My first 4E game...

[Treebore]

These are my basic thoughts soon after playig our first 4E session last night. Its copied from elsewhere...

Anyways, we had two combat sessions and some decent roleplay in the town. I played my Dragonborn like he was a dragon. Grossed everyone out when I dumped the bag full of livers I took from the Kobolds out on the table at the Inn and asked for them to be cooked, with light salting and peppering.

The first combat lasted an hour and 15 minutes, the second about 45 minutes.

My impressions are its a good game. Its still complex, tons of stuff to track, and kept everyone involved in the combat through powers and decisions.

Is it going to be my "new D&D"? Pretty sure its not. We still have at least two more game sessions for 4E to convince me otherwise. I just think after the last two years of playing so rules lite that the "rules heavy" of 4E is not something I am going to be able to get past. I have regained my appreciation of "simple and gets the job done", and 4E certainly isn't given me the feeling of being "simple and gets the job done".

4E also seems to have "evened the playing field", but at a cost I am not willing to pay. I liked for classes to be very distinct. I liked for a thief to be weak in combat, the wizard to be weak in combat, etc... I like the very defined roles of classes as the used to be, and are in C&C. Everyone is now essentially the warrior. Just instead of swinging a sword the mage throws spells, that do damage similar to what the fighter types did. Same deal with the cleric.

Plus with healing surges why even have the cleric class? The only reason clerics are still needed is because the surges are not at will. Make them more at will and bye bye cleric.

So 4E is a good game, we had fun, but I don't see it blowing me away and making me cast aside my C&C and 3 editions of D&D. The only real innovation that I liked was the new approach to skills. That I did like and will be creating a version for my C&C games.

I did not like starting out at 5th level. Yeah, I know, it was first level, but the powers, AC, and HP of the PC's were closer to 4th or 5th level in comparison to older editions of the game. I like the challenges of starting out weak. Having 20+ HP's and AC's from 16 to 20 and attack values of +5 to +7, or even higher for the Paladin surrounded by 3 kobolds (+10) is not weak. Its comparable to about 4th level.

So I can see why people like 4E, I just am not seeing or feeling the love.

There are at least two more sessions for me to become smitten with 4E, but at this point it isn't something I see coming. If it happens its going to be a complete blind sided hit.

One of the players did talk me into buying the Warhammer RPG though, especially since an Amazon vendor was selling it for $23, shipping included.

 

[Jack99]

You have just taken your first step to the dark side...

(PS: glad you had some fun at least )

 

[MerricB]

4E also seems to have "evened the playing field", but at a cost I am not willing to pay. I liked for classes to be very distinct. I liked for a thief to be weak in combat, the wizard to be weak in combat, etc... I like the very defined roles of classes as the used to be, and are in C&C. Everyone is now essentially the warrior. Just instead of swinging a sword the mage throws spells, that do damage similar to what the fighter types did. Same deal with the cleric.

Heh. Yeah, for the first session or so we thought that. Then we played some more...

Friday night we were missing a couple of players - including the wizard - and the group were adventuring through the kobold cave in "The Mouths of Madness", updated to 4e of course.

The group fell afoul of the kobold's pit trap and the cleric fell in. Then kobolds, in groups of four, would run around the corner and throw javelins at the party. The next round, they'd throw another set of javelins and run back out of sight again. The group managed to get the cleric out, but were taking some damage from the kobolds. (These were minions, btw).

If they'd had the wizard, the wizard could have just tossed over a fireblast and taken most of the kobolds at once. However, the wizard wasn't there, and so they were reduced to making single attacks. All the bonus damage of the warlock and rogue were completely useless. After a few rounds, the fighter finally jumped over the pit and went cleaving the kobolds left and right. (The rogue had tried to jimmy it so it wouldn't collapse, but no luck).

The rogue and warlock tried to follow the fighter, but rolled poorly (very poorly in the rogue's case, he needed a 3+ to jump the pit!) and fell into the pit. They managed to climb out and help the fighter take out the last of the tougher kobolds that had come to fight him.

