What are some pros and cons of D&D 4e? I'm thinking of switching from 5e

What are some pros and cons of D&D 4e? I'm thinking of switching from 5e.

Pros
>it’s DND
Cons
>it’s 4e

This but in reverse

This but both are Cons.

It's very balanced, all the classes have interesting abilities, but this tends to slow combat down as every player has a lot of things to consider and a battlemat is basically mandatory because so many abilities are precisely defined in terms of squares.

Saves are static defenses and players are assumed to have certain magic items and feats by a certain level, it makes the math feel weird and you have to carefully hand out items or have a magic item economy. Knowledge from other editions often won't apply.

Do you want to run an action focused fantasy game about badass heroes fighting the good fight, with a strong focus on teamwork? 4e is a good choice for you.

It has some flaws, and needs some maths fixes I can go over, but if what you want to do at all resembles the above statement, 4e is a good choice.

For anything else, not so much. 4e, unusual amongst D&D iterations, is a very focused system. It does one thing, and it does it very well. If you aren't looking to enjoy pulpy fantasy stories where beating up the bad guys is a large part of things, it won't work well for you.

There's also a few turnoffs that might dissuade people who otherwise might enjoy the system. 'Powers' as the system uses them are all abstract, narrative mechanics. They don't just represent a characters ability to do a thing, they also include finding the exact right moment to pull off a particular trick, being spent as a narrative power to allow a particular event to happen, rather than it being an action the character explicitly takes in universe. Some people are okay with this, some people find it immersion shattering for reasons I've never fully understood, but it harms their experience so it's a legitimate complaint.

The out of combat side is also kinda weak. It's not too hard to improve to the point it's no worse than D&D usually is, but D&D out of combat stuff is never particularly strong anyway.

The teamwork focus also annoys some people. It is basically impossible to build a self-sufficient character in 4e. Everything is built around the idea of a team supporting one another. If you want everyone to go off and do their own thing a lot, it might not work too well for you.

By the by, ignore anyone who claims about the classes all being the same. It's just a sign that they don't actually understand the system and are complaining that it uses standardised formatting.

The game does include an Innate Bonus option, which grants automatically scaling modifiers that remove the necessity of the magic item treadmill.

D&D is the shittiest system out there.

D&D 4e is shitty in an entire different ways. People who internalized the shitty D&D system of the old editions hate it because it is shitty but not like they expected it to be - new players dislike it because it is just shitty. Some retards kind of accept it as a playable system, in the same way one could accept Satan as the sole divinity because it is the only one answering to their prayers (by sending their souls to hell).

I hope it answered your question.

>I'm thinking of switching from 5e.
Don't.

>'Powers' as the system uses them are all abstract, narrative mechanics. They don't just represent a characters ability to do a thing, they also include finding the exact right moment to pull off a particular trick, being spent as a narrative power to allow a particular event to happen, rather than it being an action the character explicitly takes in universe. Some people are okay with this, some people find it immersion shattering for reasons I've never fully understood, but it harms their experience so it's a legitimate complaint.

Ironically the people with this complaint are the same band wagoners who masturbate whenever Fate or Dungeon World gets mentioned.

>some people find it immersion shattering for reasons I've never fully understood
Because they played WoW, silly user. Or almost any MMORPG.

In a MMO, things that should be given thoughts are often abstracted by a simple button press. You really should have a system for parrying, tackling people to the ground, or whatever, but instead you have the power of 'parrying' giving you a +5 to parry for a turn. It's incredibly unrealistic, but people accept it. In a video game.

4e is a video game in tabletop RPG form. Of course people find it unrealistic. Of course old grumblers think that's not good game design. It's not good tabletop RPG design. It's good video game design, sure, but, well, D&D isn't a video game, is it?

Not really. Those are the complaints of 3.x players. Narrativefags like me like 4e or what it is.

Please don't repeat memes and lies. It just makes you look stupid.

This is a good post.

The rest of the thread is memery.

>Le ebin 4e memes

2006 called, they want their bullshit back.

