D&D 4E How I Fixed 4e

Rel said:

Gah! Every time I think I've nailed down this system somebody throws me another cool idea that I hadn't considered!

That has some very interesting implications. I'm going to have to think on this (I do so hate to think on a Friday too!).

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Exactly.

If you'll allow me to extrapolate a little further...

Condition: Wounded. A Wounded character has suffered a lasting injury which impedes the character's ability to recover combat readiness. While suffering the Wounded condition, the character does not recover lost Hit Points normally after an Extended Rest. Also, the affected character's Healing Surges only provide Temporary Hit Points.

After an Extended Rest, a Wounded character may attempt an Endurance check to recover Hit Points equal to the character's normal Healing Surge value. If this check fails, the character still recovers half that amount. Additionally, a successful Healing check will also recover Hit Points equal to the character's normal Healing Surge. Thus, it is possible for the character to recover up to 2x Healing Surges worth of Hit Points after an Extended Rest. No actual Heal Surges are used to perform these checks.

The Wounded condition can only be removed once the character has fully recovered all normal Hit Points.

P.S. At this point, we can go on the create a series of rituals, Cure Minor Wounds (1x Surge), Cure Light Wounds (2x Surge), etc., which recover real HPs. Also, as noted, healing effects based off of something other than the affected character's own surges would heal HP normally. This gives the players tools to get rid of the condition quickly.

Silent Cartographer said:

Exactly.

If you'll allow me to extrapolate a little further...

Condition: Wounded. A Wounded character has suffered a lasting injury which impedes the character's ability to recover combat readiness. While suffering the Wounded condition, the character does not recover lost Hit Points normally after an Extended Rest. Also, the affected character's Healing Surges only provide Temporary Hit Points.

After an Extended Rest, a Wounded character may attempt an Endurance check to recover Hit Points equal to the character's normal Healing Surge value. If this check fails, the character still recovers half that amount. Additionally, a successful Healing check will also recover Hit Points equal to the character's normal Healing Surge. Thus, it is possible for the character to recover up to 2x Healing Surges worth of Hit Points after an Extended Rest. No actual Heal Surges are used to perform these checks.

The Wounded condition can only be removed once the character has fully recovered all normal Hit Points.

P.S. At this point, we can go on the create a series of rituals, Cure Minor Wounds (1x Surge), Cure Light Wounds (2x Surge), etc., which recover real HPs. Also, as noted, healing effects based off of something other than the affected character's own surges would heal HP normally. This gives the players tools to get rid of the condition quickly.

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Again, very interesting. The only thing I like about it less than my most recent solution is that you have to track current and temporary hit points separately. I mean you'd have to do that anyway if you have conditions that grant temp HP but this would create another such condition.

True enough. Everything has a cost. I think as long as resources are available to be expended removing the condition, I don't see it sticking around all that long in real play.

Rel, what about something even simpler and more straightforward? just a suggestion to be fleshed out later!
If a character uses up all his healing surges he gets a [Wound] and unless someone Heals him (with an ability check or a ritual, most powers shouldn't work here) he simply regains half surges per day. a character can have multiple [Wound]s and each one has to be treated separately. multiple [Wound]s stack but any one beyond the first subtracts only one surge from the wounded total

kinda equivalent to your first suggestion, but half surges at full power is both easier to manage and actually looks more appropriate to me... when wounded you have less energy reserves to draw from, but your body draws at them with the same speed!

Rel said:

Skills - [snip]

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I seem to recall you mentioning this ages ago in one of the many 4e hates craft threads. I like the idea for when you think you'll need regular mechanical support for it. And I like that it doesn't hurt players who want to have such "flavor" skills and force an exchange. In my game, non-adventuring skills arise from background and we don't bother to stat them out, just come up with something if a situation ever requires a die roll.

Powers - My answer is Action Points.

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This is really cool and flavorful. I might well tweak and steal this one. After reading it, my thought is that sacrificing a daily might be a bit much, along with an action point. Maybe an item daily might work (that refreses with milestones). I might even use a seperate allocation of points that I would reward through good roleplaying or something. "Cinema points" or something.

