6 months later: impressions of 4e

[Jan van Leyden]

1) All powers are not created equal.

2) You need cards.

3) Use large combats sparingly.

4) I'm wondering if monsters should have less hit points.

5) The DM is the enemy.

6) Magical items are boring.

7. Artifacts are awesome.

8. Skill Challenges aren't working right.

1) I don't have a problem with this, because the re-training rules allow players to correct for a "bad" decision. I also expect the qualitative differences between powers to become larger with more powers being published.

2) I'm undecided on this. As DM I enjoy the fact that power cards put information at the player's place at the table. Before 4e it was mainly my job as DM to adjudicate the players' announced actions, but now they have all the needed information to make sound decisions. On th other hand I see power cards as a big road block for introductory games aimed at not-yet-roleplayers: They catapult the players on to the meta-level, where new players should not spend their time. Due to this I've decided not to use 4e (or D&D at all) for my upcoming introductory game.

3) and 4) Combats seem to run in three phases: Minion Sweeping, Tactical Fight and Boss Confronation. The most interesting phase is the Tactical Fight, wherein monster, encounter, and daily powers are used. Players have to make tactical decisions every round, and the final outcome is not yet clear. When only one opponent is still standing, the grinding begins.

I've switched to a "variable" number of HP for bosses or the last monster acitve in a fight. When all other opponents are down and the last one has used its "interesting" powers, it is quietly elevated to Minion-status: the next hit kills it. Because my players don't know about this, their encounter and daily power use has not changed.

5) The rules are, skill challenges notwithstanding, limited to combat. As PCs are more durable - no 1st level magic user killed by a single blow - the players can react to the situation. Thus, the DM has less need to "save" PCs and can act more like an enemy. But I can and do act as the characters' secret ally nevertheless. When two orcs have separated the mage from the party and cornered him, I still let them miss more often than the die demands.

6) No, not at all! With the model of bonus-plus-power, magic items are way more interesting and variable than ever before.

7) I've never used artefacts...

8) I'm somewhat disappointed with skill challenges as well, having high hopes when Mike Mearls (?) hinted at something as complex as combat rules to handle non-combat situations. Skill challenges work well for simple situations like chase scenes, but less so for complex social interactions, which feel like a duel.

And to add my own points:

9) Cleric College offers only one class for each deity
Clerics of different deities feel very much the same. After just watching a cleric in one encounter, you should be able to name her deity - and without spying on the power cards. This is a very old problem with D&D, I know, but which a new edition offers a chance to correct.

10) Players as bookkeepers
Each player has up to two bookkeeping phases per turn. Part of the results (status changes) should be communicated to the DM as well, which really creates the need for some modern information tracking tools. It is better than with the 3.5e system, but still demands some undue effort.

 

[jasin]

1. The game plays substantially differently than it reads.

What do you mean?

 

[Jack99]

What do you mean?

It reads quite boring, almost like a computer-game. Sorta. But plays like a dream. At least that's what I think (he means).

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Ah. I thought poisoncraft would be one big book.

At the risk of a minor threadjack, Poisoncraft will be one (or perhaps two) big books. The big book is Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV, which will include the poison creation rules, all of the poison handling and related rules, and all of the new poisons (something like 80-100). However, all of the material will be expanded from the original book. For example, we will convert all of the monsters from the monster section. But (a) each entry will be expanded itself in the form of additional versions, lair info, full-fledged encounters, etc., and (b) there will also be new monsters too. With the material expanded that much, we have some room to release some of it in small, more tightly focused pdfs, e.g., the syrallax. All I can say is that Poisoncraft fans will not be disappointed.

 

[Lizard]

Well, I was going to post my own thread on this topic, but since this one is already here...

Things I Was Wrong About:
a)The game would be "EZ Mode" and no one would ever die. WRONG! Combats are vicious and at least one PC is getting death marks in each one, on average. I often drift into single digit hit points. If the players do not coordinate well, they are overwhelmed. It's very hard to understand how combat plays just by reading the rules.

b)Lack of choices: Possibly because the campaign didn't start until MP came out, I find that DO actually have to think a lot about my feats and powers as I level up. There aren't as many obvious, no-brainer choices as it seemed at first. Retraining also makes it easy to 'try out' new things.

c)Monsters. It took me a while to get used to the "Monsters aren't PCS!" design model, but once I internalized it, I have found that creating monsters in 4e is a lot of fun, and the fact I can 'hand carve' NPCs means my fears of a lack of detail for them were unwarrented -- an NPC can have as much, or as little, detail as I wish. (I've been working on a "Civilian" monster type for non-combatant NPCs who still need more definition than a name and a trained skill.)

d)Overall feel: I hate to say this, but I am coming to like the fact that magic is less prominent and that PCs have to rely on "mundane" means of solving problems (climb instead of fly, stealth instead of invsibility) well into mid to high levels. (Granted, we're still pretty low level, so maybe this changes.) Despite the "powering up" of PCs in general, in some ways, 4e has a more "realistic" feel.

e)Resource management: At least at low levels, spending surges, action points, and daily powers requires some serious thought and worry. While there's somewhat less resource management in 4e than in 3e, there's enough for me to find it satisfying.

