Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[MwaO]

Maybe I'm not entirely grasping your overall methodology here. What happens if I buy your game? How would I have 'Thunder of Judgment' (since you obviously can't print it in your game as its a 4e power, and the point was to avoid duplication). Obviously I could treat your material as strictly a SUPPLEMENT to 4e, but doesn't that kind of miss the point? Granted, I could probably just play your stuff, and live with "some specific permutations are best", but I think that was what convinced WotC not to go down that path, its just simpler to name the best permutations you can find and call those the powers in your game! In a point based system the players are just tasked with doing that for themselves (which they might enjoy, I don't know that it is inherently bad).

Also, its possible that some point value calculations will be SO off that they exceed even sky blue.

The point of the system would be to make a relatively quick playing version of 4e that could use options such as feats/powers/magic items from 4e. But because some of the assumptions would be more balanced - such as any bonus to damage from a feat is a feat damage bonus, means there wouldn't be much chance of stacking.

It wouldn't be a full point buy in any case. It would be more:
Pick a power that allows option X to be chosen. Where option X is an encounter use class specific option. So as an example, Dazing Attack would be a melee 1w/i+stat power. Option X for Arcane Controllers would be to change it to a close blast 3 1i+stat power. Option X for Invokers is to make it have a 2nd target. Etc...

Think of it as being a cleaned up, "Basic 4e" that could use the options of 4e, but wouldn't have to do that. I'd do things such as making it easy to convert on the fly 4e monsters into Basic 4e monsters without actually using the defenses of 4e monsters. Things like that.

 

[JeffB]

Scroll down about halfway on the following weblinked page to the 4e section. The very first link is a "basic 4e" that I have wanted to try for awhile..

http://taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/dd-retroclones.html


Also, a few (mostly abandoned) 4e retroclone projects are there

 

[Garthanos]

but strategically it was a lot too much like "just bring the right stuff to the fight and you can't lose". .

I rather like the MacGuffin concept I am not sure it requires hard set mechanics though, Vampire Lord is said to be unkillable with special thing... special thing reduces Vampire Lord to player reachable levels... tadah

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGuffin

 

[S'mon]

This is the nub of the issue.

4E does not feel like D&D to some people. That makes sense. It's an emotional, gut-level response and it's personal. I can accept that. And it certainly makes more sense than any of those vain attempts to try and frame a dislike of 4E for being a PnP MMO (which it isn't) or boardgame (which it isn't) or being devoid of roleplaying (which it isn't).

I love 4e, and it doesn't feel like D&D at all to me. The combat system seems sui generis*, while outside combat the dramatist tone has more in common with some other games I own like Pendragon and A Song of Ice & Fire RPG, or maybe some of the Unisystem games like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a particularly close analogy given how closely 4e combat models BtVS show's combat too) and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

*At any rate it bears no resemblance to any other RPG I own except 5e D&D, which uses some
'inspired by 4e' tropes.

I think 4e is great for creating the kind of stories that never seem to work quite right in "D&D" - I remember doing eg 'Horatio on the Bridge' in 4e and it was very satisfying in a way I just don't think would work in any other edition. When I've tried to do a classic "D&D" process-sim dungeoncrawl with 4e, it sucked. Stuff that works great in every other edition falls flat in 4e, while 4e gives me dramatic experiences of a kind that
in other editions are really hard to do and scattershot at best.

 

[Parmandur]

I love 4e, and it doesn't feel like D&D at all to me. The combat system seems sui generis*, while outside combat the dramatist tone has more in common with some other games I own like Pendragon and A Song of Ice & Fire RPG, or maybe some of the Unisystem games like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a particularly close analogy given how closely 4e combat models BtVS show's combat too) and All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

*At any rate it bears no resemblance to any other RPG I own except 5e D&D, which uses some
'inspired by 4e' tropes.

I think 4e is great for creating the kind of stories that never seem to work quite right in "D&D" - I remember doing eg 'Horatio on the Bridge' in 4e and it was very satisfying in a way I just don't think would work in any other edition. When I've tried to do a classic "D&D" process-sim dungeoncrawl with 4e, it sucked. Stuff that works great in every other edition falls flat in 4e, while 4e gives me dramatic experiences of a kind that
in other editions are really hard to do and scattershot at best.

Oh, the combat system feels like it GRE (and grew, and grew...) out of 3.x; just far more involved and elongated.

Interesting points about the experiences not being the same as with other editions; that matches my judgement as well.

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[S'mon]

Oh, the combat system feels like it GRE (and grew, and grew...) out of 3.x; just far more involved and elongated.

Interesting points about the experiences not being the same as with other editions; that matches my judgement as well.

