11 Reasons Why I Prefer D&D 4E

[Henry]

This was a thread that needed to stay dead...threads based solely on edition wars are so 2008.

"I'm so 3 Thousand and 8, you're so 2 Thousand and late" - S. Ferguson, discussing her "Boom Boom Pow"

I mean if you're running a wilderness encounter, what's a wizard to do except make a nature check?

Give you an example of a skill check I came up with for an Eberron adventure I ran:

The party needed to search in hostile wilderness for a rock outcropping in the shape of a beholder. There were several checks that could help:

Nature - obvious, navigating in the wilderness, saving time with finding trails that allowed more panoramic views of the surrounding wilderness, the high ground, etc.

History - a successful check meant that someone could remember that in an old Goblin text was mentioned a "monument to the shunned ones", the old Goblin term for the aberrations of the Daelkyr they once fought.

Religion - The rock outcropping was the marker for a cave sacred to the Devourer, one of the Dark Six Gods, and some outlying geographic features were mentioned in the text.

Athletics - some agile little monkey like the Rogue or Fighter could climb the tallest trees periodically and look for any of the markers their trail and historical knowledge tell them should be present near the site. This was a "helper" skill check, one that gave a +2 to one of the other three.

If they failed to get four successes before two failures, they stumbled into a goblin ambush -- but one with clues that lead them closer to the rock outcropping they sought. If they succeeded, they made it to the outcropping without a hitch, and get the XP as if they fought the encounter and won.

 

[darjr]

Oh no... the poor wizard. If only he could light fires, or cast some 'thing' so that party members could endure the elements. WotC! The wizards, they do nothing!

 

[vagabundo]

I don't know if this is a thread jack But I've run 4e twice, two Living Forgotten Realms mods. So I can't comment on 4e 'home games'. That 4e is easy to run and Prep for is is most common 4e benefit mentioned for DMs that I've seen. but after skimming through the 4e DMG, I don't agree. I think skill challenges are "artificial" and at times you need a specific reason to create one. I mean if you're running a wilderness encounter, what's a wizard to do except make a nature check?

Also it wasn't clear about the rules for creating minions. It seems that 4e takes as long as or longer than 3e to prep games for.

Mike

It is a lot easier to prep for, trust me on this point. And the electronic tools from DDI make it ridiculous; almost a parody of my previous prep nightmares.

I cannot stress this point enough.

Skill challenges can be a challenge (hehe) to run, but they definitely add to the game in many ways. I think we're all still getting a handle on this set of mechanics - because they are so new it is very easy to run a bad skill challenge.