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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 4948842" data-attributes="member: 51942">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.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.You really take the words out of my mouth <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />.  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. 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.</blockquote>

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