Involved tracking fewer conditions:
These points are contradictory to one another but are two areas I feel could be improved. Having DM'd from levels 1-30, the conditions get ridiculous pretty early on. We used a computer to track them, but in terms of text, a creature by mid-paragon would frequently have more than one line of text describing the various short term conditions afflicting it. <slowed end of X><ongoing 5 save ends><-2 to attacks end of X><cannot see player y> etc.
Using a computer really helps this play out somewhat smoothly, but it showed me that running combat without one would be complicated or require a good amount of player memory/players reminding/organization beyond what one probably expects.
Takes less real time to play out:
This point is very true for any players that aren't extremely organized by nature. This is also created in large part by the above conditionals constantly changing on a round by round basis. Simplify the mass amounts of conditions in some way, and you've gone a long way to speeding up combat. The combat length doesn't really show until paragon tier and beyond. With the above being said, I really don't know how to fix it. Simplifying conditions/mechanics or cutting them could go a long way towards hurting the tactics element of 4E that makes the game so fun to begin with.
Was more dangerous for the PC's:
I find that running monsters and xp as written in rules makes for a very easy game on the PC's upon reaching paragon and above. This could easily be a result of specific party composition, however, the game has certainly come off as very forgiving and non-threatening from my experience.
The mentality of the party facing off against a red dragon in 4E isn't "Oh man, we're screwed" like it generally was in 3.x. It is instead. "sweet, time to lock down and slaughter this creature". The challenging encounters in 4E have always proven to be the ones that don't appear challenging in game terms with very few exceptions <Tiamat, anything with a possible Petrification scale>.
Don't get me wrong, the last thing I'd want to see return is something like 'save or die'. However, the sense of danger on the PC's is seldom felt unless the DM pushes the rules. Be it by increasing damage to a point where it causes the PC to change tactics rather than stand toe-to-toe. Or to focus fire which is not fun for PC's. Or to set terrain extremely in the advantage of the enemies. Or to throw more than the recommended amount of creatures at the party, particularly in the case of a solo battle to make it challenging. I should note, that the recent rules change of stacking aura damage, likely fixes this problem quite a bit. It made little difference in my campaign as we were level 29 and had soo many hp. However, lower level design is probably far more challenging on PC's now.
These points are contradictory to one another but are two areas I feel could be improved. Having DM'd from levels 1-30, the conditions get ridiculous pretty early on. We used a computer to track them, but in terms of text, a creature by mid-paragon would frequently have more than one line of text describing the various short term conditions afflicting it. <slowed end of X><ongoing 5 save ends><-2 to attacks end of X><cannot see player y> etc.
Using a computer really helps this play out somewhat smoothly, but it showed me that running combat without one would be complicated or require a good amount of player memory/players reminding/organization beyond what one probably expects.
Takes less real time to play out:
This point is very true for any players that aren't extremely organized by nature. This is also created in large part by the above conditionals constantly changing on a round by round basis. Simplify the mass amounts of conditions in some way, and you've gone a long way to speeding up combat. The combat length doesn't really show until paragon tier and beyond. With the above being said, I really don't know how to fix it. Simplifying conditions/mechanics or cutting them could go a long way towards hurting the tactics element of 4E that makes the game so fun to begin with.
Was more dangerous for the PC's:
I find that running monsters and xp as written in rules makes for a very easy game on the PC's upon reaching paragon and above. This could easily be a result of specific party composition, however, the game has certainly come off as very forgiving and non-threatening from my experience.
The mentality of the party facing off against a red dragon in 4E isn't "Oh man, we're screwed" like it generally was in 3.x. It is instead. "sweet, time to lock down and slaughter this creature". The challenging encounters in 4E have always proven to be the ones that don't appear challenging in game terms with very few exceptions <Tiamat, anything with a possible Petrification scale>.
Don't get me wrong, the last thing I'd want to see return is something like 'save or die'. However, the sense of danger on the PC's is seldom felt unless the DM pushes the rules. Be it by increasing damage to a point where it causes the PC to change tactics rather than stand toe-to-toe. Or to focus fire which is not fun for PC's. Or to set terrain extremely in the advantage of the enemies. Or to throw more than the recommended amount of creatures at the party, particularly in the case of a solo battle to make it challenging. I should note, that the recent rules change of stacking aura damage, likely fixes this problem quite a bit. It made little difference in my campaign as we were level 29 and had soo many hp. However, lower level design is probably far more challenging on PC's now.