>pros
FUN AS FUCK. YOU GET THE WARLORD WHO IS THE MOST BASED MOTHERFUCKER IN ALL OF FUCKING ROLEPLAYING

The rest of the classes are cool too along with the enemies you fight against.

>con
If you want your game to have a non-combat focus you are going to be sorely disappointed.

Warlord is, indeed, the best class.

And Mearls denied 5e the chance to ever have an equivalent over a dumb fucking meme. It's a disgrace.

>good videogame design
>all the rules are in a book and the players have to do their calculations by hand

That is terrible videogame design.

Battlemaster is not the same. It is not remotely the same by a longshot and that makes me mad.

The devs have openly admitted having popular MMORPG as a very strong inspiration for 4e.

I don't know what you want more? You are putting your hands on your eyes and saying NAH NAH IT HASN'T HAPPENED I DON'T BELIEVE YOU. It's not like that in reality. It's not like that when you don't actively avoid the truth.

Of course 4e is deeply inspired by WoW. It's self evident. Have you read a 4e rulebook? Have you played WoW? It's so obviously, so evidently, inspired, no amount of trying to play the ostrich will save you. Of course. It's self evident.

Boss monsters? Recovering between encounters? One button powers? Power trees that are almost copied 1:1 from WoW? Classes that are copied on WoW? Mechanics that are copied on MMORPG? What more do you want, silly user?

It's 2017. Admit you were wrong and just go on with your life. 4e is old and busted. They tried to copy what was hype at the time, they failed. Just move on.

>inspired by = identical to

>It's 2017. Admit you were wrong and just go on with your life.

This is more relevant to your post,you know.
The edition wars are over, dude. You don't have to prove that your game is better than my game.

Please don't repeat memes and lies. It just makes you look stupid.

All you have is a quote, which doesn't actually say what you're claiming it says. Everything else you're saying is a lie, an exaggeration or a misrepresentation. If you really have an argument, then show me some direct mechanical equivalences between 4e and WoW or actually articulate why you believe they play similarly.

But you won't. Because you can't.

This guy - - has a very good answer. Some of the other pros from my perspective:

Classes have very clear purposes and designs. Very few classes are really "bad", and even the weakest of classes won't cripple your party by its presence the way low-tier classes would in 3e.

As a side-effect of this, although the underlying mechanical system is universal, exactly HOW those mechanics apply differentiates each role from each other and each class from others in its role. The tough, hard-hitting Fighter plays very differently to the highly mobile, elemental damage-flinging multi-target-attacking Swordmage. The sniper-like debuff-flinging Warlock plays very differently to the burst & blast-spewing Sorcerer.

The setting is actually full of very interesting ideas if you look deeper into it, either via the Dragon & Dungeon articles that examine unique locations, races, and planar entities, or via the setting-focused sourcebooks.

It's not a role-playing game, it's a board game.
But it's MUCH better at being a boardgame than 5e is at being an RPG.

There is no meaningful definition of roleplaying game that excludes 4e. Because D&D 4e is a roleplaying game.

To add something to the couple good posts in this thread, I'll add my two cents.

Pro: Skill Challenges. I know this is not a popular facet of the game, but personally, I like having a framework for certain kinds of non-combat scenes that works within the system. I'm used to more narrative games, so I know what to do with them, and I admit that they take a bit of getting used to, but I fell they're a nice addition.

Con: The feats. There are too many, most of them have very small effects and very fiddly activations, and they are all over the place. It's a well known fact that there are some almost obligated choices, but that still leaves a character with ten or more choices over the course of the full game, and you go from game-changing ones to very minor. That's possibly the only thing that I would back-port from 5e, way less feats with more relevant bonuses.

Battlemaster is really...well, it's the Eldritch Knight to the Warlord's Wizard. A fighter who gets to add a LITTLE of the other class's thing.

>Have you read a 4e rulebook? Have you played WoW? It's so obviously, so evidently, inspired, no amount of trying to play the ostrich will save you. Of course. It's self evident.

So it's following in 3.5's footsteps?

It's the only D&D product in the past 20 years that had been designed purposefully, to be a focused experience, an actual fucking game instead of just a system, if you will, and it makes no excuses about being so.

