Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 06:43:50 PM
I can only speak for myself and my experiences but the ToB is often regarded as one of the BEST 3.5 books in the library. Sure, some don't like it but - again from my experience- these are also the same ones who think terrible feats like Monkey Grip and Vow of Poverty are broken, or the Warlock's unlimited power is crazy good (none of that is true).

You brought up ToB in an attempt to argue that fans of 3.5 were hypocrites for disliking certain elements of 4e, because they had already appeared in ToB.

That's an awful argument, because ToB was highly divisive when it came out. The people who liked it seemed to be the people who went on to love 4e. The people who hated were the ones who went on to... well, Pathfinder or something. They hated 4e. ToB is not a good example of people contradicting themselves. In fact, it's a very good example that what people liked and disliked was pretty damn consistent, regardless of the edition number.

Quote from: Pat on July 01, 2021, 06:52:45 PM

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 06:43:50 PM
I can only speak for myself and my experiences but the ToB is often regarded as one of the BEST 3.5 books in the library. Sure, some don't like it but - again from my experience- these are also the same ones who think terrible feats like Monkey Grip and Vow of Poverty are broken, or the Warlock's unlimited power is crazy good (none of that is true).

You brought up ToB in an attempt to argue that fans of 3.5 were hypocrites for disliking certain elements of 4e, because they had already appeared in ToB.

That's an awful argument, because ToB was highly divisive when it came out. The people who liked it seemed to be the people who went on to love 4e. The people who hated were the ones who went on to... well, Pathfinder or something. They hated 4e. ToB is not a good example of people contradicting themselves. In fact, it's a very good example that what people liked and disliked was pretty damn consistent, regardless of the edition number.

That hasn't been my experience, especially when talking to people in the 3.5 FB groups. Usually 4e is reviled by 3.5 proponents and fans, and they seem to be perfectly fine with Tome of Battle as a supplement all these years later. Not to mention that even beloved Pathfinder 1e has their own Tome of Battle supplement (Path of War by Dreamscarred Press) that appears to be widely accepted.

I used the Tome of Battle because, despite its controversial aspect, it was still heavily used by 3.5 fans and remains one of the better made and balanced books in that line.

Tob to 4e comparisons is kinda baffling to me.

They are wildly different animals.

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 07:05:23 PM

Quote from: Pat on July 01, 2021, 06:52:45 PM

Quote from: Batman on July 01, 2021, 06:43:50 PM
I can only speak for myself and my experiences but the ToB is often regarded as one of the BEST 3.5 books in the library. Sure, some don't like it but - again from my experience- these are also the same ones who think terrible feats like Monkey Grip and Vow of Poverty are broken, or the Warlock's unlimited power is crazy good (none of that is true).

You brought up ToB in an attempt to argue that fans of 3.5 were hypocrites for disliking certain elements of 4e, because they had already appeared in ToB.

That's an awful argument, because ToB was highly divisive when it came out. The people who liked it seemed to be the people who went on to love 4e. The people who hated were the ones who went on to... well, Pathfinder or something. They hated 4e. ToB is not a good example of people contradicting themselves. In fact, it's a very good example that what people liked and disliked was pretty damn consistent, regardless of the edition number.

That hasn't been my experience, especially when talking to people in the 3.5 FB groups. Usually 4e is reviled by 3.5 proponents and fans, and they seem to be perfectly fine with Tome of Battle as a supplement all these years later. Not to mention that even beloved Pathfinder 1e has their own Tome of Battle supplement (Path of War by Dreamscarred Press) that appears to be widely accepted.

I used the Tome of Battle because, despite its controversial aspect, it was still heavily used by 3.5 fans and remains one of the better made and balanced books in that line.

All the boards I was on exploded in hate and fervent defense when the Tome of Battle came out. I think your experience is very much an outlier.

Quote from: Pat on July 01, 2021, 08:10:31 PM
All the boards I was on exploded in hate and fervent defense when the Tome of Battle came out. I think your experience is very much an outlier.

Back in 06', I was mostly on the WotC, GitP, and Paizo boards and initially I saw some people saying they hated it because it gave a tiny bit of parity to non-casters and it was very much like Legend of the 5 ring? (I never played that game). But the other half would simply bring up the Druid from the PHB, Cleric Persistent shenanigans, the Cheater of Mystra, etc all as fine examples of stupidly broken crap that never got complained about.

And now, 15 years later,  the people I talk to about the supplement is that it's generally one of the better ones made towards the end. But it's purely anecdotal, so I doubt there's any actual way to justify its popularity this far out.

Yet, putting the Tome of Battle aside, why don't people complain about 3.5's heavily (and I mean, it's very gamist) mindset towards the usage of minis, Ex abilities recharging on the day or x/day? And why not NOW, as 5e heavily steals ideas and concepts from a system so hated? Literally, the Warlock lore is pure 4e. Short Rest mechanics ARE encounter powers. Hit Die healing ARE healing surges. Not a peep of "too gamist / WoW" buuuuut all the same ground work and implementation.

Yep, no one ever complained about the Druid from the PHB, Cleric Persistent shenanigans, the Cheater of Mystra, etc.

I really can't say, I've never played 4e. I just commented on the reception to ToB.

But I can say that treating suspension of belief using litmus test mechanics is the wrong approach. It's the accumulation of straw that breaks the camel's back, not that straw dares to exist. And from what I've seen, 4e makes it far more central and explicit. I'm not at all surprised it triggered many people's verisimilitudar.

