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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well I'm not sure they're things it doesn't do well per se, but there are a couple things I don't really like.

-Alignment: I don't like that they got rid of most alignments (at least in mention) in the book, but that's a harmless change since by now, we all know the D&D alignments and can use them as normal.

-Some Corniness: Paragon paths with wings, etc. I don't mean to ding it on that too much, but it's just.. an uncomfortable shift for me, I don't really like it. I think powers and paragon paths were a little overdone.

-Races: The Elf/Eladrin split I felt was unnecessary, and I really get a bad taste in my mouth looking at Devas and Shifters. I actually have mixed feelings on Half-Orcs, both good and bad. I like that they are kind of a fast and strong race, but I dislike how overshadowed they feel as warriors by the other races. Pound-for-pound, they're inferior as a plain fighter class.

All-in-all, I love 4th edition's rules as I look over them. But some of it is just a little much for my taste. Like.. I support the idea of all characters having the ability to use some powers more freely and such. I just think character abilities make them a little TOO 'heroic'.

And another problem is that it feels like characters are railroaded. Like.. you can choose from some abilities each level, but there's little to distinguish say.. two fighters.. or two paladins.. or two clerics. They function exactly the same.

But I'm not sure how much my input since I haven't really played the rules. But I bought PB1/2 (a bargain pack) awhile back, and have been reading them a lot, and these are my impressions.

Give it a play. I think you'll find the game plays VERY well in general. Classes are actually quite distinct and builds within a class can vary a huge amount. You'd hardly recognize a polearm master, a rapier wielding sword and board fighter, an axe wielding BRV fighter, and a dual scimitar swinging tempest fighter as the same class, though they have some features in common.

Races are a matter of taste of course. The selection is good and I've found that all of the 4e races can be integrated into my setting in interesting ways. Not all of them are flawlessly designed but I'd have to say that the Half-Orc if there's a flaw in it is maybe they are TOO oriented towards melee combat builds, though not as much as the shifters who are totally pigeonholed. A Half-Orc chargebarian is a scary thing indeed! They sure aren't lacking or overshadowed in close combat roles.

There are some differences in feel between 4e and 3.x for sure. There are different stylistic differences between 4e and older editions too. Not everyone likes that. Some people want to play exactly the way things were (not sure really why they complain about 4e though, there's plenty of older stuff around still). You may love or hate the style of 4e. Characters definitely are always from the start a bit "heroic" and level 1-3 is not quite the same degree of mucking your way up from practically an ordinary person. Still, level 1 characters can seem pretty limited when the DM wants to lay it on that way. It isn't the major style of 4e play but you can do a bit of the "we're just talented normal people" to start off a campaign.

Really my feeling with 4e is that by fixing most of the really serious issues with earlier editions and putting the focus on story and action instead of realism or detailed subsystem mechanics that 4e has put all the burden of a good game onto the DM and players. A game works or not because of the way its played, not because of the rules. The system moves much more into the background and all of a sudden I think there are a lot of players out there that are finding they need to up their storytelling and RP skills.

Oddly 4e seems to have been in theory designed to be easier for people to learn than even say 2e or 1e were but that didn't make a game that is friendlier to inexperienced players. Its almost the opposite. One could almost say this is in a sort of backward way the real failing of 4e. It takes a good bit of DMing talent to run 4e. I don't think that's because its harder to do what you could do in the past editions, its just capable of so much more. A bad encounter or a poor DM really stands out now. If you want to shine you really need to THINK hard about how to build an adventure, and even as a player you really want to think carefully about your character if you want to get the most out of the system.

 

[Nifft]

Its not MATH that gets you a good game design. Its a feel for how things will play combined with an ability to stack a bunch of numbers together

"MATH" is what you call that thing that happens when you are stacking a bunch of numbers together.

The trick is making a fun game that works.

Well yes. And it's a trick that gets easier if you can use all the tools available.

With something like 4e its doubly hard because it needs to be fun at levels 1-30. If you notice though, the 4e math is actually fairly minimal there as it basically just consists of keeping the ratio of attack and defense and damage vs hit points fairly linear throughout 30 levels while allowing the game to evolve in some meaningful sense.

PC abilities grow at a non-linear rate, and monster power does the same to compensate.

