Before I Buy it, I Have Some Questions About Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion

Part Two: Why Does D&D 4E Need Enhancing?

Isn't D&D 4E just fine as it is?

Sure! Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion contributes to the success of an already great game. The book adds features that simply aren't present in the standard game, but takes nothing away. You’re still playing D&D 4E even when you’re using the Enhanced 4E system.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion aims to improve D&D 4E by…

• Rationalizing grid-based geometry without tossing the grid away. 
• Providing players and monsters with more out-of-the box combat options, all of which are intuitive and simple to adjudicate.
• Making one on one duels not only possible but exciting, cinematic and tactically rich; the game becomes playable by even a single player (with a DM). 
• Speeding up play with more attacks per round.
• Making it possible to intuitively model races and chases on the battle-grid.
• Affording rich but simple-to-use models of flight and vehicular motion.
• Giving players the flexibility to take move and standard actions even when it isn’t their turn.
• Empowering players to actively respond when attacked without adding additional die-roles or bloating the round with more actions.
• Bringing drama and narrative back into combat and in a way never-before-seen in any RPG.

There are experiences you can have in combat, using Enhanced 4E, that you simply can't experience with the unmodified game; the very limited, standard rule structure is not able to cope with those experiences. Yet Combat in Motion does more than just broaden the model. It enhances combat encounters with real drama and a tangible narrative structure. These "narrative" features are today not yet present in any RPG. You can only see it happen in the world of Enhanced 4E.

Enhanced 4E is available in print and eBook formats from Enhanced4E.com.

Before I Buy it, I Have Some Questions About Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion

Part One: Complexity and Ease-of-Use

Is Enhanced 4E more complicated than standard D&D 4E?

The pursuit of simplicity is the primary reason Combat in Motion took four years to complete.

The basic outlines of the system had been developed within the first 12 months of the project. The remaining three years were devoted to beta-testing, and refining and honing the rules to their barest essentials. Some early ideas were dropped or compressed when they proved complicating. It was imperative to all involved that the finished system be clear, simple to learn, and easily committed to memory by players. We are convinced the finished product succeeds in being just that.

Enhanced 4E has greater depth than standard D&D 4E alone. Enhanced 4E has a richer tactical landscape, a broader range of combat actions, a far-less restricted turn-order, and a structure that encourages greater player-involvement. It’s more complex than standard D&D but not any more complicated.

Is Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion easy to learn?

Yes. It is!

Combat in Motion is designed to be incorporated into your D&D 4E game chapter by chapter. You can start using part of the system after reading the first chapter and add additional features, layer-by-layer, when you and your gaming group are ready to try them. You will notice that each new layer builds on the one before—working in concert to create the final, complete system.

Enhanced 4E is also modular. That means that you have the freedom to drop any aspect of the system you don’t like—or swap it for a variation of your own devising.

1 New D&D 4E Motion State

A Revolutionary Concept in Miniature/Token-Based Tabletop War-Gaming

Combat in Motion for D&D 4E is a book chock full of innovation. One feature stands out as perhaps the most revolutionary concept the book contains: The mechanisms for modeling the uninterrupted movement of creatures through multiple turns using only stationary miniatures.

In table-top, melee combat games, miniatures or tokens mark the locations of creatures in combat. Generally speaking, each creature moves in space only when its token is physically moved by a player. The constraints of turn order would appear to make it impossible to model seamless, uninterrupted motion. Instead, each creature may move from one spot to another on its turn---stop there while other creatures take their turns---and then move again if the player so chooses when its next turn arrives. Each move begins at a stop and ends at a stop.

Now it is true that players may still imagine a creature represented by a motionless token to be moving furiously toward some farther destination; rules are no limitation on the imaginations of players. However, absent rules to model its movement, this imagined motion has no impact on the creature. It may as well be standing still.

Now some tabletop games are explicitly dedicated to modeling constant motion. In a game like Wings of War, the miniatures always represent moving aircraft engaged in swirling three dimensional dogfights, even when these miniatures are apparently stationary.

