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

[Eric Tolle]

The main difference I've seen is that my wife actually found character creation in 4E to be fun. She liked to make characters in AD&D, but character creation in 3.X was like pulling teeth for her, to the point where she pretty much hated having anything to do with the character sheet.

All of which means she couldn't really participate in the main goal of 3.X: gathering together the right combination of race, classes, skills and feats to make an overpowering specialized lump of synchronized powers. With 4E she can ignore the whole munchkin power gamer element of 3.X and get right into roleplaying.

 

[Quantarum]

Players pay attention to what happens on other players rounds. Combat is fast enough to have 2-3 combats per session rather than one.

-Q.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Our group plays the way our group plays so on one hand, there is very little difference - particularly with 4E borrowing so many concepts from 3E.

However, perhaps the main difference between 4E and 3E for us is that there are more moments where the mechanics of the game and the flavour they represent disconnect and have us go "weird huh, interesting rules glitch there". Most of the time though, we just keep playing, the momentary distraction only being minor.

And actually there is one more thing too in terms of combat. Teamwork is enforced by the rules by having higher hit points and less damage output. No taking the big guy down in one hit or spectacular action any more. As well, since you really want your daily to work, you quickly work out the teamwork to make this happen. Warlord buff goes to Paladin something goes to... my daily just worked real nice. A little mechanical and limiting I suppose but it beats the frustration of mucking up a daily. I'm not too sure if this is a good thing or not.

On the other side of the screen, MUCH less prep required. Monster stats are now completely self-contained. Having monsters and NPCs follow different rules than for PCs is the big design feature here. Makes things a hell of a lot easier to run. In terms of the rules, since the rules borrow so many concepts from 3E, it was much easier to get into than from 2E to 3E.

I suppose that's several differences but heh...

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[FireLance]

And there is no longer a growth curve for the characters. A 1st level character no longer has to fear a lucky hit from an orc. Conversely a high level character can no longer change the course of nations or bend the weather to their will.

I'm just quoting this because it helped me to crystallize what I felt was the most significant difference between 3e and 4e:

Interaction in combat is more tightly defined. Interaction outside of combat is more loosely defined.

Interaction outside of combat (skill challenges, rituals, etc.) is governed more by guidelines than a hard set of rules.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Players pay attention to what happens on other players rounds.

Quoted for truth and I absolutely love it. It's great both as DM and as player of a cleric to see how inetereste deverybody is in ther actions of the other players to make sure they everybody gets the most out of their powers and such...
It also warmed me a lot to the leader type characters. When you can attack, heal and give somebody a +4 attack bonus for a round all in one turn and get a round of thank you's from the players, it just feels nice to be a leader-class...

 

[TheNovaLord]

in the 15 or so games ive been involved in nobody has tried a grapple....yippee

In 4e
everyone needs to pay attention more in combats as its moe a team game than it was. more synergies bouncing around

 

[Storm Raven]

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

 

[avin]

3.5 combat < 4.0 combat

There's a lot of things I dislike on 4E (dumb monster encounters, no much spells mages...) but DMing 4.0 is far easier.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I also think that 4th edition is 'basic' D&D. I am hoping that PHB2 and other rules supplements add 'skill tricks' that let you, for example, try an athletics check vs Ref to grant combat advantage to someone you're grabbing (as the old 3.5 grapple checks did) or an Acrobatics check vs Ref to avoid combat advantage while moving (3.5 tumble). I think the underlying mechanics are still there for most of the options available in 3.5 if the game seems stale to you.

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

My understanding of the current Grab mechanic is that it inflicts the 'Restrained' condition on the target, which also grants Combat Advantage. It may not be explicitly spelled out though, and I could be mistaken. However, that is how my group runs it.

And even in 3rd edition, I have found that putting effort into the battle environment has always made the encounter more interesting. Cover, highground bonuses, bodies of water in which to drown people or just make life difficult, things to climb on or jump over or balance on, all of which are worth while.

It is typically the terrain in which a fight takes place that will suggest the atypical tactics, more so than any rule set of D&D.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Nightchilde-2]

This. I'll add that prepping the game is more fun and enjoyable, as well.

I wasn't real clear, but i was including prepping as part of running.