Thread 96918299

I think D&D 4e was an under-appreciated edition because of how it gave martials something to do in combat other than say "I attack."

>>96918299 (OP)
I mean, it was the best edition of D&D, yeah

>>96918299 (OP)
I haven't played it, but it feels kind of lame that I need a power to just...describe the way I might normally attack.
>read the stuff
Oh this is a troll thread?
Well from a gameplay (read video game) perspective those all do different things and the choice is actually important, in context.

>>96918299 (OP)
Why the fuck would anyone ever play a martial in any edition of D&D? Just play a game that isn't a Wizard-Simulator if you want interesting martials.

>>96918299 (OP)
No, it's because it answered the disparity by incredibly ham-fisted normalization and utterly fucked the non-combat rules. Y'know, the stuff you need to mechanically support an IN-CHARACTER role rather than naked slot-filling that despite its seemingly-frequent technical novelty still reminds far too much of MMO party composition.

>>96918409
Ironically, where the theoretical gap is the worst (3.5), Fighter 20 has its greatest variety with the most whacky bullshit to dig into. Folding feat chains around eachother is a horribly tedious headache, of course, but there IS a lot of interesting mechanical shenanigans available. Because "interesting" mechanics do not at all entail respectable marginal utility, setting DPR records as an all-day-every-day field of competency does jack shit when the hard permissions gauntlet arrives.

i remember when it was new, playing a cleric and just saying 'i attack with my mace'. nope, i needed to use one of my POWERS (i think they added a 'basic attack' later).

but then the DM also complained that i was using some healing boost power during rests, since those extra d4s slowed down everyone rolling their healing surges.

it's a fun open-ended tactical skirmish game. but it's just too slow. no way around that.

>>96918299 (OP)
5e Battlemaster was the better system.

>>96918481
Basic attack was in the book from day one. It's literally in the combat rules, since you use it for opportunity attacks. Are you just fucking around?

>>96918494
God the line between "genuine retard" and "basic shitposter" is fucking blurry here

>>96918381
Those all do different things, yes. The first is melee only and Invigorating, so it gives you temporary hp. The second is rattling, which inflicts a debuff on the target and can be used with any weapon. The third targets reflex, usually a lower number, instead of AC and you need to use light blades. These are all your most simple effects you can use without limit

>>96918445
>Ironically, where the theoretical gap is the worst (3.5), Fighter 20 has its greatest variety with the most whacky bullshit to dig into. Folding feat chains around eachother is a horribly tedious headache, of course, but there IS a lot of interesting mechanical shenanigans available. Because "interesting" mechanics do not at all entail respectable marginal utility, setting DPR records as an all-day-every-day field of competency does jack shit when the hard permissions gauntlet arrives.
This.

>>96918445
>>96918549
It really wasn't interesting. Even in the absence of spellcasters almost everything you could do with it outscaled by appropriate challenge enemies and your return on doing all that work was Jack shit. The best debuff is dead, anything else is a waste of time.

>>96918577
Tripping and fearlocking stand out as great toys.

>>96918589
Except on all the things it wouldn't work on. Another thing that hurt the sense of "variety" is just how many regular ass enemies were categorically immune to your shit.

>>96918577
The Martials are the chief inflictors of Dead because they have a grotesque amount of low-hanging DPR workhorses that have no meaningful endurance limits in themselves, the problem is that there is a VERY long list of things that COULD get in the way of applying that easily-inflated DPR they have no recourse for on their own and extremely little outside combat.

>>96918602
Trip immunity is actually pretty rare and isn't THAT hard to keep up the numbers on, its application issues are from maintaining positioning requirements and the size limit. And Fear-locking is in a weird tangled mess of how you handle [Mind-Affecting]. Most importantly, even with these application issues it's still got a lot of room to offer more fights per day than pure-casting solutions, the issue remains primarily with bringing almost nothing outside the fighting to make it worthwhile over the very long list of ways for a mostly-caster to get good enough at many of them.

>>96918496
Well, fucking obviously. That nigger is also rolling healing surges.

>>96918299 (OP)
the problem with 4e is that the rules are hidden all over the place with stupid fucking keywords

>crushing surge has the Invigorating keyword, meaning that if you have proficiency with Endurance, you gain temporary hit points when you hit with it
>disheartening strike has the Rattling keyword, meaning that if you have proficiency with Intimidation, the target gains -2 to attack rolls for 1 round when you hit with it
>piercing strike targets your reflex, meaning that it bypasses armor.


Here's what they'd look like in 5e

>>96918724
The keywords are great because it saves on repeating language. The only people it hurts are the people who don't read the book.

>>96918299 (OP)
Attack vs AC or Attack vs Save is a meaningful difference, though?

>>96918737
I think keywords should just be keywords, otherwise you have to look in 20 different places for the rules

>>96918299 (OP)
That image perfectly encapsulates 3eeaboo retardation. >>96918522 gets it right. All of these ARE different, while ALSO being at-wills. Aka your "I've used all/want to conserve my interesting powers" powers. You would know this if actually read the PHB.
>pic somewhat related

>>96918745
But the keywords are listed in several places in each book. In the Powers section (usually at the very beginning of the chapter), in the glossary, and if you had a class or class option that heavily used it.

