Quote from: Diffan;1051096Right because magic user is specific to what version of D&D in the past 3 decades? Especially when the vast majority of the discussion has been about 4e.

Magic user = wizard = mage = magic-user

Surely you know this and are just being a dense 4e shill.

Also, my opinion of 4e is that it's D&D backported from whatever computer gamers playing MMORPGs thought D&D was supposed to be, which doesn't translate well to a table top game whatsoever. WoW works because the computer does a lot of the heavy lifting; manually keeping track of all that crap is just annoying.

Quote from: Daztur;1051097Well back in 3.5ed our default healer was a bard with a CLW wand. 3.5ed's crafting mechanics had a whole lot of problems but they did make clerics nonessential.

Clerics, yes though they were such a mechanical power house with feats that utilized their turning attempts that I saw them aplenty in 3e. 4th Edition decoupled healing from magic, which is what I was getting at. You could play a Warlord and heal in combat without someone praying or casting spells and that had, for us anyways, a profound concept in the games narrative. Not to mention being able to draw upon your own resources for healing like Second Wind or simply using surges during down time.

Quote from: Daztur;1051097But for healing I find that 4 and 5ed work better if a "short rest" is a night's sleep and a "long rest" is extended bed rest in a safe place.

If I'm not mistaken, changing the frame of time for healing in 5e is talked about in the 5e DMG.

Quote from: Brad;1051089It probably would have been easier to just admit you made a mistake instead of trying to imply "magic user" = "cleric" when talking about D&D.

In the post he used "magic user" not "Magic User".  Yeah, I did a double take too and wondered what house rules were being used (because I sometimes let Wizards/Magic-Users/whatever cast heal spells), but it was clear he was using "magic user" as descriptive of a class that uses magic, not as THE Magic User class.

One of the good examples of why not to have a character class named Magic User when there are different types of magic in the game.

Quote from: Diffan;1051043- Hit Die / Self-healing as presented in 5th Edition is a shortened version of 4E's Healing Surge mechanic. Just because 3e had one feat (Second Wind, funnily enough) or just because you could "rest" means non-magical healing doesn't equate to having a limited pool to draw from when there isn't a healer in the party. Pre 4E you either spent gold on potions, an NPC heal-bot, or someone rolled up a magic user to heal mid/post combat. 4E ended that cycle.  

This one I think 4e gets unmitigated credit for. The idea that 1) you should expect to recoup a significant amount of hp during an evening's play (oD&D and basic D&D at low-mid levels, there just weren't enough cures to be meaningful), and 2) natural/self healing was supposed to be meaningful is decidedly a design decision started with 4e. The earlier 1hp, 1-3hp, 1hp/hd, or whatever (or none, for BECMI) natural healing other editions had was clearly designed as an explanation on what you did if you were stuck far from civilization and your cleric had died, not as an avenue of useful hp replenishment. 4e invented the idea that you should be able to recoup hp mid-adventure, without a cleric-type, at a meaningful rate. No argument.

Quote- Unifying Mechanic that ties everything together. In 4th Edition everything increased as you leveled to 1/2 character level. Your AC, Defenses, Skills, attack progression, etc. In 5th Edition they call this Proficiency and it's a much smaller number (tops at +6 at 17th level). This effects attacks, saves, skills, etc. Gone are the days of different rates and progressions based on class or race.

This becomes a hair-splitting issue. When is something unified enough to count? 3e had separate number boundaries for skills, saves, and Base Attack Bonus, but the concept of formulaic advancement (rather than table lookup) goes back farther.

Quote- At-will Magic being used as a go-to when you don't want to blow your arcane load. Yes Pathfinder (came out after 4E) uses cantrips at-will but their role isn't nearly the same. In 4E your at-wills go based off of character level, so a Wizard who takes multiclass feats of Fighter then paragon-multiclasses and generally becomes a warrior with a few spells still casts cantrips as the same level full-wizard. This remains true in 5th edition. A Wizard 1/ Fighter 19 still casts the cantrips as a 20th level wizard.

