Newsgroup: it.hobby.giochi.gdr.dnd
Titolo: QUARTA edizione 4th - altro report

altro play report (da un tipo che conosco dai forum ed è esperto più
di me nel senso che gioca dal 1980 o poco prima ;-)
da qui: 
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Pages/Communities/blogpost.aspx?blogpostid=45722&pagemode=2
D&D Experience: Day 1
Posted By: Alethea, 2/28/2008 6:30:52 PM
I've finished my first day at DDXP 2008, and played my first 4e game.
I'm not going to talk too much about the seminar; others are doing
that just as well as I can.  I can, however, show you the first 33
slides of the presentation (sorry I don't have them all, my camera
battery died), which you can find here.
Some key points that weren't captured in my pictures:
- RPGA gamers will now get everything.  No cards, no closed content;
if it's been published, you can use it.  No word on whether Dragon
counts, but it sounds like Dragon will have some more cred from now
on.   DMs will get more encouragement to judge RPGA so they can share
their "DM-Fu."< br /> - Dragon and Dungeon will get regular "best of"
compilations,  published like any other book.
- The magazines' content will be searchable online (in the rules
database), and the crunchy bits can be viewed from the database if
you're a subscriber.  Speaking of which, that's true for the books:
look up a feat, and if you're a subscriber, you get the text of the
feat; if you're not, you get the book and page number only.
- A subscription does not get you any minis for monsters, or any
dungeon tiles.  You get a starter set of each as a limited time offer,
but otherwise you have to buy them as singles.  They'll be cheap,
though.
- E-books, e-adventures, and pdfs of the magazines can be purchases
whether or not you subscribe.  The mags will cost about $3 an issue.
- Subscribers get a certain number of 24-hour passes to DDI that they
can give to their friends.  You can also buy said passes for about $3.
- Non-subscribers can use crippled versions of the visualizer and
dungeon builder for free.
- June 7 will be D&D Game Day--the day after 4e's release.
Now, for my experiences.
I played LFR 2, Scalegloom Hall.  Kobolds were the primary
adversaries, with a boss I won't reveal but was a solo encounter.  And
that probably tells you everything you need to guess what it is.  I
played the eladrin ranger; my party mates were a dwarf fighter, a
halfling paladin, a half-elf warlock, a tiefling wizard, and a human
cleric.  I have my character sheet, but as we were allowed to keep
them, I imagine copies will be everywhere by Monday.  I'll scan and
share it if no one else does before I get to my home scanner.
The eladrin ranger was a glass cannon.  I did by far the most damage,
using my at-will power that gave me +4 to hit, for a whopping +10
total, damage 1d10+4, plus another d8 if I used Hunter's Quarry to
mark it as my prey (which is a minor action, so no reason not to).
The first action of the game was me dishing out 22 damage to a kobold
slinger--and it lived.  My other at-will and encounter powers were
mobility-related, not attack, but my daily (Split the Tree) was used
to devastating effect in the penultimate encounter: I used my eladrin
Fey Step to teleport up to a sniping position, then took out the
slightly-injured cleric and severely wounded the dragonshield kobold
in one shot.
On the flip side, I went unconscious in three out of five encounters.
One was my own fault--I teleported in by my lonesome to test out the
grappling rules.  There's no "grapple," ; just a "grab," which is a
Strength attack opposed by Reflex defense and immobilizes the target;
they can escape with either Acrobatics against your Reflex, or
Athletics against your Fortitude.  So the DM told me, anyway; I missed
the attack, and the cleric had to save my sorry butt.  I returned the
favor, though, by lowering a rope to get him out of the slime pit that
a kobold trap had knocked him into.
By the way, you still need a cleric (or a warlord, presumably) in your
party.  Although everyone can self-heal, they mainly suck at it
(except the dwarf fighter, who can do it as a minor action and gets a
bazillion of them) without a cleric's assistance.  You can live
without any other member, but the lack of a Leader is death.  In my
case, it would have been literally death, as he brought me back from
unconsciousness three times.
