D&D 4E Am I crazy? I've just gotten a hankering to play 4e again...

[Garthanos]

I did enjoy the few times minis were used but driving in car on vacation was some cool fun

 

[dave2008]

My wife basically threw my books out (I burned out on 4E, she grew a burning hate of a thousand suns) so I can't look. I guess it could have been a monster from a mod, but I distinctly remember a "players want crunch, not fluff in the MM so we're not going to provide much if any".

I lot of people complained about the monster lore in 5e, but it was there from the beginning; however, it was typical brief and to the point. The gnoll entry below is pretty typical. You get a brief general descriptive paragraph, tactics for each variant, lore based on knowledge checks, sample encounters, and a picture. It sometimes added up to more information than you got in other editions, just presented differently.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I would actually rather run 4E without a battle map than 5E. 5E's ranges are very large, as are the areas of effect, so TotM with 5E runs into the same problems I had with TotM in Holmes, B/X, 1E, and 2E. 4E's areas of effect - blasts, bursts, and auras - are generally much smaller and easier to adjudicate using TotM.

YMMV.

 

[Coroc]

That is a misconception. Battle maps are not mandatory. I ran 10 hours of 4e in a minivan (while someone else was driving) without minatures or maps. If you are used to TotM it works for 4e too. In our regular game we used maps about as I often as I did in 1e

hope the driver did not shove other traffic participants 10' in the heat of the battle...

 

[dave2008]

I would actually rather run 4E without a battle map than 5E. 5E's ranges are very large, as are the areas of effect, so TotM with 5E runs into the same problems I had with TotM in Holmes, B/X, 1E, and 2E. 4E's areas of effect - blasts, bursts, and auras - are generally much smaller and easier to adjudicate using TotM.

YMMV.

I do want to point out that the 5e DMG has guidelines for running AoE in TotM. I don't believe this was ever provided for in 4e, but since I came from 20 years of 1e I didn't really need it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I lot of people complained about the monster lore in 5e, but it was there from the beginning; however, it was typical brief and to the point. The gnoll entry below is pretty typical. You get a brief general descriptive paragraph, tactics for each variant, lore based on knowledge checks, sample encounters, and a picture. It sometimes added up to more information than you got in other editions, just presented differently.
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Yes. I do like the monster entries in 4e. In particular I liked the "Tactics" part. And if I chose to have my monsters behave differently - well that was my perogative too. But it gave me the sense of what the monster had and why they had them, and how they would use them in combat.

 

[Garthanos]

Yes. I do like the monster entries in 4e. In particular I liked the "Tactics" part. And if I chose to have my monsters behave differently - well that was my perogative too. But it gave me the sense of what the monster had and why they had them, and how they would use them in combat.

And monster roles in general are handy shortcuts

 

[pemerton]

I lot of people complained about the monster lore in 5e, but it was there from the beginning; however, it was typical brief and to the point. The gnoll entry below is pretty typical. You get a brief general descriptive paragraph, tactics for each variant, lore based on knowledge checks, sample encounters, and a picture. It sometimes added up to more information than you got in other editions, just presented differently.

I already posted about this upthread: the claim about "no/less lore" is not borne out if one actually reads the text and compares its content to previous versions.

Compared to the origiinal AD&D Monster Manual, or the 2dn ed AD&D one, there is typicaly less demographic information but more historical/cosmological information.

 

[Randomthoughts]

On these boards, @LostSoul posted about a pretty sophisticated campaign with associated subsystems which used 4e in a way similar to what you describe. Those posts would be from around 10 years ago, but maybe will come up under Search?

I think I found it here. Haven't read it all yet, but thanks!
Also, didn't have a chance to say it in the other thread, but your write ups of your 4e campaign was one of the examples of how the fans seemed to "get" 4e better than the designers ever did. Alas, my Dark Sun campaign ended early Paragon (for IRL reasons not related to 4e) but your work and a few others really made me want to make it to 30.

 

[Garthanos]

I think I found it here. Haven't read it all yet, but thanks!
Also, didn't have a chance to say it in the other thread, but your write ups of your 4e campaign was one of the examples of how the fans seemed to "get" 4e better than the designers ever did. .

I think that might have been only a subset.