Report from DDXP and 4.0 play

[Keld Denar]

So, I went to DDXP (the big RPGA convention outside of Washington DC) this past weekend, and I must say, I had a blast playing 4th Ed. I played in both of the preview game, as well as running the Delve event 5 times. I spent most of the time playing the Halfling Paladin(defender) which was a really dynamic character to play. The other characters available were the Eladrin Ranger, the Dwarven Fighter, the Tiefling Wizard, the Human(?) Warlock, and the Human Cleric. They were all played at 1st level. The paladin abilities I had were:

At Will:
Bolstering Strike: Standard action, attack that adds a small +hit bonus, does weapon damage and grants 3 temp hp on successful hit

??Challenge: Mark. Minor Action range 5, Marked target must include Paladin in attacks or suffer -2 hit and take 8 radiant damage

Holy Smite: Standard Action, small bonus to hit and does weapon damage + small bonus radiant damage, more bonus damage if target is marked by paladin.

Encounter Powers:
Shielding Smite: Standard Action, attack does double weapon damage and grants a nearby ally a +3 bonus to their AC.

1 of either
Divine Might: Minor Action, +2 damage for 1 round
Divine Mettle: Minor Action, Grant nearby ally a save at +3

Daily Powers:
3x/day Lay on Hands: Minor Action, spend healing surge to grant ally hp equal to their healing surge value.

1x/day
?? (forgot name) range 5, will attack, does 3d8+4(stats??) damage to target, every time target attacks, the take 1d8 damage (save ends)
Special: If attack misses, target takes 1d8 damage and every time they attack, they take 1d4 (save ends)

[ArenaManager]

Very interesting.

What I am more interested in was what was the most awkward rules from 4th Ed. I like what I've heard about it, but I want to hear what possible flaws it has if possible before I actualy shell out the money for it in June.

[TheThan]

Care to give us a little more information on how the gameplay went?

Since everyone is starving for solid information.

[Keld Denar]

We faught a lot of monsters, each with interesting and mostly unique powers. The crazyest thing we faught was a black dragon. I don't know most of the stats of it, but we (as 1st level characters) manage to eventually kill it. It had about 280 hp, all defenses over 20 (except will defence, which was about 16) a breath weapon that was a line of acid that did 1d6+6 damage and caused a debuff that did 5 damage per round until you saved and lowered your AC by 4. The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed. At 50% hp, the dragon became "bloodied" which automatically recharged its breath weapon.It also had 2 claw attacks it could do as a standard action with about +10 to hit dealing around 1d10+5 damage each. Whenever a character attempted to melee the dragon and missed, the dragon could make a free tail slap attack against its attacker at about +6-8 for 1d6+4ish damage.

Did I mention that we were all 1st level characters? I as the paladin had 27 hp at level 1, and the dwarf warrior had 32. The rest of the characters had around 20-25 hp. It was such a long hard fight, but eventually we killed it with only the warlock standing (at 2 hp). The only character that truely died was me, the paladin. All the others were able to stabilize on their own or with checks from the other players.

Oh, and the dragon pretty much started with an auto surprise due to the darkness and our party's crappy passive perception checks.

[Indon]

I'm curious about what kind of combat-related questions came up at the tables you were playing, personally.

Was the focus generally, "Should we burn all our resources on this guy?" or was it all about the minor bonuses from at-will powers? Did people remember or just forget to use action points? Did anyone make a normal attack during the combats? Were there any innovative (i.e. not a standard disarm) solutions to traps?

How did you fight the Dragon - did you just all kind of bunch up around it and beat it up? Did it fly any?

[Keld Denar]

The most awkward thing I thought was how ongoing effects were resolved. If you got a status affliction (such as the above dragon's acid breath or the kobalds fire sling rocks) you took the damage at the beginning of your turn, and then you make a save at the end of your turn. Your allies could make heal checks to let you make a save early, but if your turn followed the foe that caused the status effect, then you just took the damage, but if your allies went before you, they could help put you out or whatever. This just felt like the timing was off. I'm used to 3.0 and 3.5 where ongoing damage effects happen on their origionators turn (like Acid Arrow, etc) and that all characters would have a chance to react to the condition before it recurred.

