D&D 4E What can Next do to pull in 4e campaigns?

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yeah, two major break points for me are kind of related.

(1) Do I need to use the same rules as the players when I'm running a monster or NPC? If my NPC is a wizard, do I need to worry about all the wizardy stuff? If I do, I'm less interested.
(2) Do I get self-contained stat blocks, or do I need to reference spells and such? This is basically a deal-breaker for me.
(3) When making monsters or NPCs, what process am I using? Do I have a good set of endpoints to work from, or do I need to toolbox them from the ground up? Another dealbreaker.

I agree. For me, so much comes down to ease-of-use.

As a DM: Can I run an adventure without any warning by just asking "What do you do?" and having a monster book, dice, an erasable map with markers, and a some writing materials for notes and initiative?

As a Player: Can I make something immediately interesting and effective without spending hours running through books?

I do actually spend a lot of time thinking about the worlds and characters I'm running, but I don't ever want to HAVE to do that to have a good time.

I'm pretty much in full agreement with both of you on these points. I'd xp them if I could, but I need to spread it more.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=98255]Nemesis Destiny[/MENTION] Covered for ya!

I have some experience with new 4e players using the DDi character builder and getting very very overwhelmed by options, in particular feats. If digital tools are to be the way we make characters going forward, they need a "SIMPLE, PRESS HERE" button for character creation.

As an aside, has anyone figured out why 5e went back to monster stat blocks referencing spells which have to be looked up? It seems so clearly like a step backward to me. Was there some underlying reasoning behind that or a design article I missed?

 

[Mistwell]

As an aside, has anyone figured out why 5e went back to monster stat blocks referencing spells which have to be looked up? It seems so clearly like a step backward to me. Was there some underlying reasoning behind that or a design article I missed?

Might be the errata problem from 4e.

If you include the same text in many places, then when you change the text you change it in many places. If you put it in one place, then you just change it in one place.

One big complaint about 4e was the sheer quantity of text in the errata made the books feel less usable after a while. Whether this was true in practice was often immaterial - many simply looked at the walls-of-errata-text in the errata documents and simply shook their head at the sheer difficult of the task of trying to keep up without electronic assistance.

 

[Obryn]

Might be the errata problem from 4e.

If you include the same text in many places, then when you change the text you change it in many places. If you put it in one place, then you just change it in one place.

One big complaint about 4e was the sheer quantity of text in the errata made the books feel less usable after a while. Whether this was true in practice was often immaterial - many simply looked at the walls-of-errata-text in the errata documents and simply shook their head at the sheer difficult of the task of trying to keep up without electronic assistance.

Errata was a blessing and a curse, but I took it as a necessary evil to get a better game on the tail end. But I don't think this is related.

If your stat blocks are self contained and you're not building NPCs using PC rules, your NPCs aren't even using a spell that may get errata. There's no errata cascade.

 

[Storminator]

Errata was a blessing and a curse, but I took it as a necessary evil to get a better game on the tail end. But I don't think this is related.

If your stat blocks are self contained and you're not building NPCs using PC rules, your NPCs aren't even using a spell that may get errata. There's no errata cascade.

I think his point was that if your stat block power needs errata, and it's a power 157 monsters have, that's 157 errata entries. Vs 1 spell change.

But I'm in the camp that it doesn't matter. Just having spell lists on monsters is unacceptable. My last session of 3.5 I needed a Vrock. One of my players hated the action stopping while I looked up spells, so I printed out all the spells a Vrock has. Oh, but it can summon! So I printed out the stats for the summoned creatures. And their spells. And their summons. And their spells.

10 pages later . . . I quit running 3e.

PS

 

[Mistwell]

Errata was a blessing and a curse, but I took it as a necessary evil to get a better game on the tail end. But I don't think this is related.

If your stat blocks are self contained and you're not building NPCs using PC rules, your NPCs aren't even using a spell that may get errata. There's no errata cascade.

It's not using PC rules, but it is using, for example, PC spells.

For example, my players just fought a few Dark Priests. Their entry in the bestiary says:

Spellcasting: The priest is a 4th-­‐level spellcaster that uses Wisdom as its magic ability (spell save DC 12). It has the following spells prepared:
1st Level (2/day)—bless, inflict wounds
2nd Level (2/day)—silence

I had to look those spells up in the Spells document to figure out what they do. BTW, inflict wounds is nasty. 25' range 3d8 necrotic damage, save for half damage. Stack a few of those on one 3rd level PC and you start to hear some crying...unless they are silenced. The bless spell really boosts some warrior-types as well, adding +1d4 to all their attacks, and to their saves.

