Strategy and Tactics the key difference between old-school and new-school D&D

Much has been said about the difference between the old and new schools of Dungeons and Dragons and similar games. A good place to start looking into this subject would be Matthew Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming which is available for free on LULU.COM. However, the more I play games of both schools, the more I think that the difference between them boils down to strategy vs. tactics. That is, seeing the whole dungeon, or, indeed, the whole campaign as a battlefield, as opposed to focusing on the specific combat encounter in one or another room.

New School D&D, exemplified by the 3rd, 3rd and a half and 4th editions, is tactical. It focuses much on what happens in the particular encounter, and gives the characters many options for making interesting tactical choices in it. The 4th edition goes so far as to focus nearly exclusively on encounter tactics, while providing relatively free-form options for the wider campaign. Furthermore, in the 4th edition, and to a lesser degree the 5th edition as well, many (if not all) of the characters' resources regenerate between encounters, removing a large chunk of the resource management portion of the game in order to facilitate the transition from one tactically-interesting encounter to the next.

The Old School such as that presented in the Original and B/X (or BECMI) editions of D&D, AD&D 1E and 2E and the many retro-clones such as ACKS, Swords & Wizardry and BFRPG, on the other hand, is all about strategy. Sure, combat can be very exciting and varied, and even tactical, but the core of the game does not focus on the particular combat encounter, but rather on the dungeon, or even the entire campaign world, as a whole battlefield. One key here is resource-management; your characters have limited hit-points, light sources, food and water, and even time itself is a valuable resource as light sources run out, food and water get consumes and there is the ever-present risk of wandering monster encounters if the characters spend too much time in a dangerous area (such as a dungeon). Strategy is important - a combat encounter can rob you of critical resources, and because monsters can cause permanent damage or even instant death, it is highly important to know when to enter a battle and how to enter the battle on your own conditions.

The same goes to "high-level" campaign play, which is relatively emphasized by old-school games and much less present in newer rulesets. The epitome of this are of course sandbox-oriented games such as ACKS and Stars Without Number where you actually have rules to build your own kingdom, empire or criminal syndicate. The idea is, again, that characters "play the world" and see it as their playground, rather than focusing on encounter-level tactics and abilities. So in an old-school game, the individual combat encounter is not the central focus of the game, but rather one of many strategic goals - one of many battles in a prolonged war, and in many cases the characters will choose to avoid that battle or to engage it in their own terms...

Late to the D&D 4E Bandwagon - First Impressions

Heh... I am very late to the bandwagon. Four years have passed since Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition has come out, and I have finally played it. First and foremost, I must say that I'm "on the fence" in regard to editions - while I still like ACKS and D&D 3.5E better than 4E, I don't think that 4E is a bad edition. In fact, it has its own strengths (as well as weaknesses).

So far I played in three sessions of D&D 4E, two of them in a short, abortive game with friends, and one in a local mini-convention (Nexus-Con in Rishon Lezion). In the campaign with friends we made our own characters, which took us two-thirds of a session (more on that later); in the convention we had very well-presented pregens with very effectively laid-out character sheets. All in all, I think I have about 12 or so hours and 4-5 encounters of 4E play experience under my belt, compared to hours over hours of 3.xE and even more 2E experience.

So what do I think of 4E? Let's see:

The Good

1) The skill system. In the hand of a competent (or even half-competent) DM, the 4E skill system is versatile, very easy to use and intuitive, especially when compared to the very long skill lists of 3.xE. Everyone has the same small number of skills, with different modifiers; the skill modifiers are 1/2 of your level + ability modifier + 5 if you are trained. No fiddly skill-point allocation. As the skill list is simple and it's very clear what every skill does, all while you can creatively apply any skill for a multitude of purposes, it seems very easy to adjudicate.

