Dungeons and Dragons is the barometer of the roleplaying world; it’s the gateway game that leads people into the hobby, so I’ve been keeping a keen eye on what Wizards of the Coast have been doing with the brand. I was cautiously optimistic about the previews that I’d seen online and had followed the latest developments in the lead up to the release of the new edition on ENWorld, but the proof is in the pudding, so I ponied up 30 bucks for Keep on the Shadowfell, the first module to released for the new edition, and ran it for two separate groups, as well as turning up as a player for a game run at a midnight release of the core rulebooks.
For me the game felt more fun than 3e, both as a player and as a DM. My first game was with a group of non-roleplayers that I normally play V:TES with: DA, Em, Biodecay, Ves, and Mistress-S. It was more than 5 years since I had played with people who were completely new to the hobby before, so I was anxious about how they’d receive it.
We opened up with my favourite method for quickly developing a sense for everyones characters, which is getting everyone to take turns around the table asking a player about their character. On several occasions I’ve found this to be great for getting people to relatively painlessly flesh out their character concept on the spot and getting people in the mood to roleplay. The mechanics of the characters were already spelled out for my players, since they were using the pregens that came with KotS, so they just had to flesh out the personalities and backgrounds. My newbie players came up with a very typical group of misanthropic, quasi-psychotic, treasure seeking, pseudo do-gooders, which showed that they had a good intuitive grasp for what D&D is all about. There was the borderline megalomaniacal Dragonborn paladin, the cheery halfling rogue in dire need of a moral compass, the grim and driven undead-fighting human wizard, the alcoholic dwarven fighter with a shady past, and the half-elven cleric trying to keep everyone from each others’ throats.
After having established the characters and a linking in some plot hooks with a bit of back story we got right into the adventure, which, appropriately for D&D, started with a fight scene. Two things were quickly clear: Firstly there are many more combat options for first level characters and secondly said options would be nigh on impossible to arbitrate without a decent combat map. Luckily we had the maps that came with the module and a load of minis that I’d grabbed out of a board game, so we had the latter issue taken care of. The former however caused a fair bit of analysis paralysis for my fledgeling roleplayers, but all agreed that once they’d gotten a feel for what was going on their choices were interesting, meaningful, and easy to grasp. The combat took a little under an hour to arbitrate, with the kobolds trying and failing to beat their way through the paladin’s high AC, while the wizard blasted away at them with his at will AoE power and the rogue dealt out stonking amounts of damage. The warrior and cleric ended up playing second fiddle due to their attack bonuses being quite low relative to the other characters, which resulted in a slew of anti-climatic misses, frustrating the players. It was much like the old edition in that respect.
From a DM’s perspective I enjoyed the tactical elements of the game much more than in previous editions. I feel like D&D 4e is a game made for people like me to DM; people who have a good mind for strategy games and have a raconteurish bent. Combat has always been an integral part of D&D, but it struck me as I was playing running the fight that up until this edition it had never really been done all that well. In 4e everyone seemed to have interesting choices to make, there were more monsters in play than in any other edition of D&D that I’ve played, and first level characters were much more robust than in previous editions, so you don’t have to worry as much about TPKs randomly happening. I particularly liked the inclusion of minions in the game, 1hp mooks that go down with a single hit, which bulked out the encounter and added a greater sense of heroic derring-do to the fight as they let the players rock out with their AE powers. I ended up going easy on the players, given that it was their first roleplaying experience, but combat still felt tense and exciting.
After fighting their way through the kobolds, interacting with the NPCs in town, and deciding on a course of action for the next session we called it a night. Everyone had enjoyed themselves and I thought the experiment a resounding success.
I later ran the same game with a group of more experienced gamers: Mhacdebhandia, Lexait, Nekobakagaijin, Cutenfluffy, and Heli. This time around I persecuted the PCs a lot more, specifically targeting the weaker characters in combat to see how teamwork from the party can mitigate smart monster play. The fights were tougher as a result, with the wizard and the rogue bearing the brunt of the damage, but the new healing surge system and the versatile healing abilities of the cleric class in particular kept things together. The fighter’s ability to force enemies to attack him or risk drawing attacks was less flashy than the minion blasting powers of the wizard or the huge damage output of the rogue, but Cutenfluffy used it cunningly and pinned down some key enemies, which in combination with similar powers from Lexait’s warlord really restricted the options of the bad guys. I managed to surround Nekobakagaijin’s rogue with a swarm of kobold minions in one fight, but Mhacdebhandia’s wizard blasted them off him, killing almost all of them in one attack, but knocking ironically knocking the rogue unconscious. It was nothing that the warlord and the cleric couldn’t fix though, and between their healing powers they got him back on his feet. The battles were tense, tactical, and a lot of fun. We pushed through 3 fights plus light roleplaying in the village before finally succumbing to player fatigue just before the first boss fight. The general feeling from this more experienced group was that the combat system was greatly improved and that although a lot had changed, there was still a definite D&D feel to the game.
After running two games i finally got the chance to play in a game. It was the midnight launch of the core rulebooks and I found myself in a very RP-light game playing a cleric of Pelor. As the only person that had played the game at my table, other than perhaps the DM, I was able to help out the other players and keep the game moving along at a reasonable pace despite the below average focus of the other players. My cleric was the pregen from The D&D Experience and was IMO better built than the KotS cleric. I was particularly impressed with the rejigging of the cleric’s core healing power to be a minor action, which when combined with encounter powers which grant healing and temporary hitpoints as a side effect of making attacks meant I was able to get in there and mix things up with the rest of the front line fighters whilst still being able to keep on top of healing. IMO this is a further improvement upon 3e’s innovation in allowing spontaneous casting for clerical heals. The game was very light weight, but it was a lot of fun.
My overall impression is that 4e has taken steps in the right direction. By focusing on building a system that robustly handles action oriented gaming Wizards have played to the D&D’s core strength. I am keen to see how combat scales to higher levels now that there are no more save or dies and the overall power level of abilities seems to be somewhat lower, apparently to force more teamwork and strategic play. I’m interested in the new skill challenge system, which I kind of got to try out in the launch night game, but which was subverted somewhat by the attitude of the other players. It remains to be seen whether it will make a good system for handling non-combat encounters, but I’ve read reports that it’s mathematically untenable. It’s been a long time since I was so interested in running games and I’m glad that 4e has been able light the DMing spark in me again.