D&D 4th Edition Impressions

First, from my friend Nick:

Increased tactical granularity. More per-round combat options for low-level PCs. It’s plenty deadly (my 12+ hours of 4E saw 4 PC deaths). Third-party products will be needed for certain tracking issues (for example, glass beads or cardboard counters to track Fighter and Paladin “marks,” warlock curses, hunter’s quarry).

There is a small net gain in combat speed due to 1-1-1 square counting, but the new currency of actions (standard, move, minor +possible action point) offsets the speed gain. Net combat speed increase = none. However I can see that the game could be much easier to prep and run as a DM. OTOH I never have experienced many of the “problems” with 3.5E (static combats vs. one monster, “15 minute adventuring day,” etc.) that 4E proposes to fix.

The game is cool, it is a blast to play, it is definitely slick and shiny… but I’ll be sticking with 3.5E for many, many years to come for my home games. I was, however, suitably impressed to throw my hat in as an active RPGA dungeon master for Living Forgotten Realms. I want to support a growing D&D community and I want the game to survive, and the player base to grow… therefore it only makes sense to support the new edition and provide some energy toward its success.

Fighters still get shafted… not because they are less powerful, but because many monsters have abilities that trigger at “bloodied” (half HP) and cause the fighter or other frontliners to take more damage. And damage is tougher to recover from in combat (much, much easier to recover out of combat between encounters with “healing surges”).

It’s a slick tactical wargame that should be great for dungeon crawling. The new “daily resource” to keep track of is the healing surges… if you run out, it’s time to rest for the night.

And another, who preferred to remain anonymous said:

1) the game is a blast to run and play. It moves quickly, and it’s fun enough on a tactical game level that people will get hooked pretty quick.

2) Many sacred cows gave their lives for 4e. Make no mistake. This is a new game.

3) Ironically, my impression are that it plays a lot like Basic/Expert (or possibly Savage Worlds) with a superior tactical game. Monsters stat blocks are smaller, and there’s less minute detail to esoteric stuff (like crit threat multipliers). Once people get better at running this game, I think encounters will go quicker. my mod contained 5 encounters and ran consistently at 3.5 hours will players being completely new to the rules. This makes me think I can run 6 or 7+ encounters once I get a skilled group together.

4) Many 4eisms are already in later D&D3. Healing surges for example are similar to what a Wand of Vigor does.

5) AoOs still exist, but have a new name: (opportunity attacks) and are less frequent.

6) This game is about action adventure.

7) Living Realms is going to be awesome!

So it sounds to me like 4th edition would be the way to go for the game that I’ve been thinking about starting. Very exciting! In fact, I think I may go wander off to Amazon and pre-order the books now.