haha I thought it was a coincidence and then I thought, wait, did he do it on purpose?? LOL yep he did!!! I love 4e by the way, great video. Gonna use this in my 5e game for sure thanks
Something I left out, because I felt it would derail the video a little.. One common criticism of 4E is that it "discouraged roleplaying." Now, certainly we had LOTS of roleplaying in my 4E game. But there is a problem here and it's down to 4E's Powers. If you give you players a list of cool things to do in combat...they are going to want to do them. This may seem obvious, or non-controversial, but what it meant was players got impatient with problems that couldn't be solved with their powers. By making combat super-cool (more fun than any other edition in my opinion) players were eager to get to combat, and tended to eschew roleplaying. Is that a criticism of 4e? Yeah, I think so. Is that the same as "discouraging roleplaying?" Mm...not in the sense I think people meant, although maybe the end is the same.
Honestly my group played 4e and we *never* experienced this. We'd probably only have one combat every _two_ play sessions. 4e has relatively thin rules for roleplaying, but in our opinion this is a massive _advantage_. It means you can free form it much more. The DM is free to adjudicate however they want, without there being a feeling that they're ignoring the rules for how things are "supposed" to work.
Hello Matthew, I got to say your videos got me into starting to DM. My new group is getting into the hoard of the Dragon Queen (been modifying it based on feedback from Hack and slash and other dms) - it would be nice if you had a video for high number of players or side quests how to do it right? Been watching your videos a lot and Mercers as well, thank you for your content by the way :) !
This, in my opinion, is such a bunk argument. While I didn't love all of 4e, I use a lot of it in my 5e game, and at no point do I think you can say a D&D edition discourages Roleplaying more than any other.
My group and I found the battle grid/powers type play of 5E actually increased the Role Playing in our games. Basically if a map went down, and a fight started it went into combat time. Every when else was Role Play time. It created an interesting dichotomy that really added to the game. Absolutely fantastic Video, Mike - the best one you've done so far. 4E got a lot of flack, and one of the reasons I think it did was that it wasn't very good at explaining how it worked/how it was meant to work to it's target audience. A few videos like this at the time of release would have made a lot of difference.
Incorporating 4e rules on bad guys would certainly throw off those players that have basically memorized the Monster Manual at this point... Super interesting and useful!
I think this was behind some of the 4e hate, actually. The folks who used their memorization skills to "win" at the table did not react well to the new monster RAW, or to the ease with which DMs could rebuild/customize monsters.
Fortunately, I don't have problems like that. My players don't care to read up on any monsters, spells. etc. They like to learn the world as they go. It's great.
I was running a kobold one shot and wanted to give my players plenty of dragon themed items. I ended up giving them red dragon saliva that's basically napalm, and now all the red dragons in my world are that much deadlier.
3e Dragons actually had feats "Clinging Breath" and "Lingering Breath", which did exactly that. It was possible to make it last for HOURS (though then it couldn't breathe for said hours). It was glorious.
I've modified the minion rule on bigger mobs of creatures like orcs and ogres for tier 2 and 3 characters where the enemies require 2-3 hits to take down. If the PC's expend a smite, hunter's mark, another damaging resource, or get a crit, then they count that hit as 2 or 3 hits. This gives larger, moderately difficult groups of enemies that aren't total push over minion mobs to still be dangerous without a ton of bookkeeping
I have also done this. It's a great way to have a beefier minion without a ton of book keeping. Another way to pull this off is to do it by tens. If you give the minions 3 hits then every 10 points of dmg does 1 hit. So if someone gets off a big hit like 32 points then it counts for 3 hits.
That still requires a lot of bookkeeping. I think it makes sense to just have more minions, but I'd have their loyalty be weak, so they flee after being hit once. But of course some villains could also have one or two (full-hit-point, full-loyalty) henchmen.
@@Tysto my memory is good enough to not have to worry about bookkeeping those, but more minions are minions dealing double damage on regular attacks would work good, too
4e made it so, SO INCREDIBLY EASY for DMs to create an adventure full of challenges, traps, and combat encounters that were challenging and interesting for Players.
@TylerChamb I can only speak for myself, but my players all played melee combat characters, and they were all very different, both from an RP standpoint and a strategic standpoint. Mechanically, a Warlord, a Swordmage, a Ranger, and a Monk are all VERY different. I don't understand 4e-bashing. 😕
I think that "Martial" powers (i.e. powers used by fighters, rogues, warlords and rangers) were called "maneuvers", which "Divine" powers were called "prayers," and "Arcane" powers were called "Spells". That concept was a lot less objectionable when you use that language.
Kruglord I never saw the big deal in the first place. It is a game after all, these are just the mechanics of the system it doesn’t mean people can’t still roleplay.
Personally, I really think 4e's biggest blunder was the abandonment of natural language when it came to abilities, as well as the templatization of everything. Not saying it doesn't have other faults, but the reason everyone called them "powers" was because they were formatted the same and in a way that was mostly focused on the mechanical effect. Personally I don't mind that, but I think the game would have been a lot more successful if it didn't do that, and maybe changed the way stuff recharged so spells were a bit more distinct from martial stuff (not even a big change, I think, but just enough that it wasn't exactly the same).
@@GroundThing: You might be right, but then again that templatization was very much intentional. Natural language might be more "evocative", but it can also sometimes muddle the rules in semantic arguments to parse the fluff from the crunch, whereas in 4e what an ability does is always spelled out exactly. And it's not like 4e abandoned fluff entirely, every power still had a short in world bit of descriptive lore right at the top in italics. For the martial class in particular though I wonder if that standardized formatting was still very much what made fighter and the like feel off to old-school players. I wonder if perhaps it would have been less objectionable to them if instead of... Strength vs AC, 2[w] + strength damage and knock the target prone. ...martial powers were formatted as... Make an attack with melee weapon, if the attack hits deal an extra die of damage and knock the target prone. ...as for recharge mechanics. I'm not sure if there needed to be any difference between "spells" and martial powers, but maybe just instead of being called encounter powers and daily powers, they were instead called powers that recharge after a short rest and powers that recharge after a long rest. Same meaning, but more perhaps just a little less "gamey".
There's a 5e homebrew system called "Giffyglyph's Monster Maker" that adapts 4e's monster roles and traits into a 5e context, allowing you to quickly create monsters with different roles in combat. It's got a PDF that explains the thought process and an online web applet. I used it in my last session pretty successfully, so if you're missing that from 5e you should check it out.
Chuck Wagon I came back to this video specifically to look and see if someone had done this because I was thinking of doing it, because 4e monster classes were so perfect. Good to know someone already got there.
@@chuckwagon3718 That's a really great resource! Those "Average damage/level" tables in the 4e DMs guide are one of the most useful things I've seen in the D&D book.
Just started playing 4E last month and let me tell you, we are OBSESSED. We've been playing 5e for 4 years and now we all want to switch to 4e and are starting to do just that =) Thanks for the ideas for using it in 5e, but I think we're just going to go full 4e now. It's been a blast as a DM too. It's a breath of fresh air.
Man I tell you the action economy in 5e is real. Our party of four low-level characters tangled with a group of four dual wielding bandits and we were getting cut to absolute ribbons BEFORE the druid dropped back to heal then it only got WORSE. Once his contribution dropped to Spare the Dying we ended up having to sue for peace & throw our money at them. Embarrassing.
I've recently gotten back into D&D and to change things up a bit I've decided to try my hand at DMing for a group of my forever DMs. I was turned onto your videos by a local discord group for D&D players in my city, very cool BTW. Your videos have been an absolute gem of a resource. I'm watching them in order of the Running the Game series and it is FANTASTIC. I've already learned so many new ways the present the world to my no longer forever DMs. I've also tried many of the tools that you've recommended. I've keep to the more budget friendly options and let me just say that it too has really upped my game sessions. I have access to online resources that I never thought of looking online for... I don't know why since we're in the modern age., but hey, I'm doing it now. Ultimately I just wanted to say thank you for putting these together. I almost never leave comments but I wanted to take a moment to give you a heartfelt thank you.
As I sit here in Calais Maine my biggest reaction to that exotic land comment was "Ive never heard us called Maine-Landers before, usually its Maniacs."
Matt, you inspired me with this to go get the 4e monster manuals and player guides to spice up my combats and I am loving all the inspiration I am getting, especially with all the variant monsters that the 4e book gives you and the easy to make example encounters. Being able to look into all of this and use it in 5e is an amazing idea. On another note, I'm making my BBEG (a dracolich who has survived multiple world-rendering disasters) able to cast spells from previous editions of the game, representing his knowledge of the arcane and age.
Warlords are part of what I think makes 4e so much fun for me. The 'Role System' combined with the Power Sources allowed you to have whole parties where no one cast any spells. Or where everyone was a spellcaster. Or where everyone was divinely empowered. I love the idea of a whole party being built around a theme like that.
@@TheWackojacko950 Doing a watered down Warlord ability 3/Short rest and being a full fighter all the time is not a Warlord. Having Eldritch Knights does not mean we don't need Wizards.
One of the ways I look at self-healing and hit points is like this: damage done during a battle is both physical and psychological (that's why misses can still do damage - you're narrowly missed by an angry dragon and can't help but think about what would've happened to you if it had gotten its pearly whites around your neck). When you take a break to spend a healing surge, you're recovering the psychological damage done to you (that's why it was a max of 1/4 your HP and could only be used once). Essentially, you spent the round regaining your courage and mental stability so you could surge back into the battle. It also explains why miss damage never affects a minion and it's influenced why I don't let miss damage deal the killing blow... y'know, aside from a miss-damage death being very undramatic. Disclaimer: I play/run 4e, have since I started playing D&D back in 2010
I dunno, hit points being both a measure of how long you can evade serious physical injury, and a measure of how long you can shrug off stress sounds... a bit forced. Because lots of stuff that causes stress but doesn't affect HP.
So I'd ignored 4e because I listened to my friends who fell into the category you mentioned of 'dumping on 4e as a badge of honor', but your explanation has me wanting to go back and borrow from the ruleset as well! I think I can make lower level monsters, or combat, more interesting and dynamic this way! Thanks so much!
