D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 DM Considering 4E

I liked 3.5E and DM'd a 2 1/2 year long epic campaign that took the players from level 1 to level 18.

However, in the end, I was spending so much time preparing interesting, creative and unique encounters stocked with different bad guys that would challenge the players, the game's story/plot suffered because of it. Combat really dragged on forever because higher levels was all about buffing & debuffing (the party has a sorcerer, psion and cleric, among the 8 PCs) and recalculating everybody's AC, saves, to hits, etc with just about every spell that was cast. (Dodge Bonus, Armor Bonus, Luck Bonus, Divine Bonus, Deflection Bonus, and 3-4 others, at least)

I don't love 4E, but it is so much easier on me as a DM - the rules seem more intuitive, combats have been running far more quickly, and I spend maybe 5% of the time preparing encounters, and the other time I can spend developing NPCs, working on the story and planning out things for the long-term. So, while it's a different feel to the game, it's a world easier on the DM than 3.5E.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Ok, so I've been DMing for awhile and I keep getting tired of seeing great ideas and campaigns..... only for 4E. I am a 3.5 DM by nature and im very familiar with it.
-BUT-
I want to know some of the big differences between 3.5 and 4E, good things bad things, things to really consider, and major changes.
Now, i perused a 4E book once and after noticing that apparently that some alignments were missing and the whole planar system was rebuilt using some kind of "Primordial Chaos" crap i closed the book and said no way.
It has been a year i think since then and Im willing to give this a serious look but I really am afraid to do this alone.

Thanks in advance.

As far as the 'fluff' things go, alignment and cosmology:

As others have said, you can use 9 alignments if you want, there are ALMOST no mechanics based on alignment anyway, it is just a label that says "this is a REALLY bad guy, this is a bad guy, this guy goes either way, this is a good guy, this a REALLY good guy". For PCs it is basically meaningless, just RP.

The 4e cosmology actually has a bunch of nice things going for it. For one thing it actually mirrors classical mythology much more naturally than the 'Great Wheel' did. In Greek myth for instance the world was made by Cthonic deities and ruled by titans in the beginning, who were then overthrown by the Olympian gods who made the world into an ordered regulated place. 4e cosmology is fairly similar. The whole Primordial/Elemental Chaos vs Divine/Astral Sea dichotomy and struggle is a really natural story generator.

At a more practical level the 4e cosmos both delivers all the goods you could get with the Great Wheel but also more. It also gets rid of some redundancies. Instead of having 2 infinite hazy non-material planes (Astral and Ethereal) there is now just one, the Astral Sea. Instead of 6 elemental and however many para/semi elemental planes there is the Elemental Chaos. No more wondering why Cryonax wants to invade the Elemental Plane of Fire where he would pretty much instantly melt. The whole thing just makes more sense and allows for more combinations and interesting locations, plus you can drop all the old time locations in there too. The City of Brass is in a HOT FIRE part of the Elemental Chaos, which works fine.

Since there is no longer a rigid structure that MUST be filled out with a specific number of outer planes and can't have more or less there are more opportunities. You can simply create an Astral Domain that does what you want and you don't have to explain how it manages to fit into the rest of the planes.

The Feywild/Shadowfell also key into myth and legend pretty well. Previous cosmologies barely had any kind of room for Fairy Land, a major element of Western European myth and legend, 4e does. Likewise the Shadowfell works great for all kinds of dark corners of the universe/land of the dead/etc.

Again though, since game mechanics are not closely tied to the cosmology and can easily be refluffed (and the new cosmology really isn't THAT radically different in terms of what it does) there's no difficulty at all using the Great Wheel with 4e. 4e MotP even mentions this as an option.

