D&D 4E Am I crazy? I've just gotten a hankering to play 4e again...

[Warpiglet-7]

It isn't my favorite edition of D&D, but I really enjoyed playing 4e. I ran it a bit too.

I liked the way everything was broken down into powers. I liked the mathy part of acquiring magic items as you leveled. I liked the extra crunch of trying to get the various PC powers to combo. I liked the 4 roles (Controller, Defender, Striker, Leader). I liked the monster roles. I liked the sources of power - Psionic, Martial, Divine, and Primal. I liked the tiers going all the way up to Epic level (although I never got that high up). I liked the cosmology. I liked skill challenges, although I don't think I ran them right. I even liked using miniatures in play - heck 2 of my 4 regular D&D games use minis (one I'm playing, one I'm running).

I can't say I was a lover of the default setting (Nentir Vale); but at least they printed up FR, Eberron, and Dark Sun.

Sadly, the method of releases were much more like 3rd ed; and the game eventually petered out as we all know.

I have all the Scales of War adventures in pdf, and even printed up the first 5 or 6 of them, and even have a bunch of the maps printed up (!).

So that's all to say - I'd love to play me some 4e.

Follow your happiness.

I just sold a mint 4e collection. I had various dm and monster kits with unpunched counters and shrink wrapped things still inside.

the books went away too. Some cracked when opened.

we sat down a played a few times and found it colorless. My friends and I play some war games and are not tripped up by crunch per se but the utility and other spells did not pop for us. We tried.

We played 1e until 2000 and skipped 2e. Likewise we dabbled in 3e and skipped 3.5.

find what you like and unapologetically embrace it. The cult of the new is useless. Find the cult of you!

we do like 5e andI doubt I could get the guys to go back. And that’s fine we are having fun...or at least we were pre Covid.

but if they released 6e tomorrow we would likely ignore it. What everyone else like only matters to the extent that you have people to play with. Find your 4e buddies and rock n roll. I apparently like to say piss off to every other edition or half edition apparently.

get what you want from whatever edition you want

 

[Undrave]

Wizards and the GSL license made things extremely difficult for anyone other than WotC to create content from what I understand. It’s one of the things that drove folks like Paizo to go their own way.

Yeah that was probably one of the biggest mistake they made with it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah that was probably one of the biggest mistake they made with it.

The other one was releasing it before it was ready because 10 months in to their allotted two years they went right back to the drawing board and started over - and still shipped on time. The 4e of 2008 with skill challenges that simply mathematically did not work, Monster Manual 1 math not scaling properly, Keep on the Shadowfell as an abysmal launch adventure, and numerous other problems was a buggy early beta they shipped to meet the shipping deadlines and then patched after it had already shipped.

 

[DnD Warlord]

The other one was releasing it before it was ready because 10 months in to their allotted two years they went right back to the drawing board and started over - and still shipped on time. The 4e of 2008 with skill challenges that simply mathematically did not work, Monster Manual 1 math not scaling properly, Keep on the Shadowfell as an abysmal launch adventure, and numerous other problems was a buggy early beta they shipped to meet the shipping deadlines and then patched after it had already shipped.

I thought keep on the shadowfel was decent. I ran the entire h1-e3 adventure path as my first 4e campaign

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I ran KotS and have to say it was pretty dismal. I recall the final boss as being boring and "grindy". The encounter set up itself was cool, including hostile terrain, but this was a level 6 or 8 elite (vs level 4 PCs, IIRC) and elites had +2 AC in those days. "Whiff. Whiff. Whiff."

The adventure was pretty good until the PCs got to the tower, at which point it was just room after room of monsters. That would only result in balanced encounters if the monsters couldn't hear each other.

 

[Nikosandros]

The other one was releasing it before it was ready because 10 months in to their allotted two years they went right back to the drawing board and started over - and still shipped on time. The 4e of 2008 with skill challenges that simply mathematically did not work, Monster Manual 1 math not scaling properly, Keep on the Shadowfell as an abysmal launch adventure, and numerous other problems was a buggy early beta they shipped to meet the shipping deadlines and then patched after it had already shipped.

This. I've always thought that 4e development cycle was cut short by at least six months. Also, the classes with two main stats were non very well thought-out.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

This. I've always thought that 4e development cycle was cut short by at least six months. Also, the classes with two main stats were non very well thought-out.

Yes, half-baked (as is 5th Ed), the AEDU was not part of the plan for all classes, and I think Powers should have been grouped by Source, not Class.

1) Choose Role
2) Choose Power Source
3) Choose Build

 

[Aldarc]

@Jeff Albertson, I would definitely be curious to see what that sort of game would look like.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The other one was releasing it before it was ready because 10 months in to their allotted two years they went right back to the drawing board and started over - and still shipped on time. The 4e of 2008 with skill challenges that simply mathematically did not work, Monster Manual 1 math not scaling properly, Keep on the Shadowfell as an abysmal launch adventure, and numerous other problems was a buggy early beta they shipped to meet the shipping deadlines and then patched after it had already shipped.

Careful, it is overstated. Its funny about those SCs because lots of people made issue with the original SC design, but THEN I played a game with a guy, and this guy just wasn't interested in what other people thought about stuff. He found them brilliant and explained how he considered all the features others roundly criticized to be a bunch of excellent game design. He proceeded to demonstrate an ability to utilize that system with great effectiveness too.
MM1 math is a little different. I think if you play 4e in a certain way, and they had a pretty small closed playtest group from what I understand, it worked pretty well. But yeah, monsters seemed tweaked for a slightly different game than the PCs are.
KotS is definitely a bad adventure, or a good 3.5 adventure that highlights why 4e is not the same beast.

I think the real issue with 4e is more just that it required a whole additional layer of editing. The text is good solid writing, but it misses the point in a lot of cases and particularly fails to expound on and reveal the true strengths of the system. Maybe it is just that WotC cannot understand what they have made. Mike certainly didn't seem to.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, half-baked (as is 5th Ed), the AEDU was not part of the plan for all classes, and I think Powers should have been grouped by Source, not Class.

1) Choose Role
2) Choose Power Source
3) Choose Build

I've always disagreed with this 'roll your own combo' idea. The Role and Power Source are the beating heart of 4e class design. They exist primarily for the purpose of ensuring that a class works thematically and has a good mechanical basis and reason to exist. This is one of the strongest parts of 4e, and it shows. Despite some awkwardly designed 'V shaped' classes (and not all of them are actually bad, ranger works quite well for example) every class is solid, well-balanced, and has a viable set of options throughout play. No other edition, 5e included, ever got this.
It is most telling that the only 'bad' (and they are not all that bad) classes are the ones designed in later parts of the game where designers were subverting this structure, or just churning out filler material (Bladesinger, I mean you). Even those are playable, just not optimal and can be emulated better with existing material.