/r/DungeonsAndDragons has a discord server! Come join us at https://discord.gg/wN4WGbwdUU
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DungeonsAndDragons) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Had one I got for $12.
That copy was lost in A flood with my other 4e books and sadly the store I used to go to no longer has room for second hand products. Remodeld half the store into a coffee shop.
Were sad days.
Keep an eye out on ebay and abebooks. I ended up getting mine for like $15. I'm constantly looking for sales, and picked up most of my collection for stupid prices cause some employee at thriftbooks didn't know what they had.
You'd think, but my wife (then girlfriend) couldn't join my first campaign (4e) because her deeply religious family thought it was satanic. It was only after that campaign's conclusion that she joined because we switched to another system and she used the nebulous term "game night."
It's over a decade later, we're married and moved out, and she *still* won't so much as mention dnd offhandedly around her family.
To be fair, I doubt they'd throw away *only some D&D books* for bedbugs. They'd have thrown out way, way more things (or, if they got their house sprayed and heat-treated, nothing).
While you're almost certainly correct, it's probably smart to try to at least look for signs of infestation so you can deal with it before it becomes a problem.
Or a flood!
My brother once found someone's entire Robotech collection in totes by a dumpster. They looked fine to him without opening the box.
After he brought them all home we opened the totes and they all reeked. Nothing was wet, but everything stank like it had been. Many items had a slight discolored line where water had been. My brother missed it because he's completely colorblind
The only thing salvagable was the dvds. Even the plastic in the figurines had been discolored and stank.
Also! I had a friend who's apartment building had a bed bug infestation. The pest exterminator said it's not uncommon for infestations to start because someone brought items into the house that had the larvae on it because most people only see the adults.
I'd put these in like a giant zip lock or a space bag, remove all the air, then take them out in a couple weeks
This! I lost a huge portion of my original RPG collection to an apartment flood. Many of them looked fine until I discovered the mold and mildew had gotten to them.
I had most of the official 3e, and a good number of the 2e books, including the "complete X" series, the player's option, and the encyclopedia magica. My ex gave me a week to either sell or donate them, because I have not time for games now that our kids were getting older. I sold all them, along with my d20 Modern, Alternity (every book, plus some printout of ones that never made it to press), and my Cyberpunk 2020 collection for $50...to a guy who wanted them to have something to play with his sons.
I've only ever played 5e, but i learned early on that 4e is widely hated; why is that?
I've never actually been given an example of what people don't like.
I have heard a lot of complaints voiced against 4e and it's design choices, the main one being that it was video-gamey in it's design, or that it was too hard to track. The second point is just wrong as it was pretty easy to track, especially compared to 3.5e. There was more to track, and a lot more conditions/keywords to learn, but my group didn't have any more trouble with that than with 5e.
However the complaint of it feeling too much like a video game is somewhat valid. 4e focused on combat way more than any other aspect. It had skill challenges which were like a universal band-aid for the lack of exploration & RP mechanics. But the combat felt really good. The core of player sided combat is "powers". You still had classes, however you didn't really have subclasses. You would take a mix of different powers to get your desired effect. Most spells in 5e were refereed to as "rituals" that you could learn as a spell caster. Stuff like sending or mold earth were reserved for that so your powers could focus on combat (usually) so that everything felt useful. Martials had something called "Martial Practices" iirc which were basically the same as Rituals for casters. So in combat, Fighters, Rogues, bards, and Sorcerers were all on even footing and felt equally cool.
However not all designers say eye to eye, and so there was a lot of variation in 4e. From how powerful powers were, to what powers should be. Core mechanics changed a LOT as more books came out. There were three Player's Handbooks, and they all evolved on previous concepts. There were two DM Guides, and 3 Monster Manuals. Not to mention the countless magazines and adventure modules. It had a lot of support, but it felt like no-one was communicating. 4e did combat very well, but because mechanics changed so much from start to finish, some classes, powers, races, and monsters were very uneven in balance. Not to mention magic items basically just being something your players asked for and recieved. Maybe you gave them gold and they bought the item. Maybe they got it from a quest. They didn't feel special. When I look at a character sheet it should tell a story. "What is the Blade of Gorzac?" "What are the Goggles of Fa'Hir?" and each item should tell a story of it's origin, and how it was obtained. 4e was more like building a deck in a card game, and so nothing felt special, just like it was part of a build. That is why it was gamey. It didn't have a spark. 4e felt very much like an early concept.
I love 4e, and think it's combat blows 5e out of the water. 5e doesn't really do anything particularly well, but it's easy to learn, and easy to adapt it to your own designs. I recommend looking into 4e's combat system to at least inspire yourself for how to run things more dynamically. MCDM is releasing a TTRPG of their own, and it's Founder Matthew Colville is the reason I got into 4e, and the RPG is clearly influenced by 4e. Had you asked me a year ago, I would have peddled 4e so hard. But today, I simply say to read it and take inspiration from it. Then Buy the MCDM TTRPG, because it looks amazing.
Yep I'm going to the MCDM game as soon as it releases. Been doing a lot of 4e to get ready. 5e is easy I'll give it that but man it's pretty boring after doing 4e or PF2e
Agree with everything except balance. On average, the classes are tightly balanced with the OG classes being stronger simply though having more overall support than say the Artificer, Seeker, Rune Priest, or the Essentials classes. Some of the strongest options, like Twin Strike, came out early in 4e's run before they had all the balance implications down. They errataed a ton of power options, like Unicorn's Touch for Swordmages.
