What did we loose updateing a game from 2e to 4e

[GMforPowergamers]

[sblock= edition wars disclaimer] just for the record I do not want this to turn into the next battle in the edition wars. I am not saying one is better than the other it is just how different they are. I playe 4e. I love 4e. If I had a side in the edtion wars it would be 4e (because I do feel the game gets better with each pass). I much prefer D&D over other games though, and feel edition wars are dumb.
The thing is though that even when things get better you sometimes loose something. I think we did lose something and this is the first time I am thinking this through.[/sblock]

Ok, so there is some talk about what we got and lost as the editions changed. Well I have now had a rather interesting case study in what we lost, and what story is and is not working. It is mostly just because of recent events here and on Wotc web site I have been thinking about posting this.
Let me give you a little background.

Back at the end of 2e I had a large group of role-players that began falling apart because of personal issues. At the end of 2e, and beginning of 3e many games fell apart to groups not talking anymore. Some of those games we have talked about running again to finish. One of my games was a 2e game that had just ramped up when it fell apart.

One of the original players has many times over the years brought it up, and really wanted a crack at the big bad guy that they had just started learning about when it blew up. He did a really good job of talking up this game, and he got all of my current players to want in.

The original game started with 2 players, and on game 4 or 5 we increased it to 7.
This game would be 5 players, one of the original 2, and the really gun ho one who was one of the 5 that came in the second wave. 1 player who is new to our group, and 2 that started in 3.5.

So we are just hitting level 11 now in my 4e version of the game, and I am realizing just how different the story HAS to be because of the edition. I have considered writing this post for a month, but one of our old players was coming to hang out, so I wanted to compare notes first, and he has a unique point of view. See Chris stopped playing D&D shortly after this game. And has not role played at all since 9 years ago.

The original game started with a fighter/thief 1/2 and a druid 1 who had been a fighter 2 but dueled. They both were heading to the docks to get on a boat to explore a new land mass found. The problem was that the Druid society, the Wizard guild and the churches wanted nothing to do with this. So when they got there and found no casters they flipped. They had to survive brigands on the way to the Docks, and pirates in the water. They got to ‘the new world’ and had to help build a colony. They quickly learned that this land was cursed by the gods, and full of evil creature…including a dark shadow warrior.

Back then my important NPCs had quasi PC stats, so I had an NPC helping the party who was a female Bard that was a ‘near do well’ who spent most of her down time trying to compose her first song(and I chose to keep droping lyrics from time after time). She was a love interest to the druid, and a bit of comic relief. She ran when fights were looking bad, and was not going out adventuring.

Then when things got real bad, a mysterious robed wizard would show up to help. He never stayed after a fight to talk or to even introduce himself, but he was a little NPC help line. Even when the PCs expanded to 7 I still had the mystery going until the druid finally figured it out, and didn’t tell anyone. The Robed wizard helped with a fight with the immortals, and the other wizard asked "If we need you how do we call you” and his answer was “If your lost…you can look…and you will find me”
The truth was the ‘Bard’ that was suppose to be a level 3 bard was really a level 6 or 7 wizard, some spell prepped from the bard list (shared back then) and thac0 and hit points similar.

Some crazy corrupted angel was doing something, and recruiting followers, and the gods had lesser aspects walking around, but they were not helpful, infact they were hiding things from the PCs. The 2 PCs figured out that the ‘angle’ was some kinda spirit of corruption trying to corrupt the world tree, and it was being apposed and fighting the gods themselves. There was a 3rd faction of immortals that they could not figure out what they were doing.

The PCs also found out about 5 artifact swords that were able to turn the tide of the war. The two of them could not figure why the gods did not send anyone to claim these swords, and set out toward the closest “Forrest Wind”. When The druid pulled the wooden raiper from the stone holding it, it infused him with power, and he painted a target on himself.

This is when the new players came in, and it was a year of the colony an a second ship bringing much needed aid… a Wizard drop out of the academy, a drow psionic/thief on the run for her life, a ranger expert huntsman, a fighter, and a bard. They were quickly recruited to help find the other 4 swords, and help end this war.

The gods, and army of immortals, and the corruption angle all after the PCs it was a chase across the land. Then around the 3rd sword came the moment of revelation… The swords were being used to hold a prison together. The prison held the worst monster in history, Praxton the God Slayer.

The PCs collecting the swords freed this man, who could stand against the gods. It turns out that army of immortals were lead by his sister ryth, and were guarding this secret. One of the greatest moments of the game was right after this, all the PCs trying to talk it out, and one of them (the mage player who is also the gunho one this second time) saying “How did we never stop to ask why no one wanted to use these swords?”

The PCs and the Immortals now agreed to a truce, collect the last 2 swords, stop the corruption angel, then go after the god killer. In the time it took to stop the angel, Praxton had built himself back up…his prime Lt, from the old days a Shadow Lich had a small army waiting after he was freed, and an NPC who feel in battle was raised as a death knight to serve with them.

It was only 2 games after the angel defeat that the game imploded over of all things, a girl that NO ONE in the group ever got to date.

So, what is different now? Well first of all everyone knows going in that there is a ‘Praxton the God killer’ and having 12 more years of DMing experience I know a thing or two more too.

So this time, the boat at the Docs has a prince backing it, one who is way down in line beign one of 13 children, and the 3rd boy born, 5th child. I added a Roanoke style first colony and played up the plymith rock angle. The PC are a Reverent Shaman, a Tiefling Hexblade, an Elf Seeker (big game hunter), a warforged rogue, and a human slayer.

Right away my first snag…5 swords wont work. 3 of my players do not use melee weapons at all, and 2 of them only use implements (well and his own hex blade). So I came up with the idea of the swords were broken and there power can be claimed from the sites of power, and it is like a boon type award anyone can use.
Second problem… the angel and his men, they were unhurtable to PCs in 2e because you needed +3 weapons to hurt them…and the swords were +3/+5 vs X. So without that why would the PCs need the deus ex machine items.

