6 players, 5 hours, 4th edition

[Nymrohd]

By the way, judging from the fluff descriptions of the abilities, do you really think that once people are familiar with the game tactics will feel like metagaming rather than sound in-character attack patterns, especially for a group that has worked together? I often think that metagaming is simply there in lack of roleplay.

As for the squares instead of feet; that rules allows for squares to be anything. We don't all understand what 5 feet are visually

And yes this review certainly restates the fact that 4E DMs will need to do a lot more tactical planning before encounters. A lot depends on how much of a DM's uptime is cut back by the DMG.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Rodrigo, I just DMed a series of kobolds solo encounters with my girlfriend, she was playing the warlock. Ok it's not by the same experience you had, but one thing I felt was that WoW symptom of creating the best opening combo, or depending on the type of encounter, 2 or 3 combos.
For example:
When she faced a kobold skirmisher far way, the opening combo was Warlock's Curse, Ray of Frost, move back. Monster is slowed, next round Witchfire, action point to throw another Ray of Frost and move back.

Of course those were mostly solo encounters, and maybe the game doesn't that well for solo gaming, or maybe repeated kobold encounters will most likely be a big repetition, but what I ask you: Did you see that "button smashing", best combos going on with everyone most of the time?

I gotta tell ya, after some time it gets boring. But the overall feeling, in the obviously not so real 4E session, was positive.

While I obviously cannot say since I haven't played 4E yet. But I imagine the fact that multiple-opponents at once, coupled with opponents doing much more variety of special abilities, could counter that.

 

[Mirtek]

each turn if I fail a save (and remember, 50/50 chance of that),

Actually it's a 55% chance to save (11 numbers vs. 9 numbers)

I wondered why they just didn't make it 11+ instead of 10+ since first reading about this mechanic

 

[Nymrohd]

Still as someone with a lvl 60 of each class in WoW, I doubt that D&D will not offer new powers at higher levels. In WoW for most classes the damage rotation is established in the first 10 levels.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Rodrigo, I just DMed a series of kobolds solo encounters with my girlfriend, she was playing the warlock. Ok it's not by the same experience you had, but one thing I felt was that WoW symptom of creating the best opening combo, or depending on the type of encounter, 2 or 3 combos.
For example:
When she faced a kobold skirmisher far way, the opening combo was Warlock's Curse, Ray of Frost, move back. Monster is slowed, next round Witchfire, action point to throw another Ray of Frost and move back.

Of course those were mostly solo encounters, and maybe the game doesn't that well for solo gaming, or maybe repeated kobold encounters will most likely be a big repetition, but what I ask you: Did you see that "button smashing", best combos going on with everyone most of the time?

I gotta tell ya, after some time it gets boring. But the overall feeling, in the obviously not so real 4E session, was positive.

Well, not to that extent -- it's still pretty new, and the group hadn't been playing together for long, but I think I saw some stirrings of it, and I think it could be a big issue.

Case in point: At one point, they used the fear/AoO/smoosh combo. Cool, that was a good use of tactics and teamwork. Then in the next encounter, it was 'let's do the fear/AoO thing again'. So quickly they were learning what worked and what didn't. MMOs are Ender-esque breeding grounds for ruthelssly efficient players

In a 3.x game, that would likely only happen once in a while -- the wizard probably wouldn't memorize it that often, saves would get too good, the sorceror might take it but it's not cool and blasty, so maybe not, and even then at levels it's likely to be effective, spells are still a limited resource.

But, take that and make it an at-will or per-encounter ability, and all of a sudden it becomes a potent combo that could come up every time. And that leaves the DM scrambling to come up with a counter, and that can cause problems because then the players involved think they're being screwed.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Actually it's a 55% chance to save (11 numbers vs. 9 numbers)

I wondered why they just didn't make it 11+ instead of 10+ since first reading about this mechanic

Right on both counts!

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Still as someone with a lvl 60 of each class in WoW, I doubt that D&D will not offer new powers at higher levels. In WoW for most classes the damage rotation is established in the first 10 levels.

And that's a big 'if' we don't know yet. A *lot* is hanging on the mix of new powers vs old powers that get a little bit better, I think. That's a tough one to balance, especially across 30 levels where the game isn't intended to be a treadmill to the end-game.

 

[dystmesis]

Rodrigo, I just DMed a series of kobolds solo encounters with my girlfriend, she was playing the warlock. Ok it's not by the same experience you had, but one thing I felt was that WoW symptom of creating the best opening combo, or depending on the type of encounter, 2 or 3 combos.
For example:
When she faced a kobold skirmisher far way, the opening combo was Warlock's Curse, Ray of Frost, move back. Monster is slowed, next round Witchfire, action point to throw another Ray of Frost and move back.

Of course those were mostly solo encounters, and maybe the game doesn't that well for solo gaming, or maybe repeated kobold encounters will most likely be a big repetition, but what I ask you: Did you see that "button smashing", best combos going on with everyone most of the time?

I gotta tell ya, after some time it gets boring. But the overall feeling, in the obviously not so real 4E session, was positive.

As opposed to a 3e warlock at level 1? Eldritch blast, eldritch blast, move back 30 feet, eldritch blast, then... eldritch blast? Or if you're smart, you pick the summon swarm invocation. Then your round-by-round tactics are summon swarm, summon swarm, five foot step back, summon swarm, etc.

 

[Celebrim]

Excellent review.

 

[Kraydak]

As opposed to a 3e warlock at level 1? Eldritch blast, eldritch blast, move back 30 feet, eldritch blast, then... eldritch blast? Or if you're smart, you pick the summon swarm invocation. Then your round-by-round tactics are summon swarm, summon swarm, five foot step back, summon swarm, etc.

You just made Rodrigo Istalindir's point: per-encounter/at-will abilities reduce tactical variety. Warlocks, of course, are 3e's flagship at-will ability based characters.