D&D General Why is D&D 4E a "tactical" game?

[doctorbadwolf]

I've always seen 4e as closing the loop - back to Chain Mail. 4e is a tactical set of combat rules. Players must be engaged, studying the map as the players have chances for interrupts and reactions. 4e (IMO) is not for the casual role player - designed more for a wargamer.

I disagree strongly with the bolded part. 4e benefited from some curation for the benefit of casual roleplayers, but I found that skill challenges caused the casuals to get more into non combat situations, and that more roleplaying happened within combat.

But essentials definitely helped get back the folks who didn’t want to make choices during leveling.

 

[Aldarc]

I disagree as my experience was with seasoned wargamers who saw 4e as a wargame within an rpg.

Ask other people, and they'll tell you that this is fundamentally what D&D has always been at its heart.*

* Which is no slight, as it is undoubtedly a contributing factor to the brand's enduring popularity.

 

[Raduin711]

My favorite part on this kind of things is the treatment of illusions and other mind affecting spells: they tell you exactly what the effect is. No need for interpretation or DM-may-I.

I think I prefer the reverse. Room for interpretation means the narrative applications are broader. Don't get me wrong, rule precision is great, but sometimes a little freedom is nice.

 

[Lyxen]

In 4e, you win the game by actually playing the game and using your abilities at the right time and preferably synergizing well with your comrades.

Amd the problem is that, for me, ever since early editions, D&D is not a game that is meant to be won. 4e made it a game where you certainly can tactically win fights because all of this is tactically organised like a boardgame (or some wargames, but most wargames deal with units rather than individuals), with precise rules, a board to push your miniatures on and cards (powers) to play when tactically advantageous, using combos, etc.

The thing is that, for me, even Basic stated it very clearly: "The D&D game has neither losers nor winners, it has only gamers who relish exercising their imagination. The players and the DM share in creating adventures in fantastic lands where heroes abound and magic really works. In a sense, the D&D game has no rules, only rule suggestions. No rule is inviolate, particularly if a new or altered rule will encourage creativity and imagination. The important thing is to enjoy the adventure." 4e allows you o tactically win fights, but it does not really allow you to really play a game that is not about winning.

4e excels at being the tactical boardgame version of D&D because of its precise set or rules, it's just that for me, that is not the intent of the game.

 

[Plaguescarred]

4E was more tactical not because it made grid play it's baseline, while gridplay even predates D&D, the fact that it it had more rules to it than movement, but AoE, foced movement, traps and hazards etc

Monsters while having statblocks in all editions, had tactics in 4E, at the detriment of having less fluff text in their description. Combat encounters also had tactics described for each monsters. There was also minions that were as capable monsters but with only 1 HP.

All Classes had powers, combat and utility, with various usage limit; at-will, encounter and daily use. And lots of them to choose from for each classes.

There was encounter building rules. There was dungeon delve focused on combat encounters with little to no story.

There was also skill challenges, where tactical took the road to skill checks as well.

There was actions such as Ready and Delay to impact turns, move action powers, minor action powers, immediate interrupt and reactions to let you act outside your turn, as well as free and no action powers. There was lots of tactical choices in your toolbox.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Another important thing was how almost all character class powers were focused on tactical combat, and they took up a very large portion of the PHB. Non-combat stuff was mostly the domain of skills (including skill challenges) and ritual magic.

Most classes had Utility Powers at level 2, 6 and 10..

 

[Lyxen]

Most classes had Utility Powers at level 2, 6 and 10..

Utility powers were still mostly combat orientated, I just had a look at the cleric (first in the book), and the list at level 2 is: Bless, Cure Light Wounds, Divine Aid, Sanctuary and Shield of Faith. These are all damage and combat orientated, even sanctuary does not prevent attacks, it just gives a bonus to defenses until the end of the next turn. All these powers are technical and tactical, moreover in general, it deals mostly in abstraction and bonuses and tactical push/pull/slide because these can easily be quantified on the board that is the grid and using counters.

