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Are there 500 4th Edition games still in play worldwide?  250?

Not just people who have some 4E books sitting on their bookshelf, gathering dust; actual game play.

I'd put it at "very" dead. It's not the new hotness, it's not remotely compatible with any other RPG, and there's not even a computer game (where the ruleset might have been viable at mid/high levels) to carry a torch.

Oh there were certain circles who rent their clothes and threw ashes on their heads when 5e was announced, claiming that "4e [was] objectively the best D&D rules ever created" and their howling only got worse the more test documents got leaked out for 5e, so I imagine those people are bitterly clinging to 4e.

It's not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead.

Seriously though, I never hear about anybody playing it, praising it, or even talking about it. It did have a few good ideas along with some bad ones. Just too far removed from D&D though.

It has died the death it so well deserved.

"Twenty minutes of fun packed into four hours," remember. Never forget Mike Mearls' contribution to making D&D shit.

Surely someone will post up about a current game?

There were people who ran full length 30 level campaigns.

Yeah people are still playing 4e, of course they are.

This is data from Roll 20 which shows 4e is still solidly in the top 20 game systems.

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Well I ran a 4e campaign 2017-18 (http://nentirvalecampaign.blogspot.com/), the restricted scope of play made it a bit dissatisfying for me compared to 5e but the crunch-oriented players enjoyed it.

I run 4e's Gamma World and plan to do a fantasy version of it soon.

Most of the 4e fans I know are now playing 13th Age which is a nicely done 4.5e. That seems to scratch the itch for them.

Unsure if I'd run a 4e game again, but if I did I'd probably rerun my campaign that only used PHB2 and 3. However, 4e's Gamma World really is the best of 4e distilled in actual play so I'd most likely just focus my efforts there.

Not even one half of one percent of Roll 20 players or games, are using D & D 4E.  Even Dungeon World is ranked slightly higher.

Over half of all Roll 20 players are playing D & D 5E.

There are four times as many Pathfinder 1E players, as 3.5 players.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1102207Oh there were certain circles who rent their clothes and threw ashes on their heads when 5e was announced, claiming that "4e [was] objectively the best D&D rules ever created" and their howling only got worse the more test documents got leaked out for 5e, so I imagine those people are bitterly clinging to 4e.

They also tried to organize to sabotage the playtest by filling out the surveys with bad or hatefull advice. The 4e fanatics anics actually convinced WOTC to drop support even faster. According to others who were there they also fucked up the WOTC forums, apparently well before 5e was even in the works.

Over ob BGG there are still now and then some holdouts who extoll that 4e is the most balanced and perfect RPG everrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

4e was a clusterfuck of fuck ups at nearly every step and cause Habro to leash in and then tighten said leash on WOTC.

Quote from: Razor 007;1102234Not even one half of one percent of Roll 20 players or games, are using D & D 4E.  Even Dungeon World is ranked slightly higher.

Yeah, so 4e is more dead then Dungeon World and less dead then ADnD.

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So 4E isn't dead? Good. We can discuss more important things now.

There probably isn't a single obscure title OOP for 35 years that doesn't get dusted off occasionally by someone somewhere and given a one-shot. 4e is probably played by thousands still.

It is still around, more or less on the level of a second-tier game. It is a fairly good game for people who want a crunchy, solid tactical game. What disappeared, however, is the loud and obnoxious fanbase, who mostly seem to have just confessed to actually hating D&D, and hitching their fortunes to Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, and other genderqueer dating sims.

Quote from: Melan;1102253It is still around, more or less on the level of a second-tier game. It is a fairly good game for people who want a crunchy, solid tactical game. What disappeared, however, is the loud and obnoxious fanbase, who mostly seem to have just confessed to actually hating D&D, and hitching their fortunes to Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, and other genderqueer dating sims.

  Hey now! I liked 4E at first and after coming back to it due to fan enthusiasm and some enjoyable Encounters play in the summer of 2010, have realized I don't like D&D (that is, "high-lethality sword & sorcery heist play soaked through with nihilism and dusted with Satanism,") and I have no time for DW, Monsterhearts, or genderqueer dating sims. I'm leaning more towards Savage Worlds. :D

I won't say that it's impossible that I'll ever run it again, but it's highly unlikely.  Practically speaking, only games in my top 4 or 5 get played with the limited time I have.  There's a lot of games that sit in the 6-20 spots that I'm not going to write off completely, but I have no illusions about the chances they get brought out.  In the next decade, I'll probably run one game from those spots.

My groups are in a weird spot in relation to this. We really enjoy 4E, but play switched entirely over to the spiritual successor I've been writing once the main mechanics were nailed down.

So... Reincarnated?

Well, we can let the Roman legions with extra tonnage of salt have a rest break then. :D But do let them know where a spot was missed when you find it! :p

I think a lot of 4e peeps migrated to 13th Age.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1102259Hey now! I liked 4E at first and after coming back to it due to fan enthusiasm and some enjoyable Encounters play in the summer of 2010, have realized I don't like D&D (that is, "high-lethality sword & sorcery heist play soaked through with nihilism and dusted with Satanism,") and I have no time for DW, Monsterhearts, or genderqueer dating sims. I'm leaning more towards Savage Worlds. :D

And I play Monsterhearts but I'm not queer nor looking to sim dates. :)

I'm in a 4e campaign right now.

It's funny how D&D 4E is dead, but TSR-era D&D, OSR systems, and independent games with smaller player bases are thriving. Edition-wars tribalism is the best kind of tribalism.

I have a complete set of Essentials-era 4E books and box sets on my shelves, along with a handful of adventures. I have no doubt I'll take it down and run a campaign at some point when I'm bored with other D&D systems and want something different and easy to run.

Quote from: Haffrung;1102281It's funny how D&D 4E is dead, but TSR-era D&D, OSR systems, and independent games with smaller player bases are thriving. Edition-wars tribalism is the best kind of tribalism.

  Don't forget, 4E fans are bitterly clinging to a dead and obsolete system, while OS fans are appreciating the neglected strengths of unfairly disregarded games. :)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1102284Don't forget, 4E fans are bitterly clinging to a dead and obsolete system, while OS fans are appreciating the neglected strengths of unfairly disregarded games. :)

Yes, and let's definitely NOT mention that 4E is beating out every OSR-based game on that Roll20 list and almost beats them all combined (4E is at 0.38%, both editions of AD&D combined are 0.29%, Original D&D is 0.07%, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is 0.03%, Basic D&D 0.02%, ACKS 0.01%, Labyrinth Lord 0.01%) provided earlier in the thread.

If 4E is dead, then so is pretty much the entire OSR movement.

It looks like the 4E PDFs also got a bump on DM's Guild after Matt Colville did his video about swiping features from 4E to use in 5E. At the least the 4E Monster Manual always seems to be in the top 10 for classic D&D titles.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102266My groups are in a weird spot in relation to this. We really enjoy 4E, but play switched entirely over to the spiritual successor I've been writing once the main mechanics were nailed down.

So... Reincarnated?

Hey, that's cool man.  Rock on.

in 20 years, will there be an OSR focusing on 4th edition? :)

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1102307in 20 years, will there be an OSR focusing on 4th edition? :)

I doubt it. The format doesn't lend itself to amateur revamps, and I have a tough time seeing independent publishers supporting 4E material.

However, I expect once the resentment of 4E fades to memory, the game will develop a cult following among gamers who weren't participants in the Edition Wars. Books/boxes will go for a mint on the secondary market - the Essentials DM's Kit and Monster Vault are already expensive.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102288Yes, and let's definitely NOT mention that 4E is beating out every OSR-based game on that Roll20 list and almost beats them all combined (4E is at 0.38%, both editions of AD&D combined are 0.29%, Original D&D is 0.07%, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is 0.03%, Basic D&D 0.02%, ACKS 0.01%, Labyrinth Lord 0.01%) provided earlier in the thread.

If 4E is dead, then so is pretty much the entire OSR movement.

To be fair, OSR people might not use the internets as much as most. Also, "OSR" covers a family of games, as opposed to a single game.

And just because the game is listed, doesn't mean people are necessarily showing up to play much, or with as many people. All that said, it's clear some folks are still playing 4e, and it is a fun system at level 4 or lower if you stick to only the first 10 or so books, I give it that.

Quote from: Haffrung;1102311I doubt it. The format doesn't lend itself to amateur revamps, and I have a tough time seeing independent publishers supporting 4E material.

  And the material released under the OGL doesn't lend itself to easy cloning of 4E, to boot.

QuoteHowever, I expect once the resentment of 4E fades to memory, the game will develop a cult following among gamers who weren't participants in the Edition Wars. Books/boxes will go for a mint on the secondary market - the Essentials DM's Kit and Monster Vault are already expensive.

  I agree with the former, but I'm not so sure about the latter, given that DTRPG is providing good PoD support for 4E. You're right about the boxes, though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1102269I think a lot of 4e peeps migrated to 13th Age.

13th Age really does nicely scratch the 4e itch.

Quote from: Omega;1102235They also tried to organize to sabotage the playtest by filling out the surveys with bad or hatefull advice. The 4e fanatics anics actually convinced WOTC to drop support even faster. According to others who were there they also fucked up the WOTC forums, apparently well before 5e was even in the works.

Over ob BGG there are still now and then some holdouts who extoll that 4e is the most balanced and perfect RPG everrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

4e was a clusterfuck of fuck ups at nearly every step and cause Habro to leash in and then tighten said leash on WOTC.

That's hilarious.  What a bunch of entitled little snowflake shits.

Quote from: Omega;1102235They also tried to organize to sabotage the playtest by filling out the surveys with bad or hatefull advice.

