Normie Edition D&D

I will concede that natural 20s were optional in 2nd and lacking in 1st.

That doesn't change that in 5e, a natural 20 is ONLY an automatic hit on an attack roll (which is mostly for flavor - a 20 plus modifier is probably going to hit anyway) and a doubling of the damage dice. Unlike 3e, it doesn't affect saving throws; nor does it affect skills, like it does in various d20 spinoffs like Spycraft 1.0; further, in 3e a Natural 20 was not only an automatic hit but often did more than double damage, depending on the weapon rolled.

So the basic point that 5e isn't a system where rolling a natural 20 is particularly impressive remains true.

Finally someone replies to bait with a real conversation. Thank you user.

>normie
You are a normalfag yourself, fag

I swear, the bait comes more and more obvious...

>>Fourth edition
>is the only edition of D&D that was ever outsold by a competing RPG, and that competitor was Pathfinder, a 3e clone

My understanding is that during the timeslice 4th Edition was active, it outsold Pathfinder. Of course, number totals are going to show Pathfinder sold more than 4th, but Path was also active longer than 4th was.

And yes I'm a furry 4rry.

>bait
To clarify, I don't mean the post I responded to, but OP.

What do you think of Basic D&D? As in, B/X or Cyclopedia?

user, are you me?

For one quarter of one fiscal year, I think 2013 or 2014, Pathfinder outsold 4e. For context, this was after a massive content drought for 4e that had lasted more than a year already, and it was the only time that it happened, and it's obviously because by that point the team had been both slashed down to almost nothing and was too busy working on what was then being called Next and would become 5e after the disaster that was D&D Essentials and the Menzoberranzan splatbook (which I would not be surprised if it only sold a few hundred copies).

Regardless of the circumstances, though, it doesn't change the fact that it makes 4e the ONLY edition of D&D to EVER be outsold by a competing RPG. At the absolute height of Vampire's popularity and the nadir of 2e's during a similar (though smaller) content drought in the late 90s, 2e still outsold Vampire, its only serious competition.

The fact that it was Pathfinder - again, a 3e clone - is especially embarrassing, as it proved to be the final nail in the coffin as to whether or not 4e had been a worthwhile risk for Wizards of the Coast as a company: regardless of whatever technical superiority it may have had over 3e, it was just too fundamentally different in tone and presentation from what D&D players wanted.

So, in sum - yes, overall, 4e outsold Pathfinder, probably by quite a bit, but there was a brief moment in time where it didn't, and it's literally the only time in the entire history of pen-and-paper tabletop RPGs (43 or so years at this point) that D&D was not the top dog.

Never played; no opinion.

>So having finally opened up the sourcebooks for 5th Edition...
>I rolled a 20! I won, right?!
Suuure you did, user.

So basically 'True but really not the whole picture'. Fuck essentials so very hard, who really thought that would drag back the 3e players?

I have to say, I agree with OP on this one, though I never played 4th edition.

It took me a long time to realise that 2E is actually the best edition (it's the edition I first played). I got dazzled by all the options that 3.5 provided, without realising that it was really a straightjacket in disguise.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy 5th edition - it has some really nice ideas, but fuck, the playerbase of 5E is total fucking cancer.

Why does every character in every game have to be some cancerous Mary Sue homebrew?

It really doesn't matter; the problem with 4e wasn't Essentials in and of itself. It was just 4e. From the start it was seen as too different, because it WAS too different, and deliberately so. The developers seemed to take active glee in changing things that no one really asked them to, like dropping gnomes and adding tieflings from the PHB (they even made a flash video where they mocked gnomes while deliberately turning up the tiefling fetish bait); and made nonsensical decisions like including dragonborn as a race "because dragon is half the D&D name, so there should be a dragon race" (by the way, right from the start we were all asking "why do they have boobs?"); to say nothing of what they did to the Forgotten Realms, which I wouldn't wish on any setting, even ones I don't like (like Warhammer Fantasy - yes, the reference here is deliberate).

