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Rules overload for players

Thanee

First Post
I made it.

You sure plan for a lot of encounters per day (-> Action Points / Daily Uses). :lol:

Nice sheet. :)



As for the actual topic... like someone said above, if you actually play the character from 1st to 16th, you know your stuff. Even the guy in our group that doesn't look into the book outside of the game night, knows what his character can do.

You start out with very little and then you slowly add to it.

Sure, if you jump into the game at epic level with inexperienced players, that won't work out.

Bye
Thanee
 

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fissionessence

First Post
Indeed; nice sheet, Hjorimir. I agree you just need all the powers on the same page. Here's the sheet for one of my old playtest characters; I use the same template for all my characters.

~
 

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Filcher

First Post
Disagree. You just have to know your character. Even starting at high level is pretty easy if you use the DDI and spend some pre-session time daydreaming about your character and how you are going to kick arse.
 

Hjorimir

Adventurer
Indeed; nice sheet, Hjorimir. I agree you just need all the powers on the same page. Here's the sheet for one of my old playtest characters; I use the same template for all my characters.
I found through play that I quickly memorized my At-Wills (as they were used so often) and I wanted to maximize the amount of room I'd have to list all my encounter/daily/utility powers as the character grows. It's all on one sheet (just double-sided) and I find that during my action I'm on the back and during other people's actions I'm on the front (so when I'm attacked I can record damage and whatnot).

Thanks for the kind words. :)
 


Cadfan

First Post
Most of you disagree. This is interesting. Maybe my impressions will change as I continue to play 4E.
One of the things to remember is that most of the rules don't interact with one another. Each power tends to be a discrete entity, instead of something that combines with other powers to create multiple interactions that all have to be understood.
 


Firos

First Post
I agree. The increased number of viable options for every character, as well as the increased number of actions per turn, make 4e characters slightly more difficult to run than a comparable 3e character, excepting 3e spellcasters.

How this plays out in my game (and I'm a player!) is the kind of indecision paralysis that can result when there are many options and few clearly superior or inferior choices.

Making some of the amendments that people have suggested helps. So too does limiting people's time per turn; some people like to ponder, when really it is almost always more fun to move combat along as quickly as possible. Limiting time to, say, a minute per turn really hasn't hurt anyone in our group in terms of decision making; we are not making bad decisions or forgetting details when before we made good decisions because we had all the time in the world.

I find terrain really complicates this. If there are a number of choices to be made about terrain, there is a cost in complexity and choice.

Given all this, however, I think the extra complexity is worth it. The consequence of 4e's options is that players may have to learn the game better and make quick decisions. There are no really simple character options in the game.

That is preferable, though, to characters that are simple to play but cannot play at the same levels as other character types, as is the case in 3e. Of all the simple character types in 3e, only a small handful are even effective at doing what they do in a 3e game beyond low levels. It might be nice to have a 4e character that is simple to play, but even the effective simple 3e characters were such that players generally had a particular action set in mind to be most effective; the same is possible for a 4e character, so you can plan in advance.
 

Nikosandros

Golden Procrastinator
Most of you disagree. This is interesting. Maybe my impressions will change as I continue to play 4E.

As my group gained experience with the game, combat has been much smoother and more enjoyable. I still find it somewhat cumbersome and often excessively long, but it does provide a lot of tactical variety.
 

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