Worth remembering though is that according to some of the anti-4E people "bad and hateful advice" = "please include elements of 4E that its players actually liked, such as the warlord class. Also maybe don't mock your current player base with comments from your devs about warlords 'shouting hands back on' when the system in question didn't even have rules for dismemberment and pushed non-physical hit points harder than any edition ever had."

There was a lot of hate on both sides of the Edition Wars. Don't pretend it all came from the 4E side.

Quote from: Doom;1102314All that said, it's clear some folks are still playing 4e, and it is a fun system at level 4 or lower if you stick to only the first 10 or so books, I give it that.

Yeah, I've definitely enjoyed 4e levels 1-4 best. Should bear that in mind next time I run it, and just plan around a 1-4 campaign.

Ah, good old Mike "Shout Hands Back On" Mearls.

Rest In Peace Warlord.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102342There was a lot of hate on both sides of the Edition Wars. Don't pretend it all came from the 4E side.

Before 5E was even announced, I'd had it with many of the 3E and 4E fans on such topics.  It was as if the more nasty AD&D, Hero System, and GURPs arguments had gotten moved to a much bigger venue and all the worst people from every side were handed the microphones at the same time.  I especially got tired of all the people with a financial stake in the outcomes pretending they were altruistic.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1102353It was as if the more nasty AD&D, Hero System, and GURPs arguments had gotten moved to a much bigger venue and all the worst people from every side were handed the microphones at the same time.

GURPS rools, HERO drools! :cool:

Quote from: CRKrueger;1102269I think a lot of 4e peeps migrated to 13th Age.

What I heard as well but have never seen 13th Age to tell if that would be viable?

Quote from: CRKrueger;1102269I think a lot of 4e peeps migrated to 13th Age.

Doesnt 13th Age have even less players then 4e?

Quote from: Chris24601;1102342Worth remembering though is that according to some of the anti-4E people "bad and hateful advice" = "please include elements of 4E that its players actually liked, such as the warlord class. Also maybe don't mock your current player base with comments from your devs about warlords 'shouting hands back on' when the system in question didn't even have rules for dismemberment and pushed non-physical hit points harder than any edition ever had."

There was a lot of hate on both sides of the Edition Wars. Don't pretend it all came from the 4E side.

Of course not. But somehow the 4e fanatics were hellbent on outdoing everyone else for their hate of every other edition. And WOTC egged them on to it with those damn advertisements.

The regular 4e fans were not like that and no one had a problem with them. Same for the 4e D&D Gamma World version. Alot of folk who disliked 4e looked at it and saw in GW that 4e could do classic D&D if just given the chance. Apparently Essentials did this as well but came too late?

Personally I look at core 4e and it is not D&D. It is just too removed with its MMO speak and overhaul of the system. I dont dislike it, other than the layout and MMO terms flying around, ugh! But it is just not my thing as is. One of these days I'll get ahold of a copy of Essentials and see what they did with it.

But my first exposure to 4e was via Gamma World and that feels more D&D-ish to me. Even with the CCG and board game elements glued on. So finally seeing 4e itself was quite a perplexing thing. But still GW left me in a more open minded frame of mind.

It's still being played in some RPG/Tabletop clubs in my area, but not a lot.
13th Age seems more popular for sure though.

It's definitely still alive, and gets plenty of posts at EnWorld from people playing it still.

I'd say some of the later adventures are only now being discovered by some. And that makes sense, as the later adventures were quite good and yet were assumed to be bad because so many earlier adventures were lacking. For example, Madness at Gardmore Abbey is excellent...but few at the time were aware of it as that was near the very end of 4e./

Quote from: Shasarak;1102391Doesnt 13th Age have even less players then 4e?

Yeah from the data I've seen (and you posted some of that) 4e still have more players than M&M, GURPS, 13th Age, Traveller, etc..

Don't know if this Orr Report is a good indicator of popularity. But if it is, then D&D4 is in a bad spot right now. I couldn't even find it on the list:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/amp (https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/amp)

Quote from: Mistwell;1102408Yeah from the data I've seen (and you posted some of that) 4e still have more players than M&M, GURPS, 13th Age, Traveller, etc..

I do not think online gaming is the majority of gaming.

4e has a lot of passionate fans. 13th age only attracts that really small minority of RPGers that play "Not D&D".

Quote from: Itachi;1102419Don't know if this Orr Report is a good indicator of popularity. But if it is, then D&D4 is in a bad spot right now. I couldn't even find it on the list:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/amp (https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.roll20.net/post/186546450860/the-orr-group-industry-report-q2-2019-back-and/amp)

Ummm... it's literally right under DungeonWorld on the long list towards the end of the article. As I mentioned previously in referencing that list, D&D 4E scores better than every version of TSR and OSR D&D and almost better than all of them (official and OSR retroclones) put together.

It's dead enough I rarely have to hear or read people bitching about it anymore. Good enough for me.

I don't understand hating a game. I don't like 3e or 5e. Neither are fun for me, but hate should be saved for worthy targets, like your fellow human beings, not games.

Quote from: Omega;1102389What I heard as well but have never seen 13th Age to tell if that would be viable?

Check out the free 13th Age SRD. It will give you enough of an overview to determine if it works for you.
https://www.13thagesrd.com/

Quote from: Shasarak;1102391Doesnt 13th Age have even less players then 4e?

Of course because the publishers were morons who didn't maximize their marketing during the year when there was no D&D on the market and the 4e fanbase felt abandoned by WotC. Zweihander may be a mega-asshole, but he worked hard to get the word out to WFRP 2e fans that he heard them and write a game specifically for them.

Such a shame too.

Quote from: Mistwell;1102407It's definitely still alive, and gets plenty of posts at EnWorld from people playing it still.

I'd say some of the later adventures are only now being discovered by some. And that makes sense, as the later adventures were quite good and yet were assumed to be bad because so many earlier adventures were lacking. For example, Madness at Gardmore Abbey is excellent...but few at the time were aware of it as that was near the very end of 4e./

4ed, whatever its flaws was very badly served by Keep on the Shadowfell. A lot of people want to use a premade adventure when just learning a system for the first time and if the only available adventure is utter garbage it'll impact people's first impressions badly.

What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

I would happily play in a 4e game again if I found one. 13th Age too, for that matter. But everyone's in love with 5e around here.

I converted Reavers of Harkenwold to 5e and have run it for a few different groups. It's a great module!

How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

Quote from: Daztur;1102477What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

This is very true. 4e does "set pieces" very well and those can be anywhere. Definitely, the traditional dungeoncrawl doesn't work as well, which is yet another reason WotC should have kept 3.5 and launched the DragonSword minis skirmish RPG (aka 4e) and championed what DragonSword does extremely well. Nothing hurt 4e more than the D&D on the front cover.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1102509This is very true. 4e does "set pieces" very well and those can be anywhere. Definitely, the traditional dungeoncrawl doesn't work as well, which is yet another reason WotC should have kept 3.5 and launched the DragonSword minis skirmish RPG (aka 4e) and championed what DragonSword does extremely well. Nothing hurt 4e more than the D&D on the front cover.

The thing is I don't think they had a good understanding of what worked well for 4ed and what didn't, otherwise they'd never have release KotSF.

Quote from: Omega;1102495How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

It's basically a mediocre 3.5ed adventure translated directly into 4ed which results in a horrible grindfest since 4ed combat takes longer by default and takes a LOT longer if the party is all newbies. TSR-D&D works fine with the party getting slowly ground down by a bunch of small skirmishes, this only kinda sorta works for 3.5ed or 5ed and REALLY doesn't work in 4ed. Gotta pace 4ed like an action movie in which each fight is BIG and MEANS something. Otherwise it's horrible eye-grinding torture. If you play it right it's fine.

So play it with the Gamma World rules instead... got it. :cool:

Quote from: Daztur;1102477What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

I disagree, but all of your foes in such a situation need to be minions except for like named boss monsters.

A bunch of full health creatures would just take way too long.

Quote from: Daztur;11024774ed, whatever its flaws was very badly served by Keep on the Shadowfell. A lot of people want to use a premade adventure when just learning a system for the first time and if the only available adventure is utter garbage it'll impact people's first impressions badly.

What is really comes down to is that 4ed is utter trash at running a traditional D&D attrition-based dungeon crawl. It's good for other stuff though (big smashy action scenes) it's just that the developers didn't really teach people how to do that.

Given that at least half the developers didn't know what 4E could and couldn't do, that's not surprising.  When you've got people writing advice in the DMG that is exactly counter to running a good 4E game, and also undermines the effort of other advice in the same damn book, you've got problems.  It's almost as if they rushed it out the door without significant play testing or even content editing.  Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1102530Given that at least half the developers didn't know what 4E could and couldn't do, that's not surprising.  When you've got people writing advice in the DMG that is exactly counter to running a good 4E game, and also undermines the effort of other advice in the same damn book, you've got problems.  It's almost as if they rushed it out the door without significant play testing or even content editing.  Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

It was definitely a shambolic rush job on the PHB-DMG-MM. A big contrast to both the preview books (Worlds & Monsters, Races & Classes) and the very late era material from 2011, when it was too late.

Might be dead, but I've bought up loads of Essentials stuff. All of it bar the red box actually. Might use it for skirmish games, or something with my kid. I've got the D&D I want (AD&D 2E), so this is just there to be something different. The monster vault box is nice to have and I can probably use the tokens across a number of systems.

Quote from: Omega;1102495How bad is Keep on Shadowfell? Ive heard people hate it and people like it but never seen it myself?

