Last night I finally tried playing 4e again after taking a short hiatus from playing that version of the game. I really like the system for DMing, but don’t have as much fun playing. It may be a RPGA thing, even though WotC has improved the Living Forgotten Realms and the RPGA in general, I was not feeling the fun with my half elf rouge I started last fall. I imagined my rogue to be like the Grey Mouser, lively and unpredictable, skilled both in stealth and wenching, but once the game started I was disenchanted, even though I was able to do amazing things at first level, I still felt almost like I was abusing the original idea of the rogue. Maybe it was because I played the rogue/thief class so often in earlier versions of the game. With the new PHB2 in hand, I decided to play a class I had never played before, so I would not be biased by nostalgia based on earlier versions of the class.
I decided to be a goliath warden. The class was fun but in a way I felt like a Pokemon card rather than a player character. In one encounter I turned into a goat and charged and hit a monster and then apparently turned back into a goliath, that has to be a seen out of Pokemon right there. The class was fun. I did not feel the character much, but it could have been the DM. It was an RPGA module, and they are still run kinda stiff, especially when run by less experience DMs.
What did I learn from playing this class? Well the first and most important thing I learned is that Googling and using free character generators doesn’t seem to cut it for 4e. After talking with players at the table, I looks like I am going to have to buy a subscription to whatever WotC has on their website. It took too long to create a character and get everything right and organized. I grumbled a little about creating my own dungeon with 4e, but man it is way easier to be the DM creating a dungeon for play from scratch than actually creating a character to play in the game. Actually, you can buy a module, read it through and be ready to play long before any of your players are, and you don’t need ten-thousand books to run the module just the core three (PHB, MM & DMG) unlike the players who will need many many more. For my goliath I needed the Players Handbook, Players Handbook 2 and the Forgotten Realms Guide I kept bouncing back and forth between this book and that. The players last night assured me that the WotC software would help cut the time to create a character way down. Yeah?
What else? Oh, the Goliath feat that lets you re-roll your first attack in an encounter was anticlimactic, It seemed to get sucked up on minions, so when you really needed a second chance to hit the big bad, it was too late in combat and unavailable. Heh, my maul did clobber those minions well though.
Lastly it is way more fun to play an unfamiliar class in 4e than one you may have played in earlier incarnations of the game. Well actually, the Fighter, Ranger and the Cleric all got thumbs up from my friends up in WI. The other core classes from the PHB not so much fun.
The 4e game is fun. I wish I could get into someone’s 4e home game around here in Urbana IL, but no one I know is actually playing 4e outside of the RPGA folks. Luckily, I still have Tuesdays and 3rd edition RPGA games to occupy my time. The cool part about the Living “Greghawk” 3e RPGA group on Tuesdays is that they have relaxed the rules a bit which is making the RPGA stuff less rigid and more fun. As for the local 4e RPGA group it took two months for a spot to open up at their table, and I may not get back in for another two to three weeks. I am in no hurry though. My original 3e RPGA PC just made 14th level and I started him back in June of 2003.
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About shent_lodge
Yeah, I know what you mean about the feel of the WotC premade modules. They feel like a string of combat encounters rather than an adventure. Of course, that’s how many of the 1e modules felt too, so I can’t fault them.
On the basis of 3e vs 4e, I find I like 4e much more. 3e was great in many respects, but given the prep time it took, I much prefer 4e. Also, I find that RP isn’t that hard to factor in if you use skill challenges, and factor in the player’s actions as bonuses to success or failure.
We’re in a 4e campaign and we’re only level 5, but it’s been going for over a year now, 2/month for just a few hours. It started as a 3e campaign before that, but we converted over after I was in a 4e demo. The RP is what you make it.
Anyhoo, just some thoughts from another 4e DM.
@ Jay Kint, That is exactly what I did with skill challenges with my group, good roll playing added +1/+2. On occasion I would add a table vote here and there also to help boost past a skill challenge. Sometimes the players ideas/interactions where perfect but the dice failed them… We would “vote in” a work around.