Then when the PHB came out and the way the Powers were organized actually looked like a friggin' video game power selection screen, we all realized that what we'd been suspecting for awhile was true - 4e was meant to be World of WarCraft the RPG, not D&D. It was catering to a totally different user base and playstyle.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: 5e is like the 3e we would have gotten if in 2000 Wizards of the Coast had already learned all the lessons of 3e and 4e. It feels like a natural progression from 2e or a proper refinement of 3e, with just enough of what worked in 4e to make the game better overall.

By any metric, the result has been an astounding success, possibly because Wizards made sure to actually ask the player base what they wanted in playtest after poll after convention rather than assume they could divine it based on CharOp message board posts, book sales, and the sales figures of an MMO that they'll never really compete with.

This is the best post I've seen in a long time. Bravo user

>who really thought that would drag back the 3e players?
That wasn't the goal. The plan was to leverage what they had already written in a way that had quick turnaround and would be more accessible to totally green players, plus with the potential to be a funnel into 4e proper. It was "Basic 4e" plus a liquidation sale. And then there were a few books like the Monster Vault, which were a pretty good 4e resources in general.

>2E is actually the best edition
Hey, that's not how you spell Rules Cyclopedia!
>Why does every character in every game have to be some cancerous Mary Sue homebrew?
I've actually encountered this less in 5e because of the 'you get benefits for actually having characterization (so don't fucking phone it in)' stuff.

The title of this thread represents everything I hate about this board.

We hate you too, you disgusting normie faggot.

C'mere, give us a hug.

>still plays D&D
>claims 1st and 2nd Edition are the best

E is actually the best edition
>Hey, that's not how you spell Rules Cyclopedia!
Oh you.

I've never played the Cyclopedia version - I remember when it came out, I kept walking past it in the games store, mulling over buying it, but all my friends played 2E so I decided against it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Red Box D&D though.

>4e was meant to be World of WarCraft the RPG

I don't know if I can agree user.

>It was catering to a totally different user base and playstyle.
Definitely cannot agree, based upon experience with 3.5, 4E, Path, and running other systems.

I will agree that 4E changed a lot and fumbled the ball on getting content out (IIRC there was a murder-suicide involving one of the driving forces behind 4E and without him a lot of stuff got cut). I will agree there were a lot of people who were very salty over the changes made, but I liked a lot of the changes they made.

I just can't really agree with the whole "4E was a MMO" trope at all.

Didn't it have different roles for classes, equating to Sword 'n Board, DPS, and Controller?

That plus Healing Surges sounds pretty WoW to me.

Yeah, it did name the various party roles, but to my knowledge (which I admit may be lacking something), the names of the roles had no real impact on gameplay.

They were just there as an aide on creation and figuring out what the party needed.

I mean, a rogue is a striker in every version of DnD I've played, where he deals the most damage. Same for the others of Leader, Controller, and Defender.

Or going back to the old roots, Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Mage.

>Healing Surges sounds pretty WoW to me

Not sure how. Healing surges don't have an analogue to WoW that I see. They were things that required a standard action to use, and were the basis of most of the healing done. They were also used as a type of stamina as well, as traps and poor terrain checks could drain you of them.

>That plus Healing Surges sounds pretty WoW to me.

Healing Surges are the opposite of WoW. In WoW, as long as the priest has mana remaining you can endlessly heal the warrior and a given tank will likely go through dozens of times his max HP in a given boss fight due to that. In 4e, healing surges were your entire endurance for the day. Every single healing ability (Save for a few, notably rare ones that were almost all dailies) comes out of your Healing Surges and when you are out of them? Well, you are too exhausted to benefit from anything but the most powerful of magic.

It did, deliberately, encoded into its very rules, with each class clearly delineated as belonging to one of the four roles.

This is different from previous editions' roles of Warrior, Rogue, Priest, and Mage, though, in that of them only the Warrior role describes solely a combat position. The Rogue was explicitly introduced into the game as a class with noncombat options - dealing with traps, sneaking around, climbing walls, and so on. Priests and Mages, meanwhile, were defined by their versatility and utility, not by their combat rolls. It also was a rough description of their social station; thus, the Monk is considered a Priest class despite having more in common with the Rogue, and the Paladin is a Warrior despite having crossover with the Priest.