Been a few years but...it's adequate. The main issue was it was so very different than a D&D adventure, just a collection of set piece battles, not much in the way of exploring.

This ultimately was the problem with 4e: no great adventures. I haven't heard anyone say any 4e adventures were impressive (I have several, a few are downright unplayable). Much as a great game can make a console, 4e needed a great adventure to make it worthwhile...and that adventure never came.

Quote from: Doom;1102577Been a few years but...it's adequate. The main issue was it was so very different than a D&D adventure, just a collection of set piece battles, not much in the way of exploring.

This ultimately was the problem with 4e: no great adventures. I haven't heard anyone say any 4e adventures were impressive (I have several, a few are downright unplayable). Much as a great game can make a console, 4e needed a great adventure to make it worthwhile...and that adventure never came.

I've said it and will say it again: Madness at Gardmore Abbey is a great adventure. However, because it was the end of the 4e life cycle, few bought it to find that out.

I gave 4e a chance when it first came out, but quickly realized it wasn't for me. So from my point of view it wasn't ever really alive. (Not that this matters to what "the market" or "the industry" as a whole did or is currently doing.)

As a side-comment, I'd be cautious about taking stuff like Roll20 statistics as indicators of what is alive/dead/played-the-most/etc. The most you could reasonably say is those numbers reflect what is alive/dead/played-the-most on Roll20 (or whatever). For my part, I can count the number of times I've played "online" on one hand. The vast, vast majority of my RPG play time is spent face-to-face around a table. Again, just FWIW.

Quote from: Mistwell;1102580I've said it and will say it again: Madness at Gardmore Abbey is a great adventure. However, because it was the end of the 4e life cycle, few bought it to find that out.

That was true of us in spades.  It was the best published adventure we did in 4E, but we gave out on the system while we in the middle of it.  Fortunately, most of my players have bad memories for adventures like it.  So eventually I'll recycle it for some other game.

There actually is a computer game for 4e called Neverwinter. I haven't played in a few years but it looks like they are still releasing expansions for it. It has microtransactions so the compulsive might want to avoid it, nonetheless it was a fun game to putter around in. It doesn't have all the classes and races but the 4e roles and power structure are both there.

Quote from: Doom;1102577Been a few years but...it's adequate. The main issue was it was so very different than a D&D adventure, just a collection of set piece battles, not much in the way of exploring.

This ultimately was the problem with 4e: no great adventures. I haven't heard anyone say any 4e adventures were impressive (I have several, a few are downright unplayable). Much as a great game can make a console, 4e needed a great adventure to make it worthwhile...and that adventure never came.

Madness at Gardmore Abbey is excellent. Reavers of Harkenwold is very good. The two setting books of Hammerfast and Vor Rukoth are very cool - they have almost no rules content, and the latter could easily pass for an OSR sword and sorcery sandbox. It's a strange irony that the best 4E material came out in the last year of so its run.

Even Thunderspire Labyrinth is an awesome adventure setting - a vast minotaur ruin that plays out like the AD&D D-series. It just goes to show how much expectations and packaging shape opinion. Convert Thunderpsire Labyrinth to an OSR system, give it metal 80s artwork, and release it with an indie publisher, and grognards would be blowing their load all over it.

Thunderspire was great until the Well of Demons.

....

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Quote from: Doom;1102577Been a few years but...it's adequate. The main issue was it was so very different than a D&D adventure, just a collection of set piece battles, not much in the way of exploring.

That was in a way hoe they handled the intro adventure for Gamma World too. It is more a set of board game encounters to move your pogs around on the board.

I think once you distanced yourself from the adventurers and just DIYed stuff or overhauled what was there. You had a serviceable RPG rather than a board game.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1102530Given that at least half the developers didn't know what 4E could and couldn't do, that's not surprising.  When you've got people writing advice in the DMG that is exactly counter to running a good 4E game, and also undermines the effort of other advice in the same damn book, you've got problems.  It's almost as if they rushed it out the door without significant play testing or even content editing.  Oh, wait, that's exactly what they did.

Same with Gamma World. You have one designer wanting to do slapstick comedy. One wanting to do an actual Gamma World setting, and one wanting to do deformed circus freak horrors.
This is how you end up with a patchwork of a game that may end up conflicting with itself. This crazyquilt approach to game design seemed to be a design mandate.

Quote from: Conanist;1102617There actually is a computer game for 4e called Neverwinter. I haven't played in a few years but it looks like they are still releasing expansions for it. It has microtransactions so the compulsive might want to avoid it, nonetheless it was a fun game to putter around in. It doesn't have all the classes and races but the 4e roles and power structure are both there.

Neverwinter Online. An MMO. It actually doesnt have microtransactions in the normal negative sense. Instead you can purchase an in game currency to buy stuff from shops, or buy VIP which grants you some small perks and a few conveniences. But... You can actually earn the currency in game if you so want to and never spend a real dime.

Systemwise it is only superficially D&D. Its actually a percentile system and seems to be using some the same basic system as their Champions MMO, which is based on the Champions RPG. But more importantly NWO is a VERY item driven system which even 4e was not so locked in to. Everything revolves around your equipment stats. Your equipment stats directly impact your skills,

But you can see the elements of the MMO in 4e in places and that may have been intentional. When PW did the Champions MMO the RPG got overhauled to more mirror the MMO.

Quote from: Omega;1102694Neverwinter Online. An MMO. It actually doesnt have microtransactions in the normal negative sense. Instead you can purchase an in game currency to buy stuff from shops, or buy VIP which grants you some small perks and a few conveniences. But... You can actually earn the currency in game if you so want to and never spend a real dime.

Systemwise it is only superficially D&D. Its actually a percentile system and seems to be using some the same basic system as their Champions MMO, which is based on the Champions RPG. But more importantly NWO is a VERY item driven system which even 4e was not so locked in to. Everything revolves around your equipment stats. Your equipment stats directly impact your skills,

But you can see the elements of the MMO in 4e in places and that may have been intentional. When PW did the Champions MMO the RPG got overhauled to more mirror the MMO.

Huh, I recall frequently getting chests as loot drops, to the point you'd have dozens of them. You had to buy a key for $1 worth of their currency to open it and get the treasure. And if someone got something good it would be broadcast to the entire server "Dingleberry jr has acquired the Apparatus of Kwalish!". Maybe they changed it.

Quote from: Conanist;1102767Huh, I recall frequently getting chests as loot drops, to the point you'd have dozens of them. You had to buy a key for $1 worth of their currency to open it and get the treasure. And if someone got something good it would be broadcast to the entire server "Dingleberry jr has acquired the Apparatus of Kwalish!". Maybe they changed it.

heh, that part hasnt changed. Thought Id mentioned the lootboxes. But apparently not. Getting a VIP account allows you to collect a key a day. So even there you technically dont have to buy them. And as noted, can get them without spending real money. You just have to put some effort into it. The announcements of epic rank items isnt as onerous as on some other MMOs. Pretty sure you can even toggle it off.

Back on topic. Considering the changes to Champions. I have a strong suspicion that the changes to 4e may have been because of the MMO. According to one of my players who played the early release apparently the two were fairly simmilar in some ways. Divergent in others.

You have the at will powers, the encounter powers and the daily powers. Though in the MMO I'd guess they refresh alot faster. I really need to look at 4e core more and puzzle it out.

Not Dead Enough.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3813[/ATTACH]

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1102978[ATTACH=CONFIG]3813[/ATTACH]

See #67

Oh God Dammit.  That'll teach me to shitpost without reading through the thread first.

I don't think I could face 4e without the character builder

Quote from: TJS;1103051I don't think I could face 4e without the character builder

Which is yet another reason I've been writing my 4E spiritual successor; everything the players will ever need in one book (a Player's Guide with no later player splats to keep the cost of buy-in as low as possible; the GM's Guide completes the core rules and any other add-ons will be setting books and adventures using the core rules).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1103039Oh God Dammit.  That'll teach me to shitpost without reading through the thread first.

Why do I feel suddenly like I've leveled up........

I'm tempted, perhaps out of perversity, to make a kind of OSR 4E hack.

Basically I would take the basic combat engine of 4E and strip back all of the classes.  Remove the powers entirely.

Everything that you can do in 4E would still be on the table - pushes, slides, pulls, dazes, blinding etc, but it would be entirely the province of stunts.

Perhaps use something like DCC's deed dice as a mechanism to enable this.

So, pretty much remove the character generation minigame - keep the part that is actually fun - the combat engine - and expand on it by making everything a creative response to circumstance.

Quote from: Omega;1102693Same with Gamma World. You have one designer wanting to do slapstick comedy. One wanting to do an actual Gamma World setting, and one wanting to do deformed circus freak horrors. This is how you end up with a patchwork of a game that may end up conflicting with itself. This crazyquilt approach to game design seemed to be a design mandate.

This is unfortunately true. I took a hammer to GW and it works for me because I torched the slapstick. The "circus freak" aspect of chargen isn't bad IF the GM puts limits and discusses the tone he wants for the campaign. That's the double edged sword of allowing players to define powers and items without limits - it encourages lots of creativity, but the gonzo can become a joke setting quickly.

It's one of the reasons I'm re-imagining GW for fantasy.

Quote from: TJS;1103069I'm tempted, perhaps out of perversity, to make a kind of OSR 4E hack.

Basically I would take the basic combat engine of 4E and strip back all of the classes.  Remove the powers entirely.

Everything that you can do in 4E would still be on the table - pushes, slides, pulls, dazes, blinding etc, but it would be entirely the province of stunts.

Perhaps use something like DCC's deed dice as a mechanism to enable this.