Third well I will call this a snag not a problem, but one that chris (player of 2e only) really felt made the whole game weird. No one batted an eye lash at no full casters. See in the first game we had a druid, and the wizard, but they were it for the PC access, and PCs feared no spells in 2e…in 4e we had no defender, but that is not the same. It was a big fear back then, that without artillery there was a good TPK chance, not so much in 4th.

Third part B… the whole idea of no encounters out of your range, and ‘fair challenges’ was very much a different feel.

Fourth, magic items. In the original game there were few bits of treasure, especially since a large number of the fights were against animals. In the original it was also very frontier…whole games went by with no town nearby. Now in 4e that is a little more of a handicap.

Fifth…TRAPS. In 2e a trap was an encounter. Some of them were puzzels to be solved out of game, others needed creative ideas and rolls. In 4e skill challenges just are not the same. I can’t make a dungeon be 7 traped rooms, and 1 golem. In 2e that was a great nights adventure.

Sixth… the mystery character. Since PCs and NPCs use such different rules the in game hints could never be the same, and worse no cross over ont eh spell lists. The whole bard/wizard idea only worked because of shared spells. This whole idea got dropped, there is no way to make it work like it did back then.

The solution to 1,2,and 4 became the crystals (formly swords) give you on top of a few cool powers, inherent bonuses. So if you have one all your items increase.
Intresting changes: I had a PC right off the bat question the first immortal they ran into, and tried to start a skill challenge instead of a fight. (Important note this was not one of the original PCs, but someone who did not know this part of the story)
Because of the above thought, it came to a real head when the abberant angel is invading. This time it was a choice to free the god killer (and an entire night convincing his sister to let them), because he was a long term threat, and keeping the world safe from him just to let the angel win made no sense.

SO now we all compared notes, and here is what we came up with comparing 2e and 4e (remember that 2 of the people we are talking about have 0 exp with 2e and one has no 3e or 4e)

Weapons are different. In 2e you could just wait a few levels and pick up prof in a weapon…in 4e you don’t want to change weapons because of feats and power pre reqs.

Implments make it different, in 2e a caster was a caster, in 4e your tools make a difference,

PCs LOOK different. In 2e I had 7 players, 4 humans, an elf, a Drow, and 2 half elfs. In 4e I have a human, and elf, an outsider, a construct, and an undead… yea and we thought the drow in 2e was pushing it. (Chris the 2e only player could not wrap his mind around how different the race/class thing was. And Jon, the guy who started in 3.5 said he could not imagin only having 6 races and only 10-12 classes to choose from)

The whole feel is different. I don’t want to say better or worse, but not the same. When I said swordman to describe a bad guy it was totally different then when I said wizard…now adays it is a little different, but not much.

Healing and rest… with only a druid healer in the original game healing took time. In 4e not so much. No one is role playing hideing out for 3 days to get back to full.
What is and is not fair. I had in the 2e game monsters needing +3 to hit attack the party when only 1 or the 2 players had a magic +1 sword. No one complained. I had praxton wake up and walk past the PCs like they were benith his notice, and when I did no one saw a problem.

In 4e even suggesting the story point immunity that required the crystals be found started a debate…and the monsters never even fought the PCs yet. I was also suprsed when one PC this weekend well talking to chris felt praxton should not be anywhere near PCs even to talk or to ignore until PCs were within level -6 of him.
As we talked this weekend, trying to tell chris about 4e, and Jon about 2e, some other things came up.

Chris could not belive that a kobold could ever be a threat, Jon could never imagin them being jokes.

Chris thought he would miss what he called show stoppers…and to be honest it had been close to 10 years since I thought about it. Back in 2e our wizards had less spells per day then 3e, so they had to hold back, then cast a ‘show stopper’ spell. In 3e we still had them, but by level 5 or 6 PC wizards had plenty of spells and were not really spending lots of time not casting. Now in 4e at wills were the most difficult for chris to understand.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. What about everyone else? How did the mechanics of watch edition effect your games? I mean 9 out of 10 Big Named NPCs are casters (and more than half wizards) in prior editions, mostly because of how different the casters are from non-casters. Only fighters can specialize, and you get more weapon profs as you level meant I could throw any weapon into a game and someone could pick it up, now adays you still can, but what are the odds the light blade fighter will get any use out of a axe?

Try this thought experiment take a game you ran in the 80’s or 90’s and think about updateing it to pathfinder or 4e…think about all the things that change as you go, or that you would need to house rule not to change. Take it a step farther and look at campaign settings. If gary was today sitting down to write greyhawk for 4e, having never done so before for any edition, would there be famous named wizards, or famous named everything… would we get new fighter exploits called Tom’s flourish the way we got mord’s XYZ?

 

[the Jester]

First of all, it sounds like you're not picking up where you left off, but rather restarting. And a lot of the cats are already out of the bag, so of course things won't play the same.

That said, while I'll agree that the mechanics of different editions lend themselves to different kinds of adventures, I really disagree about a lot of what you're saying has to be different. I get that it is different in this case, but a lot of your issues seem easily avoided.

So, what is different now? Well first of all everyone knows going in that there is a ‘Praxton the God killer’ and having 12 more years of DMing experience I know a thing or two more too.

This is a huge point. It seems like the Praxton thing was a HUGE reveal in the original campaign; but now it's like if you'd never seen Star Wars, you would go into it knowing that Vader is Luke's father because you've heard it a million times in pop culture references, etc. Only in this case it was table talk.

Right away my first snag…5 swords wont work. 3 of my players do not use melee weapons at all, and 2 of them only use implements (well and his own hex blade).

I know you already worked around this, but- so what? The point of the weapons seems more to be a plot device than treasure. That said, I do like the way you got around this.

Second problem… the angel and his men, they were unhurtable to PCs in 2e because you needed +3 weapons to hurt them…and the swords were +3/+5 vs X. So without that why would the PCs need the deus ex machine items.

4e explicitly supports occasionally having monsters that have a "You can't hurt me without the plot device!" clause. The most beautiful thing about 4e, imho, is its wholehearted embrace of exception-based design.

Third well I will call this a snag not a problem, but one that chris (player of 2e only) really felt made the whole game weird. No one batted an eye lash at no full casters.

