ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -@GrimmDichotomy shares this quote from Paizo's website: "The commander is a martial support class that can issue commands to her allies, granting them extra movement, actions, reactions, and more. The guardian is an armored tank, who can taunt opponents and maximize the effectiveness of heavy armor to be a bulwark against nearly any threat. Be sure to try these exciting new classes out in just a few weeks!" (They said TAUNT!) -One thing I forgot to mention about PF2 trending to be more like 4E is more of a "yes you can be awesome" philosophy with the tweaks to some Remaster rules and the design of more recent character classes. -58:20 To try to clarify what I mean in saying the recent classes are more "4e-like": I'd say they also require more "juggling of abilities (that are more complex than basic attacks and more like spells) and resources" in their base chassis. -Someone at my Discord points out how the Inventor class's "unstable" abilities also are like 4e encounter powers! -I make a comment late in the video about PF2's Battle Medicine being gamey and that a barbarian with a two-handed weapon can use it. I've gone down the rabbit hole and I think now you DO need a free hand to use Battle Medicine. The Remaster seems to have copy-pasted older text that was errata'd: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c0e3o2/battle_medicine_free_hand_requirement_on_remaster/ Battle Medicine is still ridiculous though! ;) -The air kineticist's Four Winds feat is very "4e-like" in manipulating the battlefield: 2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4208

@centurosproductions8827

Ай бұрын

Sounds like upscaling the Marshal and Sentinel archetypes.

When we were learning PF2, I would call cantrips "At Will Powers", focus spells "Encounter Powers", and spell slots "Daily powers." I got the death glare from my GM, but he did admit I was right.

@WolforNuva

Ай бұрын

"He's out of line, but he's right."

@anyoneatall3488

26 күн бұрын

Calling focus spells encounter power has made me realize what they actually are I am not sure why i hadn't realized that before, but now it seems so obvious

I don't personally see how things like Come and Get Me! or Own the Battlefield are any less believable than already extant PF2e feats like Implausible Infiltration (rogues can literally sneak through solid walls?), Sever Space, Quaking Stomp, or similar extraordinary things that are still grounded in physical prowess of some degree. I hope that the Commander and Guardian lean into that belief. Martials getting to do Cool Stuff™ that is inherently based on being just that badass is a good thing, IMHO.

@MalzraAirwynn

Ай бұрын

Agreed. It can be a frustrating double standard in a heroic fantasy setting to let the casters bend reality to their will but then suddenly expect the martial characters to strictly obey the laws of physics. Martials deserve to be cool and badass and heroic and do incredible things too.

@ianbabineau5340

29 күн бұрын

Being able to drop 500 feet as a rogue or fighter without using magic seem just as implausible. That’s just from high-level skill feat’ too. So yes, there are already over-the-top non-magical abilities.

Mark is a sports term. It means that you are guarding/shadowing a marked opponent.

I sure would love to see 4e get the respect it deserves. Good thing WotC is gonna release the rules for free... Like they said they would....

@BrunoHenrique-gi1wd

Ай бұрын

i can`t tell if im meant to be reading this sentence with a tone of relief, or if its a jab at Wotc.

@under20over40

Ай бұрын

@@BrunoHenrique-gi1wd jab

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

@@BrunoHenrique-gi1wd When they put 5e in the Creative Commons, people asked if they would previous rules (including AD&D, 4e, etc.) in the CC as well, and they didn't rule out the possibility. They likely said that to quiet people then, and hope people have since forgotten about it... www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/18yaj2n/so_what_happen_to_3e_35e_and_4e_being_put_under/

@ogrejehosephatt37

Ай бұрын

I know you're interested in a free version, but to be clear to everyone, all the 4e books (as far as I can tell) are available for purchase on the DMs Guild.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

@@ogrejehosephatt37 Yeah, and even if they put out 4e rules in an SRD, it would only be a skeleton of the system, just as 5e's SRD is which only has a fraction of what's in the PHB

Started on 4e. It was phenomenal, in my opinion. Loved that every battle felt like opposing forces using absolutely sick and thematic abilities to one-up each other. I was a controller, as a ranger. I shot people into position for the wizard to blast and the fighter to cleave. Felt fantastic.

The recap article on Paizo Blog re: War of Immortals stream did touch a bit more on the Commander and Guardian =] "The commander is a martial support class that can issue commands to her allies, granting them extra movement, actions, reactions, and more. The guardian is an armored tank, who can taunt opponents and maximize the effectiveness of heavy armor to be a bulwark against nearly any threat. Be sure to try these exciting new classes out in just a few weeks!"

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

Taunt! They said taunt!!

@Kiaulen

Ай бұрын

Speculation for taunting: Taunt: You use rude words or gestures to entice a creature to attack only you. Choose a creature within 30 feet of you. Attempt a Persuasion check against the target's Will DC. Regardless of result, the target is immune to further taunt attempts for 10 minutes. Critical Success: The target flies into a rage. They immediately stride to melee range with you (this can provoke reactions) and can only use basic strikes until the end of your next turn. Success: You anger the target. They must attack only you until the end of your next turn. Failure: No effect Critical Failure: You become Frightened 1 at how calm the enemy is.

@nicolasvillasecaali7662

Ай бұрын

​@@Kiaulen i wonder if they will go for the 5e cavalier path of taunt and make it so while under its effect the creatures have reduced hit chance when attacking anything but the taunter.

@BigredTheGiant318

Ай бұрын

​@@Kiaulen Removing the option of attacking others is a very powerful effect. I could see something like that gained from higher level class Feats. Think it would start as something as simple as just being a penalty to attack rolls against anyone but you. Where even a failure is a -1 status penalty, succuss -2, and crit increasing the penalty and/or duration. also think it normally costs an action, and how anyone taking it as an archtype would use it until higher levels, but depending on the subclass it can be done with other actions like strike, raise shield, or step/stride.

@SlamDancinMoogle

Ай бұрын

@@nicolasvillasecaali7662 Either this or reduced damage are the effects I expect to see, and I am here for it!

It seems like Daggerheart, cirtical role's new ttrpg, also draws alot from 4e. Also, if the Commander has the ability to give up an action to give an ally a boosted strike like the greatest class ever created in any ttrpg (that would be the Warlord, if you're not paying attention), then I would be invested for sure.

Interesting thoughts. A few remarks: - I would not ignore Starfinder for these kinds of discussions. The systems are compatible. Together it would call them "Starpath". Field Test Soldier had Suppressed. Pretty similar to Marked. - 4E also had some Defender classes that use CON as key stat. And the Soldier could be the 2nd CON class in Starpath. Maybe Guardian will be a 3rd? And one that Kineticist could Multiclass into? - 4E encounter powers are just PF2 Focus points, 1/minute or 10 minute target cooldown Feats. Encounter powers have been with us since CRB 1st printing 😊 - Warlord makes me think more of Mellee Envoy from Starfinder then Marshal. And the healing is part of Stamina variant rules. I would wager Commander is more ranged. - I think Pathfinder would benefit from adopting clear 4E roles more. People keep _asking_ for a tanking ability. And all we get is Champion and Thaumaturge. Guardian can hopefully fill that gap. - Pretty sure healers tools still require at least 1 Hand to use.

