D&D 4E Convince me that 4e is worth my time

[PolterGhost]

Any reason you might have for playing or not playing any game would be better judged by yourself rather than the peeps here.

You have tried it and did not like it very much, what is some random person going to say that would have more impact than your own personal experience?

Play what you have the most fun with.

This is probably the easiest post to directly quote and respond to out of all of these.

I was more or less hoping that there would be a random person who would say "Hey, 4e isn't so bad. It does these things right compared to other editions, like this over here. In fact, it does these things for DMs and Players that 3e didn't do, and with a good DM a typical game can kind of go like this..." Instead, I feel like most of the responses here have the same sort of mentality as 'Don't ever eat broccoli if you don't like how these chefs make it,' as if everything I said was misconstrued into me not wanting to try anything and thinking that everything else is better than 4e.

The fact of the matter is, 4e does look enjoyable in some ways. I've tried DMing it before, my friends have tried DMing it before, perfect strangers have tried DMing it before, and every time I just found myself disappointed with the way things were run. But how am I supposed to know if it's better than what I've dealt with if everyone is just going to poopoo on my head?



As an aside, what is this about Skill Challenges? I can't seem to wrap my head around them, and the DMG's example revolves around Diplomacy checks- something that would better served to be roleplayed out according to checks rather than "The king gives you useful information if you get five successes before three failures."

 

[ExploderWizard]

This is probably the easiest post to directly quote and respond to out of all of these.

I was more or less hoping that there would be a random person who would say "Hey, 4e isn't so bad. It does these things right compared to other editions, like this over here. In fact, it does these things for DMs and Players that 3e didn't do, and with a good DM a typical game can kind of go like this..." Instead, I feel like most of the responses here have the same sort of mentality as 'Don't ever eat broccoli if you don't like how these chefs make it,' as if everything I said was misconstrued into me not wanting to try anything and thinking that everything else is better than 4e.

The fact of the matter is, 4e does look enjoyable in some ways. I've tried DMing it before, my friends have tried DMing it before, perfect strangers have tried DMing it before, and every time I just found myself disappointed with the way things were run. But how am I supposed to know if it's better than what I've dealt with if everyone is just going to poopoo on my head?



As an aside, what is this about Skill Challenges? I can't seem to wrap my head around them, and the DMG's example revolves around Diplomacy checks- something that would better served to be roleplayed out according to checks rather than "The king gives you useful information if you get five successes before three failures."

Was the 4E gaming that you tried with the same group of people that you have played other games (and things worked out) in the past?

4E is just like any other system. It will not be able to fix social issues with other players. The best way to try out any new system is with a group that you have had enjoyable experiences with in the past. 4E can't magically make a group suddenly work.

Unless you can sample the system in this way it will be harder to determine if the system is at fault for your bad experiences or the group dynamic. Eliminate one possible cause then the system can stand or fall on its own merits.

 

[PolterGhost]

Was the 4E gaming that you tried with the same group of people that you have played other games (and things worked out) in the past?

In a word: Yes.

 

[smtwtfs]

/snip

Hey, 4e isn't so bad. It does these things right compared to other editions, like this over here. In fact, it does these things for DMs and Players that 3e didn't do, and with a good DM a typical game can kind of go like this... <insert your imaginative story/game-play/rule-play here>

I'm sorry for not giving you more help as my game just started in which my character is the hero saving maidens, killing dragons and taking their gold.

(play whichever edition or RPG you prefer; you don't need my permission or biased opinion)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is probably the easiest post to directly quote and respond to out of all of these.

I was more or less hoping that there would be a random person who would say "Hey, 4e isn't so bad. It does these things right compared to other editions, like this over here. In fact, it does these things for DMs and Players that 3e didn't do, and with a good DM a typical game can kind of go like this..." Instead, I feel like most of the responses here have the same sort of mentality as 'Don't ever eat broccoli if you don't like how these chefs make it,' as if everything I said was misconstrued into me not wanting to try anything and thinking that everything else is better than 4e.