I'd say the main thing I'VE perceived as a DM with 4e is that it is less constraining and easier to use. Lots of things that tended to break plots are more constrained, the cosmology is more open, game prep is streamlined, non-combat mechanics are much simpler and easier to use but cover more situations, etc. The game is pretty hard to break too. 3.5 broke easily. Unless you're really super sensitive about the very last +1 in 4e you'll find that messing around with stuff or inventing some way for a PC to do some new thing you thought of won't really break anything much.
 

My novella about my experience with it.

I don't like the fluff, the pantheons, the cosmology and a lot of the playable races that are in core books and monster manuals, chief being Tieflings and Dragonborn. The Points of Light setting I don't like. I've played within it and I don't like it.

Mechanically, everything is very "balanced." Unfortunately, to get there it seems there is very much a blandness and a sameness in the system. This is particularly galling if you just start core. Everybody is roughly the same power wise, but from powers and utilities and equipment and the like they are basically the same.

Durability is up from being to end. That is good and bad. Good in that players last longer, bad in the sense that it can sometimes feel as if both players and opponents are toothless and not really threatening one another. It just seemed very difficult for a DM to do something that would put us in a "Death Is On The Line In 6 Seconds Or Less" situation. About a year's worth of playing and it was way less tense than 3.5

Healing surge is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Not for the fact that it exists, but for the fact that is such an all prevalent mechanic and driving focus of the game. Magical healing is much less about magical healing and MUCH MUCH MORE about doing crap with healing surges. Spend 1, spend 1 but make it count as 2, spend 1 and it heals more but it takes longer, have a friend spend one at range and if the friend hits, you can spend one, too! Do this and that and get one back! Everything is about the effing healing surges.

Between starting Surges, Con modifiers, player abilities and equipment it is pretty easy for just one character to be spending more than a dozen of them a day. I came into 4E from Wizard's dry run of 4E, their SAGA system for the Star Wars RPG, you got one a day. 1. And it was a big, big deal to get 2 or 3.

Another fundamental assumption? Sliding, pushing, pulling and terrain effects galore. It isn't possible to play this without a grid and miniatures and a big time consideration on where you are on a map, why you are there, and what it means. It is really healing surge and terrain driven and that just doesn't jive with me too well.

Finally, the magic sucks. It is pretty much ranged attacking with status conditions thrown on it. I'm not really quite sure what it is, but I don't consider it to be anything that has represented magic in about 30+ years of Dungeons and Dragons and d20 magic. Remember, you aren't a spell caster. You are a "controller." This dovetails into the stupid roles stuff which seems taken straight from MMORPGS and is not similar to the old D&D experience for me. The rituals are terrible as well.
 
Last edited:

I guess I could say 3.5 and earlier was "all about Cure Light Wounds and Healing Potion". You know, no healing happens without that cleric, or else your just expected to keep chugging these bad tasting expensive bottles of liquid, but if you do, you just about have infinite hit points! ;)

Anyway, tastes vary.
 

My novella about my experience with it.

I don't like the fluff, the pantheons, the cosmology and a lot of the playable races that are in core books and monster manuals, chief being Tieflings and Dragonborn. The Points of Light setting I don't like. I've played within it and I don't like it.

Yes, they changed it now it sucks. And are you really objecting to the playable races in the 4e monster manuals after 3e? Seriously?

Mechanically, everything is very "balanced." Unfortunately, to get there it seems there is very much a blandness and a sameness in the system. This is particularly galling if you just start core. Everybody is roughly the same power wise, but from powers and utilities and equipment and the like they are basically the same.

Right. So a small fireball that explodes over people is the same as hitting them over the head with an axe just because you roll to hit with both. Shooting someone with a bow is the same as hypnotising them to hit someone else.

Basically the same. Right. Or do you mean that the system no longer gets in the way and you can write the mechanics of a power in a couple of lines rather than half a dozen. And a character sheet contains everything you need for the character.