However, Enhanced 4E is unique in that its stationary miniatures or tokens sometimes represent creatures that are motionless and sometimes represent creatures that are still moving. Creatures alternate between these motion states depending on circumstance. When a creature’s motion state changes from motionless to in-motion, the way in which the creature interacts with its surroundings also changes.

In Enhanced 4E, a miniature “in-motion” marks the approximate location of the corresponding creature, as that creature moves rapidly toward an intended destination. Enemy’s giving chase find that target more difficult to hit with close and melee attacks and the creature also may escape the explosive effects of area attacks positioned to its rear. Most attacks made by the creature itself are far less accurate.

Most interesting, the creature is subject to momentum that carries over from one action into another and from one turn into the next. A creature completing an action in motion begins its next action in the same state, subject to the same penalties and the same benefits (including increased potential speed). The effect, however, is to blur the lines between turns. Chases and races can be much more easily and intuitively simulated with pursuers following hot on the heels of fleeing adventurers, or adversaries racing furiously to grab the golden idol.

To purchase your copy of Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion, visit Enhanced4E.com. Available in both print and eBook editions!

2 New D&D 4E Movement Types

D&D 4E Gains More Intuitive Rules for Flying and Vehicles in Combat

The core rules of the D&D 4E game don’t afford much support for vehicle movement in combat. It’s not even mentioned in the D&D 4E Players Handbook. Not until the release of the D&D 4E Adventurer’s Vault were players even capable of encountering vehicles in combat. The rules provided, despite being quite complicated, don’t model vehicle movement as most players would recognize it.

Much the same can be said of the rules given for flying in the D&D 4E Player’s Handbook. The flying rules of standard D&D 4E merely enable creatures to move as normal but in three-dimensions. That’s not much of a flying rule at all.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion provides players with richly detailed, simple-to-use rules specifically designed for flying and vehicles in combat. The system is intuitive and movement is made using the same combat actions employed by all other creatures: Walk, charge, shift, etc.

• Cruise: Vehicles move just how you’d expect them to, accelerating and decelerating over time and turning in wide circles.
• Soar: Flying creatures also move the way you’d imagine. A single rule covers both flying creatures that glide and those that can hover.

To purchase your copy of Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion, visit Enhanced4E.com. Available in both print and eBook editions!

4 New Effects for D&D 4E Terrain

D&D 4E Terrain Gains Greater Tactical Depth

In the standard D&D 4E game, targets can gain concealment and cover from the terrain environment, depending on the target's position relative obstacles and visual obstructions. That’s about the only advantage terrain can offer a target in the standard D&D 4E game world.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion more than doubles the richness and depth of the D&D 4E tactical environment. Targets may now have Concealment or Cover or any of the following attack modifying advantages or disadvantages, when positioned in the right (or wrong) place:

• Higher Ground: Stay above the fray to increase your Armor Class and Reflex defense.
• Lower Ground: Don’t let ranged attackers get the drop on you!
• Support: With your back against the wall, your Will grows stronger and your Fortitude, more determined.
• Precarious Position: When engaged in close combat, keep back from the edge at all times.

Where you stand has now much greater influence on combat outcomes. During combat, you can choose to move toward areas that increase your odds and away from areas that endanger you or advantage your opponent. Conversely, following an enemy into the wrong area can suddenly put you on the defensive. 

Ranged attackers naturally seek out an elevated position while defenders may themselves prefer a higher, more defensible platform to boost armor strength and reflexes. Walls and environmental obstacles can increase a target's resistance to destabilizing, psychological effects---by reducing the target's relative isolation or offering it physical support when it might otherwise be dizzied or stunned. Difficult or challenging terrain can make a target less capable when engaged at close quarters. 

In the world of Enhanced 4E, knowing your opponent's relative strengths and weaknesses can help you decide where best to make your stand and when at last to make your move.

To purchase your copy of Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion, visit Enhanced4E.com. Available in both print and eBook editions!