The primary conceit of pre-4e material is that the mechanics of the pre-4e game (resource management in particular, i.e. Fighters manage their HP, Wizards manage their spell lists, Thieves manage – nothing except rolling for skill checks, and Clerics manage their primary role as healer) don’t support a continuous mode of adventuring. It resembled a hurky-jerk mode of Fighter fights, Wizard casts spells (until out of magic and resorts to dagger/dart/staff mode), Thief sneaks and Cleric heals until their various resource pools deplete and you have to leave the dungeon.
4e modifes that style of play allowing each role to perform his/her abilities throughout the adventure without necessarily having to be constrained by the old resource issues. Now, 4e implicitly focuses on class resource management. Each class has a set of relatively equal resources (at wills, encounter and daily abilities) allowing him to shine on stage for his particular moment but ultimately work together as a team throughout the adventure.
The focus on teamwork has become paramount. Groups that lack specific roles will not perform as well as groups that satisfy the four major group functions. These functions have been designated as striker (Rogue) , defender (Fighter), leader (Cleric) and controller (Wizard). This is really no different than previous editions. I can’t remember how many times I started off a new 1st or 2nd edition AD&D game and said, “we’re going to need a cleric or we’re going to get creamed”. What this latest incarnation of the rules does is reinforce that unwritten rule by reducing efficiency. Is it a constraint on play? Yes. The constraint is addressed by not relegating a role to a single function though. The cleric, traditionally the medic who may wait for party members to fall and rush up and heal them can still perform that function but in addition can lay some sweet smack-down without reducing her ability to heal.
This shift in character play results in a shift in encounter creation. Pre-4e encounters used to focus on smaller encounters with 1-3 monsters. Note – that wasn’t always the case but it usually worked out that way. 4e focuses on larger encounters relying on a balanced party of four to six players each performing a role in the game. (Seriously read the Dungeon Master’s Guide on encounter creation – in my opinion the 4e DMG does a much better job than any previous edition).
The first key in converting is look at the level guidance of the adventure. Every TSR module used to say something like ”this adventure is designed for 4-6 player between levels 4 and 5 with a total of 30 party levels. By the end of the adventure the group should gain a level”. That guidance can then be used to map an appropriate 4e tier designation of heroic, paragon or epic – the three tiers of adventurers that map to levels 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30 respectively.
The DMG (pg 121) states “The experience point numbers in the game are built so that characters complete eight to ten encounters for every level they gain. In practice, thats six to eight encounters, one major quest, and one minor quest per character in the party”.
Continued next week…