@@SM-nz9ff nope, people dumped 4e bc they just bought new 3.5e stuff the year before and didn't want to lose all the stuff they just bought. Some people don't like the war gaming aspect of dnd but want to have at least some rules, so 5e is perfect from them. 4e is perfect for people who loves tabletop war games but still want to tell a story.
Watching this video, I realized just how much PF2E really is just a modern take on 4th edition. Pretty cool hearing about all the design goals from older editions and how much decision's like vocabulary shifted the player's perception of it.
Unsure how I only just now stumbled on this video a mere 6 years after you published it... But anyway, damn if I don't miss 4e. I've played/GMed every edition of D&D and 4e is BY FAR my favorite, so honestly this video hit me in the brains and the feels :) It had its flaws for sure, but so much of it just clicked for me. It felt like a breeze to run. So much I could ramble on about with regards to 4e, but I'll cut myself off and just say this was a great video!
@@MagiofAsuraThe thing I thought made it easier to run was the crunchiest, mathiest part of the game - fighting monsters - was tactically interesting but easy to do because they all had their powers listed in plain language using a coherent system. If it was an demonic cultist you didn't have to refer to a spell list, it would show the 2 or 3 weird powers they could do, what defense those powers targeted, and what effects they had. And if the party wanted to fight something that would usually only fight alone, or something that would fight as very many in a group, there would be stat blocks ready to use to make it more resilient and interesting (alone) or super streamlined (many). I don't think I ever had to leave a stat block to look up a spell or chart, maybe sometimes a condition definition. Mechanically, the rest was pretty easy on the DM, with a lot of crunchy options left for players to figure out for themselves. It was a DM's dream.
As what feels like one of the last surviving 4E DMs, all I can say is: Steal from us! Powers, creatures, mechanics- hell, there's an *entire free book* online covering everything you could care about regarding chromatic dragons, that I recommend for any edition. Edit: Oh, also, fair warning that the bard class is in the Player's Handbook 2, not the base game. Same with the barbarian and druid, and the monk is in the Player's Handbook 3.
One thing that I think got people confused about the idea of healing surges and a martial character like the Warlord being able to heal is the idea of hit points being meat points. Hit points have always (at least I think always, definitely in the last couple of editions, correct me if I'm wrong) been stated as a COMBINATION of both how many wounds you can sustain and your will to fight on, your physical endurance, your grit and determination to succeed. It's in the name - hit points is how many hits you can take, which means just being able to endure pain and fatigue as well as how much blood you have left and how many of your bones aren't broken yet. It's why the Bloodied mechanic in 4E was a thing - you weren't heavily bleeding until you hit half health. So when you take a healing surge, you're focusing your willpower to keep moving, and when a Warlord heals you he's not making your flesh reknit, he's slapping you in the face and telling you to quit being a pussy, suck it up and get back out there. (Which is awesome, by the way.) But because of how a lot of DMs, and this is a trap I've fallen into as well, love describing every attack as cutting the enemy's flesh and spilling blood and guts everywhere, HP has always seemed like it's just how many swords in the gut you can take. It's how many swords you can take glancing blows from that leave you bruised and bloodied and wear down your armour until you just collapse, or until one manages to get you in the gut if they score a crit.
Wait, but then why is it tied so closely to constitution and class, because of an intelligent mage or any other class really has enough willpower based on this idea as long as he decided he would refuse to die he’d live. Either the hit should actually physically be a killing blow to your character because his body can’t take anymore or it shouldn’t kill him unless he wants to die and decidedly lays down and goes to sleep.
I think a Baldur's Gate manual explained hit points as being, in paraphrase, "the character's ability to avoid successful strikes becoming lethal ones." The idea was that a 6th level fighter with 1 hit point was not significantly more hurt than when he had 100 hit points, but he's about to lose focus, or his strength to hold his shield is going to give, at which point a hit could become fatal. Meaning, a 100-hit-point fighter is not able to survive a blow to the head any more than the 1-hit-point fighter is - he's just not being hit in the head, even on crits.
@@feartheghus Because constitution is physical hardiness and stamina: the latter being especially important. You're more likely to hold on through the pain and fatigue if you're fit. Second: game balance, but also because your typical wizard has a *lot* less practice avoiding fatal blows than your typical fighter.
D&D is just a tabletop minis wargame with lots of hero models. Hit points are just the unit hit count abstraction applied to a single model. Therefore they don't really mean anything, or rather, they mean exactly whatever you like, as long as you lose them when you get "hit".
This is why I like the approach in Lord of the Rings Online, where instead of health or hit points your "stay standing" stat is morale. And when your morale is drained to zero, an anonymous person or group rescues you and lets you revive in the nearest safe point. - This also lets them use an effect called dread to reduce your maximum morale when faced by strong minions of Sauron, up to and including full defeat.
@Mathew Colville Here it is, 12/29/21, 5 years to the day since you posted this video. I have now watched this all the way through 3 times over the past few years and is probably one of the most useful 5e videos I have ever watched. I threw out the MM years ago and all my monsters are unique or at least tweaked. I have been DM'ing for almost 40 years, and running the same custom campaign setting (including my own pantheon) for the better part of 30 years. I just wanted to let you know that even a DM as experienced as myself still finds exponential value from videos like this. Thank You once again. Luck in battle.
It’s so obvious that you’re in this for the love of the game. I love how genuine this channel is. I’ll never again here a UA-camr go out of the way to have someone stop watching a video,even in the persons best interest.
"There were many people out there for whom fourth edition became a kind of shibboleth. Being critical of it in a toxic way became a badge of honor among a certain kind of D&D geek." QFT. And thank you for saying it. Game on!
Man, you just changed my complete view of 4th edition. I will definitely use the powers on my 5th edition game and look for a 4th edition game to join. Thank you very much for the videos.
*PENG!* And suddenly, I am a 5th Edition Dungeon Master! A bearded guy from the Internet said so. I'm gonna put that in my next resumé as a key qualification. (if I ever need one)
Alternative to minions having 1HP: Minions require a certain number of hits to die rather than damage, so a different sort of hit point. Of course you don't tell the players this and let them roll their awesome damage and enjoy the big numbers. Minion: 1 hit to kill Veteran Minion: 2 hits to kill, after first hit declare it bloodied Champion Minion: 3 hits to kill, after first hit declare it bloodied, after second hit declare it near death, third hit dies Veteran Champion: 4 hits, and so on, however far you want to take it. With the bloodied or near death conditions you could also give it reactions like explained in the video.
I actually caught myself doing this with about twenty zombies during a siege battle. If someone hit them, I put a marker on them, unless the attacker did the full HP in one swing. Otherwise they were "injured" and any hit past that would outright kill the zombie.
what about the breaching armour? I always found that cool teleport 15-30 feet as a bonus action. or the ignore pain barbarian utility power I gain all the damage I took as temp hp (I still take all that damage to my hp though)
I agree with the idea that people want their fighters to be gritty, realistic nobodies where as wizards get to be magical space time benders. Fighters deserve cool reality bending feats too, let them tackle dragons out of the sky, let them cut fireballs in half with their sword, let them continue standing after being hailed with arrows.
A cool idea is to make the fighter, at high level, basically be a super hero. Wizards bend time, command the elements, all that stuff. Fighters swat arrows from the air, hurl their shield (Captain America style) and other cool physical feats. That would make them more interesting without diminishing what other classes could do. Actually wouldn't be too hard to house rule into 5e, give them the ability like you would give them a magic item.
Reverend .Rover Athletics checks and magic items already sorta accomplish this, and so my fighter players don't complain. I usually make my caster-focused magic items relatively simple, and make the martial-focused items a but more complicated. Like, a magic dagger that works as a +1 focus or +2 when casting spells which deal posion damage V.S. A shield that lets you use your reaction to add+3 to your AC and give you and all allies in a 15' 30° cone behind you resistance to Area of Effect Damage.
couldn't you just do that anyway as an ability check? tackling dragons from the air seems to me like something you could do if you rolled high enough on a strength check. This would also make it easier at high levels because of the ability mods at higher levels.
Good luck getting a dm to entertain something so outrageous. Part of why so many DMs love 5th edition (and I am defnitely NOT in that number) is that drastically reduces the power of PCs. It was part of the sales pitch. You're adventurers and not super heroes, as some have put it. Something like "jump fifty feet in the air and tackle the dragon" is going to get met with a stone faced "Fuck no" 9 times in 10. I mean, it's telling that Tome of Battle which gave melee classes a lot of these options is almost universally reviled among DMs. The nick name Weeaboo Fightan Magic is a solid indicator of how people felt about those expanded options. So given both 5e's explicit goal of reducing PC power and the DnD community's often irrational hatred of cool, I dunno why you wouldn't swap to a different game if you want fighters to pull off such stunts.
Wow, that was some rewarding 50 minutes of my life. Thanks for talking so fast btw, if I were to speak all that it would take me like 2 hours ^^. I was really looking for some good points about 4th edition, and you just gave me plenty. I started playing D&D at the 3.5th Edition, and yeah, i liked it,but I really loved martial characters, like warriors and monks, and I was always bumed out of how quickly they were outclassed by wizards and clerics. I will never forget how frustrating it was one of my first games, when a level 3 wiz from my party was bullying me in game, calling me dumb meat shield and stuff, just because I was the new player and he tought it was funny to give me a hard time. So I got pissed, and made my character roll an attack against his, witch missed, he than responded with color spray, hit my Will resistance, and my character went unconcious, just to be Coup de Grace'd by a pesky wizard knife... Yeah, real fun. When 4th edition came out and I realized that warriors and wizards just weren't comparable anymore, because they were in different roles, but if a fight got out between those two, the warrior would be able to hold his ground from 1st to 30th level, well, that was just precious, and I fell in love with the game once again, just to discover that my beloved was hated by everyone else... up until now ^^. Thanks again.
I started playing in second edition. When I got my hands on 4th edition, I realized I wanted to run the game myself. It's probably my favorite edition and it saddens me that my players all want to do 5th edition, but I think it's partly because I don't yet have battle mats or minis like I would eventually like to get and partly because the gamification takes them out of the fantasy.
