D&D 4E AICN Massawyrm's 4E Review - Part 3

[Fallen Seraph]

I think it will be able to play 4E without minis/grid you will just need some more rewording.

 

[Spatula]

So why do we need good dragons cluttering up the MM? OK, maybe dragons aren't aligned by color anymore (in which case they probably should have provided a mix of chromatics/metallics), but that just makes one wonder what purpose the metallic dragons would even serve at that point. How many varieties of dragon foes does one really need, given limited space in the book?

The minion concept seems very cool.

AND, just to sweeten the deal, there are now real, honest to god dragon encounters set as low as level 3. Yes, you can actually fight a white dragon in a tough fight at level 1. That’s pretty damned awesome, once again deserving its title Dungeons & Dragons.

Hmm... *looks at 3e MM dragons with low CRs*
*looks at the 1st level adventure, The Sunless Citadel, and the white dragon encounter*
*wonders what Massawyrm is smoking*

No more broken min/maxing.

Uh huh. Wait until the real min/maxers get their hands on it.

This weekend WotC is taking the muzzle off of us playtesters

Cool beans.

 

[hbarsquared]

I forgot the other piece of information in my list, above, that I thought was worth mentioning:

• Simple equations are provided for monster advancement and creation!

 

[JeffB]

Which leads to the one glaring problem some folks will have with 4E. It is very dependant upon maps, terrain and miniatures. That’s great for guys like me with a closet full of toys. But for others, especially those who like to play much more esoteric games all through discussion rather than using maps and positioning – they’re going to find it a lot harder to covert over to that style of play than 3.5. Most abilities and classes are built around their existence on a map grid. And a lot of the abilities just don’t translate to the abstract.

geez...thats pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me

 

[lkjopajdowma]

geez...thats pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me

I'm really hoping, as someone else said, since he's been playing with Minis since forever, his view on that is a bit skewed.

Everything we've seen so far doesn't seem like not using minis is going to be a huge challenge, but time will tell, and we won't really know until we play it ourselves.

But, I think a group like mine (where we do map out our dungeons and rooms on graph paper, and use minis, just not on a grid system) might have an easier time adapting than a group that doesn't use any of that.

I'm still optimistic based on what we've seen, but a little more cautiously.

 

[AZRogue]

The most important thing in that article is that he said Playtesters would be free to talk after this weekend.

Has the NDA been relaxed? Are playtesters able to give us reviews now? If any playtesters are out there, check your email!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

if minis are really required, that is some kind of dealbreaker... if the only thing i have to be concerned is multiplicating distances by 1,5 instead of 10/3 then it is ok. Having abilities that state pushes a target X squares is no problem at all... but i really don´t want to see how square is translated into german...

 

[Bandreus]

if you're going to play 4E, you'll definitelly need to use a grid with minis (or tokens, or whathever). Tactical movement, powers pushing foes around the area, traps, hazards and different terrain tiles. I really doubt you will be able to play the game easilly without the aid of a grid.

As for the dragons. Draconomicon will be only about chromatics, so metallics should fit in Draconomicon 2, maybe in 2009. Hopefully some metallics will deserve some space in MM 2. As for alignment, as you know metallics wont be the good guys anymore. metallics will differ more in tactics and powers i guess

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

My first 3e group didn't use minis and had zero problems... because we ALSO didn't use any attacks of opportunities, and didn't even know about things like bull rush and charge. (This was right after 3e came out, when to a casual player the importance of these rules wasn't immediately obvious.) Any time range came into play - like when a wizard cast a fireball into a group of enemies - the DM would just eyeball it and say, e.g., "You can hit six of them."

As I got more experienced playing and DMing 3e, it became apparent that in any encounter where players knew and tried to use all the combat rules, a grid was really important. Five-foot steps, large monsters with reach, etc. were all just a pain in the butt to run without an exact understanding of where everyone was positioned. The exception was in RP-heavy campaigns, where everyone was willing to let the DM handwave combat rules at his discretion to make the game run faster - in those games, everyone was satisfied as long as there was a decent narrative explanation for the flow of combat. ("Gamist" versus "narrativist" gameplay, maybe? I dunno.)

So I'm thinking 4e won't be TOO much different from 3e here. If you never had a problem running combat without minis in 3e, you're probably letting the DM handwave a lot of combat rules already, so the extra tactics in 4e should be just as easy to work in.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'm really hoping, as someone else said, since he's been playing with Minis since forever, his view on that is a bit skewed.

Well he does admit in this part that he's a D&D Miniatures fan. If the game has taken some steps to be more like the D&D Miniatures game it would make sense he'd react very positively. I can't say that it has because I've never played D&D Miniatures but the play reports coming from D&D XP do have the feel of a miniatures board game to me.