A commonly ignored/missed part of "combat takes forever" in 4e is moreso on the player side as well. 4e CAN suffer from the "player has to consult the book to choose which of their two at wills is worth using in this situation" (which can also happen in 5e with spell casters, but in 4e every class can have that problem instead of only half of them). But if players are engaged and paying attention, rounds start going super quick, especially on a VTT, since its click power -> read result -> next. My 3 players took out a wyrmling, a soldier guarding it, and a pile of minions in almost exactly 45 minutes. Less than 1/3rd the length of the session. The only time I see long turns is when things interact, which is usually when things get the most cinematic. IE: The ranger uses the guardian theme to take a hit meant for a defender, activating the defender's mark punish, and then the warlord uses powerful warning to force that to miss and give the ranger a free attack on the monster as well. And that's far to cool to complain about losing 2 minutes figuring out how and what happens.
Yes the chaining off other character actions encourages teamwork and people paying attention at all times. Rather than playing on their phones when it isn't their turn. While this does mean things can take longer, it also means people get to do all this cool, cinematic stuff.
I do think VTTs are a huge part of the reason 4e is having this renaissance. I remember reading somewhere that 4e was designed to be played using a VTT, since back them WotC was planning on adding one to that subscription service of theirs, but they never did. They just made that character sheet builder. I also have to point out that "4e combat takes forever" may sound overstated when you look back at 4e after it became fully realized and streamlined, but when it came out it was a valid criticism. I remember a very common tweak GMs used to do early on 4e was to reduce the HP and increase the damage monsters dealt. Later on the edition, WotC pretty much started doing the same. Just compare the HP and Damage of most creatures on the first Monster Manual with the third one.
@@luisgusta Ironically, the 'change the hp' thing is actually misinformation that gets passed around pretty aggressively. Most of the hp/ac changes are microscopic and only show up in pargaon+, but I'm fairly confident most people saying 'the math doesn't work in the old books' never made it to paragon tier. The extra +1 to attack rolls that every essentials class got definitely helped, and they did increase the damage of monsters to make them more lethal, but their HP and AC was almost entirely untweaked. The reason people say the AC / HP changed drastically, was players experiencing the common DM advice at the time. Use more brutes and fewer soldiers. Which has the same effect of more hp less AC, but you can do that exact same encounter design in MM1 (though the 'suggested encounters' would use multiple soldiers in MM1. MM3 and MV simply have no 'suggested encounters'.) Compare: Kobold dragonshield (MM), Wilden Destroyer(MM3), Poisonscale Slitherer (MM2) , and Kobold Dragonshield (MV). Wilden Destroyer is the only one with more hp and less AC, and its only 3 hp for 1 ac. MV dragonshield does the most damage but is otherwise unchanged. Wilden Destroyer can also stun a player. Skipping a turn is more likely to lengthen combat than speed it up (though very dramatic to induce panic.) Even up at level 22, Greater earth elemental (mm3) is 37 AC, 212 HP, while efreet fireblade(mm1) is 38 AC 206 hp. Technically true of less AC more HP but. imperceptibly. And the efreet Cinderlord in MV gained 1 AC from its MM1 counterpart. The main thing that sped up encounters later in 4e's lifespan were themes (an extra encounter power at level 1 is a godsend. Not just for damage, but diversity skyrocketed. It meant one more turn before at-will spam). VTTs are also absolutely amazing, even the manual ones like R20. I can manually do a +2 from CA in my head or +1 from the cleric in my head, but I can't help track every player's bonus from feats, weapon type, etc IRL without prepwork.
4e is still my favourite edition, and with every new edition of D&D after they’re making more and more strides directly towards 4e again Even the newest edition that’s not out yet blatantly rips directly from 4e weapons/powers to make martials more interesting It was ahead of its time, and the grognards just weren’t ready for it
Combat is the heart of every edition and iteration of D&D. Everything is built around that. Roleplaying, exploration, etc. are the filler that offers something more than just going from one combat room to the next. The ideal amount of filler, however, is subject to personal preference. As such, the rules do not need to cater to the filler aspects of the game as it is left largely to the individuals to decide how much is required for their enjoyment of the game. 4e was simply being the most honest and transparent version of D&D ever made. That doesn't mean roleplaying or exploration is less valued or desired by players. It is simply the aspects of the game that requires the least codifications to make it work within the scope of the game itself. In 4e, the combat encounter is the centerpiece of the game, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The same people who say 4e is all combat also ignore the Skill Challenge rules, which I still use in my 5e games to this day. AND Skill Challenges cover a huge range of scenarios in just a few pages, depending which skills an individual challenge utilizes. Not to mention that you don't really need rules for roleplaying, so that argument is bunk.