In my 5e game when I'm not using Fantasy Grounds I've occasionally used 2-hit minions, with the 1st hit making them bloodied and the 2nd hit kills them. Some have had a feature change once bloodied, such as an opponent that uses ranged attacks until bloodied.
This is a great idea, I've often thought minions were too easy to kill at one-hit. A friend of mine liked using minions with toughness where they get a save against the "one hit death" which gives them a life expectancy of TWO hits on average. :D
Its been forever so I doubt you will see this, but as someone who has played, and still plays, a ton of 4e I actually changed from minions to 2 hit minions to something I call Threshold Minions. Basically the idea is that you don't want your mooks to get murdered by a big area spell, but you also don't want it to be useless. So I had my minion 'bloody' if it was 2 hits if it took a single hit that was less than, say, 10 damage in late heroic. In Epic, where most of my games are right now, I had 3 hit minions that were 15/30 minions. They basically had 3 hit points and they took 1 point for 14 damage or less, 2 points from 15 to 29 damage and if someone slapped them for 30 damage they just died. Gives a sense of progression that is super easy to track so there isn't a ton of book-keeping, it makes them survive little bits of damage from off-hand abilities, riders on powers or big bursts but if the barbarian chooses to swing at them directly, they are dead if they get hit.
Since the Dragon’s name has “Lava Lord” in it you could give him the ability to spit Volcanic Bombs which rupture on impact and turn a 10ft Square into a pool of Lava for so many minutes.
I started playing D&D with First Quest, an introductory ruleset for AD&D 2nd edition, in the early 90s, and then went on to play the full AD&D 2nd edition ruleset. I was the DM 90% of the time, I read and learnt the game by myself and taught the other players. When 3rd edition came out in Brazil I played it A LOT and I had a ton of fun for years. But when 4th edition came out (internet was a big thing even in Brazil at that time, finally) it was just LOVE at first read. The classes, the powers, the powers ON the magic items! The monsters were awesome, it was so easy to create fun and engaging encounters. I loved the skill challenge system and how you could use it in and out of combat. And I especially loved how the setting was more heroic and the worlds were more wild and savage. Unfortunately, by that time I was playing RPG very sparsely, and I DMed maybe 3 campaigns (2 of them online using Fantasy Grounds). And it really hurted for me when I would talk to other players online and in RPG events and they dismissed 4th edition as a cash grab or as a MMO thingy that noone should be playing. It’s been almost a decade and now I only play PC games and boardgames. I still read the books and keep up on the thing on the RPG side, but never play. Maybe it’s time to pick my pdfs again and play a new 4th edition campaign.
Thank you for posting a video that pointed out not only the problems with 4e but the positive innovations it brought to D&D, too! If you ever get the opportunity to check out 13th Age, it may provide fodder for a future video detailing fun ideas that can be ported directly to 5e. I didn't realize you were also an author until I watched this video. I just bought your books and look forward to checking them out!
I am a 4E DM, so I approve of this video =P It's really nice to see someone pointing out all the stuff 4E did RIGHT instead of just hating on it. My players and me really enjoy playing 4E and while I recently began playing 5E as a player in the Stradh module, everything you say in this video is what I've been thinking of as far as combat goes. (Not to mention the lack of monster variety in fights, holy crap!) I would say you're free to poke me about joining as a gust, but my current arc is very RP heavy so the 'cool combat moves' have taken a bit of a backseat to intrigue and politics. I have you to blame for that tho!
@EntityLord They were hung up on the word "Powers". If the book called them tricks or maneuvers and wizards got more of them the complaint would have disappeared... Oh wait, they were called Invocations/Prayers/Exploits (for RP purposes) and Wizards DID get 2x as many, yet still complaining. TL;DR: "WE, the loud lovers of quadratic wizards WANT other people at the table to have less fun at our expense."
EntityLord-Also 4ed is the ONLY edition that I have enjoyed playing martial characters in. The first edition where they had interesting class features and mechanics which made them feel unique, even among other tanky types.
@@TheTrueEnderLord Exactly. In other editions /magic missile/ is something anyone can cast. In 4th Edition, you have to be some kind of a wizard to do it. Sorcerers and other arcane characters got their own iconic things suitable for their role.
@@pdunwin Eh, who cares. Magic Missile is just a ranged attack with generic magic flavoring. Reflavor a spell or ranged weapon in the other classes kit.
I'm a GM in 3.5 (for over 15 years) and I've used the grapple rules for two years(!) now. Me and my players pulled ourselves together and sat down and went through the rules once and for all. We noted down each step in our own words and now it works. ^^ Like Matt says: It does make sense......but the rules are soooo long and complex.
You know watching this video now is interesting because youve taken so many ideas from 4e and have tweaked them to use them in your untitled game...thats awesome! Such a high form of flattery!
His ideas are bad. I like listening to him pitch them enthusiastically, but most of them involving using 4th edition for edition that are not even remotely like 4th edition are terrible. Stop mixing things that should not be mixed. If he made 6th edition, I definitely wouldn't keep my hopes up. But I'm sure it'll be better than what Jeremy Crawford can think of...
Re: Bloodied. Even in 5th I use a Bruised/Bloodied/Battered tracker. "This monster looks unhurt (100% hp), bruised (75% hp), bloodied (50% hp), or battered (75% hp), and of course, out of action." This give the feel that the PCs can have a vague idea how hurt enemies are without giving them direct info about total HP. It really has an impact on player decisions.
What made me love 4e, upon release, is that several aspects of the new system felt like they had brought back 2e, the first system that I had played. Except they figured out how to balance the characters, too. It was an improved version of 2e, not 3e.
I have often found myself alone looking back at 4th Ed and feeling that it was an excellent edition. It's heartwarming to see you celebrate it as passionate as you do!
This is my second listen, first time on release years ago.. and I feel Matt's words helped answer new questions this year, like the echoing words of an old friend.
4e was the edition I first began DMing. It made building challenges and encounters sooooo easy. Gave me the ability to come up creative fights that veteran players enjoyed.
As someone whose favorite class is Wizard, my issue with the 4e Wizard was the low number of non-combat spells. The "Utility Power", and how few of them there were. The structure of 4e also gave the Wizard far fewer choices. It's the versatility that I love about the Wizard. Still, 4e had a lot of good stuff. I'd love to see stuff from 4e combined with 5e for a 6e D&D.
Most of the non-combat spells were placed into the Rituals category. Classic spells like Speak with Animals, Hand of Fate, and Unseen Servant were included in this way ( the one exception was Detect Magic, which simply became a standard feature if you were trained in Arcana). The only drawback was that these rituals needed to be found/purchased rather than gained upon level up, but they didn't compete for any "spell slots" and you were able to cast them over and over again as long as you had the time and components. It was a novel way of separating "combat" spells from "general" spells, though definitely not for everyone.
@@kylesilverthorn it wasn't particularly novel (the idea of ritual casting was in prior editions), and it was a really bad mechanic because it pinned all rituals to being long processes which makes them impossible to use in many situations where they would be useful.
I started my D&D and larger TTRPG journey in 4E, in 2008. Matt, you've done a great job reminding me why I first loved and jumped into this edition of the game, and what it meant in D&D's development. This Tuesday I'm launching a session zero for a new group from Twitter, and revisiting the first campaign I ever ran as a D&D DM: 4E's Keep on the Shadowfell. I'm re-reading the plot hooks, watching your videos, observing my players discuss their options, and realizing how different this story and play-through is going to be from 10 years ago, and how much I'm enjoying the nostalgia of reforging this campaign.
Feel like I may have said this here before but. My group and I began our journey in 4th edition, we played every week nonstop for almost two years. We've played dozens of games in 5e since but that first game is still the "one" 4e will always have a very special place in my heart.
These are always great to rewatch in order to get a new idea for things to throw at my parties. Gonna set up some "Controllers" for my farther along party to encounter.
The dragon getting their breath weapon back on bloodied reminds me of the pathfinder 2e ability where dragons get their breath weapon back the turn after they score a critical hit. It’s nice in that you can anticipate it. Hard to tell which hit will make the dragon bloodied but if you see it crit everyone knows “uh oh breath weapon is coming next turn!”
I played and enjoyed an entire long campaign in 4e. Also it was turned into an MMORPG, Neverwinter. Some believed it was a playtest to said game, but it was still a nicely flowing combat system, and enjoyable.
4e edition is the only edition I played in pen and paper, and I loved it. The fact I was free to pick and choose whatever powers and it not be unbalanced if I picked the 'wrong' powers was great.
So, I think I'm going to hybridize. I think much of 4th edition is portable to 5th if you just alter the way in which players engage with it. I am already planning on granting at-will "powers" to martial classes for my 5th edition game, because it really doesn't feel like it greatly increases their power-level. The gain in diversity of play should be well worth it. I'm thinking that if a fighter wants to "press the attack: pushing their opponent back a square and following them" they can take a -2 penalty to attack (as this is a more challenging attack to make), but achieve their goal of pushing them back AND dealing damage. You can already push somebody in 5th edition, but there's no real way to do that AND attack with the same attack. Obviously, this will require some testing to see if it is within the power scope of the classes, but I suspect that it is. Thanks for the inspiration, Matt! I plan on doing many many of the things you suggest in this video. Hell, I might check out 4th edition now. You make me feel so petty for not giving it a chance yet. ;) Oh, and I would buy more books...but there aren't any more yet... But you knew that... I'll go now... ;)
There's an optional rule in 5e that I think pairs really well with minions, where you cleave through enemies should you reduce their hit points to 0 from their Max HP and you still have damage left over. It's really cool and works well for throwing tons of minions at players without risking overwhelming them I feel.
I recently started watching your videos because someone shared the Introduction For New Players to the group I'm in. I chose to watch your DM advice videos because I agreed with you (or maybe it was Matt Mercer) that if a player is dissatisfied with their DM/DM's game, then maybe they are the DM the game/group needs. I personally have an excellent DM (who loves that I, despite being a recent follower of CR and your channel, have really delved into the realm with great interest), but he often needs a break, and the friend who gives the breaks is... not the best DM. I doubt I would be on my first try, either, but I like to think I won't be overwhelmed thanks to the advice you've given. I'm starting to wonder if I should attempt to play older versions of D&D, but I think I'll stick to 5 for a while longer (since I'm still getting the hang of this - I only started playing in February), and eventually find a way to work in 4 because you made it sound so cool. X) Just wanted to put in a comment for once. There you go. Thanks for the advice videos. I hope to put it to good use someday.
