4E, as an anti-4E guy ...

[Mallus]

So if you hate tactics it's not a good game for you?

There's no simple answer to this. If you hate tactics, then a combat-heavy 4e campaign probably isn't for you. However, there is no need for a 4e campaign to be combat-heavy. My group spent an entire session putting on a play (okay, so a battle did break out during the performance, but what do expect? It's D&D...).

How tactics-averse are you? (ie what games do you like). I mean, quite a few RPG's feature fightin'. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone wrote a critical hit table for Nicotine Girls...

I'm wondering what the frequency is of powers that could be used out of combat despite not seeming designed for it.

Again, it's entirely up to the individual DM.

What I see with rituals is that previously some were spells that you could just snap your fingers and have a little cool effect.

Magicians can do cool little effects at-will in 4e.

 

[Montague68]

There's also the pat answer "any power the DM okay's can be used outside of combat". Wizards, in particular, have a number of powers that lend themselves to frequent non-combat use. Like their at-will Thunderwave. You can do a lot (of harm to structures) with a concussive wave of force.

Yeah, my group's wizard burned down a tavern with his sustained Flame Sphere

 

[WizarDru]

the EXXXXXTREEEME (cue guttural voice) movement abilities of both the PCs and the enemies was very jarring, and I didn't like it at all. This is only in part to the diagonal movement rule, though.

I can easily see that. However, in the context of the game for us, this tends to lend more flavor, not less. The fighter using his special movement power to circle to a flank without incurring an Opportunity Attack, the rogue tumbling out of danger, the shaman using his spirit to harry an enemy and drive him back, the fighter grabbing an ally and shoving him behind her so she can protect him...the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, for us.

Again, this bothered me less than I thought I would, and again, that's subject to "not thinking about it." My sense of narrative style would absolutely require me to make a house rule for this, if I were DMing (but I think doing so would be both trivial and elegant), and if the lack of it creeps up on me as I expect it will, over multiple sessions, the failure to house-rule it could be a deal-breaker for me.

I thought that this would be a major problem for me, but in actual play it feels very elegant. It creates a 'healing economy' that is more subtle than simple hit points. For example: in our most recent game, the players needed to navigate a blizzard to reach a cursed tower. Doing so was a skill challenge: failure at the challenge or at certain skills resulted in a loss of healing surges, to represent fatigue. Leaders doling out healing bennies in a fight, fighters getting temporary hit points from grim determination and so forth...the treating of hit points as a more meta concept sounds atrocious at points, but works well in practice, we've found.

Most of my other dislikes of 4E are "meta-dislikes." Just for example, having separate powers for everybody, when so many of them are so similar.

My only comment here is that an individual power seems similar, but as a group, they take on a character. Comparing a fighter to a rogue in actual play, their power sets take on a very different feel. Not dramatically different, but flavored enough that they don't play the same.

Our big worry initially was that too many powers would be hard to track, let alone with the interaction of feats. In practice, once we got our sea legs (just like with 3e and 3.5), everything went swimmingly.

Overall, as I said, I rate this first real session of 4E as a positive. I'm surprised at how much so. I'll be updating this thread with each session, and I welcome comments.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I would echo other sentiments that I don't think that Shadowfell is actually that great a module, though it's not bad by any means. By way of comparison, I thought Sunless Citadel was a better starter module, but a lot of it depends on the DM. Interested to hear how future sessions go.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

And what about if you're not tactically-inclined?

If you're not tactically-inclined, you probably should play something other than a combat focused tactical miniatures based RPG, like for example any edition of D&D.

Older editions were vague enough to ignore combat, and 3.5E had all sorts of tools to pretend it was something it wasn't, but at the core D&D has always been the tactical combat RPG.

Kill monsters, get xp, get treasure, repeat step 1.

 

[Rechan]

Older editions were vague enough to ignore combat, and 3.5E had all sorts of tools to pretend it was something it wasn't, but at the core D&D has always been the tactical combat RPG.

Kill monsters, get xp, get treasure, repeat step 1.

This. A thousand times this.

Hell, D&D was birthed from a squad-based miniature wargame, Chainmail.

