Miscellany: A Different Kind of Campaign Trail, Part 3

Jumping my Dungeons and Dragons campaign to 4th Edition has had some pros and cons. I think it'd be fun to go over 4E from the Dungeon Master's perspective, especially now that I've DMed a couple games and I have a handle on how it all runs. Expect more posts in the coming months about the campaign...

The biggest timesink that any DM faces is encounter balancing. Getting the math right for a particular party is part skill, part art - the challenges you throw the PCs vary based on how many PCs are playing, how skilled your players are, and how their characters are built. 4E makes it pretty easy on the DM: grab some monsters around the PCs' level, reflavor or touch them up as needed, throw in some interesting terrain, and BAM! Instant encounter. I certainly don't remember 3.5 being this easy, even with my low-level 3.5 DMing sessions.

Another problem DMs deal with is sustaining the narrative. Some groups are okay with combat after combat separated only by thin strands of plot, but I think that tends to cheapen fights. In-between fights, D&D has traditionally had some pretty flimsy noncombat encounter rules. The much-maligned (and recently patched) skill challenge system is a good solution if your group has people willing to think on their feet. It's not a perfect system (hopefully they add some feats that affect your tactics and performance in these challenges, if only as a secondary benefit from those feats). You do tend to have the same white-knuckled d20 rolling as in the rest of D&D, since you're only allotted three "failures" before you fail the challenge.

One big part of 4E that needs work is the explanation of how all the bonuses factor into your attacks. 4E combat can be brutal on your PCs if they forget to add in weapon proficiency bonuses to their attack rolls. It's really easy to neglect that random +1 or +2, and suddenly your PCs are hanging on for dear life. The DM usually bears the burden of explaining the rules to new players, so this is one area of the rules that's taking away from the roleplaying.