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Armoury99 · Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:39 pm Post subject:

4e Adventure Design: First Impressions

I was mentioned on the Wrath project (and Wolfgang's review of Keep on the Shadowfell) that it would be nice to get some feedback on 4e from a design prospective, so I'b quickly banged out my thoughts: These are strictly my first impressions. I reserve the right to change my mind once I've played/DM'd for a bit. Very Happy

I’ve had the books for a week now and I’m still feeling very ambiguous about the thing. The proof of a pudding is in the eating however, and I’m determined to actually try it for a few levels before making my decision. My plan is to run the first few adventures of a new campaign, taking the PCs to 4th level (and ready for Wrath of the River King). Since that scenario seems to deal with the Fey/Feywild, I’m going to go in the other direction and delve into the Shadowfell, undead, etc… and kobolds, because they make such a satisfying crunch and hopefully I can field a lot of them under the new system. First step was working out exactly what I wanted to do and could achieve with 4e. I want to completely ‘play by the rules’ for this one, so I had a browse through the PHB, DMG, and MM and compared what was there with a couple of 1st level adventure plots that worked well in the last 3 editions. Here are my first thoughts from a DM/Design prospective:

Player’s Hand Book

Balanced PCs good. Lack of abilities that aren’t combat focused, bad. In its defence D&D has always been combat focused; maybe it just seems like overload because the non-magic classes have combat powers too?

More powerful PCs

This is hardly an insurmountable problem, but I’ll have to expand the background of PCs a bit, as “just average village folk” doesn’t really justify their abilities. New high hp totals and the various ‘top-up’ abilities will take some getting used to. The presence of minions in the MM will also increase the sense that the PCs are above the norm, even at 1st level. We’re definitely in fantasy territory, emphasis on the high (teleporting around the battlefield at first level, for example).

I think that (at least initially) PCs will be tempted to blow their Powers early on and rely on Healing Surges to see them through. Since 3-4 surges takes a character from badly injured to full health and even the wizard has 10+ of these, I estimate that the party will go at least five or six encounters before a break. Surges rather than Powers, will probably be the catalyst for calling halt, unless they think they’re about to confront a major villain.

The new negative hp system seems to make it easier to incapacitate a party without killing half of them. “We got beat and captured” looks like a slightly more viable story option for DMs, although I’m not sold on the minimalist ‘subdual’ rule in the PHB.

Tieflings and Dragonborn are harder than normal to work in alongside normal PC races (Eladrin suffer this a little as well), but that’s mainly a setting changeover problem. I’m slightly annoyed that a setting which has such an allegedly strong fey influence couldn’t make room for gnomes but could apparently manage three kinds of elf.

Combat

I don’t think that combats will actually be over quicker in the new edition, given increased player options and increased monster numbers (although minions help), and traps/hazards.

It’s a game of bonuses. A lot of bonuses.

Hit points are best described as “resolve”, “vigour”, “fatigue” etc. Not injuries. I expect PCs to generally have a much more blasé attitude to their hp.

On the downside… I really don’t see how you can play this game without miniatures. All those shifts and slides and shuffles and close range Powers really need you to be looking at a battle-map. I know that miniatures add an extra level of tactical complexity to a fight (and give players something to look at when it’s not their turn), but I just miss the fluidity and DM control that came with a purely narrative approach.

Concerned about how things that previously anybody could do (or at least attempt) have become Powers for specific classes (trips, disarms, and two weapon fighting for example).

Some of the powers are either too blatantly “magical” for low level (teleport) or are just nonsensical to me as powers rather than PC strategies (e.g. challenging/marking enemies, preventing them from moving, etc). Need to adjust my expectations of ‘realism’ for the game.

Rituals

I’m really not sure how the removal of everything not explosive will impact on the wizards and clerics who didn’t specialise in boom-magic and buffs. The long casting time of rituals makes them essentially unusable in combat, so the creative use of ‘non-combat’ magic in battle is probably out in favour of At Will blast powers…And I expect the players to be blasting every round, unlike earlier editions. Not sure if they’ll be saving their big Powers for later fights or not, in just the same way that 3e wizard did?

