I played 4E today. I died.

[Reynard]

Today was the first session of our new 4E campaign (after a summer of playtest sessions, a couple of which I played in and one of which I ran). While I've had enough experience with the system now, I think, to know I don't have any desire to run it, I will play it, mostly to be able to game with my friends.

That said, I had fun today. Fights seemed to take too long, still, but maybe that's because we are still getting used to the rules. in particular, we seemed to look up a lot of rules because we thought we knew what they did, but it was 3.x talking. there's a lot of things with the same or similar names, but very different.

My dwarf fighter, become an aventurer in order to raise a fortune to impress a rich girl's father, died uncermoniously against some undead. My group has a saying -- it isn't a game of D&D until Reynard dies. So that was no great surprise.

What did surprise me was that i was able to make up my replacement cleric character in about 30 minutes and get back into the game. Not quite as fast as it would have been if we were playing AD&D, but orders of magnitude faster than if we were playing 3E.

 

[Remathilis]

Welcome to the collective! Have some Kool-aid...

 

[Gort]

You sound cool. I like any player that can lose a character and take it in his stride.

 

[Whitemouse]

Welcome to the collective! Have some Kool-aid...

Just be careful with it, it might be spiked.

 

[El Mahdi]

My condolences to his clan. Sorry for your loss.

 

[Kzach]

Do you have a wizard?

Minions don't sound impressive until you don't have a wizard. Seriously, fights got a lot shorter when we had a wizard in the party during our test sessions.

The same with a powerful striker. Without a decent striker, fights can take twice as long.

 

[Bullgrit]

What did surprise me was that i was able to make up my replacement cleric character in about 30 minutes and get back into the game. Not quite as fast as it would have been if we were playing AD&D, but orders of magnitude faster than if we were playing 3E.

What level? I've read these kinds of complaints about D&D3 character generation, but I still don't understand what takes so long.

Well, actually, I do know what takes so long: tweaking. I've seen people create, ready for play, a mid-level D&D3 character in 10 minutes, and then spend hours over the following week tweaking it to perfectly fit their concept.

I once made a 9th-level dwarf cleric in 15 minutes, written on a 3x5 note card. I made a 20th-level human monk, with full magic gear, in about 45 minutes -- and that character was for a gladiatorial competition at a game convention.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[EATherrian]

We also had our first 4E campaign game this weekend, and in the first foray into the dungeon (we were seeking the fates of some miners) we had a fight where 3 out of the 5 characters died. They actually all died while fighting the last of about 7 enemies, 3 minions. They could'nt make their death or on-going damage saves, and we could'nt make our heal saves. But they made some more characters and we finished up. I will admit that character creation is quicker again. I'm now cool with 4E as long as I treat it as a distinct organism and ignore any connections it had to D&D as a whole.

 

[DEP]

Without a wizard it can be tough to get rid of minions. It can be annoying. I can write up a character in about 10mins, so its about on parwith 3.x.
What I found kills characters is the ongoing damage. It is by far the most damaging effect to PCs.

 

[Rechan]

My party, without a wizard, seems to mow through minions. The ranger just twin-strikes with his bow, and everyone targets the minions early.