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

[Aldarc]

The thing that power source/role did that a lost a lot of long-time fans but I think was really brilliant, was it made classes bottom-up design, where in every other edition of D&D, they had been top-down. What I mean by that is, in other editions of D&D, classes are primarily archetypes, and their mechanical design follows from that fictional concept. In 4e, classes are primarily game constructs, and their story concept follows the design.

Similarly, I liked how Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved designed classes broadly around both playstyles and archetypes. For example, when you look at the classes, they are designed more generally about the styles of characters that people like to play: the champion of a cause (the Champion), the gish (the Swordmage), the skill-monkey (the Akashic), the heavily-armored warrior (the Warmain), the roguish, lightly-armored warrior/swashbuckler (the Unfettered), the master of magic (the Magister), the healer (the Greenbond), the animalistic warrior/barbarian/totemist (the Totem Warrior), etc.

 

[Mondaynightgamers]

I am currently playing in a 4E game, and starting to plan my own 4E adventure using the H1-H3 conversion by Myrdraak (I am not sure how to link it, but it's on his page). I am really liking the combat texture and the feeling that my character is more unique to others with feat choices. I like 5E, but feel it's too flat in many, many areas.

 

[Lyxen]

I was under the impression that discussions about the merits of editions were a bit delicate on this site. I personnally have different tastes for various reasons, but I still wanted to say thank you for bringing this to my attention. I should mention that it's not really a conversion, to me, it's more like a refactoring of the campaign, as it was and remains 4e, but it really creates an adventure path now rather than more disjointed modules, which is a really good thing, in particular if you like 4e. As for me, I'll have a deeper look maybe to really convert it to 5e...

 

[Horwath]

thinking about it for next short campaign.

 

[Lyxen]

thinking about it for next short campaign.

About for or about 9 large modules now linked into an adventure path for levels 1-30 ?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I was under the impression that discussions about the merits of editions were a bit delicate on this site. I personnally have different tastes for various reasons, but I still wanted to say thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Well, there's constructive discussion of the character of different games, and then there's war!
Anyway, most warish debate is more on which is the superior conceptual basis for RPG design. Naturally my own opinions are unassailable and hold supreme!

I think you could salvage some stuff from any module, but I personally saw some really fundamental faults with the H series. I think they might best be employed, IMHO as a sort of set of situations that exist within a greater milieu. Like, H1 starts out with the spark of some potential. You hit this town, and there's a spy, and various other characters there, and a few possible ways you could go in terms of acting on what is at hand. The author just sort of drops it all in favor of a linear dungeon crawl after that.

I haven't read the rewrite, maybe it is great. I don't think classic AP design suites 4e too well though. It probably will work better in 5e though. Heck, the original modules probably work better in 5e too!

 

[Lyxen]

Well, there's constructive discussion of the character of different games, and then there's war!
Anyway, most warish debate is more on which is the superior conceptual basis for RPG design. Naturally my own opinions are unassailable and hold supreme!

I think you could salvage some stuff from any module, but I personally saw some really fundamental faults with the H series. I think they might best be employed, IMHO as a sort of set of situations that exist within a greater milieu. Like, H1 starts out with the spark of some potential. You hit this town, and there's a spy, and various other characters there, and a few possible ways you could go in terms of acting on what is at hand. The author just sort of drops it all in favor of a linear dungeon crawl after that.

I haven't read the rewrite, maybe it is great. I don't think classic AP design suites 4e too well though. It probably will work better in 5e though. Heck, the original modules probably work better in 5e too!

OK, since you seem cordial about it, I'll just state that it's a matter of perspective and personal preferences. Some people in our groups really liked 4e as a system, the clarity, the intricacy, etc.

For my part, I think I'm in line with you, what I like is intrigue, and sneaking about, discussing, making alliances, etc.. In adventure paths, we always try to find the path of least resistance, least fighting, and how to avoid dungeons.

Because 4e is really strong at tactical play, there is a tendency of the modules/DMs/Players to slip towards this fairly quickly, and therefore into a style of game that suits me less well. The intent of the "refactoring" seems nice, because it links things into some sort of grand plan, which might lead into more intrigue, etc. But at the same time, there is quite a lot of tactical refactoring as well, monsters, etc.