>>96918299 (OP)
>I think D&D 4e was an under-appreciated edition because of how it gave martials something to do in combat other than say "I attack."
So does 5e. Just because it isn't chock full of pointless minutiae and "the same attack + status effect as last level, but 6[W] damage instead of 5[W] damage" doesn't make it worse or inferior.

>>96918481
>i remember when it was new, playing a cleric and just saying 'i attack with my mace'. nope, i needed to use one of my POWERS (i think they added a 'basic attack' later).
Kek this. Basic attacks suck, and there's no options for a Dex melee ranger.
Because
>wahhhhh Dex is a god stat!!!
Okay then just balance around that? Lmao.

>>96918589
>tripping
Decent
>fearlocking
Retarded, and symptomatic of söy faux-masculine tough guy faggotry.

>>96918784
Battlemaster is fucking dogshit.

>>96918792
So is the 4e fighter

>>96918784
Fading Strike dumbass.
>>96918812
Nah, one of the best classes in the game and very well designed. 4e Fighter should be the standard

>>96918784
Why are you posting Battlemaster like it's the standard and not a massive exception to the game's design?

>noooo I can't have 15 different copies of the same ability like in 4e where I shift an ally 10 feet and pretend it's epic gameplay in a system with no flanking rules
Warlord fags are insufferable holy shit. They cannot cope with the fact that not everyone liked their stupid-ass "shouting the severed arm back on" abilities and pointlessly shuffling people around out of turn and giving them attacks out of turn. There should have been more abilities like that in general if that was what people wanted. Be happy they put that shit in 5e at all. Adding your charisma to some ally's attack is fucking moronic. You idiots really need to stop overestimating the power of Charisma just because you all have an 8 charisma IRL, you cannot "inspire" someone to suddenly become proficient with a sword. inb4 "momma bear lifts car off her baby with insane strength" bullshit. Guess what? No matter how handsome you are, you're not making her wet enough to do that. That's reserved for maternal instinct only, you fucking incel freak. Seriously, you warlord players are fucking insufferable. You micromanage the entire table and screech like a little bitch when people don't utilize your buffs the exact way you would. It's like a constant pressure cooker especially because a lot of warlord players have anger issues from losing constantly at RTS games. That's why they play TTRPGs, because they're easy mode where you have to try to lose instead of try to win. As a result you can just sit there and give your abilities out and tell people NO MOVE THERE or NO ATTACK THIS GUY and half the time you don't even know how other peoples' powers work. Yeah, fuck yeah am I glad they didn't include Warlord class in 5e. You guys were fucking insufferable cunts and they probably didn't want the normgroid infestation they planned to herald in with 5e D&D to be repulsed by your sweaty tryhardness. I cannot think of a more tryhard class, a more söy class than fucking warlord. Good. Fucking. Riddance.

>>96918862
lmao

>>96918784
>Retarded, and symptomatic of söy faux-masculine tough guy faggotry.
what? what's wrong wtih fearlocking???

>>96918840
>Why are you posting Battlemaster like it's the standard and not a massive exception to the game's design?
Because it doesn't need to be, lol. Why does every class need martial fighting dice? Not everyone wants to deal with the metacurrency shit.

>>96918834
>Fading Strike dumbass.
Moving out of melee with a 1[W] power isn't a viable long term strategy, dumbass. One power isn't archetype support.

>>96918862
4e has more variation than people give it credit for, but not as much as the glazers say it does

personally, I feel warlords could have had so much more going for them
>false cavalry: When you move your mount, can leave behind leave behind a 20-foot-radius cloud of dust in each space you move through that lasts for 1 round. Enemies that see it must make a save or be frightened for 1 round
>choose your battlefield. you take advantage of a terrain feature you noticed. the terrain in an area nearby grants one of the following benefits: it's difficult terrain to your enemies, it makes your allies invisible, or it provides cover
>trench warfare: you take advantage of a nearby ditch. mark a trench up to 80 feet long in a shape you want. it can have multiple branches, but must be continguous. Creatures in the trench are protected from ranged attacks originating outside the trench, and visa versa, except for AOEs

>>96918862
Holy shit you sound mad. Seek mental help.

>>96918299 (OP)
3e did it better as usual
>Sunder
>Disarm
>Trip
>Charging as a specific mechanic rather than just a reflavor
>Grapple + use rope
Post-3e D&D really missed out by removing interaction with enemy items during combat

>>96918409
in real early D&D a lvl 1 fighter was bad ass if he spent his starting money on men at arms instead of chainmail. Being a literal warlord was fucking awesome.

>>96919001
Rose tinted glasses. Charge and trip were the only good things, and even then you were pigeon holing yourself.

