D&D 4E Looking for thoughts on my kitbashed 4E

[Garthanos]

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BUT, this does point towards my earlier thoughts of removing the controller as a role and just separating it into strikers (melee) vs artillery (range). The only thing that makes me not like that is that the Illusionist and Enchanter may be characters built not around Damage, but disruption. Such a character may feel weird if they were in the "artillery" role.

Well I think if you could just add more control effects to every class ... instead of having a specialist.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am the opposite... they definitely do not exist atleast in a nailed down form there are people who have heroic roles but how you build one of those with the game varies by what aspect you want to emphasize for your characters story.

For the simplest example of why, which class is my Samurai?...

I don't think classes describe NPCs, they are a tool that is used by players to assist them in defining and managing PCs. What that means is that classes don't have an explicit existence in the world. No character says "I'm a fighter/wizard hybrid!" This also means classes don't have to follow some sort of specific design pattern, or all fulfill exactly the same purpose. Now, from a standpoint of constructing a coherent set of rules, classes should be roughly equivalent, but not everyone who calls himself a 'fighter' need be a member of the same class, though they are probably sharing some commonalities in game world terms (and thus probably in mechanics) with other 'fighters'.

You could thus have some VERY niche classes, if that serves the player's purpose and some that are much broader. I've come to favor a somewhat 'weaker' class system than D&D is typically designed to provide. HoML classes, for instance, may simply provide access to a few unique 'class boons' that support a core concept, broad or narrow as may be. So I am OK with there being a 'warrior' class that can broadly represent many, or most, primary weapon-using characters who are mainly defenders and/or strikers, but there's no reason why you cannot have a 'Samurai' class that provides a couple of unique things that simply aren't very common and go together in a coherent way to invoke that archetype. I think this is mainly a way to make things simpler, and if much of what you can do is spun off your power source, then its relatively low cost in game design space.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly, you seem to understand the concept of the Wizard, but you just don’t like it.
My thoughts…
Arcane magic isn’t about studying everything. It’s about studying Magic, or at least what mortals know about it. Magic is inherently mysterious, but we can know a lot stuff such as behaviors, patterns and processes. Studying it means understanding more of this mystery, and the ability to use it to his/her own benefit. They’re basically the guys that study enough to know the cosmic cheat codes one can use. Studying more about the “arcane” (mystery of Magic) is their power.
Arcane magic is also defined by what it is not: It doesn’t come directly from the gods, neither from the Plane of Shadows, neither from your own mind, etc. It’s like a giant pool of magic that can be utilized by wizards.
However, since Magic is essentially weird and irrational, there’s nothing that guarantees wizards have access to all magic. It can be just a property: magic from study gives you these effects, magic you pray to the gods gives you those effects, etc. It simply is. Who said Magic must obey to our silly mortal logic?
I don’t know if I’m being clear here, it just takes a while to explain my full view of magic. However, the resume is: weird, mysterious, cheat codes, different access gives you different powers, and illogical.
I would be against such a change you are mentioning. Depending on the game and setting, magic coming only from specifically someone or something can work well. However, in a “generic” High Fantasy game or simply Old-School-style, I want my bookworm wizard doing awesome stuff without having to make a pact with the Devil or something like that. Other classes are more than welcome, but don’t take out the classics

Well, I don't hate the concept of an academic who casts spells. I just don't like the thematic consequences.

Also I don't think that the D&D 'Magic User' is all that much of a 'classic'. I mean it certainly is classic in D&D terms, but in literary or legendary/mythical terms I don't really find it anywhere. Certainly there's arcane knowledge of a sort in various legends, but there's always a heave admixture of fate/inheritance/divine meddling/etc. in there. The heroes of Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, etc. mythology that wield magic are always a little different from your average guy. They didn't just read a book, they were born with something, or they were granted power, etc.

Literary magic seems to have moved more in the academic direction, in a kind of synergy with D&D itself. Vance seems to have pretty much started that, and not surprisingly he gets credit for the D&D magic system, sort of. Notice how poorly it fits characters like Gandalf and Merlin.

My point is just that I'm not sure I really miss the book wizard that much. You can of course still have 'book magic' within another paradigm. This is one of the strong points of 4e, its very easy to mix and match concepts even within a single character, everything just fits into the A/E/D/U structure and it works. Throw in rituals/practices for the other cases and you're pretty well there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wouldn't an AoE damage dealer just be a striker that focuses on quantity over quality?