Other than that, I really liked the system. I'll post more when I get home from work and have access to my character sheets and have a bit more time for more structured posts. Thanks for listening!

[Annarrkkii]

The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed.

...how is this more simple than "every 1d4+1 rounds?"

[Titanium Dragon]

The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed.

Are you sure you don't mean n in 6 chance?

That is to say:

1/6 in the first round
2/6 in the second round
3/6 in the third round
ect.?

[Artanis]

I greatly appreciate you taking the time and effort to type this out, lussmanj

...how is this more simple than "every 1d4+1 rounds?"

Interesting observation.

I'm hoping it's just lussmanj misstating something simpler, but I guess we'll find out.

Edit: Like what Titanium Dragon said

[Nebo_]

The other day my group downloaded all the character sheets and monster stats that have found their way onto the internet and played ourselves. It wasn't perfect and we had to ad hoc some of the rules, but all in all, it was very good. As I understand it, with the dragon's breath weapon, you roll a d6 and if the result is 5 or 6, it recharges.

[Keld Denar]

With the dragon's breath weapon, the way the DM made it sound, the first round after breathing, it recharged on a 6 (on a d6). The 2nd round, it recharged on a 5 or 6. The 3rd round, the DM rolled a 6 and it recharged, so I don't know if it was on a 4-6 or not.

The way the mechanics of a turn go, is you get 3 actions, a standard, a move, and a minor. You can always trade down, so you could take 3 minors, or 2 moves and a minor, or 2 minors and a standard, etc. Charging is a standard action, so you can actually move into a charge lane, then charge. This was pretty cool the way it works.

The fighter was a defensive character as well. His moves involed a lot of battlefield control type maneuvers. You aren't allowed to take an shift (what was a 5' step) around a fighter, or he whacks you. If you provoke an AoO from the fighter, he whacks you and you have to stop moving. The fighter has a standard action attack called Tide of Iron, an attack that does weapon damage + small bonus and also moves the target back 1 square (or any adjacent diagonal, so long as it is away), he also had the option of moving with the creature, or staying put. This was kind of cool, since it was an at will ability, so he was constantly pushing people around, including off cliffs and into lava. The fighter also has another move called passing attack, an encounter power that allows him to make a single attack against an adacent creature, shift for free, then make another single attack.

We faught some kobalds, which was fun. Kobalds are "shifty" which means that if you shift while adjacent to a kobald, the kobald can make an immediate shift as well. Therefore, you wanted to make sure if you did shift, you were adjacent to the fighter, so if the shifty kobald moved, the fighter would whack him.

In some encounters, you have standard foes with statted hp. In others, you have a "boss" and "minions". The minions die if they are targeted by a single successful attack, regardless of damage. The boss usually has 4-5 times the hp of the PCs. General stratagy included a lot of utilizing bottlenecks to keep the minions off your squishies while the tank types held off the bosses and soaked attacks and the strikers did damage and the controllers disabled, feared, or damaged.

One room we encountered had a few kobald minions up on a small tower inside of a large room sniping us with slings. A group of them were also on the ground to keep you from getting up the tower. A few others pushed a large rock into motion that circled in a trench around the base of the tower. This made it interesting to fight, because we couldn't reach the sniper kobalds with melee attacks (although our ranger and warlock were having a field day with the target practice) and we were trying to fight the kobalds on the ground without getting run over by the boulder. I actually got run over by it, and it basically made an attack vs my reflex defense. It missed, so I managed to squeeze against the wall as it rolled by. The dwarf wasn't so lucky and got knocked prone by the rock and took some damage. Oh, one other thing, the kobald snipers above were using sling bullets that stuck you to the ground. You had to make a save at the end of your turn to unstuck yourself from the ground. This led to some really tense saves as the rock was coming around the corner again. All in all, a very exciting encounter!

If you guys have any questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. I had a blast playing 4th ed, even if it was only a couple of level 1 characters. You never didn't have anything to do on your turn unlike often playing a level 1 cleric or wizard and being out of spells and having to shoot your crossbow or whatever. It really was very exciting.

