Ah, but Europeans have no knowledge of martial arts, remember? They just hit things with no skill and hope they bleed to death first...yeah, that's totally how Talhoffer and Fiore etc taught people to fight. ;-)
Actually, in an early release, they introduced a mechanic called "Expertise Dice" - fighters could spend one of these a turn to either add to their to-hit chance, do extra damage, or even parry an attack (i.e. negate some of the damage done to them). It did look like an interesting mechanic, but it seems to have been dropped for some reason.
Part of why I'm not so hype about 5E. They're trying so hard to appease fans on non-4th editions, but they clearly also want to include some of the modern design philosophy that made 4E great, like making non-magical classes more dynamic and exciting to play. At first, the Fighter was pretty vanilla. He hit stuff. Then, at level two, he could Cleave, still kinda hum-drum. Then, a later playtest gave Fighters access to a bunch of maneuvers and such, a la 4E, but now that appears to have been trimmed back considerably. 5E has been a big exercise in wishy-washiness, and it is exhausting.
My guess is the advanced maneuvers will be included as "Advanced Rules" variants that players can elect to use or not at the DM's option. They've said a number of times that their goal is to have a Basic set of rules that anyone can learn quickly, and then offer options for more advanced players to add granularity to their games.
Unlikely to happen, as that would make the Battle Master specialization completely redundant (of course, if I ever ran a 5th Ed game, gestalting the Battlemaster stuff into the base fighter class would be house rule number one - but that's the opposite thing, I guess).
...but they clearly also want to include some of the modern design philosophy that made 4E rubbish.
Fixed that for you. ;-PP (sorry, I couldn't resist it!)
You know what, you're right! Allowing martial classes to trip, slow, push, be more mobile, just generally be more fun without investing in exhaustive feat trees, was a terrible idea. What were they thinking, trying to make non-magic plebs less flat?
No, the terrible idea was turning it into a resource management mechanic.
eta: well, that and turning every class into a combatant and nothing else. Rangers are supposed to be so much more than just "ranged DPS".
Spells per day, magic item charges, potions, daily abilities, rounds/minutes per day abilities, psionic power points, turn undead attempts, etc. D&D has always been a game of resource management. Most RPGs are. But, hell, I was talking about at-wills for the most part, which don't have to be managed.
You'll have to enlighten me as to how every class became a combatant and nothing else.
Let's not make this a fight about whose favorite edition was better, please. That argument's been hashed and rehashed again and again, and I don't think anyone's going to change their minds one way or another.
No, the terrible idea was turning it into a resource management mechanic.
eta: well, that and turning every class into a combatant and nothing else. Rangers are supposed to be so much more than just "ranged DPS".
That would be why Rangers get more skill trainings, and a wider variety of skills to train in, than Fighters. Nature, for instance, is not a class skill for either of the other PHB martial classes, Fighter or Rogue.
Anyway, I like the way that monster stat blocks are laid out now. It looks like it would be really easy to script creatures that way in a video game, and as a GM that means it'd also be really easy to throw together an encounter on the fly.
@Squire look into Thieves' World's mechanics if you want ultra gritty DnD. There is no such thing as a 'safe' fight, even one you are almost guaranteed to win. Casting is incredibly complicated, but the combat system is gritty like rock salt in the eyes. You really need to play smart to survive fights, and everyone is broke nearly, so even a gang of low levels are an actual threat to a high level fighter. Its realism in every ugly way imaginable, down to permant injuries and infected wounds.
Grrrr… (This is a general grr, not over the topic, and I am responding to something earlier on the thread. in AD&D 1e, commoners had 1-3 hit points and (obviously) no class Levels.Most commoners had an 8 or 9 in each stat, but you could have one or two more exceptional stats) A Blacksmith might have greater strength, a farmer higher Con, someone who did intellectual work a higher Int, etc. etc.
That being said, In the Supplement book "Rogues Gallery", there is a section on level 0 NPCs, which outright states that most NPCs are strictly average in stats across the board. But that a few might have higher than average in one or two stats (and correspondingly more HP), and gives you a table to roll on for those NPCs. These NPCs are presumably where the characters were before they decided to go out and become heroes (or try to). Depending on their profession, characters with more active, physical-based professions tended to have higher/greater HP. So a town guard, blacksmith, woodsman, etc. would have a chance of having a higher HP than someone who had a less active profession. A Sage, whose work is almost completely mental, would probably have 1-2 hit points. As would characters in mainly sedentary professions.
