Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 6 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Three cheers for Gygaxian cruft. I was really surprised when Larian got the BG3 contract -- I was certain Obsidian was going to get it but I remember thinking "at least Larian doesn't worship at the altar of balance".

I'll always be 2nd is best partisan (advantage is just too powerful and Thac0 is really intuitive once you understand it) but 5th is the second best. Perfectly balanced games are perfectly bland.

Joined: Nov 2020
T
journeyman
Offline
journeyman
T
Joined: Nov 2020
Hey man, Neverwinter Night's 1 worked fine. 2 did feel underwhelming though. I actually consider how NW1 handles dialogue better then what we have in BG 3 (pluss it's hard not to be impressed when you're doing this with an ice dragon you're not forced to attack and can have a pleasant conversation with). You still have the roll checks but it doesn't force you to do it three times in a row (something BG3 seems to go out of its way to do at times) and you still have the checks but it doesn't shove dice under your nose and force you to do extra steps just to see the result.

They really should have an option for that in the menu. "See dice roll checks or not". That way you could save time just seeing the next conversation (stating successful or failure) without waiting for the dice to "catch up" on the screen.

Last edited by Taramafor; 08/11/20 02:14 AM.
Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by fallenj


Starting to wonder what's the difference between 4e and 5e rules.


Where 1st, 2nd and 5th were designed to be pen and paper editions first and electronic versions second, 5th was inspired by video games and was pretty clearly intended to made into a video game. Like in romantic life, sometimes trying to hard to get the attention of others is counter productive. 5th is probably the hardest edition to make into a video game but has proven to be the most popular. Go figure.

4th --

was combat oriented. Many of the social skills checks that we are seeing in BG3 were demphasized or eliminated.

The standard party roles were hardcoded while at the same time the importance of class was diminished. Instead of thinking of class you thought about role -- Controller, Defender, Leader, or Striker The classes were balanced to the point that they were nearly indistinguishable. This is what caused so many to defect to pathfinder. While 4th was saying "any class can fill this role" 3.75 was saying "you can make you character the way you like, even if it offends the gods of balance".

4th was all about positioning -- to the point that characters became super hero like. Nearly everyone could teleport to different places on the field. Your standard issue eldarin (elf) could bend time and space to show up on the other side of the room. Any differences between teleportation abilities were really cosmetic -- when you teleport do you pass through the realm of shadow or the feywild?

Likewise some "positioning" rules were relaxed to the point that they no longer made sense -- everyone got healing surges for some reason that was never explained very well. Mechanics came first, lore second.

https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Healing_surge

Monsters were greatly simplified. Weird wacko powers were reduced to a handful of core powers to be used in combat (please, please make a video game about us)

Also, they blew up the realms and killed everyone's favorite gods. The tone was even darker than greyhawk -- even bending towards dystopian -- but for some reason the game was based in Faerun.

In 5th, the warlock is the most "4th ed" class. Easy teleportation, largely combat oriented and only a handful of available actions. (it's eldritch blast in the morning and eldritch blast in the evening. If you are doing something other than Hex + EB you might be doing it rong)

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
Three cheers for Gygaxian cruft. I was really surprised when Larian got the BG3 contract -- I was certain Obsidian was going to get it but I remember thinking "at least Larian doesn't worship at the altar of balance".

I'll always be 2nd is best partisan (advantage is just too powerful and Thac0 is really intuitive once you understand it) but 5th is the second best. Perfectly balanced games are perfectly bland.



Someone who likes THAC0 in 2020, a rare breed indeed.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies

The differences are enormous. Now, people are gonna jump on my shit for this, but here's my narrative about the editions of D&D.

All of the old classic editions, up through 2e, were a pretty niche hobby for a very different subset of gamers than we have today. 3e/3.5 came out and revolutionized D&D, massively improving it from its older incarnations, and proving extremely popular. But there were still some glaring balance and design issues that make the game drag down, and caused people to burn out on it. Many improvements had been made, but there was still a fair bit of old school cruft from earlier editions that just never really made for a balanced game.

So they took everything back to the drawing board with 4th edition, and pretty much redesigned the entire game, to make things more balanced, easier to DM, and more appealing to players of other types of popular games, like miniatures games, deckbuilding games, and video games. They brought in design elements from every type of gaming to try to fully modernize D&D, while also casting off nearly all of the vestiges of old school Gygaxian unbalanced design. Well, this didn't work out well for them, sadly. All of the people who loved 3.5 absolutely lost their shit, and jumped ship to go to Pathfinder instead (or just kept playing 3.5). 4e did bring in a bunch of new players who hadn't been interested in D&D before, but it wasn't enough to make up for the massive loss of old fans who just couldn't accept the enormous changes to the system.

