stevekenson | D&D 4e Playtest

Finally got to run a playtest of D&D 4th Edition for my game group last night. Overall: fun was had, but reactions were mixed, and we’re not planning on playing again any time soon.

I ran part of Keep on the Shadowfell, with a group of five characters:

Tiefling Paladin
Human Ranger
Halfling Rogue
Dragonborn Warlord
Eladrin Wizard

In just under three hours of play-time we got through the first two encounters: the kobold brigands and the kobold ambush, along with the first interlude in Winterhaven. The vast majority of the game was the two combats, with some simple roleplaying sandwiched in-between.

Combat was moderately complex. With tactical shifting (especially for the kobolds, with their at-will shifting ability), using minis and counters to track positions was absolutely essential. I’ve played all the previous editions of D&D without maps or minis, but I’d be hard-pressed to pull that off with 4e without some serious fudging or house rules.

Inflated hit points and healing surges made for a nice dynamic in combat, with characters suffering damage, bouncing back, and dishing out damage themselves. It definitely extended the fight and made things more interesting than previous “one hit and you’re down” encounters in earlier editions with 1st level characters. We encountered some confusion with powers that say “may take a healing surge” since it wasn’t clear whether or not the ally needed to spend the standard action for the surge (like Second Wind) or not. We decided not, like healing spells in earlier editions, which seemed to work fine. The fact that PCs have healing surges and monsters generally don’t definitely gives the PCs an edge.

There’s still a fair amount for the DM to track: I could have used a screen with the common modifiers and important game info. It was essential for players to have descriptions of all their characters’ powers in front of them, in order to know what they all did, what to roll, etc. Even then, the paladin’s player seemed occasionally at a loss for which power to choose (but then the dice were also not with her that evening, resulting in some power fizzles due to failed rolls). I like that daily powers generally do something even if you miss, so you don’t feel like you completely wasted the effort. Continuing damage and effects are a bit of a pain to track.

The halfling rogue used his Second Chance racial ability in the first encounter and ended up with his attacker scoring a critical hit rather than just a hit. The power really should specify the attacker uses the lower of the two rolls, rather than the second one, regardless of what it is. Several of the players wondered why a ranger with Twin Strike would ever use anything else, given the ability to make two attacks per round at full attack bonus (something the ranger used to good effect, coupled with Hunter’s Quarry). The wizard’s player thought sleep was nerfed because of its small area and the way saving throws now worked (allowing victims to throw off the effects more quickly); he preferred acid arrow as his daily power. He also felt wizards were still underpowered compared to other characters, but I think at least part of that was the wizard’s greater tendency to provoke opportunity attacks, since it’s supposed to be a ranged class. Overall, he dished out as much damage as the other characters, and targetted defenses (such as Reflex) that were lower.

Speaking of which, it was vital to have players call out what defense their attack went against, since it was necessary to track all four of the monsters’ defenses. The high AC of the kobold dragonshields made them formidable opponents.

There was a fair amount of excitement in the combats; the surprise when the players discovered the kobold’s shifting ability was fun. (”You’re just making that up, aren’t you?” one accused me.) There were sighs of relief when the characters made it through a fight and downed all their foes, so there’s definitely some dramatic tension.

There can be a lot of modifiers to track: one round, the paladin’s attack was modified by base attack bonus, flanking bonus (combat advantage), racial bonus (for the foe being bloodied), power bonus from the warlord, and the foe being marked by her divine challenge, which brought things to a halt for a moment to total up all the modifiers to the roll (which was still a miss... narrowly).

Given the speed of play, even assuming things picked up a bit more with familiarity, I could see easily getting another five or six game sessions out of the adventure with the kobold lair, burial site, and the Keep itself still to come.

Overall, most of the players had fun, and so did I. I don’t know if 4e is the game for us long-term, given its focus on tactical combats. In many ways, it’s more like a fun board game, ala Mage Knight, or would be, if there was less prep in terms of putting together player characters and referencing their powers. That, in many ways, would be more how I’d be inclined to play it: A kind of pick-up board game with no real plot, just two or three linked combats with a loose story. I’m curious to see if prep-time for DMs is significantly different, since I was using a published adventure. In-play work for the DM seems about the same to me, but things like encounter building are supposed to be easier (I don’t know, since I don’t have the Dungeon Master’s Guide as yet to find out).

D&D 4e is definitely a solid roleplaying game, with more emphasis on the “game” than the “roleplaying” per se. Still, it doesn’t look like it’s going to displace either Earthdawn or Spirit of the Century in our current game rotation.