D&D 4E How to get started if you want to give 4e a try.

[FallenRX]

Was thinking about running 4E for some friends, been awhile since i played it, they were curious, im curious to see how they feel about it
Whats the best way to get into it.

Buying the Essential's books and running it using that, or buying the Original 3 big books.

Also should i not use the original monster book, but use the essentials one?

 

[Haplo781]

Was thinking about running 4E for some friends, seeing how they feel about it.
Whats the best way to get into it.

Buying the Essential's books and running it using that, or buying the Original 3 big books.

Also should i not use the original monster book, but use the essentials one?

Essentials classes are not recommended outside of Mage and Warpriest, particularly if your goal is to learn 4e. Most e-classes don't teach you how a regular 4e class is supposed to work. Player's Handbook 1-3 and the X Power books are a good baseline for character builds, though you should be aware of the copious errata for PHB 1 especially.

Your go-to monster books are Monster Manual 3, Monster Vault, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, and Dark Sun Creature Catalog.

Due to the sheer amount of content in 4e and the "everything is core" philosophy, it's generally recommended to use a digital compendium, although I can't link to any here due to piracy rules.

You can find a dedicated 4e community here: Join the D&D 4e Discord Server!

 

[aco175]

I would suggest Keep on the Shadowfell (KotS) as a good starter adventure. You do not need to play the follow-on adventures, but that one is good.

 

[Haplo781]

I would suggest Keep on the Shadowfell (KotS) as a good starter adventure. You do not need to play the follow-on adventures, but that one is good.

KotS is specifically called out by basically everyone as not a great starter adventure.

If you're going to use it, do Justin Alexander's remix. Or just run Reavers of Harkenwold.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Essentials is an easier path to get into the game, especially for newcomers who've never played. The character choices are more streamlined, as well as more in-line with traditional classes and races. And for a group that is just dipping a toe, you won't need to buy a ton of out-of-print and outdated sourcebooks. You can always get them later if you decide you want to go further as a group.

 

[GreyLord]

I would first start them on the basics.

This is free

4e Quickstart

Using that as an introduction should get them to understand the basics of the game.

After that, I would probably go with Essentials first, with Heroes of the Fallen Lands as the PHB and using the Monster Vault as the Monster Manual.

However, using the PHB/DMG/MM isn't a bad course either. There were some imbalances that were changed later that you may want to update to using to make it flow better, but it will probably flow better for the player to using that from the Original Quickstart (link above) than the Essentials Books.

PS: Keep on the Shadowfell is also free and has some quickstart rules included also.

Keep on the Shadowfell

Finally, Khyber's Harvest is also a free Adventure for 4e released on DMsguild

Khyber's Harvest

 

[overgeeked]

Keep on the Shadowfell is a grindy dungeon crawl that absolutely does not play to the strengths of 4E. It runs almost exactly counter to them.

In my experience, 4E works best when you do fewer, bigger fights that are spread out in time rather than constantly churning through combat.

The Quickstart rules are free so that’s a good place to start.

The Essentials classes are simpler than the core classes. If that’s what you and the players want to start, go for it.

There is a 4E reddit and discord. You can find a lot of help there. Especially of the technical variety related to the character builder.

The Essentials monster books are great. As is MM3. The maths are off in MM1 and MM2.

 

[overgeeked]

My favorite part of 4E was skill challenges. They’re poorly implemented in all the books. But the best presentation of them is in the Essentials DM’s Kit and Rules Compendium.

My advice would be to remove the “before three failures” portion of skill challenges. Give them a time limit instead. Something like 3-4 rounds. This keeps the mechanics almost identical to RAW (if that’s important to you), but also fixes a huge problem with the subsystem as a whole.

For early adventures and monsters, I’d suggest using the maths from Blog of Holding.

Have fun. It’s a great game and it does it’s thing quite well. Not everyone’s a fan of what it does though.

 

[Haplo781]

My favorite part of 4E was skill challenges. They’re poorly implemented in all the books. But the best presentation of them is in the Essentials DM’s Kit and Rules Compendium.

My advice would be to remove the “before three failures” portion of skill challenges. Give them a time limit instead. Something like 3-4 rounds. This keeps the mechanics almost identical to RAW (if that’s important to you), but also fixes a huge problem with the subsystem as a whole.

For early adventures and monsters, I’d suggest using the maths from Blog of Holding.

Have fun. It’s a great game and it does it’s thing quite well. Not everyone’s a fan of what it does though.

Honestly? Do whatever makes sense for the situation at hand.

 

[overgeeked]

Honestly? Do whatever makes sense for the situation at hand.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I have a whole house rule system for handling skill challenges. I'm just suggesting what would be an easy fix to a common problem with skill challenges.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Keep on the Shadowfell is a grindy dungeon crawl that absolutely does not play to the strengths of 4E. It runs almost exactly counter to them.

I just want to second (third?) this incredibly hard.

Keep on the Shadowfell nearly put my players off 4E, despite being enthused about it, and I had to gradually win their trust back. The follow-up adventures are also awful. They were so bad that I went back to writing my own adventures, something I hadn't done for D&D for a long time at that point (because writing adventures for 3E was such a chore).

