D&D 4E A few questions about modifying 4e rules.

[Evil_Dead_Jedi]

So I haven't played 4e yet, and I have been on the cusp of "Ok, I'll try it" and "Hahahaha, I don't think so" since it came out. There are so many things that just seem absurd to me about the system. But I read so many people saying it plays a lot better than it reads. And I really, REALLY, want to give it a fair try. It really does seem video-gamey in a way. But I've been thinking, me and my group really love EverQuest and WoW, so why are we bashing it for being similar to something we love? After thinking that way I really am interested in giving it a try. I figure, if we like it, there is no reason we can't love 4e, 2e, and our EQ 3.x and whatever else we want to play.

But I wanted to get some opinions on changing a few things. I am up for trying rules as written, but if the group ends up not liking a few things (some things mentioned here we've talked about actually) then I wanted to see what you guys have done or would like to do. Mind you, I don't know the rules 100% but I have a general idea of how it works.

1. Bring back the randomness of HP. Instead of getting 6 hp per level, roll 2d3. Or instead of 5 hp, roll 1d4+1. Things of that nature.

2. Eliminating the need for a cleric to require healing surges being used for his healing spells. This just seems weird. If I have no healing surges, then wouldn't that be the point of the cleric healing me instead of me healing myself?

3. Only letting the cleric/wiz/warlock learn rituals. More than likely, knowing my group, they would role-play this anyway and never have a non-caster class learn rituals anyway, but just an idea.

4. Letting casters keep all of the spells they learned at previous levels and use them if they want. For example, if I learned a spell at lvl 4 and then at lvl 19 I wanted to cast that one I learned at 4 again, it should be ok right? Unless I am not understanding the rules in a way that the lower level spells don't scale for damage as levels rise?


Thanks for reading and listening. Again, I am a complete newbie with 4e, but I am eager to give it a try, please don't bash me for my lack of knowledge on how 4e works. I am trying to learn but I have always been a 2e fan and it's sometimes hard to wrap my head around the new rules. My experiences with 3.x are limited to the EverQuest d20 game which I really like (other than skills/feats, which I know 4e has but we can live with it).

 

[Mort_Q]

Wrong forum !? 4e Fan Creations and House Rules - EN World D&D / RPG News

1. Hate the idea... then again, I was always the guy that rolled a 1 for HP when I had a DM that made us roll.

3. Sure, but then I'd give the ritual casting feat free to anyone that took the appropriate multiclassing feat.

 

[hafrogman]

A few thoughts.

1) Unless you want to serious shift the balance of the game, don't assign dice so that the maximum roll is what the old system used. You'll want to keep the average the same, at least.

i.e. 6 hp becomes 4-8 (1d5+3 ?)

2) Again, you'll want to take something away if you're giving that bonus. Remove a bunch of healing surges from each class.

3) Not a severe balance issue. Personally I've always wondered why a dwarven blacksmith couldn't craft magical weapons without a wizard involved, but it's your call.

4) Low level powers still scale, you'd be upping not only their versatility, but also the number of daily and encounter powers they had. A low level daily is still better than an at-will, usually.

You could leave them in a wizards spellbook (so he has the option of picking them each day) without too much issue I'd think. Or put some sort of limit on the number of powers of a type they could use each day/encounter.

 

[Rel]

I'd be the last one to knock anybody for house ruling stuff as I've already made some significant house rules myself. (Incidentally since this is a House Rules question, I'll slide it over to that forum) I'll comment on yours below.

1. Bring back the randomness of HP. Instead of getting 6 hp per level, roll 2d3. Or instead of 5 hp, roll 1d4+1. Things of that nature.

I think that's fine if it's what the group wants. With the examples you offer however understand that you only give them the chance be reduced from standard, never improved, which means that you are lowering the average. On average 2d3 will give you 4hp. That means that PC is going to have significantly less HP (on average) HP than standard, which will mess with default assumptions about what the party can deal with challenge-wise. You can remedy this somewhat by letting them add in Con Bonus per level in HP like in 3.x but this also messes with the dynamics about which classes focus on Con.

