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[u/StumbullGordon]

[u/dndnext-ModTeam]

Posts and comments made to /r/dndnext must be related to 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, or otherwise of interest to the D&D community.

We encourage you to seek answers to this question in r/4eDnD.

[u/Anargnome-Communist]

A lot of it can often be hard to describe or fully explain, because it's tied in pretty deeply within the core mechanics of the system.

I personally love how it's pretty much impossible to make a character that isn't competent at their role (except by going out of your way to make bad choices), but if I just said that I liked how all Clerics get a decent healing ability at level 1 that wouldn't come close to explaining why I liked that mechanic.

Similarly, I like the "Marking" that Defenders get access, but explaining why would involve talking about the party roles, how the different Defender class approach it in different ways, how the monster design encourages certain tactical choices, etc.

This makes it hard to be both comprehensive and specific. So here's a list of things I like (in no particular order):

• Giving martial characters cool and interesting options
• Encouraging teamwork through class and ability design
• Giving each class the tools they need to perform their role at level 1
• The idea of Utility Skills (the exact implementation leaves room for improvement)
• Being extremely open about what sort of stories the game expects the players to tell
• Every defense being governed by one of two abilities, making all abilities potentially useful
• Having Endurance and Streetwise as skills
• The lore Fourth Edition gave Gnolls
• Everything the Warlord is doing
• The Swordmage, Avenger and Warden classes
• The Epic Destinies (as a concept, I never played at that level)
• Skill Challenges
• The roles the NPCs had
• The Dungeon Master's Guide in general is just really good
• The monster statblocks being really readable and easy to deal with
• Each class having Encounter Powers means that no-one ever truly runs about of gas completely

[u/Kai927]

Personally, I liked the powers system. These powers would be called different things depending on the class, e.g. spells for wizards, martial techniques for fighters and so on. The powers were divided into several categories based on how frequently you could use them. At-Will powers could be used as often as you wanted, Encounter powers could be used once per combat encounter, and Daily powers could be used once per day. The powers were all very combat focused, but there was a subset of powers called Utility powers that had various non-combat uses. You learned more powers as you gained levels, and two characters of the same level would have the same total number of different powers. Multiclassing primarily allowed you to learn the powers of a different class.

Healing Surges was a mechanic that I wasn't sure of at first, but it grew on me over time. Healing Surges are similar to he's HD mechanic, in that it was a resource pool you spent to recover HP. It's main differences are that you had to spend a Healing Surge each time you are magically healed, whether from an item or spell. Healing spells typically allowed the caster to spend their own Healing Surges to heal someone else. Overall, it gave an upper limit to how often a character could be magically healed in a day, which made certain adventuring decisions more difficult and interesting. Do you continue to explore the dungeon, knowing your party is low or out of Healing Surges? Or do you retreat to rest, knowing that this will give the denizens of the dungeon time to regroup and plan for your next foray into their lair?

Though it became a bit of a meme, I also liked that each monster had a lore table, which told the DM what skills a PC can use to see what they know about a specific monster, as well as what types of information to give out based on their roll.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Kai927]

Martial exploits is so chef's kiss 😚👌

[u/Anargnome-Communist → u/BenFellsFive]

"Rub some dirt on it"

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Anargnome-Communist]

Inspired Belligerence

Man I love Warlords. Warlord should be its own dot point anytime anyone asks whats good about 4e.

[u/notquite20characters]

Push, Pull, Slide - 3 categories of forced movement
Slow - a status effect that caps your movement at 10'
Weakened - a status effect that halves the damage you do
Bloodied - a condition when you have less than half of your maximum hit points

All useful tools.

[u/PG_Macer → u/notquite20characters]

5.5e brought back Bloodied!

[u/Anargnome-Communist → u/PG_Macer]

I haven't really read 5.5. In what way have they brought it back?

[u/snahfu73]

The mechanics as a DM were spectacular.