I like it this way. Most people apparently don't.

It was a reboot of the D&D Miniatures Game, not a reboot of D&D.

>Look mum! I keep being wrong on the internet!

What's the point of stating an outright lie that obviously isn't true?

I use D&D 4E for when I want to have Fire Emblem/Tatics Ogres/Final Fantasy: Advanced levels of shenanigans.

But Wizard is still around :'(

4e is a good board game but a terrible RPG.

Can you explain this, or are you just another person repeating memes?

Can anyone tell me what I was doing wrong with 4e? I see here all the time that people say that each class has a legitimate use. I played 4e about every other week for close to a decade, and I never had a single character survive more than two levels. It always seemed like if you didn't have your character exactly min-maxed theorycrafted using the monthly supplements that they would get fucking wrecked by monsters. It didn't seem to matter what my group's composition was, they would just get melted. We are all experienced roleplayers and have been playing together for over 2 decades so teamwork wasn't the issue. I just seemed to have had radically different experiences compared to most people in regards to 4e.

You definitely had to make sure you had good stats for your class, something that also exists in 3.5 and 5e I feel.

...Was your GM just being an asshole?

I know, that's what I meant by theorycrafting. I'm used to powergaming, but not to the scale of needing to be a changling revenant vampire who worships the raven queen in order to actually be able to land a sneak attack.
I mean. It's always a possibility. Occam's Razor and all

>to actually be able to land a sneak attack.
A 16 in Dex and a flank should be enough to do that reliably.

I never had to be a powergaming cuntbucket to be competent in 4E.

I think your DM was just being a cunt.

Well, I guess it's nice to get some validation to what I always suspected

This user speaks truth, the warlord is baller.

Also speaks truth that you're winging it on non-combat. skill challenges were never properly developed.

Yeah, I'm running a 4e campaign right now. None of my players are power gaming in the slightest. One thing that I've found, in order to compensate for the existence of minions most of the other monsters can be harder to fight. If you aren't using minions to pad your fights, then your party is in for a bad time.

My players were mega-nova shitheads, I often times would change up what appeared to be minions to get them to plink and find out, and also started oftentimes having the real boss drop into the fight 2-3 turns after the fight started so he wouldn't be stunlocked.

Don't.

Switch to Gurps.

It has all the fun stuff without the holdover from unrefined systems.

Oh God, I'd forgotten about the feats. What a fucking slog.

The biggest con is the collection of autists here on Veeky Forums who screech if you don't love their waifu system. See all the ones who revert to "m-memer!" if you think the presentation of powers feels too quickbar-ish. Outside of that it's pretty solid but you'll want a good DM, as always.

Someday, you'll tell me.

...What?

I'm pretty sure the guy meant it figuratively.

See I get around that by never saying what the enemies are. It's always just "the orcs" or "the culstists" that way they don't know if somethings a threat until they incinerate it.

laughingwarblades.jpg

Warblades, being fair, were awesome. But they're also distinctly different classes with very different themes and skillsets.

Warlords are also still better.

Advice requested: Feat or Skill Boost?

-Nature Cleric 4, Lizardman
-13/13/16/8/16/9
-Took Shillelagh as my cantrip for wis to attack/damage.
-Full Plate, Shield, Quarterstaff. AC 20.


Should I take +2 Wis or the Polearm Master feat for a bonus action attack?
Any other feats worth considering? Warcaster?

Might want to take that to the 5e general. This is a 4e thread.

FUCK ME lol thanks

Mostly it boils down to your personal tastes.

>are power lists presented with little to no fluff clear and concise or sterile and immersion-breaking?
>do you like tactical combat with tons of condition stacking or would you prefer something more abstract?
>does the concept of a skill challenge intrigue or repulse you?
>are you okay with rituals being universally available with the caveat that every casting usually costs gold?
>was bringing mages down to martial level a good method for balancing or would you have preferred balls to the wall anime-tier martials instead?

And so on.

Being fair, 4e also has plenty of room for balls to the wall anime tier martials.

