Just played my 7th 4E game

[Nightchilde-2]

Yeah... I think it works kind of like:

That mirrors my experience.

 

[Celtavian]

re

By "combat taking long", what do you mean?

Do you mean each round takes a long time? Or each fight takes a long time?

Because yes, 4e combats are on par with 3e combats as for "How long a fight takes in real time". However, 4e fights are designed to be more rounds. Instead of an hour spent concluding 3 rounds, you take an hour to conclude eight.

Mostly more rounds.

But like MerricB I ran 3E very quickly and was able to rattle off the rules without looking in the books. It was rare that I didn't know how to adjudicate a situation with the rules off the top of my head. I'm guessing from the complaints I've heard about 4E that this wasn't the case for a great many DMs.

I didn't have much of a problem comitting all the 3E rules to memory. I'm beginning to build my mental file of 4E rules. Even now as a player I keep the game flowing by being able to recite a rule without looking in the book.

I find 4E combats take about the same amount of time due to an increased number of rounds. Yeah, that is a major reason why to. You only get the one attack per round most of the time, so things don't as quick.

 

[Celtavian]

A few observations after I don't quite know how many sessions in three campaigns:

You'll want power cards (not necessarily mine, but you'll want some). Due to printer troubles, I didn't have cards ready for the first session with my 18th level wizard, and things would definitely have gone smoother with them.

Fights can drag on when you are down to at-wills or you have pretty much won already but the enemy is being stubborn. When it comes to that, some characters will still have options, while others won't.

We're a bit disappointed in the warlord. I'm happier with mine now that the party has expanded, but another one (18th level), was scrapped after one session.

Warlocks may be behind the other strikers in damage output (and the recent errata to Warlock's Curse hurts a bit), but they have other things going for them. In his first adventuring day (which saw 6 encounters) my infernal warlock contracted filth fever, kept provoking OAs to trigger Divine Challenge and Hellish Rebuke (Prime Shot was so made for flanking), and still had plenty of healing surges left when the dwarven paladin ran out.


cheers

What errata changed warlock's curse?

 

[Ander00]

What errata changed warlock's curse?

The latest update changed when you can apply the extra damage from warlock's curse or hunter's quarry. You now have to hit with an attack, as opposed to dealing damage. It's not huge but it is noticeable, and moreso for the warlock, who usually only gets one chance to hit per round.


cheers

 

[Celtavian]

The latest update changed when you can apply the extra damage from warlock's curse or hunter's quarry. You now have to hit with an attack, as opposed to dealing damage. It's not huge but it is noticeable, and moreso for the warlock, who usually only gets one chance to hit per round.


cheers

Thanks. I see. So now if an ability misses and does half damage, you don't add in curse damage.

 

[Farstrand]

You'll want power cards (not necessarily mine, but you'll want some).

Just a minor complaint here. You do want powercards and you do want Ander00's. They are great! And not quite the IncHogs that some of the others are.

Oh, and on a more serius note I really agree. Powercards speeds up combat quite a bit. Easy even for the new players to see what they are able to do on their turn.

/Farstrand

 

[Cadfan]

I've just completed about my 7th game of 4e. Here are some random thoughts.

I've been playing in an unusual context- a solo game run for my fiance. She's running two characters at once, an elf melee ranger and a tiefling orb wizard. I'm running three characters and acting as DM. I've got a lot of D&D experience, mostly as DM, she's got none. The lack of 3e preconceptions has probably helped.

She's picked up the game just fine, and is making tactical decisions quite well. In fact, we may move another character to her control soon.

Due to the nature of our game, in-game roleplaying is nearly nonexistent. It would only be a conversation between two people anyways. Roleplaying is relegated to a sort of informal bluebooking. But we're having a lot of fun with it.

Combat is faster. Anyone who says otherwise is crazy. Of course, we've been using the equivalent of power cards from the very first session (we copy powers onto the character sheet at this point, may move to cards as we advance in level).

I never used miniatures in 3e. I just used a sketched pencil map. Having used miniatures now, I will never go back.

We had a hard time remembering action points. I'm going to add tokens so that we remember.

We just finished Keep on the Shadowfell. We didn't have any character deaths. We did have about 500 exp going into it, and I used some of the Dungeon Magazine extra encounters, which meant that we were often one level ahead at crucial fights, but I don't think that was the reason we got through so well. I think the reasons we did so well were 1) excellent party composition- fighter, cleric, rogue, ranger, wizard, and 2) excellent cooperation.

I adjusted the difficulty of a few fights ad hoc- mostly to increase it. I gave a few enemies special attacks that weren't in their stat block. For example, I wanted the hobgoblin war leader to actually use his magic weapon, so I gave him a charge attack where he through his spear, draw his sword, and charged with it, all in one action. I also let Maw summon extra zombies at will, rather than only once per encounter. Our PCs kill low AC minions so fast that it didn't matter- the ranger accounted for two per round, as did the fighter, and the wizard for lots more. It made Maw cooler.

