D&D 4E Rambling thoughts about D&D 4th Edition

[Imaro]

Ah, because I'd say that "low importance combat" is badly supported - but it is far from the only thing that causes attrition. And it is also the sort of combat that Wands of Cure Light Wounds render irrelevant in 3.X

As DM I didn't have magic shops in my game so this was never a problem. On the other hand if I can't run low importance fights it effectively limits attrition to the big battles... which isn't really attrition.

 

[Imaro]

Oh, sure, like 5E, but with more tactics involved. Though the length can be tweaked with hacks like reducing monster HP and increasing monster damage.

I found 4e combats, especially at lower levels to be much slower in real time than 5e... but YMMV.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As DM I didn't have magic shops in my game so this was never a problem.

As a player I could create a wand of Cure Light Wounds for 375 GP in a single day of in character downtime.

On the other hand if I can't run low importance fights it effectively limits attrition to the big battles... which isn't really attrition.

Or you have a few big fights with the enemies working together rather than feeding the PCs enemies in ones and twos.

 

[Mannahnin]

As a player I could create a wand of Cure Light Wounds for 375 GP in a single day of in character downtime.

Yeah, we did F-tons of item creation in 3.x. Nary a magic shop in sight.

 

[Mannahnin]

I found 4e combats, especially at lower levels to be much slower in real time than 5e... but YMMV.

Huh. I guess so!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Huh. I guess so!

For me 4e level 1 matches 5e level 3 - but once you've reached that point the speed evens up and it's down to how well prepared everyone is.

 

[Composer99]

It's not a demerit of 4e that it doesn't support "low-importance" fights as a means of daily attrition. One does not have to like that about the game, but to my mind that's a matter of personal preference, rather than a design problem of the game itself.

At any rate, it's plainly incorrect to say the big set-piece fights don't cause attrition - if each combat runs through three or four of each PC's healing surges, you better believe attrition is happening! And, of course, once the player characters run out of second winds and other special abilities that actually let them use those healing surges, then they can be in real trouble once they start hitting 0 hit points.

Also, the mechanics of 4e just plain clash with large numbers of small grindy fights. Again, that's not a demerit of the game itself, even if no one is obliged to enjoy that element of gameplay. (It might be to the discredit of the game if neither DMG explicitly makes this plain, although if reading the DMG was as common in 4e as it is in 5e, it probably wouldn't matter even if they did.)

 

[Lord Shark]

It's not a demerit of 4e that it doesn't support "low-importance" fights as a means of daily attrition. One does not have to like that about the game, but to my mind that's a matter of personal preference, rather than a design problem of the game itself.

At any rate, it's plainly incorrect to say the big set-piece fights don't cause attrition - if each combat runs through three or four of each PC's healing surges, you better believe attrition is happening! And, of course, once the player characters run out of second winds and other special abilities that actually let them use those healing surges, then they can be in real trouble once they start hitting 0 hit points.

Also, the mechanics of 4e just plain clash with large numbers of small grindy fights. Again, that's not a demerit of the game itself, even if no one is obliged to enjoy that element of gameplay. (It might be to the discredit of the game if neither DMG explicitly makes this plain, although if reading the DMG was as common in 4e as it is in 5e, it probably wouldn't matter even if they did.)

One of the things I learned running 4E is that I'd rather have one 60-minute fight where there's a lot going on and everyone has opportunities to do cool stuff, instead of six 10-minute fights that are just rolling and marking off spells and HP.

 

[Imaro]

One of the things I learned running 4E is that I'd rather have one 60-minute fight where there's a lot going on and everyone has opportunities to do cool stuff, instead of six 10-minute fights that are just rolling and marking off spells and HP.

My 5e fights don't go like that but whatever.