Dwarves are gay bakers now in d&d
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4e solved some issues, and it created had some issues of its own. In particular, here’s what comes to mind for me:
It increased the base hit points, which solved the issue of low-level characters dying to one unlucky damage roll, but created the issue of making everything feel stickier. If I have to hit every goblin two or three times before it’s even “bloodied,” combat gets slower, and characters feel less heroic if even the most basic enemies can consistently tank multiple hits.
It introduced a system of “daily” and “encounter” powers for everyone. This reduced the issue of spellcasters eclipsing martial classes at high levels, but it created the issue of spellcasters and martial classes feeling similar. Forget spell slots and such, now everyone has the exact same number of special powers in play, and all classes can debuff or hit multiple enemies or move people around or whatever.
This guy gets it.
Again, sounds like you didn't play it. 1 HP minions were a defining feature.
I won't disagree with your assessment on the action economy, but the big picture is that 4e was a tactics game, unlike basically anything since OD&D. It basically defined the genre of 'combat-as-sport.' So, yeah, fighters had "slots" and that looks weird from an AD&D perspective. But within that framework, roles were actually mechanically enforced. No one could AoE like a wizard. No one could tank like a fighter. You could piece together a build to have a couple "out of role" powers and serve as an off-tank or a high damage fighter or whatever, but the classic classes always did better in their niches.
I'm aware that 1hp minions were a feature. They were a clever idea. Functionally, however, they did not solve the issue I'm talking about. Building an adventure for a party of level 1 or 2 PCs that only includes minions is (of course) pretty boring. It also makes the at-will 3x3 AoE spells that many spellcasters get overperform, undermining the whole attempt to balance spellcasters and martial classes.
However, once you stick 2-3 30hp goblins (or kobolds, or bullywugs—this is another issue; everything at a level has about the same HP within its "role," which increases the feeling of sameness) in an encounter, then combat almost inevitably lasts a few turns longer than is welcome, just because all those hit points will need to be depleted.
Wasn’t this a broken thing on release which they errata/patched down?
They buffed monster damage and to-hit rolls at higher levels because they didn't scale well against PCs in Paragon and Epic tier after they started collecting multiple good magic items. To my knowledge, they didn't do anything that would have changed what I was talking about, which was the comparatively bulky nature of everything as opposed to other editions that had lower HP on average, especially at lower levels.
They fixed it in MM3 iirc
A good game, a bad Dungeons and Dragons