I had a few enemies run away, but that was mostly to avoid turning fights into grinds. I never had anyone run away while there was a remote chance of them prevailing. That was really the only way I adjusted the difficulty downwards, other than by providing the opportunity for extra fights. Then again, I didn't use wandering hobgoblins, so that probably evened out a bit.

Overall, we're having a lot of fun, and she's very enthusiastic about the game. And that's what D&D is all about to me.

 

[Festivus]

Yeah... I think it works kind of like:

Session 1: Players find out how crazy monsters are now... They also learn "run up and bash" isn't the most viable option anymore.

Session 2: Players start to realize what some of their powers can do. (Aside from straight damage effects) and how they function in relationship tot eh game.

Session 3: Players start to talk about group tactics, and how they noticed how a certain power might work well if someone does something in particular...

Session 1: Check... my players learned that too in a near TPK

Session 2: See Session 1...

Session 3: See Session 2 and they have begun discussing tactics on the messageboard between sessions. I bet tomorrow night they will kick it into high gear for teamwork.

 

[Celtavian]

I've just completed about my 7th game of 4e. Here are some random thoughts.

I've been playing in an unusual context- a solo game run for my fiance. She's running two characters at once, an elf melee ranger and a tiefling orb wizard. I'm running three characters and acting as DM. I've got a lot of D&D experience, mostly as DM, she's got none. The lack of 3e preconceptions has probably helped.

She's picked up the game just fine, and is making tactical decisions quite well. In fact, we may move another character to her control soon.

Due to the nature of our game, in-game roleplaying is nearly nonexistent. It would only be a conversation between two people anyways. Roleplaying is relegated to a sort of informal bluebooking. But we're having a lot of fun with it.

Combat is faster. Anyone who says otherwise is crazy. Of course, we've been using the equivalent of power cards from the very first session (we copy powers onto the character sheet at this point, may move to cards as we advance in level).

I never used miniatures in 3e. I just used a sketched pencil map. Having used miniatures now, I will never go back.

We had a hard time remembering action points. I'm going to add tokens so that we remember.

We just finished Keep on the Shadowfell. We didn't have any character deaths. We did have about 500 exp going into it, and I used some of the Dungeon Magazine extra encounters, which meant that we were often one level ahead at crucial fights, but I don't think that was the reason we got through so well. I think the reasons we did so well were 1) excellent party composition- fighter, cleric, rogue, ranger, wizard, and 2) excellent cooperation.

I adjusted the difficulty of a few fights ad hoc- mostly to increase it. I gave a few enemies special attacks that weren't in their stat block. For example, I wanted the hobgoblin war leader to actually use his magic weapon, so I gave him a charge attack where he through his spear, draw his sword, and charged with it, all in one action. I also let Maw summon extra zombies at will, rather than only once per encounter. Our PCs kill low AC minions so fast that it didn't matter- the ranger accounted for two per round, as did the fighter, and the wizard for lots more. It made Maw cooler.

I had a few enemies run away, but that was mostly to avoid turning fights into grinds. I never had anyone run away while there was a remote chance of them prevailing. That was really the only way I adjusted the difficulty downwards, other than by providing the opportunity for extra fights. Then again, I didn't use wandering hobgoblins, so that probably evened out a bit.

Overall, we're having a lot of fun, and she's very enthusiastic about the game. And that's what D&D is all about to me.

It's faster because you're playing with two people. I don't see as why it's faster than 3E at early levels. Every edition of DnD was fast at low levels. I would even argue that 3E was much faster than 4E at lower levels.

All you could do was move and swing. That was the extent combat. No one had to make multiple to hit rolls.

I'd love to see you time a 4E combat versus a 3E combat. The only time it was complicated was at high levels. 4E might be superior in speed then without the extensive spell lists and spell durations to keep track of.

But level 1 to about lvl 5. Speed is the same. I'm thinking maybe at higher lvl it will differ at least for casters. But it might not improve due to melee having more options for their characters attacks.

But we shall see.

I just know for myself I haven't noticed an increase in speed yet. I'd love to see someone do a real time comparison.

 

[rowport]

...It was not until recently did they finaly start to work very well as a team. They did not start firing on all cylinders until the Warlock switched to a wizard(long story short but the warlock character was feeling frustrated by the complex situational modifiers he had choosen for his Teifling Warlock, so we opted for the simpler yet more versitile Wizard)...

Jester-

I find this tremendously interesting, for by complete coincidence I did *exactly the opposite*. I just rebuilt my Tiefling Wizard as a Tiefling Warlock. My reasoning is that I kept playing the Wizard as a Striker, choosing single-target spells, and was dissatisfied both by his lame damage output and my inability to get the heck out of melee combat (or at least take a few hits). The Warlock class will take care of both of those problems.