D&D 4e Deep Dive || Let's make a character! plus rules, history, Essentials

Hello! This is the Dungeons and Dragons 4e Deep Dive where I go into a VERY lengthy discussion about 4th edition. The history, the mechanics, the errata. Hope you guys enjoy it! The beginning is a little front loaded with some info, but hopefully it's helpful if you're thinking about getting into it.
Tome Interview: ep 146:
thetome.podbea...
13 age System Reference Document:
www.13thagesrd...

[@justinjanicki6561]

Damn, Matt Colville is taking so long to make a 4e make a fighter video, Puffin came out of retirement to make it for us.

[@freyjastormwitch]

Matt actually talked about why he hasn't done another One Fighter At A Time video in his latest KZbin stream, it basically boiled down to "I wanted it to change how people viewed the history of D&D, but no-one really talked about it in that way, they all just wanted to know when the next one was gonna come out"

[@murderedcarrot9684]

I make fun of games a lot for having two paragraphs over describing strength.

[@murderedcarrot9684]

What’s agility? How quick you are.(should be enough of explanation). What’s that? The speed of which your going home because your not ready for this game.

[@murderedcarrot9684]

What’s intelligence? The spark you lack! (Laughs and slaps my knees)

[@AspenBrightsoul]

​@freyjastormwitch "People really want me to do it, so I won't."

[@custodialfatherintexas9362]

Thank God. Where you been man. I thought you went out and got a full-time job

[@SomeMonsterskeleton]

Good to see you again

[@TheFlyingJester]

I'm glad 4E is having a slight resurgence in popularity. It was my first D&D edition too, and I kind of still enjoy the idea of it.

[@dr3dg352]

It's my favorite edition. 😊 I had the joy of DMing it again a year ago.

[@wayneogle1792]

I had a bit of a mixed experience. Early on I disliked it greatly (what do you mean the Kobold has 22 hp’s?), but once I figured out that it was really made for heroic (vs gritty play) and was good at what it did, I started to enjoy it. But the character builder was the key to making 4e really work. Without it, the rules edits (which happened way too often) we really tough to track. And it was a pretty clean solution for figuring out what really worked in a build. Doesn’t deserve the hate it got and could be quite fun.

[@Evgenybarsikov]

Puffin I want to see you and Matt Colville have a debate and discussion on the merits of 4th edition, both of you love to talk about 4th edition

[@SammyBear]

I think one of the benefits of skill challenges was that, done correctly, you end up with encounters that aren't just combat. You have branches and paths that allow failure to be productive, and it guides you towards better improv.

[@jonathanl3945]

It addressed two design questions: how do you make noncombat encounters equivalent to combat encounters? And how do you give structure to challenges that are beyond the scope of a single skill check?

[@vepristhorn8278]

The group skill checks worked excellent in Encounters (4E organized play, that WoTC heavily supported) They made such scene quick and engaging for the whole table

[@Rikmach]

The multiclass feats were *sometimes* useful because they gave you access to some abilities that just weren't native to your class. For example, the Assassin Multiclass feat gave you the assassin's ability to ignore poison immunity and resistance, which was great for my Druid who was using a Poison-based prestige class.

[@Rikmach]

Addition: Druids and Clerics were *not* the same role. In the base game, Druids were Controllers, and Clerics were Leaders. That said, the Essentials Druid *was* a Leader, (Or slightly more accurately, a controller with heavy leadership options) making things even more confusing.

[@pedrostormrage]

27:42 I had no idea skill challenges were a 4e thing (I've seen DMs doing those in 5e campaigns)! If the challenge has a time limit then limiting the number of rounds makes sense, but you could still have a "soft limit" based on the number of successes/failures (you succeed when you get X successes, or fail when you get Y failures, whichever happens first). Regarding social encounters, you could let the Face just do the whole thing (it's basically how the Persuasion system works in Starfield), but you could also allow for persuasion using different skills (like how a wizard would do an Investigation check if they're using logic to be convincing, or how a druid would do a Survival or a Nature check if they're pointing out possible consequences of a course of action).

