I would fix 4E by removing lolis. Adventuring party full of 12 year old girls every single goddamned time. I can't even play as male human fighter what the cock is that shit? What were the 4E developers thinking?!

Plus there's like 100 skills, and not a single skill for cooking! That shit doesn't make sense. They have powers for every single combat action you can imagine like gouging out people's eyes out and strangling people with their own intestines, but my character can't cook because Wizards of the Coast forgot to add a power for cooking. Fix that shit.

And how the hell did vampires make it through playtesting? That's like the most overpowered character class ever!

I also think they should just scrap the d20 system and make finally make the change over to GURPS, as D&D should be!

Quote from: Cave Bear;887228Having played and DM'd 4E on numerous occasions, I am quite certain that is absolutely not how it works.
When did a player character ever have to save at the end of the monster's turn in your campaign?

I honestly don't feel like digging out the 4e MM to find out which monster had an ability that may or may not trigger at the end of its turn, affecting a player...but I still maintain there wasn't just one place in the combat round where a player needed to roll saving throws.

Nobody else recall all those status effects? I bought Aleatools just to keep up with them, sometimes, solos especially, a monster would have 5 or more effects on it.

QuoteWhat are you on about?

Uh...the abilities characters get at, say, 10th level? I guess you haven't made it that far yet? It gets pretty nuts then, honest.

Quote from: Doom;887250I honestly don't feel like digging out the 4e MM to find out which monster had an ability that may or may not trigger at the end of its turn, affecting a player...but I still maintain there wasn't just one place in the combat round where a player needed to roll saving throws.

Nobody else recall all those status effects? I bought Aleatools just to keep up with them, sometimes, solos especially, a monster would have 5 or more effects on it.

Granted, it's exception based design, and I'm not familiar with every single monster power in the game, but that sounds like an edge case.

QuoteUh...the abilities characters get at, say, 10th level? I guess you haven't made it that far yet? It gets pretty nuts then, honest.

Granted, I've never had anyone play a Battlemind up to level 10.
But I'm looking through my copy of PHB3 right now.

What I see is a level 10 daily power that grants resistance (encounter duration), and a daily power that reduces damage to 0 (one time!)
The resistance thing is pretty damned strong, but not really broken considering there are effects that can bypass damage resistance. I mean, sorcerers can bypass some forms of resistance starting from level 1!
And the other thing is just a once per day deal that negates a single attack.

You made it sound like Battleminds had something that just gave blanket immunity to all damage, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Quote from: cranebump;887243Every time 4E comes up

A) someone mentions their negative experiences with it, followed by

B) someone hops on to tell them they played it wrong.


Every. Fucking. Time.

agreed though imho most people have a knee jerk reaction to 5e

Quote from: kosmos1214;887252agreed though imho most people have a knee jerk reaction to 5e

Which they had for 3e, and for 2e, and for 1e, and for Red Box, ad nauseum. m Edition Wars never really stop, and started the moment someone stopped using the little brown books.  If you don't believe me, watch Gronan go on and on about how he still uses them.

The only thing I truly had issues with in 4e, other than flavour (I have a hard time reconciling 'Daily Attacks' for martial characters that use their muscles/bodies as a 'power source') was the Ranger Class with it's ease of multiple attacks and reaction powers.  (I remember once being a Battlerager fighter, unable to actually get into the battle, so all I did was throw a rock at the bad guys every round, which triggered the Ranger to unleash something like 3? attacks.  And that's on top of the basic 5 he had each round.)

If we could somehow tone it down, that would have been nice.

In my experiences 4e's problems were far more "user" based than the system of the game. For some unknown reason people stuck religiously to the RAW of the game and were quite fearful of any departure from the rules. This led to such dumb situations such as:

• LOOOONG Combats: Why on Earth would EVERY Kobold fight to the bloody death when they just witnessed large amounts of their kin all get slaughtered in 12 seconds? No 4e DM ever heard of parley or running away if they're cowardly monsters? Yet in other editions this tends to happen quite more frequently. Heck sometimes players are encouraged to speak with intelligent beasts in order to continue without bloodshed. Not 4e though, throw all of that good stuff right out the window! And, if a DM did insist on the PCs fighting EVERY last monster to death, the gameplay is still in their control. IF an encounter has gone on longer than 1/2 hour then maybe adjudicate that the next significant (non At-will) attack or critical hit kills one of the targets, ignoring HP bloat of the monster.

Proposed Fix for long combats: Make the monsters run when it's appropriate to do so and don't stick to RAW if encounters drag on, either by shortening the monsters HP (and subsequently subtracting the overall XP they award). When fighting intelligent monsters, perhaps encourage dialogue instead of "roll Initiative".

