D&D General Maybe I was ALWAYs playing 4e... even in 2e

[Vaalingrade]

4e is built around big, setpiece fights with a lot of moving parts, props, the whole nine yards.

While it still pays lip service to the adventuring day (to its determent), there should be no trash mob fights in 4e. If you do come upon an actual solo (because solos were also supposed to have other monsters with them, or traps, or other set pieces), it should be rare to say the least, like Final Battle, bust out the magic items, ritual up, special event kind of stuff.

And as for some powers being locked out, let's not forget this was a time where rogues being able to SA the most common monsters in the game was controversial and scary.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

4e is built around big, setpiece fights with a lot of moving parts, props, the whole nine yards.

While it still pays lip service to the adventuring day (to its determent), there should be no trash mob fights in 4e. If you do come upon an actual solo (because solos were also supposed to have other monsters with them, or traps, or other set pieces), it should be rare to say the least, like Final Battle, bust out the magic items, ritual up, special event kind of stuff.

And as for some powers being locked out, let's not forget this was a time where rogues being able to SA the most common monsters in the game was controversial and scary.

yeah I want to say a DMG or other advice book even had some kind of pattern for a defualt game for a DM to use like a templet until they were ready to make up there own... something like 1 elite 2 normal followed by 6 minnions and an elite followed by 4 normal followed by a solo... and they all had like Level or Level-1 or Level+1

 

[EzekielRaiden]

4e is built around big, setpiece fights with a lot of moving parts, props, the whole nine yards.

While it still pays lip service to the adventuring day (to its determent), there should be no trash mob fights in 4e. If you do come upon an actual solo (because solos were also supposed to have other monsters with them, or traps, or other set pieces), it should be rare to say the least, like Final Battle, bust out the magic items, ritual up, special event kind of stuff.

And as for some powers being locked out, let's not forget this was a time where rogues being able to SA the most common monsters in the game was controversial and scary.

That said, I think 4e could have been significantly improved by including what I have called "Skirmish" rules. Specifically, I completely agree that 4e is built around set-piece battles. But set pieces aren't the only sort of thing that matters, and there's a number of places where being able to handle short, brisk, lower-risk, lower-fanfare experiences.

But just as we have rules for Skill Challenges, which are meant to give structure and set-piece-ness to non-combat challenges, shouldn't we be able to generate the "just a couple skill rolls, not a Skill Challenge" equivalent for combat things? Removing the set-piece-ness from some combat challenges. The hope being that these Skirmish Rules would model the attrition and costs of smaller combats that can add up to a lot, even though they're (ideally) over in just a few minutes' time.

You could even look to building longer-term consequences into skirmishes or sequences thereof: if the party is rocking out and barely losing anything (e.g. they all roll very well repeatedly, so there's no lost surges and the like), this could have knock-on consequences for later encounters, e.g. enemy morale is low because they know someone or something has been chewing through the ranks, or they've taken extra precautions so they're a bit better-prepared than they would've been. Likewise, doing poorly might lead enemies to let their guard down in a proper set-piece battle, or it might have allowed reinforcements to gather together.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That said, I think 4e could have been significantly improved by including what I have called "Skirmish" rules. Specifically, I completely agree that 4e is built around set-piece battles. But set pieces aren't the only sort of thing that matters, and there's a number of places where being able to handle short, brisk, lower-risk, lower-fanfare experiences.

oh I think that advice on running 4e theater of the mind (at least sometimes) would be helpful.

 

[Undrave]

The system was such an overhaul and so vastly different from what came before that it was unrecognizable as D&D. People expected an update of 3.5 with the Star Wars Saga Edition being the model for where they were going as early hype indicated along with the Book of 9 Swords (I think it was called). Instead it was a very different system that was also a very cool system that would have been at home in a skirmish game.

I played SAGA. It was fun for Star Wars, but its progression was SO slow! So many talents were 'once per day you can do X' and then 'you can take this talent multiple times, when you do you gain 1 additional use per day' and it's like the most basic crap like sneak attacks or something and you get 1 talent every two level. Who has time for that??

I dunno how well D&D would have done if it had just kept on trucking on variations of 3.X. I don't think 5e would exist and be as popular if 4e hadn't caused people to really question RPG game design.

The miniatures/grid aspect is often mentioned, but it actually is a bigger deal than just having to use them. The battles need to be designed differently. 4e has a ton of powers that rely on movement and positioning. And if the GM designs an interesting battlemap with all sorts of different terrains and uses various enemies with different capabilities the resulting combats will be very tactical and engaging. But designing such battles is also a lot of work, and if you don't do that, a lot of the powers simply are pretty pointless.

Never found it that difficult myself. If you've seen a couple Jackie Chan movies you can usually come up with a decent room. Just imagine a place that would be cool to have a fight in, look up an appropriate encounter group in the MM, or just go to a specific monster's pages and pick up a good spread (2 front liner, 4 minions, 1 artillery, 1 controller, boom! You got an encounter for 5 PCs, have more minions show up in round 2 or 3 if its proving too easy).

