6 months later: impressions of 4e

[Fifth Element]

Nothing in an imaginary D&D world makes sense if you think about it long enough, I just want to play a game and have fun.

Beautifully put. Succinct. XP for you.

 

[helium3]

Things I've noticed in the eight months I've been running a 4E game:

(1) Below level encounters are very grindy unless the party's average d20 roll is above ten. At level encounters are very grindy if the party's average d20 roll is below ten. Below level encounters are rarely grindy.

Because the "grindyness" of an encounter depends on the average d20 roll over the encounter, it makes design more difficult. I never know if an encounter is going to suck or not.

The biggest problem with the grind is that it seriously cuts down on how many encounters you have in a game session, which cuts into both narrative development AND level progression. I've started giving MUCH more XP for skill challenges and quests to compensate.

(2) I may not know how long an encounter is going to take to complete, but I usually have a good sense of how it's tactically going to play out. This allows me to safely manipulate the direction of the adventure if necessary without needing to break in and use DM fiat.

(3) Skill challenges need a lot of work, but they're worth the time. The two biggest issues are figuring out how to do the math correctly and how to actually do the challenge at the table in a way that makes it clear it's a challenge without completely turning into some silly game-show within D&D thing.

(4) Running the game is a BLAST. I never had this much fun in 3E.

(5) Designing monsters is very easy and a lot of fun. That being said, I don't think the table of acceptable damage values in the DM's Toolkit chapter is right. When I create monsters with that table, they always end up doing far too much damage, even compared to similar monsters from the MM.

(6) The game runs better if you don't plan too much before the game. I don't know if this is just a personal thing or the system, but games seem way more exciting for everyone involved.

(7) I don't need to fudge dice rolls.

(8) The lack of rules in the DMG for designing traps and rituals is seriously sucky. I hope they fix this in future DMG's.

 

[LostSoul]

(8) The lack of rules in the DMG for designing traps and rituals is seriously sucky. I hope they fix this in future DMG's.

One of the free dragon issues (pre-DDI) had some rules for traps. Basically, they use the same stats as monsters of their level (attack, damage). Single-shot traps use limited damage expressions; ongoing ones use normal damage expressions.

 

[helium3]

One of the free dragon issues (pre-DDI) had some rules for traps. Basically, they use the same stats as monsters of their level (attack, damage). Single-shot traps use limited damage expressions; ongoing ones use normal damage expressions.

Yeah, you can pretty much piece together the attack mods by looking at the ones provided. I'm having the same problem with the damage traps should do as I'm having with monsters. The damage expression table doesn't really seem to match up that well with the actual damage that monsters do in the monster manual. There seems to be a fiddly bit of something or other that informs the designer that the damage given by the expression table is too much for certain powers, but that fiddly bit isn't included in the DMG. Hardly surprising, that.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

However, this isn't new to 4th edition. D&D has never done a good job modeling real-world science, and many would argue it shouldn't.

Yeah, I agree. It has often done a poor job of being self-consistent, too. That was one of the reasons I liked Eberron. At least it tried to be a world that was somewhat consistent with the rules. It's just that, for me, the particular transgressions against self-consistency and reality became so egregious that, overall, they irk me a lot more than 1e and 3e's similar transgressions. A lot, lot, really lot more. But I recognize that they just hit some of my particular hang-ups, and not everyone feels the same way. Even at that, I can still have fun with the game.

I guess the take-home message here is if you want to play D&D, you have to already be willing to make some leaps in logic, but its still fun.

True, although there is a difference between physics and logic, and I think that physics + magic can account for a lot, thus leaving room for logic to remain relatively uncompromised in some fantasy systems. I guess the bottom line for me is that, 7 months out, I think it's a matter of degree. The degree to which 4e sacrificed logic, rigor, and consistency in an attempt to promote gameplay turned out to harm the gameplay, not help it, in my case. But for others, it didn't go too far this way, and for still others, I'm sure it didn't go far enough.

 

[Pbartender]

(3) Skill challenges need a lot of work, but they're worth the time. The two biggest issues are figuring out how to do the math correctly and how to actually do the challenge at the table in a way that makes it clear it's a challenge without completely turning into some silly game-show within D&D thing.