Sure, but I'm talking about bringing martials up to (at least around) 3.5's god-wizard levels. THAT would have been something to see.

>still defending long-dead shit edition because it's the game you played as a kid

Get with the times grognards, 4e is dead

Why don't you go yell at the OSR people or the Battletech thread if you want to yell at people talking about older games.

You posted something this weak, vague and pointless just to bump a thread about a game you don't like? really?

>and players are assumed to have certain magic items and feats by a certain level
I've only ever played 5e so I'm wondering how in the everloving fuck any DM ever tolerated this shitty math.
What the fuck is the point of magic items if they aren't special? So mundane the system REQUIRES you to hand them out for the math to work out.
I'm guessing OSR doesn't have this problem, which would make sense why everyone loves it.

It's worth remembering that 3.PF made similar assumptions, it just didn't tell you explicitly, resulting in a lot of GM's ignoring the recommended WBL and certain character types ending up getting screwed over.

As was mentioned in the thread, Inherent Bonuses is an option which includes magic item equivalent bonuses by default, removing the need for the magic item treadmill.

4e was really very different. It wasn't supposed to be D&D, but it's own thing that got labeled D&D because they wanted a new D&D version and oh look here's this thing.

People compare it to WoW, but that's not quite right. It's not tabletop WoW, it's tabletop Magic the Gathering.

By that, I mean the mechanics were deceptively simple, and would interact in the same complicated way that MtG combos do. Most of the real flavor of the system was in the character creation. 4e was built for pulpy, quirky characters. If you weren't playing a dragon-punching masked luchador or a quadruple vampire, you were doing it wrong. Look up Touhoufag's threads on suptg, he had a lot of great ideas.

The con, of course, is that it had all the shit that MtG has as well. Tons of useless feats and actively bad power options, ostensibly to teach new players what bad options look like but really to give the Spikes something to jerk off to. And a focus on tournaments and balancing for the tournaments which resulted in *constant* errata nerfing this or that, and a general lackluster in things like magic items. WotC actually had an article apologizing for the shit quality of the provided magic items and begging DMs to add their own in.

And of course, you won't be able to talk about 4e here without triggering the same snowflakes you see in this thread.

...Wait. Why are you talking about 3.5's entire concept of ivory tower game design, in response to 4e? I'm very confused.

Do you like MMOs and only dungeon dive?
>4e
Did you ever think, "Yeah, but what if everybody could cast spells"?
>4e
Do you only see numbers like a massive faggot?
>4e

>What the fuck is the point of magic items if they aren't special?
An obvious showing of character growth to keep the players happy while also not being overpowered.

Please don't repeat memes and lies.

4e is a dumpster fire and Veeky Forums is the only place on the entire internet I've seen people defend it.

Well the WOTC forums no longer exist...

Can you articulate why, in terms other than 'I don't like it so it's bad'?

>that class chart
kek

>intentional trap options
>tournament play
>constant errata nudging
As says:
wat?

Errbody has spells.
Racial encounter powers that you can only use during a battle (What fucking alleles fired up in your genes to sense encounters).

Ahh, so a lie and a misunderstanding. Fair enough then.

>Racial encounter powers that you can only use during a battle (What fucking alleles fired up in your genes to sense encounters).

As opposed to 3.5's 'Racial abilities you can use 1/day'?

Alright, I'll bite: what explanation can you give to me for racial encounter powers?

It's stressful enough you need to recover your breath? As it takes 5 minutes of non-stressful situations to recover encounter powers. If someone attacks 30 seconds afterwards, it's another encounter but the power is NOT back.

Well, for one thing nothing in the system stops you using them out of combat, 'encounter' becomes once per scene, or roughly five minutes. But you're also mistaking the fundamental nature of powers.

See >There's also a few turnoffs that might dissuade people who otherwise might enjoy the system. 'Powers' as the system uses them are all abstract, narrative mechanics. They don't just represent a characters ability to do a thing, they also include finding the exact right moment to pull off a particular trick, being spent as a narrative power to allow a particular event to happen, rather than it being an action the character explicitly takes in universe. Some people are okay with this, some people find it immersion shattering for reasons I've never fully understood, but it harms their experience so it's a legitimate complaint.

