Quote from: Daztur;1053214Yup, exactly. 4ed is fun like that. It would've been a good idea to tell people that ahead of time instead of tell people to engage in a boring grindfest (Keep on the Shadowfell). Of course big fancy set pieces can be fun in any edition, but only 4ed NEEDS them to function.

I don't know about big fancy sets, we use a dry-erase board and minis (but that's every edition) and it works out well. I think the issue is that the early 4e Adventures really shied away from using LOTS of minions to full-fill those grindfest encounters AND when they were used, often they were distinguished from other monsters. Which means that any AoE power pretty much makes their application to the encounter pointless. Mix them in with the bad guys, keep them spread out and use as support and they provide a much better job at both keeping players honest AND spreading out the damage from AoEs.

Quote from: Daztur;1053214In that vein I wonder how 4ed would be if you put in incredibly punitive rest rules so that a long rest requires a HUGE amount of downtime so that you'd normally play a couple of sessions per long rest so that attrition finally rears its head.

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It would certainly make some classes exceedingly more useful and powerful vs. original classes. For example he Essential classes: Knight, Slayer, Thief, Executioner, Hexblade, and Sorcerer derivatives are going to be FAR more beneficial to your survival than the classes that rely on Daily powers to maintain effectiveness. And this goes doubly true for Psionic classes that treat at-wills like encounter when they put in more power points into them.

it would, however, make everyone play the game significantly different. When a Long Rest is 1 week (just an example) and encounter powers are say 6 hours, players are going to sneak past or parlay a lot of those lesser encounters that are "filler" vs. expending resources that will take a long time to recoup. And it'll drastically effect combat encounters, making them much longer because most people will be going with Melee Basic Attacks or At-will powers which don't deal a whole lot of damage.

To do this and make it more functional, here's my suggestions:

- Up the damage of all at-will powers or basic attacks by 1 die or drop creatures hit points by 1/3 of their overall total (assuming Monster Vault or Monster Manual 3 stats as they're mathematically better).
- Make encounter powers reset every 6 hours and daily powers reset every 48.
- Reduce the number of healing surges each class gets by about 1/4.
- Allow players to use Action Points to either take an extra action OR recoup 1 encounter power of their choice.

Quote from: Haffrung;1052853My 4E campaign was one of the best I've ever run, and it was mostly roleplaying factions, with a couple important combats per session. No sustained dungeon-crawling, no trash fights.

WotC has a long-standing problem supporting its systems with the wrong kind of adventures. They supported 3/3.5 with adventures that required mix-maxing and gamey crap like wands of magic missile, and then wondered why the game was taken over by twinks. They supported 4E with combat-heavy dungeon crawls when the system is best suited to small numbers of climactic combats. And they're supporting 5E with epic story-driven mega-campaigns, which become a huge grind because you have to stuff them with trash fights in order to attrit the PCs. They should have supported 4E with epic quest stuff like Out of the Abyss and Tomb of Annihilation, and they should be supporting 5E with encounter-dense locales like Thunderspire Labyrinth and Madness at Gardmore Abbey.

5E is really starting to creak under the imperatives of the encounter structure. In order to challenge the PCs, you have to throw encounter after encounter after encounter at them. And solos get roasted, so lots of big encounters. It gets tedious.

Yeah good points here. Giving the right kind of adventures makes so much of a difference with newbies. I always strugged with TSR-D&D as a kid because I ran it in Frustrated Novelist mode and all of the regular problems cropped up, I thought I was just doing it wrong so I tried to do Frustrated Novelist better and harder and purer. Was like flipping a switch when I started running things differently.

5ed's basically OK as a cleaned up 3.5ed for me (in terms of how it plays) but combat is still to slow to be an ideal fit for me. There are workarounds and the game is OK just not what I want exactly.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1052877It's difficult to design an early adventure in a particular style to fit a game when the writers of the game system have mutually incompatible ideas about how the system works (or in the case of 3E and 4E, three or four mutually incompatible ideas, depending upon how you count).  Part of 5E's success in this respect is that it still has mutually incompatible ways to play, but at least the designers are aware of that enough to sometimes call it out (though not always).  With 5E, they are beginning to show that they at least know what they don't know.

Apparently 4ed was playtested mostly with RPGA people who apparently like grindy crap or something. I don't know...

