5 rounds is right. - Although there was often the paradox with 4e that is tends to reward complex combat, and this tends to make combat longer.  A bog standard combat in 4e is faster, but it's not the fun part of 4e combat.

13th Age shaved a lot of time off combat by:
- greatly reducing access to interrupts
- having very few multi-attack abilities
- having fixed damage for monsters
- not really having much in the way of minor/swift/action powers.
- reducing analysis paralysis across most classes
- reducing a lot of fiddly bonuses

5e shaved time mostly by:
- reducing the number of rounds
- greatly reducing access to interrupts
- almost entirely limiting fiddly bonuses
- reducing analysis paralysis across some classes

(It still has bonus actions and multi-attacks which slow the game down on a round to round basis and cast analysis paralysis can be a thing.)

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

One thing I remember was that the optimisation board always based their calculation around a median of 5 rounds.

And to be honest, experience has shown that posters on optimisation boards usually understand the rules of D&D a lot better than Mike Mearls.

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 12:52:27 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

One thing I remember was that the optimisation board always based their calculation around a median of 5 rounds.

And to be honest, experience has shown that posters on optimisation boards usually understand the rules of D&D a lot better than Mike Mearls.

Well, that unearths a distinction between the -effective- combat length and what they were gunning for when they made it.

I'm a 4e fan but I didn't start out as one when the game was first released. It took about a year and the second round of books, plus finally sitting down to actually watch it being played that got me to get passed my initial hate reaction I had felt when 4e first came out.

I saw the merits of the game and after playing it I realized that the game designers had no clue what kind of game they designed. It's not an MMO. It's more like Final Fantasy Tactics. You get some really cool powers, you fight and do some ass-kicking, get some treasure, gain power, sell stupid unwanted equipment looted from dead bodies and... hey, that's D&D.

The designers had a lot of nice ideas that they obviously wanted in the game, but it seems like they were throwing darts at a dart board and while they were putting these ideas into the game, they couldn't figure out a way to implement them well. Skill Challenges are the biggest example of this.

Skill Challenges are Circles from Blades in the Dark. Skill Challenges are a Downtime system. Skill Challenges were being forced to use the same gamist approach as the rest of the game, and that's where they fell apart. It was the wrong approach, which is why all the math felt awful. Blades in the Dark perfected what Skill Challenges were wanting to be.

One thing I think that also makes 4e distinctly different isn't just presentation but its design focus on the Team over the Individual. The main consideration when making a character isn't just what class to play but what Role a person chooses. You are no longer restricted to needing a Fighter, Mage, Thief, and Cleric. You can now make a part with a Paladin, Warlock, Ranger, and Warlord, and you are still filling the exact same roles. To me, this is one of its strengths, because you are picking Defenders, Controllers, Strikers and Leaders and as long as you filled this party, you're going to be fine.

4e was a design offshoot of Star Wars Saga Edition as well. A lot of how 4e's defenses worked came from Star Wars Saga, as well as how Saga's classes were designed around Feats and Talents, and how each class had Talent Trees (which was modified from d20 Modern). 4e just mashed up all the Talents from all the Talent Trees into just Class Powers and given a focused tactical treatment.

4e had all the tools to be a really cool rpg, and it is a lot of fun to play for what it is. Most of its real problem, IMO, is its Presentation.

The Presentation differences between 4e and 5e would make a great case study of human psychological perception and how perception of presentation influences a person's decisions. Considering that a person could, if he or she wanted to, rewrite all the 4e class powers to appear like 5e class abilities and vice versa does put the main problem of 4e being its presentation of class powers. It was the Presentation that caused me to not even look at the books for a year. It was just that jarringly different. I'm guessing the majority of people who hate 4e took one look at the game, saw that presentation, shut the book and said "Hell No," and never went back. So most of the hate against it come from people who have never even tried to play it I'd say.

Other rpgs have come out and adapted 4e to be more traditional in presentation and game play. 13th Age has already been mentioned, but it's not the only one. The one I think that's taken 4e and refit it to be truly more D&Dish in presentation is a game called Radiance (core rulebook free on drivethrurpg). It's a lot more like 3.5/Star Wars Saga than 13th Age is.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

As someone with extensive experience with 4E, for the groups I was in THREE rounds was more common than five; but five was the standard assumption. The degree to which Charop could affect the combat length was quite insane; there were certain nova combinations that could dish out over a thousand points of damage in a single turn by the early 20's.

Admittedly, that one took a couple of stacking leader/controller effect bonuses before the striker went, but that just highlighted another important aspect of 4E design... synergies weren't just what a single player could do, its what the party could do by working together. When the leader is buffing, the controller debuffing and the defender keeping the path clear for the striker to get in and hit the party as a whole would be far more effective than any given members numbers actually suggested.