2) The At-Will/Encounter/Daily Power system and Healing Surges. While, unfortunately, most powers are combat-specific (more on that later), the amount of accounting needed for actual combat powers is smaller than in 3.xE, and the "15-minute adventuring day" issue is greatly mitigated. A big battle in 3.5E, taking a few minutes of actual in-game time, can burn through many of your spells, powers and HP, forcing you to go to rest minutes after getting up from the previous rest. In 4E, you might have burnt your Dailies, but you'll still have your Encounter and At-Will Powers ready for the next battle; and with healing surges, you'll be able to go through a lot more battles per day than in 3.xE without spending too many precious spells. Also, the fact that Clerics don't really have to choose between healing spells and other spells is liberating; you can even have a very good adventure without needing the mandatory Cleric to fork out healing. Oh, and Fighters can do a lot more than just "I hit him with my axe". Oh, and you no longer have low-level spellcasters pin-pricking enemies with puny daggers once they run out of spells; they all have a few low-grade at-will spells.

3) When using pregens and well laid-out character sheets, the game seems very friendly to newcomers. While character creation is very long and somewhat tiresome, once you have a character on a well-detailed character sheet, it's very easy to use. I have seen a lot less page-flipping in 4E than in 3.xE.

4) Static defences. This is a Heresy, I know, but this makes some sense from a game-design PoV - a magic attack is an attack like any other and the attacker (caster) rolls to-hit rather than the defender a saving throw.

The Bad

1) Character Generation complexity. Well, honestly, this is quite typical for games such as D&D 4E where you get tons of chargen options and specific powers. The first time we made characters for 4E, it took us two or three hours to get all characters ready and all their powers copied to index cards. We probably copied also stuff we didn't need on the index cards, though. However, compare that to the 10-30 minutes necessary to generate an ACKS character (roll 6 stats, choose class, record attack roll and saving throws, choose proficiencies and buy gear) or the 5 minutes necessary to generate a character in Classic Traveller. Well, that's a good reason why characters don't die easily in D&D 4E, die much more easily in ACKS and die even more easily in Classic Traveller - after all, if all you need to roll up a character are 5 or so minutes, it isn't so much of a setback to the game to have one eaten by acid-blooded arachnids...

2) Combat grind. Combat takes a long time - seemingly as long as in 3.5E and maybe even longer - and both monsters and heroes have high HP, so it takes a lot of time to kill one even with Encounter Powers. The fastest kill in the convention game was does with a Daily - a Fireball - killing several enemy archers in one hit in a particularly satisfying manner. Other than that, people die slowly.

3) Everything seems to be very combat-oriented. Almost all powers are combat-specific and anything done out of combat uses the good, though quite sketchy, skill system. I don't recall seeing any exploration-oriented spells in 4E, but I might have just missed them due to the combat-heavy nature of the convention game.

Bottom Line
Well, it doesn't seem like a bad game. Not necessarily 100% my cup of tea but could be a nice option to try. I wonder, should I get my grubby hands on the three 4E core-books, or should I rather stick with ACKS (or wait for D&D 5next)?

First Impressions from the D&D 4E "Test Drive"

What is this?
I have never read through, let alone play, the 4th edition of D&D. My experience with D&D is limited to BECMI, 2E, and 3.0E. I'm currently using the Basic fantasy RPG retro-clone rules to play D&D-style games.

Wizards of the Coasts have released a free set of Quick Start Rules and a free full-sized adventure available for download by anyone willing to check out the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I figured that, since these materials are completely free of charge, they deserve, for the very least, a read-through. I have read through both files - the Quick Start Rules and the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure - during the preceding week, and now I will post my first impressions from reading them.