Quote from: Batman;1053243I don't know about big fancy sets, we use a dry-erase board and minis (but that's every edition) and it works out well. I think the issue is that the early 4e Adventures really shied away from using LOTS of minions to full-fill those grindfest encounters AND when they were used, often they were distinguished from other monsters. Which means that any AoE power pretty much makes their application to the encounter pointless. Mix them in with the bad guys, keep them spread out and use as support and they provide a much better job at both keeping players honest AND spreading out the damage from AoEs.

Don't mean fancy minis and crap, just a complex environment in-game.

QuoteIt would certainly make some classes exceedingly more useful and powerful vs. original classes. For example he Essential classes: Knight, Slayer, Thief, Executioner, Hexblade, and Sorcerer derivatives are going to be FAR more beneficial to your survival than the classes that rely on Daily powers to maintain effectiveness. And this goes doubly true for Psionic classes that treat at-wills like encounter when they put in more power points into them.

it would, however, make everyone play the game significantly different. When a Long Rest is 1 week (just an example) and encounter powers are say 6 hours, players are going to sneak past or parlay a lot of those lesser encounters that are "filler" vs. expending resources that will take a long time to recoup. And it'll drastically effect combat encounters, making them much longer because most people will be going with Melee Basic Attacks or At-will powers which don't deal a whole lot of damage.

To do this and make it more functional, here's my suggestions:

- Up the damage of all at-will powers or basic attacks by 1 die or drop creatures hit points by 1/3 of their overall total (assuming Monster Vault or Monster Manual 3 stats as they're mathematically better).
- Make encounter powers reset every 6 hours and daily powers reset every 48.
- Reduce the number of healing surges each class gets by about 1/4.
- Allow players to use Action Points to either take an extra action OR recoup 1 encounter power of their choice.

Don't necessarily want THAT many combats per long rest, just one or two combats per session and often a couple sessions per long rest.

To use The Hobbit as an example no long rests until Rivendell then no long rests until Bjorn then no long rests until the far side of Mirkwood. So basically only long rests at points of light, not random campsites. That way long overland travel can involve Oregon Trail-style attrition without having to pack in a bunch of combats each day. You can still get the players ground down even if days pass between each fight.

None of that helps when the party is suppose to fight one big encounter when fully rested.

Quote from: Haffrung;1052689According to WotC, half of the people who have played 5E were introduced to the game through live play streams like Critical Role.

I have a bit of trouble believing that. But let's say it's true: the really important question will be "how many of these people are still playing D&D 3 years from now"?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1053563I have a bit of trouble believing that. But let's say it's true: the really important question will be "how many of these people are still playing D&D 3 years from now"?

Hopefully a lot move on to other games. 5ed is fine and all but it doesn't set my mind on fire and more people thinking about making good games is always a good thing.

Quote from: Daztur;1053570Hopefully a lot move on to other games. 5ed is fine and all but it doesn't set my mind on fire and more people thinking about making good games is always a good thing.

From other publushers that isn't happening like it did in prior booms. I think that's more due to the death of RPG retail. 18 years ago with 3E or 30 years ago with 2E or 40 years ago with 1E if folks got bored they stopped by their hobby shop and have a choice of new games to choose from.

Now and days folks have PDFs and discovery/retail sales help doesn't exist.

Quote from: Lurtch;1053594From other publushers that isn't happening like it did in prior booms. I think that's more due to the death of RPG retail. 18 years ago with 3E or 30 years ago with 2E or 40 years ago with 1E if folks got bored they stopped by their hobby shop and have a choice of new games to choose from.

Now and days folks have PDFs and discovery/retail sales help doesn't exist.

Complete wild guess here:  I bet that in a couple of years, we will find some small percentage but sizable chunk of 5E players did migrate to other games, similar to what happened in the AD&D 1E boom.  However, because of the internet replacing stores, the other games will be more dispersed.  That is, you won't have a clear second-tier of games gathering the lion's share of people ready to jump from 5E.  A few good games will gain a boost that means something tangible to the sellers, but there will not be the sales equivalent of a RQ or GURPs in the mix.  (Though it would be hilarious if the games that do gain the most of the dispersal are the TFT and RQ 2nd ed. reprints.)

Quote from: Daztur;1053570Hopefully a lot move on to other games. 5ed is fine and all but it doesn't set my mind on fire and more people thinking about making good games is always a good thing.

Obviously, I didn't mean to imply "3 years from now a million D&D players will have moved on to play other rpgs". I meant to imply "3 years from now a million D&D players will have moved on to the next fad and won't be roleplaying at all".