There's also the problem that D&D classes in previous editions didn't necessarily have a set combat role as 4e classes did at launch: a Fighter could be a Striker or a Defender; a Cleric could be a Controller or Leader; and so on. D&D classes in previous editions and in 5e describe HOW you do what you do, but not really what you do.

The 4e classes also left out the fifth party role that was traditionally filled by Bards but also could be filled by (thanks to their CHA prerequisites in 2e) Druids or Paladins or (in 3e) Sorcerers: the Face, the guy who's primary job was social interaction.

>I mean, a rogue is a striker in every version of DnD I've played

Really? I always saw a Rogue as a utility class, very interesting. Backstabbing was always hard to do, as you'd waste a lot of time getting into position for a backstab and then spend rounds and rounds trying to get back into the shadows.

A rogue's true strength was always finding and disarming traps and nicking stuff.

What you said is clearly true, as I played a shitty indie game on PC recently which also mentioned the rogue as a high damage, low AC character. Thanks for getting my brain going.

I meant that as soon as combat is ended, everyone is back to full HP and ready for the next encounter, not that the mechanics are the same.

>It did, deliberately, encoded into its very rules, with each class clearly delineated as belonging to one of the four roles.

I'm pretty certain you've only gone through 4e superficially at best.

Especially since classes weren't locked down into those roles due to variants.

>The 4e classes also left out the fifth party role that was traditionally filled by Bards but also could be filled by (thanks to their CHA prerequisites in 2e) Druids or Paladins or (in 3e) Sorcerers: the Face, the guy who's primary job was social interaction.

Well, a lot of that was because 'Roles' were purely combat descriptive. What a given class did out of combat very rarely linked up to role and more linked up to stats.

As an aside: Man I miss in 5e 4e's decision to go 'Your secondary stat for any given class is highly variable'. Monks being able to be Dex/Str, Dex/Con, Dex/Wis or Dex/Cha really made two monks feel very different out of combat rather than 'Every monk is Dex/Wis'.

I'm not going to sugar coat it. The notion that roles are an inherently MMO-ish thing is pretty retarded. You basically can't have a team game without roles of some kind, and if you try to do so, roles emerge whether you like them or not. See.

-every team sport
-every team video game
-every cooperative activity whatsoever
-pokemon is a good example of a game where there are no explicit roles, but they emerge on teams in the metagame because that's just the best way to make them.

I don't really care about your tastes, and you can like or dislike whatever you want. Your opinion of roles just happens to be a bit dumb.

>Rogue as a utility class
Oh, they still are in 4e - two of my campaigns, I played a rogue. I was the skill-monkey and trap disamerer. I was also one of the principle damage dealers.

4e's classifications are primarily about the tactical combat roles.

>I meant that as soon as combat is ended, everyone is back to full HP and ready for the next encounter

Except that you don't recover to full HP unless you spend the time to heal up, and you only regain healing surges from an extended (8 hour) rest. So if you have 5 healing surges - that's it for the day.

No, of course there are natural roles that you'll fall into.

Why even codify it? That's the retarded thing. I do find it hard to talk to 4fags. You mostly seem like cunts.

>Why even codify it?

Because it makes sense for things to do what they say on the tin? And having a tin that say what the thing does?

>Why even codify it?

Because 4e was very big on pulling the curtain back and letting the players understand the design decisions. It explained the strengths/focus of a given class in a single word rather than going 'Here is what you can do, work out how it all fits together'

>No, of course there are natural roles that you'll fall into.
So, like damage dealer, healer, blocker, or crowd control?

>Why even codify it?
They weren't codified. They were descriptive.

>I do find it hard to talk to 4fags. You mostly seem like cunts.
I see.

>Why even codify it? That's the retarded thing. I do find it hard to talk to 4fags. You mostly seem like cunts.
4rries are pretty chill as long as you don't spout memes made by pathfinder shills. You can't really take the high road if you post the one anti-4e party line that's been posted every thread for ten years.

