Five more 4E fan playtest screenshots:

[Xorn]

Kobolds!
More Kobolds!
Mysterious Cavern
Sacrificial Pit
Final Battle!

[Griogre]

I happened to be looking in my FG data app folder and found a screen shot from one of Xorn's earlier playtests. I was using push to talk on Vent and the scroll lock key as the activator. Apparently I missed and hit the Print Screen key once. This shot was the mop up of a hobgoblin fight and is from a player perspective.

[Jingo]

Cool screen grabs! Thanks!

Wow... Xorn! Kobolds with 30+ hitpoints! Yikes.

I don't know hardly anything about 4E, but I'm assuming these are lvl 1 Kobolds? I know on a different post discussing this that 1st lvl chars were a bit tougher than their 3.5 counter parts, but are all the monsters tougher too? If everyone is tougher than no one really is, right?

Do combats take longer than a 3.5 combat? From another post you/they said it went more quickly, but it seems to me that since players and monsters look like they have more hit points and if criticals don't give multiplied damage that combat would go slower.

[Seriul]

I'm going to try and answer those questions to my experiences.

I know on a different post discussing this that 1st lvl chars were a bit tougher than their 3.5 counter parts, but are all the monsters tougher too?

Not all monsters are tougher. Kobold minions only have 1 hp. What they do is add huge bonuses to the larger, tougher kobolds (skirmishers) in that setting by adding something like +2 to hit for each minion around a character, as well as adding 1d6 to the skirmisher's damage if the skirmisher has combat advantage. Basically, they mob you and overrun you with superior numbers.

If everyone is tougher than no one really is, right?

It's not so much that characters are tougher, it's that they have more hps. The low levels aren't dominated by everything being one shot, and instead having it take multiple attacks to drop an enemy or player.

In 3.5 I normally feel invincible or dead during a combat. There are very few fights that our group was worried about death.

In 4.0 most fights have felt lethal, especially if our rolls were low to start the fight. The first fight I was ever in was against kobolds, and our group rolled horribly for the first few rounds and we were starting to get overwhelmed by enemies joining the fight. A couple people almost died when our rolls started improving and we pulled through. Since then I've done that fight about 2 or 3 more times and each time we destroyed the encounter (without me giving hints as to the trap surprises and additional waves), normally due to better rolling off the bat whittling the enemy down at the start.

I would say in all the fights I've done in 4.0 about half have had a character come extremely close to negative hps (and sometimes going into the negatives).

Do combats take longer than a 3.5 combat? From another post you/they said it went more quickly, but it seems to me that since players and monsters look like they have more hit points and if criticals don't give multiplied damage that combat would go slower.

There's one other thing that would make it seem to go slower, each character, on almost every turn, does something. I know in 3.5 play my healer would spend turns not doing anything because he couldn't use his magic (needed to save it for healing) and so he stood just behind the front ranks waiting for someone to take damage. In 4.0 healers act much differently.

First off, each round consists of 3 actions, a standard (like attacking), move, and minor action. Each action can be downgraded so you can have 3 minor actions if you wanted. Well now heals seem to only take minor actions, so a cleric can heal, move and attack all in the same turn. Moving squares is always just 1 square, whether you move diagonally or not, so moving is faster.

Normally players just go through their progressions extremely fast, like if I'm playing the warlock I normally curse something (minor action), move to a location to get a good shot at my target and grant myself concealment, followed by choosing an attack that I try to target against the enemy's lowest defense, roll damage if I hit, and teleport as a free action up to 3 squares if I kill the target. Then my turn is over. Doing all that normally takes about 1 minute then the next person goes.

I think what makes it faster is the DMing part seems to be more simple. Skills are condensed, so its easier to choose which skill fits what a player wants to do, the enemy attacks seem easier, along with not having as many enemy attacks seems to allow the DM to go through the enemy's turn faster. Most combats I've been in take around 3-8 rounds, and once everyone is familiar with the rules, maybe 30-60 minutes of real time. That's probably 2-3 times as fast as our 3.5 combats.

[Xorn]

/em grimaces at the v3.5 Sunless Citadel fight against 36 goblinoids...

That fight was like... stupid long.

One of the feels I really like about 4E is that a typical encounter is going to have many targets, not just one. In 3.5 if you through a creature with a high enough CR to really threaten the party by themself--the chance of them one-shotting a single character or severely injuring them skyrockets. 4E creatures are usually balanced around matching up to a character, not a party.

So if you have four level 1 characters, an encounter with four level 1 creatures will be pretty even. Then there are some special types... minions (squishy mob attackers), elites (think mini-bosses) and solo (BBEG). As everything is listed in XP value, you figure their XP award based on their level and type:

So a level 1:
Minion = 25 xp
Normal = 100 xp
Elite = 200 xp
Solo = 500 xp

So a level 1 "solo" creature should be a good fight for 5 level 1 characters. I've found that you can go about 50% higher (750xp) and the encounter will be at the limits of the party (TPK realistic possibility) and about 50% lower and you get into a trivial encounter.

If you have 5 level 1 characters and you toss a kobold skirmisher and 6 minions at them (250 xp), they probably won't even break a sweat.

Seriul is right though--in my experience so far, running the 4E combat is smoother than 3.5. The time spent in combat might be only slightly faster, but the amount of STUFF being done is vastly higher.

[Xorn]

FYI, the dragon fight that everyone talks about? 875 xp. Very dangerous fight even for six level 1s, and down to 4 characters? Practically a guaranteed TPK if you don't run like hell, quickly. And have some luck.

[mr_h]

I took some screenshots playing in todays playtest. Since I had dual monitors I was able to get a bit more on one screen (though the standard screenshot button wasnt working for me, oh well)

(Note, I had a bunch of power windows open cause 1) I kept forgetting what they did and 2) I got the screen space, I can afford it )

Kobold and Hobgoblin
Hobgoblins
Ahhh, run away!
Showing him whose boss

[Xorn]

By the way, if SmiteWorks wants to use any of the screenshots I've put up, you absolutely have my permission.