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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5625918" data-attributes="member: 82106">The weird thing is, 4e combat is both simpler and easier and at the same time it is longer, more complex, and in some ways tedious. Actually the thing is the more complex high level combats in earlier editions were easily as long and complex as any 4e combat. 4e combats also usually feature more elements than most of the ones in earlier editions (mainly because you can throw almost anything at this system and figure it out easily). So it is hard to generalize, but 4e's real weakness, or difference in any case is the old throw-away "4 orcs jump the party" kind of fight, which in the old days would be over in 15 minutes, and now takes the same hour as a boss fight.Honestly though, tracking programs are a wonderful thing, but they do leave a lot to be desired. For one thing it is irritating to a lot of players to need to have a computer at the table. It is HANDY, no doubt, but also takes up space and can tend to become a time suck. Some of the tracking software is pretty nice, but none of it does everything, there's always that newfangled oddball wacky thing that doesn't fit in quite right and has to be done by hand. They also don't deal with the fact that players are faced with a large number of choices at the table, and many of them are fairly subtle tactical decisions. A LOT of players simply can't rush through that.Lets say in the end that the game would be a LOT more accessible if the number of conditions and effects being tracked during a combat at any level averaged some small number, say 3, and if the number of things a player had to remember at any given time or decide between was also around 3. The human brain is good at focusing on 3 things. Once you go beyond that you're exceeding most people's ability to hold things in mind at one time. 4e REALLY REALLY could have used some human factors engineering.</blockquote>

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