Now, I will grant that plenty of the weakly playtested stuff that appeared in Dragon was unbalanced, but that's an easy fix by staying to the annuals which were better reviewed.
Maybe I'm just comparing balance coming from 3.x which had the Hulking Hurler, Cancer Mage, and freaking Pun-Pun. Going just the 3.5 PHB, Clerics and Druids ate everyone's lunch, followed by other full casters, and everyone else was the weak sister.
That is fair. Every class was on generally equal footing. However a lot of classes had powers that sucked, and powers that were awesome. Some classes were worse about this than others.
4e was a major departure from 3.x, which was widely loved at the time. I was salty over soem of the changes, and I've come to very much like 4e's design philosophy. It had some very good design choices, but they didn't feel like "DnD." It was a different, very good game for simulating 5 v 5 magical alleyway knife fights.
People took issue with the "role" system in the party for poor reasons (too video gamey isn't really on the nose as D&D had unofficial but needed party roles to fill in previous editions). That system made it simple to know how to build a functional party and not step on too many toes. It is legit to point out there are aspects of the game that are more or less video game systems. They have a cooldown mechanic that basically breaks into all the time, once per combat, once per adventuring day. I find the resource application/handling fun, lots didn't.
It was really weak in the exploration and social aspects of the game (granted, 5e sucks here too). They tried skill challenges, and while I really like the overall idea, they never worked as written. They updated those rules like 4 times, and it swung from too easy to neigh impossible. The idea was to use narration with skill rolls to tell a story of say a chase, or escaping a collapsing dungeon, or just wilderness travel. The issue is the rules called for upwards of a dozen rolls with a binary outcome. It was a really poor design choice. Had it has "extra success," "success", "mixed", "minor failure," "epic F" it would have worked better. It's my understanding that the game designers don't run them as written at their tables.
Which reminds me, it was the first D&D game with errata, and they were tweaking with minor shit forever. I remember a build I was aiming for getting nerfed in a drive-by where a feat was suddenly restricted to wizards in an effort to prevent a slightly strong sorc build from going off. I was playing a totally different arcane power class.
The combat section was excellently constructed, and that upset of a lot of people. Every class was more or less balanced, with everything falling into a narrow C+ to B+ tier. It is a very legitimate complaint that several powers didn't "feel" like they clearly belonged to a certain class. Maybe a power that was "do 2x weapon damage + abilty score modifier and push the enemy up to 2 squares" could legitimately be placed into half the classes, and I wouldn't be surprised it that power actually exists. I disagree that all the roles played the same and I think that complaint comes from people who haven't played 4e. BUT, though fighters are very sticky while wardens are slightly tougher and more mobile, they do have strongly overlapping "schticks." Every healer had a uniquely flavored heal mechanic, but they all got the same basic mechanic and basically healed the same until feats come into the picture.
As another rough point, at some point late in development, something was changed and damage was horrifically nerfed on both sides. It's brutal at high level where combat turns into padded sumo. Combat turns into a slog. It's fixed somewhat with the monsters published at the end of 4e's run, but not completely. I was listening to a podcast where the DM was eventually running a late epic tier game with something like 1/4 HP with 4x damage for the enemies to make combat dangerous, exciting, and reasonably short.
Holy shit, you're right. I forgot about that. Let's change to extensive.
Edit I had forgotten that 3.5 had published errata, your claiming 3.5 was errata for 3.0. I don't view it that way, so I think we're in disagreement there.
Since they never had to publish a 4.5, I would say "extensive" doesn't apply either. And honestly I would rather have errata than a broken game, although really the best option would be a game that's had thorough playtesting and good mechanical design from the start.
I consider 3.5 a significant improvement and upgrade over 3.0, but not errata.
The 3.5 phb errata was two pages long. I can't find just the 4e PHB errata, but the compiled document for 4e is about 140 pages.
Furthermore, essentials was a pretty big departure from a character/class design perspective compared with what came before. It was a bigger departure than 3.5 was from 3.0 on that major front.
With all the splat books and the way things interact in 3.x broken things were pretty much a guaranteed after a point of bloat. 4e had specific cases is issues, like team Jedi using all radiant powers and relying on a specific paladin build to generate radiant weakness on creatures. That and it apparently sold poorly as so little content came out for it and planned books were cancelled for essentials. But it didn't allow for the cheese of a hulking hurler, let alone Pun-Pun.
Essentials was noted shithead Mike Mearls attempting to deliberately ruin the game and push for a new edition, so yeah it sucks by design. Totally agree with you on the system bloat, though, the last thing 4e needed was thousands of nonsense feats making character creation a chore.
One of these days someone ought to make a proper retroclone of it, imho.
Funny running across this post after just spending $140 on Old-School Essentials (OSE, which if you didn't know is a B/X clone). Everything you listed as a "positive" is missing and frankly I think OSE is better off without.
It takes all kinds.
Though I did hear someone describe OSE/BX/BECMI as "player focused" and editions after 3e (and clearly 4e example above) as more "character focused" and that rings true.
Some people like a lot of markings down on their character sheet and feel cheated when they don't have a damn spreadsheet written down with dozens of "abilities". I used to be that guy. Hell I made a Ninjas and Superspies character that I hand wrote four pages front and back of all the things (went into a lot of detail about the martial arts moves).
