4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
Tactical Points: A Unified System to Fix 4e Powers
This system is designed to be a replacement to the existing encounter/daily 4e power system, and is designed to address many of the complaints regarding 4e powers. The design goals of this system are:
1. Eliminate the "hard cap" of one use of each encounter (daily) power per encounter (day) - a frequent source of complaints about "unrealism" and lack of flexibility. (And also avoid introducing any additional "hard caps.")
2. Make each power source play a slightly different way, in order to make the power sources more unique.
3. Enable improvised stunts to be easily inserted into the system in a fair way.
Overview
The general idea of the system is that there is no longer a strict one-use-per-encounter (or day) limit on encounter and daily powers. Instead, in order to use powers you must spend TP, or Tactical Points. Tactical Point costs are as follows:
Encounter Power - 2 TP for heroic tier, 3 TP for paragon tier, 4 TP for epic tier. +2 TP additional cumulative cost for each time the same power is used again in an encounter (e.g. a paragon tier power would cost 5 TP the second time it is used in the same encounter, 7 TP the third time, etc.)
Daily Power - 5 TP for heroic tier, 7 TP for paragon tier, 9 TP for epic tier. +2 TP additional cumulative cost for each time the same power is used again in a day.
There are three main ways to spend TP:
1. You can spend TP from your TP Pool. The TP Pool has a maximum capacity of (2 + half level) rounded down, and refreshes after every short rest.
2. You can burn a healing surge to get 2 TP which must be spent immediately, or an action point to get 4 TP. If you do this you do not gain any other benefits of the healing surge or action point, and it does not count against the one action point per encounter limit.
3. You can get bonus TP via the feats below. Bonus TP must be used immediately, and can only be used toward particular powers as described in the feat description.
Overextending
You are allowed to "overextend" - go into negative TP values in the TP Pool. If you are about to use a power that would send you into negatives, you must first make a skill check with a DC of 10 + 4*(number of negative TP points you end up with). For example if you have 1 TP left and are using a 3 TP power, the DC is 18 because you have -2 TP left. If you then used another 3 TP power the DC would be 30 because you would be going down to -5 TP. If the check fails then the action is wasted (though you do not expend any TP) and you cannot try to overextend again this round. Note that if you do not have to spend any TP from the TP Pool because you could get all the TP necessary from (2) and (3) above, then you do not have to make a check even if you are already at negative TP.
Checks needed are as follows depending on power source of power:
Martial - Athletics for Strength based powers, Acrobatics for Dexterity based powers
Arcane - Arcana
Divine - Religion
Primal - Endurance
Bonus TP Feats
Tactical Advantage (Heroic Tier): Prerequisite: Martial power source
If you have combat advantage against all targets of an attack power with the martial power source, you may choose to gain 2 bonus TP that can be used for that attack instead of the normal benefits of combat advantage. If you have combat advantage against some, but not all, targets, then you only get 1 bonus TP.
Channel Mana (Heroic Tier):
Prerequisite: Arcane power source
You may choose to "channel mana" as a minor action. When you channel mana, gain one mana counter. You take -2 to all defenses per mana counter you have on you. If you take any action other than channeling mana, or get hit by an attack, you lose all mana counters. If you use a power with an arcane power source, each mana counter you have gives you 1 bonus TP towards that power. Also, you may not use a mana counter for bonus TP on the same turn that you gain it.
Combat Prayer (Heroic Tier): Prerequisite: Divine power source
During a short rest you may say a prayer. When you do so, you get 1 bonus TP toward an appropriate power of the divine power source each time you use one, until you say a different prayer. Available prayers and appropriate powers are as follows:
Prayer of Healing: All powers with the healing keyword. Prayer of Aid: All powers that provide a bonus to an ally. Prayer of Smiting: All single target attack powers that do not affect anyone other than the target. Prayer of Might: All attack powers with the Strength ability score as primary. Prayer of Wisdom: All attack powers with the Wisdom ability score as primary. Prayer of Radiance: All attack powers with the Charisma ability score as primary.
Primal Energy (Heroic Tier): Prerequisite: Primal power source
You may expend hit points equal to 10 percent of your maximum hit point value (rounded up) at any time to gain 1 bonus TP to be used for a primal power source power of your choice. You may do this as many times as you want, including multiple times for one power. This loss of hit points cannot be prevented, reduced, or redirected by any means, and does not trigger any beneficial effects that trigger on damage.
