D&D 4E How I Fixed 4e

H.M.Gimlord · Feb 15, 2009

Here are two ideas that I've used, and it has made my games a lot more fun.

1. Targeted strikes: This is like combining attack rolls with skill checks. The player character can, before his or her attack, declare an attempt to perform a particular task (e.g.: cut off an arm, knock off a helmet, disarm an opponent, knock an implement out of an opponent's hand, etc...). If the attack roll+modifiers exceeds the necessary total by a certain DC, then the desired effect takes place. This rule results mostly in an enhancement to the flavor of the encounter, but it entertains my PCs tremendously.

2. Critical Misses: A roll of a 1 on d20 always misses, but when using a ranged attack, if the trejectory of the attack passes through a square occupied by another creature (whether in front of or behind), a second d20 roll is cast. If the second roll ends up as a 20, the other creature is hit accidentally by the attack (be it friend or foe). This has made for some comical interactions between players, and makes flanking more risky. For melee attacks, I've kicked around the idea of having the attacker fall prone on a roll of 20 as a result of whiffing a little too hard.

Rel · Feb 15, 2009

H.M.Gimlord said:
2. Critical Misses: A roll of a 1 on d20 always misses, but when using a ranged attack, if the trejectory of the attack passes through a square occupied by another creature (whether in front of or behind), a second d20 roll is cast. If the second roll ends up as a 20, the other creature is hit accidentally by the attack (be it friend or foe).

If I was going to do this I think that instead of requiring a second roll I'd simply say that it automatically hit the intervening target for the sake of simplicity.

This rule is a bit more "fiddly" than most of what I've been doing but it's the kind of thing I'd normally consider using.

H.M.Gimlord · Feb 15, 2009

Rel said:
If I was going to do this I think that instead of requiring a second roll I'd simply say that it automatically hit the intervening target for the sake of simplicity.

This rule is a bit more "fiddly" than most of what I've been doing but it's the kind of thing I'd normally consider using.

Thanks for your perspective.

I can see how this seems to just add to the rolling, but I guess it hasn't happened to me often enough to be a problem. Perhaps I can bring the requirement on the second roll down to something like 10+ or 15+. The point was that an accedental hit is not likely to happen all the time.

BTW: What does "fiddy" mean.

Rel · Feb 15, 2009

H.M.Gimlord said:
Thanks for your perspective.

I can see how this seems to just add to the rolling, but I guess it hasn't happened to me often enough to be a problem.

BTW: What does "fiddy" mean.

Your one extra die roll on the rare ocassion when a ranged attack passes through an occupied square and the attack roll is a 1 is probably not so onerous now that I think about it. I'm just into simplification these days.

What I mean by "fiddly" is that most of the rule changes I've made for 4e aren't all that situational. Like I've changed how Milestones are done and what you can do with an action point and added back in Crafts and things like that. But I haven't (for example) decided to make new rules for how to handle Grapple.

And like with your rule above about the Critical Miss. It only happens on a natural 1 and only happens when there is an occupied space in the attacker's way. I think it is sort of a neat idea but it's also one that only happens once in a while. That means that I've got to keep track of remembering that rule when that happens. And, for me, the added bit of coolness and "realism" that it brings once in a while is not worth me having to remember it (because my memory is not all that great, especially when I'm keeping track of all the other things that a GM has to keep track of during the game).

I hope that makes sense. It's not to say that other people's house rules are "bad" or anything of the sort. Just that I'm placing more value on rules that are easy to implement and remember than ones that situationally add little dashes of coolness to the game.

H.M.Gimlord · Feb 15, 2009

Rel,

No problem. I see your point.

Yanko128 · Feb 17, 2009

i had this idea for the Wound system:

you get a Wound when you fail a death save (i would limit this to once per encounter based on the fact that nobody in my group can roll above a 5 on a death save).
you get a wound when you suffer a critical hit.

every wound you suffer gives you following penalties:
you suffer -1 penalty to all Str, Con and Dex based skills. this way you still have the feel of being beat up without pushing the character closer towards death in combat.

you could also reduce the amount of hit points granted by your healing surges by the amount of wounds you have. this might make math little longer as far as healing goes, but its not as deadly as reducing healing by half.

recovering from wounds:
at the end of an extended rest you can make an endurance check (you can make a heal check DC 15 to give yourself +2 bonus), or somebody other than you can make a Heal check on you. on a success you heal one of your wounds.
the DC is equal to 10+ half your level (DC based on the level of whoever gave you the wound would make more sense, but you dont want to keep track of where you got the wound)

you could also allow recovery of multiple wounds at once by increasing the DC by... lets say 2 for each wound.

anywho, just something to think about.

Garthanos · Mar 24, 2009

It occured to me that bleeding injuries those with ongoing damage where you failed at least the first save would also be a very appropriate source of a wound?

Rel · Mar 25, 2009

Garthanos said:
It occured to me that bleeding injuries those with ongoing damage where you failed at least the first save would also be a very appropriate source of a wound?

I think that sounds entirely appropriate. After the first couple of sessions Wounds have hardly come up at all. I think this is largely due to the fact that most of the baddies they have gone up against haven't been Elites or Solos (although recently they did have to fight a dragon, twice, and another elite. But very few nat 20's rolled by me). But I think it makes sense for some creatures to inflict a Wound on a failed save from an encounter power.

Garthanos · Mar 25, 2009

I like the idea of failed Death saves indicating a wound this is sort of an extension on that.

There are a reasonable number of attacks that do ongoing damage (though many use fire -- which for classic regeneration is a stopper)

I am trying to design a sub-race with "true regeneration" ... one way was to give nice bonus's so that those bleeding injuries didn't last or even start and I was thinking auto stabilizing heal check even if unconcious....
and it conceptually works, but without some real long lasting wounds the ability is perhaps less interesting.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/252979-dragon-masters-art.html#post4722968

The RAW current regeneration ... is more, invigoration (providing energy) and inspiration (morale)... which are quite nice things for poets, preists and politicians to do (bards, clerics and warlords).
but not quite regeneration to me! ... I wish you could hear the song in my head.

DMINGW00TISAWSOME · Apr 24, 2009

This looks really cool. If you're OK with it, I'd like to use these in my own campaign. Hopefully I'll have as much fun playing these rules as I did reading your original post!