The pro-4e bias in this post is so thick you can cut it with a knife. It’s clear that you’re just a Wizards of the Coast shill; you even have a couple “kind of negative but not completely vitriolic” responses, to make it look legit, like the white guy’s black friend that makes it okay to laugh at off-color jokes.

Just kidding! I already knew many of these peoples’ thoughts on 4e, but it was interesting seeing them all compiled. It’s also interesting, in my mind, to see how overwhelmingly positive it all is.

Anyways, I’d better end this comment because I’m having to bite my tongue to avoid arguing with some of the things that were said.

“The Tarrasque has 1420 hp and can still eat your house, that’s all there is to say about that.”

Awesome! Quote of the day.

One of my players said awhile ago when 4E was announced: “It’s D&D. I’ll play it. Any version, anywhere, anytime. It’s D&D!”

The comments on the lack of roleplaying seem to be valid, but that can be fixed by the DM.
I am less than pleased so far. I do NOT like the healing in this game. I am playing a 2d level dragonborn ranger in Keep on the Shadowfell and find I only use one power (twin strike) 90% of the time.
The jury is out as far as I am concerned, but I prefer 3.5 to 4.

I’m of mixed feelings. Part of me is in love with the stream lined system. The other part of me hates the fact that the game has become table top WoW.

Use an at-will power. Rinse. Repeat.

4E plays like a slightly expanded version of the D&D miniatures game. It seems to have gathered a small but vocal fanbase from newbie gamers who were never able to comprehend the full game, and prefer this simplified “boardgame” version.

Yeah, the most popular and respected D&D bloggers are “newbie gamers”. That statement makes sense.

I’m split on 4e. Many of the changes to streamline the game came at the expense of what I enjoy the most about D&D–depth. I can’t embrace the healing surge and powers system, not when I could have dozens of spells, animal companions, familiars, and varied feats to choose from. Choices are important to me, and I want to feel like I’m making choices when I build my characters, not just progressing through the viable options in my talent “tree.” If you want to play WoW you fire up the compy, right?

Despite that, I really enjoyed the short time I’ve spent DMing and designing 4e stuff. Should I ask for more than that?

I don’t get all these complaints about roleplaying. How do you codify your players in-character interaction with each other or with npc’s outside of combat. I don’t see what changed between 4E and 3.x that suddenly hampers roleplaying, is it just that they didn’t add a lot of content about the generic world? Someone help me understand this.

4e is kindof a mixed bag, IMO. It has some great ideas, some bad ones, but it mixes them all very poorly.

Combat is simplified, a bit… you still have tons of modifiers and lingering effects to keep track of. Character creation is also simplified in a minimal way, although many of the choices players make will be shallower, they’ll be picking from many more “balanced”, seemingly-equal options. This might make the act of choosing more difficult. For a heavy RPer who likes a balanced system, 4e is a dream come true. For those who despise rules for mechanics’ sake, this game is hogwash.

That said, I don’t like 4e, almost entirely because it numbs the whole experience a bit. WoW-clone discussions aside, it does have that “game” feel to it, as opposed to a truly organic RPG. Good role-playing will prevail in any system, but I think 4e lends itself best to “superhero” fantasy, where characters have a fantastic array of powers and are mighty right out of the gate. One look at the flashy, sleek artwork would give you a clue. This is simply not to my taste… I need my fantasy a little campier and grittier, and you’d have to bend 4e much harder than previous iterations of the game to fit that mold.

Those are all little things, though. A good DM and like-minded players could have a blast, simply ignoring Hasbro-Brand Fantasy(R) and using the mechanics as springboard for some clever roleplaying opportunities. My main complaint is the system still encourages (to the point of practically requiring) the use of miniature figures to resolve the tactical combat. I know some people enjoy this aspect of the game, but I find it unnecessary. There are other games designed to better handle this style of play. Too bad that unless you have a razor-sharp DM, a loose interpretation of the rules, and all the players on the same wavelength, playing D&D still means everyone is huddled around the battlemat and their character sheets, instead of off in a collective imaginary realm.

Fourth edition will always be D&D meets WoW and Earthdawn, gets jealous, and tries to emulate both to me. It seems to work alright at first level but glancing ahead I’m seeing myself largely doing the same things all the way through to level 30. Overall a lot of great upgrades and fixes to problems from earlier editions but a heavily mechanistic approach like this that’s pretty much divorced from any flavor or style will never be my system of choice.

