D&D 4E What's so bad about 4th edition? What's so good about other systems?

[FireLance]

3) Managing powers and conditions - The Christmas-tree effect of this game is unprecedented, even at very early levels. As a DM it makes my head spin trying remember which orc has 45hp and is dazed, which one has 22 and used his encounter power...gah.

My personal solution to this is to use cards on which I have printed the stats of each monster and PC. After initiative is rolled, I sort the cards in initiative order, and keeping track of whose turn it is in combat is simply a matter of which card is on top of the pile, after which it goes to the bottom.

I track hit points, conditions and expended powers by marking them on the card itself. I supplement this with multicoloured rings and miniature pegs which I place on the creatures' minis, but this is not applicable if you don't play with minis.

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

I agree, the game is what you make it... people with poor planning and bad motiviations and imaginations often blame the game rather than themselves.

Word. The "4e is tabletop WOW" crowd really annoyed me since they never gave the game a chance.

Regarding all the solutions, YMMV, but personally I've been down these roads and I feel like I'm a lost cause now.

I'm really burnt out on using computers with D&D. I used to subscribe to Insider and used the encounter programs to build encounters. I had to screenshot the monster blocks, pull them into Word and print the paper. The cost in ink and time staring at the computer was just too much. When I already purchased the book I felt like I was being jipped - I honestly wouldn't go back to using the WOTC tools even if they were free.

I also got tired of perusing the thousands of monsters for a logical combination with the right amount of controllers, artillery, soldiers, elite monsters, etc. Then I would have to figure out how to justify in narrative all the powers the monsters had and how to add enough terrain to make the combat interesting. I spent so much time designing encounters with the professional tools that my campaigns turned into railroads because I'd secretly get upset with the players when they avoided my fights. I really began to dread making encounters and quests. I'm much happier with "roll 2d12. That's how many orcs you have to fight. Oh, you rolled 23? Hard cheese. Figure a way out of it - the world doesn't bend to your abilities". I work in front of a computer so when I design stuff for my game I really just want to sit down with a notebook and write down the HP, AC, and attacks of a monster. And with C&C I often just skip the notebook and wing the stats.

So I can make a good adventure, and I can tell my players enjoyed my content a hell of a lot more than the 4E delves. But I feel my DMing style benefits when I distance myself from the campaign world and just let them run wild with something I didn't create - it makes me feel like more of a spectator/referee and less like a biased creator pulling strings and making plans. Also in the old modules I like the pictures, I like to read other peoples ideas when I'm not feeling creative, I like the handouts, and I like to curl up to these before I go to bed. If the players go off on a tangent that's just gravy because I didn't spend hours designing a story for that evening.

I've tried all of those tips for making encounters go faster. More dmg, less hp, etc., etc. Players have been conditioned for years to be able to kill an orc with one good shot. Now that they can't it's hard to adjust. Keeping players focused is very difficult 45 minutes into a random encounter. And getting them to write down their powers - sometimes you ask and they just don't. Again it's just one more complexity to keep track of.

So it's more stuff - minis, tiles, computer programs to manage monsters and conditions, balancing monster roles, feats, skills, power cards and on and on. Back when it was "Advanced" D&D when we were playing in our parents car on a road trip we did fine without any of that stuff! Now I still use a lot of the above but I try to keep it under control because managing all those knick-knacks can really be debilitating.

I'm too young to be a grognard

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

Going back to the OP

Castles and Crusades is so much better so 4E sucks
(Not my words)

If anyone is experiencing the same issues with 4E (or 3E, 3.5, PF) I would strongly recommend Castles and Crusades. IMHO 2E, 3E, and 4E continuously add ornaments to 1E, which is a beautiful Christmas tree but not strong enough to support all of the features tacked onto it. C&C takes the most intuitive elements of the new systems (or you can homerule them in - I use the 4E crit system and a few other things) and adds them to a very simple, fast-paced version of 1E. So the game is

• Totally compatible with 1E/2E material and adventures. You can jump right into Keep on the Borderlands or Tomb of Horrors.
• Efficiently translates THAC0 into the attack system from 3E/4E
• D20 system where high numbers are always good
• Attribute modifiers replace all the random mechanics buried in the text from 1E/2E
• Character sheets shouldn't be more than a half sheet of notebook paper. You could easily fit a low-level character onto a 3x5 notecard.
• Skills and feats are gone. This is an example of how 3E codified everything - you can get by without them easily
• No Christmas tree effect!
• No computer programs, minis, tiles, gaming matts - but they might help if you want them.
• Cheap buy-in. You could DM off the basic PHB alone. You could wing monsters or get them out of an old adventure or the original MM or the 2E MM
• Very fast combats and character creation
• Every game mechanic should be familiar to players who've played a D20 game

It's not balanced and presentation is funky (rules are sometimes buried in paragraphs) but hey, no system is perfect. Ultimately I've found it to be a faster, more efficient version system than 3E or 4E (or 1E/2E) that still feels a lot like D&D. I'd highly recommend it.

