Easier to stay in combat. Falling prone or being grabbed does not cost you 20 minutes of play while you spend 2-3 rounds recovering. Getting into the action is easier. I think this is made up by the fact that rounds don't take as long and you get to, generally, act more often in an encounter than in 3.5 or PFRPG.
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The death of Vancian spellcasting. I know many people have bemoaned this, but myself and many people, especially newbies, are very pleased with this switch. It used to be wizards were only playable by really experienced players who knew all the spells and rules for magic by heart. Now anyone can play a magic user without tons of extra bookkeeping. I do, however, miss the abundance of spell options at times. 4E just seems like less work. I was really tired of my RPG's feeling like work.
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No more 15-20 min. combat rounds. In PFRPG, as it was in 3.5, if you have a large party of players (like, more than 4) combat rounds can take a long time. If you're playing a fighter or some other class that doesn't take a long time to calculate spell ranges, area affects and saving throw DCs, then that's a lot of time sitting and doing nothing, waiting to make your next full-attack and roll your dice a couple times.
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Clearly defined conditions. This is one of the best parts of 4E. All the conditions are clearly defined enough to fit on one table and all of them are conveniently placed on the 4E DM screen. Also, they're in the PHB and NOT in the DMG. Fortunately, it looks like PF is fixing that problem from 3.5, at least in the beta, by basically combining the two books into one larger volume. It was a pain if you had players with the PHB and not the DMG and you had to look everything up yourself to find out an entangled creature has -2 AC and -4 Dex but is not considered flat-footed.
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I actually like not having hard-and-fast rules for things like Craft, Profession, and Perform. Letting the story flow as it will without having to worry if your character's ranks in Craft (blacksmith) accurately represent his prior history is quite liberating.
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I am a long time GM (30+ years). In fact I GM far more than I play and quite like it that way. To me 4e is most GM friendly edition of D&D to date. I have GMed two LFR mods just this last weekend and did not need to crack open a rule book once. Granted the first few 4e games I ran were not as easy since I did not know the rules or have a good feel for the game. There were so many 3e rules that I needed to get out of my head.
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Once I got a good grasp of the game it ran so smoothly and required so little prep that I can never go back to GM 3e.
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I've been running a Homebrew 4.0 game for a couple of months now and I find running the game much easier than 3.5. I stumbled through the first couple of games until I figured out the tactics of each monster after that the game took off. I agree the monsters do kind of run together in abilities and amount of monsters. The difference is in the tactics of each monster. If you put the right combo of monster tactics in the right setting a second level monster encounter can whoop ass on a level 5 party. The big adjustment is the proper tactical use of minions to position party members so the big monsters can use their powers to the greatest effect.
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Our first few games were slow, but I found that to be largely a function of learning the rules. I had a playtest session with a single player before our first game and ran things very slowly to make sure we were getting all the rules right. The first session after that, I still missed about 1/2 to 1/3 of the rules. I reread the combat chapter and things got better for the second session. At this point, I feel fairly comfortable with my knowledge of the rules on my side of the table, but I have to rely heavily on the players for whatever nuttiness they are doing. A big difference from 3e is that there aren't a small number of possible maneuvers that the PCs can attempt. As a result, I find myself constantly asking "What is that ability again?" I've almost learned all their at-will powers, but not the encounter or dailies.
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Anyway, I think the learning curve at the table is pretty steep because it's very similar to 3e in some ways but completely different in others. Damage is not nearly as significant, and if you try to run a 3e style combat where everyone stands still and trades blows, it is a bit boring. Again, I'm not all the way up this learning curve - I still tend to forget my NPCs have interesting abilities, but I'm slowly getting there.
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The prep has been amazingly easy. I needed a wasp swarm, so I took the rat swarm, gave it a fly speed, and declared it a wasp swarm. I built the platforms over hot mud room from White Plume Mountain in an hour or so, and it ran fairly smoothly. I'm not sure it would have been as easy for me under 3e rules.
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Long story short, the learning curve is a bit steeper than I expected, but it has become fun to run.
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