2. Eliminating the need for a cleric to require healing surges being used for his healing spells. This just seems weird. If I have no healing surges, then wouldn't that be the point of the cleric healing me instead of me healing myself?

Well this is going to create some major issues unless you change the rules about how often a Cleric can use his powers. By the RAW, a Cleric can use Healing Word every 5 minutes. So he'd effectively be able to heal up the entire party without them spending a single surge.

3. Only letting the cleric/wiz/warlock learn rituals. More than likely, knowing my group, they would role-play this anyway and never have a non-caster class learn rituals anyway, but just an idea.

I don't think this unbalances anything but it's not to my taste. I think there are countless (cool) examples of warrior type heroes who ocassionally do some kind of magic. If a player wants to go that route then I tend to support them rather than stop them. If you do decide on this then one exception that you may want to make is let warrior types do ritual magic if they take a multiclass feat in cleric, wizard or warlock.

4. Letting casters keep all of the spells they learned at previous levels and use them if they want. For example, if I learned a spell at lvl 4 and then at lvl 19 I wanted to cast that one I learned at 4 again, it should be ok right? Unless I am not understanding the rules in a way that the lower level spells don't scale for damage as levels rise?

Most of the powers do scale to some extent by tier. I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are saying here. Without further clarification I will only say that it seems that you might be stacking up a number of small advantages for the spellcasters, especially in terms of versatility (with this ruling and the rituals thing) that add up to them being superior to the martial classes.

 

[Lord Ernie]

1. Bring back the randomness of HP. Instead of getting 6 hp per level, roll 2d3. Or instead of 5 hp, roll 1d4+1. Things of that nature.

I personally feel bad about random HP, mostly because the more random the HP, the more you screw over those with big hit dice. A 1 on a d4 hit die means you missed out on 3 HP, and since you're the low hit die type, you probably don't need much HP. A 1 on a d10 means you missed out on 9 HP you really gonna wish you had - I've had several cases in the past where my druid character with a 12 Constitution had more HP than the dwarven fighter with 18, simply cause she rolled a 1, a 2, and a 1 in succession.

2. Eliminating the need for a cleric to require healing surges being used for his healing spells. This just seems weird. If I have no healing surges, then wouldn't that be the point of the cleric healing me instead of me healing myself?

First of all... you can only 'heal yourself' once per fight, so that cleric will come in handy. Second, look at healing in 4E like it isn't so much that the cleric heals you, but that you dig into your physical reserves and go the extra mile. A cleric's power can encourage that (hence the more than once/encounter and bonus healing), but it has to come from you. That's why surgeless healing is rare, and usually comes in smaller amounts.

3. Only letting the cleric/wiz/warlock learn rituals. More than likely, knowing my group, they would role-play this anyway and never have a non-caster class learn rituals anyway, but just an idea.

I more or less have the same experience. Ritual casting requires a feat, and requires one to be capable in several skills (Arcana and Religion mostly), and doesn't pay off unless you get enough rituals and components... let's just say I haven't seen a fighter invest in the feat yet. But I would certainly allow it, if they wanted it (probably ask for some justification).

4. Letting casters keep all of the spells they learned at previous levels and use them if they want. For example, if I learned a spell at lvl 4 and then at lvl 19 I wanted to cast that one I learned at 4 again, it should be ok right? Unless I am not understanding the rules in a way that the lower level spells don't scale for damage as levels rise?

Nope, spells don't actually scale in damage. The damage from ability scores (like the Int on 1d6+Int) and to hit roll go up as you level, of course, but no actual extra damage dice. But sure, you can retain lower-level powers for higher level ones. You can even choose to gain a new level 1 daily spell when you're supposed to get a level 9 one, should you feel so inclined. Just... most of the time (because of the non-scaling of damage), that's not a good idea. You don't have to learn new spells and to replace known ones, if you don't want to.

Say you're level 18, and you've got a daily spells of levels 5, 9 and 15. You reach level 19, and you get to choose a new daily spell. Should you so choose, you can either replace the level 5, 9, or 15th level spell with the 19th level one, or you could choose not to learn a new spell at all.

