D&D 4E Anyone playing 4e at the moment?

[Retreater]

I ran a 4e game in person a little over a year ago. It is my wife's favorite edition, and she came to it after coming into the hobby with 5e, FWIW. I've looked into what's available on Roll20 for the system, and it's lacking compared to 5e (as you noted). There's a character sheet, which looks pretty serviceable, but you'll have to put in all your powers manually. I think it can be done. I would probably just do that for the PCs and then run the monsters off to the side in meat space. I wouldn't want to have to create every monster from scratch. I would just use the tokens and map from Roll20 but run the adventures off PDFs or physical books on my DM side.
If you'd like to test it out sometime before you present it to your group, I'd be happy to help you out, as a DM or player.

 

[Charlaquin]

It already has. It provided a shining example of things not to do again if you want to sell another edition of D&D.

4e made some big presentation mistakes, but it made a lot of very smart design decisions which would certainly not hurt a new edition if they were adopted. Especially given that the market has shifted significantly, and the new crop of players 5e brought in would likely be more amenable to such innovations.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I ran a 4e game in person a little over a year ago. It is my wife's favorite edition, and she came to it after coming into the hobby with 5e, FWIW. I've looked into what's available on Roll20 for the system, and it's lacking compared to 5e (as you noted). There's a character sheet, which looks pretty serviceable, but you'll have to put in all your powers manually. I think it can be done. I would probably just do that for the PCs and then run the monsters off to the side in meat space. I wouldn't want to have to create every monster from scratch. I would just use the tokens and map from Roll20 but run the adventures off PDFs or physical books on my DM side.
If you'd like to test it out sometime before you present it to your group, I'd be happy to help you out, as a DM or player.

Learning how to fully take advantage of the power box thing works is a huge pain, but if you CAN learn it, it us possible to code up your powers so that they are as close to automatically tracked as you can get. Can't take into account situational buffs like Leader bonuses, but otherwise it is possible to near-automate most things, including tier-scaling of damage dice!

So yeah, it's relatively robust but a bit cumbersome.

 

[ccs]

4e made some big presentation mistakes,

Fact

but it made a lot of very smart design decisions which would certainly not hurt a new edition if they were adopted. Especially given that the market has shifted significantly, and the new crop of players 5e brought in would likely be more amenable to such innovations.

An opinion & speculation that I highly doubt we'll see put to the test.

 

[Charlaquin]

Fact

An opinion & speculation that I highly doubt we'll see put to the test.

No, both are opinions. The former just happens to be one that we share.

 

[dave2008]

Fact

No, I actually much prefer the 4e presentation to 1e, 2e, or 3e. I didn't even play 2e or 3e because I disliked the presentation so much.

 

[dave2008]

I also want to point our that it is completely possible to play 4e without the digital character builder. We played 4e for its full run and my group never used digital tools to make/level their PCs. I used some as DM sometimes, but mostly to print maps and monsters.

 

[Charlaquin]

I also want to point our that it is completely possible to play 4e without the digital character builder. We played 4e for its full run and my group never used digital tools to make/level their PCs. I used some as DM sometimes, but mostly to print maps and monsters.

I think a lot of the perception that the digital tools were needed to play came from the idea that “everything is core” in 4e. There’s a lot of player options spread across a lot of books, and the digital tools made it much easier to quickly sort through them all to find exactly what you want out of the whole 4e library. But it’s entirely possible to do 4e without them, especially if you limit the options to a few books. I know if I was going to run 4e, I would limit it to the “Heroes of [whatever]” books. But that’s cause I’m the only 4e fan who actually prefers Essentials.

 

[BigZebra]

Interesting, I hadn't seen that one. I think, as with all the compendia, you kind of still need to have the books and such to reference in order to understand how things work

Yes, I am gonna get the books. The site is just for nice referencing and searching. I have bought the PHB and DMG from Aamzon (used).

Likewise there were no changes in hit points in MM3 for monsters. The only change happened a bit earlier, in MM2, when ALL solos were reduced to 4x hit points instead of 5x, a 20% reduction. MM3 does rely less on brutes and soldiers, and doesn't have as high a proportion of elite/solo monsters. Those factors tend to cut back on 'grindy' monsters some. Also monsters overall design is much better in MM3, their powers synergize with their designs better, there are many fewer cases where monsters just bog down play, etc. It is definitely best to stick to MM3 and MV:ttNV where possible, but most older monsters are OK if you take care in building scenarios and do the adjustments to their stats. It is certainly NOT necessary to do drastic changes like cutting all their hit points in half!

Thanks for the input. Pretty crazy they had to tweak the monsters that much.

If you have any WotC supplied adventures, ritually burn them before you start play and never ever use them! I've heard that a few of the later ones have been considered 'good', but I'm skeptical for the most part...

Yeah, it seems they had some problems nailing the format down. Like you I have heard that some of the later ones are ok. Amazing considering some of the authors.

 

[BigZebra]

Our group recently took a break from 5e/PF1e in favor of a brief 4e campaign, mainly because a few people in the group had a fondly remembered perception that 4e did a great job handling tactical combat. The end result was a unanimous resolution to stick with 5e/PF1e in the future.

Is it "feasible" to demo a 4th edition campaign? Sure. But you should go into it with your eyes open, remembering that while 4e brought some useful innovations to the genre, it also made a large number of bad design decisions that eventually resulted in its accelerated replacement. Above all, I wouldn't go into a new 4e game simply because you want to somehow prove the bulk of the gaming community was wrong, 4e got a bad rap, its flaws were overstated, etc.

You've made a good start by saying you're drawn to 4e's tactical/battlemat support. I personally think that's the edition's biggest strength and absolutely think 4e can work for your campaign if that's what you want to focus on. Just stick to the core books to make things manageable and you'll be good to go whether or not you have much in the way of digital support.

And who knows? The fact that 4e didn't succeed overall doesn't mean it isn't the best fit for your specific gaming group. If you find it to be so, then you might consider staying with it for longer than you currently plan to. Best wishes and good luck!

Thanks man!
I am totally aware of the "issues" about 4th put forth by the community.
I am just so curious about it. Back in the day I played 2e, and then I didn't play any RPGs for over 20 years, and then I got back into it a few years back with 5e. So I was "away" for the whole 4e debacle, and I'm a bit curious.
There are stuff in the mechanics that interests me so much, as well as Points of Light that I just have to try it out. We might as well end back in 5e. And that's fine.