Now THIS I absolutely agree with- the 'feel' of missing a given class or even power source is very different from earlier editions.

Third part B… the whole idea of no encounters out of your range, and ‘fair challenges’ was very much a different feel.

This is an issue with expectations. If you show that you're willing to slaughter the party if they are too stupid to run, they will get the picture. Sometimes just telling the players will work, but if they are used to "we never die for long" style campaigns, you might have to annihilate a pc or five before they get the idea.

OTOH if you don't want to kill the party, don't throw overpowering encounters their way.

Fourth, magic items. In the original game there were few bits of treasure, especially since a large number of the fights were against animals. In the original it was also very frontier…whole games went by with no town nearby. Now in 4e that is a little more of a handicap.

Sounds like there are two things going on here: magic item scarcity, which you can easily address by using inherent bonuses instead, and monster palette, which is a flavor issue. If you consider things like 'dire bears' animals, you have a few monsters that should last a while; also, there's always simply using MOAR MONSTERS (within reason) to fill out your encounter's xp budget. (If your party is 4th level, you might use nine 1st-level animals instead of five, for instance.)

But also, is there any reason you can't use wilderness monsters? Bulettes, ankhegs, harpies, behemoths, displacer beasts, etc. are all fine outdoor encounters.

Fifth…TRAPS. In 2e a trap was an encounter. Some of them were puzzels to be solved out of game, others needed creative ideas and rolls. In 4e skill challenges just are not the same. I can’t make a dungeon be 7 traped rooms, and 1 golem. In 2e that was a great nights adventure.

Wow, I so disagree with the part that I bolded.

Traps are not the same as skill challenges. The traps in 4e are generally really cool; and if you were to use a highly mobile, push-pcs-around type of golem and a dungeon full of traps, the whole thing could be one big encounter. A 4e encounter should not always be the same as a chamber. Sometimes one encounter should involve the obstacles and threats in multiple chambers converging on the pcs, or the pcs being forced or encouraged by circumstances to move through multiple chambers. (Maybe one of the traps starts collapsing the room they start in and they have to jump forward into another trapped room, while the golem comes forth to engage them and knock one or two of them into yet another set of traps.)

Sixth… the mystery character. Since PCs and NPCs use such different rules the in game hints could never be the same, and worse no cross over ont eh spell lists. The whole bard/wizard idea only worked because of shared spells. This whole idea got dropped, there is no way to make it work like it did back then.

But... but exception-based design! There is no reason you can't do this, nor is there any reason the mystery character can't have powers unknown to the pcs.

Weapons are different. In 2e you could just wait a few levels and pick up prof in a weapon…in 4e you don’t want to change weapons because of feats and power pre reqs.

While this is somewhat true, keep in mind that you can retrain those feats to be better suited to your new weapon; however, it usually takes a few levels to do so.

Implments make it different, in 2e a caster was a caster, in 4e your tools make a difference

Yes! A good thing imho. I don't see how this would require anything different in a campaign conversion, though; it might add elements to it, but so would having a monk or a gnome if you didn't before.

PCs LOOK different. In 2e I had 7 players, 4 humans, an elf, a Drow, and 2 half elfs. In 4e I have a human, and elf, an outsider, a construct, and an undead… yea and we thought the drow in 2e was pushing it. (Chris the 2e only player could not wrap his mind around how different the race/class thing was. And Jon, the guy who started in 3.5 said he could not imagin only having 6 races and only 10-12 classes to choose from)

Yeah, this is very true. There are a number of races in 4e that I have designated as "Once Only" (shardmind, wilden, etc). The first player that wants to play one gets to, but as a unique or extremely rare individual; they just don't fit my campaign. After that one time, the race is probably banned. (We have a shardmind in the game right now, in fact; he's from hundreds of thousands of years ago, and was "turned off and in storage" until very recently.)

Healing and rest… with only a druid healer in the original game healing took time. In 4e not so much. No one is role playing hideing out for 3 days to get back to full.

Yeah, this one bugs me too sometimes. But I don't find that it's a major issue or game-changer for the most part.

What is and is not fair. I had in the 2e game monsters needing +3 to hit attack the party when only 1 or the 2 players had a magic +1 sword. No one complained. I had praxton wake up and walk past the PCs like they were benith his notice, and when I did no one saw a problem.

In 4e even suggesting the story point immunity that required the crystals be found started a debate…and the monsters never even fought the PCs yet. I was also suprsed when one PC this weekend well talking to chris felt praxton should not be anywhere near PCs even to talk or to ignore until PCs were within level -6 of him.

Again, this is a matter of player expectation more than anything else. I'll stand by my point about exception-based design and plot items required monsters here.

Chris thought he would miss what he called show stoppers…and to be honest it had been close to 10 years since I thought about it. Back in 2e our wizards had less spells per day then 3e, so they had to hold back, then cast a ‘show stopper’ spell. In 3e we still had them, but by level 5 or 6 PC wizards had plenty of spells and were not really spending lots of time not casting. Now in 4e at wills were the most difficult for chris to understand.

Well, I get his point about having fewer spells, but I'd say that wizard dailies are still pretty much show-stoppers a lot of the time. Even though he's 12th level now, when the party mage imc casts fountain of flame, his 1st level daily, it has a profound effect on the encounter.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. What about everyone else? How did the mechanics of watch edition effect your games? I mean 9 out of 10 Big Named NPCs are casters (and more than half wizards) in prior editions, mostly because of how different the casters are from non-casters. Only fighters can specialize, and you get more weapon profs as you level meant I could throw any weapon into a game and someone could pick it up, now adays you still can, but what are the odds the light blade fighter will get any use out of a axe?

Try this thought experiment take a game you ran in the 80’s or 90’s and think about updateing it to pathfinder or 4e…think about all the things that change as you go, or that you would need to house rule not to change. Take it a step farther and look at campaign settings. If gary was today sitting down to write greyhawk for 4e, having never done so before for any edition, would there be famous named wizards, or famous named everything… would we get new fighter exploits called Tom’s flourish the way we got mord’s XYZ?