 

[Mallus]

Older editions were vague enough to ignore combat, and 3.5E had all sorts of tools to pretend it was something it wasn't, but at the core D&D has always been the tactical combat RPG.

D&D is something of a paradox.

It's absolutely true that D&D has always been a tactical combat RPG at heart. It was birthed from the head of Chainmail like some ancient god of nerdery.

It's also absolutely true that D&D has be used to run campaigns that ignore tactical combat in favor of any number of other things. By a lot of people. Since the very beginning.

I'm certain there are gamers with fond memories of D&D campaigns that featured tea parties with unicorns discussing Spinoza.

This might have something to do with D&D's near-total market dominance. D&D is the RPG. People use it for everything (even some people who are aware other choices exist).

 

[Rechan]

This might have something to do with D&D's total market dominance. D&D is the RPG. People use it for everything (even some people who are aware other choices exist).

It's also the gateway RPG.

Everybody who's ever picked up a polyhedron knows a +1 sword and a Fireball spell are. People play D&D at least ONCE, and then they branch out. It's also the RPG that is easiest to get people for, because it is the one everyone is most familiar with (and the one some won't budge from).

 

[thecasualoblivion]

D&D is something of a paradox.

It's absolutely true that D&D has always been a tactical combat RPG at heart. It was birthed from the head of Chainmail like some ancient god of nerdery.

It's also absolutely true that D&D has be used to run campaigns that ignore tactical combat in favor of any number of other things. By a lot of people. Since the very beginning.

I'm certain there are gamers with fond memories of D&D campaigns that featured tea parties with unicorns discussing Spinoza.

This might have something to do with D&D's near-total market dominance. D&D is the RPG. People use it for everything (even some people who are aware other choices exist).

D&D has been used to run non-combat campaigns since the beginning. Everybody knows this, and I've been a part of some of them. All of these ignored the system and its focus on combat. I don't see how the details of combat have any bearing on ignoring combat.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

This is the sort of stuff I don't get: if you don't need mechanics for this why do you need them for other things? I see the use of mechanics to be an interaction between the player and the game. When it's just a matter of personal interaction I question why the game needs to butt in at all.

Having mechanics for combat and exploration (or anything else that is standard across the board) is a good thing, IMO. Every edition of D&D has focused on how the characters interact in combat or exploration. Interactions outside of these areas were encouraged to use the greatest strength a TTRPG has over other forms of games, the DM. Outside of exploration and combat the choices a player can make to interact with the game are only bound by their imagination and what the DM allows them to accomplish with said imagination. People criticize 4E for having a lack of non-combat options like it is the first version of D&D to focus on combat and exploration. All* editions to date have focused on that portion of the game in the core rules and left the rest up to advice for the DM. Why? Because you can only geuss where the players will take the game. And if you devote page after page to such things one of two things will happen, IMO: 1) the players will come out of left field with an idea that you still aren't prepared for; or 2) the players will get ahold of those pages and get the impression that their characters are limited to the actions in those pages, like a grand "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

As to the game "butting in" - that's its job. The setting "butts in," the rules "butt in," and the flavor of individual powers/classes/etc. "butt in" to give shape to the game you are playing. Without this shaping of the world you play in chaos and might as well run out in the backyard and play imaginary "Pokemon and Robbers" with the 4-year-olds.** That kind of play can be fun, but it isn't what most TTRPGs are about.

* IMO, 3E gave an illusion of rules for all situations, but that need for a rule stripped power from the DM to run an imaginative game and caused players to look for rules that covered what they wanted to do instead of just stating to the DM what they want to do and letting him do his job as adjudicator.

**I am not trying to label anyone as immature here. The 4-year-old comment is more of an inside joke of the kinds of mish-moshed games I observe my sons playing when they exercise their imagination.

 

[Barastrondo]

So if you hate tactics it's not a good game for you?

Pardon my curiosity here. If you hate tactics, what sort of combat roleplaying do you prefer? Are you looking for something like narrative combat, where the player is rewarded for hitting whoever it would be most dramatic to hit, or you move around the battlefield based on what would be the most visually interesting movement?

Tactical decisions are an integral part of dealing with a combat scene with a game as the medium. I'm kind of interested in how you could drop tactics out of the mix and still have something like a game left.