7 Rules to Steal From 4th Edition D&D Player’s Handbook

[@Jabberwokee]

“Bloodied” is great - it allows status effects to trigger for allies and monsters, which is amazing “Minions” are great - it allows less overtly offensive characters to still feel powerful and blaster style character to feel so strong “Static Defenses” are great - have to roll saving throws on enemy turns feels clunky and throws of the flow “Inherent Bonuses” are great - an amazing variant rule that means, regardless of the weapons actual bonuses, you eventually get the +1 or +2 or +3 at specific points, meaning you can still use grandpa’s sword for most of the game without at least having a lower chance to hit or damage “Monster Knowledge” checks are great - you can learn interesting things about tactics as well, not just statistics! “DMG details” are great - the Dungeon Master guide (and the DMG 2) have more role-play tips and tricks than every other edition of D&D combined, including the upcoming 6e/One D&D “Skill Challenges” are great - most people ran them wrong, even some of the early examples in the official books ran them wrong, but when done well they feel like some serious Indiana Jones running from a boulder stuff, they’re so good! There’s so many more things that I can even list them all, it was such an amazing edition

[@oettrpg]

4e has so many good ideas in it to plunder!

[@clarkside4493]

Check out Player's Guide to Powers on the DM's Guild. It updated a lot of good stuff to 5e, and very faithfully too.

[@oettrpg]

@@clarkside4493 that's awesome!!!!!!

[@clarkside4493]

@@oettrpg Keep on the Shadowfell and The Slaying Stone are up there too, updated to 5e in the same manner.

[@tigriscallidus4477]

Definitly does, its also really worth playing, but even if you dont, it had many ideas.

[@arcadeinvader8086]

4e formatting was peak. 5e loves walls of text and sometimes just bizarrely structured sentences. Don't use a paragraph when a bullet point will do

[@EmeralBookwise]

Straight forward and always to the point, with a clearly delineated distinction between what is actual mechanics and what is just flavor. Also, monster stat blocks always contained all the information on how everything that monster could do worked. None of the nonsense where a monster can have a half dozen or more spells that need to be looked up in an entirely separate book.

[@Jeromy1986]

I'm gonna keep telling everyone that my favorite 4e thing was Wizard Implements. Each Arcane Implement granted a different bonus. Wands were better for ranged spell attacks. Orbs were beneficial for area of effect spells.

[@EmeralBookwise]

Seriously, martial classes already get to define themselves by using different weapons, it really should be entirely intuitive that spellcasting classes should be able to do the same with implements.

[@brentnorton1602]

Minions system was great.

[@RobLi123]

4e DMG2 is still the best DMG ever produced, and still has gold for running any game.

[@ss4vegita]

I realy enjoyed 4e with my group. It seemed easier to figure out enemy strength with just add or subtracting the type of enemy based on party size Brute, Soldier, Artillery, Skirmisher, Lurker, Controller, Leader, Solo , minions , elite

[@RobLi123]

@@ss4vegita we still play every weekend. I do think the math starts to fall off after heroic, but that’s just a symptom of them dropping it before it had a chance to mature as a system. I still use those concepts and terms even when I play PF2e now.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Yes I like defined roles for classes. Yes retconing is a good idea. I use bloodied

[@Weinder]

1. 0:56 Character Roles 2. 2:21 Re-training 3. 4:22 Residuum 4. 6:17 Intangible Rewards 5. 7:12 "Bloodied" 6. 7:43 Monster Knowledge Checks 7. 9:06 Personality

[@wizardsling]

thanks for doing this! I forgot

[@chaoshead87]

We love 4e, still have one campaign running with my vet (old men, not veterans) group. We thoroughly enjoy it even if some of the combats can run into the three hour mark at high levels.

[@ZeKiwiOfTheNorth]

On Bloodied, i use this in my games and i explained it to my players who have only played 5e, they appreciated having a standard term to measure their progress. Later i found out that at least one of them has a feature that only works when an enemy is at half HP or lower -- so yeah, why didn't 5e keep Bloodied?? And that's a thing you don't touch on here. For anyone who doesn't know, Bloodied wasn't just a helpful condition tag, it also was a trigger for a number of creatures to use certain abilities, so your enemy got a little (or a lot) meaner the closer they were to death.