Damage is up--the crappy kobolds were hurting me so badly that using
my second wind would have been a waste of a round most of the time (I
heal for 5, they hit me twice for 11--not worth it).  Modifiers are
down, and everything is a modifier now.  Concealment is an attack
penalty.  Combat Advantage is an attack bonus.  Blindness is a -5
attack penalty!  Oh, and the Darkness spell is total concealment once
again, and is countered by Light of any level.  You may want to
remember that when fighting high-AC targets with Darkness, like a
certain solo monster in this mod.  I found level 1 to be as deadly in
4e as it was in 3e; no more going down in one hit from a greatsword (I
think--the kobolds didn't have 'em), but three or four hits could
easily take you down unless they're from minions or you're a
Defender.  Ongoing damage is a *****, and when you combine three
normal bad guys, a dangerous trap, a mess of minions, and being set on
fire(!), you'd better not take a fight casually.
Overall, a game of 4e felt much like one of 3e.  It wasn't appreciably
faster, but I played with a bunch of really inexperienced players
(didn't know 3e rules--and had no dice at a D&D convention!), and it
was certainly no slower than a 3e game.  Slower than running a 3e
Barbarian, faster than a 3e Swordsage.  The traps were pretty fun--
dangerous but not instantly deadly (although the mage is not the one
you want squished by a boulder), and having someone in the party with
good Thievery would have helped a lot.  They moved at a good clip,
too.  Speaking of movement, the lack of 1.5-square diagonals is a huge
boon--it may be less realistic, but it speeds up turns by a huge
margin.  All the movement-related abilities (slides, pushes,
teleports) would have been a nightmare under 3e distance rules.
One problem was a lack of versatility.  The role thing is good: the
cleric can both fight and heal at the same time, as promised, and
every other character can do what they were meant to do, but they're a
little too dedicated.  I never wanted to use my sword if I could
possibly help it, and the fighter and paladin were the opposite--a
choke point where they couldn't get in to fight, or where the ranger
was stuck in melee and they were as worthless as a wizard with a
crossbow.  The paladin often found that the most useful thing he could
do was declare an enemy as his mark, then just leave, so it would hurt
itself every time it attacked someone else.
But ultimately, this was still the game I know and love.  I think it's
more streamlined than 3e--I don't think the game is necessarily
faster, but many of the "choke points" were addressed.  The traps were
creative, but nothing that couldn't have been done just as well in
3e.  Much of the difference between 3e and 4e is in behind-the-scenes
numerical balancing, which seemed to have been well-done but it's hard
to evaluate based on one game.  The only concern I would have--and I
think it's the main concern anyone ought to have about whether to get
into 4e--is the opportunity cost.  Is it worth it to lose all the
classes, races, and monsters you've accumulated in 3e to get cleaner
math?  I think so--a fun but small set of options makes for a better
game than a whole gamut of options that don't work as well.  But if
you have an emotional attachment to a particular race, class, monster,
PrC, or whatever that didn't make the cut... not getting 4e won't be a
bad idea.  Many folks are jumping on the "3.75" bandwagon (taking many
of 4e's steamlining changes and keeping 3e's content), and that's not
a bad way to go.  I think it's quite doable, and I'm sure some
enterprising person on the WotC forums or ENWorld will come up with
such a system within days of 4e's release.
--
Fabio

PrC, or whatever that didn't make the cut... 
Con riviste online e gli "editori minori" dietro l'angolo, piu' la
possibilita' di conversioni casalinghe (e sono d'accordo che
circoleranno a fiumi sui vari forum), non vedo il problema.
Anzi, da un certo punto di vista un bel resettone permette di tirare
il fiato. 
Parvati V
-- 
UnaMoleDiDadi (TreEmme Torino):
http://umdd.altervista.org/
IHGGera #1069, IAFa #182 ^^^
http://parvatiquinta.altervista.org