Just what the topic says. It seems to me the more I read, that 4e is way more complicated than any other version. There is more to constantly keep track of, how many times you do this or that, and all the little piddly bonuses that may or may not effect things. Whether or not they stack and how and so forth and so on. Sure some of these things occurred before, but not to this degree, not to the point that everyone had to do it all the time. Being basically forced to use miniatures also complicates (IE slows down) things.
How is this making things simpler?
I am still trying to see what others are seeing in the system but I'm not seeing it. The WotC site being defective and not letting me on even though I'm logged in is definitly not helping, but I have been mulling this topic over in my head aslong as I've been hearing about powers and how the game was to work and I just finally gave in and asked.
again I ask
How is this making things simpler?
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Just what the topic says. It seems to me the more I read, that 4e is way more complicated than any other version. There is more to constantly keep track of, how many times you do this or that, and all the little piddly bonuses that may or may not effect things. Whether or not they stack and how and so forth and so on. Sure some of these things occurred before, but not to this degree, not to the point that everyone had to do it all the time.
Could you be more specific as to what part of the rules do you find more complicated than prior editions of D&D?
Could you be more specific as to what part of the rules do you find more complicated than prior editions of D&D?
Yes. Specific complaints?
Short, simple to adjudicate effects with fixed durations. There are lots of them sure, but like the first two words say, they're all short and simple. :)
It's a vague answer, I know, but it was a vague question. Like joe says, I'd be happy to try again if you want to ask something more exact. :)
Sure some of these things occurred before, but not to this degree, not to the point that everyone had to do it all the time.
In my opinion, they occurred at the same degree. Familiarity may have made it seem simpler.
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The resolution mechanics are streamlined. That has taken quite a bit of the complexity out of the game. You are correct that there are now seemingly more variable to track but I don't think that is the case.
I think it is a different mode of play and once players and GMs begin to adjust to it then it will play quicker and smoother.
So I guess what i am saying is that there is actually less to track but we need to adjust to tracking it.
The resolution mechanics are streamlined. That has taken quite a bit of the complexity out of the game. You are correct that there are now seemingly more variable to track but I don't think that is the case.
I think it is a different mode of play and once players and GMs begin to adjust to it then it will play quicker and smoother.
So I guess what i am saying is that there is actually less to track but we need to adjust to tracking it.
The first two games my group played were slow. I'll be totally upfront in that combat took forever. I mean, we'd have one combat and it'd be 2+ hours. Sure there were big fights, but we were 1st level!
But then, something happened. One player left, but I don't really think she was the problem. Did everyone suddenly grok the rules? I'm not sure.
But last night, we went through 3 combats; HUGE, giant, sprawling, drag out, knock down brawls, all in a single night. Maybe an hour for each combat, as a guess (didn't notice the time, really).
4E definitely is starting to move fast for us. :)
The resolution mechanics are streamlined. That has taken quite a bit of the complexity out of the game. You are correct that there are now seemingly more variable to track but I don't think that is the case.
I think it is a different mode of play and once players and GMs begin to adjust to it then it will play quicker and smoother.
So I guess what i am saying is that there is actually less to track but we need to adjust to tracking it.
maybe
I do know part of the problem for me at least is just reading the books and trying to make it work. I need someone else to work through it with. The hard part is, the rest of my group is either less able to deal with learning rules (players only) or anti 4e, unless its just "oh hey you want to run it? Okay I guess I will play too then."grrr
It's very hard to get a hold of it
The first two games my group played were slow. I'll be totally upfront in that combat took forever. I mean, we'd have one combat and it'd be 2+ hours. Sure there were big fights, but we were 1st level!
But then, something happened. One player left, but I don't really think she was the problem. Did everyone suddenly grok the rules? I'm not sure.
But last night, we went through 3 combats; HUGE, giant, sprawling, drag out, knock down brawls, all in a single night. Maybe an hour for each combat, as a guess (didn't notice the time, really).
4E definitely is starting to move fast for us. :)
Man I envy that, the chance to get in and really make it work. And to get to keep going until it makes sense.