PC bonuses grow linearly, but their powers & power interaction are exponential.

I think if you look at the SC system what you find is that it isn't the math that makes it hard for people to run SCs.

Whether you think they're easy to run or hard to run is honestly irrelevant.

Skill Challenges as presented in the PHB are bad at what they tried to do, which is get the whole party involved in a non-combat encounter, instead of just letting the one niche-protected guy handle it.

The assumption that they must have "tweaked the system after the math geek left" seems suspect.

That part is not an assumption. We know from playtesters the skill challenge system playtested isn't the one printed, and we know the one printed in the PHB was updated.

Cheers, -- N

 

[KarinsDad]

That part is not an assumption. We know from playtesters the skill challenge system playtested isn't the one printed, and we know the one printed in the PHB was updated.

Even if the one playtested is not the same as the one in the DMG, how exactly is it that a) you know that there was a hired math geek and b) you know that he left before the design team came up with the core released skill challenge system?

Both of these still sound like assumptions. It seems just as reasonable (even moreso) that the design team threw out design #1, printed design #2, and then updated design #2 from what information we have. It seems likely that if design #1 was good, they would have kept it.

And it seems likely that if they had a hired math geek, that the heavy masterwork armor and worst NAD issues would have never crept in. Math 101. Virtually nobody wants to play a game where the DM rolls a 2 and hits.

Some people were talking about the NAD issue in December 2008 and that's probably with a very small percentage of people playing Epic.

[4E] How does D&D 4E play at Paragon and Epic Tiers - RPGnet Forums

And WotC knew about the heavy masterwork armor problem in August 2008 or earlier (since AV came out in September). The game just came out in June and the designers already knew about this issue and built in a fix in AV.

Yeah. I don't buy the concept of a hired math geek. Tight math controls and systems do not appear to be there.

 

[Nifft]

Even if the one playtested is not the same as the one in the DMG, how exactly is it that a) you know that there was a hired math geek and b) you know that he left before the design team came up with the core released skill challenge system?

Alright. The part that's not an assumption is the part that I talked about: the fact that the changes happened, and their timing.

The part about having someone (temporarily) in-house who helped them lay out the skeleton of the system is a hypothesis, which I'm backing up using facts, and those facts include the timing of certain system tweaks.

The word I used originally was "my impression", which I guess you read as "the cold hard facts are", but that's not how it was intended.

Cheers, -- N

 

[KarinsDad]

Honestly I think if you look at the SC system what you find is that it isn't the math that makes it hard for people to run SCs. Its managing to make the SC fit logically into the narrative of the game and not break into the immersion or seem illogical.

Precisely. This is where the skill challenge system can totally fall apart.


We had a skill challenge in an online game this week where the players were just asking two captured NPCs a bunch of questions and the NPCs were pretending to not understand common, so the PCs were doing stuff like talking about how worthless the NPCs were and killing the NPCs (in front of the NPCs since they "couldn't speak common") and it was a bit of fun roleplaying until the DM decided that we needed a skill challenge to trick the NPCs into talking. At that point, the game bogged down cause some of the players did not understand skill challenges and how to play them, etc., and nobody could just speak up when they thought of something, they had to wait their turn. zzzzzzzzz

From a flow and immersion perspective, it would have been vastly better to just have the DM ask for a skill check once in a while in the middle of the roleplaying. Skill challenges make the less physical and more cerebral skill checks a lot more klunky. Even skill challenges like running through a town and having to make various skill checks to avoid the guards seems less flowing and more mechanical with a skill challenge.

I'm still on the fence as to when and how often to use them. I rarely include them in my game because they do seem so forced. I just ask for an occasional skill roll instead.

 

[SmiteMakesRight]

Give it a play. I think you'll find the game plays VERY well in general. Classes are actually quite distinct and builds within a class can vary a huge amount. You'd hardly recognize a polearm master, a rapier wielding sword and board fighter, an axe wielding BRV fighter, and a dual scimitar swinging tempest fighter as the same class, though they have some features in common.

