4e is the best edition of D&D

[WhiteShark]

Then we go down to the Fighter class and look at their daily abilities:

This is one aspect I fucking despise. Call it boring, but you're a Fighter. You hit or slash or whack shit. That's it. Your purpose in terms of combat performance is finding ways to hit or slash or whack stuff better and harder.

When Fighters start getting these ability lists like they're a Wizard it makes the class become lame. There's a beautiful simplicity in having a class that's all about wanting to get in there and do some damage with a weapon and that's that. Hopefully the people who championed this change choked on their Ritalin prescription.

Old post but I agree.

3E solved this problem with feats. Fighters get stuffed up the ass with feats and they matter a lot with how powerful you are and what you can do.. but fundamentally in combat.. You whack shit with a sword, that's it. Classes that are optimal as dips is totally fine.

When I play BG3 and my fighter has more actions and abilities to cast than my wizard.. eh.. Big reason I hated Pillars too. The whole "EVERY STAT MATTERS, EVERY CLASS DOES STUFF" and rogues having 200 dash / backstab / teleport abilities, it just feels like MMO trash - isn't a fun experience especially in party based combat.

"Call it boring." Ok, I will. Playing a single mundane fighter in a system without very detailed combat is boring. Mundane fighters with zero abilities are only entertaining if you get to control lots of them at once, which you typically don't get to do in TTRPGs. If you only have one guy, the system had better give you sufficient decision space to make that interesting.

[rusty_shackleford]

People who bash fighters for being anything but boring rarely ever actually play fighters, they just want fighters to be boring while they play as not-boring wizards.

Also, it's not really correct and rather CRPG-oriented, fighters have long had many more options to them in tabletop, especially when considering grappling.

[Rand]

Battlemats are integrated directly into AD&D 1E as on page 69 it shows both hexes and squares for front, flank, and rear attacks. There is the entire Appendix 1 that is devoted to random dungeon generation using squares.

No, they aren't. Those diagrams are for reference only and few people used any sort of serious tactical combat, much less a battlemat. I did play with some wargamer guys once and they had the little tape measures for a pseudo-tactical combat as needed.
I'm sure some of the richer guys had all those early dungeon tile things, but I never saw any used IRL.

As for the squares used for random dungeons, they ALL use 10 foot squares as a base scale and nobody but an imbecile ever thought that each could only hold one character/critter.

[Shillitron]

3.5E evolved beyond what the original designers had in mind. Things that seemed like newb traps or were deemed bad, actually became optimal with additional PRC's / In Housing / Multi-classing. They had philosophy A and hit success on B.

This is a case of a Starwars being lighting in a bottle and when the creator goes back to understand why it was good or emulate it, you get jar jar binks.

[Shillitron]

"Call it boring." Ok, I will. Playing a single mundane fighter in a system without very detailed combat is boring. Mundane fighters with zero abilities are only entertaining if you get to control lots of them at once, which you typically don't get to do in TTRPGs. If you only have one guy, the system had better give you sufficient decision space to make that interesting.

People who bash fighters for being anything but boring rarely ever actually play fighters, they just want fighters to be boring while they play as not-boring wizards.

Fighters can have a very complex "decision space" when building them.

Most of the minute to minute Table top experience is about interacting with the event and being with friends socially while a DM throws shit at you.
There's nothing wrong with a simple class (during combat rounds) in a table top setting especially when your new or when your DM gives you leeway to be creative.

You don't need 10 billion abilities to have fun in tabletop. In DnD games, you almost always are managing a group of 4 - 6.

If your a new player, it's a forgiving class that follows a simple trajectory.
If your a min maxing veteran, your engagement with fighter is probably a multi-dip and that's perfectly fine too, that's the case for almost every class.

[rusty_shackleford]

simple class

There are grappling flowcharts for various editions that exist.

[Rand]

I wonder how well 4E would have done if it was merely a spinoff titled "D&D tactics" or something.

They tried that in 3e. The core of the 4e mistake, including the lead designer (Heinsoo), came from 3e's tactical minis bullshit (Miniatures Handbook, etc...).
It was not popular.

[Rand]

The funniest part of 4th edition to me was how inept/stupid most of the players were.
Me and a bunch of actual gamers looked at this stuff and actually understood it.
There's tightly controlled healing, specialty maluses, crowd control and all that bullshit, but the one status you REALLY want to inflict is "dead", as quickly as possible.
It obviates the need for healing, removing negative statuses, pissing about with moving or preventing moving, etc...
So we made a party of only "strikers" all min-maxed to the extent the rules allowed for and holy shit did it break the fucking game 9 times out of 10.

[WhiteShark]

Fighters can have a very complex "decision space" when building them.

This is the problem. If all your major decisions are made at character creation and the gameplay is just executing your selected tactic ad nauseum, it's boring. Non-ToB martials in 3.5 have almost no decisions to make after character creation.

