11 Reasons Why I Prefer D&D 4E

[Jürgen Hubert]

If by fighter you mean only the fighter class and the core feats then yes they were kinda limited. If you expand fighter to include 'guys who hit things with sword' and include CW and PHB II and (especially) Bo9S then there is plenty to do with them in 3e.

Likewise rituals are nice but the Invocation rules from 3e beat them hollow and were there first.

But in all of these cases, you have to buy a bunch of supplements to use them.

And in any comparison between 3.5 and 4E, comparing the core rules is the only thing that makes sense IMO - because the core rules are the only thing that's even available for 4E.

And I dislike having to buy up to three supplements to make a class "interesting" - especially since these books drastically increase the complexity of the game and require the DM to understand and keep track of even more rules.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Here's the thing though: maybe it was the players who, at level 20, decided to finally have words with that hobgoblin chieftan who gave them so much trouble at 5th level. Should the stats change suddenly just because the party doesn't wrap up their unfinished business at the "level appropriate" time?

There are two parts of change you have to think about
1) Story change. Did this chieftain do something in the mean-time? If the PCs haven't killed him, it stands to reason that he might have amassed more power and gained more experience. This new experience might have changed him on a world level.

2) "Model" change. The game system represents an attempt to model a (fictional) world. I am not sure if I posted it in this thread or in another one, but basically, sometimes you need to use different parts of the model, because the model (being always imperfect) doesn't give you good results at certain scales. Level of PCs can be seen as such a scale in game systems. If the PCs have moved up 1 or even two tiers (from Heroic to Paragon, Paragon to Epic, or straight from Heroic to Epic), it stands to reason that you are acting on a different scale and use a different modelling team. Specifically, the Elite Hobgoblin Soldier 6 the PCs fought at 6th level might be better described as a Hobgoblin Soldier 16 at level 16, or as Hobgoblin Minion 16 at level 26. It is still he same creature in the fictional world, but we use a different model since we're operating at a different scale. It is not a scale of size, but it is a scale of power.
The numbers I used are probably not that perfect, but if you want a guideline that you could turn into a (house or optional) rule, you might use this:
- Is the monster still in the same tier? Don't change the statistics.
- Is the monster on a different tier? Downsize it (Solo to Elite, Elite to Regular, Regular to Minion, 1 step per tier difference). Calculate its new level so that the XP still is equal (or close to equal) to its original level.

This is just a change of the model you use. It doesn't imply that the creature actually changed. Applying such change is part of the first point.

 

[Celtavian]

2 Ghouls and 4 Zombies (normal i assume) sound like badly balanced encounter to me. Especially if you have spots where players can dig in, and let the tin cans take the hits. Unless you want them to be able to do just that. In which case you shouldn't complain, obviously. The solo is odd as well. Since by far most solos have at least two attacks, if not more. Often an immediate one as well. Could you tell me which solo that was, since it sounds like it needs some loving.

The zombies and ghouls were part of a preset encounter. Just about any dungeon allows players to dig in. You can't force them not to use hallways and such to their advantage. The same thing was done in 3E save that caster mobs had more options to handle that than controller mobs do in 4E. I often hear the wizard complained about by players, but an enemy wizard was just as potent against the players in 3E.

The solo was Sinruth from the Rivenroar adventure from Dungeon magazine. I have heard it is poorly designed, but most solos I've seen are designed in a similar fashion.

Even with an extra attack, five people beating on you with encounter powers and action points makes a rather lopsided fight. Remember that a party has one second wind per character, usually two minor healings, and many utility powers provide a healing surge or some kind of temporary hit points.

Solos are often outgunned. Maybe your players don't use everything at their disposal, but mine do and make shrewd power choices that often give extra healing surges or temporary hit points. That leaves a solo often outgunned in hit points with all the healing the party has. On top of that five attacks per round is vicious and when the party spend an action point, that is double their normal number of attacks and that is really vicious.

I'll wait and see how the next solo fares against my party. If that solo goes down easy, then 4E truly is pathetically easy.

I do not think you are alone. Not since Tomb of Horrors, have I run a module without upgrades here and there, especially for the final battles. This isn't a design flaw, it is because modules are made for the average party.

Yep. Every edition I've had to do the same.

Also, I am curious. Which modules have you run? It sounds from your posts as if you have run a lot, which is intriguing. Most of us are only finishing up KoTS by now (or at least, that is my impression)

I've run Rescue at Rivenroar, an orc horde encounter I made up, and Heathen. Two from Dungeon and one I have made up. We are also going to Keep on the Shadowfell and so far we are crushing it. My friend had to modify all the encounters to give us somewhat of a challenge.