>>96918961
It's literally the entire Hunter build from martial power 2. You didn't play the game

>>96918299 (OP)
So what do we have here.
We have Crushing Surge, a 1[W] attack that gives temporary HP equal to the con modifier thanks to the invigorating keyword. Yeah, technically invigorating requires you to be trained in endurance but let's be real you're not picking up an invigorating power without having that trained.

Next is a rattling attack for rogues. So 1[W]+Dex and the target has a -2 to attack rolls until their next turn unless they're immune to dear. Yeah, requires you to be trained in intimidate but you wouldn't pick up a rattling power without it.

And then finally is Piercing Strike. Oh Piercing Strike. The worst type of 4e power. Unlike the previous two, Piercing Strike is a type of power that's what I'll call "boringly efficient." The only thing that's special about piercing strike is that it's a weapon attack that targets a non-AC defense. So except against certain types of enemies, it's just an attack with a built in bonus to hit as its effect. Straight forward, efficient and boring. Personally I always forwent it for Deft Strike and Sly Flourish - which were less efficient in terms of their ability to hit as frequently but were generally more interesting.

>>96919023
If you could do it as a called shot / get it as a status effect on hit, it would have been fine, and better than 4e had it.
Actually just making improved Trip/Disarm/Sunder let you make that attempt on a regular melee hit, would have been fine.
The whole problem with it was that you gave up damage to do it.
Change that, and 4e and the dissociated mechanics cancer is forgettable rules bloat.

>>96918980
Not an argument.

>>96919039
>You didn't play the game
Sorry I didn't have that book retard. I played 2 years of 4e you retarded faggot.
>bro you didn't have this supplement so you didn't play
You don't know shit about my life faggot. I can get 4 people who will confirm to you that yes, I was there for 2 years, barely missed a session, and played D&D 4e. Suck my dick retard.

>>96918872
>lmao
not an argument.

>>96918948
>what's wrong wtih fearlocking???
Because it's gay. Morale isn't really a mechanic in D&D anymore, so it's usually left up to the DM. Fear that isn't supernatural is usually retarded bullshit. This "I intimidate you super hard in battle" shit is just stupid entry-level "I wanna play a fighter but just attacking isn't good enough for me" and that's the first thing they think of. It's retarded.

>>96919076
Darksydephil get the fuck out.

>>96918784
God I forgot how much battlemaster fucking sucks ass.
"here's an incredibly limited class mechanic. Also even though you've hit with an ability, the thing you're spending dice on can still fail because the idea that you could just do something upsets the wizard player too much"

Genuinely, going from a 4e fighter to a 5e Battlemaster sucked so fucking much. You could FEEL how much it sucked compared to what came before.

>>96919093
it's not even the casters who hate it. it's the champion players. the guys who get off on sucking, and refuse to learn the rules.

>>96919073
Your complaint was retarded. Basic attacks are basic because they are for oas, and even then a bunch of classes get things they can substitute for the basic attack which make it better. Now I'm pointing out to you that they made an entire subset of powers specifically to cater to the pedantic complaint of not being able to monostat in one of the most popular supplements of the entire game line. If you actually played for that long then I can guarantee you weren't paying attention and are one of those losers who doesn't read the book.

>>96918737
The keywords are fun, but their implementation was lacking. What's funny is that WotC solved this problem, *twice* in Magic the Gathering and just didn't think to apply lessons learned from one game to another.

Genuinely, the 4e design team could have benefited so much if leadership in wotc had enough brain cells to rub together and applied some of the lessons about templating from MtG to 4e.

Because the hit line of Crushing Surge should just read:
1[W] + Strength damage. Invigorate (Gain Temporary Hit Points equal to your constitution modifier.)

>>96919130
That's an entire sentence they would have to reprint for every single invigorate power in books that already dedicated like 50% of their space to powers. Again, if you just read the book you wouldn't need to re-reference it on each one of these things. They already write it out multiple times in the book in different places.

>>96919073
>You don't know shit about my life faggot. I can get 4 people who will confirm to you that yes, I was there for 2 years, barely missed a session, and played D&D 4e. Suck my dick retard.
Because you're full of shit.
You're talking about how a melee dex ranger had no melee basic replacement. Anon pointed out that they did in MP2. You're now trying to act like this was some obscure supplement book that you never heard of and that it wasn't something you could have possibly known about.

ONE PROBLEM ASSHOLE
PHB MELEE RANGERS ARE STRENGTH BASED.
If you were playing a dex based melee ranger, that means you were either
1. playing poorly on purpose and blaming the system.
or
2. using Martial Powers 2. Because that's where the support for that archetype was. Which is also where Fading Strike was.

>>96919023
NTA, but he was right. 3e did it better. Everything after 3.5 was just unmitigated trash for people who don't like D&D or were born too late to be fully actualized human beings.

>>96919093
>God I forgot how much battlemaster fucking sucks ass.
No you didn't. You're just a whiny bitch.
>Also even though you've hit with an ability, the thing you're spending dice on can still fail because the idea that you could just do something upsets the wizard player too much
Hahahaha rent free. You martialcucks are like American blacks, literally EVERY problem you have has to be framed in the context of your "oppressors" (whites, or spellcasters). It's fucking hilarious.
>Genuinely, going from a 4e fighter to a 5e Battlemaster sucked so fucking much. You could FEEL how much it sucked compared to what came before.
Yeah you could FEEL it because you have no fucking argument as to what the actual problem is.