Slightly later, they came up against Charlie the Ogre and battled him. In this combat, the fighter was able to hold Charlie and stop him attacking the rest of the party, and the rogue finally came into his own as he moved into a flanking position and unleashed massive sneak attack damage on the Ogre. (The Ogre almost killed the fighter, in fact... one more point of damage and the blow would have killed him outright).

The classes play differently, even at 1st level. We felt the lack of the wizard, as we felt the lack of the cleric the previous session (more on that below).

I do agree that if you want the huge disparity of classes that you get in AD&D and C&C, especially with combat prowess being balanced against non-combat unprowess and vice versa, you'll be disappointed. The wizard does stuff all the time, not just the few "we win" moments of AD&D. As a result, the wizard isn't as strong with their actual effects, though they've still got an "we win" quality about them.

So, if you continue with C&C in preference to 4e, I won't be surprised... there are a lot of good things to be said for the older-style systems.

(Just another note; in my other campaign the wizard found himself separated from the rest of the group and surrounded by kobolds. This was terrible for him - he had no magic that worked at close range, and his hp and AC were very poor indeed... there are differences that come out in play!)

Plus with healing surges why even have the cleric class? The only reason clerics are still needed is because the surges are not at will. Make them more at will and bye bye cleric.

Well, that session was the first session we'd had with an actual cleric (as opposed to a warlord or no leader at all)... boy, the cleric makes a difference. Healing surges are still limited in number. The cleric makes them more effective. When the fighter would normally heal 7 hp from a healing surge, the cleric was bumping that up to an average of 13 hp! (The warlord was about 10 hp).

By the time the group had finished clearing out the kobolds and the ogre, the fighter had no healing surges left at all. Without the cleric, I'm sure they wouldn't had reached the ogre... possibly also had to retreat against the kobold leader.

So 4E is a good game, we had fun, but I don't see it blowing me away and making me cast aside my C&C and 3 editions of D&D. The only real innovation that I liked was the new approach to skills. That I did like and will be creating a version for my C&C games.

I don't really expect it will.

I did not like starting out at 5th level. Yeah, I know, it was first level, but the powers, AC, and HP of the PC's were closer to 4th or 5th level in comparison to older editions of the game. I like the challenges of starting out weak. Having 20+ HP's and AC's from 16 to 20 and attack values of +5 to +7, or even higher for the Paladin surrounded by 3 kobolds (+10) is not weak. Its comparable to about 4th level.

My experience of the game is that being 1st level is still being very weak in comparison to the rest of the world - and, indeed, many a PC has been knocked unconscious and been close to death in my games so far. However, you really don't get the "one lucky blow and I'm dead" feel of AD&D. I don't really miss that at all. It's a different sort of challenge, I guess.

Cheers!

 

[pukunui]

I finally got to start my first 4e game two weeks ago (last Friday we had session #2). Things are going pretty well. My group burned out on 3.5 pretty quickly (I was starting to hate it even before 4e was announced) and they're finding 4e to be much more to their liking. We've got two new guys, as well, and I'm really pleased that they've been able to pick up the new rules really quickly. One of them hasn't played D&D in about 10 years and he's having very little trouble figuring out his character's mechanics (he's playing a human archer ranger). He also said he was surprised by the amount of roleplaying (although I think that had less to do with the 4e rules and more to do with the way I've been running KotS).

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, the 4E rules sure didn't inhibit our ability to role play. Several of us did a good bit of it and got some good hard laughs out of it.

Two more (at least) try out sessions to go. I'll follow up as we go.

 

[Ant]

You've summed up my feelings exactly, Treebore. I've played 3 games of 4e so far, all at Gencon OZ. The first 2 were quick delves that were more about learning the basics asap. I really didn't enjoy them.