3e had reserve feats which allowed at-will low-powered effects for spellcasters who kept spells of certain types uncast. It's not quite the same, but it is pretty close, and sure seems like a direct precursor.

Quote- Short and Long Rests. While the concept was starting to gain traction in 3rd Edition,

This is my central point. Lots of these things have precursors in 3e, 2e, or occasionally (like the attack of opportunity premise, and thus reaction actions and the like) existed in oD&D, and only saw a small dip out of the ruleset in BECMI and AD&D 2e (when a lot of people started, and thus think seeing it pop up again in 3e/4e/5e is the first time).

Quote- Monster Design. 4E's stat block had pretty much everything you needed in it to play the monster without referencing other books. Previous editions had you referencing other classes save progression (like 1e/2e Monster having F2 [fighter level 2] saves or 3e's This monster has x,y,z feats and spells from 9 different sources.

Yes, TSR-era monsters had a save and attack progression based on their HD, and could be found on a chart next to the ones player characters used (or the front of the monster book). I'm not seeing that as a huge difference. Of all the lookups that other editions made one do, this one was trivial.

Quote- The complete and utter removal of Alignment-based mechanics and requirements. In 3e you still had HALF of the Player's Handbook with classes that had alignment requirements or exclusions (Barbarians, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, and Monks). In 4E, they removed them entirely and that trend has remained.

This is the second complete agreement here. D&D decided to finally axe this officially ('not-good paladins' have had a half-dozen or more half-hearted attempts over the years), and didn't look back.

Quote from: Omega;1051054Except equivalents of this existed in 2e with the kits and backgrounds.
Perhaps it might be better to say that 3, 4, and even 5e call back to and draw inspiration and elements from 2e. Someone seems to have really liked the Skills & Powers book.

There's certainly as much stuff that got into the DNA of 5e from this as anything that first showed up in 4e. Agreed.

Quote from: Diffan;1051074Clerics don't cast spells and use magic?

Quote from: Diffan;1051096Right because magic user is specific to what version of D&D in the past 3 decades? Especially when the vast majority of the discussion has been about 4e.

Edit: also
Bard
Healer
Paladin
Crusader
Druid
Ranger
Shaman

All classes that can heal. So since they ALL use magic and spells, the general term magic user is more than appropriate.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1051101In the post he used "magic user" not "Magic User".  Yeah, I did a double take too and wondered what house rules were being used (because I sometimes let Wizards/Magic-Users/whatever cast heal spells), but it was clear he was using "magic user" as descriptive of a class that uses magic, not as THE Magic User class.

One of the good examples of why not to have a character class named Magic User when there are different types of magic in the game.

In a discussion where how 4e fits in the greater whole of D&D, it serves no purpose to use this term 'magic user' to mean anyone who uses magic, given that it has a clear, well-known, and established genre-specific meaning referring to a specific arcane class. Especially when the much less confusion-causing term 'spell caster' is readily available. This is right up there with referring to someone as a fighter, but on cross examination exclaiming 'oh, I didn't mean the fighter class. I mean just anyone who fights. All classes can fight, right?' -- it serves no purpose and makes words into things that actually inhibit communication (the opposite of what words are for). Does D&D use normal-world terms as in-game jargon? Of course. The alternative is making up class names like Monte Cook did with Numenera (Glaive, Nano, and Jack. Worked so well there, didn't it?). Great. If we use terms we all agree upon, within context, we can actually communicate our points and not spent threads nitpicking about what we actually mean before we get to our actual points.

Quote from: Chris24601;1051092And here you get to one of the fundamental loves of 4E by many people... the ability to drop a class that literally does not appear anywhere outside of D&D derived literature (and was originally built as a one-off to deal with a problem vampire PC) that has a ton of implied baggage it drops onto later editions (specifically when they overtly went to polytheistic assumptions that are about as anti-medieval in feel as one could get) that large segments of the audience might be uncomfortable with (I know MANY conservative Christians who won't touch D&D because they feel it endorses pagan religions) and then segmented a whole section of mechanics deemed necessary for gameplay (i.e. magical healing and restoration) into said problematic class.