>>96919182
>PHB MELEE RANGERS ARE STRENGTH BASED.
Yep. And it's a retarded over-limiting mechanic.
5e has support for Dex-based melee rangers.
4e doesn't.
So why should I care about 4e?
>Because that's where the support for that archetype was. Which is also where Fading Strike was.
One power isn't support you dumbass.

>>96919140
Well, it's a two part issue that I'm pointing out here.
First is that you should be putting the invigorate keyword in the hit line, not elsewhere in the power. Make it clear that invigorate is an effect that you get for hitting something.

Secondly, I suggest reminder text because it's just a useful training tool. Honestly I'd probably just stick it on at-wills and then you can throw invigorate on encounters and dailies without and go "you get it. You get how this works."

>>96919191
I was complaining about how much battlemaster sucked ass compared to what came before it. I'm not really interested in debating you or convincing you or whatever you think this was. Your opinion doesn't matter to me.

>>96919200
See the super cool thing is that they already thought of that but one better, because when you would print out your character sheet using their dope as shit character builder, it would list all your important keywords on your character sheet and then tell you what any relevant modifiers it would produce would be. You could also skip this just by knowing your own rules.

>>96919194
4e has support for it, you dumbass. The point was you were playing stupid on purpose, probably to have something to complain about since 4e rangers are the most powerful and useful the class has ever been.

>>96919194
>Feat exists that let's you use dex for basic attacks instead of strength
>Don't take it
>Complain
?

>>96919194
>Yep. And it's a retarded over-limiting mechanic.
The game told you "this is a strength based archetype" and you chose to ignore it. This isn't on the game. This one is on you.

>5e has support for Dex-based melee rangers. 4e doesn't.
Yes it does. It's in Martial Powers 2. It's a series of powers that were mainly there to support the new Hunter Fighting Style - which was meant to be a more flexible way to ranger, allowing you to both use dex for melee attacks and also to more easily switch to making ranged attacks.

Or alternatively, you could have picked up the Essentials book and played the Scout subclass. Which just had dex to melee attacks as a class feature. It was a literal "turn your brain off" level feature.

But let's pretend that neither of those are options. For some reason, your incredibly specific ranger character needs to be using a different fighting style, and needs to be a PHB ranger. But also needs to have a dex based melee basic. Okay. Pick up the melee training feat. Congrats. You can now use dex for your melee basic all the time, forever. Yeah, the damage is slightly worse. You had other, better options.

>>96919242
Imagine looking at twin strike and going "this class is underpowered" with a straight face.

>>96919259
Didn't they also make it piss easy to look up Powers even if you didn't have the supplement? I remember the character builder was cracked pretty much same day every day it got an update, which included all the sources. There's like zero excuse to not know about something from a mainline book

>>96918299 (OP)
>know nothing about 4e
>look these up
>First one adds temporary HP per hit based on constitution
>Second one imposes a -2 to hit which I assume is a flat -10% chance
>Third one targets a save which from a quick glance at monsters means this attack is significantly more accurate than usual
I'm... not seeing the problem? That first ability alone is really powerful.

>>96919232
The builder thing was nice, yeah. I also ran enough public games to know that usage of the builder wasn't consistent across the hobby (except lair assaults, but that was it's own thing.) But it's also kind of not my main point.

>You could also skip this just by knowing your own rules.
Yeah. They should. But also reminders help.
I'm not trying to say "oh 4e fucked up and was so bad." I'm saying that the templating for powers could have been improved and it's slightly maddening because the people that they would have needed to talk to for advise on templating were IN THE SAME FUCKING OFFICES.

>>96919308
This was already talked about in an interview forever ago. Powers had to be formatted for print, so the decision was to encapsulate as much as possible into keywords and tags in order to be able to print the most amount of powers per book.

>>96919292
Honestly? The first one is probably the worst out of all of them.

-2 hit is really potent, since it can let you do things like risk AoOs or provoke marks more easily, and if the enemy is making multiple attacks or area attacks it's taking that penalty to hit each person.

And targetting non-AC defenses with a melee just straight up one of the most powerful things that a power can do.

Compared to that, 3-4 temporary hit points really isn't all that much.

>>96919292
You're correct about everything except for
>That first ability alone is really powerful.
Because of the way non-AC defenses work in 4e, having both high strength and constitution is actually pretty bad since they contribute to the same defense. A level 1 fighter with high str and con's stats would look something like: 19 AC, 20 Fort, 14 Ref, 11 Will, which is very lopsided. Especially since fortitude targeting attacks are both less common than reflex attacks and less dangerous than will targeting ones.

>>96918299 (OP)
Counterpoint: I enjoy playing fighters because I can say "I attack," every round, and do big fucking numbers. If I wanted to keep track of a bunch of powers, I could play pretty much any other class.

