D&D 4E Inquiry: How do 4E fans feel about 4E Essentials?

[Joshua Randall]

Holy crap I forgot about the cancer mage. Can you imagine the uproar if that class were created today? We'd need a trigger warning on the splatbook.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yes, the reduction of choice, variety and excitement was a huge selling point

I think that was also the sales pitch for 5e, right?

I'll get my Edition Warrior red card on my way out.

 

[Joshua Randall]

the actual, unstated, design purpose of that was to allow for variation of intensity at 2 different scales [...] It was a good solid model that works really well. It is supplemented by the 'daily intensity variation' which is STORY PRODUCING. [...] These dailies are your stakes within the mechanical framework of the game.

YES.

4e never, ever got enough credit for learning from the storygames and f--king nailing the implementation.

I agree that 4e should've trumpeted the combat ebb-and-flow as a story(game) element much more strongly in DMG 1. (An "indie" game certainly would've done so.) But that probably would've made people's heads explode.

 

[Joshua Randall]

BTW - a good 4e house rule (if I do say so myself) is that you cannot use more than one Daily attack power per combat. This tamps down the hoarding impulse while also livening up earlier fights in the adventuring day.

Note that this works best if...

• you have at least 3 combats per 'day' (Extended Rest cycle)
• your combats are always meaningful in some way... no 'old school' style trash fights for which a Daily would be pointless
• you may need to explain to the players that once they reach 9th level and have their full complement of Dailies, they should use one every combat or they're just wasting them

Not for every group, but worked really really well with my group of former LFR players who were used to hoarding dailies for the inevitable boss fight at the end of the adventure. (Probably also helps that I will lead off the adventuring day with the toughest combat about 25% of the time.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Holy crap I forgot about the cancer mage. Can you imagine the uproar if that class were created today? We'd need a trigger warning on the splatbook.

They still had to put warnings on that book so people wouldn't cut themselves on all that edge.

 

[Garthanos]

Essentials is, FUNDAMENTALLY, an attempt to subvert the Story Game nature of 4e! The purpose of a Slayer, for example, as a class is to support something closer to a Gygaxian mode of play in its stead. You don't have the stuff you could stake in SCs, which exist but are not really emphasized anymore. The main resources you would use in them aside from just skill checks are subverted (Daily powers, rituals, practices, item uses, etc.). Its more than just 'unbalancing the rest cycle', which I agree that the core HS mechanic (which is the really key resource) kind of moderates somewhat. The core identity of the game itself is being muddled. Not extremely, but it was a move in the wrong direction, IMHO.

Subversion is a good word here...

 

[Garthanos]

BTW - a good 4e house rule (if I do say so myself) is that you cannot use more than one Daily attack power per combat. This tamps down the hoarding impulse while also livening up earlier fights in the adventuring day.

Note that this works best if...

• you have at least 3 combats per 'day' (Extended Rest cycle)
• your combats are always meaningful in some way... no 'old school' style trash fights for which a Daily would be pointless
• you may need to explain to the players that once they reach 9th level and have their full complement of Dailies, they should use one every combat or they're just wasting them

Not for every group, but worked really really well with my group of former LFR players who were used to hoarding dailies for the inevitable boss fight at the end of the adventure. (Probably also helps that I will lead off the adventuring day with the toughest combat about 25% of the time.)

I will say BLATANT foreshadowing of fight difficulties and ease are I suppose another DM side tool

 

[Garthanos]

YES.

4e never, ever got enough credit for learning from the storygames and f--king nailing the implementation.

I have considered if someone chose to use a daily in an encounter that meant they considered that fight more important (maybe more important than I had) and maybe I should find a way to leverage that choice and find a way to make it more important. For instance they decided to wipe out this group of bad guy subordinates fast with over use dailies that I perhaps described over vividly (might even be my fault for being poetic perhaps). Then maybe rolling with that perhaps those would have been the exact underlings who would have been supporting the big bad in a later encounter and that encounter no longer has a second wave of support show up or similar. The thought is making player choices significant, good thing you guys made swift work of those chumps earlier or this might have been more tricky.

 

[Neonchameleon]

YES.

4e never, ever got enough credit for learning from the storygames and f--king nailing the implementation.

I agree that 4e should've trumpeted the combat ebb-and-flow as a story(game) element much more strongly in DMG 1. (An "indie" game certainly would've done so.) But that probably would've made people's heads explode.

4e more or less made peoples' heads explode anyway.

But honestly the biggest thing 4e needed was about a year more in development and polishing to do things like get the monster math right and probably a little more flesh on the skeleton. And the second biggest thing it needed was for Keep on the Shadowfell to be good rather than terrible.

 

[Undrave]

Eh, I didn't see the move from everybody being AEDU to some being less daily in their powers as breaking the rest cycle. There were still hard healing surge daily limits.

From my point of view it meant more consistency in what to expect from PCs combat to combat as there was less spikey daily powers that might or might not enter a combat.

If I had my way Healing Surges would be the ONLY daily ressources in the game. It being a sort of measure of daily stamina works great. But then Wizards wouldn't be able to leverage that structure to break the game and the Wizard Fans would whine it's not D&D.

But you'd need to spend at least 1 to get the benefit of a short rest, even if you're at full HP.