.X fans and the original GSL caused almost all the 3rd parties to avoid 4e like a plague.

>>97867301
You are right. While their are legit reasons to genuinely dislike 4e, most of the 4e hate is the result of tribal worship.

>>97778542
It was a good time. I was really glad to have a new edition that actually felt like it warranted buying new books and such. I ran a couple long campaigns during its rather short shelf life, and I'm glad it existed. I think it informed a lot of the combat systems of other games that came later. Nowadays I play SotDL and sometimes pathfinder 2e, and I don't see a reason to go back to 4e, but I'd much rather play 4e over 5e or 3.5 if I had to choose.

My biggest disappointment with 5e is that they just made a lukewarm reheat of 3.5, when 4e showed how exciting it can be when they actually dare to step out of their tiny comfort zone and make a new edition instead of what is basically just a small patch.

>>97867301
Well yeah that's why the only guy who uses the term "4rrie" still shows up to these threads. He doesn't have an argument just 2010's era memes.