DM: The shaman cast sleep on Antoine! Antoine Grandjean: " Dam I failed my saving throw!" DM: "Matt it's your turn" Matthew Colville: "I cast video on Antoine"
Holy wow MC you are like the GM whisperer! What awesome advice for spicing up a 5E game! You should totally get a percentage of all the 4E sales you just caused! =D
As an occasional 5E DM, I really miss how monsters used to be categorised into ''Brute, Skirmisher, Controller, etc...'' - It's quite helpful for building encounters. Now I have to spend a lot more time building the encounters than before
I kinda liked magic items not being that important in 4e and a character's cool abilities coming mostly from their class. It gave me a much more heroic feeling. It felt like it was my own character doing all those cool and powerful things, not the gear I happened to pick up along the way.
Great video and it warmed my heart. Thank you. A note on minions. There was more brilliance than just not needing to track their HP. One aspect was that missed/failed attacks never damaged them. This helped them seem like more than cardboard stand-ups, because something like /fireball/ didn't just automatically kill them. Another key aspect is that they did static damage, so there was no need to roll damage for them, making them that much easier to use.
I’m back for my inevitable annual rewatch of Running the Game, I’ve probably seen this particular video half a dozen times and it STILL is giving me inspiration for an upcoming boss fight against Tiamat AND Zariel! Love what you do Matt, never stop!
I am going to take these ideas and use them myself. One correction: Aggro in WoW had two types. The first (and most commonly) was a form of broadcast, as you say. However, there was also a single target marking. Aggro wasn't just an automatic thing (for years anyway, may not be true anymore); it was a percentage based thing. You were more threatening, but the tank might lose aggro if you do NOT stay on top of it. So, in actuality, 4E's Marking was actually very similar to the original incarnation of single target aggro in games like WoW.
Some of the old school DM's I've met prefer to run 4e, starting to understand why. I was adding some of this stuff to 5e without even knowing where it came from, like the "bloodied" mechanic. Thanks!
Wow, you are by far the fastest speaker I've listened to related to Dnd, maybe even all of UA-cam. Quite frankly I love it, keep up the good work my man!
I honestly never knew who Matt Colville was, until I heard of your Kickstarter. Even then, I wasn’t really interested. But after checking out your book and watching a couple videos, I can honestly say that I am a fan. Thank you for doing what you do. I’m loving it!! Especially in a video like this, as I was a huge fan of 4e for a long time.
4th edition remains my favorite D&D iteration, and I started wit the blue box and the d20 you had to color in with the provided white crayon. I loved the versatility of the game.
I have been running 5e for years now, it was the system that got me into the hobby. It, however, has gotten really stale and I have gone in search of other systems and editions, and it is so interesting to see how Pathfinder 2e (the system I'm currently leaning towards) seems to have some of the same design principles and ideas. Casters don't really do much damage but will have crazy effects on the battle, dynamic actions to allow for more than just rolling attacks and doing damage. Even the criticism that the system doesn't encourage roleplay is the same. I'll definitely be taking a look at 4e to see what it has to offer! Of course, also waiting for the full release of the system you've been building. Thanks for the ideas and the history lesson :)
In terms of a lot of the mechanics - as is briefly mentioned in this video - 4e was the first pass at simplifying 3e. 3e is a beast if you've never played it before. The d20 system really helped make ttRPGs popular because it was such a versatile and simple system compared to the likes of 2e, but a lot of people felt like 3e had rules for everything. I liked to joke that 3e had a skill for breathing. With 5e, you might struggle to find a skill that covers a scenario, in 3e you'd often struggle to decide between two or more skills that could both reasonable cover the same situation - that was worse. Other ttRPGs actually kind of paved the way for WotC in terms of simplifying things. I might have my dates wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Dark Heresy 2e beat WotC to the punch in terms of de-emphasizing the connection between characteristics and skills. The DH2e rulebook literally says that the characteristics listed with a skill are just a general guideline, and you should always use the characteristic that makes the most sense for how you're trying to perform that skill. 5e basically rips the idea off (not that that's a bad thing!) as an optional rule. Having played 2e, 3e, and 4e, I think my only complaint about 5e is that in it's quest for simplicity, it sacrifices customizability and meaningful character decisions. That's not to say there are none, it's just to say that they are much more limited. Matt's comments on magic items in 4e is definitely dead on. But one thing I find interesting looking back on my time with it is, I never really noticed how formulaic the magic item process was. I think I didn't notice because I was so damn busy reading up on all the unique ways I could build my character. I remember spending hours and hours reading up on build guides for characters in 4e - not just to min/max, which I did sometimes, but also because of the sheer number of choices and needing to wade through it all. If you've ever had fun looking through gigantic lists of Magic the Gathering cards and finding ways of building unique and interesting combinations for a deck, you're going to love 4e because it brings the same element to character building. I mean, if you don't include any of the Dragon Magazines or the Monster Manuals, there were still TWENTY FIVE books that contained content for classes (including the 1st PHB). 25! And they had everything from new races to new class choices, feats, powers, you name it. Anything you got to change or choose about your character, there were 25 books that add more options - even whole new classes!
Yep Partially because even though in the Q&A's they said the home game was originally Pathfinder it actually started as a 4e D&D game (Matt was running/in 2 campaigns at the time) That's why players were the original classes rather than the hokey Pathfinder Classes like Oracle/Inquisitor/etc and how three of them were races that weren't even in Pathfinder; Dragonborn and Goliaths (Jaffe's original character was a Dragonborn Fighter, replaced with the later met Gunslinger when they'd moved to Pathfinder). Don't know the exact details of why they switched offhand.
"This brings us to the middle of the video" - Mathew Colville, only a third of the way through a video
Technically it was the middle third
@@tylertanner7378 once again, technically correct is the best kind of correct
19:00
@@GameSpark876 he means act: 2 of the video to separate the pacing I believe. Yes I know you're making a joke. I never joke or lie.
"I could look up grappling rules"
"NO"
Literally a meme now.
It's been a meme for a looong time.
How the hell did I find you?
-Русский Raptor
@@shai5651 What is the Timestamp?
I had One Of Those players... I still remember the 3E grapple rules.
I remember this being a thing in the Darths and Droids comic, great gag
The screen freezing at 14:24 when Matt said “immobilize” was perfect
Pretty sure it was on purpose.
I wouldn't put it past Matt and the editor.
haha I thought it was a coincidence and then I thought, wait, did he do it on purpose?? LOL yep he did!!! I love 4e by the way, great video. Gonna use this in my 5e game for sure thanks
"Yes, he came from a long forgotten and ancient land.... Maine."
Pox Machina do have a fighter in Bercival, but he is somewhat on the squishy side, at least compared to Greg
Greg is my favorite, along scamlam
Greg Strengjow is my favorite of them.
Is his name Bertrand Bell?
What about Vex’ildan and Vax’ahlia? I liked them. Or Beyleth? Tike?
Im late to this party but im loving it here lol 🍸
Something I left out, because I felt it would derail the video a little..
One common criticism of 4E is that it "discouraged roleplaying." Now, certainly we had LOTS of roleplaying in my 4E game.
But there is a problem here and it's down to 4E's Powers. If you give you players a list of cool things to do in combat...they are going to want to do them.
This may seem obvious, or non-controversial, but what it meant was players got impatient with problems that couldn't be solved with their powers. By making combat super-cool (more fun than any other edition in my opinion) players were eager to get to combat, and tended to eschew roleplaying.
Is that a criticism of 4e? Yeah, I think so. Is that the same as "discouraging roleplaying?" Mm...not in the sense I think people meant, although maybe the end is the same.
Honestly my group played 4e and we *never* experienced this. We'd probably only have one combat every _two_ play sessions. 4e has relatively thin rules for roleplaying, but in our opinion this is a massive _advantage_. It means you can free form it much more. The DM is free to adjudicate however they want, without there being a feeling that they're ignoring the rules for how things are "supposed" to work.
I think DnDs biggest problem is that it rewards min maxing , when it should reward well rounded stats characters.
Hello Matthew, I got to say your videos got me into starting to DM. My new group is getting into the hoard of the Dragon Queen (been modifying it based on feedback from Hack and slash and other dms) - it would be nice if you had a video for high number of players or side quests how to do it right? Been watching your videos a lot and Mercers as well, thank you for your content by the way :) !
This, in my opinion, is such a bunk argument. While I didn't love all of 4e, I use a lot of it in my 5e game, and at no point do I think you can say a D&D edition discourages Roleplaying more than any other.
My group and I found the battle grid/powers type play of 5E actually increased the Role Playing in our games. Basically if a map went down, and a fight started it went into combat time. Every when else was Role Play time. It created an interesting dichotomy that really added to the game.
Absolutely fantastic Video, Mike - the best one you've done so far.
4E got a lot of flack, and one of the reasons I think it did was that it wasn't very good at explaining how it worked/how it was meant to work to it's target audience. A few videos like this at the time of release would have made a lot of difference.
Incorporating 4e rules on bad guys would certainly throw off those players that have basically memorized the Monster Manual at this point... Super interesting and useful!
yeah i have 3 players who could name most things on most monsters and if one doesn't know it one of the others do and then a new guy
I think this was behind some of the 4e hate, actually. The folks who used their memorization skills to "win" at the table did not react well to the new monster RAW, or to the ease with which DMs could rebuild/customize monsters.
My players know better than to metagame my monsters lol
Fortunately, I don't have problems like that. My players don't care to read up on any monsters, spells. etc. They like to learn the world as they go. It's great.
At the beginning of the video, when you were talking about spicing up the dragon I was just like
"Make him breathe napalm. _Make him breathe napalm._"
i'm just imagining a dragon with a giant US air cav hat saying "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." before using its fire breath
I was running a kobold one shot and wanted to give my players plenty of dragon themed items. I ended up giving them red dragon saliva that's basically napalm, and now all the red dragons in my world are that much deadlier.
