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What's the most significant difference you've found with 4e from 3e?
G'day, all!
My players were recently chatting about how D&D 4e seemed more deadly than D&D 3e (I don't think it is), but out of that discussion came what, to me, is the most significant change made in 4e from 3e:
No more wand of cure light wounds
If anything changed the entire tenor of the game, it was the wand of clw. It meant basically unlimited healing, and if you weren't killed outright by a blow you'd be saved and back to full HP after the combat.
Sure, 4e has healing surges and short rests, but they are extremely limited resources. Boy, are they limited!
So, despite all the changes to powers, classes, races, rules and the like, for me the most significant change has been the removal of the wand of cure light wounds.
What's do you find the most significant change or difference between the editions? (Or you can comment on the wand, if you like. )
We almost never have to look something up at the table.
The other is that it's completely impossible to play in a text-based online form. Due to the focus on the battlemat, when the initiative dice are rolled, it becomes more painful than 3e was.
Running the game is actually fun and enjoyable. That's the biggest difference I've seen.
Yup. And preping to run is so much less arduous. I can remember that in 3e, I'd spend 30+ minutes getting one monster ready, and far more than that if I wanted to do anything weird. I'd say that's cut in half, and that's getting stuff prepared far more formally.
__________________ All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable; I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here; maybe we should compromise:
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We’ll all come inside and eat your brains
Falling damage is for my players almost as scary as in real life, now.
I'll never forget in a game about eight months ago the 12th level fighter who jumped out of a 110-FOOT TREE, took 43 damage, got up and joined in a fight with around 70 or 80 hit points remaining. While cool, it was so over the top we are still referring to it, as late as our most recent session.
Now, that 12th level fighter would have around 90 to 100 max hit points, and taking a 60-point fall or so, with a potential to be a 100-point fall, would not be something he did lightly. And that fighter would look at a 500-foot drop and shy away like a level 1 green recruit...
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
--Lizard
The Rules Aren't The Same between PCs and NPCs. This has far-reaching implications that I didn't fully appreciate until I'd been playing 4e for awhile and thought about the things I could not conveniently do anymore.
If, in a game, PCs and NPCs obviously operate on the same rules, there is more room for mystery plots, as players can look at the capabilities open to them and make some deductions.
It is also more tempting to run plots with strictly normal (i.e., PC-like) antagonists.
3e had become more of a burden than a game. It is too clunky. But it, and editions before it, in some ways attempted to describe a fantastical universe, consistent between PCs and NPCs. 4e does not attempt this in any way that I can discern, and I am not entirely willing to give up on that. I think my response to this will be to build a wide variety of strictly normal statblocks, an expansion of the human, elf, dwarf, etc., entries in the MM. Their powers will be cognates of PC powers, and recognizable as such. If they do a little more or less damage, that's not really relevant.
Biggest difference is how eager I am to play or run it.
In example, every class seems interesting and exciting to me (although I think fighters and rogues may have become my faves...).
Ruleswise? The game being focused around the power mechanic. I don't think it's a perfect design, but I like it a lot more than 3.x.
__________________ I think I've found some dice groups. Good stuff. This site said I have Str: 7, Dex: 11, Con: 8, Int: 13, Wis: 11, Cha: 15.
Biggest difference for me is that combat just feels different. The bad guys stay up longer, the good guys do less damage, there are power cards, there are healing surges, there is non-magical healing, there is a lot more pushing the bad guys around, healing isn't as intense or efficient as it used to be, everyone has daily powers. So, yeah, combat. It just feels a whole lot different. Much more different in 4e vs. 3e than 3e was vs. 2e.
On a separate note, on the speed issue, my two cents: in con games, in home games, and in my school club, 4e and 3e take about the same amount of time to run a combat, with 3e longer per turn by a bit and 4e having more rounds by a bit.
We almost never have to look something up at the table.
This is probably it for me, too. We just play now. I'm running a game where the PCs have formed a small mercenary/adventuring company. I've only got three players currently, but two of them have two characters. The group also includes 3 NPCs. Any given adventure, sometimes any given combat, will feature between 3-5 PCs and up to 3 NPCs, in varying combinations. In 4e, this is no sweat. I design encounters and dungeons for 4 PCs and scale them up or down as needed. This is effortless. I have one small note card in my game file that has the quick guidelines for modifying monsters/NPCs. Tweaking the game on the fly is that easy.
None of my players have played D&D since about 2002. We have had seven sessions so far and we have had to refer to the books about 3 times. This allows all of the time at the table to be focused on the game.
From my side of the table most of my preparation time is now taken up with developing interesting npc's, plot lines and conflicts rather than worrying about whether I calaculated the npc's skill points correctly.
The biggest difference for me is the shift in resource management. But for a few notable exceptions from later splatbooks, 3e is all about the daily powers. In 4e it's mostly about the healing surges, which translates to how much of a beating you take over the course of the day. I find that by default 4e feels a bit grittier as a consequence.
-blarg
__________________ Red Hot Swing
"In Inspired Sarlona, nightmares have you!" -Klaus
After DM'ing for a few months, I finally got to *play* a session of 4E at the weekend so I feel more confident in saying this. For me, it's still being able to play encounters to their fullest, because everything the monsters can do is RIGHT THERE in front of me. Synnergies are simple and clear. Abilities are summarised in a few words. Simple mechanics like the recharge and saving throw rules keep things uncomplicated.
Previously I felt I had to know the game inside and out to make the most of an encounter, something which my limited time (and, frankly, capacity to remember the minutae of the rules) made very hard. Things are very different now, and the game is much more enjoyable for it.
__________________ "The last time I ran into myself, I kicked my own ass." Chasing the DM, a blog for DM's like me who really feel they should know what they're doing by now.
For DM's: 4E Dungeon Index (adventures, conversions, and sidetreks by level, last updated 16th Oct. through Dungeon #171).
My players see things like monsters with tons of hitpoints, high initiatives, a wide array of different powers that recharge during the fight, etc, and honestly think that monsters are better than PCs.
I'll echo those who have noted the smoother flow of the game. I've run six sessions of 4E so far, and I've never had to open any of the core books at the table.
Running the game is actually fun and enjoyable. That's the biggest difference I've seen.
Yep, this is the major thing for me too. 4E is easy and fun to prep and play. My group quit 3e four years ago because it wasn't fun for us and we went to other systems for our gaming. Now we've mixed D&D back into the rotation, and we've having a blast!
__________________ Gothmog
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