The other thing is professions/classes. Level 1 is not really a student/apprentice, but journeyman. In medieval society, you would learn from one master, until you had learned everything you needed to know to do everyday work. Then, your master would let you go wandering to find another master to serve under, and you would travel to get there, working with other masters and learning new and higher-level skills along the way. This is analogous to being 1st level in the game- Mages are able to memorize a single spell and cast it. Fighters are proficient in certain weapons. Rangers can fight and do some tracking (I am going with 2e analogies here), Clerics can do some fighting and can actually call on the assistance of their deity for help (cast divine spells). Thieves have a reasonable chance to use several skills that thieves are supposed to do. And so on. But they aren't exceptionally good at any one thing, and they still have a good chance to fail. As they travel/adventure, they are learning whatever they have specialized in. Fighters and martial classes learn better combat. Clerics learn to better trust in their deities and work with them. Wizards figure out how to memorize more than one spell at once and find other spells to learn and add to their spellbooks (the chance to learn spells is based on understanding the metaphysics behind the casting- what it does and why it works. If you can't understand that, you can't cast that spell- and each mage goes about making spells work slightly differently, so if you can't learn it this time, maybe a scroll from another mage will do the trick.)
Levels of commanders of the guards and so on depend on where you are. In a city, yes, you are going to run into an 8th level guard fighter-commander. Why? Sheer number of people and incidents. In a sleepy backwater village, the guard commander may be only 2nd or 3rd level, and most standard guards are going to be 0 level commoners or possibly a soldier/warrior, but not a fighter. A Caravan guard might also be 1st or 2nd level, with more experienced ones probably in the 4th to 5th level range. But that's a lot of fighting wolves, orcs and goblins or human bandits behind them. Against something more menacing, like a hydra or baby wyvern, they are going to run and/or die.
So, yeah, being a commoner sucks donkey sack. But most people don't *want* to put their lives on the line to make a living, and they probably regard adventurers as "touched in the head/crazy" for doing so when they could just settle down and not do something that could so easily kill them.
Higher levels are rarer, it's true, generally for lack of experience/drive. If you destroy, say, a dragon and get its hoard, you might decide to settle down on that money and stop adventuring. (If you adventure for wealth, that is.). So your drive to adventure is gone. Someone else might adventure to see what's over the next hill, so they don't and end up as higher level. Once you hit name level (generally about level 9 in 1e), you have made a name for yourself- people around where you adventure know your name and some of your exploits. As you rise in level, your fame grows higher and people further away have heard of you (within reason- if some place 200 miles away has no contact with your area, they''ll be like, "Starlord?!?! Who?!?!" (to pull a joke from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie). So even that isn't assured completely.
Look, I don't want to derail this topic too much (partly because I don't have time right now as I have to get ready for work), but I'm pretty sure I've made my reasons for disliking 4th edition clear.
Spells per day, magic item charges, potions, daily abilities, rounds/minutes per day abilities, psionic power points, turn undead attempts, etc. D&D has always been a game of resource management.
Yes, they are, but ordinary things like fighting was not. Fighters get more than the at-will "powers", they get once per day and once per encounter powers. I find this mechanic silly, because fighting doesn't work like that. If you can do a really good attack, you can do it all the time, or else you're doing it wrong. You can't suddenly only do it once, and must then use an inferior attack for the rest of the battle, otherwise next time I go fencing and somebody attempts a really good attack, I can relax, because I know he can never do that again until he rests. :-P
Also, making everything work in the same way makes every class really bland, and takes away their own unique quirks. Everything gets the same powers at each level, the main difference being a slight variation in either the number of things affected, or the type of damage dealt. Yes, I know, there are "reactions" and "self only" powers, so please don't list a whole array of the few powers that don't deal damage, as if knowing about it will suddenly make me like the entire 4th edition mechanic.
As to your question, surely that's obvious. The primary focus of 4th edition is on combat, and the use of your "powers", almost all of which are dedicated entirely towards combat. Rogues used to be pickpockets, cat burglars, agents, infiltrators, spies. In 4th edition they're just "melee DPS" - this is their primary function and everything else is secondary.
That's all I have time for right now, I really need to get ready for work. :-P
eta: I know, I know, this debate has been done to death and is unlikely to change anybody's mind. But Schneidend asked me for an explanation, so I'm giving one.
Look, I don't want to derail this topic too much (partly because I don't have time right now as I have to get ready for work), but I'm pretty sure I've made my reasons for disliking 4th edition clear.
Spells per day, magic item charges, potions, daily abilities, rounds/minutes per day abilities, psionic power points, turn undead attempts, etc. D&D has always been a game of resource management.
Yes, they are, but ordinary things like fighting was not. Fighters get more than the at-will "powers", they get once per day and once per encounter powers. I find this mechanic silly, because fighting doesn't work like that. If you can do a really good attack, you can do it all the time, or else you're doing it wrong. You can't suddenly only do it once, and must then use an inferior attack for the rest of the battle, otherwise next time I go fencing and somebody attempts a really good attack, I can relax, because I know he can never do that again until he rests. :-P
That's a fair point. The thing is, that's easily explained as the right conditions in a fight, like maneuvering your opponent in a particular way, or having leverage at the right time, don't always crystallize. From a narrative point of view, the hero rarely spams his best attack, saving it instead for a critical moment or the right foe. You can also, if you're going for a particular theme or strategy, take multiple Encounter or Daily powers that do similar things. You can't relax, because he's got another similar maneuver waiting in the wings.