Races are a matter of taste of course. The selection is good and I've found that all of the 4e races can be integrated into my setting in interesting ways. Not all of them are flawlessly designed but I'd have to say that the Half-Orc if there's a flaw in it is maybe they are TOO oriented towards melee combat builds, though not as much as the shifters who are totally pigeonholed. A Half-Orc chargebarian is a scary thing indeed! They sure aren't lacking or overshadowed in close combat roles.

There are some differences in feel between 4e and 3.x for sure. There are different stylistic differences between 4e and older editions too. Not everyone likes that. Some people want to play exactly the way things were (not sure really why they complain about 4e though, there's plenty of older stuff around still). You may love or hate the style of 4e. Characters definitely are always from the start a bit "heroic" and level 1-3 is not quite the same degree of mucking your way up from practically an ordinary person. Still, level 1 characters can seem pretty limited when the DM wants to lay it on that way. It isn't the major style of 4e play but you can do a bit of the "we're just talented normal people" to start off a campaign.

Really my feeling with 4e is that by fixing most of the really serious issues with earlier editions and putting the focus on story and action instead of realism or detailed subsystem mechanics that 4e has put all the burden of a good game onto the DM and players. A game works or not because of the way its played, not because of the rules. The system moves much more into the background and all of a sudden I think there are a lot of players out there that are finding they need to up their storytelling and RP skills.

Oddly 4e seems to have been in theory designed to be easier for people to learn than even say 2e or 1e were but that didn't make a game that is friendlier to inexperienced players. Its almost the opposite. One could almost say this is in a sort of backward way the real failing of 4e. It takes a good bit of DMing talent to run 4e. I don't think that's because its harder to do what you could do in the past editions, its just capable of so much more. A bad encounter or a poor DM really stands out now. If you want to shine you really need to THINK hard about how to build an adventure, and even as a player you really want to think carefully about your character if you want to get the most out of the system.

Yeah, it's hard to make an accurate judgment having not played it yet, but I guess a lot of the uniqueness depends on what kinds of weapons and gear people decide to use with their abilities.

Oh no, I'm not saying Half-orcs are bad melee fighters as a whole. I know for certain that they would at least make excellent barbarians and rogues. Which is great because rogue looks most appealing to me. Problem is that I feel like they're too pinned into that. My fighter comment was referring more to the fighter class. I have always loved half-orcs, and am surprised to find myself loving them more after the switch to 4th edition rules/lore. But it seems weird that they're outclassed by humans fairly handily at the 'standard' melee class from what I've seen; or at least it being a toss-up between the two seems a little strange. And they aren't very good Wardens either, because the Warden's builds are specifically to avoid dumping points in DEX.

And I do like the overall style, and wished in 3.x that people would be a little more heroic, but like.. the classes with wings seem a little over the top. Overall, I want all the people to feel like they're heroes. But I want them to also feel like they're lesser heroes, etc.

The friends I've run with have always enjoyed my campaigns, but I also want to make sure I adjust to any changes I need to (though I hope I can find somebody else willing to DM this time, just because I'd like to be a player once in awhile). I was mucking around with character creation earlier, and noticed just how much harder it is for me to make a decision than it was in 3e. In a way, that probably is a good thing too. I can't say too much until I actually try it. But I will say I have faith in 4e so far, I just am uncomfortable about a few things. But it's natural when moving on to a new system.

 

[korjik]

Precisely. This is where the skill challenge system can totally fall apart.


We had a skill challenge in an online game this week where the players were just asking two captured NPCs a bunch of questions and the NPCs were pretending to not understand common, so the PCs were doing stuff like talking about how worthless the NPCs were and killing the NPCs (in front of the NPCs since they "couldn't speak common") and it was a bit of fun roleplaying until the DM decided that we needed a skill challenge to trick the NPCs into talking. At that point, the game bogged down cause some of the players did not understand skill challenges and how to play them, etc., and nobody could just speak up when they thought of something, they had to wait their turn. zzzzzzzzz

From a flow and immersion perspective, it would have been vastly better to just have the DM ask for a skill check once in a while in the middle of the roleplaying. Skill challenges make the less physical and more cerebral skill checks a lot more klunky. Even skill challenges like running through a town and having to make various skill checks to avoid the guards seems less flowing and more mechanical with a skill challenge.

I'm still on the fence as to when and how often to use them. I rarely include them in my game because they do seem so forced. I just ask for an occasional skill roll instead.

