[4e] Companion Characters as PCs

Hi all,
I'd like to get some feedback and suggestions about keeping damage and defenses of PCs viable in the following scenario:
- I am going to use Companion Characters as full PCs, at least in terms of how many powers they get. But I do want to keep the half-level progression for attacks bonuses, AC and Defenses.
- I am also going to use the Fixed Enhancement Bonuses from DMG2 and Dark Sun to drastically reduce the number of magic items.
- Finally, I want to get rid of Feats completely (or only give at most 1 per tier, most likely tied to race.)

What do you think is a reasonable level-dependent bonus to apply across the whole 30 levels range, in addition to the above changes? The only issue I see is with Feats, so I came up with a blank +1 per 5 levels range (so maximum total +6) to encompass both the Fixed Enhancement Bonus AND the lack of Feats.
Does it seem right?

Thanks,
Antonio

rabindranath72 said:

Hi all,
I'd like to get some feedback and suggestions about keeping damage and defenses of PCs viable in the following scenario:
- I am going to use Companion Characters as full PCs

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I've used Companion Characters as 'loaner characters' or to fill in a missing role in the past. They're actually fine for a single session or other occasional use. They'd be pretty boring over multiple levels, I suspect.

But there's nothing in particular you have to do to keep them on the treadmill - much like monsters level determines bonuses, defenses, and even damage.

, at least in terms of how many powers they get. But I do want to keep the half-level progression for attacks bonuses, AC and Defenses.
- I am also going to use the Fixed Enhancement Bonuses from DMG2 and Dark Sun to drastically reduce the number of magic items.
- Finally, I want to get rid of Feats completely.

What do you think is a reasonable level-dependent bonus to apply across the whole 30 levels range, in addition to the above changes? The only issue I see is with Feats, so I came up with a blank +1 per 5 levels range (so maximum total +6) to encompass both the Fixed Enhancement Bonus AND the lack of Feats.
Does it seem right?

Click to expand...

So the treadmill math is no big mystery. You get +15 over 29 levels. Enhancement bonuses + 6 over ~25 levels (+6 items start at 26th, but you often get 'em early). Feat Tax bonuses +3 over 3 Tiers. Stat boosts to your primary +8 (+4 bonus) over 27 levels (last boost at 28th). Epic Destiny stat boost +2 (for another +1) at 21st level. Total of +29 bonuses accumulated from leveling up over your career.

You can skip all that and just add +1/level.

Companion characters can be tons of fun! Especially for a group of players that want to play without having to interface with the rules.

It's super easy to have the capabilities change based on story, the numbers work, and the characters can have really cool combos, auras, etc, etc. I've had a great time with them!

As stated above, the numbers are pretty-much, +1 per level. This is also great for the feeling of progression (especially for "newb" players, the idea of +1 per level is kinda "a no-brainer").

Something cool I did was that when a player faced an opponent with a cool power that seemed like it could be learned, the player could add/change a power to match (or close to it) - that was a cool experiment.

Tony Vargas said:

I've used Companion Characters as 'loaner characters' or to fill in a missing role in the past. They're actually fine for a single session or other occasional use. They'd be pretty boring over multiple levels, I suspect.

But there's nothing in particular you have to do to keep them on the treadmill - much like monsters level determines bonuses, defenses, and even damage.

So the treadmill math is no big mystery. You get +15 over 29 levels. Enhancement bonuses + 6 over ~25 levels (+6 items start at 26th, but you often get 'em early). Feat Tax bonuses +3 over 3 Tiers. Stat boosts to your primary +8 (+4 bonus) over 27 levels (last boost at 28th). Epic Destiny stat boost +2 (for another +1) at 21st level. Total of +29 bonuses accumulated from leveling up over your career.

You can skip all that and just add +1/level.

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First of all, thanks everyone for chiming in; much appreciated.

Second, to give a bit of background: my group is the type that's perfectly happy with B/X D&D. So, "boring" is really a subjective thing here. So they'd be perfectly happy playing characters of the same level of complexity of Companion characters.

I have run the first leg of a Dark Sun campaign using 13th Age, and the players have been fine with that level of complexity. I didn't choose AD&D 2e to begin with, because I don't have a lot of patience to run the psionics system (and practically all NPCs and monsters in Dark Sun sport some psionic power), so the plan was to use the 4e Dark Sun books, and convert monsters to 13th Age. However, monster conversion took longer than I expected, and not all conversions worked fine in practice. Due to some Real Life events, I won't practically have much time to devote to the game beside preparing scenarios, so a one-off change of rules was the easiest route.