And, again, there's at-will powers. While perhaps not as dramatic as encounter or daily powers, they are the core of your character's build. The right at-will powers in combination with the right feats and gear can be deadly. The Rogue's Sly Flourish at-will, for instance, adds extra damage based on the Rogue's Charisma, which can result in higher average damage than an encounter or daily power that simply adds more damage dice.
Also, making everything work in the same way makes every class really bland, and takes away their own unique quirks. Everything gets the same powers at each level, the main difference being a slight variation in either the number of things affected, or the type of damage dealt. Yes, I know, there are "reactions" and "self only" powers, so please don't list a whole array of the few powers that don't deal damage, as if knowing about it will suddenly make me like the entire 4th edition mechanic.
Most of the classes have their unique abilities, either with a particular kind of power they have in spades, or with class features, literally like every other edition. Wizards, for instance, have summon spells, which most other classes do not, and without question have the most terrain-affecting spells, creating patches of ice or walls of flame. Fighters have no wall powers or terrain-affecting powers, naturally. They hit things, knock people down, hobble them, lure them in close with some kind of taunt, etc.
As far as class features go, there's the way the Paladin or the Fighter, being Defenders, strive to keep a foe's attention. They both mark their enemy, which gives the enemy marked a penalty for attacking targets other than themselves. How they do this, however, differs. Fighters are pretty simple, anything they roll an attack against, including ranged or even area attacks, hit or miss, they can choose to mark until the end of their next turn. If an enemy is foolish enough to disobey the mark while near the Fighter, he gets a free attack.
The Paladin, on the other hand, typically marks a foe with her Divine Challenge, marking them for as long as the Paladin continues to move next to them or attack them. The normal attack roll penalty for the mark applies, but if an enemy disobey's the Divine Challenge mark, they suffer a blast of radiant damage. The Paladin can also mark with powers that do so, particularly ones that apply a divine sanction, which works like a short term version of Divine Challenge and can also burn enemies with radiant damage, but doesn't require the Paladin to continue to engage the sanctioned opponent. Paladin is the only class with powers that apply divine sanction.
As to your question, surely that's obvious. The primary focus of 4th edition is on combat, and the use of your "powers", almost all of which are dedicated entirely towards combat. Rogues used to be pickpockets, cat burglars, agents, infiltrators, spies. In 4th edition they're just "melee DPS" - this is their primary function and everything else is secondary.
That's all I have time for right now, I really need to get ready for work. :-P
eta: I know, I know, this debate has been done to death and is unlikely to change anybody's mind. But Schneidend asked me for an explanation, so I'm giving one.
Let's not mince words here. The primary focus of every edition of D&D is combat. D&D is a tactical fantasy combat simulator. That's what 95% of the rules in any given handbook are focused on. A 2E Fighter, as a class, has no other abilities than how good he is with his sword. A 3E Fighter gets bonus feats that have to be combat-related. 4e is, indeed, no different.
At the same time, D&D also offers a lot of narrative opportunities, a shared story to which everybody at the table contributes. Foiling plots, dealing with tragedies, discovering mystical places, building nations, all the sorts of things fantasy stories are comprised. 4th Edition is no different in this regard, either.
Rogues are still cat burglars, agents, infiltrators, pickpockets, and spies. They have powers that help them turn the tables on enemies if things come to a fight, certainly, but like any D&D Rogue, they also have the shadows and streetwise skills. There's utility powers that help the Rogue sneak about or give him a buff or a reroll with non-combat-related checks like Bluff or Diplomacy. Streetwise is itself a skill, used for gathering info, appraising things, and just generally being savvy about urban environments and life on the mean streets. Sneaking around, infiltrating, spying, still in the game as the Stealth skill. Picking pockets, disabling traps, sleight of hand, that's the Thievery skill. The edition change didn't magically make a Rogue incapable of guile. How secondary guile may be to dealing damage depends on the adventure, the campaign, the DM, and of course the player at the helm of the Rogue, same as any edition.
To be honest, the thing I liked least about 4e was the combat. I like RPGs, and I like tactical skirmish games, but I didn't like the way my RPG kept turning into a tactical skirmish the moment combat started. Taking an hour and a half to resolve a same-level combat with three PCs wasn't the most fun use of my gaming time. In comparison, fighting a bunch of fifteen Ogres with six PCs (level 3-5) in my 2e game took about 45 minutes.
Issues of flow aside, I started thinking about how to make my character concept more useful in combat, which led to me making a DM-approved rebuild halfway through the campaign. (Of course playing a Cha-based Warforged Protection Paladin was always going to be an uphill struggle, but that's another point.)
4e had some interesting ideas, but the implementation of them all created a game that was too foreign for most classic D&D players. To my mind 5e's taken some of the best aspects of that in. You have abilities that refresh after short and long rests taking the place of daily and encounter powers in a way that feels more consistent with past editions. You have hit dice taking the place of out-of-combat healing surges. Minor issue, I also like that a positive dexterity modifier no longer feels manditory for every character.
