D&D 4E 10 Things I Like in 4e
- Thread starter HyrumOWC
- Start date
shadowguidex
First Post
I have been a dungeon master for years and haven't played all that much since the early days of 2E, but here is my list for 4E:
1) The ease of monster creation - make what I envision not what the numbers dictate. I love making and modifying monsters on my own, and the new rules make it sooo much more fun and easy.
2) The addition of quest experience to allow a story driven campaign rather than entirely monster killing campaign. I have grown so unhappy with the CR experience system that I ditched experience in general a long time ago, and I tell the players when their characters level.
3) The removal of spell-like abilities which are usable 1/day. These always sucked and never allowed original MM monsters to incorporate later books spell lists.
4) The simplification of the skill system that utilizes only the skills that are necessary to a party of heroic adventurers. I never cared about farming or professions, and I hated that stealth was 2 skills. The new system is so much more intuitive and useful to my designs.
5) Minions. I love minions. I will have my group fight oodles of minions because I love it. Love it - and so will they.
6) Spontaneous actions are the bomb. I love that actions on the battlefield actually seem to effect everyone. Currently most characters are on an island until their next turn. Now they will always be focused and paying attention to the tactics of the combat to utilize those unique times when they get an advantage.
7) Combat Advantage - Simplifying all the silly effects into a single catch-all term and effect is brilliant but not dumbing it all down. I hate looking at the back of the DMG for the exact effects of Frightened or Dazed for the 100th time.
8) The heartiness of low level characters. I hate having lame encounters for levels 1-3 that don't seem interesting or challenging simply because I don't want half my group to die and reroll after spending 6 hours discussing who is gonna play what.
9) Less die rolling. My group is high level, and it can take _forever_ for an entire round to complete. My warriors get four attacks, possibly having to confirm criticals hits, calculating extra damage from rages, smites, special items, is the weapon two-handed, am I power attacking....ugh...too much time involved in making 4 attacks all of different attack bonuses.
10) The defenses. I love that everything attacks defenses rather than having my group roll their saves. I think this is the best modification to the core DD ruleset that has been introduced since the removal of Thac0.
1) The ease of monster creation - make what I envision not what the numbers dictate. I love making and modifying monsters on my own, and the new rules make it sooo much more fun and easy.
2) The addition of quest experience to allow a story driven campaign rather than entirely monster killing campaign. I have grown so unhappy with the CR experience system that I ditched experience in general a long time ago, and I tell the players when their characters level.
3) The removal of spell-like abilities which are usable 1/day. These always sucked and never allowed original MM monsters to incorporate later books spell lists.
4) The simplification of the skill system that utilizes only the skills that are necessary to a party of heroic adventurers. I never cared about farming or professions, and I hated that stealth was 2 skills. The new system is so much more intuitive and useful to my designs.
5) Minions. I love minions. I will have my group fight oodles of minions because I love it. Love it - and so will they.
6) Spontaneous actions are the bomb. I love that actions on the battlefield actually seem to effect everyone. Currently most characters are on an island until their next turn. Now they will always be focused and paying attention to the tactics of the combat to utilize those unique times when they get an advantage.
7) Combat Advantage - Simplifying all the silly effects into a single catch-all term and effect is brilliant but not dumbing it all down. I hate looking at the back of the DMG for the exact effects of Frightened or Dazed for the 100th time.
8) The heartiness of low level characters. I hate having lame encounters for levels 1-3 that don't seem interesting or challenging simply because I don't want half my group to die and reroll after spending 6 hours discussing who is gonna play what.
9) Less die rolling. My group is high level, and it can take _forever_ for an entire round to complete. My warriors get four attacks, possibly having to confirm criticals hits, calculating extra damage from rages, smites, special items, is the weapon two-handed, am I power attacking....ugh...too much time involved in making 4 attacks all of different attack bonuses.
10) The defenses. I love that everything attacks defenses rather than having my group roll their saves. I think this is the best modification to the core DD ruleset that has been introduced since the removal of Thac0.
Trainz
Explorer
1- No more iterative attacks
2- Reach and AoO lessened, occur much less frequently
3- At-will/encounter/dailies
4- Races mad more significant with more useful/defined abilities
5- No more gnomes (at least in first PHB)
6- No more Druids (at least in first PHB)
7- Ranger actually a viable choice on it's own
8- Less reliance on magic items for character abilities/survivability
9- Easy to use monsters
10- Back to basics XP calculation
NOW... I fear I must be a party pooper and mention a few things I strongly hate about 4th ed, and will probably be house-ruled away IMC:
1- Micromanagement of combats (marks, 1 round duration minor effects, minor effects applied to single friends/foes...)