Milestones - There are few mechanics in 4e that I find less flavorful than the "fight two encounters, get a Milestone" bit. But after consideration, I determined that what I needed to do is to simply turn Milestones into, well, milestones. In other words, have something meaningful actually take place. And it doesn't have to be after the encounter either. It can be smack dab in the middle of the battle.

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I agree, and I started doing much the same thing. When I prep an adventure, I include a note on when milestones are reached, after certain fights or when a certain puzzle is solved, etc. And when winging it, just when it makes sense, but yeah, I don't try to keep up with the every other encounter thing either.

Healing - ...That may not bother you. I'm not saying it should bother you. But it bothers me.

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It's always bothered me a bit. I houseruled a wounding system in 2e, used wound/vitality in 3e for a bit, but in the end its something that bothers me more than my players, and the extra hassle isn't usually worth it, so I just live with it. At some point I'll likely tinker with a wound system for 4e and when I do, this will be the base. I love the idea of triggering it off of failed death saves. What would you think about using a condition monitor like the disease system? Seems like beating an endurance check once would be fairly easy and most all wounds would recover after a single extended rest anyway, which would seem a bit of extra hassle for not much. Unless the way you see it is more a means to apply penalties for wounds throughout multiple encounters in a single day. But that would seem to encourage early rests.

Rituals - Love em'. LOVE em'! You know what goes good with Rituals? MORE Rituals!

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Couldn't agree more. Love the idea of monster parts as reagent treasure, clever. I also really like the idea of breaking up enchant into specific rituals. I'll steal that for sure.

Magic Items - That's why, to put them back in whack, I'll make your items magic for FREE. Once in a while, due to the chaos and magic that pervades my campaign world, stuff just sort of resonates and becomes spontaneously enchanted. The death blow to the Red Dragon caused your sword to become a Dragonslayer. When you, in a blind rage, slew the Hobgoblin Lieutenant (remember him?) that killed your father, it was forevermore a Berserker Weapon. And was that demonic visage attempting to strike a bargain in your dream last night real or merely a nightmare? You don't know but your newly enchanted Pact Blade gives you cause for worry.

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I've always liked doing stuff like that and the pact blade idea gave me the inspiration to resolve something I was working on in regards to a couple character's backstories. So thanks for that! A pact blade enchanted through a dream fits great with some themes brewing in my game.

All in all, an excellent set of house rules, I think.

Hey Rel... You're gonna be codifying this and putting it into a Word doc or PDF, right?

catsclaw227 said:

Hey Rel... You're gonna be codifying this and putting it into a Word doc or PDF, right?

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Um...maybe?

Ahem, I mean, yeah almost certainly since I'll want to hand it out to the players at some point. But not tonight. Tonight, I drive to DisneyWorld!

"Rel, you've sketched out some 4E house rules that are greatly admired. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to Disney World!"

(And it suddenly strikes me that many of our younger posters will have no flippin' idea what I'm quoting. I should take out my teeth, pop my Geritol and go to bed!)

Thasmodious said:

(Re: Using Action Point + Daily to do "something cool")

This is really cool and flavorful. I might well tweak and steal this one. After reading it, my thought is that sacrificing a daily might be a bit much, along with an action point. Maybe an item daily might work (that refreses with milestones). I might even use a seperate allocation of points that I would reward through good roleplaying or something. "Cinema points" or something.

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I got to see this in play for the first time last night and my conclusion is that you are right about the cost being too high. I don't want the game to devolve into an endless series of me having to adjudicate stuff that isn't covered by existing powers, but the combo of the PC having both Action Point and unused Daily both at the same time seems a bit limiting. This could be because we were playing a 1st level adventure so the PC's each only have one Daily anyway. Regardless, I'd like to have it be available to them a bit more.

I'm leaning toward Action Point + Healing Surge as the cost. Healing Surge is obviously a far cheaper price to pay than a Daily but it still requires the player to throw in an expendable resource. I suppose that if I wanted to keep the cost a bit higher then I could go with Action Point + Encounter Power. At first level that still means that many PC's will only have 1 to spend but many of the races and classes have extra Encounter Powers included that would bolster that and also they wouldn't have any chance of having already spent it before that encounter (like they would wiht a Daily).

I wish you were my DM