Durability is up from being to end. That is good and bad. Good in that players last longer, bad in the sense that it can sometimes feel as if both players and opponents are toothless and not really threatening one another. It just seemed very difficult for a DM to do something that would put us in a "Death Is On The Line In 6 Seconds Or Less" situation. About a year's worth of playing and it was way less tense than 3.5

When did you play? They raised monster damage because they were weak. But a deliberate design decision was to change things from "Oh :):):):). Frank just died." To "Oh :):):):). Frank will be dead in ten seconds if we don't pull our fingers out." One of my 4e campaigns had multiple wipes (four I think) and I've killed as many PCs in a 1 year 4e campaign once/fortnight as had died in the whole of 3e for that group playing every week.

Healing surge is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Not for the fact that it exists, but for the fact that is such an all prevalent mechanic and driving focus of the game. Magical healing is much less about magical healing and MUCH MUCH MORE about doing crap with healing surges. Spend 1, spend 1 but make it count as 2, spend 1 and it heals more but it takes longer, have a friend spend one at range and if the friend hits, you can spend one, too! Do this and that and get one back! Everything is about the effing healing surges.

Special pleading. In 3e every aspect of magical healing is about doing crap with hit points. In 4e it's a mix of "first aid" hit point manipulation and "deeper problem" healing surges. Hit points themselves are a joke. You hit but are not hit and the only hit that matters is the final one. But for that to work the healing rates are seriously wonky. Healing surges are a measure of stamina and make the game play out like a holywood action film. The hero gets knocked around cut, bruised, and dazed. And seems out of it. But by the next scene the damage is seldom getting in his way. But that doesn't mean he can't take so much damage he can barely keep going - running out of surges. Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Look how battered Indy gets. Watch Die Hard. It's that aesthetic and it works. If you're going for gritty, hit point rules are a joke anyway.

Between starting Surges, Con modifiers, player abilities and equipment it is pretty easy for just one character to be spending more than a dozen of them a day.

And here you've drifted far further into the realm of special pleading. In 3.X it was pretty easy for a tank to spend more than a hundred hit points in a day - one wand of Cure Light Wounds used to cost 750GP (less if you crafted it) and contain an average of 275hp. And could be cast on the fighter until it ran out.

Another fundamental assumption? Sliding, pushing, pulling and terrain effects galore. It isn't possible to play this without a grid and miniatures and a big time consideration on where you are on a map, why you are there, and what it means. It is really healing surge and terrain driven and that just doesn't jive with me too well.

4e goes for tactical combat and does it well. If you want quick combat, avoiding 4e, 3e, and AD&D is probably wise. Basic isn't that bad. Neither is Tunnels and Trolls.

Finally, the magic sucks. It is pretty much ranged attacking with status conditions thrown on it. I'm not really quite sure what it is, but I don't consider it to be anything that has represented magic in about 30+ years of Dungeons and Dragons and d20 magic.

That hass something to do with Dungeons and Dragons magic not being representative of anything except Dungeons and Dragons magic. For all AD&D magic calls itself "Vancian", 4e magic is closer to the Tales of the Dying Earth. Wizards have only half a dozen spells at once at most. (Most 1st level 3e wizards can manage this). And get by with general competence, strength, stamina, and skill. Famous mages like Merlin and Gandalf were bards in D&D terms (literally in Merlin's case), using skill, lore, and trickery as much or more than raw magical power. And when facing the Balrog Gandalf drew his sword, not blasted it.

Yes, it's a break from classic D&D casting. But it's one that lines up with Jack Vance, lines up with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, lines up with Conan, and lines up with Lord of the Rings. The Wizard class that is all about spellcasting is pretty much a creation of D&D.

Remember, you aren't a spell caster. You are a "controller."

And here you're talking complete nonsense. Not all controllers are spellcasters - a Hunter Ranger is a controller and does it with clever shooting from his bow. And even if that wasn't the case, you are a spellcaster. You cast spells. You might as well say "You aren't driving a Harley. You are a 'motorcyclist'." And imply that the two are mutually exclusive.

