I <3 (heart) 4e

Not enough to want to play it, but I like some of their rules or concepts enough to steal them as house rules. Take note that I haven’t played the game or read the rule books, so I’m commenting on the concepts as I understand them.

First, I applaud 4e for dispensing with Vancian magic. If nothing else, this was worthwhile. Anybody who wants to play a wizard character wants to cast spells during a fight. Putting a dividing line between combat spells and non-combat rituals also gets a hearty cheer from me. Spells that can be cast in combat should be different than utility/divination/whatever spells.

They’ve created some sort of standardized system for non-standard combat maneuvers and instituted Action Points as a way to allow heroic stunts. Other systems already use variants of this. Let the swashbuckling begin.

There are actual meaningful differences between different races being the same class. Unfortunately, these differences seem to just amount to counting off squares in combat and various bonuses, but I really like the idea.

Streamlined monster stat blocks and abilities: Well, anything would be an improvement over 3e stat blocks that might cover several pages for a major NPC in Dungeon magazine. It’s cool though to make monster powers easier to play and to see what a monster can do at a glance. It’s bad in that seemingly every power again involves counting squares.

Skills rules: They couldn’t be any worse than 3e. Use Rope? Out of class skills, anyone? Skills are trained or untrained with bonuses based on level. If you’re going to use skills, this at least seems simple.

Spell duration: Counting off rounds for spell length is nuts! There I’ve said it. Combat can be complex enough without having to keep track of a bunch of spell effects. If you have to have a rationale for spells only lasting for an encounter, say that they’re adrenaline activated.

Minions: I really like this idea. It fits in well with the heroic fantasy genre. It lets the players feel cool. It makes the main villains look that much tougher. Why bother tallying hit points for hoards of nothing monsters?

Healing surges: Not per se, but I like the notion. 4e Adventuring parties do not have to have clerics. Granted, parties still pretty much have to consist of characters in assigned roles, since 4e assigns party roles even more stridently than Old School. This is an unfortunate by-product of its dependence on miniatures in combat. But the is idea is there, buried, that you could have parties that don’t have a traditional composition. Why not a gang of thieves? A cadre of mercenaries? A class field trip of wizards from Hogwart’s? (Scratch that last one.) Pity that they didn’t go further with it.

Defense stats: AC, fort, will, and reflex are static values. D20 should have been set up to work like this from the beginning.

See, I do have some respect for 4e. There’s some good ideas in there, and I’ve only listed the ones I know about. Of course, I’ve also got a post of things I don’t like coming up.

J.