• Use of Powers: Did you know there were quite a few DMs I played 4e with that were pretty ridiculous in when and how people can use their class and other abilities? Yea to my dismay apparently DMs were real anal about the target line of almost ALL PCs powers. For example our group came to a frozen door and the party's mage had this at-will Spell called Scorching Burst that deals fire damage in a small area. Cool! So he was going to use that on the frozen door (fire melts ice and all...) however the DM was completely against it because the Target line of the spell clearly states Creature and a door is not a creature. Da hell? This is one of those moments the DM has shown complete lack of anything resembling common sense.

Proposed Fix for use of Powers: Allow players to be creative with the tools they have. Allowing them to utilize their abilities in fun and interesting ways not only adds to the overall immersion of the game-world, it can create situations where a long combat isn't necessary.

• Sticking to RAW: In almost every D&D game I've ever played in, there have been houserules. These are often attempts to modulate the game to better fit a groups needs or fix problems the group has found within any system. In 3e we had quite a few houserules that made the game more enjoyable, such as not confirming natural 20 critical hits and using the average for HPs when leveling up. Yet 4e was one of those systems that people didn't houserule. I don't know why? I used LOTS of non-RAW ideas and things including home-brew classes, feats, and items to throwing out dumb rules like not being able to use X-number of magical items per Tier (a rule that was later removed officially). I'm not sure why people felt they shouldn't or couldn't fix things that were inherently wrong with many of 4e's systems but they either didn't based on some fear or principal.

Proposed fix for forced RAW: Pretty self evident that any good group doesn't stick to RAW as some religious text. If something is amiss, like for example non-magical powers used on a daily basis, give them all the Reliable Keyword. This mean if they miss, they can try it again and again. If you feel Fighters should have bow-based Exploits, homebrew some. If you want to roll for HP, then do it! Like in every other system of D&D, the rules are not cement and you should feel fine in changing things to make the game more preferable to the group.

Quote from: cranebump;887243Every time 4E comes up

A) someone mentions their negative experiences with it, followed by

B) someone hops on to tell them they played it wrong.


Every. Fucking. Time.

I wonder why that is? I'm going to guess that those who didn't have those problems will site the differences in the group vs. the same rules played with. Same thing with 3e and how there are people who say Spellcasters do and will break the game by X-level and there are people who've never had or seen a large problem with the caster/martial disparity.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;887263Which they had for 3e, and for 2e, and for 1e, and for Red Box, ad nauseum. m Edition Wars never really stop, and started the moment someone stopped using the little brown books.  If you don't believe me, watch Gronan go on and on about how he still uses them.

That's basically it.

I don't think there's any real issue to saying "I play D&D vers. X." It's when you have played, don't care for it, and the whole thing gets turned into how, "If you'd just played it THIS way..." you'd somehow change your views. Part of system preference has to include your preferred style of play. I can't speak for everyone, but 4E didn't work for me primarily for two reasons:

(1) Time consuming battles
(2) Didn't like the scaling

I understood why the scaling was there, and understood how to run battles. But, when we looked up hours later after a particularly long fight, the entire session had ended, and we'd moved the campaign forward a metaphorical inch on a scale of six feet (and I hated that the kicking down the same door required a 15 for one level of characters and a 25 for another, simply due to level progression--surely we can standardize skills in some way?)

Sooooo...any "fix" of 4E, for me, would include speedier combat, and no scaling.  The only thing I can think of that might satisfy my requires would be:

(1) Using bloodied HP totals as max for monsters
(2) Eliminating or reducing reaction-abilities
(3) Capping characters at the first tier.

So, maybe something like an E6 version of 4E--characters expand in "breadth" rather than "height?"

(Now that I think about it, 5E fixed a lot of my issues with both 3E and 4E).

Quote from: cranebump;887317That's basically it.

I don't think there's any real issue to saying "I play D&D vers. X." It's when you have played, don't care for it, and the whole thing gets turned into how, "If you'd just played it THIS way..." you'd somehow change your views. Part of system preference has to include your preferred style of play. I can't speak for everyone, but 4E didn't work for me primarily for two reasons:

(1) Time consuming battles
(2) Didn't like the scaling

I understood why the scaling was there, and understood how to run battles. But, when we looked up hours later after a particularly long fight, the entire session had ended, and we'd moved the campaign forward a metaphorical inch on a scale of six feet (and I hated that the kicking down the same door required a 15 for one level of characters and a 25 for another, simply due to level progression--surely we can standardize skills in some way?)

Sooooo...any "fix" of 4E, for me, would include speedier combat, and no scaling.  The only thing I can think of that might satisfy my requires would be:

(1) Using bloodied HP totals as max for monsters
(2) Eliminating or reducing reaction-abilities
(3) Capping characters at the first tier.

So, maybe something like an E6 version of 4E--characters expand in "breadth" rather than "height?"

(Now that I think about it, 5E fixed a lot of my issues with both 3E and 4E).

