You talk of "too many options", what do you say about "not enough choices or options"? 5e has a distinct lack of choices and very limited options. Most player characters will make 2, maybe 3 choices in their entire career. 1/2
— Andrew Weyandt (@GenericFighter) September 16, 2018
It’s a continuum. We’re finding that the 5e direction seems to work well for most players. That doesn’t mean it’s a fit for every group, and that’s where other games can pick up the slack. https://t.co/jJlC1YOYiv
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 16, 2018
So what I have come to realize is that I truly do not desire higher quantity of options, I desire higher quality of options. That I would be happy to have 3 to 5 options if they all had something that interested me. And that is an important thing to me. Meaningful choices. 5/6 It’s funny you brought up 4e – I think if we didn’t go with the very strict power acquisition structure for all classes, the game would’ve been much, much stronger. That and cutting combat time down by 50% – 75%.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 16, 2018
Sometimes I feel like 4E is like the ACA: Polling on the individual components is usually high, but somehow people dislike the sum of its parts!
(Observation I had earlier, this was just an easy place to mention it, PRAISE ME FOR MY CLEVER OBSERVATIONS, INTERNET!) 4e was really undermined by the decision fairly late in the process to use the same power structure for every class. That structure was a big mistake for a few reasons:
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 17, 2018
The number of encounter powers forced the floor for encounter duration up, to the point that 60 minute fights were the minimum for many campaigns. Utility powers ended up getting transformed into stuff you used during fights that wasn’t attacks, which made fights drag even worse. And then dailies sat on top of it all, and at-wills filled in the gaps.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 17, 2018
Were I rebuilding 4e today, I’d make at-wills far more exciting and powerful, restrict utility to non-combat, and use the non-attack stuff in encounter powers. Then I’d make daily powers three times as good. Finally, as a first pass on encounter building I’d aim for much faster fights, but allow for the tough fights to be much, much higher than the party’s level and last longer. So, level 1 party might fight level 1 critters, but boss monster is a level 8 solo that draws out dailies.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 17, 2018
And also fewer powers overall? Definitely for character building – would have a high standard for getting into the game.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 17, 2018
Bah. Assume people are never using at-wills unless something has gone wrong, and expect a player with 3 encounter attack powers to do 3 things of note each encounter! FWIW, one of the biggest problems people had with 4e was that fights felt too similar and dragged out. Getting encounter powers right in an TRPG is very tricky. Could be done, would take a lot of testing to nail it.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 17, 2018