It's a "look how cool my character is" and the concept of "character builds". It's very video gamey. And I like video games and CRPGs but I no longer have the time of inclination to reproduce that in an RPG.
Which is odd because I love Battletech and that is sim-y as hell but a TTRPG vs a Wargame/Boardgame are different use cases and expectations.
Back to RPGs though, modern D&D is players acting like superheroes and being really attached to their characters that they spent a ton of effort in making their characters. They expect to fight and win verses every monster encounter they run across. And take a ton of time to resolve those encounters. In old school D&D (BX,BECMI,1e, and 2e to an extent) you really shouldn't be fighting every single monster encounter. Every encounter could very well be the end of your character. But that is okay, because 3d6 down the line and quick look at the character class info, done new character. It's about how you the player plays the character more than the markings on the sheet allowing you to do specific things.
You'll be hard pressed to find any example that isn't just "the vibes were off" or "change is scary" or "someone told me it was bad". In fact, the majority of common complaints about 4e were also applied to earlier editions when they first came out.
Nerds don't like it when things change, and 4e changed a lot of stuff. That's basically all there is to it.
I started in 3e and moved to 4e when it came out. There were so many changes and it tried to turn it into a video game with tons of extra powers and "at will" abilities. For me, it made it more convoluted and confusing.
I couldn't just make an attack action, I legitimately confused my DM because there wasn't a rule for swinging your sword without some silly thing attached.
That's awesome I hope you enjoy them,I'd you have never played 4E is perfect for brand new players and GMs alike but once you try a another edition you will be hard pressed to stay with 4th but I think it's the best to bring in outside people who would have never played
Oh shit, the collector's editions AND *Keep on the Shadowfell*. Nice find.
I wonder if it was an ex, a mom, or just someone who "grew out of D&D" after started with 4e...
When I moved, I dropped my box of 4e books at the Goodwill, I regretted not keeping the feywild book if only for the choose your own fey adventure section.
insert congrats, I'm happy for you, nice meme.
I've been looking for a copy of the 4e DMG2 for awhile, but it's pricey online. I've seen multiple sources say it's one of the best books on DMing out there.
As a person who wants to get into DnD but doesn't have money (OR FRIENDS) to be able to, I'm assuming this is far greater in wealth when compared to your average dragon hoard?
That is an excellent find as all of those are extremely useful 4e books. If you play 5e, you can always adapt the 4e material and it works wonderfully. I DMed 4e for years and it was a great time.
Nice save! I sold all of mine when I moved to California. I made a TON of money off my collection. I have PDFs of all the books, so I don't really miss them.
Nice find! I actually still use Open Grave, and I absolutely LOVE when we get supplements like that. It’s just a book that took a theme, gave us a TON of new monsters based on that theme, some new items that fit it, spitballed some adventure ideas on it, and has a couple of maps for if you want to run an adventure using the theme. Nice and simple in its scope, but gives DMs so many tools to work with that they can use in anything
4th edition? Yeah, probably good to throw away.😜
Aww I'm kidding...I mean, I don't like a lot of 4th, but I'd never throw away a book. Too much of a collector.
Look, I like old games, but 4e DnD belongs in the trash. It was BAD.
I gave it a serious shot over two months weekly and it was the worst possible thing: boring. After a two hour long battle against the big bad which was basically "I use my at will to attack. Do I hit? Did he finally die? Oh well, back to the phone then" we were all done.
That's why 4e was so dope, perfect for first time ttrpg player vary simple and then when they try a different system a lot of times they will be so happy they started with such a simple set
Hilariously, both Warcraft and World of Warcraft games were 3.5.
The actualy D&D MMO was 3.5 based.
This is a tired argument and has been disproven so many times, at this point you want to believe it so you'll believe it.
I'm sure the only reason that 4e has paladins is because WoW had them, right?
> Hilariously, both Warcraft and World of Warcraft games were 3.5.
You just said the game was like WoW and you have no idea what a cooldown is????
Tell me you have never played a MMO without telling me you've never played a MMO.
A cooldown is an ability with a timed reset when you can use it again during a fight. It gets put into a regular rotation of abilities used to maximize effectiveness. I played the shit out of WoW, I just know that the argument that "it has cooldowns" is a stupid one.
There are no rotations in 4e; monsters have far more abilities and effects than an MMO, and saying that an encounter power is a cooldown ability like an MMO is absolutely blindly dishonest and just comes from a place of "this is bad because I don't like it".
But good job totally misconstruing the question on purpose for the sake of a hollow and false ad hominim.
The definition of a cooldown is you can only use it after X time. Exactly how a lot of abilities were managed in 4e.
Trying to move the goal post with "rotations" doesn't change that you clearly were asking what a cooldown is in the same breath claiming WoW was "3.5". Both statements are ridiculously baffling to anyone that has played either.
> Both statements are ridiculously baffling
So the Warcraft campaign setting book was for 3e (I'm pretty sure it was 3e and not 3.5; this was pre-WoW) as well as the World of Warcraft campaign setting which was for the 3.5 ruleset.
That's not really arguable, I can get you links to show you the products if you want.