I love skill challenges and I still use them too, but on PF2e. Funny thing about PF2e is that even though they don't officially have them, their rules for performing rituals work very much like skill challenges, so I had a very solid framework to adapt them to this system.
@@luisgusta Nice! I used a Skill Challenge to represent an impromptu "sealing ritual" against a main villain who was about to get out. They did so well, they didn't even HAVE to fight him.
I remember the "4e is all combat" argument being more about the fact they gamefied non-combat encounters on a way they felt like combat encounters. I can understand where it comes from, but it does show a very superficial reading of the rules, instead of real play experience. And it is also really paradoxal that the system that do have more rules for stuff you do out of combat is the system people say is all combat because of that.
D&D is, and has always been, almost entirely dedicated to combat, with a handful of elements for exploration and dungeon movement. There were rules for TSR era D&D about exploring dungeons but they weren't much more expansive than skill challenges, if at all. 4th Edition focuses on making this dungeon crawl gameplay work that 3rd Edition said should be the sole focus of this new era of D&D, as much of the exploration and domain gameplay emerged from players showing increased interest in advancing this gameplay (truthfully, the 9th level castle was a passive-aggressive nudge to make you retire your character) and WotC wanted to put the dungeon crawling front and center. 5th Edition adds some superficial ribbons and empty statements about how vast and flexible the game is but if you spend any amount of time browsing guidebooks or community advice, you'll notice just how untrue it is. 5e needs many more combats than 4e to approach a semblance of balance because the only real countermeasure to their stupidly powerful control and utility spells is the possibility that they may run out and the total lack of noncombat procedures, compounded with the vast utility spells can provide out of combat too, means that it gets really ugly if the party spends sessions not dealing with combat. Neither system is particularly great at dealing with noncombat but 4e has the decency to be open about the combat focus.
Although I haven’t played it yet I actually have the 4E core books and wasn’t sure if essentials was overall worth it. I do love the way 4E’s books are laid out. Not bloated and easy to read compared to the bloat and page flipping 5e has. I appreciate the rundown, thank you!
I do still play 4e to this very days, for me it is still unmatched. And while I do like combat in 4e very much, I don't really see my games as 'combat and nothing but combat'. Just because our combats are interesting and full of decisions, it doesn't mean we have nothing else at out table. There are hexcrawls, there are sandboxes, there are factions and politics, there are character drama and everything else we love in role-playing games. Oh, and also combat. A really good one :)
As a DM, I've found that 4e combat CAN run long... if the players are still not used to the system. New players - even those who've had experience with 5e - tend to be a bit hesitant and unsure about what to do. I'm not sure why, but for some reason the whole At Will/Encounter/Daily power thing seems to confuse them a lot. I've had to pause the game and explain that you don't HAVE to use only basic attacks all the time to encourage them to try using different abilities. But once the players have done a couple of sessions and know what they're doing, combat can go by surprisingly quickly. Having the offline character builder definitely helps a lot because it lets you print out character sheets with little cards showing all the character's powers and what rolls you have to make. Honestly, the longest part of combat comes from me trying to figure out how the monsters are gonna react to whatever bullshit the players have done this time. Aside from that, one thing that should be noted is that no matter the edition you can run a perfectly fine Dnd game without any combat at all. In my most recent session, the players were exploring an old temple and instead of rushing straight towards the central area to fight the golem guardians (that they already knew were there from scouting earlier), they decided to take their time and explore the rest of the temple instead. It was basically an entire session of just exploration and role-play with a ghost that was haunting one of the rooms, but they had a blast. They also tried to loot just about every valuable item they could find, which was pretty funny because the biggest argument during that entire session was them trying to figure out how to carry off the high priest's bed (it was enchanted to make people sleep better) and take it all the way back to town.
4e is an objectively better deaigned, easier to run, and fun to play game than 5e. The only advantage 5e has is current and digital support. Thats it. If WotC equally supported 4e it would trounce 5th ed in players very quickly. Any type of campaign you'd run with 5e would be superior if played in 4e. Choosing 5e over 4e is the incorrect and inferior choice. Case closed.