@@VimyGlide Check out a book called grunts, orcs find a dragon's horde...of modern military equipment and it corrupts them.
3e Dragons actually had feats "Clinging Breath" and "Lingering Breath", which did exactly that. It was possible to make it last for HOURS (though then it couldn't breathe for said hours). It was glorious.
I've modified the minion rule on bigger mobs of creatures like orcs and ogres for tier 2 and 3 characters where the enemies require 2-3 hits to take down. If the PC's expend a smite, hunter's mark, another damaging resource, or get a crit, then they count that hit as 2 or 3 hits. This gives larger, moderately difficult groups of enemies that aren't total push over minion mobs to still be dangerous without a ton of bookkeeping
Great idea, I will steal it 👍
Love this idea and I'm stealing it!
I have also done this. It's a great way to have a beefier minion without a ton of book keeping. Another way to pull this off is to do it by tens. If you give the minions 3 hits then every 10 points of dmg does 1 hit. So if someone gets off a big hit like 32 points then it counts for 3 hits.
That still requires a lot of bookkeeping. I think it makes sense to just have more minions, but I'd have their loyalty be weak, so they flee after being hit once. But of course some villains could also have one or two (full-hit-point, full-loyalty) henchmen.
@@Tysto my memory is good enough to not have to worry about bookkeeping those, but more minions are minions dealing double damage on regular attacks would work good, too
4e made it so, SO INCREDIBLY EASY for DMs to create an adventure full of challenges, traps, and combat encounters that were challenging and interesting for Players.
And yet it made the characters the players were playing completely sterilized and devoid of real personal flavor.
@TylerChamb I can only speak for myself, but my players all played melee combat characters, and they were all very different, both from an RP standpoint and a strategic standpoint.
Mechanically, a Warlord, a Swordmage, a Ranger, and a Monk are all VERY different.
I don't understand 4e-bashing. 😕
I think that "Martial" powers (i.e. powers used by fighters, rogues, warlords and rangers) were called "maneuvers", which "Divine" powers were called "prayers," and "Arcane" powers were called "Spells". That concept was a lot less objectionable when you use that language.
Exploits, not maneuvers. But yes. Actually on second though I think they might have called the maneuvers sometimes, too.... Eh, both work.
Kruglord I never saw the big deal in the first place. It is a game after all, these are just the mechanics of the system it doesn’t mean people can’t still roleplay.
It's not really a maneuver at the moment. It's more of a gesture.
Personally, I really think 4e's biggest blunder was the abandonment of natural language when it came to abilities, as well as the templatization of everything. Not saying it doesn't have other faults, but the reason everyone called them "powers" was because they were formatted the same and in a way that was mostly focused on the mechanical effect. Personally I don't mind that, but I think the game would have been a lot more successful if it didn't do that, and maybe changed the way stuff recharged so spells were a bit more distinct from martial stuff (not even a big change, I think, but just enough that it wasn't exactly the same).
@@GroundThing: You might be right, but then again that templatization was very much intentional. Natural language might be more "evocative", but it can also sometimes muddle the rules in semantic arguments to parse the fluff from the crunch, whereas in 4e what an ability does is always spelled out exactly. And it's not like 4e abandoned fluff entirely, every power still had a short in world bit of descriptive lore right at the top in italics.
For the martial class in particular though I wonder if that standardized formatting was still very much what made fighter and the like feel off to old-school players. I wonder if perhaps it would have been less objectionable to them if instead of...
Strength vs AC, 2[w] + strength damage and knock the target prone.
...martial powers were formatted as...
Make an attack with melee weapon, if the attack hits deal an extra die of damage and knock the target prone.
...as for recharge mechanics. I'm not sure if there needed to be any difference between "spells" and martial powers, but maybe just instead of being called encounter powers and daily powers, they were instead called powers that recharge after a short rest and powers that recharge after a long rest. Same meaning, but more perhaps just a little less "gamey".
Matt’s the DM who yanks the rug from under the party, catches them when they fall and says, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” and they smile.
4e had the easiest way to build and modify monsters. Made on the fly modifications a breeze. Have yet to see another match it. Also liked the minions.
There's a 5e homebrew system called "Giffyglyph's Monster Maker" that adapts 4e's monster roles and traits into a 5e context, allowing you to quickly create monsters with different roles in combat. It's got a PDF that explains the thought process and an online web applet. I used it in my last session pretty successfully, so if you're missing that from 5e you should check it out.
Chuck Wagon I came back to this video specifically to look and see if someone had done this because I was thinking of doing it, because 4e monster classes were so perfect.
Good to know someone already got there.
@@chuckwagon3718 That's a really great resource! Those "Average damage/level" tables in the 4e DMs guide are one of the most useful things I've seen in the D&D book.
@@chuckwagon3718 This is amazing THANK YOU
@@chuckwagon3718 Check for updates
Just started playing 4E last month and let me tell you, we are OBSESSED. We've been playing 5e for 4 years and now we all want to switch to 4e and are starting to do just that =) Thanks for the ideas for using it in 5e, but I think we're just going to go full 4e now. It's been a blast as a DM too. It's a breath of fresh air.
Would highly recommend Pathfinder 2e if you liked 4e
Man I tell you the action economy in 5e is real. Our party of four low-level characters tangled with a group of four dual wielding bandits and we were getting cut to absolute ribbons BEFORE the druid dropped back to heal then it only got WORSE. Once his contribution dropped to Spare the Dying we ended up having to sue for peace & throw our money at them. Embarrassing.
"You're either thinking 'that is crazy, you're insane' or 'that is crazy, I wanna try it'"
Why not both?
that's so crazy, it just might work.
I've recently gotten back into D&D and to change things up a bit I've decided to try my hand at DMing for a group of my forever DMs. I was turned onto your videos by a local discord group for D&D players in my city, very cool BTW.
Your videos have been an absolute gem of a resource. I'm watching them in order of the Running the Game series and it is FANTASTIC. I've already learned so many new ways the present the world to my no longer forever DMs. I've also tried many of the tools that you've recommended. I've keep to the more budget friendly options and let me just say that it too has really upped my game sessions. I have access to online resources that I never thought of looking online for... I don't know why since we're in the modern age., but hey, I'm doing it now.
Ultimately I just wanted to say thank you for putting these together. I almost never leave comments but I wanted to take a moment to give you a heartfelt thank you.
As I sit here in Calais Maine my biggest reaction to that exotic land comment was "Ive never heard us called Maine-Landers before, usually its Maniacs."
Matt, you inspired me with this to go get the 4e monster manuals and player guides to spice up my combats and I am loving all the inspiration I am getting, especially with all the variant monsters that the 4e book gives you and the easy to make example encounters. Being able to look into all of this and use it in 5e is an amazing idea.
On another note, I'm making my BBEG (a dracolich who has survived multiple world-rendering disasters) able to cast spells from previous editions of the game, representing his knowledge of the arcane and age.
I miss Warlord. I don't think there was a single better support class than Warlord.
Warlords are part of what I think makes 4e so much fun for me. The 'Role System' combined with the Power Sources allowed you to have whole parties where no one cast any spells. Or where everyone was a spellcaster. Or where everyone was divinely empowered. I love the idea of a whole party being built around a theme like that.
The closest thing you have here in 5e is Purple Dragon Knights, aka Banneretts.
@@AppledirtArchive Isn't the fighter sub-class Battlemaster kind of similar to 4e Warlords?
@@TheWackojacko950 Doing a watered down Warlord ability 3/Short rest and being a full fighter all the time is not a Warlord. Having Eldritch Knights does not mean we don't need Wizards.
2nd Ed, 3rd/3.5, and Pathfinder Bard is better.
Truly, you are a river to your people.
Did you by any chance get that from the #LawrenceOfArabia movie...?
Matthew referenced the clip in an earlier video. It was rather funny.
One of the ways I look at self-healing and hit points is like this: damage done during a battle is both physical and psychological (that's why misses can still do damage - you're narrowly missed by an angry dragon and can't help but think about what would've happened to you if it had gotten its pearly whites around your neck).
When you take a break to spend a healing surge, you're recovering the psychological damage done to you (that's why it was a max of 1/4 your HP and could only be used once). Essentially, you spent the round regaining your courage and mental stability so you could surge back into the battle.
It also explains why miss damage never affects a minion and it's influenced why I don't let miss damage deal the killing blow... y'know, aside from a miss-damage death being very undramatic.
Disclaimer: I play/run 4e, have since I started playing D&D back in 2010
Emily Dueck your disclaimer is literally my experience, except that I did play a good bit as a kid in the 90’s
Wow! This explains inspiring leader
I dunno, hit points being both a measure of how long you can evade serious physical injury, and a measure of how long you can shrug off stress sounds... a bit forced. Because lots of stuff that causes stress but doesn't affect HP.
So I'd ignored 4e because I listened to my friends who fell into the category you mentioned of 'dumping on 4e as a badge of honor', but your explanation has me wanting to go back and borrow from the ruleset as well! I think I can make lower level monsters, or combat, more interesting and dynamic this way! Thanks so much!
Everyone dumped 4E because it was crap. People like 5E and Pathfinder because they are good. Simple as that.
AD&D2. Best version.
@@SM-nz9ff nope, people dumped 4e bc they just bought new 3.5e stuff the year before and didn't want to lose all the stuff they just bought.
Some people don't like the war gaming aspect of dnd but want to have at least some rules, so 5e is perfect from them. 4e is perfect for people who loves tabletop war games but still want to tell a story.
Everyone dumped on 4e because it wasn't 3e
Simple as that
Watching this video, I realized just how much PF2E really is just a modern take on 4th edition. Pretty cool hearing about all the design goals from older editions and how much decision's like vocabulary shifted the player's perception of it.
Unsure how I only just now stumbled on this video a mere 6 years after you published it... But anyway, damn if I don't miss 4e. I've played/GMed every edition of D&D and 4e is BY FAR my favorite, so honestly this video hit me in the brains and the feels :)
It had its flaws for sure, but so much of it just clicked for me. It felt like a breeze to run. So much I could ramble on about with regards to 4e, but I'll cut myself off and just say this was a great video!
What made it easier to run?
