D&D 4E SRM Marking Marked and Other 4Eisms

[hong]

Yep sounds like fun to me, but I am struggling, so far, to see how combat is more streamlined. Maybe less dice to roll but looks like 3 times the complexity!
I don't mind though, sounds perfect for me

Accessorisation is key. Notice how he mentioned using things like dice or coins to mark who's marked (heh), and cards to keep track of conditions and powers. Without these, I can see the game bogging down fast.

We were doing something similar for the last game I ran. Instead of keeping track of hit points for each of the 20 wights separately, I used dice instead. 15 damage = dead wight; <15 damage = "hurt" wight, put a die next to it. If a hurt wight is hit again, it's automatically killed. Similarly everyone had a Bo9S character and we used the downloadable pdf of power cards to keep track. Made things run quite smoothly.

 

[Incenjucar]

The boost in complexity and such is just a natural result of catching up with casters. Nothing to be done about it without reverting to the old issues.

 

[HeinorNY]

So we'll need to keep track of bloodied creatures, marked enemies with different marks from different characters, multiple conditions that grant Combat advantage, ongoing damage, and there are also the area buffs.

And counting distance as 1-2-1-2 slows down combat, LOL.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think it's safe to say that there will be a high demand for those flat glass beads and other token objects in the near future.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Accessorisation is key.

You are so right, honey. I especially find matching my handbag to eyeliner as the most effective

 

[hong]

You are so right, honey. I especially find matching my handbag to eyeliner as the most effective

Hey, I DO NOT wear makeup!

 

[Campbell]

Yep sounds like fun to me, but I am struggling, so far, to see how combat is more streamlined. Maybe less dice to roll but looks like 3 times the complexity!
I don't mind though, sounds perfect for me

I don't really think that reducing overall complexity was a design goal of theirs, at least vis a vis the sweet spot that most games end up being played at. I believe their aim was to provide a consistent level of tactical complexity throughout all levels of play that roughly matches up to how complex 3e plays between 5th-9th level while reducing complexity that they feel doesn't add much to game play (ability score changes, bonus type accounting, tracking durations, choosing between power attacking for 1 or 2, cross referencing,etc.), spreading the complexity around more (so that tactical decisions aren't just the forte of cloth wearers), and reducing prep work. They still want D&D to be engaging on a tactical level. I approve. For a while there I was concerned that my inner strategeryist tactician would feel underwhelmed by 4e.

 

[Incenjucar]

At least now our dice bags and minis boxes won't be lonely.

They'll be joined by counter bags and card decks.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Hey, I DO NOT wear makeup!

I swear I've seen hong say this several times in the last few days...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah I have a feeling alot of the speeding up they hoped to do were things where you needed to really change your character to figure out, ie: level drain.

Or things which have extremely long and annoying mechanics.

All these things, while yes there is memorization, are very simple mechanics so take up less time.