>>96919350
You're in luck anon. They made the essentials classes especially for people like you.

>>96918481
I need to impress upon the thread what a moron you are. Because, not only was basic attack introduced in the PhB, the actual page in question is that this mechanic is on was listed in the Table of Contents.

>>96919001
3e had more granularity but under a punitive framework (as in the mechanics were designed to impair such actions unless specialized), conversely 4e got full retard by removing the granularity of 3e action economy by encapsulating everything within the aedu powers rails. Both game are essentially garbage to their core.

>>96919441
I would complain too but the way 4e did it actually worked. Also it was basically the same action economy I don't know what you're talking about.

>>96918299 (OP)
You could always do something other than attack. You can grapple, you can knockdown, you can switch weapons, you can say something, you can interact with an item, you can intimidate. Doing "I attack" rounds and nothing else has always been a skill issue of the player.

>>96919469
It's been years since I touched 3.5 and I only have a 4e book on hand. 4e has Standard, Minor, Move and Free actions on a Player's turn, plus triggered actions off their turn. And you could sub out some on turn actions for others. Also, you can get more Actions by spending Action Points.

>>96919023
>Rose tinted glasses
I'm 19 and I switched to 3e because 4e and 5e are for people who want either a tabletop JRPG (4e) or a storygame where you roll dice but win regardless (5e), the downside is that almost nobody I know IRL plays 3e, but I have run a game of 3e before and the players liked it.

>>96919512
>4e has Standard, Minor, Move and Free actions on a Player's turn, plus triggered actions off their turn.
>And you could sub out some on turn actions for others
3.5 has Standard, Swift, Move, Free actions, and misc actions (ie 5-ft step) on a Player's turn, plus immediate actions off their turn, and you sub these actions out if you're doing a full action or full round action
it's genuinely the same shit

>>96919525
Yeah, the biggest difference between the two seems to be Action Points and a lack of Full Rounds in 4e.
>>96919516
My DM is planning on running 5e with 3.5 feats and Skills. He looked at me blankly when I asked Feat Taxes. Going to get dumb in a hurry at that table. Can't wait, honestly.

>>96919516
I don't mean to come as condescending, but you really haven't had enough time to understand how this thing gets all fucked. Until the stupid console war shit of 4e vs 5e came out, it was pretty much unanimous that 3.5 was an inherently broken system that didn't really accomplish the fantasy it wanted to portray.

>>96919643
>, it was pretty much unanimous that 3.5 was an inherently broken system that didn't really accomplish the fantasy it wanted to portray.
Give or take a few arguments about whether it was better to ban expansions, select classes or all of Core.

>>96919187
No, he wasn't. Combat maneuvers were shit.

>>96919658
True. Also minor correction on my part, it was 3rd vs 4th edition wars. I swear you saw people who used to bitch up and down about having too many skills or fears that required too much investment to be any good and now that's "classic flavor"

>>96918299 (OP)
>wow, so unique.
look at me, i have given a name and a block of text to describe a basic attack that deals damage= stat modifier + weapon damage
just like any other attack would in the previous edition
>no, this is totally not the same but videogamified anon wtf are you talking about

>>96921212
As others have explained they actually have different effects, but the formatting makes them look all the same unless you know how to parse them.

>Crushing Strike
The Invigorating keyword makes it so the attack gives you temp hp on a hit.

>Disheartening Strike
Rattling keyword causes it to inflict a debuff to hit on successful attacks

>Piercing Strike
Ignores AC

>>96921419
ok, thanks for explaining anon.
4e really is badly formatted
this really is some video game shit though,unless am i misunderstanding something? are these not basic at will attacks
>Crushing Strike
Why would every "basic" hit give temporary hp, wtf are you a vampire?
>Disheartening Strike
is the debuff additive or an one time thing? if not why would it be on a "basic" attack
>Piercing Strike
yeah, that shits sounds straight up op, i guess they wanted a strong dex fighter cause they kinda sucked in 3e

Also how does this system stop people from going all meta and using the top maneuvers and making every character play the same?

>>96921506
Basic Attack is something every character can do.
At-will powers are not basic attacks. They are the equivalent to cantrips, but every class has their own list of cantrips.
The difference is that some things calls out for basic attacks, like attack of opportunity or the attack of a charge.
>are you a vampire
It's temporary HP. The flavor of the power explains the power. It's some kind of morale booster.
>Rattling
Debuffs doesn't stack unless stated otherwise. Rogues can build around rattling and taking advantage of rattled enemies.
>straight up op
Anon didn't explain correctly, it simply targets the reflex stat. Think of it like a reflex saving throw.
>stop people from going all meta
There is enough diversity in powers and feats and they are good enough to allow for varied gameplay.

>>96919643
Different Anon, but how can any edition of D&D be broken, when you can work with your DM to come up with compromises?
That's what people here were telling me for years whenever I'd bring up the fact that 5e is mechanically-broken and incomplete.
Rewrite what you don't like, right?