Also, the combat feels fast paced. In a three hour test session, my two PCs fought their way through four encounters whilst exploring and roleplaying quite happily along the way.
To be honest, the thing I liked least about 4e was the combat. I like RPGs, and I like tactical skirmish games, but I didn't like the way my RPG kept turning into a tactical skirmish the moment combat started. Taking an hour and a half to resolve a same-level combat with three PCs wasn't the most fun use of my gaming time. In comparison, fighting a bunch of fifteen Ogres with six PCs (level 3-5) in my 2e game took about 45 minutes.
Issues of flow aside, I started thinking about how to make my character concept more useful in combat, which led to me making a DM-approved rebuild halfway through the campaign. (Of course playing a Cha-based Warforged Protection Paladin was always going to be an uphill struggle, but that's another point.)
4e had some interesting ideas, but the implementation of them all created a game that was too foreign for most classic D&D players. To my mind 5e's taken some of the best aspects of that in. You have abilities that refresh after short and long rests taking the place of daily and encounter powers in a way that feels more consistent with past editions. You have hit dice taking the place of out-of-combat healing surges. Minor issue, I also like that a positive dexterity modifier no longer feels manditory for every character.
Also, the combat feels fast paced. In a three hour test session, my two PCs fought their way through four encounters whilst exploring and roleplaying quite happily along the way.
A lot of the problem with 4E's combat being lengthy was that many of the monsters in the first Monster Manual had overtuned HP. I forget the exact figure, but if you cut their HP by something like 25% things become much more manageable.
But, like any complex character, which 4E characters almost always are with a page of powers tacked onto their character sheets, combat can take a while without preparedness or best practices. Same thing could happen in 3E with dual-wielders and spellcasters, however.
In 5E's Caves of Chaos playtest adventure you mostly fight handfuls of goblins, orcs, or rats, which you could easily do in 4E, too. Admittedly, the problem is that 4E's initial literature tells you how to build a brawl that will challenge the players on its own, and not so much how to make more compartmentalized fights players can breeze through (but still be harmed by) in a dungeon setting. I believe the Dungeon Master's Guide and DMG2 amended this, but I don't actually have them to double-check.
I haven't played the playtest material, so my experience of 5e is currently strictly limited to the Phandelver adventure in the starter set.
I was all for the complexity, greater balance and survivability of 4e characters, even though I had difficulty rationalizing how the at-will/ encounter/ daily mechanic applied to fighters (in the end, I just closed my eyes and pretended they were Earthdawn Adepts). Applying that survivability to your opponents, no matter how "fair" that was just made every fight a slog. Minions were supposed to help with this but created their own set of problems. They were trivial if you had a controller and a pain in the arse if you didn't.
4e's a fine game, albeit more on the Earthdawn/Exalted powerscale than the classic D&D one, and I don't begrudge anyone for loving it. Me, I'm ready for a change, and having read through the 5E PHB, it feels very much like the game I want to play. Fast paced as the older editions, lots of customization options out of the box, but without the ridiculous power curve of later-game 3.x.
A lot of the problem with 4E's combat being lengthy was that many of the monsters in the first Monster Manual had overtuned HP. I forget the exact figure, but if you cut their HP by something like 25% things become much more manageable.
But, like any complex character, which 4E characters almost always are with a page of powers tacked onto their character sheets, combat can take a while without preparedness or best practices. Same thing could happen in 3E with dual-wielders and spellcasters, however.
In 5E's Caves of Chaos playtest adventure you mostly fight handfuls of goblins, orcs, or rats, which you could easily do in 4E, too. Admittedly, the problem is that 4E's initial literature tells you how to build a brawl that will challenge the players on its own, and not so much how to make more compartmentalized fights players can breeze through (but still be harmed by) in a dungeon setting. I believe the Dungeon Master's Guide and DMG2 amended this, but I don't actually have them to double-check.
Wait, so, you mean if you houserule it and buy all the books, then 4E's a good game? ;-)
4e's a fine game, albeit more on the Earthdawn/Exalted powerscale than the classic D&D one, and I don't begrudge anyone for loving it.
I realise that I may shock a few people here, but...I agree. :-O Did I really just say that??
I'm sure it's a decent game for those who like that kind of game, but it's simply not to my taste. I pretty much dislike everything about it, for reasons that I'm sure I've covered a-plenty, but plenty of people enjoy it, and that's fine. Honestly, please don't take my snark too seriously. The reason I snark 4e all the time is simple: I'm English, I can't help it! It's a compulsion that affects every English person who fails a will save at DC20 ;-)
Wait, so, you mean if you houserule it and buy all the books, then 4E's a good game? ;-)
Snrk. In the same way that if you ignore the original 3E books and get the 3.5 revisions, 3E is a good game, yeah. But, really, every system I've run besides Fate needs houserules to conform to a close-knit group's expectations. I love 4th Edition, but like anything it is hardly perfect. My favoritism hasn't stopped me from giving my players an action point per encounter instead of every milestone, or reducing the potency/redundancy of multiple floating modifiers from power effects to attack rolls translating to rolling 2d20 and taking the better roll instead of "uuhh, and I've got that +2 from Bryan's thing, +2 from combat advantage...uh..."