How about completely remove the 1/2 level base progression and instead make it +1 (heroic tier at 5th), +2 (paragon tier at 15th), and +3 (epic tier at 20th)? So at most you'll progress in your normal ability scores but only add a total of +3 and your ability modifier (and feats, proficiency bonus) to the over all math. Thus a 10th level monster wouldn't have +15 to everything, it'd be +11. A 20th level monster wouldn't have +30 to everything, it'd have +22, etc.

As for long combats and HP bloat, well I mentioned some easy fixes up-thread. Another way is to max + double damage on Critical hits and incorporate "bleeding".

Bleeding is a mechanic that just say "hey, if you're below 1/4 your total hit points you have 1 round to get out of that condition OR after that round, you fall unconscious due to extreme fatigue and loos of life. Monsters who are at 1/4 their HP can escape (double move) or use some sort of magical elixer or potion OR get HP from their leader. If they don't, they die after a turn of bleeding. You can then alter certain monsters to ignore this effect (undead, constructs, Solo enemies, etc.).

Quote from: cranebump;887243Every time 4E comes up

A) someone mentions their negative experiences with it, followed by

B) someone hops on to tell them they played it wrong.


Every. Fucking. Time.

Perhaps because people have gone out of their way to shit on 4e?
Like a local game store owner who hasn't played D&D since the 70s who was shitting on the very product he is trying to sell.  Doesn't make a lick of sense.

But you want to see it here in this very thread?  look below these words.

Quote from: Batman;887313In my experiences 4e's problems were far more "user" based than the system of the game. For some unknown reason people stuck religiously to the RAW of the game and were quite fearful of any departure from the rules. This led to such dumb situations such as:

• LOOOONG Combats: Why on Earth would EVERY Kobold fight to the bloody death when they just witnessed large amounts of their kin all get slaughtered in 12 seconds? No 4e DM ever heard of parley or running away if they're cowardly monsters? Yet in other editions this tends to happen quite more frequently. Heck sometimes players are encouraged to speak with intelligent beasts in order to continue without bloodshed. Not 4e though, throw all of that good stuff right out the window! And, if a DM did insist on the PCs fighting EVERY last monster to death, the gameplay is still in their control. IF an encounter has gone on longer than 1/2 hour then maybe adjudicate that the next significant (non At-will) attack or critical hit kills one of the targets, ignoring HP bloat of the monster.

Proposed Fix for long combats: Make the monsters run when it's appropriate to do so and don't stick to RAW if encounters drag on, either by shortening the monsters HP (and subsequently subtracting the overall XP they award). When fighting intelligent monsters, perhaps encourage dialogue instead of "roll Initiative".

• Use of Powers: Did you know there were quite a few DMs I played 4e with that were pretty ridiculous in when and how people can use their class and other abilities? Yea to my dismay apparently DMs were real anal about the target line of almost ALL PCs powers. For example our group came to a frozen door and the party's mage had this at-will Spell called Scorching Burst that deals fire damage in a small area. Cool! So he was going to use that on the frozen door (fire melts ice and all...) however the DM was completely against it because the Target line of the spell clearly states Creature and a door is not a creature. Da hell? This is one of those moments the DM has shown complete lack of anything resembling common sense.

Proposed Fix for use of Powers: Allow players to be creative with the tools they have. Allowing them to utilize their abilities in fun and interesting ways not only adds to the overall immersion of the game-world, it can create situations where a long combat isn't necessary.

• Sticking to RAW: In almost every D&D game I've ever played in, there have been houserules. These are often attempts to modulate the game to better fit a groups needs or fix problems the group has found within any system. In 3e we had quite a few houserules that made the game more enjoyable, such as not confirming natural 20 critical hits and using the average for HPs when leveling up. Yet 4e was one of those systems that people didn't houserule. I don't know why? I used LOTS of non-RAW ideas and things including home-brew classes, feats, and items to throwing out dumb rules like not being able to use X-number of magical items per Tier (a rule that was later removed officially). I'm not sure why people felt they shouldn't or couldn't fix things that were inherently wrong with many of 4e's systems but they either didn't based on some fear or principal.

Proposed fix for forced RAW: Pretty self evident that any good group doesn't stick to RAW as some religious text. If something is amiss, like for example non-magical powers used on a daily basis, give them all the Reliable Keyword. This mean if they miss, they can try it again and again. If you feel Fighters should have bow-based Exploits, homebrew some. If you want to roll for HP, then do it! Like in every other system of D&D, the rules are not cement and you should feel fine in changing things to make the game more preferable to the group.

Here you have batman talking about how for some reason his gaming group got all stupid when it came to playing 4e.

Why the drastic change?

I guess I am both lucky, and unfortunate, that my so far only exposure to 4e was via the Gamma World set since it left a relatively favourable impression of the 4e system.