... no, there's just that. It's the ONE THING lovers and haters almost unanimously agree on. They have simplified/streamlined/enhanced about everything else, it is self-defeating to throw in these potential complications and ruin what could have been a hole in one.
2- Reach and AoO lessened, occur much less frequently
3- At-will/encounter/dailies
4- Races mad more significant with more useful/defined abilities
5- No more gnomes (at least in first PHB)
6- No more Druids (at least in first PHB)
7- Ranger actually a viable choice on it's own
8- Less reliance on magic items for character abilities/survivability
9- Easy to use monsters
10- Back to basics XP calculation
NOW... I fear I must be a party pooper and mention a few things I strongly hate about 4th ed, and will probably be house-ruled away IMC:
1- Micromanagement of combats (marks, 1 round duration minor effects, minor effects applied to single friends/foes...)
... no, there's just that. It's the ONE THING lovers and haters almost unanimously agree on. They have simplified/streamlined/enhanced about everything else, it is self-defeating to throw in these potential complications and ruin what could have been a hole in one.
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
No one in either of my playtests, including me as the DM, had any difficulty keeping track of those micromanagment issues you mentioned and none of the players(none of whom visit this board) even mentioned it - they just kept track of what they had marked/buffed(usually never more than 1 or 2 things) and let other players know when asked. Maybe it's just 1st level, but even without marking it, I could remember pretty much all of it even in fights with a dozen enemies...
Have you playtested it? I did before I had read any posts on the difficulty of keeping track of all that stuff and still find it surprising when I see it come up.
Have you playtested it? I did before I had read any posts on the difficulty of keeping track of all that stuff and still find it surprising when I see it come up.
Trainz
Explorer
Iron Sky said:
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...
RigaMortus2
First Post
HyrumOWC said:
I can't wait to see how they impliment this. I sounds like it might be a little MORE complicated than the CR system IMHO. We don't yet know how it works, but my current assumption is that they will have a list of abilities you can plop onto an NPC, and they are worth x amount of XP. Kinda like how when you add templates and levels to NPCs in 3.5, it ups their CR.
So the reason I think it might be tricker is, not all abilities are created equally. How do you calculate how much one ability is worth over the other?
I sort of envision a list of common abilities categorized by role (ie strikers are more often to takes these types of abilities). I could be way off here, but that would make it easier on the DM to create. Just keep plopping on abilities until you get your XPs worth. But I think it might be tricky on balancing.
Anyway, thats all speculation since we don't know the specifics on how an NPC is really going to be built. I just hope they do it right, and we don't have another CR system just with different dressing.
The 3E CR system was a "guideline" and not hard and fast rules. I hope they don't give us the same disclaimer with 4E NPC design. I hope there is a little more science behind it, so to speak
Li Shenron
Legend
shadowguidex said:
Huh? Daily abilities are everybody's norm in 4e. I guess that monsters will generally have LESS 1/day abilities, BUT all the encounter abilities and the daily abilities of a monster (and you can be sure most monsters will have these, in addition to at-wills) are pretty much the same as the previous 1/day SLA.
Li Shenron
Legend
1) A higher limit on the number of encounters you can have in a day
2) Fixed XP per monster, no calculation needed
3) No spell components
4) No ASF
5) Many spell durations easier to keep track of
6) Reach weapons that can be used against adjacent opponents, but don't threaten beyond
7) Lowered importance of magic equipment
8) Grapple simplified
...still 2 missing...
2) Fixed XP per monster, no calculation needed
3) No spell components
4) No ASF
5) Many spell durations easier to keep track of
6) Reach weapons that can be used against adjacent opponents, but don't threaten beyond
7) Lowered importance of magic equipment
8) Grapple simplified
...still 2 missing...
Masquerade
First Post
1) Will/Encounter/Day
2) Magic items are not as tightly tied to the system
3) Powers for everyone
4) At-will powers usually replace your standard attack
5) Easier to gauge which/how many monsters the PCs should be fighting
6) Heroic tier
7) Fighter as a class with unique attributes
8) Fixed HP
9) Daily powers give PCs an ultimate technique/limit break/final smash
10) Races whose mechanics are as interesting as their fluff
2) Magic items are not as tightly tied to the system
3) Powers for everyone
4) At-will powers usually replace your standard attack
5) Easier to gauge which/how many monsters the PCs should be fighting
6) Heroic tier
7) Fighter as a class with unique attributes
8) Fixed HP
9) Daily powers give PCs an ultimate technique/limit break/final smash
10) Races whose mechanics are as interesting as their fluff
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