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

While I was googling around a bit I also found this very nice, succinct lore compilation on the Dawn War, with book and page references for lots of stuff:

I have compiled a very comprehensive recollection of the Dawn War (and other historical events of the Nentir Vale's World) here, if you're interested. I've organised them in the way I think it's the most logical way I believe those events happened, but feel free to share any thoughts about it.

 

log in or register to remove this ad

In the campaign that I'm starting in a month, I would need to check, but I do believe that the Wizard (Staff of Defense and 20 Intel) has more AC than the Fighter with a Plate (Two-handed fighting style with a Two-handed Sword)... not 100% sure , but at least close enough that we joked that the Wizard could tank if need be!

EDIT: I've just checked, they are Lvl 2. The Wizard has AC 17 and the Fighter 19... but still, impressive... most impressive!
LOVE the implements and what they can do to differentiate the playing style of the Wizard. The Staff of Defense in Particular is quite cool because it makes your Wizard more likely to go for close bust or close blast powers, who can be very good because of the risk involved. And the encounter 'Shield' ability is really cool.

On top of that, you can get the Hafted Defense feat that, when you hold your quarterstaff in both hands, grants you a +1 Shield bonus to AC and Reflex! That's rad. Implements > Schools of Magic.Plus, implements meant more fun magic item for Wizards
When I played 4E with my old group, we didn't nova during regular fights, but we did use the occasisional daily if it made sense and helped us pace the fights better. Maybe everyone didn't have 4 dailies in the final fight, but you still got a few healing surges left...

The most common in our groups was either hoard in case you were meeting something tougher down the road (and then unload them as the adventuring day was coming to a close if not yet used), or expecting one person to use one daily power per encounter (no set structure for this, ppl would just use them as they saw it fit and one daily would usually tip the encounter such that another didn't feel required), or Rule of Cool guiding a daily power use (which could often trump the previous two :D).
That's how we played it too. We basically went with the 'one daily power per Encounter model' and we judged the best one to use on the situation, usually with the Leaders keeping theirs for the end of the day. Beacon of Hope (Bacon of Hope!) was my go-to Daily as a Cleric and that was reserved for 'oh naughty word' moments. I think having the Striker spend theirs early in the adventure is a good idea because they'll usually finish Encounters faster.

and if you encounter what you THINK is the big bad, then Daily away!
Playing a Wizard is meant to be a challenge, only good players need apply.
Augh... Wizard fans are the worst.
 

So I thought I would post some of my positives while I’m at it:

Fantastic classes: Pretty much everything before PHB3 felt amazing (I just don’t have much experience with the PHB3 onward classes). They were all built to fulfill a clear fantasy as well as having a clear role. The idea of role was just brilliant, codifying and making effective things that were always there in DnD. Defenders could ACTUALLY protect others, the concept of Leaders finally allowing support classes to move beyond the healbot cleric, Rogues were allowed to be more than skill monkeys thanks to the Striker role, and narrowing the focus of the Wizard instead of letting them do everything was great for it and the other arcane classes. They showed the Swordmage could be its own thing beyond a Wizard with a sword, but be an actual fusion of swordplay and magic. I’m 100% convinced the Barbarian, Sorcerer and Warlock wouldn’t have been in 5e without the massive work done by 4e to give them life of their own. The way all the powers were so clear and unambiguous and that once you understood how to read powers and how roles worked there was basically no barrier of entry to any class. I liked that they had a primary attack stat and a variable secondary to add flavor to builds. Best Cleric I’ve ever played (even if the STR/CHA build was never supported), Warlords were cool, Fighters were powerful, Warden were inescapable, and I loved playing an Avenger. Mine was a Dwarf who fought shirtless! The Seeker was kind of a misstep but I think a primal range weapon controller had a lot of potential, but they should have played with the idea of trigger plant growth instead... the name was also weird 'The Seeker'?

Epic Destiny: Never made it to Epic but reading these was always a hoot. “Once per day, when you die…” is always a good time. Love the Dark Wanderer walking back from the underworld with no explanation :p and going anywhere in the universe in 24 hrs is insane.

Weapons: 4e weapons were interesting. You had the give-and-take relationship between accuracy and damage, but also fun characteristics like Brutal or Defensive that could be played with. And I gushed enough about Implement that I don’t need to repeat it.

NADs: Making it so the offensive party is always the one rolling was just a great idea. It made attacking far more instinctive, and it made playing a support class WAAAAY better and satisfying. Granting a +2 to attacks to a spellcaster doesn’t feel like a waste when even Fireball is an attack roll. I tried to make a 5e Warlord and making it so they could support Spellcasters (and thus not be punished by party composition) proved nearly impossible without a ridiculous amount of extra text and twisting. Attacks in 4e are attacks, and a bonus is always the same value. It also gave a lot of nuance to certain characters. Rogues were allowed to target Reflex and Fighters had attacks that target Fortitude it was great!

