Something to love about 4th ed is the emphasis on movement. I’ve always felt that if the sign of a good tactical game is how heavily movement was emphasised. You can have all the abilities and powers you want, but if combat is really just a matter of pawn a and pawn b stand running up to each other and flailing like Toughman competitors, then your ability to implement plans at the tactical level is limited.
One of the things that made me excited when I cracked open the PHB is all the pushing, shifting and sliding that was going on. I was even more school-girl giggly at the fact that they were using Dreamblade terminology — I love that game. You can steer your foes and allies into tactical positions. Clever use of movement abilities makes even the poor runts of the D&D cannon nasty nasty little runts. I can’t wait to use these guys versus my players at our first 4e game.
Since I haven’t got the guys together yet, I’ve been looking for examples of what tactics look like in game play or at least on a theoretical level. This thread in the WotC forums was just what I had in mind. Some discussion, but halfway down the page someone busts out a grid template and it is on:
useful stuff and food for thought.
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
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