I have the opposite experience of you. Maybe the fault lies not in the system, but elsewhere. Maybe your players are just that good. /shrug

Cheers

Well, to be honest we have had years of experience creating challenging encounters for 3E. So that is a big part of it.

The 4E system is fairly new to us. And all the editions of D&D out of the box our players have crushed. I have to admit they are a fairly clever lot of players. They know how to synergize abilities with the best of them and love to pour over the books looking for cool combinations and ways to use their power.

And we're all very picky and superstitious about our dice. Every single one of us buys dice until we find a set that gives us good rolls (and no they are not loaded). We just wait until we find our "lucky" dice. I hope I am not alone with that insanity. I know statisticians and the very practical minded don't believe in the hocus pocus of lucky or hot dice, but my friends swear by it. One guy has a set of dice he has been using for over twenty years. Another guy has five or six d20s sitting by his character and he rolls them until he finds the hot one. Another guy and myself bought a bunch of dice sets until we found the proper color to fit our character as well as a rolling nice average rolls with occasional high rolls. Maybe we go to far, but the extra time taken to find those perfect dice makes us feel better.

But it's probably a combination of good tactics and a lack of familiarity with the system combined with a lowered level of lethality that make 4E feel less challenging than 3E. Once we learn to buff creatures, we can beef encounters up though I am already doubling just about every encounter (except for shadow hounds, never double the number of shadow hounds...they are too tough).

I'm sure we'll get the hang of it.

The thing that bothers me even more than the lack of challenge though is that with me doubling the encounters as I used to do in 3E, the combats take a huge amount of time even at low level. The mobs have so many hit points and you do so little damage that though you aren't in peril, it still takes you forever to kill things.

But I'm sure my DM will get the hang of things as far as encounter design goes. He is starting to design his own monsters and play with the system. So far he is keeping it light so as not to kill us. This particular DM has killed multiple (Four I can count off the top of my head) campaigns with excessive encounters he thought we could handle. So I think he is being careful this time around.

This is just a prefered style of play for our group, but we like the game to be lethal and feel like we are in backs to the wall, you are dead and so is the world if you lose types of encounters that leave us exhausted, spent, and near dead. It takes a while to get that kind of a feel with a system. Took us a bit in 3E, I'm sure we'll get it down for 4E. But 4E definitely isn't that way out of the box. Out of the box the advantage is strongly with the players. I guess that is how they wanted it.

 

[Greg K]

And in any comparison between 3.5 and 4E, comparing the core rules is the only thing that makes sense IMO - because the core rules are the only thing that's even available for 4E.

I am going to disagree. In the instance of comparing 4e rituals and Unearthed Arcana incantions (or any other d20/OGL open content material to an approach taken in 4e) , I do think comparisons are fair. WOTC had the opportunity to stay with the OGL and d20STL and draw upon the vast material released under the OGL and d20STL in a creating a new edition (as was one of the intents of the those licenses). That WOTC chose not to do so invites comparisons between how 4e does things and alternative approaches that were available in both their own d20products and 3pp material released as open content.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I've gone so far as to pick out regional recipes for areas of my worlds (and cook them for the group when the party goes there) or detail the traits of a bunch of breeds of dogs and horses unique to my setting.

0_o

Your experience...may not be typical of most groups.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Interesting Gothmog. I might try some house rules for 4E myself when I get more comfortable with the system. Right now I don't want to break anything. But down the line I might do something of the same to show long-term injuries. Not sure what I can do to make undead fearsome again save alter their abilities, but that injury track is interesting.

I can understand the recalculation of abilities and negative levels being a pain. I like what Pathfinder did eliminating the permanence of negative levels without elminating their effect. That will make it somewhat easier.

I do like that those negative levels and ability damage were a nice way to show the long-term effects of poison or being touched by a horrible undead creature. Never much liked it for the vampire as it didn't fit the archetype, but it was very cool for Spectres and Wraiths.

We already are planning to update our fumble house rules and possibly crit rules. We are finding the CA to everyone on a 1 is a bit too painful, especially for AoE casters. I might work in some injury chances with the crit table. I kind of like what they did way back in 2E with critical hits in the Combat and Tactics.

I have not completely read the thread, so some one else might have made a suggestion but for spectres and wraiths I would suggest that they steal healing surges. You might want them to make an attack against fortitude but that would be plenty scary.

 

[Derren]

Crossposted from my blog.