Most of the minute to minute Table top experience is about interacting with the event

And therefore having more detailed means by which to interact with the world is a good thing, in combat or not.

If your a new player, it's a forgiving class that follows a simple trajectory.

The archetypal fighting man class should not be relegated to training wheels/noob trap, and honestly, what a terrible first impression that would leave on a new player.
>"What are my options?"
>"You can hit it, you can hit it with Power Attack, or you can use one of these combat maneuvers in which you aren't trained and won't be very effective."
>"Oh... ok..."
>full attacks every round until encounter ends while wondering why he showed up

[WhiteShark]

The funniest part of 4th edition to me was how inept/stupid most of the players were.
Me and a bunch of actual gamers looked at this stuff and actually understood it.
There's tightly controlled healing, specialty maluses, crowd control and all that bullshit, but the one status you REALLY want to inflict is "dead", as quickly as possible.
It obviates the need for healing, removing negative statuses, pissing about with moving or preventing moving, etc...
So we made a party of only "strikers" all min-maxed to the extent the rules allowed for and holy shit did it break the fucking game 9 times out of 10.

From what I know about 4e charop the all striker party is enough to totally destroy 'level appropriate' encounters but far from the most broken thing you can build. Apparently Wizards are (yet again, ironically) the best controllers and one of the best classes in the whole game.

[Shillitron]

Fighters can have a very complex "decision space" when building them.

This is the problem. If all your major decisions are made at character creation and the gameplay is just executing your selected tactic ad nauseum, it's boring. Non-ToB martials in 3.5 have almost no decisions to make after character creation.

Not Character creation, every level as well. Agree to disagree. I love crafting a fighter build that dumpsters problems.

[Rand]

It's the six second round with multiple attacks that's silly. 1 minute might be a bit long, but it's still significantly closer to reality than 6 seconds.

One minute is barely acceptable for melee, I agree (I still think it's too long) but it falls apart instantly when you add ranged combat (and becomes especially silly if it's JUST ranged combat and no melee is going on.)
30 seconds to aim and fire an arrow (AD&D allowed TWO bow attacks per melee round) is just laughable. What the fuck are the archers doing 90% of the time?
Add in spellcasting and you seriously start to wonder who on the enemy side in their right mind is watching the wizard or cleric cast a spell for a full minute and not doing anything about it?
Of course, in OD&D, casting spells in combat was designed to be foolhardy and failure-prone. Smart wizards used quick-casting items like wands or staves.

[WhiteShark]

Also, it's not really correct and rather CRPG-oriented, fighters have long had many more options to them in tabletop, especially when considering grappling.

Combat maneuvers do exist in 3.5 but unless a character is built to use them they tend to be woefully ineffective compared to just attacking.

[WhiteShark]

Fighters can have a very complex "decision space" when building them.

This is the problem. If all your major decisions are made at character creation and the gameplay is just executing your selected tactic ad nauseum, it's boring. Non-ToB martials in 3.5 have almost no decisions to make after character creation.

Not Character creation, every level as well. Agree to disagree. I love crafting a fighter build that dumpsters problems.

That's still character creation because you can map the whole thing out before the campaign even begins. The major decisions are being made away from the table rather than at it.

[Shillitron]

This is the problem. If all your major decisions are made at character creation and the gameplay is just executing your selected tactic ad nauseum, it's boring. Non-ToB martials in 3.5 have almost no decisions to make after character creation.

Not Character creation, every level as well. Agree to disagree. I love crafting a fighter build that dumpsters problems.

That's still character creation because you can map the whole thing out before the campaign even begins. The major decisions are being made away from the table rather than at it.

If your a new player, will you do that?

If your an experienced player you aren't likely going pure fighter.

[Rand]

The funniest part of 4th edition to me was how inept/stupid most of the players were.
Me and a bunch of actual gamers looked at this stuff and actually understood it.
There's tightly controlled healing, specialty maluses, crowd control and all that bullshit, but the one status you REALLY want to inflict is "dead", as quickly as possible.
It obviates the need for healing, removing negative statuses, pissing about with moving or preventing moving, etc...
So we made a party of only "strikers" all min-maxed to the extent the rules allowed for and holy shit did it break the fucking game 9 times out of 10.

From what I know about 4e charop the all striker party is enough to totally destroy 'level appropriate' encounters but far from the most broken thing you can build. Apparently Wizards are (yet again, ironically) the best controllers and one of the best classes in the whole game.

Nah. Wizards have a hell of a time getting away from enemies and out of trouble. At least consistently and as much as needed. The good striker classes have this as a built in "feature" that can be used at will. Wizards are tightly constrained by the 4e RAW, by design.

[WhiteShark]

If your a new player, will you do that?

