D&D, 4th edition

[moogle1]

As an avid board gamer and a well-known strategy fan, there's a siren's call that emanates from what little I know about D&D4e. I've never been a RPer, but I've always been quietly and mildly envious of those with friends geeky and dedicated enough to pull off campaigns. 4e takes it to a level with more personal appeal: I hear stories of game

Comments

[eternalhachi]

(preface: I don't know why I refer to 4th edition as 4e yet 3rd edition as "3rd" so just go with it

[moogle1]

If you wouldn't mind going more in-depth, I sure wouldn't either! This is all interesting to me.

[eternalhachi]

Well, here we go.

There's a mechanic I didn't even mention before that is newest and most arguably the most important one of all: healing surges. Healing in D&D used to happen the typical way of "you cast a healing spell, they gain a range of hitpoints," you know, standard RPG stuff. Healing in 4e is different in that everything is based around healing surges. Every character has healing surges regardless of their class, but the -number- of healing surges does vary from class to class (they still get a fairly big amount though, the lowest you would viably have without purposefully gimping your Constitution (base ability that governs physical hardiness) is 6, higher amounts of healing surges being 14+). You can use a healing surge out of combat to heal 1/4th of your Max HP. You can keep using them too to top yourself off. However, the key there is "out of combat." In combat, you can only use one healing surge, and it is known as a Second Wind. It still heals 1/4th of your HP, but it also increases your various defenses until

[eternalhachi]

Misc note: healing surges are recovered after an "extended rest" (6 hours of rest).

[eternalhachi]

Also when I say healing "spells" I mean "powers."

[eternalhachi]

I just mentioned keywords, so I guess I'll get into that and further information as to how abilities work as well. As shaede said below: "your normal attacks are essentially replaced by these abilities." I am going to refer to these "abilities" as "powers" from here on out.

This is pretty integral to 4e's increased tactical nature. Let's take, for example, a fighter, because that's probably the simplest class there is in regards to this. When you choose to attack, you can, of course, choose to just take a melee swing at an enemy. But there is literally no reason to do just that anymore. I mentioned way above that "each class has stuff they can do at will (all day long, all the time)" and that's where this comes into play. At level 1 you get to choose two "at-will" powers from your class (though if you're Human, you get to choose three). Each class typically has 4 (wizard has 5) at-will powers to choose from in the core rules (though I got to read one of the supplements and that added another 1-2 at-will powers for half the classes

[eternalhachi]

To be fair, the Fighter's at-wills are probably the least tactical, so other examples:

Warlord gets a ranged at-will that allows one ally of yours to make a basic melee attack (no powers) against the Warlord's target.

Paladins have an at-will that all paladins get for free called Divine Challenge. Choose an enemy, it is now marked. This mark gives the enemy -2 to attack rolls for any attack made that isn't against the Paladin. In addition, they take damage if they make an attack that doesn't include the Paladin as a target (so an AoE hitting the Paladin and an ally would not suffer the damage). Even moreso, the mark can augment the Paladin's other at-will powers; Enfeebling Strike does a melee attack against and enemy and does damage, and if the target is marked by Divine Challenge, the target has -2 to all attack rolls until the end of your next turn

[moogle1]

I assume the at-wills all count as an action for a combat round?

[eternalhachi]

Yes, a standard action. On each turn, you can take three total actions:

1 Minor Action - things that are really fast/easy; opening a door, drawing a weapon, picking up an item off the floor

1 Move Action - everything in Minor, plus moving (dur) or shifting (a safe form of moving with reduced range)

1 Standard Action - everything in Move, most powers (some powers will take minor or move actions so you could use one of those and then a power that uses a standard), using a second wind, most combat maneuvers (charging, grappling, etc.).

So you could draw a weapon, move, use Reaping Strike, or open a door and double move, or attack, shift back, close door, or etc. you get the idea.

[eternalhachi]

And this is just the at-will powers - each class also has Encounter powers (powers you can use once per fight or every five minutes) and Daily powers (powers that you can only use once per day until you restore it through an extended rest), and there's even more effects throughout all of them!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[eternalhachi]

It just occurred to me that you didn't really know about 3rd all that much, so I should explain this one other mechanic: attacks of opportunity

[eternalhachi]

You can't threaten with ranged weapons, even if you're right next to someone. Also, making a ranged attack while being threatened provokes an OA.

Gameplay sidenote: kobolds are infuriating because a lot of them have an ability that, when an adjacent enemy shifts, the kobold can shift with them without having to spend any actions.

[moogle1]

I actually know a fair amount about 3rd and D&D in general, as a result of playing games based on the same engine. There's a roguelike called Incursion: In the Halls of the Goblin King (Incursion for short) that uses all of those mechanics. As a result, using polearms is really annoying because if someone manages to close with you, you have to pull back (receiving an attack of opportunity) before you can attack them again. Also, grappling hate. But that's a tangent.

The new system sounds like an improvement.

[eternalhachi]

A weapon with reach in 4e can attack two squares away, as well as adjacent, though still only threatens adjacent.