D&D 4E 4E: What 3.x problem did it fix for you?

[Zelc]

I wrote this on another forum about the same question:

1. Magic is brokenly powerful. At level 20, characters based around hitting things are suddenly much much weaker than their reality-altering friends.

2. Polymorph effects are brokenly powerful. Shapechange and Polymorph Any Object are the worst offenders, but even Alter Self is VERY strong.

3. Magic causes problems. Related to #1, but besides sheer power, stuff like Scry-and-Fry (scry on target, teleport party on hapless victim, ambush, kill, teleport home) and Rope Trick (use up all your per-day resources in one or two fights, cast Rope Trick, safely take an 8 hour nap and reload) can really mess up a campaign.

4. Fighters sucked at higher levels sad.gif.

5. Combat at high levels take a lot of real time to resolve, but don't tend to last very long in-game (no more than 3 turns usually).

6. #5 means that any effect that removes a character from combat, like a Fear effect, means one player will sit there for 2 hours doing nothing.

7. At high levels, the sheer amount of modifiers make it very difficult to keep track of every little bonus and penalty. Even at lower levels, say the Fighter gets hit by a spell that reduces his strength. Since so many things are tied to ability scores, he'd have to recalculate a ton of different modifiers. This takes a long time and is prone to error.

8. At higher levels, gear is integral to a character's power level. Losing a +10 weapon is much much worse than death. It's not something you can shrug off either; a level 20 Fighter with a +1 weapon is perhaps on the same power level as a level 16 Fighter with a +10 weapon, all other gear equal.

9. NPCs require a great deal of time to stat out, putting a lot of workload on the DM.

10. Encounters are difficult to design. If you want to add a bunch of weak minions, for example, the encounter design guidelines means those minions will usually either be too tough defensively or too weak offensively. Putting in a single monster against the party is also a bad idea, since the party will have much more actions than the monster and spell effects can easily render that single monster very harmless.

 

[Foundry of Decay]

Hmm, I'll try to list the big ones that were solved for both myself and both of my players (for the most part.)

1. Magic System - I could never seem to get a game going due to annoyances over the magic system of 3.x. In fact it wasn't until recently that a player and I both realized that the reason I couldn't get a campaign to go for more than 4 or 5 sessions maximum was due to us all having to try and fiddle with the magic system.

We tried everything. We even tried making our own magic system and it got to the point where I started obsessing over the math end of using a 'point buy' version of magic that was done much better in the Psionics handbook (version 2.)

In fact, the arcane 'slot' magic system is the biggest reason why I just gave up for the longest time. One player refused to play any class that had a spellcasting feature as well, despite him *wanting* to play one now and then.

2. The Build System - By this I mean that with some exceptions, you had to build an enemy or npc (that required statting out) from the ground up. This might not have happened for everyone, but being able to mix and match things, not have to worry about skill points at all for enemies (want them to have +30 in tracking for some reason? Fine, they have +30), and generally seeing that I could make my own creatures up within certain guidelines were a boon.

I know I could do the same with 3.x, but sometimes creatures could end up broken, or with too many feats, or too few skill points or too little damage or immune to too much or *scream* it goes on like that.

3. Survivability - I used to have to do the 'kid gloves' thing for the first few levels of character's lives in 3.x. Meaning no orcs wandering around with great axes since one hit could drop someone, and one crit had a very good chance of utterly obliterating someone.

I admit, I was leery of the new crit system when I first read about it. No confirmation and only max damage seemed odd at first, but it works like a charm in actual play. I realize now just how bad it was to roll a 20 only to lose that big crit due to a bad secondary roll.

Crits doing max damage helps keep enemies around a bit longer too. I had the party fight a boss sorceress who was critted TWICE with two acid arrows, and hit with another spell and she still was able to cast the next round (but died soon after since those were some BIG hurts put in on the first round). In 3.x crits of that nature would have meant any caster would have been absolutely deconstructed and packed in an urn that first round.

Healing surges enter into this category as well. Mostly because I just like them. Very good idea having everyone able to use them.

4. Extended working day - My players and I had to basically write out any reasons why, after killing the guards in the first room in a castle, they could be allowed to rest without interruption because the mage or cleric were out of spells. Now we don't have to do that for the most part.

