D&D 4E In Defense of 4E - a New Campaign Perspective

Anyway! Getting back to the original point of this thread, I wanted to share my personal experiences for @Retreater since we seem to share similar (but unique) paths. My DM origins began further back with the Basic (Red) and Expert (Blue) sets, and then progressing through AD&D (1st/2nd) until it became D&D again (3rd/4th) and ended abruptly with the NEXT (5th) re-iteration. Finding a consistent gaming group was never easy for me until 4th edition came around, but I wasn't an immediate fan when it came out. To me, the game felt incomplete as it lacked many of the traditional player classes and races. But once the PHB2 came out, I took a more serious look. That's more like it!

4e wasn't without its flaws and shortcomings, but what edition of D&D isn't? But what I saw that really shined outweighed all of it. Classes designed to be equally balanced and useful no matter what you played. Cooperative play and design became more important (i.e. players were more often building characters as a group rather than a single entity hoping for a group to support whatever they wanted to do). Encounters were easier to design and balance--heck, everything behind the DM screen became less of a chore. Designer notes were a regular thing so you knew exactly why decisions were made (even the bad ones). Digitial tools (well at first anyway--just call it a "mixed-bag").

Interestingly, I found that a lot of players who never played D&D before actually prefer 4th Edition. Maybe its because they're not a bunch of jerks like us (myself included) who hang around forums all day, over-analyzing every aspect of the game for the last 40+ years, and crying about something that is or isn't broken ruining it for everybody even though most of us don't see a problem. For example, when I presented my wife the PHBs for each edition (she had never played an RPG before in her life), she immediately gravitated towards 4e. I asked her why. Overall, it just looked more accessible and better organized. She was right, of course. Other players I've met (and are less biased towards) brought their young sons and daughters to Encounters, or spouses who have never played before. They knew (more or less) exactly what they could or couldn't do, and felt as much as part of the group whatever character they played.

And I can go on for as long as anyone who has as many complaints, maybe longer. Suffice it to say, I have reasons like anybody else. 5e is a good system for other people, but it holds no interest for me. I tried it a couple times, even joined a session for Adventurer's League. One player out of five others had a name for their character. Everybody else... who admitted excitedly they loved watching Critical Role... had decided to play Barbarian #2 or alternate Cleric #5, had minimal IC interaction with anyone else, and only perked up to slay the hapless gargoyle/statue-things that were trying to give the party a clue. (I was playing a loud-mouthed dwarf bard who made a lot of bad, but fun, decisions! Only one person seemed to appreciate that. Hint: His character had a name.)

Next time I get back to this, I'll tell you how I addressed some of those common complaints during my best (and longest) campaign, which I ran in PbP forum.

The PbP Campaign
Before the Encounters program came out (and I moved to my current city of residence where local stores supported this program), I became interested in running a campaign through the Play-by-Post (PbP, or Message Board) format. This was a relatively new idea to me, and I hadn't really considered it before. Probing the topic to get some opinions and ideas about how to go about it, the majority seemed to have a negative view on the subject. Some of the common complaints varied, but everyone seemed to share the same consensus: the games were very slow, people lose interest, and they never get very far. True enough, but I had a vision in my head and I was determined to prove everyone wrong. And for the most part, I did.

My first PbP campaign took a lot of work. I spent several months prepping my game forum, learning to code and format on the hosted site (Myth-weavers), and planning for the actual campaign. I had decided to run two groups of six players running simultaneous campaigns with different paths. Then came the application process where I interviewed potential players to find a good match. By that, I mean finding players with the right mind set, who felt they were getting in on something special, and were willing to go along with whatever I needed to do to make this happen.

The ad got a lot of attention at the time, especially for a first-time DM promoting a 1st-level game with a lot of ambition. Picking over the applicants took a couple more months while I began working with the players on their individual characters. I had created a roster of premade character ideas for everyone to choose from. This gave the players a ready-to-use portrait/token (I used character portraits from the original Icewind Dale PC game), which suggested the Race and Class. I also gave them a background from the Scales of War article (this worked well since I was doing a conversion of the original Red Hand of Doom), and a Name. The player built their characters using the digital tools at the time, and I collaborated to make their story and background ideas part of the actual campaign.

I even ran prelude adventures for most: 1) to get them acquainted with how I would run the game, 2) give them practice formatting to my standards, and 3) I could start working out the bugs in my own ideas. But with twelve characters, and even running two at a time, more weeks and months were just creeping along while most (happily) waited and watched for their turn. After a time, we agreed together to just get things going already and the campaign(s) took off!

Despite everything I intended, the game did die after two years. We lost a few players along the way, but others came in as replacements. The two groups of six eventually merged into one with about eight players, then six again. They were well on their way to reaching level 4, but personal things came up that forced me away and eventually dissolved the game. I can happily say that I am still in touch with most of the players, who I consider now to be real friends I have never met. They remind me that the campaign was one of their best gaming experiences ever, which I happen to share in that sentiment.