Things I liked
1) The overall Quick Start rules are very clearly written for the most part. I find it very easy to understand the game mechanics. Everything is laid out in simple language and in a very readable format. In the first glance it looks quite easy to learn and play. The rules look quite simple (critical hits, for example, have been simplified to simple maximum damage rather than different damage multipliers and chances per weapon type; bull-rishes and grapples have been similarly clarified and simplified). I hope this also holds true in the actual 4E rules.
2) Attack powers no longer have saving throws; instead, the attacker rolls an attack against a static defense rating (similar to how AC is handled in 3E or 4E); there are four possible defenses - AC, Reflex, Fortitude and Will. I like this as it looks quite logical and streamlines the magic system as well.
3) Skills are simplified. If I understand this correctly, instead of messing around with skill points (which was a bit messy in 3E), your skill modifier simply equals your ability modifier plus half your level (rounded down). There are also less skills than in 3E (which, IMHO, had too many of them) and the skills have been consolidated. Feats seem to have been similarly simplified.
4) There has been a significant effort to cut down on paperwork. Now most of your powers are either At-Will (usable any number of times per day) Encounter (usable once per encounter) or Daily (usable once per day). Similarly, your HP recover completely after an Extended Rest. Therefore things look easier to track than in older editions.
5) It seems as if there was a conscious effort to cut down on the "15-minute adventuring day" phenomenon. Not only are most powers usable once per encounter (rather than a finite number of times per day), and not only is it easy to heal during combat without needing expendable spells, but you actually get benefits (Action Points) from doing multiple encounters per day. I like that.
6) Leveling a character seems quite easy, especially at odd levels. Just add a few bits here and there and you're set, without much page-flipping. Am I correct?
7) Wizards finally can fight with magic and only magic all day long, as some spells are At-Will powers. This means that in 4E the wizard won't have to resort to a crossbow or dagger after casting a few spells (which, in previous editions, could be very few per day).
8) Minions. I love the concept - expendable foot-soldier monsters easy to play and kill without much accounting needed; it also highlights the "boss" monsters and focuses the action on them. These rules also allows the Fighter to shine, with all his At-Will powers that do additional damage to nearby monsters; he'll reap through hordes of minions, which looks cool and heroic!
9) The KotS adventure feels quite cool, and lets the players to do heroic stuff (stopping a death-cult!) at mere level 3.

Things I didn't like
1) Wizard spells have been narrowed down. One of the things I love about BFRPG (or even 3E) Wizards/Magic-Users is their versatility in the hand of creative players; in 4E it seems that most wizard spells are combat-focused and seem to have narrow applications. I'd miss spells such as Pyrotechnics, Obscuring Mist and so on which could be very cool in the hands of crafty players...
2) Some of the monsters presented in Keep on the Shadowfell look quite grindy. A lot of monsters have quite a number of HP that the PCs have to chew through; the worst offender is probably the Gelatinous Cube with its whopping 152 HP that would probably take a very, very long time to kill at level 2-3. I hope 4E monster are not like that in general, as I don't want combat to devolve into a boring series of round-after-round chopping with At-Will powers for a large number of rounds.

Things I'm not so Sure About
1) I'm not sure how heavily the 4E rules are tied to their fluff. Some of the fluff - such as the planar cosmology and some of the races - is quite different from the assumptions of previous editions and would be quite difficult to fit into existing settings or campaigns (such as my Wounded Gaia setting). Could 4E be easily played with different fluff, different races and/or different planar cosmologies?
2) Healing Surges. They are a cute little game mechanic which I like from a mechanical POV, but I'm not sure how I'd explain them in-game; how are these wounds healed instantly without rest or magic? Do all PCs regenerate? Could all PCs cast the equivalent of Cure Light Wounds a number of times per day?
3) Combat is designed for miniatures and a grid. A grid has the advantage of being easy to convert between mini scales (I like 15mm personally rather than the standard 28mm scale), but it means that you need to organize a grid in order to play (rather than play off-the-cuff).
4) Characters apparently start the game with a lot more HP on level 1 than in any previous edition. On one hand, this makes them more fit for heroic adventuring (and reduces their chances of being killed by weak opponents), but on the other hand it might greatly affect the feel of a low-level game.
5) What is "Passive Perception"? The quick-start rules refer to it, but it is not explained. Is that simply a Perception skill roll made by the DM, or something else?
6) Monster stat-blocks, while very readable in their format, are quite long. I like the BFRPG stat-blocks which fill one or two rows of text; the 4E stat-blocks are quite hefty, and seem quite a chore to write during prep.
7) The quick-start rules say that they are best suited for a party of 5 players. This might be a problem for me, as I usually can arrange for about 2 players in an average game. Is the game playable with smaller parties, such as 1-3 PCs?

The Bottom Line
I think that the 4E rules, as presented in the Quick-Start Rules, are quite well-written and well-designed. However, I do have my reservations about them, especially in regard to the required party size, the limits placed in wizards and the potential for grind.