And that's really my only criticism of 4e (other than speed of play) -- Are clerics a sacred cow? Sure, but so is the class system as a whole. If I were to choose to play something that dropped D&D-isms like Clerics from the game, why would I stop at 4e, and not all the way to something like GURPS fantasy or Hero System or anything like that?

Quote from: Gabriel2;1051101In the post he used "magic user" not "Magic User".  Yeah, I did a double take too and wondered what house rules were being used (because I sometimes let Wizards/Magic-Users/whatever cast heal spells), but it was clear he was using "magic user" as descriptive of a class that uses magic, not as THE Magic User class.

One of the good examples of why not to have a character class named Magic User when there are different types of magic in the game.

Pretty much, yes. I've played 2e thru 5e and reference magic users as those who cast spells and use magic, not as a class specific thing. Classes are Wizards, Sorcerers, clerics, bards, etc.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1051101In the post he used "magic user" not "Magic User".  Yeah, I did a double take too and wondered what house rules were being used (because I sometimes let Wizards/Magic-Users/whatever cast heal spells), but it was clear he was using "magic user" as descriptive of a class that uses magic, not as THE Magic User class.

One of the good examples of why not to have a character class named Magic User when there are different types of magic in the game.

*claims to play 2nd edition AD&D*
*calls clerics magic users*

Okay

Just looks like something a shill would say after they messed up.

Quote from: Brad;1051109*claims to play 2nd edition AD&D*
*calls clerics magic users*

Okay

Just looks like something a shill would say after they messed up.

I don't think it is disingenuous in any way. They should just say, 'yeah, now that that is explained to me, I can see how that screws up actually communicating.'

More to the point, if you are trying to assign specific D&D developments to D&D 4e, a lack of knowledge of what came before 2e is a severe handicap.

Quote from: Brad;1051109*claims to play 2nd edition AD&D*
*calls clerics magic users*

Okay

Just looks like something a shill would say after they messed up.

Thats because he is.

Though to be fair. In 2e D&D magic users were renamed Mages.

And that brings up another interesting parallel between 2e and on. 2e is where they started to try and consolidate classes into the equivalent of class paths under an encompassing banner. Fighters, Paladins and Rangers were all under the Warrior banner. Clerics and Druids were under Priest, Mage and Illusionist under Wizard, and Thief and Bard were under Rogue.

The core determined the EXP and HD while the particular path taken determined the abilities.

Quote from: Omega;1051124Thats because he is.

Though to be fair. In 2e D&D magic users were renamed Mages.

haha, gotta love the constant attacks. And yea, I played 2E for like a whole summer back in 97'.

Quote from: Omega;1051129And that brings up another interesting parallel between 2e and on. 2e is where they started to try and consolidate classes into the equivalent of class paths under an encompassing banner. Fighters, Paladins and Rangers were all under the Warrior banner. Clerics and Druids were under Priest, Mage and Illusionist under Wizard, and Thief and Bard were under Rogue.

The core determined the EXP and HD while the particular path taken determined the abilities.

Isn't that more or less how it worked in 1e with the class/subclass distinction? Fighter was a class, Ranger and Paladin were subclasses; Magic User was a class, Illusionist was a subclass & etc. Each group had their own HD and to-hit advancement tables.

Quote from: Diffan;1051132haha, gotta love the constant attacks. And yea, I played 2E for like a whole summer back in 97'.

"I'm not a racist, I had a black friend when I was in junior high."

This sort of stuff is really irritating because you can never pin down exactly what a game is supposed to be...you said, "60% of 5th Edition mechanics and concepts are derived, in some part or wholly, from 4th Edition."

