D&D 4E 4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain

[Manbearcat]

Immediate Disclaimer: This analysis is going to have to span a few posts.

I'm going to examine my last 5e play Excerpt which was at level 18. That Tier is "Master's of the World":

"...characters have superheroic capabilities, and their deeds and adventures are the stuff of legend. Ordinary people can hardly dream of such heights of power-or such terrible dangers."

This text is cribbed exactly from 4e's Epic Tier so I'm going to evaluate it against characters (Wizard, Rogue, Fighter) of that Tier and against the play paradigm of 4e.

Brief thoughts on the play priorities and procedures of the two approaches to TTRPGing:

4E D&D

- Conflict-charged scenes where the GM is relentlessly "going to the action" (4e's over-provacative version of this indie principle is "...skip the gate guards and get to the fun"); the intersection of the game's basic premise (Points of Light and Big Damn Heroes) with PC thematic load (Class/Race/Theme/Paragon Path/Epic Destiny/Quests).

- The lifeblood of the game is the Closed Scene Resolution mechanics (both combat and noncombat; Skill Challenge) and the management of team synergy and intra-scene resources. Framed into Closed Scene > Hard/Soft Transition > New Closed Scene. This process snowballs and repeats until all issues in the fiction have been resolved.

- If this was Blades in the Dark, this would be an overwhelming abundance of Scores (an action scene resolved by conflict resolution mechanics and principles) after Score after Score with a little bit of Downtime and Free Play mixed in (which feeds directly into the next Score).

Trad D&D

- Hex Crawls, Dungeon Crawls and/or Serial Exploration of an Open World. Themes vary on multiple axes but "Zero to Hero" is pretty orthodox.

- The lifeblood of the game is managing Adventuring Day logistics (loadouts and rationing of resources) within a paradigm of Free Play (this is a mixture of Social and Exploration) intersecting with mapped and keyed adventuring sites featuring Exploration Turns + Wandering Monster/Random Encounter Clock + NPC Reaction Rolls (and what ever comes out of that).

- If this was Blades in the Dark, this would be an overwhelming abundance of Free Play mixed in with a fair bit of Downtime. To the extent that Scores exists at all in this style of play, it would be how Exploration Turns and Wandering Monsters interface and NPC Reactions interfacing with Parlay scenes.

 

[Manbearcat]

Below is the 5e play excerpt:

Alright, so here was the last session I GMed in 5e. Of note:

1) This was an Epic Tier Aliens Invasion scenario with actual Far Realm "Grays", War of the Worlds type bio-constructs (like pilotable golems, but made of organics), and their mother ship. However, instead of harvesting bio-material, they were harvesting time, slowly turning back the clock of this prime material plane.

2) I didn't GM the preceding session or the climax of this session. The abstract that the GM gave me for the preceding session had it featuring 2-3 encounters. The climax of the session included the showdown with The Harvester; the alien entity that consumes the time that this world has accrued and assimilates it into its own consciousness, increasing its own god-like insight and knowledge. Again, I didn't GM it.

Here is how the gamestate was changed as play progressed until the session ended. Of note:

1) All enemies had Magic Resistance so Advantage on saving throws against the Wizard.

2) The Time Reaper - machine in the belly of the ship - caused local distortion that gave the PCs Disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws.

3) The Wizard had cast Foresight on the Fighter (their primary damage source) to offset Time Reaper.

Gamestate 1:

The 3 PCs are on the ground below the mother ship, having just defeated the initial welcoming party, which included single-man "hoverpods" Two hoverpods were intact after the encounter.

The Rogue fails one of the two rolls for his Disadvantage on his Investigation check (DC 20, Reliable Talent would apply, but wasn't sufficient to hit the mark as just Proficient, not Expert). The Diviner offsets it with the 1st of his 3 Portents and, due to the Wizard, the Rogue mans a hoverpod.

The Wizard fails his +11 Arcana at Disadvantage to start a hoverpod for the Fighter. So he just uplevels his Fly spell to 4th and the two of them fly up to the mothership.

Gamestate 2:

The PCs are attacked by the ship's defenses; a large number of small flying aberrations from the Far Realm.

The Rogue uses the flight (with Hover), HPs, and multi-attack of the hoverpod to engage them (which the Wizard enabled).

The Fighter has Fly and Foresight and wrecks them (thanks to the Wizard).

