Quote from: cranebump;963597Yeah, that, too. I remember thinking it seemed like a cool idea, until I ran it. Of course someone who's into 4E would  probably tell me I was doing it wrong.:-/

Haha no no, the first set of books horribly implemented Skill Challenges and did it in such a terribly inorganic way that felt waaay to contrived. The best Skill Challenges I ran were the ones the players didnt even know they were in one. It seemed like they wanted it run like combat, which is stupid. It should have flow and continue with casual role-play with a check here or there.

Quote from: robiswrong;963382I dunno, I think 3e was a pretty significant departure, especially by the time 3.5 rolled around.  The multiclass rules and the plethora of classes available fundamentally changed the game, not to mention the addition of the highly detailed grid-based combat rules.

If you didn't opt to multi class, ran combat as theater of the mind, etc the result was recognizably D&D. Unlike 4e hit points AC, saves, etc all still meant the same thing. 3e thing was customization pushed to an extreme. Sure some of the options pushed the game into very different direction. But remember 2e had variants like Dark Sun and Birthright.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;963197Everyone I knew who was really into 4e was either a hardcore math nerd/baseball stat-cruncher or an actual diagnosed high-functioning autistic.

No joke or insult intended. Dead serious. Make of this what you will for good or ill.

4e D&D is good for what it is: a high-fantasy "heroic" roleplaying game which uses a complicated, but good, tactical war-game as it's primary resolution mechanic. Go beyond that scope, and the game falls apart.

Stripped down, 'core' 3E was totally fine and recognizable as 3E. It's creeping diseases were the mega-giant stat blocks for monsters and NPC's, the proliferation of billions of feats and classes, and the spew of splatbooks that washed like a tidal wave across the gaming scene (ironic, given that the whole idea was to save D+D from 2e's splatbook cancer). But if you just play with the PHB and monster manual its cool.

Quote from: Crabbyapples;9636504e D&D is good for what it is: a high-fantasy "heroic" roleplaying game which uses a complicated, but good, tactical war-game as it's primary resolution mechanic. Go beyond that scope, and the game falls apart.

If you want to play Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings (and I do) then 4e is an awesome game. Certainly up through level 20 - Epic isn't really worth it IME. But I love my new 4e game, seeing PCs be action movie heroes at level 1.

Quote from: S'mon;963668If you want to play Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings (and I do) then 4e is an awesome game. Certainly up through level 20 - Epic isn't really worth it IME. But I love my new 4e game, seeing PCs be action movie heroes at level 1.

I've never played a 4e epic game. Why does it fall apart?

4e was too much lopsided toward the wargaming roots of D&D for my taste. It treated characters as nothing more than playing pieces on the board.

And to me. That is not a positive.

Quote from: estar;963643If you didn't opt to multi class, ran combat as theater of the mind, etc the result was recognizably D&D. Unlike 4e hit points AC, saves, etc all still meant the same thing. 3e thing was customization pushed to an extreme. Sure some of the options pushed the game into very different direction. But remember 2e had variants like Dark Sun and Birthright.

If you took out all of the changes 3e made, 3e could look like earlier versions.  I get that.  No sarcasm - the base numbers look similar, and the concepts are there.  And I also understand the 4e not looking like D&D thing - I've often called it the "Uncanny Valley" of D&D.

To me, 3e is still a pretty strong departure from earlier versions, intended or not.

I started with 2nd ed.  So I know at least some of the older systems.  To me 3rd was amazing.  It cleaned up the mess of previous editions, layed it all out nicely and clearly, and added charcter customization.  It encuraged and rewarded system mastery which I wanted.  I liked it a lot.  I was less keen on 3.5.  And don't want anything to do with pathfinder.  4 I didn't like it.  I only played once so I can't say I gave it a fair shake but it seemed too much like WoW to me.  

I'm liking 5.  There isn't as much customization or system mastery, which I itch for.  But its probably better with out it.  And I really appreciate they aren't releasing splat books.

Quote from: Crabbyapples;963696I've never played a 4e epic game. Why does it fall apart?

It doesn't fall apart, it definitely remains playable. But battles take 2-3 hours so my three hour weeknight games were basically one fight with a bit of framing. And after 24th level the PCs' abilities significantly outpace the monster math, so it's hard to threaten them. In the final battle with Orcus I ran at level 29 he was literally taking a PC to 0 hp every round with his Wand while also reanimating all his fallen allies every round, and the PCs still kicked his ass pretty easily. Anything less than Orcus was pretty much a speedbump - a three hour speedbump. (Actually I do recall the PCs had to retreat a couple times when low on Healing Surges).

I just didn't find that Epic Tier added enough to the game experience to be worth it for me. Maybe because my Loudwater campaign concept really worked best at Heroic through Paragon Tier. If you like 3 hour battles then Epic might work well as a god-hunters game battling across the Multiverse, but since most of the gods & demon lords are statted to be fought by 30th level PCs one would need to do a bunch of tweaking to use them 21-30.

Quote from: Batman;963634Haha no no, the first set of books horribly implemented Skill Challenges and did it in such a terribly inorganic way that felt waaay to contrived. The best Skill Challenges I ran were the ones the players didnt even know they were in one. It seemed like they wanted it run like combat, which is stupid. It should have flow and continue with casual role-play with a check here or there.

I ran them much more free form (and definitely didn't tell them I was "running a skill challenge"): the players wanted to do something, I'd ask them how they were going to do it, and either mark a success automatically or have them make a skill check (I still did the "get x successes before y failures" thing). Various powers could grant bonuses or successes, too.

