Fallen Seraph
First Post
Well they have said that they changed the mark rule... To what we don't know.
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D&D 4E Highlights from the D&D Convention .... 4E reaction (after over 14 hrs of play)
- Thread starter Cyronax
- Start date
Ulthwithian
First Post
Er, Seraph, I know they commented that they changed the Paladin's Divine Challenge (or, in my mind, 'clarified' it)... have they said the same for the fighter?
Nice review. About the only thing I'm worried about now is the over-tacticalization of my home game, but that's not nearly a new concern. (We do it all the time right now.)
Nice review. About the only thing I'm worried about now is the over-tacticalization of my home game, but that's not nearly a new concern. (We do it all the time right now.)
Fallen Seraph
First Post
I dunno, it only mentioned Paladin. But perhaps if they are reevaluating the Paladin one, maybe they will do the same with the Fighter *shrugs shoulders*
ZombieRoboNinja
First Post
Elder-Basilisk said:
For clarity: the fighter sheet specifically says you get a "basic melee attack" as a free action, NOT an OA. This is important because if it WERE an OA, you would freeze them in place if you hit them (thanks to that other fighter ability).
This may well be an intentional design decision... I'm guessing that once a fighter player gets used to the character a bit, he starts paying very close attention to what's happening in all the squares he threatens, just as the ranger starts to keep close track of his quarry and the rogue is always on the lookout for opponents he can get combat advantage against. Meanwhile, leaders and controllers try to keep an eye on the battlefield as a whole.
In other words, the player's tactical focus will ideally be close to the character's tactical focus, which seems like an awesome design goal.
RodneyThompson
First Post
KarinsDad said:
I'm pretty sure that *is* how it works, so...no need to house rule.
FATDRAGONGAMES
First Post
Thanks for the review!
FitzTheRuke
Legend
ZombieRoboNinja said:
Oh yeah, that's really good.
Cyronax
Explorer
To continue my review ... or at least impressions of 4th edition, I turn to the stuff I was most interested in as a DM, the monster design and prep time.
Having seen the elegance of static defenses and perception, along with the simplified save, I am now very confident that the monster design system will be pleasing in like manner.
During a few of the demos, an RPGA DM would explain that minions would die within 1 hit generally. Cool. I like it. A dividing line between a roleplaying oriented DM and a straight combat DM style will be how he describes minions (and other roles).
For instance, one of the Delve DMs (early into the XP, when I was still getting used to the game) merely introduced an encounter along lines like this:
"You enter a dark cavernous chamber ..... as it comes into full view you see a monster and its minions."
The minis present were skeletons or some type of undead, and combat began not long after.
By the second round the 'monster' attacked one of the characters with a bow or sling. Anyway, none of the minis were armed with ranged weapons, so one of the players asked ...."What kind of monsters are these?"
The DM just said "they're minions, they die in one hit......they're a rabble of peasants and an archer."
It was a little jarring. Anyway, that was an extreme example, and I think the DM was just a little tired (especially because he rocked in another Delve I played in).
But .. the point is the presentation of minions really matters. The more interesting the minion or at least the less sure the players were that we were facing minions, the more fun I had. The same follows on with the other monster roles. (I think this point is being discussed in another thread.)
----------------
During the LFR 1 scenario, we fought a few Sembian guards and a Sembian official that were bullying a local contact. As part of the battle, the DM opened up on the halfling with a 'power' that really hurt the halfling, knocking him prone. The halfling's player asked what kind of power was it? The NDA that the DMs were bound to must have limited the DM's ability to just name the power, so he answered by describing the power with flourish (as DMs love to do).
So that point drove home one of my misgivings with the Book of 9 Swords and potentially 4e. I don't like simply saying I use "Tide of Iron," and then going from there. I want the DM and the players to try to be as descriptive as possible with their powers in order to try to limit our gamist instincts. I as DM will make double sure to do this, because I think it adds a lot to the gaming experience when the players don't quite know exactly what the power was that just hit them. I'd rather them think, "Whoah that guard is pretty handy with that mace, I wonder if I can get past it and try to tackle him."
------------
Prep time:
Final point. I think that the prep time of many DMs will be reduced significantly due to the scaleable roles that are associated with monsters.
Case in point, the DM of the LFR 1 preview I mentioned above told us that the merchant guards we fought were in fact level 5 (i think) bandits, but that the preview just renamed them. To me that says that DM customizeability and creativity are built into the Monster Manual. In a way that is much more quickly accomplished than in the 3e MM, as well as the NPC generation chapters in the DMG.
I see a set of monster stats as being more portable. I think 4e will probably allow the DM to pore over stats of different monsters and say, "okay the party's goin to fight some orc dervishes tonight. The orc entry doesn't have a 'dervish-like' feel. So I'll just swap out this feature or that feature and I just made a level-appropriate orc dervish out of the stats for a gypsy blade dancer" (or something along those lines), all within the confines of the rules presented in monster design in either the DMG or the MM.
So in the end, the DM will probably have more power. The danger of making a faulty monster due to an 'eyeballing' -led approach is probably overblown, and there is less fear of getting a monsters feats and skills messed up than in 3.5.
HUH?!
.... after I wrote all of this, I realize I sound like a 4e fanboy. I'm not a wholesale advocate of the system, but it does appear to be strong.
