D&D 4E My final 4E session

[MerricB]

Did any of the pcs get taken down, killed, or killed without coming back?

No, but it was close. Especially with Greg - Adam was kept busy keeping him alive...

A full report is on my blog with lots of pictures.

The two combats took us about 3-1/2 hours all up.

Cheers!

 

[Eric V]

I've run two 4E campaigns that both fizzled out in the mid-Paragon's due to a combination of availability and, to be brutally honest, DM exhaustion. By the time we got to those kinds of levels, combats were taking an age to resolve and, while the players loved this aspect of the system, after a few years I found it very wearing. To be fair, that is all told about the only thing significantly wrong with 4E in my eyes. I made overtures to remedy the problem but always hit a brick wall of players having too much fun to want to change.

I regret not forcing the issue, though, because it slowed the pace of my homebrew to the point where the PC's impact on the campaign world was only just starting to be felt at the time the game went cold. This was a sharp lesson that I internalised at the time, but honestly, 5E plays so fast that it probably won't be an issue. We've played several sessions of AD&D in the meantime and after 4E, the pace of those sessions was almost dizzying!

This was exactly my own experience. We play using Maptool, and the additional work of preparing maps, tokens, macros, etc. was just too much.

If combat didn't take so long in 4e I might have been tempted to stick with it though... :/

 

[Balesir]

This was exactly my own experience. We play using Maptool, and the additional work of preparing maps, tokens, macros, etc. was just too much.

If combat didn't take so long in 4e I might have been tempted to stick with it though... :/

It's curious, but my experience has been quite different as far as exhaustion is concerned. Whereas DMing 3.X would wear me out, I have found 4E to be supremely easy to run and great fun - including over long combats - to boot. What sort of thing were you finding wearing, if you are still 'listening'? Personally, I find 4E so logical and coherent that running combats consists mostly of plotting tactics for the monsters - which I find great fun!

 

[Eric V]

It's curious, but my experience has been quite different as far as exhaustion is concerned. Whereas DMing 3.X would wear me out, I have found 4E to be supremely easy to run and great fun - including over long combats - to boot. What sort of thing were you finding wearing, if you are still 'listening'? Personally, I find 4E so logical and coherent that running combats consists mostly of plotting tactics for the monsters - which I find great fun!

3.x in higher levels was also a huge grind unless people were launching save-or-die spells at each other...then it became a matter of dice, that's it.

4e is the most mathematically and tactically sound game out there, it really is. I DM'd a group through H1-H2, then Madness at Gardmore Abbey. Then homebrew, then P2, then started P3...and it just became an accounting nightmare. I often wonder if we had played Essentials-only if this would have happened, but...as it is, everyone inflicted some sort of status effect per hit, with varying durations, etc. Keeping track of all that became such a chore; at Heroic level it was fine, even early Paragon...by late Paragon, there were so many modifiers to everything, so many immediate actions, so many effects...it was hard to get any momentum going.

If combat could somehow have been streamlined, I would have stuck with it; I love miniatures games (especially Heroscape and Heroclix) and 4e felt like the latter: more detailed, more intricate, more strategy...but ultimately less fun. :/

 

[Balesir]

Sorry to hear you had problems, but I think I understand that issue. Around mid-heroic I met it head on by getting ultra-organised, first with a printed sheet for monsters and initiative cards, later with the 4E Combat Manager software, which I find to be excellent.

Hopefully 5e will meet your needs. If not, 13th Age is worth a look as a game with some/most of the design "tightness" of 4E.

 

[Eric V]

Sorry to hear you had problems, but I think I understand that issue. Around mid-heroic I met it head on by getting ultra-organised, first with a printed sheet for monsters and initiative cards, later with the 4E Combat Manager software, which I find to be excellent.

Hopefully 5e will meet your needs. If not, 13th Age is worth a look as a game with some/most of the design "tightness" of 4E.

My cousin did SO MUCH work on Maptool framework to make it as quick as possible, but two hour fights still happened at 16th level. Fights should be dramatic and having one last that long just didn't do it for me. It's too bad because otherwise I love the system.

5e is simpler, and in some ways worse for that, but sessions can have multiple encounters, exploration, rping now...so it seems to be doing all right so far.

If ever I wanted to have a big tactical match (say a fight happening somewhere else in the world, the results of which would affect where the PCs are) I would use 4e in a heartbeat.

 

[Jhaelen]

My cousin did SO MUCH work on Maptool framework to make it as quick as possible, but two hour fights still happened at 16th level. Fights should be dramatic and having one last that long just didn't do it for me. It's too bad because otherwise I love the system.

5e is simpler, and in some ways worse for that, but sessions can have multiple encounters, exploration, rping now...so it seems to be doing all right so far.

For my understanding: Are you comparing 16th level gameplay in 4e with 16th level gameplay in 5e? Or are you comparing it with 5e low-level gameplay?

If it's the latter I'm not surprised and I should think if you had rebooted your 4e campaign you'd also find that combat suddenly plays very fast by comparison...

3e was definitely worse than 4e:
For a 'typical' 15th level combat one round of combat would take us 1-2 hours. On the other hand, the combat was usually over after a maximum of 5 rounds.
In 4e at 15th level one round will typically take us about 30 minutes and the fight is over after 7-8 rounds. At first level, a complete fight would take us 30 minutes.

 

[Eric V]

For my understanding: Are you comparing 16th level gameplay in 4e with 16th level gameplay in 5e? Or are you comparing it with 5e low-level gameplay?

If it's the latter I'm not surprised and I should think if you had rebooted your 4e campaign you'd also find that combat suddenly plays very fast by comparison...

3e was definitely worse than 4e:
For a 'typical' 15th level combat one round of combat would take us 1-2 hours. On the other hand, the combat was usually over after a maximum of 5 rounds.
In 4e at 15th level one round will typically take us about 30 minutes and the fight is over after 7-8 rounds. At first level, a complete fight would take us 30 minutes.

Even low level 4e was much longer than low level 5e, but less long than low level 3e. I often wondered if I played Essentials Only if the fights would remain that long...

There seems to be less demand on actions in 5e overall compared to 3e and 4e.

 

[pemerton]

I regret not forcing the issue, though, because it slowed the pace of my homebrew to the point where the PC's impact on the campaign world was only just starting to be felt at the time the game went cold. This was a sharp lesson that I internalised at the time, but honestly, 5E plays so fast that it probably won't be an issue.

I can't comment on 5e, but I think the issue of delaying impact, or the related one of not leading with your best material, can be a common GMing problem. I know I suffered from it very badly for my first 15 or so years as a GM!

I've since become a convert to all awesome, all impact, all the time.

 

[Eric V]

I can't comment on 5e, but I think the issue of delaying impact, or the related one of not leading with your best material, can be a common GMing problem. I know I suffered from it very badly for my first 15 or so years as a GM!

I've since become a convert to all awesome, all impact, all the time.

Totally agree! In my aforementioned 4e campaign, the group at 1st level was trying to track down a merchant who seemed to be on the run after someone burned down his house with wife and child still inside. They were aided by an eyepatch-wearing rogue. Turns out, the merchant had the Hand of Vecna, the rogue had the Eye, and they were rivals.

Normally, the use of such artifacts would have led me to wait for higher levels, but I just figured 'Why not? Most stories about artifacts involve 'low-level' guys using them.' It led nicely into Thunderspire Labyrinth, which is where the merchant fled to (for obvious reasons, for those who read it).

Yeah, took me years to learn, but there's no point in holding back good material.