• No long-term advance planning for PC character development. No longer do players have to worry how precisely to build their characters at first level when they want to take a specific prestige class twelve levels later. Now they can take character advancement one level at a time.
  
  If only most feats and some powers wouldn't be so picky about required abilities and weapons. You still have to plan in advance.
  
  
• Easier high-level PC creation. Creating high-level PCs - whether to replace an existing character or to start a campaign at a high level in the first place - is now simplicity in itself. You do no longer have to worry about what choices your character made at lower level - thanks to retraining, it's easy to justify the current character feats, powers, and skills. Similarly, picking magic items is easy - you start with three items with specific levels, and have some spare cash over to purchase weaker items.
  
  But how much does this created high level PC resemble a played high level PC?
  
  
• Fighters are now actually interesting. In 3.5, Fighters usually did little more than doing the same attacks over and over again, and their only real tactical choices involved which enemy to hit. No longer - they now have a variety of options as large as that of the other classes.
  
  At low and mid level fighters could do more than just full attack if the player is creative. And if that is not enough, there were alternatives (Bo9s)
  
  
• 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.
  
  That entirely depends on the player. A good 3E player didn't need much time to decide on a spell in 3E too. Also the downside of this simplification is that magic = melee in 4E which means flavour loss
  
  
• No class is useless in a specific fight. Who doesn't know the frustration of a rogue in a fight that involved constructs or undead? Or of a monk in a fight that involved only monsters with the "wrong" type of damage resistance? Or of a wizard when all the enemies had high spell resistances? Some classes were pretty much ineffective against certain kinds of enemies, leaving their players frustrated when an adventure featured them strongly. This is now pretty much gone, and for this I am grateful.
  
  That still happens in 4E, for example when the enemy is flying and has no intention to land. A good thing that the fighter has so many ranged powers he could use as backup, isn't it?
  4E also does have less alternative combat actions someone could use when normal attacks don't do it (trip, etc.)
  
  
• Rituals. Separating most of the non-combat spells into rituals was a stroke of genius. Now the list of available rituals can be modified at the DM's leisure without giving a specific class too much power or taking too much power away from it. It also makes it easier for world-builders - they no longer have to take hundreds of spell effects into account when figuring out how magic may have impacted society. Conversely, since you do no longer have to be a high-level member of a specific class when you want to cast specific rituals, it's easy to justify NPCs who can cast individual rituals without making them into powerful combat spellcasters, turning them into "support roles" within the adventure without having to explain why they don't defeat the enemies of the local community instead of the PCs.
  
  If they were just not so expansive so that most of them are a really bad idea to use except in emergencies. And if only there would be more of them...
  
  
• Skill challenges. Skill challenges are a blast to run. They allow the DM to say: "I think these skills would be the most appropriate in this situation, but feel free to convince me of the appropriateness of other skills at well." This allows the PCs to get really creative with their skill uses and gives them a level of narrative control that I was really surprised seeing in a D&D edition.
  
  You of course have to use Stakers0's modified skill challenges. And with every +skill feat they get more broken and become a autosuccess/autofailure system.
  And what about players who make plans to not to make checks? They are shafted by skill challenges.
  Imo they are good for diplomacy, but everything else should use normal skill checks (multiple checks if you want)
  
  
• Minions. Minions are lots of fun for the DM. They allow me to "swarm" the player characters without overwhelming them, or without making me keep track of the hit points of large numbers of enemies. Back in 3.5, having two dozen enemies attack the PCs at once was a logistic nightmare. Now, it's no problem at all.
  
  At the expense of minions being completely illogical (more than most other things). Some people don't care, but some do.
  
  
• Easier high-level NPC creation. In D&D 3.5, I was so frustrated with how much time I spent on creating high-level NPCs - time I could have used on developing the actual plot of the adventure - that I even created a Wiki to have better access to a large number of NPCs (ironically, the wiki became a huge hit while I soon afterwards abandoned D&D 3.5 for other RPGs...). But now, creating high-level NPCs is even easier than creating high-level PCs. Thanks to the straightforward level bonus, calculating derived stats is a snap that doesn't even involve looking up a variety of tables, and giving them specific powers is a straightforward process which doesn't take up much time.
  
  If only there would be the same support for using actual classed NPCs and not only NPCs using the simplified build....
  
  
• Easier monster creation/modification. Building and modifying monsters now is much easier. For my playtest adventure, I built an Aufhocker, a fey creature from German mythology that jumps on the backs of people and frightens them to near-death, and I was astonished how easy the process was. 3.5 sorely lacked such detailed guidelines.
  
