11 Reasons Why I Prefer D&D 4E

[Logos7]

Or you know its DnD,

It takes more than one person or one gaming group to decide something, and I think that it is pretty clear that the gaming majority has embraced 4th edition as DnD (based on the reprints of the core and setting guides, etc, etc)

What I like about 4th is how much frickin faster it is to prepare as a Dm, it is SOOOOOO much faster, I can get an entire session ready in an hour, absolutely to my satisfaction. I can create new monsters in 15 mins entirely to my satisfaction. This is not at all the way it was in 3.x (hours and hours and hours later...)

The game itself runs fast, sure things vary depending on you know actual play but the players are consulted quicker, turns come faster, and everyone seems involved and active at the table, completely unlike many a 3.x dnd snoozeathon that resulted in my playing 2 rounds for about a minute each out of an hour because I thought, hey why not a fighter, while the mages and the clerics are fidgeting with their spells ,and calculating their buffs, and consulting books.

I think more or less all of the things in the op really hit the nail on the head, my only problem is really the lack of magic items and rituals and that's being fixed as we speak.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Whether or not the OP wanted feedback/comments or not, they posted here and didnt blog it, so thats exactly what they are going to get.

Actually, I did both. And I specifically invited debate.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I dont like anything about 4e.
I really tried when I got the core set to like it, and try and find something with it that was redeemable.
Its a ok game in and of itself. It isnt D&D. It's Exalted d20 with the numbers filed off, and Exalted does it better.

I'm currently running an Exalted game, so I'd like to chime in on that.

First of all, Exalted (at least, Solar Exalted) are much, much more powerful). In Exalted, you can have a power as a starting character that allows you to parry a mountain thrown at you, and I've not seen anything like that in D&D 4E.

Furthermore, Solar Exalted aren't really that good at teamwork. Yes, each caste has its own specialty, but each of them is supposed to be a Glorious Leader in its own right, so they don't have that many powers that directly help with teamwork tactics within its own circle.

Finally, Exalted really does not have much of a concept of "Combat Balance". It's extremely hard to gauge just what kinds of enemies are appropriate for the player characters, as their combat abilities are all over the map.

I mean, I like Exalted. It's a fun game, and I've learned a lot about high-powered gaming, but I really cannot see much of a similarity between it and D&D 4E - D&D 4E remains D&D to the core, despite all the changes.

 

[Gothmog]

Great thread Jurgen, and I agree with your 11 reasons 100%. D&D 4e has brought me back to D&D, and I'm having a blast with it. Its hands down the best version of D&D I've ever played or run. A couple other things I really like about 4e:

* I can stat and prep a game in almost not time at all. In fact, I don't really even need the books with me to prep a game now. I haven't been able to do that since 1e/2e.

* Everytime I play 4e, I discover or find something I hadn't noticed before that makes me think "wow, that is awesome!" On an emotional level, it reminds me of playing 1e as a kid, and discovering all sorts of cool new stuff.

* The new default cosmology is 100% pure win. I really like the Feywild, Shadowfell, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, and FAR REALM. God, I hope we get a book about the Far Realm.

* The tone of D&D has changed subtly from super-high fantasy, to a dark and dangerous high fantasy. Again, good move.

* PCs are mortal now, at pretty much all levels. There really isn't a point at which PCs become immune to harm, as there has been in previous editions. Even with bumped up hit points, skills, powers, and being more capable, a 1st level adventure in 4e is far more lethal than a 3e game, and players have to play smarter, not more optomized to survive.

* 4e is MUCH more modular than 3e, and you can change, add, or remove stuff without having a cascade of unintended effects.

* I LOVE LOVE LOVE what they have done with diseases. Great idea. I hope they implement some similar rules for curses as well, and use the condition track for all sorts of goodness.


Now, a few things that bug me about 4e:

* I want more rituals, but thats being fixed.

* Same for magic items- but again, thats being addressed.

* I'm chomping at the bit for more monsters- MMII can't get here fast enough. I'm especially interested in critters from the Feywild, Shadowfell, and Far Realm.

* I miss the druid and barbarian (not so much the bard), but we'll have Ari's APG and the PHBII soon to address this.

* PCs recovering to full health every day and no lasting injuries bugs me, so we houseruled in a system for this. So far its working well, and has no impact on how well 4e plays.

* I'm still on the fence about minions. I like they are in the game now, but having 1 hp kinda bugs me from a conceptual point of view. I know why it was done (no bookkeeping), but its somewhat hard to have an internally consistent world with 1 hp minions. My fix was to give minions 1/4 the hp of a normal critter for their type and level since they are also worth 1/4 the experience. Most of the time, they still go down in one hit, but for the simulationist in me (yes, I'm a simulationist AND narrativist DM, and I LOVE 4e) it makes me happy.

* I'd really like some guidelines for creating new powers. Its not all that hard to do, but I really wish that had been included in the 4e DMG (which is the best DMG to date, both for veternan and new DMs).

 

[Lanefan]

Some things about 4e design I like:

- Increased use of terrain as a feature...which means more interesting set-piece encounters and having the terrain and surroundings actually play a part in said encounters
- Points of light in the darkness
- The "official" adventures so far; both very good (I haven't seen H3 yet)
- The artwork and general look of it...big improvement over 3e
- I haven't tried it yet, but if what others say is true then faster char-gen at all levels can only be a good thing.