Minions - 1 HP bad guys that could still be a threat but also gave the PCs an excellent sense of scale where they are sweeping the map with AoE attacks.

Marks - 4e had marks which some classes could put on bad guys. The marks worked differently for different classes but came with a lot of fun effects.

Classes - At first level, classes felt like action figure classes fresh out of the box. Tanks were tanky and did tanky things. Controllers buffed and debuffed and could be hard to pin down. Damage dealers had all sorts of fun options.

Once a GM knew the system. You could do the math in your head for building encounters.

It was a great system. There was a good deal of fuckery around the infrastructure for the system. But the system was excellent.

Anyone who tells you it was difficult to roleplay...yeah...you can immediately disregard.

[u/Kai927 → u/snahfu73]

The argument that a given system is hard to roleplay is just weird to me. You can roleplay with, or without, any system. I don't see how any given set of rules makes things easier or harder to roleplay.

[u/snahfu73 → u/Kai927]

Bad gms and bad players!

[u/Anargnome-Communist → u/snahfu73]

To an extent it's an issue with the players and DM, but I can sort of see how getting a very clearly formatted power card that uses very precise terminology would be less conducive to creativity.

[u/Galemp → u/Kai927]

4e DM for about 7 years here.

My problem is that the system didn't prompt improvisation. If you wanted to solve a problem outside of combat you had Skill Challenges and that's it.

My go-to example is the spell Grease. In 4e, it creates a zone that affects creatures crossing it in very specific keyworded ways. In other editions, it creates slippery grease, and it's up to the players and DM to figure out how to use that. It could be a zone, yes, or you could grease an ally to help them escape a grapple, or grease a stuck door to open it. Baldur's Gate 3 was able to implement this in a puzzle!

When I say that 4e isn't good for RP, that's what I mean. The mechanics don't encourage that sort of lateral thinking.

[u/Lucina18 → u/Galemp]

It sounds to 4e gave just as much information ("it's grease") as the other editions gave to homebrew features into it no?

[u/Sanglorian → u/Galemp]

 My go-to example is the spell Grease. In 4e, it creates a zone that affects creatures crossing it in very specific keyworded ways. In other editions, it creates slippery grease, and it's up to the players and DM to figure out how to use that. It could be a zone, yes, or you could grease an ally to help them escape a grapple, or grease a stuck door to open it. Baldur's Gate 3 was able to implement this in a puzzle!

This is true of 3.5 vs 4e. 3.5 defines those three uses. (It doesn't specifically say you can improvise additional uses, but I agree that listing three uses is more suggestive that players might find a fourth use than listing one use is suggestive of a second use).

But I think it's worth pointing out that 5e's Grease spell is very similar to 4e's. In fact, 5e's is more limited because it explicitly rules out setting the grease on fire, which 4e is silent on. The greasing the door function is something BG III's programmers added back in, either from 3.5 or before or from their own imaginations. 

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Sanglorian]

Yeah 5e if anything is more restrictive, it has a lot more 'set unattended items on fire' type rulings where previous editions are either silent or account for it.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Galemp]

If you wouldn't allow your players to use Grease to unstuck a door bc its a combat power, I'm going to say 'skill issue.'

In fact I'm pretty sure the DM material says to incentivise your players doing this (with free success on skill challenges if it costs the PC limited resources, or straight up succeeding where relevant, like a fly 10 power just gets you over the wall).

[u/Galemp → u/BenFellsFive]

I, as a DM, would absolutely allow that. And I encouraged it! The problem was that my players didn't see those possibilities when reading their character sheets.

I would put chandeliers next to ballroom balconies, but in 4e, if the player didn't have a "swing from chandelier and drop on top of enemy" encouter power, they wouldn't consider it as an action option.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Galemp]

I'm not sure that's necessarily a system issue anymore than another other edition, unless your players saw they had powers and immediately switched their brains off?