[Naihal]

I'm curious, how did your party use your 1/day abilities? Did you blow them at the beginning of combat, did you save them, etc. How effective were they when you used them, if a party were to save up their daily abilities and blow them all on an elite enemy like the dragon, would they just decimate it or would they not be effective? If you had no daily abilities, could you still fight the dragon effectively or would you stand no chance?

The daily abilities have me worried. The at-will and encounter powers look balanced, but the daily powers look subject to potential abuse. If you could shed some light on how they worked, that would be helpful

[Rachel Lorelei]

I'm not sure how per-day abilities would be abuseable. Keep in mind that whenever you use a per-day ability you're not using a per-encounter ability--a 3dX + Stat per-day only does 1dX more than a 2dX+Stat per-encounter.

[Indon]

I'm not sure how per-day abilities would be abuseable. Keep in mind that whenever you use a per-day ability you're not using a per-encounter ability--a 3dX + Stat per-day only does 1dX more than a 2dX+Stat per-encounter.

But it looks like they generally have associated secondary damage until save as well, so it's probably an average of a few extra damage.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Sure, yeah. There's still the opportunity cost of not having used an Encounter power, making the per-days less relatively powerful than otherwise.

And if you use up all your Daily and Encounter powers during an encounter, clearly the Daily powers weren't abuseable, or they'd have won the fight for you. :)

[Keld Denar]

Well, we were typically fighting 3-4 encounters in a day, so it wasn't too hard to wait. Yea, a lot of the abilities were pretty song (the mages sleep spell was so imba, but required a successful attack roll and a failed save to work. The paladin's ability I felt was grossly under powered. I'm not sure if I interpretted it wrong, but it required you to hold your holy symbol. If you had that in your hand, you couldn't wield your weapon and your shield. Its a minor action to draw a weapon, so that was an action you couldn't use to mark a target or heal an ally. The warriors ability was just a couple extra dice of damage, but pretty nice, especially if it crit or roll max damage (same thing, about something like 40-50 damage).

The Warlocks daily was pretty nice too. If it hit, it allowed the warlock to move the target 3 squares (including off a cliff). Even if it missed, it made the target move 1 square. If it hit, every round after until the creature saved, the warlock could move the target a single square as a minor action.

The Ranger's daily was ok, but was typically more useful before the final encounter. It allowed the ranger to make 2 attack rolls against 2 different foes. If 1 hit, both hit and did some extra damage. However, against a single target, such as the dragon, you couldn't use it because you didn't have 2 targets.

[EvilElitest]

So what are the pros cons compared to 3E
from
EE

[Indon]

Yea, a lot of the abilities were pretty song (the mages sleep spell was so imba, but required a successful attack roll and a failed save to work.

Wait, they actually had Sleep? And it actually put an enemy to sleep, not just made them kinda drowsy for a bit? Well, they have at least one vaguely old-school, decent potential spell at least.

Also, it had to hit _and_ they got to make their save before it even affected them?

I'm not sure if I interpretted it wrong, but it required you to hold your holy symbol. If you had that in your hand, you couldn't wield your weapon and your shield.

Aren't shields generally strapped to the arm? I mean, if the holy symbol's on a chain or something, you could just wrap it around your wrist or something.

But then, that's a simulationist take. It'd probably have to be a houserule.

[Nebo_]

Wait, they actually had Sleep? And it actually put an enemy to sleep, not just made them kinda drowsy for a bit? Well, they have at least one vaguely old-school, decent potential spell at least.

Also, it had to hit _and_ they got to make their save before it even affected them?

You have to hit their will defense and then there is a save for partial effect; in this case, slow.

So what are the pros cons compared to 3E
from
EE

Try generalising more.

[Keld Denar]

One of the major pros in my opinion is that a character never has to make mundane attacks. You always have at least 2 (if not 3-4) at will powers to choose from, even if you've already spent your encounter and daily powers. In 3.5, as a 1st or 2nd level wizard, once you've dropped your sleep or color spray or whatever spell for the round, you pretty much have to fall back and shoot your crossbow or whatever piddly attack until the badguys are dead or you run away. Not so in 4.0 (hehehe, that's kind of catchy). A wizard never runs out of magic missiles, which, while they don't auto-hit anymore, now do 2d4+4ish with about a +5 to hit vs reflex defense at level 1. I don't know how this scales because I wasn't in the playtest, so I only have experience with level 1 characters.

