D&D 4E Things 4E Did Well & Should be Kept in Some Form

[Balesir]

Loads of good stuff - much already covered here - but I have one rather more esoteric and central one:

- Keep the system focussed on defining what happens in the game, not on describing what happens in the world.

Earlier editions had rules that described the nature and effect of spells, items, monsters etc. in game world terms, with some guidance on what that might mean in 'system' terms (how many hit points damage done, etc.). 4E changed this to describing what the power/feat/whatever does in system terms and leaving the game-world description of what happens in the hands of the players at the table. At a stroke, this made the D&D world coherent and far more usable for several (but not all - which I don't think is even possible) foci of play. If one thing is kept, let it be this, please!

 

[Keldryn]

Implied Setting and Cosmology

One of my favorite things about 4e is the somewhat controversial default setting. I love that a loosely-detailed setting is included and referred to throughout the books, as it gives newcomers and those of us who no longer have the time or inclination to build our own homebrew settings an excellent starting point. The implied setting is fairly archetypal fantasy, which makes it relatively simple to substitute a different setting.

Clearly, a lot of work went into creating a new implied setting for 4e that would be easy for players to visualize without having to learn a bunch of everyday-to-the-PCs but exotic-to-the-player information. Many players don't like the fact that so many story elements (world, cosmology, monster descriptions) have changed significantly from previous editions, but I absolutely love how well thought-out it is. A lot of effort went into crafting a world and universe where the core game elements mesh with the story elements.

Having started with BECMI and not AD&D, I don't have any particular attachment to the alignment-based "Great Wheel" cosmoloy. The 4e cosmology is much more approachable, more flexible, and in my opinion is a better fit for the mythological and fictional inspirations behind the concept of the planes.

If I were to start a new campaign using older D&D rules, I would likely still use the 4e cosmology.

Nobody is sitting out half of the night

I found that 3.x was the worst for this. If a character got taken out of a fight, the player could be stuck with nothing to do for a long time, given how long encounters can take beyond the first few levels. The scaling in 3E also created a massive disparity between specialized and non-specialized characters, often resulting in everyone else watching the specialists doing their thing. 4e did significantly better in this regard, setting out to make it so that everybody can contribute something worthwhile to virtually any situation. It was mostly successful in this, perhaps too much so, as some of the excitement about finally being able to do something really cool is lost when you can always do something moderately cool.

The Usual Suspects
Quick and easy for the DM to prep encounters
Easier for the DM to gauge how tough an encounter will be
Self-contained monster statblocks
Better balance between character types across the whole range of levels
NPCs and Monsters not constrained by PC creation rules

 

[Greg K]

I

Nobody is sitting out half of the night

I found that 3.x was the worst for this. If a character got taken out of a fight, the player could be stuck with nothing to do for a long time, given how long encounters can take beyond the first few levels.

I did not find any difference between 3e and previous editions. If someone does get taken out, the DM could always have the play an NPC or have him run some of the enemy.

The scaling in 3E also created a massive disparity between specialized and non-specialized characters, often resulting in everyone else watching the specialists doing their thing.

I agree in part. The 2+int classes should have had more skill points
However,r I also blame DMs for not encouraging their players to be more rounded
Try putting the party into situations where they have to split. Learn to do and pace cut-scenes so you can go back and forth and not let the players get board. These are the types of skills that the DMGs should be teaching DMs.

 

[Sammael]

1) Balance. Start from balance. If that's not important to you, its REALLY easy to throw it out, and hand out umpteen spells to wizards to overpower them again. Its harder going the reverse.

2) Player control magic is reigned in. No longer do casters get to pick which dozen plot busting superpowers they want each day. Spell lists need to be focused, and limited. Sure, magic might be able to in theory do anything, but an individual PC wizard should not.

3) Separation of PC's and NPC's. I really dont need a full writeup for each spell a wizard used to create his floating castle populated with mind-controlled were-owlbears. In trying to make everything operate off the same system, 3E made things that should not be in players hands accessible by giving them stats. Similarly, classed NPC's where royal PITA's to make, because they had all the complexities of PC's (and lived for about 3 rounds). By putting NPC's in a different silo, I can, for instance, make higher level human guards challenging without justifying all the magical crap that would be required for them to hit/defend against players (and accordingly have that fall into the players hands).

4) Roles. Its a good idea that when a class gets designed, they should have an idea of how it fits in with the party dynamic. This isnt to say that a class cant have multiple roles (like the new defender/striker barbarian), just that it needs a mechanical reason to exist, and not just be realized with feats/fluff.

See, each and every one of these points is one of the primary reasons why I can't stand 4th edition. If 5e were to keep them, well... I wouldn't be interested in it.

 

[mlund]

1.) No Spotlight Hogs

Enforcing the Action Economy (Minor, Move, Standard) even onto classes with pets was a big deal.

Taking away the ability for Caster Classes to obsolete all the other classes was a huge improvement. No more MageGuyver drinking the Skill Monkey's milk-shake or Summoner Clerics replacing tanks with their summon pets.