Things I Was Right About:
a)The game feels much more...gamey...than 3e. While in 3e we described our attacks and added a lot of flavor text, in 4e, the number of abilities with no "game world" logic has meant that when initiative is rolled, we basically stop playing D&D and start playing Heroscape with a lot of optional rules. Combat in 4e is FUN, but it feels entirely like a tactical boardgame where we shuffle pieces around. I'm totally disconnected from any sense my character is "there". Likewise, skill challenges are not nearly as involving as just roleplaying it, which is how we used to do it, nor are they as well-done as, say, Spycraft's chase mechanic. The lack of any real integration between feats/powers and skill challenges reinforces this.

b)Constant battles between logic and rules: This is a sort of a side effect of the above. We constantly have situations where the DM tries to use logic and what "should" happen, and the rules contradict him -- and the players, myself included, aren't about to surrender any advantage which wonky rules give us. While all game systems run into this, including 3.5, the fact that 3.5 was designed to be more simulationist meant it happened a lot less often, and there was a sense of "If the rules and common sense conflict, go with common sense". In 4e, it is very explicit (see "Knocking a gelatinous cube prone") that is the rules and common sense conflict, go with the rules."

c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class.

d)Multiclassing. While not totally broken, my ability to create a concept and then create a character to fit it is seriously limited by 4e's multiclassing. It's impossible, for example, to give anyone but a Ranger the ranger's animal companion -- you can't grab class features with a multiclass. The concept of a wizard and, say, a vicious eagle familiar can't be done in 4e -- at least not until WOTC trots out a different "build". I feel very constrained by the fact that many character archetypes basically require either a new class or a new "class feature", with supporting abilities.

e)Attack to do anything. Sorry, but the whole "I need to buff/heal you... find me an enemy!" shtick gets old real, real, fast. At least let the buff part fire without an attack roll if the player wants it to.

 

[Jack99]

Snipped a very long post..

c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class.

First, let me say that I also do not like the 4e wizard, in fact, it's probably the aspect of 4e that I like the less. But how is he sub-optimal? Any chance you could get a hold of his build/stats/spells/level? I am asking because because the wizards in my campaign have kicked serious butt so far (damage and combat-wise).

Also, for a bit more wizardly-controllery feel (and less damage damage damage), he should take a look at the illusion spells from Dragon (364 iirc), if his DM allows them. They are good and most importantly, different.

Cheers

 

[Lizard]

First, let me say that I also do not like the 4e wizard, in fact, it's probably the aspect of 4e that I like the less. But how is he sub-optimal? Any chance you could get a hold of his build/stats/spells/level? I am asking because because the wizards in my campaign have kicked serious butt so far (damage and combat-wise).

Also, for a bit more wizardly-controllery feel (and less damage damage damage), he should take a look at the illusion spells from Dragon (364 iirc), if his DM allows them. They are good and most importantly, different.

Cheers

Well, Thunderwave and a wisdom of 10 -- with plans to raise his Charisma instead of Wisdom as the opportunities arise -- is a big part of it. Picking Sleep as his daily for the first few games didn't help. He's used Acid Arrow twice, and missed both times, doing only half damage. He recently got Fire Shroud, which, because it only targets enemies, is nice. He has never been able to effectively use Shield -- every time he's been hit, it's been by more than 4. The player wears a shirt which reads "The dice are trying to kill me", and it's quite true...

 

[Nebulous]

c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class.

Well, i agree in that wizards are pretty much just Nukers, but i don't think there is anything suboptimal about them. They're equally balanced with the rest of the party. In fact, without the wizard around, our group would have suffered greatly at the hands of minion mobs who would have overrun the others. Now, i don't actually LIKE the way magic works in 4e, but it does what it was designed to do very well. Whether i like that or not is another thing.

 

[Cam Banks]

Ferratus crossposted this over at the Dragonlance Nexus forums, so I figured I'd just copy my own reply there, here.

My current observation of the game is that D&D finally understands what it is and what it is supposed to be doing, which means that a lot of features that seem like tactical wargame elements are perfectly fine being there. D&D is an action-adventure game featuring brave heroes who fight monsters and overcome challenges in dynamic environments, gaining power over time so that they will be able to fight even more powerful monsters later and overcome even more powerful challenges.

It has fully embraced this concept and purpose. I don't think a lot of people are going to be terribly happy with that, but I also think that it's the first time since Gygax and Arneson started doing this thing back in the 70's that it has.

The good news for people who like other sorts of play experience is that the RPG market is now catering to many more playstyles than it used to. If you like character immersion, where your personality and emotions are just as important to you as your magic items, then D&D isn't your game, but you may like Burning Wheel. If you like a much more modular sort of framework for your game without the levels and constant MMO-style grind, you'd be better off with something like GURPS. If you want to rule over a kingdom, barony, or even just a company of mercenaries, go with Greg Stolze's REIGN.

I have always found it fairly easy to tweak D&D to suit my play style and that of my friends, and I do it in spite of what the rules are purposed towards. That's why my current Castlemourn 4E game with the folks here at Margaret Weis Productions is filled with intrigue and snarky NPCs and hidden masterminds and stuff, but none of that is really taken care of by the game or even the character sheets. The actual game part is pretty much just combat and dungeon crawling, and that's just how it was back when I first started.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Lizard]

Well, i agree in that wizards are pretty much just Nukers, but i don't think there is anything suboptimal about them. They're equally balanced with the rest of the party. In fact, without the wizard around, our group would have suffered greatly at the hands of minion mobs who would have overrun the others. Now, i don't actually LIKE the way magic works in 4e, but it does what it was designed to do very well. Whether i like that or not is another thing.

Shrug.

All I know is this: In the two different 4e games I've been in, the wizard has been the least effective member of the party in terms of Killing Things and Taking Their Stuff. From what I can tell, the wizard needs more optimization than any other class to be really effective, and has gone from being the most flexible class in 3.x to the least flexible -- even with the Spellbook feature.

My experience. YMMV. Looking forward to Arcane Power and the PHB2.