[@Inroads-r8c]

Puffin being possibly 4E's biggest evangelist and simultaneously its most strident critic is one of my favorite things.

[@Mrryn]

The latter I agree with, and the former not even close. Unless I missed something, Ben has gone on record giving his thoughts on 4e and they were heavily, *heavily* weighted towards the negative, to the system being a mess, a destructively critical rather than constructive while also giving incredibly misleading and even ignorant points about some of the rules and mechanics to the system. To the point where there's been at least one response video literally reacting to and debunking his 4e video. And even if he was some "4e evangelist," he is nowhere near the biggest in the scene, either in terms of reach or in terms of genuine like and support of the system.

[@irishdeception2214]

A lot of people are experimenting with 4e again, neat to see. I played quite a bit of it. Not my favorite system by any means, but I had fun with it and there is a lot of nostalgia with it.

[@michaelanderson2166]

Almost like current events are making people dust off the old books. I'm glad I still have fifty 3 ed and 3.5 ed books ready to go.

[@holyrod2001]

38:10 I would strongly disagree with his thoughts on minions. I would use them all the time, and there's a reason why everyone who became very familiar with it talks about using minions, including getting rid of the little status effects he talks about. Minions don't usually come with them. They're easy to run and speed up the game.

[@Triumvirate8283]

Hey, welcome back! I was so happy to see you pop up in my notifications box (:

[@alistairetheblu]

39:45 Speaking of things unique to 4E, Warlock can be built on charisma or constitution. The "subclasses" will partly determine which and the powers will either say CHA or CON, or allow you to pick.

[@Malachi57]

One of the features I've taken from 4E into other campaigns are minions. I like being able to have quick fights that I don't want the players to get bogged down in, but I want them to feel like it's not all talky talk all the time. Having just 1 hit point punching bags make them feel powerful and remind them that action can happen at any time.

[@SammyBear]

Yeah, I've used them in 5th, they can amp up the threat in a way that has to be dealt with tactically but doesn't overwhelm the fight. They can be added to both sides to make fights more deadly. Sometimes I'll have individuals in a group effectively be minions. They're a great tool!

[@01pantagruel]

There were utility powers in 4e that applied to skill challenges. If a ritual applied, it would normally just mean you could use the key skill for the ritual in the challenge. The philosophy behind skill challenges (involve everyone in the problem) was good, the implementation was somewhat dubious and rarely actually used as written because it wound up meaning you had to do a bunch of setup designing a skill challenge before you could actually run it.

[@scetchmonkey007]

4E is where I pushed the "flavor is free" concept to the extent. Since I didnt like the 4E Wizard.... I re flavored the Ranger to be a Wizard.... it had a familiar the saber toothed bunny, the same stats as a panther pet. The wizard would reaction transform itself into a rabbit and flee to represent ranger mobility. He had a want powered with quartz crystals, same cost as a quiver of arrows that allowed him to "twin shot" twice with his want for untyped damage as an at-will

[@paulofrota3958]

Those are good ideas. Unfortunately a lot of DMs and Players don't understand you can pretty much do that in every game.

[@scetchmonkey007]

@@paulofrota3958 You also get players and DMs that actively reject those concept. The extremes of turning a Ranger into a Wizard means they seem "magical" but all there abilities also function in anti-magic and not effected by anything that would effect a wizard spells. When around calling this guy a cosmic wizard because his powers were beyond the mortal ken of any mundane spellcaster. The only actual magic this guy did was through the ritual caster feat. That alone made it so anyone that did not know how I built this guy think he might actually of been a wizard.

[@almightyk11]

Consistency in flavour is still important. If you describe a character as a wizard, then have them do something a wizard can't do, it ruins the integrity of any potential knowledge a character could have.

[@scetchmonkey007]

@@almightyk11 I agree, but this was my one and only effort to make 4E fun and interesting. I feel 4E failed at everything for a D&D style

[@phony1551]

@@scetchmonkey007 Did you try Mage? It's an alternate of Wizard

[@vyrmethrax]

I believe the skill challenges were intended to be used for certain situations. 1.If the group didn't want to go into minutia about a non combat scenario either because that can feel like trying to read the dm's mind(did you bring exactly enough food/water for the trek through the desert?). 2.If the group(or part of) really wasn't comfortable with speaking/interacting but still wanted to feel that they could contribute.3. to make an encounter flow more cinematically. The dm/player's can act out/roleplay their actions during the challenge just like a combat encounter. It should have been expressed that this was a possible way to handle an encounter and I feel many people saw it as being forced into that. If your player's were smooth with their roleplaying then you wouldn't even need to pick up a dice for that diplomacy encounter.

[@dr3dg352]

4e is truly my favorite edition. 💕 I was heartbroken when my original core rulebook boxset was stolen from my car, but last year I replaced those three books and even found some supplements such as the Forgotten Realms setting and corresponding player's guide! While I understand the criticisms, I feel like this was the edition that did the most for Dungeon Masters, and felt like the characters are more customizable than is typically credited. I'm a fan of the power system, but can also see where it could be improved. A year ago I finally started a new campaign in the edition, set in 5e's Wildemount. But sadly it fell apart after our fighter joined a punk band and the bard had to start bartending. 😔

[@viklasthemad]

1:19:12 Nearly had a heart attack when you said "+2" for the 18 dex... IN WHAT WORLD, BEN?! IN WHAT WORLD?! (caps for comedy, not really yelling)

[@davivignola5895]

Honestly, what I liked for quite some time about 4e, was balance. I played a fighter for a *long* time, and I never felt like the newer flavored classes were drowning me out. Wizard, cleric, etc... they all stayed as completely valid classes. The errata, though... I think they went nuts. It felt like there was a new change one of our players was trying to swing by us ever single game. Between UA, errata, Dragon Magazine, it seemed like it catered far more to the munchkin than the people who just wanted to play a game.

[@thevoid2117]

I had such horrible play experiences with 3.5. Just really bad luck with playgroups, when 4e came out, I fully embraced it. Had nothing but positive experiences with it. It was odd when needing to switch to 5e. I still miss 4e a lot

[@PleasentDddd]

Played a short 4e game not long ago. Made a Gnoll barbarian. I really liked having options of what to do during combat. Learning to make a character took me awhile though.

[@Fr.O.G.]

i thought you died

[@vincentsissom4180]

"The reports about my death have been greatly exaggerated. For one thing, I'm not dead!" -A popular version of a Mark Twain quote. You reminded me of that quote.

[@ghaspar]

Nah, he rolled a crit on DST

[@drakox9603]

​@@vincentsissom4180 "my death was greatly exaggerated but yours won't be "

[@hermannabt8361]

He got better

[@bradleymoore2797]

He shrugged it off.

[@edwardgolden2496]

4E had a lot of good bones to it, but never quite got there as either an "experience," or a "product." It's kind of amazingly open on the DM's side, if you're on the right wave length, the state based effects, and consistent monster math, (which took some refinement after launch, but once you got to Monster Manual 3, it got it right), let you do a lot of crazy things in the system as far as encounter design goes that you can't really replicate in other systems as rules that can be parsed as such. You *could* make encounters with the same feel in any edition of D&D, but you got there with either a lot of at home brewing work, or by on the fly fudging that not everyone has the sense or time for. Once Encounter design kind of clicked, and you could be reasonably sure a given encounter was balanced, you could spend a lot more time on designing other systems and seeing after story stuff knowing that the encounters weren't going to unfairly TPK your group in a way that was unfair and unfun. It did have some problems to it. As open as it was on the DM's side, it was still kind of opaque on the player rule side of things. Like it was eventually pretty legible how to build a trap or monster, but the math that went into designing a player power, or a magic item wasn't as transparent. It's a weird criticism to say that 4E needed more charts, but it needed to break down the expected damage by class and level combination and kind of walk you through how to adjust, or make from whole cloth, new player powers. I think the main problem is that as open as it might have been in some ways mechanically, it wasn't very open as a product. The lack of the SRD, and this terrible assumption that it was going to one day be paired with a virtual game table which never materialized, kind of kept it from realizing its true potential. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone to just casually pick up and play, but it's worth looking at just in terms of building a solid mechanical base, and I think a lot of games that picked up the general outline of 4E's mechanics like 13th Age and Lancer are realizing a lot of the games lost potential.

