Although having stopped late in AD&D 1e’s career, I skipped a whole edition and my gaming group taught itself D&D 3e through a tumultuous 10 month long campaign.

I HOPE that all the newbs trying to play D&D are being introduced byt someone a little more experienced, and so that might cut down the newb-to-book relationship problem you discussed. Most of the time, from my experience, whole new groups don’t just form, but new players are integrated then wander off.

I still find the character layout to be smoother than in old editions because there’s less going back to the book to figure out mathmatics and what’s this and that that I get at this and that level… but that’s because of the mechanics of the change.

Great job…

Seriously?

It took the entire group I GMed for on game day less than an hour for their first character (also perusing their newly acquired books at the time), and less than 20 minutes for their second characters after the TPK.

Compare the PHB of each system, on a one for one basis; now toss every combination that was either illegal or just plain silly… Now account for the sheer number of feats that were merged into Class Features or rendered unnecessary. I’ll wait while you add up the remainder… … …

See. Same amount of options.

You can’t compare a decade of splatbooks to a single core rulebook. It just ain’t fair.

I also felt certain classes and races combinations wound up with less feats available. 3.5 had tons of generalized feats, but 4.0 most the feats are for a specific class or race. That left me with feat slots that I wound up using for really weak feats, because I already had all the useful feats for the character. It was disappointing and I expect they will add lots of splat books to expand the list of feats. i am just worried since they have shown themselves to rarely balance later books. (My friend’s 3rd ed level 10 AC 53 psionic in troll form with psionic regeneration is proof of that.)

I felt that character design was very much like Wow talent trees. And the lack of a nice online tool is acutely painful. Character creation could take minutes with a good tool and give you nice combat cards to use when playing. But right now the character generation tools are non-existent and I am unsure whether the license will allow us to make free tools since that would compete with the online service they are planning on offering. There WILL be free online tools, it is just a matter of whether we need to make the “data packs” of all the abilities be illegal torrent only. A generator without the ability data will not infringe and with the ability to load ability data people can enter their own abilities or download list from the net. It is just a matter of time.

Z

Don’t worry about tracking everything.

Now, that may sound like I’ve lost my mind, but bear with me.

Require each player to be responsible for tracking effects that they introduce. If a Warlock is cursing someone, they need to keep track of that and remind the DM of it. They can do this by placing a chip/chit/bead beside the guy, as suggested, or just remembering it, whichever they prefer.

A fighter will have to keep track of who he has marked, and remind the DM that the monster is marked if the monster tries to attack someone else (at which point, if the DM had forgotten, he might change the monster’s tactics).

A wizard might set an enemy on fire. He is responsible for reminding the DM of that fire damage (and the save to end), should the DM forget.

The DM should also attempt to record and track these, but if he misses something, it’s the initiating player’s responsibility to remind him.

Similarly, the DM is responsible for tracking effects he introduces into the game. If the DM sets the Rogue on fire, the DM is responsible for reminding the rogue of that fire damage (and save to end). The rogue should write “10 fire” or something on his page, as well, but if he forgets (and no other players remind him), it falls to the DM to remind him about the effect. Same with monsters marking players.

A simple system such as this will prevent everything from falling onto the shoulders of the DM, and helps a lot.

I strongly recommend using markers to show effects. We use Poker chip style chits under the figure bases so it’s easy to see who’s affected by what. Keep colour coding simple (green for Acid, Red for fire, White for cold, etc, Blue for slowed, etc) and you won’t go far wrong. For larger area effects we’ve got cardboard templates at each radius from one square to 12. As we used corrugated card, it makes a pretty good impromptu hill-slash-ziggurat too

Finally, don’t believe all you read about 4e combat being faster. A typical encounter will take about the same length of time as a 3e encounter – but because of the end to multiple attacks, plus the fact that 99% of all the needed info is right on the character sheet, the players turns will come around much more quickly, so if //feels// faster. Which, IMHO, is even better than being faster

Hope that helps!

I love this program, but I don\’t use them as individual cards. The program prints out 8 powers per page. I just leave the sheet sitting next to my character sheet during play. I put a penny or a poker chip on each power as I use it. However, give the ease in which the sheet can be replaced, i could just use a pen.

Combat isn\’t simplier, per se, although there are far less subsystems to remember and the book is far easier to reference during play.

As for Marks, I suggest using poker chips or colored beads on the Mini so marked.

(Do the same for Warlock Curses and whatever Brands the Paladins and Cleric use)

A lot? Maybe; not enough experience with the system yet.

Less than 3E? Definitely. You have just as many buffs/debuffs as 3E, but you don’t have to track durations any longer. They’re either:
1. Gone at the end/beginning of your next turn.
2. Gone (or changed) once you make a saving throw.
3. Active the entire encounter.

The biggest problem I’ve noticed is having the tanks keep track of their marks.