@Ghost.in.the.Machine

Ай бұрын

I like the way you think. - I think a defender-type applying Suppressed would be great - so long as it requires a successful attack or failed save, as the Soldier's Suppressing Fire does. - A multiclass archetype (or class archetype!) that lets Kineticists get some better area control/defender abilities would be great. Kineticists can be very durable, but are easy for opponents to ignore making that durability not particularly useful. - I am hoping that the Commander will be significantly distinct from both the Envoy and the Marshal (and the Bard & Swashbuckler for that matter). - I would hope that the commander is not "locked into" either range or melee. Make both viable. - One of the things I *didn't* like about 4e was that classes were locked into certain roles. In most d20 games (including PF2) classes are generally built around unique mechanics rather than specific roles, and I like that better. Especially because it means that the party can be flexible enough to deal with a variety of situations, which helps the game from getting too repetitive/predictable. - I think what most people are really looking for is not more tanking abilities - there are quite a few - but rather more reliable (ie not spell slots) & flexible tanking abilities. The tenet of good champion reactions and the bard rallying anthem are the only things I can think of that are both reliable and flexible. -- The life oracle life link focus spell can reliably protect one ally at a time -- The thaumaturge amulet and bell can protect against one enemy. -- The Forbidding Ward divine/occult cantrip is widely available, but only protects one ally against one enemy. -- The Devoted Guardian feat can protect one ally, but requires a shield, is action intensive, and requires adjacency (and is uncommon which limits availability in some games).

@Bloodfencer1990

Ай бұрын

There is a Starfinder 2e field test document for the Soldier, and yes, it uses Con as its key attribute.

Our group never STOPPED playing 4e, and in fact we have 2 4e campaigns ongoing, along with PF2e and others. 4e is still my favorite edition of D&D, and a lot of the reason that I love PF2e so much. Edit: I'd like to add, on the subject of marks and the like adding a lot more things to track, that a lot of that burden can be put on the players themselves. In our group, it's generally the player's responsibility to remember what enemies they've marked, what buffs they have, etc.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

Are you guys playing homebrew? Do you have any good 4e modules to recommend in this year of our lord 2024? I love 4e too and I’m in middle of running the Scales of War adventure path (with Madness of Gardmore Abbey hacked in). But alas Scales of War seems to be like the only AP of its kind from the 4e era…

@ariusdegaldri2413

Ай бұрын

@@jltheking3 Sorry, we've only ever played in my homebrew world. I've actually never GMed any published content before, I find it to be too daunting/limiting >.

@kevinbarnard355

Ай бұрын

@@jltheking3 My favorite thing to do was use the Dungeon Delve and lace a few of those sets into my own over arching story. You can have different flavors of modules/mini-adventures as they explore the campaign and it also gives them a breather from the arch of the show. You can also take a paizo AP and do the work/find a conversion for the encounters. They still have great story elements and usually good writing. The encounter balancing isn't hard, it just takes time and some monster themes might need to be tweaked for appropriate level.

Whatever arguments people make about suspension of disbelief, and something a fighter can do being unfair applies do casters in general Im not specifically talking about pf2e casters mind you, just the idea that "oh, a fighter shouldn't be able to do that", yes they should, they are heroes too

@kevinbarnard355

Ай бұрын

Agreed. It has always ranckled me that the one major place in chainmail inspired RPGs that "demanded" IRL realism was the guy who swings a sword can't do supernatural things. It's a world FULL of elves and fireballs. I'm supposed to believe that sword master Joe over here can't hurl a heavy rock like a giant or leap 20 feet in the air like the scrawny bookworm can? Please! I call shenanigans!

One big weakness in 4e is that it is very dependent on a balanced party. When I played, we only had three players and a GM, so the leader/healer/support role ended up being neglected. I was playing a rogue, which, in addition to being a glass cannon, also usually has to go behind enemy lines to deal damage. I ended up dying a lot, because my choices were either to stay safe and do boring chip damage or to put myself in risky situations where I would deal good damage but also get pummelled. It was pretty obvious that having a healer would have saved my ass a lot of the time, but now that I look at a breakdown of the warlord, I realise that I wouldn't even have been in danger a lot of the time if we had had a balanced party. The warlord allows so much free movement that I would have been able to flank, attack with sneak attack, and then retreat to safety.

@davidhobbs6292

Ай бұрын

Each class had subthemes, too. A Warlord could select defender-lite stuff as a martial. So a three person party can still work in 4e. You just have to make sure the characters can support each other well... which is less beginner friendly.

@Salsmachev

Ай бұрын

@@davidhobbs6292 By PHB2 you get a lot of classes that explicitly say "This class can fill multiple roles" but the PHB1 presents it pretty straightforwardly as "one class one role". Figuring out those kinds of builds without guidance is possible, but requires a deeper knowledge of the system than we had. Of course, it also still requires someone to fill that role, even if there isn't a player specifically dedicated to it. If you don't have a party balanced around all four roles, you are likely to have problems.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

Yeah, I like how in PF2 there is less pigeonholing, and you can branch out. While at the same time I think it would be cool to playtest more mechanics from the 4e roles that were initially rejected.

@DarkDragon2344

Ай бұрын

Yeah once you get into optimization most classes can build into other roles and parties can do fine without certain roles present. At a casual level though, there is the strain of not meeting the assumptions and not knowing how to bypass them either.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

I don’t think a “balanced party” is necessary to play and enjoy 4e. Yes, 4e was engineered to make whoever was playing those distinct roles feel really rewarding, and that comes along with a party that neglects those roles feel like it has an obvious gap. But I take that as a good thing, not a bad thing. It means the game has a lot of replayability. Each party has a different set of weaknesses, and that means changing the strategies employed by each unique party to cover their bespoke weaknesses is fresh and fun. Having good replayability is a great to have, and not a bad thing. Contrast that to 5e or PF2, where each and every party more or less boils down to the same strategy every fight no matter the party composition. In pf2 its debuff then smack. In 5e it’s just a damage race while the casters cast save or sucks. If you had a difficult time in 4e, that’s likely more to do with your GM overtuning their combat encounters for a 3-person party. And them not responding well enough to what’s happening at the table. If everyone at the table is struggling with combat difficulty, the onus is on the GM to realize that and do something about it. The system provides great tools to tune combats easier or harder as needed.

Since you asked about Fighter controlling the battlefield, there is a popular build of the 4e Fighter that uses a Great Spear and uses a combination of feats and powers that allow them to slide enemies around the battlefield while knocking them prone and punishing them for trying to move. For example Polearm Gamble + Polearm Momentum, or using feats that increase the size of your AoE attacks along with powers like Shift the Battlefield to make attacks against every enemy in your reach and then moving them into a position you prefer (once against comboing with Polearm Momentum to also let you knock them prone at the end of this attack.) It's a very fun build that turns your fighter into a walking Wizard tier control spell. Makes it incredibly difficult for anything hostile to move within 10-15 feet of you.

43:33 I never had a problem with the limit on Daily Exploits. (The word for Martial classes' attacks. Arcane = Spells, Divine = Prayers, Primal = Evocations, Psionic = Disciplines) My reasoning is that they're NOT "dur hur the Fighter ran out of spell slots" but rather an abstraction. That they represent in the narrative a particular set of unlikely circumstances that come together and allow a extraordinary heroic moment. Obviously that inspiring battle cry (big attack "power") that allows your allies to run towards the BBEG (bonus movement) and strike them on your order (grants them extra attacks and/or buffs) or bolsters their morale after they were feeling defeated (heals them or buffs defense) is not going to happen every single turn. Imagine if it was a movie and every mook cued the John Williams soundtrack and the slow-mo. It would kind of lose its dramatic effect. 😆Anyway, that's my take on that.

