What do you like about 4E? (not a battle in the Edition Wars :^) )

[CleverNickName]

I like how they condensed the skills. Rolling Spot, Search, and Listen into Perception, for example. Much cleaner.

But that's about it.

 

[outsider]

My favorite thing about 4e is probably the Martial power source. Finally sword swingers get the same tactical depth as the casters, and are just as powerful. It's great that fighters and the like finally have unique abilities that can't be easily duplicated/osbsoleted by magic.

 

[TheNovaLord]

our group played it from the off for about 6 months and dont play it all now and mostly dont like it overall.

but it did do some things that where liked, so well done for:

taking the minion rules used in many other games and implementing it VERY well in D&D

the idea of the skill challenge concept. ok its badly executed and dont flow like it should but it is a good concept/idea

theorectical less reliance on magic items

condensed skill list

more robust at 1st level, although i always did like that D&D at 1st level was statistically/dice rolly, so much more dangerous than many other games like RQ, WFRP etc

at wills

well laid out books

good fluff on gaming in the DMG 1 especially

DDI. well done.

 

[Greg K]

Overall, not a fan, but things that I do like
1. No XP costs
2. No Level Drain
3. Most non-biological aspects of race removed and made feats (I wanted something similar in 3e).
4. Spellcasters balanced with non-spellcasters
5. Martial types get cool things to do (even if it is not my preferred method for doing it).
6. More starting hit points
7. Defense progression
8. Builds: They remind me of 2e kits and 3e class variants
9. Heroic Tier Multiclassing
10. Weapon Groups
11. Rituals
12. Second Wind
13. Death Saving Throw (still prefer 3e Death and Dying from Unearthed arcana)
14. Feywild

 

[ExploderWizard]

The monster builder. I love the level of customization possible. Put that functionality in the CB and it too would rock.

The concept of passive perception/ insight. Its nice having a handy reference about what a PC may pick up on without explicitly looking for it.

 

[Somebloke]

1. Between the martial classes (including splatbooks) and the DMGII alternate rewards section, I can finally run that low-magic campaign without a single homebrew.

2. Monsters don't require extensive study to run.

3. Ten minutes' work I have a chart of monster encounters from level-1 to level+5 to throw at the players if they do something unexpected. This means that the whole 'situations rather than scenes' aspect of DMing can be exploited to the full.

4. I've been Dming for decades, and some of the advice in the DMG was still an eye opener.

5. Minions. "so the goblin hoard crashes against the walls, seeking to overwhelm you..."

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

What do I like?
There are alot of gamist details I like.. but these are the ones that will keep my playing:

Every class I have read I think 'Wow, I could have alot of fun with this'

More dynamic combats

fairly balanced power levels from PCs of a given level

removed the 'magic passkey' from the skill game {where the mage became always better/faster/easier than the rogue at all things sneaky}

Minimized prep time to DM the game*


* This is my big favorite... I used to spend upwards of 2 hours to prep for 1 hour of play. In a fairly recent case, I spent 3 hours prepping {building BBEG and encounter} for a 2 round combat.... the NPC got in a total of 3 actions. Building that same encounter in 4e takes me about 5 minutes with the DDI monster creator, and the combat lasts long enough for the NPC to feel like a real threat instead of a push-over.

 

[Festivus]

I like these things:

Character Builder for when I am making characters or asking someone else to make them. It's right there, plain and easy to create characters in minutes. The printouts making playing the game a breeze.

I like how easy it is to scale encounters on the fly if I need to, or throw something else in as an afterthought. Heck, I hardly do any DM prep work that involves stat blocks anymore, I just lay out what I think should happen and then expend the XP budget to populate.

Skill Challenges, when they run the right way. As written initially they were meh, but now that I have had time to work with it they are rather fun.

That I don't need ANY books to play at the table. If I ever need to look something up, it's usually right on my character sheet, or in the adventure I am working from.

Monster stat blocks that are easy to read, comprehend, and are not overly long makes for more time paying attention to player choices and conversations and less time with my nose in a monster manual reading about what something means that's listed as a special ability on a monster.