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

[dave2008]

Some people actually complained about how easy any class could get access to rituals. I saw it as a pretty natural part of multiclassing system. A fighter or rogue could be trained in Arcana with a simple background choice and take ritualist as his first feat. Take a theme of failed apprentice and even get some flavorful encounter power. That is without even getting into explicit multiclass feats. Then they introduced Martial Practices which were like rituals fueled by a healing surge.

It is hard to have a discussion with someone about 4e, when they really didn't play it much!

 

[Garthanos]

I like the Damned if you do Damned if you don't aspect of the 4e fighter you may get some of that in 5e but no other edition. I also particularly like that there are martial powers that target Fortitude/Will/Reflex.

 

[Garthanos]

I think the issue is clear - your imagination. I am not trying to throw shade or be sarcastic here. The issue is with your veiwpoint / imagination of what a D&D game should be and how to play that way in 4e. There is nothing that you can't do in 4e that you can do in 5e or any other edition. 4e gives great tools for improv.

As I mentioned before, I ran a 4e game that was complete improv. No powers, just the players imagination. Now, what I didn't tell was the reason I did this. I had new players (new to D&D & RPGs) and I wanted to show them they were not restricted to the actions described in their powers, that those were only starting points. That instead of looking at the power, just tell me what you want to do. After that adventure we went back to our regular game. About half them fell back into their old habits (just using powers), but the other half took up the improv mantra. Some people have the imagination to use 4e to its fullest, others don't. That is OK, but that is not the game's issue IMO, it is a player / DM issue. To be clear, I found the game fun either way.

You probably do the extreme improv more than any here, to me the important part is that there are definitely tools designed exactly to support that, I mostly do derivational improvisation where yes they have powers but using them distinct situational ways even more than not using them is how I like to page 42 and yes I tend to merge skill challenges in combat and with page 42. Allowing spending a healing surge anytime to represent an exertion alongside expending a power in page 42 context why not?

 

[Garthanos]

@dave2008 Wrecan and I over on the WOTC forums had big discussions about improving on the page 42 recommendations he wrote articles about it on the official platform even, there were parts that I think could have gone even further, yup it is possible. I mean Page 42 was what 1.5 pages worth I do not think our expansions made it even 3 pages. Though I wanted many many more examples that could take up space. I wonder if that might have cleared up communication issues.

 

[Garthanos]

I honestly feel the open explicit visibility of the 4e mechanics makes adjusting them to taste far more easy than the more obscured editions. For instance: Well defined expectations for a striker class also can make it less likely someone will build an incompetent class and similar things.

 

[rozgarth]

Besides Page 42, skill challenges, and rituals / martial practices, 4e characters also got a lot of mileage out of just the basic skill system. Every skill had lots of player-empowering options, and each included multiple examples of creative ways to improvise using your skills.

A character trained in Arcana, for example, didn't just get the ability to recall knowledge about certain types of monsters or magic as in 5e. They also could detect magic, identify magical phenomena, apply quasi-metamagic effects to manipulate the sight or sound of their spells, and manipulate magical energies in the environment (like interfering with the glowing runes channeling an ongoing ritual summoning a devil or activating latent magical energies to open a door in the ruins of an eladrin kingdom). This was all part of the basic Arcana skill; no need for separate spells like detect magic or identify.

So, looking just to a character's powers to decide that the game is locked-down and combat-oriented is deceiving because powers were primarily designed for use in combat (though of course utility powers and skill powers could also be used out-of-combat, and characters could always use powers out-of-combat if they made sense, e.g., in a skill challenge). But the core skill system alone really opens up the possibilities for 4e characters to do lots of things that would have required express permission in the form of a spell or class feature in other editions of D&D.

 

[Garthanos]

Besides Page 42, skill challenges, and rituals / martial practices, 4e characters also got a lot of mileage out of just the basic skill system. Every skill had lots of player-empowering options, and each included multiple examples of creative ways to improvise using your skills.

A character trained in Arcana, for example, didn't just get the ability to recall knowledge about certain types of monsters or magic as in 5e. They also could detect magic, identify magical phenomena, apply quasi-metamagic effects to manipulate the sight or sound of their spells, and manipulate magical energies in the environment (like interfering with the glowing runes channeling an ongoing ritual summoning a devil or activating latent magical energies to open a door in the ruins of an eladrin kingdom). This was all part of the basic Arcana skill; no need for separate spells like detect magic or identify.

So, looking just to a character's powers to decide that the game is locked-down and combat-oriented is deceiving because powers were primarily designed for use in combat (though of course utility powers and skill powers could also be used out-of-combat, and characters could always use powers out-of-combat if they made sense, e.g., in a skill challenge). But the core skill system alone really opens up the possibilities for 4e characters to do lots of things that would have required express permission in the form of a spell or class feature in other editions of D&D.

Skill challenges helped define and express how broad and effective skills could be but yes they were very much intended to be that way out of the bag.

 

[dave2008]

A character trained in Arcana, for example, didn't just get the ability to recall knowledge about certain types of monsters or magic as in 5e. They also could detect magic, identify magical phenomena, apply quasi-metamagic effects to manipulate the sight or sound of their spells, and manipulate magical energies in the environment (like interfering with the glowing runes channeling an ongoing ritual summoning a devil or activating latent magical energies to open a door in the ruins of an eladrin kingdom). This was all part of the basic Arcana skill; no need for separate spells like detect magic or identify.

I still play skills that way in 5e. I honestly never even looked if it had changed!

 

[Garthanos]

I still play skills that way in 5e. I honestly never even looked if it had changed!

Very few of the default power like potence of skills carried forward no you cannot detect magic with an arcana check nor do anything interactive with it at all I could tell just a knowledge skill ... the arcana being an explicit example and 4e acrobatics allowing one to suppress damage from a fall ummm nope nope need a spell. (or a specific class special ability)

Skills being much more important is something missing in 5e to me.

 

[dave2008]

Very few of the default power like potence of skills carried forward no you cannot detect magic with an arcana check nor do anything interactive with it at all I could tell just a knowledge skill ... the arcana being an explicit example and 4e acrobatics allowing one to suppress damage from a fall ummm nope nope need a spell. (or a specific class special ability)

Skills being much more important is something missing in 5e to me.

Well I am here to tell you that you can run them that way in 5e, works just fine!