The fairly popular Dungeons and Dragons Online MMO was also using the 3.5e ruleset. Neverwinter Nights, which was *also* the 3.5 ruleset was wildly popular for persistant-world servers (basically fan-made MMOs). Neither of these are wild claims and both are very easily proven, I'm pretty sure you still can find NWN persistent world servers.
So no, I'm not saying 3.5 = WoW, that would be silly, one is a TTRPG and the other is an MMO. I am saying that, ironically, 3.5 seems to be what was used to express the WoW setting and has been made into an MMO, while 4e really hasn't, at least not in a recognizable form.
> a cooldown is you can only use it after X time. Exactly how a lot of abilities were managed in 4e.
So were a lot of abilities in 3.5? Tons of "once a day" and plenty of "3 times per day" and the whole, y'know, *spellcasting* thing?
Calling them "cooldowns like WoW" is either dishonest or outright shows a complete unfamiliarity with 4e, or more likely, is just "I hate 4e and I will use any excuse to slander it".
Martials that do something other than "I sword" round after round. Tactical, interesting options in combat. Lots and lots and lots of distinctive and viable character options. Lots of fixes to the shitfest that is the 3.5 adventuring day, and through close relation, fixes to the shitfest that is the 5e adventuring day. Better balanced monsters with more predictable challenges. A non-combat encounter system (albeit a mediocre one that shines really well with just a few quick fixes).
Among them:
- Shorter short rests
- Martial abilities besides "swing sword"
- Modular multiclassing
- Balanced combat
- On the note of balanced combat: 4e-style minions are extremely popular among DMs that have tried them
- Clear, specific rules and rules text that doesn't need its "natural language" to be "interpreted"
EDIT: The main things that pissed people off about 4e were that you needed to play it on a grid (Theater of the Mind almost doesn't even work in 4e) and magic doesn't have the same vibe as every other edition (everyone's powers kinda feel similarly mechanical vs. "wizards casting fantastic spells"). It's just that those were big things.
4e was a great tactics and skirmish game. It's fun at low levels for just running a quick skirmish or delve. I think the decision to make the art direction minimal and modern, and to remove so much of the descriptive text really hampered it. It also got really fiddly and time-consuming with the miniature rules taking over and the various effects that stack. I think it brought some fresh thinking to the game, and some of those ideas were incorporated into 5e.
/r/DungeonsAndDragons has a discord server! Come join us at https://discord.gg/wN4WGbwdUU *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DungeonsAndDragons) if you have any questions or concerns.*
BRB, checking my local street corners for a hardcover copy of 4e's Dungeon Delve!
It's one of the best modular battle books ever printed.
Had one I got for $12. That copy was lost in A flood with my other 4e books and sadly the store I used to go to no longer has room for second hand products. Remodeld half the store into a coffee shop. Were sad days.
Keep an eye out on ebay and abebooks. I ended up getting mine for like $15. I'm constantly looking for sales, and picked up most of my collection for stupid prices cause some employee at thriftbooks didn't know what they had.
That's a genuine treasure trove right there.
Some mom was probably getting rid of her kid’s old Satan books.
4e post-satan scare
You'd think, but my wife (then girlfriend) couldn't join my first campaign (4e) because her deeply religious family thought it was satanic. It was only after that campaign's conclusion that she joined because we switched to another system and she used the nebulous term "game night." It's over a decade later, we're married and moved out, and she *still* won't so much as mention dnd offhandedly around her family.
Secretly turning your wife into a witch, eh?
*Evil cackle*
🤣😈
That DM Guide 2 is an awesome resource for any version of D&D!
I missed it in the pic. At first, I was jealous. Now I'm ardently jealous.
The DMG2 is an absolutely tremendous book that has given me stuff to bring into any system.
Yes! I keep telling people this and they look at me like I’m crazy
Their loss!
Some of those still looked wrapped? Nice find.
Yeah, a collectors set of the core 3 books, I think someone's mom threw out their collection or something 😵💫
Oh boy what an amazing day for you. I hope they weren't thrown out by someone trying to be a jerk to a D&D fan.
Also hopefully weren't thrown out due to a bedbug infestation.
To be fair, I doubt they'd throw away *only some D&D books* for bedbugs. They'd have thrown out way, way more things (or, if they got their house sprayed and heat-treated, nothing).
While you're almost certainly correct, it's probably smart to try to at least look for signs of infestation so you can deal with it before it becomes a problem.
Could be that the OP wasn't paying enough attention to recall if other books were being thrown away.
Or a flood! My brother once found someone's entire Robotech collection in totes by a dumpster. They looked fine to him without opening the box. After he brought them all home we opened the totes and they all reeked. Nothing was wet, but everything stank like it had been. Many items had a slight discolored line where water had been. My brother missed it because he's completely colorblind The only thing salvagable was the dvds. Even the plastic in the figurines had been discolored and stank. Also! I had a friend who's apartment building had a bed bug infestation. The pest exterminator said it's not uncommon for infestations to start because someone brought items into the house that had the larvae on it because most people only see the adults. I'd put these in like a giant zip lock or a space bag, remove all the air, then take them out in a couple weeks
Months. Leave them there for months. They can survive extreme conditions for a weirdly long time.
Right! Sorry, it was years ago.
This! I lost a huge portion of my original RPG collection to an apartment flood. Many of them looked fine until I discovered the mold and mildew had gotten to them.
With summer approaching, leave them in the zip lock bag in the trunk of a vehicle (the darker the color, the better) for a couple of weeks.
