D&D 4E Anyone playing 4e at the moment?

[BigZebra]

I am considering demoing a 4e game soon when we are done with our current 5e campaign.
We are having a blast with 5e but our group really likes doing tactical combats between the role playing. Hence I am looking at 4e as a possibility.
Is it still feasible in this day and age? We are using Roll20 and the tools for 4e are not as polished as the 5e ones. Any experiences to share?

 

[the Jester]

I am not still playing 4e, but I'll chime in nonetheless.

I think there are two main issues you'll have. The first is that many 4e players relied on the digital tools to the point where they didn't bother buying the physical books. With the demise (AFAIK) of all the tools, this means that many 4e players don't have the game anymore, or at least not more than the core books or whatever. If this isn't the case for you, this won't be a problem.

The second issue is the overwhelming number of choices to be made vis-a-vis powers, paragon paths, epic destinies, and feats, especially as characters level up, and the lack of digital tools makes it very difficult to sort these easily. The powers for, for instance, a fighter, are spread out across multiple books (and that's without even addressing mixing in the stuff from the Essentials books). I remember leveling up being more of a chore in 4e than in any other edition of the game, even 3e.

The other thing I'll point out is a reminder- 4e combats are very, very slow. They tend to drag unless you tweak the system in some way or ways. The math is so tight that you can predict that an encounter of the group's level is pretty much going to take three rounds, but those rounds will take forever to play through.

All that said, if you can overcome those issues, I think 4e is a great system for what it is good at, and I think it's gotten very short shrift from the D&D community at large. Monster design, skill challenges, epic destinies, traps and hazards- there is sooo much good stuff that I wish had made it into 5e.

 

[Zio_the_dark]

Hi there's a discord server about 4e, you may get some info there!

I think the link @Garthanos posted on these forums is still valid https://discord.gg/EpeZ4Up

 

[DemoMonkey]

We had a great 4E campaign for pretty much the entire supported length of the edition. And by halfway through we found character creation/updating/use absolutely unfeasible without the digital tools.

As always YMMV but just be aware it can be an issue.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If you want to avoid the digital tools and "too much stuff" issues... then the easiest way to do so is to only use the first 4E Player's Handbook. Or maybe PH I and II.

Yes, there will be a number of character classes you won't have access to... but truth be told I think the best time for classes were in just that first PH. Reason being... because the number of powers that each class had was much smaller... the ones they did have were more specific to the classes themselves. Each role and each class had its own schtick and there was much less overlap. Whereas in later years as more and more powers began being created for almost every issue of the online Dragon Magazine... the bleed of what classes could do became wider and wider. And I think to classes' detriment. But if you only use the first PH, you will be able to maintain a specificity with each of those eight classes and keep things tight.

That being said... while I think the first PH is the best PH to use for 4E... get Monster Manual III for your monsters. The math is much better in that one and your combats will thank you for it.

 

[Garthanos]

I am not still playing 4e, but I'll chime in nonetheless.

I think there are two main issues you'll have. The first is that many 4e players relied on the digital tools to the point where they didn't bother buying the physical books. With the demise (AFAIK) of all the tools, this means that many 4e players don't have the game anymore, or at least not more than the core books or whatever. If this isn't the case for you, this won't be a problem.

The offline digital tools actually work better than they did previously especially if you want to add your own custom content which for me is very very D&D

 

[the Jester]

The offline digital tools actually work better than they did previously especially if you want to add your own custom content which for me is very very D&D

That's good to hear! The lack of support for homebrewed content was one of the big reasons the tools were not satisfactory for me; I am an inveterate homebrewer and had dozens of paragon paths, epic destinies, etc.

 

[jsaving]

Our group recently took a break from 5e/PF1e in favor of a brief 4e campaign, mainly because a few people in the group had a fondly remembered perception that 4e did a great job handling tactical combat. The end result was a unanimous resolution to stick with 5e/PF1e in the future.