As I explained to Squire, though, there are a few rationales to Encounter/Daily reasoning for martial classes. For the Rogue especially, a daily that blinds its targets might be flavored as using a particular dirty trick like a having a handful of poisonous powder ready to throw in an enemy's face. But, in the middle of a dungeon, you may not have access to more powder. Also, there's the tactical side of things, where conditions for using a technique don't always crystallize or you can only expect to pull of a particular trick once. You can't kick dirt in a guy's eyes twice, he's wise to it now, and all his friends saw you do it, too. Narratively speaking, a hero doesn't spam his best attack (encounter), and usually holds off on using the attack for a momentous occasion anyway (daily).
I realise that I may shock a few people here, but...I agree. :-O Did I really just say that??
I'm sure it's a decent game for those who like that kind of game, but it's simply not to my taste. I pretty much dislike everything about it, for reasons that I'm sure I've covered a-plenty, but plenty of people enjoy it, and that's fine. Honestly, please don't take my snark too seriously. The reason I snark 4e all the time is simple: I'm English, I can't help it! It's a compulsion that affects every English person who fails a will save at DC20 ;-)
I'm not trying to convince you that 4E is the best game ever, or that you have to play it, only to correct some fairly glaring misconceptions. If you're going to raise points against something and call it rubbish, you could at least not ignore refutations to those points so you can continue bashing it.
My opinion of 4e has always been that it's a really well-designed system that plays well, is intuitive for DMs and players alike, and in many ways feels nothing like D&D. That is, all the pieces are there, you've got the standard races and classes, but the way they're set up is substantially different from previous editions. Not worse or better, just different.
For instance, hearing you describe the Fighter's at-will, encounter, and daily powers, they do strike me as being rather un-Fighter-like, in the sense that in previous and subsequent rule systems the Fighter's abilities were "Attack" and "Two-Weapon Attack" and "Full Round Attack". 4e seemed to inherit a lot of its martial combat mechanics, at least stylistically, from the Tome of Battle supplement, which itself was a deviation from what melee classes used to be about.
Again, not bad or good because of that, but it does make the system feel very different. I suspect that (and the lack of a freely accessible SRD like 3.5e had) was the reason for a lot of players' distrust of the system; it might have been a very good game, but to a lot of people it wasn't D&D. 5e brings forward a number of precepts from 4e that worked especially well, but stylistically it feels much more like D&D than 4e did because its aesthetic design is drawing inspiration from pre-4e editions.
@Dee The Fighter's abilities are still largely limited to "attack," it's just that now his attacks can contribute to a fight in ways besides dealing damage, without having to specialize in some kind of feat tree to attain that utility a la 3E. Prior to 4E, unless you built your Fighter for bullrushing, tactically maneuvering your opponents was largely out of reach. How often do we see the Fighter archetype in media trip an opponent, stun him with a shield bash or pommel strke, or shove him off a ledge? And yet, D&D has historically been terrible at actually replicating this without DM fiat, optional rules, or lots of feats. This is why complaints about 4e being somehow less narrative than previous editions, as Squire is asserting, strike me as silly, considering much of 4E's design philosophy is geared towards more closely allowing players to replicate heroic archetypes and use narrative devices.
The 4E Fighter at-will mentioned earlier in the thread was Tide of Iron, a perfect example. With it, the Figher does a normal melee attack and damage roll, and pushes an enemy one square. You swing at the guy, and if you hit you're flavored as driving him back with a shove of your shield. There's nothing superhuman about that, and we see it all the time in everything from Conan, to Forgotten Realms novels, to the movie/comic 300. This makes comparisons to Exalted, as per @Walstafa, where your character is basically a demigod, equally bewildering. There's nothing demideific about driving an opponent backward in melee combat.
@Schneidend Yes, Tide of Iron. That actually is a good example of what I mean by stylistic differences. In 3e, that would be called a Bull Rush combined with an attack. It's the name of the power that makes it feel less like a fighter performing a normal combat maneuver and more like a superhero performing a special attack, and thus makes it feel less like D&D and more like something like Exalted.
Again, like I said, it doesn't make it better or worse, and in terms of raw gameplay it ends up being more or less the same as D&D; it's the presentation that feels different, and I think that's what turns a lot of people off from it.
@Schneidend Yes, Tide of Iron. That actually is a good example of what I mean by stylistic differences. In 3e, that would be called a Bull Rush combined with an attack. It's the name of the power that makes it feel less like a fighter performing a normal combat maneuver and more like a superhero performing a special attack, and thus makes it feel less like D&D and more like something like Exalted.
Again, like I said, it doesn't make it better or worse, and in terms of raw gameplay it ends up being more or less the same as D&D; it's the presentation that feels different, and I think that's what turns a lot of people off from it.