When your leader throws out a buff that allows each attack to do X extra damage onto a multi-attack ranger with a paragon path and or items that allow them to take extra attacks and they target a monster that's been debuffed by the controller so its got Vulnerable Y to a type of damage the ranger's weapon can do; all of those things stack up into bursts of destructive output that far exceed the numbers even many of the char-oppers even considered (frankly, some of the early stuff they labeled as problems with the system math were solely because they were basing their math on the vacuum of one PC and one target when in actual play those shortfalls would be overcome by party teamwork and synergy.

One of my very first posts on the WotC 4E boards was to contradict many of the complaints about said shortfalls in hit and damage output by pitting a group of 5 PCs against the Level 30 Red Dragon and demonstrating how the syngeries made it work with the dragon dead by, I believe, round four and this was in the days of "padded sumo." It just required the cleric using buffs to increase accuracy, the wizard dazing the dragon (which grants combat advantage making the dragon easier to hit and allowed the rogue to add sneak attack damage without any special tricks) and the fighter, ranger and rogue to just go to town with their attacks.

But, after Heinsoo was ousted, Mearls (who never grokked 4E) and his people listened to the loud screams of the Char-ops boards that the math was deficient and started adding the "math fix" feats which ended up just skewing things further.

Let us not forget that with all of its design flaws, bad presentation, etc. that 4E was also reportedly rushed out before even the inadequate play testing was complete.  That certainly did not help matters at all.  That's the one caveat I would have to "if it had been presented as a new game, not D&D, it would have more success."  I think that's probably true had it been released 18 months later with even half the (flawed) play testing that 5E got.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 23, 2021, 09:05:20 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

As someone with extensive experience with 4E, for the groups I was in THREE rounds was more common than five; but five was the standard assumption. The degree to which Charop could affect the combat length was quite insane; there were certain nova combinations that could dish out over a thousand points of damage in a single turn by the early 20's.

Admittedly, that one took a couple of stacking leader/controller effect bonuses before the striker went, but that just highlighted another important aspect of 4E design... synergies weren't just what a single player could do, its what the party could do by working together. When the leader is buffing, the controller debuffing and the defender keeping the path clear for the striker to get in and hit the party as a whole would be far more effective than any given members numbers actually suggested.

When your leader throws out a buff that allows each attack to do X extra damage onto a multi-attack ranger with a paragon path and or items that allow them to take extra attacks and they target a monster that's been debuffed by the controller so its got Vulnerable Y to a type of damage the ranger's weapon can do; all of those things stack up into bursts of destructive output that far exceed the numbers even many of the char-oppers even considered (frankly, some of the early stuff they labeled as problems with the system math were solely because they were basing their math on the vacuum of one PC and one target when in actual play those shortfalls would be overcome by party teamwork and synergy.

One of my very first posts on the WotC 4E boards was to contradict many of the complaints about said shortfalls in hit and damage output by pitting a group of 5 PCs against the Level 30 Red Dragon and demonstrating how the syngeries made it work with the dragon dead by, I believe, round four and this was in the days of "padded sumo." It just required the cleric using buffs to increase accuracy, the wizard dazing the dragon (which grants combat advantage making the dragon easier to hit and allowed the rogue to add sneak attack damage without any special tricks) and the fighter, ranger and rogue to just go to town with their attacks.

But, after Heinsoo was ousted, Mearls (who never grokked 4E) and his people listened to the loud screams of the Char-ops boards that the math was deficient and started adding the "math fix" feats which ended up just skewing things further.

I'll defer to that experience. Party comp probably makes a much bigger difference; I ran a 4e campaign a few years back just to see what all the fuss was about as a 5e player -- every battle took about one session each, about 4 hours. Not bad, but I was also deliberately looking for ways to streamline it and make it move faster thanks to the reputation of the game. I noticed that the game's ability to stack synergy on top of synergy made mistakes a lot more punishing in 4e.

In 5e when you mess up, a goblin just attacks you. In 4e when you mess up, you get hit by 15 different powers skewing the mistake into a huge disadvantage.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 10:23:15 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 23, 2021, 09:05:20 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 23, 2021, 12:23:22 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 22, 2021, 11:32:29 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 22, 2021, 10:40:48 PM
5e combat was designed to last 3 rounds.

4e combat was designed to last 10 rounds.