 

[mudlock]

It sounds like you seriously need a Combat Management Program.

Combat management program? meh.

There are two things that make 4e combat long: analysis paralysis, and lack of preparation. A computer can't fix the first, and isn't necessary to fix the second. (Okay, 3; but MM3 has mostly fixed the grind.)

4e forces you to make a lot of choices round-to-round. Tactical positioning is actually important; focusing the party's attacks is actually important; deciding when to drop that daily is actually important. Some people FREEZE UP in that sort of situation. One of the people I play with, and we've been playing the same characters together for over a year now, is just starting to get over this.

In 3e (and this gets worse and worse the further back you go), you didn't have many (rules-system-supported) choices to make during a fight. When it was your turn, you made your attack roll if you were a martial character, or you looked at the 2 or 3 biggest spells you had and fired one off. If someone had severe analysis paralysis problems, they played a martial character (and suffered, alone, during character creation).

Now, even a relatively low-level martial character has a half-dozen things, USEFUL things, they could do. If you're the kind of person who loves turn-based strategy games, you'll say it's awesome. If you're not, you'll say that 4e ruined D&D by making it play like a board (or video) game. And if you love turn based strategy games but are playing D&D with an analysis paralysis sufferer, you'll say that combat takes too long in 4e.

A computer changes nothing here.

Now, preparation. You talk about loading all your monsters into the program, about loading all the characters into the program, about tracking their initiatives, whether they've used their powers, and what conditions are on-going, all with the program. And that's great... but you can do the same thing with enough sheets of (variously sized) paper.

Monsters? Write (or print) out the stat blocks onto a sheet of paper, with a generous margin. Characters? Write out power cards, and keep them up-to-date. These things take time, but so does entering all this stuff into your program. Someone already mentioned the "initiative stack" of index cards; I've also played with little name-tents (like, business-card sized pieces of paper, folded in half, with the name of the character or monster), that you put in a line, and some sort of token representing whose turn it is. For conditions, as DM, you should write out a card for the precise effect that any monster can dish out; don't use generic cards ("where are my 'immobolized's") always make new ones. When the PC is effected by it, hand them the card. Auras? Leave the card on the table, by the creature generating it (have the aura size be a nice big number everyone can read clearly). When the PCs effect a monster, yeah, you could write it in that generous margin on your monster sheet; or it'd be faster if you took the power card the PC used and just put it by the monster sheet, or by their name-tent, or by their mini; whatever works for you, but set some table-rules and be consistent! (Admittedly, multi-target effects can become difficult; shuffle the monster sheets into "effected" and "not" groups. Thankfully, in practice, having multiple disparate sets of multiple monsters being effected by multiple different save-ends powers is rare.)

Oh, and never erase. Erasing is a time-killer. The tiny hp box on the default character sheet is a JOKE. And when a monster recharges a power, don't erase the 'X' you put by it; draw another 'O'. (It sounds stupid, but seriously, try it. DM in pen.)

How much time do you waste going "Hey, did you hit with that power last turn? Is this guy still slowed?" or "Okay, you're slowed... someone dig out a marker for that. Orange? No, orange is being used for dazed. Umm..." Things slow down when you try to keep it all in your head, or when you try to make reminder-tokens on the fly. A computer is one way to fix that problem. But you can also do it by preparing, and liberally using, paper.

I spend 40 hours a week programming infront of a screen. I don't want to do any more of that during D&D.

 

[nnms]

During the times I've posted regularly, I've been an ardent defender of 4E since it's release. There are some things I don't like about it. Some (most?) of these things are features of the game that I have in the past defended as being good.

1) Leveling as a pacing mechanic.

Leveling is not really a power increase mechanic in 4E. The monster defenses, skill DCs, etc., all pretty much scale at the same rate that the PCs increase in those areas.

Go up to level2? Awesome! +1 to hit and a bunch of skills. But what do you know, monsters now have their defenses increased by one. Grabbed a feat to do more damage? Monster HP are also increased. Skill DCs that are level + number also go up.

At first I thought leveling up as a pacing mechanic was cool, now I'm not convinced.

2) Your primary source of XP is from defeating monsters, surviving traps, completing skill challenges and quests.

In previous editions of the game that I liked (not 3.x), the vast majority of your XP came from getting treasure. You wanted to avoid dangerous fights and things like wandering monsters were really bad becuase they bled your resources but offered little reward (as the best treasure/XP hauls were from monster lairs).

