D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[Maxperson]

More Feats and subclasses won’t fix the issue of them being so few and far-between. The reason casters are able to feel more diverse than non-casters do is they get a choice to make to differentiate themselves every level (what new spell to learn). Non-casters only get to choose their subclass at 1st or 3rd level and a Feat every 4 levels, and that’s if they never take a bump to their ability scores.

The subclasses are distinctly different. A Champion doesn't feel or play like a Battle Master and neither feel or play like an Eldritch Knight. Casters get MORE differentiation, but the spells they pick are far and away the least of that. The caster subclasses mean far more.

 

[FrogReaver]

I still don't understand how anyone can legitimately push back at the idea that 4e was very samey.

 

[Charlaquin]

I felt like essentials was a different game and stopped being into 4e when it came out. That kind of power just wasn't how the rest of 4e was set up pre essentials.

Essentials was, in my opinion, a great example of how the design of 4e could be utilized in a far less “samey” way. Frankly, so is the 5e Warlock. That’s the kind of stuff I want to see as an evolution of 4e, not 13th Age.

 

[FrogReaver]

Essentials was, in my opinion, a great example of how the design of 4e could be utilized in a far less “samey” way. Frankly, so is the 5e Warlock. That’s the kind of stuff I want to see as an evolution of 4e, not 13th Age.

Essentials was a different game IMO.

 

[Charlaquin]

Speaking of knock down in 5e. Give up one attack on any turn and you can attempt to knock something prone. It actually resembles your Knockdown Assault power pretty well in that regard.

Too bad you have to wait until 5th level to do it.

 

[Maxperson]

I still don't understand how anyone can legitimately push back at the idea that 4e was very samey.

I can understand it kinda sorta. It's perceptual. You and are are looking at how certain portions of the classes work and it feels very samey because of that. Those portions are greater to us than the other portions that have some small variance. Others are looking at those things that you and I perceive as small variances and they are greater to those people, while what you and I perceive as greater take second seat and are minor.

Basically, we're all blind men feeling both ends of an elephant and coming to different conclusions about what it is that we are feeling.

 

[FrogReaver]

Too bad you have to wait until 5th level to do it.

I mean if the complaint is that subclasses should have been at level 1 for all classes - I agree.

You can still prone at any point in time with a single attack. You just can't attack and prone till you've got that extra attack. Seems sensible to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

I can understand it kinda sorta. It's perceptual. You and are are looking at how certain portions of the classes work and it feels very samey because of that. Those portions are greater to us than the other portions that have some small variance. Others are looking at those things that you and I perceive as small variances and they are greater to those people, while what you and I perceive as greater take second seat and are minor.

Basically, we're all blind men feeling both ends of an elephant and coming to different conclusions about what it is that we are feeling.

I mean calling it samey isn't implying there were no differences. Calling it samey is also not calling it bad. Calling it samey is also not claiming that there should be imbalance.

Most of the arguments I've heard against sameyness all boil down to - you said it's samey and that means this other thing you never explicitly said.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The latter.

Okay... but that exists in all games to a degree. Why was gaining resources at the same rate a problem? Or was it even a problem at all?

That's why I went to 1 week for a long rest and 1 day for a short rest in my 5e games. If the wizard and barbarian nova in the first encounter or two, they will indeed shine bright for those moments. Then they fade away while the others shine during the rest of the encounters that happen throughout the week.

I've seen a lot of people mention they've had issues with that solution. Each table finds their own balance I suppose, but I suspect you have not kept the same number of encounters that you would have if you were still working on a daily time scale. So, you are keeping a similar balance with only a narrative reskin on the time.

Different resources. As well as some having greater numbers of weaker resources, and others having fewer numbers of more powerful resources. Vary it up is all I want. 5e did that better than 4e, which is why despite a lot of similarities, we eventually moved to 5e and didn't touch 4e.

3.5 being worse depends on if you are all that worried about balance or not. I have a higher tolerance for imbalance than many. So long as I can contribute meaningfully, it doesn't matter if that guy over there had better stats and could do more damage. I also have players that feel the same way. 3.5 was amazing for us, though it was still a bit more unbalanced than we prefer, which is why we eventually switched to 5e.

I think that while the different resources answer is potentially a good one, it leads right back into the problem that caused you to stretch out your time scale. If those powerful resources come back quick enough, and their are a limited number of fights, then those are not equally impactful. Or, if the weaker resources do not recover quicker, you can have the same issue.

I won't say it can't work, because 5e comes close to it working, but again, I think you can see why instead of trying such a complicated balancing act, they simply give classes more equivalent resources and more equivalent recoveries.