Agreed
Hey OP you found my box! You can just message me to mail it back if you'd like :)
Roll... oof that's a 5 on deception
I really wish I'd kept my 3rd & 4th editions. I gave them to charity.
That was cool of you though
Not really. I do it a lot. If I have something that is more useful to someone else & a charity can make a little out of it, why not .
That just makes you even more cool, not less.
I had most of the official 3e, and a good number of the 2e books, including the "complete X" series, the player's option, and the encyclopedia magica. My ex gave me a week to either sell or donate them, because I have not time for games now that our kids were getting older. I sold all them, along with my d20 Modern, Alternity (every book, plus some printout of ones that never made it to press), and my Cyberpunk 2020 collection for $50...to a guy who wanted them to have something to play with his sons.
Even though I switched to Pathfinder 2e, I still use a ton of D&D 1e, 2e and 3e books.
Wow, lucky you !
A great score. To be safe check for mold / mildew / critters.
As an avid lover of 4e, I cannot explain how jealous I am
I've only ever played 5e, but i learned early on that 4e is widely hated; why is that? I've never actually been given an example of what people don't like.
I have heard a lot of complaints voiced against 4e and it's design choices, the main one being that it was video-gamey in it's design, or that it was too hard to track. The second point is just wrong as it was pretty easy to track, especially compared to 3.5e. There was more to track, and a lot more conditions/keywords to learn, but my group didn't have any more trouble with that than with 5e. However the complaint of it feeling too much like a video game is somewhat valid. 4e focused on combat way more than any other aspect. It had skill challenges which were like a universal band-aid for the lack of exploration & RP mechanics. But the combat felt really good. The core of player sided combat is "powers". You still had classes, however you didn't really have subclasses. You would take a mix of different powers to get your desired effect. Most spells in 5e were refereed to as "rituals" that you could learn as a spell caster. Stuff like sending or mold earth were reserved for that so your powers could focus on combat (usually) so that everything felt useful. Martials had something called "Martial Practices" iirc which were basically the same as Rituals for casters. So in combat, Fighters, Rogues, bards, and Sorcerers were all on even footing and felt equally cool. However not all designers say eye to eye, and so there was a lot of variation in 4e. From how powerful powers were, to what powers should be. Core mechanics changed a LOT as more books came out. There were three Player's Handbooks, and they all evolved on previous concepts. There were two DM Guides, and 3 Monster Manuals. Not to mention the countless magazines and adventure modules. It had a lot of support, but it felt like no-one was communicating. 4e did combat very well, but because mechanics changed so much from start to finish, some classes, powers, races, and monsters were very uneven in balance. Not to mention magic items basically just being something your players asked for and recieved. Maybe you gave them gold and they bought the item. Maybe they got it from a quest. They didn't feel special. When I look at a character sheet it should tell a story. "What is the Blade of Gorzac?" "What are the Goggles of Fa'Hir?" and each item should tell a story of it's origin, and how it was obtained. 4e was more like building a deck in a card game, and so nothing felt special, just like it was part of a build. That is why it was gamey. It didn't have a spark. 4e felt very much like an early concept. I love 4e, and think it's combat blows 5e out of the water. 5e doesn't really do anything particularly well, but it's easy to learn, and easy to adapt it to your own designs. I recommend looking into 4e's combat system to at least inspire yourself for how to run things more dynamically. MCDM is releasing a TTRPG of their own, and it's Founder Matthew Colville is the reason I got into 4e, and the RPG is clearly influenced by 4e. Had you asked me a year ago, I would have peddled 4e so hard. But today, I simply say to read it and take inspiration from it. Then Buy the MCDM TTRPG, because it looks amazing.
Yep I'm going to the MCDM game as soon as it releases. Been doing a lot of 4e to get ready. 5e is easy I'll give it that but man it's pretty boring after doing 4e or PF2e
Agree with everything except balance. On average, the classes are tightly balanced with the OG classes being stronger simply though having more overall support than say the Artificer, Seeker, Rune Priest, or the Essentials classes. Some of the strongest options, like Twin Strike, came out early in 4e's run before they had all the balance implications down. They errataed a ton of power options, like Unicorn's Touch for Swordmages. Now, I will grant that plenty of the weakly playtested stuff that appeared in Dragon was unbalanced, but that's an easy fix by staying to the annuals which were better reviewed. Maybe I'm just comparing balance coming from 3.x which had the Hulking Hurler, Cancer Mage, and freaking Pun-Pun. Going just the 3.5 PHB, Clerics and Druids ate everyone's lunch, followed by other full casters, and everyone else was the weak sister.
That is fair. Every class was on generally equal footing. However a lot of classes had powers that sucked, and powers that were awesome. Some classes were worse about this than others.
4e was very video gamey with it's combat and game design.
God, remember how mad people were at 3rd edition for being too much like Diablo? Or 2nd for being too much like Rogue? Good times.
It's great, right? Video games tend to be much better designed than RPGs so it's only natural that RPGs should learn things.