The fact of the matter is, 4e does look enjoyable in some ways. I've tried DMing it before, my friends have tried DMing it before, perfect strangers have tried DMing it before, and every time I just found myself disappointed with the way things were run. But how am I supposed to know if it's better than what I've dealt with if everyone is just going to poopoo on my head?



As an aside, what is this about Skill Challenges? I can't seem to wrap my head around them, and the DMG's example revolves around Diplomacy checks- something that would better served to be roleplayed out according to checks rather than "The king gives you useful information if you get five successes before three failures."

In my opinion 4e is the easiest game I have DM for since Warhammer 1e. It is also the game where I have looked up rules the least.

Looking back on your original post, I am not sure what your problem with 4e is and why you want to like it. In no particular order:

You say you like deep combat mechanics but not as deep as 4e and you don't like the battlegrid, well I cannot help you there. People have run 4e without the battle grid but I have always used for every game I played.
I have played 4 once or twice with a plain table and just eyeballed the distances though.

On the mosnter statblocks, I find 4e much more compact than 3e monsters especially controller and spell caster monsters.

I simply do not under stand what you mean 'by the stats controlling your character'

On the subject of the Elf Fighter/Mage. well you can as in contrast to 3.x where I tried and really had no satisfaction.

Finally on the subject of skill challanges, Stalker0's skill challange system is worth a read, personally I have largely abandoned the formal structure of the skill challanges. What i do; I do not announce a skill challange and so not bother with initiative order. What I do is run it old school, present the situation, let the player figure it out and round robin from the first to respond. Let them pick the skills and mark succeses of reveal more stuff depending on the skills choosen. If they succeed well in good but failure means they learn something, how much depends on how many successes they clocked up. Sometimes it is a red herring.
I have found announcing a skill challange causes relentless metagaming, though sometimes they do figure out that it is a skill challange.

Finally on the subject of non combat encounters, there are sufficient rules in 4e to cover any situation.
However, iIf people have a background that is not really covered in their skill set, say the fighter used to be a sailor or a tailor and they want to use that background, I let them roll D20 + 5 + half level + appropiate attribute bonus, I find it a useful houserule.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is probably the easiest post to directly quote and respond to out of all of these.

I was more or less hoping that there would be a random person who would say "Hey, 4e isn't so bad. It does these things right compared to other editions, like this over here. In fact, it does these things for DMs and Players that 3e didn't do, and with a good DM a typical game can kind of go like this..."

Some people have written some of this, but you seem to have missed it. I'll give it a try.

Note: I personally think that 4E has some significant issues, so I am not a 4E cheerleader. So, I work around those issues in my game to compensate. And, some of those issues have been resolved (like weak monster damage).

1) 4E is by far the easiest D&D version for the DM to prepare for. Monsters have smaller stat blocks. The game is now played on a tactical board, so the encounter areas are easy to set up. The DM can focus more on his story and spending a smaller percentage of time preparing for encounters which can make for better gaming overall (since the DM has more time to figure out ahead of time non-combat details and flavor).

2) 4E uses a middle of the road approach for PCs with respect to number of combat abilities. Most PCs of the same level more or less have the same number of combat abilities and similar numbers of skills. This accomplishes several things: a) if a player struggles with the number of options, he can just repeatedly use a few of them until he gets more familiar with the PC, he's not forced to use them all right away, b) PCs can be played in combat by other players (note: not all games do this, my game does, a different player fills running the PC in during combat for the missing player) without the other player having to know every detail about the PC, and c) there is no 3+ minute Wizard (or other higher level caster) round where the DM and players wait for the player of the spell caster to not only figure out which spell s/he is going to cast, but also how that spell works because the player has 20+ or even 50+ spells to choose from.

3) Most powers are immediate, until the end or beginning of the next round, or until the end of the encounter. The concept of taking out 30+ minutes at the beginning of a "gaming day" so that PCs can cast spells on each other that last an hour or more in game no longer happens. That's 30+ minutes that the players can play the game instead of doing in game bookkeeping.