>>96919643
>>96919658
I understand that, and I think that a variant of E6 would be best, as well as removing self-scaling abilities like Manipulate Form, and requiring all templates and prestige classes to be justified in-world (giantitp and similar powergamers often leave out how they actually obtain the templates and prestige classes they include in their builds, since both are setting-specific and most prestige classes require finding a specific individual to train you).

>>96921764
If you have to fix it, it was by definition broken.

>>96921506
>is the debuff additive or an one time thing?
Most likely until the end of the attacking Rogue's next turn, during which time the attackee is granting combat advantage, meaning he's set up for a Sneak Attack.

>>96919343
So you become more vulnerable to attacks in exchange for being able to soak damage? Interesting design.

>>96921990
3.5 isn't broken. You can straight up play the game as is and you wont have a problem if players wont try to break the game or munchkin it.
A broken game is one that doesnt work, for different reasons not one that can be exploited.

Almost all the problems come down to people abusing the game to play in a certain way and dms not curtailing the game to the experience they want.

You can just say no to dipping and munchkin stuff. it's not hard.

>>96919867
I really like the variety of feats in 3e, but there are a bunch of feats that are complete dogshit and only exists because it's a stepping stone for another feat.

>>96922065
3e would've massively benefited from less feats, but they all scale by hitdie, like weapon focus giving +1 to hit every 4 levels and so on.

>>96922042
I blundered my way into making a Druid thwt was better at fighting than The Fighter, first time playing it, never looked at a CharOp board just pure vibes and "Ooh this looks cool." 3.5 was busted as shit.

>>96919210
>I was complaining about how much battlemaster sucked ass compared to what came before it.
Yep, and you got blown the fuck out on that point.
>I'm not really interested in debating you or convincing you or whatever you think this was.
Of course not. It would be futile for you to argue an indefensibly stupid assertion like that.

>>96922105
I was even thinking that Feats could be upgraded like magical weapons, in the sense that every "feat point" invested makes it "feat +1" etc.
This wouldn't change much the idea of investing feat points, and it would allow you to specialize more your character in a way that makes sense.

>>96919259
>The game told you "this is a strength based archetype" and you chose to ignore it. This isn't on the game. This one is on you.
Nope. It's on the game, for failing to make such an archetype viable, when it was viable in the previous edition of the game. Not good, btw, but at least playable.
And the edition after made it viable too.
Only 4e doesn't make a Dex-based melee ranger viable. Is Drizzt Str-based? No he isn't. The most popular ranger in D&D, is inadequately represented in 4e. What a great edition!
>allowing you to both use dex for melee attacks and also to more easily switch to making ranged attacks.
With some gay withdrawing maneuver? I guess so.
>Okay. Pick up the melee training feat. Congrats. You can now use dex for your melee basic all the time, forever. Yeah, the damage is slightly worse. You had other, better options.
I had that feat. "Slightly worse" damage? Bro it's literally unplayable because of 4e's dumbass infinite treadmill damage scaling.

5e DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM
And 4e offers nothing in return but a trading cards power system.

>>96919254
>basic attacking
And you accuse me of not playing 4e? LMAO

>>96919276
Never said it was underpowered. I said it sucked because it couldn't support a very common archetype that is embodied by one of the most famous D&D characters of all time.

>>96922235
Drizzt is from 2e and he did attack with strength

>>96922235
But it is viable. There's an entire tree of powers available for Ranger that do exactly what you're asking. It comes from a mainline book and was in the online resources, at least one of which was completely free.

>>96922253
>he did attack with strength
He was always described as relatively strong but he is repeatedly compared to Wulfgar in terms of brawn v.s. speed in terms of fighting style. He is only attacking with Str in 2e as a limitation of that system. As soon as they brought him into 3e they gave him Weapon Finesse. They would have in 4e as well but they had to make everything into some gay template that was hard-locked on using a particular stat. And no, this isn't the same as some chucklefuck wanting to make a Strength wizard. Finesse has been a concept in D&D for a long time. It just didn't work with the dumbass trading card AEDU power system. They fixed that in 5e.

The only thing I'll give 4e ranger credit for, is not being a spellcaster, and actually being viable.

>>96922336
>He is only attacking with Str in 2e as a limitation of that system.
They could have literally said "Drizzt uses dexterity in place of strength when calculating to-hit and damage bonuses when attacking with scimitars" and nobody would've said a damn thing.

>>96922336
Is this some kind of satire? He already had rule breaking stuff in 2e (and was referring to a few wrong things), and in 3rd, Weapon Finesse didn't apply to his weapons until after the 3.5 update.

>>96922456
I honestly expect damn near every NPC in D&D games and sourcebooks to break the rules in some way.

>>96922336
>They fixed that in 5e.
Where Dex is the God Stat and nobody uses Strength anymore.

>>96918381
>that I need a power to just...describe the way I might normally attack
Why though? There are specifically named maneuvers in real life that must be honed as an individual skill.

