> There was a huge marketing push to make the game more attractive to a broader market along with the release of fifth edition. This grew the game enormously because fifth edition is a lot more "streamlined" than previous versions.
No. 4th edition was the most streamlined, to a fault. Thank god they worked some decent mechanics back into 5E.
> I find it all so dull. I like the numbers and crunch, theorycrafting crazy builds, I like games that reward a deep knowledge of the ruleset. 5E is none of this
Be glad you missed out on 4E.
That being said, most people I know of who also missed the crunch played Pathfinder instead.
----------
3.5E was clearly too crunchy, and the crunch had some exploits that were made obvious by the internet sharing those exploits. Pathfinder closes a lot of those loopholes and was just superior for the internet age.
3.5E probably was fine pre-Internet. But now that you can just "download a build" with all of the crazy exploits making level 1 overpowered, you can't just have untested crazy builds like that anymore.
EDIT: The age of Pathfinder 1.0 is over though. Its been a good run, and Paizo has a huge amount of respect from me for taking care of the venerable 3.5-like system for so long. Maybe my next campaign will be Pathfiner 2.0, but a lot of my players are old-dogs who don't want to learn a new rule system.
D&D 4e remains one of the best, most varied combat systems in tabletop roleplaying. It gave well-balanced, tactical combat with a well fleshed-out item and character progression system.
It just didn't have any roleplaying attached to it, and the combat systems sacrificed verisimilitude for game design. It honestly had more in common with Gloomhaven than D&D, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
1. Prepared casters using the right spells to "solve" encounters -- Glitterdust and Invisibility purge "solves" invisibility. "Fly" solves flying enemies. "Wind Wall" solves enemy arrows.
2. Beatsticks having a good enough build to handle all the cases that #1 can't handle. Ex: maybe the Druid doesn't have "Daylight" to counter the deeper-darkness the enemy Lich cast, but the Beatstick might have scent (Barbarian) or blindfight to handle the case anyway.
------
These spells and situations were so incredibly varied, and it really is fun to play with. Haste beats slow. Dimensional Anchor beats Dimension door. Etc. etc.
Pathfinder specifically made fighter-types deal incredible amounts of damage, ensuring that they'll be relevant. (Fighter Archer will almost certainly outdamage Wizard fireballs).
------
4th edition felt like... everyone was playing roughly the same thing. Wizards spell options were largely just damage, and not so interactive. You had nothing like the "Daylight vs Deeper Darkness", or "Force Cage vs Dimension Door", or "Invisibility purge vs Invisibility Sphere" system before.
So there just wasn't any real amount of "division of labor" going on in 4th edition. Everyone was basically a beatstick.
3.5 / Pathfinder had the issue that if two players played the same role (ex: a Fighter + Paladin), it felt redundant, and one of the players will feel left out.
------
Gloomhaven is probably a good description of 4E. But 3.5 / Pathfinder was more like DOTA or Overwatch. Players are in a team, and there's no class that can fulfill all roles. By subdividing the party's jobs between different players, everyone has something to contribute in the dungeon.
As long as the DM ensured that the party compositions were decently balanced and with less redundancy. (Even if two fighters were chosen, you can still play different roles with different weapons. Archer vs Beatstick for example).
No. 4th edition was the most streamlined, to a fault. Thank god they worked some decent mechanics back into 5E.
> I find it all so dull. I like the numbers and crunch, theorycrafting crazy builds, I like games that reward a deep knowledge of the ruleset. 5E is none of this
Be glad you missed out on 4E.
That being said, most people I know of who also missed the crunch played Pathfinder instead.
----------
3.5E was clearly too crunchy, and the crunch had some exploits that were made obvious by the internet sharing those exploits. Pathfinder closes a lot of those loopholes and was just superior for the internet age.
3.5E probably was fine pre-Internet. But now that you can just "download a build" with all of the crazy exploits making level 1 overpowered, you can't just have untested crazy builds like that anymore.
EDIT: The age of Pathfinder 1.0 is over though. Its been a good run, and Paizo has a huge amount of respect from me for taking care of the venerable 3.5-like system for so long. Maybe my next campaign will be Pathfiner 2.0, but a lot of my players are old-dogs who don't want to learn a new rule system.