4e rules will make some games much harder to run

[Grazzt]

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.

Yep. Im guessing 4e can be played without minis and without mats. One of the guys on the Troll Lord Games forums (DangerDwarf) is trying out/playing 4e. And the last session they played, they didnt really use a mat or minis much at all.

Mid way down the page, here:

http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewt...&postorder=asc&start=15&mforum=trolllordgames

I can myself foregoing minis and mats sometimes. I didnt use them all the time in pre-3.x, and definitely didnt use them all the time in 3.x. Sure lots of 4e is predicated on movement and positioning, but if the players are ok with abstractions then I am too. And I think we can make it work just fine

 

[Evenglare]

Ill throw in my 2 cents here, Basically we used to do this.

Throw down character representers (miniatures) . THATS IT. Never drew out anything, i describe the scene, we used the miniatures on the table, NO SQUARES or anything. We used this to know where our characters were in relation to one another. So you still get to use the imagination without drawing out everything, and yet you still get your tactical combat. Everybody wins.

 

[Heselbine]

As someone who loves using minis I'm very interested to hear that so many people play without. Is there any chance one of you could do a detailed example of how it plays? I'm struggling to imagine how you keep track of everything.

 

[Regicide]

In one 3E campaign we use miniatures, in the other we don't. It works fine in 3E with or without. 4E is completely impractical to not use miniatures.

3E you had to deal with generally 1 to 8 monsters and all you had to care about was flanking and attacks of opportunity and occasionally an area of effect from the wizard, short of bull rush when a player or mob moved that was where it stayed until it's next action.

In 4E you have to deal with 10-20 monsters and every single one can shift or mark or has an aura or burst power or the players can shift them several squares several times a turn and every player has an area of effect power. In KoTS the dragonshields would be fodder without a map to handle all their shifting, or to keep track of how many are on each target for pack tactics and to keep track of who is marked by who etc.

WotC wants to sell miniatures. Surprise.

 

[Henry]

I'm struggling to imagine how you keep track of everything.

I'm guessing they don't, and that's the secret. If the group is in tune with what they're doing, the DM and players can probably guesstimate what is going on, op-attacks, etc. with the players trusting the DM as to adjudicating who is in range to get hit by what, etc. I also suppose ignoring or eliminating powers and effects that depend on op-attacks help, too.

 

[AllisterH]

In one 3E campaign we use miniatures, in the other we don't. It works fine in 3E with or without. 4E is completely impractical to not use miniatures.

3E you had to deal with generally 1 to 8 monsters and all you had to care about was flanking and attacks of opportunity and occasionally an area of effect from the wizard, short of bull rush when a player or mob moved that was where it stayed until it's next action.

In 4E you have to deal with 10-20 monsters and every single one can shift or mark or has an aura or burst power or the players can shift them several squares several times a turn and every player has an area of effect power. In KoTS the dragonshields would be fodder without a map to handle all their shifting, or to keep track of how many are on each target for pack tactics and to keep track of who is marked by who etc.

WotC wants to sell miniatures. Surprise.

How do you get 10-20 monsters? In a standard encounter, you're facing one monster per PC.

The only time it would be different would be if you face a lot of minions but minions, like other monsters, are set by the DM. I would assume the DM would only use enough monsters they feel comfortable with.

As well, if the DM feels like the marking monsters are too troublesome, don't use them but use the other ones instead.

 

[Storminator]

I'm guessing they don't, and that's the secret. If the group is in tune with what they're doing, the DM and players can probably guesstimate what is going on, op-attacks, etc. with the players trusting the DM as to adjudicating who is in range to get hit by what, etc. I also suppose ignoring or eliminating powers and effects that depend on op-attacks help, too.

That's how it works in my Mutants and Masterminds game. Players ask if they can get to such and such a villain, and I decide if it would be a cooler scene if they get there now and whomp, or if they have to spend a turn running/flying/driving/swinging first to build tension.

Everything is "plot distance" apart, which works because everyone travels at "speed of plot." If you didn't (or couldn't!) trust your DM tho, that would be hell.

PS

 

[Dausuul]

I'm guessing they don't, and that's the secret. If the group is in tune with what they're doing, the DM and players can probably guesstimate what is going on, op-attacks, etc. with the players trusting the DM as to adjudicating who is in range to get hit by what, etc.

Pretty much. Playing with minis gets you used to the idea that everything is clearly defined and there's an objective, rules-based answer to every question, which can be resolved without recourse to the DM. Playing without minis requires one to break out of that mold.

Non-battlemat combat is much more loose and freewheeling, and involves a lot of on-the-fly judgement calls from the DM. Instead of the wizard carefully positioning her fireball on the grid, she asks, "How many can I hit with a fireball?" And the DM replies, "Three of them, or four if you're willing to hit the paladin as well." Then the wizard decides whether to fry three enemies, or four plus the paladin, or do something else, and the game moves on.

Now, when this happens, the DM is not consulting an elaborate mental map. He's just tossing off a number that "feels" right.

Opportunity attacks involve similar handwaving. Typically, a player will say, "I move up and attack the orc chieftain," and the DM will reply, "That's going to provoke two opportunity attacks from the grunts." Then the player can either say, "Okay, I'm doing it anyway," or, "Oh, then I'll attack one of the grunts instead."

It seems like it should be slower than miniatures-based combat, since you're asking the DM questions all the time, but my experience is that it actually goes faster. The time spent asking the DM stuff is more than compensated for by the time not spent counting off squares, figuring out exactly where to place spell effects, and plotting just how to move so as not to provoke AoOs.

As others have said, however, this style of play requires a lot of trust between players and the DM, because everything boils down to DM judgement calls. The players have to trust the DM to make those calls fairly. The DM has to trust that when a player says, "What? I didn't realize they were positioned like that... if I'd known, I wouldn't have done that," the player is telling the truth and not trying to fudge an advantage. If you have that trust, it's a fast-paced, immersive, and exciting way to play. If you don't, it will degenerate into a hellacious argument.

 

[see]

I have to disagree with Mr. Mearls, here.

The difference between 3.5 and 4 that makes it harder to not use a "battle mat" is that players can move their opponents. This requires the players to have a much more precise understanding of positioning of the opponents than in the sort of high-trust 3.5 game I ran in an text-only chat environment.

Granted, this works out to something minor like having to answer, "Is there a wide enough space between the forward brutes that I can use my power to pull the opponent wizard forward where the fighter can hit him with his sword?" But with the slowness of text chat, having to answer that sort of thing several times translates into a significant slowdown of the combat over 3.5, which was itself a slowdown over 2e.

Accordingly, I'm investigating online tabletop programs to decide if I'm even going to try to run 4e online.

 

[Regicide]

How do you get 10-20 monsters? In a standard encounter, you're facing one monster per PC.

The only time it would be different would be if you face a lot of minions but minions, like other monsters, are set by the DM. I would assume the DM would only use enough monsters they feel comfortable with.

As well, if the DM feels like the marking monsters are too troublesome, don't use them but use the other ones instead.

I base this on KotS.
[sblock]
Encounter
1. 12 monsters
2. 5
3. 13
4. 17 including an elite, a guaranteed TPK encounter
5. 7
6. 5 including a swarm
7. 5
8. 5
9. 14 including a named
10. 14

Thats about an average of 9 monsters per encounter, and no, minions don't vapourize on turn 1, playing no part, they've had a huge impact in our games. With 5 PCs you have 14 models to keep track of on average, half the time more.
[/sblock]