I like a few things about 4ed but have several reservations:
1) Players start off as superheroes. There’s no opportunity for playing the weak character. Two of my favourite RPG’s are Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia. In both games you might not survive your first encounter, (and that might be the briefing room!)
2) Too much concentration on miniatures. In fact the rules of out of their way to invent combat mechanics for monsters that fit in with miniatures. e.g. Kobolds get a free slide; you could just say that they’re fast and don’t provoke attacks of oppportunity.
3) I have to disagree about compact monster descriptions. Fewer monsters per page in this edition of MM compared to v1.

The stat blocks are handy if you’re a DM pressed for time, and your players are foaming-at-the-mouth animals that they simply can’t wait 30 seconds while you read a paragraph. RPGs are simply not a type of game that can be rushed, regardless of how “simple” or “streamlined” one might claim their game to otherwise be. If all your players care about is having meat in front of them to swing their at-will-powers at, well, I’m sorry but I could never see that as using the game to its potential.

Come to think of it, some of these stat blocks aren’t that small either. They take up a small amount of physical space, yes, but there’s still usually a bit to digest there. This game looks like it still has the same problem as 3e, where getting the monster to ACTUALLY behave like the monster (as opposed to being a mindless meatsack that has a monster’s powers) still requires a bit of reading. Playing a single monster is still as consuming as running a whole character, as they are equally complicated.

Of course, this is all just a result of an OMGAWESOME-arms race. If players are slinging all these goofy powers around every turn, the monsters should be too! For some reason, everyone decided that having to make an *attack roll* (Oh ho hum, my character is in a fight to the death with an undead monster, how boring! Swing!) wasn’t exciting enough anymore. Do we really need a pre-determined list of “cool moves I can do” before we actually start role-playing? Will we refuse to play the game beyond a skirmish wargame because there’s no statistical advantage to doing so?

4e is an attempt to bridge the gap between to disparaging mentalities… by stretching D&D hard enough to make the distance. The question is, how badly is the play experience distorted as a result?

The solution to 4e is the same as the solution to 3.x: limit combat encounters. 4e is certainly better when it comes to combat than 3.x, but it comes to the same problem, in that it gets tedious. You swing, hit or don’t hit, do or don’t do damage, wait till your next turn. The best way to alleviate this is to allow for one to two combats (maybe three) per session, with an emphasis on roleplaying and storytelling. That way, the GM is allowed to spend more time on each combat, and make each memorable. Having the players plow through combats in their “dungeon crawl” is boring, because, really, only one or two combats get to be cool, and, maybe, one gets to be really cool. The rest are “room of goblins; kill goblins; loot goblins; next room.” No book is entertaining where all that happens is the characters move from room to room killing stuff. The danger gets old. Look at tv shows - they have one combat sequence per episode, usually as a climactic point, unless it’s the finale, in which case the whole thing is the climax, and plays out like one big, long, exciting combat.

So do one combat per session, make it exciting, make it cool, make it important. Characters should never draw their swords unless they’ve got a lot to lose and a lot to gain. Gaining access to the next room is just retarded. Saving a PCs family or the legendary artifact - that’s good gaming.

Thanks again for polling me, Maikl — it was a challenge to squeeze what I wanted to say into three sentences.

Having played an incredibly fun first session of Keep on the Shadowfell this past weekend, I stand by everything I said — it was a blast.

I ran the first two encounters in “The Scales of War” Thursday night and was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly things went. It was definitely like running a completely new system. In fact I would almost be a “grognard” (i’m almost old enough) and say that 4.0 is NOT D&D, but in fact a close facsimile. The combat encounters in published modules have been almost overly scripted. In fact it seems a bit daunting to build an adventure of your own considering how much detail went into the published stuff.

I’ll have a hopefully detailed account (with spoiler warnings) on my new blog “Tipping the scales of war” at http://tipscales.blogspot.com/

I am actually a fan of 4e. I enjoy the shorter stat blocks as I am visually impaired and it takes me several minutes to read even half a page and thus the blocks are a huge benfit. Many of the options you guys have complained about losing such as many of the feats you complain about, many planes of existence that are not currently in the cosmology, losing, animal companions, bards, and gnomes are coming back by april of next year. As far a role-playing goes, I agree that the system takes much out of non-combat experiences in mechanics but I DM frequently and if a DM is stuck only role-playing involving mechanics, I pity them. The DM can just take an approach of more active creation of the environment and force the players to use their brains rather than a stat check or feat roll to see if their ateempts succeed. It requires the dM to create stock characters in the storyline for this process but a smart DM can come up with the general attitude and conversation patterns of a guard, constable, tribesman, orcish raider, or other character whithout to much difficulty. Rather than constructing an artificial system of non-combat actions, the DM can actually get a greater deal of role-play out of his players than ever before. The DM considers a success when a character acts in a way that would befit the situation and has the environment or people act negatively when the character performs their role poorly.