Want to say that codifying roles is retarded? That's fine, we can have a conversation about that. hell, maybe you're right? But we can't have a dialogue if the opening line is dishonest.

Reddit is strong in this one.

>maybe you're right?
He isn't, though.

As far as I can recall, the Striker/Leader/Defender/Controller labels are just labels describing what the class was built for during combat.

I don't recall a single rule that concerned itself with those titles.

They were also not as strict as some would make them out to be, with alternate class features that let you act as a different role.

If I was home I could pull out my PHB for examples.

>A rogue's true strength was always finding and disarming traps and nicking stuff.

Agreed. In HotDQ/RoT, my most consistently useful ability as a thief wasn't Sneak Attack, it was Cunning Action/Fast Hands and the ability to Dash, Disengage, Hide, Sleight of Hand, Open Locks, Disarm Traps, and Use an Object as a bonus action.

Mind, part of this might have been because I was playing a drow but we were frequently outside in broad daylight, so Sneak Attack was frequently impossible for me (thanks to disadvantage) so I instead more focused on maneuvering enemies around the field by taunting them to come after me. Which made me more of a Controller than a Striker.

>I'm pretty certain you've only gone through 4e superficially at best.

Pic. The first thing you read about a class in each class description, after a brief bit of flavor text, is its defined role, something you don't encounter in previous or subsequent editions of D&D.

>Well, a lot of that was because 'Roles' were purely combat descriptive

Which is the problem that 3e and previous edition fans had with them. The classic roles aren't, except in the case of the Warrior, and even then "Warrior" was frequently implied to also mean something along the lines of a leader of men (viz. the followers they gain in 1e and 2e). In 3e, the class description of the cleric describes its characteristics but not its intended role. When it describes how clerics interact with other classes, it describes how clerics clash with druids over philosophy, or how a cleric of the god of thieves will get along with rogues - how they interact socially, not in combat.

>And Fifth is Normie D&D
You make it sound like it's a bad thing.

>They were also not as strict as some would make them out to be, with alternate class features that let you act as a different role.

Honestly, I think 4e could have done a little better at describing that by including 'secondary role' in the description (Of either the class or the subclass). A Paladin for example has a very strong Leader secondary role, especially charisma paladins while the Monk is borderline Controller with how much fuckery he can pull out.

So you don't think we had tactical roles in B/X, 2E, 3E, or 5E? Did that only happen in 4th edition? All the casters ran to the front in previous editions and attacked the enemies with their little daggers and quarterstaves, while the fighters decided to try to make potions or something?

A 2E ranger could decide to harry the opponent, attack head on, use range weapons or melt into the forest to ambush foes depending on the situation. I dunno, but that's three or four roles right there.

4E: Nope imma firin ma bow cos I'm a controller or some shit

TO BE FAIR I've only read the books and not played it because that shit put me right off.

>I don't recall a single rule that concerned itself with those titles.
I think there were a handful (less than 5) feats/paragon paths/epic destinies that required "a controller" or "a defender" but they were all dragon mag and published late in 4e's life.

>When it describes how clerics interact with other classes, it describes how clerics clash with druids over philosophy, or how a cleric of the god of thieves will get along with rogues - how they interact socially, not in combat.
Who the fuck is the book to tell me how I should be behaving with other characters?

"well, you're a cleric, so you should be acting like this with other class" is some horseshit. I'll act however I god damn please. The book should tell me what I can do, and then move out of the way and allow me to decide how I actually play my fucking character.

>Pic. The first thing you read about a class in each class description, after a brief bit of flavor text, is its defined role,

There's no mechanics for the "defined role". It's purely descriptive of what the abilities of the class do in combat.

>something you don't encounter in previous or subsequent editions of D&D.

Argument from Tradition that their combat roles weren't explicitly called out in the manuals.

>Which is the problem that 3e and previous edition fans had with them.
The roles are solely descriptive of what the class does in combat. It does not carry over or limit them in any other way or fashion.

I'm pretty certain you've just skimmed or are repeating memes you took for truth.