Another cool thing is that every character has the ability to heal themselves to a certain degree. All characters have a number of healing surges, and a healing surge amount (the halfling paladin had 11 surges with a surge amount of 6, the dwarf warrior had 8 surges with a surge amount of 8). You can take a 2nd wind (standard action for most races, minor for dwarves because they are hardy) to heal yourself for your surge amount. If an ally makes a heal check on you, or uses an ability like the clerics healing spell, it can also trigger a healing surge which consumes a daily healing surge and heals you for your surge amount (plus a little extra with some abilities). Using a 2nd wind action also increase all your defenses by a small amount for a round, giving you a chance to get back on your feet fully.

I already mentioned what I thought was a major con, with the timing of ongoing effects. One other thing that's kind of wonky is the saving throw mechanic. You have a flat 55% chance to save, a 45% chance to fail. This means on a 10+ on a d20 roll, you save. So far, I haven't found much to adjust this (the paladin's Divine Mettle ability grants an ally a save with a +3, but that's about it). Thus it seems, no matter how powerful you are, the threat of that save hangs pretty heavy over everyone, PC or enemy. For example, once the wizard casts sleep and hits, the foe becomes drousy (slowed) and then at the end of that creatures turn, it has to roll a save. On a 1-9, it falls asleep and is helpless, but on a 10+ it just remains slowed for a bit longer. The following round, the creature spends its turn asleep and then gets to make a save at the end of its turn to wake up. This continues every round till the creature dies, is woken up (via attack) or rolls a 10+ for its save. This means that statistically, sleep only lasts for 2-3 rounds, although it can break early or last a long time if the dice fall right (or wrong!).

[Indon]

One of the major pros in my opinion is that a character never has to make mundane attacks. You always have at least 2 (if not 3-4) at will powers to choose from, even if you've already spent your encounter and daily powers. In 3.5, as a 1st or 2nd level wizard, once you've dropped your sleep or color spray or whatever spell for the round, you pretty much have to fall back and shoot your crossbow or whatever piddly attack until the badguys are dead or you run away. Not so in 4.0 (hehehe, that's kind of catchy). A wizard never runs out of magic missiles, which, while they don't auto-hit anymore, now do 2d4+4ish with about a +5 to hit vs reflex defense at level 1. I don't know how this scales because I wasn't in the playtest, so I only have experience with level 1 characters.

So did anyone do anything in combat not with a power in your games, to test the improvisational power system?

[Keld Denar]

So did anyone do anything in combat not with a power in your games, to test the improvisational power system?

Not quite sure if I follow you. If you mean something like attempt to pull an immobilized (stuck to the floor) character out of harms way, then yes, there were several things. Most were resolved by skill or ability checks with either the DCs set by the condition (such as unstucking a character or jumping onto a rock, or climbing a wall) or made up on the spot by the DM. As far as attacking stuff goes, no, characters pretty much stuck to the abilities they were given. Some creative use of the abilities was used, such as the cleric turning undead and forcing them off cliffs or into lava, or the fighter using his Tide of Iron ability to push enemies away from squishies or into corners or off cliffs, etc.

[Indon]

Not quite sure if I follow you. If you mean something like attempt to pull an immobilized (stuck to the floor) character out of harms way, then yes, there were several things.

Well, kind of, but more in combat. Like trying to disarm a kobold by smashing the weapon out of their hands or something.

[Azerian Kelimon]

You mean, something like wanting to attempt a jump attack to land on the head of a Kobold to gain combat advantage against another foe?

[Keld Denar]

Well, kind of, but more in combat. Like trying to disarm a kobold by smashing the weapon out of their hands or something.

Well, we didn't see any rules for disarming or sundering like there are in 3.5. I'm guessing that its a tactic that a fighter or someone can learn after a level or 2. Like I said, we didn't make the characters, or have access to the PHB or any of the rules other than a basic sheet they gave us and what was written on the character sheet. Sundering and disarming and tripping were all such major parts of 3.5 that I'm sure they'll make it into 4.0 in some way that'll be more streamlined. Tide of Iron (fighter ability) is already like a mini bullrush, and I'm sure that at higher levels they'll get more powerful versions of these abilities and other new abilities.

