Quote:Logan Darklighter wrote:My scattershot review:
Am I in a distinct minority in actually LIKING 4th edition? I thought the distinct (and nicely described) feats were a good thing. Combat seemed to go MUCH faster and more "cinematically".
Our gaming group from a few years ago was a Final Fantasy setting and theme and 4th edition seemed to work perfectly for it. The higher level encounter and daily feats even felt like "Limit Breaks". I even bought a set of those Feat Cards for my class and liked having them laid out in front of me for easy reference.
Don't get me wrong - our GM also ran a Pathfinder game and I liked that as well. But the combat system was more "crunchy" and tended to be a little slower.
I actually did kind of like 4th edition. There were a few really nice mechanics, but the game was marred by poor presentation and several fundamental flaws. I would have loved to see a game that combined the best features of the 3rd and 4th editions; instead we got the craptacular 5th edition, which backpeddles so hard from 4th edition that it crashed into 1st edition terminology. NEWS FLASH: First Edition was released 40 years ago. The only people who still care about the 1st edition rules set are the handful of people still playing the game. And if you're still playing 1st edition after 40 years, you're probably not going to be switching to a new edition anytime soon and are thus not part of their target audience.
Frustratingly enough, the only hint of 4th edition in the new game seems to be in the skill system. While that system did a great job trimming the skill boat of 3rd edition, I otherwise didn't actually like it that much. Fifth Edition thus kept one of the handful of systems from 4th edition that I actively disliked.
Many 3rd edition fans may also be up in arms because the arcane casting system is actually based heavily on the mechanics for the 3rd edition psionic system, which many DMs refused to use because they felt it was 'unbalancing' and 'overpowered' (it wasn't). It reminds me of how the 4th edition magic missile spell was repeatedly subject to errata until it functioned more like the 3rd edition version, since players were so vehement over the issue.
The lack of feats in core gameplay is also a head scratcher. Feats were a means of customization so that you could better differentiate between Bob the Rogue and Ted the Rogue. While you can still take feats by sacrificing ability boosts, they'd better be pretty damn good feats to justify the sacrifice of two +1 ability bonuses. On a more disturbing note, the official developer position on the feat situation seems to be that making feats optional is opening up new options for players. This harkens back to the bizarre Orwellian doublespeak surrounding the 4th edition 'Essentials' line of books, where they assured everyone that they were opening up grand new player options with a 4.5 update that stripped characters of options.
As a final issue, there were two really nice mechanics introduced during the 5th edition playtest. Only one of them made it into the final product. The advantage/disadvantage system of rolling two d20s and taking the better/worse result is a great way to consolidate a billion and one situational modifiers in a manner which prevents the game breaking stacking of buffs/debuffs. This mechanic would've been a great addition to a fused 3rd/4th edition system.
The discarded mechanic involved trading points of move for miscellaneous actions. Trade five feet of move to open a door. Use another five feet of move to step through the door. Use five feet of move to close the door. Use another five feet of move to lock the door. Use five more feet of move to pull your sword. You've still got five feet of move remaining to pull out a potion with your free hand and you haven't even taken your standard action yet. This would have been tactically powerful, but so much more useful and fluid that having to take two consecutive six second rounds to accomplish the same task while also sacrificing your standard actions. Instead we're left with the ability to make a single free environmental interaction every round.
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV