Should You Give 4th Edition D&D A Try? A Primer

You'll find quite a many threads on the internet talking about 4th Edition D&D, here's a quick little primer on if you should give it a look as compared to 5E!
4E Discord = discord.gg/hhV...

[@insomnicide94]

Short answer is yes, the long answer is hell yeah

[@francescobarbaro7575]

My very personal opinion is that 4e is the quintessence of D&D. I'm always glad that there are creators out there giving it credit.

[@tigriscallidus4477]

Its great that less hate about 4e and more actual info is beought into videos

[@TheControlBlue]

OSR is the quintessence of DnD, what you are playing is a corporate abomination you are confusing for the real thing. Embrace the Dungeon.

[@jackshiltsov2242]

Oh, my favorite DnD edition. I'm actually surprised how many people praise the new edition of Pathfinder for its deep tactics but still hate DnD 4e.

[@donc7664]

Nailed it 👊

[@leandronc]

Pathfinder 2 owes a LOT to 4e, which is ironic given how PF was born out of the rejection of 4e. I'm pretty sure most PF2 players don't even realize the similarities.

[@clone_69]

I may not like 4e, but I will admit it has my favorite iteration of a fighter/mage class in the swordmage. I feel no other edition has made a hybrid that flavorful.

[@amiablereaper]

Yeah swordmage is just awesome.

[@YouCobra55]

Simply the best version, the essence of D&D is here.

[@TheControlBlue]

OSR is the essence of D&D, you tourist.

[@Jabberwokee]

Still play and run 4e regularly Best system they’ve made so far imo

[@Beastmann3d]

4e is my favorite. Loved all the different attacks during combat instead of just "I attack for 1d12 +6" every round. I wish they'd bring some of that back in the subclasses instead of the boring 5e options in 2024 playtest.

[@Arcboltkonrad13]

Man, Puffin Forest's video (and "game" of 4e he ran for KZbin) were AWFUL and I try to dissuade people from watching it. IMHO 4e is peak D&D.

[@TheControlBlue]

You are wrong. I had the exact same experience running the game. It's an awful system designed to sell merchandises.

[@jacksonferretti3159]

Why are u bothering commenting on a dnd 4e vid if u hate it so much.. u must be a bot im wasting my time on or a parrot... either way no thought of your own 😂😂😂​@@TheControlBlue

[@TheControlBlue]

@@jacksonferretti3159 because it's the truth and I don't like lies being *parroted* around, it makes things worse for everyone. D&D, like everything else, has always been a cultural battle, and if you care about something, you don't just look away when people are trying to corrupt it. Saying that 4e is peak D&D, when 3.5 exists, when the OSR exists, when even Pathfinder exists, this is PEAK propaganda.

[@KnightFerrocous]

You should never point someone to Puffin Forest's video. He gets literally everything wrong. And proves it by not bothering to read the rules before he ran it for other youtubers. And the "roles" of tank, damage, healer and CC came from D&D to begin with back when the stereotypical party was a Fighter, Wizard, Cleric and Rogue. The MMO connection 4e is tenuous at best since the only single link is a Mike Mearls quote about what he felt when he joined the development team almost a year into production and he's also a notorious 4e hater and everything he has to say should be taken with a grain of salt, especially after he torpedoed the game with Essentials.

[@takanobaierun]

I did like and subscribe... so next video coming out tomorrow, Sunday? No pressure, but Monday the latest :D

[@Darkwintre]

Yes if only to understand which edition is actually best as knowledge of it helps.

[@RadimuxCisco]

Huh... I love the book of nine swords... Maybe i will research 4e a bit.

[@shannonyork4625]

Very good video, keep up the good work

[@kitgoodyear9270]

Good video.. Like a lot of things in this world, the better thing gets the worst press. 4e is better.

[@neillennon5694]

I'm quite intrigued by what you said about lengthy combats, are you saying that the monsters defences and HP are normally too high, so that it takes too long to chip away and take down a monster? Presumably the same is true in reverse then and there is less chance of a PC being taken out by one hit?

[@moutonrustique]

IME , the largest time-sink in 4e is player decision process. There are also popular mechanical modifications to reduce the number of rounds required to achieve victory. The prime example of this is reducing HP. But system mastery and engagement will dramatically impact how long combats take. (By this I mean knowledge of the general mechanics and personal options - not optimization.) Also, yes, there is no* chance of a player being taken out by one hit.

[@B42UC4]

5e inherited a lot of the 4e design philosophy, but it was simplified to be playable without a grid. The new 2024 rules seem to be even closer to 4e. I agree that 4e is the best edition to play tactical combat, but that is not my style of play. Cheers!

[@Tysto]

I’m a 2e grognard. I'd be interested in 4e if there was a way to differentiate the mechanics of martials & rogues from those of spellcasters. It simply doesn’t make sense for a fighter to be able to perform a certain exploit once per day. I wouldn’t play 5e either, tho, without reductions to spellcasting & healing.

