4e rules will make some games much harder to run

[catsclaw227]

Now we do gridded combat in almost every system. It takes less work for me as the DM and has cut down arguments by an order of magnitude, but it definitely takes everyone out of character and reduces the immersion alot.

We use the battlemats for combat and enjoy the tactical part of the game, but we equally enjoy the role-playing aspect of RPGs.

In my group's case, we do battle about 40% of the time and 60% role-playing so the figs are out on the table only when we need to snap from first person to third person and play the tactical part of the game. We don't miss any immersion at all, though. We view D&D as a TRPG (tactical rpg) and acknowledge the fact that we can fully enjoy our role-play scenes and also get a battle-mat fix in the same game.

Yes, it requires a bit of a paradigm shift - D&D is not just an RPG, but also a tactical game - but I believe once this is accepted the game becomes much better.

And it makes all the "D&D is not an RPG" arguments moot.

 

[entrerix]

I REALLY like the above suggestion to use the warlord powers as an even greater chance to add cinematic descriptions to the scene, instead of the warlord "sliding the enemy two squares", he kicks him against the bookshelf/hurls him over the table/launches him across the room... way more fun sounding, and it still effectively means "Bad guy A is now further away than he was last turn"

 

[Li Shenron]

If you wanted to play the game as written, it was already difficult in 3e.

We have actually played 3e without a battlemat and quite successfully, but if you want to do that you have to give up some precision in things such as spell areas, weapon/spell ranges, cover and AoOs from movement.

I believe that a gaming group must have a certain maturity in order to be able to play that way, because it requires a bigger effort in terms of trusting each other (players trusting DM, and DM trusting players). You cannot expect to get it perfectly right every time, so you have to accept that sometimes there'll be an AoO when it shouldn't have, or there won't be one when it should, etc.

Perhaps the key point is to become able to see this lack of precision as an added realism, or an added randomness besides that of the dice.

To play without a battlemat, 3.0 is slightly easier than 3.5, which is probably going to end up being easier than 4e. Quite obviously, the more the game is designed around precise measurements, the more you need a battlemat.

 

[Mr Jack]

if anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, or houserules they want to share please do!

Use minatures. No, seriously. 3.x was designed to be used with minatures and plays better with them. 4th looks to be even further down the path back to the roots of D&D. If you're going to play D&D stop fighting it and play the system the way it was designed to be played (and plays best) or stop playing D&D and pick up one of the many, many systems out there which are designed to be played without minatures.

You don't have to spend lots of money on it, just grab a load of coins and put stickers on them - they work just as well.

 

[jaelis]

if anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, or houserules they want to share please do!

You can see the similar discussion here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=221699

 

[EATherrian]

Recycled concern from 3E. If your 3E game didn't suffer from not using a mat, I don't see how your 4E game will suffer.

I can't imagine not using some sort of mat. Distance is always going to be a factor for someone (archer, anyone? Spellcaster?) and y'all must never get into arguements like 'I said I was going behind the tree to take cover'.

True, but I was forced to use a map board in 3E also. It was too difficult in the group I was with, which admittedly had too many true wargamers, to get by without it. I'm seeing it even worse in 4E.

 

[Lizard]

Honestly, I can't see anyone who was comfortable w/3e's combat being uncomfortable w/4e's. 3e relied on flanking, attacks of opportunity, reach, and all the rest very heavily, and if you didn't use a battlemat and just fudged those things, you were probably unbalancing characters with feats/abilities that relied on positioning.

 

[Zimri]

We don't normally use a battlemat at our gaming table, mainly because our gaming table IS the living room with everyone on couches, the floor, standing, getting Mt Dew or snacks etcetera. Even when we are at the kitchen table the space that could be the battlemat usually has books or food or both on it.

I agree with others that have said immersion for us comes up lacking with a mat.

That having been said the 4e rules don't look much harder to me. We have plenty of combat now where it's the party vs more than the party in enemies and quite honestly the "If you attack this guy I can give you a plus 5 bonus then if/when he dies I can slide you over to this guy to flank with the rogue" doesn't sound overly complex.

Looks to me EXACTLY like "if you could manage it in 3.x you can manage it in 4"

 

[jolt]

Honestly, I can't see anyone who was comfortable w/3e's combat being uncomfortable w/4e's. 3e relied on flanking, attacks of opportunity, reach, and all the rest very heavily, and if you didn't use a battlemat and just fudged those things, you were probably unbalancing characters with feats/abilities that relied on positioning.

More true for 3.5 than 3.0. We never used a battlemat until 3.5. We had played D&D for 20+ years without a battlemat and saw no need in 3.0. The rules for things like AoO's and such in 3.0 were so poorly written that you were pretty much guessing your way through it half the time anyway (and I didn't feel like investing a lot of $ in minis either at the time and using copper pennies and whatnot seemed less immersive to us rather than more).

With 3.5 we switched over to a battlemat and it was okay but I agree with the previous poster; the battlemat made some things easier but was much less evocative. When we realised that it was the evocative nature of D&D that kept us playing, we moved on to other things (we get our tactical fix from other sources; we neither needed nor wanted D&D to try and provide it for us).

As D&D forces the tactical nature more and more I think you are going to find it harder (though not impossible) to play without such aids.

I would suggest moving on to another game if it presents a significant problem for you or staying if it doesn't. How much extra work are you willing to do to play the game in a way that they aren't presenting? It was initially hard for us to move away from a game we had been playing since the '70's but when the game, company, and part of the community make you feel unwelcome, it suddenly isn't so hard anymore.

jolt

 

[Peter LaCara]

Well, we've got the DDXP characters and a whole bunch of monsters. Has anyone tried running it without a map yet?