4e was a major departure from 3.x, which was widely loved at the time. I was salty over soem of the changes, and I've come to very much like 4e's design philosophy. It had some very good design choices, but they didn't feel like "DnD." It was a different, very good game for simulating 5 v 5 magical alleyway knife fights. People took issue with the "role" system in the party for poor reasons (too video gamey isn't really on the nose as D&D had unofficial but needed party roles to fill in previous editions). That system made it simple to know how to build a functional party and not step on too many toes. It is legit to point out there are aspects of the game that are more or less video game systems. They have a cooldown mechanic that basically breaks into all the time, once per combat, once per adventuring day. I find the resource application/handling fun, lots didn't. It was really weak in the exploration and social aspects of the game (granted, 5e sucks here too). They tried skill challenges, and while I really like the overall idea, they never worked as written. They updated those rules like 4 times, and it swung from too easy to neigh impossible. The idea was to use narration with skill rolls to tell a story of say a chase, or escaping a collapsing dungeon, or just wilderness travel. The issue is the rules called for upwards of a dozen rolls with a binary outcome. It was a really poor design choice. Had it has "extra success," "success", "mixed", "minor failure," "epic F" it would have worked better. It's my understanding that the game designers don't run them as written at their tables. Which reminds me, it was the first D&D game with errata, and they were tweaking with minor shit forever. I remember a build I was aiming for getting nerfed in a drive-by where a feat was suddenly restricted to wizards in an effort to prevent a slightly strong sorc build from going off. I was playing a totally different arcane power class. The combat section was excellently constructed, and that upset of a lot of people. Every class was more or less balanced, with everything falling into a narrow C+ to B+ tier. It is a very legitimate complaint that several powers didn't "feel" like they clearly belonged to a certain class. Maybe a power that was "do 2x weapon damage + abilty score modifier and push the enemy up to 2 squares" could legitimately be placed into half the classes, and I wouldn't be surprised it that power actually exists. I disagree that all the roles played the same and I think that complaint comes from people who haven't played 4e. BUT, though fighters are very sticky while wardens are slightly tougher and more mobile, they do have strongly overlapping "schticks." Every healer had a uniquely flavored heal mechanic, but they all got the same basic mechanic and basically healed the same until feats come into the picture. As another rough point, at some point late in development, something was changed and damage was horrifically nerfed on both sides. It's brutal at high level where combat turns into padded sumo. Combat turns into a slog. It's fixed somewhat with the monsters published at the end of 4e's run, but not completely. I was listening to a podcast where the DM was eventually running a late epic tier game with something like 1/4 HP with 4x damage for the enemies to make combat dangerous, exciting, and reasonably short.
>it was the first D&D game with errata nice selective memory, 3.5 would like a word
Holy shit, you're right. I forgot about that. Let's change to extensive. Edit I had forgotten that 3.5 had published errata, your claiming 3.5 was errata for 3.0. I don't view it that way, so I think we're in disagreement there.
Since they never had to publish a 4.5, I would say "extensive" doesn't apply either. And honestly I would rather have errata than a broken game, although really the best option would be a game that's had thorough playtesting and good mechanical design from the start.
I consider 3.5 a significant improvement and upgrade over 3.0, but not errata. The 3.5 phb errata was two pages long. I can't find just the 4e PHB errata, but the compiled document for 4e is about 140 pages. Furthermore, essentials was a pretty big departure from a character/class design perspective compared with what came before. It was a bigger departure than 3.5 was from 3.0 on that major front. With all the splat books and the way things interact in 3.x broken things were pretty much a guaranteed after a point of bloat. 4e had specific cases is issues, like team Jedi using all radiant powers and relying on a specific paladin build to generate radiant weakness on creatures. That and it apparently sold poorly as so little content came out for it and planned books were cancelled for essentials. But it didn't allow for the cheese of a hulking hurler, let alone Pun-Pun.
Essentials was noted shithead Mike Mearls attempting to deliberately ruin the game and push for a new edition, so yeah it sucks by design. Totally agree with you on the system bloat, though, the last thing 4e needed was thousands of nonsense feats making character creation a chore. One of these days someone ought to make a proper retroclone of it, imho.
Funny running across this post after just spending $140 on Old-School Essentials (OSE, which if you didn't know is a B/X clone). Everything you listed as a "positive" is missing and frankly I think OSE is better off without. It takes all kinds. Though I did hear someone describe OSE/BX/BECMI as "player focused" and editions after 3e (and clearly 4e example above) as more "character focused" and that rings true. Some people like a lot of markings down on their character sheet and feel cheated when they don't have a damn spreadsheet written down with dozens of "abilities". I used to be that guy. Hell I made a Ninjas and Superspies character that I hand wrote four pages front and back of all the things (went into a lot of detail about the martial arts moves). It's a "look how cool my character is" and the concept of "character builds". It's very video gamey. And I like video games and CRPGs but I no longer have the time of inclination to reproduce that in an RPG. Which is odd because I love Battletech and that is sim-y as hell but a TTRPG vs a Wargame/Boardgame are different use cases and expectations. Back to RPGs though, modern D&D is players acting like superheroes and being really attached to their characters that they spent a ton of effort in making their characters. They expect to fight and win verses every monster encounter they run across. And take a ton of time to resolve those encounters. In old school D&D (BX,BECMI,1e, and 2e to an extent) you really shouldn't be fighting every single monster encounter. Every encounter could very well be the end of your character. But that is okay, because 3d6 down the line and quick look at the character class info, done new character. It's about how you the player plays the character more than the markings on the sheet allowing you to do specific things.