Man I envy that, the chance to get in and really make it work. And to get to keep going until it makes sense.
It's nice to be the target of envy for once! :)
But honestly swirler, that's probably your best bet for 4E, to jump in with both feet. Just tell your group you're running a 4E game for X duration or somesuch. Strong arm 'em if you have too!
It's difficult to learn any game just by reading the books. The doing is the key! :)
I think Swindler that you should look at this in the same way people look at the rules for chess.
Chess is very simplistic in design, and yet horribly deep and complex in it's execution. Simple rules, with very complex results.
4th Edition is basicly the same way. The rules have been stream lined and simplified, but the game remains complex as heck.
All the status effects that effect your character work in the same way. They either end when you make a save, or they end at the begining of your next turn.
That's really easy to adjudicate. But if you just read the list of powers it can seem very daunting because there are now many, many, different ways those status effects can come into play.
They're not very difficult to remeber if you just jot down the effects on yourcharacter on scratch paper and then cross them off when they end. That's what my players have been doing so far, so you might suggest that to your rules light PCs.
The resolution mechanics are streamlined. That has taken quite a bit of the complexity out of the game. You are correct that there are now seemingly more variable to track but I don't think that is the case.
I think it is a different mode of play and once players and GMs begin to adjust to it then it will play quicker and smoother.
So I guess what i am saying is that there is actually less to track but we need to adjust to tracking it.
maybe
I do know part of the problem for me at least is just reading the books and trying to make it work. I need someone else to work through it with. The hard part is, the rest of my group is either less able to deal with learning rules (players only) or anti 4e, unless its just "oh hey you want to run it? Okay I guess I will play too then."grrr
It's very hard to get a hold of it
There could also be a level effect possibly. I'm not sure I would say that our 1st level encounters are faster then in 3.5. In fact there seems to generally be more options then 3.5. So as long as your players were not going into sub systems like Trip and Grapple I think 4E low level encounters are maybe as long or longer.
My understanding of the goal was to simplify the higher level encounters. The ones where the amount of players options ballooned or where martial classes had a strong incentive to move into the more detailed subsystems like Trip and Grapple.
That said I'm not really finding things to be all that complicated at the moment. We killed a Dragon Monday Night in a long really close battle. It went 9 rounds and took just under an hour. It was my clerics turn again about every 6 or 7 minutes in a 6 player party and in fact it was a little better then that as we stopped the DM a couple of times to talk among ourselves when we were getting our asses kicked. I guess I was finding that 'move, resolve your action, take a minor if you have one' could really slide through pretty quick. The powers are mostly not very complicated - you can put them on cards so the Players don't have to stop and flip through the books to look them up.
The characters only have so many actions - their kind of like spells but if you only need to remember maybe 8 spells its hard initially but pretty easy after you've been playing the character for a few sessions. Also in terms of modifiers. Again I see a few floating but not many certainly not compared to a buff list were the players cast lots of buff spells before doing a combat.
But last night, we went through 3 combats; HUGE, giant, sprawling, drag out, knock down brawls, all in a single night. Maybe an hour for each combat, as a guess (didn't notice the time, really).
This is what I'm expecting when we finally get a chance to play (we have some serious schedule issues in my group).
I think character abilities look messier than they really are, and that we're all likely to take a while to understand how differently 4e plays from the last 30 years of D&D.
Once that (relatively short) learning curve is passed, we should be OK. Seriously, we're learning a brand-new game here -- it's going to take a bit of practice. David's experience indicates that it doesn't take all that much practice.
IMO. I hope I'm right :)
not letting me on even though I'm logged in
You don't need to log in, ever--no one does.
Leave the fields blank and just click the Log In button.
Having to log in is a sham.
i may have posted it in these forums before, but my general feeling is that WoTC just shifted the complexity and time-suck to other areas of the game. one e.g., players and monsters now tend to have a lot more hit points than in previous editions, but the amount of damage that attacks cause isn't scaled. so, while a single round might take less time, there are more rounds required to resolved combat (even with minions.)
