There were some neat ideas in 4th at least.
I look at editions as toolboxes to draw from in my own game, and 4th had a few good tools to it. The forest might have been unwanted, but there were some pretty trees.
I still like minions as a concept. Dinky little guys that have 1 HP but if ignored will still do a decent amount of damage?
Yeah it’s good stuff. Still rewards people for splitting fire too so suddenly it’s fine to attack zombie ABC even if your ally has already damaged zombie XYZ.
Man, I still think 4e’s at-will / encounter / daily powers were an interesting idea that made non-magical classes more fun to play, balance issues aside. People complained that it made the classes too samey, (which is a valid criticism). But damn, I want cool, once per day fighter abilities on par with a spell.
I also thought that the progression of class -> paragon path -> epic destiny was badass and really enhanced the storytelling aspect of a character.
4th edition gets a lot of hate but I definitely enjoy borrowing things from it.
I’ve erased enough shitty movie sequels from my memory to know where this is going.
Meanwhile Pathfinder’s out there doing the royal bastard thing, just one mentor and magic sword away from becoming the chosen one.
Hate new shit.
Love me 20 sided die.
Simple as.
I feel like most people who hate on 4e didn’t play it much, but enjoy feeling like they’re part of the group.
Yeah, 4e doesn’t deserve the hate it gets. I found it much more mechanically engaging to play than 3.X or 5e.
4e was when WotC discovered D&D has a very large problem - it’s not allowed to change anything, for worse or better.
4e was when WotC discovered D&D has a very large problem - it’s not allowed to change anything, for worse or better.
This is true.
They’re so close to discovering dice pool with advantage/disadvantage.
I started thinking about a 5e hack that converts the whole thing to a dice pool system. Instead of 1d20+X, it’s Xd20. You can then have degree of success via “how many dice hit the number?” and degree of difficulty via “you have to hit X times”
There’s a ton of other stuff I’d love to see changed. Mostly around the adventuring day and only-spellcasters-get-cool-stuff
Well, I have good news! There’s a huge number of other systems out there, most of them are quite good, and there’s plenty of very interesting mechanical innovation going on. I encourage you to explore, D&D isn’t the only game in town. ;-)
That’s why 4E is so good. 4E says “all adventurers are magic users. Having muscles so big they bend reality in your favour is magic. Being great at inspiring your team is magic. Being able to blend into the shadows so well you were never even there is magic. Nobody is a boring normal in this system.”
“Also here are abilities that recharge every encounter. Now you don’t have to worry about short rests.”
