D&D 4E Revised 4E Wizard Class with Freeform Spellcasting System

[Garthanos]

After MUCH tinkering in various games (some wargames which were pretty widely played) I am of the opinion that this sort of 'build your own power' is not ever going to work. IME you have to have some neutral arbiter to look at it and decide if its borked or not. There's just too many ways to create subtly OP stuff this way, and players WILL find it ASAP!

Again I look at HERO and the closest thing I can think think of is Power Frameworks configured to allow ultimate versatility. (They do put in campaign limits which I would translate in D&D to maximums on effects at given levels. ) Perhaps @Tony Vargas can think of more.

Or perhaps since we are starting with 4e we can find those cases in advance?

If twin strike was made along side dual strike perhaps twin strike might have had a ranger class feature to allow them only to focus on one enemy with both attacks once per encounter or something similar.

 

[Garthanos]

Next up is the Revised Rogue class...just don't ask when.

BTW don't dare me I am the necromantic 4e master "WHEN?!".

 

[Tony Vargas]

Again I look at HERO and the closest thing I can think think of is Power Frameworks configured to allow ultimate versatility. (They do put in campaign limits which I would translate in D&D to maximums on effects at given levels. ) Perhaps @Tony Vargas can think of more.

Or perhaps since we are starting with 4e we can find those cases in advance?

If twin strike was made along side dual strike perhaps twin strike might have had a ranger class feature to allow them only to focus on one enemy with both attacks once per encounter or something similar.

Power-building worked pretty well in Champions! from the beginning, but it wasn't power-building on the fly until later with the VPP - Variable Power Pool, probably the framework you're thinking of.

And, yeah, system mastery counted in Hero, it just didn't much result in pairing away choices, but in expanding options...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Power-building worked pretty well in Champions! from the beginning, but it wasn't power-building on the fly until later with the VPP - Variable Power Pool, probably the framework you're thinking of.

And, yeah, system mastery counted in Hero, it just didn't much result in pairing away choices, but in expanding options...

No, but I remember all sorts of silly things, like there were certain effects which were too cheap, or synergized well with other things. Then there were the limitations. I remember I made a 'wizard' as a super hero one time, and ALL of his power was put into his staff, which since it was, theoretically at least, something he could lose he gained a HUGE cut in the cost of his powers, even though it made virtually no difference in practice. Once or twice there was a "you lost your stuff" scenario. Nobody ever managed to TAKE his staff in play, The Wizard totally kicked ass.

I think the other amusing hack I made was 'Mold Man', who had some silly disadvantages like he was weakened in sunlight and some other thing which I forget. Again, he just gained a lot of extra stuff, and I also hit on the scheme of making a lot of his powers be kind of back door effects, like making his opponents dizzy or fall asleep or see things vs doing a lot of outright damage.

Its certainly possible to develop a system that is workable, IF the GM is empowered to police it. The real problem with 4e is how hard this goes against some of the other precepts of the game. When the players are given most of the power, then they need HARD rules on what they can do with it.

 

[Garthanos]

No, but I remember all sorts of silly things, like there were certain effects which were too cheap, or synergized well with other things. Then there were the limitations. I remember I made a 'wizard' as a super hero one time, and ALL of his power was put into his staff, which since it was, theoretically at least, something he could lose he gained a HUGE cut in the cost of his powers, even though it made virtually no difference in practice. Once or twice there was a "you lost your stuff" scenario. Nobody ever managed to TAKE his staff in play, The Wizard totally kicked ass.

The game FATE fixed that idea, in effect you do not get any benefits for POSSIBLE disadvantages till you are actually disadvantaged by them.

So the warrior who could loose his magic weapon has the same power cost as the psychic who probably cannot, but if he does get inconvenienced in that fashion he receives a compensation.

(And if a knock on the head deprives the psychic of a power for a time the DM could use the same mechanism to compensate )

In effect I could do that now and use my Karma points as the pay back.

 

[Garthanos]

Perhaps I can merge conversations....