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

I'm not a big fan of daily type things, way to easy to be too good or not good enough. It's also puts more strain on book keeping. Modern gaming is more about reducing the blocks on diving into the adventure instead of bookkeeping.

@t.estable3856

Ай бұрын

My main issue with 4e was that BIG abilities never switched to being standard. A REALLY fun part of 3.5 and PF2e is that High level Spells eventually become castable multiple times per combat, whereas is 4e they're ALWAYS only 1 time per combat or day. It leads to the feeling that you never get better at what you can already do, just that you get more things that are strictly better than what you used to have, making those old abilities feel redundant over time.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

@@t.estable3856Yes but also not really. As you get higher enough in level you get so many encounter powers that you can barely use them all. Once you reach level 11 you had 4 encounter attack powers. Just think about that for a moment. By the time you have spent all 4 encounter powers, the fight is pretty much all wrapped up. Perhaps you throw in an At-Will or a Daily once in a while. But once you get to level 11 and onwards, most people just flat out stop using At Wills. Their Encounters in practice become their At Wills. Which is exactly what you’re talking about, yeah.

@t.estable3856

Ай бұрын

@@jltheking3 Right! And also, because you can't use the same one twice in a combat, it forces you to use an ability that might not be the best for a situation, because you used the other ability earlier in the combat, which takes player agency away in how they're able to use thier abilities. Suddenly this ability that might have felt good to use in a different situation makes you feel bad, because you're forced to use it instead of the ability that would be actually helpful to you in the situation. And then, if you get into a situation where you would have wanted to use that second ability, you now need to use a third, totally different, one instead. Because you already used the one you would have wanted to as a substitute for an expended ability earlier. Focus Points are just *such* a better implementation of the concept of BIG combat defining abilities.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

@@t.estable3856 I think Battlezoo Eldamon by Mark Seifter has a really excellent solution to that. There’s something you can do in combat with a minor benefit but it recharges all your expended encounter powers so you can use them again. For a quick hack for 4e maybe something like tying it in with Total Defense / Second Wind to recharge all your encounter powers. Significantly ups the power curve for the PCs but it definitely solves that weird situation you’re speaking about.

One of the great things about the 4e approach to strikes/basic attacks is most classes had a way to work with basic attacks in a more flavorful way. Wizard could take Magic Missile as an at will attack, but it also counted as a ranged basic attack. All of those Warlord powers that granted an ally a free Basic Attack could apply to the Wizard's MM if they were a target. Most of the ones Ronald demonstrated offered that option. They weren't limited to only Melee basic attacks (which was a specific power limit in some cases). This means that everyone gets to feel like a bonus striker/damage dealer in situations like that, instead of only the blaster or the weapon users feeling like they are contributing to damage. Many control/support abilities also did damage or healed as well as whatever they were mainly designed for. You never had to sacrifice those things in order to feel like an effective caster. You buffed AND got your party to safety. Or you hit the enemy AND healed/repositioned allies. You could control the battlefield while ALSO taking out minions and chipping away at the solo.

My favorite class in 4e was the Warlord who is a battle master on any field of combat and makes their allies look great with extra movement and attacks. One of my favorite text in any of the 4e books was "Your fighter hits enemies with his sword, but you hit enemies with your fighter" (Dungeons & Dragons Player's Strategy Guide, pg. 17) The leader role was one of my favorite types of classes to play in 4e. Artificer managed the parties recourses to maximize both survivability and destruction by doing things like recharging uses of magic items, adding energy into items to augment them their use, and adding effects to allies gear in combat like vampiric weapon and thundering armor. Ardent used mantles to help the entire party in social skill challenges, affect mental-states as bonuses in combat, and at-will abilities that could be augmented for more effect.

One thing to note is that while you don't get additional at-will powers above level 1 the damage of at-will powers increases at level 21. For those not familiar 4e uses 1-30 rather than 1-20 level scale.

Battle Medicine just looks like the Healer Feat from 5e. The fact that Hit Points aren't supposed to be physical wounds but more like the ability to avoid lethal damage does a lot of heavy lifting. And at the very least Implausible Infiltration has a Magic tag on it, there's definitely some ninja jutsu happening there. Now Cat Fall is Wuxia level skill, it falls just short (pun intended) of walking on air from having supernaturally perfect balance.

I really enjoyed 4E, but I didn't know why until you explained the Game/Narrative/Simulation triangle. The gamist aspect is definitely my preference. I liked how the different choices each class could make using different secondary stat scores and class powers, like Wizard powers that use WIS.

I don't feel like this point was stressed enough, but it's important to know that in 4E a shift was "protected" movement. The ability to hit an enemy because they shifted was a big deal. Also, allowing your allies to shift means enemies don't get to attack them for doing it.

as i've went back to 4e after the fact again. I will say if you go back with a fresh mind compared to what we had at the time with it being a direct comparson for 3 or 3.5. i think 4e does actually have some really good aspects to it

@mirtos39

Ай бұрын

i agree. Its just that it had some complaints when coming from 3.5, but also there was some issues with the design of the books. not the game design, but the visual design.

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

There are definitely some fantastic aspects of 4e but there's also as much if not more terrible aspects to it. 4e has one of the best gm support for various encounters. It had one of the worst magic item and equipment aspects I've ever seen. It was also way to restricted on non golden paths, such as races, classes, and items being restricted to a very narrow band of things.

@DarkDragon2344

Ай бұрын

​@@ashenlion805I'd like if you could elaborate more on those last two things, the issues with the item system and the restriction of things. As a veteran and current 4e player I'm having some trouble understanding that perspective, and would like to so I can help prospective players clear that potential hurdle.

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

@@DarkDragon2344 yeah so all classes had access to only a subsection of weapons. Like maces were only for cleric and all mace special weapons were cleric focused. So you could not effectively use a non-class weapon because you literally had no support for them. Same for races as well, races were built for these classes and that's it and no overcoming it you would always be behind. These together made it so that any class had such a narrow band of good options that any two people had a good chance of making the exact same character down to even the items.

@DarkDragon2344

Ай бұрын

@@ashenlion805 You have confused me further. The mace weapon group is hardly locked to clerics and most classes get access to a few maces. While there is certainly enchantments designed for members of a certain class, I'd hardly say they're the best and especially not that you'll be behind if you don't get them. There's certainly imbalance in the strength of certain enchant options though, especially when you look at how nonsensically the rarity system was applied. Though I think 4e does a good job of making the option that sounds cool be good, it isn't perfect at that. But I'm not sure how you came away with the impression that items whether mundane or enchanted were generally class locked? Perhaps your DM ran with some kind of homebrew in regards to that? It's even more strange you had that impression in regards to races. Perhaps you meant racial feats, some of which require you to be a member of a certain race and class? Again while certainly sometimes good it's not even a given that every member of that race-class combo will want those feats, let alone those outside that combination feeling "locked out". And outside those, the only limiting factor for what races can be which class comes down to ability scores, which is more of a recommendation than requirement, and races have multiple ability score choices so they by design fit into multiple statlines that different classes desire. Ultimately friend I feel like we're discussing very different games, even recalling my time as a new player I never saw what you are describing. I think your DM may have unfortunately given you an inaccurate and indeed, potentially worse picture of 4e than what the game actually puts forth.