[@appleseed8282]

100% A very underrated comment here

[@alexross1816]

Oh goody! It's been a while!

[@Earthenfist]

I actually rather like 4e after I read through all the books. It's not the simplification that 5E was, that got so many more people into the game, but it was well designed for what they were trying to do with it.

[@davivignola5895]

The Race/Class reminds me so much of box set (where elf was a class and race), and some of AD&D. I was kind of glad when they shook that up a bit in 3e, as I felt the racials were always weirdly restrictive.

[@christopherg2347]

I will have to split up my reply because the video is so long. 4:00 PF2 just called that a "DC 11 Flat Check". Same math, but way less confusing. Persistent damage actually use a DC 15 Flat Check by default. 4:35 Removing the "lose DEX bonus to AC" from Flat-Footed meant they could be much more liberal about granting that debuff. Unfortunately 5E rolled that into advantage. 5:16 The big mistake of 5E was making Bonus actions _also_ mutually exclusive, effectively removing minor actions entirely. Which also blocked most substitution (other then Dash). That is one 5E change I would undo: Restore minor actions as a "thing" including substitution, but for compatibility keep "Bonus Actions" as a subtype of minor actions with the mutual exclusion. 6:20 "Second wind for everyone!" 12:55 PF2 definitely copied that writeup largely. They did muddy up the flavor and mechanics again. 14:32 I think the idea comes from "half damage on save" spells. PF2 rolled it back to only apply to save spells, but I think it might benefit if it applied to all limited resources abilities. Including those with a attack roll. 15:55 I think they advised making enemy groups bigger rather then stronger single targets, so defenders might have to cover a split party. Making 2 defenders useful. 16:54 I don't think Rituals were limited to Spellcasters anymore. PF2 kept that idea, but did move some things back to Spells. And also made them Uncommon by default, so the GM has control over which are in play. 21:25 I call the issue the "Mandatory Cleric". You ran into that particular issue way back, when your Cleric would not die.

[@vepristhorn8278]

You mentioned that at conventions tables were empty near the end of 4E which I find odd, I only went to local conventions in Vegas but we had 4+ tables and weekly had 5+ tables at Encounters till the very end and the release of 5 killed the community

[@raspberrymilkshake5782]

my group started in 5e, then after a journey through a few other rpgs got really into the system Lancer, an incredible 4e inspired mech game. Now we're playing 4e, and we love it. Theres lots of fanmade support for digital play, which makes the system flow a lot easier. We're all modern woke gen z pronoun mafia rp heavy gamers, but the reason we've been enjoying more tactical focused games like 4e is just that, if we're playing a game with lots of combat mechanics and we get into combat, we want it to be big and deep and crunchy. Theres no difference between the stories we tell in 5e, except we engage with the actual game more. IDK, 4e won't be for everyone and thats okay. Thats the point of this video, but all the comments are "my wifes sisters husband said that they played 4e and a single fight against 3 goblins took a full year, and the DM locked them in a basement until they finished". Its not the new messiah, but its not the antichrist either. Try it instead of going off soothsaying, you might like it. Theres a fan-supported character creator and a full foundry module.

[@NSG0079]

As someone who missed out on the entirety of 4th Edition D&D, I'm really enjoying this sort of content/discussion :)

[@hawktitan7896]

It's really interesting to see how 4e sort of became Pathfinder2e

[@baltosstrupelos302]

Very much, yeah. I've done Blood Lords for Path2e, and coming back to 4e now, it feels like 4th edition with buffing numbers. Giving someone a +3 is amazing in Path2e, whereas in 4e, it's pretty much a baseline buff.

[@lordbuss]

After Pathfinder built it's branding on "WOTC is betraying the legacy of Real D&D and we are restoring it!".