Just for clarification, initial 4E combat was based on 5 rounds with the average monster taking three hits to bring down with a 60% hit rate. I spent a lot of time reading up on the designer notes and tearing apart 4E's math for my own system. By Essentials it was closer to 4 rounds due to shaving off some of the monster hit points and tweaking up the damage of the monsters and the damage and accuracy of the PCs.

I know where you are getting that, but I read somewhere -- and I can't remember now, but it was a 4e designer like Mike Mearls -- who said that they ended up aiming for 10 rounds... and based on everyone's experience it seems like that's what got born out. It makes sense since 4e has so many "damage over time" options that aren't that good when combat is less rounds.

As someone with extensive experience with 4E, for the groups I was in THREE rounds was more common than five; but five was the standard assumption. The degree to which Charop could affect the combat length was quite insane; there were certain nova combinations that could dish out over a thousand points of damage in a single turn by the early 20's.

Admittedly, that one took a couple of stacking leader/controller effect bonuses before the striker went, but that just highlighted another important aspect of 4E design... synergies weren't just what a single player could do, its what the party could do by working together. When the leader is buffing, the controller debuffing and the defender keeping the path clear for the striker to get in and hit the party as a whole would be far more effective than any given members numbers actually suggested.

When your leader throws out a buff that allows each attack to do X extra damage onto a multi-attack ranger with a paragon path and or items that allow them to take extra attacks and they target a monster that's been debuffed by the controller so its got Vulnerable Y to a type of damage the ranger's weapon can do; all of those things stack up into bursts of destructive output that far exceed the numbers even many of the char-oppers even considered (frankly, some of the early stuff they labeled as problems with the system math were solely because they were basing their math on the vacuum of one PC and one target when in actual play those shortfalls would be overcome by party teamwork and synergy.

One of my very first posts on the WotC 4E boards was to contradict many of the complaints about said shortfalls in hit and damage output by pitting a group of 5 PCs against the Level 30 Red Dragon and demonstrating how the syngeries made it work with the dragon dead by, I believe, round four and this was in the days of "padded sumo." It just required the cleric using buffs to increase accuracy, the wizard dazing the dragon (which grants combat advantage making the dragon easier to hit and allowed the rogue to add sneak attack damage without any special tricks) and the fighter, ranger and rogue to just go to town with their attacks.

But, after Heinsoo was ousted, Mearls (who never grokked 4E) and his people listened to the loud screams of the Char-ops boards that the math was deficient and started adding the "math fix" feats which ended up just skewing things further.

I'll defer to that experience. Party comp probably makes a much bigger difference; I ran a 4e campaign a few years back just to see what all the fuss was about as a 5e player -- every battle took about one session each, about 4 hours. Not bad, but I was also deliberately looking for ways to streamline it and make it move faster thanks to the reputation of the game. I noticed that the game's ability to stack synergy on top of synergy made mistakes a lot more punishing in 4e.

In 5e when you mess up, a goblin just attacks you. In 4e when you mess up, you get hit by 15 different powers skewing the mistake into a huge disadvantage.

The vast majority of enemy powers were just what 5e would call attacks though. For example, the goblin sniper had four "powers";

- Sniper (if the goblin is hidden and misses with a ranged attack, it remains hidden)
- Short Sword (a melee weapon attack that just dealt damage)
- Shortbow (a ranged weapon attack that just did damage)
- Goblin Tactics (if missed with an attack the goblin could shift 5' as a reaction)

That's it.

The 5e goblin has the following;
- Scimitar (a melee weapon attack that just deals damage)
- Shortbow (a ranged weapon attack that just deals damage)
- Nimble Escape (can use Disengage or Hide actions as a bonus action during its turn).

Not much difference at really other than learning the lesson of cutting down on off-turn actions for the 5e Goblin.

The big difference was that the 4E goblin was laid out in a technical looking stat block using technical language/keywords so it looked more complex than it was;

Here's the 5e goblin's attack... Scimitar. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage.

Here's the 4E goblin sniper's attack;
Short Sword (weapon) • At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +8 vs. AC
Hit: 4 damage.

Other than being laid out in three lines with each element getting its own line in 4E while the 5e entry just places all the information into a single sentence that took up two lines; its the exact same sort of effect and information.

The idea that 4E was loaded down with conditions is rather overblown. At low levels they're pretty minor, often 1/encounter things found on stronger monsters or player encounter/daily powers and, as is typical of D&D, the complexity of effects ramps up as the levels do.

None of the 4E effects result in the amount of bookkeeping that a 3e or TSR-era level drain inflicted.

In terms of complexity at higher levels; here's the 5e Balor's special traits and attacks and the 4E one for comparison;

*5e Balor Traits and Actions*
- Damage Resistances cold, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non magical weapons
- Damage Immunities fire, poison
- Condition Immunities poisoned
- Senses truesight 120ft., passive Perception 13
- Languages Abyssal, telepathy 120ft.

