D&D 4E 10 Things I Like in 4e

[Praeden]

1. More transparency in the maths, plus useful discussion of ways that the rules can be modified to suit your gaming style. Possibly the single most important thing that 4E brings to the table, I would say, since a lot of groups end up house-ruling regardless of edition.

2. Less dependency on magic items, without reducing the enjoyment of acquiring and using said items.

3. Pre-buffing no longer a key part of combat strategy (I always felt that this one only became a problem in 3E).

4. Survivable 1st level PCs, and a flattened power curve.

5. Wizards can finally wear armour and cast spells normally, without resorting to prestige classes or other obscure mechanics.

6. More mechanical differentiators between races with increasing levels.

7. Smaller stat blocks. I've never liked the format of 3E adventures, and it's mainly down to the fact that in a lot of cases, about 50% of the adventure is taken up by stat blocks. Compared to AD&D and OD&D adventures, I always felt I was geting less per page.

8. The prospect of more flavourful and distinct wizard specialists (might not be coming straight away, but I am looking forward to necromancers, illusionists, conjurers etc being treated as distinct classes).

9. Integration of AC and saves into a unified mechanic - defences (though I'm really not sure I like the fact that all the ability scores can be used to provide bonuses).

Last but not least....

10. Invisibility, fly, teleport, raise dead and other potential game-breakers become available much later in a character's career. I can't tell you how much this one means to me. I've been waiting for this change for more than 2 decades...

 

[Pbartender]

I'm going to take a little different tack than everyone else has.

Ten Things I Like Best About 4th Edition D&D:

1. D&D 4th Edition is coming at just the right time for me... A while back, I got tired of DMing D&D, and just recently I got tired of running everything but D&D. I'm in the middle of a DMing hiatus, and by the time June rolls around, I'll be awfully eager to get back to DMing D&D again.
2. From what I've seen thus far, 4E seems to be especially well suited to the way I like to DM.
3. From what I've seen thus far, 4E seems to be especially well suited to the way my players like to play.
4. This time, I can tell my players, "We're using the three core books only... Don't bother buying any supplements, and don't worry about the DM's Guide or the Monster manual, unless you plan on DMing later."
5. We can start a campaign at 1st level again.
6. I have a good reason to not use houserules.
7. I have an excuse to build a fresh campaign setting.
8. I like High Fantasy Action Adventure!
9. Every player will have something interesting to do...
10. And their characters will look really cool doing it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm one of the 4E fence sitters. Looking at the OP's post and others:

1. Healing Surges. Great idea,

I disagree- too videogamey for me.

2. Minions and Mobs: I love, love, love mook rules.

Haven't seen them, but I, too, love mook rules. If they're any good, that would definitely be one in the plus column.

3. New CR system:

Neutral.

4. Hearty PCs: I like how sturdy 1st level PCs are.

Not me.

5. Saving Throws:

Neutral at this point.

6. A cool basic attack: Eldritch blast, Lance of Faith, Cleave, etc. are cool abilities. I'm not a fan of At Will/Encounter/Daily, but I like the underlying idea.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I didn't like the way the Warlock was handled in 3.5, but the core concept of having reusable abilities is solid.

7. 1-1-1 Movement: It's Faaaabbuuulous!

I don't like that- as stated above, its bad geometry.

Then again, my group is more likely to play on a hex-grid than squares, so diagonal movement isn't an issue.

8. Monster Recharge Powers:

Again, cautiously optimistic.

9. Bloodied Abilities:

Don't have any idea what that is at this point.

10. Racial abilities:

This is excellent- its actually very similar to what I'm doing with my 3.X campaign for more powerful races.

Undead not immune to crits or sneak attacks.

I really, really dislike this.

I could get with this if it were certain undead, or if there were abilities that PCs had to choose to crit or SA undead, but not as a basic feature of the game being altered.

Reach and AoO lessened, occur much less frequently

I really, really dislike this.

3.X was the first edition of D&D that really started to capture the effectiveness of polearms and how dangerous lapses in concentration/narrowing your focus in combat can be- now its getting tossed. Blech.

NPCs designed differently than PCs.

I much prefer a "one ruleset to rule them all" type design. Even if it streamlines NPC creation, I don't like it when there are 2 competing design rulesets for PCs and NPCs.

No Arcane Spell Failure

I dislike this. I think getting around ASF should be the benefit of certain races, classes, or ability selections, not the baseline default of the system.