@@MagiofAsuraThe thing I thought made it easier to run was the crunchiest, mathiest part of the game - fighting monsters - was tactically interesting but easy to do because they all had their powers listed in plain language using a coherent system. If it was an demonic cultist you didn't have to refer to a spell list, it would show the 2 or 3 weird powers they could do, what defense those powers targeted, and what effects they had. And if the party wanted to fight something that would usually only fight alone, or something that would fight as very many in a group, there would be stat blocks ready to use to make it more resilient and interesting (alone) or super streamlined (many). I don't think I ever had to leave a stat block to look up a spell or chart, maybe sometimes a condition definition. Mechanically, the rest was pretty easy on the DM, with a lot of crunchy options left for players to figure out for themselves. It was a DM's dream.
As a DM from Maine, I humbly accept your apology. Now please, continue so that I might siphon your knowledge.
So exotic
Snordak the Tinder king? He swipes left, he swipes right. . .
I´ll show myself out ._.
Gabriel-Sama! Come back Gabriel-Sama! Dont go. Notice me Gabriel-Sama!
Gabriel Sjödin so thats how you got swiped?
Whoa, I actually love that idea. Make a right claw swipe charm the player, a left claw swipe induce fright or banishment.
He strikes me as more of a Burninator.
And don’t stumble on the way out, dearie... :)
This guy's hair game is tremendous.
Soft and bouncy
And a little less than a year later, Mercer started handing out Blessings.
The Fourth Edition DMG had the best introduction to Dungeonmastering I have ever read, bar none.
As what feels like one of the last surviving 4E DMs, all I can say is: Steal from us! Powers, creatures, mechanics- hell, there's an *entire free book* online covering everything you could care about regarding chromatic dragons, that I recommend for any edition.
Edit: Oh, also, fair warning that the bard class is in the Player's Handbook 2, not the base game. Same with the barbarian and druid, and the monk is in the Player's Handbook 3.
Running a game now!
One thing that I think got people confused about the idea of healing surges and a martial character like the Warlord being able to heal is the idea of hit points being meat points.
Hit points have always (at least I think always, definitely in the last couple of editions, correct me if I'm wrong) been stated as a COMBINATION of both how many wounds you can sustain and your will to fight on, your physical endurance, your grit and determination to succeed. It's in the name - hit points is how many hits you can take, which means just being able to endure pain and fatigue as well as how much blood you have left and how many of your bones aren't broken yet. It's why the Bloodied mechanic in 4E was a thing - you weren't heavily bleeding until you hit half health. So when you take a healing surge, you're focusing your willpower to keep moving, and when a Warlord heals you he's not making your flesh reknit, he's slapping you in the face and telling you to quit being a pussy, suck it up and get back out there. (Which is awesome, by the way.) But because of how a lot of DMs, and this is a trap I've fallen into as well, love describing every attack as cutting the enemy's flesh and spilling blood and guts everywhere, HP has always seemed like it's just how many swords in the gut you can take. It's how many swords you can take glancing blows from that leave you bruised and bloodied and wear down your armour until you just collapse, or until one manages to get you in the gut if they score a crit.
Wait, but then why is it tied so closely to constitution and class, because of an intelligent mage or any other class really has enough willpower based on this idea as long as he decided he would refuse to die he’d live. Either the hit should actually physically be a killing blow to your character because his body can’t take anymore or it shouldn’t kill him unless he wants to die and decidedly lays down and goes to sleep.
I think a Baldur's Gate manual explained hit points as being, in paraphrase, "the character's ability to avoid successful strikes becoming lethal ones."
The idea was that a 6th level fighter with 1 hit point was not significantly more hurt than when he had 100 hit points, but he's about to lose focus, or his strength to hold his shield is going to give, at which point a hit could become fatal.
Meaning, a 100-hit-point fighter is not able to survive a blow to the head any more than the 1-hit-point fighter is - he's just not being hit in the head, even on crits.
@@feartheghus Because constitution is physical hardiness and stamina: the latter being especially important. You're more likely to hold on through the pain and fatigue if you're fit.
Second: game balance, but also because your typical wizard has a *lot* less practice avoiding fatal blows than your typical fighter.
D&D is just a tabletop minis wargame with lots of hero models. Hit points are just the unit hit count abstraction applied to a single model. Therefore they don't really mean anything, or rather, they mean exactly whatever you like, as long as you lose them when you get "hit".
This is why I like the approach in Lord of the Rings Online, where instead of health or hit points your "stay standing" stat is morale. And when your morale is drained to zero, an anonymous person or group rescues you and lets you revive in the nearest safe point. - This also lets them use an effect called dread to reduce your maximum morale when faced by strong minions of Sauron, up to and including full defeat.
That "middle of the film" hit the uncanny valley so deep.
@Mathew Colville Here it is, 12/29/21, 5 years to the day since you posted this video. I have now watched this all the way through 3 times over the past few years and is probably one of the most useful 5e videos I have ever watched. I threw out the MM years ago and all my monsters are unique or at least tweaked. I have been DM'ing for almost 40 years, and running the same custom campaign setting (including my own pantheon) for the better part of 30 years. I just wanted to let you know that even a DM as experienced as myself still finds exponential value from videos like this. Thank You once again. Luck in battle.
It’s so obvious that you’re in this for the love of the game. I love how genuine this channel is. I’ll never again here a UA-camr go out of the way to have someone stop watching a video,even in the persons best interest.
Your embolized freeze frame rolled me. Had to rewind the vid cause I missed the next minute laughing!
I DID TOO, not sure if it was intentional or an editing hiccup, but either way having the video freeze on the word "immobilized" had me rolling.
TheExplosivvo Oh no. It was entirely intentional.
I sharply blew air through my nose when it happened
Loved the immobilisation!
When did that happen? I listen to these videos as podcasts, so I always miss these things...
"There were many people out there for whom fourth edition became a kind of shibboleth. Being critical of it in a toxic way became a badge of honor among a certain kind of D&D geek." QFT. And thank you for saying it. Game on!
Man, you just changed my complete view of 4th edition.
I will definitely use the powers on my 5th edition game and look for a 4th edition game to join.
Thank you very much for the videos.
Pathfinder
Best of all 3,4,5
gg
*PENG!*
And suddenly, I am a 5th Edition Dungeon Master!
A bearded guy from the Internet said so.
I'm gonna put that in my next resumé as a key qualification. (if I ever need one)
Alternative to minions having 1HP: Minions require a certain number of hits to die rather than damage, so a different sort of hit point.
Of course you don't tell the players this and let them roll their awesome damage and enjoy the big numbers.
Minion: 1 hit to kill
Veteran Minion: 2 hits to kill, after first hit declare it bloodied
Champion Minion: 3 hits to kill, after first hit declare it bloodied, after second hit declare it near death, third hit dies
Veteran Champion: 4 hits, and so on, however far you want to take it.
With the bloodied or near death conditions you could also give it reactions like explained in the video.
I like this im gonna use it in my upcoming campaign
I actually caught myself doing this with about twenty zombies during a siege battle. If someone hit them, I put a marker on them, unless the attacker did the full HP in one swing. Otherwise they were "injured" and any hit past that would outright kill the zombie.
Tyr525 double tap!
This is great but isn’t it better to tell your players so that you save them from having to do more math?
I might tier damage on these though, so that a punch and a meteor swarm are different.
Ok I'm taking fearless rescue and making into a magic weapon and you can't stop me because that sounds awesome.
No! You've gone mad!
Christoffer Holmerin Maybe a sentient weapon possessed by a spirit of valor
That sort of takes away from the appeal of Fearless Rescue don't you think? If it's an ability granted by an item and not the valor of the individual?
I was literally thinking the same thing!
what about the breaching armour? I always found that cool
teleport 15-30 feet as a bonus action.
or the ignore pain barbarian utility power
I gain all the damage I took as temp hp (I still take all that damage to my hp though)
I agree with the idea that people want their fighters to be gritty, realistic nobodies where as wizards get to be magical space time benders.
Fighters deserve cool reality bending feats too, let them tackle dragons out of the sky, let them cut fireballs in half with their sword, let them continue standing after being hailed with arrows.
A cool idea is to make the fighter, at high level, basically be a super hero. Wizards bend time, command the elements, all that stuff. Fighters swat arrows from the air, hurl their shield (Captain America style) and other cool physical feats. That would make them more interesting without diminishing what other classes could do.
Actually wouldn't be too hard to house rule into 5e, give them the ability like you would give them a magic item.
Reverend .Rover Athletics checks and magic items already sorta accomplish this, and so my fighter players don't complain. I usually make my caster-focused magic items relatively simple, and make the martial-focused items a but more complicated. Like, a magic dagger that works as a +1 focus or +2 when casting spells which deal posion damage V.S. A shield that lets you use your reaction to add+3 to your AC and give you and all allies in a 15' 30° cone behind you resistance to Area of Effect Damage.
That would be exactly what the Tome of Battle from 3e did. I loved the Warblade class.
couldn't you just do that anyway as an ability check? tackling dragons from the air seems to me like something you could do if you rolled high enough on a strength check. This would also make it easier at high levels because of the ability mods at higher levels.
Good luck getting a dm to entertain something so outrageous. Part of why so many DMs love 5th edition (and I am defnitely NOT in that number) is that drastically reduces the power of PCs. It was part of the sales pitch. You're adventurers and not super heroes, as some have put it. Something like "jump fifty feet in the air and tackle the dragon" is going to get met with a stone faced "Fuck no" 9 times in 10.
I mean, it's telling that Tome of Battle which gave melee classes a lot of these options is almost universally reviled among DMs. The nick name Weeaboo Fightan Magic is a solid indicator of how people felt about those expanded options.
So given both 5e's explicit goal of reducing PC power and the DnD community's often irrational hatred of cool, I dunno why you wouldn't swap to a different game if you want fighters to pull off such stunts.
