For Those Who Love, Hate, or Love & Hate 4E: What Did 4E Do Right?

[humble minion]

In general I don't like 4e, and I haven't played enough of it to really get a feel for the nitty-gritty of how the numbers work, but conceptually I like...

- healing surges
- reduction of the need for the 'big six' items, and therefore less of a cookie-cutter feel to PCs
- less multi-layer buffing
- simplified maths & easier npc/monster creation
- minions, elites etc - quicky template-like ways to modify creatures to fit their desired roles in a given encounter
- the disease track
- the artifact rules (in concept, not sure of the execution)
- the existence of 'rituals', though (emphatically) not the implementation
- increased use of the Fey
- the new/expanded/improved pantheon

 

[Derulbaskul]

I agree with most of the other "good things" previously posted but, for me, these are the three things that made me want to run 4E:

1. There is a real, functioning character generator. Not vapourware. Not a broken promise. Not a teaser. A real one. And it works.

2. The D&D Compendium. By itself this is single best resource for any edition of D&D that I have seen.

3. Prep time. How I love doing monsters and NPCs now! It's a labour of love, in a sense, rather than sheer drudgery.

And because of 3, perhaps now we will see the designers getting the stat blocks right!

 

[billd91]

There are a lot of things I don't like about 4e, but there are a few things I do:

1) encounter powers (not fond of dailies though)
2) ritual-time spells vs combat-time spells
3) layout and presentation
4) treasure parcels
5) allowing 2 alternate stats add to the defenses

 

[Bumbles]

I like how all of the characters have powers. I like the game having concepts of class roles, of tiers of play and I like the design of magic items being more verbose and flexible.

I'm sure all of these have been mentioned already, but it doesn't hurt to chime in.

 

[Corinth]

I'm not a D&D4 fan. I do like some of what's been done.

• The Character Builder & Rule Compendium online is a brilliant idea with an adequate execution. This should be standard practice now in the business.
• The four Defenses are a good idea that, for the most part, I find decently executed.
• I like that there are more Hit Points at 1st level, and that the bonus scheme for both attacks and defenses got evened out. I would've done the HP thing differently, as I'm not a fan of the ever-inflating HP pool; I'd rather that HP totals been static, damage adjusted accordingly, and defenses increased to accomodate.
• The Power Sources: I played Rolemaster, so "Martial" isn't a deal-breaker. How that got used broke it for me; playing a Martial character should require that the player pay close attention to the game and actively watch for emergent opportunities to use his ability- not just declare it by fiat. Limited uses, as if using something in a capacitor, is the province of magic- not mundane martial techniques.
• The Roles: Had they remained just aides for class or monster design, I'd be fine with it; they didn't, so it's a deal-breaker, but I do appreciate that they do make assessment of classes easy for users.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Pretty much all of it. I particularly like how both PCs and monsters use different abilities each round and the bloodied condition means battles can have 'phases' like a boss fight in a videogame.

I'm running Mutants & Masterminds at the moment and I'd like to try making the fights more interesting by building the supervillains more like 4e monsters. I'm a huge genre fiend so I don't want to compromise on that but otoh, the fights gotta work too. As rpg fights, not comic book fights.

 

[Lanefan]

Things I've noticed from reading (but not yet playing) 4e that have caught my old-schooler's eye:

- More movement and fluidity in combat. (but now finish the job by moving away from the strict turn-based system and allowing things like simultaneous actions, mid-round interactions, interrupts, and reactions; and you're there!)

- Bloodied. It's an attempt, at least, to distinguish between healthy and wounded in a mechanical sense. (SWSE's wound-vitality h.p. system is better, but this is at least a start)

- Less reliance on magic; though there's still work to do here. (a fine continuation for 5e would be to drop a lot of the basic armour and weapons and go a lot more into wondrous items that are only useful in the right situation; also make it that an item's function is not always somewhat obvious by what it is e.g. have it that not all magic footwear has an effect on movement)

- Simplification; though there's still a *lot* of work to do here.

Lanefan

 

[MerricB]

- Bloodied. It's an attempt, at least, to distinguish between healthy and wounded in a mechanical sense. (SWSE's wound-vitality h.p. system is better, but this is at least a start)

I think you mean SW3's W/V system. SW Saga Edition got rid of it - which it really needed to do, as the system didn't actually model the heroic nature of Star Wars very well!

Cheers!

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Here are some things I like about 4e:

* Skill challenges. At least, I like the idea of them, and I like how they tried to bring in narrative in a quantitative way.

* Martial maneuvers (I like to call them maneuvers rather than powers).

* Telling everyone to ignore the math and do what's cool with monsters.

* Refinements to the skill list.

* Character generator.

* Toning down the buff math.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you mean SW3's W/V system. SW Saga Edition got rid of it - which it really needed to do, as the system didn't actually model the heroic nature of Star Wars very well!

Cheers!

I stand corrected...

Some sort of system that mechanically differentiates between (remaining vitality or accrued fatigue) and (real wounds or injuries) in terms of both how they affect the character in and out of combat and how they can be healed or recovered is sadly needed; both for the cool-effects potential and for the realism. We've used such a thing for years in 1e, and while it's about as elegant as it can get in practice (not very, really), it's a biznitch to explain.

Lan-"how does it feel to be the king of pain"-efan