Has 4e Improved Since June?

[Retreater]

Hey. I've been out of the loop for a few months, and I was wondering if 4e has gotten better since it's release.

Allow me to explain. My group sludged our way through H1, and we unanimously hated it. At the time, people said that it was a bad module.

We didn't like the virtually identical encounters from room-to-room, the dungeon-crawl feel of the module, the lack of opportunities for NPC interaction and wilderness encounters, the carbon-copy feel of the PCs, the lethality, and the difficulty of skill challenges.

I'm wondering if there's anything better out there now, or if everything is just as bad as H1 was. (I heard from a friend that H2 was even worse than H1.)

Has anyone tried P1 yet? Is paragon play any different than heroic tier play?

Just a few questions from a 4e-curious gamer.

Retreater

 

[Obryn]

I got a kick out of Keep on the Shadowfell, but it wasn't that great a module.

So far, I'm enjoying Thunderspire more. It is still fairly lethal, but it can be easily scaled back with just a quick pencil mark.

As for whether or not it's improved, it kinda depends on what you're looking for. If it's the basic structure of the game, well, that hasn't changed a bit.

-O

 

[JeffB]

Goodman has some great 4E modules! Check them out.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Do you mean has 4e Improved or have the adventures improved?

4E Adventures:
Well, MerricB was pretty positive on P1. I don't know yet how to judge the adventures - I am used to make my own. KotS seemed to work fine for our group, but probably wasn't the same as an average or above average Paizo Adventure Path Module... (by the way: Some people, including three in my group, are in the process of converting to 4E, and we already played a few sessions - works great!)

I think there are also now 3rd party adventures for 4E available, so maybe you should look into that if you don't like WotC adventure style.

Basically, if you were to homebrew, you could make any kind of adventure, maybe a few that fit more to your play style.

4E System:
I think the system has improved in so far as the first supplements are available and we've already seen by Dragon and these supplements what further potential is the system.
I am not sure if this counts as an improvement, but I'd say I liked what I saw so far.

 

[frankthedm]

We didn't like

the virtually identical encounters from room-to-room,
I think this has improved, unless you mean "virtually identical defenses and HP".

the dungeon-crawl feel of the module,
It's D&D and an introductory module. It damn better be a dungeon crawl.

the lack of opportunities for NPC interaction
Not having the option to talk with the swordfodder is a Good Thing^tm. If the players have the option to talk to the monsters, one player will try while the rest just want to put their foes to the sword.

and [the lack of] wilderness encounters,
Since this was a introductory module, it definitely favored "Skip to the Dungeon" like many of the older intro mods.

the carbon-copy feel of the PCs
That is just the way 4E balances PCs. Everyone has Daily, encounter and at will powers.

the lethality,
That issue was raised not just a few times.

and the difficulty of skill challenges.
Skill challenges have been errated to be much easier.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Hey. I've been out of the loop for a few months, and I was wondering if 4e has gotten better since it's release.

Allow me to explain. My group sludged our way through H1, and we unanimously hated it. At the time, people said that it was a bad module.

We didn't like the virtually identical encounters from room-to-room, the dungeon-crawl feel of the module, the lack of opportunities for NPC interaction and wilderness encounters, the carbon-copy feel of the PCs, the lethality, and the difficulty of skill challenges.

For H2:

There area still some repeating enemies, like the "kobold area" and "goblin area" concepts ... although for the most part there are some new enemies in just about every room.

There is a larger "main town" that provides access to NPCs and a bit more interaction, some of them give out quests and you can end up getting into a fight with other ones. It's still left up to the DM to flesh out the NPC interactions a bit more, but there is a lot of area to explore if the PCs want to ... there is also the ability to go directly from delve spot to delve spot in a linear fashion if that's the kind of party they are as well. There is a chance for random encounters ... not exactly "wilderness" encounters because it's all underground tunnels, but basically, there are chances of random encounters in this one. The PCs when you make them yourselves aren't carbon copy ... especially because between DDI and the expansions (martial power next week) allows for a lot of customization.

The skill challenges in H1 were using the old system that they've errata'd. I'm not sure if it was fixed in H2 or not. However the skill challenges in H2 are mostly designed to have a sliding scale of rewards depending on how many successes you got before it ended.

On the lethality ... there are some parts that are very nasty. Personally, I just finished DM'ing H2, and the first actual PC fatality took place in the final fight. This is partially because I may be a bit of a lenient DM, and I'll occaisionally "forget" to use a nasty power of some monsters. It's a big step up from H1 in my opinion.

I'm wondering if there's anything better out there now, or if everything is just as bad as H1 was. (I heard from a friend that H2 was even worse than H1.)

I've not yet read up on the Forgotten Realms equivalent of "H1" that starts off at 2nd level. It should probably fix at least the errata'd issues like skill challenges. I'm going to probably start running that one next week for another group, so I'll try to give feedback on it (unless someone else can comment?)

 

[delericho]

We didn't like the virtually identical encounters from room-to-room, the dungeon-crawl feel of the module, the lack of opportunities for NPC interaction and wilderness encounters, the carbon-copy feel of the PCs, the lethality, and the difficulty of skill challenges.

Has anyone tried P1 yet? Is paragon play any different than heroic tier play?

As others have noted, Skill Challenges have been errata'd. Although even the errata has come in for some criticism for being too easy - you could try the Obsidian variant that Stalker0 posted here.

P1 seems to be a very good adventure, although whether it's different from H1 I can't say (I don't have it and haven't played it). Alternately, you could always homebrew your own adventures - the difficulty of doing so definately seems reduced significantly from the days of 3e.

 

[vagabundo]

H1 was a more straightforward type of adventure, but I found it had a good frame and I could customise it easily for my campaign. I'm about half way through now and I've made a good amount of changes and we're having a good time.

I've bought H2 and I feel it is a better adventure, more sandboxy and a lot more scope for RP. Definitely worth a look.

I've heard good things about P1, AV and the new martial book.