I’m a long time 4e enjoyer and your GNS point is excellent and I don’t think I had reckoned with how 4e cut out most of D&D’s simulationism in favor of a good game to tell awesome stories in. It makes me understand more why people might say that 4e didn’t feel like D&D to them.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

I think it’s mostly because D&D has so large of an audience. D&D means different things to different people. The old school simulationist folks felt betrayed while the gamist folks felt like they finally got the game they wanted. It made some people very happy at the expense of others.

Honestly, I think a lot of the dislike for 4e doesn't come just from the mechanics, since it *did* have some good or interesting ideas still, many of which still made it into 5e even. I think the catalyst was more just how WotC was handling the OGL, and their whole thing with the digital integration which just made the mechanical issues stand out more.

@mirtos39

Ай бұрын

You're not wrong. They were also being REALLY hard on stores that were selling 3.5 stuff. So it put a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouthes. And back then they were CONSTANTLY claiming theyh were going to do diigital and never did.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

Yes I absolutely agree. Subtract the GSL shitstorm from the equation, and if 4e shipped with an OGL of its own, it would have gotten a lot better reception. The third party market would have happily transitioned to 4e, Paizo wouldn’t exist, and we probably wouldn’t have even gotten 5e today had fans not rebelled against 4e.

@ogrejehosephatt37

Ай бұрын

I bounced off of 4e pretty quickly back in the day. The classes felt too flat to me. There wasn't really a difference between spells and attacks. Everyone has roughly the same amount of abilities. Most of the distinction between classes were that they were arbitrarily confined. Lots about the design rubbed me the wrong way and I just didn't find it interesting.

@PataHikari

Ай бұрын

@@ogrejehosephatt37 Attack powers should have a baseline similarity. 4e has rituals for noncombat magic

@Zedrinbot

Ай бұрын

@@ogrejehosephatt37 Yeah I'm not saying it doesn't mechanically have issues, I just think more people would've been willing to work with/around them if there wasn't also the corporate greed practices going on.

The Swordmage class has a subclass that grants Aegis of Assault which lets you teleport to your mark and attack. This encourages a play style of marking and running, which makes your mark have to either eat the attack and pull you to him, or run around the battlefield chasing after you.

"They are butt-kicking for goodness." --The tag-line of every heroic fantasy party.

Moving enemies simply by being really smart doesn't make much sense if you think of combat as a real-time telling of what's actually happening in combat, but you could make it more abstract and think of it as the warlord constantly paying attention to the battlefield and subtly forcing their enemies into an unwanted position without them even realizing until it's too late

@kevinbarnard355

Ай бұрын

Agreed. It's not usually moving them with your brain thinky, but outmaneuvering them. Like the RD jr. Sherlock Holmes. By being several steps ahead of your foes in planning, you "lead" them where you want them to be.

@anyoneatall3488

26 күн бұрын

It is something you can do in chess for example Actually it is a core part of that gane, of course the class taking all combat as a chess game can do it

I did find your comment on the terminology "mark" being to evocative of video-games interesting because to me the designers were trying their best to use sports terms to try and distance themselves from a direct video game comparison. But for you and many others the terms didn't draw that association at all and still remained in the realm of video-games.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

I just find it hilarious yeah that they used sports terminology to avoid video game comparisons… but the sweaty nerds angry at 4e didn’t play sports and thus didn’t even get it and criticized it for being video gamey anyway 😂

FYI- the math for 4E factored that an attack against non-AC defence was equivalent to a +2 to attack. So attacking vs. Reflex was (on average) the same as an attack vs AC with a +2 bonus.

I’ve played a lot of different systems in all my years, and even to this day 4e is still my chosen system of choice. No other system, not even PF2, does what 4e did. It was beautiful precisely because it ditched so many of D&D’s sacred cows. And that controversial decision is what made it so excellent and beautiful and stand up till to this day. Combat as sport is fun. Crunchy, gamist, tactical miniature combat is fun. 4e did these better than anyone else.

@danielloureirotarilonte8216

Ай бұрын

One of the main problems of 4 e was the "D&D" part. It is a quite decent game, but not really D&D. On my opinion, at least.

@jltheking3

Ай бұрын

@@danielloureirotarilonte8216 I’ve never understood that sentiment because to me, D&D was always about a tactical miniatures combat game. So 4e was always to me, an evolution of D&D, throwing away the chaff and keeping the wheat. D&D in its purest form. That’s my perspective and I believe that is the perspective of everyone out there that stuck with 4e during the edition change. Now, I understand D&D means different things to different people, and it’s the people that didn’t appreciate D&D for its tactical combat that made a fuss. When 5e came out I made the same fuss too, seeing it as a betrayal and a step backwards from perfection. And it’s funny now because Pathfinder 2e, MCDM RPG, Daggerheart etc. that are picking up that same tactical miniatures combat torch.

I do think the changes on 4e's overall opinion is also tied to how VTTs and other digital tools that help keep track of everything became commonplace nowadays. 4e had a lot of temporary and conditional buffs and debuffs being thrown around by both players and monsters, and I remember it being really bad to keep track on PNP. PF2e is also kind of like that, to the point my group flat out refuse to play it outside a VTT.

As someone who started playing 3.5e and moved to DMing with 4e while teaching new players and playing with old players, 4e is hands down the BEST tool for teaching new player ttrpgs. The clear definition between and combat encounter and a skill/social encounter helps both the DM and players with their interactions and intentions. It's a shame the only people who I've heard talk about 4e are mostly people who have never even played it, and I find most of what these people don't like about 4e is simply misinformation by not playing themselves. All my ttrpg friends loved my games and never complained once about the rules of 4e, whether it be the source rules or my house rules. Thank you so much for making this analysis video. I am a ttrpg developer who uses 4e and PF1.0 as a foundation, this is very informative not only as a consumer but as a developer. Keep up the good work!

Since you're looking at this particular rabbit hole, I think you'd be interested in the 3.5 warlock which was kind of the prototype for 4e characters and the kineticist.

@LordReginaldMeowmont

Ай бұрын

I absolutely LOVED the 3.5 Warlock. I'm sad that it was so different in 5e.

@kevinbarnard355

Ай бұрын

3.5's warlock was certainly a starting point and the basis of the kineticist, but Book of 9 Swords was the "alpha testing" for 4e characters.

The return of the Lazy Lord to my commonly played RPGs is my greatest joy. Commander is everything I've wanted, to play only on rare occasion, but entirely enjoy when I'm doing it.

Martial caster divide? More like martial marshal divide. 😂

@Kiaulen

Ай бұрын

Marshal Marshall marshals his martials for marshmallows. Say that 5 times fast.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

It's always about how GREAT martials are! Martial marshal martial!

@kidrissa

Ай бұрын

​@@TheRulesLawyerRPGSure Jan... 🙄🤣

@TheBigManWithTheBiggerPlan

Ай бұрын

​@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Martial? Martial! Marshal! Marshal martial Marshal! Technically correct is the worst kind of correct. Almost hurts my brain.

@Salsmachev

Ай бұрын

@@Kiaulen Y'all need to read Catch-22 if you haven't. There's a character named Major Major Major Major, whose superiors refuse to promote him because it would break the pattern.

4e had a Psionic Fighter that could move creatures around that was pretty crazy when used

Sayer is one of the authors for the Spheres of Power/Might system, for Pathfinder 1e. It is possible this could be based somewhat off of the Guardian sphere, which is one of the more tank focused martial spheres.

Always felt that once per encounter ability's from 4e were brought into 2e with focus points. Really think new martial focus abilities could be a fun and balanced way to bring a lot of those OPE abilities into 2e.

