A discourse on 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons

[kierthos]

Some time back (just over a year ago), I reviewed some "early release versions" of 4th edition D&D. Well, I've been in a 4th ed campaign for a few weeks now, so I can talk authoritatively about the mechanics and whatnot.

Of course, if you have no intention of ever playing 4th ed., you can skip this post now. Really, I won't mind. I'll just sit here in the dark. Alone.

......

Anyway....

Just to get something in place here, I have played D&D since nigh unto the beginning of the game. I played Basic D&D back when the classes were Fighter, Mage, Thief, Cleric, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. (Yes, classes of Elf, Dwarf and Halfling.) I've played Advanced, 2nd ed., 3rd ed./3.5, and several other fantasy RPGs.

4th ed., strictly speaking, is less of an RPG then any previous edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I defend this by pointing out that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game. While you do create a character, and you generally do fill a role in your adventuring party, 4th edition, more then any previous edition, is more about tactical miniature gaming.

I suppose I should defend that point a little.

In previous editions of the game, especially up through 2nd edition, you didn't need to have a grid map to play. Sure, it helped. But you didn't need one. A good GM could get by without it, saying that "yes you were" or "no you weren't" close enough to bash the orc with your mace (or whatever). Sure, some things required knowing, more or less, where everything and everyone was, but it wasn't necessary to have it precise.

3rd edition changed a lot of that by having more tactical thinking being required, to move, to attack, to make attacks of opportunity, to worry about cover, concealment, range, 5-foot steps, and so forth. If you didn't understand any of that, don't worry. All it means is that is the balance of evidence supports you having a life.

To continue, though, 4th edition made it even more complicated. You cannot do anything other the simplest combats (and sometimes not even then) without having a grid map out. Every single power, whether it's a fighter's attacks, a wizard's spells, or whatever... they all require knowing where your character is in relation to everyone and everything else.

Now, if you're into tactical miniature combat, like those Star Fleet Battles weirdos, or those truly sad Warhammer people (I'm kidding), you'll have a great old time with this.

But you had better be used to combats taking a while. One of the combats we've had in the game so far was a party of five adventurers (a fighter, a swordmage, a sorcerer, a paladin, and a shaman) versus four giant spiders. That was a relatively simple combat.... and it took AN HOUR.

To be fair, it would have taken less time if I could stop fucking missing with my spells. And that's another big change. Every attack, regardless of course, requires an attack roll. There's no more "auto-hitting" Magic Missile. There's no more "you were in the area of effect, so suck it" spells. It is possible for wizards to hurl spells that can cover a 25 foot x 25 foot block... and not hit a single creature in it. This works for the players too, as sometimes the GM seems to have my luck, and can't hit the side of a barn with a shotgun... from the inside.

But the role-playing, is.... lacking. Well, that's not entirely true. A good group can make any system one worth playing (and role-playing). Except possibly FATAL. And Synnibarr. But 4th edition D&D seems to almost go out of it's way to exclude role-playing in an effort to appeal to the MMO crowd, which as we all know, has the attention span of a concussed mayfly.

Don't get me wrong... I'm having fun in the game I'm in. But it's because of the people I'm playing with, not necessarily the mechanics.

Comments

[hartley.livejournal.com]

It's a weird full-circle thing, since D&D evolved out of a miniatures wargaming system...

...and has now pretty much gone back to it.

But, since I *like* tactical miniatures combat, I like it. And it's a far better combat system than 3.5 was.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

The truth of the matter is, you can insert RP into any activity, 4e is basically going back to its miniatures roots, which is where RPGs grew out of.

Only without 'you live or you die' attacks.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

*nod* Damage is both less and more then in previous versions. There's no "Fireball" spell, where you can roll an entire handful of six-siders, but it's possible to pump out decent and consistent damage even with low level powers.

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

in an effort to appeal to the MMO crowd, which as we all know, has the attention span of a concussed mayfly.

Amusing metaphor. ^_^

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

And accurate too!

BTW, I assume you heard about the recent embezzlement in EVE Online?

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

I did --
Poor guy lost a lot of friends afterward. :)

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

That's hardly a surprise.... :P

Heck, if he's still playing, I wouldn't be shocked if he got his ship shot out from under him on a regular basis.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grimtales_/]

Despite having written for 4th Ed I haven't actually had the opportunity to play it at all yet. Which is rather telling compared to the situation with 3rd Edition.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

The mechanics have changed enough where the first combat or two will go a lot slower (well, for certain classes), simply because of the changes.

There are now four defensive values: AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. Most melee weapon and ranged weapon attacks are vs. AC. Spells can be versus any of them, but it tends to be themed... most attacks that do lightning damage are vs. Reflex. Most attacks that do thunder damage are vs. Fortitude. Most attacks that do psychic damage are vs. Will. And so forth.

But there are things that make the mechanics easier as well. AC is just AC. There's no more "touch AC", "flat-footed AC", etc. There are a lot less overall fiddly-little bonuses to figure out.

There's no more spell resistance where it completely negates spells as such. Monsters (and some PCs) can have resistances to certain types of damage (fire, lightning, psychic, cold, etc.), but those reduce the damage, not negate the spell.

There are no more "I get four attacks a round", so that speeds combat up a lot. Yes, there are different actions, but they're classed more simplistically.

Healing is completely different. You're no longer entirely reliant on the cleric to heal you. He can, and he's pretty good about doing it during combat. But all characters can heal themselves at least once during each combat, for at least a quarter of their total HPs. (Of course, this also frees up the cleric/other healing classes so that they can actually do things other then just heal, which is a bonus.)