One could look to other games for inspiration. Rather than a controller vs striker differentiation, its striker vs artillery. Wizards were often artillery characters, though illusionists and such do speak far more to control than blasting. In my role/class split, I'd place Evokers as Strikers and Illusionists as Controllers (Conjurers might be defenders, depending on the nature of their summons).

A stock controller class feature could be having harder saving throw DCs (not Attack rolls), so a controller can lock down statuses for longer.

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As for the Wizard/Cleric split, wizard AoEs hitting allies but Cleric AoEs only targeting enemies could speak to a playstyle. I wish Channel Divinity universally spoke to a playstyle, but it really just enhances the class flavor and sometimes dabbles in another class.


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Well, if you want to diverge some from the 4e paradigm you could do other things. Wizards could be controllers, but control could be a more 'operational' and less 'tactical' concept. So your powers would do things mostly outside of the tactical battlefield, but that were strongly combat-related. Consider powerful attacks that cover wide areas and produce significant effects. This would allow you to shape the course of battles by restricting what enemy forces could come within the tactical sphere. Your powers might be pretty useless within the 'closer than 20 squares' (100 feet) that the standard 4e combat system deals with.

Such a game would work a bit differently from 4e because of this. Action sequences would have to be structured somewhat differently. It would also make a sharper distinction between controllers and everyone else (though perhaps other roles would participate in some degree in this). Certainly it would mean that such a controller would probably be pretty necessary, as it would be hard to create encounter environments that would work well both with and without something like that.

It might be a pretty interesting game. Perhaps best suited to a very military-oriented kind of campaign where a lot of the situations were somewhat larger battles in a more open environment with somewhat less structured encounter architecture. I could imagine a party as a 'squad' in some sort of fantasy army, the wizard being true artillery, the ranged PCs serving to slow the enemy from getting in close while the wizard pounded them at range, and then covered flanks or provided cover for attacks and retreats. You could develop a setup where indirect attacks were possible and open up the full range of scouting functions (IE directing fire, picking off enemy spotters, etc).

Truthfully, the overall mechanical structure could be 4e, you'd just need a bunch of rules for longer ranged combat in larger open environments. It could be done.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right, but the concern is making the Cleric, regardless if they're a healing priest, a smiting Invoker, or Angel Summoner (tm) that they have a unique playstyle over a leading abjurer, a pyromaniac evoker, or a demon summoner. It's tough because Turn Undead/Channel Divinity is their unique mechanic, but it doesn't speak to a playstyle.

A few thoughts from other friends:

1) is there a way to reward the cleric mechanically for "acting in accordance with their faith" that wouldn't reward a fire priest for doing things a fire wizard does?
2) is there a way to have them bless/buff allies without it feeling just like utility spells or stepping on the bard's toes?

Or, am I concerning myself too much? The flavor of the wizard and Cleric is so different that they should feel different. I just don't want an Arcana Cleric feeling the same as a Theurge Wizard.


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Make the rewards mechanical. When the Fire Priest bolsters the fighter, the fighter gets infused with some sort of 'fire', so he's literally benefiting from the Fire God. Now, does that make the character respect and cherish said Fire God? Well, that's a matter for RP, but certainly it should produce a different feel and different RP opportunities than the fire wizard blasting away at the enemy with fire spells. There might be SOME overlap of course, but as someone pointed out before, at least you can have the distinction there between fireball and flamestrike. How that feels to the characters is, again, RP, but at least the hook is there.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't think classes describe NPCs, they are a tool that is used by players to assist them in defining and managing PCs. What that means is that classes don't have an explicit existence in the world. No character says "I'm a fighter/wizard hybrid!" This also means classes don't have to follow some sort of specific design pattern, or all fulfill exactly the same purpose.

That right there is why a fully flexible design system like gurps or hero games can work... but what those games lack is encouragement for good fighting roles and a well defined set of archetypes (arguably classes taken too strictly lock these down too much).

 

[Xeviat]

The goal for the class/role system is to have each class have a defined theme and an element that strongly influences their playstyle, but to have the classes be able to be multiple roles based on their specialization/subclass. Since the Cleric/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard set are the "base" classes, ideally I'd like them to be able to be any of the four roles; the other classes would be far more specialized.

