D&D 4E Yet another 4E demo experience

[small pumpkin man]

Crits do seem underwhelming, but not as sad as rolling to confirm crit and it not working. I'm thinking of having them do Full damage +Level.... or something along those lines. Any thoughts?

Probably not necessary, most characters will allready be adding at least that much from magic items, feats and other abilities anyway, the problem is first level characters don't have ony of those yet, so crits can be a bit underwhelming.

 

[ShockMeSane]

I have to decidedly disagree on this one.

Rolling confirmations plus rolling dice for the damage meant that, statistically, you were far less likely to do any significant amount of damage over and above a normal attack.

With 4e auto-hit, auto-crit, full-damage, you're doing crits far more often and when you do, they hit harder.

Well, a Scimitar, with no feats that improve crit range would roll to confirm criticals 3x (18-20) as often as the 4E stuff we have seen. A 3.x Fighter with 18 strength would on average hit a kobold, what... 50-55% of the time at level 1? Which is about comparable to 4E from my playtest. So, in the time you got one 100% crit in 4E, you would have gotten 1.5 2x crits in 3.x. It gets somewhat complicated here because the Fighter in 4E has a 1-handed weapon that does 1d10. But in any case, if we keep even to the 3.x Scimitar vs the 4E one-handed Warhammer, you get 1d6(3.5)+4=7.5x2=15 damage for a single crit on average (10 minimum, 20 max), whereas the Warhammer will always crit for 15.

Of course, the real rub here is that in 3.x, monsters at level 1 generally have between 4 and 12 hitpoints, making a crit a guarenteed kill (at these low levels), whereas given the information we have about 4E, crits obviously don't auto-kill at any level. And while that philosophy is fine and certainly not a deal-breaker to me, I think the statistics show pretty plainly that you are getting significantly more mileage out of your crits at level 1 in 3.x. That is where the sense of disconnect is coming from. I've ran 3 3E campaigns from level 1 to the high teens and one all the way to 20 over the last 5 or so years, and me and my players are just used to any crit (albeit confirmed) to either be a kill or a very close thing in those formative levels. Now, critting with Daily Powers probably is crazy in 4E, but that didn't happen in my game... sadly a majority of them missed!

This isn't even a criticism, more of an observation about how a paradigm shift (hitpoints at low levels) rolls over into other subsystems with results that jarred a few of us on first experience.

 

[That One Guy]

Probably not necessary, most characters will allready be adding at least that much from magic items, feats and other abilities anyway, the problem is first level characters don't have ony of those yet, so crits can be a bit underwhelming.

That is an excellent counter-argument. Guess I'll have to work something else out...

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

I'm curious whether you had the dragon use his darkness zone special ability. I did, and that really nerfed the casters and particularly nerfed the ranger. I thought this went against one of the design conceits of 4E wherein guys always had option, but sometimes had to take penalties.

Let me try to explain: In 3E, a knight can use a challenge ability to force enemies to attack him and only him. Conversely, in 4E, a paladin can use pain of death (or whatever it's called) to cause an enemy to take damage if he does not attack the pally. There's a difference there - the option to act and make a decision yet remains in 4E, but there are consequences.

I've got no problem with the dragon having a temporary darkness ability, or one that allowed attacks and line of sight albeit with a penalty. But the thick black veil just didn't do it for me.

That said, I have thoroughly enjoyed my two sessions of 4E and thank you (Olgar) for the great fan-made adventure. From my admittedly limited experience with 4E, I really get the feeling that 4E is "When DMs Strike Back" - as a DM, I have much more fun running NPCs and monsters than I did in 3E, and I enjoy the thoughts (hopes?) that I will not have to contend with godlike PCs once they hit 10th level and beyond.

Wis


p.s. Another thing I'm really hoping 4E accomplishes is to repudiate 3E's unfailing ability to marginalize certain characters classes as the party level increases. For example, there's little that magic cannot do - and do better - in mid- to high-levels of 3E. Want to scout a dungeon? Back, dastardly rogue with your +20 Move Sliently and +18 Hide - I'll simply cast arcane eye. The prevalence of spells that can fulfill every need, from scouting dungeons, to ruining a sense of mystery (I'm looking at you commune and find the path, to handing the limelight to NPCs (planar ally, anyone?) was troubling to say the least. Yes, yes - I know these things can be countered by a good DM with time on his hand, but dammit - it got old trying to write adventures under those types of themes. Yet I babble...forgive me.

 

[That One Guy]

That said, I have thoroughly enjoyed my two sessions of 4E and thank you (Olgar) for the great fan-made adventure. From my admittedly limited experience with 4E, I really get the feeling that 4E is "When DMs Strike Back" - as a DM, I have much more fun running NPCs and monsters than I did in 3E, and I enjoy the thoughts (hopes?) that I will not have to contend with godlike PCs once they hit 10th level and beyond.

I'm agreeing with you that running monsters in 4e is a lot more fun. But, I also think being a PC in 4e is a lot more fun.

...would this simply mean that the game is more fun?

*Emphasis in quote, my doing.

 

[ShockMeSane]

Actually, I just let the PC's counter the dragon's Darkness with the Wizard's Light Cantrip, because otherwise they were pretty much SoL as you indicated. I wasn't really sure how to handle it, so I kinda pretended it didnt exist after that.

 

[MindWanderer]

Yeah, critical hits feel a bit different. Sadly, no pregen character had a damage addition to critical strikes, just to show that is actually exists.

Not out-of-the-box, no, but the magic item sheets we got at DDXP allowed us to take a +1 Frost Warhammer (+1d6 cold damage on a crit), a +1 Staff of the War Mage (+1d8 damage on a crit) or a +1 Vicious Longbow (+1d12 damage on a crit).

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Actually, I just let the PC's counter the dragon's Darkness with the Wizard's Light Cantrip, because otherwise they were pretty much SoL as you indicated. I wasn't really sure how to handle it, so I kinda pretended it didnt exist after that.

I did the same exact thing. That must mean we're correct.

Thanks,
Wis

 

[Wormwood]

I'm agreeing with you that running monsters in 4e is a lot more fun. But, I also think being a PC in 4e is a lot more fun.

...would this simply mean that the game is more fun?

All signs point to yes.
/magic 8-ball

 

[AlphaAnt]

Actually, I just let the PC's counter the dragon's Darkness with the Wizard's Light Cantrip, because otherwise they were pretty much SoL as you indicated. I wasn't really sure how to handle it, so I kinda pretended it didnt exist after that.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's how it works. Makes cantrips as useful at level 30 as level 1.