Cosmology and the Primal Power source: I just love the cosmology in 4e, being focused on creating interesting places to explore instead of some weird Alignment essentialism. The mythology of the Dawn War, the complex relationship between gods where folks like Bane or Asmodeus, quintessential bad guys, were allied with the other gods against the Primordial, the idea of the Primal Spirits kicking them all out of the Prime Material plain, the origin of the Feywild and Shadowfell, the Underdark, and the interesting new gods… I particularly like Erathis, goddess of civilization, who is willing to do all sorts of morally dubious things to accomplish her goal. The Raven Queen, Torog the God who Crawls, the way Tharizdun is only mentioned in the DMG. The entirety of The Plane Above is just fascinating and full of cool concepts. Love it!

Combats: 4e hit when I was still playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and I ate up that tactical combat! You could make some great set pieces in the system. The environment mattered, the position mattered, and the game rewarded team work like no others. Party Optimization was more important than individual optimization and figuring out all the synergy between PCs was great.

Bloodied Condition: Just a brilliant little mechanical hook I wish was still with us.

Monsters: Just fantastic designs for a lot of them where as long as you try to use as much of their abilities as possible, their built-in strategy will emerge on their own without you having to think about it. Building encounters was easy and you didn’t have to flip to different pages to check what a spell did.

Healing Surge: Brilliant mechanic that gave PCs more HP for the day without turning them into bloated meat bags during combat. Their scaling nature and how they interacted with healing and how they became a daily pacing mechanic for the entire party regardless of class. Hit Dice are just a terrible replacement. And they were a great resource to use for out of combat. You could have harsh environment, or traps, or simply various rituals, take away Healing Surge. Second Wind on everybody was cool and gave another trigger to many different powers.

Rituals: Great way to not load up the Wizard with ALL the utility magic and not have them compete with combat powers. They were accessible with only a feat, allowing you to create characters who had a little more magic without needing to be spellcasters. Their material and ritual scrolls made for great treasures, and since they were generally costly they never felt like they could always trivialize someone’s skill and since everybody could pool their resource and multiple people could even help a ritual, they felt like a PARTY resource. It was no longer the Wizard just spending a spell slot to solve problems, it was the party contributing the material and sometimes healing surge, to make the Ritual happen.

Races: 4e Kobolds are just fun. Halfling’s reroll ability was a hoot. The Dwarf was my group’s favorite for their minor action Second Wind. Shardmind were a really cool concept. Wilders too. The way everybody had an Encounter Power was cool. Eladrin teleporting, the Rebuke of the Tieflings, the Dragonborn Breath… No boring races here!

I think I’ve gushed enough for now! God, I want to play some 4e again…
 

So I thought I would post some of my positives while I’m at it:

Fantastic classes: Pretty much everything before PHB3 felt amazing (I just don’t have much experience with the PHB3 onward classes). They were all built to fulfill a clear fantasy as well as having a clear role. The idea of role was just brilliant, codifying and making effective things that were always there in DnD. Defenders could ACTUALLY protect others, the concept of Leaders finally allowing support classes to move beyond the healbot cleric, Rogues were allowed to be more than skill monkeys thanks to the Striker role, and narrowing the focus of the Wizard instead of letting them do everything was great for it and the other arcane classes. They showed the Swordmage could be its own thing beyond a Wizard with a sword, but be an actual fusion of swordplay and magic. I’m 100% convinced the Barbarian, Sorcerer and Warlock wouldn’t have been in 5e without the massive work done by 4e to give them life of their own. The way all the powers were so clear and unambiguous and that once you understood how to read powers and how roles worked there was basically no barrier of entry to any class. I liked that they had a primary attack stat and a variable secondary to add flavor to builds. Best Cleric I’ve ever played (even if the STR/CHA build was never supported), Warlords were cool, Fighters were powerful, Warden were inescapable, and I loved playing an Avenger. Mine was a Dwarf who fought shirtless! The Seeker was kind of a misstep but I think a primal range weapon controller had a lot of potential, but they should have played with the idea of trigger plant growth instead... the name was also weird 'The Seeker'?

Epic Destiny: Never made it to Epic but reading these was always a hoot. “Once per day, when you die…” is always a good time. Love the Dark Wanderer walking back from the underworld with no explanation :p and going anywhere in the universe in 24 hrs is insane.

Weapons: 4e weapons were interesting. You had the give-and-take relationship between accuracy and damage, but also fun characteristics like Brutal or Defensive that could be played with. And I gushed enough about Implement that I don’t need to repeat it.