I find 3e/PF combat generally has a very different cadence - basically the PCs are on top, doing fine, until they either win with seeming ease or else suddenly drop dead, much to the GM's surprise and
disappointment. 4e has an inbuilt combat tempo resembling a Rocky movie fight, with the PCs pushed back onto the ropes, summoning inner reserves, and coming back off the mat to (usually) win. I've seen GMs used to this in 4e, and used to having the ability to dynamically threaten the PCs by throwing in more monsters, do the same in 5e when it seems things are going easy and get a sudden, unwanted TPK. Because they didn't realise that 5e PCs, like 3e PCs, just don't have that Rocky ability to get back up again and turn things around.

 

[Parmandur]

I find 3e/PF combat generally has a very different cadence - basically the PCs are on top, doing fine, until they either win with seeming ease or else suddenly drop dead, much to the GM's surprise and
disappointment. 4e has an inbuilt combat tempo resembling a Rocky movie fight, with the PCs pushed back onto the ropes, summoning inner reserves, and coming back off the mat to (usually) win. I've seen GMs used to this in 4e, and used to having the ability to dynamically threaten the PCs by throwing in more monsters, do the same in 5e when it seems things are going easy and get a sudden, unwanted TPK. Because they didn't realise that 5e PCs, like 3e PCs, just don't have that Rocky ability to get back up again and turn things around.

Sounds like we are saying the same thing, but from a different perspective: 4E fights are drawn out and involved, other editions are short and dirty.

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[AbdulAlhazred]

I find 3e/PF combat generally has a very different cadence - basically the PCs are on top, doing fine, until they either win with seeming ease or else suddenly drop dead, much to the GM's surprise and
disappointment. 4e has an inbuilt combat tempo resembling a Rocky movie fight, with the PCs pushed back onto the ropes, summoning inner reserves, and coming back off the mat to (usually) win. I've seen GMs used to this in 4e, and used to having the ability to dynamically threaten the PCs by throwing in more monsters, do the same in 5e when it seems things are going easy and get a sudden, unwanted TPK. Because they didn't realise that 5e PCs, like 3e PCs, just don't have that Rocky ability to get back up again and turn things around.

4e fights HAVE a cadence, 3.x fights are pretty much decided by how the dice fall, or by how much the PCs have tricked themselves out for the particular situation (and perhaps some combination of those things). Still, the actual MECHANICS of 4e combat are heavily based on 3.5 mechanics. They use basically the same grid concept, OAs, shifts, definitions of flanking and provoking, etc. 4e just got rid of the 'full round action' disaster. Instead it has its own version of multi-attacks that actually adds MORE action to the character instead of sucking them all away (and doesn't mandate that every combatant go down that road, though most do try to one extent or another due to the way damage bonuses work).

I'd say 4e's combat branches off from a basis of "3.5 combat perfected" and then adds in its own form of pacing, combat roles, and character balance to achieve a different overall feel. In a sense it wouldn't REALLY be that hard to graft 4e combat mechanics onto a 3.5 game. You'd have to change a lot of feats and whatnot, but in a fairly straightforward way (and you could probably borrow a lot of 4e ones as replacements). It wouldn't produce 4e combat, because of the cadence you mention, but it probably would be more fluid at least.

 

[Campbell]

I know I am late to the party with this, but I wanted to respond to the notion that you must choose between a text that is clear and concise and an evocative text that draws you into the fiction. Monsterhearts provides us with a text that is easy to use, imminently readable, oozes style, and draws you into the fiction. It does so through a combination of directly addressing players, illustrating play in direct and relevant examples, the use of targeted vignettes, and thematic content. It does not need to resort to baroque "natural language" to accomplish any of that. Other games which pull off this trick include Demon - The Descent, Mouse Guard, Masks, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, 13th Age, Godbound, and Stars Without Number.

5e strikes me as a game that could greatly benefit from more effective editing. It's not the worst offender. That honor goes to Exalted 3e. I love the actual systems behind the game, but I find the text almost unusable because of its like of brevity. Having to hunt through several paragraphs to determine exactly what a given charm actually does is immensely frustrating.

4e does not get off the hook here though. More effort could have been made to ensure the text was evocative while maintaining its ease of use.

 

[S'mon]

I really find it's just the 4e player-side hardbacks that are non-evocative/dull - and that this makes the rules much harder to grok for me, because it's hard to read this text. I think pleasurable text is very important in an RPG to actually get people to take the time to read it, which if it's necessary rules text is very important. Conversely I have the 4e DMG open beside me right now and often read it for pleasure, and I find the Heroes of the... 4e Essentials books quite enjoyable to read too, certainly much more than the 4e PHB. Monster Vault and Threats to the Nentir Vale are fine, too.