D&D 4E What Do You Like About 4e?

[Tequila Sunrise]

Why do you play 4e rather than another edition? Alternatively, what do you like about it even if you mostly play another edition?

(Yeah, this topic has undoubtedly been covered before; just humor me. It's for a charitable cause. )

 

[D'karr]

Why do you play 4e rather than another edition? Alternatively, what do you like about it even if you mostly play another edition?

(Yeah, this topic has undoubtedly been covered before; just humor me. It's for a charitable cause. )

I'll humor you because I enjoy discussing why I like/love certain things, gaming being one of them.

I have run games of D&D since Moldvay Basic. In that time the edition I've used the least was 2e, mostly because of time. When 3e came out I ran a continuous campaign that ended in early 2011. When 3.5 came out we eventually changed to it mid-campaign. I've been running 4e since after DDXP in 2008, though my main group started playing it regularly in July 2011 (we had a lot of games to play in that time between long term campaigns).

I love to run 4e because it gives me a great amount of freedom to improvise, and "break/bend the rules" without breaking the system. It gives me a solid rules framework from which I can easily expand, or contract pretty much at will. I also like a lot of the flavor that was incorporated into the game by books like Plane Above, Plane Below, and particularly Heroes of the Feywild. A lot of the flavor enhances the game without impinging on the mechanics. Which easily let's me reflavor to taste, or change mechanics as warranted.

I like that my typical preparation for games is now involved with the "story" instead of the "mechanics". My preparation time needs have been cut significantly. While running the game I love that I only need three things in front of me; dice, the DM Screen, and the adventure in front of me. I don't have to go look for explanations of spells, or creature specifics except in the text that I'm using to run the game. The noteworthy exception to this are rituals, which are heavily used in my campaign. But usually I don't have to look those up since my players have the text right in front of them.

I really enjoy monster creation and modification. It is so easy to create "unique" creatures that work as you want them. I can take a piece of "lore" and turn it into an interesting creature, usually within minutes.

I also like that the game gives me multiple workable ways of rewarding the PCs without having to make up ad-hoc rewards that might, or might not be appropriate. It lets me keep the focus on what the players want their PCs to do, instead of what I would want them to do.

I particularly love that the game gives me a solid foundational framework for when the players want to do something not particularly covered by the rules. The framework doesn't necessarily give me a solution, that has come with experience just as in previous editions, but it does provide me with mechanically appropriate ways of dealing with the situation. When I do have to make things up, I can usually use an existing mechanic and expand it, reflavor it, and put it into play with very little concern for what it will break as a knock-on effect.

As a player I like that it gives me the freedom to reflavor my character as wanted, while at the same time continuing to provide interesting options that don't make me feel like I've been left behind. As an example, there is no "swashbuckler" class in the game. However I was able to reflavor the ranger class to be a pretty good substitute. I could have done that with the Fighter, or the Rogue depending on the particular flavor I was envisioning for the class.

I also love it because it's the first edition of D&D that my wife actually didn't require involved explanation of the rules to play in. She got into it with very simple instructions. We had been playing a low level 3e adventure and she remarked how much easier it was for her to pick it up with 4e.

In short for me, 4e provided a much richer, fully realized, and easier to play game experience out of the box than anything that had come before, except for Moldvay Basic (ease only). The things that it didn't provide easily out of the box, I was able to "fix" for my campaign without breaking the system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) I like that "X Level" powers become available at X Level- as revolutionary as 3Ed's unified XP chart and single mechanic for ability bonuses. One less conceptual hurdle for new players.

2) I like that it made certain PC classes & concepts introduced in 3Ed more internally consistent AND more compatible with other classes, like the Warlock. They didn't nail it, IMHO, but here were some clear improvements.

3) I like that they took a serious stab at Ritual magic. It ain't perfect, but it's a better take on it than prior editions.

4) I like that all stats matter for somebody.