- Death Throes. When the balor dies, it explodes, and each creature within 30 feet of it must make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw, taking 70 (20d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The explosion ignites flammable objects in that area that aren't being worn or
carried, and it destroys the balor's weapons.

- Fire Aura. At the start of each of the balor's turns , each creature within 5 feet of it takes 10 (3d6) fire damage, and flammable objects in the aura that aren't being worn or carried ignite. A creature that touches the balor or hits it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it takes 10 (3d6) fire damage.

- Magic Resistance. The balor has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.

- Magic Weapons. The balor's weapon attacks are magical.

ACTIONS
- Multiattack. The balor makes two attacks: one with its longsword and one with its whip.

- Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack:+ 14 to hit, reach 10ft., one target. Hit: 21 (3d8 + slashing damage plus 13 (3d8) lightning damage. If the balor scores a critical hit, it rolls damage dice three times, instead of twice.

- Whip. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 30ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d6 + slashing damage plus 10 (3d6) fire damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 20 Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 25 feet toward the balor.

- Teleport. The balor magically teleports, along with any equipment it is wearing or carrying, up to 120 feet to an unoccupied space it can see.

*4E Balor Traits and Actions*
- Resist 20 fire
- Blindsight 6, darkvision

- Flaming Body (fire) • Aura 2, or 3 while the balor is bloodied; Any enemy that starts its turn in the aura takes 10 fire damage or 20 fire damage while the balor is bloodied

- Fire and Lightning • At-Will
Effect: The balor uses lightning sword once and flaming whip once.

- Lightning Sword (lightning, weapon) • At-Will
Attack: Melee 3 (one creature); +32 vs. AC
Hit: 6d10 + 11 lightning damage, or3d10 + 71 lightning damage if the balor scores a critical hit.

- Flaming Whip (fire) • At-Will
Attack: Melee 5 (one creature); +30 vs. Reflex
Hit: 2d10 + 10 fire damage, and ongoing 15 fire damage (save ends). The balor pulls the target up to 5 squares to a square adjacent to it.

- Beheading Blade (lightning, weapon) • Recharge when first bloodied
Attack: Close blast 3 (enemies in the blast); +32 vs. AC. The attack can score a critical hit on a roll of 15-20.
Hit: 5d12 + 14 lightning damage, or 3d12 + 74 lightning damage if the balor scores a critical hit.

- Death Burst (fire)
Trigger: The balor drops to 0 hit points.
Attack (No Action): Close burst 10 (creatures in the burst); +30 vs. Reflex
Hit: 6d10 fire damage.
Miss: Half damage.
Effect: The balor is destroyed.

- Variable Resistance • 3/Encounter
Trigger: The balor takes acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage.
Effect (Free Action): The balor gains resist 20 to the triggering damage type until the end of the encounter or until it uses variable resistance again.

* * * *

So, other than laying it out in more technical language, there's NOT that much difference between the 5e and 4E Balors. Variable resistance is slightly more complex than just listing specific resistances and the 4E version gets an 2/encounter AoE attack, but there aren't any special conditioned applied to the targets that take special tracking... its just a couple of big damage hits.

Both are infinitely less complex and frustrating than the 3.5e variety; which I'm just going to link to; https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor.

Quote from: RebelSky on June 23, 2021, 07:39:42 AM
The designers had a lot of nice ideas that they obviously wanted in the game, but it seems like they were throwing darts at a dart board and while they were putting these ideas into the game, they couldn't figure out a way to implement them well. Skill Challenges are the biggest example of this.

Skill Challenges are Circles from Blades in the Dark. Skill Challenges are a Downtime system. Skill Challenges were being forced to use the same gamist approach as the rest of the game, and that's where they fell apart. It was the wrong approach, which is why all the math felt awful. Blades in the Dark perfected what Skill Challenges were wanting to be.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition takes the basic Skill Challenge idea and turns it into Dramatic Tasks which are a much stronger iteration of the same idea.

It turns out that if you're not restricted to a simple binary pass/fail die system but can incorporate degrees of success, and you make the choice to aid another person rather do something directly into something meaningful rather have it feel like a waste of your turn, then it can actually work quite well.  But the 4e version tried to do to much, with too little flesh on the bone.

(It also doesn't help that the game seems to assume you will use skill challenges to do non-dungeon stuff, but then gives you a set of skills that are focused on dungeon stuff.  If I'm supposed to use a skill challenge to handle defending a city under siege then there really needs to be some skills that feel like they are actually applicable without being overly stretched.)