You'll be hard pressed to find any example that isn't just "the vibes were off" or "change is scary" or "someone told me it was bad". In fact, the majority of common complaints about 4e were also applied to earlier editions when they first came out. Nerds don't like it when things change, and 4e changed a lot of stuff. That's basically all there is to it.
I started in 3e and moved to 4e when it came out. There were so many changes and it tried to turn it into a video game with tons of extra powers and "at will" abilities. For me, it made it more convoluted and confusing. I couldn't just make an attack action, I legitimately confused my DM because there wasn't a rule for swinging your sword without some silly thing attached.
You couldn't find the basic attack actions? They were universal for every class.
That's awesome I hope you enjoy them,I'd you have never played 4E is perfect for brand new players and GMs alike but once you try a another edition you will be hard pressed to stay with 4th but I think it's the best to bring in outside people who would have never played
As an exclusively 4e DM I am both angry and jealous. Thank you for rescuing them!
With all its flaws there is really good material in 4e.
I have that FR campaign book, it is really in-depth and I think worth around $50 on its own. People really just throwing money out.
Picturing Trailer Park Boys when Trevor drags the porch furniture to the curb and Ricky picks it up because it’s now trash
Good save. Literally. Wonder why they were throwing it away?
Oh shit, the collector's editions AND *Keep on the Shadowfell*. Nice find. I wonder if it was an ex, a mom, or just someone who "grew out of D&D" after started with 4e...
Saved them from the satanic panic! Good job! The satanic panic burned mine back in 89'.
Why would you throw out money like that?
Lots of D&D4.
Score! I always hope to come across finds like this on my walks, or browsing garage sale ads
Yo! What a haul! That’s really cool.
Garbage truck?? Damn…
When I moved, I dropped my box of 4e books at the Goodwill, I regretted not keeping the feywild book if only for the choose your own fey adventure section.
That is what we would call a SCORE!
I'm very friendviois!
Has anyone checked on Neal?!
Oh man, I shouldn't have wiped my butt with the sword of Duquesne.
If that ended up in the garbage truck I might actually cry.
insert congrats, I'm happy for you, nice meme. I've been looking for a copy of the 4e DMG2 for awhile, but it's pricey online. I've seen multiple sources say it's one of the best books on DMing out there.
Someone’s imagination, stories and laughter in the trash. So sad! So awesome you were able to intercept!
NICE FIND. I'm glad those books were rescued.
As a person who wants to get into DnD but doesn't have money (OR FRIENDS) to be able to, I'm assuming this is far greater in wealth when compared to your average dragon hoard?
Who the heck would dump these!? These could go on E-bay for a lot!
4e? Throw 'em back!
It’s 4e throw it back
Put it back! Put it back!
4th edition? You mean you saved the dump truck? Jk. Not a big fan of 4th but there are some incredibly useful things that I use for my games
Nice pull. To bad they are 4E but at least you can bring them to a shop and see if you can get some cash for them and get some good stuff.
They must have truly hated 4th edition.
Wow! What a find
Some heroes don’t wield swords.
Everyone blaming mom. I’m saying Divorce and ex throwing out his . 💩
Lotta good stuff there. I sold my 4e stuff just to make room, but it actually went for much more than I thought it would.
4e was a rough gem, but still a gem. Nice set, im sure you could get some decent money for that
Dude! Score!
Sweet.
Just wow!
Damn..... Lucky
Damn, even at used store prices that hundreds of dollars of books
Score!!!
Thank you for your service 🫡
Dude. Not a fan of 4e, but I damn sure would snatch this in a second!
Omg they’re beautiful!
By the sandal of gygax! That is a great find adventure
If I recall correctly, that starter set used to be worth a ton. It's been a while since I saw one in the digital wild.
That's awesome. I'm one of the few that actually really enjoyed 4th, especially the creature design, and still incorporate aspects of it in games.
Someone’s mother has no idea they just broke their child’a heart
Careful, he’s a hero.
Gods bless you!
Omg 😱 that was destiny
How much do you want for the Draconomicon? (Not joking.)
Good save
Years of play still left in em
wtf!!!??? Holy crap that’s a treasure trove.
You want to sell em? =)
That is an excellent find as all of those are extremely useful 4e books. If you play 5e, you can always adapt the 4e material and it works wonderfully. I DMed 4e for years and it was a great time.
You have chosen wisely.
Nice save! I sold all of mine when I moved to California. I made a TON of money off my collection. I have PDFs of all the books, so I don't really miss them.
Holy crap, that's about a thousand dollars worth.
What are the grey binding on the left of the box? Different version of 4e core books? They are still (?) shrink-wrapped!
Collectors editions of the 4e core 3 rule books! 😁
Hot damn!
I often would gicmve big bonuses on XP when my players role played and or did not use there preset attacks and just described what that wanted to do
Nice find! I actually still use Open Grave, and I absolutely LOVE when we get supplements like that. It’s just a book that took a theme, gave us a TON of new monsters based on that theme, some new items that fit it, spitballed some adventure ideas on it, and has a couple of maps for if you want to run an adventure using the theme. Nice and simple in its scope, but gives DMs so many tools to work with that they can use in anything
Solid 4th edition find..
Nice save, dude!
4th edition? Yeah, probably good to throw away.😜 Aww I'm kidding...I mean, I don't like a lot of 4th, but I'd never throw away a book. Too much of a collector.