If it's literally 60%, it wouldn't be THAT "exhausting" to just list a couple of the major ones. I see you mentioned healing surges, but what else? Rolling a d20 for combat, classes, hit points, Vancian magic, reading scrolls, thief skills...that shit all goes back 40 years. So where is this magical more-than-half coming from?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107This becomes a hair-splitting issue. When is something unified enough to count? 3e had separate number boundaries for skills, saves, and Base Attack Bonus, but the concept of formulaic advancement (rather than table lookup) goes back farther.

I think the significant difference, and how it pertains to classes/game in general, is that the formula was different for sub-sets of classes and not exactly uniform at least in 3rd Edition. Sure there were poor/average/good BAB but that didn't relate to Saves or Skills per level or AC. In 4E and 5E EVERYONE plays by the same Proficiency Rules, one unifying system. The point I'm getting at, I guess, is that you didn't need to reference anything. It was a universal truth that all followed. Maybe it's splitting hairs but I feel the play difference between a 10th level Wizard in 3.5 who's trying to make a longsword attack is completely different than a 5e Wizard who's trying to make a longsword attack. One has a decent chance of hitting due to bounded accuracy and a minimized range vs. a range that varies from 13 to 32 by the first 10 levels of the game.  

Quote from: Willie the Duck;10511073e had reserve feats which allowed at-will low-powered effects for spellcasters who kept spells of certain types uncast. It's not quite the same, but it is pretty close, and sure seems like a direct precursor.

It absolutely was testing ground for some of the 4E groundwork. I'd still say that without 4E's push to make it 1) character based [not class based] and 2) mainstream accepted that it still would've been an optional rule. I still wish I had the old 5e Playtest documents so I could reference them or maybe you played through it and remembered, but earlier on they toyed with bringing back Reserve Feats for Spell Casters *better??* that you could take as an option vs. putting damage dealing cantrips into the main game. The concept fell through and instead we got a limited number of cantrips a spell caster can access. Also the push to make them character-based was definitely attempting to allow more power to those who multiclass, otherwise a wizard 1/fighter 19 has practically zero reason to grab a damaging dealing cantrip if it only goes by 1st level wizard rules. Conceptually 3e but fully utilized and imported from 4e (can I get half credit? )

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107This is my central point. Lots of these things have precursors in 3e, 2e, or occasionally (like the attack of opportunity premise, and thus reaction actions and the like) existed in oD&D, and only saw a small dip out of the ruleset in BECMI and AD&D 2e (when a lot of people started, and thus think seeing it pop up again in 3e/4e/5e is the first time).

True, I can accept my ignorance when it comes to earlier versions of D&D, especially pre-3e. Yeah I played 2e but it wasn't for an extended period and I didn't even own books for it. So when something crops up that "seems" new, the fact that it came from gaming culture in the 70s or 80s can get lost on us "new" guys.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107Yes, TSR-era monsters had a save and attack progression based on their HD, and could be found on a chart next to the ones player characters used (or the front of the monster book). I'm not seeing that as a huge difference. Of all the lookups that other editions made one do, this one was trivial.

Recharging mechanics using a d6, special actions that aren't available to Players or created just for a specific monster, lair actions, Action Points that grant extra turns, having Initiative-based actions (Monster goes on Initiative count 20, 12, 7, and 2) etc. I should have been more precise. I guess the difference is at the table, I'm not looking up tables and charts to reference what a monster is supposed to do. To me, that was significant.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107In a discussion where how 4e fits in the greater whole of D&D, it serves no purpose to use this term 'magic user' to mean anyone who uses magic, given that it has a clear, well-known, and established genre-specific meaning referring to a specific arcane class. Especially when the much less confusion-causing term 'spell caster' is readily available. This is right up there with referring to someone as a fighter, but on cross examination exclaiming 'oh, I didn't mean the fighter class. I mean just anyone who fights. All classes can fight, right?' -- it serves no purpose and makes words into things that actually inhibit communication (the opposite of what words are for). Does D&D use normal-world terms as in-game jargon? Of course. The alternative is making up class names like Monte Cook did with Numenera (Glaive, Nano, and Jack. Worked so well there, didn't it?). Great. If we use terms we all agree upon, within context, we can actually communicate our points and not spent threads nitpicking about what we actually mean before we get to our actual points.