I think looking at the 4e Warlord and Fighter for inspiration is for these classes (and other 4e content for future classes) is a fantastic idea. Of course you already know that I am a huge 4e fan. Hopefully someday we can get a rendition of the 4e Avenger.

Whether this is the direction they go or not, these ideas are such giant elephants in the room that it was absolutely worth the video. Whatever they do go with is going to be compared and contrasted with the rest 4e take. As to the suspension of disbelief side of 4e with abilities like Come and Get It, I found the game was best enjoyed if you leaned into the question. The system gives you the mechanical output, the game for the players (including DM) is finding the creative in-world explanation of why it works.

It's been a LONG time since I've played 4e or looked at the class details, but as you were reading through the 4e Warlord abilities, I was reminded of the Envoy from the SF2e demo I played in at Owlcon. The "Get 'em" and "Get In There" abilities, along with their "Lead By Example" clauses came to mind. I wonder if those TYPES of abilities from SF2e will make their way back into PF2e? 🤔

You actually highlighted quite well the reasons why some of the 4ed powers felt a bit *off* to me. The balance of three values in design is a great way to put it; sometimes the 4ed characters' powers feel like something that should happen for story reasons, not because you used the power to make it happen. Like the fighter's power to bring enemies closer - that's something that feels weird when it's done through a power because that just shouldn't work on zombies, goblins, seasoned mercenaries, and demons the same way and without any magic used. I think that Pathfinder 2ed as it is now strikes a good balance between giving each class cool powers and having those powers be not overly game-y. Then again, part of the reason the gamey-ness of 4ed stood out at least to me was due to how all the classes were obviously built on the same skeleton; it's much more obfuscated in PF2ed (and 5ed as a matter of fact), with characters getting access to different systems at different pace (like rogue's feat growth, ranger's optional focus spells, so forth). I trust Paizo to strike a good balance and bring out the good that was in 4ed (which there was plenty of, don't get me wrong) without it feeling too artificial.

@PataHikari

Ай бұрын

"that's something that feels weird when it's done through a power because that just shouldn't work on zombies, goblins, seasoned mercenaries" Why not. Come and Get it is an attack vs Will. The fighter is doing *something* that tricks the enemy to come closer and is smacked for their troubles. Whatever that is is left to the player, but since it targets Will it's clearly meant to test if the target has the willpower to not fall for the trick. Declaring a power doesn't work for stupid and arbitrary reasons just means you're punishing a PC for daring to play their character. And of course, this is always for martial characters.

I haven't watched the whole video so far.But I can honestly say the warlord was one of my favorite classes from fourth edition and I loved the concept.Also, my biggest beef with fourth edition is after a while.Everybody just felt ineffective and encounter spells just became you use them always. There was no excitement or tactics. There was just pew pew pew. Also, if your character was known for doing something as you leveled up, there was very frequently no cooler option, so you either kept the lower level thing your character was known for or you became known for something else.

I had a very unique introduction to dnd I think because my dad showed us the game with basic dnd 1e but when I started doing myself my grandma bought me the 4e essentials books and starter set and I ran a 4e campaign until 5e came out. Now I mostly play AD&D 1e but 4e is my second favourite edition because it’s so different and is the only one that I think might better suit certain campaigns. I never had the online character builder back then but I downloaded it recently and have been having a blast building characters

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

Where did you get the online builder from?

the more I learn about 4e, the more I wish I had played it I by no means like all of it's mechanics, but as a game it appears way more polished than 5e for sure, and even pf2e in many aspects it certainly deserved better than what it got

I really hope the guardian is more creative, abilities like interposing yourself between an ally or enemy by shoving them or something, instead of "marking"

@Salsmachev

Ай бұрын

I'm honestly confused. In what way is it more creative to interpose yourself between an ally and an enemy as opposed to attacking an enemy so ferociously that they don't dare focus their attention on your allies? It seems like you just don't like the language, but PF2 relies heavily on gamist technical language already. How is "marking" worse than "striding", "strikes", and "conditions"?

@ponytail336

Ай бұрын

@@Salsmachev Well, for one, I believe a "ferocious" attack probably would be more fitting of a barbarian than something titled guardian. Still, a "mark" isn't something as visualized or physical as what I described. A stride is obvious in what you do, you stride. A strike is much the same. For interposing yourself, maybe you trade places with an ally and take their space while granting them cover. It's more physical, and more dynamic to the imagination, and I'd argue it's more Paizo. If I told someone about a "mark" they'd look at me confused... much like one of my players who doesn't read her abilities where I struggled to explain to her what the hell her class' main class feature was. What does the ranger do? Point? It's not really clear. You could come up with stuff, but everyone who did would come to different descriptions or flavors. Which I'm also fine with. Some video-gamey ness is something I'll tolerate plentifully if it leads to fun and engaging class design. But I really hope it's not as silly as the Ancestral barbarian in 5e where sometimes my pkayer would do 13 damage next to the fighter dealing hundreds, and boss was pretty much forced to attack the tiny barbarian for no reason other than the rest of the party becoming impossible to harm. So, I just hope for a trend towards flavorful ways to be a "tank" by being a nuisance in ways like limiting movement, making action taxes against enemies, and so on. Grapples, trips, difficult terrain, disarms and broken legs and not just "Neener neener I taunted you".

@woomod2445

Ай бұрын

@@ponytail336 It's a literal sports term of a literal sports action that is functionally real life tanking.

As one of the few D&D players who played 4e at release before judging the edition. I still think 4e is the best edition of D&D and I enjoy PF 2E evolving 4e concepts.

There are tons of modern indy RPGs that take inspiration from 4e. I think most of the complaints I have heard boiled down to interpreting crunchier mechanics as limiting instead of liberating. WRT Come and Get It: the 2e Roper had a bunch of abilities that allowed non-magical forced movement like this. WRT Indomitable Strike: Dazzling Display, in concert with other Intimidation feats, particularly Fearsome Brute and Terrified Retreat, come close, but yes, the game lacks for non-magical group Demoralization options.

When i heard the stuff that the 4e fighter can do i just thought of a 5e Fighter with with a modified Sentinel Feat with a free Compelled Duel spell (minus the save of course) and the Warlord feels like a 5e Paladin Battle Master Fighter hybrid. I'm more comfortable with DnD 5e so if Pathfinder 2e has similar stuff I'd definitely like to be better informed.

I think many modern games are borrowing from 4e. Daggerheart has a lot of 4e energy, specifically in how it handles powers. There were a lot of really good ideas in 4e, and I was bummed that 5e wasn't an evolution of it, but threw it's ideas out almost completely. This was a cool video. I think seeing some ideas from 4e adopted into PF2 is going to work out really well.

4e gets a bad rap, but it wasn't all bad.

As you said, a lot of people hated 4e for feeling too "videogame-y" due to most of its mechanics and terminology. But another thing that was compounding the issue was that the system was originally supposed to launch alongside a VTT software that was specifically designed for 4e, which would have made it the first big commercial VTT. However, due to an incident that I cannot go into detail on KZread, the VTT was canceled, but 4e still released. Due to the lack of VTT integration and 4e measuring everything in squares rather than feet, the only way to play the game "properly" was with a battlemat and miniatures. A lot of people saw this as WotC pushing toy and accessory sales with the new edition, so it got passed over by a lot of people. Anyone who has actually tried 4e is generally positive about the system.