[@tonysladky8925]

Man, the Residuum section just makes me think of how cool Rituals were in 4E. There was so much creativity for rituals when they didn't have to pull double-duty as normal-ass spells.

[@AchanhiArusa]

I'm already working on bringing back martial powers.

[@KorbinDallas]

Have you seen this on drivethru? Player's Guide to Powers By Benjamin Dickinson

[@MalkavX]

You can also look into pathfinder 2, the martial feats there easily can be powers in 4e.

[@AchanhiArusa]

Thank you, but I like doing my own conversions.

[@KyleHoughton]

I like the "Residuum" idea, Numenera has basically the same thing called "iotum" where it's the basic foundation of their cyphers ("magic items"), where if you don't need them you can break it down to their base components and form your own.

[@demetrinight5924]

Extracting "Residuum" sounds like a really good way to destroy cursed items or upgrade existing magic items.

[@johnwhite2412]

Good suggestions. I would recommend skill challenges - especially for journeys and urban chases. And….MINIONS! A great 4e monster type.

[@wizardsling]

I made a whole separate video on skill challenges! :)

[@Lyubimov89]

I ran some test minions for 5ed, worked great and really helped solve the scale of a fight.

[@R3dS0ulSnak3]

It's nice to see someone pointing out some of the better ideas in 4th edition. As a dm who has played all of the D&D games I find a lot of value in spells, feats, and skills from all the versions. 3.5 is still my favorite though 🤓

[@demonazgrael]

Still my favorite D&D version! It was ahead of its time.

[@jamesrizza2640]

I love the Residum ritual this can be modified for Pathfinder 1e [which is my system of choice], Knowledge Checks are a thing with pathfinder already but I modified it a bit to give players an edge if they roll very well, as well as misinform them when they get it wrong. Ex. A Goblin would be a Knowledge {local} Check of 11. If the players roll a 1 I might say that these goblins have the ability to see invisible things, if they make the check I tell them the strengths and defences and if they make the check by 5 or more I give that person combat advantage against this particular encounter.

[@daandenteuling883]

I think Pathfinder 2 might be a good game for you, it has almost all these aspects

[@fpc987]

7:14 this one is in one adventure 5e (end condition of a non lethal duel) so it is in 5e. i use it

[@sailordaigurren8225]

Re: residuum - in my Pathfinder campaigns, we've gotten rid of treasure as found loot all together. Instead, when a character levels up, they get new gold to bring them up to the appropriate Wealth by Level chart, then spend it on magic items and other gear that they want. This way, they don't get stuck with items that no one wants or uses, the GM can give an box a Ring of Protection +1 without it becoming the sixteenth one the party has taking up space, and characters can have items, like familial heirlooms, "evolve" alongside their character. I played a character in a campaign who had been given a masterwork sword by a mentor before the start of the campaign and invested my level-up wealth into it rather than tossing it when I instead found a new magic sword. Seems to work for our group really well.

[@TheYoungKing45]

Thanks for highlighting these! The most hated edition had sooooo many good ideas and systems in it. Glad to see that games like Lancer and Gubat Banwa are building on that legacy, but it's easy enough to lift bits and pieces wholesale for any game.

[@kevoreilly6557]

4e failed because they didn’t get the VTT built. That would have reduced the on table complexity of the math (lots of bonuses and conditions to remember) …

[@Mugthraka]

LIke...people can't use their heads or write something down... Maybe its cause our group where FIRST 40k players or something, but we never had any trouble remembering our shit, except for the occasional stuff. Everytime i see someone use that argument i'm wondering if they have early onset Dementia or Halzeimer or something..., specially since a LOT of bonuses din't stack, only the higher tier bonus would be kept and the lower one discarded....( could get 2 +1 bonus from the same source, and if you had a +1 and a +2 from the same source, only the +2 was kept, how hard is that?)

[@Jabberwokee]

@@Apeiron242it has a lot of 4e in it? The only stuff I am aware of is: 1. At-Will powers (for casters primarily) 2. Encounter powers (for warlocks and a few other “short rest” classes) 3. Healing Surges (though 5e’s version of it “hit dice” is grossly inferior because it defeats the purpose of the why Healing Surges where introduced in the first place) What else is there?