Wow, that was some rewarding 50 minutes of my life. Thanks for talking so fast btw, if I were to speak all that it would take me like 2 hours ^^. I was really looking for some good points about 4th edition, and you just gave me plenty. I started playing D&D at the 3.5th Edition, and yeah, i liked it,but I really loved martial characters, like warriors and monks, and I was always bumed out of how quickly they were outclassed by wizards and clerics. I will never forget how frustrating it was one of my first games, when a level 3 wiz from my party was bullying me in game, calling me dumb meat shield and stuff, just because I was the new player and he tought it was funny to give me a hard time. So I got pissed, and made my character roll an attack against his, witch missed, he than responded with color spray, hit my Will resistance, and my character went unconcious, just to be Coup de Grace'd by a pesky wizard knife... Yeah, real fun.
When 4th edition came out and I realized that warriors and wizards just weren't comparable anymore, because they were in different roles, but if a fight got out between those two, the warrior would be able to hold his ground from 1st to 30th level, well, that was just precious, and I fell in love with the game once again, just to discover that my beloved was hated by everyone else... up until now ^^. Thanks again.
I love how you showed your love for 4e when all anyone ever does is bash on it. I love 4e, and the critical analysis here is fantastic. Thanks Matt.
I started playing in second edition. When I got my hands on 4th edition, I realized I wanted to run the game myself. It's probably my favorite edition and it saddens me that my players all want to do 5th edition, but I think it's partly because I don't yet have battle mats or minis like I would eventually like to get and partly because the gamification takes them out of the fantasy.
In my 5e game when I'm not using Fantasy Grounds I've occasionally used 2-hit minions, with the 1st hit making them bloodied and the 2nd hit kills them. Some have had a feature change once bloodied, such as an opponent that uses ranged attacks until bloodied.
This is a great idea, I've often thought minions were too easy to kill at one-hit. A friend of mine liked using minions with toughness where they get a save against the "one hit death" which gives them a life expectancy of TWO hits on average. :D
Dude, that is a fantastic idea!!! I'm stealing it.
Its been forever so I doubt you will see this, but as someone who has played, and still plays, a ton of 4e I actually changed from minions to 2 hit minions to something I call Threshold Minions. Basically the idea is that you don't want your mooks to get murdered by a big area spell, but you also don't want it to be useless. So I had my minion 'bloody' if it was 2 hits if it took a single hit that was less than, say, 10 damage in late heroic. In Epic, where most of my games are right now, I had 3 hit minions that were 15/30 minions. They basically had 3 hit points and they took 1 point for 14 damage or less, 2 points from 15 to 29 damage and if someone slapped them for 30 damage they just died. Gives a sense of progression that is super easy to track so there isn't a ton of book-keeping, it makes them survive little bits of damage from off-hand abilities, riders on powers or big bursts but if the barbarian chooses to swing at them directly, they are dead if they get hit.
Since the Dragon’s name has “Lava Lord” in it you could give him the ability to spit Volcanic Bombs which rupture on impact and turn a 10ft Square into a pool of Lava for so many minutes.
Oh wow, I was taking notes throughout the video, 4th edition sounds fantastic!
I started playing D&D with First Quest, an introductory ruleset for AD&D 2nd edition, in the early 90s, and then went on to play the full AD&D 2nd edition ruleset. I was the DM 90% of the time, I read and learnt the game by myself and taught the other players. When 3rd edition came out in Brazil I played it A LOT and I had a ton of fun for years.
But when 4th edition came out (internet was a big thing even in Brazil at that time, finally) it was just LOVE at first read. The classes, the powers, the powers ON the magic items! The monsters were awesome, it was so easy to create fun and engaging encounters. I loved the skill challenge system and how you could use it in and out of combat. And I especially loved how the setting was more heroic and the worlds were more wild and savage.
Unfortunately, by that time I was playing RPG very sparsely, and I DMed maybe 3 campaigns (2 of them online using Fantasy Grounds). And it really hurted for me when I would talk to other players online and in RPG events and they dismissed 4th edition as a cash grab or as a MMO thingy that noone should be playing.
It’s been almost a decade and now I only play PC games and boardgames. I still read the books and keep up on the thing on the RPG side, but never play. Maybe it’s time to pick my pdfs again and play a new 4th edition campaign.
the artwork and presentation of 4E was stunningly amazing
Thank you for posting a video that pointed out not only the problems with 4e but the positive innovations it brought to D&D, too! If you ever get the opportunity to check out 13th Age, it may provide fodder for a future video detailing fun ideas that can be ported directly to 5e.
I didn't realize you were also an author until I watched this video. I just bought your books and look forward to checking them out!
You worked on 13th age right? I dig that game :D.
I am a 4E DM, so I approve of this video =P It's really nice to see someone pointing out all the stuff 4E did RIGHT instead of just hating on it. My players and me really enjoy playing 4E and while I recently began playing 5E as a player in the Stradh module, everything you say in this video is what I've been thinking of as far as combat goes. (Not to mention the lack of monster variety in fights, holy crap!)
I would say you're free to poke me about joining as a gust, but my current arc is very RP heavy so the 'cool combat moves' have taken a bit of a backseat to intrigue and politics.
I have you to blame for that tho!
What I hate more than anything is when people tell me that all the classes became the same in 4e because of powers which I call BS
@EntityLord They were hung up on the word "Powers". If the book called them tricks or maneuvers and wizards got more of them the complaint would have disappeared...
Oh wait, they were called Invocations/Prayers/Exploits (for RP purposes) and Wizards DID get 2x as many, yet still complaining.
TL;DR: "WE, the loud lovers of quadratic wizards WANT other people at the table to have less fun at our expense."
EntityLord-Also 4ed is the ONLY edition that I have enjoyed playing martial characters in. The first edition where they had interesting class features and mechanics which made them feel unique, even among other tanky types.
@@TheTrueEnderLord Exactly. In other editions /magic missile/ is something anyone can cast. In 4th Edition, you have to be some kind of a wizard to do it. Sorcerers and other arcane characters got their own iconic things suitable for their role.
@@pdunwin Eh, who cares. Magic Missile is just a ranged attack with generic magic flavoring. Reflavor a spell or ranged weapon in the other classes kit.
I'm a GM in 3.5 (for over 15 years) and I've used the grapple rules for two years(!) now. Me and my players pulled ourselves together and sat down and went through the rules once and for all. We noted down each step in our own words and now it works. ^^
Like Matt says: It does make sense......but the rules are soooo long and complex.
You know watching this video now is interesting because youve taken so many ideas from 4e and have tweaked them to use them in your untitled game...thats awesome! Such a high form of flattery!
When 6th Ed starts brewing they need to pull Colville in.
Colville would just make 4e if it was up to him
@@Braincain007 I would not mind a reloaded 4th with what Colville spoke about.
Hey look at that. 2024, 5.5 edition
His ideas are bad. I like listening to him pitch them enthusiastically, but most of them involving using 4th edition for edition that are not even remotely like 4th edition are terrible. Stop mixing things that should not be mixed. If he made 6th edition, I definitely wouldn't keep my hopes up. But I'm sure it'll be better than what Jeremy Crawford can think of...
Well this comment aged like milk, given current events.
i'm always so inspired after your videos and the quality of the next session is usually much higher than usual, thanks
The feel when Colville gives advice and you realise its something you already do and works great, its a good feel
Re: Bloodied.
Even in 5th I use a Bruised/Bloodied/Battered tracker.
"This monster looks unhurt (100% hp), bruised (75% hp), bloodied (50% hp), or battered (75% hp), and of course, out of action."
This give the feel that the PCs can have a vague idea how hurt enemies are without giving them direct info about total HP. It really has an impact on player decisions.
What made me love 4e, upon release, is that several aspects of the new system felt like they had brought back 2e, the first system that I had played. Except they figured out how to balance the characters, too. It was an improved version of 2e, not 3e.
I have often found myself alone looking back at 4th Ed and feeling that it was an excellent edition. It's heartwarming to see you celebrate it as passionate as you do!
This is my second listen, first time on release years ago.. and I feel Matt's words helped answer new questions this year, like the echoing words of an old friend.
4e was the edition I first began DMing. It made building challenges and encounters sooooo easy. Gave me the ability to come up creative fights that veteran players enjoyed.
As someone whose favorite class is Wizard, my issue with the 4e Wizard was the low number of non-combat spells. The "Utility Power", and how few of them there were. The structure of 4e also gave the Wizard far fewer choices. It's the versatility that I love about the Wizard.
Still, 4e had a lot of good stuff. I'd love to see stuff from 4e combined with 5e for a 6e D&D.
Most of the non-combat spells were placed into the Rituals category. Classic spells like Speak with Animals, Hand of Fate, and Unseen Servant were included in this way ( the one exception was Detect Magic, which simply became a standard feature if you were trained in Arcana). The only drawback was that these rituals needed to be found/purchased rather than gained upon level up, but they didn't compete for any "spell slots" and you were able to cast them over and over again as long as you had the time and components. It was a novel way of separating "combat" spells from "general" spells, though definitely not for everyone.
top comment please
This was a beautiful explanation of the failures of the 4e system.
In my group's 4e games (Still play) we try to heavily encourage utility use of the otherwise combat spells when appropriate.
@@kylesilverthorn it wasn't particularly novel (the idea of ritual casting was in prior editions), and it was a really bad mechanic because it pinned all rituals to being long processes which makes them impossible to use in many situations where they would be useful.
I started my D&D and larger TTRPG journey in 4E, in 2008. Matt, you've done a great job reminding me why I first loved and jumped into this edition of the game, and what it meant in D&D's development.
This Tuesday I'm launching a session zero for a new group from Twitter, and revisiting the first campaign I ever ran as a D&D DM: 4E's Keep on the Shadowfell. I'm re-reading the plot hooks, watching your videos, observing my players discuss their options, and realizing how different this story and play-through is going to be from 10 years ago, and how much I'm enjoying the nostalgia of reforging this campaign.
Feel like I may have said this here before but.
My group and I began our journey in 4th edition, we played every week nonstop for almost two years.
We've played dozens of games in 5e since but that first game is still the "one"
4e will always have a very special place in my heart.
These are always great to rewatch in order to get a new idea for things to throw at my parties.
Gonna set up some "Controllers" for my farther along party to encounter.
I am so pumped for your stronghold rules!
Me too, one of my players has inherited a wizard tower and I want some guidelines on how it is maintained and defended
David Timm same here. He told me "soon" on twitter. Thought maybe he started working for Blizzard :D
Well, we can also just made up our own stronghold rules... it will probably suck. Help us Matthew Colville!
