4th Edition DM Questions

I haven't spent much time on this site yet, but the general impression that I get is that there is a bit of an anti-4th edition sentiment here. (yeah, just call me Mr. Obvious) :)

Honestly, I haven't really made up my mind one way or another when it comes to whether or not we'll continue playing 4E or go whether we'll go back to 3E.

But, me and my D&D group have been playing 4.0 since it was released. So I thought I'd offer to answer questions if anyone is looking to DM a 4th Edition game and has questions about something.

I'm certainly NOT an expert. But we've spent months playing the game, so maybe your question is one of the questions that we had when we first got started with it.

WE have yet to really play it. My DM (Kilsek) is fro the old school and is stuck with 3.x

Chosen of Mystra wrote:

WE have yet to really play it. My DM (Kilsek) is fro the old school and is stuck with 3.x

It was pretty tough to get my group to agree to try it out! We're all 30+ years old (ok.. pushing 40 LOL), and we're pretty set in our ways. One of the players in particular was pretty apprehensive about it. But I finally got them to agree, and we put our 3.0 campaign on hold in July.

There is so much about it that is different, that it is a huge change for us old-dogs. But, we have been having a lot of fun. Once you get used to the rules, there are some really fun things that have been added.

My favorite thing about the new game is what they've done with the monsters. In our 3.x games, if the players had fought a few goblins then they pretty much know what to expect any time they run into goblins. Sure, I could mix things up with some creative rules-enhancements or make things up on the fly, but thats extra work for me and it didn't always bring a well balanced effect. But with 4th edition, there are many different variations of each monster right there in the monster manual. For most monsters they have ranged attackers, melee fighters, possibly a mage or cleric-type, and more. Not to mention, the Boss and Elite templates to quickly turn any monster into a totally different challenge. For me, that has added a bunch of fun to the DM role.

Indeed that is one decent thing I found with 4.0

I appreciate you putting this thread up, it could be very helpful to new DMs in general, and 4.0 specific help is great.

In addition, I also appreciate what they did with the monsters. I'm starting to think that one of the big reasons I made the switch was because, as a DM, they've livened the game up for me substantially.

Also, it feels like 1st level encounters are no longer things you feel like you have to rush through to get a couple more spells or a better sword to fight the real threat. They worked the spells well enough that you don't run out and start throwing rocks or running away and hiding (or, heaven forbid, resting after the first room in a dungeon). They make it to where it doesn't have to be implied that a fighter will "swing my sword at the bigger one". I'm very pleased at what they did.

But enough of my shameless 4th edition plugging, once again, kudos on the thread, and I may be posting here soon enough due to my general inexperience at DMing.

ZER0 wrote:

But enough of my shameless 4th edition plugging, once again, kudos on the thread, and I may be posting here soon enough due to my general inexperience at DMing.

Thanks, I'm happy to offer to help out. There have been a number of things that weren't real clear as we first read through the rules. Usually the problem was on our end.. we assume some aspect of the rules because of past experience.. or we skimmed over something as we read the rule book. But some things aren't laid out very clearly.

For instance, we missed the part of the rules that explained how weapon damage is listed in the power descriptions. So a power would say something like 2W + STR Mod and we were scratching our heads trying to figure out what the "W" meant. After trolling through the book a few times we figured out that 1W means the damage normally done by the weapon, 2W is weapon damage rolled twice, 3W is weapon damage rolled 3 times, etc.

Yeah, we felt a little silly once we found it because it is pretty self-explanitory... once you know what it is. =)