This is the difference between role playing and roll playing. Good DMing and bad DMing also. If you all had a good amusing plan, he should have just used some judgement instead of rules.

Skill checks and challenges have their place. Personally, social skill challenges are a last resort, not a first. Interaction between the characters makes the game more fun.

 

[Nifft]

This is the difference between role playing and roll playing. Good DMing and bad DMing also. If you all had a good amusing plan, he should have just used some judgement instead of rules.

Skill checks and challenges have their place. Personally, social skill challenges are a last resort, not a first. Interaction between the characters makes the game more fun.

A good DM could even use the Skill Challenge metrics without forcing you into its format: it's not hard to mentally count to three successes before three failures, and to let you get what you want when you hit that magic number.

IMHO the point of the Skill Challenge rules is to encourage the whole party to participate (rather than for 4/5 of the party to watch Face Guy (tm) have an encounter by himself) -- if you can make that happen without the full scaffolding, you should.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Artoomis]

A good DM could even use the Skill Challenge metrics without forcing you into its format: it's not hard to mentally count to three successes before three failures, and to let you get what you want when you hit that magic number.

IMHO the point of the Skill Challenge rules is to encourage the whole party to participate (rather than for 4/5 of the party to watch Face Guy (tm) have an encounter by himself) -- if you can make that happen without the full scaffolding, you should.

Cheers, -- N

I recall at least two feats and power (search the compendium for "skill challenge") that modify skill challenges, so the players need to know it is a skill challenge. The party also needs to know for "assisting" with the success, though that could be worked in other ways, I suppose.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I recall at least two feats and power (search the compendium for "skill challenge") that modify skill challenges, so the players need to know it is a skill challenge. The party also needs to know for "assisting" with the success, though that could be worked in other ways, I suppose.

There is one feat that really needs to know you're in a skill challenge to work. There is one other that mentions skill challenges but has the same effect outside them, and there is one power, Emissary of the Gods, which specifically mentions a mechanic for its use in an SC, yet it would still be a power you would use even outside a challenge with the same skill check. In the rare instance where one of these 3 things comes into play I expect the DM can let the player know they have this option.

As for KD's et al issues with SCs there are 2 things to note. First exactly how would you create an SC mechanic that magically meshes better with the flow of the game? We're all waiting to hear. ANY mechanical system is going to be something that starts and ends at some point. Its going to have exactly the same issues regardless of how you structure the mechanics. No amount of tweaking with the rules is going to hand to the DM a way to magically have it just work all the time.

I'd really strongly advise people that have access to DDI to read the columns on SCs. As Mearls points out it is pretty much worthless to create an SC that amounts to a situation where a skill check is called for. If its simply a situation where you need to do some fairly simple and direct thing that involves a single skill, then just make it a skill check. If its a bit more involved then you MAY want to make it a simple complexity one challenge, which should take 5 minutes of table time to resolve, tops.

Look at your interrogation situation KD. The DM could either handle it as a complexity one challenge that he starts as soon as the prisoners are captured (remember, an SC can proceed within the framework of other activity) OR he should just make it a simple intimidate check. In the former case tying up the prisoners could count for one success (very intimidating, that, and it can't really fail either). An Insight check could reveal that the prisoners can understand common (+2 to other checks from now on). A Bluff check could let the PCs pretend not to notice the prisoners can understand them (this works because now if they say "eh, just kill them" the prisoners are going to BELIEVE its not a ploy for sure!). See how it works? The DM doesn't really have to say its an SC or how the various rolls work in it. Each roll is just a natural part of the challenge.

A lot of challenges you have to remember are things that measure how well the PCs accomplish some goal that is higher level than the check. That doesn't mean the check shouldn't work in the normal way in the context of the game world.

For example in the pursuit type challenges the SC works fine. Each thing the PCs do (each check) has its natural effect. You hide then the pursuers are thrown off the trail temporarily or you slip past their search perimeter, etc. The SC measures the OVERALL progress of the escape without forcing the DM to keep track of a large number of enemies on a large scale map, etc. If the PCs fail 3 checks then they have a fight because they failed to get away clean. If they pass the challenge then eventually the pursuit gives up and they get away scott free.