Neceros' opinion on a 4e Gameday

[neceros]

Hello everyone.

Most of you may know me due to my involvement in character sheet creation. I've been a fan and supporter of Fourth Ed since before '08, and have been playing 3.5 since it's creation.

I'm biased. I've been waiting for Fourth Edition for quite a while. I don't mean to say that I'm a fanatic about the system, but nothing else seems to be impressing me as of late. I will continue to play 3.5 for some time, I'm sure, because of all of it's splat books and additions that 4e doesn't have yet.

That said, I went ahead and ran a game on Friday. It was an unprepared game. I did 15 minutes of quick prep before everyone was finally done making characters. Said as it is I didn't have much time to make anything up. I went with an Eladrin base, since 3 of the 5 players were of the race and went from there.

Now, in 3.5 I would regularly mold the rolls and rules to my own liking to help the PCs survive. Needless to say that 3.5 can be very rough if the dice align themselves properly. I had to consistently fudge some events to ensure people continued to have fun and not let the bad luck ruin the plot, characters or night. It was fun, but I had to make it fun.

Last night, however, I actually tried to kill the PCs. I failed multiple times. It was fun for everyone. People were continually on the edge of their seat and being dramatic and heroic, or brooding and sinister. The best part of it all was that I didn't really have to do much. It just happened on it's own, and the Fourth Ed rules helped it all along.

I'll continue to test the system over the next couple of months. Many games will be had and enjoyed.

We'll play 3.5 everyone once in a while, but for the most part it seems that 4e will be our main stay -- especially once the extra books become released!

Happy Gaming,
Neceros.

 

[Foundry of Decay]

Keen! Thanks for the report.

I've had similar experiences as well. I too had to fudge a lot of rolls or at least tone down the weapons that some critters had in the first 3 levels of 3.5. In fact I killed a player's paladin in the first game of 3.0 that I ever ran simply because three of the four things the group was facing critted him,while the fourth simply hit him (I rolled all four attacks at once, and I believe after the damage was totaled up, the poor guy was at about minus 30 or so).

But we still had a hoot with 3.x.

But I can empathize with being able to send the kitchen sink at 1st level characters in 4e. The last battle that we played had the group of 6 facing off against an equal number of third level bad-guys and the party still came through it (albeit rather beat up).

I'm itching for our books to get here. I've so far only run games using the lite version and we put the campaign on hiatus until our books get here.

 

[neceros]

Thanks for the comment!

 

[Khairn]

Hello everyone.

Most of you may know me due to my involvement in character sheet creation. I've been a fan and supporter of Fourth Ed since before '08, and have been playing 3.5 since it's creation.

I'm biased. I've been waiting for Fourth Edition for quite a while. I don't mean to say that I'm a fanatic about the system, but nothing else seems to be impressing me as of late. I will continue to play 3.5 for some time, I'm sure, because of all of it's splat books and additions that 4e doesn't have yet.

That said, I went ahead and ran a game on Friday. It was an unprepared game. I did 15 minutes of quick prep before everyone was finally done making characters. Said as it is I didn't have much time to make anything up. I went with an Eladrin base, since 3 of the 5 players were of the race and went from there.

Now, in 3.5 I would regularly mold the rolls and rules to my own liking to help the PCs survive. Needless to say that 3.5 can be very rough if the dice align themselves properly. I had to consistently fudge some events to ensure people continued to have fun and not let the bad luck ruin the plot, characters or night. It was fun, but I had to make it fun.

Last night, however, I actually tried to kill the PCs. I failed multiple times. It was fun for everyone. People were continually on the edge of their seat and being dramatic and heroic, or brooding and sinister. The best part of it all was that I didn't really have to do much. It just happened on it's own, and the Fourth Ed rules helped it all along.

I'll continue to test the system over the next couple of months. Many games will be had and enjoyed.

We'll play 3.5 everyone once in a while, but for the most part it seems that 4e will be our main stay -- especially once the extra books become released!

Happy Gaming,
Neceros.

Hey Neceros, it sounds like the game has hit the "sweet spot" for you and your players, and that is a great feeling.

My own experience with 4E was less than fulfilling but its fun to see how other gamers are enjoying the new game.