I once read a suggestion in the 2nd edition DM’s Guide to award bonus xp to adventurers who played their roles well. I have always followed this advice and with some groups it has led to some characters advancing in level much more rapidly than others, but it eventually leads to role-playing excellence by all involved.

lastly, You complain that the lower and higher ends of power have been removed. You will here no argument from me on this subject. What you will hear though will not come just from me. Take a look at some of both the strongest and weakest monsters in the monster manual, they too have had their lower and higher ends removed so in theory it continues to balance.

actually one last thing.
Be creative with your encounters if you want a better challenge.

The rules for a hydra for example state that the creature gains an extra head when it takes a certain amount of damage rather than actually having a head foreably removed. Thus, somply have a monster that can heal heal the hydra during battle in order for it to exceed the normal miximum number of heads.

“In fact, it feels like it’s too balanced.”

Couldn’t agree more. Game balance has become the holy grail of the D&D designers since they were designing 3rd edition. So now, not only must characters start out the same (e.g. standard array/point buy stats), they must remain exactly as powerful as each other forever. Enforcing game balance in this way actually makes it less interesting as a game! To me, it’s the unbalancing factors (like magic items used to be, e.g.), and how your GM and players deal with them, that make D&D interesting.

In regards to the balancing and its virtual equality it brings to all classes. I could not agree more that many characters have been robbed of specializing in particular roles in combat and outside of it as well.

Nobody has mentioned the possitive side of this though. (And it took me a while to find it but there is one,)

The majority of my players prefer arcane spellecasters like wizzards over all other classes and most of them try to make their characters into this role of spellcaster. In 3rd edition, this was disasterous when I gave in to group pressure and allowed a party of virtually nothing but wizzards to go on an adventure. The new balancing, which I agree is somewhat overdone, allows the player to play the class and race they want without having to necessarily cfompromise their favorite kinds of characters. Oftn I forced my players to play as fighters and rogues and similar classes and I was greatly disliked for it. With the new rules, It is feasable for a party of wizzards and warlocks to hold their own in combat without having a fighter to protect them. I persoanlly like the diverse party idea more but I think things should be made sort of like they are now to allow for parties not to be crippled if their membership is not formulaic.

As for the way combat used to work, I am glad it has changed. With fighters and rogues having a much greater array of combat options, I salute the designers from turning the fighter and melee classes from simple beaters into classes that require just as much strategy as wizzards. They have simplified wizzards, which is unfortunate, but now fighters don’t simply bull rush, power attack, parry, counterattack, and regular attack. They now have a wide variety of different swings and maneuvers which give them a greater degree of freedom on the battlefield to act in a wider variety of ways.

My overall synopsis of the balancing is that it does have problems but was much better than 3rd edition. As for the adjustments for classes. The melee fighters have been greatly improved at the expense of the spellcasters.

I think Wizzard’s motivation behind the balancing was to allow more flavored characters in battle. When a fighter and a warlock have some similar abilities in several areas, a player’s role in the story is not dependant on their role in combat.

Keep in mind however that the game is young and has few sourcebooks at this time. Within a few months. More arcane, and martial aspects will be added to increase the variation in the game and many more races and classes shall appear. Also keep in mind that this month, the new forgotten realms player guide brings a swordmage class that also ups the variety. There are undeniable negatives with the balancing of the classes and races but I also see a few plusses.

I can’t stand 4th edition, it’s the kind of shameless pandering to rope-in he WoW crowd that the Republican party used when bringin Palin onboard to rope-in the Hillary Supporters after the Democratic primaries.

EVERY class has special abilites they do EVERY round. Why swing a sword when you can perform some Saturday-morning-kung-fu-theater move EVERY ROUND!

Here’s an idea: let’s take a 30 year strong, established game with several deeply developed worlds and tropes, ignore the award-winning designs and culture-shaping ideas that have made it the iconic hobby that it is, and swizzle all the races/classes/monsters/abilities, top it off with a hackneyed pseudo-christian mythology that ignores a tremendously rich encyclopedia of ideas and slap some flashy game art on the pages. That ought to get 12 year old Johnny “5 second attention span” and his older brother Timmy “callus-kneed corporate stooge” to efusively praise this bastard spawn of the MMORPG for spastic, undisciplined twits who’s parents still can’t keep the sugar out of their twitchy mitts.