Posts Tagged 4e

Now, I have no intent of this blog being any sort of diatribe against 4e, but I think the following situation would never have occurred with 4e…

The party left from Hommlet and proceeded toward the town of Nulb and the Temple of Elemental Evil. Along the way they came across the ruins of the old moat house, which had been the forward post for Nulb and the Temple. Their approach and entry into the moat house saw them defeat a set of giant frogs (luckily the halfling didn’t get swallowed), and a poisonous giant spider (luckily the tank saved versus poison AND remembered to lead the spider into the open so the whole party could engage).

Between these two encounters the party ended up low on hit points and low on magic. They ended up resting to heal in the main entry room (#5). They were summarily ambushed by the brigands which had been holed up in the northeast corner of the boat house. Though the fight was arduous, they triumphed due to good tactics and quick thinking. The party ended up loosing the healing they had gained, and were still without any offensive or healing magic.

At the end of the day (literally), they were left with one party member down, two near unconsciousness and their sole healer out of healing magic. With a large pool of hit points to recover, and only one healer, the party ended up spending three complete eight hour cycles of “cast – rest – pray” in healing the party. Full resting only allows for 2hp to be recovered each day per character (3hp if someone has Healing and Herbalism), thus the healing load is carried by the loan (gypsy) priest.

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So our group has started a new campaign and gone back to playing AD&D; somewhere about 1.75e (as Richard calls it).  We’re using the 2e rules, but allow for character classes from the 1e Player’s Handbook, Unearthed Arcana and Dragon Magazines.  So, why go back to AD&D?

Last summer we started playing a 4e campaign, beginning with H1: Keep on the Shadowfell.  Having a pre-made module is essential to our campaign, as I don’t have the time to create my own adventures.  We made our way through the module, and it was rather enjoyable.  However, by the time we were finishing, we were by and large disillusioned with 4th Edition:

• Combat seems to be the sole focus of 4e. Game mechanics such as non-weapon proficiencies (2e) or crafting skills (3e) are basically non-existent in 4e Core Rules.  These aspects of D&D have always been a large part of my games.  Additionally, the module had very little in the way of traps, puzzles or uses for the party’s skills.
• Combat was extremely slow. This has been a major point of discussion in the #dnd Twitter world, and is a generally accepted fact.  A single encounter would take an hour or two, with much of the time spent picking which power to use (for both players and DM).
• Combat is an exercise in micro-management. There are simply too many conditions to keep track of – Marked, Bloodied, Eye-bitten, etc. (more…)