Improvised Stunts
I said up at the top that I would tell you how to incorporate improvised stunts into this sytem and now I will. An improvised stunt must be "paid for" with TP the same way that a power use is paid for. The TP cost of an improvised stunt is equal to the TP cost of a power of the same strength as the stunt, plus 2. For example, an improvised stunt that is about as powerful as a paragon tier encounter power sould cost 5 TP. The cost of an at-will power is 0 TP, of course so the cost of an improvized stunt that is about as powerful as an at-will is 2 TP. (The 2 TP additional cost reflects the an improvised stunt is by definition something that the character ahs not trained for, and will thus have a harder time pulling off than a power that he knows and has practiced. This additional penalty can of course be modified depending on how prevalent you want improvised stunts to be in your campaign.)
Just like with powers, attempting the same stunt again in an encounter gives an additional 2 TP cumulative cost. Of course a character can attempt a different stunt with no additional penalty.
New Feat:
Combat Improvisation (Heroic Tier):
The character is an expert at coming up with improvised stunts. Once per encounter, the character can get 2 bonus TP toward an improvised stunt.
Special: This feat can be taken more than once. Each additional time it is taken, it can be used one additional time per encounter. However each use must be on a separate stunt: a character with 2 instances of this feat can't get 4 bonus TP on one stunt.
First off...this may be your intention, but at 3rd level for example you cannot use your 1st and 3rd encounter power in the same encounter without using one of your other spending methods. Also, you cannot use any dailies without the same.
I think the various feat methods of generating extra TP is neat, though I don't think its balanced. The divine one cuts my TP cost in half (as a cleric for example I can always choose all wisdom powers for example). The martial one, well me and a buddy can get free powers all day long with flanking. Meanwhile the arcane guy opens himself up to big pain.
Finally I discourage spending healing surges for more powers....that way leads to novaing and to the 5 minute work day. Its seductive those surges, they are right there...a perfect resource to fuel other mechanics. I have been tempted in many house rules to use them as well. But once that's allowed, you'll have players who blow all their surges and then will want to rest, which jars with the rest of the party and with a primary tenet of 4e.
However, as Stalker0's post indicates, there might be a reason why they aren't differentiated...
In other words, I do not believe you can achieve equilibrium - no matter how you design these power source specific feats, I think a minmaxer will be able to build his character to take undue advantage, with some power sources emerging as simply better than others. If you accept that all classes are equal today (in theory, at least) this means that some classes will become better than others, based on their power source.
That said, I would consider building the power source differentiation into the basic mechanism. That is, not requiring feats. Chances are your players will view these feats as essential anyway, and in such case, you've only added a feat tax to your game.
As others have mentioned and I'll agree with, this is an interesting system but as presented has flaws in terms of balance (while I don't believe classes have to be balanced against each other I do believe that the 'fun level' of each class has to be balanced) and the bookkeeping involved could add a negative to it. "I've used this power once or twice this encounter and it's a Paragon so it costs what to use again?" Putting a check box next to a power or tapping a power card is considerably easier. I'm not saying better mind you, just easier.
The feats essentially become must haves and a must have feat can indicate there's a problem with a system that requires it.
Going back to first edition I would typically replace the vancian system with a simplified mana point system and I always balanced this against the existing spell uses per day. Granted the old spells were horrible in terms of level versus power but it worked well enough for roleplayers which is what I've always been lucky enough to have.
So my initial thought is, do away with the feats, I think while they're flavorful they're gonig to be tough to balance. Rebalance the number of TP's based on the number of powers any character has at any level rather than the level so that they could at the least get the same amount of power usage with enough 'slack' to allow it to round up.
Keep the overextended but add in a harsher penalty perhaps they take 1d4 pyschic or physical damage on any overextend attempt. There should be some penalty for pushing your body/mind/will beyond it's limits other than you just wasted your time (action).
Anyway, those are my initial reactions.
__________________ Player: "What are you going to do us next?! Key our cars after the session?!" Listen to our game play podcast here or on itunes.