So, pretty much remove the character generation minigame - keep the part that is actually fun - the combat engine - and expand on it by making everything a creative response to circumstance.

OK, that sounds interesting.

I ran a years-long 4e campaign that wrapped up a few months ago, and legitimately quite like it.  But I'm a fan of turn-based strategy games, which is basically what its combat system is.

Quote from: TJS;1103051I don't think I could face 4e without the character builder

That's probably my biggest barrier to starting a 4e campaign in the future.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103130That's probably my biggest barrier to starting a 4e campaign in the future.

That's what finally sank 4e for me, you needed software to play the damn tabletop game.

Didn't some of the promotional videos for 4e even show an open laptop on the gaming table? I suspect WotC had computer gaming and computer-assisted tabletop gaming in their "4e system" plans.

Or you could just make a character out of the PH? That's what I do.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1103178Didn't some of the promotional videos for 4e even show an open laptop on the gaming table? I suspect WotC had computer gaming and computer-assisted tabletop gaming in their "4e system" plans.

They did. Only the sole developer died suddenly before the software was finished, and they had to release the game without the software.

The hyperbole grows long in this thread.

Yeah, I just make a 4e character with some books and a pencil and char sheet. Go figure!

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103179Or you could just make a character out of the PH? That's what I do.

Shhhh....... Stop confusing people with logical suggestions.  Just building a character, or even an entire adventuring party out of the PHB; wouldn't allow for peak optimization across the entire edition.  

Oh wait, 4E was balanced and wasn't supposed to have any poor options; so I guess you would be just fine building characters out of the PHB?

Yes, of course, you could make a character right out of the pHB, ignoring many pages of errata...but how do you ignore the book-a-month coming out, often with interrelating options. You can't miss out on a +1 since that's the heart of the game.

Quote from: RandyB;1103180They did. Only the sole developer died suddenly before the software was finished, and they had to release the game without the software.

His death wasn't exactly a mystery.

https://modenook.com/the-murdersuicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online/

Quote from: Doom;1103211Yes, of course, you could make a character right out of the pHB, ignoring many pages of errata...but how do you ignore the book-a-month coming out, often with interrelating options. You can't miss out on a +1 since that's the heart of the game.

That's not really how that worked though. There was nothing in the other books which, if you didn't take, you'd be "behind". Most were just additional classes, and often weaker options than what was already in the PHB. If you used just PHB, your PC was balanced just fine against those using expansion books.

Quote from: Mistwell;1103217That's not really how that worked though. There was nothing in the other books which, if you didn't take, you'd be "behind". Most were just additional classes, and often weaker options than what was already in the PHB. If you used just PHB, your PC was balanced just fine against those using expansion books.

If you're talking about Wizards, Rangers, Fighters or Warlords in particular that is definitely not the case.  They gained an awful lot from the supplements.  (And of course there's the math fix items and feats - you don't take those you definitely will be behind).  But balance is not the point.  

If you just use the PHB you're missing Bards, Barbarians, Druids and Sorcerers.  If you play a Ranger you basically have two ways to do it: Drizzt or Legolas.  One of the cleric builds is missing powers at some levels to choose.
4E was a game built from the beginning to be expanded upon and added to.  Added to that design on the whole got better as the edition went on - a lot of the best elements are late in the line (like the Berserker class)

You can play it with just the PHB - but personally I wouldn't really want to.

Quote from: TJS;1103225If you're talking about Wizards, Rangers, Fighters or Warlords in particular that is definitely not the case.  They gained an awful lot from the supplements.  (And of course there's the math fix items and feats - you don't take those you definitely will be behind).  

Yeah, you do pretty much need the "+1 to hit per Tier" Feats from PHB2 or Essentials - Essentials ones are stronger with extra stuff added. You might get away without them Tier 1, but a +2 or +3 is huge in 4e.

Quote from: metallica9998;1103215His death wasn't exactly a mystery.

https://modenook.com/the-murdersuicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online/

I didn't recall the details. But his death prevented the completion of the digital tools originally planned.

Quote from: RandyB;1103257I didn't recall the details. But his death prevented the completion of the digital tools originally planned.

Even if he hadn't died, his murdering his ex would have put a spanner in the works.

I ran a 4E campaign for 18-24 months (forget exactly how long) and never used any kind of software at all.  Not having to deal with all the supplements was a plus.  I think I had the first round of supplements, and MM2 was definitely an improvement over MM1.  

Of course, I was running it as a D&D RPG, not a board game or tactical skirmish game.  That might have affected how it went.

Quote from: S'mon;1103227Yeah, you do pretty much need the "+1 to hit per Tier" Feats from PHB2 or Essentials - Essentials ones are stronger with extra stuff added. You might get away without them Tier 1, but a +2 or +3 is huge in 4e.

I know our table banned Essentials (aside from things like Monster Vault), because Mearls is on record saying that was him trying to kill the edition*

You don't actually need those feats if your group combos together. But most of us bought the books we are using with our characters.

*Pure rumor that I believe 100%

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103260I know our table banned Essentials (aside from things like Monster Vault), because Mearls is on record saying that was him trying to kill the edition*

You don't actually need those feats if your group combos together. But most of us bought the books we are using with our characters.

*Pure rumor that I believe 100%

LOL "pure rumor" and "on record" are mutually exclusive. He said no such thing. It's completely fake news nonsense.

In my opinion, Essentials was a big improvement on 4e and made the game much more fun to play for our group. Your view may vary (though given the nonsense you believe, I doubt you even read it).

Quote from: Haffrung;1103130That's probably my biggest barrier to starting a 4e campaign in the future.

Lets see how hard it is. I'm borrowing one of my players copies for this.
Before I roll into this one major observation. The PHB HEAVILY mirrors the Neverwinter MMO and after looking through I can say that this should have been called Neverwinter Online: The RPG. The only notable big difference is HP and damage scaling which is exponentially higher in NWO and the lack or change of skills and feats. They even added Astral Diamonds to D&D! (Assuming it isnt some artifact from some 3e book?)

Ok lets see,
Race: Dragonborn +2 Strength, +2 Charisma. +2 skill bonus to History and Intimidate.  A +2 racial bonus when bloodied, a better healing surge, and dragon breath as an encounter power.
Class: Warlock: Plays off Cha, Con and Int. Two paths, Deceptive and Scourge. I'll go Scourge
Role: Assuming I am reading this right then the only option open to a Warlock is the Striker role?

Next up stats. Lets go with the suggested method of standard array. 16 14 13 12 11 10
Book suggests Con then Int then Cha as important to a Scourge Warlock. Soooo. (But turns out the primary is based on your pact path)
Con: 16
Int: 14
Cha: 15 (13+2)
Str: 12 (10+2)
Dex: 12
Wis: 11

Lets see, they start off with Eldritch Blast
I have to choose a pact. Fey, Infernal, or Star. Lets go Infernal. Alot of these powers play off Con. Grants Hellish Rebuke and Dark ones Blessing - which heals you 1 point per level every time an enemy under your curse dies. Healing potions on legs!
Warlocks curse deals extra damage to those under it when you hit them.
Then the powers, at wills, encounter, and daily... whatever those mean. You get 2 at will, and 1 encounter and daily.
At will: Eldritch blast: uses con or cha so good there. Range of 10. 10 what?
At will: Hellish Rebuke: uses con. Range 10. Deals damage and if you take damage while it is in effect the target takes damage too.
Encounter: Diabolic Grasp: also uses con and range 10. Damage and slides the target 2 squares. +additional equal to int mod in squares for infernal pact. I choose this one. The other is...
Encounter: Vampiric Embrace: con & range of 5. Deals damage and grants you 5 temp HP. Infernal pact adds the same int bonus to the temp HP gained
Daily: Flames of Phelegos: con & range 10. 3d10+con mod damage. +5 damage per round till a save is made.  I choose this one. The other is...
Daily: Armour of Agathys: grants 10+ int mod temp HP. Does cold damage to nearby foes.

Next would be skill selection which seems pretty straightforward.

Feats... oh boy this is where it gets messy doesnt it? 15 pages of them! This really needed a progression tree diagram to show what feats are needed for what other feats. Because several need you to have taken A before you can take B. And some have a C and D step too looks like! AND stat requirements. So you need to consider feats before assigning stats possibly.
It isnt too bad once you get the hang of it. But you need to plan ahead if you have certain goals. Choosing feats willy nilly may make getting the high end ones later harder. That is just a guess based on what I am seeing at a glance here. I am not concerned as I am playing a character rather than a stat block. But still. Its something to bear in mind.

After that is equipment. Armour seems kinda... limited??? Weapons has a fair variety, but is also slightly less. Then there is a big section of magic gear? Looks like for later shopping once the PCs have cash.

Aside from feats, which I'll puzzle out later. This seemed pretty easy to write down. Still need to find the section explaining encounter and daily power use.

I am guessing that later books pile on the complexity of feats or something?

We're currently running a 4e game that cobbled a bunch of early adventures from the initial release and I strung them into a campaign. We started with Escape from Sembia, migrated to the other side of Faerûn, did the adventures in the FRCG, then went into the Scepter Tower of Spellgard. I found two more follow up adventures for that area (Shrouded Visions, From Dusk til Dawn) from Living Forgotten Realms adventures that will finally see the PCs hit Paragon Tier.

Our group consists of 3 D&D veterans, all who've played 3.5 and 5e. Two of them both like 4e and 5e and don't mind switching between the systems. One prefers 4e but doesn't mind 5e. The other player, who started with 4e and has done some 5e really doesn't like 5e. I asked him why and he said he just doesn't like how limited it compared to 4e. Despite the continued success of 5e I'd still rather DM or play 4e. They both have their strengths and I don't mind either, but for preferences it'll always be 4e.