Something that I've found very useful for skill challenges is to make them "opposed" skill challenges whenever possible. That is to say, instead of a set DC for the PCs to beat with their skills, I'll aim to have an "opponent" rolling opposing skill challenge checks in the same manner.

For example, recently a pack of gnoll hunters and their trained hyenas were chasing my PCs out of their territory. Can the PCs manage to escape? We ran it as a skill challenge, with the PCs making Stealth, Endurance and Nature checks to evade the hunters, and the gnolls and hyenas making Perception and Nature and Intimidate (with their hyena howling and cackling in the distance) checks to oppose.

The players would describe what their next tactic to evade capture would be and then roll their skill check. Then, I'd do a "cut scene" to the hunters, describing how they were trying to catch the PCs, with the details based their relative success or failure on the opposed roll.

 

[Montague68]

My thoughts after 6-7 months of gaming:

Combat RAW could use some more randomness. I use old 3rd edition Paizo critical miss cards to add some spice to encounters and it works well (with some alterations - no more 1d6 Wis bleeds).

New content please. My players are running out of feats and I'd like some new monsters. Designing my own has been rather hit or miss.

Running the game is sooo much more fun. D&D minis and tiles make it DMing bliss IMO.

The magic item system seems too "ladderish" for lack of a better term. It seems players are strictly meant to go from "+1 to +2 to +3..." whereas in previous editions I could hand out the odd +4 weapon at 5th level and not feel like I'm breaking the game. In 4th I'm much more skittish about handing out the odd artifact or higher level item too early, and the loot seems to have gotten a tad boring for the players as a result.

 

[malraux]

The magic item system seems too "ladderish" for lack of a better term. It seems players are strictly meant to go from "+1 to +2 to +3..." whereas in previous editions I could hand out the odd +4 weapon at 5th level and not feel like I'm breaking the game. In 4th I'm much more skittish about handing out the odd artifact or higher level item too early, and the loot seems to have gotten a tad boring for the players as a result.

But artifacts are now available at low levels. Not many, granted, but a fair bit more than before.

 

[Shazman]

You do realize that Vista is actually so poor that Microsoft advised partners not to advertise it anymore (I was present at one such meeting) and, in an unprecedented move, bundled Vista FPP with XP downgrade rights?

Vista is crap. If people who work for Microsoft say it's crap, and Microsoft's partners say it's crap, then there is really no argument otherwise. One of the reasons Win 7 is being promoted so aggressively is to make people forget about the Vista fiasco. And no wonder, since 7 is faster, more stable, and less annoying than Vista - and it's a freaking beta.

I think you got my point. The only diference is that microsoft actually admits the failures of it's product.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Well, just off the top of my head, there's the mish-mash creatures (ie. chimera, pegesus, griffin etc.). Horses doesn't just start flying if you stick a pair of wings on them. Related to that are things that are just too big to fly. Giant creatures that look like scaled versions of earth creatures, the most offensive of which are giant insectoids. All in all, the most offensive creature biologically is probably the iconic dragon who violates a ton of biological principles.

It's a bit of an annoyance to have to rely on "its magic" to explain critters- unfortunately in D&D that's pretty much required for most monsters.

In the "hard fantasy" world I'm currently working on, I obey physics as much as possible, and even then I'm having to play fast and loose with the cube-square law in a few cases.

On the plus side, the sheer size of some of the pteroodons we've been finding recently makes it look like an intelligent flier is doable. Though not like a classic "wings attached to shoulder blades" winged humanoid.

On a more ecological note, there are way too many predators in the MM which creates a tendency for DMs to populate their world with too many predators. Real world predators tends to need about 10 times their number in prey items in order to survive. And you can't have just one individual, the minimum number of individuals in a sustainable, diverse population requires at least 50-200 individuals. Which of course requires a prey population at least ten times that, and so on.

I like the old days where we just assumed that the other monsters ate kobolds, who grazed on green slime, which thrived on odd underground "ultraviolet" radiation.


Note that for some critters, the ecological calculations may be totally screwed up, because for a start, the creaturesaresingular creations, not a reproductively viable group. For a second, with some creatures the sheer magical nature of the beast may well reduce their dietary needs. Dragons for instance, probably subsist mostly on magic. thhey likely put theri caves on ley lines, and treasure piles obviously act as a reflector, so they soak in more magic.

I have no idea how Drow manage to survive though. They probably ranch kobolds.