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

[meomwt]

I'm certainly in the anti-4E camp, though there are things there which I can cope with -and, indeed, am using in the campaign I am currently writing for my group.

Good stuff

• Skill challenges. One failed roll needn't de-rail an adventure. Exellent. It can almost be ported as-is into 3E and I intend to highlight it in my game.
• Treasure packet system. Trailblazer will be using this - details are in the free preview available - and I think the implementation works well.
• Minions. Someone has done some work on them here on ENWorld, and I've taken that ball and run with it. I like the idea and I like the concept.
• Encounter building by point-buy. I've spent many a happy hour adding up non-linear CR's in my head to work out whether an encounter was fair and balanced: this system is a winner in my book.

Things I don't like about 4E

• Fort/ Will/ Reflex as defences, not saves. I see these as a PC getting a chance to avoid a Fate Worse Than Death (i.e. the roll simulates actively doing something) rather than a static defence. A Rogue rolling out of the way of a Red Dragon's fiery breath, for example, rather than just getting armour (or whatever) in the way. YMMV.
• The Powers system. Feels a step removed from what D&D has always been, IMO. Fighters swing swords, not adopt "The Stance of the Constpated Dragon" (or whatever the powers are called) to hit the oncoming Orc.
• Deity List. They have been playing mix'n'match, pulling Greyhawk Deities together with some others to produce a disparate mis-match.
• Alignment. Unaligned I can cope with. I can almost use that. But I don't like the other changes, they seem arbitary.
• Marking. Seems to over-complicate an already complicated combat system with another Condition to use.
• The new power system means that Wizards, Clerics, etc., who are primarily spell-casters, get nerfed on the battlefield and over-complictaed (rituals) when not.

For me, 3E is a good solid system, and I have plenty of support material and adventure sources to keep going for a long, long time...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I've noticed something interesting here: people who say they explicitly dislike or are on the fence about 4e say they like healing surges. While poeple that are fans of 4e (in my experience, anyway), generally dislike the healing surge mechanic. Their gripe is that the designers went through all this trouble to eliminate the fifteen-minute adventure day syndrome, giving players things like encounter powers, at-wills, milestones and action points to encourage them to do more than a couple of encounters a day. But then they pulled a 180 and put in healing surges, a hard and fast limiter on how much your character can do in one day. Anyone who's played 4e knows; if one player is out of healing surges, the adventure comes to a halt as soon as possible.

Could some of the people who like healing surges shed a little light onto why? Do you like a limit on how much the characters can accomplish in a day? Or maybe just a limit on how much healing you can pump into a single person before they need actual rest? Also interested in why people who dislike the system like this particular mechanic, while people who do like it, don't.

Well, maybe this is a topic for the "So that's why you like it thread!"?

My pick is. I like it for entire gameplay reasons mostly. Essentially, it is, together with daily powers, a resource you have to manage and adds a "strategic" component to play.These two resources might actually be crucial to work together. Without daily powers, you would have a pretty constant daily routine. You can't beat too tough enemies anyway, since you have nothing to get you out of trouble, so overall, healing surges erode at the same pace. Without healing surges, there is little real benefit of spending a daily power during a longer series of combats. You will heal to full anyway when the fight is over. They only matter in a hard combat (because you might not win without them), but not if you go through a series of moderate or easy encounters. You then spend dailies to go through less healing surges!

Without daily powers and healing surges, only the encounter would matter. That essentially removes one layer of "challenges" you have to face as a party during play. But I want such challenge. A game (to my taste) requires me to make decisions, predicting consequences and dealing with them. In an RPG, I feel that needs to happen both on the game and the story side.

There are also aspects of "verisimilitude" to it, I suppose - like the idea that characters don't advance from 1st level to 20th level 3 days of non-stop fighting. But that's actually not that relevant, not after having gone through dozens of cure light wound wands in 3rd edition.

 

[FireLance]

I don't really mind daily limits to healing surges (I'm old school enough to accept that mortals can't keep going indefinitely) and I do like the way that healing surges tend to make hit point restoration proportional to a character's base hit points.

