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The main difference I've seen is that my wife actually found character creation in 4E to be fun. She liked to make characters in AD&D, but character creation in 3.X was like pulling teeth for her, to the point where she pretty much hated having anything to do with the character sheet.
All of which means she couldn't really participate in the main goal of 3.X: gathering together the right combination of race, classes, skills and feats to make an overpowering specialized lump of synchronized powers. With 4E she can ignore the whole munchkin power gamer element of 3.X and get right into roleplaying.
Last edited by Eric Tolle; 15th October 2008 at 12:40 AM..
Our group plays the way our group plays so on one hand, there is very little difference - particularly with 4E borrowing so many concepts from 3E.
However, perhaps the main difference between 4E and 3E for us is that there are more moments where the mechanics of the game and the flavour they represent disconnect and have us go "weird huh, interesting rules glitch there". Most of the time though, we just keep playing, the momentary distraction only being minor.
And actually there is one more thing too in terms of combat. Teamwork is enforced by the rules by having higher hit points and less damage output. No taking the big guy down in one hit or spectacular action any more. As well, since you really want your daily to work, you quickly work out the teamwork to make this happen. Warlord buff goes to Paladin something goes to... my daily just worked real nice. A little mechanical and limiting I suppose but it beats the frustration of mucking up a daily. I'm not too sure if this is a good thing or not.
On the other side of the screen, MUCH less prep required. Monster stats are now completely self-contained. Having monsters and NPCs follow different rules than for PCs is the big design feature here. Makes things a hell of a lot easier to run. In terms of the rules, since the rules borrow so many concepts from 3E, it was much easier to get into than from 2E to 3E.
I suppose that's several differences but heh...
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Herremann the Wise
__________________ Want to see through my crystal ball and what's in store for 5E? Take a glance at my Dreams of 5th Edition
He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder. Tad Williams
And there is no longer a growth curve for the characters. A 1st level character no longer has to fear a lucky hit from an orc. Conversely a high level character can no longer change the course of nations or bend the weather to their will.
I'm just quoting this because it helped me to crystallize what I felt was the most significant difference between 3e and 4e:
Interaction in combat is more tightly defined. Interaction outside of combat is more loosely defined.
Interaction outside of combat (skill challenges, rituals, etc.) is governed more by guidelines than a hard set of rules.
Players pay attention to what happens on other players rounds.
Quoted for truth and I absolutely love it. It's great both as DM and as player of a cleric to see how inetereste deverybody is in ther actions of the other players to make sure they everybody gets the most out of their powers and such...
It also warmed me a lot to the leader type characters. When you can attack, heal and give somebody a +4 attack bonus for a round all in one turn and get a round of thank you's from the players, it just feels nice to be a leader-class...
I also think that 4th edition is 'basic' D&D. I am hoping that PHB2 and other rules supplements add 'skill tricks' that let you, for example, try an athletics check vs Ref to grant combat advantage to someone you're grabbing (as the old 3.5 grapple checks did) or an Acrobatics check vs Ref to avoid combat advantage while moving (3.5 tumble). I think the underlying mechanics are still there for most of the options available in 3.5 if the game seems stale to you.
Someone mentioned battlemats. I think 4th edition games benefit when DMs give as much attention to building the environment as you would an enemy.
My understanding of the current Grab mechanic is that it inflicts the 'Restrained' condition on the target, which also grants Combat Advantage. It may not be explicitly spelled out though, and I could be mistaken. However, that is how my group runs it.
And even in 3rd edition, I have found that putting effort into the battle environment has always made the encounter more interesting. Cover, highground bonuses, bodies of water in which to drown people or just make life difficult, things to climb on or jump over or balance on, all of which are worth while.
It is typically the terrain in which a fight takes place that will suggest the atypical tactics, more so than any rule set of D&D.
I was probably too hard on 4e in my previous post (but I swear, four months and I never saw that NPC-making page; I kept on stumbling across the 'how to add classes to monsters' thing but never flipped two pages farther). I enjoy playing it as a casual beer-and-pretzels sort of game, but for an action-epic game, where I want the fights to be few and far between but dizzyingly cool, it doesn't work so well.
Minis really slow the game down for me. I gave them a try (and I got a bunch as a gift from a poster here, which was awesome), but they did not add to the game that I wanted to play.
I'm going to give it another try, at a higher level so the players will have more stuff they can do. Maybe that will make it more interesting for me, or give the players more options to try out cool tricks. And I will print out that frikkin' chart of damage you can deal with creative combat actions.
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
Author of the War of the Burning Sky serialized novel, free at EN World. Part Two, The Irons Have Tolled, now available.
I'm going to give it another try, at a higher level so the players will have more stuff they can do. Maybe that will make it more interesting for me, or give the players more options to try out cool tricks. And I will print out that frikkin' chart of damage you can deal with creative combat actions.
The 4e DM's Screen is your friend.
It's actually one of the most impressive screens I've seen for D&D - extremely thick, and has a bunch of useful tables. For some reason, the table I look at most often is the XP table for players, but the monster XP is also great.
Here's a difference: I enjoy playing and running 3e.
Yah, I'm with you on this. The disconnect between rules for PCs and rules for NPCs/Monsters puts me off DMing completely. The nonsensical rules and powers put me off playing completely.
Let me add the design and running of Monsters is vastly simpler and a whole lot more fun. Prepping and running the game is much, much simpler for the DM.
However, player choice of powers seems too limited for now, and some of my players and myself aren't too keen on the fact that as you gain higher-level powers you some how "forget" the lower level ones. Having some trouble with that...
I enjoy playing it as a casual beer-and-pretzels sort of game, but for an action-epic game, where I want the fights to be few and far between but dizzyingly cool, it doesn't work so well.
Out of curiosity, did you find 3e to work better for this? I ask because one of my biggest frustrations with 3e was exactly what you're saying about 4e.
I'm not actually expecting a huge improvement from 4e on this score. I decided that if I wanted a low-combat game, I'd use a non-level based game (Hero, Savage Worlds) where the non-combat skills can improve independent of combat ability and powers (aka spells, class abilities, and feats). I'm expecting the simplified powers and combat systems in 4e, along with skill challenges, will show some gain, just not anything earth-shattering.
Determine "level of adventure"
Determine XP pool for adventure (Solo monster x10)
Spend XP on quests, monsters, and skill-challenges
Determine Treasure Packets
Place on Map (if needed)
Arrange to Taste, allowing for a couple "off the cuff" ideas if the PCs do something unpredictable...
TA-DA! No CR/EL nonsense, rolling (and re-rolling and re-rolling) treasure, etc. I can make and adventure in a day or two, (including stating out NPCs and templated creatures) whereas it regularly took my a week or two to do a full-adventure on paper in 3.X.
I didn't realize we were talking about the change from 1st ed. compared to everything that came after?
Seriously, I've always found the flavor after 1st ed. to be some bits that were strikingly good, quite a lot of average or slightly below average, and a not inconsiderable amount of pure stinkers. 4E is no different, in this regard.
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