Re: Review: 4th Ed

On 10 Jun 2008 00:13:52 GMT, "Bradd W. Szonye" <bradd+news@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Justin Alexander <justin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I just finished running my first D&D4 playtest session. It went poorly
for two reasons:

One, Keep on the Shadowfell is complete crap (even after I went to
great efforts to fix it).

We had great fun with it. However, we only played through the intro, the
"chapter one" town roleplay, and a couple of the outdoor fights.

Two, roleplaying did suffer. At our first break we had a discussion
about it and we thought it might be a matter of dealing with the new
rule system. But at our second break we concluded that wasn't the
problem: The dissociation of the mechanics from the game world was
constantly distancing us from the characters.

Whereas we had exactly the opposite experience. In the non-combat
sections, we made good use of Streetwise, Diplomacy, Nature, etc. for
legwork and social interaction. None of this was unique to D&D4 -- most
of this stuff fell under Knowledge or Charisma skills before -- but it
seemed like the skills were better-distributed throughout the PCs, such
that everyone always had something to contribute. I call that a net win.

In combat encounters, I thought the new rules supported heroic
archetypes better than past editions. For example, the marking/aggro
rules help defenders with their role of holding the front line, and
they're especially good at supporting roles like the self-sacrificing
paladin.

I can see that. I do think that the implementation may be a bit
awkward. I have certainly run creatures in the past who were
susceptible to taunting or who tended to attack those who'd just
whacked them.

I'd think that there should be an int save to avoid aggro thought (if
it is really meant to model taunting or aggravating an opponent).
Those who are smart or wise enough should be able to shrug it off and
get on with business...

I also like the way that Insight has been promoted to the same level of
importance as Perception (erstwhile Spot & Listen). I quite liked the
ambush that was set up by bluffing rather than stealth. You could do
this before, but the rules didn't particularly support it.

This sounds reasonable. Worth stealing into 3.5e as an idea.

Far too many mechanics in 4th Edition simply don't mean anything in
the game world. You're manipulating numbers mechanically, but those
numbers and the mechanics you're manipulating them with have no
correspondence to what the characters are experiencing. Many of these
mechanics (particularly the marking mechanics) are pervasive -- so
you're constantly making decisions as a player which have no bearing
to your character.

You have trouble envisioning marking in-character? Seriously?

I'd have a problem with it giving an extra attack regardless of the
target. Dumb brutes should be very vulnerable to aggro. Smarter or
wiser characters shouldn't. I like the image of the arrogant assassin
or rogue who take the hit, sneers at the taunt and keeps on going. In
4e it would appear that he gets whacked anyway.

This consistently pushes you away from being in- character and
encourages you to think of your character as nothing more than a
playing piece.

It didn't push /me/ away, but then I didn't have any major problems with
internalizing the game mechanics.

The mechanics seemed a bit fiddly at times. The characters play
options during the game day session seemed much less differentiated
than they feel in 3.5e. There was a melee to ranged difference, but
once the daily powers were expended, they did all feel very similar
(and the wizard zinging away with magic missile round after round felt
no different than the rouge shooting her crossbow).
--

Kyle Wilson
email: kylewilson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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