4th Edition DnD

[Duff]

to "minionize" foes as a reward for prior successes/investment.

I've not seen that done but it's a great idea
Our GM did the "2 rats and one orc over there" and it did feel very much like a board game (which some of our players quite liked).

Combats will take longer - Where in older D&D, some characters are just going say "I hit it for 20 points of damage", in 4th ed, most likely everyone will be deciding which power to use, and if it hits it will do damage and something else, even if it misses it might do something. Especially for more advanced characters.
Make use of the power cards (as noted above)
Make sure everyone has a system to keep track of the effects on their character. Make sure you have a system to keep track of the effects on a monster. We were TPKed in late paragon (around 18th level. Monsters routinely had 1/2 dozen effects on them - marked by the paladin, cursed by the warlock (same character (mine)), some sort of debuff from the monk and a different one from the bard, some shenangans from the Runpreist/artifacer. And that's before anyone breaks out encounter and daily powers.

Don't expect the rules to always make sense as written, don't expect the fluff to fit the mechanics - If the fighter grabs the swarm of insects and drags it across the map, you can go with it (Shrug), you can refluff the power on the fly or you can say "That's silly. it doesn't work" and accept that you're making the fighter's power less effective than the game would assume. Same insect swarm can be blinded by the rogue putting a slash above their eyes so blood flows into the eyes. One fighter power slides the enemy into the square you just left, another one pulls them next to you. The different keywords mean different feats/items/etc affect them. And you can knock a jelly prone. Shrug. This! Is! 4th Ed!

It will make more difference whether the party has a range of character types. If you don't have a defender, a leader and a striker (at least) your party will find fights harder than if they do. If you have 4 or more players, you probably want all 4 roles covered.

There's a lot of moving parts available in character creation. I strongly recommend players only building a vague idea of the character they want before they start. While you *can* build almost any concept you want, some of them require a fair bit of rule knowledge

also, edit to add...

Also, from a related thread, this is good summary of the best thing about 4th ed is the support for teamwork:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...un-Learning-4e

(snip) Second, my play experience with 4e had a really high concentration of 'memorable moments'. The tactical, often movement or cooperation based powers mean it's really easy to pull off a cool trick. Coordinating the team to shove every enemy into the same 5ft campfire, exploiting the terrain to keep enemies moving past the defender if they want to reach you, being the arrow in the knee archer and ruining the boss's adventuring career first turn, lobbing the gnome into suspected ambushes and then teleporting him back out, sliding the paladin back a step so he can charge on his turn... (snip)