[@TheRealmDrifter]

4E was my first D&D edition, introduced to me by my girlfriend at the time. I still have very fond memories of it.

[@Caseyuptobat]

The main reason to take a multiclass feat was to qualify as that class for Paragon Path and Epic Destiny prerequisites, as well as for further feats specific to that class

[@jonathanl3945]

It also usually gave skill training, which as a flat +5 on top of other benefits of the feat nudged it up a tier.

[@randomsleepyness]

I love love love videos like this, good to see you post again.

[@Malachi57]

I think 4E is great for new players. They don't have to crunch as much math (great for little kids) and they feel powerful with all the various attacks. The one thing I did was lower all the enemy HP. Encounters take FOREVER when a monster has 250 HP. That's unnecessary and makes fights WAY too long. Cut it in half or even 1/3 and you'll get through fights in a 1/2 hour rather than a 2 hour slog.

[@vepristhorn8278]

By this point in 4E I and everyone I knew was using the online character builder, which was amazing, never realized how poorly built some of these books were

[@POTATOEMPN]

As somebody who still uses 4th Edition, I can tell you that 4th editions ability to let you properly run a level 20 campaign is absolutely top notch. I just suggest slightly different dice rolls to make things a bit more smooth. And hear me out on this...but let's say your player rolls to attack with an axe. They are a level 17 barbarian berserker, raw strength and health and violence. At level 17, players are all but demi-gods and capable of absurd feats. Get rid of the D20 core roll and do this. Barbarian rolls 1d4. Target rolls 1d4. Barb gets 3, Target gets 2. Barb has 19 Strength, Target Also has 19 Strength. Sans modifiers, Target automatically takes a "lesser blow". Barb still got first blood and rolls for damage, subtract modifiers to get the total damage. Roll a 1 against a 3? Oof, you still take full damage. Roll a 4 against a 1? You get to roll critical damage and I had a small chart. Roll your damage as normal critical damage, but the DM rolls a D10, consults the simple chart and now "Target's weapon has shattered" or "Target's weapon flies out of their grasp and lands X-feet away". In text it sounds complicated, but it's essentially speed rolling combat because, short of some insanely difficult creatures mobbing up on them, they are hard to kill so instead of wasting time on the small fry, players basically gamble with their combat. 4/1 and Target is basically getting blasted hard af. 3/3 and then you roll damage and then go back to rolling 1d4's lol. It works for magic combat as well as ranged in the case of rangers and it works even better for stealth and perception checks. Perception is the funniest. Roll 1d4, got a 1? You casually forgot to really check your surroundings, you notice the breeze and the swaying of the trees as they attempt to shed their final leaves of the year, and a rustling of leaves.... And now you roll another 1d4 to see if you get knocked unconscious by the guy you totally didn't notice because you were just relaxed and taking a calm breath for once... It tends to lead the party to more interesting paths and ends up making them come up with more creative ways of using their spells and abilities, which then leads to them being even more creative in combat and in turn leads to them often doing everything they can to break my campaign. They have only succeeded once, and they genuinely outsmarted me and everybody else (the npcs lol) and managed to get two of the party to ascend to godhood as The Twins....who then enslaved the rest of the party, fusing them in pairs to guard all the forks in roads to force people to make a choice and only giving them the right answer to the right path after dealing with a set of riddles in the form of vulgar sea shanties that all last about 15 minutes each. They became cruel gods, and they ignored the npc I created to secretly pass them a satchel with some signed documents that proved that the two players were trying to sabotage the party and become gods for themselves.... So the rogue read the information, used Glibness with a 4, aka critical success...to lie to the entire party and say that he was being called away by his parents, the leaders of a thieves guild and that he had to answer their summons or the curse put on the letter would kill him and everybody he told. So naturally they let him leave asap to save everybody from dying a horrible cursed death..... The rogue is still sitting on his private island that he bought and had magically warded with all the treasure left behind by the party once they became gods and guardians. Use the 1D4, I promise you it leads to a more interesting adventure than you could have ever planned out.