If you're a new player, will you enjoy charging/full attacking every turn in combat and having no skills outside of it? I guess I did. When I was six. Had that been my first experience with D&D as an adult, I'd've asked to reroll.

[rusty_shackleford]

If you're a new player, you get screwed over because you make decisions based on knowledge you couldn't have possibly have had at the time unless you consulted an external source to tell you how to play.
I'm not much of a fan of the so-called games that are in actuality played in spreadsheets.

[Shillitron]

If your a new player, will you do that?

If you're a new player, will you enjoy charging/full attacking every turn in combat and having no skills outside of it? I guess I did. When I was six. Had that been my first experience with D&D as an adult, I'd've asked to reroll.

If you were having meaningful impact on fights and killing stuff while your friends are dying. I'm not sure I buy that.
This stuff sounds right when we sperg about it on a forum.

If I have a new friend who never played DnD.. They have no concept of dice rolling, stats, skills, rounds, etc. You can tell them "Play fighter and max strength and Con" and they will probably be the strongest person in your group until level 6 even if they select feats with a random number generator.

If you are Min Max murder hobo.. fighting dip is almost always the correct decision for martial builds. So even at the most sweaty tiers of gameplay the class is always relevant.

[WhiteShark]

If you are Min Max murder hobo.. fighting dip is almost always the correct decision for martial builds. So even at the most sweaty tiers of gameplay the class is always relevant.

At the sweatiest tiers of gameplay nobody plays martials because they suck and can never exceed tier 3 at best.

[Shillitron]

If you are Min Max murder hobo.. fighting dip is almost always the correct decision for martial builds. So even at the most sweaty tiers of gameplay the class is always relevant.

At the sweatiest tiers of gameplay nobody plays martials because they suck and can never exceed tier 3 at best.

Yikes. Opinion discarded.

[Boontaker]

I'd like to give 4e another shot. When I played it, my GM was someone trying to run a slow gritty game. Which made it awful to play, and he got upset if we started min maxing. Things like "I took this feat that gives me +1 damage with frost weapons, then I bought a frost axe" pissed him off.

Maybe it's because I'm older but I can't play D&D unless we level twice a month. Maybe more for games like 4e, weekly sessions.

[WhiteShark]

At the sweatiest tiers of gameplay nobody plays martials because they suck and can never exceed tier 3 at best.

Yikes. Opinion discarded.

What, do you think that's actually wrong? I'm talking about 3.5 here, but I don't think PF is any different in that regard.

[J1M]

At the sweatiest tiers of gameplay nobody plays martials because they suck and can never exceed tier 3 at best.

Yikes. Opinion discarded.

What, do you think that's actually wrong? I'm talking about 3.5 here, but I don't think PF is any different in that regard.

PF2 tried to give martials higher damage output than casters. Casters are salty about it, even though it can be argued that casters are still more powerful overall.

[J1M]

4e is too much of a tactical boardgame. And I LIKE tactical boardgames. But it isn't D&D, really.
And your comment about 5e is wrong. There's no 4e in it. It's a weird stripped-down hybrid of 3rd and 2nd.

It was clearly a terse hyperbolic statement, but I am curious where you think the rules for 5e "hit dice", short rests, concentration, and rituals, came from, for example.

[Rand]

from what I've heard it inherited the abominable skill challenge system from 4e without the label

Well, a version of it IS in there, tucked into a corner of the DMG, but I have yet to even hear of it actually being used and, afaict, it isn't used in any of the official adventures.

[Rand]

The Battlemaster Fighter is another definite case of 4e influence.

I'll give you that one. It has the same issues of mysteriously depleting "uses" of abilities for no discernable in-universe reason, for sure.

[Rand]

4e is too much of a tactical boardgame. And I LIKE tactical boardgames. But it isn't D&D, really.
And your comment about 5e is wrong. There's no 4e in it. It's a weird stripped-down hybrid of 3rd and 2nd.

It was clearly a terse hyperbolic statement, but I am curious where you think the rules for 5e "hit dice", short rests, concentration, and rituals, came from, for example.

Well, upon further reflection, I have to admit that you're generally correct, but with some caveats on my part.

Concentration was always a thing, just in different formats in various early editions and different for different spells. This was the reason why wizards were advised to use magic items like wands in combat and not spellcasting.
Early supplements had spells as rituals as well, but I'll give you the fact that 5th largely inherited it from 4th.
The healing dice/short rests is definitely ONLY a 4th concept, and one I dislike and think is a mistake.

To be more clear, I was more concerned with the powers lists, the reluctance to allow non-caster healing without strict limits, and a bunch of the other irrationally "gamey" boardgame stuff like the skill challenges.
This was always the aberrant content that made it not feel like D&D to me. A few bits and pieces are stupid, but don't change the overall D&D experience much.
Again, except for the "hit dice"/short rest healing. That's just a mistake and should be consigned to the dumpster of history of dumb design.