Is it "feasible" to demo a 4th edition campaign? Sure. But you should go into it with your eyes open, remembering that while 4e brought some useful innovations to the genre, it also made a large number of bad design decisions that eventually resulted in its accelerated replacement. Above all, I wouldn't go into a new 4e game simply because you want to somehow prove the bulk of the gaming community was wrong, 4e got a bad rap, its flaws were overstated, etc.

You've made a good start by saying you're drawn to 4e's tactical/battlemat support. I personally think that's the edition's biggest strength and absolutely think 4e can work for your campaign if that's what you want to focus on. Just stick to the core books to make things manageable and you'll be good to go whether or not you have much in the way of digital support.

And who knows? The fact that 4e didn't succeed overall doesn't mean it isn't the best fit for your specific gaming group. If you find it to be so, then you might consider staying with it for longer than you currently plan to. Best wishes and good luck!

 

[DemoMonkey]

"The offline digital tools actually work better than they did previously especially if you want to add your own custom content which for me is very very D&D"

As I recall at the time we managed to get them to work for 2 players PCs and absolutely not work for 4 others.

I hope the OP has better luck!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am not still playing 4e, but I'll chime in nonetheless.

I think there are two main issues you'll have. The first is that many 4e players relied on the digital tools to the point where they didn't bother buying the physical books. With the demise (AFAIK) of all the tools, this means that many 4e players don't have the game anymore, or at least not more than the core books or whatever. If this isn't the case for you, this won't be a problem.

The second issue is the overwhelming number of choices to be made vis-a-vis powers, paragon paths, epic destinies, and feats, especially as characters level up, and the lack of digital tools makes it very difficult to sort these easily. The powers for, for instance, a fighter, are spread out across multiple books (and that's without even addressing mixing in the stuff from the Essentials books). I remember leveling up being more of a chore in 4e than in any other edition of the game, even 3e.

The other thing I'll point out is a reminder- 4e combats are very, very slow. They tend to drag unless you tweak the system in some way or ways. The math is so tight that you can predict that an encounter of the group's level is pretty much going to take three rounds, but those rounds will take forever to play through.

All that said, if you can overcome those issues, I think 4e is a great system for what it is good at, and I think it's gotten very short shrift from the D&D community at large. Monster design, skill challenges, epic destinies, traps and hazards- there is sooo much good stuff that I wish had made it into 5e.

Not to get into any real disagreement on these points, but... Is it really a bad thing that players will be doing their own PCs with 'paper and pencil' (at least with a fillable character sheet of some sort). Sure, it makes it hard to have an exhaustive list of every single power and other option that was ever published right at your finger tips. OTOH there's nothing wrong with picking from what you can look up in a few sources, or just sticking to one or two sources. Unless your goal is to produce super optimized characters the results should be perfectly adequate. Although you may find it hard to apply all the most recent 'errata'. OTOH maybe that too is not such a bad thing in all cases...

We didn't find 4e combats slow, particularly. What we found was that STATIC fights were simply dull and didn't deliver on the time spent on them. So, avoid at all costs "4 orcs in a room" type battles! If fights are interesting scenes with a plot and goals and interesting characters, then the time spent should be fun, and many fights really won't take that long, especially if they have endpoints (victory conditions) short of "utterly annihilate the enemy to the last hit point."

Still, using MM3 math and the most modern possible monster stat blocks will make things more fun.

Finally it is still pretty easy to purchase 4e books. Prices on Amazon seem a bit high, but Dungeon Masters Guild - looks like it still sells PDFs of every single 4e SKU that WotC ever produced, or pretty darn close. Admittedly, maybe not a ton of people are wanting to pay $9.99 and up for each of these, but you don't necessarily need everyone to get every book, and between physical books many groups will already have, and PDFs of this or that one they may feel they need, its not really much harder to stock up on 4e stuff than it is on 5e stuff.