Quote from: Monster Manuel;783171-Pokemounts and other stupidity are gone. There's a hell of a lot less summoning and pet-class stuff too. The Ranger, with his animal has to choose between attacking, or having his animal attack.

Summoning could make a strong comeback in the mid- to late-level tiers when the various Conjure spells come online.
In the early- to mid-level summoning is widely absent though, and what little crops up in the early stages it is very weak.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;783171-Feats are where the Bullshit goes. Compartmentalizing the hyper-tactical aspect of the game and making it optional is a very good thing.

I like the way feats are handled in 5e.

In 3.x, feats were mostly negligible stepping stones, and you often had to acquire first a chain of feats before you were able to get the character you want. A weak but nimble swashbuckler with rapier and dagger was useless unless he bought Weapon Finesse and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting first.
In 5e, the very same character can begin rocking right from the beginning thanks to the fact that using Dex instead of Str for finesse weapons is now a default rule (not something that needs to be unlocked), and thanks to the fact that two-weapon fighting is a perfectly valid default configuration just as two-handed weapons and one-handed weapon&shield are.

A lot can be done in 5e without feats, but when they come into play they actually feel like a major addition of instant awesome to the character, rather than like a small puzzle piece on the way of getting an awesome character 4 or 6 levels further down the "build". Such stuff as Ritual Caster, Spell Sniper or Dual Wielder is _huge_ stuff that will be immediately noticeable in play.

Quote from: Skyrock;783449I like the way feats are handled in 5e.

In 3.x, feats were mostly negligible stepping stones, and you often had to acquire first a chain of feats before you were able to get the character you want. A weak but nimble swashbuckler with rapier and dagger was useless unless he bought Weapon Finesse and Improved Two-Weapon Fighting first.
In 5e, the very same character can begin rocking right from the beginning thanks to the fact that using Dex instead of Str for finesse weapons is now a default rule (not something that needs to be unlocked), and thanks to the fact that two-weapon fighting is a perfectly valid default configuration just as two-handed weapons and one-handed weapon&shield are.

A lot can be done in 5e without feats, but when they come into play they actually feel like a major addition of instant awesome to the character, rather than like a small puzzle piece on the way of getting an awesome character 4 or 6 levels further down the "build". Such stuff as Ritual Caster, Spell Sniper or Dual Wielder is _huge_ stuff that will be immediately noticeable in play.

I agree with all of this.

Yes; feats gained a bad reputation because of they way they evolved, but the concept of abilities that broadly resemble established class abilities but are outside the class structure is great. You just need them to be small in number, interesting, and optional.

Quote from: The Butcher;783393Pundit's and Lars' takes on 0-level characters are really good.

Either or both of you should look into writing an official article for the WotC website.

Not a bad idea! I would do it but it was Pundit's suggestion so I'll defer to him unless he can't be bothered.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;783388Since, of course, we all game in a vacuum and have no connection to the broader online culture, so that one would never have any hesitation about investing limited resources in a game where the culture seems steeped in snobbery, derision, and a growing search for ideological purity of varying sorts. It is, of course, impossible that this fact combined with concerns about the system's resilience, and skepticism about whether it's a substantial improvement over the other editions I already own without a $90-150 investment, would offset the interest in a gorgeous artifact that has some improvements over the editions it seems to be evoking, and where purchase and involvement would allow for more active participation in the largest portion of the hobby.

  [/sarcasm]

:confused: Why are you getting all sarcastic about 4E in a 5E thread?

Quote from: Bren;783519:confused: Why are you getting all sarcastic about 4E in a 5E thread?

Speaking of.

Came across this recently.

A 4e commercial from WOTC.

Is this thing legit or is it someones personal jab?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4

Quote from: Omega;783546Speaking of.

Came across this recently.

A 4e commercial from WOTC.

Is this thing legit or is it someones personal jab?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4

Zee game remains Zee same.  Yep WotC paid for that to be made I think.

Quote from: Omega;783546Is this thing legit or is it someones personal jab?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4

It was an official commercial.

The DM is Chris Perkins. Here are some other videos of him DMing:
A4e Starter Set
D&D Next

Quote from: Omega;783546Speaking of.

Came across this recently.

A 4e commercial from WOTC.

Is this thing legit or is it someones personal jab?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR2L-t87b4

The fact that they're biggest dig on 2e was that everyone was waiting for their turn and combat dragged on, when their commercial was for 4e, is probably one of the most ironic things they could have done.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;783310I'm getting more and more convinced that the 5E team didn't read the 4E books.

They wrote them.  I hate this dumb attitude of "the 5E designers don't know anything about 4E!" when they were on the 4E creation team.  A sentence in the 4E book does not undo what 4E is.  Declaring "Feel free to make this game yours by changing it as you desire!" doesn't change the fact that if you do change it, it falls apart into a mosh of overcomplicated rules that no longer give you any semblance of fun.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;783664The fact that they're biggest dig on 2e was that everyone was waiting for their turn and combat dragged on, when their commercial was for 4e, is probably one of the most ironic things they could have done.

I like that the lead up to this edition didn't shit all over every previous edition. That's not what the company is supposed to do, it's what forums are for.

I thought the GM's 'fro was cool, baby.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;783310"If every encounter gives the players a perfectly balanced challenge, the game can get stale. Once in a while, characters need an encounter that doesn't significantly tax their resources, or an encounter that makes them seriously scared for their characters' survival--or even makes them flee."

and

"Monsters that are more than eight levels higher than the characters can pretty easily kill a character, and in a group they have a chance of taking out the whole party. Use such overpowering encounters with great care. Players should enter the encounter with a clear sense of the danger they're facing, and have at least one good option for escaping with their lives--whether that's headlong flight or clever negotiation."

(All quotes from 4E DMG, p. 104)

Both 4e DMGs are excellent, particularly DMG2, which represents the most thoughtful effort yet to port 'storygame' innovations into D&D. It doesn't look anything like pre-WotC DMGs, but that's not really a criticism; few professional copywriters would willingly put their name to the 1e DMG now, and WotC is all about professionalism.

Anyhow, AG, you know the 4e DMGs were all about tailoring encounters within the 4e paradigm -- 'encounter = cinematic ("level-appropriate") fight sequence' and all that.  Even if the books made mention of simple techniques to break away from the tactical-minis-subgame slog that seems to've poisoned so many 4e games (e.g. running smaller 'Theatre of the Mind' combats between setpieces), that slog was still the assumption, as was the 'balanced encounter.' As I recall, the XP budget system (one of the best things about 4e) was framed as a machine for turning out balanced, winnable encounters w/implicit narrative curvature. That definitely created certain expectations, not least at my own table, which 5e is explicitly overturning.

In that sense, AG, I don't think the 5e guys are misrepresenting 4e -- anyone running, say, a canned 4e adventure from WotC early on would've run smack into the lamest, most repetitive horseshit, handily confirming the line followed by some folks in this thread.

And the busiest 4e threads at WotC's forum when I used to read it certainly seemed to be charop shit.

Quote from: jibbajibba;783328You woudl to roll randomly for background though. No one gets to pick their background after all.

Absolutely agreed, of course!

Even assuming I didn't have background act as your 0-level class, I'd probably have people roll background FIRST, after rolling attributes but before choosing a class.

Quote from: CRKrueger;783550Zee game remains Zee same.  Yep WotC paid for that to be made I think.

I saw that years ago, but just realised how revealing it was of the 4e designers' mentality. The big problem with 1e, despite the "passion" of those loveable losers,  was apparently a lack of spatial clarity, and 2e's essence was the use of plastic battlemats. Sheesh.