However the final game was the RPGA Escape from Sembia adventure that went for about 3 hours. The roleplaying in that was first class and we had a great DM. As soon as we hit combat, however, I couldn't stop the sinking sensation in my stomach. It was as you've already described -- the homogeneous classes, the fact that everyone just fell back to their At Will ability, the totally superfluous nature of the cleric, the board-gaminess of it all etc.

Still, that didn't stop me having a lot of fun (and I was in possibly the best chase-sequence I've ever had the pleasure of partaking of, which was awesome).

A friend's invited me to join a 4e game and I'm happy to do so ... but for me it won't be replacing my 3.5, bD&D or OD&D games.

 

[Gundark]

I'm just shocked you played it......you'll need to be careful cause 4e shines the more you play it

 

[pukunui]

However the final game was the RPGA Escape from Sembia adventure that went for about 3 hours. The roleplaying in that was first class and we had a great DM.

I'd love to get my hands on Escape from Sembia. It sounds really good.

the homogeneous classes

I can totally see where you're coming from on paper, but so far it hasn't been that way for my group. Each PC has come across as fairly unique. The ranger kicks ass from afar (just last session he used Twin Strike and rolled natural 20s for both attacks), the fighter beats on anything that gets too close, the wizard burns stuff from afar. The paladin hasn't stood out that much from the fighter, to be honest, but that's mainly because the player is new. As for the cleric ... he's stood out as well but unfortunately it's been for all the wrong reasons: he's supposedly a cleric of the god of battle, but he mostly stands at the back of the group and shoots his hand crossbow, which he can't use with any of his powers, and he spent most of the last encounter unconscious and dying ... So yeah. The homogeneity of the classes hasn't been a problem for me.

the board-gaminess of it all etc

Quite a few people have said this, including one of my former players (who recently moved to OZ, I might add). While I agree, I personally don't mind. I think that's probably because we were already playing 3.5 in a fairly boardgamey style anyway, so it's not that big a shift for us.

 

[OMAC 247]

My moment of clarity with 4th Edition came at last Thursday's session when one of my players, the Paladin, who is heavily into World of Warcraft, started suddenly discussing tactics with the Fighter.
All of a sudden there was a change of pace and everyone became invested in the combat going on.
Now in 3rd and 3.5 our combats tended to be i hit, you hit, and no amount of GM description could disguise what was going on.
Now so far for me, after initially hating, then being unsure about it, i think i'm gradually coming to see some real strengths in the system.
All my players are interested and i've just bought a second copy of the PH for use at the table to save time referencing things.
I still don't think it's as revolutionary as i was expecting but overall it works for our group

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, my daughter played too. One of her first comments about her opinion about the game is how much like a video game it felt. She even started citing things from various games she has played on PS2 and Xbox that she was reminded of while we played.

I have no doubt 4E is a solid game. The game design department at WOTC does know what they are doing. I just doubt that its going to be the great game, for me, that it apparently is for so many others.

I don't like having to keep track of a half dozen things. I don't like the tons of options added by the various at will, per encounter, and per day powers.

I like simple. At least simple in comparison to 4E, or 3E. I like class archetypes. I like spell lists. I like a mage who can only cast a couple of spells and better pray to the gods they don't get hit by anything. I like a thief who better not stand toe to toe with a fighter if they expect to live.

My sons didn't even want to try out 4E. When I asked them why they said, "I don't want to go back to that kind of complexity."

We are also happy with needing magic items, etc... to help define our characters. The weapons you have on the battle field do define you. Having an RPG or an AK 47 does define your role and options. So does the armor you do or do not wear.

So having the Warlord, Paladin, Cleric, defined as defenders, controllers, etc... doesn't bother me, per se, but I felt they are better defined for what I want in the older editions of D&D.

I am not someone who wants a "capable of doing everything" PC. I like having a defined and restricted set of things I can do. The fighter-mage-cleric-thief well rounded party still works for me.

So I have a lot to look at and observe about how things actually play, but I have yet to start thinking 4E is going to be the "go to" game for me. So far I still feel I am far happier with the system I do use.

4E has about 6 more hours to start convincing me otherwise.