What are your thoughts? Do you think 4E combats ran too long? Do you think the design discouraged roleplaying? How did skill challenges work for your group?
First: Absolutely they did. It was a combination of "things are harder to hit" and "things have more HP. In 3.5 things were harder to hit, but had lower HP, leading to swingier, but far faster combats, a good crit or two could down some major enemies, but may just as well down the players.
Generally speaking, I've resolved this by taking off 1/3rd of monster HPs. I don't mind players have a little extra meat on their bones, since I will make up for the missing HP by adding another monster or two. Takes us back to "A couple solid hits will take this guy down." but "there's more to deal with there."
4E is the
only edition I have ever run where I have felt comfortable running
dozens of mooks thanks to the Minion rules and I've never had to say "But wait guys, the 15th Kobold still has 2 HP left." It's also the only edition where I've felt like Zombies could be properly represented! Yes I know there are corner issues like minion ogres and stuff, but really, if that bothers anyone, just don't do it. The fact that there
could be a minion dragon doesn't mean there
must be.
Second: Nothing in 4E ever discouraged roleplaying for me. Arguably some of my most memorable characters and most memorable role-playing still come from 4E games. Probably talking 2/3rds here?
Third: Maybe I misunderstood skill challenges as 4E presented them as a minigame or something, but I've always run, regardless of editions, "encounters" where "hitting it" is not the solution and instead players would need to use their non-combat skills to get through. If I've been doing it right, then I think it's great that this was codified into the game, because it was a great way to address non-combat social or exploration events within the rules. If I'm not doing it as 4E suggested, then no loss really. Not everything in any edition is perfect.
But what if you could attack the goblin, slide it into position to be flanked by the rogue, who is able to deliver a sneak attack on the following round? Or the fighter steps forward to issue a challenge so if the goblin attacks you on its turn, the fighter gets a free attack on the goblin to kill it? Both of these actions have occurred on other players' turns, and they dramatically impact your character's actions. Temporary buffs. Healing. Secondary attacks. Creatures that can trigger ferocious abilities on other players' turns. These are all common features of the 4E design paradigm. And you'd better be paying attention - this isn't a passive game! Every player's turn can be exciting, and it's rarely "I'm going to spam this single attack every turn."
My experience is that this leads to heightened player engagement.
I have to
generally agree that this is my opinion on the difference between 4E, 3.5E and 5E combats. 4E
demands engagement....until you run out of encounter or daily powers. Though they did a good job keeping even the at-wills creative, realistically they're mostly "basic melee with a little flavor". This goes back to the "was 4E combat a slog?" question because yes, it was, which quickly led from exciting encounters with cool powers to boring slugfests where you could get up and grab a coke while Bob took a 15-minute turn. 3.5 and 5E encounters are certainly faster, but they are much more boring (to me) but I've never run 4E for them so I can't make a comparison.