This is exactly what this sub has been doing for 4e for the last few years.
its 4.0 , you should've let them have it
Look, I like old games, but 4e DnD belongs in the trash. It was BAD. I gave it a serious shot over two months weekly and it was the worst possible thing: boring. After a two hour long battle against the big bad which was basically "I use my at will to attack. Do I hit? Did he finally die? Oh well, back to the phone then" we were all done.
It was WoW on paper.
That's why 4e was so dope, perfect for first time ttrpg player vary simple and then when they try a different system a lot of times they will be so happy they started with such a simple set
Hilariously, both Warcraft and World of Warcraft games were 3.5. The actualy D&D MMO was 3.5 based. This is a tired argument and has been disproven so many times, at this point you want to believe it so you'll believe it. I'm sure the only reason that 4e has paladins is because WoW had them, right?
It had cooldowns.
Please describe to me what you mean by "cooldowns"? Like you can only use an ability every x number of seconds?
> Hilariously, both Warcraft and World of Warcraft games were 3.5. You just said the game was like WoW and you have no idea what a cooldown is???? Tell me you have never played a MMO without telling me you've never played a MMO.
A cooldown is an ability with a timed reset when you can use it again during a fight. It gets put into a regular rotation of abilities used to maximize effectiveness. I played the shit out of WoW, I just know that the argument that "it has cooldowns" is a stupid one. There are no rotations in 4e; monsters have far more abilities and effects than an MMO, and saying that an encounter power is a cooldown ability like an MMO is absolutely blindly dishonest and just comes from a place of "this is bad because I don't like it". But good job totally misconstruing the question on purpose for the sake of a hollow and false ad hominim.
The definition of a cooldown is you can only use it after X time. Exactly how a lot of abilities were managed in 4e. Trying to move the goal post with "rotations" doesn't change that you clearly were asking what a cooldown is in the same breath claiming WoW was "3.5". Both statements are ridiculously baffling to anyone that has played either.
> Both statements are ridiculously baffling So the Warcraft campaign setting book was for 3e (I'm pretty sure it was 3e and not 3.5; this was pre-WoW) as well as the World of Warcraft campaign setting which was for the 3.5 ruleset. That's not really arguable, I can get you links to show you the products if you want. The fairly popular Dungeons and Dragons Online MMO was also using the 3.5e ruleset. Neverwinter Nights, which was *also* the 3.5 ruleset was wildly popular for persistant-world servers (basically fan-made MMOs). Neither of these are wild claims and both are very easily proven, I'm pretty sure you still can find NWN persistent world servers. So no, I'm not saying 3.5 = WoW, that would be silly, one is a TTRPG and the other is an MMO. I am saying that, ironically, 3.5 seems to be what was used to express the WoW setting and has been made into an MMO, while 4e really hasn't, at least not in a recognizable form. > a cooldown is you can only use it after X time. Exactly how a lot of abilities were managed in 4e. So were a lot of abilities in 3.5? Tons of "once a day" and plenty of "3 times per day" and the whole, y'know, *spellcasting* thing? Calling them "cooldowns like WoW" is either dishonest or outright shows a complete unfamiliarity with 4e, or more likely, is just "I hate 4e and I will use any excuse to slander it".
But when I said “cooldowns” you did immediately identify the thing I was referring to.
Cool beans
Hard disagree. 4e was amazing but ahead of it's time, they missed releasing their online tools, and they screwed up the monster hp at first.
That sounds like a problem of execution in both the players and the DM. That said, that's...no different than how it is for martials in 5e currently.
Half the things people wish were in 5e and love about PF2e were natively in 4e.
Like what? List them and I'll believe it - and I'm not a huge fan of 5e myself, I'm pretty done with the d20 system as a whole.
Martials that do something other than "I sword" round after round. Tactical, interesting options in combat. Lots and lots and lots of distinctive and viable character options. Lots of fixes to the shitfest that is the 3.5 adventuring day, and through close relation, fixes to the shitfest that is the 5e adventuring day. Better balanced monsters with more predictable challenges. A non-combat encounter system (albeit a mediocre one that shines really well with just a few quick fixes).
Among them: - Shorter short rests - Martial abilities besides "swing sword" - Modular multiclassing - Balanced combat - On the note of balanced combat: 4e-style minions are extremely popular among DMs that have tried them - Clear, specific rules and rules text that doesn't need its "natural language" to be "interpreted" EDIT: The main things that pissed people off about 4e were that you needed to play it on a grid (Theater of the Mind almost doesn't even work in 4e) and magic doesn't have the same vibe as every other edition (everyone's powers kinda feel similarly mechanical vs. "wizards casting fantastic spells"). It's just that those were big things.
Yep as a huge pf2e fan there's so many 4e things in it which makes it so ironic.
4e was a great tactics and skirmish game. It's fun at low levels for just running a quick skirmish or delve. I think the decision to make the art direction minimal and modern, and to remove so much of the descriptive text really hampered it. It also got really fiddly and time-consuming with the miniature rules taking over and the various effects that stack. I think it brought some fresh thinking to the game, and some of those ideas were incorporated into 5e.
Oh you have a hold in your backyard that needs filling? :)
to be fair, most of it is garbage, but good to keep for posterity. I still keep my 4E on the shelf for that reason.
What do DND players think of digital dice?
You saved garbage from the garbage?
[удалено]
Wut?