>>96922565
>Where Dex is the God Stat and nobody uses Strength anymore.
Not in melee, where Str-based greatsword / Great Weapon Master still reigns supreme.
Yes, Sharpshooter + archery style is overpowered, but that would be the case whether finesse weapons existed or not.

>>96922456
>and in 3rd, Weapon Finesse didn't apply to his weapons until after the 3.5 update.
It wasn't the 3.5 update, it was the dervish prestige class. And yes, his specific weapons still had issues. but you could still play a Drizzt clone and use shortswords and Dex. And in 5e this continues. 4e is the retarded child bump in the road here.

>>96918754
>just a bunch of geometric shapes
Kek i've read that one verbatim on /vp/

>>96922602
I'm going to assume you're choosing to ignore Scout Ranger and the entire Hunter Ranger build and power line to keep bitching about something you're factually wrong about

>>96918299 (OP)
Honestly it always read like the kind of shit you'd see on play-by-post RPs on MSN Groups back in the mid-early 00s. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

>>96922235
No, Dex melee Ranger was not playable in 3E. It was total shit.

Man you could have just played strength/dex. Did you just sit and seethe for years because you had to put points in Strength?

>>96922108
druid starts to pick up pace at levels 6-8 after getting wildshape and especially wildshape (large) which is the single most busted class ability in core as well as natural spell.
Even if the fighter plays sub optimally these are the levels where he can deal better damage with a two handed weapon and power attack than anybody along with the barbarian so i am calling bullshit anon

>>96922745
You're calling bullshit on CoDzilla. Okay.

>>96922745
There's nothing bullshit about the post. You can, in fact, be on par or outdo the fighter just by picking things you like.

>>96922768
i am calling bullshit on someone outfighting the fighter without optimizing for it, with just picking le random fun stuff.
I have actually played vanilla unoptimised casual 3.5 with total newbies at the low levels, unlike you probably, and the fighter didnt lag behind in combat in the slightest

>>96922796
Exact opposite of my newbie experience. The fighter was constantly frustrated because an actual unoptimized fighter is lacking severely in tools

>>96922821
anon, my friend played a vanilla, greatsword/ heavy armor power attack fighter straight out of the phb and was tanking a shit ton of hits for the party with his high AC while dealing a shit ton of damage on mooks and kicking ass.
I don't know what to tell you.
My own rogue experience on the other hand was horrendous in combat but at least i was the skill monkey that invested in int and did pretty much everything outside combat for the party along with the bard

>>96922856
Extremely limited movement, no skills to speak of, shit saves, the list goes on. But you're still talking about a two-handed power attacker, which means he is already using two optimal things together and not like our fighter who wanted to be all Romaboo with a short sword and shield and did NOT take power attack.

>>96922903
everybody has limited movement in the low levels, but yes a short sword/tower shield fighter without power attack wont be plowing through encounters

>>96922938
Wow, it's almost like using an unoptimized fighter is shit.

>>96922903
>>96922856
You don't even have to bring in CoDzilla. This exchange alone demonstrates how shitty the game actually is.

>>96922948
it aint great but it doesnt break the game. A broken game is one that doesnt work, not one that needs some tinkering or a little expertise to work. I mean once someone figured that power attack was good,aka the dm that was the only one that had played a short campaign before, told all fighting guys to take power attack at the start and that was it practically. Problem solved.
Eventually you would get there and he would be able to deal damage and play the game.
The wizard did fuck all for the first 4 levels but they were having fun despite that because its a game you play with your friends.
Yeah you can be kinda bad at things but who cares, at the early levels everything has low hp and dies easily and the bonuses are small enough that it's mostly up to what you roll.
I aint preaching about how raw newbie vanilla is the best game, but about how it is perfectly playable aka not broken.
Broken literally means i cannot play the game for some reason like it's fatal or some shit

>>96923000
Except it only gets worse the further along you go and the more bad character building you do. The game is broken because you DO need to pick the right stuff or you will reach a failstate where you can't meaningfully interact with level appropriate challenges

>>96922796
Animal companions are 75% of the way there, man.

>>96923000
Brother in 3.5 you don't end up "kinda bad" if you don't optimize at least a little. You end up literally useless. Personally I think you're conflating the time spent with friends with some inherent goodness of the game. You're almost always going to have fun with friends; the game is still bad

>>96923090
>the game is bad for catering to people who put zero effort into making a decent character

>>96923090
Brother you are conflating my arguement.
I am not saying that the game is good, even though i think it is if you know what you re doing and everyone is into it.
i am saying THE GAME ISN"T BROKEN even if you dont know what you re doing. You might feel bad but you will be ble to play the game and no, sucking so hard you cant play at level 12 after 2 years of play doesnt count

>>96923120
Are you ESL?

>>96923130
You can be fucked WAAAY sooner than level 12.

>>96923090
>Brother in 3.5 you don't end up "kinda bad" if you don't optimize at least a little. You end up literally useless.
I should tell my party that, none of us have optimized yet somehow we keep having fun and beating everything the GM throws our way :/

>>96923130
There is a reason 3E had a problem with turning new players into repeat players.