This is what has me thinking on the nature of the controller. If the controllers role ability is baked into their spells, then a striker wizard (who has a Damage buff ability) could pick more control oriented powers and deal more damage than a controller wizard; the controller wizard needs something to strengthen that aspect (orb wizards had this, and invokers got incentives to target more creatures iirc).

Now, artillery and strikers behave differently. Strikers are mobile, artillery generally stay still and have more AoEs. If someone could convince me that an Illusionist or Enchanter could be called "artillery" without being weird, maybe the split could be there.

But, the Evoker and Illusionist do have different roles so it may be best for them to be different. Also, that makes for easy striker/controller wizards.

My issue still comes back to the Cleric, but I'm growing okay with saying the Cleric is the generic divine caster like I've said the wizard is the generic arcane caster and the Fighter is the generic martial warrior.


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[Tony Vargas]

That right there is why a fully flexible design system like gurps or hero games can work... but what those games lack is encouragement for good fighting roles and a well defined set of archetypes (arguably classes taken too strictly lock these down too much).

In the case of Hero, specifically, it's had archetypes (something like combat roles, too) since it's inception as Champions! - Brick, Martial Artist, Energy Projector, & Speedster.

This is what has me thinking on the nature of the controller. If the controllers role ability is baked into their spells, then a striker wizard (who has a Damage buff ability) could pick more control oriented powers and deal more damage than a controller wizard

The trick would be to have role features mod powers. So a 'blaster' (AE-oriented control) might make spells bigger, while a striker would increase their damage and make them smaller.

For instance, Scorching Burst might be an Area 0 (1 square) in the spell list. The striker wizard adds extra damage to it but makes it single-target. The 'blaster' wizard makes it Burst 1. The controller wizard makes it push the target out of the square on a miss, and unable to take OAs EoNT on a hit. The leader wizard inflicts a vulnerability to cold on the target. The defender wizard leaves a ward of fire around the area that damages the target if he leaves or attacks through it, but with the target can break by attacking the ward (reducing the defender-wizards 'ward' pool of temp hps that he can refresh with an 'arcane surge')...

If someone could convince me that an Illusionist or Enchanter could be called "artillery" without being weird, maybe the split could be there.

Traditional specialists could be sorted:

Evoker: blaster
Enchanter, Illusionist, Transmuter, Conjurer: controller
Necromancer, Diviner: leader
Abjurer: defender

 

[Garthanos]

In the case of Hero, specifically, it's had archetypes (something like combat roles, too) since it's inception as Champions! - Brick, Martial Artist, Energy Projector, & Speedster.

Sure and they used package deals as a mechanism to enable a DM to influence player building and encourage whatever he thought went together and fit the game world / genre that he was targeting (That was in Fantasy Hero anyway)

 

[Igwilly]

Well, I don't hate the concept of an academic who casts spells. I just don't like the thematic consequences.

Also I don't think that the D&D 'Magic User' is all that much of a 'classic'. I mean it certainly is classic in D&D terms, but in literary or legendary/mythical terms I don't really find it anywhere. Certainly there's arcane knowledge of a sort in various legends, but there's always a heave admixture of fate/inheritance/divine meddling/etc. in there. The heroes of Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, etc. mythology that wield magic are always a little different from your average guy. They didn't just read a book, they were born with something, or they were granted power, etc.

Literary magic seems to have moved more in the academic direction, in a kind of synergy with D&D itself. Vance seems to have pretty much started that, and not surprisingly he gets credit for the D&D magic system, sort of. Notice how poorly it fits characters like Gandalf and Merlin.

My point is just that I'm not sure I really miss the book wizard that much. You can of course still have 'book magic' within another paradigm. This is one of the strong points of 4e, its very easy to mix and match concepts even within a single character, everything just fits into the A/E/D/U structure and it works. Throw in rituals/practices for the other cases and you're pretty well there.

In classical myth? Probably not. But Now it's a classic of D&D and almost every game that was influenced by D&D, along with fiction based on such things. This is a lot of stuff.
It was not a classic 2 or 3 centuries ago; it is now.

However...
What "thematic" consequences the book wizard has? If you want to limit it on how must it can do, that's not hard.