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D&D 4E Reply if you love 4e
- Thread starter Rechan
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As part of 4E, I did love essentials too. [I feel for those it burned, though, you have my empathy]
Essentials was a weird thing, but I really liked it. Fortunately, no one I played with got tripped up by it. I like alot of things about it, some that didn't even directly relate to D&D.
To list a few:
1) The books were small enough to fit in a small carrying bag or box, if you only had 1 or 2, they'd fit anywhere.
-This really should be a consideration for all 'Rule Compendiums' ever.
-Also, I think they were less intimidating to some new comers.
2) spreading out what characters get over all levels is fun.
-though this did prove a liability, i think, [see my rant at the end of this post.]
3) The classes were mostly pretty cool,
-quite frankly the slayer is the best thing for someone who doesn't know what they are doing (put them in battle fury stance and set them loose, occasionally have the DM prompt them to use power strike) AND still a lot of fun if you know what you're doing and want to play around with adding complexity to a simple class: I had a pike wielding goblin that was very tactical to play and used powers that didn't make much sense the first time i read them.]
-Its fun to play PHB1 version of the classes and have a feeling of 'retro' within the game. Playing an archery range from PHB1 feels to me like I took a 2e ranger into a 3.5 game, but everything still works...
4) they blended in with old stuff no problem. [at least, that was my experience.]
5) The _base_ rules (class neutral stuff: action economy, movement, healing, etc) didn't actually change, so I didn't have to re-learn how to play, BUT the approach to classes did so i got to re-learn how classes worked.
-It really started me down the path of mutating/improvising the system (specifically as a DM, as a player there are limits) After seeing what they did with the classes, I applied similar logic to how I approached creation of most other things in the game.
The downside I ran into: They made the essentials style classes a royal pain to make/develop.
In order to make a warpriest domain you had to make a batch of all new, unique, never before seen powers and features: 2 at-wills, features at levels 1,5,10, a utility, a channel divinity, encounter powers at 1,3,7,13,17,23,27, plus paragon path stuff (can't remember which bits), and usually some related dailies...
It was pretty bad. Even to make a 'simple' Slayer type meant having to craft things to get at the levels you'd usually get dailies, etc, and you end up with ~20 little things you have to come up with and balance. Should have been less specific, more options. I think that is why we saw so few domains, spell schools, virtues, pacts, etc. It was a hassle to build them. Shame that. I don't need one new 'domain' to come with 20 new powers, but I would like 10 new domains with maybe 3 new features and 3 new powers (with perhaps some sharing)?
But I still love essentials. They had a very big, very positive, impact on how I play the game.
Essentials was a weird thing, but I really liked it. Fortunately, no one I played with got tripped up by it. I like alot of things about it, some that didn't even directly relate to D&D.
To list a few:
1) The books were small enough to fit in a small carrying bag or box, if you only had 1 or 2, they'd fit anywhere.
-This really should be a consideration for all 'Rule Compendiums' ever.
-Also, I think they were less intimidating to some new comers.
2) spreading out what characters get over all levels is fun.
-though this did prove a liability, i think, [see my rant at the end of this post.]
3) The classes were mostly pretty cool,
-quite frankly the slayer is the best thing for someone who doesn't know what they are doing (put them in battle fury stance and set them loose, occasionally have the DM prompt them to use power strike) AND still a lot of fun if you know what you're doing and want to play around with adding complexity to a simple class: I had a pike wielding goblin that was very tactical to play and used powers that didn't make much sense the first time i read them.]
-Its fun to play PHB1 version of the classes and have a feeling of 'retro' within the game. Playing an archery range from PHB1 feels to me like I took a 2e ranger into a 3.5 game, but everything still works...
4) they blended in with old stuff no problem. [at least, that was my experience.]
5) The _base_ rules (class neutral stuff: action economy, movement, healing, etc) didn't actually change, so I didn't have to re-learn how to play, BUT the approach to classes did so i got to re-learn how classes worked.
-It really started me down the path of mutating/improvising the system (specifically as a DM, as a player there are limits) After seeing what they did with the classes, I applied similar logic to how I approached creation of most other things in the game.
The downside I ran into: They made the essentials style classes a royal pain to make/develop.
In order to make a warpriest domain you had to make a batch of all new, unique, never before seen powers and features: 2 at-wills, features at levels 1,5,10, a utility, a channel divinity, encounter powers at 1,3,7,13,17,23,27, plus paragon path stuff (can't remember which bits), and usually some related dailies...
It was pretty bad. Even to make a 'simple' Slayer type meant having to craft things to get at the levels you'd usually get dailies, etc, and you end up with ~20 little things you have to come up with and balance. Should have been less specific, more options. I think that is why we saw so few domains, spell schools, virtues, pacts, etc. It was a hassle to build them. Shame that. I don't need one new 'domain' to come with 20 new powers, but I would like 10 new domains with maybe 3 new features and 3 new powers (with perhaps some sharing)?
But I still love essentials. They had a very big, very positive, impact on how I play the game.
Quickleaf
Legend
I've been meaning to post in this thread for quite a while. I've been DMing 4e since its release and it was the edition that got me back into D&D, having lapsed around the time 3e came out.