 

[Evil_Dead_Jedi]

Thanks for all of the quick responses. It seems that the rules as written are for the most part the best way to go unless there are some serious issues that come up. I think the biggest thing I get from reading everything is that we are having a hard time letting go of the idea that this just isn't the old 2e or 3e system we are used to and that holding on to that is only going to get in the way of having fun.

After seeing the way you guys think on most of these things, I feel more confident in the mechanics of the system being able to stand on their own two feet rather than us trying to force them to walk in a pair of shoes made to fit 2e shaped feet. If that makes sense.

Oh, and sorry for posting in the wrong forum spot, I was a little unsure of where to put it.

Thanks again, and I will keep checking back here to see what kinds of other thoughts pop up!

 

[Rel]

Thanks for all of the quick responses. It seems that the rules as written are for the most part the best way to go unless there are some serious issues that come up.

Well now hold on there. I didn't say that the rules as written are the best way to go.

I've made some changes myself. If any of them are to your liking then feel free to use them.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...-how-i-fixed-d-d-4th-edition.html#post4536374

 

[the Jester]

1. Bring back the randomness of HP. Instead of getting 6 hp per level, roll 2d3. Or instead of 5 hp, roll 1d4+1. Things of that nature.

2. Eliminating the need for a cleric to require healing surges being used for his healing spells. This just seems weird. If I have no healing surges, then wouldn't that be the point of the cleric healing me instead of me healing myself?

3. Only letting the cleric/wiz/warlock learn rituals. More than likely, knowing my group, they would role-play this anyway and never have a non-caster class learn rituals anyway, but just an idea.

4. Letting casters keep all of the spells they learned at previous levels and use them if they want. For example, if I learned a spell at lvl 4 and then at lvl 19 I wanted to cast that one I learned at 4 again, it should be ok right? Unless I am not understanding the rules in a way that the lower level spells don't scale for damage as levels rise?

1. I wouldn't. I'm a huge fan of rolled hit points; if you must do this, please make sure you give pcs enough so that they average out at the fixed per level amount in 4e.

2. Healing surges are the depletable resource of 4e. They are what tells you that it's time to rest. I would absolutely NOT do as you suggest here. It's a keystone of 4e design.

3. You're defeating the purpose of rituals if you do this. Rituals are there, basically, so that you don't actually have to have a cleric in the party.

4. I'm not even sure what you're proposing. You still have your lower level powers, unless you swap/replace them with better ones. Too many powers leads to slow gameplay.

Really, try it as is before you start house ruling. You'll find that it plays very differently than it reads, and you'll be able to fairly assess what you want to change. Right now any house rules you institute would be shooting from the hip.

 

[Evil_Dead_Jedi]

Yeah, I am getting more and more excited about finally being able to mentally "let go" of some of the things I've been worried about with the 4e mechanics. I am sure some will still rub me the wrong way, but this is a good start for me. But I do have one question:

You don't get to add you CON bonus to your HP per level correct? If so, what are some of your thoughts on this one? In a way it seems really weird, but then again, it kind of makes sense seeing as how you still get a good amount of HP per level even past lvl 20. Like if you kept that from the older editions you would possibly end up having TWICE the amount of HP and then this would imbalance the game. Am I right to assume this is the reasoning behind it?


Also, my thing with the "keeping spells in the spellbook" as you raise levels, I was just thinking that it would be weird to learn a spell say for example Spider Climb (which should have a sustain keyword shouldn't it?) and then you raise a bunch of levels and re-train that spell into something else, you can't get that spell again unless you re-train again to get it back? It just seems odd to me. Unless I am not understanding it right. Which very well could be, lol!!!

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

The con bonus/level to HP being gone is not strange in 4e. It works like this.

Constitution (not just bonus) to HP at 1st level. This is like double con bonus +10.

Con bonus to Healing Surges. This is an extra HP bonus wqual to your total HP/4 per healing surge. This scales with level. Since you can do this all by yourself each encounter, plus as much as you want between encounters, this adds up to be a lot. It also makes a big difference between low con and high con characters, which is what con bonus per level does. It provides a mechanic to create a difference in HP between low and high con characters that scales with level.

The numbers aren't the same, and the math to get the numbers aren't the same, but the effect is. Higher con and higher level characters are harder to take down.