Nah, that's fair. I was mainly responding negatively to shit like

> I'm not going to sugar coat it. The notion that roles are an inherently MMO-ish thing is pretty retarded.
> I don't really care about your tastes, and you can like or dislike whatever you want. Your opinion of roles just happens to be a bit dumb

Which was just uncalled for and cuntish.

>So you don't think we had tactical roles in B/X, 2E, 3E, or 5E?

No, they existed. That's why people talk about codifying it rather than creating them. 4e was attempting to be very kind to new players after an edition that often caught a lot of flak because it wasn't very good at such (For example, the fighter not actually being very good at protecting his allies but being very good at evaporating people with a greatsword).

That and a lot of it was from a game design perspective. The more defined 'What do we want this class to achieve, mechanically' likely came about due to the endless comments about dissatisfaction with classes that didn't really have a defined identity (The monk was an unarmed fighter for example who couldn't fight for shit because his class features conflicted with each other and many of them like Tongue of the Sun and Moon just came right out of nowhere). So instead they went 'So, what does this class do mechanically? Now, how do we make it do that differently to the other classes that also have the same goal (See: How basically every defender defends in a very different way to the others).

>A 2E ranger could decide to harry the opponent, attack head on, use range weapons or melt into the forest to ambush foes depending on the situation. I dunno, but that's three or four roles right there.

The 4e ranger can do all that. Being a striker just guarantees that WHILE DOING ALL THAT he's also going to deal the most damage (unless it's a Hunter in which case he's going to deal OK damage, but to absolutely everyone if they clump up)

>by including 'secondary role' in the description (Of either the class or the subclass)

I'm pretty certain they did. I'm not at home or I'd check my PHB myself, but I recall the manuals mentioning secondary roles. The pic posted by is just the short statblock for the class, minus the fluff and other info.

Rangers were, depending on build, Strikers or Controllers. I played a ranger as a striker, focusing on dealing damage at range with my bow.

Honestly I stopped playing sometime before Essentials came out, and have only just in the last few months started familiarizing myself. I think I can be forgiven for missing stuff published in Dragon Magazine, eh?

>made by pathfinder shills
>we can't have a dialogue if the opening line is dishonest
While it's often overstated, 4e explicitly took design from MMOs.
>Collins admitted that 4th edition was influenced by MMOs but was quick to point out that the design took inspiration from many contemporary sources. "As professional game designers, we look at all games for lessons," he said last year. "Certainly, the lessons we learn from online games are going to be the most obvious ones because they have a lot of people familiar with the sources, but there's also lessons about turn management from European board games, interface ideas from card games."

From earlier in the same chapter:
>"Each description begins with a general discussion in “game world” terms, the sort of description that characters in the world could understand and the way such a character might describe himself or herself. This information is followed by brief advice on such a character’s typical role in a group of adventurers. These descriptions are general; individual members of a class may differ in their attitudes, outlooks, and other aspects."

Same way that not every Toreador is an artist or not every Gangrel a hippy. The point is that the book focused on how the classes interacted with each other on an adventure, which is more than just combat, it's also exploration, problem-solving, travel, and social encounters and interactions.

As often repeated to me by my game design teacher, "The First Rule of Game Design is Plagiarism".

I think you are overstating the influence that MMOs had, from the quote provided. Of COURSE they're going to look at anything that might be relevant to the work they're doing, its the same reason why I have an entire Ikea shelving unit filled with RPGs - I'm seeing how other people approached similar issues I have.

>I never played 4e once but LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT 4E

Okay, but let's be real. Your supposed myriad of options is

>Attack enemy
>attack enemy
>attack enemy
>hide

So in about 2 minutes I've made a 4e ranger who, at level 1, can just do the following.

At-Will: Double tap someone bow
Hit two targets with a bow
Double tap someone with a melee weapon
Hit two targets with melee weapons
Hit someone and then designate an area where I can put down suppressive fire
Duck off into the woods and hide since I'm trained in stealth.
This is on top of basic stuff that everyone can do.

I'm not going to go into encounter and daily powers, because they're not really worth mentioning in this comparison.