My main probable gripe will be that it gives up some of the positive complexity of 3.5. Specifically, I worry that the versatility of the Rogue and some other classes, and the ability of the commonman/everyman Hero is gone. I also share the concerns of many that predict 4e to be nothing more than a meta-gamed out Fight Club with PCs that never face extended periods of adversity or downtime. What I don't want is the 1st to 30th level progression to occur in a the space of a few days or months game time.
BUT, overall ... I see 4e as positive. It puts more power into the hands of both the players and the DM. At least I hope.
C.I.D.
(EDIT: I pasted this text up to the top for unified presentation purposes. Didn't change anything else.)
Having seen the elegance of static defenses and perception, along with the simplified save, I am now very confident that the monster design system will be pleasing in like manner.
During a few of the demos, an RPGA DM would explain that minions would die within 1 hit generally. Cool. I like it. A dividing line between a roleplaying oriented DM and a straight combat DM style will be how he describes minions (and other roles).
For instance, one of the Delve DMs (early into the XP, when I was still getting used to the game) merely introduced an encounter along lines like this:
"You enter a dark cavernous chamber ..... as it comes into full view you see a monster and its minions."
The minis present were skeletons or some type of undead, and combat began not long after.
By the second round the 'monster' attacked one of the characters with a bow or sling. Anyway, none of the minis were armed with ranged weapons, so one of the players asked ...."What kind of monsters are these?"
The DM just said "they're minions, they die in one hit......they're a rabble of peasants and an archer."
It was a little jarring. Anyway, that was an extreme example, and I think the DM was just a little tired (especially because he rocked in another Delve I played in).
But .. the point is the presentation of minions really matters. The more interesting the minion or at least the less sure the players were that we were facing minions, the more fun I had. The same follows on with the other monster roles. (I think this point is being discussed in another thread.)
----------------
During the LFR 1 scenario, we fought a few Sembian guards and a Sembian official that were bullying a local contact. As part of the battle, the DM opened up on the halfling with a 'power' that really hurt the halfling, knocking him prone. The halfling's player asked what kind of power was it? The NDA that the DMs were bound to must have limited the DM's ability to just name the power, so he answered by describing the power with flourish (as DMs love to do).
So that point drove home one of my misgivings with the Book of 9 Swords and potentially 4e. I don't like simply saying I use "Tide of Iron," and then going from there. I want the DM and the players to try to be as descriptive as possible with their powers in order to try to limit our gamist instincts. I as DM will make double sure to do this, because I think it adds a lot to the gaming experience when the players don't quite know exactly what the power was that just hit them. I'd rather them think, "Whoah that guard is pretty handy with that mace, I wonder if I can get past it and try to tackle him."
------------
Prep time:
Final point. I think that the prep time of many DMs will be reduced significantly due to the scaleable roles that are associated with monsters.
Case in point, the DM of the LFR 1 preview I mentioned above told us that the merchant guards we fought were in fact level 5 (i think) bandits, but that the preview just renamed them. To me that says that DM customizeability and creativity are built into the Monster Manual. In a way that is much more quickly accomplished than in the 3e MM, as well as the NPC generation chapters in the DMG.
I see a set of monster stats as being more portable. I think 4e will probably allow the DM to pore over stats of different monsters and say, "okay the party's goin to fight some orc dervishes tonight. The orc entry doesn't have a 'dervish-like' feel. So I'll just swap out this feature or that feature and I just made a level-appropriate orc dervish out of the stats for a gypsy blade dancer" (or something along those lines), all within the confines of the rules presented in monster design in either the DMG or the MM.
So in the end, the DM will probably have more power. The danger of making a faulty monster due to an 'eyeballing' -led approach is probably overblown, and there is less fear of getting a monsters feats and skills messed up than in 3.5.
HUH?!
.... after I wrote all of this, I realize I sound like a 4e fanboy. I'm not a wholesale advocate of the system, but it does appear to be strong.
My main probable gripe will be that it gives up some of the positive complexity of 3.5. Specifically, I worry that the versatility of the Rogue and some other classes, and the ability of the commonman/everyman Hero is gone. I also share the concerns of many that predict 4e to be nothing more than a meta-gamed out Fight Club with PCs that never face extended periods of adversity or downtime. What I don't want is the 1st to 30th level progression to occur in a the space of a few days or months game time.
BUT, overall ... I see 4e as positive. It puts more power into the hands of both the players and the DM. At least I hope.
C.I.D.
(EDIT: I pasted this text up to the top for unified presentation purposes. Didn't change anything else.)
Last edited:
Zoatebix
Working on it
I feel that the wizard pre-gen has at least one more thing going for him than you gave him credit for: Mage Hand has a minor action means that he can return the fighter's or paladin's thrown weapons. That and the bloodhunt racial ability gives the wizard's player something to think about when targeting his magic missile or blast. But that's about it - other than that, the wizard was rather underwhelming. Maybe if there were more guidance as to how effective illusions would be, I may have been tempted to use Ghost Sound. I knew I should have asked another question before I left!
-George Austin
-George Austin
Cyronax said:
I really liked a comment on one of the interviews about the DMG helping scale the pace of leveling. I think it will be easy to level slower while still doing many combat and social encounter per level, without the complexities of 3E. It is good that XP is no longer a currency.
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