Thus, the purpose of 5e was clear: bring back those old players, while also making the game so accessible that we can keep bringing in lots of new players to the hobby. So they scrapped almost everything that they had changed in 4th edition, bringing back a lot of that old-school feel (and the Gygaxian cruft, as I call it, that was previously abandoned), while also simplifying the game, reducing player choices and making it very easy for new people to jump in. It was a huge success, drawing back in lots of old players who were happy to see their old familiar (unbalanced) design principles return, and expanding into a whole new, huge audience of players for whom D&D had been too complex and too full of choices before. They kept a few things from 4e (and most of those things, ironically, are very popular elements of 5th edition, as most 5e players don't even know they came from 4e), but mostly they rolled back the balancing and ease-of-DMing innovations that had characterized 4th edition.

5e is without question the most popular edition of D&D ever, and the best edition for the largest number of people. But I think it came at a cost, the cost of bringing back old class imbalance, bringing back difficulty of DMing (prep, encounter design and balancing, challenging the players), and gutting the huge amount of player choice that were present in both 3.5 and 4e.


Player choice in character creation and level up does seem limited, lack of feats and choice of skills (skill choice when leveling up that is). But I do only have BG3 to reference off of for 5e so my view might be off. For 4e I know advantage was in the game but it was just a flat +2 and I don't think there was a disadvantage to it. 4e was different than 3.5 which is were I started and generally why I liked it. It was a different take on the system, which was a nice change of pace, at least for me. I was pretty disappointed to see the nwn series turn into a online mmo though, that was a big let down.
Thanks for the reply FSA, interesting read.

Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

Where 1st, 2nd and 5th were designed to be pen and paper editions first and electronic versions second, 5th was inspired by video games and was pretty clearly intended to made into a video game. Like in romantic life, sometimes trying to hard to get the attention of others is counter productive. 5th is probably the hardest edition to make into a video game but has proven to be the most popular. Go figure.

4th --

was combat oriented. Many of the social skills checks that we are seeing in BG3 were demphasized or eliminated.

The standard party roles were hardcoded while at the same time the importance of class was diminished. Instead of thinking of class you thought about role -- Controller, Defender, Leader, or Striker The classes were balanced to the point that they were nearly indistinguishable. This is what caused so many to defect to pathfinder. While 4th was saying "any class can fill this role" 3.75 was saying "you can make you character the way you like, even if it offends the gods of balance".

4th was all about positioning -- to the point that characters became super hero like. Nearly everyone could teleport to different places on the field. Your standard issue eldarin (elf) could bend time and space to show up on the other side of the room. Any differences between teleportation abilities were really cosmetic -- when you teleport do you pass through the realm of shadow or the feywild?

Likewise some "positioning" rules were relaxed to the point that they no longer made sense -- everyone got healing surges for some reason that was never explained very well. Mechanics came first, lore second.

https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Healing_surge

Monsters were greatly simplified. Weird wacko powers were reduced to a handful of core powers to be used in combat (please, please make a video game about us)

Also, they blew up the realms and killed everyone's favorite gods. The tone was even darker than greyhawk -- even bending towards dystopian -- but for some reason the game was based in Faerun.

In 5th, the warlock is the most "4th ed" class. Easy teleportation, largely combat oriented and only a handful of available actions. (it's eldritch blast in the morning and eldritch blast in the evening. If you are doing something other than Hex + EB you might be doing it rong)


Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but the social skills are in 4e, here's the list of skills from PHB

Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, History, Insight, Intimidate, Nature, Perception, Religion, Stealth, Streetwise, and Thievery. If its related to DMG I do remember my bro talking about dmg2 being better. Oh crap, ya they did have those titles in the game. They were made just to sum up key roles of what classes were in a few words & interesting that people would drop 4e for pathfinder because of that.

Ya, Eldarin had a encounter power called fey step that tele'd 5 squares (encounters were once per battle). I'm presuming the tele complaint is stretched a bit but ill take your word on it. Probably feywild from the name, fey step.

Healing surge was the cost for some spells/abilities to be cast, each class had so many of them, generally gave a limit to how much you could heal in game an out each day. Every class had a second wind encounter power that you could spend requiring one healing surge. Second wind regained health points and gave you +2 to all defenses until start of next turn.