>At-Will: Double tap someone bow
>Hit two targets with a bow
>Double tap someone with a melee weapon
>Hit two targets with melee weapons
>Hit someone and then designate an area where I can put down suppressive fire
>Duck off into the woods and hide since I'm trained in stealth.
>This is on top of basic stuff that everyone can do.
Let me tell you a secret.

In AD&D and 2e....you can do all of these things. And you know what? You didn't need a fucking "power list" to do it. you could do any of those things whenever you wanted. Because bows carried their own additional attacks, and rangers had two weapon fighting, granting them two attacks a round, and anyone could attempt to hide (rogues did it better, but you weren't prevented from doing so by not being a rogue).

Again, that section can fuck right off. It's only purpose is for autistic nerds to scream and whine about how "you're not playing a druid right."

Tell me the how my character works mechanically, if necessary tell me how those mechanics are justified in lore, and then move out of the way. I can decide how my character acts and behaves.

So you could do all the same things, but in 4e it's in a box.

That's not the kind of inspiration that's memed in edition war threads though.

Secondly, what's the alternative to 4e designers looking at how MMOs are designed, denying taking anything from them? That's just not a necessary exception to make, especially in an interview. The point of the admission was that multiple sources were used.

Oh God, that reminds me that 4e just made keeping track of the various stacking bonuses of 3e even worse.

+1 for each ally adjacent to your target, -2 for being marked, +1 to a particular skill check if you're within 5 squares of one character, -2 to a different skill check if you're within 6 squares of another one...

Rather, in 2e you don't need a specific power to attempt to do a specific thing. In 4e, you do. So, yes, in 4e, it's in a box, and you don't necessarily have access to what's in that box unless you pay the tax of selecting it as you level up; whereas in 2e, you have a full buffet table laid out for you.

>First edition is
>a clusterfuck redeemed solely by the fact that it was the first of its kind and thus couldn't help but be objectively bad by comparison to later RPGs
"First edition" is the first edition of AD&D, not the first edition ever released. That would be Original D&D. So first edition wasn't really the first of its kind.

You left out Original D&D and Basic D&D.

>you could do any of those things whenever you wanted
You mean, they could do them

At Will?

Most of those are... super situational, user.

Don't pull a muscle with all that stretching.

>+1 for each ally adjacent to your target

No? Flanking a guy was Combat Advantage. +2, doesn't stack with any other source of combat advantage. 4e mostly kept it pretty simple because they put a lot of stuff as Power Bonus or 'Grants Combat Advantage', which means they don't stack.

>4e with fewer stacking modifiers and the possibility of gridless combat
My ideal game desu

I don't have a lot of experience with 2e. How does this buffet table premise of 2e compare to 3e?

>Rather, in 2e you don't need a specific power to attempt to do a specific thing.

You can attempt any (reasonable) action in 4e. Having a power just guarantees it works (needs no skill roll) and works BETTER than if you don't have a power.

In AD&D, the ranger has TWF. This makes him better with two weapons, just like 4e ranger having TWF powers makes him better with two weapons.

Yes, I know how 2e works. I've played 2e extensively.

So let be clearer.
What I'm telling you is that you can do the exact same shit as a 2e ranger, it's just the game presents it somewhat differently. Your problem basically amounts to "it's different and I don't like it."

>unless you pay the tax of selecting it as you level up

That was a level one character.

Also I'm pretty certain your actual experience with 4e is nil, from the wording of the post.

>and you don't necessarily have access to what's in that box unless you pay the tax of selecting it as you level up; whereas in 2e, you have a full buffet table laid out for you.

...didn't you have to level up as the ranger to get the TWF in the first place? It wasn't exactly freeform/classless.

I like how even in your example you have to combine two unlike things to make it seem unreasonable.

Not trying to be defensive here, but 4e is my favorite flavor of D&D and I still have to admit that the modifiers and auras can add up quickly. The DM also has to remember stuff like monster immediate reactions that trigger at different times.

There is basically one page of improvised actions in the DMG, and while a lot of the things players will try to do with improvised maneuvers is covered in the skill list, it's not the focus of the system.