So, like everything in the game, there is the material and what you do with it...

 

[Garthanos]

Because 4e is really strong at tactical play, there is a tendency of the modules/DMs/Players to slip towards this fairly quickly, and therefore into a style of game that suits me less well. The intent of the "refactoring" seems nice, because it links things into some sort of grand plan, which might lead into more intrigue, etc. But at the same time, there is quite a lot of tactical refactoring as well, monsters, etc.

The premise behind Skill Challenges I believe are to create a formalized structure around these elements you mention and to encourage progression and reward and to create strategic and tactical choices that are not generally combat, though there is definitely ways to intermingle them where a single physical perhaps minor conflict has overarching impact or where a skill challenge is compressed into an element of an ongoing combat. It is still tactical and arguably it is where strategic elements come into play in D&D like no other edition (at least formally). This is more a DM tool the way most people use it but it is also a guideline around the team work outside of combat. By strategic I mean like many of the things mentioned in the DMG2 take on it, ranging from (like spending that money to bribe guards) or whether to use that ritual now or use a healing surge to push yourself and assure an intermediate success at some element, it is less tightly defined than the combat maneuvers and I would say on purpose AND intentionally flexible it can represent a broad number of things.

To me 5e lacks a tool and encouragements that tool helps create (the latter particularly for new DMs).

 

[Lyxen]

The premise behind Skill Challenges I believe are to create a formalized structure around these elements you mention

The question remains, though, why do you need a formalised structure ?

and to encourage progression and reward and to create strategic and tactical choices that are not generally combat, though there is definitely ways to intermingle them where a single physical perhaps minor conflict has overarching impact or where a skill challenge is compressed into an element of an ongoing combat. It is still tactical and arguably it is where strategic elements come into play in D&D like no other edition (at least formally).

It is extremely tactical, which is a good point if you like this. I am not sure about the strategic elements, though.

This is more a DM tool the way most people use it but it is also a guideline around the team work outside of combat. By strategic I mean like many of the things mentioned in the DMG2 take on it, ranging from (like spending that money to bribe guards) or whether to use that ritual now or use a healing surge to push yourself and assure an intermediate success at some element, it is less tightly defined than the combat maneuvers and I would say on purpose AND intentionally flexible it can represent a broad number of things.

To me 5e lacks a tool and encouragements that tool helps create (the latter particularly for new DMs).

I agree that the formalised structure might make it easier for new DMs. It's not the case at our tables, where we prefer a much more free form game and don't need structure.

More practically, most of us are really old school and love Theater of the Mind, which allows us to resolve combat in a few exciting minutes without needing to prepare a gridded map in advance, etc.

But again, YCMV, and to each his own.

 

[Garthanos]

I agree that the formalised structure might make it easier for new DMs. It's not the case at our tables, where we prefer a much more free form game and don't need structure.

Yes part of the reason is for encouraging new DMs to think in terms of teamwork when creating routes for player characters to solve problems and also to show how skills not just a spell can be the big deal. Oh and the tool is not an obligatory one for all contexts either even an experienced DM might like I do find it a very useful one for making a chase scene or escape the exploding lair scene, and turn them into a dynamic activity (one of my favorite uses).

I have seen a number of 5e DMS (experienced dms with 4e background) discussing how to bring skill challenges in I can see how it could work.

More practically, most of us are really old school and love Theater of the Mind, which allows us to resolve combat in a few exciting minutes without needing to prepare a gridded map in advance, etc.

I find really short old d&d combats boring dice exercises (short but absolutely uninteresting to me that is quite the opposite of exciting) and they are generally without player challenge or interesting choices except wizards in D&D spell casters always manage to have interesting choices and 3 round conflicts for instance meh with huge helping of blah, to me those definitely do not actually tell story, to me if a combat isnt also story then gloss over it as scenery. When I played AD&D we started elaborating how we "hit it with our swords" and the fact that basically none of that had any meaning besides as flavor text that was very disappointing.

To me tactical means dynamic choices with meaning with regards to the resolution and can be done with theatre of the mind visualization. (where precisely one is standing is not the whole meaning of tactical) . Strategic is more long term resource and gambit application. Like the result of a skill challenge might acquire a McGuffin that turns a nearly impossible specific fight into a very manageable one.