D&D 4E Let's Talk About 4E On Its Own Terms [+]

[James Gasik]

My experience with the Ardent is that it's not as good as the other Leader classes (likely due to receiving far less support). Having a Leader who doesn't heal others, let alone Leaders that don't like to buff or heal, strikes me as fairly nuts. Not having a Defender is a big problem, unless you have good Controllers.

But this not being able to nova hard enough, I'm flabbergasted by. You can make a level 1 Barbarian or Ranger who can, well, solo, a Solo enemy with an Encounter + Daily Power in one round, lol. How much damage do they need?

 

[Retreater]

My experience with the Ardent is that it's not as good as the other Leader classes (likely due to receiving far less support).

Yeah, I thought of it more as a "beginner" class for this player because it largely uses At-Wills (with psionic augments.) I honestly don't know if the player would be able to run anything better. But she's having fun. Honestly, I don't include her when computing the encounter budget, and everything works fine.

Not having a Defender is a big problem, unless you have good Controllers.

We have one good controller - but she can only do so much.
Our first defender left to start her own group with friends from school (which is awesome to see the next generation taking the lead). We persuaded our second controller to switch to a fighter - but she's been unreliable in attendance.
Current party configuration is Wizard, Cleric, Avenger, Hexblade, Ardent, and sometimes Fighter. Pretty much the first four do most of the heavy lifting in the encounters.

But this not being able to nova hard enough, I'm flabbergasted by.

They're used to 5e. In 5e you can burn through every spell, class feature, etc., in a single encounter. You can't do that in 4e. You are fed powers piecemeal.
An equivalent 5e character could use every Encounter power in one fight, burn through every Healing Surge, etc. They don't seem to understand "there is a hard limit to 3 heals per fight." There isn't a wand, cure potion, lay on hands, etc.
Because of the less than optimal way they are playing, 4e actually feels more like a "grim survival" version of the game. They can't get full heals. Their resources don't replenish as easily. It's actually worked the best for dungeoncrawling than any other system I've used for this group.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It sounds like a lot of the problems you're running into are your group's idiosyncrasies rather than system issues.

Yeah, I have to agree. There's really no version of D&D I know of where Daily + AP + Encounter, swirled with possibly minor action stuff, or additional rider/bonus/trigger stuff wouldn't look like the biggest hammer ever. If that ain't enough, play a ranger and lard up on reaction powers. Heck we had a guy, by 4th level he could unleash something like 7 attacks in 2 rounds. Talk about a nova! IIRC one time he basically wiped an entire encounter in round 2. The rest of the party barely even moved.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah, I have to agree. There's really no version of D&D I know of where Daily + AP + Encounter, swirled with possibly minor action stuff, or additional rider/bonus/trigger stuff wouldn't look like the biggest hammer ever.

It's because "Encounter spells" don't exist in any other edition of the game. They don't seem to grasp that they can't just cast their entire limit of spells in one encounter.
It's not the same with Encounter attack powers from warrior-types. They understand the concept of Action Surge from 5e, Battle Master dice, or Ki points for monks. It's mostly that they can't understand why they can't cast every spell from a daily pool - like it has been for the entire history of the game.
And then they get confused again when you have Encounter powers - that can be used twice per encounter (like most healing powers). I have to remind them they can be used twice per Encounter. Or then you have Encounter powers (like Channel Divinity) which replace the use of other Encounter powers, so you can't actually use all of them during a given Encounter power.
Keep in mind that we're talking about players who don't crack open rulebooks outside of the game session, don't read how their characters work, etc. They are a textbook example of casual players.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am a huge 4E fan, so there were a couple of resources discussed here that I really appreciate. My biggest thought about 4E is "What could have been." I remember talking with Paizo about whether or not they would do modules for 4E. They told me "We would love to." I just wonder how things would have been different if things had stayed the same with Paizo and, if I get a second wish, that it just would have used the OGL.

Well, there certainly was no dearth of 4e adventures. So it's hard to say. Even if WotC had gone OGL I think DDI was at least as big of a stumbling block. There was just no provision for 3rd party content there. That really limited things because 4e players REALLY relied on it. Selling a 3rd party 4e product was hard. 5e avoids that, but there's a price, some of 4e's tools don't exist, at least in the same form. I think at this point the 5e approach has matured, but it wasn't really feasible in 2008.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's because "Encounter spells" don't exist in any other edition of the game. They don't seem to grasp that they can't just cast their entire limit of spells in one encounter.
It's not the same with Encounter attack powers from warrior-types. They understand the concept of Action Surge from 5e, Battle Master dice, or Ki points for monks. It's mostly that they can't understand why they can't cast every spell from a daily pool - like it has been for the entire history of the game.
And then they get confused again when you have Encounter powers - that can be used twice per encounter (like most healing powers). I have to remind them they can be used twice per Encounter. Or then you have Encounter powers (like Channel Divinity) which replace the use of other Encounter powers, so you can't actually use all of them during a given Encounter power.
Keep in mind that we're talking about players who don't crack open rulebooks outside of the game session, don't read how their characters work, etc. They are a textbook example of casual players.

Yeah, most players are a bit like that. I just don't recall anyone really being uncertain about what they could unleash. I agree, Channel Divinity is a little tricky. Our cleric player in game one seemed comfortable with it, but I can imagine people who won't get it.

But powers-wise nova is pretty simple, just burn your dailies and AP, then burn your encounter powers, etc. In either 4e or 5e your then going to be a little low on resources for the rest of the day.

4e healing isn't THAT weird, you just mostly heal between encounters. There's actually quite a bit of surgeless healing out there, just mostly in later books, like DP. Give the party a Battle Standard of Healing if they're feeling too limited by HP. It's good, but not OP.

 

[Retreater]

4e healing isn't THAT weird, you just mostly heal between encounters. There's actually quite a bit of surgeless healing out there, just mostly in later books, like DP. Give the party a Battle Standard of Healing if they're feeling too limited by HP. It's good, but not OP.

Yeah - it's just that they play very suboptimally (and also usually don't have a defender to help). They can't afford to heal between encounters because strikers and leaders are taking so much damage - and making death saves nearly every fight.
The party just reached 3rd level, so the Battle Standard of Healing is a pretty major item to hand out - especially when they need basic items like Defense and Attack increasing bonuses. Maybe in the future they can get one of those.

 

[James Gasik]

Well one thing you could try is allowing them to use an encounter power more than once in a given encounter, but then it's "offline" for the next encounter. Though there is the risk that they'd then try to take the rest of the day off, lol.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Well one thing you could try is allowing them to use an encounter power more than once in a given encounter, but then it's "offline" for the next encounter. Though there is the risk that they'd then try to take the rest of the day off, lol.

The answer to that's much the same as always - don't let them. Random monsters, pursuing enemies, old foes, aggressive patrols, something makes them earn that long rest after a proper work day. Or let them have it if they've done something to stay safe ($%#@ exodus knife, most likely) and the bad guy/rivals get a big jump on them - and make sure the players know about it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah - it's just that they play very suboptimally (and also usually don't have a defender to help). They can't afford to heal between encounters because strikers and leaders are taking so much damage - and making death saves nearly every fight.
The party just reached 3rd level, so the Battle Standard of Healing is a pretty major item to hand out - especially when they need basic items like Defense and Attack increasing bonuses. Maybe in the future they can get one of those.

How many players are typically in an encounter?