One element brought up was Analysis Paralysis and the solution being 'signature moves' aka 'spell repertoire'

With any 'analysis paralysis' build-your-own system, I suggest what we did with Elements of Magic. You get a set of signature moves that you've practiced, which you can change if you spend {{insert time here}}. Those you can do as a normal action. If you want anything not on that list, add on an extra cost. For spells, we made it take two rounds to cast, so you'd almost never bother in combat.

For a fighting maneuver, I'd say using a non-signature move would require one round to look for the right opening, and then you could use the maneuver the next round. Basically, you can say on your turn, "I'm looking for an opening," and you have a few seconds at the start of your next turn to decide on what move to use. If you couldn't figure out what to do in the intervening time between turns, you either need to use a signature move, or wait another turn. (Which is almost certainly a bad idea.)

That is a pretty heavy cost on not using a repertoire / signature move ... "looking for an opening" might allow a basic attack and provide a simple benefit on the next action like an extra [W] for the subsequent turn. In other words looking for options, is an official option, with its own benefit I had considered using the takes an extra action or impairs for around as a way to do encounter and dailies (dailies would cause both the wait round and an impaired afterwards.)

The idea of being able to merge this back in with my "Price of Power" multi round action system I find intriguing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The game FATE fixed that idea, in effect you do not get any benefits for POSSIBLE disadvantages till you are actually disadvantaged by them.

So the warrior who could loose his magic weapon has the same power cost as the psychic who probably cannot, but if he does get inconvenienced in that fashion he receives a compensation.

(And if a knock on the head deprives the psychic of a power for a time the DM could use the same mechanism to compensate )

In effect I could do that now and use my Karma points as the pay back.

Right, in HoML you can 'gain Inspiration' by taking a narrative 'hit' like that. It is normally going to leverage one of your character's traits, but it could leverage your class or something like that to cover the example you give.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps I can merge conversations....

One element brought up was Analysis Paralysis and the solution being 'signature moves' aka 'spell repertoire'



That is a pretty heavy cost on not using a repertoire / signature move ... "looking for an opening" might allow a basic attack and provide a simple benefit on the next action like an extra [W] for the subsequent turn. In other words looking for options, is an official option, with its own benefit I had considered using the takes an extra action or impairs for around as a way to do encounter and dailies (dailies would cause both the wait round and an impaired afterwards.)

The idea of being able to merge this back in with my "Price of Power" multi round action system I find intriguing.

Well, the rule could be something like you can declare Look for Opening. You get to make a BA and then in the next round you can take an extra [W] on whatever you do. If you want to use a non-signature power, then you do that instead of getting the [W]. This might have to be tweaked a little to make it balance out, some classes might find this a poor option and others (like Slayers) might think it was so awesome they'd do it every other round!

 

[MwaO]

No, but I remember all sorts of silly things, like there were certain effects which were too cheap, or synergized well with other things. Then there were the limitations. I remember I made a 'wizard' as a super hero one time, and ALL of his power was put into his staff, which since it was, theoretically at least, something he could lose he gained a HUGE cut in the cost of his powers, even though it made virtually no difference in practice. Once or twice there was a "you lost your stuff" scenario. Nobody ever managed to TAKE his staff in play, The Wizard totally kicked ass.

That's a DM not emphasizing to you at character generation that you will significantly pay for that limitation every other game day. Or else not get a -1 for it. That tends to put a halt to that kind of abuse.

Champions mentions that all the time - if a limitation isn't a limitation, you don't get points for it.

 

[Garthanos]

That's a DM not emphasizing to you at character generation that you will significantly pay for that limitation every other game day. Or else not get a -1 for it. That tends to put a halt to that kind of abuse.

Champions mentions that all the time - if a limitation isn't a limitation, you don't get points for it.

Sure but that feels potentially heavy handed, in several ways.

I like the Fate method as it doesn't require the Game Master decide ahead of time the likelihood of the disadvantage entering play nor require it be a given frequency,ie it happens when it happens in keeping with story. And you pick the limits based on story instead of the potential value you might gain too.