If you add fun terrain feature like stuff that be knocked over or even thrown at people, or like danger zones, have the monsters make use of them too! First round of combat the artillery monster knocks the heavy table on its side and ducks behind as a makeshift barricade, or one of the front liner pushes the fighter into a bed of mushroom that blow up into a cloud of spores, or maybe one of the minion grabs a bag of flour from the kitchen and throws it into your back row, temporarily blocking the view of your caster and making them vulnerable to fire blasts from the controller!

After a while, that kind of stuff just becomes second nature. If you've consumed media were fights break out in interesting locales it really helps.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I played SAGA. It was fun for Star Wars, but its progression was SO slow! So many talents were 'once per day you can do X' and then 'you can take this talent multiple times, when you do you gain 1 additional use per day' and it's like the most basic crap like sneak attacks or something and you get 1 talent every two level. Who has time for that??

I dunno how well D&D would have done if it had just kept on trucking on variations of 3.X. I don't think 5e would exist and be as popular if 4e hadn't caused people to really question RPG game design.

I still think that the frame work of saga was good even if it needed work. Look at the warlock it pretty much is a saga D&D class

 

[James Gasik]

SAGA is probably the edition of Star Wars I like the best (sorry West End!), but the caster/martial divide is alive and well. I played a Soldier for 7 levels and suddenly I was being upstaged by everyone but the Wookie using Force powers. I had to be extra creative to do anything of note, and finally it came to a head when we faced down a Dark Side Adept and my blaster carbine was completely useless (thanks to energy absorption or whatever. It felt like you could have any power under the sun as long as you put "Force" in front of it).

Now maybe I wasn't optimized (I was a Medic with the armor spec tree) and that's my fault. But had the game continued, I would have ended up with a level of a Force using class simply because, for my character at least, there was no future without completely redesigning the character.

And honestly, even if I did make a new character, I would probably be a Jedi as well because it looked like the Jedi were a blast to play!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

SAGA is probably the edition of Star Wars I like the best (sorry West End!),

blasphemy ... the d6 system is the one true RPG system... for DCU and Star Wars

but the caster/martial divide is alive and well.

tbf it was in EVERY edition of star wars I have seen... jedi and non jedi are not even close.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

tbf it was in EVERY edition of star wars I have seen... jedi and non jedi are not even close.

Well, matches the source material.

This is the sort of issue RPGs face that other media doesn't have. It is not a problem in a film if space wizard is more powerful than a space gunslinger. Hell, in LotR, the grandfather of the fantasy genre, the characters are not even remotely balanced.

And whilst I don't want such approach for D&D, I think for some RPGs it is better to simply say that some character types are more powerful. It is fine, it is not a competition. I have no problem if the Jedis are more powerful than most other characters in Star Wars, Space Marines are more powerful in 40K or Solars more powerful in Exalted.

 

[Undrave]

SAGA is probably the edition of Star Wars I like the best (sorry West End!), but the caster/martial divide is alive and well. I played a Soldier for 7 levels and suddenly I was being upstaged by everyone but the Wookie using Force powers. I had to be extra creative to do anything of note, and finally it came to a head when we faced down a Dark Side Adept and my blaster carbine was completely useless (thanks to energy absorption or whatever. It felt like you could have any power under the sun as long as you put "Force" in front of it).

Now maybe I wasn't optimized (I was a Medic with the armor spec tree) and that's my fault. But had the game continued, I would have ended up with a level of a Force using class simply because, for my character at least, there was no future without completely redesigning the character.

And honestly, even if I did make a new character, I would probably be a Jedi as well because it looked like the Jedi were a blast to play!

Yeah I had fun with SAGA too. I'm not even that big of a Star Wars fan I only played Scoundrels and for one game (or 2?) I played a Soldier in a game where we were a squad of clone troopers. I was the heavy weapons/exploives guy of the team

But the most memorable was one where the DM said "Just take one feat and one talent per level, it'll be more fun" and we rolled for stats and I had an 18 as a Duros Scoundrel pilot. We just broke that game it was hilarious. It was also the origin of the famous line (in my group) "Three crits, it can happen!" when we managed to escape a Star Destroyer with a stolen imperial shuttle. The Tie Fighters kept trying to get me into a dogfight and I would just 'NOPE!' out of there. Pretty insane.

I had a talent from a later book that came from the bad luck tree. Basically, as a minor action (or was it free even?) I could inflict a penalty (a big one even!) to a specific skill on anybody I wanted within like... 60 feet of me. "Use the Force" is a skill. I could do it AT-WILL.

We weren't super bothered by force users basically, even with just one jedi on the team. We also played during the transition era between ep 3 and 4 so not a lot of those guys around.