[@Duskshine749]

To be fair, it also doesn't make sense for combat to be turn based. At the end of the day you're still playing a game, and some things have to be abstracted to just be functional. Maybe the opportunity for your daily comes up rarely in combat, and that's represented by only being able to use the ability once a day. Or maybe it's really hard on your body, and you need ample rest before doing it again. I'm biased because I love 4e, but it doesn't seem too hard to come up with some in game reason a martial ability is limited to once a fight/day

[@graveyardshift2100]

Simply a combination of opportunity, tactics, and stamina. It's not hard to imagine even a dumb monster not falling for the same trick twice when it hurts them. And it's easy to see how some of the moves of more martial classes would have a large strain on the body. And then some are more practical. The rogue has a 1st level daily power that requires a LOT of throwing weapons. Now a cool DM will just let it work regardless of how many they have, but a smart DM will also make it clear that they used up too many daggers to do that again.

[@doomhippie6673]

I encountered 4e in the 2000s (can't remember the exact year). Having played Rolemaster since 1987 I somehow neede a break from it and thought I'd give dnd another try. But 4e rubbed me the wrong way in any and all aspects. I found the art terrible, the layout even worse and the wording (powers? I call that a skill to use a sword - not a power) so off-turning that I hard time believing this was actually dnd. I tried it a few times but the idea of hyper tactical combat is just not for me. At least not in a fantasy game. Defining roles such as damage dealers, tanks etc was an still is almost insulting to me. I can understand where that comes from and what it was used for but to me a role playing game is about developing characters not stat blocks. And 4e felt just like that. Should you give 4e a try? Sure, why not? If you like it, great. I personally was so disappointed with the feeling this game evoked that I actually threw the few books I had away - something I have never done to any rpg before or after.

[@randomusernameCallin]

I like many things about 4e but the skill list is terrible.

[@joanmoriarity8738]

Why? Which edition had a good skill list?

[@randomusernameCallin]

@@joanmoriarity8738 Each skill has a large over domain. Think of a ranger who uses traps as part of hunting and by 4e he is just as good at disabling traps as he is at pickpocketing, something he may never have done before.

[@Jabberwokee]

@@randomusernameCallinah you you want 2e back again then

[@TheControlBlue]

​@@Jabberwokeeand what's wrong with that?

[@TheControlBlue]

Every good points you give this edition can be affixed with the words "for combats". And all powers were copy-pasted from each others, you really think those WotC designers had the time to hatch thousands of unique powers with the salary WotC give them?

[@TheControlBlue]

It was a terrible edition that was a fighting encounters game rather than a role-playing game, you were just a bag of stats, zones, and healing surges. It's a mess of tangled, and repetitive powers, only suitable for munchkins and mathletes, which is the kind of players I do not want at my table. The people following it are deluded, and are the closest proof that whatever awful thing you hatch on this planet, there will be people to like it.

[@trevorhanson6295]

I have played and DMed every edition of D&D since 2nd Edition and there is nothing in 4E that prevents roleplay and there are several elements that help facilitate it. Also, there are aspects of the game that are better than other versions of D&D, (looking at the DM tools) and the diversity of the modular character development system it presents is a nice balance between options and structure. The only people I have met who vehemently hate 4E are power gamers who are constantly trying to max out their character and are upset because 4E won't let them showboat at the expense of the other players. So, if 4E is not your cup of tea, that is fine. But your tribalistic vomit of a response masquerading as elitism is just nonsense..... The only major issue with 4E at this point in time is that the licensing associated with the game by Hasbro is so draconian that other game developers cannot take it and come out with a revised updated version that shows where the game has evolved to since its release.

[@TheControlBlue]

@@trevorhanson6295 > 50% at best of the edition is full of copy-pasted, nonsensical combat powers > urhhh only power gamers hate 4e Sure thing, sir. Have you considered that balance in combat is not the sole point of a tabletop RPG? That debate is settled anyway, you guys can pretend all you want, but nobody sane will look at those books and see anything else than a combat simulator.

[@trevorhanson6295]

@@TheControlBlue Then you obviously are not seeing that 4E is gaining popularity again and if you only think that 4E is about combat mechanics, then you obviously don't understand the system.

[@graveyardshift2100]

Bruh, half of what you're complaining about is in literally every version of d&d in some form or fashion. And if it's so bad, then why are so many games starting to copy it? Pathfinder 2e is practically a clone. DC20 basically hybridized 4e and 5e. And 5.5e is pulling in yet even more stuff from it that 5e hadn't gotten to yet. And dude, if you need the rules to hold your hand in order to roleplay, then you are the problem. Roleplaying games literally got started because someone figured out how to do it in Chainmail, which is literally just a war game with no rules for roleplaying.

[@TheControlBlue]

@@graveyardshift2100 other editions didn't limit my choices to half-baked, manufactured powers, while having bastardized systems like challenges to pretend it's not just about selling power cards nobody wanted. You guys can try to gaslight me all you want, I was there, I played the edition and I see the impact it has, and I can say that things like Apocalypse world and Blades in the Dark happened for a reason, because people were tired of the munchkin and mathletes, people wanted to play stories, not hours-long encounters. Some people are indeed copying 4e, but just like Strife! and 13th Age, I expect those games to remain obscure, 5e was awful so we have to thank it for making 4e look good despite how terrible it also was 😂