 

[aco175]

When all I had was an older edition, it was great, since that was newer and thus better, well maybe. When 3e came out I had preordered the books and was eager to take a look. 2e was always fun, but 3e felt like I could do things we could not do before. It made a character more than some stats on paper, it gave me options that made my character different than others of my class.
4e came out and again I was in line buying each of the core books. I think some things are better than before, and sadly some are not. I miss the multiclass rules, even if they were stacked up front. I'm indifferent on having skillpoints to customize my character. I like 4e powers in the way some are at-will and encounter. We do not really use rituals or skill challenges the 'right' way, if at all. I like 4e monsters having variants of ane another to make them tougher at higher levels- I never liked never running across orcs once you reached 7th level and all the monsters were not trolls and giants.
I like 4e monsters in that they are easier to prep and play if you wiah to change them a bit and add powers. I like regharge powers and burst/blast powers. I lkike minions even with some of the variants looking like a better alternative, I have still stuck with plain minions. Still not a fan of high level play, like in 3e. My group is 18th level and the powers they have are more super than playable. Some of this is my fault in letting them pick most any power fropm the Wizards site. I like surges and maybe they should be not as powerful, but they seem to have upped the monster damage again to make up for that.

I like what I see in 5e with less super at higher levels with town guards still standing a chance to hit characters higher than 10th level. I like magic being seperate to advancement, but over the years of play it seems that games I play and DM have been giving +1 swords by 2-6 level, sort of by 4e guidelines. I like having some choices in characterization, but not making it overwhelming. I like that there may be a variant for those that do.

Some things I'm indifferant about;
Vancian magic; It was fine when we played it that way, but 4e is fine with the AED scaling. Some/most of the spells are not as cool and fantastic as earlier editions, but I like that they are easier to use and keep track of. I'm not sure how to blend the 2.
Healing surges; Seems like characters are healing too much during and after fights. I guess that depends on playstyle. I may be in favor of limiting healing roles to less classes, or numbers on healing magics out there. I remember times when the game stopped since characters needed rest, like 2 weeks rest. We either blew over it in 2 minutes or dragged it out with you noting the 2 you got overnight and 2 more with a skill or such, waiting all day to use the magic in case you had a wandering monster, then doing that again for another hour before getting back to the game/module/adventure. I'll just say it was not as fun, sometimes that was the adventure, but now that I'm older we do not have the time to play like we did, and that has to mean something.
Scaling magic; 3e magic armor and swords could have a max of +10 to them and were cool in making them and using them. I'm not sure if they are that cool to require it. 2e had the flametongue and such. They meant something, maybe it was the random treasure tables. Eventually everyone had a +1 or 2 plain item, but only a select few were lucky enough to get a dancing or vorpal weapon. Or you could bring soda and be wicked good friends with the DM, yeah I said wicked.
Multiclassing; I know I said that I liked it in 3e, but I also like 4e in that each class can have their own poer list and you can have multiple classes that overlap in what multiclass characters could do. If I want a fighter/magic-user I can make a class called Knight of Magic or such and give him powers that are a bit fighter and a bit magic-user. Maybe not as cool as your 8th level fighter/ 3rd level magic user, but he is cool enough to play and keep up with the rest.

Bottom line, will 5e be great and everything I want, no. Will it be better that 3e and 4e, maybe in some ways. I'm sure there will be some things that we all say, wow, nobody thought of that before. I'm thinking that it will be still fun to play for the time and money that I can give to it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Why do you play 4e rather than another edition? Alternatively, what do you like about it even if you mostly play another edition?

(Yeah, this topic has undoubtedly been covered before; just humor me. It's for a charitable cause. )

It's incredibly easy to DM and brilliant for teaching people to DM. It produces a nice interesting game running on action movie physics with massively diverse characters, and for running most stories. Magic doesn't run all over plots, and it's very adaptable as long as the setting's larger than life and smaller than exalted.

