Dungeons & Dragons 4.0, Part 2 (Conclusions)

I guess I'm kind of getting fed up with this series, since I actually wrote a raw draft for another post before starting on this one. It's probably time to wrap this one up and return to Part 3 when I actually have some play experience to draw upon. I'll start by reviewing what I would have wanted from 4.0 and how I feel it actually performs, and then give some final thoughts and impressions.

Goals

Fun:

Can't say until I've actually played the game. However, I think this one will depend very much on the group you play with, as that has certainly been true (for me) with every D&D edition so far. Some groups tend to lead to more careful and strategic play, which is interesting but perhaps not always fun per se.

Roleplaying:

D&D has always been heavier on the hack-n-slash and lighter on the roleplaying, at least when only considering what the rules bring to the table. 4.0 might have have added skill challenges, but contains very little else on this front. On the other hand, the fluff skills of earlier editions are pretty much gone. As pointed out, I also think that multi-classing and various other customization is a thing of the past, and that limits the non-mechanical aspects of your character concept as much as the mechanical ones. Since there are no NPC classes anymore, there are no skilled specialists anymore, at least not on paper. Nor does 4.0 concerns itself with such insignificant details. All in all, I think that as a roleplaying environment, 4.0 is on par with Descent Journeys in the Dark. However, Descent is a board game and makes no claim to be a roleplaying game, so this is in no way meant as an endorsement.

As with previous editions, it's up to the players to decide the extent to which they want to roleplay, and how much they just want to kick monster ass. Strictly speaking, it does not take houseruling to bring in roleplaying. The DM just needs to fill out the blanks, but there are a great many blanks to fill out.

Immersion:

Imagine that you are watching a suspense movie, and just as the killer is about to attack the hero in the back, you lean forward on your seat and hold your breath, and for a moment you forget that it is just a movie. You'll get that with 4.0, I think, when you (or your opponents) throw that die on which the entire session outcome depends. But I don't think that you will experience the type of immersion where you wonder what will happen to newly orphaned Billy, now that the unknown murderer has slaughtered his parents.

Realism:

The static environment is represented fairly well, but hardly any better than in previous editions. Once you start looking at things beyond that, though...

4.0 has sacrificed far more realism than conceivably could have been needed to streamline the game. 4.0 is no longer setting for adventures and roleplaying, it is a board where miniatures can inflict imaginary violence on each other. The system is designed to be cool and exciting and what seems reasonable or sensible has been butchered without a second thought. 4.0 seems at times more like Dragon Ball Z than a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Consider, if you will, the Ranger's Level 1 Daily Exploit: Hunter's Bear Trap. This is a daily exploit. You took a shot with your bow, and whew, now you're exhausted? Or maybe it is a trick shot and for all your attempts throughout the day, you only manage to pull it off once... yet you can still choose exactly when it happens. If you wonder how this makes sense, the answer is of course that it doesn't. You just have to accept that this is how 4.0 works. Vancian Magic has taken a lot of heat throughout the years for not making sense, but how is this any better?

Other questions that remain unanswered are: Where did all the copper coins go? Where did all the platinum coins come from? Where did all the low-level monsters go? Where did all the high-level monsters come from? Why are all magic weapons we find usable by at least one of us? Why are all magic items we find suitable for our level? The rules make no attempt to answer them. These are things that don't matter in 4.0. Sorry guys, but to some of us oldies it does matter.

Reasonable Pace: Can't say anything about this one yet.

Simple and Effective Rules:

4.0 has seen a lot of improvements, and while I can't say for sure yet, I think the rules now are simpler and more effective.

Final Thoughts and Impressions

Something Yet Not Mentioned:

I believe that 4.0 pretty much killed advancement. Why? Because everything scales, and does it all too well.

As written in Creating Monsters in the DMG, all monster stats are pretty much a direct function of level. For instance, AC increases by exactly +30 over 30 levels, with a base score depending on monster role. On the other hand, the characters' abilities improve correspondingly. For instance, over 30 levels, attack bonuses improve by +15 from level, +6 from magic weapons and (presumably) +4 from ability increases. That adds up to +25, and the missing +5 can no doubt be found when adding powers and other magic items to the mix. This means that you will have pretty much the same chance of hitting a <monster role> that is N levels higher/lower than you regardless of your actual level: If you hit a 2nd level brute with a 13 or better when you're at level 1, you will also hit a 16th level brute with a 13 or better when at level 15, and a 31st level brute with a 13 or better when at level 30. In other words, 4.0 could have simplified normal combat to just say:

Chance to hit: <monster role modifier> + <your level> - <monster level> or better on D20.

The same is true for other defenses, and I would be surprised if you couldn't simplify damage and hit points in some similar way.

Why didn't 4.0 use this formula, then? Quite possibly because it then would become much more obvious how little levels actually mean in 4.0. All those pages of powers don't do much else than a) increase the number of powers you can use and b) increase the damage somewhat, and taken together the increased damage output per encounter matches the hit point increases of the stronger monsters. The basics of all encounters remain the same; the combats last about as long, you use about as many powers, you end up with (proportionally) as much damage. In other words, you're just grinding. The books even state that the goal is to have your characters reach level 30, at which point you start all over again.

This is not entirely the fault of 4.0, because 3.x has a lot of CR-appropriateness built in as well. But this was not always the case. In the black box from D&D 1st Edition, attack bonuses and monster hit dice and armor class came wildly mixed. Approximating 4.0 terminology, a max-level fighter had a core +23 to attack (not counting ability modifiers or magic items), yet it was still not unusual for monsters to have an AC of 20 or worse. The immortal Dragon Rulers topped the charts with ACs ranging from 28 to 32, and 24-40 hit dice (meaning 108-180 hit points on average, 192-320 if maxed out). High-level characters meant something back then, with a max-level fighter able to hit the most powerful dragon ruler with a roll of nine or better, before you added in STR and magic for another +8. Compare that to Orcus in 4.0, with his 1,525 hit points and AC 48. (Speaking of Orcus, he had AC 27 and 39 hit dice back then.)

It's not just combat in 4.0, though. Before errata, the given Easy, Moderate and Difficult success chances in the DMG were pretty close to constantly 50%, 30% and 10% respectively, once you factored in the level bonuses.

All in all, 4.0 seems like a game that aims at keeping everything consistently comparatively equally difficult for all levels. It does not matter that you gain levels, because the opposition always becomes proportionally more powerful. And that's a pity, because you remove all incentive to gain levels. All that is left is a desire to level your character to 30. It also represents the kind of perfectly balanced game that I might have set out to make myself, back when I was a teenager and did not realize that variety is the salt of life.

The One-Paragraph Summary Verdict:

I will probably be playing Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 a fair amount, if that is what our group will be playing, and I don't see any explicit problems with that. But if you ask me what I would have liked for 4.0, I will definitely say something that could have been called D&D 3.75, and that's not just because the entire purchase circle now starts over again. No, it's because 4.0 feels like the designers stripped down 3.x to a skeleton, kept some of the terminology, built a boardgame/skirmish game around it and called it D&D. 4.0 feels like something else that had a widely recognized brand name slapped on it because it would sell well, and I can't help but wonder if that won't come back to bite Wizards in the ass.