Understandably, PbP is a lot different than a game played in real time, whether face-to-face or at a virtual table. You gain the commodity of additional time to think about actions and embellish the narrative, but the cost may be the meticulous effort of writing for communication. For some people, that is no small price. At the time, it was the ideal format for me; that was before the Encounters program came around.

I guess I'm doing this in sections, like chapters? Eh. Hope somebody enjoys reading it.

Complaint #1: Combats Take Forever
Yes they did, and the reasons are varied and well documented. Keep in mind that 4e was designed to make combat encounters the centerpiece of the game, so putting a lot of focus on it wasn't the problem. The problem was the every combat encounter was meant to be a grand spectacle. Even the small, "insignificant" ones became a major event that would take up the next 1-2 hours of play. Notice how there weren't any wandering monster tables in that edition? Or perhaps we should've clued into the fact that one of the regular social weekly events was named "Encounters", not "Adventurer's"-something?

Believe it or not, my PbP game was suffering from extended encounters as well. Sure, the average combat was going to take a few weeks to get through via message board posting, but that was expected. But one of our earliest battles nearly reached the two month mark, which I found unacceptable. Everyone was posting regularly. The encounter was designed for average difficulty. So what was the biggest culprit? A lot of bad rolls.

I can't explain why, but the dice roller on the site was heavily sided against good rolls for either side. Both players and monsters were missing frequently, which made the battle continue on and on. It was more frustrating for the players who attempted to use their limited Encounter or Daily powers only to have wasted it with a bad roll. Even at the Encounters game, nothing upset a player more (myself included when I did play) then losing the use of a special power or ability because you rolled lower than expected, even when the odds were in your favor. This was just another reason why I disliked the d20 mechanic through every edition, only this time I did something about it.

After some discussion with the group and a little tinkering on my part, I decided to swap out the d20 for a 3d6 roll. Just for the players. I came up with some simple house rules to handle critical hits, and special cases like Elven Accuracy. The results were favorable, to say the least. Without changing any other stats, like hit points, defenses, or DCs, things started going better and everyone was enjoying the game a lot more. By reducing the reliance of luck on the dice rolls, the players felt their character choices and actions meant a whole lot more. Suddenly, that +2 from the Aid Another action was a lot more valuable, and team work was crucial to hit those higher values. Fewer misses also meant more damage dealt--an important factor when dealing with the meatier HP of 4e--and less powers wasted.

I kept the d20 for the monster side of things. The players probably wouldn't survive long against monsters who were suddenly better with their aim. Plus, it retained some semblance of lucky dice rolls, both for and against the characters. And it was relatively easy to beef up the encounters as needed by introducing an extra standard, elite, or a squad of minions. Players still needed to manage their resources, which was a more prominent feature in 4e than other editions: it wasn't just for wizards and healing potions anymore!

Complaint #2: You Can't Roleplay
EDIT: Yeah, I can't even address this one without the risk of offending. Granted, a lot of people become hyper-focused on the decision-making and optimizing in combat, especially in 4e, but since when has that ever meant you need to stop the roleplaying? Let's just say the only thing that can stop someone from roleplaying is that person.

So, how about that Skill Challenge thing? Anyone curious how I made it work?

NOTE: Just so everyone knows, the link goes to a thread in my archived forum game. It contains a huge encounter map with a skill challenge built into part of the design. You can't post in it, and some of the images are missing thanks to Photobucket.

I think the no RP thing is more due to the combat length. For example in a four hour session we might do three or four combats plus rp explore etc.

In 4E those 3 or 4 encounters would eat up the whole session leaving no time for anything else. So you either had to reduce the encounters or split the adventuring day over 2 or more sessions IRL.

Alot of that was due to hit point bloat, debuffs and a relative lack of nukes to speed up combat.

I don't think it was intended kind of like the testers played 3.0 like 2E vs how it was percieved to be used. It's not that you can't RP in 4E but depending on hoow you run the combats/structure the game you might not have time.

If you spread what you could do in an older edition in one session over 2or 3 I don't see why 4E would be to different in regards to what you could do. If that doesn't work for you though that's a problem. Could even come down to how frequent your sessions are.

I'm really happy to have read this thread. Every time I sit down and get ready to prepare for a 5E game, I think to myself "Dang, i wish I was running 4E". I love the 5E character design side but I hate 5E's monster design; I absolutely love 4E's monster design, and I'm mostly okay with 4E's player design. I really think the 4.5 Essentials presentation was a bit better: I too find Daily powers on Martial characters to feel weird and would rather see them be built with more Encounter powers or with static abilities.

Every time I see people complain about combat taking forever, part of me says "that's what I liked about 4E". Combat should be meaningful. When you dust off the table and slap down a Huge Dragon miniature, that fight should take more than 3 rounds and 30 minutes of play time. The problem was that 4E fights could DRAG, which is a different complaint than that they were long.

For minions, simply giving them 1/4th the HP of their role would have helped. That would have made them drop in a single solid hit, but it would have made it take longer to run them. "HP is a game concept, not a world concept" works for me.

