Given my love of 4e, if I ever did make such a thing, you can be sure the "tactical module" fiasco would not be repeated. I was among those openly incensed by the way WotC handled that (and most other 4e-related things during the playtest).Yeah, don't make the mistake the "tactical module" did and create something for the 4e fans, based on how the game's detractors painted it.
I disagree. They have nowhere near the level of support that combat encounters have. That's what I want. Skill Challenges are good for generic skill-related stuff, or as a template for off-the-cuff skill-based problem solving. They are nowhere near good enough to be even a shadow of the strategic depth of combat. I would like there to be legitimate social combat, and legitimate player-versus-environment challenges that only limitedly interact with the combat powers and features characters possess (e.g. environment encounters might cost healing surges).Skill Challenges are a plenty robust sub-system, what they lacked was da flavah. The best SCs I ran or played in where the ones that had been added to, creating a sort of game-within-a-game, that had the success and failure map to something more concrete, in the fiction, that could be readily tracked by all players at the table.
That was the intent, yeah.'Silo'ingPC abilities by Pillar seems like it'd be fairly workable.
The extreme would be to give every player choice an application in each pillar.
I disagree. Make the pill easier to swallow in every way you can, and people might just accept it. Certainly neither of us has more than a gut feeling on the matter, but I strongly think that the hump of "it's too different, I won't even try it," or worse, "it's Just Wrong and I don't have to play to know that," would never have happened if 4e went out of its way to embrace older-ed "feel" as 5e did.Meh, the choice of a jargon term or two...was never the great heresy AEDU committed against D&D.
That was a factor, to be sure, but you cannot change that part of 4e without it...becoming some other game. Any game worthy of the name "clone" or "rebuild" etc. of 4e has to refuse to make gods and mundanes. Since that part is 110% non-negotiable for pretty much every 4e fan I know, and 110% non-negotiable for the people who like their god-tier high-level casters, there's no point in even trying to touch that. Instead, address the things that can be fixed and hope it helps, since there's definitionally no hope in the other direction.It was just that it came intolerably close to delivering class balance - sometimes even in the face of modestly different levels of system mastery.
Missing the point. Having the term "powers" at all, anywhere in the game, was (apparently) HUGELY off-putting to a lot of people. It was a key reason why people referred to 4e as a supers game. People don't mind starting with relatively competent, durable characters--otherwise you'd never see higher-than-first-level starts. But a lot of people hear "power" and immediately think Superman and his suite of powers, and that immediately poisons the experience, regardless of anything else they may experience. That's an error that can be corrected. Whether it's enough, well, who can say? We can't see alternate history.However, 4e actually already did that. The "powers" where actually called spells (arcane), prayers (divine), and exploits (martial)
That's...completely ridiculous. Who would have the patience to work through that? Just...why????Traditional D&D design principles put at least some value on the 14,400 uses of an at-will action you could hypothetically squeeze into a really busy 24hr day.
Whereas I find lighter rules almost always infuriatingly constraining. I never know what's possible, because "possible" is purely in the DM's head. I have to meticulously pick apart their brain, trying to understand how they think, what they like. It's basically learning a new system, except I have to do it every time I join a new group. With robust, extensible rules, I can relax. I can trust that "cold" means "cold." I can trust that "reliable" means "reliable." I don't have to worry about whether the dictionary in my head exactly matches the one in the DM's head.This seems like a lotta work for precious little gain, IMO.
I think if I wanted to rehash 4e, I'd look at Strike! first.
But then I'm a big fan of lighter rules.
I don't actually disagree, it's just that, mechanically, SCs in their final form were a robust subsystem. Just like d20 skill systems in general, not a very evocative one - since they're all essentially pass/fail.I disagree. They have nowhere near the level of support that combat encounters have. That's what I want. Skill Challenges are good for generic skill-related stuff, or as a template for off-the-cuff skill-based problem solving. They are nowhere near good enough to be even a shadow of the strategic depth of combat.
On the topic of bad names for things, I'd think twice about 'social /combat/'I would like there to be legitimate social combat, and legitimate player-versus-environment challenges
I think it was just a convient, pithy play on words. If they'd've picked something else, something else would have been picked on. The salvos if the edition war started scatter-gun (it's dumbed down! It's too complicated! wizards are nerfed! Fighters cast spells!), and just focused in on and repeated /ad nauseum/ whatever created negative buz.Missing the point. Having the term "powers" at all, anywhere in the game, was (apparently) HUGELY off-putting to a lot of people. It was a key reason why people referred to 4e as a supers game.
You're not supposed to work through it, just accept "but the fighter can swing his sword all day" as a reason the wizard should be able to cast everything from sleep to teleport to wish.That's...completely ridiculous. Who would have the patience to work through that? Just...why????
Side note, in our home games we've got to the point where we call Skill Powers, Expertise. Seem fitting given the skill focus.However, 4e actually already did that. The "powers" where actually called spells (arcane), prayers (divine), and exploits (martial)
Missing the point. Having the term "powers" at all, anywhere in the game, was (apparently) HUGELY off-putting to a lot of people. It was a key reason why people referred to 4e as a supers game. People don't mind starting with relatively competent, durable characters--otherwise you'd never see higher-than-first-level starts. But a lot of people hear "power" and immediately think Superman and his suite of powers, and that immediately poisons the experience, regardless of anything else they may experience. That's an error that can be corrected. Whether it's enough, well, who can say? We can't see alternate history.
Whereas I find lighter rules almost always infuriatingly constraining. I never know what's possible, because "possible" is purely in the DM's head. I have to meticulously pick apart their brain, trying to understand how they think, what they like. It's basically learning a new system, except I have to do it every time I join a new group. With robust, extensible rules, I can relax. I can trust that "cold" means "cold." I can trust that "reliable" means "reliable." I don't have to worry about whether the dictionary in my head exactly matches the one in the DM's head.
I don't disagree with you, but I have had the opposite experience. When I played 4e with a new group (a group new to D&D) they only ever did or tried to do what was on their character sheet of clearly in the "rules." We didn't have the free-flow of ideas and creative play I was used to with my group that started with 1e (that group was also playing 4e).
Eventually, when they where about level 8-9, I decided to do a one shot adventure with new characters. For this adventure I removed all "powers" and improvised almost everything based on DMG42. If they wanted to do something (attack, cast a spell, etc.) I simple asked them to describe the action they wanted to attempt and adjudicated it. It was only partially successful. When we went back to our regular game they mostly went back to relying on the crutch of their powers and the rules. I few started to improvise more, but we didn't get to the level I wanted to until we switched to 5e.
If I may, I'd like to test a theory. So I'd like to ask two questions:
1. How long had you been playing, prior to the attempted 4e game?
2. How long did you attempt to play 4e?
I of course have a hypothesis, and this is a rather meager attempt to test it, but it's what I have.
The Warlock would probably provide one of the best "templates" for developing a 4e approach to 5e classes. It has a Build-Your-Own-Class feel to it, with a nice mix of 1/day, at-will, and other circumstantial powers.The Warlock also has a very 4E feel to it at least in terms of a template. It would not be hard to turn its invocations and spells into 4E powers or even stick with 5Es approach. You could also use it as a template to rewrite into other classes. After that you just need to plug in whatever it is from 4E that you miss, micro feats its weapon system etc.