 

[Shadeydm]

Rogues that do gonzo damage
Shielding Swordmages
Brutal Weapons
Save ends as a duration
Ardents
The idea of paragon paths
The character builder

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

A much lower DM prep time. I can convert Dark Sun adventures really easily. I feel like I'm cheating sometimes. For instance, I converted the 2e adventure "Taste of Fear" into four encounters. It took me half an hour, mainly just shuffling the number and types of monsters/NPCs per encounter, not counting new monster design, which can take much longer (but at least said monsters will probably be balanced).

In order to counter this, to an extent, I've built NPCs of varying levels for most widely-used character classes. I still need to work on psions and sorcerers, having a near-total lack of area-burst artillery.

I'm a big fan of how some classes changed. It may seem odd to say this, but I like how the cleric got restrictions. I never "got" the cleric in previous editions. In 3rd, it seemed (beyond the healer role, which was boring) the cleric went from weak control spells at low levels to buffing at mid levels to dishing out the hurt at high levels. Every cleric had to be built the same, with the same ability scores to be useful in mid-level. (Ever tried to create a drow priestess in 3.x? Don't do it at mid-level. High Dex/low Con creatures really shouldn't be handling the buff & bash role.) In 4e, the cleric's leader role (beyond the healing) seeps into nearly everything it does.

I'm a big fan of character classes that actually do their job, in part because those jobs are defined. No longer are the wizard, fighter and rogue all competing to see who can do the most damage...

I'm a big fan of mini-buffs (what the cleric has), minor action healing and save ends. I'm a big fan of giving fighters things to do beyond just giving them feats that do nothing but boost their numbers.

I'm in a Kingmaker Pathfinder campaign as a player, and two sessions ago we had the adventure go off the rails for half the session. Our party includes a barbarian (armored hulk)/alchemist (rage-chemist), already one of the most OP non-caster combos available. (Why did Pathfinder have to invent new bonus types?) His abilities apparently include making (but not throwing) bombs.

We had trapped an enemy army in a set of caves, but these weren't humans, instead being much more powerful creatures, and there were 100-200 of them in there. (This was apparently a balanced encounter in the mass combat system, but we weren't spoiling the adventures for ourselves, so we didn't know that.) Needless to say, we weren't eager to go after them, even with our own armies. We used bombs to seal the tunnels, but the monsters could dig their way out, so we thought about hiding bombs in the rubble so we could set them off whenever the monsters came out. Another player got over-enthusiastic about the bombs, ignored the lack of infinite resources and insisted they'd kill those monsters. There were no rules for how many bombs you could make or how much damage they did.

If this were 4e, the rules are already there. (Are they on page 42? I keep the relevant rules on an index card.) Each bomb would be a "minion trap" doing an average of 14 damage (2d6+7, probably) in a burst with an attack bonus of +8 vs Reflex (we were 5th-level at the time). We would get four per day.* Not a lot; there's no way one simple solution like that could win the conflict, although a monster getting hit with all four would probably want to stop fighting immediately. Perhaps that's enough to trap the monsters, but they could then make Strength/Athletics checks to dig out while we frantically try to kill them using the other PCs. However, the DM didn't have a set of rules like that, and couldn't come up with something in the space of a session. He gave up - basically made the bombs overpowered and endless, trapping the monsters indefinitely and ruining the encounter.

4e seems to have that nice balance of (from the DM's side, anyway) enough rules for some things, but flexible enough for most things.

*Basically making bombs like that would be a monster's daily ability, and a monster could summon four minions as an encounter ability (at heroic tier). I'd say daily because it's on top of the PCs' other abilities as well.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Why do you play 4e rather than another edition? Alternatively, what do you like about it even if you mostly play another edition?

(Yeah, this topic has undoubtedly been covered before; just humor me. It's for a charitable cause. )

My primary games are 1st Edition and 3rd Edition, but I have played through a couple of 4th Edition campaigns - the most recent ending last December. I am very much a strategy & tactics guy and 4th Edition does a great job of scratching that tactical gameplay itch. In many ways 4th Edition combats challenge me on a level that I last experienced with another great WotC game - Dreamblade.

