D&D 4E What Doesn't 4E Do Well?

[FireLance]

We all play and like 4E here, so we can discuss this without creating a nuclear meltdown, right?

What are the sorts of things that you think 4E doesn't do very well? This could include stuff that you are happy that it doesn't do well, since thay support a playstyle that you don't like. Ideally, we should be discussing 4E out of the box, although you could mention house rules that you have made or subsequent rules released by WotC that improve on the situation.

Here's my initial list for starters:

1. Neophyte PCs: 1st-level PCs in 4E are pegged at about the power level of 3rd to 4th level PCs in 3E. There are a number of house rules made to create "0-level", "novice" or "apprentice" PCs, usually involving "de-levelling" the PCs by lowering hit points and removing class powers.

2. Solo PC vs. Solo Monster: Solo monsters are meant to challenge entire parties, so certain iconic opponents such as dragons need to be significantly adjusted for campaigns which feature only a single PC and no supporting NPCs. To a lesser extent, this is also true for elite monsters. Mind you, this doesn't make it impossible to run solo campaigns out of the box. It just reduces the number of monsters that can be used "by the book".

3. Games of Attrition: Because the PCs can recover most of their hit points and all their abilities after a short rest, attrition is only truly felt when it comes to healing surges and daily powers. Short of preventing the PCs from taking any rests, it is difficult to capture the feel of a game in which the PCs must carefully hoard their resources.

What's your list?

 

[Badapple]

4e (but really this applies to 3.x to a lesser extent) doesn't do combat without minis and grid. Simply too much movement based powers and effects, and needing to know exact placement of battle participants. I was able to play 2e and older pretty well without minis and grid, but wouldn't dream of doing so with newer editions.

I have to disagree with the OPs third example. I've found in my play experience that 4e does attrition (in the form of carefully hoarding resources) much better than 3e for most charcacters. Fighters, barbarians, rangers, rogues, etc in 3e had pretty much no resources to hoard and carefully watch, maybe a barbarian rage or a magic item use but really not a big deal... now they have surges and dailies and magic items with daily powers. In our 3e games, healing wands could heal a party up to full hp after every battle so the only resources a party spent were spells memorized (which correlates to daily powers in 4e). In 3e the mop up phase of a battle was tedious, in fact any battle with a monster that only did hp damage was tedious, since the only drain on the party was hp loss, which was nullified by healing wands after the battle. In 4e even the mop up phase of a battle contains some risk, because the last couple attacks of the surrounded and dying monsters could cost a player a precious additional healing surge. With 4e no matter what class I play I'm constantly thinking of how many healing surges I have left vs. how much more I think I might still encounter that day. Tension gets pretty high when I'm low on surges...

 

[ValhallaGH]

Multi-Classing: 4E has reintroduced Dual-Classing but it doesn't do Multi-Classing well at all. It's fumbling and pathetic at it, like pick-up lines are to dating.

Scry & Die: Not nearly as common, simple, or reliable and I highly approve of that change.

Bad Ass PC: A single PC isn't especially impressive; there's a good chance they'll lose to a single standard monster. A party is a terrifying murder machine that chews up enemies and spits out giblets but that's a different point.

I'll second the OP's 1 & 2, as well as Badapple's non-grid point. I, too, have found attrition generally easier to evoke in 4E than in prior editions (barring the surgeless healing glut that Divine Power brought to the Cleric).

 

[Puggins]

I don't think that my main complaint is a system-level issue so much as it is an exception-level issue.

The early books tended to scrub out flavor-specific rules in order to either make the game simpler or to make sure all power sources were nearly equal. Take a look at Shield of Deflection in PHB1, for example. The effect isn't overpowered or anything, it's just- generic. Range attacks vary drastically, arrows and boulders (which the shield would obviously guard against) to psychic assaults. Having the shield protect against everything makes it more useful, but having it guard against only attacks vs. AC and reflex would've given more "plausibility," for lack of a better term.

Generic save penalties and bonuses have the same problem. A single power that helps someone shake off dragonfear just as effectively as poison sorta pushes the envelope.

Fortunately, the way to fix these is simply- I house rule them or don't hand them out. ta-da, done!