In terms of PCs, the players said they would be happy for their characters to be limited to the powers that appear in the Dark Sun themes (for 13th Age, I simply translated themes into Background skills.) This means that over the whole character life, they would be limited to the page of stuff for each theme (plus Paragon path stuff if we ever reach that.) Note that some of those theme powers automatically upgrade to Paragon and Epic tiers, so the PCs wouldn't get more powers. I will allow more uses for powers according to the AEDU progression table to compensate for the reduced number of powers (somewhat like what happens in some Essentials classes) but I definitely don't want to add more options.

Now, I kept the half-level progression because it also feeds into the skills system. I suppose I see the advantage of a straight +1 to attacks and AC/defences, though (much like 13th Age). But what do you suggest about damage? Perhaps keep magic-item bonuses to damage only? Or keep the "Intrinsic Bonus" damage progression as is? Do Feats need to be taken into account for the purpose of damage?

Oh, and if you have any other idea for "simpler characters", I'd be more than happy to hear it!

MoutonRustique said:

Companion characters can be tons of fun! Especially for a group of players that want to play without having to interface with the rules.

It's super easy to have the capabilities change based on story, the numbers work, and the characters can have really cool combos, auras, etc, etc. I've had a great time with them!

As stated above, the numbers are pretty-much, +1 per level. This is also great for the feeling of progression (especially for "newb" players, the idea of +1 per level is kinda "a no-brainer").

Something cool I did was that when a player faced an opponent with a cool power that seemed like it could be learned, the player could add/change a power to match (or close to it) - that was a cool experiment.

Click to expand...

Hey thanks for sharing your experience! That's exactly what I am after: a no-brainer for players who don't really care much about diversification or abundance of options. If I am going to run 4e, it's because of what it offers on the DM's "side of the screen", so to speak; the 4e Dark Sun stuff is just too good to pass.
As I mentioned, straight-up Companion characters don't seem to really work, as I want the PCs to use some type of equipment, I want ability score increases, and I want to use the alternate rewards system. But in general, the idea is to keep characters simple by limiting the number of options, not by limiting effectiveness.

rabindranath72 said:

First of all, thanks everyone for chiming in; much appreciated.

Second, to give a bit of background: my group is the type that's perfectly happy with B/X D&D. So, "boring" is really a subjective thing here. So they'd be perfectly happy playing characters of the same level of complexity of Companion characters.

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A companion character typically has a three powers or so. An at-will, an encounter, a utility, perhaps, maybe a racial.

A Basic D&D character might have nothing but "I attack" or a half-dozen 'special' abilities, or 1-3 spells/day. Once you get above 3rd level, though, the casters will keep getting more & more. So I'm not sure how well it really maps. :shrug:

I have run the first leg of a Dark Sun campaign using 13th Age, and the players have been fine with that level of complexity.

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13A character vary quite a bit in complexity, even in the base rulebook (nevermind 13TW classes like the Monk or Commander or Chaos Sorcerer), the Barbarian and Paladin are fairly low-complexity, Cleric, Wizard & Rogue a lot more.

In terms of PCs, the players said they would be happy for their characters to be limited to the powers that appear in the Dark Sun themes. That's pretty limited. Class isn't going to do anything?

I will allow more uses for powers according to the AEDU progression table to compensate for the reduced number of powers (somewhat like what happens in some Essentials classes) but I definitely don't want to add more options.

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Interesting. Could lead to some 'spamming,' but I suppose that fits what you're looking for...

Now, I kept the half-level progression because it also feeds into the skills system. I suppose I see the advantage of a straight +1 to attacks and AC/defences, though (much like 13th Age). But what do you suggest about damage? Perhaps keep magic-item bonuses to damage only? Or keep the "Intrinsic Bonus" damage progression as is? Do Feats need to be taken into account for the purpose of damage?

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Damage is pretty optimizeable in standard-issue 4e, and grows steadily in 13A. You could just use the damage formulae for Companion Characters by level, pick a die type based on weapon or spell in question, use 1d/Tier, and the rest from bonus damage.