Yep, 4e is a different beast than earlier editions, I agree. But I don't agree with the level of change you seem to think is necessary to run an old edition campaign using the ruleset. Then again, I haven't precisely tried it, so....

 

[Kzach]

All Hell's?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

First of all, it sounds like you're not picking up where you left off, but rather restarting. And a lot of the cats are already out of the bag, so of course things won't play the same.

a few months ago that is were I started...how things changed (like ultimate marvel) would make teh diffrence.

This is a huge point. It seems like the Praxton thing was a HUGE reveal in the original campaign; but now it's like if you'd never seen Star Wars, you would go into it knowing that Vader is Luke's father because you've heard it a million times in pop culture references, etc. Only in this case it was table talk.

Yes seeing him comeing both in and out of game changed alot...

I know you already worked around this, but- so what? The point of the weapons seems more to be a plot device than treasure. That said, I do like the way you got around this.

Thank you, being such big parts of the early game it took the most thought to get right...

4e explicitly supports occasionally having monsters that have a "You can't hurt me without the plot device!" clause. The most beautiful thing about 4e, imho, is its wholehearted embrace of exception-based design.

can you gve me an example of this...not that I dont belive yu, but to point out to others please.

Now THIS I absolutely agree with- the 'feel' of missing a given class or even power source is very different from earlier editions.

Yes, this is WAY diffrent...and my first big clue in to makeing this post.

This is an issue with expectations. If you show that you're willing to slaughter the party if they are too stupid to run, they will get the picture. Sometimes just telling the players will work, but if they are used to "we never die for long" style campaigns, you might have to annihilate a pc or five before they get the idea.

OTOH if you don't want to kill the party, don't throw overpowering encounters their way.

It seams (IMO) that too much is out front in this edition for it to work as well as before, and that PCs (In my experance) have been condtioned to except his less and less.

Sounds like there are two things going on here: magic item scarcity, which you can easily address by using inherent bonuses instead, and monster palette, which is a flavor issue. If you consider things like 'dire bears' animals, you have a few monsters that should last a while; also, there's always simply using MOAR MONSTERS (within reason) to fill out your encounter's xp budget. (If your party is 4th level, you might use nine 1st-level animals instead of five, for instance.)

I did that, and added some 'natives' to the new land. I have bronzemen and kenku and amazons...it gave some more rp options (Hindsight being 20/20 gave me this)

Wow, I so disagree with the part that I bolded.

Traps are not the same as skill challenges. The traps in 4e are generally really cool; and if you were to use a highly mobile, push-pcs-around type of golem and a dungeon full of traps, the whole thing could be one big encounter. A 4e encounter should not always be the same as a chamber. Sometimes one encounter should involve the obstacles and threats in multiple chambers converging on the pcs, or the pcs being forced or encouraged by circumstances to move through multiple chambers. (Maybe one of the traps starts collapsing the room they start in and they have to jump forward into another trapped room, while the golem comes forth to engage them and knock one or two of them into yet another set of traps.)

let me rephrase...it is harder and not the same result. But you are correct it can be done with work (I may steal this idead from yout)

But... but exception-based design! There is no reason you can't do this, nor is there any reason the mystery character can't have powers unknown to the pcs.

Again it can be doen diffrently, but really it is soo diffrent at that point as to take away. My NPC bard should have majastic word, not magic missle... it just is not the same (Not better bot worse diffrent)

While this is somewhat true, keep in mind that you can retrain those feats to be better suited to your new weapon; however, it usually takes a few levels to do so.

and you may need to retrin powers too, and some feats have prereqs, and well it can be done it is not as simple.

Yes! A good thing imho. I don't see how this would require anything different in a campaign conversion, though; it might add elements to it, but so would having a monk or a gnome if you didn't before.

again good or bad not withstanding it is diffrent.

Yeah, this is very true. There are a number of races in 4e that I have designated as "Once Only" (shardmind, wilden, etc). The first player that wants to play one gets to, but as a unique or extremely rare individual; they just don't fit my campaign. After that one time, the race is probably banned. (We have a shardmind in the game right now, in fact; he's from hundreds of thousands of years ago, and was "turned off and in storage" until very recently.)

I normaly allow anything.

Imagin how diffrent a Wilden Invoker, a warforged artafice, Minitaour battlemind, reverant vampire, and a half orc slayer is then a Dwarf fighter, a human cleric, an elvin ranger, half elf wizard, and hafling rouge is for a party.

Well, I get his point about having fewer spells, but I'd say that wizard dailies are still pretty much show-stoppers a lot of the time. Even though he's 12th level now, when the party mage imc casts fountain of flame, his 1st level daily, it has a profound effect on the encounter.

yes but some fighter dailys are too, and wizards are not sitting out 3 fights to save there spells for the 4th...agian pro and con there, but still diffrent feel.

Yep, 4e is a different beast than earlier editions, I agree. But I don't agree with the level of change you seem to think is necessary to run an old edition campaign using the ruleset. Then again, I haven't precisely tried it, so....

Just think about how if you re ran an old game how much better you could do (hind sight 20/20 plus extra exp) Even if you do not run it...just think about it. It makes a fun thought... and the more you make little changes the more fun it becomes.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Second problem… the angel and his men, they were unhurtable to PCs in 2e because you needed +3 weapons to hurt them…and the swords were +3/+5 vs X. So without that why would the PCs need the deus ex machine items.

I can't support that kind of game design and story writing. The DR change in 3.x was an excellent change.

You came up with a good change, but there were other ways around that issue too.

Third well I will call this a snag not a problem, but one that chris (player of 2e only) really felt made the whole game weird. No one batted an eye lash at no full casters. See in the first game we had a druid, and the wizard, but they were it for the PC access, and PCs feared no spells in 2e…in 4e we had no defender, but that is not the same. It was a big fear back then, that without artillery there was a good TPK chance, not so much in 4th.

Instead, parties tend to freak out without healers. Good TPK chances without healers. It's not different, it's just ... different details.

Third part B… the whole idea of no encounters out of your range, and ‘fair challenges’ was very much a different feel.