In 4E, all wondering monsters do is slow things down and slide along the pacing mechanic with extra XP.

3) The tactical set piece encounter

I'm a huge miniature gamer and love tactical games. So I love 4E tactical combats. But they scratch my miniature gamer itch and not really my roleplaying itch. Hamming it up in combat with extra dialogue and description doesn't do much other than slow things down even further.

4) Slow combat

I find 4E combat very quick for a tactical miniatures game (go play battletech with the same number of miniatures involved). But compared to other RPGs and pre 3.x D&D (or 2E Black book tactical options) combat, it's super slow.

5) Skill challenges

I've run successful skill challenges using the rules as they are, alternate systems and the like, but I've found that they end up restricting things and causing more problems than they solve.

My current approach is to have the stakes set. The group will say something like "We need to sneak past that town and get to the stream the scout told us about." And I'll ask them what they do and they keep doing stuff until it gets resolved in the narrative. If I get asked "is this a skill challenge" I say either "yes" or "no" as I feel like on a whim and the players act pretty much the same way regardless. I've DMed for about 100 people since 4E came out and whether I announce a skill challenge or not, they declare what they are trying to accomplish and they roll. If more failures that successes start popping up, they get closer and closer to not getting what they want when the goal was stated.

The only difference seems to be that if I say "yes" and they succeed, they also ask for XP. If I say "no" and they succeed, they don't ask for XP after.

6) Resource refreshes

The nature of how resources are refreshed forces some contraints onto the narrative. Either each adventuring day contains the assumed number of encounters and you have enough XP to level gained every two or three days of adventuring, or you run less encounters and people can nova and use daily powers (and have tons of HP and healing) far more often than the encounter design math assumes.

One house rule I've taken to using is to have all daily powers recharge on a 5 or 6 rolled at the beginning of each encounter. I haven't figured out a method like that for healing surges as it'd be too easy to get it wrong one way or the other and have nearly invincible PCs who never get low on surges or have a death spiral where surges don't recharge as fast as they are used.

7) Assumed math and stats

Dark Sun and Gamma World make it pretty obvious that 4E characters have two real stats. "I'm awesome" and "I'm almost as awesome at this too." Basically, primary and secondary stats are assumed to be 18 and 16 give or take one +1 modifier.

Attributes don't really describe a character in 4E. You can be charismatic but weak and slow and be a combat god. Older editions of D&D had this issue as well, but not to the same degree.

8) Treasure, gold, etc.,.

Treasure is meaningless as a measure of purchasing power or wealth in 4E as it has a secondary role of being another form of XP that you spend on magic items, rituals, etc.,. The treasure system is based on two sub-tiers per tier where values raise exponentially to make any variance in previous level's treasure hauls become meaningless pretty fast. So if a DM messes up treasure, in a few levels it'll be fixed by the exponential price increases of everything. What does it matter if the DM gave the group and extra 400 gold per character across the 10 encounters of level 1 when all that it can ever get them is an extra level 1 item? By the time level 5 or so items are normal, it's pretty meaningless.

Armour and equipment is also pretty meaningless as you always start out with enough gold to get the armour, weapons and gear needed to keep your attack bonuses and defenses in keeping with the system math. And as you adventure, you'll either find the appropriate items to keep that math in check or maybe the DM will use inherent bonuses or something. I have fond memories of pre-3.x D&D where I started with chain and did my best to save and scrimp to buy something like banded mail. Plate on mail? Full plate? One day maybe. Starting with it? Wow. I miss that.

9) Rituals

I don't like that they cost gold to cast. Nor their casting time. I find most of them pretty uninspiring. Casters got too powerful in late 2E and 3.x, but rituals aren't really a pleasing alternative.

So where does this leave me?

I'm still DMing but I've reduced the game from weekly to every second week. I still occasionally play when the opportunity arises, but look at it as a tactical miniature game with dialogue rather than being the same as what I do when I play Call of Cthulhu, Dark Dungeons or In A Wicked Age.

Where am I headed?

Savage Worlds, I think. With the gritty options added in to make the main characters even less superheroic than they already are. It still can handle miniatures well, but combat is much, much faster.

It's advancement system is not a pacing mechanic per se as it doesn't auto include increases to combat numbers at the same rate they go up on the monsters. The primary source of XP is going after what you want as a player. The game doesn't necessarily have combat mode/exploration mode/skill challenge mode, etc., and is instead a more traditional task resolution emergent play game.

The new Deluxe edition is pretty impressive and I'm glad someone bought me a gift of the book and physical book bundle.

 

[FireLance]

1) Leveling as a pacing mechanic.