[@connors7078]

Checks to know about creatures is easy. You don't need a table for every monster. Basically set DC at 10 or 15. On a success the players get 1 piece of info. They either ask a question and GM answers or GM gives them one important piece of info. For every 5 ove the DC grant an extra piece of info. Simple. Any game.

[@purpur5]

I'm surprised Extended Checks/skill challenges weren't mentioned. This makes so much sense for whenever you're trying to do anything under pressure, like picking a lock during combat, crossing a wide but narrow bridge and so on. Many times I just use it as a byproduct of climbing, swimming, balancing or tracking

[@ayindehorton2803]

I got into dnd in 5e but I love learning about how different the previous editions were. 4e seemed to have a lot of cool ideas to pull inspiration from :)

[@wizardsling]

Absolutely! Full disclosure; I never actually played 4E. But I do love reading about it

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

Minions, balance, utility powers, combat powers, roles, skill challenges, combat advantage, the GM advice, bloodied, retraining, and the dice scale are all sooooo good to steal. I think there's a very good reason most "fixes" for a 5E push it into a 4E direction

[@madbadbat]

I really like your list. I definitely thought residuum should have been ported over to 5e for exactly the reasons you stated. One of the things I thought was cool regarding the bloodied condition was how it would sometimes trigger effects. Giving intangible rewards is something I have always done and will continue to do - after a while players tend to get bored with cash rewards and giving away too many magic items cheapens them. In my opinion, one of the best 4e rules created is minions. I still use minions regardless of the D&D edition (or even gaming system) I'm running. I've even adapted them in a homebrew rule I call a "super minion." I would apply this if there were sub-bosses among the enemies (such as lieutenants under a hobgoblin captain, bodyguards for a lizardfolk chieftain, etc.). They work exactly like a regular minion, except that when they take a hit, I roll a d6. On a roll of 4, 5, or 6, they take zero damage and stay in the fight (although I describe the hit landing to the players). After all other minions are defeated, any surviving super minions become regular minions. This helped to derail some of my players from meta-gaming how they would handle encounters with groups of enemies where they (rightly) assumed they would be facing minions. They tended to pull their punches and not take the enemies as a threat. When they realized that they couldn't predict who was indeed a minion, they took encounters more seriously. Note: I ALWAYS rolled a d6 whenever any enemy minion took damage just so my players couldn't find a pattern. I liked your closing statement: "It's fine to play the game you like, the way you like regardless of what anyone else says, including me." Hear, hear! Well said! Thanks for posting. +1 Sub

[@moonlight2870]

In final fantasy 4, Cecil turned from a Dark Knight to a Paladin. Instead of just being a simple reclass, there's a whole story beat about it. I like that.

[@crankysmurf]

For my 5E campaign, I've added Disenchant Magic Item as a spell and residuum because I introduced Item/Weapons of Legacy (from 3E), which the PCs need to spend money or residuum to unlock its new powers.

[@Kill2Hard101]

4e definitely did have combat roles! controller, defender, leader, or striker. Your class determined what role you filled.

[@zacharyagee2010]

Hey I love your channel. A fun tidbit, there is a retraining ruleset in Tasha's.

[@raymondharnack4160]

I really love to give most of my monsters a roll as well as a bonus action and an reaction

[@michaelw7252]

I like the Personality questions. It's always a little hard to get a feel for a character at first, this at least gets be a basis. The Residuum idea is great. Using magic to create new magic. It feels like the enchantment aspect of Elder Scrolls, but it's the substance that ALL magic items are formed instead of just that specific enchantment makes it way more valuable. You can treat it like Spice from Dune and it's the basis for entire worlds and civilizations.

[@crax83]

If you use dndbeyond's encounter tool, it uses bloodied. When someone gets below half hp their image gets a bloodied effect.

[@MalkavX]

Pathfinder 1 and 2 have the Recall knowledge to recall aspects of monsters you encounter. Can easily get ideas from there as the information is free online and it wouldn't be hard to adapt to 5e or other similar games

[@MikeHawthorne-qv2ft]

I’ve cherry picked a few things from 4e and placed them in my favorite B/X clone. So far it’s working pretty good.