4e went too far, but it wasn't a bad idea what they attempted to do.

Also yup. And also also, anyone who thought Syndrome was right, I’d highly encourage taking a look at My Hero Academia.

Love that Show <3

Of course, it has a similiar issue with the majority of the villains being physically ugly or deformed. But, I'm still loving it.

I'm not a fan of 3.5. Caster's stopped feeling like D&D casters in 4e. Trying to equate that to them simply feeling less powerful is a foolish.

Then explain what you mean. They didn't feel like casters. Why? Was it at-wills? I would think not since 5e has at-wills. Encounter Powers? 5e has concentration effects that last an encounter, so that would seem slightly off as well.

If you feel I am nowhere close to what you mean, explain what you mean instead of accusing me of projecting.

Actually, I would have expected something more like:
Martial = At-Will + Encounter Focused
Casters = Daily Focused

Okay, how do you imagine this working out?

Dailies were much more powerful abilities, so would you want Casters to have more dailies and less encounter powers? If they are gaining more of the most powerful abilities, and losing out on smaller abilities, how do you expect that to alter the game play?

I would suspect it would lead to novaing and hoarding. The casters would hoard their abilities til a big fight, then unleash multiple dailies in a row. They would have to have something at-will just to contribute, unless you were thinking of going back to an Ad&D style of 5MWD where the caster is reduced to cheerleading after they use their big abilities.

But, I can only guess at what you mean by those very broad strokes.

You are arguing against me

No, I am not. I was using your post as a springboard, but I was never arguing against you because you made no claims as to the philosophical messages in The Incredibles. That is why I started that section with a "can we all agree" not "can you FrogReaver agree"

you reading into the quote what isn't there.

No, I am not. That was is plan. That was how it would be implemented, that is the assumed bias presented in the story.

If you would like to prove your literary view is right, provide evidence and quotes.

The PC's aren't the only people in the world. They are special regardless. But every class doesn't have to play like a wizard. Every class doesn't have to play like a fighter. Every class doesn't have to use the same resources. Every class doesn't have to recharge abilities at the same rate.

So yes - we don't want everyone to be special like the wizard is special. Likewise we don't want everyone to be special like the fighter is special. We want these classes to be different and in those differences we see their specialness. But in terms of the larger world - make no mistake - the PC's are all special in a way that isn't achievable by the NPC's.

And yet, every class does share some resources, they do share recharge times, and a lot of classes play very similarly. This is just plain true.

So, it is only a matter of degrees, and we can talk about the degrees presented and where you want to draw the lines.

But, the section you quoted when you said this, that section has absolutely nothing to do with DnD. I am not equating the philosophy and ideas in the incredible movies to DnD. If you saw what I was saying as somehow suggesting I wanted everyone to be wizards, you missed the point by reading into it what is not there.

I was discussing the movie, the quote people are using, and why I think it carries too much baggage to be a quote people should want to use. Most people don't analyze animated movies for deeper messages, which is why I presented the facts about why that quote from that movie carried the connotation it does.

I still don't understand how anyone can legitimately push back at the idea that 4e was very samey.

I think in part it is because of Capn Zap's very vitrolic language about how PF2 is sprinting down the path of destruction by following the ideas of 4e, because the ideas were obviously terrible to begin with.

But, as you start breaking it down, looking at what was there, and thinking about why the choices that existed did, you can begin seeing that there was solid logic involved.

Sure, Martial vs Caster was not a big divide, but Striker vs Defender was. Maybe Arcane vs Divine wasn't as split as it could have been, but there was a divide there.

There is a solid reason to have every class have a similiar number and recovery of resources from a game design perspective.

And so, in responding to the idea of there being no redeeming qualities, we end up discussing what was good and what was different.

 

[Charlaquin]

I can understand it kinda sorta. It's perceptual. You and are are looking at how certain portions of the classes work and it feels very samey because of that. Those portions are greater to us than the other portions that have some small variance. Others are looking at those things that you and I perceive as small variances and they are greater to those people, while what you and I perceive as greater take second seat and are minor.

Basically, we're all blind men feeling both ends of an elephant and coming to different conclusions about what it is that we are feeling.

I don’t want to speak for the folks who felt it was samey, but the impression I get is that you’re looking at what each individual power does, seeing that they all basically come down to “[2W] and a minor effect”, and concluding that they are all basically the same. Whereas those of us who don’t feel it’s samey are first of all looking at how a character plays over the course of an encounter rather than what each of their individual powers does and concluding that they’re quite different. And also when we look at two powers that both do “[2W] and a minor effect” we see a lot more difference than one attack that does 1d8 slashing and another attack that does 1d8 piercing.