I'm not going to look up the monsters and lore, ill just take your word on it, spent to much time already on this post.

Last comment is kind of sad, FSA was right though about the card comment, at least for bard. I played a halfling bard in 4e, at least for that class it was pretty close to a card game. I had a pretty solid sized deck full of at-will, encounter, and daily powers. If 5e warlock is one ability, id hate to be any player that plays that class.

Thanks for the comment btw, it was entertaining.

Originally Posted by Taramafor
Hey man, Neverwinter Night's 1 worked fine. 2 did feel underwhelming though. I actually consider how NW1 handles dialogue better then what we have in BG 3 (pluss it's hard not to be impressed when you're doing this with an ice dragon you're not forced to attack and can have a pleasant conversation with). You still have the roll checks but it doesn't force you to do it three times in a row (something BG3 seems to go out of its way to do at times) and you still have the checks but it doesn't shove dice under your nose and force you to do extra steps just to see the result.

They really should have an option for that in the menu. "See dice roll checks or not". That way you could save time just seeing the next conversation (stating successful or failure) without waiting for the dice to "catch up" on the screen.


What! NwN 1 and 2 were the best, you sure you havent taken a few hits in the head in a tavern brawl?!



Last edited by fallenj; 08/11/20 08:44 AM.
Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit

4th --

was combat oriented. Many of the social skills checks that we are seeing in BG3 were demphasized or eliminated.



This is not even remotely true. There was just as much emphasis on social skills in 4e as in 5e, in fact I'd say there was more. 4e had skill challenges, which were a whole series of skills checks (often social), to make effectively a whole encounter out of just using skills. There were also tons of class abilities and feats which interacted with the social skills.

Here's an example of a social skill challenge from the 4e DMG:



Quote
War by Other Means

The town of Parsain has long been contested ground between the Duchies of Hallber and Yranes, with each having a list of historical reasons for their claim. Until recently, the town had been under threat from nearby monsters, and neither was willing to
press their claim and get entangled in local matters. However, after a group of heroes (perhaps the player characters) freed the town from the threat that loomed over it, both have taken an interest in reestablishing old claims. Each has sent a representative and a body of militia intent on making that happen, and tense negotiations have begun.

This skill challenge represents the player characters’ efforts to oversee and perhaps influence the negotiations as they try to keep matters from devolving into violence. It works best if the characters have a strong interest in the fate of the town (perhaps because they were the ones who freed it from the monsters’ yoke), but good reasons to support both sides of the conflict. In this branching challenge (see page 89), the characters can contribute their successes to either side of the negotiation, with the intent of either helping one side achieve its goals or finding a balanced and equitable resolution.

The negotiations stretch over a number of days. Each day, each player character can attempt one skill check as part of the challenge.

Hallber’s Representative: Hallber is represented by Sir Anders Petrus, a soldier in the duke’s service. He’s a large, burly man with a great black beard, a booming voice, and a brash demeanor that makes it easy to overlook the fact that a cunning tactical mind lies behind those eyes. He views Parsain as a military holding, a place to secure a weak point on the duchy’s border.

Before negotiations begin, or sometime during the first day of the talks, Anders approaches one or more of the characters who appear to be neutral or willing to favor Hallber and attempts to gain their support. The offer is this: Support Hallber throughout the negotiations, and if Hallber decisively wins the challenge (which means Hallber wins and Yranes gets fewer than 3 successes), the character will receive a reward—a magic weapon or implement of the character’s level. If Anders is called out, he will of course deny that any such offer was made, and if the character acts against Hallber, the deal is off.

Yranes’s Representative: Yranes is represented by Dame Venna Las, a half-elf wizard who has the practiced polish of a long-time diplomat and the wellconcealed heart of a snake. Parsain is a commercial interest to her, and she has an eye on building some roads to and through the town.

Before negotiations begin, or sometime during the first day, Venna approaches one or more of the characters who seem to be neutral or willing to favor Yrane and attempts to gain their support. The offer is this: Support Yranes throughout the negotiations, and if Yranes decisively wins the challenge (which means Yranes wins and Hallber gets fewer than 3 successes), the character will receive a reward—a neck slot or arm slot magic item of the character’s level. If Venna is called out, she will of course deny that any such offer was made, and if the character acts against Yranes, the deal is off.

Level: Any.

Complexity: 2 (requires 6 successes before 3 failures).

