4e rules will make some games much harder to run

[jmucchiello]

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

I could never play with that DM. I would have a mental map of the combat and the first time the DM just tossed out a number that made no sense on my map I'd ask what creature moved? My sense of time and space is acute and it is not something I can turn off. It would always bug me. That has nothing to do with me trusting or not trusting the DM. It has to do with me. I've always played RPGs (all RPGs) on a battlemat because it removes arguments about who is where. I've played with too many folks who can't hold the battle mat in their head to do otherwise.

 

[Storminator]

I base this on KotS.
Encounter
SNIP!

You really ought to Spoilerize that.

PS

 

[Blackeagle]

If you didn't (or couldn't!) trust your DM tho, that would be hell.

If you don't trust your DM, then an RPG is hell, period, whether you're using a grid or not.

 

[entrerix]

hi all, op here after many weeks and now having tried the game without mini's. I ran my own scenario and everything worked out exactly like it did in the last 3.5 editions, except for because of "shifting" and "sliding" and all that stuff I ended up using phrases like

"the kobold slices at you with his shortsword and then quickly hops away, just out of arms reach"

or "the force from your attack knocks him back ten or 15 feet or so"

or (in the case of sliding/shifting your ally) "right after you make your swing you grab at the rangers shoulder and shove him into position at your side/back so you can't be flanked"

or "after cracking the orc over the head you kick him aside, which opens up a hole in the line that one of your allies can move into - who do you order to take the position?"

so while it does diminish the warlord class in particular to a slight degree, it still gets much of the point across to the players, and leads to some very exciting action scenes, with people being shoved and kicked and knocked around while slashing and bashing at the droves of enemies that keep coming in (minions)

and for people who were wondering recently, i posted earlier in the thread in detail about how we run games without mini's, and the level of cooperation and trust required. go back through and find it if you're interested

 

[2eBladeSinger]

"Don't play 4e then!" The best advice I've gotten all day. And here I've been wondering all this time how to find the best compromise between the literal rules a more open narrative playing style *feels silly* Sometimes the answer is right in front of us and I can't believe that I haven't seen it until now. I suppose this remedy works well for all sorts of issues 4e related:

Upset with the nerfed 2 weapon rules? Don't play 4e!
Dislike multi-classing options? Don't play 4e (play HERO instead)
Alignment got you down? No problem. Don't play.

I've already cancelled my order through Amazon.

Anyone looking for a Rolemaster or Hero Game in the California Central Valley?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My apologies if a thread like this exists and I didnt see it. After reading the new class powers, warlords in particular, it struck me that these rules will be much harder to accommodate in some games. Mine in particular.

Any groups which don't use a playmat/whiteboard/graph paper to chart out exactly where will have a hard time using rules like "slide opponent two squares" and such. I know its easy to say "just tell your players to imagine the kobold was knocked ten feet to the left", but I don't want to have to worry about keeping track of exactly how many feet away each enemy is, that's why we don't use a mat to begin with.

Freeform D&D has always dealt with this, since spells have explicit ranges, bows can only fire so far, and so on.

If this wasn't an issue before, it's not an issue now.

 

[AllisterH]

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.

Wouldn't this depend on class?

The rogue and the fighter definitely look like they use a lot of movement options either on themselves or the opposition whereas the warlord, cleric and the ranger seem somewhat bereft of these options mostly.

The warlock seems in-between the fighter and warlord whereas the wizard doesn't seem to have any at all.

If I was going gridless, I would actually restrict the amount of classes people would play or at the least, cut off the powers that focus on movement.

re: No of models
I think I was misunderstanding you. When you said 10-20 monsters, I thought you were referring to NPCs and NOT including PCs in that total.

However, as yourself pointed out, half of the time it will actually be 10 models and in fact, if you were overhelmed, you can actually decrease that number. Use elites and solos plus higher level monsters in the budget.

For a DM, for any standard encounter {defined in the DMG as laverage evel of party (+1)}, the numer of models can range from 1 (solo) up to 20 (all minions).

So, I don't think a DM has to be worried about keeping track of everything since by and large, the DM is the one that sets the encounters.

That would be another tip for running gridless. Use less monsters and focus on more elites/solos

 

[Old Gumphrey]

in the 39 years Ive been playing.

Good Lord, that's 12 years longer than I've been alive! *bow*

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Good Lord, that's 12 years longer than I've been alive! *bow*

Your name is false advertising, sir!

 

[Old Gumphrey]

You really thought I was old?

Nah there was an old Dragon mag that had "Old Gumphrey" in there, it was an NPC. I've used it in almost every campaign I've run since then.