D&D 4E Let's Talk About 4E On Its Own Terms [+]

[Voadam]

Same with crossbow bolts, but at least those cantrips are spells...

Yep, but bolts came in cases of 10 and you could buy more than one case. Wizards had a max of four cantrips per day (three at first level) to be allocated between attack and utility spells as you saw fit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep, but bolts came in cases of 10 and you could buy more than one case. Wizards had a max of four cantrips per day (three at first level) to be allocated between attack and utility spells as you saw fit.

Yeah, even 4e wizards have cantrips, light, mage hand, etc. I think you have to pick a couple when you create your character, I forget exactly, but they're not able to affect anything in combat, at least not directly (IE throw a weapon or blind someone). Since they take a standard action to invoke they're not really THAT useful inside a fight, but in other situations, like triggering a trap or something, they could be pretty handy. So, not powerless, but not unbalanced either. I mean, anyone can throw rocks and try to set off traps... light is handy, but sun rods already do the same thing.

And I think a crossbow would be marginally effective in the hands of most wizards (RBA is DEX based, and you probably don't have proficiency, though you COULD get it). For the cost of 2 feats a 4e wizard can become expert with a bow, 1 for weapon prof, and one for the 'use a different stat for basic attacks' feat. Its kind of expensive, but basically Magic Missile isn't free either, as it takes one of your two ever at-will slots. I think MM is the better of the two choices, but its not like you are forced to use it in 4e.

 

[Composer99]

I'm sure it's come up already in the thread how well 4e makes characters feel heroic in play, but here's a timely example from just a little earlier this evening.

I'm playing in a 4e game, with a 12th-level dragonborn paladin. A bunch of enemies are clustered in a convenient 5-by-5 area, so I waltz up, unleash dragon breath (minor action, close blast 5), shout of condemnation (standard action, close blast 5, one of the effects is it marks enemies via the divine sanction mechanic), and then spend an action point for just radiance (standard action, close burst 5, targets everyone marked by me).

Just a little later in the round, the BBEG (Skalmad the troll king) unleashes an encounter power that deals a crapton of damage, and because an ally within 5 squares of me is attacked - in fact, the power was going to nail 5 of us! - I can use an immediate interrupt to use strike me instead, causing the attack to miss all my allies and hit me automatically.

I painted a huge target on my back - and we had to call it a night at the end of a round, with something like three enemies acting before the party cleric does, so I could be going down - but that felt amazing to pull off!

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I'm playing in a 4e game

lucky.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm sure it's come up already in the thread how well 4e makes characters feel heroic in play, but here's a timely example from just a little earlier this evening.

I'm playing in a 4e game, with a 12th-level dragonborn paladin. A bunch of enemies are clustered in a convenient 5-by-5 area, so I waltz up, unleash dragon breath (minor action, close blast 5), shout of condemnation (standard action, close blast 5, one of the effects is it marks enemies via the divine sanction mechanic), and then spend an action point for just radiance (standard action, close burst 5, targets everyone marked by me).

Just a little later in the round, the BBEG (Skalmad the troll king) unleashes an encounter power that deals a crapton of damage, and because an ally within 5 squares of me is attacked - in fact, the power was going to nail 5 of us! - I can use an immediate interrupt to use strike me instead, causing the attack to miss all my allies and hit me automatically.

I painted a huge target on my back - and we had to call it a night at the end of a round, with something like three enemies acting before the party cleric does, so I could be going down - but that felt amazing to pull off!

I had a moment like this once, with my Dragonborn Fighter. A large pack of demons had appeared in the Shadowfell. I won initiative, so I moved up to them, minor action utility (I can't remember the name, it's -5 to all attacks save those that target me until the start of my next turn in a close burst 3, I think), used my Dragonfear (missing most of them due to it's bad scaling, but they still got marked as I'm a Fighter), then Action pointed (+4 to all defenses due to my generally terrible Paragon Path, lol, Snapping Tetsudo), and then full defensed (+4 to all defenses).