That said, there were some enemies with some neat attacks. One set of guys, I forget what they were, but they had a ranged attack that targeted reflex. If they hit you, you were dazed (only allowed 1 standard action, instead of standard/move/minor, that standard could be traded down for either a move or a minor though). Those guys were tough, because they were ranged and kept moving out of range while the melees tried to chase them down. Luckily we had our own ranged support who managed to take them out.

Other enemies had attacks that knocked a person down, similar in result to a trip. Standing up from prone is a move action, but doesn't provoke AoOs. This was a pretty strong tactic since they could either get up and move away, or get up and attack, but not both. This allowed that set of enemies to "tank" us, to keep us away from their squishies like their healer and archers. It was a very interesting fight, lots of tactical movement and strategy.

[fendrin]

Wow. Just wow. I am really looking forward to 4e now (whilst before I was just strongly hopeful).

Ranged combat is useful again.
1st level is dramatic.
Players always have options (without relying on DM fudging rules).
Much more emphasis on tactics instead of 'stand in a circle and full attack'.
Combat is much more dynamic (eg more movement, especially off-turn).
'Save or Suck' toned down.
Tough but not invincible characters.

Perfect? No.
Looking good? Heck Yeah!

[Tehnar]

I am wondering about the skill system; can you describe it; ie what are class skills, what are cross class, how many skillpoints, etc?

[Theodoxus]

You probably don't have the answer to this, but what happens when two fighters face off against each other? You use tide of iron and shift after your foe who was pushed, which allows him to make an attack on you (since you shifted, and he's also a fighter) - then he pushes you back, etc. Seems like fighters would destroy each other quickly.

Also, is there any defense against being moved by tide of iron? I could imagine the outcry when the orc chieftain uses it against the party, casually tossing each member over the lip of the live volcano... tpk through cheese.

Just seems to me that these abilities (at 1st level!) are way over the top if used against the PCs... is that why monsters aren't built along PC lines? But come on, like the orc example I cited, not all monsters are mindless undead, animal intelligence dinosaurs or handless winter wolves. Surely the monstrous humanoids will have access to the same or very similar abilities.

[Keld Denar]

You probably don't have the answer to this, but what happens when two fighters face off against each other? You use tide of iron and shift after your foe who was pushed, which allows him to make an attack on you (since you shifted, and he's also a fighter) - then he pushes you back, etc. Seems like fighters would destroy each other quickly.

Also, is there any defense against being moved by tide of iron? I could imagine the outcry when the orc chieftain uses it against the party, casually tossing each member over the lip of the live volcano... tpk through cheese.

Just seems to me that these abilities (at 1st level!) are way over the top if used against the PCs... is that why monsters aren't built along PC lines? But come on, like the orc example I cited, not all monsters are mindless undead, animal intelligence dinosaurs or handless winter wolves. Surely the monstrous humanoids will have access to the same or very similar abilities.

Well, I know that things about to be pushed off of a cliff are granted a save. If they fail the save, over they go. If they make the save, I believe they fall prone in the square that they would have moved out of. Thats how the DM described it when our fighter tried to Tide a ghoul off a cliff. Also, the movement from Tide technically isn't a "shift" so it wouldn't provoke, and even if it did, AoOs are normal melee attacks, not special attack actions (you don't make AoOs with Diamond Nightmare Blade of whatever from ToB, do you? Same thing in 4th ed).

Plus, the threat of being pushed off a cliff is something that PCs have to consider. Its part of the whole tactical positioning part of combat. If you stand with your back to the wall, its harder to get knocked off a cliff, and if you stand at the edge of a cliff, you should expect an intelligent foe to try to knock you off. It wouldn't be very realistic if they didn't.

[Nakun]

In response to Tehnar, from the information posted about the rogue class on wizard's website it looks like skills are no longer based on intelligence, but purely on what class you are when it comes to how many you get. It also said some things that made me question the existence of cross-class skills in 4.0.

But, I really want to know if you all got racial feats at first level that distinguished would your characters, if say you had been a halfling fighter instead of a halfling paladin?