I think your right after a fashion here. Rounds go faster but there are usually more of them. I take for granted this is intentional otherwise damage would scale.
That said long fights were everyone is doing things and your turn comes up again fairly quickly is really pretty fun. Its a lot less fun if a battle can take an hour and ends sometime in the middle of round 3.
I also think that the [lack of] scaling for damage is particularly notable in some creatures compared to others. Dragons have oodles of hps. It took us a lot of rounds to finally beat it down. Same deal with the higher level monsters. The really big stuff is crawling with hps. I suspect combats take longer with nasty iconic creatures like Dragons and such and run faster with the smaller stuff - even if the smaller stuff tends to have numbers. Our fights with kobolds went much quicker then the fight with the Dragon even though there were a fair number of kobolds. The Dragon was hard to hit and had abilities that could nerf us. The Kobolds could be concentrated on and the less of them there were the faster things became - oh and we did not make the DM hold up while we discussed the ass kicking we were receiving while fighting the Kobolds, we did with the Dragon - twice.
not letting me on even though I'm logged inYou don't need to log in, ever--no one does.
Leave the fields blank and just click the Log In button.
Having to log in is a sham.
doesn't work, it says gleemax cant find your account, the same thing it says when I use my log in
gleemax is making me not very happy
I've played a few combats out with just myself and one of my players and they've really started to speed up. It doesn't seem much more complicated at low levels (level 1), and certainly seems less complicated at higher levels.
So I'm going to go with "4E is a little faster than 3.5" if you take the time to get it down.
And as posted by my peers above I've got to agree: rounds are faster, combats are longer.
I've played a few combats out with just myself and one of my players and they've really started to speed up. It doesn't seem much more complicated at low levels (level 1), and certainly seems less complicated at higher levels.
So I'm going to go with "4E is a little faster than 3.5" if you take the time to get it down.
And as posted by my peers above I've got to agree: rounds are faster, combats are longer.
In the Shackled City campaign I ran, I remember towards the end fighting some of the bigger battles, taking an entire night (or more!) for one fight ... and then when it was over, saying something like "that lasted less than a minute of gametime".
I'm glad 4E steps away from that ... I like getting more than four or five actions in a combat. :)
Seems to me Bees are on fire, why won't someone put out the Bees?
also, it seems like a lot of things will need to be on the spot adjudicated by the DM because there's no rule for it, which adds time.
In a broader sense, I find the opposite to be true. When a system has a rule for everything, the game comes to a screeching halt as that rule is looked up. Even if someone has a really good memory, there will be a debate which will require the book to be opened.
In the absence of a rule, the GM adjudicates and the game moves on.
In all fairness, I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants GM so making things up on the fly is easier for me. Also, I am more interested in the story than rules minutia.
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in the end, it still all comes up to who you play with...not the edition you play.
I would agree with that for 3.5 at low levels, but not at high levels. I play with an experienced group of gamers and high level 3.5 still drags. When we ran some mid and high level test combats for 4e they moved much quicker and ended up being shorter than 3.5. 3.5 has some systemic weaknesses that make high level play slow no matter how well you may know the system.
Man I envy that, the chance to get in and really make it work. And to get to keep going until it makes sense.
The rules don't really work until you play 4e. My group wasn't convinced till we played a few games, then it clicked.
In all fairness, I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants GM so making things up on the fly is easier for me. Also, I am more interested in the story than rules minutia.
That describes me perfectly. I'm all about fast and loose, "fun over perfection" playing.
to a certain degree yeah
I've been reading more and it is making more sense and I can see the potential. Unfortunately it's still pretty much just me reading/learning it and then teaching everyone else here to play. No one else is interested in trying to learn on their own or cooperatively with me. So I have decided to just learn as I can and if I can find online games to try out in I will. I'm not going to rush our group into it.
Kinda sucks but it's less stressful that way.
the help I've gotten here has really, well, helped me though.
Thanks all