Okay, i note you were actually misremembering the complaint about Resonance. It wasn't really so much about the limit overall asvthe ham-handed way it tried to effectively say "If you want to use the basic magical equipment of your class, IE be a functional chatacter, you can't use any fun consumables *or* healing." Which might have been fixable, but they started so tight playtesters wouldn't deal with the mechanic period.

13 th age has a comander class that make me fly, 13th age was a 4e with indi spirit i wonder if the rules lawer review after her 2nd editon apear on 7 may

I will note that the biggest issue (fro me and many others) with 4E was that every class had the same number of daily, encounter, and at-will abilities and a kind of samey-feel between many of them. Note: I am referencing only the very first publication of the core books, as that experience was negative enough that I didn't try again. We also only played for a level or two before we felt done.

@Zagaroth

Ай бұрын

I'm good with super-magic martial abilities, so long as they *feel* martial. Cutting a hole through space? yes. Magically vacuuming enemies toward you? not so much (maybe with a 2H chain weapong that can already grapple and trip)

Yeah i don't think about the level 7 fighter power. For example whirlwind attack is a level 14 feat. But maybe there could be a whirlwind attack + as a feat of level 16 or 18 that says something like whenever you use whirlwind attack you swing your weapon pulling a opponent closer to you to attack them.

@chad2997

Ай бұрын

I like this idea! Don't even think needs to be a new feat. Just bake it into regular whirlwind.

As a 3.5 player that gave 4e a fair shot before jumping ship to PF and really likes PF2, I really hope they *don't* go too far towards 4e. Namely, anything that manipulates opponents should be against some sort of defense - demoralize against will DC for instance. The only 'taunt' style ability in PF2 that I am aware of is the Swashbuckler's lvl 2 Antagonize feat, and I think it is a good model. Things like Mark and Own the Battlefield are *too* gamist. Not because they are magic-like in effect, but because they just *always* work no matter the foe. It's no different than Hammer/Flail crits needing a save.

God damnit lol now all I hear is Minsc and boo in my head from the original Baldurs gate thanks to you lol "butt kicking for goodness!"

I started playing D&D in 4th edition and I quite liked it, kind of like how I started playing the dark souls series on number two, it wasn't until I started playing something else that I realized what I was playing wasn't very good. Admittedly I've never been a huge fan of Pathfinder second edition but once I discovered 3.5 it then Pathfinder first edition I played that for years until 5th came out

4e's Fighter's marking ability reminds me of Path of War (3rd party, Alternative Combat System for PF1e.)'s Warder. Warders starting at Lv2 have Armiger's Mark. If the Warder deals any damage above 0 to a target, they can mark the target with the ability (limited to your level plus INT). A marked target gets a -4 to attack rolls NOT targeting the Warder that marked them; it doesn't stack with multiple Warders but like, if 2 Warders mark the same target, it effectively makes the target get a -4 no matter who they target. Marked targets also get an Arcane Spell Failure of 10% + 1% per 2 levels of Warder. At 9th level, you can instead spend 2 Armiger's Marks to spread the marking effect to every opponent within 30ft of you, warranting a Will Save (DC 10+Half your Warder Levels, minimum 1+INT) to resist getting marked. The idea/flavor with Armiger's Mark is you taunting your opponent and goading them to a challenge. It's my favorite PF1e 3rd party class and especially its archetypes. I like the defensive nature of the class, also being a d12 class is amazing. One of the Archetypes for Warder is the Hawkguard, basically become a tanky archer/gunslinger (setting-dependent.). At Tier 2 and onwards, a Warder gets what I like to call "Infinite Counter Works." You basically extend the effect of a Counter/Immediate Action Martial Maneuver to an entire round (typically Counters are spent and that's it this allows a Warder to use a Martial Maneuver to counter until their next actual round.).

I do like Temp HP as healing for the Martial Archetype, though another thing I wish they'd do is steal the Vitality Point/Wound Point mechanic from the older Star Wars RPG editions.

@PataHikari

Ай бұрын

No. Martial support should be able to heal real HP like real support.

Ranger's Hunt Prey ability is a mark.

It's kind of funny in a way that Pathfinder 1E was a reaction to D&D alienating a lot of players with 4E, and now 2E borrowing from 4E. Obviously there's a lot of nuance here. PF2E isn't just a copy of 4E, and not all of 4E's ideas were bad at the core just because the edition as a whole didn't do well. But still kind of ironic in a way.

Are you excited for the new addition of Pathfinder that's come out? I haven't heard you mention it yet. Yes, it is absolutely a new addition of Pathfinder.

Nice

Luckily, I was not looking at D&D stuff online in the 4e era. We, quite ignorantly, had a great time with it.

I think 4e and PF2e are much easier to understand if you look at them as a newer subgenre of TTRPGs: Tactics TTRPGs. Combat focused and with somewhat routine but mechanically sound combat mechanics that really require grids and miniatures to get the most out of them. It's on a different axis from say, OSR styled games, like classic DND, Shadowdark, DCC, or storytelling RPGs like Vampire.

The PF2E ranger ability "prey" seems like an example of marking to me.

@Traumatree

Ай бұрын

"Illusion of choice" would be more appropriate imo.

I feel that there's a very real risk the guardian will make the champion feel obsolete since many of the reasons a player is drawn to the champion did not really manifest the way it might in the upcoming guardian.

I'm so excited for the Commander. How am I gonna make it a whole year...

So on your mention of martials not getting encounter powers I dont understand why ?, If they change Focus Spells, to Focus Abilities, (and then just have the spellcasters versions be spells) then you can have other classes take them. We have something like this already with the magus whose starting focus spells are all just martial action compression, things like Strike an Enemy, Raise a Shield, Recharge your spell strike for 1 actions and a focus point. You could give fighters some extra cool abilities and then gate them with focus points.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

I say precisely that at the end, they might consider giving martials Focus Point "spells"

Sooo hyped for a commander class! Not that there is anything wrong with making non-magical tactical mastermind from a hobgoblin gator stuffed with marshal, overwatch, and bellflower tiller. It's satisfying to see that abomination of a build work, but it can be bit clunky, come online too late and can be borderline impossible without at least FA.

I wouldn’t mind a new martial class with interesting Marshall focus activities (it’s a martial Marshall, Marsha!) but I am concerned about the risk of overtaking the Champion or Ranger in their areas of expertise.

I loved 4E.

What if the commander has a mechanic that decreases penalties? Maybe cutting your MAP, making it plausible for an ally to attack with their third action while not granting a bonus to their first Strike?

Also just to say that high level PF2e right now doesn't begin to scratch the surface of Epic 4e. Thief of Legend in 4e can palm and steal a full size military battleship, and gets to outright decide who is allowed to perceive their presence or not. You get to choose if and when you are detectable lol.

@1986Hikaru

Ай бұрын

"Why you DON'T DIE!?" "Adamantine Soul, son!"

