Grognard's First Take On 4e

[Henry]

Maybe I am just old fashioned but I still don't believe such a creature exists. Unless the term has been expanded to mean 'person who does not love everything about 4e'. All the 'nards I have met would not touch 3e with a pole.

Considering "grognard" in geek-speak is someone who has been in for a long time and usually prefers something different than the current game, then there are indeed 3e grognards now - one could probably use WotC's forum change as the demarcation point. With Keep on the Shadowfell out now, there are indeed people playing the whole 4th Edition - or at least the first three levels of it. And considering the word "grognard" means "grumbler", then there are INDEED 3e grognards. Technically speaking, I'm one of 'em.

 

[Jack99]

WotC clearly does not want to acknowledge that a large number of malcontents will prefer the 3.5 ruleset.

 

[Aeolius]

Technically speaking, I'm one of 'em.

Right there with you though, since I was a 1e old-timer that returned to the fold with 3e, I still prefer leap-grognard.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Well it seems Keep on the Shadowfell is out officially.
I actually got to see the rules about a month ago when a dealer had the adventure out early.
I didnt want to say anything cause I didnt want the guy to get into trouble, but I think I can offer my opinion of 4e now as ive seen the rules, and read them.

Ive come to call 4e Dungeons and Dragonsball Z, cause thats the way it seems. After reading how to I feel? Well about the same. The Rules do seems clunky, the monster layout is ugly and like most adventures it's boring.
Think Exalted when you play this game and you'll be fine, but if your like me and you like your games (D&D)to still feel More traditional Fantasy (Eberron being as far as I'd like to get from traditional fantasy), then 4e wont really appeal to you.
IM getting the Gift set because I collect the core books of D&D and i'lll get the campaign setting stuff, but Im sticking with 3.5 and then pathfinder when that comes out.

 

[AllisterH]

But they can look different, of course. There's another thread devoted to this topic, but I agree with those there. Does playing "guess if it's a minion" increase metagame thinking or does subtly making possible minions more obvious (most if the time) maybe move that kind of thinking to the background? Players will wonder "if it's worth it" anyway (they did in 3e with spells); taking the guesswork out of it (but not doing so obviously, leaving some doubt) will probably actually help verisimilitude.

Are people really that concerned about players "wasting" powers on minions? I don't think this is a valid fear due to the rest of the system for monsters. The bloodied mechanic will quickly teach players NOT to open with their big guns until after a monster has been bloodied.

Assume an at-will does 1 hit worth of damage, an encounter power 2 hits while a daily does 3.

Let's say you have a monster that can be taken down in 8 hits. This monster has no "Bloodied" trigger a la the gnoll and the angels. Mathematically, there's no difference in opening up with an at-will and then using encounter/daily powers when compared to the reverse method.

The monster in both cases will be dead in 5 rounds. However, there's a huge difference if the monster is one that has a "Bloodied" threshold trigger. Opening up with an encounter means that the PC will be subject to 4 more rounds of the monster at usually a STRONGER point (the gnoll for example), Whereas if the PC is smart and opens up with at-wills until the monster is bloodied, it only has to worry about facing a bloodied monster for 2 more rounds. I know which one I'd prefer.

This even works if the monster gets *WEAKER* at Bloodied like the Angels. Encounter powers unlike dailies can be whiffed thus it is better when facing an angel to *WAIT* until the angel's defenses are weaker than to start the battle with an encounter power.

So wouldn't the proper tactic pretty much always be "use at-will powers?" until at least the monster is bloodied, which means that the players never waste an encounter power/daily on minions?

 

[Zil]

My last 3.5 character was a rogue that I played from 1st level to about 17th. During the whole course of this character's career, by the time he finally got in an advantageous position to truly sneak attack, the fight was over (or 1 round away). I felt cheated by the unachieved potential of a rogue during a whole year of weekly game sessions.

If anything, 4th ed looks like this will not be the case anymore, for ANY class.

That's a humongous plus, if you ask me.

In my 3.5 games, it seems as if the rogues are getting their sneak attacks with great regularity - not just towards the end of an encounter. Of course, it might help that I generally eschew the recommended encounter build guidelines so my encounters tend to last much longer than the norm - probably 8 rounds is average for us. Also, given that I don't have very many 5' and 10' corridor fights and my player rogues always make use of tumbling, they are always maneuvering about to get flanking advantage. And the NPCs do the same - it's like a dance. And we didn't need a new rule set to achieve this.