In fact, the 'lite' game I ran had the party go from the first room to the boss without resting more than 5 min. breaks, and there were 3 levels to the complex they were exploring. Probably 6 or 8 encounters total. It really was a breath of fresh air.

5. Saves as Defenses - I really like the fact that saves are defenses now. Less rolling.

That's my toss of the copper, anyway. There are probably more little things I'm not remembering though.

 

[AtomicPope]

So, for those who play-tested 4E, what issue did it resolve that you had issues with in 3.x?

It fixed Fighters. Plain ole, run of the mill, base class fighters. In every edition of DnD they didn't do their job - damage-dealing meat shield with tactical control. There was nothing a Fighter could do to stop monsters from moving around them (or over them) at low levels (often at high levels) to kill the real threats - Clerics and Wizards.

When PHB II was released it was obvious that they were trying to define combat roles:
* Beguiler = Controller
* Dragon Shaman = Leader
* Duskblade = Striker
* Knight = Defender

They tried to give Knights a "Taunt" ability but the problem is that it doesn't work on most monsters (Undead, Plants, Elementals, Oozes, Constructs, anything that also happens to be immune to Mind Affecting abilities).

A friend of mine tried to defend the Fighter as a powerful and viable class. I challenged him to build any level of Fighter and a lower level Duskblade would decimate him, often in a single round. More so, the Fighter needs gear to be successful but the DB does not. In every build he needed the best armor and weapons. Kinda sad when he's trying to defend the class and he's focused on gear instead of abilities.

 

[Fieari]

1) Tactics in combat now exist. There used to be none. The game was entirely strategic, and when the battle began, it was all down to a combination of prior planning, and sheer luck. At low and high levels, this was also EXTREMELY fatal. In combat, there weren't many meaningful choices to make.

I like strategy, and while we haven't seen a lot of it in 4e yet, I'm sure it still exists. But now there are tactics as well, and that's something 3.x lacked.


2) The first combat of the day is now as meaningful as the last. This to me is what "solving the 15 minute workday" means. Before, the first 3 combats were easy, and only after draining their resources did the combat really matter... that fourth battle will prove if the earlier three drained too many resources or not. But what fun is that? Especially when those three battles takes hours of real time to play out. They aren't interesting enough. 4e fixes this.


3) Everyone has interesting choices to make now. Before, it was more or less just the wizards making choices. Also, wizards are more reliable now, and require less looking up in the book to work, as their combat abilities are simpler to arbitrate, while the more complicated abilities are now relegated to out-of-combat only. I suppose you COULD perform a ritual in combat though... and that could make a neat set piece. The warriors defending the wizard who is frantically trying to finish the ritual while the invaders are closing in. When did that ever come up in 3.x?


4) High level play is easier to run. I play high level. I play almost exclusively high level. Trust me... the stories are fun, but in 3.x, the actual mechanics are a BEAST. And we run into the "all prep, no game" problem of strategy vs. tactics. And the battles are so swingy, based almost purely on initiative. Not much fun, even if the stories are. This is fixed in 4e.

 

[AtomicPope]

So, for those who play-tested 4E, what issue did it resolve that you had issues with in 3.x?

Hmm...


Come to think of it they've fixed a few other problems as well:

1) One type of Armor Class (AC) - I hate Touch, Flat Footed, Regular, Touch vs Incorporeal, AC vs Brilliant Energy. It's back to AC again.
2) No more "Weak Chins" - everyone has the ability to "shake off" some damage, catch a breather and get back in the fight. Less reliance on magical healing means more variety. Third edition was built around the necessary "healing gear", beit casters or wands.
3) Better Skill System - The Skill Point system is convoluted and ineffective. Every multiclass built requires you to start with your "Skill Class" first because that class will provide you with 25% or more of all the SP's you'll ever get. And you never have enough SP's.
4) No More Blanket Immunities - 3.x was loaded with Blanket Immunities, that laundry list of abilities that monsters are completely immune to ranging from Mind Affecting to Magic.
5) Back to 1st Edition - It seems like playing first edition in terms of simplicity. The classes are more focused (there's no longer the Specialist Wizard option or Fighter Kits). Classes have a role to play and that's what they do, only better than before.
6) Clerics kick butt - It's nice to have clerics that can attack without giving up their abilty to heal.
7) Monsters have an Inherent Strategy - Monsters are more than a mini-character to fight. Since characters didn't have well defined roles, monsters didn't either. In every edition of DnD the only difference between fighting Goblins and fighting Kobolds was their lair; now everything about them is different. You know when you've faced Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, or Hobgoblins. It's scary how well the monsters are designed.