Again, it's one way of playing the game, it's great for the people who want to play it that way, but it's not the way D&D was designed before or after.

 

[Blue Orange]

Were there a lot of 4e video games? Seems like it was designed for that and would have benefited from the format.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've never played D&D 4E, I quit D&D when it was released, but I have noticed it is frequently referred to as a "tactical" game, more so than other versions of D&D. Why is that? 3.x was a very tactical game, combat was pretty much designed to take place on a battle map with minis. Is something else meant by 4e being tactical or were a battle map and minis even more of a requirement?

As an avowed 4e fan:

1. Unlike 3e, 4e rules and player options are very well-balanced. That balance means decisions often become qualitative rather than quantitative, becoming about how they'll change the state of play rather than whether they are specifically optimal.
2. Various specific mechanics, such as the Defender "mark" mechanic, actually force real choices and trade-offs, for both PCs and opponents. If a PC marks an opponent, that creature takes -2 to make any attack that doesn't include the PC who marked them. Defenders get an additional mechanic, a punishment for creatures that "disobey" the mark (choosing to attack others without attacking the Defender). This forces real choices (attack "easy" low-armor targets and risk failure and damage, or attack high-AC targets first?), not mere calculations.
3. The game is specifically designed for working as a team. In 3e, that wasn't the case. It was usually best to optimize yourself, with party-level stuff being an afterthought. In 4e, if you don't work as a team, you're going to struggle even against enemies that should be relatively "easy," whereas a well-oiled machine of a team can punch well above its weight.
4. Terrain matters a great deal. 3e...really didn't have much in the way of rules for making terrain interesting or useful. 4e has many varied terrain types, traps that work well even in combat, environmental hazards, and very good reasons to include non-flat-plain terrain, enriching the tactical experience. More or less, you could say that 3e was a tactical game because it told you to use a map; 4e was a tactical game because it truly used the map.
5. Branching off of #1, the use of class roles (which were not rigid, they simply tell you what your baseline competence is) and diverse "build" choices (class feature options, feats, themes, backgrounds, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, items, divine boons, etc.) meant that for any given mechanical goal there were many ways to get there, and any given class could be played in several different ways.

There are probably more reasons, but those are the ones that matter most to me. Choices matter, at both the "strategic" (character-resources) level and the "tactical" (in-a-fight) level; terrain isn't just present but actively leveraged; teamwork is truly essential to good play; and the rules are actually well-balanced, so your choices don't get reduced to simple arithmetic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Utility powers were still mostly combat orientated, I just had a look at the cleric (first in the book), and the list at level 2 is: Bless, Cure Light Wounds, Divine Aid, Sanctuary and Shield of Faith. These are all damage and combat orientated, even sanctuary does not prevent attacks, it just gives a bonus to defenses until the end of the next turn. All these powers are technical and tactical, moreover in general, it deals mostly in abstraction and bonuses and tactical push/pull/slide because these can easily be quantified on the board that is the grid and using counters.

Again, it's one way of playing the game, it's great for the people who want to play it that way, but it's not the way D&D was designed before or after.

Most non-combat stuff was put into the Rituals system. There were still non-combat (or at least not-combat-centric) utility powers, but if you want things that are pure non-combat, you want Rituals. Anyone could become a ritual caster with a single feat, and every character gets 18 feats, so picking up Ritual Caster is not an onerous burden even for a Fighter or Paladin--or you can just buy consumable ritual scrolls.

This is one of the problems when discussing 4e. People unfamiliar with it often make pretty sweeping accusations (like claiming that roles are straightjackets or that the game is purely about combat) that really aren't true, but require that you know that 4e actually put new things into D&D, like rituals, taking Themes or PPs with a focus different from your default class, or things like Quests and Skill Challenges for non-combat sources of experience, rewards, and obstacles to surmount.