A good example of this is when a player in my game wanted to throw a bottle of oil on a fire to cause a blaze. It's pretty easy to adjudicate because you just use the DMG page 42 table that's reprinted on my DM screen for damage, then refer to the difficulty class of the skill check.

I looked it up. According to one source:

"A ranger may use two weapons simultaneously without the standard penalties (which are -2 for his main weapon, -4 for the second weapon) when wearing studded or lighter armor (armor with an Armor Class of 7 or more). The following restrictions also apply:

The ranger must be able to wield his main weapon with one hand.

The second weapon must be smaller in size and must weigh less than the main weapon.

The ranger can't use a shield when using two weapons."

dark-wolf.weebly.com/add-2--rangers-guide.html

So a L1 ranger can do it, assuming I've got the right source. Of course, there's that armor penalty. I don't know how to translate armor equivalents between AD&D and 4e, so I'm stuck there.

Oh yeah, I mostly meant 'It's something tied to the class' rather than 'You get it past level 1'.

>Not trying to be defensive here, but 4e is my favorite flavor of D&D and I still have to admit that the modifiers and auras can add up quickly. The DM also has to remember stuff like monster immediate reactions that trigger at different times.

Yeah, 5e thinning it down is something I really like about it and consider an unambiguous improvement.

>There is basically one page of improvised actions in the DMG, and while a lot of the things players will try to do with improvised maneuvers is covered in the skill list, it's not the focus of the system.

Yeah, I just mean usual strawman stuff in the style of "I throw sand in his eyes!" "but you don't have the 'throw sand power'" "oh noes, I guess I ded :(" not actually existing.

>"I throw sand in his eyes!"
Touch attack with an improvised weapon, Primary Stat vs Reflex. Target makes a saving throw at +5: Fail, blinded condition, save ends. Provokes attack of opportunity.
If Improvised Weapon/Throw Anything Feat: Remove the +5 for target's saving throw.

So you've already admitted to not playing 4e, so please understand that I AM talking down to you right now for complaining about a game you've never played.

Your objection, ultimately, is a petty one of "I want my class features and options to look like X, and not look like Y."

>Yeah, I just mean usual strawman stuff in the style of "I throw sand in his eyes!" "but you don't have the 'throw sand power'" "oh noes, I guess I ded :(" not actually existing.

Throwing sand without the associated power in 4e is just not really a great option. Your reward for doing so based on page 42 is just a small amount of damage.

You COULD say that throwing sand is a hard difficulty skill check, then have it only be available based on some situational advantage, and then say it inflicted the blind condition for a single turn, but that kind of ruling isn't really discussed in the rules. 4e overall isn't really concerned with that sort of thing. I'm fine with that, but it's not the tone of game everybody wants.

I'd say it's Dex v. Reflex (sand would definitely count as a light thrown weapon) and blind until end of next turn

>4e was meant to be World of WarCraft the RPG
>I don't know if I can agree user.
Well it isn't even too paranoid to propose it, not only are the much lamented powers system and race system far more similar to a write up of WoW characters but most the official art it had was very WoWish.

Considering MMO's massive success at the time it isn't too much of an assumption that WoTC would try and make a video gamey D&D edition, it certainly explains the drastic change in play style, game elements, publication releases and art style more than assuming all they were doing was random experimentation.

is using 3.5 terminology I think?

I'm just not sure why. Nobody is talking about what 3.5 can/can't do, it's all about 4e's perceived abilities right now.

Wasn't there an improved table later on? I remember that the PHB1 table was slightly too weak. Blinding for a turn is definitely OK even as an at-will.

Does any of that have basis in the PHB or DMG of your system of choice, or is it just how you would rule it based on your experience with the system? I'm just curious.

4e would end up leaning on a skill DC and page 42 of the DMG. Of course, the DM an definitely make something very similar to your solution, replacing the damage with blind for example.

Oops accidentally screwed up the reply somehow. Guess this is incoming.

3.5 is shit and nobody plays 4e so I welcome 5e

Five is a bit short-term.
It had nerd-lite traction as far back as Bazinga.
Early mid 2000s though, I would agree with you for sure. That was when wearing retro NES shirts was about as geek chiq went.

