Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How accurate is ruleset implementation?

Most people haven't actually played 4th edition. Or they tried it once, with a bad DM. I know it's the least popular edition, and everyone makes fun of it (mostly people who haven't actually tried it), but when it was current, there were still a lot of people playing and really enjoying it. I used to DM at conventions and game stores, and new people would come all the time, and try 4e for the first time, and really have fun. They would want to play again.

I also really like the things they did with the lore in 4e. And the published adventures were really cool, I much prefer them to the ones that have come out for 5e.

Mostly what is good about it, though, is as a DM. It's the easiest edition to DM, or at least the easiest to DM well, and without a ton of prep time. Customizing monsters, or creating new ones, was super easy and flexible, and creatures were based on simple levels that corresponded to PC levels, none of this vague CR business. Setting up balanced encounters took seconds, and the balance was very reliable. The published adventures were easy to run, giving you lots of detail about everything, instead of the 5e adventure protocol of "we'll leave it up to you to make this interesting, DM".

I've been playing D&D since 1985, started with basic D&D and 1st edition AD&D. I've done a ton of DMing, of every edition except for 1st. (Didn't start DMing AD&D until 2e.) 4th edition is my favorite edition of D&D, by a wide margin. It didn't get a fair shake. Too many of its good ideas were abandoned by WotC, in the name of stealing back as many players as possible from Pathfinder.