Well, we finally played a short session. We didn’t record it, but here’s the main result.
I liked it, it’s very different, and definitely like a board game, but as the GM, I liked it. The monster stats in the first module, and the monster manual ones as well, are excellent and nearly all you need to run that monster I think.
Other people… not so enamored as I was. It has a much different flavor than 3.x, and is definitely not possible to run a low magic campaign with. Though it does give people something to do nearly the whole time, it also feels a bit like playing an MMO, with special powers being used constantly.
I played World of Warcraft recently, and after playing it a while, I questioned why I have a hotkey for a regular attack, when it is much better to just hit one of the several special attacks instead. Sometimes 4e seems that way too. With the regular attack being pretty much a waste of character sheet space. The other special attacks are definitely something to use over the unpowered attack.
Now as a GM I am wondering. How do I use one of my tricks of taking the powers from the characters would even work in this game?