Bull Rush is still an action you can perform in 4E, so naturally you can't call an at-will that. =P
It's a poetic name, and nothing more, and not even any more metaphorical than the term "Bull Rush." As I said, it does normal damage and pushes the enemy. There's no flair or pomp to it beyond a cool name. It is literally as normal as it gets without being a basic attack. And, again, something like that wouldn't be out of place in even the most low fantasy of media. It's not as if the Fighter shouts "Tide of Iron" as he performs it.
so... anyone in this thread actually have any thoughts or observations about 5ed?
If things stayed more or less true on this point after the final playtest release, most of the monsters can be reasonably fought by PCs of most levels. I think even Asmodeus himself only has an AC of like 20 or 22 or something, which means a level 1 PC could theoretically hit him. Although, I think Asmodeus had an ability that makes him immune to the damage and effects of PCs lower than level 10 or somesuch. In any case, it's a cool aspect of 5e that virtually anything can be thrown at the PCs, albeit in lower or higher numbers. In 3E or 4E, you'd need to add or substract levels/hit dice from a monster and adjust a bunch of stats accordingly.
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eta: well, that and turning every class into a combatant and nothing else. Rangers are supposed to be so much more than just "ranged DPS".
You'll have to enlighten me as to how every class became a combatant and nothing else.
Anyway, I like the way that monster stat blocks are laid out now. It looks like it would be really easy to script creatures that way in a video game, and as a GM that means it'd also be really easy to throw together an encounter on the fly.
That being said, In the Supplement book "Rogues Gallery", there is a section on level 0 NPCs, which outright states that most NPCs are strictly average in stats across the board. But that a few might have higher than average in one or two stats (and correspondingly more HP), and gives you a table to roll on for those NPCs. These NPCs are presumably where the characters were before they decided to go out and become heroes (or try to). Depending on their profession, characters with more active, physical-based professions tended to have higher/greater HP. So a town guard, blacksmith, woodsman, etc. would have a chance of having a higher HP than someone who had a less active profession. A Sage, whose work is almost completely mental, would probably have 1-2 hit points. As would characters in mainly sedentary professions.
The other thing is professions/classes. Level 1 is not really a student/apprentice, but journeyman. In medieval society, you would learn from one master, until you had learned everything you needed to know to do everyday work. Then, your master would let you go wandering to find another master to serve under, and you would travel to get there, working with other masters and learning new and higher-level skills along the way. This is analogous to being 1st level in the game- Mages are able to memorize a single spell and cast it. Fighters are proficient in certain weapons. Rangers can fight and do some tracking (I am going with 2e analogies here), Clerics can do some fighting and can actually call on the assistance of their deity for help (cast divine spells). Thieves have a reasonable chance to use several skills that thieves are supposed to do. And so on. But they aren't exceptionally good at any one thing, and they still have a good chance to fail. As they travel/adventure, they are learning whatever they have specialized in. Fighters and martial classes learn better combat. Clerics learn to better trust in their deities and work with them. Wizards figure out how to memorize more than one spell at once and find other spells to learn and add to their spellbooks (the chance to learn spells is based on understanding the metaphysics behind the casting- what it does and why it works. If you can't understand that, you can't cast that spell- and each mage goes about making spells work slightly differently, so if you can't learn it this time, maybe a scroll from another mage will do the trick.)
Levels of commanders of the guards and so on depend on where you are. In a city, yes, you are going to run into an 8th level guard fighter-commander. Why? Sheer number of people and incidents. In a sleepy backwater village, the guard commander may be only 2nd or 3rd level, and most standard guards are going to be 0 level commoners or possibly a soldier/warrior, but not a fighter. A Caravan guard might also be 1st or 2nd level, with more experienced ones probably in the 4th to 5th level range. But that's a lot of fighting wolves, orcs and goblins or human bandits behind them. Against something more menacing, like a hydra or baby wyvern, they are going to run and/or die.
So, yeah, being a commoner sucks donkey sack. But most people don't *want* to put their lives on the line to make a living, and they probably regard adventurers as "touched in the head/crazy" for doing so when they could just settle down and not do something that could so easily kill them.
Higher levels are rarer, it's true, generally for lack of experience/drive. If you destroy, say, a dragon and get its hoard, you might decide to settle down on that money and stop adventuring. (If you adventure for wealth, that is.). So your drive to adventure is gone. Someone else might adventure to see what's over the next hill, so they don't and end up as higher level. Once you hit name level (generally about level 9 in 1e), you have made a name for yourself- people around where you adventure know your name and some of your exploits. As you rise in level, your fame grows higher and people further away have heard of you (within reason- if some place 200 miles away has no contact with your area, they''ll be like, "Starlord?!?! Who?!?!" (to pull a joke from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie). So even that isn't assured completely.