There are still some downsides (too many conditionals, but Essentials is helping some with that) to 4E combat, but the overall game itself runs smoother. Combat appears to take the same amount of time more or less (but if there were fewer conditionals, 4E combat would be faster).

As an aside, what is this about Skill Challenges? I can't seem to wrap my head around them, and the DMG's example revolves around Diplomacy checks- something that would better served to be roleplayed out according to checks rather than "The king gives you useful information if you get five successes before three failures."

Skill challenges have to be used properly. The DMG example is a bit weak. There are also some skill challenges in some of the adventure modules that are just terrible (what do you mean that we have to do a skill challenge of perception rolls and nature rolls to merely walk 100 feet north through the unoccupied and untrapped woods, and if we fail, we get lost?).

The best way to use skill challenges is for more concrete skill use and to allow roleplaying to just flow with a few occasional Diplomacy rolls thrown in to assist the players.

For example, use a skill challenge to climb over a cliff face or to escape from a town.

But, to convince the bartender to keep a lookout for the man in gray, I just roleplay normally in order to set the DC based on how well the players roleplay and then just use a single Diplomacy (or Bluff or whatever is being attempted) roll to see if the PC was successful. Or, sometimes I just wing it based on how well (or how badly) the players roleplayed.

Don't let the dice rule you completely, but also give the players a chance to use the skills that their PCs have.

Take skill challenges with a grain of salt, use them sparingly at first, and you might eventually find that you like them for some types of things and absolutely despise them for some other things.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In a word: Yes.

If you have a good working group dynamic and did not seem to enjoy playing 4E then use a system more suited to your group style.

If you can play and enjoy other games with your group why is it important to play 4E?

 

[Neonchameleon]

This was D&D 4e. We didn't realize we needed a battle map, so we used graph paper and drew on that.

Ah, I can see that being a horror.

We had troubles wrapping our heads around the vast number of powers and keywords and magic items and such since there was just so many that all looked like they were torn from a basic template and had flavor text thrown on top of it. Monsters were interesting, but they had such large stat blocks that they constantly needed to be referenced and bookmarked. Just our starting powers at first level were suffocating us with extra rules tossed about here and there, to such a point that we spent a good hour before the first session just writing them down on notecards.

Two things. Firstly if you ever want to try 4e again, you'd do much better with Essentials and possibly the Red Box. And secondly the Character Builder really helps; I timed myself to make a new character in a class I didn't know at all and I had a printed character sheet in less than five minutes from starting the program. These character sheets come with the powers printed out - which means you very seldom need to consult the rulebooks.

I was hooked. I had control over my character again without the stats taking control, our use of a battle map made encounters feel much less confining

I'd have described all that as moving from 3 to 4e. Stats and skills are much more confining in 3e because you end up being unable to effectively use the skills you aren't trained in at all.

and resource management went down to a level that I was more familiar with from 8 and 16-bit era dungeon crawler CRPGs.

I find resource management higher in 3e than 4e. In 3e there are classes (all spellcasting classes) that can literally expend all their resources. In 4e you always have some options left and some that will be recovered.

nor need to look up stats and encounter powers on a Level 4 Goblin Berzerker any time you wanted to use one.

When DMing you're meant to have the monster statblocks in front of you. And a core difference between 3e and 4e stat blocks are that 4e statblocks contain everything. Other than the basic and universal conditions, there's no looking up. If we look up a 3e statblock the monster has feats. Which need to be looked up separately. So do the monster's spells and spell like abilities.

Upon my own perceptions involving 4e, all I can seem to see is a system that loves having combat encounters and loves having them on a battle map, where creativity and on-the-fly thinking is replaced with dozens of powers of all sorts for every class

The powers are part of the character. The attack powers are the combat moves they have practiced until they are second nature. My favourite example here is the Fighter's "Tide of Iron" at will. That's the big burly bullying guy who doesn't even need to think. He just gets in the other guy's face and drives them back - hence the free push. A combat style I use when reenacting and one that is trivial in 4e to replicate and simply can't be done in 3e.

and massive stat blocks for monsters,

Large ones - it's a combat focussed game. But smaller than e.g. the 3e ones because every non-general rule you need for a monster is in the statblock. Try writing out 3e statblocks and including the full text for every feat the monster posesses. And the full text for every spell. It's going to be way bigger than the 4e one.

where any part of the game seems to have paragraphs of extraneous rules (so my Sleep spell doesn't put the enemy to sleep unless they fail a die roll on a 45% chance?