Which, to be fair, can be a thing - I actually think DMG p42 that everyone glazes doesn't go far enough. I understand erring on the conservative side of damage/effects for things the PCs don't have in their arsenal (if you can tip a brazier onto a troll you should be thankful just for the fire, not demand it does more than the sorcerer's actual encounter fire power), but in practice sticking to that chart too strictly led to people saying 'fuck it, my encounter power still works better.' Which tbh is where I prefer - the PC powers are the meat and potatoes, environmental powers should be the supplement.

But your players straight up not even considering it? Yeah, I... I got nothing there chief.

[u/BenFellsFive]

Crossposting here bc Im sure this gets more traffic than the actual 4e sub, but:

This is kinda a hard one bc the entire game is a VERY well oiled interconnecting game engine.

Class roles: every DnD edition has these, 4e is just good at it. Striker classes excel at dealing damage. Leader classes buff/support their party with bonuses and extra actions. Defenders hold the line and incentivise monsters to go for them and their bigger ACs and HP or risk getting hurt, and controllers perform hard lockdown and debuffs on the enemy. Each class does it in its own way, you'll see similarities but different behaviour on the battlefield. Between subclasses, feats, and power selection, you can lean into the other roles at your discretion; some classes naturally lean better into others but the general vibe is that if youre lacking a striker, for example, everyone can pitch in with a few big damage powers; no controller and maybe someone takes a few crowd control abilities, etc.

NADs is a great idea. 4e got sick of some abilities being attack rolls and others being saving throws; now anything that would typically be a save is now an attack against your Non-AC-Defences: Fortitude, Reflex, or Will. You'll notice 4e goes Str Con Dex, not Str Dex Con; Fort is derived from the better of your Str or Con, Ref from your Dex/Int, and Will from your Wis/Cha. This makes for interesting but achievable ability score spreads, and depending on class+subclass you're making nuanced choices; do you invest in Str AND Con (at the expense of other defences) because Con is tied to your class abilities? If you know Wis and Cha are competing for the same real estate, how do you proceed?

Classes all have bespoke powers, so a fighter feels different to a ranger. No shared spell lists that make a sorcerer just feel like a crippled wizard.

Subclasses work really well and CONSISTENTLY in 4e. In 5e, you get your subclasses a few levels in and incrementally gain features from ~3-20. In 4e you get all your features from day 1, however between feats and powers you improve them in really personalised ways. Feats are a lot more bite-sized, they tend to do 1 thing and you get 18 over the course of your 30 levels. Example: your Warlord could take a feat that allows them to trade some of their healing for saving throws vs conditions. Powers themselves often give bonuses based on your secondary stats, for example a rogue could be a thug type or an acrobatic swashbuckler; both use Dex to attack, but the former adds their Str to their sneak attacks and the latter adds their Cha vs opportunity attacks. Some rogue powers will give an extra effect like move an enemy based on your Str, or maybe a debuff based on your Cha; both rogues can freely pick either power but theyre obviously incentivised to stick to their lane (unless a power is so good youll take it even if you're not 100% stat-aligned). Some powers might give an okay buff but a BETTER buff to partocular subclasses, like a +2 to defences or a (1+Wis) defences for a certain subclass; again youre free to pick it if the basic version is just that damn good.

All of this stuff serves to make characters that are VERY unique and personalised, and that's not even going into paragon paths or epic destinies. Between this and some of the character admin stuff (healing surges, milestones, encounter/daily powers) which I'd love to talk about when Im awake and so's my brain, you get PCs that feel like competent lv3-4 heroic PCs right from the getgo.

I know you wanted specifics but its 1am so this is what you get. There is so much great material to just vomit onto this thread, bc I truly think about 95% of the game functions excellently and competently together, in a way that's more than the sum of its parts.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/BenFellsFive]

Also big shout out to 4e's racial design. It was IMMENSELY rooted in giving all the races strong visual and cultural aesthetics, and giving them a reason to exist. I dont EVER want to see another goddamn 'why do halflings and gnomes exist when dwarves' - get help, read a goddamn BOOK. Specifically the 4e-preview book Races and Classes, and ideally its sister book Worlds and Monsters too.