The dragon getting their breath weapon back on bloodied reminds me of the pathfinder 2e ability where dragons get their breath weapon back the turn after they score a critical hit.
It’s nice in that you can anticipate it. Hard to tell which hit will make the dragon bloodied but if you see it crit everyone knows “uh oh breath weapon is coming next turn!”
When you said “immobilized” at 14:27 the screen froze, and I thought that that was a very entertaining coincidence
Matt put that in the video on purpose. No coincidence!
I played and enjoyed an entire long campaign in 4e. Also it was turned into an MMORPG, Neverwinter. Some believed it was a playtest to said game, but it was still a nicely flowing combat system, and enjoyable.
I think i've watched this video like four or five times over the years, its just is a joy to watch
8:36
65%!? Someone should tell my d20s, I think they didn't catch the memo
Someone remind my d20s that there are other numbers than 2 and 5
This makes me regret the fact that I never tried out 4e. I started playing RPGs after 4e and the groups I joined were VERY anti 4e.
One of the most common phrases I've heard: "We don't talk about 4e here."
4e edition is the only edition I played in pen and paper, and I loved it. The fact I was free to pick and choose whatever powers and it not be unbalanced if I picked the 'wrong' powers was great.
14:27 the video freezes when he's talking about medusas immobilizing people. Doesn't look intentional but I think it's just perfect
It's for sure on purpose
Cheers to you for the Singing in the Rain poster in the background! :)
Pox Machina sounds like they could use Greater Restoration.
So, I think I'm going to hybridize. I think much of 4th edition is portable to 5th if you just alter the way in which players engage with it. I am already planning on granting at-will "powers" to martial classes for my 5th edition game, because it really doesn't feel like it greatly increases their power-level. The gain in diversity of play should be well worth it. I'm thinking that if a fighter wants to "press the attack: pushing their opponent back a square and following them" they can take a -2 penalty to attack (as this is a more challenging attack to make), but achieve their goal of pushing them back AND dealing damage. You can already push somebody in 5th edition, but there's no real way to do that AND attack with the same attack. Obviously, this will require some testing to see if it is within the power scope of the classes, but I suspect that it is.
Thanks for the inspiration, Matt! I plan on doing many many of the things you suggest in this video. Hell, I might check out 4th edition now. You make me feel so petty for not giving it a chance yet. ;)
Oh, and I would buy more books...but there aren't any more yet... But you knew that... I'll go now... ;)
Despite what my players profess, i always feel like my combat encounters are the weakest part of my DMing
This video is a godsend
There's an optional rule in 5e that I think pairs really well with minions, where you cleave through enemies should you reduce their hit points to 0 from their Max HP and you still have damage left over. It's really cool and works well for throwing tons of minions at players without risking overwhelming them I feel.
I recently started watching your videos because someone shared the Introduction For New Players to the group I'm in. I chose to watch your DM advice videos because I agreed with you (or maybe it was Matt Mercer) that if a player is dissatisfied with their DM/DM's game, then maybe they are the DM the game/group needs. I personally have an excellent DM (who loves that I, despite being a recent follower of CR and your channel, have really delved into the realm with great interest), but he often needs a break, and the friend who gives the breaks is... not the best DM. I doubt I would be on my first try, either, but I like to think I won't be overwhelmed thanks to the advice you've given.
I'm starting to wonder if I should attempt to play older versions of D&D, but I think I'll stick to 5 for a while longer (since I'm still getting the hang of this - I only started playing in February), and eventually find a way to work in 4 because you made it sound so cool. X)
Just wanted to put in a comment for once. There you go. Thanks for the advice videos. I hope to put it to good use someday.
I thought I needed sleep, but then you released a new video.
DM: The shaman cast sleep on Antoine!
Antoine Grandjean: " Dam I failed my saving throw!"
DM: "Matt it's your turn"
Matthew Colville: "I cast video on Antoine"
Holy wow MC you are like the GM whisperer! What awesome advice for spicing up a 5E game! You should totally get a percentage of all the 4E sales you just caused! =D
As an occasional 5E DM, I really miss how monsters used to be categorised into ''Brute, Skirmisher, Controller, etc...'' - It's quite helpful for building encounters. Now I have to spend a lot more time building the encounters than before
I kinda liked magic items not being that important in 4e and a character's cool abilities coming mostly from their class. It gave me a much more heroic feeling. It felt like it was my own character doing all those cool and powerful things, not the gear I happened to pick up along the way.
This was absolutely wonderful. Thank you. Glad I was recommended this channel.
Prederick Matt’s videos are great! So great in fact he’s inspired my friend, and fellow DM, to start our own D&D channel! -Mat
Great video. Thank you for relaying many of my thoughts on 4E. Seriously underrated.
Great video and it warmed my heart. Thank you.
A note on minions. There was more brilliance than just not needing to track their HP.
One aspect was that missed/failed attacks never damaged them. This helped them seem like more than cardboard stand-ups, because something like /fireball/ didn't just automatically kill them.
Another key aspect is that they did static damage, so there was no need to roll damage for them, making them that much easier to use.
I’m back for my inevitable annual rewatch of Running the Game, I’ve probably seen this particular video half a dozen times and it STILL is giving me inspiration for an upcoming boss fight against Tiamat AND Zariel! Love what you do Matt, never stop!
I am going to take these ideas and use them myself.
One correction: Aggro in WoW had two types. The first (and most commonly) was a form of broadcast, as you say. However, there was also a single target marking. Aggro wasn't just an automatic thing (for years anyway, may not be true anymore); it was a percentage based thing. You were more threatening, but the tank might lose aggro if you do NOT stay on top of it. So, in actuality, 4E's Marking was actually very similar to the original incarnation of single target aggro in games like WoW.
Love seeing new videos. Thanks for updating! Also, love the CritRole references.
Some of the old school DM's I've met prefer to run 4e, starting to understand why. I was adding some of this stuff to 5e without even knowing where it came from, like the "bloodied" mechanic. Thanks!
Wow, you are by far the fastest speaker I've listened to related to Dnd, maybe even all of UA-cam. Quite frankly I love it, keep up the good work my man!
I honestly never knew who Matt Colville was, until I heard of your Kickstarter. Even then, I wasn’t really interested. But after checking out your book and watching a couple videos, I can honestly say that I am a fan. Thank you for doing what you do. I’m loving it!! Especially in a video like this, as I was a huge fan of 4e for a long time.
4th edition remains my favorite D&D iteration, and I started wit the blue box and the d20 you had to color in with the provided white crayon. I loved the versatility of the game.
I love the freeze frame when you talk about being immobilized. Well done
OMG, the KODT card game! My friends and I spent HOURS playing that!
I have been running 5e for years now, it was the system that got me into the hobby. It, however, has gotten really stale and I have gone in search of other systems and editions, and it is so interesting to see how Pathfinder 2e (the system I'm currently leaning towards) seems to have some of the same design principles and ideas. Casters don't really do much damage but will have crazy effects on the battle, dynamic actions to allow for more than just rolling attacks and doing damage. Even the criticism that the system doesn't encourage roleplay is the same. I'll definitely be taking a look at 4e to see what it has to offer! Of course, also waiting for the full release of the system you've been building. Thanks for the ideas and the history lesson :)
In terms of a lot of the mechanics - as is briefly mentioned in this video - 4e was the first pass at simplifying 3e. 3e is a beast if you've never played it before. The d20 system really helped make ttRPGs popular because it was such a versatile and simple system compared to the likes of 2e, but a lot of people felt like 3e had rules for everything. I liked to joke that 3e had a skill for breathing. With 5e, you might struggle to find a skill that covers a scenario, in 3e you'd often struggle to decide between two or more skills that could both reasonable cover the same situation - that was worse.
Other ttRPGs actually kind of paved the way for WotC in terms of simplifying things. I might have my dates wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Dark Heresy 2e beat WotC to the punch in terms of de-emphasizing the connection between characteristics and skills. The DH2e rulebook literally says that the characteristics listed with a skill are just a general guideline, and you should always use the characteristic that makes the most sense for how you're trying to perform that skill. 5e basically rips the idea off (not that that's a bad thing!) as an optional rule.
Having played 2e, 3e, and 4e, I think my only complaint about 5e is that in it's quest for simplicity, it sacrifices customizability and meaningful character decisions. That's not to say there are none, it's just to say that they are much more limited.
Matt's comments on magic items in 4e is definitely dead on. But one thing I find interesting looking back on my time with it is, I never really noticed how formulaic the magic item process was. I think I didn't notice because I was so damn busy reading up on all the unique ways I could build my character.
I remember spending hours and hours reading up on build guides for characters in 4e - not just to min/max, which I did sometimes, but also because of the sheer number of choices and needing to wade through it all.
If you've ever had fun looking through gigantic lists of Magic the Gathering cards and finding ways of building unique and interesting combinations for a deck, you're going to love 4e because it brings the same element to character building. I mean, if you don't include any of the Dragon Magazines or the Monster Manuals, there were still TWENTY FIVE books that contained content for classes (including the 1st PHB). 25! And they had everything from new races to new class choices, feats, powers, you name it. Anything you got to change or choose about your character, there were 25 books that add more options - even whole new classes!
I love Pathfinder
Interesting that you mention Residuum and Matt Mercer in this video given his kind of brilliant usage of Residuum for a subplot in Campaign 2.
Yep
Partially because even though in the Q&A's they said the home game was originally Pathfinder it actually started as a 4e D&D game (Matt was running/in 2 campaigns at the time)
That's why players were the original classes rather than the hokey Pathfinder Classes like Oracle/Inquisitor/etc and how three of them were races that weren't even in Pathfinder; Dragonborn and Goliaths (Jaffe's original character was a Dragonborn Fighter, replaced with the later met Gunslinger when they'd moved to Pathfinder). Don't know the exact details of why they switched offhand.
I spent a ton of money on 4E, miniatures, tiles, books.. just so much money. And no one wanted to play.
lol
Same
Because that rip off of console and PC games sucks.
@@BDSquirrel bruh
@@Vasey105 - I'm just brutally honest.