I still don't like 4e, but unlike my friends I defended it until we played it. I started playing at the tail end of 2e (I was quite young), and when I heard 3e was coming out I didn't like it because it was different from what I knew. After playing 3rd I found it was so much more fun and with the rules being more clear and nailed down (less up to interpretation). So when I heard about 4th I tried to stop myself from disliking for being new and different. I bought the first 3 book and a few after that. I ran a few games and I really really tried. No matter how hard I tried I could get myself to like it. It may not have helped that I was still playing PF1 (and bought way more books for it). What I absolutely hated of 4th was EVERYTHING was as defense. This means one of my players who is also playing casters couldn't play. He played casters because his rolls were unnaturally bad. We both rolled 100d20 (20d20 at a time since that's all that I had) and he averaged 8.5 while I was able to average 12.5. We have tried this a few times since and he will regularly roll 9 or under. When 5e came out and I got my hands on the books I noticed that a lot of 4e elements were hidden in there. Later when PF2 came out I compared them both and noticed it felt like both parties asked the same question and went about it different way. They asked "how do you fix the problems of 4th?" After a decade away from 4th and rereading it I discovered it wasn't AS bad as people made it out to be, but it felt like it had many half-baked ideas that just weren't ready. Some times it was as simple as a terrible presentation and other times it was simply dumb. Good idea that wasn't quite there is skill challenges. It has shown up again in both systems, but each one does it slightly different. While one of the DUMBEST was tying some really cool things to crits in a system that you can only crit on a 20. PF2 still has that crit system, but gives you many more ways to make crits happen. So in PF2's case you get use the abilities that are less common but much more cool (crit specializations). My bad rolling friend was able to go 5 sessions without a single crit in 4e meaning those "crit happens" abilities in 4e never occurred for him. Yet for PF2 because he didn't need to roll he was able to get a great moment (a monster I was controlling crit failed against the blind spell). On a mostly unrelated note, I HATE monks. They just don't feel like they belong by the way their presented, but my favorite class from 4e was ironically the monk. The 4e monk has "full-discipline" abilities which are basically 1,2, or 3 action abilities of PF2. I liked it so much that I bought the player's handbook 3 and after reading that book I can confidently say that if that book was what we got for 4e then it would have been much more successful.

@Traumatree

Ай бұрын

4e is made so it could have been code for a computer game. I come from 1st ED and BECMI background, and 3.x was the best edition to ever exist (with PF1 of course). We were crazy when 4th came out and we were so hyped about it... what a crash it was for my group. We felt so burned out and cheated from 4e that we stopped playing for almost a decade until PF2 came out - which we fell for again. Some of us (same group btw) enjoy it, but I don't. People that like 4e, PF2, 5E, etc. haven't really played the game like it was intended to and are more into theatrics then actual fantasy, magic and monsters.

@peterheywood2338

Ай бұрын

​@@TraumatreeMany of the people I know who are into 4e had their start in TSR D&D and generally count 4e and BECMI as their two favourite editions of D&D. I don't think it's a matter of finding some "one true way" of playing the game.

@tiornys

Ай бұрын

@@peterheywood2338 Yep. I started with red box and AD&D and have played every edition of D&D. 4E is my favorite D&D edition and PF2E is my favorite d20 system.

It seems like 4e used a lot of the abilities from the 3.5e tome of battle: book of nine swords which gave a good spike to martial power in 3.5e and more flavor

@chad2997

Ай бұрын

That book was ridiculous! And I mean that in a good way. I'm definitely on the gamist side of things and I love fun and badass over the top abilities.

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

Tome of Battle is probably one of the best and greatest books of 3.X. For trying something new they really did a banger with that one. I'm just sad that it was so late in the line that it didn't get as much attention.

@chad2997

Ай бұрын

Before 3e ended for good, they kind of just went balls to the wall. Anyone remember the Ultimate Equipment book that came out in the later years of the game? The freakin' Belt of Battle let you take a whole extra turn immediately after your turn ended. And it was only 12k! Haha! That should have been an epic level item, but nope, only 12k at your local shop.

I honestly like martial classes having super hero like feats and actions like this. I definitely don't see that as stepping on caster's toes, especially since I like magus lol

I'd say that while the extremely granular combat and often explicitly "gamist" terminology makes the game borrow a lot of great traits from 4e- which I enjoyed- at least in my experience the language is more naturalistic and lends itself better to imagining a world outside of the grid battlemap. 4e is much more corralled. As an example, I grabbed my 4e PHB and turned to Ranger, a class which is often defined by exploration abilities and features which engage with a natural world. Just like every other class the section is dominated by abilities with almost exclusively combat utility. This doesn't necessarily condemn the system to simply being marvel heroes beating each other up; I've played 4e games where there was plenty of exploration, dungeon crawling, and downtime. However, the system tells you what it is about pretty clearly, and deviating from that will take some work. The section in the PHB on exploration is like a combined 6 paragraphs, with individual systems getting very little attention compared to combat. You also really gotta squint to find to find ways to interact with a living world with your powers- this is a book full of ways to fucking kill bugbears and dragons into the sun. And that is a good thing! 4e has an identity! In the game triangle you referenced, 4e is definitely cranked way further towards "gamist" than PF2e. In my experience PF2e lends itself great towards simulationist play with very few adjustments. I'm in the middle of running a low-level survival hexcrawl where players track rations and ammo, use their spells for problem solving, and think with their heads as much as their character sheets. The game has a wonderfully modular feel that I didn't get from playing 4e. 5e borrows heavily from 4e as well- Crawford worked on 4e before he began recreationally tweeting goofy rulings. Although they tend to try to file off the serial numbers, people enjoy things that work in the same way that 4e systems worked. The kids want powers! A common 5e complaint is that the game leaves too much up to DM fiat- rather than having fruitful voids, the game has frustrating gaps. 4e may have been more rigid, but play was always buttery smooth. 4e has been a dirty word for a long time, and its nice to see it get its flowers as more people seem willing to just admit that it was pretty good.

The Matt Coleville effect too?

I want to try running 4e for my group but idk where to get the source books now

@Salsmachev

Ай бұрын

If you don't mind digital stuff, you can probably find a lot of materials online. Physical books might be harder to get.

I think that the reason Battle Medicine can be a once per day thing is because it's not a class feature.

I figured Come and Get it would be on the example list. It was super controversial as a 'mind control' ability. It is very cinematic and gamist, but this REALLY rankled simulationist gamers. Remember though, opportunity attacks are not provoked by forced movement in 4e. You may get opportunity attacks when they move away after, but come and get it does not grant any for the fighter or their allies.

@TheRulesLawyerRPG

Ай бұрын

Did I misspeak? I was referring to the fact that once they're drawn to you they provoke OAs if they walk away

@JD-wu5pf

Ай бұрын

Nobody cares how simulationist gamers feel because they're rankled by damn near everything. "What do you MEAN I don't have to track my character's ammunition and weapon durability and individual spell components and whether or not they have to poo!? Why even HAVE rules!?"

imho hope so and be smart for paizo to do it cause right now hardcore dnd ppl are not looking into dnd 4e, see the big differences from 5e to 4e and starting to like 4e rules. if increase enough then 3rd party/official content maybe supported for it, if paizo wants to be ahead of the curve start implementing more of the good things of 4e into pf2e before wotc considers it and invest again itno a dnd 4.5 or rebirth edition. if maintain head of curve then this will make wotc panic and urge them to commit to next edition, which will cost them heavily, which is good to mess with their company.

I tell people to think of Tanis from Dragon Lance book as a warlord.