Primary Skills: Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, History, Intimidate, Stealth.

Diplomacy (moderate DC by level): A character can step in as an advocate for either side and argue on that side’s behalf. A failed check suggests that the character didn’t do very well at this task.

Alternatively, a character can use Diplomacy to try to keep negotiations on an even keel. If the character generates a success with this use of the skill, he or she can save it rather than applying it immediately to the skill challenge. At the end of a day of negotiations, the character can assign the success to whichever side has fewer successes. If the two sides are tied, the character might choose either side to receive the success, or choose not to apply the success at all.

Dungeoneering (moderate DC by level): One of Hallber’s main arguments is that Parsain needs better defenses. The character can take the day to plan out defenses and make a case that Hallber’s reinforcements are unnecessary, or use this study to underscore Hallber’s arguments. A failed check means the character’s disagreements with other experts leaves the issue muddied and tempers frayed.

History (moderate DC by level): The character makes a historical case for one side or the other. These arguments are well treaded, but a successful check brings some fresh detail to light. A failed check means the character’s point does not hold up to examination and opens the door to a more devastating counterpoint. Each time this skill adds a success to one side or the other, the History DC for adding another success to that side increases by 5.

Intimidate (hard DC by level): Openly threatening the diplomats might not be the best approach, but there are more subtle ways to use this skill. The character whispers in the ears of the diplomats of one side, reminding them of the recent dangers facing
this town and the likelihood that they’ll return, perhaps making it seem a less desirable prize. A failed roll means the diplomats see through the character’s actions.

Stealth (moderate DC by level): The character spends time eavesdropping on one side and shares that information with the other side. A failed check indicates that the character passed on misinformation.

Secondary Skills: Endurance, Nature, Religion.

Endurance (moderate DC by level): The stakes are high, and when matters are most heated, the negotiations stretch into the wee hours of the night. When a day’s negotiations end with the two parties either tied in successes or with 2 failures accumulated, the characters must make a group Endurance check. If at least half the group succeeds, the characters’ ability to stay in control of their faculties serves them well as fatigue shortens tempers and frays nerves, and the characters can negate 1 accrued failure. If less than half the party succeeds, someone has snapped, perhaps even one of the characters, and the side represented by most of the characters who failed their checks accrues another failure.

Nature (moderate DC by level): Haggling over discrepancies in their respective maps, both parties agree on the third day of negotiations to send out a surveying team to iron things out. If a character who is trained in Nature has not antagonized either
side, the character is offered the opportunity to lead the expedition. If that character makes a successful Nature check, he or she can subtly influence the readings to favor one side or the other, granting that side a success. If the character does not choose a side, the side with fewer successes gains a success. On a failure, the mission reaches no consensus, and tensions run that much higher. The party can attempt only one Nature check in the course of the challenge.

Religion (moderate DC by level): On the second day of the negotiations, the town celebrates a holiday, and the townsfolk ask one of the characters who is trained in Religion to offer a few words at the ceremony. A successful Religion check can add 1 success to either side by couching subtle nods to that side’s position in the address, or a speech on the virtues of understanding and fellowship can negate 1 accrued failure from either side. The party can attempt only one Religion check in the course of the challenge.

Success: If Hallber accumulates 4 successes, the negotiations end up favoring that duchy, and it lays claim upon the town. On the other hand, if Yranes accumulates 4 successes first, then the duchy of Yranes gains the town.

The winner gets ownership of the town, but the more successes the loser has, the more concessions it can demand. If Hallber has at least 3 successes, it earns the right to leave a garrison in town. If Yranes has at least 3 successes, it sets up warehouses and a mercantile post in town. Ultimately, the town will benefit most from the fairest arrangements.

If the arrangement is particularly equitable (which is to say the other side got its concession), the town thrives in the future, and the characters can expect to have a safe haven there. If the arrangement is imbalanced, then the winning duchy eventually absorbs the town completely, and the citizens will have no great reason to remember these events fondly.

Failure: If negotiations break down, war is the only option left on the table. If either side has fewer than 3 successes when the challenge ends, fighting breaks out immediately. Otherwise, the negotiators withdraw and the war proceeds more formally. In either case, the town of Parsain suffers as the battlefield for this conflict.



People often say that 4e had less roleplaying than 5e, but I played and ran a ton of 4e, and that was simply not the case. People roleplayed just as much. The skill challenges give a mechanical structure to various non-combat scenarios, but they still involve lots of roleplaying throughout. All of the published adventures for 4e had plenty of roleplaying scenes.