To be specific, I was attempting to show how 4E fits directly into the design elements of 5th Edition alone. I don't remember the last time I used "Magic-User" in reference to a very specific and detailed class, especially when referencing healing. I guess that terminology means a lot despite not being relevant to the actual game in over two decades. Regardless, I'll use "Spell Caster" in regards to those who use magic in stead of the antiquated term "Magic-User".

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107And that's really my only criticism of 4e (other than speed of play) -- Are clerics a sacred cow? Sure, but so is the class system as a whole. If I were to choose to play something that dropped D&D-isms like Clerics from the game, why would I stop at 4e, and not all the way to something like GURPS fantasy or Hero System or anything like that?

Clerics weren't removed though, and got MASSIVE amounts of options in multiple supplements. Their focus is still holy man who heals and, going by the "Leader" role, they're the best class to heal. They have loads of ways to replenish Hit Points that doesn't take up resources, that empower your points when you do, and give you buffs when you do spend hit points. Not only that but other things, like being really good against Undead and having a slew of Radiant-themed prayers makes them excel versus the supernatural creatures that don't take to sunlight.

Basically what 4e did was say "Ok we know that there are players who want to be a supportive role but who ALSO don't want to portray a preach-y, holier-than-thou, God-empowered spellcaster. There are also those who don't want to bother with the arcane or divine at all and would rather heal from a militaristic role. Since Hit Points can mean a LOT of stuff, not just meat, it's not a far fetched notion that you regain Hit Points by people shouting encouragement for you to get back into the fray."  The Role of a Cleric never diminished, it was just expanded to be more accepting of other styles of play.

Quote from: Brad;1051136"I'm not a racist, I had a black friend when I was in junior high."

This sort of stuff is really irritating because you can never pin down exactly what a game is supposed to be...you said, "60% of 5th Edition mechanics and concepts are derived, in some part or wholly, from 4th Edition."

If it's literally 60%, it wouldn't be THAT "exhausting" to just list a couple of the major ones. I see you mentioned healing surges, but what else? Rolling a d20 for combat, classes, hit points, Vancian magic, reading scrolls, thief skills...that shit all goes back 40 years. So where is this magical more-than-half coming from?

- Advantage/Disadvantage
- Hit Die healing and non-magical healing via maneuvers (thanks Purple Dragon Knight!)
- No alignment mechanics
- Proficiency Bonus applying to a myriad of attributes
- Monster Recharging features
- Rituals
- At-Will magic being a staple point in *spellcasters* character design
- Limited Skill List
- Long/Short Rest Mechanics (I mean, you can count the Tome of Battle as 3rd Edition but it always gets blamed for being 4e Testing Ground, so take from that what you may)
- Warlock Pacts. Basically the entire Warlock mythos as it pertains to Dungeons and Dragons changed in 4E. In 3E it was sort of just...there with invocations. 4e started the Pacts and how it pertains to otherworldly beings.
- Elemental Monks (I am ignorant on most pre-3e supplements so maybe there's a element monk in 2e?)
- Dragonborn, Drow, and Tieflings being PHB playable races.
- No more Ability Score penalties due to Race
- Complete removal of level drain and ability score drain
- Effects now slowly work like Stone to Flesh doesn't instantly turn you to stone, it take multiple turns to work fully. That's a 4e thing
- Finger of Death doesn't outright kill you on a failed save. Other spells are in there too like Circle of Death that doesn't outright kill on a failed save.  
- Effects that trigger on a hit. In pre-4E you had to "declare" what you were doing (smite, stunning fist, etc.) and if you missed with the attack, the attempt failed and you used that ability. Starting with 4E, most effect occurred AFTER you hit the target, it was tacked on. That remains true in 5E. A 5e paladin "Smites" when he hits with his weapon attack. That might not be significant, but it is for those of use who got pissed when you'd waste your limited resource to no effect.