I'm very tempted to start playing 4E again, but to rebuild the player side of things since the player side has so much ability bloat if you allow all 4E official sources. I want to steal a lot from 5E in the process. Here's some ideas of how the classes could be built, utilizing pools of abilities for many characters.

At-Wills: grouped into cantrips and weapon attacks. There would be some overlap in them between classes, each would choose from them like spell lists.

Full Casters: I'd bring in the 9 spell levels. Typically, a spell level is learned as a daily spell and then is eventually upgraded into an encounter spell. Your first level encounter spell slot eventually becomes an at-will spell slot at higher levels (so you end with 4 encounters (2, 3, 4, 5) and 4 dailies (6, 7, 8, 9). This way, spells don't get upgraded and obsoleted. For casters, how to handle utility spells would have to be addressed.

Half-Casters: For paladins and rangers, and also things like eldritch knights, their daily spells would be basically other class's encounter spells but cast as a minor action; this way they could mix them with their at-wills to make them as good as dailies. An Eldritch Knight or Paladin would end with up to 5th level spells this way.

By utilizing spell lists, bloat would feel lower and less restricted. Non-primary casters would be more defined by their encounter powers. Barbarians would have an encounter rage and daily powers determined by their subclass. Paladins would have encounter smites and daily spells. Fighters would have something like action surge ... and so forth.

But I feel like this would be a smaller task for me than updating all of 5E's monsters to be more interesting. Because they're sooooooooo boring, and 5E's monsters make me not want to run 5E.

Adding in some 4e monster design ideas to 5e would be a great idea. One small tweak to 5e would make the monsters so much more interesting and that is bringing back bloodied and having abilities trigger off that. I still tend to use the term to describe a monster that is at/below half health in 5e. I'd also suggest brining in minions again. If you're running a game and bring in some regular orcs to fight against some 8th level PCs then they are effectively minions anyway. Might as well make things easier for yourself and just use 4e's minion rules.

Xeviat said:

Every time I see people complain about combat taking forever, part of me says "that's what I liked about 4E". Combat should be meaningful. When you dust off the table and slap down a Huge Dragon miniature, that fight should take more than 3 rounds and 30 minutes of play time. The problem was that 4E fights could DRAG, which is a different complaint than that they were long.

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4e structures weak combats around skill challenges precisely because they're not particularly interesting.

But you could easily resolve them in the 5e way of doing TotM and giving APs every 3 combats or so.

Xeviat said:

For minions, simply giving them 1/4th the HP of their role would have helped. That would have made them drop in a single solid hit, but it would have made it take longer to run them. "HP is a game concept, not a world concept" works for me.

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I like to give them 5 hp+1 per level as a default. That's just enough hp to not drop when hit with stat damage, maybe survive a damage roll without a stat modifier, and basically auto-die on any significant hit.

cbwjm said:

Adding in some 4e monster design ideas to 5e would be a great idea. One small tweak to 5e would make the monsters so much more interesting and that is bringing back bloodied and having abilities trigger off that. I still tend to use the term to describe a monster that is at/below half health in 5e. I'd also suggest brining in minions again. If you're running a game and bring in some regular orcs to fight against some 8th level PCs then they are effectively minions anyway. Might as well make things easier for yourself and just use 4e's minion rules.

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I rewrote all the casters in MM+wrote up some NPCs as 4e-style monsters in about 15 hours, put them up on dmsguild, and I've ended up making about $100 from them. I still end up selling about 2-4 things per month.

i.e. all the spells are on the printed page, balanced around 5e's DMG CR goals, etc...

MwaO said:

I rewrote all the casters in MM+wrote up some NPCs as 4e-style monsters in about 15 hours, put them up on dmsguild, and I've ended up making about $100 from them. I still end up selling about 2-4 things per month.

i.e. all the spells are on the printed page, balanced around 5e's DMG CR goals, etc...

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I've done something similar with my casters when I DM. I've picked a single spell of each level of the caster, noted down the details, and then ticked off spell slots as I used them. I felt it worked better than looking at a spell list and trying to recall which spell works which way.

I've done the same for sorcerers and metamagic. I'll note down "twinned firebolt" state it affects two targets and then limit the uses based on the level of the sorcerer NPC. Having all the information needed to run the NPC right there in front of you I think speeds things up during combat.

cbwjm said:

I've done something similar with my casters when I DM. I've picked a single spell of each level of the caster, noted down the details, and then ticked off spell slots as I used them. I felt it worked better than looking at a spell list and trying to recall which spell works which way.

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The Archmage took 2 pages, but everything else onto one page. I basically made everything at-will or X/combat balanced around the CR tables. I mean, who cares if the Archmage throws 5 or 7 fireballs per combat? What we really care about is if they're doing appropriate damage for a CR 12 creature or not. And then I gave them hp and appropriate defenses for a CR 12 creature rather than treating them as if they were a PC.

Makes for much less swingy combats, but still reasonably frightening.

I probably should write up some more monsters, give them the 4e treatment, and put them up there, but haven't gotten around to it.