>>96923182
This is bait.

>No! nobody has ever played 3.5 and had fun!
Seething nogames ITT

>>96923187
AoO is one of those mechanics that's always either super weak or super powerful with no middle ground.

>>96921990
Okay, but whenever bringing up why 5e is broken, I always got either extreme of "HYTNPDND" or "rewrite what you don't like rules lawyer autist".
So, being an edition of D&D, why does 5e get a pass from criticism while the other editions don't?
If 3e, 3.5e, 4e or whatever is broken, just rewrite what you don't like you rules lawyer autist, or don't play D&D.

>>96922768
No he's calling bullshit on you playing the game, because you haven't.

>>96923515
>Okay, but whenever bringing up why 5e is broken
5e isn't broken, though?

>>96922745
>Even if the fighter plays sub optimally these are the levels where he can deal better damage with a two handed weapon and power attack
They might, but it's just as likely that the Fighter might fall into a trap option like using a sword and shield or focusing on dex weapons.

I know this because I had the same experience from the inverse, where I was the Fighter player who had no clue what I was doing and realized halfway through the first session that the Druid with a sling and a wolf companion was more effective in every way that mattered.

>>96923000
>A broken game is one that doesnt work,
Have you ever played one that would fit your definition of broken? If so, what was it?
Hard mode: not FATAL.

>>96923885
not really because i tend to avoid games that look broken and unplayable
Senzar was really famous along with Eoris but i have no hands on experience for example

>>96924011
Never heard of them, so I'll take your anonymous opinion as gospel truth.

4e was good because it had design goals and achieved them. if those design goals aren't things you want out of a TTRPG then of course you're not going to enjoy it, but 4e was a good well-balanced tactical grid based high fantasy wargame. a lot of people who played it weren't looking for that, though, which is why it has the reputation that it has.

unfortunately, 5e iterated on it and on the issue where people didn't get what they wanted by being a bad, horrendously balanced high fantasy wargame but having a much bigger marketing budget so it could sell itself as a bunch of things it wasn't

>>96918784
>So does 5e. Just because it isn't chock full of pointless minutiae and "the same attack + status effect as last level, but 6[W] damage instead of 5[W] damage" doesn't make it worse or inferior.
The battlemaster abilities should have been universal to all martials, or designed so every class has a few interesting maneuvers. Casters get fewer, mostly like cantrips, and martials get many more with variety and class-specific tricks. And all of them needed to come as a natural part of class progression, instead of being something you opt into.

As it stands, Battlemaster is a rancid wet fart of what could have been.

>>96918784
>So does 5e. Just because it isn't chock full of pointless minutiae and "the same attack + status effect as last level, but 6[W] damage instead of 5[W] damage" doesn't make it worse or inferior.
5E is the worst edition in terms of worthless vestigial mechanics though. Spell levels, tool proficiencies and stat totals are entirely pointless and serve no purpose to the game whatsoever for one

>>96924623
>The battlemaster abilities should have been universal to all martials
Why?

>>96924633
>Spell levels, tool proficiencies and stat totals
How do they not serve a purpose?

>>96925249
NTA but I can answer two of these
Stat totals do nothing. They only serve to sit next to the modifiers that will then be actually used. The only reason they are there is because "D&D has stat totals" and 5E is nothing but a huge exercise in D&D branding.
Tool proficiencies are irrelevant. Almost every background has a similar skill/ tool pairing. Tools are only useful for people without skills, and skills mean you never need to use tools.

>>96918496
>>96919405
fair enough, my bad. the system was new and i think the issue was that we used some official computer program to generate the sheets every level. which was horrible and tedious in itself.

they printed powers on there, so it was a case of '...why NOT use one of your at-will powers?' (i believe the basic attack might have some benefit? don't have my books handy.)

>>96918709
this shit though, i barely remember. again maybe we misunderstood at the time, but there was some cleric ability that granted a (dice) bonus to healing. and then everyone used their endogenous healing potions between fights, and they got the bonus.

maybe it was as simple as "you roll one d4, and then everyone gets +(d4} HP" but whatever it was, we all agreed it was slowing things down. we'd just accept less healing. but...there was no reason NOT to have had more healing. the issue was it meant we couldn't get to the next fight/skill challenge set piece ASAP.

>>96925295
>Tools are only useful for people without skills, and skills mean you never need to use tools.
This is how it works in 5e? You'd think tools would be needed for certain skill usage, proficient or otherwise, so that it encourages players to think about what sort of gear to grab before they set off.

>>96925332
Proficiency Bonuses are Skill or Tool and don't stack. So as long as you have the skill you will never need the tool. So the mechanic is simply completely pointless.

>>96925324
>but there was some cleric ability that granted a (dice) bonus to healing
This is a common thing for Clerics, actually, but they were d6, not d4, so either that first anon is dumb, or their group wasn't playing 4e... Possibly both.

>>96925249
>Why?
Because it's a good way to give martials greater versatility without having to overhaul the entire game and create a series of martial spells just to make it feel like martials aren't a fucking afterthought.