@@CJ_esc.artist Essentials tried to make 4e simpler by removing choices (choices were the whole point of 4e, but it did make character creation overwhelming for a new player). It was called essentials because it was boiling 4e down to all you 'needed', the bare minimum. Its basically like using pregens, but if you got to pick your pregen in depth. Great for setting up a quick play, great for starting the system if nobody understands the basics of 4e. But its VERY trainingwheels and doesn't really show what 4e was 'good for'. Fighter normally gets 18 once per short rest powers to choose from. Essentials just gives you one that's generically good and calls it a day. Its very streamlined and well built, but its effectively just premade characters. (Think champion fighter in 5e) I would say start with phb 1, phb2, and dragon magazine 399 (it has themes, which are like subclasses, but not attached to any one class.)
4e vs Essentials is a silly question. They are the same game. People like to compare Essentials to 3.5 as a sort of half step edition but its not. Its the exact same game as base 4e with the only difference being class design philosophy, granted that philosophy was bad and ignored all the good in 4e but still. Everything is compatible and some things are just outright replacements like how Monster Vault is just Monster Manual 1 but with the fixed math. We are also in the era of 4e where you could and should just be using a compendium and the character builder. It was assumed you had them when the game was still in print and there is no excuse to not use them now that its free and fan maintained since WotC took it away. 4e is the sum of its parts and should be taken that way instead of by a handful of books.
As said by others its the same game fully compatible with each other. Essential releaaed some simplified classes and adapted monster math. I think its best to just use everything. Players can pick simpler esswnrial classes or more complex older ones.
I never played 4e, I did buy it when it came out and I can't say anything about combat or anything like that, I just read the "abilities" or whatever they were called for each class and I returned the books and went back to 3.5 and eventually stopped playing TTRPGs altogether for a few years until 5e came out, I relented on the abilities stance until again recently and now I'm happily playing OSR style games. All this to say, I didn't like 4e but not because of too much combat, and most of my complaints are still present in 5e.
It does seem like dnd4e mostly suffered from "new edition bad", amplified by popularity growth of social media or smth like that.
YES!
A commonly ignored/missed part of "combat takes forever" in 4e is moreso on the player side as well. 4e CAN suffer from the "player has to consult the book to choose which of their two at wills is worth using in this situation" (which can also happen in 5e with spell casters, but in 4e every class can have that problem instead of only half of them).
But if players are engaged and paying attention, rounds start going super quick, especially on a VTT, since its click power -> read result -> next. My 3 players took out a wyrmling, a soldier guarding it, and a pile of minions in almost exactly 45 minutes. Less than 1/3rd the length of the session.
The only time I see long turns is when things interact, which is usually when things get the most cinematic. IE: The ranger uses the guardian theme to take a hit meant for a defender, activating the defender's mark punish, and then the warlord uses powerful warning to force that to miss and give the ranger a free attack on the monster as well. And that's far to cool to complain about losing 2 minutes figuring out how and what happens.
Yes the chaining off other character actions encourages teamwork and people paying attention at all times. Rather than playing on their phones when it isn't their turn. While this does mean things can take longer, it also means people get to do all this cool, cinematic stuff.
I do think VTTs are a huge part of the reason 4e is having this renaissance.
I remember reading somewhere that 4e was designed to be played using a VTT, since back them WotC was planning on adding one to that subscription service of theirs, but they never did. They just made that character sheet builder.
I also have to point out that "4e combat takes forever" may sound overstated when you look back at 4e after it became fully realized and streamlined, but when it came out it was a valid criticism. I remember a very common tweak GMs used to do early on 4e was to reduce the HP and increase the damage monsters dealt. Later on the edition, WotC pretty much started doing the same. Just compare the HP and Damage of most creatures on the first Monster Manual with the third one.
@@luisgusta Ironically, the 'change the hp' thing is actually misinformation that gets passed around pretty aggressively. Most of the hp/ac changes are microscopic and only show up in pargaon+, but I'm fairly confident most people saying 'the math doesn't work in the old books' never made it to paragon tier. The extra +1 to attack rolls that every essentials class got definitely helped, and they did increase the damage of monsters to make them more lethal, but their HP and AC was almost entirely untweaked. The reason people say the AC / HP changed drastically, was players experiencing the common DM advice at the time. Use more brutes and fewer soldiers. Which has the same effect of more hp less AC, but you can do that exact same encounter design in MM1 (though the 'suggested encounters' would use multiple soldiers in MM1. MM3 and MV simply have no 'suggested encounters'.)