Alignment

Yuk. It’s been pruned back to bare minimum while still remaining largely incomprehensible (stayed true to the spirit of the old version then, hehe). System seems even more of a straitjacket than before, although Unaligned is a nice addition, and I imagine it’ll be a popular choice with players. Maybe new people would have an easier time understanding the system than those who knew the old one?

I couldn’t see any mechanical rules or implications for alignment at all, except for a note that paladins and clerics have to be of the alignment of their god.

Dungeon Master’s Guide

This has much better info on adventure design and running a game than any previous edition of D&D, and kudos for it. It will all be well known to experienced DMs and there’s not as much RP as G in their RPG advice, but it’s good to see so much wordcount on getting it right for new DMs.

Encounter Design

Encounter design seems clearer, with templates for different kinds of fight and finally some guidance on non-combat challenges. It’s nice to see it in the rules, but it’s brief and feels like an afterthought. Looks workable, but I think we called this bit “DMing” in earlier editions.

All the rules I needed were there, and everything was simple... too simple in more than a few cases. If this hadn't been D&D I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at the omissions however; more recent systems just provide the general framework and say "you're DM, go for it" instead of spoon-feeding you every rule, as D&D has tended to for many years.

Traps and hazards as combat encounters look good.

There doesn’t seem to be a standard “four encounters per day” rule anymore. As above, I’m estimating 5-6 combats per day, but it could be more. I wonder if Keep on the Shadowfell had any suggestions on this?

No Sense of World

There’s really no sense of setting in any of the books, but especially here. Dragonborn are “descendents of a dragon god and an ancient empire” and that’s it (at least the Tiefling empire had a name!) Gods get a paragraph and three commandments each, etc etc. This leaves at lot of things adrift in the aether and undefined – but it’s a gift to homebrew fans.

Monster Manual

Oh dear. Had to shelve just about all my 3e ideas about a balanced setting at this stage. There are no “Good” monsters…. even unicorns are now “unaligned” apparently. There’s no attempt at balance between light and dark, no monsters designed to be a problem for PCs while not being horribly evil. No attempt at complexity or depth in the personality (and compared to 3e’s attempt, frankly that’s saying something). Everything is presented as a 5-round-life combat threat, with absolutely nothing to guide me on using it in a more meaningful fashion. Mental note to self: New players are likely to come to my game with an “if it’s in front of me it’s to be killed!” mentality (3e was guilty of this too however). I should be able to beat it out of them eventually though.

I’m also concerned that monsters have lost many of the magical powers they had previously. Maybe rituals can pick up the slack here?

Conclusion (so far)

I’m aware that I’m leaving a considerable comfort zone of 3e knowledge and experience behind, and it’s probably influencing my opinions. The last three edition shifts all bent over backwards to still look like D&D (sometimes to their detriment), and this one definitely doesn’t.

What do I think so far? Well, there’s a strong focus is on getting new people involved, and they’ve concentrated on a few things at the expense of detail in other areas (or avoided spreading themselves too thin, depending how you look at it). For me it waggles back and forth over the line between streamlining and oversimplifying. If this had come out independent of D&D (or as an OGL-based product), I’d have probably thought “wow! That’s a nice take on upping the cinematic action quota!” - but not really thought of it as D&D. It doesn’t feel like the previous editions to me at present, which is a shame from the new core line. I think that it sets out its stall in a different genre, and moves closer to cinematic action games like Feng Shui in its design principles; this makes me slightly more confident for the survival of 3.5/Pathfinder if nothing else.

If I end up liking 4e and making it my default D&D game, it will be with that genre in mind; I’ll go to another system for a better horror, low fantasy, or simulationist experience, just as I do with 3e. The difference is that (perhaps) the genre in 4th Ed is more fixed into the system than previously; I saw 3e holding a rough middle ground in (high) fantasy, customisable 'higher' or 'lower' as I desired. Not so with 4e so far. Doesn't mean its a bad game though - just a different one.
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