Unfortunately when I sit down and build a 3.5 encounter according to the guidelines I find it much less interesting and combat lasts 1-2 rounds - and the players feel let down by how easy it was. I wonder how many 3.x games were run this way? Because I came from 1E and 2E, I never quite adjusted to the 3E way of building encounters but I think the game was better for it.

 

[Imaro]

Are people really that concerned about players "wasting" powers on minions? I don't think this is a valid fear due to the rest of the system for monsters. The bloodied mechanic will quickly teach players NOT to open with their big guns until after a monster has been bloodied.

Assume an at-will does 1 hit worth of damage, an encounter power 2 hits while a daily does 3.

Let's say you have a monster that can be taken down in 8 hits. This monster has no "Bloodied" trigger a la the gnoll and the angels. Mathematically, there's no difference in opening up with an at-will and then using encounter/daily powers when compared to the reverse method.

The monster in both cases will be dead in 5 rounds. However, there's a huge difference if the monster is one that has a "Bloodied" threshold trigger. Opening up with an encounter means that the PC will be subject to 4 more rounds of the monster at usually a STRONGER point (the gnoll for example), Whereas if the PC is smart and opens up with at-wills until the monster is bloodied, it only has to worry about facing a bloodied monster for 2 more rounds. I know which one I'd prefer.

This even works if the monster gets *WEAKER* at Bloodied like the Angels. Encounter powers unlike dailies can be whiffed thus it is better when facing an angel to *WAIT* until the angel's defenses are weaker than to start the battle with an encounter power.

So wouldn't the proper tactic pretty much always be "use at-will powers?" until at least the monster is bloodied, which means that the players never waste an encounter power/daily on minions?

Uhm...unless you die before you get a chance to use your encounter/daily. IMHO, this more than anything else will drive PC's to use their most powerful abilities first. What use is holding it back if you don't get a chance to use it before your paste?

In your example above you forget to compare how many "hits" it takes before the PC dies. It also doesn't take into consideration the random nature of damage. I think combat boils down simply to...Defeat opponent before opponent defeats you. This means it is better to do more damage as quickly as possible rather than less damage early on and risk being taken out before bringing your big guns out. It's the classic strategy for most monsters in CRPG's for a reason.

 

[Surgoshan]

Imaro, the PCs have more hit points and the monsters do less damage, plus crits have been turned to max damage rather than double. Basically, it takes longer to kill players, too, even if the dice swing in a bad way, meaning you're not going to see any one or two round deaths. Unless you hit on the DM's girlfriend.

So if PCs last longer, there's less reason to open up with your BFG; you know you can afford to wait until you need it.

 

[Spatula]

Imaro, the PCs have more hit points and the monsters do less damage, plus crits have been turned to max damage rather than double. Basically, it takes longer to kill players, too, even if the dice swing in a bad way, meaning you're not going to see any one or two round deaths.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4242362&postcount=2
"So the gnome's halfling slinger opens up on the pcs as they head down the steep slope, and combat breaks out. This combat was crazy- the two drakes both hit the warlord in the first round, before he had a chance to act, and did enough damage to kill him outright!"

 

[AllisterH]

Uhm...unless you die before you get a chance to use your encounter/daily. IMHO, this more than anything else will drive PC's to use their most powerful abilities first. What use is holding it back if you don't get a chance to use it before your paste?

In your example above you forget to compare how many "hits" it takes before the PC dies. It also doesn't take into consideration the random nature of damage. I think combat boils down simply to...Defeat opponent before opponent defeats you. This means it is better to do more damage as quickly as possible rather than less damage early on and risk being taken out before bringing your big guns out. It's the classic strategy for most monsters in CRPG's for a reason.

Um, I didn't forget that at all. It makes no difference in how many hits a PC can take. Mainly because, irrespective of "WHEN" the hits are administered, the total number of hits remain the same.

A monster that requires 8 hits to bite the bullet where an at-will is one hit -> daily = 3 hits will ALWAYS require 5 rounds (assuming you hit each round).

The only time your scenario would be an issue is if the monster could be one-shotted by a daily power and on average, none of the dailies we've seen been capable of wiping out an equivalent level monster by itself.

The reason why it works in CRPGs is because you already KNOW when a boss encounter will be.