Quote from: Pat on June 21, 2021, 09:30:36 PM
I forgot to mention, but I'm a big fan of Gamma World, and picked up a copy of the 4e/7e version (depending on whether you count D&D editions or GW editions), and read through it. But this was very late, years afterwards, when the boxes started showing up on clearance. What's funny is a lot of 4e fans were saying that GW was the best intro version of 4e. But when I read it, with no experience with 4e, a lot of things didn't make sense. It seemed to assume the readers were already familiar with 4e, so key elements weren't explained, or weren't explained well. It may have appealed to 4e fans who want a simpler or cleaner version of the game they already know, but the people who were saying it would be great for newbies clearly weren't newbies. I was, and found it a poor intro.

Im one of the mods for the remnants of the original Gamma World mailing list, eesh has it really been 30 years???

So it was not just me. 4e D&D GW was also my first and till recently only exposure to 4e. So I still have no idea if anything essential was left out. Its just that the rules are arranged in a non-linear manner and its a nuisance figuring out where the hell some of the rules are squirreled away. I just assume its the haphazard placement of rules buried in odd paragraphs thats the problem. But you are probably right that somethings missing.

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:23:31 PM
(It also doesn't help that the game seems to assume you will use skill challenges to do non-dungeon stuff, but then gives you a set of skills that are focused on dungeon stuff.  If I'm supposed to use a skill challenge to handle defending a city under siege then there really needs to be some skills that feel like they are actually applicable without being overly stretched.)

Which edition handled this well?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on June 21, 2021, 09:50:48 PM

Well, it was getting shot down by 3.5 players right out of the gate, so that's the persecution probably. However, that's mostly WOTC's fault for how they marketed which set the tone as it promoted itself by crapping all over all the other D&D editions.
[/quote]

Very much this. Every damn advert and promotional for 4e I saw was so condescending or outright mocking older editions I gave it a hard pass till Gamma World came out.

Really if theyd trotted 4e out and named it instead New Alternity or something else it probably would have gone over better. Well that and not mocked the players of older editions.

Quote from: KingCheops on June 23, 2021, 06:33:59 PM

Quote from: TJS on June 23, 2021, 06:23:31 PM
(It also doesn't help that the game seems to assume you will use skill challenges to do non-dungeon stuff, but then gives you a set of skills that are focused on dungeon stuff.  If I'm supposed to use a skill challenge to handle defending a city under siege then there really needs to be some skills that feel like they are actually applicable without being overly stretched.)

Which edition handled this well?

Well only D&D actually has skill challenges, so it's not all that relevant for others.

The issue is a skill challenge one, because the system tends toward the broad narration.  Rather than doing lots of things in discrete steps you sort take a broad sweep and then abstract that into a roll.

If you're not using skill challenges the Fighter might just describe what they are doing to improve the defences of the city and the GM might take it into consideration (it may not be as satisfying as having a proper subsystem, but it's not a problem either.)  The skill challenge system basically means that all of that is basically abstracted into a skill roll.  If you succeed on a skill roll then the bolstered defences help lead to victory, if you fail they don't mean anything*.  This means that what skill you roll is important here.  What skill do you roll for this?  Looking at the list, the only one that seems vaguely appropriate is History.  But did the Fighter take History?  Why would the player of the Fighter have thought they would use History for things like this?  And then there's also going to be the issue that Wizard probably has History and a higher Int, so if it's History maybe he should be the one to bolster the defences of the city. 

If you had something like 13th Age style backgrounds you wouldn't have the same gaps.  If the  Fighter has "Student of the College of War" then it's clear what to roll.  Even Profession (Soldier) would be better here. The Profession skills were taken out of 4e because they were regarded as extraneous, but actually they would have given players quite a lot of opportunity to leverage them in skill challenges.

*You can start to see why the basic approach works better in Savage Worlds where you have more of a bell curve to your roll and a metacurrency that you can bring into play if you really want to do this - the D20 roll is just too random here - too often the player describes something cool, which they should be able to do, and the result is completely anti-climactic. 

   

Quote from: Sable Wyvern on June 22, 2021, 03:56:31 AM
The one thing I remember most distinctly from the arguments about 4e back when it was the current edition were a very vocal group of fans who absolutely lost their shit at the suggestion a DM may choose to not allow oozes to be tripped. "You're taking a class's core competency away and nerfing them!! If a player has a selected an ability with trip, then they are allowed to trip!"

They tried that over on BGG with 5e as well. "If I play a cleric then there MUST be Undead in the campaign for me to turn!" and "If my Ranger takes Giants as their foe then there MUST be giants in the campaign!!!"