The DM summarized "so I'm at -7 to hit anyone but you, but basically -8 to hit you?".

"Yes, that's right."

"WTF, so I don't get to do anything this turn. Fantastic." And then had all the enemies try to hit me to no avail.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I had a moment like this once, with my Dragonborn Fighter. A large pack of demons had appeared in the Shadowfell. I won initiative, so I moved up to them, minor action utility (I can't remember the name, it's -5 to all attacks save those that target me until the start of my next turn in a close burst 3, I think), used my Dragonfear (missing most of them due to it's bad scaling, but they still got marked as I'm a Fighter), then Action pointed (+4 to all defenses due to my generally terrible Paragon Path, lol, Snapping Tetsudo), and then full defensed (+4 to all defenses).

The DM summarized "so I'm at -7 to hit anyone but you, but basically -8 to hit you?".

"Yes, that's right."

"WTF, so I don't get to do anything this turn. Fantastic." And then had all the enemies try to hit me to no avail.

Hmmmm, Battlerage Vigor? lol.

 

[James Gasik]

Hmmmm, Battlerage Vigor? lol.

Nah, I had the goofy two-weapon fighting Fighter build- Snapping Tetsudo allows you to use two shields, and there were shields that could be used as weapons.

It was pure flavor since I had few Powers that could use both weapons in the first place. That I ended up being really tanky is a more a testament to how good the 4e Fighter base package is I think than the choices I made, lol.

 

[Staffan]

13a just bugged me because it seemed like every class had some entirely different power system, but what was the point? It really didn't add to the game, more made it harder to play.

The point is to make different classes feel different in practice. Some people like that sort of thing. If you look at World of Warcraft, for example, Rogues play very different from Warriors - not just because they have different powers, but because Rogues are primarily based on Energy (a rapidly regenerating power source) and Combo points (points you get from using certain powers and then spend on strong "finisher" attacks), while Warriors are based on Rage (power that accumulates when they make basic attacks as well as when they get attacked).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nah, I had the goofy two-weapon fighting Fighter build- Snapping Tetsudo allows you to use two shields, and there were shields that could be used as weapons.

It was pure flavor since I had few Powers that could use both weapons in the first place. That I ended up being really tanky is a more a testament to how good the 4e Fighter base package is I think than the choices I made, lol.

I think that was also a neat feature of D&D 4. That the core package for your class usually gave you enough to be competent at whatever role it was supposed to fulfill, and you couldn't go horribly wrong unless you made choices that were basically already called out as bad in the class description (like, say, pick a low strength for a character class that listed primary attribute as strength).
There was still a lot you could do to tweak your build to be more effective, more deadly, more utilitarian or more tanky, but you were pretty solid even if you did a few things off the beaten path, so to speak.
(Which made "mandatory math" feats like the Expertise feats annoying, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. And of course, character optimizers found really excessively good builds, too, but they usually do).
It's not that builds didn't matter, but a lot of the important (tactical) decision-making would happen at the game table, not at home.

 

[James Gasik]

I think that was also a neat feature of D&D 4. That the core package for your class usually gave you enough to be competent at whatever role it was supposed to fulfill, and you couldn't go horribly wrong unless you made choices that were basically already called out as bad in the class description (like, say, pick a low strength for a character class that listed primary attribute as strength).
There was still a lot you could do to tweak your build to be more effective, more deadly, more utilitarian or more tanky, but you were pretty solid even if you did a few things off the beaten path, so to speak.
(Which made "mandatory math" feats like the Expertise feats annoying, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. And of course, character optimizers found really excessively good builds, too, but they usually do).
It's not that builds didn't matter, but a lot of the important (tactical) decision-making would happen at the game table, not at home.

At least for the early classes. The longer the game went on, the less robust newer classes were. Some barely functioned at all (looking at you, Ardent!), others had flaws in their design (certain Defenders lacking good melee basic options), and still others were a hot mess (Swordmage, Seeker) that were almost better at performing a different role than the one they were given.