Hardly paragraphs. And no, sleep no longer ends an entire fight.

So I need to pay for rituals and they work differently than a normal power?

I don't see a problem here.

So the Fighter is more of a tank than an actual, well, fighter?

Unlike 3.X where the fighter was more of a supernumerary beyond 6th level rather than either a tank or a killer. Sorry, shouldn't snark. But other than Spiked Chain Fighters (with their Big Bag of Rats), fighters quickly fell behind to near uselessness when compared to casters or even barbarians. Also I think you want the Slayer from Essentials - a fighter that specialises in doing damage rather than exploiting any weaknesses anyone shows.

Moving provokes an opportunity attack as well as casting an area effect spell, but standing up from being knocked down doesn't

And? This is hardly paragraphs.

(why did I bother taking a power to knock them down in the first place if they can just freely get back up?)

Because 4e combat is very tactical. Getting up takes their move action - a fairly large penalty. If you knock a ranged guy or spellcaster prone and are next to him, he uses his move action to stand up. At that point if he shoots you get the opportunity attack. If he shifts back he can't attack. And if he goes for his dagger rather than shooting you he's lost the chance to do something much nastier to you. Lose/lose for him. And if you knock a melee guy prone and shift back when he stands up he'll normally be too far to hit you and too close to charge you, meaning he's got to work hard to do anything useful.

What is the point of having so many defences on a character, but only having one that can be directly boosted through basic equipment

Ask 3e. In 3e the defender rolled fort/ref/will. In 4e the attacker rolls against the defence. Much simpler. (And for the record, shields do boost reflex).

(and how come that defence is the one that is rarely ever used in lieu of Reflex, Fortitude, and Will?

Huh? IME most attacks hit vs AC. Almost all weapon wielders do. And most non-weapon wielding brutes.

Why do I have such huge abilities at first level when the average is 10?

Because you're a PC? Ask 3e - you get some pretty huge abilities in that game.

What does HP mean to me when I don't know what an 'average' HP value is?

Same thing it's always been. A way of keeping score. It isn't an in-world thing at all. In 3e there are only a few hit point values that are meaningful within the game - -10, negative, 0, and above 0. If you're on 1hp you're mechanically as capable as someone on full hp until you are hit. In 4e there's also bloodied.

How come it feels like damage just doesn't scale with such large values of HP and that combats drag on forever?)

Because WoTC lowballed the early monsters. Monster Manual 3 and later books (including the excellent Monster Vault) seriously boosted monster damage and fights I run last 3-4 rounds.

I guess what I'm getting at is, is there any reason for me to ever go back to 4e?*

You find a good game in it? Someone wants to run it? There are good systems that simply don't mesh with you. If you want to try it again, get the new red box and see what happens (you'll definitely prefer the martial classes in there).

What makes 4e a great game system that should make me want to play it more than, say, playing as an Elf Fighter/Mage?

From the DM's side of the screen:
1: Low prep time. I can literally pull monsters out of the monster manual and have everything I need right there in front of me. Which means prep goes to the story. And an unexpected fight can be pulled straight out of the MM.
2: Superb improvisation guidelines (DMGp42) in a system that encourages them but doesn't penalise you if you don't.
3: Superb guidance for making matters tense and challenging but not overwhelming. By the same token I know that the PCs might outthink me, but that their resources are predictable whereas a smart high-level 3e group is ... OTT.
4: Easy differences. If I put scenery down, it will matter - the PCs will push the monsters into it. Fighting on a narrow bridge with no handrails is dicing with death, not something that simply means people can't get past. And a level 1 kobold that people can't lay a hand on (Shifty: Minor action - shift one square) is more different from a cowering goblin that knows how to jump back (immediate interrupt when missed by a melee attack - shift one square) than a 3e orc with an axe and shield is from a 3e ogre with a greatclub (one's generally ... bigger. But they don't move differently on the battlemat). This combines with 1 to make it easy to improvise a memorable fight with a minute's notice.
5: Because DMing is easy and it's easy to make distinctive and memorable, there are more people wanting to do it so you can spread the workload much more.