For the curious, 4E gets shit upon because it was a miniatures skirmish game sold as a role-playing game and shoved down people's throats as D&D. No crime if you like it, but it is not as suited to being a RPG as it is a tabletop computer wargame simulator.

I honestly do think there is very little wrong with the system when you use it for what it is designed for, stuff like Blood Bowl or Space Hulk. The OP and most of the posters here agree that 4E was too focused on combat or else this thread about "How to fix 4E" would not exist because it didn't need fixing to be a RPG.

Quote from: Doom;887250I honestly don't feel like digging out the 4e MM to find out which monster had an ability that may or may not trigger at the end of its turn, affecting a player...but I still maintain there wasn't just one place in the combat round where a player needed to roll saving throws.

Nobody else recall all those status effects?

I'm pretty sure you're just wrong on this one. The saving throw mechanics (PHB, pg. 279) state that the save is always made by the affected creature at the end of their turn. I did a search through about half the MM and there are no abilities that posit special rules for saving throws (just "save ends"). Also checked a chunk of a Monster Vault (to see if new design standards were used later on), and I'm not seeing anything in there, either.

Quote from: Batman;887313LOOOONG Combats: Why on Earth would EVERY Kobold fight to the bloody death when they just witnessed large amounts of their kin all get slaughtered in 12 seconds? No 4e DM ever heard of parley or running away if they're cowardly monsters? Yet in other editions this tends to happen quite more frequently.

There was a time period where I was running D&D3, OD&D, and D&D4 in various configurations with many of the same players crossing over from one system to the next. I was also recording the sessions, which allowed me to do very accurate comparisons about combat length across systems.

What I found was that:

(1) Assuming a similar number of combatants, the average length of time to resolve a round worth of actions was generally comparable between all three systems (with D&D4 possibly being slightly longer, but not significantly so).

(2) The length of combats in OD&D and D&D3 were generally comparable. However, when measured across all combats OD&D averaged slightly less time per encounter because OD&D has more spells that instantly end an encounter (compared OD&D's sleep spell to D&D3's, for example). (This was somewhat counteracted at my table because ubiquitous hirelings generally increased the average number of combatants in OD&D compared to D&D3.)

(3) D&D4, on the other hand, featured combats that took two to three times as many rounds to resolve as comparable OD&D and D&D3 fights. And this directly translated into longer fights.

A uniform methodology doesn't solve this problem because, whatever the methodology is (i.e., the goblins cut and run when half of them have been killed), it still takes longer to get to that point in the fight.

(4) D&D4 fights were also longer on average because (a) there were no abilities that instantly ended encounters and (b) the relative lack of strategic play (i.e., resource ablation over multiple encounters) made the range of meaningful combats much smaller (which meant a lack of easy, quick fights; in OD&D and D&D3 you can get 7th level characters quickly mopping up a half dozen goblins; in D&D4 such an encounter would be entirely pointless).

The other problem contributing to fights that last "too long" in D&D4 was the design decision to reduce the number of abilities that monsters have. The logic was that a monster only survives 2-3 rounds, so if they have more than 2-3 things to do it's pointless. This logic was always flawed (you can encounter the same creature multiple times; there may be multiple versions of the creature in the same fight; tactical flexibility is a thing), but it was particularly disastrous when you also increased the length of combat.

The result was a systemic bias towards combats that shot their load and then... just continued happening for some reason for another hour.

Quote• Use of Powers: Did you know there were quite a few DMs I played 4e with that were pretty ridiculous in when and how people can use their class and other abilities? Yea to my dismay apparently DMs were real anal about the target line of almost ALL PCs powers. For example our group came to a frozen door and the party's mage had this at-will Spell called Scorching Burst that deals fire damage in a small area. Cool! So he was going to use that on the frozen door (fire melts ice and all...) however the DM was completely against it because the Target line of the spell clearly states Creature and a door is not a creature. Da hell?

I've found that games with a preponderance of dissociated mechanics tend to create mechanics-only play even among players who don't engage in that behavior in other systems.

Once you've surrendered yourself to simply accept that you can only attempt to do a backflip once per day because that's what the Backflip ability says, it follows that you can only target creatures (and not objects) with your Scorching Burst because that's what the ability says. Once you've broken the mechanics-fiction loop, it tends to stay broken (or at least takes some effort to get back up to speed).

Quote from: jeff37923;887396For the curious, 4E gets shit upon because it was a miniatures skirmish game sold as a role-playing game

OD&D was a miniatures skirmish game.

Fight me.

Quote from: Omega;887373I guess I am both lucky, and unfortunate, that my so far only exposure to 4e was via the Gamma World set since it left a relatively favourable impression of the 4e system.

Yknow, I've heard this comment a few times. Having never tried this iteration, I am curious as to why it seems to be a better experience when running GW? Do the system mechanics fit better with the genre conceits?