No, we are not memorizing the powers. But, it takes a while for player #1 to look through 4 sheets of player #2's powers and figure out which might be appropriate.
Part of this is due to the character builder, which makes (IMHO) atrocious character sheets and even worse power cards. These cards are absolutely crammed with irrelevant details that make the cards hard to read. Instead of one page of actual options, you end up with several pages worth of character sheets and power card printouts, making a quick overview difficult. Even without changing the rules, changing the focus of the presentation could help.
Every single round, we place tokens on the minatures to indicate bloodied, stunned, dazed, blinded, taking ongoing damage, etc. And every single round, we are also taking some of these tokens off.
Nearly every single round, PCs and/or NPCs are being shifted or pushed.
Exactly! That's a real problem. Warlocks curse, fighters mark, avengers oath(?) - and that's before "real" statusses. Concealment, cover, flanking etc all muddy the waters a bit more.
And the game
strongly encourages you to use as many of these tokens as possible. You can't stack multiple identical "status effects" generally, but you can try to apply as many as possible. With effects weakened (compared to 3.5), you now need far more effects to have the same impact.
There are far more effects in play in 4e, and they change more quickly and have less of an impact than similar effects in 3e.
The game ruleset may be more consistent than 3e, but you also need to track many more things, which makes things tricky.
For years, just about anyone at a table could remember that a 7th level Wizard did 7D6 with a Fireball or a Lightning Bolt. Now, the player of the Wizard has to have a little Fireball cheat sheet. Or at least it seems that way for many spells. Is the target pushed 3 squares, or 2? Is the effect only if you hit, or if you miss as well? Do you target AC or Reflex or Fort or Will? Is the range 5 or 10? Mods + 1D6 or 2D6 or 3D6 or 1D8 or 2D8 or 3D8 or weapon or some other damage? Is the effect instantaneous, or does the effect last until save, until the end of the encounter, until the start of the caster's next turn, until the end of the caster's next turn, until the start of the target's next turn, or until the end of the target's next turn?
You really take the words out of my mouth
. 3e's rules were often horribly overcomplicated (witness polymorph and whatnot), but at least they were distinctive and notable. When somebody's invisible, you notice. Now, there are so many subtly stacking effects that although each effect is simpler, the overall game is more complex.
In 3E, a buff power worked for minutes or hours. There are some buff powers that almost do this in 4E like Bless (which works until the end of the encounter), but they tend to be few and far between. If my AC got buffed in 3E by 2 for an hour, I could write in on my character sheet and mostly forget about it and just use the new number.
In 4E, my AC is typically buffed for a round. So, I could write it on my character sheet, just to erase it again 5 minutes later when initiative got back to me. If I forget to erase it, I might play the game for several rounds before I forget to correct it. Or, I could rely on group memory (or tokens or some other system) to remember that PC #4 is buffed. But, the bookkeeping is more intrusive regardless.
What makes this even worse is that there are so many subtly different durations in 4e. Initially, 4e's constant durations were presented as a simplification: there's no need to track complicated durations anymore, since everything lasts a round or until a save. But, in practice, it's far more confusing that the older system: it's not just that previously almost all effects lasted at least until the end of the encounter (even 1 round per level quickly amounted to that), it's also that with now durations aren't measured in actual rounds, but according to the initiative system. Some effects last until the
start of your next turn, others last until the
end of your next turn. Or, they might last until the start/end of your targets next turn.
All these distinctions really matter, and distract you from the overall length of an effect. Last session, our recently 4th level warden had gained the Mark of Warding. He was in a bad spot, and used second wind, which (because of his class feature) gives him a +4 boost to defenses in addition to the normal +2 second wind grants. Mark of warding increases by one any bonus to defenses granted by any power. Next turn, the warden charges someone, provoking an OA. What's his defense boost now? Well, that's a complex issue, and it bogs down gameplay. Second wind and the warden's second wind boosting class feature aren't
powers, so Mark of Warding doesn't come into play. Second wind ends at the
start of your turn, but the Warden's "Guardian Might" ends at the
end of his turn (what
were they thinking?). So, until his turn starts, he gets a +2 bonus to all defenses except AC, and a Con+2 bonus to AC, and once his turn starts but before it ends, he gets a +Con bonus to AC (and since this is an opportunity attack, various item, feat or racial situational bonus may well apply). In our group, we have 2 screaming armors, a bard constantly using vicious mockery (with a Master's wand of vicious mockery, spreading around attack penalties all the time), a paladin with a "normal" mark and Divine Sanction powers, the warden with his Mark-of-Warding pimped marks, a wizard with chilling cloud... and that's just four of the six players in a 4th-level campaign.
It's fun and all, but it's
way more administration than 3rd edition ever was.
Tracking all these effects is particularly bad when the same effect is coming from several sources, which is common when several players are playing similar powers or simply the same class - but most commonly when the DM has multiple identical monsters in play, which is common.