The Wizard (Warcaster, Resilient, and + Int for other two feats) uses Mirror Image and mobility (to ensure that Concentration isn't an issue for he and the Fighters' Fly), and Grease (his typical Spell Mastery spells) to effectively death spell several of the flyers (prone and they didn't have hover).

The Fighter uses his bow while the Rogue uses the hoverpods multi-attack and they win the day.

Gamestate 3:

Puzzle challenge to open the hatch. PC build neutral.

Gamestate 4:

The welcoming party. Mass Suggestion reduces the HUGE enemy force by 1/3. Forcecage cuts them by another 1/3. The rest are obliterated by the Rogue and Fighter.

They leave one alive to interrogate to attempt to locate The Time Reaper. They don't speak the same language (the Wizard doesn't want to burn a 3rd level for Tongues when he can...see below). The Fighter tried to pantomime what they were looking for and threaten the creature, but his Intimidate failed as he rolled really low (a 3 I think).

Gamestate 5:

Wizard casts Locate Object. This saved them 4 random encounter rolls during exploration so, while they ended up having an encounter on the way there (a defense system - equivalent of a Trap - that the Rogue was able to successfully deal with), it saved them another resource-depleting encounter (obviously no Long Rests, but Short Rests were fine) on this ship.

Gamestate 6:

The Time Reaper and the General. A parlay begins with the ship's commander and engineer. Tongues + Geas + 2nd use of Divine Portent to deal with the Magic Resistance and he's charmed. Fighter fails to destroy the arcane machine via Athletics and a nasty Time Warp AoE attack ensues on the PCs. Rogue with Disadvantage fails to destroy it via Expertise Thievery, but the Diviner turns his low roll into a 13 with his final use of Divine Portent and The Time Reaper is destroyed. Now, no Disadvantage for the Rogue and Wizard and the Fighter's Foresight equals Advantage.

Due to the charmed commander, they (a) get some relevant mechanical info for the combat to come with The Harvester, (b) enable a Short Rest, (c) they don't have to use their resources to fight him, (d) they avoid multiple further potential random encounters with a Take Me to Your Leader scene transition.

That is where the session ended. I didn't GM the climax.

 

[Manbearcat]

If I transliterated the scenario I conveyed above into 4e, it would be SIGNIFICANTLY different. You would have superheroic genre logic. You would have Closed-Scene as the exclusive locus of play trajectory. You wouldn't have serial accounting for time and space in the way. There wouldn't be serial exploration, a keyed map, or Exploration Turns that are pressured by a Wandering Monster/Random Encounter Clock, and there wouldn't be any "win condition" spells. My guess is it would be:

Skill Challenge Level + 2 Complexity 1; parley
Level + 3 Combat (arising from failure above)
Skill Challenge Level + 0 Complexity 2; to get into the ship (including the air combat at the ship's hull as a nested combat for an accrued Success or Failure)
Level + 5 Combat
Skill Challenge Level + 2 Complexity 3; to locate The Time Reaper and disable it
Skill Challenge Level + 0 Complexity 1; parley with the engineer/commander
Level + 7 Combat with The Harvester

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm going to briefly transliterate what the various gamestates would be like in 4e, given the above. Afterward, I'll discuss the differences in play (the mental framework of players, the mental framework of GMs, the general feel of the each game, the nature of the movement from one gamestate to the next).

* Skill Challenge Level + 2 Complexity 1; parley

This would be a failed parley leading into a combat with enemy vehicles. This and the next encounter I did not GM, but I roughly know of what happened in the preceding 5e session and can easily sort out what that may look like in 4e.

Situation:

The PCs have arrived at the nexus of the alien apocalypse. They are below the Far Realm "Mother Ship" which is hovering some 1000 feet up. They begin to to feel the local temporal distortion, courtesy of The Time Reaper onboard the Mother Ship (5e this was Disadvantage on attacks, ability checks, saves).

They are greeted by a series of shock troops piloting hoverpods and some AT-ST-like ground support vehicles which includes the leader of this crew manning the lead vehicle. They attempt to parley with him. It doesn't work.

Let us assume the 4e PCs (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) are level 23 in this scenario.

Level +2 Complexity 1 Parley would mean the following. 4 (typically) moderate DC successes before 3 failures w/ 1 Secondary Skill available (typically an easy to moderate DC check to augment a primary check). DCs would be 21, 29, and 38.