[@randomusernameCallin]

Player: they are trolls so we need fire or acid DM: that metagaming. There is a reason “Red against yellow, you’re a dead fellow. Red against black, you’re OK, Jack.” exists. We have rhyme and stories like that for a reason so we know how to deal with dangers. THere must be something like that in the world for trolls. Also for the role you forgot the source of power.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

3:00 Retrain. Just a question, D&D is a level-based game, but I'd like to know your opinion on how Retrain could work in a skill based game as those of Chaosium Inc (Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest). but in-game, I'd use a teacher, to help the character t unlearn and later learn the desire feat or skill (That as a way to take away a little amount of money from PCs.)

[@wizardsling]

I'm basically of the opinion that anyone can re-spec if they're not happy, and I would always prefer finding a reason for it within the narrative

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

@@wizardsling Sounds fine. it's my opinion retraining is easier in a skill based system as BRP; you go to a teacher, spend some time with him, lose some tens of golds, and relocate those skill points.

[@nathanyoung5530]

I like the varying dc difficulty for knowledge. How much do you know? How high did you roll…

[@kevoreilly6557]

I think SKR worked on 4e .. I know Cordell did

[@SituationNormalGames]

A lot of these things are great, but I think the reason we don't see them in 5e is because when 4e failed, WotC kind of panicked and threw the baby out with the bath water. They were so desperate to distance themself from 4e's commercial and critical failure that they gave up a lot of what made 4e fun. I think we're reaching that point with 5e now. Where people were complaining that 4e felt overly systematized and gamey, they're now saying that 5e feels underbaked and vague.

[@Bodyknock]

Honestly 4e is probably my favorite edition. My only complaint about it is the combats were a little too long when you played on a tabletop grid. After 4e kind of went away, my gaming group switched over to 13th Age which shares a lot of similarities with 4e mechanically but with gridless combat that shortens it up a bit. Don't get me wrong, 5e is ok, I especially like the DnD Beyond app, I've used it in a couple of games now for my character and it works great. But to be honest they reverted some of the mechanical changes 4e made that I don't really like. For example I liked how in 4e the person attacking someone else always rolls the dice against the defender's defense. Unfortunately, for no particular reason, they reverted that and went back to some things the attacker rolls an attack roll and other times the defender rolls a saving throw which was a totally needless extra complication from prior editions.

[@artistpoet5253]

Maybe I favor Skill based characters more than Class based ones, but I've never been a fan of the idea of the Thief or Rogue as a class. It's more like a subset of skills a character can use like lore or survival craft. But I do dig the idea of roles. Even when I'm playing a miniatures games I make sure my warband has a tank, a healer, someone with crowd control and someone who can provide special abilities and boosts to checks.

[@jimmylaser5587]

imo the roles are useful, bt its the roles that players hated in 4e, its the reason ppl call 4e mmorpg-like and felt boxed into these roles

[@bronchiel]

some of these transcend dnd, i like using some of them (and i believe some are even implemented as core mechanics) in pf2e. that system is very 4e-ish in the amount of options everyone has, but has likely a higher level of complexity which makes for a great power fantasy

[@natehewett4009]

It's weird that more than half of the things you're saying to borrow from 4e didn't originate there: Retraining, disenchanting, and monster knowledge checks, originated in 3/3.5. Personality and intangible rewards are quite a bit older than that. I don't like dedicated roles and feel like those are one of the reasons 4e didn't work well. So we're left with the Bloodied mechanic. The Bloodied mechanic is the one thing from 4e that may be worth stealing for other games? I could also seen an argument for minions.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

The roles are unnecessary as you can do whatever you want on your turn. Might be handy for a newb, but just explain what a class is good at. Retraining should be a talk to your DM thing, not a rule in the PHB. Intangible items are in the 5e DMG already. I do use Bloodied. I find it very helpful to give a hint at how well-off a monster is. Shifting was a great rule in 4th that I really liked.

[@kel8923]

To "what Avenger do you want to be?", not even Hawkeye says Hawkeye....

[@wizardsling]

ha!

[@guilhermemelo3760]

I have been using bloodied since 4e

[@Funkin_Disher]

Stealing those personality questions!