I disagree with this. There is nothing preventing "unfair" challenges. The problem is that they're "unfair". DMs tend to shy away from using them. As long as it makes sense, and (in the interest of fairness) PCs have fair warning, then it's not a problem.

If 3rd-level PCs sneak into the dragon's hoard and face a 15th-level solo, that's their fault. If they don't even make it because they stepped on a 10th-level monster summoning trap, that is also their fault. Either they didn't heed warnings, or the players weren't clever enough to deal with the problem. That hasn't changed.

You're looking at a generational change, most of which have to do with story-telling and empowering players rather than rules. It has next to nothing to do with editions.

Fourth, magic items. In the original game there were few bits of treasure, especially since a large number of the fights were against animals. In the original it was also very frontier…whole games went by with no town nearby. Now in 4e that is a little more of a handicap.

You can fix that with inherent bonuses. Saves a lot of bookkeeping too.

Well, that was a tad glib. But in 2e, PCs went adventuring for loot and treasure. It's a little odd if they're not getting any.

Fifth…TRAPS. In 2e a trap was an encounter. Some of them were puzzels to be solved out of game, others needed creative ideas and rolls. In 4e skill challenges just are not the same. I can’t make a dungeon be 7 traped rooms, and 1 golem. In 2e that was a great nights adventure.

Sure you could make a trap into an encounter by itself. Failing skill challenges can deal damage on each failed check, they can summon monsters, etc. Most skill challenges will say something like "give XP as if facing 1-3 monsters of this level", leaving you free to toss in other traps (or monsters as you wish). Furthermore skill challenges give all PCs something to do in-game. While the rogue is disarming one part of the trap, the wizard is erasing runes and the fighter is using Athletics to push over a pillar or smashing that orb that keeps zapping the whole party.

Part of the fun is figuring out what a character can do (out-of-game) and then the DM will hopefully make that possible in-game. (In short, if you didn't expect the fighter to want to push over a pillar, don't sweat it. Just pick a reasonable DC and step back.)

A "plain" skill challenge is sort of like fighting endless hordes of zombies. Dangerous, perhaps, but not exciting. Like any encounter, the DM has to put work into making it fun. I guess this means I reject the notion that skill challenges aren't fun. Rather, like any other kind of encounter, they can be boring.

Traps are usually designed as part of an encounter with monsters or NPCs, however, to give the rest of the PCs something to do while the rogue does his thing. (That was especially the case in later 3.x, when they didn't seem to have multi-role skill challenges yet.) The PCs could be taking on blaster traps while the rogue tries to disable the master control panel. Naturally that is protected by a stationary animated statue or a magic mouth that spits poison darts, so maybe the cleric needs to heal the rogue or the fighter needs to protect him, etc.

Sixth… the mystery character. Since PCs and NPCs use such different rules the in game hints could never be the same, and worse no cross over ont eh spell lists. The whole bard/wizard idea only worked because of shared spells. This whole idea got dropped, there is no way to make it work like it did back then.

Multiclassing still works. If you wanted to be a bard but pretending to be a wizard, multiclass into wizard, use some recognizable wizard spells, and use flavor text to "obscure" the rest of your abilities (eg their names). Given the thousands of powers out there (literally) there's no way the other players should see through that right away.

Weapons are different. In 2e you could just wait a few levels and pick up prof in a weapon…in 4e you don’t want to change weapons because of feats and power pre reqs.

In 2e, gaining a level took a long time. You gained free WP, and PCs gain free feats in 4e (every other level). The cost is the same. Indeed, the cost is less in 4e since it takes less time to gain a level (and therefore retrain a feat or just take a new one).

Implments make it different, in 2e a caster was a caster, in 4e your tools make a difference,

This is something I agree with. I don't think it's a bad thing, since at least for the wizard the type of implement you use is a class feature, but it's something to take into account. An orb wizard can use a wand, it just prevents them from using a class ability - I'm pretty sure that's how it works anyway. It's certainly no barrier when it comes to other caster classes.

PCs LOOK different. In 2e I had 7 players, 4 humans, an elf, a Drow, and 2 half elfs. In 4e I have a human, and elf, an outsider, a construct, and an undead… yea and we thought the drow in 2e was pushing it. (Chris the 2e only player could not wrap his mind around how different the race/class thing was. And Jon, the guy who started in 3.5 said he could not imagin only having 6 races and only 10-12 classes to choose from)

That has nothing to do with the system. That's a setting issue. You can ban tieflings, warforged and vampires if you feel like it. (Only one of those is a core race.) 2e had books for undead PCs. About the only thing they were missing are warforged, and that's setting dependent. (What were those outsider/construct/undead PCs anyway?)

The whole feel is different. I don’t want to say better or worse, but not the same. When I said swordman to describe a bad guy it was totally different then when I said wizard…now adays it is a little different, but not much.

Needs explanations Wizards can't cut your head off. Swordsmen can't surround you with a wall of fire and watch you cook to death.

Healing and rest… with only a druid healer in the original game healing took time. In 4e not so much. No one is role playing hideing out for 3 days to get back to full.

Good. That's boring.

It was boring in 2e, even. I recall being in a 2e campaign (one of the last I was in, pretty sure it was the 2nd-last one), just starting out. Our only healer was a paladin who could heal 2 hp/day. We found so many healing potions all over the place (like a video game!) once the DM noticed how much the games bogged down...

(I hope I don't get burned at the stake for comparing 2e to a video game!)

What is and is not fair. I had in the 2e game monsters needing +3 to hit attack the party when only 1 or the 2 players had a magic +1 sword. No one complained. I had praxton wake up and walk past the PCs like they were benith his notice, and when I did no one saw a problem.

They might complain now. There's been a generational shift in the way games have been played.

As for the second, you can certainly do that in 4e. Praxton has lots of levels, so much higher defenses. The PCs need really high rolls to hit him. They'd certainly need to use different tactics if they want to threaten him at all at low levels. In 2e, monster ACs and hit points were usually quite poor (then again, so were PCs), so perhaps immunity to non/low-magic weapons were a way to preserve powerful creatures.