• In-depth discussion on building encounters and monster roles. The chapter on building encounters and monster roles in the DMG is one of the most impressive pieces of GMing advice I have seen in any RPG. The CRs in 3.5 were extremely vague in comparison. Lengthily explaining how different types of monsters interact with each other in a fight, and giving them according roles that they are built around irrespective of origin was a stroke of genius!
  
  
  Advice is always good. Now the DM just has to justify the group he builds in game.

See the quote

 

[D'karr]

At low and mid level fighters could do more than just full attack if the player is creative. And if that is not enough, there were alternatives (Bo9s)

It is interesting that Book of Nine Swords keeps coming up as an alternative to make 3e melee fighters more interesting. Specially because a lot of the innovations of 4e (encounter powers) were put out there in this book as a playtest.

That entirely depends on the player. A good 3E player didn't need much time to decide on a spell in 3E too. Also the downside of this simplification is that magic = melee in 4E which means flavour loss

Well now in 4e you don't necessarily have to be a "good player" to benefit from these. I haven't seen much flavor loss, mostly because there are still many things the wizard can do outside of combat (rituals). I agree that I wish they had included more of them, but I'm willing to give it time. Since additional sourcebooks are in the works.

That still happens in 4E, for example when the enemy is flying and has no intention to land. A good thing that the fighter has so many ranged powers he could use as backup, isn't it?
4E also does have less alternative combat actions someone could use when normal attacks don't do it (trip, etc.)

Yep, that could be an issue, if the DM wants it to be that way. You make a good point in that in 4e unless the DM makes a concerted effort to keep particular players uninvolved in combat, all the players can be involved and have something useful to do.

Talking about combat options there are a lot more now than 3e ever had. Almost every class has powers at varying levels that will knock opponents prone (trip). So unlike before where you really had to have quite a bit of investment in feats and attributes to perform these combat actions effectively, now your normal class powers allow you to do this as part of your selection. Attacking unarmed is no longer a penalty. Using improvised weapons is now an option without becoming a penalty. In other words you don't have to have all these feats invested in x, y or z maneuver to be able to do it. In addition the combat stunts section covers those eventualities when a player wants to do something not explicitly covered by the rules. So I think that 4e does a really good job of opening up options to ALL the classes, which my players and I prefer.

At the expense of minions being completely illogical (more than most other things). Some people don't care, but some do.

Completely illogical is also an exaggerated argument. If you use the minion for it's intended purpose it makes perfect sense within the context of the rules.

If only there would be the same support for using actual classed NPCs and not only NPCs using the simplified build....

If you wish to stat an NPC to the same degree as a PC, the player's handbook is pretty explicit on how to create a PC, what additional level of support is required? What else do you need?

These arguments have been used over and over but the more that people have been playing the game the more we've started to see that they are not based on how the game actually plays.

 

[Staffan]

If only most feats and some powers wouldn't be so picky about required abilities and weapons. You still have to plan in advance.

That's more along the lines of "I like using swords, so Heavy Blade Opportunist sounds like a good feat" than "I want to be a Cavalier after level 8, so I have to start taking the right feats at level 4."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It is interesting that Book of Nine Swords keeps coming up as an alternative to make 3e melee fighters more interesting. Specially because a lot of the innovations of 4e (encounter powers) were put out there in this book as a playtest.

Indeed, I am always a little surprised by that. It seems dishonest at first, but well, it is true - you could introduce this into D&D 3E. It very much changed the entire game and most non-spellcaster core (and base) classes are invalidated if you want to "fix" 3e with these 3 classes, but it's probably possible.

I suppose it particularly appeals to those as a solution that like different sub-systems for different classes. I am not so much a fan of them, because I pray to the evil demon overlord of game balance and know that he disapproves of such sub-systems on account of them being hardly balanceable.

That's more along the lines of "I like using swords, so Heavy Blade Opportunist sounds like a good feat" than "I want to be a Cavalier after level 8, so I have to start taking the right feats at level 4."

At level 4? Wasn't it usually beginning at 1st level? Including the "I have to take some suboptimal feats that I wouldn't take otherwise to get there".

There are still prerequisites for feats (beyond levels). The biggest problem is that they are (with very few exceptions) all are based on race or ability scores, the hardest thing to change. But on the other hand, it is pretty easy by glancing at the feat selection which ability scores you need. It's not the same degree of pre-planning as optimizing ability score selection, feat selection and class selection. (In some rare cases, spell selection is added on top of that.)