I enjoy 4e.

It's a skirmish-RPG-boardgame. I like that a lot because I didn't own one of those until 4e came along. Unfortunately, 4e was named Dungeons & Dragons and not DungeonStorm or DragonStrike. If it had been, there wouldn't have been such upset among the fans.

I didn't need 4e to be D&D because I had 0e and now a gazillion OSR games, all of which do "D&D" just fine for my needs.

As others have pointed out, the best 4e version is Gamma World minus the retard bits. If I play 4e at a con in the future, that's what I'd run.

Quote from: Batman on July 02, 2021, 12:52:12 AMwhy don't people complain about 3.5's heavily (and I mean, it's very gamist) mindset towards the usage of minis, Ex abilities recharging on the day or x/day? And why not NOW, as 5e heavily steals ideas and concepts from a system so hated? Literally, the Warlock lore is pure 4e. Short Rest mechanics ARE encounter powers. Hit Die healing ARE healing surges. Not a peep of "too gamist / WoW" buuuuut all the same ground work and implementation.

Presentation mostly. 4E took pains to present abilities in a way that was highly encapsulated, using keywords to explicitly define the game-relevant powers. 5E explicitly doesn't do this, instead basically everything is expressed in a natural language style.

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 02, 2021, 01:21:51 AM
I enjoy 4e.

It's a skirmish-RPG-boardgame. I like that a lot because I didn't own one of those until 4e came along. Unfortunately, 4e was named Dungeons & Dragons and not DungeonStorm or DragonStrike. If it had been, there wouldn't have been such upset among the fans.

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It's funny, because the most I played of 4E rules was in the actual boardgames "Castle Ravenloft" and "Wrath of Ashardalon" - which use 4E rules in a cooperative boardgame beating different scenarios. I tried them out of interest through D&D, but I came to find that I really didn't like them as board games. To be fair, many of my annoyances were with aspects that weren't from the RPG, like the tile-laying and monster-behavior rules - and it was at least good enough (plus the D&D brand) to keep me trying through many sessions. Still, it doesn't give a good impression of their board game design.

As for using it as an RPG, I played a few sessions once with my nephews. Mainly, I had a problem with verisimilitude. Batman says "Why doesn't a Barbarian's Rage 1/day break Verisimilitude? Why doesn't the Monk's 'Stunning Fist' X/Day break people's Verisimilitude?" And I'd say that it's not all-or-nothing. I think those rules did break verisimilitude, but since they were the odd exception, they weren't that much of a problem.

In 5e rage and stunning strike have naturalistic in-world explanations.

Rage isn't just getting angry but a kind of full body berserker fury trance state that your body can only sustain so often before you need to recover. Stunning strike is done using a monk's ki, so just like spell slots you can only channel it to manipulate the opponent's body so many times.

This is different than a fighter just being able to cleave once a day.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on July 02, 2021, 01:10:04 PM
In 5e rage and stunning strike have naturalistic in-world explanations.

Mildly so. I feel 4e has much more blatant offenders then the 1/day cleave, but the 1/day rage (which has a separate exsaustion cooldown from its 1/day limit).
The sort of suspension of disbelief that can be stretched on the rage, or spell slots can be stretched onto the 1/day fighter technique about the same way.

I think its more to do with presentation. And 4e is a gameplay type I don't even like outside of its Boardgame spinoffs.

I just mean that, explanation wise, both rage and stunning strike depend on something like endurance -- there's only so much adrenaline bursts you can have, so to speak.

But a martial technique is just about skill. You don't forget how to cleave after you cleave. There's no extra resource you're spending like ki, which exists in-game as well. (It's not some meta-currency.) Logically it should be more like Sneak Attack where you can always just do it when the conditions come up.

TBH I'm fine with that, for things like battlemaster in 5e.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on July 02, 2021, 02:27:09 PM
I just mean that, explanation wise, both rage and stunning strike depend on something like endurance -- there's only so much adrenaline bursts you can have, so to speak.

But a martial technique is just about skill. You don't forget how to cleave after you cleave. There's no extra resource you're spending like ki, which exists in-game as well. (It's not some meta-currency.) Logically it should be more like Sneak Attack where you can always just do it when the conditions come up.

TBH I'm fine with that, for things like battlemaster in 5e.

The typical explanation that I saw on the forums and I rather liked was that your Daily powers represent combos/circumstances that were fairly unique/rare so you couldn't just spam them all day long.  Encounter powers would be things that once your opponents see it they know how to defend against it so they don't present the opportunity anymore.

Martial Powers were called Exploits.  Make of that definition what you will.

Note that Cleave specifically was a Fighter level 1 At-Will so you could literally do it all day long.  But your general intention with your statement is understood.

Quote from: KingCheops on July 02, 2021, 04:49:50 PM
The typical explanation that I saw on the forums and I rather liked was that your Daily powers represent combos/circumstances that were fairly unique/rare so you couldn't just spam them all day long.  Encounter powers would be things that once your opponents see it they know how to defend against it so they don't present the opportunity anymore.

Martial Powers were called Exploits.  Make of that definition what you will.

   This explanation goes back to the original 4E preview books, but was rejected by at least some of the audience as overly narrative or disassociated from the character.

   I think an endurance point system might have squared the circle, but 4E took a while to break out of the AEDU structure and the sense of symmetry among all classes. Going further ... well, spell points would have further distanced the game from classic D&D.