I enjoy 4e and consider its greatest strength to be rugged versatility of the rules, moreso than the WotC designers seem to know. Well, they probably get it in their home games, but at least the published material is rather...conservative...and almost never highlights the strengths of the system.
So for a homebrewing DM like me, 4e is awesome
The skeleton is there for me to design what I want, and I'm probably not going to break anything doing so. I have the rules to make monsters, hazards, skill challenges, and encounters with astounding ease.
I believe it was the presentation that hurt 4e the most. Why make all PHB classes use the AEDU system when it doesn't fit the narrative of all classes? Why disparage past editions? Why try to differentiate from the legacy of D&D rather than build on it? Why design dungeons like in older editions when 4e combats take at least as long as 3e combat; why not aim for a different sort of design to achieve the same feel? Why strip so much of the flavor from the monster books? Why have a scantily clad sorceress and dragonman on the front cover? Why all the heroic posing character art and so little scene-based art?
For example, I've run old school dungeon crawls converted to 4e and they've been a blast... most recently Dragon Mountain and C-2 Ghost Tower of Inverness. In the former I used minions and guerilla tactics, custom-made nasty traps, and an exploration skill challenge framework tied to the random encounter tables. In the latter, I am leaning even harder on healing surges with surge-draining encounters, and emphasizing puzzle-solving in the old school style.
I enjoy 4e and consider its greatest strength to be rugged versatility of the rules, moreso than the WotC designers seem to know. Well, they probably get it in their home games, but at least the published material is rather...conservative...and almost never highlights the strengths of the system.
So for a homebrewing DM like me, 4e is awesome
The skeleton is there for me to design what I want, and I'm probably not going to break anything doing so. I have the rules to make monsters, hazards, skill challenges, and encounters with astounding ease.I believe it was the presentation that hurt 4e the most. Why make all PHB classes use the AEDU system when it doesn't fit the narrative of all classes? Why disparage past editions? Why try to differentiate from the legacy of D&D rather than build on it? Why design dungeons like in older editions when 4e combats take at least as long as 3e combat; why not aim for a different sort of design to achieve the same feel? Why strip so much of the flavor from the monster books? Why have a scantily clad sorceress and dragonman on the front cover? Why all the heroic posing character art and so little scene-based art?
For example, I've run old school dungeon crawls converted to 4e and they've been a blast... most recently Dragon Mountain and C-2 Ghost Tower of Inverness. In the former I used minions and guerilla tactics, custom-made nasty traps, and an exploration skill challenge framework tied to the random encounter tables. In the latter, I am leaning even harder on healing surges with surge-draining encounters, and emphasizing puzzle-solving in the old school style.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
You should totally post about your experiences doing that (maybe in another thread). I'd eat it up. I find that when I DM 4e, that's the direction I like to yank its chain in, and it's not always as easy as I'd hope!
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SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
Just finished up a campaign in 4E that made it to 24th level, so medium Epic levels, and ... my eyes aren't bleeding after the game was over, so I guess you could say I continue to love it.
As the edition wraps up, I realized a while ago that I made it all the way through without playing a wizard. In earlier editions I played spellcasters pretty much exclusively because they were the most interesting to me, and required the most advanced playstyle. I never felt that way with 4E.
Great memories for the edition, great characters, great stories, great battles. I'll miss it.
Hopefully someone will file the serial numbers off of it and we'll have an OSR 4E game, but if not it's going to be 13th Age for me.
...that is if we don't stay with 4E, which if the character builder is still available, we will.
As the edition wraps up, I realized a while ago that I made it all the way through without playing a wizard. In earlier editions I played spellcasters pretty much exclusively because they were the most interesting to me, and required the most advanced playstyle. I never felt that way with 4E.
Great memories for the edition, great characters, great stories, great battles. I'll miss it.
Hopefully someone will file the serial numbers off of it and we'll have an OSR 4E game, but if not it's going to be 13th Age for me.
...that is if we don't stay with 4E, which if the character builder is still available, we will.
I'll pick you up on this: the 4e MM is one of the best MMs I've used flavour-wise: so much is packed into the Lore entries. I find the MM3 and MV approach overwritten and makes it harder to extract the key info I need.
Quickleaf
Legend
Obviously each DM has personal preferences about the amount of fluff that is ideal for a monster book.
I will note that I recently consulted the "beholder" entry in the MM and MV for ideas writing an adventure, and I had more ideas from the MV entry...presaging a beholder encounter with nightmarish dreams, beholders traveling storms from the Far Realm that intrude on this reality and their forms are altered by the passage between worlds, slaves trying to appease a beholder to avoid getting eaten... Maybe one could come up with these ideas due to familiarity with beholder from prior editions, but the MM doesn't suggest any of that.
Maybe beholders are an outlier, though, and other monsters have better treatment in the MM?
Nemesis Destiny
Adventurer
Lump me in with those who use Essentials side-by-side with older 4e material. It's not an issue for the most part.
I particularly like how for players who want simplicity, there are simple options, but they in no way take away from or overshadow the more complex options. Having played both Essentials-style and AEDU classes, I largely prefer the former, as I find them more interesting and engaging.
I particularly like how for players who want simplicity, there are simple options, but they in no way take away from or overshadow the more complex options. Having played both Essentials-style and AEDU classes, I largely prefer the former, as I find them more interesting and engaging.
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