D&D 4E 4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain

Manbearcat said:

There wouldn't be serial exploration, a keyed map, or Exploration Turns that are pressured by a Wandering Monster/Random Encounter Clock

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I think I disagree with this part. I don't see why there wouldn't be serial exploration or a keyed map. I have played in several 1e converted to 4e adventures (we have a GM who likes that) who used these resources.

I've personally used random encounters/wandering monsters in 4e (as well as been on the receiving end from said GM). It's actually easier to balance, IMO. Even if the PCs manage to get a short rest after every random encounter, they're losing healing surges. (Probably not dailies, as random encounters are rarely that tough.) If this were 3e, this would likely tap healing spells (or wands) and maybe a few offense spells because players don't want to miss out on action. The non-casters aren't losing obvious resources in that scenario.

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

I think I disagree with this part. I don't see why there wouldn't be serial exploration or a keyed map. I have played in several 1e converted to 4e adventures (we have a GM who likes that) who used these resources.

I've personally used random encounters/wandering monsters in 4e (as well as been on the receiving end from said GM). It's actually easier to balance, IMO. Even if the PCs manage to get a short rest after every random encounter, they're losing healing surges. (Probably not dailies, as random encounters are rarely that tough.) If this were 3e, this would likely tap healing spells (or wands) and maybe a few offense spells because players don't want to miss out on action. The non-casters aren't losing obvious resources in that scenario.

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Let me unpack my thinking on this a little more.

The Wandering Monster Clock machinery isn’t just a system of discrete parts. It works in concert, holistically, in order to engender the play experience. This is why when people were claiming that 5e could reproduce the actual 4e play experience (because a widget here, a bit there, a bob here each bore some kind of recognizably 4e aspect to them), I claimed adamantly (and correctly) “no, it flat out cannot.” I think this happens with a segment of D&D players (I’m going to blame 2e’s complete incoherency via kitchen sink, utterly unfocused design here). Rather than looking at a system holistically, they look at it as a discrete “tool-kit”. I think this is why those D&D players chafe at “focused (narrowing) design and tight system play principles, agenda/premise, and well-integrated reward cycles that create a feedback loop that engenders a particular play experience.

So here is the play experience the Wandering Monster Clock machinery engenders:

Potentially overmatched adventurers struggling against time and environment (urgently trying to explore and deploy loadout expeditiously while avoiding all “unnecessary action”) to pull treasure from a dangerous dungeon.

I think right there, we should be able to agree that 4e’s basic ethos tenets (“Go to the Action”, “Big Damn Heroes”, “The Heroic Rally”) as well as so much of its system machinery (extremely robust PCs, resource schedules and Milestones, heroic Quests as well as Monsters and Noncombat Encounters for XP, Gold/Treasure as player-facing PC build resource, etc etc) pushes back extremely hard against trying to recreate something like Moldvay Basic or Torchbearer).

In order for it to all come together, you need:

1 - Non-robust adventurers
2 - Resource refresh that is a struggle to attain
3 - Gold for XP (no Monster for XP...encounters are to be avoided)
4 - Gear loadout that is essential to success
5 - Clearly defined Exploration Speed in varying units
6 - A Wandering Monster Click that interfaces with the directly above
7 - Deadly (as in insta-gib via mass HP ablation or SoD) Traps
8 - Swingy, short Combat

Stock 4e has (5) above. (6) isn’t a huge barrier to overcome (you can create that clock pretty easily).

The rest of it requires A LOT of system drift via A LOT of hacking, 3 being the hugest challenge to overcome (due to the nature of Treasure in the 2 systems being basically opposites).

It can be done...but your no longer playing 4e at that point. You’re playing a severely drifted, serious hack if 4e. And due to the amount of drift/hack, you can’t juat “toggle back” to all things 4e. Well, I mean you can, but the play experience would be jarringly incoherent.

Joshua Randall said:

Regarding the skill challenge, this is a perfect illustration of the flaws of skill challenges. The rogue should contribute whatever the rogue wants to contribute, but in actual practice he'll try to shoehorn something into Thievery, Acrobatics, Bluff (if Cha secondary), or perhaps Athletics (if Str secondary).

Then you get situations like... "I'll use Thievery to know and expose a flaw in the Far Realms vehicle, that the party can exploit if things come to blows." Some DMs will interpret this as Intimidate and unfairly assign it a higher DC than they would to Diplomacy or Bluff (or Thievery, for that matter).

