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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 4418189" data-attributes="member: 5834">reMy initial enthusiasm for 4E has cooled. I'm finding different problems than you state. I don't know that I feel like returning to 3.5, but 4E has some serious problems.1. 4E is too easy past 1st level: I felt challenged at 1st level. But now that my group is 2nd and 3rd level, they are mowing through most encounters even with me boosting numbers to account for six people. The players have more powers than the monsters and usually better powers. They crush the monsters with ease making the entire encounter feel like not much of a challenge. Encounter based powers allow for a full array of powerful attacks each enconter faced. Then combine that with dailies and action points and the party has a huge advantage over what they fight. So they end up crushing most encounters including solo encounters.They do eventually run out of healing surges, but it takes a while. As they level their healing surge value allows them to heal more efficiently while monster damage doesn't seem to be scaling with the character's hit points.Throw in magic item dailies and you have a party of adventurers that motors through just about anything they fight. The only time they had a close call was when a series of very unlucky rolls killed the cleric. And even then they managed to win even with the paladin out of Lay on Hands to start the fight.There are so many abilities that give temporary hit points or healing that the party seems almost unbeatable the majority of the time.2. The game is harder to run than 3.5: I kept hearing all this talk of 4E being so much easier to run and play than 3.5. That hasn't been my experience at all.It is easier to prep adventures. I give 4E that victory by a landslide.But running the game is a huge pain. Each round is like being bookkeeper for some fast moving business that buys and sells every few seconds. I have to keep track of every marked target. I have to keep track of every spell that lasts more than one round. I have to keep track of temporary hit points, modifiers to each creature, temporary damage on multiple creatures, temporary effects on multiple creatures, when certain things are bloodied, recharge checks each round for a monster with a recharge power, whether or not the monster used his recharge or encounter power, action point expenditure, ammo expenditure, on top of the usual hit points.Whoever said running 4E is easier than 3.5 wasn't speaking from experience. I know 3.5 well and there was nowhere near as much bookkeeping as their is for a 4E game on a combat to combat basis. This makes combat take quite a while as the player's level and gain more encounter powers. I had to rerun a whole combat because I screwed up on a powerful monster effect when a creature was bloodied that might have killed a party member if I hadn't forgot about it. Alot of little things to keep track of and remember running 4E. It slows the game as much as 3.5 supposedly slowed the game with too many rules.It seems to me there are just as many rules in 4E as 3.5. And way more combat to combat bookkeeping.And sometimes it doesn't help that minis are being used for battle. Minis have no numbers, so myself and the other DM sometimes make mistakes on who has been damaged and who hasn't in large combats because we don't recall what number a particular mini is.Love to hear some suggestions from other DMs on how they keep track of damage to a particular creature when they are using a mini with no number designation in a large scale combat. I know I get lost sometimes. It hasn't had a huge effect on the game, but it is a bit frustrating to have to keep careful track of all the movement when the minis look the same for multiple creatures. When I used numbers on a grid map, keeping track was much, much easier.Overall, I'm going to keep playing because my other players seem happy. But some of the luster of 4E has worn off for me. It is just another game system with different mechanics. Some I like, some I don't. I do know it isn't any easier to run than previous editions. There is a tremendous amount of bookkeeping for 4E. Even though it is resolved quickly, you have to be on top of every little change to make sure you aren't short changing anyone. That can bog down play quite a bit the more complex a particular group of monsters are. I never had this kind of problem in 3.5 when a spell either worked or it didn't, resolved in 1 round. An attack hit and did damage, end of story. So suffice it to say I'm not seeing the easier to play factor of 4E.I'm seeing the easier to start playing. But not shorter, less complex combats. I'm seeing the opposiite as my player's level. Harder to track, longer, more complex combats that require careful awareness of how each mini moves and what effects are in place on each person on the map. I'm beginning to long for simpler days.</blockquote>

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