In 4e even suggesting the story point immunity that required the crystals be found started a debate…and the monsters never even fought the PCs yet. I was also suprsed when one PC this weekend well talking to chris felt praxton should not be anywhere near PCs even to talk or to ignore until PCs were within level -6 of him.

Seems like a bit of a player issue. But far more of a story issue; I think the player had a point there that requiring the PCs to find the story artifacts is bad writing. There should always be another way. If you have an adventure where you must make a Survival check (for instance) or you can never find the bad guys, that adventure would suffer from justifiably bad writing.

If the villain is so powerful, and he knows the PCs are both dangerous and much weaker than him, then why isn't he going to off them himself? If you can't explain that, part of the adventure needs rewriting. Is he busy? On another plane? Doesn't he have assistants of nearly equal level to be doing stuff, or is this an epic villain and heroic flunkies.

It seems to me you're trying to run a 2e adventure now, but it was written years and years ago, and obviously cannot keep up with the cultural and generational changes. You need to do more work to fix that adventure's problems.

Chris thought he would miss what he called show stoppers…and to be honest it had been close to 10 years since I thought about it. Back in 2e our wizards had less spells per day then 3e, so they had to hold back, then cast a ‘show stopper’ spell. In 3e we still had them, but by level 5 or 6 PC wizards had plenty of spells and were not really spending lots of time not casting. Now in 4e at wills were the most difficult for chris to understand.

Wizards tapping out really early is a bad thing. It was part of the 5 minute adventuring day mindset, and it existed in 2e too (a bit less since the other PCs weren't much more resilient). PET PEEVE ALERT: For some reasons, this happens to wizards in every RPG novel too. No wizard can cast more than three spells a day. You can find out their level if they're casting Magic Missile (amateur) or Meteor Swarm (epic), but no novel wizard can cast more than three spells a day. (I wish there was a trope to describe this.)

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. What about everyone else? How did the mechanics of watch edition effect your games? I mean 9 out of 10 Big Named NPCs are casters (and more than half wizards) in prior editions, mostly because of how different the casters are from non-casters. Only fighters can specialize, and you get more weapon profs as you level meant I could throw any weapon into a game and someone could pick it up, now adays you still can, but what are the odds the light blade fighter will get any use out of a axe?

You can still use caster NPCs. They're still different. I never understand how someone can look at the wizard's spell list in 4e and think that's not different from a fighter. Wizards can't mark, they don't deal great damage, but they can make you kill your friends and teleport away when someone gets too close.

On equipment issues you have the right of it. Of course, the PC can sell the magic axe for something more useful to them. That's easier with the Disenchant Magic Item and item creation rituals; you don't even have to go back to town, you just need to spend time. Hiding in a room, while your buddies fearfully cover the doors/gaps, hoping no one interrupts while the caster is busy.

Try this thought experiment take a game you ran in the 80’s or 90’s and think about updateing it to pathfinder or 4e…think about all the things that change as you go, or that you would need to house rule not to change. Take it a step farther and look at campaign settings. If gary was today sitting down to write greyhawk for 4e, having never done so before for any edition, would there be famous named wizards, or famous named everything… would we get new fighter exploits called Tom’s flourish the way we got mord’s XYZ?

I'm only really looking at Dark Sun right now, but did take a look at Dragon Mountain recently. I was amused to find that 1st-level minion kobolds can be a threat due to their mobbing ability plus aid another in 4e. It's ridiculous, and wouldn't come up much, but if 8 kobolds surrounded a PC and 7 use aid another, the remaining kobold gets a +21 bonus to hit (not the expected +14, add another +1 per kobold due to the mobbing trait). It's even better if you tweak them to get the same bonus to damage.

Which is easy when the first time the PCs run into the kobolds they face 15 kobolds per PC. (Also preserves the flavor of wizards utterly destroying vast clumps of low-defense minions.)

In Dragon Mountain 2e, while kobolds didn't get this ability for free, they obviously playtested/theorycrafted the adventure, and suggested pretty much the same thing. (Heck, that adventure might be responsible for the kobold Mob Attack ability in 4e. Why wasn't that in 3e?)

can you gve me an example of this...not that I dont belive yu, but to point out to others please.

Sure.

The Ward of Force
The ward of force is a stone pillar that pulses with runes of physical protection. This ward gives the demilich resist 10 to all damage, and it must be smashed down with two successful DC 27 Athletics or Endurance checks made as standard actions. A hero can instead use a minor action, but the DC becomes 36, and a failure results in the hero taking 3d8 + 9 force damage. After two successes, the pillar is smashed down, and the demilich loses the resistance this ward provided.

And as you can see, not only does this make the monster tough, it also gives PCs without the artifacts a way of dealing with it. And if worse comes to worse, they can just accept they'll deal less damage and attack anyway. Not a smart strategy, but doable

It seams (IMO) that too much is out front in this edition for it to work as well as before, and that PCs (In my experance) have been condtioned to except his less and less.

I've accidentally TPK'ed the PCs thrice in 4e, but since none of them were "planned overwhelming encounters" I just made "rules errors" so they simply "almost" died.

In one case the PCs were even smart. They saw the villain, a necromancer, seemingly by himself, on a sand dune over the Silt Sea - obviously a prepared position. He was doing a ritual. One PC wanted to wait until he died of thirst (they'd kill anyone trying to resupply him) but they (correctly) concluded the ritual would make him much more powerful and so attacked. They ended up walking into a trap, naturally. There were creatures burrowed in the sand that gave him warning and dished out damage, while another powerful creature (his mount) unburrowed itself, trampled over the PCs (fortunately it kept missing) and then the necromancer started dishing out the hurt. The end result: one PC survived, at 3 hit points, when he finally killed the necro. Then he started triggering Second Winds He actually lived due to a few math errors on my part. The battle was actually "fair" according to the XP budget (I think level +3).

Twice they ended up stringing two encounters together; once by accident, and once because the NPCs planned for things that way. In the latter case, if I hadn't "accidentally" forgotten the rules on a regenerating power the PCs were using, they would have all died.

There was a near (but fair) near-TPK when they fought a tembo. It was delevelled and still massacred them. The reduced healing aura didn't help.