Controller indicates what the character is meant to do. But says nothing about how.

This dovetails into the stupid roles stuff which seems taken straight from MMORPGS and is not similar to the old D&D experience for me.

Because the roles of Fighting man/Cleric/Magic User/Thief started with MMORPGs and aren't at all similar to anything in D&D. And the only role to have significantly changed between the classic Fighting man/Cleric/Magic User/Thief and the 4e categories of Defender/Leader/Controller/Striker is that of the Thief. (2e called the roles Warrior/Wizard/Priest/Rogue on page 25 of the PHB.

No, this grouping that has no direct effect on play is not at all like anything in older editions of D&D, no sir!

The rituals are terrible as well.

Closer to the source fiction. The Grey Mouser is a thief with the Ritual Caster feat. He just works that way in a way he doesn't in older editions. But this is the closest thing you've had to a point I can't rebut trivially.
 

I don't even mind 4E too much. I had played it for over a year but I haven't played in about a year but I haven't felt the need to make a living out of bashing it.

As a DM you'll love the monster scaling, that the characters are more similar, that a fight is much more of a known quantity, that you don't have to worry about characters oopsie daisy rolling a 1 on a save and dropping dead (I do like the changed save mechanic). I know some people might not get off on the settings or the feel or the mechanics of it entirely, but all DMs I've known said it takes prep time and cuts in half or less.
 

Refute trivially? It doesn't aesthetically or mechanically remain similar to more than 10 years of the past Dungeons and Dragons experience.

Tactical combat is fine, moving around on a hex map like a hockey puck is not. Healing surges are fine, a party spending 60 of them a day is not.

Do you really think that somebody using a magic item to heal is less believable or true to "source material" than having 15 "Oh look, I gained a significant portion of my starting health back!" I don't ever recall reading the Fadhrd and the Gray Mouser giving rousing speeches 10 times a day which magically repairs bites and claw attacks.

I wasn't aware that the damage was raised. I am aware that there are about 40 WOTC products and every last one of them required errata out the ying yang. Do it right the first time.

Other good things about it:
LA is gone. Racial HD are gone. Playable races for things like Pixie and Bugbear and the like are here and it is great.

The balance issues of the previous thing is cleared up. Full spellcasting is not insane anymore. The Fighter/Wizard chasm of power between the two has been rectified for the most part.

It isn't without its good things, it does plenty of things right, it just on the whole does things more wrong than right.
 

A few other differences that I didn't notice when reading the thread...

1. 4e eliminates the "Kill and loot" loop. Bad guys power are never based on the magic items they wield. In order to make an orc more challenging you don't have to give him magical equipment or spells. Instead there are multiple orcs listed in the Monster Manuals and you can choose those that fit the encounter you are building. Those orcs are assigned powers to reflect the special things they do, not items the party can loot themselves.

2. 4e also eliminates the process of adding player character class levels to monsters in order to make an orc wizard or bullywug rogue. Instead the different "jobs" of monsters are all preconfigured in the monster stat blocks.

3. Player characters can fairly easily go from dying to perfectly healthy in one or two rounds without using consumable magical items. They also have many more powers and abilities that interrupt the monsters turns than in 3e.

4. In 3e it was a pain in the butt keeping track of all the ongoing spells and spelllike abilities that were in place. In 4e there are a lot less of these ongoing effects that last a whole encounter however there are WAY MORE that just last a turn. Expect many turns (even low level) in 4e to go as below...

GM: Ok, this orc is going to attack your rogue.
Fighter: I have him marked, so he has to attack me or take a -2 and I get a free swing.
GM: Oh, well then he attacks you instead. *rolls low* He missed you horribly.
Bard: He fell over, too.
GM: What?
Bard: I shot him with my jinx shot last round so that if he missed his first attack he fell prone.
GM: OK then. *places figure on its side* Rogue, its your turn.