When I first read the title, I thought it would be a slightly different system. This is what I imagined:
At level 1 you can use 1 encounter and 1 daily. So at the start of the day, you would have (when using your values) 7 points. Every short rest would give the players 2 TP back (so the encounter power could be reused) and every extended rest would reset the TP to 7.
Of course, going above the starting value of 7 shouldn't be allowed (to prevent saving up and then going nova in one encounter), but the players would in theory be able to use a daily in their first combat and then again in the 4th encounter (if they don't use any encounter powers).
This is how I would do it, and is a little different than what you suggest. I do like some of your ideas however (such as overextending yourself), which could be incorporated.
In the end, I also want to agree with the comments about the feat-tax. And, it might change the power of the players quite significantly (but that is what playtesting is for!)
One thing I am seeing in these is you are integrating some of the house rules I have seen for power re-use. (spending action points and surges)
here is one that could also be included.
The aborted attempt rule : if the roll for the first attack action associated with an attack power is below 4, you may choose to loose the action rather than reveal your trick(or expend the resources or whatever), in terms of your house rule they dont loose any tactic points(but any effects or miss conditions do not apply). Adjust the number above (4) to suit your fancy or even start it lower and include feats to indicate carefulness.
Last edited by Garthanos; 1st June 2009 at 07:45 PM..
Reason: argh I meant action points and surges ;-(
One way of keeping spending surges a little more under control that I considered was being able to spend a healing surge worth of hit points instead .... it makes you more immediately vulnerable.
There's another issue with the Utility powers? Do they count as what they are? Enc or Daily? Do they run off of TP? Utilities just aren't used as much as other powers IMO and I could easily see people taking a daily utility rather than an enc utility just to get another set of TP's to use their Daily attack(s).
__________________ Player: "What are you going to do us next?! Key our cars after the session?!" Listen to our game play podcast here or on itunes.
As the others have said - very interesting. I like the concept, it just needs some serious attention to testing.
I think Stalker0's point about the low-level issues is very relevant. I think a not unreasonable way to look at it is to have it allow comparable amounts of power use that the old system did, over an average workday (say a four-encounter day).
Thus, a level 1 character in this setup has one encounter and one daily power. (Leaving aside race powers for now, that'd probably need some tweaking central to the races proper, since some do and some don't have encounter powers.) If we average out the 5TP for his daily over four encounters, and figure that he uses his encounter attack power three out of four times (the other being either a fight where it never comes up, or a skill challenge where it doesn't apply), then he's burning an average of 2.75 TP per encounter. Yet your math only gives him 2. He'll notice that difference, I think.
A level 5 character who uses both of his encounter attack powers in three out of four encounters, and both dailies in the day, is using an average of 5.5 TP per encounter that day - on attack powers. Let's say that his level 2 utility power is either a daily which he uses with 80% probability in that day, or an encounter power which he uses with 50% probability in each encounter... either way that's an extra one TP per encounter, bringing his average usage to 6.5. Yet you've only given him four.
Ah - but here's an interesting thought. Rather than have them reset to (2 + 1/2lvl) per short rest, have them start at zero after an extended rest and increment by (2 + 1/2lvl) at the start of each encounter. If you want to use your daily during the first encounter, it may mean you have to overexert. But if you are slightly conservative during the first encounter, then when you get to your second encounter, you'll have racked up enough points to use it without worrying too much. (Keep fractions in the increment... a level 1 character gets 2.5 per encounter, the half-point being useful only to add to another half-point at the start of the second encounter.)
What's that I hear? A mechanism to encourage longer workdays? Trumpets in the distance? A tactical conundrum between powers, which are getting easier to use, and hit points, which are going down, over the course of a day? Hallelujah!
Plus, the list of when you pick up encounter and daily attacks is specific. Thus your broad rule "2 at Heroic, etc" can be scaled more finely.
Try this:
- Level 1 encounter attack => 1TP cost
- Level 1 daily attack => 4TP cost
- Level 2 utility (encounter) => 1TP cost
- Level 2 utility (daily) => 4TP cost
- Level 3 encounter attack => 1TP cost
- Level 5 daily attack => 5TP cost
- Level 6 utility (encounter) => 2TP cost
- Level 6 utility (daily) => 5TP cost
- Level 7 encounter attack => 2TP cost
... and so forth. The conversion table is only needed, of course, when first doing the changeover, or when buying new powers; you label the powers with their TP costs right on the card / listing.