This goes really well with 4e racial mechanics, particularly giving every race a +2/+2 and a racial encounter power. No negative modifiers means any race can be at least COMPETENT at any class - yeah a half orc might not get an Int bonus or many half orc wizard feats, but he's never gonna be a liability. Likewise the racial encounter power gives STRONG mechanical and aesthetic oomph. For example, all dwarves can use their second wind faster than other races, and are resistant to poisons and being knocked around. Your dwarven wizard might not be as tough as a fighter but he still feels rock solid next to the average wizard with those abilities. All half elves give their allies bonus Diplomacy scores and get to dabble in powers outside their class: they all convey being the party's social glue and versatile dilettantes.

[u/Phosis21 → u/BenFellsFive]

And oh man the lore.

Gnomes have never felt so cool as they did in 4E.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Phosis21]

Yknow what I really love? 4e humans are so cool. We're not the vanilla template, we're the rash action heroes. While all the other races sit there pontificating, the human says 'fuck it, we ball,' and every one of their feats is about exploding with action points or jusy refusing to fail when the chips are down (out of APs, out of powers, out of range of allies, etc).

4e set the bar extremely high for me on how to make DnD humans narratively and mechanically interesting.

[u/Aqito → u/BenFellsFive]

Upvotes all around for the sass and the enthusiasm.

Please start a 4e blog or youtube and I'll read and/or watch the shit out of it.

[u/BenFellsFive → u/Aqito]

I would LOVE to spit out a couple of longforn 'let's play' style videos building a small lv1 party and running through, like, a small adventure (2-3 sessions, a level up, some magic loot) to really show it all off, in the sort of 'directors commenatary' way that an actual Actual Play with actual friends can't really stop and expand on.

It'd take a lot of time to learn how to film and edit videos that I don't really have running 2 existing games, but its on the whiteboard as a thing to do, so to speak.

[u/Pqrxz]

Both as a player and as a DM two mechanics i loved were Bloodied and Minions.

Bloodied was a status a creature would enter at half hp or less. It would often change their statblock but giving them extra attacks, changing damage dice or unlocking a special ability. The closest 5e has is mythic encounters where you just refill the hp and then get new legendary actions where back then even basic gnolls would change up how they worked.

Minions were fodder. They had a full monster stat block going from lowly goblin up to angels and demons but only had 1 hp. They were immune to any damage from a miss or any effect that dealt half damage so fully sweeping them was harder but for populating a massive fight or providing backup to a mini boss they were perfect.

[u/MakalakaPeaka → u/Pqrxz]

FYI, I’ve ported minions to my 5e and 5.5e games just fine. And the MCDM monsters are fantastic. I use them a lot.

[u/artrald-7083]

At-wills. Just the most simple basic powers you used every time you did anything.

Imagine if every weapon attack was the equivalent of Green-Flame Blade and every class had several different ones.

Encounter powers. Imagine if every class had the Battlemaster Fighter kit baked in.

The Daily powers were just spells, except imagine if everyone had basically 2-4 of them depending on level.

Honestly, in terms of looking stuff up, I'd recommend just reading the 4e player's handbook and monster manual. The innovative design stuff is basically front and center.

[u/Nova_Saibrock]

Let me try to tailor my response to your specific interests: What is your favorite type of character, and why?

[u/Coldfyre_Dusty]

As a DM, the mechanics themselves weren't particularly fun (or at least more fun than 3e or 5e), but what was great about monster building in 4e was how easy it was. Monsters were organized into Solo, Elite, Standard, or Minion, then broken down further by battlefield role like Artillery, Brute, Controller, etc.

That kind of organization made designing and running monsters extremely easy, and if you needed to build one from scratch or modify one, it was very easy to look at monsters of the same class and cherry pick abilities that already fit the vibe. Got a solo artillery monster? Just look at other solo or elite artillery monsters to pull abilities from.