What's the most significant difference you've found with 4e from 3e?

[RangerWickett]

I was probably too hard on 4e in my previous post (but I swear, four months and I never saw that NPC-making page; I kept on stumbling across the 'how to add classes to monsters' thing but never flipped two pages farther). I enjoy playing it as a casual beer-and-pretzels sort of game, but for an action-epic game, where I want the fights to be few and far between but dizzyingly cool, it doesn't work so well.

Minis really slow the game down for me. I gave them a try (and I got a bunch as a gift from a poster here, which was awesome), but they did not add to the game that I wanted to play.

I'm going to give it another try, at a higher level so the players will have more stuff they can do. Maybe that will make it more interesting for me, or give the players more options to try out cool tricks. And I will print out that frikkin' chart of damage you can deal with creative combat actions.

 

[MerricB]

I'm going to give it another try, at a higher level so the players will have more stuff they can do. Maybe that will make it more interesting for me, or give the players more options to try out cool tricks. And I will print out that frikkin' chart of damage you can deal with creative combat actions.

The 4e DM's Screen is your friend.

It's actually one of the most impressive screens I've seen for D&D - extremely thick, and has a bunch of useful tables. For some reason, the table I look at most often is the XP table for players, but the monster XP is also great.

Cheers!

 

[Zsig]

IMO, the main difference is this:

In 3e you have a highly defined set of rules and, well, game definitions. Everything is defined for you.

In 4e you have a more "free-form" set of rules and definitions.

Whether either one is good or bad is up to personal opinion.

 

[Zustiur]

Here's a difference: I enjoy playing and running 3e.

Yah, I'm with you on this. The disconnect between rules for PCs and rules for NPCs/Monsters puts me off DMing completely. The nonsensical rules and powers put me off playing completely.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Let me add the design and running of Monsters is vastly simpler and a whole lot more fun. Prepping and running the game is much, much simpler for the DM.

However, player choice of powers seems too limited for now, and some of my players and myself aren't too keen on the fact that as you gain higher-level powers you some how "forget" the lower level ones. Having some trouble with that...

 

[Arnwyn]

What's do you find the most significant change or difference between the editions?

The horrendously bad flavor.

 

[vagabundo]

Someone mentioned battlemats. I think 4th edition games benefit when DMs give as much attention to building the environment as you would an enemy.

This is the secret sauce of 4e combats. Train your PC's to start using terrain by having the monsters use it first.

 

[Mercule]

I enjoy playing it as a casual beer-and-pretzels sort of game, but for an action-epic game, where I want the fights to be few and far between but dizzyingly cool, it doesn't work so well.

Out of curiosity, did you find 3e to work better for this? I ask because one of my biggest frustrations with 3e was exactly what you're saying about 4e.

I'm not actually expecting a huge improvement from 4e on this score. I decided that if I wanted a low-combat game, I'd use a non-level based game (Hero, Savage Worlds) where the non-combat skills can improve independent of combat ability and powers (aka spells, class abilities, and feats). I'm expecting the simplified powers and combat systems in 4e, along with skill challenges, will show some gain, just not anything earth-shattering.

 

[Remathilis]

How easy it is to design an adventure/dungeon...

Determine "level of adventure"
Determine XP pool for adventure (Solo monster x10)
Spend XP on quests, monsters, and skill-challenges
Determine Treasure Packets
Place on Map (if needed)
Arrange to Taste, allowing for a couple "off the cuff" ideas if the PCs do something unpredictable...

TA-DA! No CR/EL nonsense, rolling (and re-rolling and re-rolling) treasure, etc. I can make and adventure in a day or two, (including stating out NPCs and templated creatures) whereas it regularly took my a week or two to do a full-adventure on paper in 3.X.

Thumbs UP.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The horrendously bad flavor.

I didn't realize we were talking about the change from 1st ed. compared to everything that came after?

Seriously, I've always found the flavor after 1st ed. to be some bits that were strikingly good, quite a lot of average or slightly below average, and a not inconsiderable amount of pure stinkers. 4E is no different, in this regard.