As for the +2 per successive usage, make that the "recovery cost" for the power (card). All powers (except at-wills) are expended when used. To reuse one, you need to pay the recovery cost of 2TP as well as the use cost. The encounter cards recover for free upon a short rest, the dailies don't. For a clean break, in fact, label the encounter powers as "Recover" or "Recover Short" or something like that.
As for healing surges, with this version, if you want to include surges try this: if you're overextended at the end of the encounter, then you (? may? must? ) spend healing surges, gaining 2TP and nothing else for each one spent, until you are at 0 or 1 TP. After this you regain your TP increment as usual.
I would also rule that as an Aid Another action you can transfer 1TP to another PC. Might even make this a minor action unlike most Aid actions. (Or to prevent confusion the "Tactical Assist" action is a minor which transfers 1TP.)
I would also be tempted to actually just integrate Action Points and daily magic item usages into the same scheme... make it so that the only currency which runs down over a day is Healing Surges, everything else actually slowly ramps up (on average).
I would also be tempted to actually just integrate Action Points and daily magic item usages into the same scheme... make it so that the only currency which runs down over a day is Healing Surges, everything else actually slowly ramps up (on average).
Neat!
Ah ... kind of like you gain 1 tactical point every encounter (in addition to whatever else is above) and everyone has an encounter power like "burst of action" and define its effects as per spending an action point.
1. Fundamentally, my main goal with this system was to replace all the "hard caps" with "soft caps." One of the complaints I see about 4e combat is that you can't even try the same power more than once - that the system says "you can't do that." This gets rid of that by making it so you can do the same power more than once, it just costs more. The "ramp up" is preserved to avoid spamming of the same power. Essentially my system is an intermediate between the extremes of a power being used over and over again for no additional cost (promotes spamming of most powerful powers and optimizing for one specific power) and no ability to even try the same power more than once (restricts player actions too much). However, Eric Finley's suggestion of the 2 TP for "recovery" seems to be a good idea that makes bookkeeping a little easier.
2. Yes, it's true that people will need to get bonus TP in order to keep up with the normal power progression, but that's intentional. The bonus TP are supposed to be "gettable" a significant fraction of the time. Combat advantage isn't that hard to get, if you can get yourself in the right position out of harm's way you can use both your move and minor actions for channel mana twice per round, the combat prayer doesn't even require doing anything special in combat in order to get, and if you have a leader or two to pump healing then you can easily afford the hit point loss from the primal energy. However you are correct it's probably a better idea to just make these innate abilities rather than charge a feat for them. (In fact, when I wrote the thing I was a little worried that some of the bonuses are too easy to get.)
3. I'm skeptical of systems where short rests are not idempotent (idempotent means that doing it twice or more in a row is the same as doing it once), because you can exploit the system by doing multiple short rests in a row. For example Neubert's system where you recover only some of your TP after each short rest - a party could just take several short rests until they recover all their TP. Of course there are ways to prevent this (e.g., don't let players rest more than once between encounters. have monsters ambush them if they try to rest too much) but then you could end up in an "arms race" with the players trying to counter those tactics (e.g. seek out weak encounters on purpose, go to an out of the way place to hide an then rest). Unless you want this kind of dynamic it may not be a good idea.
4. The comments about healing surges make sense. It might be a good idea to remove tha ability to burn healing surges from the system. Probably it would be a good idea to, rather than spend healing surges or action point, just introduce a new per-day resource that can be spent for bonus TP.
5. Don't forget that overextending isn't that hard to do. A 1st level character with +4 in his primary stat and a trained skill has +9 to that skill, so he can make a DC 14 check (to go down to -1 TP) 80 percent of the time.
6. @Stalker0: The fighter can't get "free powers all day" because he can only use each power "for free" once per encounter. The first time he uses a level 1 encounter power he can pay all the cost with bonus TP, but after that he has to pay the "ramp up" cost.
7. @DanmarLOK: I don't understand what you're talking about with regards to if utilities "count as what they are." You pay TP for them based on what they are. However, your maximum TP is not affected by what powers you choose - it's just affected by your level.
What's that I hear? A mechanism to encourage longer workdays? Trumpets in the distance? A tactical conundrum between powers, which are getting easier to use, and hit points, which are going down, over the course of a day? Hallelujah!