I think people get the impression that killing PCs in 4e is harder because it's harder to do so accidentally. A crit from a 1st-level orc isn't likely to kill a 1st-level PC in one hit, but it's certainly doable.

I normaly allow anything.

Imagin how diffrent a Wilden Invoker, a warforged artafice, Minitaour battlemind, reverant vampire, and a half orc slayer is then a Dwarf fighter, a human cleric, an elvin ranger, half elf wizard, and hafling rouge is for a party.

That's not a 4e issue. At all. You allowing anything into your game is the flavor issue here. You didn't have to allow wilden (weird), invoker (non-core), warforged (setting specific), artificer (should have been setting specific, was back in 3.5), minotaur (not in the PH1), battlemind (non-core), revenant (non-core) and a vampire (non-core and a terrible class for about a hundred reasons).

yes but some fighter dailys are too, and wizards are not sitting out 3 fights to save there spells for the 4th...agian pro and con there, but still diffrent feel.

And the wizard player likes this? Really? How is that good for the game? Those novel wizards are wimps, I tell ya. I think that's a case of nostalgia run amok.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can't support that kind of game design and story writing. The DR change in 3.x was an excellent change.

Ok, so you dislike it...some of us didn't. I lhate running into it all the time, but the STORY of you run into something you cant hurt...then you go train or get a new item and then take the fight to them.

Instead, parties tend to freak out without healers. Good TPK chances without healers. It's not different, it's just ... different details.

different is different...THe idea of having no spell casters in 2e is scary, but the idea of having no spellcast (say warlord, ranger, rouge, fighter, fighter party) is just as good. on the other hand having no defender or no striker or no leader is diffrent)

You can fix that with inherent bonuses. Saves a lot of bookkeeping too.

my artafacts give inherent bonuses...fixing it nicely.

Well, that was a tad glib. But in 2e, PCs went adventuring for loot and treasure. It's a little odd if they're not getting any.

in 2e it was able to go with out it better then 3 or 4 (IMO)

Multiclassing still works. If you wanted to be a bard but pretending to be a wizard, multiclass into wizard, use some recognizable wizard spells, and use flavor text to "obscure" the rest of your abilities (eg their names). Given the thousands of powers out there (literally) there's no way the other players should see through that right away.

now try to make a wizard...with wzard powers (re name but not refluff) and convince someone you are a bard...

In 2e, gaining a level took a long time. You gained free WP, and PCs gain free feats in 4e (every other level). The cost is the same. Indeed, the cost is less in 4e since it takes less time to gain a level (and therefore retrain a feat or just take a new one).

look at my PCs again... the problem was most dont use swords at all..

That has nothing to do with the system. That's a setting issue. You can ban tieflings, warforged and vampires if you feel like it. (Only one of those is a core race.) 2e had books for undead PCs. About the only thing they were missing are warforged, and that's setting dependent. (What were those outsider/construct/undead PCs anyway?)

there were WAY less races/classes and most were presented as campiagn world... in 4e they are all core. It is a diffrence in how they are written, showcased and used...

Needs explanations Wizards can't cut your head off. Swordsmen can't surround you with a wall of fire and watch you cook to death.

Get into a fight in 2e with a fighter then a wizard... fighter will be swinging his sword you know what the fight is... the wizard could be 100 diffrent fights, and it might be over with Save or Die round one.
Now 4e 2 diffrent fighters use very diffrent tactics and very diffrent powers...so do wizards, but neaither is going to end the fight in the suprse round.

Good. That's boring.

It was boring in 2e, even. I recall being in a 2e campaign (one of the last I was in, pretty sure it was the 2nd-last one), just starting out. Our only healer was a paladin who could heal 2 hp/day. We found so many healing potions all over the place (like a video game!) once the DM noticed how much the games bogged down...

It wasn't boring if play right... if it added drama and danger...

can it be boreing: Yes
Can "Fights over I spend 3 surges and am back to full" be boreing: Yes

can and are always are worlds apart...

(I hope I don't get burned at the stake for comparing 2e to a video game!)

Does anyone have a torch? (Just kidding) all D&D is a video game with the best sfx budget (unlimited) in my mind.

They might complain now. There's been a generational shift in the way games have been played.

yes

As for the second, you can certainly do that in 4e. Praxton has lots of levels, so much higher defenses. The PCs need really high rolls to hit him. They'd certainly need to use different tactics if they want to threaten him at all at low levels. In 2e, monster ACs and hit points were usually quite poor (then again, so were PCs), so perhaps immunity to non/low-magic weapons were a way to preserve powerful creatures.

there was no fight in 2e and I dont mean there to be in 4e...just you see him awaken and walk off.

Seems like a bit of a player issue. But far more of a story issue; I think the player had a point there that requiring the PCs to find the story artifacts is bad writing. There should always be another way.

I disagree, part of the social contract between DM and PC is I work for hours on this item/dungeon ect, you go to it and get it/beat it ect. If you make a PC that doesnt want to play this game, then make one that does.

If you have an adventure where you must make a Survival check (for instance) or you can never find the bad guys, that adventure would suffer from justifiably bad writing.

um except my game doesn't stop...it just means it will get to a bad ending some day...when the PCs can't win.

If the villain is so powerful, and he knows the PCs are both dangerous and much weaker than him, then why isn't he going to off them himself? If you can't explain that, part of the adventure needs rewriting. Is he busy? On another plane? Doesn't he have assistants of nearly equal level to be doing stuff, or is this an epic villain and heroic flunkies.

um this is totaly nothing to do with my story... Praxton does not know the PCs from adam...and if he did would see them as little threat...he kills gods.

It seems to me you're trying to run a 2e adventure now, but it was written years and years ago, and obviously cannot keep up with the cultural and generational changes. You need to do more work to fix that adventure's problems.

or I am doing what you said welll trying to keep the basic story the same and as I see how much has changed I am pointing it out on a message board for fun..

Wizards tapping out really early is a bad thing. It was part of the 5 minute adventuring day mindset, and it existed in 2e too (a bit less since the other PCs weren't much more resilient). PET PEEVE ALERT: For some reasons, this happens to wizards in every RPG novel too. No wizard can cast more than three spells a day. You can find out their level if they're casting Magic Missile (amateur) or Meteor Swarm (epic), but no novel wizard can cast more than three spells a day. (I wish there was a trope to describe this.)