The first time I can remember an official skill challenge being actually good was in the Elder Elemental Eye from D&D Encounters, though I recall by then 5th Edition had already been announced.

Quote from: S'mon;963631The books are very ambiguous about how to set DCs. I eventually worked out my own DC chart that ignored PC level. For Heroic Tier it's identical to 5e's system:

10 - Easy
15 - Moderate
20 - Hard

Where 'easy' means 'easy for a heroic character' - a bog standard human with +0 will succeed 55% of the time.

The DMG and PHB actually have fixed tables for a number of things, such as climbing a cliff face, breaking down a wooden door, etc. However, these tables are disorganized jumble. Furthermore, 4e doesn't really lend itself to sandbox gaming at all, so the probability of you ever returning to an area with mundane DC 15 locks in a typical 4e campaign is vanishingly small. So most 4e DMs just used the table on page 42 of the DMG to do everything. In my own games, I actually edited out the (+1/2 Level) modifier from the system entirely. This gave me a broader range of usable monsters and DCs. Basically, I was doing Bounded Accuracy before 5e was announced.

I tried to make a skill challenge once, and it ended up being "Guess what skill the DM wants you to roll," which is awful game design. I concluded that trying to shoehorn everything into the combat engine is a terrible idea and just used skill checks the way they're used in the other WotC editions.

As for how much 3e changed things vs 4e, I think the baseline most players expect is that whatever was familiar to them in the previous edition should port over to the new edition in a fairly straightforward way. There were fundamental, systemic changes in 3rd edition that weren't obvious on a first reading, but on the surface, it was pretty obvious that you could convert your AD&D Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Wizard party over with little fuss. The basic structure and spells are mostly there. I imagine that at first blush, the 3rd edition fighter felt quite a bit more exciting than the 2e fighter, what with the seemingly endless customization via feats.

By contrast, the 4e cleric shares little in common with the AD&D cleric other than "can heal," "likes going to church," and "is called 'the cleric.'"

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963366The thing is about lifting the non-caster to caster level is because the magic system is inherently superiour.  Each single spell operates within it's own special rules, often only interacting with a Saving Throw, but bypassing a lot of restrictions that other mechanics have.  There's no 'swing' that an attack roll gets, often bypassing damage all together for an effect.  Now 5e, changed that, but for the most part in the older editions, it was this way.

Let me put this out there. Again I've said this before elsewhere, but it deserves saying again. Raising non-casters to caster-level power is *already* there in the game as of 3e. It's Feats. Now everyone can argue about what they like/dislike about Feats - I will fully agree that it's been implemented horribly. But *that* was the system that needed to bring non-casters closer to parity. And by making it optional it would serve both camps of people that liked casters being uber-powerful (they can simply ignore the Feat system) but for those of us that want dramatic results backed by mechanics - Feats needed to be far more powerful and easier to obtain. Hell - just making them obtainable by means other than leveling would have been a *huge* improvement. This was one of the best things about 5e - they allowed Feats to be tied to Faction rewards.

I'm perfectly fine with letting a caster shoot a 5d6+ fireball or cast Finger of Death and having a non-caster do a Blade Flurry and strike everyone in a 10-ft area because he has Blade Mastery which might have several other benefits. Or an archer being able to rapid-fire arrows and have a similar effect as a byproduct of having Bow Mastery,  (they still have to hit, but their effectiveness is being raised.) Because ultimately Spells are, as you pointed out, their own system. Just like Feats. But unlike non-casters they can be acquired with far far greater ease, by mechanic AND implication. 3e/4e/5e dropped the ball with this, but 5e is closer to the mark, as far as the Feat system goes. I still contend they should have gone full-Fantasycraft with it in terms of power.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963366And here's the thing about 'magical powers', when you have literary sources in which you have non-casters able to do incredible feats like St. George and The Dragon, Beowulf, Finn Mac Cool, why do players of D&D balk when others want to do similar stuff, but not be wizards or clerics?

Good question. But I think a lot of the feats of these fine figures of myth and history could be handled a number of different ways. My personal view is that if you're going to use Feats as a system - non-casters should be doing incredible martial/skill-based stuff. Not necessarily "magic" unless it's something special to the campaign. This is precisely why the Feat system should be optional for D&D. Because too many people have an issue with it, for whatever reason.

I skipped 3e completely so coming back to D&D for 5e was my intro to feats. At first I balked due to my BECMI and 1e/2e background.

But then I realized they helped address the question 'why play anything besides a wizard'? Not just because a wizard was mechanically superior at mid-to-high levels but they were simply more fun to play. Having them be absurdly weak at low levels never really fixed that issue.

So while sometimes it is hard to get the balance right I think they are good for that reason. And in terms of making the system more complex I'm starting to come around on my thinking. No one ever complains about all the spell lists with their host of rules and exceptions making the game 'too complex' why is allowing a much lower range of options to other classes a bridge too far?

In terms of balance, it is hard to say until you get it to the table, a lot of feats that read overpowered play fine and are a lot less problematic than certain near-game breaking spells that have been in the game since 1e.

Quote from: Voros;963812So while sometimes it is hard to get the balance right I think they are good for that reason. And in terms of making the system more complex I'm starting to come around on my thinking. No one ever complains about all the spell lists with their host of rules and exceptions making the game 'too complex' why is allowing a much lower range of options to other classes a bridge too far?

I will say - there is an advantage to having some simpler and some more complex classes.  Some players never really want to delve into the mechanics of the game and are happier playing something simple.