The Flaws in Fourth

So, with fifth edition D&D on the way, it being the biggest name in our little hobby, I thought it was only fair to wave a fond farewell to fourth with a bit of a retrospective. I’m not normally one to do ‘xyz could have been done better’ opinion posts, especially since I hardly think I am in a position to dole out advice as a critic.

But these things keep on coming up in conversation, so I thought I might as well get it all down on paper.

For a start, I love D&D4. I think it’s an absolutely great RPG. It is and will probably continue to be my favourite iteration of the D&D brand name. It scratches a lot of itches that a lot of other RPGs just don’t manage for me. I love the grid-based tactical combat, I love the party roles, I love the balanced designs of the classes and the way that progressive customisation works in each tier, from theme through to epic destiny. I enjoy the looser, more freeform out of combat options, and I like that in skill challenges they tried to tabulate and reinforce what good GMs have been doing for years. I think the second Dungeon Master’s Guide is one of the best supplements for new GM advice D&D has ever put out.

Due to the relatively short lifespan of D&D fourth edition (2008-2012, taking Menzobarranzan to be the last hardcover 4^th edition release, compared to the 5 year lifespan of 3.5 alone), the fierce competition from Pathfinder, and the noticeably ‘retro’ design aesthetic of the coming 5^th edition, it has come under some attack as an edition that ‘failed’. Whilst it should be noted that fourth edition still made a very large amount of money compared to most RPG systems out there, it has certainly lost its dominant position in the market. So I wanted to spend a short time covering some of the bits and bobs that appeared to me to be missteps during the edition’s lifespan.

1. The OGL and the GSL

Well…. This isn’t 4^th edition’s fault, as it happened during its predecessor, 3.5. The OGL – the Open Gaming License – made it easy for third party publishers to work with and publish for the system. It added a great deal of vitality and variation to 3.5. Ultimately, however, it ended up in Pathfinder, effectively a slightly rebalanced 3.5, which severed the prospective customer base. I have little doubt that had Pathfinder never launched, some that switched to it would have moved on to the ‘New D&D’ in time, with the split being more similar to the 2^nd/3^rd release.

But there was one other licensing problem. The 4^th edition Game System License was notably quite restrictive. Clearly the intention here was to prevent a 4^th edition Pathfinder equivalent from occurring, splitting the player base again come the inevitable 5^th edition. The GSL is remarkably restrictive, and made the production of 4^th edition content quite difficult. The otherwise wonderful character builder software that Wizards provided also refused to support modification, meaning third party content could never be added to an individual’s system. With this, a lot of third party content makers made the move to Pathfinder, whereas they may have been more inclined to support an edition that was, in turn, more willing to support them.

2. Adventure Support

Towards the end of its lifespan, 4^th edition got some brilliant adventure books. Undermountain is great, and the Shadowfell and Menzobarrenzen books do some wonderful things with helping DMs create really evocative environments for players to adventure in. These are most notably location books, not adventures, however.

4^th edition had pretty poor adventure support. Keep on the Shadowfell, as an introductory adventure to D&D, lacked both Dungeons AND Dragons. Flippancy aside, a lot of effort was placed on the combat side of those early adventures, which led to a lot of them feeling like a bit of a slog from meatsack to meatsack, with few interesting NPC interactions and non-combat opportunities written in. This probably contributed fairly heavily to the often-perceived notion that 4^th ed “isn’t an RPG”, which I hear quite regularly. Combat is great in 4^th, but the focus placed on it in those early adventures makes it feel like it can be little else.

D&D editions are often defined by their iconic adventures. Every player remembers their first delve into the Tomb of Horrors, or when they found the Temple of Elemental Evil, or the Keep on the Borderlands. In third edition we returned to the Temple, and we found the Forges of Fury. I think fourth, sadly, lacked any modules of that kind of calibre throughout its lifespan. 

3. Presentation

Fourth got a lot of stick for being ‘video-gamey’. Powers are the oft-ridiculed part of the core experience of the edition. The concept of a fighter possessing once every encounter or once every day resources, however, is not actually a new one. Stunning Fist, for example, is a 3.5 Fighter core feat that gives the fighter a 1/day move for every 4 fighter levels. As a progression of the Tome of Battle classes of 3.5, the Fighter, to me, felt like a natural progression of some of the best elements of 3.5 design.

The real problem with powers, I feel, was in their presentation. The codified power boxes can often easily be expressed in a sentence format, and whilst this might make them slightly less clear to read, it makes them feel less ‘gamey’. I once ran a game for a group of die hard 3.5 fans and, in changing the formatting of 4^th edition powers - and not telling them they were playing 4^th edition - managed to resolve a number of their grievances with the system (At will Manoeuvres were changed to ‘Fighter’s Manoeuvres’, with the wording of say, the ‘Tide of Iron’ power changed to ‘On your turn, you may make a special combat manoeuvre against your target’s AC. On a hit…’ etc.).

The other criticism powers get is that it is almost always preferable to use your powers rather than a dumb cool thing with the environment of the fight. It was a problem I experienced, and one I remedied by including hidden terrain ‘powers’, roughly equivalent to an encounter power, to reward the inventive player. This was later codified in the DMG2, but I think a trick was missed in not including them from the start. They would certainly have helped to alleviate a lot of concerns with the system, and it surely must have been flagged in playtesting.

4. Essentials and the core brand change

When I start this section, I want to make clear: Essentials wasn’t the problem, but rather the marketing. D&D Essentials came out roughly half way through 4^th edition’s lifespan, in late 2010. Within it, it presented a number of simpler classes, and a different format for class features and character growth. While not all these classes are to my taste, they aren’t the problem.

Calling the brand Essentials, and presenting a lot of the new ideas as the ‘new core fighter’, ‘new core wizard’, and so on left a sour taste in the mouth of a number of players, who were worried that Essentials would be D&D 4.5. The presentation of the new Essentials classes as ‘introductory’ or ‘alternative’ builds would have probably garnered more support for the line from the existing player base. Heck, harkening back to the old division of D&D would have been preferable, by calling it ‘Basic 4th’.

The second problem was that once Essentials came out, older classes were left by the wayside as ‘complete’, only receiving support in Dragon. The first two years of 4^th edition relied heavily on the ‘Power’ books – expanding classes with a new build and some new powers that those already in a campaign could easily bolt into their character. Later Essentials and Players Options kits instead focused on introducing new builds that did not interact as heavily with older builds. It presents a number of cool new concepts to play with, but little for the player already in the campaign, with the exception of a page or so of feats. The two non-Psionic classes in the third Players Handbook, the Seeker and the Runepriest, suffer from a severe lack of support, as they only have one book and a few dragon articles to their name. The former, especially, has a number of problems as a class, such that it really needs additional content to adequately fulfil its combat role as well as other controllers.

So as we wave in 5^th edition, and I carry on playing and running 4^th because I enjoy it, I wanted to look back at some of the things I felt it did wrong, because I love it very dearly. The designers put their heart and soul into a game that was, if nothing else, unique among its kind. And it is fun. And I think that is the highest reward that can be given.