 

[Obryn]

I think his point was that if your stat block power needs errata, and it's a power 157 monsters have, that's 157 errata entries. Vs 1 spell change.

But I'm in the camp that it doesn't matter. Just having spell lists on monsters is unacceptable. My last session of 3.5 I needed a Vrock. One of my players hated the action stopping while I looked up spells, so I printed out all the spells a Vrock has. Oh, but it can summon! So I printed out the stats for the summoned creatures. And their spells. And their summons. And their spells.

10 pages later . . . I quit running 3e.

PS

Oh, I get it, I'm just saying that there isn't any reason a power in a stat block should ever be affected by errata elsewhere in the system. No need for that when it's self contained, like imo it should be.

In other words, I don't think the NPCs should be using pc-side rules like spell blocks at all. Even if reprinted in the stat block, that's more rules cruft than I want to process mid-battle. That's what I mean by "self-contained."

And agreed 100% on the rest. Similar experiences here.

 

[Jester David]

@Nemesis Destiny Covered for ya!

I have some experience with new 4e players using the DDi character builder and getting very very overwhelmed by options, in particular feats. If digital tools are to be the way we make characters going forward, they need a "SIMPLE, PRESS HERE" button for character creation.

As an aside, has anyone figured out why 5e went back to monster stat blocks referencing spells which have to be looked up? It seems so clearly like a step backward to me. Was there some underlying reasoning behind that or a design article I missed?

Or rather than defaulting to including every book default only to the core until you choose other books to add.

 

[Rhenny]

It's not using PC rules, but it is using, for example, PC spells.

For example, my players just fought a few Dark Priests. Their entry in the bestiary says:

Spellcasting: The priest is a 4th-­‐level spellcaster that uses Wisdom as its magic ability (spell save DC 12). It has the following spells prepared:
1st Level (2/day)—bless, inflict wounds
2nd Level (2/day)—silence

I had to look those spells up in the Spells document to figure out what they do. BTW, inflict wounds is nasty. 25' range 3d8 necrotic damage, save for half damage. Stack a few of those on one 3rd level PC and you start to hear some crying...unless they are silenced. The bless spell really boosts some warrior-types as well, adding +1d4 to all their attacks, and to their saves.

. Those inflict wound spells are nasty. In one encounter, I had a priest who hid behind a handful of Orc warriors. On his turn, the evil priest would move from behind a pillar, cast inflict wound, and then move back behind the pillar. He dropped 2 PCs out of 4 within 3 rounds because he targeted ones that were hit by the Orcs.

Bringing this back to the thread topic, one great advantage of Next compared to other editions is the ability to split move all the time. This lets spellcasters and ranged specialists move-fire-then take cover. I love that for players and DM alike.

 

[Jester David]

(1) Do I need to use the same rules as the players when I'm running a monster or NPC? If my NPC is a wizard, do I need to worry about all the wizardy stuff? If I do, I'm less interested.

I think monsters need a veneer of a class. If the PCs encounter an hobgoblin fighter it should feel like a fighter and not do a dozen cool things the party fighter can't do. If they fight an elf wizard it should feel similar to an elf wizard PC.
If classed monsters have unique powers it's... disruptive. Distracting. If NPC elf wizard can fire a force bolt that allows them to teleport at-will then why can't the player character learn that same spell?

You shouldn't be applying the full class rules (although that should be an option) but there should be a simple template system for giving a monster the feeling of a class, with assorted level bands.

(2) Do I get self-contained stat blocks, or do I need to reference spells and such? This is basically a deal-breaker for me.

It's a hassle, especially when you mix in feats, spells, keywords and assorted unique special abilities.
I'm okay with core rulebook spells though. Because they're the same content as the PCs are using it's content I should know anyway, and after a little while you just become familiar with the common spells. You know what a magic missile or fireball does.
While it's convenient to have the full text in a monster statblock, having 2-3 unique snowflake powers for every monster was a huge headache for me during 4e. A dozen new powers to learn for each encounter, most of which will see a single use? Almost 40 for an entire adventure. Ugh.