D&D 4E 4E Liker - anything you worry about?

[Caliber]

My players already know that my Forgotten Realms campaign will not allow Eladrin, Tiefling, or Dragonborn. I want to stick to Humans, Halflings, Dwarves, Half-Elves, and Elves until I can personally introduce each of the new races into the game with the correct flavor and social structures.

In time, if someone dies and wants a new character, or we begin a new or second campaign, I will allow races that have been introduced.

Tiefling and Dragonborn, sure (although Tiefling at least, DO exist in 3E FR, albeit in a somewhat different form) but Eladrin are essentially one of FR's subraces (Moon? Gold? Grey, maybe? I was never good with the Elves ...)

They're already in!

 

[Chimera]

Not that "humans in funny suits" is necessarily bad, of course.

To me it is. I find it equally annoying in scifi. It's an alien race. Play it as alien. If you're going to play it as human, play a bloody human already!

Also, you can always talk to your players if the "dwarf stats, but human" solution doesn't work for you, and say: "There will be consequences... like friendly neighborhood lynchings." Hopefully they're okay with that, or honest, or reasonable, but you're playing with them, so that's your problem if they aren't.

Unfortunately, whining knows no reasonable limits.

True Life Conversation, August 2003:

Me: Human, Dwarf, Gnome or Halfling only. Everything else is "monster".
Bob: Can I play a half-ogre?
Me: No, he'd be a monster and everyone would try to kill him.
Bob: How about a half-dragon.
Me: NO. Dragons are evil slavers and everyone would try to kill him.
Bob: Then I want to play a half-troll.
Me: You aren't listening, are you? How about You Don't Play?

Repeat, August 2006:

Me: Human, Dwarf or Halfling only. Half-Orc only if you like being hated, because Orcs are a local enemy.
Brad: I want to play a Half-Orc Monk/Cleric, but it can't be of any of your gods. I want to make up a new one. And he'll be the face of the group. (And I want to make up new feats for him, because the 100+ that already exist aren't enough!)
Me: New feats, Hated half-orc, unknown god....somehow "face"? FAIL.
Brad: WHINE!!!!

 

[Dragonblade]

I have three fears:

1 - That some relic of the old school "screw the players" mentality has survived in some form from editions past. Disjunction, rust monsters, level drain, etc.

2 - That scrying, long range teleport, and divination spells will still drive me nuts.

3 - That combats will take too long. This fear is actually born from my playtesting of 4e. I understand the reason to boost monster hps. So they don't become one round wonders. But while I feel every combat should last at least 3 rounds, no combat, except an epic boss battle, should last more than 8-10 rounds or so. Thats enough for every player to use every encounter power, plus a couple at-wills or a daily.

In my playtests, we had a couple fights go beyond 10 rounds. The players were all out of powers, and the combat started to drag on and get boring. I think this can be managed by a good DM, but I have a feeling that I will be reducing monster HP so they can be killed faster. Especially if I use higher level monsters than the party's level.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

3 - That combats will take too long. This fear is actually born from my playtesting of 4e. I understand the reason to boost monster hps. So they don't become one round wonders. But while I feel every combat should last at least 3 rounds, no combat, except an epic boss battle, should last more than 8-10 rounds or so. Thats enough for every player to use every encounter power, plus a couple at-wills or a daily.

In my playtests, we had a couple fights go beyond 10 rounds. The players were all out of powers, and the combat started to drag on and get boring. I think this can be managed by a good DM, but I have a feeling that I will be reducing monster HP so they can be killed faster. Especially if I use higher level monsters than the party's level.

That's an interesting observation. I am not sure yet how this will work out in the long term (especially considering that people will gain levels and experience might change sometimes), but I guess it's a wise idea to think about it at an early time.

Ideas from me:
- Don't let your NPCs fight till the bitter end. If you have the feeling the combat drags on, but is actually already decided, have the NPCs retreat or surrender. Doesn't work for all monsters. In a way, this is reducing their actual hit points, with the "benefit" of the players now having to decide how to handle prisoners or escapees.
- Don't put all your cards on the table. Try to have further combatants enter at a later time If this happens often enough, players might use their encounter powers later, in fear of reeinforcements.
- Interesting Terrain features can possibly help to add options to a combat that can be used after encounter powers are used, or be used instead of encounter powers in the beginning.