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So I have 4 thoughts for this:

1) Much of the “problem” (insofar as it may be a problem) is in GM timidity/neutrality in framing of situation/conflict and in consequences. If a GM hard frames a particular PC into a focused complication that they have to deal with RIGHT NOW (or there will be consequences), it crystallizes the situation such that responses (and respondees) will fundamentally narrow.

2) In terms of “archetype manifestation”, I don’t see how Fighters typically being physically imposing/dynamic, Rogues being scoundrel-ey/resourceful/daring-do, and Mages being erudite/mystical is a problem?

In Marvel Heroic, Hulk is going to be SMASH-ey and Doctor Strange is going to be erudite/mystical. If the mechanics/PC build schemes don’t engender that emergent quality, there is something wrong with the game. Same goes for Leverage and any game with strong, distinct archetypes.

3) If the concern is challenge-based, then (a) see (1), (2) maybe there is a system maths problem, and (3) if “Challenge” requires heavy deviation from archetype (therefore diluting archetype or rendering it incoherent), then the game has a problem (see (2) above.

4) Fail-Forward and (1) above (hard framing and dynamic situation changes) should alleviate “fiction-irrelevant best skill spamming.” 4e has all 3 of those built into its Noncombat Conflict Resolution so if that isn’t happening then it’s straight user error by the GM.
[MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] , thanks for posting. I’ll get a response up later and move this thread along.

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

I think I disagree with this part. I don't see why there wouldn't be serial exploration or a keyed map. I have played in several 1e converted to 4e adventures (we have a GM who likes that) who used these resources.

I've personally used random encounters/wandering monsters in 4e (as well as been on the receiving end from said GM). It's actually easier to balance, IMO. Even if the PCs manage to get a short rest after every random encounter, they're losing healing surges. (Probably not dailies, as random encounters are rarely that tough.) If this were 3e, this would likely tap healing spells (or wands) and maybe a few offense spells because players don't want to miss out on action. The non-casters aren't losing obvious resources in that scenario.

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[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gave a good answer, but I thought I'd chime in a bit.

You can use random encounters, but each type of edition (OSR-2e being one type, 3e+5e being a second, and 4e a third) sets up mechanics to incent the players differently.

The first type of game, the players are incented to see random encounters as a negative -- such encounters are worth little experience and offer almost no treasure. The players are incented to move through the dangerous environment quickly, confront their target, and retreat to safety. There are few encounter recharging mechanics and any expenditure of resources is hard to replace in the field. Each encounter has a non-trivial chance of consuming some resources (a 6 hp loss is teeth-clenching when your 10th level MU/Thief has a 29 hp maximum). The incentive for clear targets and smooth play became obvious quickly to any group that wanted to succeed.

The second type, the players are incented to see the encounters as mixed -- such encounters offer experience and are typically weaker than keyed encounters, but offer little treasure. The players are incented to juggle competing desires of acquisition vs. xp gain. There are a few encounter recharging mechanics and expenditure of some resources are hard to replace in the field, but a few "unnecessary" encounters generally isn't a big deal ( a 12 hp loss isn't a huge deal when your 10th level Wizard has 75 hp). The incentive to try to trigger extra encounters once the main goal was achieved to maximise gain from the outing was obvious especially if one or more of the party members was *this* close to levelling.

The third type, the players are offered no real incentive or disincentive and random encounters are effectively a small aspect of the environment. Triggering an encounter is unlikely to cost non-encounter recharging resources and may trigger a milestone event for the group that is helpful. Few resources aren't encounter recharging and easily replaced in the field. Any losses are likely inconsequential for the participants.

Nagol said:

The third type, the players are offered no real incentive or disincentive and random encounters are effectively a small aspect of the environment. Triggering an encounter is unlikely to cost non-encounter recharging resources and may trigger a milestone event for the group that is helpful. Few resources aren't encounter recharging and easily replaced in the field. Any losses are likely inconsequential for the participants.

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How do you find this thought lines up with the fact that a wandering monster encounter is often suggested as a consequences for failing a SC... if resource loss is likely to be inconsequential, why is this considered a valid consequence?

Imaro said:

How do you find this thought lines up with the fact that a wandering monster encounter is often suggested as a consequences for failing a SC... if resource loss is likely to be inconsequential, why is this considered a valid consequence?