[@quetzalcoatl974]

Finally the video that was supposed to happen instead of the trashing of the system. Glad to see you got the video out, glad to see you too!

[@nickenquist3788]

Hilariously, I was thinking about running a 4e game for some friends to show them what my intro to the hobby was.

[@CoroHuh]

The sudden turn to 13th age got me! 😂 Hilarious! Love that game. Lots of cool stuff there.

[@Bagel-Man.]

This reminds me a lot of Matt Colville’s early content. Love this video Puffin!

[@danielhale1]

I liked a lot about 4E and disliked some aspects strongly enough to move on from it. The fact that it was all paywalled and looking up info was such a challenge definitely contributed. It felt overwhelmingly complex when everyone's effects were active; that's way too much data tracking. I did like the idea of at-will powers and encounter powers. Each class having a couple at-will things they can just do that are unique to them is something I want to be more common. And stuff you get back after taking a short rest also feels nice -- it's a happy middle-ground between "ONCE A DAY AND NEVER MORE!" and "As much as you like, bro!", which means you can give nice stuff to a player and still keep it balanced within one encounter.

[@vepristhorn8278]

Yeah getting rid of the OGL for 4E dealt it such a heavy blow and never allowed an online supplement community

[@EliJahTebbens]

Wait, hold up: Is this "The History of D&D One Fighter at a Time"?

[@zraal3759]

The bigedt problem i had with 4e was the game play, particularly combat, but i loved pretty much loved the rest of way the edition was setup. The abilities and spells you can read and see the exactly what how to use. 5e, mostly with spells, have to read a paragraph with fluff and mechanics muxed together and interpret and sometimes interpurlate what exacly it does and how.

[@Gbusjones]

I like bloodied, i still use it for bbeg or extra nasty set piece monsters.

[@Brythnoth_of_the_Void]

I am playing in a 4e game (modified mind you) but we play with 3-7 people and man; the amount of strikers is kinda silly. We run at max 2 defenders, and that’s mostly because one of our player both A. Only really plays one, and B. His character doesn’t really use mark to much as he has a lot of damage reduction abilities.

[@dgeata]

I remember after a few years of playing 4E, I wanted to just ATTACK and not have to use a power. Essentials really breathed some life back into 4E. One of my groups is doing a 4E game during a long 5E break, and I love going back to using powers. I love 4E, but there will always be 2 main gripes. The first is most powers are all-or-nothing. You get one roll on your D20 for your Standard Action. If you miss its a pretty big feels bad moment. The 2nd is what feels like dozens of micro-bonuses and penalties that stick around for only a round or two. With two Leaders in a party, throwing out untyped bonuses, it can be hard to make sure you're tabulating everything. Teaching our group that had never played 4E before, I gave them the wise words of the Rules Lawyer when he talks Pathfinder 2E. Every +1 matters. Getting only one swing a turn and possibly wasting your highest damaging power sucks. Starting off a combat by throwing a 2W or 3W attack right out the gate feels great, but you're doing it with MAYBE only combat advantage, and against anything other than a Brute that has low AC and NADs, the chance of a miss can be high. Starting combat off with an At-Will then using the big Encounters or Dailies round 2+ after Leaders have used powers that give bonuses and Controllers have debuffed can really swing the attack roll into the PCs favor and give that big damage power a greater chance to land.

[@appleseed8282]

On the Accuracy comment: 100%, it seems to be pretty common wisdom to never take a weapon with less than +3 prof unless it's _really_ strong. As for the All-or-Nothing, hm... idk. It doesn't really seem all too different to any other thing across DnD (in fact, I tend to hear a degree of missing is assumed in the damage math {sad to say}). But generally, the only time you really miss out on a miss (heh) is on an Encounter power most of the time; Dailies are pretty friendly with not being _total_ wastes on a miss. But yeah, I've been a part of session where things just suck hard if no one rolls higher than an 8 (our *Rouge* missed her Daily and got corner locked 😭); just not sure how something like DnD can make it interesting without making either a new slog, be too demanding to keep track of, or add to more HP bloat; so all that's left is Optimizing Attack

[@graveyardshift2100]

Note that while you can't upcast lower level spells, they also just got more powerful as you leveled up. Although some kinda stopped being useful after enough levels so you had to change them out eventually anyway. Would have been nice if there were an easy way of boosting the power of ones you wanted to keep, like a favored spell ability or something.