Quote from: Omega;1103401Lets see how hard it is. I'm borrowing one of my players copies for this.
Before I roll into this one major observation. The PHB HEAVILY mirrors the Neverwinter MMO and after looking through I can say that this should have been called Neverwinter Online: The RPG. The only notable big difference is HP and damage scaling which is exponentially higher in NWO and the lack or change of skills and feats. They even added Astral Diamonds to D&D! (Assuming it isnt some artifact from some 3e book?)

It couldn't be called "Neverwinter Online: The RPG" because 4E came first by a wide margin (Indeed, the Neverwinter MMO wasn't even announced until after AFTER Essentials had hit the shelves in 2010 and didn't go live until 2012... it's also known that work on Neverwinter didn't begin until after Atari bought Cryptic in 2009, by which point 4E was already in its second year of release).

Cryptic cribbed from 4E (just like it did from Champions for its Champions MMO), not the other way around. Why do I know this? Because it was peripheral to City of Heroes and the Star Trek Online MMO at the time.

For example, Astral diamonds began in 4E to deal with transporting the exponentially large amounts of wealth PCs could gain (even with 1 pp being worth 100 gp in 4E; a million gp would be on the order of 200 pounds of platinum).

In universe, Astral diamonds were the currency of the epic realms (sorta like the joke about "God, is it true one of your seconds is like a million years to us? YES. And that you pennies are like a million dollars to is? YES. Then may I have one your pennies? SURE, JUST A SEC."); the currency of titans, demigods and the like.

Anyway, you only NEED a computer to build a PC if you're into 3e style charops. Likewise, 90% of the errata was simply to close some loopholes that charops exploited, but that 99% of normal players wouldn't even stumble into (because much of 4E charop involved leveraging multiple elements, typically from multiple books/articles).

Blade Cascade is a prime example. It was a daily power that let the Ranger keep attacking so long as they kept hitting. If you're just employing the normal math that generally means you'll get a couple hits in before a miss, but some charops types leveraged a couple of other powers (and I believe multi-classing) to create an "infinite" blade cascade (basically they got things to where they'd only miss on a natural 1, then used the power).

The errata was to limit blade cascade to five hits at most; which a non-charops type is never likely to ever reach so for a normal table it was irrelevant.

90% of 4E's errata was like that; generally rewording things to close down twisted interpretations of Rules as Written and bring them closer to Rules as Interpreted by any competent DM with an ounce of backbone.

The point being, it is actually very easy to play 4E without a builder program or the errata. The game ISN'T actually an MMO where only PCs with the most optimized builds can participate in end game raids. It's a tabletop RPG with a very transparent system (so the DM can easily guestimate how dangerous an encounter is going to be) where it's pretty easy to hit the basic benchmarks of competency if you just follow the provided advice (ex. the Wizard class tells you to put your highest ability score into Intelligence, your next highest into Con or Wis and third highest into the other of those two; put one of your stat bumps every time you get them into Intelligence and the other into Wis or Con. if you do that you'll have acceptable accuracy/damage and decent hit points/defenses for a wizard regardless of what attacks or feats you take).

The only reason people think otherwise is because charops was a disproportionately loud segment of the online community. They were the ones who "determined" that an expertise feat was needed (because they didn't grok that teamwork and synergy between PCs was intended to (and did) make up for the shortfall) and decided that the "benchmark" for striker classes was to be able to drop one standard enemy a round using only at-wills and that if you didn't build that way you shouldn't even be allowed to play.

Meanwhile, plenty of people who never even looked at a forum made PCs and ran them in campaigns where everything ran just fine.

Quote from: Omega;1103401Lets see how hard it is. I'm borrowing one of my players copies for this.
Before I roll into this one major observation. The PHB HEAVILY mirrors the Neverwinter MMO and after looking through I can say that this should have been called Neverwinter Online: The RPG. The only notable big difference is HP and damage scaling which is exponentially higher in NWO and the lack or change of skills and feats. They even added Astral Diamonds to D&D! (Assuming it isnt some artifact from some 3e book?)

Ok lets see,
Race: Dragonborn +2 Strength, +2 Charisma. +2 skill bonus to History and Intimidate.  A +2 racial bonus when bloodied, a better healing surge, and dragon breath as an encounter power.
Class: Warlock: Plays off Cha, Con and Int. Two paths, Deceptive and Scourge. I'll go Scourge
Role: Assuming I am reading this right then the only option open to a Warlock is the Striker role?

Next up stats. Lets go with the suggested method of standard array. 16 14 13 12 11 10
Book suggests Con then Int then Cha as important to a Scourge Warlock. Soooo. (But turns out the primary is based on your pact path)
Con: 16
Int: 14
Cha: 15 (13+2)
Str: 12 (10+2)
Dex: 12
Wis: 11

Lets see, they start off with Eldritch Blast
I have to choose a pact. Fey, Infernal, or Star. Lets go Infernal. Alot of these powers play off Con. Grants Hellish Rebuke and Dark ones Blessing - which heals you 1 point per level every time an enemy under your curse dies. Healing potions on legs!
Warlocks curse deals extra damage to those under it when you hit them.
Then the powers, at wills, encounter, and daily... whatever those mean. You get 2 at will, and 1 encounter and daily.
At will: Eldritch blast: uses con or cha so good there. Range of 10. 10 what?
At will: Hellish Rebuke: uses con. Range 10. Deals damage and if you take damage while it is in effect the target takes damage too.
Encounter: Diabolic Grasp: also uses con and range 10. Damage and slides the target 2 squares. +additional equal to int mod in squares for infernal pact. I choose this one. The other is...
Encounter: Vampiric Embrace: con & range of 5. Deals damage and grants you 5 temp HP. Infernal pact adds the same int bonus to the temp HP gained
Daily: Flames of Phelegos: con & range 10. 3d10+con mod damage. +5 damage per round till a save is made.  I choose this one. The other is...
Daily: Armour of Agathys: grants 10+ int mod temp HP. Does cold damage to nearby foes.

Next would be skill selection which seems pretty straightforward.  

Feats... oh boy this is where it gets messy doesnt it? 15 pages of them! This really needed a progression tree diagram to show what feats are needed for what other feats. Because several need you to have taken A before you can take B. And some have a C and D step too looks like! AND stat requirements. So you need to consider feats before assigning stats possibly.
It isnt too bad once you get the hang of it. But you need to plan ahead if you have certain goals. Choosing feats willy nilly may make getting the high end ones later harder. That is just a guess based on what I am seeing at a glance here. I am not concerned as I am playing a character rather than a stat block. But still. Its something to bear in mind.

After that is equipment. Armour seems kinda... limited??? Weapons has a fair variety, but is also slightly less. Then there is a big section of magic gear? Looks like for later shopping once the PCs have cash.

Aside from feats, which I'll puzzle out later. This seemed pretty easy to write down. Still need to find the section explaining encounter and daily power use.

I am guessing that later books pile on the complexity of feats or something?

There's zillions of them.  Feats, feats and more feats.  (Most of them garbage).

But a lot depends on what you want to achieve.  You can, as I said earlier, run 4E with just the first set of core books (although I would definitely use the Essentials Monster Vault instead of the original Monster Manual) but character options are severely limited.  Whether that matters depends on your group.  If you have a group of newbies it may not matter too much - if you have a group of people who have experience of other editions and what the same character options then you need at least PHB2.

And as I said overall the game's design got better.  Take the fighter, a lot of it's original powers are one shot hit and do a thing powers - later on they realised that this isn't the most satisfying way to handle dailies and added stance powers that last a whole encounter.  The wizard was supposed to be a controller, but a lot of it's orignal powers didn't do that role too well - too influenced by D&D legacy - later powers upped the amount of control that wizards had.  

4E as a whole has too many options and it would be much better to be able to pare that right down to a smaller amount - however just restricting everything to one book wouldn't be the most satisfying way to do this.

I never said you needed a computer to make a character. ( So anyone who's trying to prove that you don't need the books - stop being such an idiot!)  But I'd rather have one, because these days I can't face the idea of a whole session of players going through books and choosing feats and powers - and because the best version of 4E is not located in one or two or even three books but scattered across a whole range of books which are mostly a waste of page count otherwise (so I really don't want to drag them out of storage) - and if I'm going to play the game I want to play the best version of the game.  (Why wouldn't I?).

My last attempt (http://nentirvalecampaign.blogspot.com/) to run a 4e campaign 2017-18, I wanted a simple Heroic-Tier game in the Nentir Vale, just use a few books, no electronics. Pretty sandboxy, pretty old school. What actually happened was that two players used the all-source offline character builder to make optimised PCs, one of them made the PCs for all the other players, and explained to them how to use those PCs in combat. So basically I ended up just playing against her. One time she was absent, so after a brief fight where the Hunter Ranger massacred all the hobgoblin minions with his AoE burst-1 At-Will longbow/machinegun, the remaining players just froze up and refused to do anything for the rest of the session.

That experience really knocked me back and reduced my enthusiasm. That kind of thing simply does not happen with 5e D&D.

Thinking about my experience, my biggest problems were definitely around the player Essentials material. I think if I try again it'll need to be pre-Essentials only on the player side, just a curated list of the 2008-9 hardbacks. The 4e PHB does do some things that are interesting and very different from 5e; whereas Essentials is more like a poor man's 5e. Also, PC creation at-table!

To my mind Essentials just doesn't work.

It's simpler, but it doesn't make use of that simplicity to be more open.  In fact a lot of the more creative options for players, (such as rituals and stunt rules were stripped out of essentials).

