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

[Retreater]

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.

I think they didn't do a great job of capturing what the expectations of play were supposed to be in 4e, especially the H1-E3 series (which I tried to run recently). They were basically written like adventures for 3.x or earlier editions.
The ones in the Essentials line were much better (like Reavers of Harkenwald). I also enjoyed the Lair Assault series and many seasons of D&D Encounters, for what they were.

 

[BigZebra]

For me, 4e is just replaced by Strike! that has pretty much the same (if not more) level of tacticality and way less crunch.

Never heard of it. Gonna take a look

 

[Retreater]

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.

From someone who came in during the same time (2e) but played through all the editions between, I can say that all of the post-TSR editions were big departures from what came before, so much that I think they're basically unrecognizable as D&D if you compare them to 2e or earlier.

 

[BigZebra]

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

Burn
Funny thing is though, that coming from 5e and reading the 4e rules, it's striking how many rules in 5e are 4e stuff with different presentation, and especially different nomenclature.

 

[BigZebra]

4e is great! Well deserving of a revised edition, especially for the early books where WotC didn't quite have the mechanics dialed in. But late stage 4e, especially in terms of monster design and tactical combat is an amazing game.

I love both 4e and 5e, but 4e scratches a different itch, and its missed in my group. Time to perhaps consider a retro-campaign. We have all the books, so the digital tools going offline didn't really affect us, and only some of my original 4e group ever used them.

A revised edition would be awesome, although extremely unlikely.

 

[BigZebra]

I think they didn't do a great job of capturing what the expectations of play were supposed to be in 4e, especially the H1-E3 series (which I tried to run recently). They were basically written like adventures for 3.x or earlier editions.
The ones in the Essentials line were much better (like Reavers of Harkenwald). I also enjoyed the Lair Assault series and many seasons of D&D Encounters, for what they were.

Can you recommend a good beginner adventure that nicely introduces the 4e way of thinking?

 

[BigZebra]

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.

How do you compare it to PF2? If am not mistaken, you have written a bit about PF2, and both PF2 and 4e seems to lean towards doing tactical battle, having interesting monsters etc.

 

[Retreater]

Can you recommend a good beginner adventure that nicely introduces the 4e way of thinking?

Reavers of Harkenwald is really good, but starts at 2nd level.
The Scales of War series from Dungeon Magazine (if you can find them digitally) are some of the best for 4e. The 1st level intro is "Rescue at Rivenroar" from Dungeon 156.
The idea behind the 4e way of thinking (as I understand it) is to not present dungeons with a bunch of trivial encounters with rats and kobolds. Have smaller dungeons with memorable set piece encounters that actually mean something. You can take Keep on the Shadowfell, but cut out the trivial encounters and replace with Skill Challenges, roleplay, etc., but use the big important battles.

 

[Charlaquin]

How do you compare it to PF2? If am not mistaken, you have written a bit about PF2, and both PF2 and 4e seems to lean towards doing tactical battle, having interesting monsters etc.

PF2 cleverly adopted some of the best bits of 4e design in a way that Pathfinder fans would find relatively inoffensive. Unfortunately it also couldn’t let go of Pathfinder’s fiddliness, so the overall experience was very frustrating for me as someone who wants to see a proper evolution of 4e’s design.

 

[BigZebra]

PF2 cleverly adopted some of the best bits of 4e design in a way that Pathfinder fans would find relatively inoffensive. Unfortunately it also couldn’t let go of Pathfinder’s fiddliness, so the overall experience was very frustrating for me as someone who wants to see a proper evolution of 4e’s design.

Yeah that's what I fear. I bought the PF2 rulebook, but it didn't really click for me. Perhaps I'll try it some day.