 

[Rothe_]

I don't think that my main complaint is a system-level issue so much as it is an exception-level issue.

The early books tended to scrub out flavor-specific rules in order to either make the game simpler or to make sure all power sources were nearly equal. Take a look at Shield of Deflection in PHB1, for example. The effect isn't overpowered or anything, it's just- generic. Range attacks vary drastically, arrows and boulders (which the shield would obviously guard against) to psychic assaults. Having the shield protect against everything makes it more useful, but having it guard against only attacks vs. AC and reflex would've given more "plausibility," for lack of a better term.

Generic save penalties and bonuses have the same problem. A single power that helps someone shake off dragonfear just as effectively as poison sorta pushes the envelope.

Fortunately, the way to fix these is simply- I house rule them or don't hand them out. ta-da, done!

If you have encounter powers that are too situational, nobody will take them. Even dailies that give you bonuses vs. something you are not too likely to encounter every day of adventuing are something that are not taken.

You need to have "generic-use" powers so that they apply often enough to make them useful.

 

[Puggins]

If you have encounter powers that are too situational, nobody will take them. Even dailies that give you bonuses vs. something you are not too likely to encounter every day of adventuing are something that are not taken.

You need to have "generic-use" powers so that they apply often enough to make them useful.

... or modify them to make them balanced again once you change them.

Take the shield of deflection, for example. You can make it apply to only AC and Reflex and bring it down two levels, to level 10/20. Or you can make the resistance 7/15 instead of 5/10.

But you have a valid point. Re-flavoring ruins items if you don't compensate.

 

[N0Man]

It doesn't do a good job of balancing desirability between say combat oriented Utility powers and non-combat Utility powers. I think I'd kind of have preferred to keep them in separate pools to encourage more players to have fun non-Combat utility.

 

[N0Man]

I also want to add my half-hearted support for Multi-classing. I don't think it's as bad as a lot of folks make it out to be, but it is a little lacking.

It's great if you just want to have a tiny bit of dabbling in another class, and the first feat is typically a bargain for what you get. However, it often feels too costly to pick up beyond that (that is, not only giving up a power, but a feat as well!)

Maybe if each multi-class feat gave you some additional bonus or flavor beyond just a power swap, it might help.

 

[DracoSuave]

... or modify them to make them balanced again once you change them.

Take the shield of deflection, for example. You can make it apply to only AC and Reflex and bring it down two levels, to level 10/20. Or you can make the resistance 7/15 instead of 5/10.

But you have a valid point. Re-flavoring ruins items if you don't compensate.

Besides that, it's a magical item.

Why some people have no trouble envisioning a spell that can make you more resiliant against all harm, but a shield having that spell ingraved in it not doing so is beyond me... it doesn't break my versimilitude one bit. Magic doesn't require physical interaction to make sense.

 

[Kinneus]

4e's focus is combat and the dungeon crawl. Or, at the very least 'the game.' Any time that 'the game' falls away, 4e's cracks start to show. Stealth is a confusing mess, invisibility is difficult to pull off for more than a round, Intimidate and Diplomacy can feel clunky relying entirely on a die roll. Kill stuff with knives, and the system backs you up. Try to get out of a fight, and well, DM fiat, more or less.

Some DMs see this rules vacuum and go, "Cool! Now I can do whatever I want in these spaces!" These are the sort of DMs that are the best 4e DMs, the sort of people that play it, love it, and write in forums about it. But I can sympathize with the other sort of the DM, the one who says, "Out of combat, this game is pretty hollow." They have a point.

Personally, I wouldn't want a game with a lot of complicated sub-systems to handle things like stealth, diplomatic situations, out-of-combat stronghold building systems, and so on. I like 4e more or less the way it is, but I can see the emphasis on combat, and I am sometimes irked by it. Spells like Confusion were powerful and awesome in 3e... why did they have to tack on 'psychic damage' to it? I sometimes wish utility powers were actual utility powers, not more combat-oriented bells and whistles going by another name. I want more powers like "Crucial Advice" and less like "Yield Ground," you know?

4e does an astounding job with combat and the standard dungeon crawl. It doesn't necessarily do a bad job with all the out-of-combat stuff... but it doesn't quite blow me out of the water, either.