D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[The Fighter-Cricket]

Secret confessions: Sometimes when I'm lazy or didn't have any prep time for my group and the guys and girls really just want to smash some orc noses on their way to king Whatshisname... I take this little card out and run an encounter only with the data given there. It works like a charm.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Secret confessions: Sometimes when I'm lazy or didn't have any prep time for my group and the guys and girls really just want to smash some orc noses on their way to king Whatshisname... I take this little card out and run an encounter only with the data given there. It works like a charm.

TBH in my last full-up campaign I think I didn't prep anything for months at a time. I just wrote notes and spent maybe 20 minutes per session making bookmarks into the Compendium to bring up at the table. I didn't make a single stat block, nothing, just reflavored stuff on the fly, etc. Nobody knew the difference.

 

[Samir]

I got started with D&D in earnest with 4e. The mechanics and combat were so much fun. Theorycrafting, optimizing, making characters on a lark. I loved it. But it's not 5e.

Once 5e came out, I learned to love the more classic side of D&D in equal measure. It's such a wonderful system. Really, no D&D system comes close to its elegance besides BECMI. But it's not 4e.

I've always seen 4e and other editions of D&D as completely different games, not editions of the same game. Many folks have said that had 4e been released under a different brand, it wouldn't have drawn the ire it did. I agree. But on the other hand, it probably wouldn't have gotten popular.

Nowadays, I play both 4e and 5e. 4e for the addictive combat (and so I can play my favorite RPG class, the Avenger), and 5e for the streamlined mechanics and classic feel. Best of both worlds.

 

[Xeviat]

I'm about to resume working on my 4E home content. There are a lot of little issues with the system that I want to adjust, but the amount of things I need to adjust in 4E pale in comparison to the amount of things I'd need to change in 5E for me to like it as much as 4E. I've been finding the monsters in 5E to be boring (all of the dragons are identical for crying out loud). Stretching an adventuring day to 6 to 8 encounters to maintain balance between the long-rest and short-rest classes just doesn't work for my playstyle. I like a large portion of the player side of 5E, though.

The trouble is that I only have 2 or so players who like 4E enough to play in my games. Hopefully, once I finish my changes, I can get a 4 or 5 person party together.

 

[Tallifer]

TBH in my last full-up campaign I think I didn't prep anything for months at a time. I just wrote notes and spent maybe 20 minutes per session making bookmarks into the Compendium to bring up at the table. I didn't make a single stat block, nothing, just reflavored stuff on the fly, etc. Nobody knew the difference.

Forsooth. I spend time thinking of interesting new stories, monsters, traps and characters: none at all preparing mechanical stuff. I improvise all the numbers at the table.

 

[Myrhdraak]

I'm about to resume working on my 4E home content. There are a lot of little issues with the system that I want to adjust, but the amount of things I need to adjust in 4E pale in comparison to the amount of things I'd need to change in 5E for me to like it as much as 4E. I've been finding the monsters in 5E to be boring (all of the dragons are identical for crying out loud). Stretching an adventuring day to 6 to 8 encounters to maintain balance between the long-rest and short-rest classes just doesn't work for my playstyle. I like a large portion of the player side of 5E, though.

The trouble is that I only have 2 or so players who like 4E enough to play in my games. Hopefully, once I finish my changes, I can get a 4 or 5 person party together.

I did something very similar. Moved all the good 5e stuff that I liked into 4th edition. Now I have a system even better than before.

 

[Xeviat]

I did something very similar. Moved all the good 5e stuff that I liked into 4th edition. Now I have a system even better than before.

What did you move over, if you don't mind me asking? I'm thinking that changing the encounter guidelines to 3 to 4 encounters per day and aiming for harder encounters, still with 2 short rests a day, will make for a more 4E experience. Even with putting in 4Es 1/2 level scaling, monsters still scale very differently (they're almost like solos), but I still want more 4E esque monsters.

 

[Myrhdraak]

What did you move over, if you don't mind me asking? I'm thinking that changing the encounter guidelines to 3 to 4 encounters per day and aiming for harder encounters, still with 2 short rests a day, will make for a more 4E experience. Even with putting in 4Es 1/2 level scaling, monsters still scale very differently (they're almost like solos), but I still want more 4E esque monsters.

Well on top of my head:
- I merged 4th Edition Themes concept with 5e Backgrounds to get more of the juicy bonds, flaws, etc for roleplaying purpose
- Inspiration system (with some small modification)
- Bounded Accuracy (i.e. Progress att +1 per 4th level instead of +1 per 2nd level)
- The later impacted magic items from +1 to +6 down to +1 to +3, which makes the system less magic item dependent for hitting monsters.
- It also made DC ranges for Skills more "narrow" with some positive effects to it.
- I also reworked the XP per monster, XP per Level and XP per Encounter to be more balanced with the impact of monsters having bounded accuracy level progress
- When redoing some monsters in 4th Edition I mainly had to do some Changes for the bounded accuracy effect, but I also borrowed some of the good traits that 5e monsters have.
- I cleaned up the feats section from all +1 to hit effects
- I have gone through most rituals in 4th Edition and added the 5e descriptions of the spells (when I think they are better worded), as well as created psionic mantras following the rituals setup.
- I have introduced some 5e combat conditions and also introduced slashing, piercing and bludgeoning as new damage types as well.
- For the players I have done class compendiums for (compiling all 4th Edition class Powers with errata into a single document per class) I have also added "outside of combat" skills that was introduced in 5e but did not exist in 4th edition in order to increase roleplaying opportunities outside of combat.

/Myrhdraak

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I've taken the whole traits/bonds/flaws system wholesale: I love it. I still use 4E backgrounds etc... but I love the way these really flesh out the character especially for those players who sometimes struggle with that sort of thing. And I've coupled that with inspiration as well.

 

[Jessica]

I fan-girled out when I went through all my stuff before moving and found so much 4e stuff that I bought a long time ago and saved for a rainy day. I have enough adventures/tiles/DM books to probably run an entire campaign's worth of adventures without having to do too much myself.