DS
 

Refute trivially? It doesn't aesthetically or mechanically remain similar to more than 10 years of the past Dungeons and Dragons experience.

Tactical combat is fine, moving around on a hex map like a hockey puck is not. Healing surges are fine, a party spending 60 of them a day is not.

Do you really think that somebody using a magic item to heal is less believable or true to "source material" than having 15 "Oh look, I gained a significant portion of my starting health back!" I don't ever recall reading the Fadhrd and the Gray Mouser giving rousing speeches 10 times a day which magically repairs bites and claw attacks.

What is a 'hit point'? When you take 8 points of damage because someone attacked you with a sword do you have sword stuck through your body? Hit points are abstract. They've always been abstract, and we all know that. Given an opportunity to rest up, bind a few 'flesh wounds' and maybe even employ some genuine healing magic you're able to go on, but not without having tapped into your ultimate reserves. I look at it like HS are more the gauge of how you're doing. Hit points means someone who can hammer on you enough quickly can kill you outright, but over time you can do a lot. That's cool. The most annoying thing I found in the old days in AD&D was just how fast your average party pooped out, hit them with a 5 or 6 attacks and off they ran to heal up.

I never thought the whole gulping potions and running to the cleric was terribly heroic or matches much with the idea I have in my mind of most fantasy either.

I wasn't aware that the damage was raised. I am aware that there are about 40 WOTC products and every last one of them required errata out the ying yang. Do it right the first time.

Eh, it is a very new design of game, and it isn't like the old monsters were exactly that bad. We played a lot of 4e before the damage increase. The new damage numbers ARE better, but it isn't like it is a matter of the game was 'wrong' before, it was just possible to improve it. In terms of other errata, I'm not really sure 4e has more errors than any other edition, nor more things that deserved to be fixed. They just are actually willing to fix them.

Other good things about it:
LA is gone. Racial HD are gone. Playable races for things like Pixie and Bugbear and the like are here and it is great.

The balance issues of the previous thing is cleared up. Full spellcasting is not insane anymore. The Fighter/Wizard chasm of power between the two has been rectified for the most part.

It isn't without its good things, it does plenty of things right, it just on the whole does things more wrong than right.

Eh, well, obviously a lot of it is matter of taste. I find that 4e works better than previous editions in most respects. I just don't share your dislike for the new mechanics. The game seems to me to be more fun than AD&D was. I can imagine some things being improved still, but there will never be a perfect game.
 

Refute trivially? It doesn't aesthetically or mechanically remain similar to more than 10 years of the past Dungeons and Dragons experience.
You know, I open up my AD&D1e PHB, and I see these spells that take more than a couple seconds to cast, that are as such clearly meant for non-combat use. They often include a material component. Then I open up my 4e PHB, and I see these spells that take more than a couple seconds to cast, that are as such clearly intended for non-combat use. They often include a material component. Hm...

Ah, that's right, the 1e PHB was made in '78. This being 2011, that means it doesn't qualify for the 10 year mark or the aforementioned 30 year mark. My bad.

Tactical combat is fine, moving around on a hex map like a hockey puck is not. Healing surges are fine, a party spending 60 of them a day is not.

Do you really think that somebody using a magic item to heal is less believable or true to "source material" than having 15 "Oh look, I gained a significant portion of my starting health back!" I don't ever recall reading the Fadhrd and the Gray Mouser giving rousing speeches 10 times a day which magically repairs bites and claw attacks.
Given that hit points, as well as the loss and restoration thereof, are abstract, it makes little sense for someone who isn't completely out to be that beaten up anyway. They've just lost willpower, luck, whatever plot protection you care to use. Of course, given that HP are abstract, there's no reason, other than sheer pig-headedness, to insist on narrating an Inspiring Word as flesh wounds knitting themselves up, as opposed to, say, something abstract. I seem to recall an awful lot of fantasy heroes(and other heroes, too) roughing it up for awhile, then making a comeback.
 

Remove ads

Top