NADs: Making it so the offensive party is always the one rolling was just a great idea. It made attacking far more instinctive, and it made playing a support class WAAAAY better and satisfying. Granting a +2 to attacks to a spellcaster doesn’t feel like a waste when even Fireball is an attack roll. I tried to make a 5e Warlord and making it so they could support Spellcasters (and thus not be punished by party composition) proved nearly impossible without a ridiculous amount of extra text and twisting. Attacks in 4e are attacks, and a bonus is always the same value. It also gave a lot of nuance to certain characters. Rogues were allowed to target Reflex and Fighters had attacks that target Fortitude it was great!

Cosmology and the Primal Power source: I just love the cosmology in 4e, being focused on creating interesting places to explore instead of some weird Alignment essentialism. The mythology of the Dawn War, the complex relationship between gods where folks like Bane or Asmodeus, quintessential bad guys, were allied with the other gods against the Primordial, the idea of the Primal Spirits kicking them all out of the Prime Material plain, the origin of the Feywild and Shadowfell, the Underdark, and the interesting new gods… I particularly like Erathis, goddess of civilization, who is willing to do all sorts of morally dubious things to accomplish her goal. The Raven Queen, Torog the God who Crawls, the way Tharizdun is only mentioned in the DMG. The entirety of The Plane Above is just fascinating and full of cool concepts. Love it!

Combats: 4e hit when I was still playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and I ate up that tactical combat! You could make some great set pieces in the system. The environment mattered, the position mattered, and the game rewarded team work like no others. Party Optimization was more important than individual optimization and figuring out all the synergy between PCs was great.

Bloodied Condition: Just a brilliant little mechanical hook I wish was still with us.

Monsters: Just fantastic designs for a lot of them where as long as you try to use as much of their abilities as possible, their built-in strategy will emerge on their own without you having to think about it. Building encounters was easy and you didn’t have to flip to different pages to check what a spell did.

Healing Surge: Brilliant mechanic that gave PCs more HP for the day without turning them into bloated meat bags during combat. Their scaling nature and how they interacted with healing and how they became a daily pacing mechanic for the entire party regardless of class. Hit Dice are just a terrible replacement. And they were a great resource to use for out of combat. You could have harsh environment, or traps, or simply various rituals, take away Healing Surge. Second Wind on everybody was cool and gave another trigger to many different powers.

Rituals: Great way to not load up the Wizard with ALL the utility magic and not have them compete with combat powers. They were accessible with only a feat, allowing you to create characters who had a little more magic without needing to be spellcasters. Their material and ritual scrolls made for great treasures, and since they were generally costly they never felt like they could always trivialize someone’s skill and since everybody could pool their resource and multiple people could even help a ritual, they felt like a PARTY resource. It was no longer the Wizard just spending a spell slot to solve problems, it was the party contributing the material and sometimes healing surge, to make the Ritual happen.

Races: 4e Kobolds are just fun. Halfling’s reroll ability was a hoot. The Dwarf was my group’s favorite for their minor action Second Wind. Shardmind were a really cool concept. Wilders too. The way everybody had an Encounter Power was cool. Eladrin teleporting, the Rebuke of the Tieflings, the Dragonborn Breath… No boring races here!

I think I’ve gushed enough for now! God, I want to play some 4e again…
You've got me hankering, too.

You know, I often think 4e's only really big mistake was overshooting the MAYA principle (apparently by quite a lot, for some people).
 



I think I’ve gushed enough for now! God, I want to play some 4e again…

You've got me hankering, too.
We recently started a 4e game in my main group and it's been great, both in general but for me especially to return to it after 10 years and rediscovering many of the things that made 4e sing. In addition, one of the players had never played 4e back when it was out (his group at the time called 4e all sorts of names and he, being newer to gaming, just took it at face value). I ran some adventures, he really enjoyed it, and got such a hankering that he practically begged (not that he needed to one iota) to run a 4e game. He DMs a lot and was intrigued by 4e's structure he wanted to see how it feels from the other side of the screen. So we're now running through his long-running homebrew world in a 4e game. :)
 

Epic Destiny: Never made it to Epic but reading these was always a hoot. “Once per day, when you die…” is always a good time. Love the Dark Wanderer walking back from the underworld with no explanation :p and going anywhere in the universe in 24 hrs is insane.
I was running the Bloodstone Lands in 4e* and so absolutely wanted to make it to the last module (H4, Throne of Bloodstone) to get the players up to epic just for those Epic Destinies. I too loved the "Once per day, when you die..." abilities, I mean, what a great opening condition. :D

* The 1e adventure path of the Bloodstone Lands is almost my curse -- I wanted to run it back in the 2e days, and despite some false starts it never happened, then with a group I got to start it, with the first module in 3e... then the second module in 3.5e... then the third module in 4e! And it was great! But the fourth module in 4e would've been absolutely glorious.
 

Maya is an abbreviation for “Most Advanced. Yet Acceptable.” which means giving users of a product the most advanced design, but not more advanced than what they were able to accept and embrace.
I think a potentially good example of violating this principle would be the Edsel, a car that was ahead of it's time, but unpopular with consumers.
 


Remove ads

Top