We have now come to the actual play and your experiences with DnD4. So, how did it go?
It went well, I'd say. We all had a good time, and play was fun even though it was the first time for all of us.
Did you use pregens or did you make the characters hat session?
We made the characters that evening.
So, how is character generation in 4th ed?
It's fast. Or, rather, it can be. If you boil it down to the bare bones, it's a couple of choices (about 10), and then you are set to go. And since most of these choices are from a rather limited list, you don't have that much to go through to find out what you want.
On the other hand, if you wan't to optimise your character and really find that ultimat build, I guess it'd take a bit longer.
It's also very helpful to write down or print out the different powers that your character has. Otherwise combat will take a bit longer.
Did you have a full party of 5 characters?
No, we actually had three characters. One warlord, one paladin and one warlock
Did they live up to their roles?
Very much so! The paladin stood and took a lot of punishment, challenging his enemies so that they attacked him. The warlock spread destruction on his enemies. In the middle of it all, we had the warlord shouted orders and inspired his little band.
While we are still in combat, how was combat?
I won't say it was fast, that's for games like savage worlds or similar. With that said, it worked well, and it was faster than 3.5. As has been said numerous times before, each character had something interesting to do each round.
Also, at least I felt that each combat played out as a story.
What do you mean?
Well, combat wasn't just an exchange of blows, but rather interesting things happened. It felt more like a battle-scene than an excercise in rolling dice. I can't really explain why, but it was fun.
That was the good points with combat, how about the down-sides?
I don't know. Since most enemies had a fair amount of hit points, combat did drag on a little to long at times. Also, if you hadn't written your different powers down, it took some time looking them all up.
So, did it feel like a roleplaying game or a board game?
I was afraid that it would be a bit like a board game, but it wasn't. If anything, it felt more like a roleplaying game than 3.5 did. One of my players said that since you had less die rolling, you could spend more time roleplaying. It's something I didn't expect, but I agree.
A personal thought is also that since the classes have clear cut roles, it's easy to roleplay them. Take the warlord, for instance. Many of his powers can be interpreted as him shouting out orders to his companions. It's easy to go this route and almost shout out orders yourself. He really is the brave commander that he is supposed to be.
How about other situations? You had some skill challenges. Did they work out ok?
They did, but ironically it took some more effort to actual roleplay these. It's easy for these to turn into a series of rolls and nothing else. Next time I think I'll be a bit harder on my players, demanding more explanations for their rolls before the actual roll.
Now you are looking forward, and that's what we will be doing in the next part. So, let's finish this of: What is your verdict of playing DnD4
It was fun. I enjoyed it a lot. As I've stated before: I'm glad it's not the only game I'll be playing in the future, but it's a very nice little game. As long as you try to play with it and not against it (read: it = the intentions of the game designers) it is a solid game.
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