D&D 4E Reply if you love 4e

[adamc]

One thing that came up last week at the table was that 4e does not describe the monsters in the entries. Often, if there's no picture, we had no idea what the monsters looked like. We had to look them up online and hope there was an image of a mini or some other sketch. All previous editions of D&D usually included a paragraph or so of basic description text.

Yeah, that's one of the best parts of 4e, as-is the monster builder (Adventure Tools) generally.

 

[adamc]

I still love 4e, better than Next

Just with I had even a single person who wanted to play it with me.

Well, there are always online games.

 

[D'karr]

I lurvs me some 4e.

Two years after the start of this thread, and six years after I started running games with this edition and I'm still having a blast running 4e games.

I guess you can say, "I still lurvs me some 4e."

 

[vagabundo]

I've had my new 4e campaign green-lit. SW Saga is being put on hiatus and 4e is back baby!!

Nearth Reborn: a Nentir Vale Sandbox-lite. Two published modules (Hs1 and Gardmore Abby)the rest mostly freeform about the different factions trying to take over/unify old Nearth.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, there are always online games.

Yeah, but I don't feel they're scratching the same itch. I mostly turned my back on any kind of video games in favour of meeting more often with friends to play board games, card games or roleplaying games. It's sooo much better to meet with people in person instead of a virtual environment.

 

[Sadras]

Our home game has been running the playtest 5e for about a year now, and while there are things that I like about it, as a DM I still can't do the things I could do with 4e (create new monsters, reskin old ones, etc), and I miss that terribly. I hope they don't leave those lessons behind.

Are you talking about the online tools that 4e provided which aren't available for Next? Sorry I'm not understanding, as I do not see your problem, what exactly stops you from re-skinning a monster or even creating new ones in Next.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Are you talking about the online tools that 4e provided which aren't available for Next? Sorry I'm not understanding, as I do not see your problem, what exactly stops you from re-skinning a monster or even creating new ones in Next.

Sorry I wasn't more clear. The online tools were key, true, but also the tables and exposed math for what creatures of each level should have for abilities, HP, attack bonuses, damage for a variety of attacks, and so on. Reskinning is still possible, of course, but I find it more difficult, especially with so few options at higher levels (where our campaign is right now) and without a discussion of the difference between monsters at the same level -- the way there were normal monsters, elites, and solos in 4e. It's clear to me that something along the same line exists in the mosters we have so far, but I find I wish it were a lot clearer what was going on so I could create my own.

For that matter, I'm heartily miss the variety of monsters of the same type. I mean, having an entry on "goblins" give us 5 different types of goblins was awesome -- and there aren't many cases where that exists in the new material yet -- and where it does, it's clear they're doing it in a very 3e way (using character levels) -- which is much more labor intensive for the DM.

-rg

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

IMO, it's not just the consistent maths or the online monster builder, it's the fact that you have a stat block with everything you need to run the monster or NPC (other than conditions which are one of the things you should have on your DM screen or otherwise at hand anyway).

And that stat block will fit on a single page.

Take that (insert .gif with a steel gauntlet slapping across a pasty, chubby face0, every other edition of D&D....

 

[Sadras]

Sorry I wasn't more clear. The online tools were key, true, but also the tables and exposed math for what creatures of each level should have for abilities, HP, attack bonuses, damage for a variety of attacks, and so on. Reskinning is still possible, of course, but I find it more difficult, especially with so few options at higher levels (where our campaign is right now) and without a discussion of the difference between monsters at the same level -- the way there were normal monsters, elites, and solos in 4e. It's clear to me that something along the same line exists in the mosters we have so far, but I find I wish it were a lot clearer what was going on so I could create my own.

For that matter, I'm heartily miss the variety of monsters of the same type. I mean, having an entry on "goblins" give us 5 different types of goblins was awesome -- and there aren't many cases where that exists in the new material yet -- and where it does, it's clear they're doing it in a very 3e way (using character levels) -- which is much more labor intensive for the DM.

I see. Yes I sincerely hope Next steers clear from 3e labour intensive system for monster reskinning. 4e variety in the monster types of the same race was brilliant.
I'm actually in the same boat as you, I steal what I can from 4e of course

 

[Radiating Gnome]

IMO, it's not just the consistent maths or the online monster builder, it's the fact that you have a stat block with everything you need to run the monster or NPC (other than conditions which are one of the things you should have on your DM screen or otherwise at hand anyway).

QFT. This is incredibly important. One of the most heartbreaking things I can remember when we started looking at the play test material was the need to look up things like the spells monsters could cast, rather than just having that at our fingertips.

It's a little easier now than it used to be -- searchable PDFs on my iPad rather than a stack of spellbooks to flip through -- but it's still a lot more unnecessary work for the DM to deal with.

-rg