 

[hong]

Some kind of in-battle recharge mechanic could also be useful, if long encounters become a problem.

Hmm... recharge powers up your anima banner....

 

[Dragonblade]

That's an interesting observation. I am not sure yet how this will work out in the long term (especially considering that people will gain levels and experience might change sometimes), but I guess it's a wise idea to think about it at an early time.

Ideas from me:
- Don't let your NPCs fight till the bitter end. If you have the feeling the combat drags on, but is actually already decided, have the NPCs retreat or surrender. Doesn't work for all monsters. In a way, this is reducing their actual hit points, with the "benefit" of the players now having to decide how to handle prisoners or escapees.
- Don't put all your cards on the table. Try to have further combatants enter at a later time If this happens often enough, players might use their encounter powers later, in fear of reeinforcements.
- Interesting Terrain features can possibly help to add options to a combat that can be used after encounter powers are used, or be used instead of encounter powers in the beginning.

These are all great ideas. I plan on using variations of all of them. I may also house rule some kind of power refresh mechanic like hong mentioned. But I want to see and play with the full rules for a few months before I house rule something that may have unforeseen balance consequences.

 

[Jack99]

These are all great ideas. I plan on using variations of all of them. I may also house rule some kind of power refresh mechanic like hong mentioned. But I want to see and play with the full rules for a few months before I house rule something that may have unforeseen balance consequences.

Depending on your players, you can also most likely assume that the characters they create will be a good deal more effecient than the pre-generated ones.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Fear: Scaling is done in such a way that level 30 feels like level 1, just with bigger numbers.

I don't think this will occur. Remember, at the higher level tiers, more options will open up. Not only will you have more powers to select from during combat, they will (hopefully) be more varied. Paragon paths and epic destinies should add some newness to each tier. You can only access certain magic items at certain tiers (magic rings at level 11) which will open more options. You'll start to see monsters with more deversified attacks. At heroic levels, invis and teleport will not be available, but at the higher tiers, those are things you're going to have to deal with (monsters flying, teleporting and attacking invisibly).

 

[MarauderX]

My biggest concern is that only ONE person has done the final number mechanics as far as balance - Bill Slavisek. As admitted by several employees of WotC, there is no third party double-checking the numbers, and limited backchecking has been done internally. In most professional fields this is unsettling.

 

[Lizard]

I hope there's some mechanic governing casting regularity of rituals besides just cost. I'd like to get as far away from the looting mentality as possible, and that means downplaying the importance of gp.

So, 4e is precisely tuned around "Kill things and take their stuff", and you want to cut out "take their stuff"? So, what, that's a double helping of "kill things"?

Back in my old gaming group, "adventurer" was a verb, meaning "to go over with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything of even theoretical value".

For example:"When we got there, the corpse had been adventurered. There was barely anything left to identify it by. Even the teeth had been taken on the off-chance they could be components for some obscure spell."

(I kid. Slightly.)

And one of the first supplements for 4e is going to be "The Big Book Of Stuff You Take After You Kill Them".

With no XP costs, gold costs are pretty much the only obvious control[1] on rituals...that or something like 'one ritual a day', but since it looks like anyone with the right feat can use them (and I can't imagine NOT taking that feat given how much functionality is now ritual), you still have five rituals a day in a standard adventuring party. (Scry, buff, teleport, and two more for good measure...)

I strongly suspect "Loot the corpse!" will be the 4e battle cry, just as it was the 3e battle cry, the 2e battle cry, the 1e battle cry, the 'brown box' battle cry, the BECMI battle cry....

[1]Of course, you can control them easily. No ritual books -- just scrolls. "Scribe ritual scroll" becomes an NPC-only ability, just like "Use grappled foe as shield". Remember the 4e DMs motto for whiny PCs:"Sucks to be you!". Don't want PCs abusing rituals? Just dole out the scrolls as pure plot devices and don't let them ever learn any permanently or know how to make scrolls for them.