D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

Oofta said:

What part of "skill challenges replaced out of combat" did you not understand? Yes, too many rules for out of combat activities is not a good thing in my opinion.

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Kaiyanwang said:

No level drain (which was already weak in 3ed, and weaker in PF, I prefer the 3ed version)

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Oofta said:

One of the reasons I burned out on 4E was because it felt like the structure of the game and combat just kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the room for anything non-combat or for creative off-label solutions. I'm honestly not 100% sure why it felt that way for me. There were a few factors, of course. One was the skill challenge structure being presented, or at least interpreted by many DMs, as something that should pretty much always be used to resolve stuff outside of combat.

But a big part of it was the narrow focus but ever-increasing multitude of powers. You couldn't swing from a chandelier (unless it was part of a skill challenge of course) because someone out there might have a chandelier swinging power*. In addition the powers were so detailed in what they could do that there wasn't much wiggle room for creativity or using it for something different than exactly what the text said.

That, and at higher levels combat took hours. Heck, we timed it once and in an epic level game a single round took a little over an hour.

*Obviously silly example is obviously silly. But I was told more than once that I couldn't do X because it was something that others could do because of a power. After I was told that a couple of times, I stopped asking.

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MwaO said:

Yeah, a big problem with skill challenges, which even in DMG are designed to be fast and loose and reward creativity, was that a significant chunk of the adventures didn't understand that in year one.

As an easy example, in a skill challenge, you can use any skill you want — roll hard DC and you get a success. Yet you'd have a Fighter with an 8 Cha winning initiative in year 1 skill challenges and the only relevant skills listed for success were say Diplomacy and Bluff in a scene. According to DMG, that Fighter can use say Athletics to impress the people — do a feat of strength or clear a blockage or do something helpful, etc...yet many DMs wouldn't have read the DMG Skill Challenge section, look at the adventure saying nope, only these two skills count, and force the 8 Charisma Fighter to roll Diplomacy.

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EzekielRaiden said:

I have not tried to DM, no, mostly because I know where that leads. Permanent DM status. I'm not really keen on that. And doing DMing when my heart isn't in it would be at best a disservice to the poor players subjected to the result.

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MwaO said:

Yeah, a big problem with skill challenges, which even in DMG are designed to be fast and loose and reward creativity, was that a significant chunk of the adventures didn't understand that in year one.

As an easy example, in a skill challenge, you can use any skill you want — roll hard DC and you get a success. Yet you'd have a Fighter with an 8 Cha winning initiative in year 1 skill challenges and the only relevant skills listed for success were say Diplomacy and Bluff in a scene. According to DMG, that Fighter can use say Athletics to impress the people — do a feat of strength or clear a blockage or do something helpful, etc...yet many DMs wouldn't have read the DMG Skill Challenge section, look at the adventure saying nope, only these two skills count, and force the 8 Charisma Fighter to roll Diplomacy.

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MwaO said:

Yeah, a big problem with skill challenges, which even in DMG are designed to be fast and loose and reward creativity, was that a significant chunk of the adventures didn't understand that in year one.

As an easy example, in a skill challenge, you can use any skill you want — roll hard DC and you get a success. Yet you'd have a Fighter with an 8 Cha winning initiative in year 1 skill challenges and the only relevant skills listed for success were say Diplomacy and Bluff in a scene. According to DMG, that Fighter can use say Athletics to impress the people — do a feat of strength or clear a blockage or do something helpful, etc...yet many DMs wouldn't have read the DMG Skill Challenge section, look at the adventure saying nope, only these two skills count, and force the 8 Charisma Fighter to roll Diplomacy.

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Undrave said:

What's this fascination with level drain (and ability drain for that matter) anyway? You're not the only person I see lamenting the lack of this mechanic. What's so great about it? It feels like such a gamist concept to me because a level is just a game mechanic. What even IS a 'Level Drain' in universe? And why couldn't we just represent that in-universe effect with a more streamlined mechanic that doesn't involve recalculating tons of naughty word? Same for ability drain.

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Belen said:

You are not wrong. I have not played in a D&D game since the 90s. I am always the DM as no one else ever offers to run a game.

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overgeeked said:

The only real way to run modern combat that's in any way interesting is to, paradoxically, ignore the combat. Focus on terrain, secondary objectives, puzzle combats & monsters, grandiose set-piece encounters, etc. The 4E DMGs are the best WotC ever produced for creating this kind of exciting, action-adventure D&D combats.

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