Apart from the issues you mentioned, I believe some other areas of dislike are:

1. The fact that most types of healing require healing surges to work (potions, in particular).

2. Flavor issues arising from what happens when hit points are restored through non-magical means (such as using the second wind action, spending healing surges during a short rest, and a warlord's inspiring word).

 

[BryonD]

I really very much like the 4E death and dying rule.

 

[avin]

I'm on the "like 4E" wagon so I will list only the things I do not like in it:

- This feeling that D&D is GOOOOOOOOOD vs evil that 4E pushes. Former editions fit better my shades of gray DM style. Everything has a reason, not just "becuz i'm evilz lolz".

- The condensed 4E MM fluff. Damn. My favorite books are always monster manuals. I love to get inspiration by reading all former editions of it. 4E is lackluster, to say the least.

- Too much straight story. "Blood War happened because X stole Y from Z" seems a dumb downed area.

- Elemental Chaos.

- Cartoon Style.

Stuff OP likes is mostly what I like also.

 

[BryonD]

Fundamentally, I like the fact that 4e put the fun of playing a game up front and centre, and not the simulation of a game world.

You know, this really doesn't say anything.
It is like saying that baseball puts the fun up front and center, and basketball is hung up on bouncing a ball and throwing it through a hoop. Therefore, baseball is more focused on fun than basketball.

Obviously, 4E touches on *something* that is more fun *to you*. But without providing any data whatsoever on what constitutes "fun", you haven't made a complete statement.

 

[malkav666]

I am not a fan of 4e. Hate is probably too strong of a word to describe my feelings about the system. My group gave it a solid 6 month day in court playing it once a week for that time, and just slowly came to the realization that we really weren't having as much fun with it as we did with some other flavors of FRPG that we were playing.

That being said there are some design elements which I personally enjoy:

1. I like the whole process of dying in 4e. Everything from the mechanics of the death saving throw to the increasing amount of negative HP you get as a buffer as you level up. It just makes sense to me that characters would be a little harder to kill as they level up, and that a player repeatedly dropped into the negatives would have a greater chance of death on each subsequent trip.

2. I like the idea of a Vancian system that has abilities that are used once a day/1 an encounter/ and at will all in one system. While I find this system to be an eloquent system for magic users (in fact I would love to see a 3.x options book treating some of the casting classes in 3.x that way). I don't so much care for it for the martial types, and certainly not as an end all for combat options in general. but the premise of the idea is smart, and I feel that it is the natural evolution of the Vancian system. I like it very much in concept, even though the delivery was not my cup of tea.

3. I like the concept of more recharge rolls for monster abilities. I know this was present in 3.x. But I enjoy that fact that most monsters have it in 4e. It makes them a little more random to run.

4. I like the addition of rules for using abilities that are typically considered to be ranged in melee range (close blast). I consider this to be a good evolution of targeting mechanics from previous editions as well. It adds a few new dynamics to combat for the folks who normally attack at range, that I find to be refreshing. I do not like many applications of it as far as which abilities in 4e are considered to be close blast. But in a design sense it is a fabulous addition.

I am sure there are likely other tidbits of the system that I find to be well thought out. In fact, my opinions of the most of the mechanics in the combat portion of the 4e system are very high. It is just how those mechanics are ultimately applied that marginalize the system as a whole for me personally. But thats cool, everybody likes different things. If we didn't, there would only be one flavor of ice cream, and that would be a sad thing indeed.

love,

malkav

 

[Turbiales]

1- I like the cutoff of the required setup time for a session. (I MEAN IT, in 3.5 it's a major pain)
2- I like the dinamics of the encounter. The PC's are more like to move arround the battlefield than 3.5
3- In general i like de action points mechanic, i always like if the player's have a method of thinker the system.
4- The Classes are overall balanced, everybody has an oportunity to shine.
5- The weapons seems to be more balanced, some favor precision others favor damage. It's not the realm of Greatswords with Power Attacks like 3.5 was.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Could some of the people who like healing surges shed a little light onto why?

I like the idea. The actual implementation is dingo kidneys.


RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like the idea. The actual implementation is dingo kidneys.

I never knew that dingos had problematic kidneys! Is it like with our Appendix?