[@Lyubimov89]

I disagree about residium, it was the one thing I loathed about 4ed, along with its general commodization of magic items. I didn’t enjoy having to avoid adding magic illumination to locations or interesting but mundane magic curios because players would strip-mine anything for residium. I like Pathfinder’s rune ideas, where you can move enchantments around but there are also fixed items. Same utility but no more arcane version of ripping copper wiring out of walls.

[@wizardsling]

you could pretty easily homebrew it that only items of certain rarities can be broken down, or make the DC to convert something difficult so it's risky to do so

[@Judas_Iscariote]

The roles in combat like blaster and such, was the first thing which made 4e sucks. Once said that, 4e is so damn good that it was the base for 5e and pf2 and are so different. Besides these rules, I also love the ritual rules. A mere skill test, is just tasty. The knowledge test i still use the 10 + cr for common monsters, and 10 + x2 cr for legendary monsters from 3.5.

[@Mugthraka]

4th E was in no way bad. Its just that WotC ambition to have a VTT alongside the game was ruined when they guy in charge of it died and he was working alone and that they never bothered to hire someone else to take up the task And the "Old Guard" of DnD throwed a Hissy fit cause the book din't have a 12 pages chapter about "RPing" and how to seduce the Blacksmith daugther or someshit... And going on about How the game was turned into a "MMO style of game" due to the "Roles" and other horseshit. WotC backpedaled whern released 5E to go back to 3Rd E mechanics, like boring class progression, and Vancian Magic (fuck that shit i hate it, Powers where so much cooler and versatile) And there was no CR nonsens, you had Monsters with Levels and that was it, it was easy to make encounters.

[@Jabberwokee]

Just to clarify one point: 4e has more roleplay tips for players and DMs than every other edition ever made combined, including the new 6e/D&D One The DMG + DMG2 for 4e are literally filled with details about role-play

[@robertlewis4769]

......or you could just play 4e!! It's accessible, it's fun, and it doesnt make WOTC rich😮

[@connors7078]

Never liked defined roles. Should be able to do diferent roles with the same class. A fighter for example should not be constrained to one role.

[@Jabberwokee]

It’s a Defender, which means it gets to tactically keep allies safer with it around, but that doesn’t mean it can’t deal decent damage (?) I made a Dwarf Fighter with a single magical hammer just recently that 4d6+10 on a charge, at lvl 2, and can do so on EVERY charge When the game first came out there weren’t as many options - now there are many, many options and you can build classes in interesting ways

[@jonothanthrace1530]

The terminology for class rolls was sadly obtuse.

[@tigriscallidus4477]

They come from the worlds nr 1 most popular sport.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

​@@tigriscallidus4477 I don't follow Association Football, but I've never heard those terms used in relation to that.

[@Jabberwokee]

How so? Strikers deal damage Defenders mitigate damage Controllers lay down control effects Leaders provide buffs and healing What’s obtuse about that?

[@jonothanthrace1530]

@@Jabberwokee I was really only thinking of leaders. It feels more like a support role than leadership.

[@Jabberwokee]

@@jonothanthrace1530 depends on the leader All leaders can heal but not all leaders buff the same way, or provide support the same way, or allow additional actions the same way Depending on your flavor of leader, you could be shouting out for allies to charge on your turn as a free action, or giving them saving throws, or temporary hitpoints, or stacking accuracy or damage buffs Just depends on what you want 👍

[@007ohboy]

Dont do any of that, wait for DnD 2024. Youre welcome.

[@jonathanthompson4077]

A lot of this ain't guaranteed to be in 2024.

[@lucasramey6427]

A lot of this straight up won't have anything to do with the 2024 phb

[@Jabberwokee]

I guarantee you a lot of the best stuff from 4e will not be making a return in 2024 They’ve already said they’ll never overtly use 4e stuff again because of the backlash, which means the game will effectually be hamstrung forever since “change” is now a dirty word to WotC

[@007ohboy]

@@Jabberwokee You guys complain they don't want change like you just did, and then you complain they are changing too much. Pick one. 😀

[@Jabberwokee]

@@007ohboy the hell you talking about? They should absolutely change and they should absolutely make it closer to 4e again - I don’t care if that’s an unpopular opinion, it’s how I feel - what are you even talking about bro?