Also, making everything work in the same way makes every class really bland, and takes away their own unique quirks. Everything gets the same powers at each level, the main difference being a slight variation in either the number of things affected, or the type of damage dealt. Yes, I know, there are "reactions" and "self only" powers, so please don't list a whole array of the few powers that don't deal damage, as if knowing about it will suddenly make me like the entire 4th edition mechanic.
As to your question, surely that's obvious. The primary focus of 4th edition is on combat, and the use of your "powers", almost all of which are dedicated entirely towards combat. Rogues used to be pickpockets, cat burglars, agents, infiltrators, spies. In 4th edition they're just "melee DPS" - this is their primary function and everything else is secondary.
That's all I have time for right now, I really need to get ready for work. :-P
eta: I know, I know, this debate has been done to death and is unlikely to change anybody's mind. But Schneidend asked me for an explanation, so I'm giving one.
And, again, there's at-will powers. While perhaps not as dramatic as encounter or daily powers, they are the core of your character's build. The right at-will powers in combination with the right feats and gear can be deadly. The Rogue's Sly Flourish at-will, for instance, adds extra damage based on the Rogue's Charisma, which can result in higher average damage than an encounter or daily power that simply adds more damage dice. Most of the classes have their unique abilities, either with a particular kind of power they have in spades, or with class features, literally like every other edition. Wizards, for instance, have summon spells, which most other classes do not, and without question have the most terrain-affecting spells, creating patches of ice or walls of flame. Fighters have no wall powers or terrain-affecting powers, naturally. They hit things, knock people down, hobble them, lure them in close with some kind of taunt, etc.
As far as class features go, there's the way the Paladin or the Fighter, being Defenders, strive to keep a foe's attention. They both mark their enemy, which gives the enemy marked a penalty for attacking targets other than themselves. How they do this, however, differs. Fighters are pretty simple, anything they roll an attack against, including ranged or even area attacks, hit or miss, they can choose to mark until the end of their next turn. If an enemy is foolish enough to disobey the mark while near the Fighter, he gets a free attack.
The Paladin, on the other hand, typically marks a foe with her Divine Challenge, marking them for as long as the Paladin continues to move next to them or attack them. The normal attack roll penalty for the mark applies, but if an enemy disobey's the Divine Challenge mark, they suffer a blast of radiant damage. The Paladin can also mark with powers that do so, particularly ones that apply a divine sanction, which works like a short term version of Divine Challenge and can also burn enemies with radiant damage, but doesn't require the Paladin to continue to engage the sanctioned opponent. Paladin is the only class with powers that apply divine sanction. Let's not mince words here. The primary focus of every edition of D&D is combat. D&D is a tactical fantasy combat simulator. That's what 95% of the rules in any given handbook are focused on. A 2E Fighter, as a class, has no other abilities than how good he is with his sword. A 3E Fighter gets bonus feats that have to be combat-related. 4e is, indeed, no different.
At the same time, D&D also offers a lot of narrative opportunities, a shared story to which everybody at the table contributes. Foiling plots, dealing with tragedies, discovering mystical places, building nations, all the sorts of things fantasy stories are comprised. 4th Edition is no different in this regard, either.
Rogues are still cat burglars, agents, infiltrators, pickpockets, and spies. They have powers that help them turn the tables on enemies if things come to a fight, certainly, but like any D&D Rogue, they also have the shadows and streetwise skills. There's utility powers that help the Rogue sneak about or give him a buff or a reroll with non-combat-related checks like Bluff or Diplomacy. Streetwise is itself a skill, used for gathering info, appraising things, and just generally being savvy about urban environments and life on the mean streets. Sneaking around, infiltrating, spying, still in the game as the Stealth skill. Picking pockets, disabling traps, sleight of hand, that's the Thievery skill. The edition change didn't magically make a Rogue incapable of guile. How secondary guile may be to dealing damage depends on the adventure, the campaign, the DM, and of course the player at the helm of the Rogue, same as any edition.
Issues of flow aside, I started thinking about how to make my character concept more useful in combat, which led to me making a DM-approved rebuild halfway through the campaign. (Of course playing a Cha-based Warforged Protection Paladin was always going to be an uphill struggle, but that's another point.)
4e had some interesting ideas, but the implementation of them all created a game that was too foreign for most classic D&D players. To my mind 5e's taken some of the best aspects of that in. You have abilities that refresh after short and long rests taking the place of daily and encounter powers in a way that feels more consistent with past editions. You have hit dice taking the place of out-of-combat healing surges. Minor issue, I also like that a positive dexterity modifier no longer feels manditory for every character.
Also, the combat feels fast paced. In a three hour test session, my two PCs fought their way through four encounters whilst exploring and roleplaying quite happily along the way.
But, like any complex character, which 4E characters almost always are with a page of powers tacked onto their character sheets, combat can take a while without preparedness or best practices. Same thing could happen in 3E with dual-wielders and spellcasters, however.
