'That is the lethest movie I've ever seen!' 'Reading porn is lethe!' 'If you disagree with me, you're a lethe!' 'That die mechanic is lethe, dude!'
'Raping people is just lethe!' 'Don't you hate the way those lethes act in public?' --- Droog
Pardon my French, but how the fuck do energy blasts end poverty and starvation? --- Korhal_IV
Phenomenal review, Eric. It's also really nice to see a review that talks less about how the rules work and more about how the rules work for you. I agree 100% with your assessments of the DMG and the errata'd Skill Challenge DCs. Regarding the former, I honestly think that the 4e DMG is my favorite of all existing editions. The focused how-to advice in that book is pure gold.
__________________ If knowledge of a game's plot would spoil its experience, it isn't a game.
... A player cannot learn of a game's ending without experiencing it, because a game is not a linear object.
—Mike Mearls
Very good reveiw, probably the best reveiw on 4e so far. It is good to have a playtest reveiw as well because it seems 4e plays much better than it reads. This makes me want to go play 4e. (this is coming from someone who does not care much for 4e, though that may change after the reveiw.)
Agreed. It's always nice to see a well written playtest.
And this review did make me want to run 4E. Unfortunately, I am completely against using miniatures for several reasons, and it looks like that really is an integral part of the game.
'That is the lethest movie I've ever seen!' 'Reading porn is lethe!' 'If you disagree with me, you're a lethe!' 'That die mechanic is lethe, dude!'
'Raping people is just lethe!' 'Don't you hate the way those lethes act in public?' --- Droog
Pardon my French, but how the fuck do energy blasts end poverty and starvation? --- Korhal_IV
Thank you for the playtest review, Eric, which helped me to somewhat understand how 4E plays (I don't currently own the books).
I am the DM of a group that has been playing a V3.5 campaign for about 3 years and we have roughly another 3 years of playing ahead of us before completing it, so I constantly look for critiques about 4E to determine if it's worth my time to convert to the new system. Converting the remaining half-campaign to 4E would be time consuming, so I'm trying to be realistic about the benefits of whether to do so.
From what I've read so far in your review and others, I've decided that it's probably not worth the effort for me to do so. If I were starting a new campaign, I might make a different decision.
Curiously, when I read your descriptions of experiences and encounters, I didn't read anything (aside from specific class powers/stunts/abilities that 4E brings to the table) that seemed tremendously different from my V3.5 experiences. My V3.5 group has had an encounter with a dragon that very much resembled your own in V4E, with very cinematic, memorable sequences. My group has also had encounters with attacking mobs that seemed just as interesting as your orc battle. But I use computer tools to keep combat quick and also to easily generate appropriately statted and geared NPC's, so neither of these is an issue, even with our nearly-high-level play. I'm also fairly conservative with magic item availability, so that's never been a problem.
I'm concluding that the decision to switch comes down to DM preference, access to automated tools, and where a group is in their campaign. In a few years, I'll probably try 4E because I'm always open to new games and improvements.
I'm concluding that the decision to switch comes down to DM preference, access to automated tools, and where a group is in their campaign. In a few years, I'll probably try 4E because I'm always open to new games and improvements.
Thanks again,
Hurm.
I think you're right; I never used automated tools for 3rd edition, for example, and loved how 4E made the process of design for the DM so much simpler and more streamlined. In 3rd edition I usually had a 1:1 or sometimes a 1.25:1 ratio of "time to develop" vs. "timeplayed"....I often found that I spent more time designing a game than I did running it. In 4E, the reverse is pronouncedly noticed: usually about 1 hour of prep time for 8 hours of play. I wrote the entire scenario I have been running for the last 12 sessions in my one group in one evening, but have not yet run out of content; 8 hours of design time have turned in to about 50 hours of play time. I left 3.5 because I was tired of spending 6-8 hours designing content for a 6-8 hour session.
The dragon encounter is a great example. In 3E you had to work out the dragon, modify according to age and any templates, factor in feat details lest one forget them, and then work out the scenario and encounter details. It would take me about an hour (sometimes more) to do all that, especially (and mostly) the stat design.
In 4E, I think it takes about 15-30 minutes to do the same encounter; the stat block in the MM is ready to go, and it takes only a few minutes to add templates or class mods, work up the map and encounter data.
Curiously, when I read your descriptions of experiences and encounters, I didn't read anything (aside from specific class powers/stunts/abilities that 4E brings to the table) that seemed tremendously different from my V3.5 experiences...
As reading will never do it justice, let me just say it is a completely different play experience than 3.5. I will not say if it is better or worse than 3.5, but it is totally different and until you try it you won't really have a solid grasp of what it's all about (maybe like reading about rock climbing and actually rock climbing.)
If you have a chance to be in a demo, I suggest you give a whirl. But then again, if you've got a version you are happy, rock on!
__________________
Tetsuo Atom says: Sometimes the reality destroys the dream...why can't sometimes the dream destroy the reality?
Agreed. It's always nice to see a well written playtest.
And this review did make me want to run 4E. Unfortunately, I am completely against using miniatures for several reasons, and it looks like that really is an integral part of the game.
You can run 4E without them.
While we do tend to use a small whiteboard and markers to keep track of relative positions we have also run encounters without any sort of makers.
Re: [RPG]: Dungeons & Dragons (4th edition), reviewed by bergec (5/4)
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