Compare: Kobold dragonshield (MM), Wilden Destroyer(MM3), Poisonscale Slitherer (MM2) , and Kobold Dragonshield (MV). Wilden Destroyer is the only one with more hp and less AC, and its only 3 hp for 1 ac. MV dragonshield does the most damage but is otherwise unchanged. Wilden Destroyer can also stun a player. Skipping a turn is more likely to lengthen combat than speed it up (though very dramatic to induce panic.) Even up at level 22, Greater earth elemental (mm3) is 37 AC, 212 HP, while efreet fireblade(mm1) is 38 AC 206 hp. Technically true of less AC more HP but. imperceptibly. And the efreet Cinderlord in MV gained 1 AC from its MM1 counterpart.
The main thing that sped up encounters later in 4e's lifespan were themes (an extra encounter power at level 1 is a godsend. Not just for damage, but diversity skyrocketed. It meant one more turn before at-will spam). VTTs are also absolutely amazing, even the manual ones like R20. I can manually do a +2 from CA in my head or +1 from the cleric in my head, but I can't help track every player's bonus from feats, weapon type, etc IRL without prepwork.
I also noticed that the big aoe powers call for you to make individual attack rolls against each target. Which definitely do not do that lol
4e IS underrated. i love the skill challenge system and i use it in my 5e game.
4e is still my favourite edition, and with every new edition of D&D after they’re making more and more strides directly towards 4e again
Even the newest edition that’s not out yet blatantly rips directly from 4e weapons/powers to make martials more interesting
It was ahead of its time, and the grognards just weren’t ready for it
Combat is the heart of every edition and iteration of D&D. Everything is built around that. Roleplaying, exploration, etc. are the filler that offers something more than just going from one combat room to the next. The ideal amount of filler, however, is subject to personal preference. As such, the rules do not need to cater to the filler aspects of the game as it is left largely to the individuals to decide how much is required for their enjoyment of the game. 4e was simply being the most honest and transparent version of D&D ever made.
That doesn't mean roleplaying or exploration is less valued or desired by players. It is simply the aspects of the game that requires the least codifications to make it work within the scope of the game itself. In 4e, the combat encounter is the centerpiece of the game, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I agree: the 4th edition embraced its "gamistic" core and didn't try to sell a fake world simulation system.
The same people who say 4e is all combat also ignore the Skill Challenge rules, which I still use in my 5e games to this day. AND Skill Challenges cover a huge range of scenarios in just a few pages, depending which skills an individual challenge utilizes. Not to mention that you don't really need rules for roleplaying, so that argument is bunk.
I love skill challenges and I still use them too, but on PF2e. Funny thing about PF2e is that even though they don't officially have them, their rules for performing rituals work very much like skill challenges, so I had a very solid framework to adapt them to this system.
@@luisgusta Nice! I used a Skill Challenge to represent an impromptu "sealing ritual" against a main villain who was about to get out. They did so well, they didn't even HAVE to fight him.
Love 4e
It's really just the powers. Nearly everything else is skills and roleplaying.
Thanks Greybeard!
Guess who's back, back again 🎉🎉🎉
I remember the "4e is all combat" argument being more about the fact they gamefied non-combat encounters on a way they felt like combat encounters.
I can understand where it comes from, but it does show a very superficial reading of the rules, instead of real play experience.
And it is also really paradoxal that the system that do have more rules for stuff you do out of combat is the system people say is all combat because of that.
D&D is, and has always been, almost entirely dedicated to combat, with a handful of elements for exploration and dungeon movement. There were rules for TSR era D&D about exploring dungeons but they weren't much more expansive than skill challenges, if at all. 4th Edition focuses on making this dungeon crawl gameplay work that 3rd Edition said should be the sole focus of this new era of D&D, as much of the exploration and domain gameplay emerged from players showing increased interest in advancing this gameplay (truthfully, the 9th level castle was a passive-aggressive nudge to make you retire your character) and WotC wanted to put the dungeon crawling front and center.
5th Edition adds some superficial ribbons and empty statements about how vast and flexible the game is but if you spend any amount of time browsing guidebooks or community advice, you'll notice just how untrue it is. 5e needs many more combats than 4e to approach a semblance of balance because the only real countermeasure to their stupidly powerful control and utility spells is the possibility that they may run out and the total lack of noncombat procedures, compounded with the vast utility spells can provide out of combat too, means that it gets really ugly if the party spends sessions not dealing with combat.
Neither system is particularly great at dealing with noncombat but 4e has the decency to be open about the combat focus.
There is nothing wrong with being a "4E apologist".
This edition, while being a departure from 3.5, is a good thing in and of itself.
Although I haven’t played it yet I actually have the 4E core books and wasn’t sure if essentials was overall worth it. I do love the way 4E’s books are laid out. Not bloated and easy to read compared to the bloat and page flipping 5e has.