Of note: The Wizard through this point of the game (and all PCs) would have accrued 325,000 (level -1 magic item $ equivalent) as resources to spend on various things (Consumables, Ritual Casting cost, purchasing Ritual Books for scribing or puchasing them at Market price, Vehicles/Mounts/Hirelings, successes in Skill Challenges where people could be bought off or assets could be purchased to trigger a success, etc). Who knows how much of that 325,000 would have been spent to date by these characters.

The Wizard in the 5e game had a Tongues spell active. They don't have to roll Arcana to understand, but this is a 3rd level spell investment for only an hour duration. This would be a prerequisite (or something akin to it) to engage in a parley at all. The 4e Wizard definitely has much more potency and less resource expenditure in this domain. Comprehend Languages is a 1st level Ritual which only costs 10 GP to cast (Ritual costs scale dramatically, but there are some very solid low level Rituals). Further, it only requires a DC 35 Arcana to be able to speak the language functionally. Wizards at this level will have a +24 or better Arcana check. If one expenditure doesn't work, the 2nd or 3rd one will. Furthermore, the 4e Wizard has a 24 hour duration for this trivial. Unfortunately, unlike Tongues, it doesn't allow you to cast it on other creatures.

So let us assume the 4e Wizard has the Comprehend Languages Ritual (extremely likely) and its active here (of course).

There really are no Ritual options for the actual parley that would (a) be feasible due to casting time restrictions or (b) be cost-effective (due to casting cost) for the situation-at-hand. So the Comprehend Languages here would basically enable Diplomacy and Bluff for the Wizard (with them stepping up to High) and keep Insight at the Moderate DC.

Intimidate seems sensible at the Moderate DC, but the Rogue and the Fighter are probably dealing with High DCs for other social skills unless the fiction somehow warranted it.

However, the initial framing of situation by the GM would be extremely relevant here as it would narrow or broaden prospective action declarations for the PCs. Note, that, unlike classic D&D where the GM rolls a Reaction Roll for the PCs, 5e handles this initial framing in the same way as 4e does; GM determines initial attitude and framing.

This is a significant deviation from classic D&D. But more on that tomorrow and then we'll move through the possible initial framing and action declarations (tired, going to bed).

 

[Joshua Randall]

Level + 7 Combat with The Harvester

No 4e combat should ever be at Level + 7. The 4e DMG is explicit about this. Anything above Level + 4 starts breaks the game's assumptions (and math)... and even Level + 4 is pretty crappy in most actual play situations.

There are ways to model overwhelmingly difficult combat opponents in 4e (ish), but Level + 7 isn't one of them.

I say "ish" because it depends how willing you are to bend away from what's actually printed in the books and lean on what was worked out by players and DMs. Things like the 3-Stage Boss Monster of The Angry DM, or the later 4e LFR Epic tier adventures that combine tough monsters with integrated tasks (I won't say skill challenges) and probably also environmental affects. Or things like what the Fourthcore adventures do with clever, yet technically rules-breaking, enemy-only magic items and effects.

These are ways to ramp up difficulty without just dialing the numbers up to Level + 7.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Joshua Randall

Not a lot of time, but in short:

Deeeeeeeffinitely do not agree.

Of the two games I GMed 1-30 and the other game where I GMed a section of it (it was a DW campaign that we switched to 4e for one level - 27 - just as an experiment), the OVERWHELMING % of Epic Tier Combat encounters featured budgets between L+4 to L+7.

It’s easily enough done by:

1) Making Combat stakes be about something other than raw HP ablation.

2) Same as always, Creatures should mostly be sameish level as the PCs.

3) Fill out a significant amount of the XP budget with Hazards and Traps that the bad guys have some sort of mitigation against (their “turf advantage”)...or not. This makes Forced moment and mobility much more relevant and brings the battlefield alive.

Sum total:

- Combat stakes/premise/tropes should become less about raw HP ablation at Epic Tier.
- Challenge/threat comes from something other than removal of a lot more HPs due to XP budget inflation.
- Dynamism via (Forced) movement and Terrain/Hazard/Trap interaction/avoidance (and deploying Countermeasures) becomes central.

I’ll try to get back to this tonight to continue where I left off (Reaction Rolls vs GM framing).

 

[Garthanos]

@Joshua Randall


Not a lot of time, but in short:


Deeeeeeeffinitely do not agree.


Of the two games I GMed 1-30 and the other game where I GMed a section of it (it was a DW campaign that we switched to 4e for one level - 27 - just as an experiment), the OVERWHELMING % of Epic Tier Combat encounters featured budgets between L+4 to L+7.


It’s easily enough done by:


1) Making Combat stakes be about something other than raw HP ablation.


2) Same as always, Creatures should mostly be sameish level as the PCs.


3) Fill out a significant amount of the XP budget with Hazards and Traps that the bad guys have some sort of mitigation against (their “turf advantage”)...or not. This makes Forced moment and mobility much more relevant and brings the battlefield alive.


Sum total:


- Combat stakes/premise/tropes should become less about raw HP ablation at Epic Tier.
- Challenge/threat comes from something other than removal of a lot more HPs due to XP budget inflation.
- Dynamism via (Forced) movement and Terrain/Hazard/Trap interaction/avoidance (and deploying Countermeasures) becomes central.


I’ll try to get back to this tonight to continue where I left off (Reaction Rolls vs GM framing).

Epic always seemed to be such a different playing field its why I wanted an Epic Tier DMG.

 

[pemerton]

No 4e combat should ever be at Level + 7. The 4e DMG is explicit about this. Anything above Level + 4 starts breaks the game's assumptions (and math)

It doesn't break the maths. Obviously having opponents 7 levels higher will put the maths under pressure, but the way you get an interesing level + 7 encounter is through increasing the number of threats.

Obviously an 8th level cmbat encounter will cream a 1st level party; and an 18th level one will be pretty hard for an 11th level party; but [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] is talking about epic tier.

Here's an actual play report of a level 37 encounter for a 29th level party. It didn't break the maths. It's one of many experiences that makes me believe that (i) the 4e maths is very solid (without the Expertise feats, which my table doesn't use), and (ii) the game is incredibly robust across a wide range of encounter difficulties.

Later on in the same "day" (and having reached 30th level), that group of PCs had a 36th level combat encounter that I don't think I wrote up (with no foe above 29th level), skill challenge-y stuff to escape the collapsing Abyss, a 34th level combat encounter with most of the opponents 28th but one 29th, which stepped up to around 35th when some liches were conjured up. The PCs then did more non-combat stuff before fighting and beating a 29th level solo.

I don't know what the designers had in mind - I suspect that epic wasn't super-heavily playtested - but at least as I've experienced it you need this degree of pressure if you're going to produce interesting play experiences.

EDIT: The biggest level gap I've used in 4e was 25th level PCs vs 34th level Torog. Here's how I handled it:

After getting distracted by this and that, including a detour via Mal Arundak on the Abyss, they finally made it to the Soul Abattoir, having just reached 25th level.

<snip>

The destruction of the Soul Abattoir was run mostly as a skill challenge, but with a combat a little over halfway through

<snip>

At the end of the session, I made it clear to the players that Torog was after them. The invoker made his monster knowledge check, and I briefed them on Torog's stats - they were suitably impressed by his 34th level status

<snip>

I had also told the players that Torog, deprived of dark spikes, would weaken rapidly over the course of a confrontation: to be manifested mechanically in the form of a d8 escalation die (ie a die start at 0 but then counting up by 1 each round) granting a bonus to both attacks and damage for the PCs.

In the end, Torog did not have a chance: he was killed in the round that the escalation die was showing 5.

A significant contributor to Torog's demise was auto-damage, which is not too hard to get if you have an epic tier sorcerer.

 

[ccs]

So in post #1 you make 4e sound like a positive, & traditional D&D..... boring. And yet in your transcript & translation it reverses.

Here's what I gained/lost playing 4e:
Gained:
A pile of books that when we'd had enough I couldn't give away.
A free 4e promo T-Shirt.

Lost (4e):
About $400
Respect for any designer who's name is attached to 4e. Especially whichever moron put it in print that magic arrows do not exist.
TIME. Precious time that could have been spent playing/running anything else....

 

[darkbard]

Especially whichever moron put it in print that magic arrows do not exist.

This is patently, unbelievably untrue of the game. Magic ammunition most definitely is part of the rules set. It is, however, a consumable item whose enchantment doesn't stack with that of its firing weapon.

But why even bother posting here? There's a term for what you're doing: threadcrapping. This is supposed to be a place for careful and reasoned analysis, not deliberately provocative nonsense posts!