In any case it wasn't that players had to make too many choices that was the problem in 4E.  It was that the game was set up so that players wanted to choose.  (Because those choices are significant).

The most meaningful choices to be made were the strategic choices made in character advancement - the tactical choices were of lesser importance unless you had a GM who was really creative with battlefield set-ups.

Essentials stripped out a lot of that strategic element but did absolutely nothing to move those strategic choices to the tactical realm.

It's why I'm tempted to strip back further - make whether your character can push someone, or attempt to blind them, or knock them over - a tactical choice you can make based on individual combat situations rather than a strategic choice made in character advancement.

Or in other words 4E makes creating a character that has a small range of tactics that can work in a team in response to the situations the GM throws at them a strategic puzzle to be solved.  (I can't help but think that miniatures games - where selecting the most appropriate team of character figures who synergise well together was a big inspiration on 4e - but of course in a miniatures game you have team not an individual character - and you can experiment with the makeup of the team from game to game.)

I'd prefer to have more versatile characters, and for the individual battlefield the pcs are face with to be the tactical puzzle to be solved.  (It seems to me that this better takes advantage of the particular strengths of rpgs as a medium).

Quote from: TJS;1103436To my mind Essentials just doesn't work.

It's simpler, but it doesn't make use of that simplicity to be more open.  In fact a lot of the more creative options for players, (such as rituals and stunt rules were stripped out of essentials).

In any case it wasn't that players had to make too many choices that was the problem in 4E.  It was that the game was set up so that players wanted to choose.  (Because those choices are significant).

The most meaningful choices to be made were the strategic choices made in character advancement - the tactical choices were of lesser importance unless you had a GM who was really creative with battlefield set-ups.

Essentials stripped out a lot of that strategic element but did absolutely nothing to move those strategic choices to the tactical realm.

It's why I'm tempted to strip back further - make whether your character can push someone, or attempt to blind them, or knock them over - a tactical choice you can make based on individual combat situations rather than a strategic choice made in character advancement.

Or in other words 4E makes creating a character that has a small range of tactics that can work in a team in response to the situations the GM throws at them a strategic puzzle to be solved.  (I can't help but think that miniatures games - where selecting the most appropriate team of character figures who synergise well together was a big inspiration on 4e - but of course in a miniatures game you have team not an individual character - and you can experiment with the makeup of the team from game to game.)

I'd prefer to have more versatile characters, and for the individual battlefield the pcs are face with to be the tactical puzzle to be solved.  (It seems to me that this better takes advantage of the particular strengths of rpgs as a medium).

Yeah, I think I agree with everything you said there. HoTFL/HoTFK just don't work for me, or for the players who already struggled with options. For them a PHB archer Ranger is much the best bet. I particularly hated how Essentials lost the AEDU design and lost the Rituals, among other 4e elements I liked for the sort of game 4e is.

I agree about tactical choices, though I think having listed "it just works" :D defined Power options in front of the players is good too. I guess players need their own copy of DMG page 42!

What always boggled my mind is the often quoted "all characters are the same" complaint leveled at 4e. I just don't get how that is possible? Despite all PHB classes having the AEDU resource, they all have different things that make them unique. As an experiment I made three Fighters from the PHB, no outside sources. Here's what I got:

Regdar, human Fighter. Str 18, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 10. AC 17; Fort 17, Ref 12, Will 13. HP 29; Bloodied 14, surge value 7, surges/day 9. Exploits: at will - Cleave, Reaping Strike, Sure Strike; encounter - steel serpent strike; daily - brute strike; Feats: Blade Opportunist, Power Attack; Skills: Athletics +7, Endurance +6, Heal +7, Intimidate +5. Equipment: falchion, scale armor, javelins (3), adventuring gear.

Basically your kinda dumb brute, rushes in with a big sword and swings for lots of damage. Has little regard for his defenses and wants to overpower enemies fast, hence the Power Attack. He mitigates the penalty to attacks by positioning (I.e. Flanking) and/or Sure Strike exploit. For enemies he isn't near he'll lead with a javelin. Aside from the charging tactics, he likes to keep his enemies close, thus they can't escape so Steel Serpent does good here. His skills tend to favor his strength and he likes to engage with games of arms or physical prowess. He also knows basic field medic training.

Tordek, dwarf Fighter, Str 18, Con 15, Dex 11, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 8. AC 20; Fort 16, Ref 12, Will 12. HP 30; Bloodied 15, surge value 7, surges/day 9. Exploits: at will - Cleave, Tide of Iron; Encounter- covering attack; daily - villain's menace; Feats: armor proficiency (plate); Skills: Athletics +6, Dungeoneering +2, Endurance +6, Intimidate +4; equipment: plate armor, heavy shield, battleaxe, handaxe (3), adventuring gear.

Tordek, a disciplined and trained warrior, knows that battles are won through composure, endurance, and steadfastness. Reckless and rash assaults are as likely get you killed as they get you fame. Because of his focus on tactics, he relies on his allies to do the bulk of the damage but helps to keep his enemies in position (with exploits like Tide of Iron). He wants to keep his enemies attacks focused on him but in turn make him harder to hit (plate armor prof.) And lastly his daily means he can be a deadly force for a whole battle. His natural skill at Dungeoneering helps navigate treacherous underground terrain.

Elenia, elf Fighter; Str 16, Con 13, Dex 18, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 10. AC 17; Fort 13 Ref 14, Will 13. HP 28 Bloodied 14, surge value 7, surges/day 8. Exploits: at will - Cleave, Sure Strike; Encounter - Passing Attack; Daily - Comeback Strike; Feats: Two-Weapon Fighting; Skills: Athletics +8, Endurance +5, Heal +6, Nature +5, Perception +3; Equipment: hide armor, rapier, short sword, longbow (20 arrows), adventuring gear.

This capricious elf maiden quite enjoys the thrill of Battle. She looks at it as a beautiful dance of deadly steel, always moving in the flow of combat and never slowing. Her blades attempt to find as many targets as she can find and usually starts battles with Passing Attack to mark multiple foes. She's also comfortable with filling her enemies with Fletcher arrows too. For an elf fighter she doesn't wear much armor, making her an easier Target for enemies to hit. She tries to mitigate some of this by using comeback strike, an exploit that boosts her resolve.

So all three of these characters are different in both how they're roleplayed and tactically played, all using one source. Even at 1st level I feel there is a lot of variation in the options they have, not even going into multiclass feats. So maybe it's just me?

Does it matter if they're all different if you're strongly discouraged from having all 3 in the same party?

Anyway it may be an oft quoted complaint - but it's not one I ever actually saw.  In the absence of an actual person making an actual complaint it's not really possible to know if you've adequately responded to anyone's actual concerns.

Quote from: TJS;1103442Does it matter if they're all different if you're strongly discouraged from having all 3 in the same party?

Not entirely sure why it would be discouraged? One guy is nearly a borderline Striker, the other makes sure that his buddy has a solid flanker, whilst the third uses both ranged attacks to mark enemies from farther away or also help in the flanking and ganking (and tanking?) They each have cleave, allowing for multiple opponents to take damage too.

But I suppose you'd want more diversity for a party, pretty much like every other edition pushes for. Three Fighters in a 3.5 game would be...very one sided in approaching obstacles that aren't easily defeated with Combat IMO.

Quote from: TJS;1103442Anyway it may be an oft quoted complaint - but it's not one I ever actually saw.  In the absence of an actual person making an actual complaint it's not really possible to know if you've adequately responded to anyone's actual concerns.

I've had personal arguments about a 'lack of options' and 'sameness' with both people in FLGS and at places like LARPing so...

Quote from: Batman;1103443Not entirely sure why it would be discouraged? One guy is nearly a borderline Striker, the other makes sure that his buddy has a solid flanker, whilst the third uses both ranged attacks to mark enemies from farther away or also help in the flanking and ganking (and tanking?) They each have cleave, allowing for multiple opponents to take damage too.

But I suppose you'd want more diversity for a party, pretty much like every other edition pushes for. Three Fighters in a 3.5 game would be...very one sided in approaching obstacles that aren't easily defeated with Combat IMO.

Well yes.  But you're the one trying to use 3 fighters to prove diversity not me.  If I wanted to make 3 4E fighters to prove diversity I'd use a Ranger, a Warlord, or a Fighter - because all of them fit easily into the "Fighter" mold of other editions.  From that perspective 4E is probably the best WOTC edition to have a Fighter dominated low magic party.

After all, half the classes in the 4E PHB were non-magical.  Something that is certainly not true of 5E

Quote from: Batman;1103443I've had personal arguments about a 'lack of options' and 'sameness' with both people in FLGS and at places like LARPing so...

Sounds very vague.  Maybe if you ask them to come and post here we can judge if you've successfully responded to their complaints.  Or better yet we can ask them.  (Although we'd probably - to be really sure - have to get them to actually play these characters through a game and see if they feel sufficiently diverse - I can't even remember what the powers you listed actually do so your point is lost on me - and, I presume, just about everyone else on this forum).  Absent that?

I mean I imagine that the main complaint would be probably more be something about all classes using the same kind of resource management (WOTC seemed to think so given that this is what they played around with in regard to both the psionics system and later the essentials classes) but I don't really care.

I'm really not sure why you're re-prosecuting a decade old edition war in response to complaints from random people elsewhere.

Quote from: Batman;1103402Despite the continued success of 5e I'd still rather DM or play 4e. They both have their strengths and I don't mind either, but for preferences it'll always be 4e.