Last edited by Firesnakearies; 08/11/20 09:21 AM.
Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Someone who likes THAC0 in 2020, a rare breed indeed.


Less rare than you might think, we've just adapted smile

I actually prefer 1st ed. AD&D to AD&D 2nd ed., but it's a close call. Never could get into 4e, it was too streamlined for me while 3.0 and 3.5 felt too much like spreadsheets.

I wonder how many people still remember Mystara (my favorite setting along with Oerth (Greyhawk)) today though wink

Joined: Jun 2014
veteran
OP Offline
veteran
Joined: Jun 2014
What is so imbalanced about 5e?

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Kendaric
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Someone who likes THAC0 in 2020, a rare breed indeed.


Less rare than you might think, we've just adapted smile

I actually prefer 1st ed. AD&D to AD&D 2nd ed., but it's a close call. Never could get into 4e, it was too streamlined for me while 3.0 and 3.5 felt too much like spreadsheets.

I wonder how many people still remember Mystara (my favorite setting along with Oerth (Greyhawk)) today though wink



I had fun with 1e back in the 80s, but I wouldn't want to play it today. I do remember Mystara, had a bunch of the Gazetteers for it. Quite a detailed setting. I hated Greyhawk though. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms were my jam, and later Dark Sun and Planescape (those latter two being my favorite settings of all time).

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Originally Posted by Kendaric
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Someone who likes THAC0 in 2020, a rare breed indeed.


Less rare than you might think, we've just adapted smile

I actually prefer 1st ed. AD&D to AD&D 2nd ed., but it's a close call. Never could get into 4e, it was too streamlined for me while 3.0 and 3.5 felt too much like spreadsheets.

I wonder how many people still remember Mystara (my favorite setting along with Oerth (Greyhawk)) today though wink



I had fun with 1e back in the 80s, but I wouldn't want to play it today. I do remember Mystara, had a bunch of the Gazetteers for it. Quite a detailed setting. I hated Greyhawk though. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms were my jam, and later Dark Sun and Planescape (those latter two being my favorite settings of all time).


Dragonlance (Krynn) was great, as was Planescape. Dark Sun might have been interesting, but somehow our DM ruined it back then and I never gave it another try. I'm also a big fan of Ravenloft, but only the 3.x version (never liked the old version much wink ).

Joined: Oct 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Theliel
Originally Posted by Quas
I think there's a lot posts before me that go into detail, but BG3 introduces some minor and not so minor changes. Some would be fine and understandable, but the game makes so many of them that in the end pretty much every action, ability, skill and spell work a bit different from tabletop. Core mechanics are still 5e, but it's all heavily modified. This is more of a "5e inspired" type of system, rather than a shot at actual video game adaptation.

It doesn't make the game bad, I'd prefer if there was less changes, but it's enjoyable in its own way. You should absolutely not go into it with a mindset of "I wanna play a 5e videogame" though, you'll be dissapointed.

EDIT: I'd say my biggest gripe with the game is Larian's obsession with interactive environment and surfaces. Nowhere near as bad as in DOS 2, but still too much for my taste, especially for a DnD game. Imagine playing a tabletop game where during every encounter half of the arena is covered in acid, fire, or burning acid.

I feel bad for you. Gigantic Set Piece battles are a staple of D&D, and "Oops, I forgot fireballs fill a volume not effect a radius" leading to entire rooms being on fire is a classic OD&D through 2nd ed AD&D experience.

I mean, any reasonable battle where casters are blowing The Good Stuff is going to be wrecked in a few minutes, and encounter mechanics have been suggested since Metzer, but go off.

No one wants to fight in a white room in person, and even more so when a computer is the DM & could be handling all of that easily in the background. Getting rid of pg. 82 was one of the greatest sins of 5th.
(Pg. 82 was 'suggested damage per level' from 4th edition that was designed to get players to do more than "I move into range, I attack" because trying to do anything other than cast a spell/make an attack was universally sub-optimal. This little one page chart changed all that. It's the spirit of Liarian trying to put environmental effects back in)

this post owns

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Australia
member
Offline
member
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Australia
They way they've bent and literally broken the 5th edition rules at this time is why the game is so off and plays weird.. (bad) We need a normal setting for RAW 5th edition.. and to be honest the Larion barrelmancy, Anikan i have the high ground shenanigans and floor is lava 🌋 needs to go asap..

Please change the enemies back to default as well.