From the player's side:
1: No looking things up. Everything I need is on my character sheet.
2: Easy character creation. I don't need to go into the detail of allocating (8+Int)*4 skill points across however many skills at first level. And the Character Builder prints out everything I need.
3: Never being useless. Given the difference between skill levels, in e.g. 3.X, you end up by fifth level with The Stealthy Guy, The Talky Guy, The Arcanist, the Healer. And if you aren't in your speciality you have a negative impact. Also not worrying I'll overpower everyone with a min-maxed character from 3.X or Exalted because I've misread the level of optimisation of the rest of the group.
4: Some excellently done character classes if you understand the abstractions (see Tide of Iron above) that make it easy to manage some archetypes that were damn near impossible in previous editions. (See the Swordmage - defensive melee sword/magic user).
5: Good tactical play that isn't degenerate* - see the point about distinctiveness above.
6: Much easier to find a DM because more people are willing to.

* Degenerate tactical play would be the whirlwind cleaving trip spiked chain fighter - effective, but does the same thing every turn.

*I used the Gamers Seeking Gamers portion of this forum to get into a 4e game online using Maptool. Either the DM sucked (every other encounter felt like the world was going to kill us. "OH HEY LOOK RANDOM ELVES ATTACK US IN THE DESERT BECAUSE THEY'RE PROTECTING THIS MAGIC OASIS." "OH LOOK, GIANT FROG PEOPLE HATE US BECAUSE WE'RE HERE." "OH LOOK AT THAT, THE GOBLINS SET UP A TRAP FOR US EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER KNEW WE WERE COMING AND DON'T KNOW IF WE'RE FRIEND OR FOE." "OH LOOK, WE OPENED A DOOR AND GIANT MUSHROOM PEOPLE WANT OUR BLOOD.") or the system just still didn't ride well with me.

... Were you playing Dark Sun?

Being serious, that description sounds like a DMing problem. It's also something that's system-independent. And I don't like 4e combat online - it doesn't flow.

 

[Ryujin]

There's little point in trying to convince you to play 4e, since you state that you don't like that style of game, but I suggest that you try playing it "right" before you completely write it off. By that I mean with counters or minis, and a grid.

 

[Barastrondo]

TThe fact of the matter is, 4e does look enjoyable in some ways. I've tried DMing it before, my friends have tried DMing it before, perfect strangers have tried DMing it before, and every time I just found myself disappointed with the way things were run. But how am I supposed to know if it's better than what I've dealt with if everyone is just going to poopoo on my head?

As an aside, what is this about Skill Challenges? I can't seem to wrap my head around them, and the DMG's example revolves around Diplomacy checks- something that would better served to be roleplayed out according to checks rather than "The king gives you useful information if you get five successes before three failures."

If you have the time, one of the best threads for both (a) showing what fun 4e can be with a good group and (b) providing some of the best examples of what skill challenges can do, the thread "Running Player Commentary on Piratecat's 4e Campaign" is full of fantastic. Long read, but you get to see a group coming to grips with the game and doing a lot of interesting things with it. Highly recommended.

My groups enjoy 4e for a variety of reasons: mostly, though, I think it's that they really like that combat can zoom into a mechanically engaging game, but you can also zoom out for abstractions all the time. You can build a phalanx of 20 enemies as a single monster, or you can handle fighting against an army as a skill challenge where you lose healing surges and maybe get bonuses to rolls for spending encounter or daily powers. It's a great game for people who enjoy tactical combat with mechanics like forced movement, but if you're comfortable with it, it folds up and becomes a rules-light system when you need it to. There's also a lot to be said for the approach of synergistic play: the system really rewards teamwork, and finding out how you can help one another out.