Leveling is not really a power increase mechanic in 4E. The monster defenses, skill DCs, etc., all pretty much scale at the same rate that the PCs increase in those areas.

Go up to level2? Awesome! +1 to hit and a bunch of skills. But what do you know, monsters now have their defenses increased by one. Grabbed a feat to do more damage? Monster HP are also increased. Skill DCs that are level + number also go up.

At first I thought leveling up as a pacing mechanic was cool, now I'm not convinced.

I dunno. It seems obvious to me that if you expect equal-level challenges to be, well, equally challenging, then stuff like monster defenses and hit points should scale with the PCs' abilities (whether 4E actually manages this is another matter, though).

If you want to show how much the PCs have grown in power, then you shouldn't be pitting 5th-level PCs against 5th-level monsters. You should let them fight the 1st-level monsters they encountered early in their adventuring careers.

 

[catastrophic]

Word. The "4e is tabletop WOW" crowd really annoyed me since they never gave the game a chance.

Regarding all the solutions, YMMV, but personally I've been down these roads and I feel like I'm a lost cause now.

I am not trying to reconvert you, but it does look like you ran into the worst bits of 4e and basically got burnt out on them.

Despite the good advice people are giving you, I understand completly. I still run 4e and will run my two-party campaign to completion, but I don't know if i'd ever run it again after that.

It's certainly a vast improvement, but it needs to be fixed. The grind is too much, programs or no, modules or no- the christmas tree, and other things, just are too much and the game should be more playable and more fluid by far.

This is why i'm infuriated by all this talk of 5e. 5e should be an improvment over 4e that solves those problems. I'd even accept 'modular' or 'simplied' if the modular simplification was genuine, to give guys like you another option over an already simpler and cleaner system, and not an effort to appeal to the usual suspects like the '4e is wow' set.

 

[nnms]

I dunno. It seems obvious to me that if you expect equal-level challenges to be, well, equally challenging, then stuff like monster defenses and hit points should scale with the PCs' abilities (whether 4E actually manages this is another matter, though).

I guess I just like older pre 3.x editions where stronger monsters are actually stronger and not just leveled up versions of the previously encountered monsters. Where you go further from civilization and the hit dice of monsters goes up and where you go deeper in the dungeon and things get deadlier.

It makes sense for a tactical miniatures game for scenarios to be balanced with some sort of points system, but I'm not 100% convinced it's a must have for an RPG. I remember when I, as a player, had to carefully assess what I might be fighting. These days if the party gets into a fight with something and it's *not* a level appropriate encounter, I'd be pretty much accused of cheating as the DM. And they'd be right. The rules of the game we all agreed to play do talk about encounter design.

If you want to show how much the PCs have grown in power, then you shouldn't be pitting 5th-level PCs against 5th-level monsters. You should let them fight the 1st-level monsters they encountered early in their adventuring careers.

That would certainly give them the impression that they're more powerful.

But I want more than an impression. Including lower level monsters is the same as giving them a bonus to hit, damage and defenses against an equivalent level monster.

Monster Manual 3 math on a business card care of Blog of Holding:
http://blogofholding.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/printablemm3businessfront.gif

If you simply set the level of all creatures to 1 (and the assumed level of skill DCs to the same), removed enhancement bonuses, certain feat bonuses, half level bonuses, HP increases, class features that increase damage, critical range, etc., and just had PCs get more power choices after every 10 or so encounters, the game would run absolutely identically to the current game.

I used to see that as a great feature. Now I see it as smoke and mirrors.

 

[catastrophic]

I agree that leveling is just a red queen fallacy, and not one that is worth buying all those extra pages of monsters and powers- but possibly one worth selling those extra pages.

But I don't think you point is valid- as long as the players accept it, there can be tougher and weaker fights out there.

Level +4 or level -4 can be done, esp if you keep defences under control rather than having the grindy fewer hits that higher defences bring. With the right monsters, that can be scary as hell.

And in 4e, you can create a tactical challenge more geuinly, including an underdog challenge. I'm going to put the pcs in one of my games up against a very powerful lich soon, and while the fight will be straight up very dangerous, the lich will also be built with powers that emphasise it's, well, power, in a mechanics and narritive sense.

And of course, this is very fitting for a lich, who has always been a foe that cannot be beaten unless you achieve certain story goals. But adding other effects to that is the kind of thing you can do in 4e.

 

[Incenjucar]

Up until the very recent trend of putting everything into heroic, 4E monsters of higher levels tend to have more and deadlier powers than earlier level monsters. At later levels, you're dealing with stuff with things that have damage zones, can punish you for healing or simply eat your surges, can petrify you, or can turn you against your allies.