D&D 4E Should I play 4e?

Did not realize you weren't aware that hit points started higher but didnt progress at anything like the rate they did in AD&D or even in 3e or 5e. (some people just fail to notice it especially while complaining 4e is about superheros and no other edition had anything like that. )

lowkey13 said:

ps- you can’t compare apples to oranges, by the way. I don’t know about 4e, but a 12th level AD&D fighter was three levels above name level.

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10th or 11th level is call Paragon level in 4e and yeh if you took a paragon path that would be the time you hit that same kind of story bump of Name Level that much is pretty much apples and apples. Its comparable in other ways as well

EpicureanDM said:

If you're going to be the DM, you absolutely must play 4e. It's the most balanced version of D&D. You never have to worry about what options the players have chosen, because the game's well-balanced all the way to 30th level. No more worrying about EL and CR. It generally just works. Monsters are written using a slightly different set of rules than PCs and are a snap to run. Spellcasting monsters and NPCs are easy and fun, since they don't rely on the same spells as PCs. If you do decide to DM the game, people generally agree that WotC didn't have monster design properly figured out until late in the cycle. Replace Monster Manuals 1 and 2 with Monster Manual 3 and the Essentials monster book.

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Yeh the Ease of DMing 4e is one of those hard to over emphasize things. They did have some really good and interesting guidelines in the DMG and DMG2 (the latter is my second favorite D&D Book)

CapnZapp said:

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Because if you find that you must choose between easy combats and long combats, then the game does fail at the core.

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So, not enough Rocket Tag (short, but hard combat) means a game fails at its core? True, I suppose, if, at its core, it's trying to be a degenerate case of high-level 3.5 play.

Choose long, and you are rewarded by very fun and exciting combats where you really must use every little ability and special condition to prevail. But this leaves precious little time for role-playing.

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Apart from the fact that RP happens in combat, that's just a matter of scheduling. Even if RL dictates short sessions, you can devote one to a setup scene, say in exploration trying to locate and engage the enenemy on your terms, one on the grand melee set-piece, and one on a social denouement in which gains are consolidated in the society the PCs inhabit (or are visiting).

The argument you need to change what you mean by "playing D&D" to fit what 4E is offering always galled me.

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What you meant by playing D&D - or most RPGs really - has at least two components:

Genre: the expectations, archetypes, tropes, and bits that make up the genre of fiction the RPG is emulating.

System Artifacts: the oddities, stereotypes, best-strategies, exploits, traps, foibles, failings, gaping holes, and, well, tropes, archetypes, and bits, that have their origin in the system, itself.

Every edition if D&D has tried to emulate the broader Heroic Fantasy genre - everything from myth/legend, to great literature, to pulp fiction, to movies, tv, and comics. And every edition has failed pretty spectacularly. But, 4e abandoned a lot if the system-artifact feel of past editions in its bid, and, while success would be pushing it shot significantly fewer miles wide of the target.

lowkey13 said:

So, in 1e, it was decidedly harder to be superheroic. .

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IDK, you could turn invisible at 3rd level or fly at 5th - two popular superpowers.

(Both delayed to higher levels in 4e)

And, then there were the very powerful magic items you'd just randomly find...

Tony Vargas said:

IDK, you could turn invisible at 3rd level or fly at 5th - two popular superpowers.

(Both delayed to higher levels in 4e)

And, then there were the very powerful magic items you'd just randomly find...

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And raise the dead at 8th... has always made me feel all the D&D deadliness was undermined

Garthanos said:

And raise the dead at 8th... has always made me feel all the D&D deadliness was undermined

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It was needed, at that point, because players would finally be having fun playing capable characters they were invested in, but the improving plot-armor mechanics, especially saves, were never quite dependable enough.

Garthanos said:

Yeh the Ease of DMing 4e is one of those hard to over emphasize things. They did have some really good and interesting guidelines in the DMG and DMG2 (the latter is my second favorite D&D Book)

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I'll go one better: 4e's DMG2 is the best D&D book of all time and space.

Tony Vargas said:

Apart from the fact that RP happens in combat, that's just a matter of scheduling. Even if RL dictates short sessions, you can devote one to a setup scene, say in exploration trying to locate and engage the enemy on your terms, one on the grand melee set-piece, and one on a social denouement in which gains are consolidated in the society the PCs inhabit (or are visiting).

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I never understood this one - We have done that in many versions of D&D why did it magically become impossible ... because combat was actually interesting instead of beating on bags of boring hit points? A good skill challenge chase scene could be in your sequence there

Garthanos said:

And raise the dead at 8th... has always made me feel all the D&D deadliness was undermined

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But by some accounts, a lot of people never play past 10th level. So "raise dead at 8th level" is like, endgame content.

Which I never understood, it's like having a car and never taking it over 35.

Speaking of high-level content, there's another thing 4E did better than any edition to-date: high level content. Restricting the number and the sheer power of high-level (even level 30!) daily and encounter powers kept the whole game on a very strict diet of balance.

I do agree the higher levels are much more sane than in other versions of the game and with better balance. The paragon paths and epic destinies also allow player influence and investment in the story.

Tony Vargas said:

So, not enough Rocket Tag (short, but hard combat) means a game fails at its core? True, I suppose, if, at its core, it's trying to be a degenerate case of high-level 3.5 play.

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No.

Being able to combine excitement and reasonably fast play is not an unreasonably impossible goal, no matter how you try to twist it. For us, 4E failed.

That doesn't mean WotC can't do it right. In this aspect, both 3E and 5E works much better.