Luckily it's a lot easier to write adventures for 4E than 3E or even 5E.

The other major thing I'd say would be remember to use the page 42 table in the DMG and use it generously.

 

[BigZebra]

A good first adventure is The Slaying Stone. A really great adventure in its own right. Follow that up with Reavers of Harkenwold and then Madness at Gardmore Abbey. These three adventures are really really good. And shows off what 4e can.
After that you know more about how 4e runs, and can adjust the whole H1-E3 epic campaign to better fit 4e. You can also look at the awesome Demon Prince of Undeath conversion.

I personally think that the H1-E3 campaign is judged a bit too hard. There are some fun stuff in it I find. And the worst offender is H1 (Keep on the Shadowfell).

 

[Haplo781]

A good first adventure is The Slaying Stone. A really great adventure in its own right. Follow that up with Reavers of Harkenwold and then Madness at Gardmore Abbey. These three adventures are really really good. And shows off what 4e can.
After that you know more about how 4e runs, and can adjust the whole H1-E3 epic campaign to better fit 4e. You can also look at the awesome Demon Prince of Undeath conversion.

I personally think that the H1-E3 campaign is judged a bit too hard. There are some fun stuff in it I find. And the worst offender is H1 (Keep on the Shadowfell).

Slaying Stone also has a major issue in that there's a skill challenge that doesn't tell you what to do if the players fail it. And... It's kind of a big one.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I haven’t experienced Slaying Stone but I can echo that Reavers and Gardmore are both really, really good. You will need to thoroughly prep Gardmore though: it’s not a wing it kind of adventure.

 

[Voadam]

I am a big fan of essentials.

The monster books have better math and better solo design.

For the classes I am a big fan of a bunch of essentials ones, particularly having defender aura types of things that are easy to implement at the table instead of individual defender mark mechanics to track.

I prefer later knight paladins to early 4e god laser mark and run away paladins.

In contrast I really like earlier rangers and their slew of interrupt powers.

There is a big divide on views of essentials classes and their breaking of the AEDU power paradigm. Some really like the consistent AEDU and so feel that essentials changing that in class design is bad. Others really like that essentials can provide more emphasis on encounter consistent at will and encounter powers over the daily nova paradigm.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yeah definitely use monster vault and threats even if you eschew essentials classes. They are the best monster manuals ever made.

 

[CaptainAhab]

I started TTRPGs with 4e. I never purchased any of the Essentials stuff. I was also blissfully unaware of all the errata and just played the game as printed in the books. Sure, I had some grievances, but on the whole, I had a blast.

If I were to return to the game, is it safe to consider the PHBs 1 and 2 and MMs 1 and 2 to be so errata-laden and outdated that they're not worth bothering with anymore? Or could I pick up the core rule book set and be on my merry way again like I was back in high school?

 

[Voadam]

I started TTRPGs with 4e. I never purchased any of the Essentials stuff. I was also blissfully unaware of all the errata and just played the game as printed in the books. Sure, I had some grievances, but on the whole, I had a blast.

If I were to return to the game, is it safe to consider the PHBs 1 and 2 and MMs 1 and 2 to be so errata-laden and outdated that they're not worth bothering with anymore? Or could I pick up the core rule book set and be on my merry way again like I was back in high school?

The PH stuff would be OK. Minor errata for the most part. The MM math was changed as the game went along to increase damage, lower hp, and have solos do more interesting and engaging stuff instead of womp on one target while being subject to stunlocks. This is mostly so that fights do not drag out so much with little interesting going on in later rounds.

Most of the MM numbers stuff can be summed up easily in the 4e monster stats on a notecard formula. Google for it and it would make the 4e MM I & II monsters work better for game pacing and be easy to implement. The early 4e monsters will work as is, but the fight dynamics will be suboptimal, particularly compared to later 4e design.

 

[Joshua Randall]

There are a few MM1 and 2 monsters that are notoriously terrible (black dragon, anything with insubstantial + weakness). But for the most part the monsters on a business card math will fix most 1 and 2 monsters. That said a lot of them are just dull and boring compared to later MM3 and essentials monster design.

I could actually wax poetic on monsters … you could look at later year LFR adventures for some cool examples; The Angry DM’s multi-stage monsters; worldbreaker monsters (forget the author name). I’ll come back and dig up links if there’s interest.

 

[darjr]

I'd get that starter set. Then the Dungeon Delve book. Either do the low level one first or go to Raiders Hideout. Try that first.

If it doesn't work out then that Dungeon Delve book is also a great source of inspiration and really you can use the adventure ideas in any edition.

If it does then the next things I'd get are the rules compendium. Monster Manual III or the Monster Vault. And one of the Essentials character books. Or any of the character books the players fancied.

OR

You could go in with the Dark Sun books. With the Rules Compendium.

OR, and I realize this is a wild one, go with the GamaWorld 4e D&D edition. Fast character gen thats easy to understand and digest, 4e style play, and you can dispose of the wild mutation surge thing if you want. If this works then by the time a few games are done they'll be ready for any 4e.