Yeah, just kind of realized that. My brain basically parsed it in 4e by skimming rather than reading.

So, "I want to throw sand in someone's eyes" in 4e.

Standard Action, At Will
Melee 1
Special: You must have a free hand
Attack: Dexterity vs Reflex.
Hit: Target is blinded until end of next turn.

This is incredibly straight forward.

Seems fair, an Actual Power version would be that + some minor damage. I'd also accept vs Will if you are playing up being deceptive with it as 'Dirty tricks' are often vs Will in 4e.

>is using 3.5 terminology I think?
Nope, asspulling a power-equivalent on the fly for how I would handle pocket-sand. I was giving the target a +5 to the save role if the person throwing the sand wasn't proficient with improvised weapons.

Admittedly it's also been a while since I've played anything but Pathfinder.

>Dex v. Reflex
Is what I originally wrote, but felt that would penalize other characters for whom pocket sand could be just as effective, considering it's at melee range only. Hence the "Primary Stat". It's been done in the game before with a feat that let you swap out what stat you used for melee weapon to-hits.

I do agree about the blind until the start of the user's turn, but I'd keep the save attempt for it.

AS far as I'm aware it's got no real basis in the PHB or DMG. I literally asspulled it when I wrote the response.

>This is incredibly straight forward.
Pretty much. I'd still argue for a Save and having it be Primary Stat, not Dex, but I'm also nice to my players.

I intentionally neglected damage because blind is a pretty powerful status effect, and sand in the eyes isn't particularly deadly. Plus, since this didn't really deal with expending resource like selecting a power would, I'd make a point of making sure that it stays somewhat under-powered.

>I was giving the target a +5 to the save role if the person throwing the sand wasn't proficient with improvised weapons.

I'm pretty sure improvised weapons just don't gain any prof bonus, so +5 to the save feels weird, to say the least.

If I went for codifying the way page 42 would do it, I'd probably make it a Thievery check, cause it's sneaky action.

Or you can consider their eyes a pocket your are thievery-ing sand into (don't take this seriously).

>AS far as I'm aware it's got no real basis in the PHB or DMG. I literally asspulled it when I wrote the response.

If that's the case, then why does 4e get memed about pocket sand when it seems that it has always been an example that forces the Dm to make something up?

>Pretty much. I'd still argue for a Save and having it be Primary Stat, not Dex, but I'm also nice to my players.

Spending a standard action to do no damage and getting in return a chance to do a temporary condition is already a really desperate move. Adding a save to it just means it's not worth doing even when your character is against a wall and fighting out is absolutely not an option.

Oh yeah, hence why I said Actual Power. Status effect with no damage is a generally good benchmark for an easily repeatable improvised thing. Now if it was something like 'Diving from the top of a tall cliff like a madman' or something I'd stat that more like a daily since you are sure as fuck not repeating that one too soon.

I mean, thievery is all forms of dexterous deception. So being able to snatch some sand from a pocket and toss it into someone's face without getting punched in the face (the normal consequence for throwing something in melee) might require a bit of slight of hand.

>I'm pretty sure improvised weapons just don't gain any prof bonus, so +5 to the save feels weird, to say the least.
The *TARGET* gets the +5 to his roll. So instead of having to roll an 11+, the GM would have to roll a 6+ for the save to pass.

>Thievery check
Good point on that one too.

>why does 4e get memed
Because people want to meme about things to claim that 4e sucks. They've made their conclusions, and seek evidence to support it.

>Spending a standard action to do no damage and getting in return a chance to do a temporary condition

Perhaps I'm overestimating the "Blind for one round" strength. Admittedly I had "Until Save Ends" originally. I'm still sticking with the Primary Stat vs Reflex, though.

>'Diving from the top of a tall cliff like a madman'
Acrobatics check.

>Acrobatics check.

I meant more 'Diving from the top of a cliff onto someone' (So statting the effect of your impact as a power). Yeah, acrobatics would help prevent you pancaking in the process.