D&D 4E D&D 4E fans: what do you like about 4E?

Hussar said:

Anyway, for my money, the biggest change in 4e was breaking the initiative order. While yes, you had reactionary powers in 3e like AOO's which could occur on other people's turns, it wasn't until 4e that we could deliberately take actions on other turns. You actually had to pay attention to the game when it wasn't your turn because you could be called on at pretty much any time to take some sort of action. It was a great way to keep the group engaged during combat.

Probably the best innovation to come out of 4e IMO.

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Oh yeah, definitely - I forgot about that! We often still do it in 5e, although it's a watered down version

Eyes of Nine said:

Oh yeah, definitely - I forgot about that! We often still do it in 5e, although it's a watered down version

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My 5e paladin is loving the intercept fighting style from Tashas to prevent a d10+prof damage to an adjacent ally. I am really glad it is something they carried forward to 5th. I like that it is once a round and not encounter or daily, or proficiency times per long rest as the recent 5e model. Decent little 4e style at will options you can choose is my preference.

Even the defence fighting style in the phb we reworked as a reroll. The “declare before attack” just never worked for us.

deganawida said:

2. Action economy was a huge improvement. As 2e showed, the attack action is an abstraction, including feints, parries, bad thrusts, and so forth. The hit that lands isn't the only attack, just the one that actually got through all the defenses. 4e's single attack action embraces this.

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So much this. From day one, attacks in D&D have been abstract. They have never represented a single swing of a sword. The books have always said so. But SO MANY players can't grasp this abstraction. If I'm wielding two weapons, that means I have to be able to attack twice as often, right?

In a game that uses something as abstract as hit points, making "multiple attacks" in a round is not coherent. The 3E idea of penalties on subsequent attacks each round has always been the kludgiest thing about that system. No other action gets less effective the more you use it in a round. Only attacks. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

4E embraced the abstraction, while other editions use heavy abstraction is some aspects and then simulation-ish ideas in others, with no rhyme or reason.

Treasure packages. Divorcing rewards from killing things is a good thing.

Healing surges (+ Second Wind). Remove the cleric/healing dependancy. Have healing scale to the character.

Power Recharge simularity / Adventuring Day length / class balance. Because everyone (pre-Essentials) had roughly the same number of daily, encounter, and at-will powers, shorter or longer adventuring days did not throw off the balance between classes

Utility powers that weren't magic. Give equal utility to not casters.

Push for interesting combats. This was a combo of many monsters having more interesting mechanics, plus the push for terrain and hazards.

Skill Challenges. Even though the mechanics had some issues, the concept of moving away from individual task resolution was a huge step forward.

Supported Heroic Fantasy tropes. Everyone was that style of fantasy superheroic from the genre, instead of the split of "magic can do everything, but you can only jump 12 feet."

Rituals. Well, kinda. I loved the concept of them. However I didn't like that magic item advancement is an expected part of character advancement, and rituals used the same feeder mechanism of gold.

Residuum. Just wonderfully useful to keep the game going as a game, esp. with the gear-as-part-of-expected-character-advancement.

Keywords. Treating the rules as rules and making it easy to have repeated bits because they were defined. This isn't a knock of 5e's "ruling not rules", it's a statement that having common, repeatable, easily defined keywords makes it easier to work off them. Like Bloodied.

Unified Attacker makes the rolls. Doesn't matter if it's an attack or a save.

Easy durations. Things like "until the end of encounter" or "save ends" removed the need for tracking duration.

overgeeked said:

First up: I'm a huge fan of 4E. This isn't a sell me on thread. I'm already right there with you.

I am curious what fans of 4E like about 4E. There's a lot to like and I know what I like about it, but I'm curious what the draw is for others.

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In another thread, I believe it was either @pemerton or @Hussar who said that in 4E, monsters tell you who they are by how they play, not by their flavour text in the Monster Manual, or words to that effect. I thought that was a great insight.

Fifth Element said:

In another thread, I believe it was either @pemerton or @Hussar who said that in 4E, monsters tell you who they are by how they play, not by their flavour text in the Monster Manual, or words to that effect. I thought that was a great insight.

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That sounds a lot like @pemerton. But I do think it’s dead on the money.

Fifth Element said:

In another thread, I believe it was either @pemerton or @Hussar who said that in 4E, monsters tell you who they are by how they play, not by their flavour text in the Monster Manual, or words to that effect. I thought that was a great insight.

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Hussar said:

That sounds a lot like @pemerton. But I do think it’s dead on the money.

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That was me!

Fifth Element said:

4E embraced the abstraction, while other editions use heavy abstraction is some aspects and then simulation-ish ideas in others, with no rhyme or reason.

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Yep.

overgeeked said:

I am curious what fans of 4E like about 4E.

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Most of what has been said is stuff I agree with.

For me, it's the clarity and ease of the play procedures - the game almost never grinds to a halt over questions of whose job it is to do what, or how to resolve some action declaration.

It's the way the combat resolution, both player-side (for PCs) and GM-side (for NPCs and creatures) shows rather than just tells. (As per @Fifth Element's comment not far upthread.)

It's the deliberate creation of a fantasy lore and cosmology that will (i) engage the PCs and (ii) propel them into action, without the GM having to drop hooks or make up backstory or seed the world with McGuffins.

It's scene-based non-combat resolution via skill challenges, which produces vivid scenes, hard choices and unexpected outcomes.

It's vibrant, thematically compelling play!