![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I just got back from playing D&D Fourth Edition.
Yes, you read that correct 4th Edition! No I didn't invent time travel. My friends at the local gaming store (The Gamer's Gambit) scored the demo version of 4th edition to run at their store for their players. It was fun. A lot of fun. In about four hours, we got through four encounters. (Well sort of five, but one of them was a bit fudged.) Not shabby. Now, this wasn't the full experience. We didn't have the books, just our character sheets, and a cheat sheet summary of enough rules to play the characters on hand. The DM had the adventure, and enough rules to run the adventure. That's about it. So there's heaps, and heaps left about the system to learn. But it was fun. It was different. No question, this is not old school D&D by a long shot. On the otherhand, if you are willing to let go your preconceptions on what a wizard is, a warrior, a ranger, etc, you can have a lot of fun with this.
Now, let me say, while the game was fun, and we did get through a lot of encounters, realize these were first level characters. And even in 3.5 I can get through a lot more encounters at low level as a DM than I could once the PCs got to a substantial level. The proof, of course, will be in the long play. I suspect that the momentum will be maintained because of the easy of bookkeeping---the bane of the gamer experience. I played the tiefling wizard, and wizards are notorious for being the worst for the whole book keeping shebang. Not this edition. I had virtually no difficultly tracking what my options were. And I never ran out of spells, because I had spells I could cast at will. Which meant that I always had the ability to be effective. The dice on the other hand had other ideas, and I spent the majority of the session hanging out at the high end or low end of the die. When I rolled well (a crit) it was awesome to do some serious damage as a first level wizard. On the other hand, I wiffed way more than I would have liked, and in the end, I was the only PC to push up the daisies permanently. (The final climactic battle came down to literally a one on one, with our dwarven fighter the only remaining PC standing, and the opposing wizard running for the hills Bloodied, and none too happy.)
I think the system is going to be too difficult for converting easily existing campaigns. Perhaps not impossible for the dedicated and determined world builders out there. For the average joe, it might be easier to hit the campaign reset button. That's what I would do if I were still running my campaign. I don't imagine I'll get to play in a real 4th Edition campaign for some time. Too much else going on, and I don't expect my current DM to be converting anytime before next year. On the other hand, maybe he'll turn out to like this edition far better than I anticipate.
My overall opinion is: a good teaser to satisfy the curiosity, but am still reserving final assessment after I've got the whole package to peruse.
Yes, you read that correct 4th Edition! No I didn't invent time travel. My friends at the local gaming store (The Gamer's Gambit) scored the demo version of 4th edition to run at their store for their players. It was fun. A lot of fun. In about four hours, we got through four encounters. (Well sort of five, but one of them was a bit fudged.) Not shabby. Now, this wasn't the full experience. We didn't have the books, just our character sheets, and a cheat sheet summary of enough rules to play the characters on hand. The DM had the adventure, and enough rules to run the adventure. That's about it. So there's heaps, and heaps left about the system to learn. But it was fun. It was different. No question, this is not old school D&D by a long shot. On the otherhand, if you are willing to let go your preconceptions on what a wizard is, a warrior, a ranger, etc, you can have a lot of fun with this.
Now, let me say, while the game was fun, and we did get through a lot of encounters, realize these were first level characters. And even in 3.5 I can get through a lot more encounters at low level as a DM than I could once the PCs got to a substantial level. The proof, of course, will be in the long play. I suspect that the momentum will be maintained because of the easy of bookkeeping---the bane of the gamer experience. I played the tiefling wizard, and wizards are notorious for being the worst for the whole book keeping shebang. Not this edition. I had virtually no difficultly tracking what my options were. And I never ran out of spells, because I had spells I could cast at will. Which meant that I always had the ability to be effective. The dice on the other hand had other ideas, and I spent the majority of the session hanging out at the high end or low end of the die. When I rolled well (a crit) it was awesome to do some serious damage as a first level wizard. On the other hand, I wiffed way more than I would have liked, and in the end, I was the only PC to push up the daisies permanently. (The final climactic battle came down to literally a one on one, with our dwarven fighter the only remaining PC standing, and the opposing wizard running for the hills Bloodied, and none too happy.)
I think the system is going to be too difficult for converting easily existing campaigns. Perhaps not impossible for the dedicated and determined world builders out there. For the average joe, it might be easier to hit the campaign reset button. That's what I would do if I were still running my campaign. I don't imagine I'll get to play in a real 4th Edition campaign for some time. Too much else going on, and I don't expect my current DM to be converting anytime before next year. On the other hand, maybe he'll turn out to like this edition far better than I anticipate.
My overall opinion is: a good teaser to satisfy the curiosity, but am still reserving final assessment after I've got the whole package to peruse.
Tags: