D&D 4E D&D 4E fans: what do you like about 4E?

[UngainlyTitan]

Most of the above, not to do too much echoing. The standouts for me: The encounter guidelines worked, the fights were cinematic. Rituals. Since 5e, healing surges and utility powers are the things I miss most.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

While I could make a long list of things I dislike about the edition, most of those are aesthetics and lore rather than the game itself. The game, I think, is great. My favourite thing is the streamlined action system. It was a great edition to play a martial character in.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Above all, the setting and cosmology. It's a thing of beauty, by far the best of any edition. I was very sad when 5E (which I mostly like) went back to the Great Wheel.

James Wyatt rules. That is why 4e’s cosmology was so good.

 

[cavalier973]

I’m addition to all that was said in previous posts, I would add that the 4e-era “Dungeon” and “Dragon” digital magazines were great.

There was an issue that talked about the fallen Empire of Nerath (Dragon #393), and how players could tie their PCs to that lore—either as someone who honored the empire’s memory, or as someone who detested it, and was glad it was gone.

There was another issue (Dragon #418) that had tables for creating unique inns—naming them, having quirky features, etc. based on whether the inn is owned by an elf, a dragonborn, or what have you. The type of food served if the inn is located in a city, or stands beside a lonely road; the atmosphere (roll a “6” on a d20, get: “Tense;
A patron complains profusely to the innkeeper about the poor quality of the food, drink, and service and refuses to pay his tab.”).
There is a chart for topics of conversation (roll a “9” on a d20, and get: “Parents speak of their ire at their children’s dreams of someday becoming adventurers.”), and random events (roll a “16” on 2d20, and get: “The ghostly image of a face is very briefly reflected on a silver tankard. A few patrons scream.” roll a “37”: “A wonderful flowery smell wafts past you as someone moves by.”)

The same issue had B/X monsters (thouls and rhagodessas!) updated to 4th edition stats.

 

[kilpatds]

• Narrative Powers. Likely also something that annoys people, but things where the player gets to pass the stupid-ball to the enemies, mediated by the system... love that.
• MM3 monsters on an index card. Easy encounter design. Have a theme/the ability to invent decent riders/powers/etc, and you barely need to prep.
• Tactical fiddliness led to fun play/combos
• Best martials / most balanced(*)
• Healing surges: move some of the properties of healing to the target, not the caster.
• Attacker rolls everything

I didn't like the multi-classing system, but it works well enough (and appears to have inspired the multi-classing system in Pathfinder2). I much prefer the slower numerical ladder of 5e/bounded accuracy (cough*expertise feats*cough)

 

[cavalier973]

The fact that Hit Points are specifically called out as a combo of mental and physical capabilities (and luck, etc.) to keep fighting.

The warlord’s ability to literally shout at a maimed team mate, causing the team mate’s severed arm to reattach. I love that.

J/K; the warlord’s ability to yell, “rub some dirt on it!” And the hurt PC regaining hit points as a result. Because Hit Points are more than a measure of physical damage.

 

[cbwjm]

• Narrative Powers. Likely also something that annoys people, but things where the player gets to pass the stupid-ball to the enemies, mediated by the system... love that.
• MM3 monsters on an index card. Easy encounter design. Have a theme/the ability to invent decent riders/powers/etc, and you barely need to prep.
• Tactical fiddliness led to fun play/combos
• Best martials / most balanced(*)
• Healing surges: move some of the properties of healing to the target, not the caster.
• Attacker rolls everything

I didn't like the multi-classing system, but it works well enough (and appears to have inspired the multi-classing system in Pathfinder2). I much prefer the slower numerical ladder of 5e/bounded accuracy (cough*expertise feats*cough)

I quite like the pathfinder 2e multiclassing system, and it's something that could have been done in 4e had I thought about it, as something that they do in pf2e is have a campaign where everyone is a mystic and grant them bonus feats for wizard of druid class, or you could do a pirate campaign and grant all of your players the pirate archetype feat.

This could have been something done in 4e as well by granting everyone free multiclass feats.

 

[deganawida]

It’s funny. Even though 4e led to me discovering the OSR and rekindling a love for 2nd Edition (still heartbroken over Myth & Magic or whatever it was called), 4e was the last edition of D&D which I loved, and not just liked. I still think fondly on the games I was in, the beautiful design, and the amazing lore. While I do prefer a less structured playstyle, it was a thing of greatness that is too often slighted without consideration for all the things it did well. That’s why I had to comment on this thread.

As an aside, I also knew young people (like, 20s; I was only 32 when it came out) who had never played D&D before but became huge fans and regular gamers thanks to 4e. This is while it was actively being disparaged online as an MMO and not-D&D. That means that WotC did something right with it.

Finally, let’s not forget that, in its short lifetime, we got Nentir Vale (kinda), FR (YMMV), Dark Sun revisited, Eberron revisited (without moving the timeline), and Gamma World, not to mention all the board games.

 

[Joshua Randall]

As an aside, I also knew young people (like, 20s; I was only 32 when it came out) who had never played D&D before but became huge fans and regular gamers thanks to 4e. This is while it was actively being disparaged online as an MMO and not-D&D. That means that WotC did something right with it.

This.

I ran LFR at my FLGS (basically benevolent dictator for life); at our peak we’d have 6-7 tables and has to turn people away. We got a lot of first-time gamers who immediately grokked and enjoyed 4e.

The similarities to and inspirations drawn from MMOs and war games were features, not bugs.

(Also it cracks me up that “it’s like a war game!” could ever be a complaint about D&D.)

 

[Kannik]

Adding to and/or further highlighting many of the excellent things noted already:

1. Capable classes that dripped with flavour! Whether defenders wielding nature to hamper their foes, divine retribution in many varieties, monks trailing fire behind them, elementalists firing lighting bolts in all directions, magic using fighters teleporting all over to protect their friends, or the leader granting advantage, openings, and vitality to his friends, the classes were not only fun to play mechanically but could be rife with narrative heft as well.
2. Characters could do neat things! And could improvise (with DM support to boot) to do even NEATER things.
3. While not everyone were a fan of Hybrids, by giving only a subset of a classes abilities I thought their design solved the typical multiclass issue where the MC character a lot little cost (or a cost that didn't show up much in play). Plus, coupled with points 1 and 2 above, there were a bunch of great character ideas I could wrangle into a very fun/cool hybrid build. (The 'dipping' mechanism of multiclass through feats also seemed to, on the whole, work quite well for that kind of dip.)
4. Opponents were not built like characters! Not only did this speed up the process, but it recognized that opponents needed to operate differently to fulfill their roles as an opponent in an adventure.
5. Opponents that dripped with flavour! Through powers and abilities, opponents could feel and operate very different from each other and could be rife with narrative heft as well.
6. Backgrounds! Themes! Especially as the game progressed and embellished these more and more, both Backgrounds and Themes exponentially ramped up both the fun and narrative heft of a character.
7. Character concepts galore! Taking the multitude of classes, each with several subclasses, plus the different power selections, plus the backgrounds, plus the themes, plus the paragon paths, plus the epic destinies... even two characters of the same class felt very different from one other. It was such a fertile playground. And they never stopped (until they did) adding more neat ideas and concepts.
8. Healing Surges! Not only did it, for perhaps the first time, account for HP inflation, but it did great to better align the adventuring day/resource management.
9. Defenses! Rituals! Skill Challenges (the core idea)! Bloodied! Roles! Tiers! Minions, elites, and solos! The power sources! Utility powers for everyone!