[@MrCrisTheRo]

All I'm hearing is that THAC0 is the best and we need to go back to the old days of 2ED.

[@nickbuchowisch7396]

Something that is interesting on 4e, or rather silly depending on who you ask, is that you got a role on each of the categories of classes, like on arcane the defender was the spellsword, the healer the bard, the striker the warlock and the wizzard as the controller, through many classes felled the same it was a nice Idea having more options as healer for exemple, a bit better than just having a cleric all times.

[@jonathanl3945]

The role/power source dynamic made it really easy to run themed parties. You could run a Divine party where you all work for the same church or a low-magic game where everyone is Martial, and while they would feel and play quite different from each other, in both cases you have a functional party right out of the box.

[@christopherbronson3275]

...are people going BACK to 4e? YES PLEASE!!!!

[@vepristhorn8278]

No system is perfect each system has a crowd I loved 4E and believe they should have kept more than they did for 5E

[@BlackOtter9]

I never played 4e, but I bought the books when they first came out. Seeing the shift from 3.5 (my first ed) was very shocking at first and I disliked it a lot, but I have to admit some of the rules in 4e were really clever and really streamlined the game a lot. Plus, it laid foundations for the 5e.

[@orinanime]

Wow, I haven't seen an update from you for over a year! And then when I checked your videos, I see that you had a couple of videos a few months ago and I never saw a notification.

[@skyblade7438]

Damn, what an awesomely formatted book.

[@AspenBrightsoul]

The DS2 of TTRPGs

[@kenbutler7560]

4E was good. Period.

[@1Aroro]

Learning about 4e is super interesting cause I can totally see some comparison points to Pathfinder 2e. Race boosts in 4e are most focused on races leaning towards classes, while Pathfinder ancestries support some classes but they never give you straight bonuses to your skills, so you can still play as whatever you want. 4e having dedicates roles is similar to Pathfinder, but Pathfinder doesn't mind if you're not being super optimal for most campaigns. The persistent effects in 4e sound horrible though, I know I play Pathfinder with lots of automation on Foundry, so it makes me wonder how well DnD 4e would do if it had automated support to deal with all those annoyances.

[@clarkside4493]

I wrote a one-to-one conversion of the 4e Player's Handbook's classes, Powers, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, and Magic Items into 5th edition. It's called Player's Guide to Powers, and it's on the DM's Guild. If you're a 4e fan with a 5e group, you can still play how you want.

[@ArcadianHobGob]

Good to see you again puffin!

[@Deailon]

That was a solid look on the edition. Tkanki you! I still miss the animations though ;)

[@jonasbarth5653]

Great to see a video from you again 💪

[@fightinggamesforever3364]

Puffin, Essentials weren't meant for you. They were made for new players as a way to bring in money before 5e. You can play 4th ed with 5 books basically. I rate them highly. In fact, controversial, I rate 4th ed above any other edition. You can't really rate them as products because naturally, you have a bias, as does any preexisting player. Anyway, for me, they removed the need for 30+ books of bloat. All I need is these and Neverwinter and I'm good.

[@wayneogle1792]

I think that if they had come out with the Essentials classes first (simplified mechanics), 4e would have been a little more successful. The Essentials classes were easier to play and got consistently good results at a lower player skill level.

[@Ouium]

Oh, i was not expecting to see you in my feed, nice!

[@quietdignityandgrace]

Is your character Turtle "Friendly"?

[@TheFlyingJester]

Can we get an actual compilation video of just all the books with player options tho?

[@nichtviet9417]

Guess who is back! Back again! Puffin is back, tell a friend!

