D&D 4E Another Group Tries 4E

[Mindseye]

Hi folks.....delurking for some brief thoughts on 4E.

Our group gave it a shot last night based on the preview information from DDXP and gleaned from these boards. (Thanks to all who've contributed, btw!)

I ran a 4E Keep on the Borderlands for 6 players. My group is a long-standing group that has gamed just about everything........lots of 3-3.5 D&D the last few years. The party faced two encounters......one against hobgoblin soldiers and archers and another against kobold minions with a dragon shield fighter and a shamen. We played about 3 hours, but we were long on the talking, food and drinks........it was also our Gygax tribute and reminiscing night.

Our general thoughts: Players liked it and had a good time....it felt different but not like it was a completely new system. The amount and variety of powers/exploits was a hit with players, especially for 1st level characters. One of my players said it felt like a 5th level game. As DM, I liked the monster special abilities......they seemed to help them feel different from each other. Also, one character was rendered unconscious during each of the two fights.....I was surprised because I thought the new game might be easier for players to deal with healing-wise.

The combats seemed to be about the same length, but felt fairly cinematic....maybe a little more moving than we're used to. Of course, using playtest characters led to a little different style........people were interested in checking out all the new encounter and daily powers. It felt like there was more to track, but not an unmanageable amount. I'm curious to get the rules to try it with 10th-20 level characters though.

All in all....pretty fun stuff. We found a few small things to pick at.....mostly stuff we'd already read about here........I'm ready to test the "sweet spot" claim at 10, 20, and 30.

Thanks for listening.............adios from Texas!

 

[Filcher]

Thank you for the write up!

Clarifying Qs:

Did you use battlemaps?

Did any of the PCs not die when you thought they should have?

 

[Johnny Bravo]

Yes we did use battlemaps and miniatures. As we have done for the almost 20 years I have gamed with this group regardless of the edition. As one of the players, we were playing a bit more carefree than we would have in a regular campaign. Instead of taking time to use the second wind some of us were moving in position to try another power to get a feel for the nuances. Mindseye took it easy on us for the smae reason. The term "Rat Bastard" is directed toward him frequently in our regular games.

 

[lambdaZUG]

That's funny, our group said it "felt like a 5th level game" too!

We played an adventure I quickly whipped up. The PCs came across some brigands guarding a bridge (man, that Human Rake is tough!). The next encounter was with lots and lots of kobold minions, really making the Wizard's "fireball" scorching burst shine. Finally they ran into a Human Mage, a normal skeleton, and a boneshard skeleton.

Despite the built in healing all the characters had, we discovered that a cleric is still very very useful. All the classes were fun to play.

I also noted that we were able to do as much roleplaying as we ever did, no 4e ninjas showed up to make us stop.

I'm really looking forward to the books so we can make our own characters instead of these pregens.

 

[mach1.9pants]

The term "Rat Bastard" is directed toward him frequently in our regular games.

Aaaahhh, Rat Bastard, that is high praise for a DM indeed
OT: Even taking into account the DM being in non-RB mode and the fact that you were playing test characters; did you find 4E encouraged more aggressive and seemingly riskier play? That is what we found compared to all previous editions, and I like it personally.

 

[Mindseye]

It may have seemed more aggressive.........the big hit of the night for our group was probably the variety and choices they had for first level characters.

That may have led to my worry as well.........will there be unmanageble variety and breakable "combos" at 20th level?

 

[Nebulous]

It may have seemed more aggressive.........the big hit of the night for our group was probably the variety and choices they had for first level characters.

That may have led to my worry as well.........will there be unmanageble variety and breakable "combos" at 20th level?

I definitely agree that our playtest felt more aggressive. The power is ramped up out of the gate, and i don't know what that is going to mean at higher level. I sort of expect characters to get ridiculously powerful by around 12th, but that's D&D i guess. I would hope that the breakable "combos" are ironed out in the core books, but i can easily see this getting out of hand with supplements. Just like feats.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I definitely agree that our playtest felt more aggressive. The power is ramped up out of the gate, and i don't know what that is going to mean at higher level. I sort of expect characters to get ridiculously powerful by around 12th, but that's D&D i guess. I would hope that the breakable "combos" are ironed out in the core books, but i can easily see this getting out of hand with supplements. Just like feats.

I dunno if I agree with the power level. I am sure once you get EPIC it will be nuts (as alluded to powers which are activated by 'once per day when you die'!). But before then I think the power increase is going to be much much flatter than 3E. Rather than 'start low steep climb 3E' you have start medium steady climb 4E'. Or at least that is the aim from what I can see. If you look at the Rogue's sneak attack increase at level 20 it is not exactly a super high jump is it?
Breakable combos mmmm the real worry is once the splatbooks start coming out IMO

 

[Mindseye]

Yes we did use battlemaps and miniatures. As we have done for the almost 20 years I have gamed with this group regardless of the edition. As one of the players, we were playing a bit more carefree than we would have in a regular campaign. Instead of taking time to use the second wind some of us were moving in position to try another power to get a feel for the nuances. Mindseye took it easy on us for the smae reason. The term "Rat Bastard" is directed toward him frequently in our regular games.

I guess I know where any additional monsters/traps/acts of the various Deities/weather-related disasters/diseases are headed next time we game.............

 

[bjorn2bwild]

My group, too, thought that the game played more like 5th level than 1st level. In fact, at least one of my players used those words exactly. Hooray for synergy!

How many players were in your group?

My group had 3 (and then 4) and over three combats we only had one player drop unconscious. Of course, this most likely had to do with poor damage rolling on my part.