D&D 4E What Do You Like About 4e?

[Tequila Sunrise]

Thanks everyone! I'm condensing all of this into a list that I'll share here and then blog.

I'd change minions to something like 1 hp per minion level...as I like them getting mowed down (sorta like 2e's rules for heroic fray)...but I also like the fact that players can feel like their high damage matters even for minions.

I use minions with damage thresholds, myself.

Skill challenges...too often I feel "forced" to contribute to a skill challenge (e.g. a fighter with low charisma having to roll SOMETHING in a diplomatic type challenge). I like the general idea, but it could use some improvement.

Yeah, many SCs I've been part of feel forced. At the very least, I agree with the previous comment that SCs shouldn't be used for social encounters.

 

[Manbearcat]

What's nice is that I don't have to compose a long obnoxious post as Someone has done the job wonderfully on post 11. While I would add a few other things as well, I agree with just about every word of his post. Unfortunately, I cannot XP him.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

If anyone's interested, the huuuge list is on wordpress. Seriously, I ended up splitting everything into two lists.

 

[Pickles JG]

I like that my fighter, my rogue & my warlord can do cool stuff. My bow ranger is stull as dull as my 3e bow fighter was but hey.

I like ongoing damage. It can get really tense & exciting, even if daze save ends is more frustrating than fun.

I like lots of the other stuff already mentioned, all I really dont like is that combat can get a bit draggy & we can get locked into grindy adventures too.
(There is plenty of chaff but that can be ignored. Well actually a few thousand fewer feats & powers would be good!)

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I like almost everything about 4E other than skill challenges (love the concept, just can't get the execution right).

I've never played a MMORPG so I don't get the WoW references but, what I do get, I find 4E to be the most cinematic of all versions of D&D. My players and I love the visuals of ploughing through a horde of mooks or even the sheer danger posed by a (level-appropriate) beholder or dragon at the other end of the monster scale (minion => solo).

Oh, and warlords rock. Tactical warlords made me want to actually play - as oppose to DM - for the first time in about 25 years.

(snip)
*I can plan a large variety of plot scenarios that are not immediately invalidated by spells. (In my experience, and what I've learned after readin many story hours written by very good and talented DMs, is that starting at mid levels they go like this: Cleric casts Read DM's Notes, and learns everything they have to learn. Then they try to Scry the bad guy, but he's protected against divination. The group uses a clever loophole in the wording of the spells to overcome the protection. Then they cast find the path/wind walk/teleport and arrive at the bad guy's stronghold, and beat his defenses using more spells. The fighter/barbarian/gonzo prestige class charges into combat, deals a significant amount of damage, and is downed/dominated/taken out in one round. The rogue tries to sneak in, but everything has blindsight, then flanks and attack, but everything is immune to criticals and deals 1d6+4 damage. The cleric casts some spell and the fighter is up again, then the cleric buffs himself and deals more damage in melee of with spells that the fighter did. Then the mage casts something apocaliptic and ends the battle. I've seen and read this exact pattern many, many times, again from very good DMs.
(snip)

Quoted for truth.

The bold formatting is my own. That's the essence of why I love designing adventures in 4E: The challenge is back!

 

[the Jester]

My favorite thing about 4e is creating monsters- oh God, how elegant. Other bits that I like:

The underlying math is awfully smooth and sweet.

The cosmology is actually really appealing to me, despite the fact that I love the Great Wheel going way back (I miss the quasielemental planes!).

Fighters not being boring; also, sticky defenders; also, classes that work off of each stat.

Dragonborn.

Some really cool encounter design.

Cool, fun, encounter-based traps and hazards.

 

[Hussar]

For me, it's one thing and one thing only:

*Ease of prep. I can bang out a fully competed adventure, done to the level of detail that I want, in a fraction of the time it took me in 3e. If I could get 3e with that speed of prep, I'd be all over it. But, yeah, if a game can't give me about a 1:4 ratio of prep to play, I'm not interested anymore.

 

[Badapple]

In addition to the many fine things already mentioned,

I like the bloodied condition - how monsters and pcs can have abilities trigger off of it... adds a nice rp element as well to combats

I like temporary hit points - they've existed before, such as with the aid spell, but 4e really embraced it and had lots of spells and powers grant them.

I love rituals... especially how most of the various non combat utility type spells get turned into rituals and the regular powers/memorized spells are combat based.

I like the disease track - there's a huge potential for expanding on this. I like seeing monsters that do non hp persistant/scary effects to characters.

In conjuction with the above... I really like how remove curse/cure disease rituals require a skill roll, with variable results so it was never a given that the condition would be removed without some cost.

Healing surges - I really thought this was an exceedingly clever mechanic. What I loved most about them is that all fights mattered. All damage mattered. If anyone ever gets hit, even in a trivial fight, and they heal back at the end of it, they have lost a surge and some of their overall strength.

Variety - love the huge number of character classes, how they all play differently, and how each class has multiple "builds" that are really seperate classes in their own right. And even the same class and same build could be very different depending on feats and powers choses.

Options - Any character class had many different choices to do in combat... a human had 3 at wills, an encounter, and a daily all at first level... possibly another encounter depending on background. Six different options in addition to a basic attack! It's amazing how spoiled I've gotten and how used to this I've gotten. Think of all the 4e threads that complain when combat goes beyond round four and "all I have is my at wills"... sheesh prior to 4e I didn't have at wills to choose from...

Critical hits - I liked how 4e implemented them

Action points - Really let a character shine in dramatic fashion.

High levels! Other than BECMI (where we had a campaign go up to 28th level) this was an edition that still played well at high levels... No problem at all to have charaters at 15th level or higher!

And the number one thing by far was the ease and joy of DMing... oh so easy and fun to create NPCs and encounters. Lots of really interesting monster abilities. Rarely had to reference a book while running the game.

 

[wedgeski]

Totally agree with [MENTION=71811]Badapple[/MENTION] re: disease track. If I'd thought harder about my post I certainly would have included it as one of my favourite features of the game, and I've used it as a framework for all kinds of things from insanity to inter-dimensional awareness!