Oh, and if you have any other idea for "simpler characters", I'd be more than happy to hear it!

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If you're going to use class, at all, each character could pick one at-will, encounter, & daily and get uses based on the AEDU progression, but otherwise work about like a regular character, rather than going all the way to the extreme of Companion Character design.

If you're going to use stat increases, and 1/2 level bonus, then you'll need to bundle everything else (about a +10 bonus over 29 level) into some other sort of progression. You could give everyone the Expertise 'Feat Taxes' and Inherent bonuses as a matter of course, I suppose.

But, I really think sticking with 13A style +1/level across the board might be the simplest recourse.

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rabindranath72 said:

Hey thanks for sharing your experience! That's exactly what I am after: a no-brainer for players who don't really care much about diversification or abundance of options. If I am going to run 4e, it's because of what it offers on the DM's "side of the screen", so to speak; the 4e Dark Sun stuff is just too good to pass.
As I mentioned, straight-up Companion characters don't seem to really work, as I want the PCs to use some type of equipment, I want ability score increases, and I want to use the alternate rewards system. But in general, the idea is to keep characters simple by limiting the number of options, not by limiting effectiveness.

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Out of your desires, I would abandon a couple...

Items - there's no reason companion characters can't use them normally (just keep the bonus to +1 no matter what the "real" bonus should have been - except the critical hit bonus)

Score increases - obviously, it's your game, but I'm not seeing the gain from this. The ability scores are used to derive the final stats, with companion characters, you just set the final stats to what is desired. There's no real purpose to the whole "trickling stats" thing. This goes for feats and all such "stat increase sources".

Alternate rewards - go for it, they work fine with companion characters.

Effectiveness - just set the values to what makes them effective. Look at the monster hp and set the average to about 1/3 of that for basic attacks (or some other value: others are better at working out the math). Increase it by ~2.5 per level. it's that easy.

For "dailies-without-dailies", you can use the recharge mechanic that creatures use : recharge on a 6 for "daily" level power and recharge on a 4+ for "encounter" level effects.

This opens up a cool design space revolving around bonuses to recharge rolls (or even bonus rolls) - an area of ancient battles is still watched over by the gladiators who fought there. [weapon] attacks get a +1 bonus to recharge rolls and you get an extra recharge roll when you score a critical hit.

Other suggestions:
For healing powers, I would make them use a standard action and provide a significant buff to the target.
Why: for many* that want a fast-paced play experience, the most important thing is that things keep moving. The most important thing to keep things moving is reducing the amount of cognitive work-load. A very powerful tool for this is: you get one action, that action does one thing.

You heal this turn, you healed this turn. You attack this turn, you attacked this turn. Etc. 4e combats that a lot of time at tables where the players take a lot of time to consider their choices. The more actions, the more choices. More than that, once you get multiple actions, you also get the question of action order. Since 4e is a game of synergies, if you get a lot of actions going on, it quickly leads to heavy brain-load.

A player's powers deal similar* damage but do different things.
Why: see above. Plus: it's easy to remember that your single target attacks deal 2d8+5 and your area attacks deal 1d8+5 (same die type, same flat bonus) with your "encounter" attacks deal 3d8+5 and finally, your "really big strong" attack deals 3d10+10 (you want this one to stand out - but again I go from +5 to +10, not +7)

Avoid using specific penalties : most things should use CA as the defense debuff.

Avoid small numbers for buffs and debuffs : I would use +4 (or even +5), anything less does not make the "buffer" feel like a significant part of the "buffed's" success. (You give a +5 to attack, you feel like your insuring his success. If he succeeds, it's because of you. On the flip side, when he fails, it's like "Dude... come on! I gave you that huge buff!" - your still feeling involved.)

Make OA deal only damage - or, at the very least, only allow (by the powers you created as basic attacks) effects that don't require/permit pondering : [push] is usually ~kinda ok, [slide] is not. [Slow] is fine, [CA] fine, etc.

Minor actions are only for very, very specific fast to do things - you could even fold a lot of the typical minor actions into the base actions (as a class feature as it were) :
EX: warlock : when you attack on your turn, you also curse one target of your attack

A player should never "look for a thing to do" with his minor action - that's huge time sink.

... wow... have I rambled on... ok, cutting this off while I still have a modicum of dignity.