Of course, it's still pretty easy to min-max things. It would hardly be a version of D&D if you couldn't do that. My character, who is not all cracked out on combat damage modifiers, can pump out significant damage.... when he hits. (At the last game session, I had six rolls in a row where it was 3, 3, 6, 9, 3, 3. On four different 20-siders.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I find it more of an RPG than D20 or especially the earlier games, because there are fewer mechanics in place telling you you *can't* be someone or do something. Not all Fighters and Wizards and Clerics look the same. Not all Clerics are bored senseless and completely useless when they're not crushing everything unstoppably. And, mad bonus, all of the "you are now required to be bored" rules are gone, as are all of the "this one flat roll is critical. 5% instant win, 5% instant death. Oh, and you're making one of these 3-5 times per round."

And character creation can now be done in minutes instead of taking hours, and ENCOUNTER creation for a DM no longer takes anywhere near the same prep time, either.

But yeah, it really does require a map and minis, but I suspect combats won't run nearly as long or be as uninteresting for most characters as D20 combats, once you get a little more used to the system.

Oh, and:
Every attack, regardless of course, requires an attack roll. There's no more "auto-hitting" Magic Missile. There's no more "you were in the area of effect, so suck it" spells.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, here. There are TONS of those. For L1 Wizards, you can take Cloud Of Daggers or Thunder Pillar as at-wills and hit people for auto-damage (not a lot of it if the attack misses, but auto-damage, every round), and EVERY DAILY FOR EVERY CHARACTER has either an auto-effect that happens hit or miss, a miss effect that does *something*, or is "Reliable" - you missed with the power, so you didn't expend it and can use it again next round. Wizards, in particular, are full of crazy auto-damaging effects every round - check out Flaming Sphere and Stinking Cloud. You'll significantly out-damage the Strikers, with those.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

No, no, compared to previous editions, there aren't really any "you were in the area of effect, so suck it" spells.

In, say, 2nd edition (or 3rd, for that matter), if you were in the area of effect of a Fireball, and you failed your save, you were taking 1d6 per level of the caster. One of my old characters from a long-running 2nd edition game was throwing around 17d6 fireballs all the time.

That's a lot of damage.

On the other hand, most of the "auto damage" spells in 4th edition require the victim to be inside a zone (area of effect) at the start of their turn or to walk through the zone during their turn before they will take that damage. And it's a lot less damage then ye olde 3rd edition Fireball.

Yes, it's possible to place and/or move them so creatures will take some damage. But given the inflation of HPs in 4th edition, and in most cases, the lack of scaling of damage, it's not so much a "suck it" as "take a little damage". Stinking Cloud, for example, does 1d10 + Int mod in poison damage. Yes, you can move it. Anything that starts it's turn in the area or moves into the area takes damage.

But for a 5th level spell, it's not a lot of damage. (Yes, I know, comparatively, 5th level in 4th edition is about 3rd level in 3rd edition.) And there are 5th level monsters in 4th edition that can take 30 or 40 points of damage before they're bloodied.

What it's great for is taking out minions, though.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

if you were in the area of effect of a Fireball, and you failed your save, you were taking 1d6 per level of the caster

Max of 10d6 unless you used the L7 version, but yeah.

But those 17d6 fireballs were all save for half (completely independent of the attacker) and most of the kind of person you'd want to fireball like like would, in fact, be saving to eliminate the damage entirely. And, really, it was a save - that's not an "in AoE? You're fucked!". That's "my attack roll doesn't depend on anything I do, but *you* make it instead of me."

Stinking Cloud, for example, does 1d10 + Int mod in poison damage. Yes, you can move it. Anything that starts it's turn in the area or moves into the area takes damage.

But for a 5th level spell, it's not a lot of damage.

Actually, Stinking Cloud is pretty much *the most damaging 5th level power in the game*. It does *crazy* damage - just spread across many people, over several rounds.

That's 1d10+INT+Implement+Feats+whatever, to all squares in a "burst 2" (5x5) area. And then it does it again *automatically* when they start their turn, no roll required. And then again. And it blocks LOS. It's REALLY not hard to keep a group of enemies in the cloud forever and stack on those 1d10+8s round after round, automatically, while taking only a Minor action to sustain it and leaving your Standard free to do something else.

there are 5th level monsters in 4th edition that can take 30 or 40 points of damage before they're bloodied.

Yup. So, an average of two rounds after casting the spell (the hit, their first turn, their second turn) you've taken a relatively tough monster of your own level and removed more than half it's HP. And that assumes only a single target under the Cloud, not a group, and that you're not also using the Cloud to block ranged enemy LOS or deny terrain to the bad guys or to "dance" guys back into it for free bonus damage with forced movement. In those two rounds, assuming a reasonably set of equipment and Feats, you did 3d10+24 damage to *every guy in the cloud* - and it could have been a whole lot more if you're tweaked to do damage rather than control. 5th level wizard with int 18, Destructive Wizardry, Dual-Implement Caster, a Staff Of Ruin, and Shadowfell Gloves is doing 1d10+1d6+13 every round to every target.

And all this, from a *Controller* - someone whose "class specialty" is not massive damage on target.

I will admit, however, that a lot of the traditional D&D Wizard standbies range from underwhelming (Disintegrate) down to utter worthless crap (Fireball). Fireball redeems itself slightly at L7 with Fire Burst, which is just like Fireball but a little smaller and an Encounter instead of a Daily.

What 4e Wizards don't have is nearly as many "save or die" powers or nearly as many "if this power hits you're totally fucked up" powers. But that's a good thing - there are no more Monsters that hit you with save-or-die constantly, either.