I so miss 1st and 2nd edition D&D, 5th edition compared is like generic hospital grade fantasy..

Last edited by DanteYoda; 10/11/20 04:24 AM.
Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by Kendaric
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Someone who likes THAC0 in 2020, a rare breed indeed.


Less rare than you might think, we've just adapted smile

I actually prefer 1st ed. AD&D to AD&D 2nd ed., but it's a close call. Never could get into 4e, it was too streamlined for me while 3.0 and 3.5 felt too much like spreadsheets.

I wonder how many people still remember Mystara (my favorite setting along with Oerth (Greyhawk)) today though wink


Somehow lost sight of this thread. I'm with you @Kendaric. As much my ranking goes 2nd > 5th > 1st > 3.75b one of the things that makes 5th so good is the return of the "just tell the DM what you want to do an they'll decide if it works" instructions. I do miss 'alignment languages'

Like @firesnakearies I'm a lover of Faerun.

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
@firesnakearies I'll grant you that you played more 4th than I did and know it better smile I looked at the hard coded party roles, the mechanics first attitude and especially the nuking of Faerun and decided to ignore it.

I remember the WotC forums at the time with fans upset that their favorite god had been killed.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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.

Last edited by Firesnakearies; 10/11/20 07:00 AM.
Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
I get that. If you are looking to play for a few hours and want to get people up and running a streamlined ruleset is what you are looking for. Where 5th, 2nd and Pathfinder are ruleset to build a character that you are going to be running for 2 years or more.

For me the best thing about 4th is that ended the streamlining that was happening with 3.5. The mechanics -- balance (ugh)-- became more important than story telling. For me the article that represented the trend was the discussion about removing the bugbear from the game because mechanically it made no sense to have both Ogres and Bugbears -- both were large, dumb bruisers and therefore the same monster.

Same mentality as 'noodles' restaurant -- if you add Marinara to noodles you have Italian food, if you add peanut sauce you have Thai food. It all boils down to noodles and sauce.

Joined: Oct 2020
old hand
Offline
old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
I get that. If you are looking to play for a few hours and want to get people up and running a streamlined ruleset is what you are looking for. Where 5th, 2nd and Pathfinder are ruleset to build a character that you are going to be running for 2 years or more.

For me the best thing about 4th is that ended the streamlining that was happening with 3.5. The mechanics -- balance (ugh)-- became more important than story telling. For me the article that represented the trend was the discussion about removing the bugbear from the game because mechanically it made no sense to have both Ogres and Bugbears -- both were large, dumb bruisers and therefore the same monster.

Same mentality as 'noodles' restaurant -- if you add Marinara to noodles you have Italian food, if you add peanut sauce you have Thai food. It all boils down to noodles and sauce.



I'm confused. Are you saying that 5e is less streamlined than 4e? 5e is the most streamlined D&D ever.

I don't know what article you're talking about, but they never removed Bugbears.

Joined: Jun 2014
veteran
OP Offline
veteran
Joined: Jun 2014
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
if you add Marinara to noodles you have Italian food



No, you really don't.

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Exactly my point smile

Joined: Mar 2020
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
I get that. If you are looking to play for a few hours and want to get people up and running a streamlined ruleset is what you are looking for. Where 5th, 2nd and Pathfinder are ruleset to build a character that you are going to be running for 2 years or more.

For me the best thing about 4th is that ended the streamlining that was happening with 3.5. The mechanics -- balance (ugh)-- became more important than story telling. For me the article that represented the trend was the discussion about removing the bugbear from the game because mechanically it made no sense to have both Ogres and Bugbears -- both were large, dumb bruisers and therefore the same monster.

Same mentality as 'noodles' restaurant -- if you add Marinara to noodles you have Italian food, if you add peanut sauce you have Thai food. It all boils down to noodles and sauce.



I'm confused. Are you saying that 5e is less streamlined than 4e? 5e is the most streamlined D&D ever.

I don't know what article you're talking about, but they never removed Bugbears.


I think we're probably using different definitions of streamlined. I think in 4th you are always going to have one party formation -- someone needs to play the role of striker where in 5th you can have an all striker party if you want.

No they didn't. I don't remember who wrote the article -- might have been Monte Cook but don't quote me on that, Cook was just the guy I tended to disagree with more than anyone else. It was a mechanics first, flavor second attitude vs Gygaxian cruft "story first and foremost" even if balance goes all to hell.

Page 6 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  Dom_Larian, Freddo, vometia 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5