3. I'm skeptical of systems where short rests are not idempotent (idempotent means that doing it twice or more in a row is the same as doing it once), because you can exploit the system by doing multiple short rests in a row.
Not actually sure what this means, but if you're saying you dislike systems where there's additional benefit from taking more than one rest in a row, I agree whole-heartedly!
Of course, the simplest rule is "you can't take more than one rest between two encounters; 'rest' (short or extended) being effectively redefined as 'the space between encounters', regardless of actual time spent".
One thing I've noticed when I've tried to use healing surges as "currency" is that this really benefits some classes/players a lot more than others. Defenders and front line troops really burn through their surges while those that use range are much less likely to use surges (barring dm fiat in directing attacks specifically at them and ignoring the defenders) and thus anything that boosts power based on spent surges really boosts some more than others.
This may not be a factor with some or even most, just wanted to throw that out there as a possible consideration.
__________________ Player: "What are you going to do us next?! Key our cars after the session?!" Listen to our game play podcast here or on itunes.
It's not DM fiat to direct attacks at the squishies. Imagine a group of Players were controlling your monsters. Would they all go: "he looks like he doesn't do much damage, and is very hard to kill, let's glomp him" or would they go "Ooh, tasty tasty striker, die die die"
I think the various feat methods of generating extra TP is neat, though I don't think its balanced. The divine one cuts my TP cost in half (as a cleric for example I can always choose all wisdom powers for example). The martial one, well me and a buddy can get free powers all day long with flanking. Meanwhile the arcane guy opens himself up to big pain.
Not only that, but the martial one royally screws rogues, who have to give up their primary method of dealing damage in order to use their abilities, while all the other martial classes merely take a minor hit to accuracy.
Level 1:
1 encounter, 1 daily.
TP: 2
So... I need a DC 22 check to use my daily. I'm basically forced to take either athletics or acrobatics as one of my skills, and even if I put my all into being good at it (+15), I've still got a 35% chance of failing.
In other words, taking the feat is mandatory, and rogues are totally screwed.
Level 2:
1 encounter, 1 daily, 1 utility
TP: 3
That check gets a little lower (down to 19), and the mod gets higher (up to 16). However now I've got yet another power that I have to pay for somehow, and it may well be a daily. Wow, I sure hope I spent all my feats on extra healing surges, skill boosts and that TP generation feat, just to use my powers.
Twice as many TP, 3 times as many powers. To use 3 encounter powers and a daily (which is not unreasonable), takes me 11 points and I've only got 7 to spend. And if I have only encounter utility powers, then that's another 6 on top of that. If I gain another level, suddenly I need 24 points.
Level 30:
TP: 17
4 encounters, 4 dailies, 4 utilities, PLUS your epic destiny powers.
Takes you 25 points to spend each encounter plus a daily.
At this point the feat tax is not quite so heavy, but it's still a tax: you effectively have to spend it in order to have the same amount of fun that you used to have.
The DC for actually spending a normal encounters worth of powers is 34, while your skill is around about the same. So you can actually spend a normal encounter worth of powers, plus some extra. But you've pumped a skill to the max to do it when all you wanted to do was melt some face. And heaven help you if you have a class with a prime stat that doesn't improve the skill selected for you, or wanted to use an unusual distribution.
To put it mildly: I don't think you've actually done the maths (except maybe at level 30). I don't think you've put any thought into how unfun not being able to use your powers is. I don't think you've actually played most classes in the game.
Finally, I don't think your final design satisfies any of your design criteria at any level:
1. While it does remove the hard cap, the soft cap you impose is more restrictive, and rapidly hits hard limits: it's a 'fake' soft cap. Realistically it's a lower hard cap than the original.
2. The power sources don't actually play in a different way. They all have a pile of tokens, and they all run out of tokens before they can use most of their powers, except for the fighter, who just stands around flanking all day and making more tokens.
3. They don't encourage the use of stunts. If anything, they discourage them. You've effectively said "use the stunt rules from the book, but whenever you use a stunt, cross off the use of two encounter powers". Currently stunts can be used whenever you don't wish to use up a power, or when your powers are not applicable. In your version a stunt has a higher cost than using an encounter power, so they are only ever going to be used when there is no other choice.
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