Some things that bother me at the design level:

- Way too big a gap between commoners and 1st-level characters (ditto for minions and non-minions)
- Too much realism sacrificed to efficiency e.g. 1-1-1-1 diagonals, firecubes, etc.
- Too much blurring between the classes - caster classes can fight, and non-caster classes can do magic...wtf?
- Overemphasis on balance again at cost of realism. In reality, not everyone is going to be able to help much in every situation...so why force that into the game?

Lanefan

 

[Korgoth]

To me, 4E just goes farther in the uninteresting direction that 3E went. It's like music I strongly dislike, turned up to 11.

Jurgen, several of your reasons mentioned ease of play. While it may play fast compared to 3.5... that's like saying "animal X is faster than a snail" - so are a lot of things.

I get immense ease of play with OD&D, and I get to play a game that challenges the players rather than challenging their characters (you know, those meaningless formulae scribbled on a piece of paper!). No skill points, feats or frikkin laser beams to fool with. Just swords, sorcery (and/or planets), dungeons and dragons. No mathematical trivialities!

On the other hand... I recall that you like Gurps, so mathematical trivialities are right up your alley I'm sure.

 

[Gothmog]

]
- Increased use of terrain as a feature...which means more interesting set-piece encounters and having the terrain and surroundings actually play a part in said encounters

...

- The artwork and general look of it...big improvement over 3e

Oops, I forgot these two. Terrain and dynamic combat in 4e is fun. I've got several new gamers who really enjoy how chaotic combat feels. One of those players tried 3e, and she hated the combats- she found them incredibly dull.

And the 4e art....light years better than 3e art, and it inspires me to make adventures, NPCs, and worlds again. It really reflects the points of light theme well, and shows characters in the world rather than against a dull white background. Big thumbs up there. And WotC, if you're listening, I want LOTS more Lucio Parillo, and snag that chap Pat Loboyko- his stuff is perfect for D&D and has a great PoL feel.

 

[Plissken]

Less-complex high-level spellcasters. Once your player characters hit double digits, deciding which spells your high-level wizards, clerics, and druids choose every day became a real chore, and it frequently held up the game while the players of these characters made up their mind. No longer - even wizards, who still can make some choices in that regard, now spend much less time on figuring out their daily spell lists.

The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I get immense ease of play with OD&D, and I get to play a game that challenges the players rather than challenging their characters (you know, those meaningless formulae scribbled on a piece of paper!). No skill points, feats or frikkin laser beams to fool with. Just swords, sorcery (and/or planets), dungeons and dragons. No mathematical trivialities!

The numbers mean something to me - If I play a RPG, I want to use the numbers that define my characters because they represent this character. If a session never requires me to use any of my character abilities, I feel a bit like I wasted my time, or at least didn't really play that character. It was just me, thinking about a fictional situation and reacting to it, and the person I was impersonating didn't matter.

But that's not enough, sure. I also want to feel challenged myself - by choosing which character abilities I use, and how. In combat, these are tactical decisions - which ally do I aid in his attacks, which enemy do I take out first (and how), which ally do I protect, how can I maneuver my opponents into a situation more favorable to me.

Overemphasis on balance again at cost of realism. In reality, not everyone is going to be able to help much in every situation...so why force that into the game?

Well, "magic" is not realistic at all, and yet we want it in our fantasy games. My view on this is that a role-playing game is still a game. Imbalances are not a sign of a good game. In reality, someone trained in using a gun might be a lot more deadly and survive a lot longer than one with just some martial arts training. But in a game that includes both options, they should be equally valid (assuming equal cost, yada yada ).
This is not a simulationist perspective, I suppose, but I find the "validity" of all available roles in a role-playing game very important for my enjoyment of the game.

There are other gameplay concerns for this - I like having the ability to make "fair" challenges for my PCs when I DM. I want the ability to predict how tough any situation (be it a combat encounter, or anything else that will resolved with dice) will be for them. A game that doesn't ensure balance across the board makes this very difficult.
But I might be willing to compromise here - if an individual class or character is not good at certain situations, give me tools to handle this difference. If a Noble is inherently inferior in combat to a wizard or a fighter, give me a number that describes this difference so I can take it into account. If a Fighter is inherently inferior in a social situation then a Noble, again, tell me how much so, and I can take it into account.
I still find this inferior to using balance across a board (to be expected by a compromise), because it still makes it likely that one or more players will not enjoy important parts of the game as others, simply due to their choice of character.

 

[Monkey Boy]

@Monkey Boy

Just out of curiousity how many PC's do you have in your group? I've got four and noticed the issue your having.

I have a funny feeling that combat time is inversely proportional to the number of PCs, even with adjusted XP budgets.

First session saw 5 players fighting 3 rooms worth of goblins. It took about an hour and a half. Second session 6 players fighting 3 rooms worth of hobgoblins and it took 3 hours. I threw minions into the mix but it didn't help much. An earlier poster mentioned the slowness of combat may be due to inexperienced players. I think there is some truth to this.