I appreciate the rundown, thank you!
I do still play 4e to this very days, for me it is still unmatched. And while I do like combat in 4e very much, I don't really see my games as 'combat and nothing but combat'. Just because our combats are interesting and full of decisions, it doesn't mean we have nothing else at out table. There are hexcrawls, there are sandboxes, there are factions and politics, there are character drama and everything else we love in role-playing games. Oh, and also combat. A really good one :)
As a DM, I've found that 4e combat CAN run long... if the players are still not used to the system. New players - even those who've had experience with 5e - tend to be a bit hesitant and unsure about what to do. I'm not sure why, but for some reason the whole At Will/Encounter/Daily power thing seems to confuse them a lot. I've had to pause the game and explain that you don't HAVE to use only basic attacks all the time to encourage them to try using different abilities.
But once the players have done a couple of sessions and know what they're doing, combat can go by surprisingly quickly. Having the offline character builder definitely helps a lot because it lets you print out character sheets with little cards showing all the character's powers and what rolls you have to make. Honestly, the longest part of combat comes from me trying to figure out how the monsters are gonna react to whatever bullshit the players have done this time.
Aside from that, one thing that should be noted is that no matter the edition you can run a perfectly fine Dnd game without any combat at all. In my most recent session, the players were exploring an old temple and instead of rushing straight towards the central area to fight the golem guardians (that they already knew were there from scouting earlier), they decided to take their time and explore the rest of the temple instead. It was basically an entire session of just exploration and role-play with a ghost that was haunting one of the rooms, but they had a blast.
They also tried to loot just about every valuable item they could find, which was pretty funny because the biggest argument during that entire session was them trying to figure out how to carry off the high priest's bed (it was enchanted to make people sleep better) and take it all the way back to town.
4e is an objectively better deaigned, easier to run, and fun to play game than 5e. The only advantage 5e has is current and digital support. Thats it. If WotC equally supported 4e it would trounce 5th ed in players very quickly.
Any type of campaign you'd run with 5e would be superior if played in 4e.
Choosing 5e over 4e is the incorrect and inferior choice.
Case closed.
I’ll have to defer here
Never touched 4e.
I still like and play 3.5 and 5e
Regular 4E vs Essentials? Which should be the version to try/celebrate?
@@CJ_esc.artist Regular 4e. Essentials was WotC apologizing for 4e before the release of 5e.
Right but which would best to try? Was the original Broken in some way to where essentials cleaned anything up?
@@CJ_esc.artist Essentials tried to make 4e simpler by removing choices (choices were the whole point of 4e, but it did make character creation overwhelming for a new player). It was called essentials because it was boiling 4e down to all you 'needed', the bare minimum. Its basically like using pregens, but if you got to pick your pregen in depth. Great for setting up a quick play, great for starting the system if nobody understands the basics of 4e. But its VERY trainingwheels and doesn't really show what 4e was 'good for'. Fighter normally gets 18 once per short rest powers to choose from. Essentials just gives you one that's generically good and calls it a day. Its very streamlined and well built, but its effectively just premade characters. (Think champion fighter in 5e)
I would say start with phb 1, phb2, and dragon magazine 399 (it has themes, which are like subclasses, but not attached to any one class.)
4e vs Essentials is a silly question. They are the same game. People like to compare Essentials to 3.5 as a sort of half step edition but its not. Its the exact same game as base 4e with the only difference being class design philosophy, granted that philosophy was bad and ignored all the good in 4e but still. Everything is compatible and some things are just outright replacements like how Monster Vault is just Monster Manual 1 but with the fixed math.
We are also in the era of 4e where you could and should just be using a compendium and the character builder. It was assumed you had them when the game was still in print and there is no excuse to not use them now that its free and fan maintained since WotC took it away. 4e is the sum of its parts and should be taken that way instead of by a handful of books.
As said by others its the same game fully compatible with each other. Essential releaaed some simplified classes and adapted monster math. I think its best to just use everything. Players can pick simpler esswnrial classes or more complex older ones.
I never played 4e, I did buy it when it came out and I can't say anything about combat or anything like that, I just read the "abilities" or whatever they were called for each class and I returned the books and went back to 3.5 and eventually stopped playing TTRPGs altogether for a few years until 5e came out, I relented on the abilities stance until again recently and now I'm happily playing OSR style games.
All this to say, I didn't like 4e but not because of too much combat, and most of my complaints are still present in 5e.