Good point. Before 5e came along, I preferred DMing 4e more than any other edition of D&D, or Pathfinder. Once 5e was released, the DM side became slightly easier, but I really missed all the cool player tactics at the table and the fun & unique monster abilities of 4e.

Creating a level 1 PC wasn't a problem. It was leveling them up. The numbers flow through so many values, that you almost have to remake the whole sheet every time you level up. And it becomes increasingly unwieldy to add new powers and feats to a hardcopy PC sheet once  you get past three or four powers/feats.

To be fair, I also find 5E has inherited the problem of handling spells in the same way - they have to be laboriously written out and revised every time you level up. Or else you use spell cards. That's the reasons some of my players will never run a full spellcaster in 5E - they don't want to deal with the paperwork. The problem with 4E is every PC ability for every class is essentially a spell, so the lack of an online tool or cards makes it a hassle to continually revise and update by hand on a hardcopy character sheet.

Of course, everyone has different definitions of hassle. Most of my group considers spending more than 10 minutes to level up a PC to be a hassle. It took 5 min to level up a 4E character using the online tool and then printing it out. Without the tool, it's more like 20 minutes to essentially recreate a character sheet every level as you calculate and revise close to a dozen values and look up, choose, and write out each new power and feat by hand.

Quote from: Robyo;1103447Good point. Before 5e came along, I preferred DMing 4e more than any other edition of D&D, or Pathfinder. Once 5e was released, the DM side became slightly easier, but I really missed all the cool player tactics at the table and the fun & unique monster abilities of 4e.

I miss having everything I need to run an encounter right in front my eyes. No bookmarks of monster manual pages. No lookups of spells or special abilities.

It's clear that 4E was the only edition of D&D that employed a User Experience professional.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103454Creating a level 1 PC wasn't a problem. It was leveling them up. The numbers flow through so many values, that you almost have to remake the whole sheet every time you level up. And it becomes increasingly unwieldy to add new powers and feats to a hardcopy PC sheet once  you get past three or four powers/feats.

Leveling up is pretty simple in 4e (+1/2 level to everything, add what the level up table says), but I will agree, you can't keep the powers in full detail on your sheet, you basically have to reference a book (which is why I only build out of the PH).

Quote from: Haffrung;1103458I miss having everything I need to run an encounter right in front my eyes. No bookmarks of monster manual pages. No lookups of spells or special abilities.

It's clear that 4E was the only edition of D&D that employed a User Experience professional.

   I may be speaking as an Unclean Non-D&D Fan, but I really think that the game has been handicapped in multiple ways by the early and strong tendency to conflate 'magic', 'spells,' 'spellcasting' and 'special powers.'

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103462Leveling up is pretty simple in 4e (+1/2 level to everything, add what the level up table says), but I will agree, you can't keep the powers in full detail on your sheet, you basically have to reference a book (which is why I only build out of the PH).

This is why I typed all my sheets up on Word and printed them when needed. Also why I cribbed the Monster layouts for making PC sheets.

Monster powers work are a pretty good shorthand that lets me put even epic level characters on a single sheet of paper.

For example, here's a fairly complex spell;

O Feast of Souls (1/day): Burst 1 within 10; +27 vs. Will; 1d8+22 psychic and dazed (save ends). Zone (ENT; sustain minor): difficult terrain and creatures take 25 cold damage if starts in or enters zone; move action to shift zone 2.

The "O" at the start is a checkbox when I put it in Word so you can easily mark off when you've used it.

4E never thrilled me but I know some who people love it still. 5E is popular now but it is not my "go to" game. I prefer older systems and retro clones. If you like 4E play it by all means. Make mine Labyrinth Lord, Wizards' World or some such. 4E was dead on arrival to me.

BTW some 4e books still rank around the 40,000 mark on the Amazon Best Seller list. Like the MM for example (https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Monster-Manual-Roleplaying/dp/0786948523/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+4e&qid=1568235457&s=books&sr=1-6) (which is 40,053 as I write this). That's right around where ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG: Revised Core Rulebook ranks, and above Adventures in Middle Earth: Player's Guide by Cubicle 7.

Quote from: Chris24601;1103409It couldn't be called "Neverwinter Online: The RPG" because 4E came first by a wide margin (Indeed, the Neverwinter MMO wasn't even announced until after AFTER Essentials had hit the shelves in 2010 and didn't go live until 2012... it's also known that work on Neverwinter didn't begin until after Atari bought Cryptic in 2009, by which point 4E was already in its second year of release).

Cryptic cribbed from 4E (just like it did from Champions for its Champions MMO), not the other way around. Why do I know this? Because it was peripheral to City of Heroes and the Star Trek Online MMO at the time.

Then you have no idea of the lead times on MMO development.

Quote from: Batman;1103441What always boggled my mind is the often quoted "all characters are the same" complaint leveled at 4e. I just don't get how that is possible? Despite all PHB classes having the AEDU resource, they all have different things that make them unique. As an experiment I made three Fighters from the PHB, no outside sources. Here's what I got:

What I heard most oft from 4e fans, and particularly fanatics, was that the classes were very balanced.

I think what some mean when they say all characters are the same in 4e is that all characters in the same class can end up feeling very cookie-cutter-ish. Especially if using just the core. Just doing that basic chargen I did it was very evident that even for the warlock your options were oddly limited. Moreso due to the potential constraints that feats can and do impose depending on how you go about it. And since it is built to use primarily the array, that makes the characters even more potentially same-y within a class or path.

And I say potentially because you can create characters that are more organic rather than regimented. It is just that your options may potentially be restricted at some point.

From what I am seeing it is like every edition of D&D and probably every RPG ever. Very very YMMV due to the myriad variety of playstyles.

I have not yet looked at comparing 4e class damage outputs for example. But if the board gamers claim it is fairly balanced... then odds are it is. They'd have bitched incessantly otherwise.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103454To be fair, I also find 5E has inherited the problem of handling spells in the same way - they have to be laboriously written out and revised every time you level up. Or else you use spell cards. That's the reasons some of my players will never run a full spellcaster in 5E - they don't want to deal with the paperwork.

Um... since when? I've run various spellcasters and there is very little updating needed for most spells, or the updates are few and far between. Combat cantrips for example all update exactly 3 times. At levels 5, 11, and 17. A fireball does 8d6 damage. It never updates its damage. You can cast a more potent version using a higher spell slot. But even that is only needed to be noted once when you get the spell.

Yes, several spells gain range and such. But this too can be front loaded and no need to update after really unless you really dont want to do the math. In which case just note down at the start what the progression will be. Again, front loaded and done.

Quote from: Omega;1103521Then you have no idea of the lead times on MMO development.

I do actually, and in this case we have a further supporting data point in the form of the acquisition of Cryptic by Atari in 2009 (also, as stated, I've actually been following Cryptic Studios specifically since the City of Heroes and Star Trek Online days and you could always tell when they were working on an unannounced product because devs always got pulled off the currently active MMOs and that chatter crowded the forums). The development of Neverwinter was announced one year later (2010), but the actual game didn't release until June 10, 2013 (on a single platform) putting the development cycle at about 5 years if you presume they started after the purchase by Atari.

That's actually right about the average for MMO development (and certainly in line with other Cryptic MMO projects), particularly for a single platform (it was 2015 before you could play on another other a PC).

I get it... 4E is a video game, hur hur (like I haven't heard that a billion times before). But facts matter and in this case they don't support the notion that Neverwinter came first. Far more likely is development coincided with development of the Essentials line (c. late 2009) since the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was the only post-Essentials setting book released.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103454To be fair, I also find 5E has inherited the problem of handling spells in the same way - they have to be laboriously written out and revised every time you level up.

The F your players doing with their spells? 5e doesn't function that way unless they're doing something very strange. Have you tried telling them "Wrong hole!" when they revise their spells every level?

My apologies for not getting back to this quicker, Grave shift and all....

Quote from: TJS;1103445Well yes.  But you're the one trying to use 3 fighters to prove diversity not me.  If I wanted to make 3 4E fighters to prove diversity I'd use a Ranger, a Warlord, or a Fighter - because all of them fit easily into the "Fighter" mold of other editions.  From that perspective 4E is probably the best WOTC edition to have a Fighter dominated low magic party.

After all, half the classes in the 4E PHB were non-magical.  Something that is certainly not true of 5E

All of that is true and something I wholeheartedly agree with. It was a point made multiple times, especially how to make a really good "Bow" Fighter. I'd just suggest a Ranger, take out the nature-y sounding flavor, don't take aspects that are more Nature-oriented (like the Nature Skill vs. say Perception or Dungeoneering). Unfortunately back then that simply wasn't good enough *Shrugs*. And yes, 4E was probably the best Edition I can think of that can really do a non-magical party that really kicked ass despite not having access to it. A Warlord, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger, and Hunter has - to me anyways - a pretty cool commando-vibe. Add in unique ammunition to their arrows, consumables and equipment like blinding bombs and it's practically S.W.A.T. D&D.

I used 3 Fighters to emphasize that even within the same class there's some pretty good variations despite all being cut from the same cloth. Plus I like making stuff :)

Quote from: TJS;1103445Sounds very vague.  Maybe if you ask them to come and post here we can judge if you've successfully responded to their complaints.  Or better yet we can ask them.  (Although we'd probably - to be really sure - have to get them to actually play these characters through a game and see if they feel sufficiently diverse - I can't even remember what the powers you listed actually do so your point is lost on me - and, I presume, just about everyone else on this forum).  Absent that?

In hindsight, getting them on-board theRPGsite would've been an excellent idea. I'm sorry it sounds vague, they were casual conversations with randos at my FLGS (now a soon to be demolished mall (https://www.post-gazette.com/business/money/2019/06/21/Century-III-Mall-West-Mifflin-redevelop-razed-demolish-Moonbeam-bankruptcy/stories/201906210117)) and a guy at Half-Price books when I was looking through the 4th Edition material there.

I would be totally on board with a one-shot adventure with a party of all the same class using only the PHB material. That's actually a very interesting and fun idea, so thanks!

Quote from: TJS;1103445I mean I imagine that the main complaint would be probably more be something about all classes using the same kind of resource management (WOTC seemed to think so given that this is what they played around with in regard to both the psionics system and later the essentials classes) but I don't really care.

I'm really not sure why you're re-prosecuting a decade old edition war in response to complaints from random people elsewhere.

It was a question as to where the notion really came from and the reason it gained so much traction. You're right though that it probably had far more to do with each class using the same resource management, the AEDU certainly didn't make a lot of friends. Also, I suspect it was a visual reaction to when they saw the colored boxes (Green, Red, Gray, etc) that I guess mimicked video game RPGs in terms of their powers. If you codify and color an option it has a bigger distinction than just a bold type text in a list. At least, that's my working theory.

Also, this seemed to derail into a free-for-all 4E threat, so that's why I threw it out there. Apologies if this threw the thread off the rails.

Quote from: Omega;1103523What I heard most oft from 4e fans, and particularly fanatics, was that the classes were very balanced.

I think what some mean when they say all characters are the same in 4e is that all characters in the same class can end up feeling very cookie-cutter-ish. Especially if using just the core. Just doing that basic chargen I did it was very evident that even for the warlock your options were oddly limited. Moreso due to the potential constraints that feats can and do impose depending on how you go about it. And since it is built to use primarily the array, that makes the characters even more potentially same-y within a class or path.

As far as the balance goes yeah its a lot better balanced than the previous edition, to which I feel is often compared the most with 4e. Balance against 3e/3.5/PF isn't really that hard to do though because it's a borked system in that regard. The cookier-cutter-ish approach - again IMO - can easily be laid at a lot of other Editions feet too. A 1st level Fighter in 2E get very little variation unless you're using Kits and a 1st level Fighter in 3.0/3.5 is going to likely also feel very same-ish. Now the skills can always be altered and you can put all 8+ ranks in say Craft (armorsmithing) and Craft (Weaponsmithing) or cross-class ranks to get Bluff, Move Silently, or Listen. How those skills's use is a whole different matter. The latter also pushed hard for elite array and point-buy as a starting point. I don't think that's necessarily bad - but when most of your actions and turns are "I move 5', attack the creature with my sword" it gets a tad redundant.

Quote from: Omega;1103523And I say potentially because you can create characters that are more organic rather than regimented. It is just that your options may potentially be restricted at some point.

From what I am seeing it is like every edition of D&D and probably every RPG ever. Very very YMMV due to the myriad variety of playstyles.

Yep, I've seen pretty cookie cutter characters from 5E - especially at lower levels. It's either that or everyone is playing a Variant Human because +1 to two stats + skills + feat > +1 in all stats so most people who play human start off in Variant-land.

Quote from: Omega;1103523I have not yet looked at comparing 4e class damage outputs for example. But if the board gamers claim it is fairly balanced... then odds are it is. They'd have bitched incessantly otherwise.

Well that's certainly the truth, lol.

Quote from: Omega;1103526Um... since when? I've run various spellcasters and there is very little updating needed for most spells, or the updates are few and far between. Combat cantrips for example all update exactly 3 times. At levels 5, 11, and 17. A fireball does 8d6 damage. It never updates its damage. You can cast a more potent version using a higher spell slot. But even that is only needed to be noted once when you get the spell.

Yes, several spells gain range and such. But this too can be front loaded and no need to update after really unless you really dont want to do the math. In which case just note down at the start what the progression will be. Again, front loaded and done.

By "updating spells" I mean adding new spells as you learn them. It's one of those things that's just accepted as convention with D&D games, but expecting players to write out every new spell on an ever-expanding character sheet, or looking them up in the rules whenever they're used, is bad design.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103628By "updating spells" I mean adding new spells as you learn them. It's one of those things that's just accepted as convention with D&D games, but expecting players to write out every new spell on an ever-expanding character sheet, or looking them up in the rules whenever they're used, is bad design.

No it's not?

Do you only play Ars Magica or the White Hack?

Quote from: Haffrung;1103628By "updating spells" I mean adding new spells as you learn them. It's one of those things that's just accepted as convention with D&D games, but expecting players to write out every new spell on an ever-expanding character sheet, or looking them up in the rules whenever they're used, is bad design.

You are bothered that players need to add to their character sheets when they FIND OR LEARN SOMETHING NEW?

Again, the F? How is this "bad design"? What would you expect, a sheet filled with everything the players could find or learn, and they check it off as they find it or learn it?

Quote from: Haffrung;1103628By "updating spells" I mean adding new spells as you learn them. It's one of those things that's just accepted as convention with D&D games, but expecting players to write out every new spell on an ever-expanding character sheet, or looking them up in the rules whenever they're used, is bad design.

Jesus wept that has to be one of the more pathetic statements I've seen leveled against D&D so far.

There's a reason half the people who play RPGs never play spellcasters. A lot of gamers want to be able to access everything their PC can do by referring a single-page character sheet, without referencing a book. And a lot have no interest in spending time outside the session transcribing content by hand from books onto PC sheets.

Spell/power cards help fix the issue, why is why an RPG publisher with an instructional design professional on staff would make those cards a core part of the product (of course grognards hate that shit, because it's new and efficient). This also isn't an issue for the growing number of players who simply use digital character sheets. Of course that raises the problem that you need the tool to be supported (which the 4E tool isn't any longer), and everyone needs a laptop or tablet at the table.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103691There's a reason half the people who play RPGs never play spellcasters. A lot of gamers want to be able to access everything their PC can do by referring a single-page character sheet, without referencing a book. And a lot have no interest in spending time outside the session transcribing content by hand from books onto PC sheets.

Spell/power cards help fix the issue, why is why an RPG publisher with an instructional design professional on staff would make those cards a core part of the product (of course grognards hate that shit, because it's new and efficient). This also isn't an issue for the growing number of players who simply use digital character sheets. Of course that raises the problem that you need the tool to be supported (which the 4E tool isn't any longer), and everyone needs a laptop or tablet at the table.

Or, yah know, you create it using DNDBeyond, and then PRINT IT OUT AND TAKE IT TO THE GAME. Which is how most people use it. Their Character Sheet prints very nice and has everything you need for your character.

But you definitely don't need it. It's not hard to write "Fireball: 150'R, 40'D, 8d6, DC 16 Dex 1/2" That translates easily to 150' Range, 40' Diameter, 8d6 Damage, DC 16 Dex Save for half damage. Though you can leave the DC 16 out as it's the same DC for all spells you cast.

Here is some more spell shorthand if you're having trouble (https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5u4ruc/spell_shorthand_spell_descriptions_in_less_than/).

I can't remember how many 4e books I actually purchased (I don't have them anymore), but I do remember hating the art. Ran it a couple times, felt a little like eating cardboard, went back to playing GURPS and haven't cracked a book since.

I see enough love for 4e online that I don't get the sense it's truly a "dead" game, but I'd be hard pressed to name a person in my circles who still owns any of it let alone runs/plays it.

The Art is seriously another thing that puts me off playing it again.

God was it awful.  - Especially the Dragonborn and Tielfings - they probably would have got far less hate if they hadn't made them so ugly.

Someone needs to make a retroclone with better art.

It's definitely not dead even though it is barely discussed online.

I'm the unofficial keeper of the offline tools and I'm sending out links 10-15 times each month. Sure, I cant tell who actually ends up playing but more than half say they're desperate for the links because they're either running a 4E game or about to run one (as opposed to simply requesting the links without explanation).

I think 4E would make the basis of a pretty interesting Supers game with some reskinning.  I used to run a game inspried by DC Comics Creature Commandos and it worked great for that.

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1103853It's definitely not dead even though it is barely discussed online.

I'm the unofficial keeper of the offline tools and I'm sending out links 10-15 times each month. Sure, I cant tell who actually ends up playing but more than half say they're desperate for the links because they're either running a 4E game or about to run one (as opposed to simply requesting the links without explanation).

Oh awesome. My group and I made excellent use of them last year. Thanks for your work!

There are nice pieces of art within the books for D & D 4th Edition.  Perhaps not all of the art is stellar, but some of it is good.

Better by far than the mess that was 3 and 3.5e's MMs. ugh!

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1109157Oh awesome. My group and I made excellent use of them last year. Thanks for your work!

You're most welcome. Glad you had some fun with it!

In my earlier post, I mentioned sending out links 10-15 times a month. In the past few weeks (four or so), that's how many links I've been sending out a week. Something seems to have triggered interest in 4E again.

Quote from: Haffrung;1103691Spell/power cards help fix the issue, why is why an RPG publisher with an instructional design professional on staff would make those cards a core part of the product (of course grognards hate that shit, because it's new and efficient).

Spell cards have been around for 27 years since the 2e days.

Here's the 1992 advert
http://tsr.bothgunsblazing.com/dd1/cr1.htm

Quote from: Spinachcat;1109279Spell cards have been around for 27 years since the 2e days.

Here's the 1992 advert
http://tsr.bothgunsblazing.com/dd1/cr1.htm

2e, been thinking of your needs while tapdancing on your table's grognard's last nerve since before those kids on your lawn were born. :p

non-responsive, code-blue, coroner en-route.