 

[MerricB]

One of the features I really, really like about 4E is how it scales easily for different numbers of players, and it plays very well with only three players.

Huge bonus for me.

Cheers!

 

[Obryn]

Revised from a post I made ... crud, last year? on another board...

(1) The action economy and the lack of full-round actions has a broad and wide-reaching impact that can't be ignored. It can make combat a lot more dynamic as a result. This is one of the things I would carry with me to SWSE or 3.5 variants if I were to pick them back up

(2) There's a more equitable power distribution between casters and non-casters. Casters are less able to completely short-circuit adventures, and non-casters aren't left behind. (I was very soured on Arcana Evolved around 9th or 10th level because its power disparity was simply abysmal. Which is sad, because it's my favorite setting of all time.) This is hugely YMMV - for some people, that sort of spellcasting is the very point of D&D.

(3) Simply put, I think 4e combat is a blast. It's improved dramatically from the first release - the fixed monster math and increased character accuracy we've seen lately has severely reduced the grind that was endemic to 4e early on in its run.

(4) The Minion/Standard/Elite/Solo monster distinctions have been very, very handy from my side of the screen. One-shotting big bads isn't nearly as common, and both elites and solos have ways of improving their action economy so they're not useless against PCs. In the same vein, I appreciate that the standard combat involves multiple creatures; that a combat vs. one monster is rather rare; and that the XP budget system actually works, as opposed to the CR/EL system.

(5) Free-form NPC and monster building, focused on the end product - "I want an NPC that does this" - rather than on the building process itself, or building them like a PC. It ensures the math at the end works out, and doesn't worry much about how you got there. This sort of mechanical work was one of the things that soured me on 3.x in general. By the same token, up-leveling and down-leveling monsters is infinitely easier.

(6) F/R/W as defenses, instead of saving throws. I generally prefer for whoever's acting to be the one to roll dice. Also, although it's some bookkeeping, I enjoy being able to apply conditions to monsters or PCs that almost always work, but only work for a short time.

(7) Tighter math on hit points, defenses, attack rolls, skill checks, and damage. It has some down-sides, too, but I think it helps keep more gonzo results away from play.

(8) I really enjoy the way PCs are built. I like having Encounter powers and At-Will powers, not just Dailies, basic attacks, and special maneuvers. The Essentials line and PHB3 added a few variants of the power format, too, so there are some classes new that work very differently from those in the original PHB. I like having that continuum of complexity.

(9) A tighter condition list. 4e's list is a lot more concise than what's come before.

(10) Finally and critically, reference time during play and self-contained stat blocks. This is another one of those game-changers for me. I don't need to keep the SRD open in a window on my laptop to look up spells and conditions during play, and I don't need to print out pages of spell descriptions for my monsters in advance. Monsters and NPCs have enough stuff to do that they don't get boring in a fight, without a wealth of unnecessary detail that will never be important in-play. Players of spellcasters don't need a dog-eared copy of the PHB with them at all times; their abilities are self-contained, too. I still don't care for power cards, specifically, but I love power sheets - it keeps everything easy and concise, and ready at the table when needed.

(11) I think the Skill Challenge system can work pretty well if you completely ignore their DMG1 presentation, and I improv them all the time. I like it better than individual skill checks for a lot of things. I don't think it's as big a game-changer as a lot of other stuff, but it can be pretty awesome sometimes. I kind of hate it for stuff like social interactions - it makes them stilted and awkward - but I love it for stuff like disarming glyphs in the middle of a fight, multi-day travel across hazardous terrain, and hunting down information or people in a city. Stuff like that, it's great for.

So yeah. It's basically a shift in focus from process to results, and from "Rules describe the world" to "Rules describe how the world interacts with the PCs." I feel like the rules are able to get out of my way more easily than they did with other editions, and my enjoyment of DMing has profited as a result.

-O