If you don't like that kind of thing? That's fine. But that's the system not suiting your preferences, not the system being bad.

Same one I givet for any other Encounter.
Either the opportunity to use it only presents itself once in that fight. Or the power is simply too taxing to use more than once in a fight.

I was meaning in the world, like how a race has something that they can only do during a battle, but not outside.
I get the mechanics of that, and I know too few DMs that would actually let me use that shit outside of battle.

>I get the mechanics of that, and I know too few DMs that would actually let me use that shit outside of battle.

That's more a shitty GM then, as such powers ARE supposed to be able to be used outside of battle. I mean, Elf Robin Hood should be able to use his inhuman accuracy to split the arrow at the contest for example.

The Dying Earth 2001 and Dungeon Crawl Classing are both better systems, way better.

Being fair, the system should have stated that more clearly and explicitly, earlier on. I can kinda see why GM's got the wrong impression. The system still contradicts them though, so it's more bad GMing than anything else.

>"Dungeon Crawl Classic"

Sorry OP, I misspelled one of them!

Both 4e and 5e are direct responses to 3.5

4e is "But what if we INTENDED the game to play the way it does?"

5e is "but what if the game actually PLAYED the way it was intended to play?"

This is reflected in the settings that both games handle really well, 4e does an amazing job encapsulating Eberron, a setting made for 3e by a fan who knew how 3e works and made a setting to function around that. 5e does a good job with Forgotten Realms (or as good a job as can be done with Forgotten Realms), a setting that was heavily influential on the designers of 3.5 and played a major role in what the game was supposed to play like

Alright, rad.
I more often took that as after a full sleep, like getting spells back. That was my house rule; never spoken, but understood.
Also, not really addressing the point.
Thanks for the example, and answering.
Why wouldn't it have said it explicitly? Wouldn't otherwise be house-ruling?
Although, I still can't get an example of what part of their DNA says "It's a fucking battle".

I was saying that the system should have said it more explicitly. Guidelines for using powers out of combat are in the system, but they should have been presented more clearly, as a lot of people clearly missed them.

And again, powers are an abstraction. They don't necessarily relate to a anything explicitly in universe in the way you're suggesting.

You are almost as retarded as the guy that was trying to use the Drow's racial Faerie Fire to burn down a door and getting pissed that DM wouldn't let him. Ignoring the fact that Faerie Fire doesn't do damage, it is a fucking Illusion and doesn't actually catch anything on fire.

>Although, I still can't get an example of what part of their DNA says "It's a fucking battle".

Mostly because well...powers are not really only usable in battle. Otherwise Utility powers would be utterly useless. An encounter is 'A scene'. A scene of talking is an encounter for example (And can be worth EXP if it's a challenge.

Encounter is a decently meta term because it works more on how we view the world of the game (A series of connected situations) rather than how reality works (Moment by moment).

Everyone is going to autisticlly screech "its WoW the board game reeeeee". And they're right, but that doesn't equate to it being bad.

It's technically DnD but the best way to look at 4e is as it's own separate d20 game.

It is heavily focused on combat and class roles, it's pretty lacking in out of combat stuff aside from using class or race abilities to augment your rolls in social or exploration scenarios.

Making characters without a digital builder can kind of suck, but it's not too bad doing without one once you do it a few times and get the hang of it.

If you want to give it a shot, honestly just grab your friends and play a few sessions. If you're a party who likes combat and unique classes, you'll probably like it a lot. If not oh well at least now you know.

>it's pretty lacking in out of combat stuff

my face when nobody remembers Rituals or Exploits.

Dude fucking 4e ritual magic is the best shit ever. I was so disappointed when I learned how rituals worked in 5th.

Two things do indeed sound like "very little." Rituals often also lack bang for the buck.

What out-of-combat stuff is it missing that other systems have?

Being able to solve out of combat encounters in six seconds with some spell the DM didn't think was important.

Right off the top of my head, FATE. WoD too, really any narrative based game easily.