Look at a 2nd Edition Players Handbook, rules and all and then look at a 4th Edition Players Handbook, rules and all and say to me which one resembles the other mechanically.
No alignment restrictions or mechanics
No racial restrictions
No racial caps
No Experience point penalties
No Dual-Classing
No Weapon Speeds
No Weapons vs. specific armors
No % rolls for skills

I'm sure there's more but I don't have any 2E books ATM. Maybe 60% is wrong. I admit that. What the actual percentage of 4E (or at least mechanics fully implemented and used in 4e) are in 5th Edition is anyones Guess. I see a lot of similarities because I routinely play 4th and 5th Editions on a weekly basis. To me the merits of 4e are on clear display in the way 5E handles a LOT of aspects, especially in the way the game plays.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1051107And that's really my only criticism of 4e (other than speed of play) -- Are clerics a sacred cow? Sure, but so is the class system as a whole. If I were to choose to play something that dropped D&D-isms like Clerics from the game, why would I stop at 4e, and not all the way to something like GURPS fantasy or Hero System or anything like that?

I can only speak for those I've played with, but frankly, GURPS and Hero System are garbage (I'm not a huge fan of what results from 100% point buy... allocation arrays, classes and levels seem to work for more people overall; I can't tell you the number of players of Mage games I've had who just never spent their XP because tracking XP expenditures on individual attributes was too much of a hassle... Reach level X and you gain Y is actually preferred by a lot of players) and the ONLY real problem a lot of players had with D&D in general was gating the healing behind pagan faiths (particularly pre-4E when the GM could cut off your access if you weren't acting in what they felt was accord with said pagan faith).

Arcane magic is sufficiently decoupled from any particular faith (to the point it could almost be "sufficiently advanced technology" in some settings) that it doesn't raise the hackles of many of the Christians who've expressed discomfort about it to me and finding a GM willing to run a setting with an overtly Christian religion for the typically minority of PCs who have such issues is an endeavor in and of itself... particularly with the move (particularly notable starting with 2e, but already present in 1e... though avoided in Basic) away from a basically undefined source of the cleric's power to specific pagan deities (to the point that settings with a monotheistic cosmology are practically seen as "Not D&D" by some people).

4E took it a step further though in decoupling healing from magic entirely. Want to do a setting like Robin Hood or Three Musketeers? You can run either of those using 4E without needing ANY special rules for healing or magic items and not be missing any significant aspects of what the party needs to meet game benchmarks; just limit class choices to martial ones and races to humans. The warlord gives you all the expected healing and buffing the group will need without having to refluff any magic as 'not magic'.

As to some of the "Well, technically 3/2/1e did it first" arguments about certain 4E elements (ex. at-will spells) somewhat misses the point that 4E is what mainstreamed those elements in D&D. For a lot of people, if its not in the core books its doesn't exist. Reserve feats didn't show up until a late 3.5e splat book (Complete Mage - c. 2006) that wasn't even legal in a lot of GM's games. Also worth noting is that by 2006 WotC was already working on 4E and was using a lot of those late edition splats as test beds for planned 4E mechanics (a very strong example of this would be "Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords" where you can see the early stages of the 4E martial classes).

The point is... that for a LOT of people 4E was where those elements came to the fore (because they were in the core books) and were regarded as normalized game elements rather than obscure optional rules from some splatbook. The "Well, technically" game is great if you're looking to do a wonk dive into the origin of various mechanics, but its kind of if you're talking about the general end-user its kinda like saying "Well, Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, he just improved existing designs to the point they became commercially practical" or that "James Watt didn't invent the steam engine, he just designed a compressor system for it that made it efficient enough to be practical."

Its technically true, but so the fuck what? 4E didn't technically invent the at-will minor magics, it just normalized that element as part of D&D's basic play experience. The number of people who used those elements referenced before 4E came out were few and far between (most of the players I knew had moved on from D&D before reserve spells were even in print... 4E brought them back to D&D). 4E's legacy was taking those elements and normalizing them to the point that 5e basically HAD to include them if it was going to make it as a "Goldilocks" edition.