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Most secondary consequences are somewhat inconsequential by themselves. Their primary purpose is to provide a change to the environment by introducing either a new threat or making a current problem worse. Since SC construction was all over the map when I was paying attention to 4e, I can't say if the advice ever crystallized, but a random encounter both drags attention away from the primary challenge thus potentially removing one or more key participants from working towards the main goal and places some possible pressure on hit dice loss -- one of the few areas where resources did not recharge each encounter and thus became one of the key areas to attack for SC. From what I saw, tossing in a random encounter as a result of failure was a general win for the table -- those that didn't have a strong role in overcoming the primary challenge (and thus were less engaged in working it) got something else to focus on.

Imaro said:

How do you find this thought lines up with the fact that a wandering monster encounter is often suggested as a consequences for failing a SC... if resource loss is likely to be inconsequential, why is this considered a valid consequence?

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I’m going to answer this in relation to my above post as it lets me append another facet of this (which is another aspect of robust PCs):

The fact that 4e PCs/a group is robust to (a) significant deviation in workday (both in intraclass balance and group staying power), eg 1 mega-difficult encounter all the way to a 12 encounter (or more...that’s the most I’ve done) workday, is a feature for 4e.

However, that is a bug for something like Moldvay Basic or Torchbearer.

In terms of “why is a combat encounter a valid consequence”, the answer is two-fold:

1) 4e’s play premise isn’t centered around the classic Step On Up logistic puzzle solving of (a) the adventuring day and (b) getting treasure out of ruins with minimal exposure. So lack of “consequential” (this could mean many things) Daily ablation isn’t a hyperfocused part of the play agenda.

2) “Consequential” for a 4e failure in an SC should mean some kind of interesting thing, story loss, or story setback/complication. Whatever was at stake in the SC may be lost or put at risk or complicated with the follow-on Combat encounter (“snowballing”).

Manbearcat said:

I’m going to answer this in relation to my above post as it lets me append another facet of this (which is another aspect of robust PCs):

The fact that 4e PCs/a group is robust to (a) significant deviation in workday (both in intraclass balance and group staying power), eg 1 mega-difficult encounter all the way to a 12 encounter (or more...that’s the most I’ve done) workday, is a feature for 4e.

However, that is a bug for something like Moldvay Basic or Torchbearer.

In terms of “why is a combat encounter a valid consequence”, the answer is two-fold:

1) 4e’s play premise isn’t centered around the classic Step On Up logistic puzzle solving of (a) the adventuring day and (b) getting treasure out of ruins with minimal exposure. So lack of “consequential” (this could mean many things) Daily ablation isn’t a hyperfocused part of the play agenda.

2) “Consequential” for a 4e failure in an SC should mean some kind of interesting thing, story loss, or story setback/complication. Whatever was at stake in the SC may be lost or put at risk or complicated with the follow-on Combat encounter (“snowballing”).

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Emphasis mine... Overall this makes sense but I would add that rarely if ever (don't actually remember ever seeing this but it has been a long time) do I see that advice (even in the books) presented along with the combat as a consequence.

Nagol said:

Most secondary consequences are somewhat inconsequential by themselves. Their primary purpose is to provide a change to the environment by introducing either a new threat or making a current problem worse. Since SC construction was all over the map when I was paying attention to 4e, I can't say if the advice ever crystallized, but a random encounter both drags attention away from the primary challenge thus potentially removing one or more key participants from working towards the main goal and places some possible pressure on hit dice loss -- one of the few areas where resources did not recharge each encounter and thus became one of the key areas to attack for SC. From what I saw, tossing in a random encounter as a result of failure was a general win for the table -- those that didn't have a strong role in overcoming the primary challenge (and thus were less engaged in working it) got something else to focus on.

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Hmm... I guess. This just seems incredibly weak for a consequence (even with hit dice loss since that's often cited as a separate consequence) and seems to run counter to the... "Get to the Action"... ethos of 4e. Definitely feels like something that should have been discussed more, maybe made more transparent in why and how it should be used. No biggie though, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I don't know how to answer, because what is "traditional D&D?" Are we comparing it to AD&D 1st and 2nd edition? Basic? 3.x? 5th edition?

I can say that overall, 4e was the most mechanically tight edition I've played (going back to 2nd edition). The monster design was interesting and a breeze to DM (with all the abilities listed in the stat block). Characters felt powerful and capable; even at low levels they were already fulfilling their party roles - instead of waiting until higher level to "get the good stuff."

The online tools, including the compendium and character creator, were unrivaled - even with products such as today's D&D Beyond. The quality of Dungeon and Dragon magazines on the website were the best D&D articles since Paizo had the lines.

4e's greatest faults were hanging on to traditional adventure design (having 60+ rooms in a dungeon are ridiculous in 4e) and being anti-fan.