In 5E's Caves of Chaos playtest adventure you mostly fight handfuls of goblins, orcs, or rats, which you could easily do in 4E, too. Admittedly, the problem is that 4E's initial literature tells you how to build a brawl that will challenge the players on its own, and not so much how to make more compartmentalized fights players can breeze through (but still be harmed by) in a dungeon setting. I believe the Dungeon Master's Guide and DMG2 amended this, but I don't actually have them to double-check.
I was all for the complexity, greater balance and survivability of 4e characters, even though I had difficulty rationalizing how the at-will/ encounter/ daily mechanic applied to fighters (in the end, I just closed my eyes and pretended they were Earthdawn Adepts). Applying that survivability to your opponents, no matter how "fair" that was just made every fight a slog. Minions were supposed to help with this but created their own set of problems. They were trivial if you had a controller and a pain in the arse if you didn't.
4e's a fine game, albeit more on the Earthdawn/Exalted powerscale than the classic D&D one, and I don't begrudge anyone for loving it. Me, I'm ready for a change, and having read through the 5E PHB, it feels very much like the game I want to play. Fast paced as the older editions, lots of customization options out of the box, but without the ridiculous power curve of later-game 3.x.
I'm sure it's a decent game for those who like that kind of game, but it's simply not to my taste. I pretty much dislike everything about it, for reasons that I'm sure I've covered a-plenty, but plenty of people enjoy it, and that's fine. Honestly, please don't take my snark too seriously. The reason I snark 4e all the time is simple: I'm English, I can't help it! It's a compulsion that affects every English person who fails a will save at DC20 ;-)
As I explained to Squire, though, there are a few rationales to Encounter/Daily reasoning for martial classes. For the Rogue especially, a daily that blinds its targets might be flavored as using a particular dirty trick like a having a handful of poisonous powder ready to throw in an enemy's face. But, in the middle of a dungeon, you may not have access to more powder. Also, there's the tactical side of things, where conditions for using a technique don't always crystallize or you can only expect to pull of a particular trick once. You can't kick dirt in a guy's eyes twice, he's wise to it now, and all his friends saw you do it, too. Narratively speaking, a hero doesn't spam his best attack (encounter), and usually holds off on using the attack for a momentous occasion anyway (daily). I'm not trying to convince you that 4E is the best game ever, or that you have to play it, only to correct some fairly glaring misconceptions. If you're going to raise points against something and call it rubbish, you could at least not ignore refutations to those points so you can continue bashing it.
For instance, hearing you describe the Fighter's at-will, encounter, and daily powers, they do strike me as being rather un-Fighter-like, in the sense that in previous and subsequent rule systems the Fighter's abilities were "Attack" and "Two-Weapon Attack" and "Full Round Attack". 4e seemed to inherit a lot of its martial combat mechanics, at least stylistically, from the Tome of Battle supplement, which itself was a deviation from what melee classes used to be about.
Again, not bad or good because of that, but it does make the system feel very different. I suspect that (and the lack of a freely accessible SRD like 3.5e had) was the reason for a lot of players' distrust of the system; it might have been a very good game, but to a lot of people it wasn't D&D. 5e brings forward a number of precepts from 4e that worked especially well, but stylistically it feels much more like D&D than 4e did because its aesthetic design is drawing inspiration from pre-4e editions.
The Fighter's abilities are still largely limited to "attack," it's just that now his attacks can contribute to a fight in ways besides dealing damage, without having to specialize in some kind of feat tree to attain that utility a la 3E. Prior to 4E, unless you built your Fighter for bullrushing, tactically maneuvering your opponents was largely out of reach. How often do we see the Fighter archetype in media trip an opponent, stun him with a shield bash or pommel strke, or shove him off a ledge? And yet, D&D has historically been terrible at actually replicating this without DM fiat, optional rules, or lots of feats. This is why complaints about 4e being somehow less narrative than previous editions, as Squire is asserting, strike me as silly, considering much of 4E's design philosophy is geared towards more closely allowing players to replicate heroic archetypes and use narrative devices.
The 4E Fighter at-will mentioned earlier in the thread was Tide of Iron, a perfect example. With it, the Figher does a normal melee attack and damage roll, and pushes an enemy one square. You swing at the guy, and if you hit you're flavored as driving him back with a shove of your shield. There's nothing superhuman about that, and we see it all the time in everything from Conan, to Forgotten Realms novels, to the movie/comic 300. This makes comparisons to Exalted, as per @Walstafa, where your character is basically a demigod, equally bewildering. There's nothing demideific about driving an opponent backward in melee combat.
Again, like I said, it doesn't make it better or worse, and in terms of raw gameplay it ends up being more or less the same as D&D; it's the presentation that feels different, and I think that's what turns a lot of people off from it.
It's a poetic name, and nothing more, and not even any more metaphorical than the term "Bull Rush." As I said, it does normal damage and pushes the enemy. There's no flair or pomp to it beyond a cool name. It is literally as normal as it gets without being a basic attack. And, again, something like that wouldn't be out of place in even the most low fantasy of media. It's not as if the Fighter shouts "Tide of Iron" as he performs it.