[@OhryusDraela]

What's good Puffin, glad to see you back! Would love the honor of pickin your dnd brain one day :D

[@kendo5862]

Always liked the cover book art of 4e

[@wolfinstedd]

A lot of DND 4e and 5e dna is rooted in Star Wars saga RPG , which is worth folk having look at.

[@paulofrota3958]

Nope. SAGA is an update of 3rd edition.

[@ingenparks]

Saga gets rid of 3rd's variable progression rates for saves and to-hit, and adds a consistent class chassis increase to AC (by folding AC into Reflex). It is more 4th than 3rd, and represents a clear missing link between the two.

[@matthewlavis8376]

What is your ruling on fire hawk at will for Druid? Dose it create a opportunity by it’s presence or dose it only work off you.

[@almightyk11]

Did you ever look at or play Star Wars Saga Edition? Mechanically it is a prototype for a lot of things that went into 4e, but it feels like a better game (albeit scifi, and differences from that). Gamma World 7th Edition is also a 4e powers based system that works well. If you want to really see "4e done right" I suggest checking out 13th age. It has a lot of similar concepts, but changes things to be more thematically fitting.

[@sjwarhammer4039]

Maybe you catch it later in the video, but your character's starting HP is 30. You add your Con SCORE at 1st level in 4e.

[@ConflictedSwitch]

4E was the first edition I played as well. Our group played Keep on the Shadowfell. Never finished it though, sadly.

[@richardrdotson]

Holy goodness. This was amazing. Thank you. Fixing the d20 wouldn’t have saved this edition.

[@brianlaux6593]

Still one of the best WIZARDS I’ve ever played in any RPG! So much fun! Just wished they didn’t change Magic Missile near the end of the game to go back to auto hit! 🤣

[@Audiotrocious]

I liked 4E. I think Pathfinder 2E takes some influence from it.

[@tyrelllowery2074]

Coming to comment and like. I’ll be back to actually watch this when I’ve got time.

[@Nezumis]

Noticed this video when going back to watch the Curse of Strahd recap.

[@nicknunez4024]

He has returned!!!!

[@chadjackson-ingram9291]

so when does the uncut version with all the books coming out?

[@mementomori771]

As someone whos only played 3E and 5E 4E is fascinating to me

[@heathbarnhart1092]

I've been playing since AD&D. My issue with 4e was the writing was terrible (IMO). It took the group I was playing with (all of whom have played several versions of DND and other systems) a long time to get the hang of it because the books weren't clear on several rules and required a lot of jumping around between books to get a ruling on things. Also, as you mentioned character's powers within the same role would clash, thus forcing smaller groups and/or limiting player options. I recall this also lead to an IRL confrontation between players (which I realize had more to do with social dynamics than the rules). Most of my DND friends either avoided it altogether, and those that did try it moved to Pathfinder after one go.

[@Luna_Everywhere]

The advice about "which role should you double up on" is straight up wrong, the thing you double up on first is Leaders. Essentially, it's a bit better to pile Leader Buffs onto 1 striker, than have more strikers. If you need more than 1 defender, your defender isn't doing their job right.

[@21baaron]

Have you played Kids on Bikes yet? Would love to see some more short content, ten minute reviews of different TTRPG's

[@paulofrota3958]

Second that.

[@ChilledRedCentral]

this is a niche market, almost no vids on char creation for 4e.

[@charleskaramon4569]

He's back!!!!

[@rhetorical1488]

He is alive!

[@phatgomeb0ss]

Hey, have you ever checked out the Cyberpunk RED TTRPG?

HE LIVES!

[@rkcpek]

Could you review "Basic Fantasy Role Playing Game" please?

[@nokinirus]

Bro, how's it been? Haven't tuned in for a while, but saw the upload date and the last one and got concerned.

[@Lcirex]

13 Age mentioned! Woooooo.

[@vepristhorn8278]

I miss controllers

[@mrgidd3088]

Horray he is alive

[@Charlie160160]

Woots! New vid!

[@vepristhorn8278]

Defenders also had Auras instead of marks Edit- wrote this before you said you were only using the initial release and not expansion material