It took me a while of thinking, but I realize a design standard that separates 4e from 2e in a way that I really like in 2e, but I hate in 4e. Some of abilities you showed from the Fighter in 4e *force* the monster to do something, in a way that can dampen verisimilitude because there are no exceptions: it's hard-coded. However, it seems that in 2e, the named, unique actions you gain as a player only dictate what you can do, not how enemies have to respond or act. Which frees up the GM to make the enemies respond as would be appropriate. For instance, that's why I like the Guardian's design for Taunt (at least at level 1): It doesn't create this weird fiction where level 1 non-magical characters are capable of issuing verbal commands to mindless undead (despite everything else), instead its power comes from the bonus/penalty imposed, meaning that the player still gets rewarded for Taunting regardless of how the GM plays the monsters in response ("The zombie is drawn to your shout and approaches you." or "The zombie mindlessly chases its original target, but takes the penalty from your distracting voice.") Even debuffs like Grabbed, Frightened, etc are all designed to make sense within the system first, and be balanced second. So players have the ability to "force" the monsters to do/not do certain things in a way that still makes sense in the fiction. tl;dr To me, that's why/how 4e breaks Verisimilitude in a way that I really don't like as a GM: it tells the GM how to play their monsters, which dampens the variety between them. In 2e, the players get abilities that *only* affect themselves, which leaves the GM free to respond however those monsters would, which will vary by monster. tl;dr tl;dr If Demoralize, Feint, Bon Mot, and more don't work on mindless creatures, then why the *hell* does Taunt, Paizo?!

Now shift to the combat and ignoring of other aspects became more clear... Betrayal!

I don't even play ttrpgs yet, but Gorum dying doesn't surprise me considering he doesn't appear in Starfinder either.

If pf1 is 3.5 and pf2 is 4e, maybe in a few years paizo decides simplify their system with a pf3 = 5e.

LOADS AND LOADS of player types -itty bitty world build.

I really hope that they don't make the new classes super mechanically complicated like the Oracle, or give them a mandatory religious influence like the Champion. :3

If DnD3e inspired PF1e, and DnD4e inspired PF2e, PF3e shall be based on DnD5e.

Once again, this just goes to show that 5e's Fighter is just 3.5's fighter with some 4e system mechanics bolted onto it.

Action points = Hero points

Watching this while Paizo's site is down for maintenance (right in the middle of me making a discussion post for the first game I'm running). I used to play tanks in MMOs and so the guardian is really intriguing to me, especially after seeing so many TTRPGs struggle with taunt mechanics (particularly 5e). I'm also in a game with an exemplar which will be going at least until the final version of the class is published. I played enough 4e (more than a year of weekly sessions) to grow to dislike it and actually understand why; too gamist for my taste, too much emphasis on electronic resources for offline games. PF2R fixes all the problems I have with 4e. That said, I've been wanting taunt mechanics and a warlord in PF2 (... and, amusingly, just did some worldbuilding literally last night about why there are no dragonborn in my PF2R setting based on their absence from the official list of ancestries), so this is altogether very intriguing. Definitely going to approach this with an open mind.

Until the last year or so, I've continued to run multi-year, high level campaigns in 4E, and my groups have had an absolute blast with it. However, this year I've switched a group to PF2E because of the similarities to 4E and the promise that it will be an updating and "living" system with plentiful new options and ground to tread. Their APs, in terms of writing, world building and lore, are decidedly worse than most of PF1E's (IMHO), but the system itself seems solid so far.

Personally, I found that 4e was a good game, just not good at being D&D; I think it might have seen a lot more success if it had been tied to a different IP.

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

Yup, it's was actually great as a boardgame. In fact the dnd broadgames around that time are all modified slimed down 4e characters.

@PataHikari

Ай бұрын

D&D is a game about a group of people going on an adventure and getting into fights. 4e is absolutely the best version of D&D at doing that.

@Ciran87

Ай бұрын

@@PataHikari it is that, except when it's not. I've been in a few games where we only had a fight maybe once every four sessions; the rest was roleplay, or overcoming puzzles, or bypassing traps and hazards; and 4e can do that, but it's not really designed to focus on any of those, especially when spell choice is restricted to primarily damaging spells. Plus, class choice was a lot more restrictive; in 4E, there was no real way to play a necromancer, which is one of my favourite things to play. Last 5e game I played, I specifically went out of my way to make sure my wizard did not choose a single spell that did direct HP damage.

@PataHikari

Ай бұрын

@@Ciran87 "especially when spell choice is restricted to primarily damaging spells" Except for the entire section of the rules on noncombat rituals.

@Ciran87

Ай бұрын

@@PataHikari yes, rituals, which are too long to cast in combat, or even in a non-combat situation which has enough pressure to be measured in rounds.

I admit, these are likely two classes I won't be allowing in games I run. While I found 4e to be the most fun I've ever had outside of PF2e in running a game (the monster creation was SO easy), I had some moments in that system that ultimately made me quit. The first was martials forgetting abilities to slot in higher abilities later on (I forgot how to cleave.. But now I can leap from the heavens and destroy a small army). And the other, sadly, was due to the fighters ability to strike a foe and stop them from moving. I had a moment where a dragon three sizes bigger than the party had to stop because the fighter hit it with a reaction. That, sadly took me right out of the game. I do, however, commend Paizo for trying new things. I don't like the Warlord. I didn't like them in 4e either. I don't like the idea of a commander yelling some healing into someone, or someone else controlling actions of the group outside of magic. It's just a personal thing of mine. Yelling "Hey, stab that orc now" to give extra attacks to someone just strikes me as strange. But you do make a good argument that some abilities, like Battle medicine can be a bit gamist. I do agree. I can explain it away better than someone slapping a dragon unarmed with the palm of their hand and making it stop at 3rd level, though ;) I'm very interested. I'll give feedback. Happy to see that the boundaries are being stretched too. I'm all for MORE options, even if they may not be ones I use. Folks seem to love Warlords, so more power to them :)

I hope they don't add too much of this to PF2E. What we disliked about D&D 4E was not the added tactics or complexity but that all those extra options turned combat into a slog. These mechanics work well in a video game where computers process all the actions instantly. They do not work in a Tabletop RPG where it takes time to make each calculation and movement on the map manually. The game played more like a wargame than an RPG. A four hour session was mostly eaten up by a long war-game combat with no storytelling progression. In a dungeon exploration, characters might explore 2-3 rooms in four hours because the combats take up so much time.

4e is underrated

@ashenlion805

Ай бұрын

It's not. While there are definitely gems in its design, there's just as much if not more garbage.

@JD-wu5pf

Ай бұрын

It's probably the best edition of DnD that has been released. Well balanced. Engaging combat. Fun abilities for everyone. 3.5 and Pathfinder are Path of Exile. I would never say Path of Exile is a bad game, but you would also never catch my ass making spreadsheets to calculate which of the 400 skills I should take to optimize my build. I play TTRPGs to have fun during the game session, not during character creation. And 4e is fun as hell to play.

@Traumatree

Ай бұрын

@@JD-wu5pf 4e engaging combat with fun abilities? Did we play the same 4e ? There was nothing engaging in combat after 3 rounds since you were out of abilities and had to use your "standard" abilities for the rest of the encounter.

@JD-wu5pf

Ай бұрын

@@Traumatree Yeah, and your standard abilities are just baseline more exciting than "I run up and swing my sword." Most at-will powers did something besides damage. So, even if your combat lasted long enough for you to use up all of your encounter powers, you could still do interesting things.

@DarkDragon2344

Ай бұрын

​@@TraumatreeYou're not entirely wrong. While 4e is leagues ahead of other editions and similar games as its at-will options are more engaging and it having shit to do that tapers out is better than not, this is why I really feel like 4e takes off around level 9+. By that point you hit a critical mass of abilities that from then on you never really run out of shit to do before combat ends. That's when 4e is really fun for me. 22 levels isn't bad, but I'd like the first 8 to grease their wheels a little more.