Combat Advantage

This has the potential to be quite good.

No more gnomes (at least in first PHB)

Strongly dislike- it is disruptive of some people's PC/campaign continuity.

No more Druids (at least in first PHB)

Strongly dislike- it is disruptive of some people's PC/campaign continuity. This, the one immediately above, and similar changes are going to be severe roadblocks to enjoying 4Ed for some people who don't want to start a new campaign or design a new PC after investing 5+ years in a 3.X game.

Less reliance on magic items for character abilities/survivability

Neutral.

While on the face of it being quite a laudable design goal, this is IMHO a non-issue. Dependence on magic items in D&D has mostly been a factor of DM campaign design than the game itself, IME.

I just don't see it affecting that many games.

No more iteritive attacks.

Neutral.

Extended 'sweet spot', if it lives up to it.

Potentially excellent- I hope that its for real!

Rebalancing of magic and melee.

Could be good- cautiously optimistic.

Elimination/ restriction of save-or-die, generally making combat less "swingy."

Cautiously optimistic- I like save-or-die, but unfettered use of the mechanic can be quite frustrating.

Now, looking back at my responses above, I see I have 12 responses that are "Neutral" or better (out of 24 features of 4Ed mentioned)...unfortunately, most of them are "Neutral," and my negatives are fairly strong.

I'm still on the fence, I guess.

Edit: Added my own, but still balancing out:

I hate the Magic Ring rule mechanics, but I really, really love the logical scaling of magic and powers (IOW, 1st level PCs have access to 1st level spells, 2nd level PCs get 2nd level spells, etc.).

 

[Firevalkyrie]

1: Second Wind
2: Fighters are a class, not a two to four-level dip to get 2 or 3 extra feats and a bunch of weapon and armor proficiencies.
3: End of CoDZilla
4: Paragon paths look much more interesting and ultimately useful than prestige classes.
5: More robust and varied 1st level characters; I suspect that no two firsties of the same class in 4th Ed will look alike.
6: 2 extra levels vs. 3rd Ed (I never started a 3rd Ed game at less than 3rd level).
7: Math that works, every level, every character.
8: All martial campaigns - WIN.
9: Easy monster creation, easier monster customization.
10: Wizards and Clerics don't utterly dominate high-level play anymore.

 

[Xorn]

You know what? I should playtest it. I have all the basic rules from that DDXP (thanks to the ingenious and hard working nerds of ENw). I should use those critters and create an adventure, then have my players pick a character sheet and run it.

I think our SWSE game will have to skip a session or two...

Warning:

I can't get my playgroup to finish their 3.5 campaign after our 4E fan playtest. I can't get them to even finish the current adventure. You have been warned.

 

[dm4hire]

I like that the new paragon classes and epic destinies add without taking away from the main class path you choose.

 

[Pierson_Lowgal]

1. Healing Surges: because it means clerics aren't heal-bots.

2. New CR system: better for smaller & larger parties

3. Hearty PCs: I like how sturdy 1st level PCs are.

4. At Will/Encounter Oriented rather than Daily: hasn't every video game proved this is better.

5. Ditching ECL: a system that never works at my table

6. Monsters don't necessarily use the same rules as PCs - better for designers as Necromancer guys said

7. Fighter-types seem to have a couple of more interesting things to do.

8. Undead not immune to crits or sneak attacks: the vast # of sneke-immune always a problem at the table.

9. Turn undead: any change would be an improvement to nothing/run away/explode

10. Threatening Reach Limited: less cautious-movement is better

11. Less reliance on magic items for character abilities/survivability & easily removable

12. General mechanic of X + 1/2 level: saving throws not totally imbalanced, hooray!

13. Diminishing the adventure/encounter breakers of fly, invis, teleport

14. tactics shifted from character creation to combat

15. less die rolling at high level

16. cool, reusable abilities for everyone *blow kazoo*

17. simplification/better usability of conditions

18. quest & non-combat xp (of course i was doing this already)

19. save-or-sit diminished - you can't tell me that save-or-sit is fun.

20. Fun over simulation

21. flattening the power curve allows GM larger greater diversity of legitimate opponents

21b. (Online-Tabletop - depending on quality)

22. extended sweet spot

To be fair - Don't Likes

1. 1-1-1 movement
2. elimination of non-adventurer skills. I'll just houserule them back in and give PC's an extra proficient skill.