Read harry Dresden...some fights he uses "Feago" more then that...let alone days...his whole book normaly is only 1 or 2 extended rests...

On equipment issues you have the right of it. Of course, the PC can sell the magic axe for something more useful to them. That's easier with the Disenchant Magic Item and item creation rituals; you don't even have to go back to town, you just need to spend time. Hiding in a room, while your buddies fearfully cover the doors/gaps, hoping no one interrupts while the caster is busy.

being able to craft is another big change... it use to cost con points to do.then it went to Xp, both requared gold and time... now just gold and time

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think people get the impression that killing PCs in 4e is harder because it's harder to do so accidentally. A crit from a 1st-level orc isn't likely to kill a 1st-level PC in one hit, but it's certainly doable.

I agree my kill count both as a DM and a player (well died count then) is way lower, but is still not 0...

That's not a 4e issue. At all. You allowing anything into your game is the flavor issue here. You didn't have to allow wilden (weird), invoker (non-core), warforged (setting specific), artificer (should have been setting specific, was back in 3.5), minotaur (not in the PH1), battlemind (non-core), revenant (non-core) and a vampire (non-core and a terrible class for about a hundred reasons).

what makes battle mind or invoker non core? They are in core books...

and I dont' need to go out of PHB1... Dragonborn might as well be half dragons (infact chris just pointed it out last night...change the flavor txt and they fif fine as half human half dragon.

And the wizard player likes this? Really? How is that good for the game? Those novel wizards are wimps, I tell ya. I think that's a case of nostalgia run amok.

good ot bad are subjective...it is different.

I think it is both good and bad. Wizards are not special anymore they are just one of the guys...but that means wizards aren't specila anymore now they are just one of the guys...

Chris use to say damage spells were to feel like a fighter... sleep and the like made you end fights. It made him (and many for years) feel like a real winner that they held the incase of emergencay button...and by level 10 they had 4 or 5 per day...and 3-4 get out of jam spells, and 4-5 def buff spells

 

[Herschel]

Try this thought experiment take a game you ran in the 80’s or 90’s and think about updateing it to pathfinder or 4e…think about all the things that change as you go, or that you would need to house rule not to change. Take it a step farther and look at campaign settings. If gary was today sitting down to write greyhawk for 4e, having never done so before for any edition, would there be famous named wizards, or famous named everything… would we get new fighter exploits called Tom’s flourish the way we got mord’s XYZ?

A few things...

1. We're different. That's teh biggest chage right there.
2. Nobody gets "stuck" playing the cleric or the fighter, their roles can be filled by numerous classes and stay cool all the way through.
3. No more hiding out for a week to heal. That was dull as Hades.
4. No more relying on cheese items for healing. That was dull as Hades also.
5. Racial diversity is greater. This one bugs me a bit at times but Drow and Wild Elves always bugged me as PC options.
6. Minions make fights better. Those kobolds died every hit, unless you rolled low on your damage dice. Now hit e'm and forget 'em works better for the flavor of peon mooks.

I loved early editions of D&D, but I don't miss playing them on a regular basis.

 

[Janx]

i do suspect the OP was worried about more changes than I would be.

If he's playing the same adventure/world as 2e, he should have restricted the class/race list accordingly. The world didn't used to have WarForged, why have them now? That's a flavor issue.

As for Paxton being the uber-NPC that the PCs can't hurt right way, the point should be to follow the spirit of that design using the current ruleset. The rules and terms differ, but the same would be true if you were converting to Gurps. So approach the problem from that perspective.

as to whether certain level-appropriate expectations in 4e vs. 2e differ, there's nothing stopping a GM from using those ideas in 2e, 3e or 4e. So if you want some big scary "dont fight this" encounters, that's up to the GM. All the math and stuff is about helping the GM see what is balanced, and what is not. Just tools, use them as your style prefers.

I guess I'm not really sure what the problem is. Or more to it, looking at the problem as a do-over an upgrade versus trying to replicate the concept in a different ruleset.

You had sparse populations and more wilderness encounters. Then in 4e use more non-sentient monster encounters. Giant whatevers, dire critters, and the wierd stuff that earth doesn't have. Its not that significant that they used to be able to have random encounter with a black panther, and now it is is random encounter with a displacer beast.

Certainly, things will play out a bit different, but you can focus on the concepts from the 2e adventure, and not the details, and probably have a good time.

Though it might also be worth noting, if you improved over your GMiing and can do a better job now because so much time passed, that it is also likely that the material was not as good as you can produce now.

That might be another source of problem for you. Trying to stick to material that is no longer your best, and doesn't have your better practices built into it.


Somebody disputed your concept of an NPC that could only be beat by one means. I suspect they were angling for multiple combat means (needing the magic macguffin weapons to hurt it). I don't specifically have a problem that the NPC has 1 means to defeat it in combat (by reducing its HP to 0 by defeating its defenses as defined by the game rules). So long as you also allow for "creative" solutions to work as well (like luring it off a cliff, squashing it with a mountain, teleporting it into space, etc). These alternatives require the PCs have the means as well, but the point is, while you have the obvious 1 correct path covered (which is also the path you probably need to share with the PCs via clues), so long as you will accept some other solutions you did not think of, then as a GM, you should be OK.

 

[KidSnide]

PCs LOOK different. In 2e I had 7 players, 4 humans, an elf, a Drow, and 2 half elfs. In 4e I have a human, and elf, an outsider, a construct, and an undead… yea and we thought the drow in 2e was pushing it. (Chris the 2e only player could not wrap his mind around how different the race/class thing was. And Jon, the guy who started in 3.5 said he could not imagin only having 6 races and only 10-12 classes to choose from).

This is also something that is a matter of player/DM choice, rather than something inherent to the rules. Just because the system provides rules to create a warforged hybrid vampire/monk, doesn't mean that you have to have warforged hybrid vampire/monks in your game...

-KS