Frankly, some players are spotlight hogs that don't get the whole "cooperative" and "sharing" aspects of D&D. The one group that 5E should not try to appease and bring back into the fold are those players.

2.) Simplifying Challenges for DMs

Complexity of character creation and play options is great for PCs. It is a giant waste of overhead on 1-and-done monsters. Trying to limit what NPCs can do to the same rules as PCs takes away the mystery and surprise of adventuring. Just keep balance levels for challenges between the buoys in terms of what is level-appropriate.

3.) Eliminating 100%-to-dead Save-or-Die Powers

Maybe the game needs some ways of finishing off half-dead monsters more quickly and whatnot, but nobody needs the monsters or the players tossing around the old "one bad roll and you're history" effects like Flesh to Stone or Baleful Polymorph were in 3rd Edition.

4.) Healing

Self-healing, minor-action heals, and non-cleric heals were a huge step forward.

5.) At-Will and Encounter Powers

These were a great way to give players tactical variety and a nice way of having limited resources in an encounter without tapping all your resources for the day like "going nova" would do in 3E. With the addition of means to spend Healing Surges I think the general template of "Daily Spells / Powers" should probably be limited to Items / Boons instead of Character Powers / Spells.

- Marty Lund

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Bloodied and healing surge values (note: not number of surges available and regeneration of hp over night)

explanation: regained hp relative to max hp makes a lot of sense in game!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

See, each and every one of these points is one of the primary reasons why I can't stand 4th edition. If 5e were to keep them, well... I wouldn't be interested in it.

This is the circle that I am very curious how WoTC intends to square. These are all things that I like about 4e and are IMHO central to the ease of prep in 4e. Without that ease of prep I am very unlikely to run 5e.

So I am vastly interested in how Wizards intends to meet both our priorities.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The primary thing I hope to keep:

Attribute Attack vs Fixed Defense

This is just so simple and logical, to me, that I can no longer imagine playing a D&D game without it. Every single time I flip through my Pathfinder books, I ask myself why can't Pathfinder do that?

Subsets of this include:

Fixed Attack and Defense Progressions

No massive gulf between saves/defenses unless you *really* work at it!

Relative Attribute Equality

While some attributes in 4e are still more valuable than their other pair in that they Do More Things (Dexterity gives Initiative, Constitution gives HP, and Wisdom governs Perception), that's still far more equal than it was in previous editions.


Other things, though not quite as important:

No Save-or-Die, or worse, Save-or-Be Useless

While I greatly enjoyed playing 3/.5, I really, really disliked being removed from the game because of one poor die roll, like failing a save on a petrify gaze, say. Nor did I enjoy having to roll and see which of my dozen unattended magic items survive my corpse being caught in the blast area of a fireball. Nor did I enjoy the subset of "you're in the game, but pretty much useless," such as having my primary weapon Sundered, or being grappled by a monster I have no hope of ever escaping from, unless I have a particular magic item that the DMs in my group hated.

One other related thing I appreciate is that it's actually very hard for PCs to be one-shotted in 4e. While this mostly occurred at low levels, or in SWd20 ("ha-ha, my 3d8 blaster crit rips through your Con and kills you!"), you could occasionally get things like, in 3e, vorpal kukris. Or the (sigh) Disciple of Dispater using a vorpal falchion that crit on a 9+. Hell, vorpal sucked.

Everyone Has Equal Use For Items

I *really* like the idea that casters need the same things as non-casters. I also appreciate the option that none of the PCs really need items.


I suspect if I DMed 4e, and had DMed 3e, I'd've really appreciated the 4e monster format. The DMs in my group rave about it.

Brad

 

[Zireael]

* Healing surges
* 1/2 level - no long tables to study
* Powers for everyone
* Paragon Paths
* No cross-referencing when it comes to monsters
* STR or CON, INT or WIS, etc. choices
* Unique monster powers

 

[nightwalker450]

Resource Management
With the exception of Dailies (and Magic Item Uses which was gotten rid of), their resource management was excellent. I could plan an encounter and not have to worry too much about what the previous encounter had done to the party. I could look at their healing surges and estimate how much more they could handle in that day, instead of needing to know number of spells/wands/potions. I'm excluding things tracked on the daily level, because they forced an X encounters per day. And it took a while to figure out how much I need to put into a single encounter day to make it worth while (not too much to kill them, but enough that burning most dailies wouldn't make it a cake walk). Magic Item Uses were just silly.

Saving Throws
Very simple to track, much better than x rounds, or x minutes. Could be better though, 55% chance of success made them difficult to stick on someone. If you want to improve these (and bring back percentile dice), make each spell have a strength. Ongoing Fire 5 (25%) would mean that you only have 25% chance of saving against it each round. Damage ones would have a harder save, immobilizes, dazes, etc.. could have a easier to save. But also if it's less than 55% than you're more likely to have people care about their allies and help remove the effects. Until end of next turn was more of a pain, because it usually didn't last long enough to make a real note of.

ONLINE UTILITY!
Compendium, Character Builder, they had their ups and downs but were an extremely beneficial resource. There had better be some form of them for 5e.