 

[That One Guy]

Trap? Nope. Just honest curiosity. For me, for example, I like the simplified, more unified mechanics like using the Saving Throws like AC. And having wizards rely on crossbows when out of spells. Yeah, yeah, I could use houserules (and I do: I heart houserules !) but now I don't have to worry to much about scaring my players when I say, "check your e-mail to download the latest ruling on metamagic. Again. (Though to be fair, it's usually in their favor. What can I say? I'm a softy. Besides, I have an unlimited number of monsters to throw at them. Then there's Pun-Pun.... )

It's like the group of level one PCs who take 20 searching every door, huh?

I'm a fan of softy dms who throw down when they need to.

 

[drjones]

It has for the moment resolved the issue that I could never get a game together because noone was comfortable with their knowledge of 3.5 enough to want to play with our limited time.

 

[Timeboxer]

I play with mostly casual gamers, so as a result, in all my 3.5 games there's a lot of "What's the attack bonus for fireball?" and "Hold on, let me reread all my 20 spells so I can figure out which one I want to cast" and "Oh shoot, I forgot that I could use Swordsage powers because I did a complicated multiclass, which inadvertently led to character death. Sorry!"

I have to admit that I appreciate the constrained nature of 4E somewhat because -- at least for my group -- it solves the problem of "Too many options confuses people."

 

[tafkamhokie]

So far, my favorite "fix" has been the fact that the attacker is the one doing all the die rolling. No defender saving throws, no opposed grapple checks, no opposed trip/disarm/bull rush/overrun checks. When it is your turn, you decide what to do, roll a few dice, and see what happens. The absence of opposed checks and defender die rolling has really sped up the game, at least in my playtesting.

My regular 3.5 campaign is usually lucky to get through 3 encounters in our regular 5 hour game session. A session with only 2 encounters is not uncommon. And each of those encounters is usually only 2-5 rounds long. In my 4e playtests (I've run three so far), an encounter is taking 30-50 minutes to resolve, and tends to last 7-12 rounds. Each player is getting a lot more turns and your turn comes back around much faster in 4e.

My second favorite thing about 4e is the lack of pre-fight buffing. In 3e, how prepped you are has a HUGE effect on the outcome of a fight. The same encounter could be a TPK in 2 rounds, or it could be 2 round victory for the party without anyone losing more than 10% of their hit points depending on how well buffed they are beforehand. In 4e, most of the prebuffs seem to be gone. So the benefit of being fully prepared tends to wear off after the surprise round.

Also the on-the-fly math required to deal with all those buffs goes back to my first point of the length of the encounters. Sure, there are still a bunch of random +1 and +2 bonuses you can phish for in 4e, but most of them are situational and end after your turn is over so you don't have to keep track of them round after round. Figuring out what happens to your character after you have the Heroe's Feast and Prayer and Bardic Music and Haste up, but then you get hit with a negative level, and some Con-damaging poison and a Ray of Enfeeblement, then an Enlarge Person spell, and finally a targeted dispel magic from the enemy spellcaster. Ugh. That mess seems to be gone in 4e.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Mot of what I want to say has already been stated, but I will go ahead and repeat some of my more important items.

1.) Unified mechanics and terms for what the different classes can do (the at-will, per encounter, daily abilities). If a player learns how the mechanics work on a fighter, he doesn't need to relearn how things work for a wizard.

2.)Greater focus on mobility. I hated 3.x's tendency to turn into stand and hack, especially for the fighter.

3.) Speed of fights. In the playtest the fights for some fairly inexperienced ran considerably faster than my old 3.x group, which were all long time players.

4.) Most dice rolls are handled by the attacker. I think this may be the main thing which helps with the speed of play in my mind. I can't count how man 3.x fights would get dragged out due to way too many rolls just to resolve one spell.


The most important improvement to me, however, is my wife actually had fun playing and now keeps bugging me about when we can start up our ongoing game so she can roll up her wizard. She hated every 3.x game she played in, and her new demand for the game makes me very happy.