Blending the D&Ds

[Garthanos]

I like some other systems and have dabbled in some of them in the past. Most of them were one shots or something I ran into at a convention. Some of them I like, others I can take or leave.

I have played quite a few others as well including Fantasy Hero and while quite beautiful in some ways just seemed like potentially a mega workload rabbit hole. I am picturing trying to build the 4e defender fighters abilities and I am sure it can be done but wow.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Convert your characters to HERO?

Sorta. I mean, yeah if you’re trying to work with extant characters. Otherwise, you just model the class and race features as “package deals” and let people build their own from scratch.

I have played quite a few others as well including Fantasy Hero and while quite beautiful in some ways just seemed like potentially a mega workload rabbit hole. I am picturing trying to build the 4e defender fighters abilities and I am sure it can be done but wow.

Most of the work in HERO is front loaded into character/campaign creation or improvement. When you’re playing, you almost never need touch the books themselves- nearly everything is on the character sheet.

As for 4Ed, I’m assuming you’re talking about all those pushes, pulls and so forth? All you’d probably need to do is make a power linked to a subsidiary power/attack based on a mental effect, a TK effect, or a martial arts maneuver. For instance, if you had a 4Ed power based on a sword strike that also made the target enraged enough to preferentially attack the person using the power, you’d model that as a hand to hand killing attack (HTHKA), requiring a weapon (obvious, accessible Focus- OAF) with a linked Mind Control attack limited to “makes targeted character attack targeting character” or some such.

If the original D&D power had a save and the HERO version didn’t, you could add one via a power limitation requiring an activation roll.

 

[Advilaar]

I have played quite a few others as well including Fantasy Hero and while quite beautiful in some ways just seemed like potentially a mega workload rabbit hole. I am picturing trying to build the 4e defender fighters abilities and I am sure it can be done but wow.

The 4e Defender lives to a certain extent in the battlemaster fighter with protection fighting style.

That said, if a player came to me and wanted something more mark-y, pushy, and pull-y I would bend. However, it is unlikely due to the (somewhat unfair) bias vs 4e. And, as I mentioned before the average player on the market does not read older stuff. Hell, some don't even read all their current class abilities. Last thing I want is more stuff confusing them.

However, there is nothing to prevent me as a DM from pouring over 4e Defender fighter materials and giving this to a NPC in a combat encounter. Such a thing if given to, say, a few "4e Defender" fire giant fighters protecting a few throwing rock throwers and fire giant clerics and sorcerers chucking out spells would be an interesting challenge. Just go through and choose some interesting powers from 4e and add to stat block. Maybe give them a bit more HD and you are good to go.

 

[Zardnaar]

If gold equaled XP, most merchants would be demigods. Now, for my campaign, some of the merchants *are* near demigods. But, the characters are 20th level with epic boons and are exarchs and such. One such merchant is Wal'gren, a mercane that specializes in enchanting with residuum baths and improving items. If you have the wealth of a nation and want a god-weapon or armor special done, he's the one you see in Union to have this enchanted. He has customers from around the multiverse.

But, I doubt the largest major city grocer is epic level though they sell enough food to supply a city and pay nice livelihoods to everyone from workers, managers, artisan cheese makers, animal breeders, butchers, wine makers, etc!

I do not think either me or the other DM at the time used gold = XP in our campaigns in the 2e days. Then again in the 2e days, there was so much homeberew you could go from one game to another and it be vastly different.



I like some other systems and have dabbled in some of them in the past. Most of them were one shots or something I ran into at a convention. Some of them I like, others I can take or leave.

Problem is in marketing and recruiting for players when that comes up. The words "Dungeons and Dragons" is the milkshake that brings all the people to the yard. If you start deviating from that too much, you end up with your own system which is less marketable. Most of the prospective players have heard of DnD. Some may watch Critical Role or played DnD when much younger. DnD has become ubiquitous. You deviate too much, you lose that draw.

I remember one time years back (2004), I found myself in need of a game. Turnover, people moving, and World of Warcraft decimated my gamer pool. I wanted DnD. I went to a local meetup designated for people to meet other gamers. Problem? No real games. There was one guy there that the organizer whispered to me had lost 2 groups in a row because while he "played" DnD, the real game was some kind of custom power fantasy ego deal with powerful DMPCs and custom rules that changed on a whim with him and his girlfriend being all powerful. Nope. The other possible game was one of these aspiring game designers trying to playtest some custom game to publish. More power to him, but was not something I wanted to get into at the time.

No one got gamers that day. (Organizer had 2 or 3 full groups and merely facilitated the meetings. Bummer. i wanted on with them!)

But.. If someone ran DnD... real DnD even with a lot of house rules mixing in some things, the people would have come.

Which is exactly what I did. Organized it myself. Had plenty of games. But I doubt I would have done it if it was not DnD.

In BECMI at least you did not get gold= xp from income, it was adventuring only. For example no xp from domain taxes. Merchants would get 0 xp along with PCs being merchants at least for selling stuff.

 

[cbwjm]

In BECMI at least you did not get gold= xp from income, it was adventuring only. For example no xp from domain taxes. Merchants would get 0 xp along with PCs being merchants at least for selling stuff.

There was XP for domain income but the only merchants that gained XP from making money were the special merchant add-on classes from the gazetters that could only apply it to their class.

 

[Advilaar]

There was XP for domain income but the only merchants that gained XP from making money were the special merchant add-on classes from the gazetters that could only apply it to their class.

Still...

Gold is, at the end of the day, a commodity. In the 3e DMG, it even talked about crashing economies and inflation if too much is unleashed. It should not lend itself to XP. Probably the reason that rule was ignored along with weapon speed, level caps, etc by a lot of groups.

Now, yes, with gold a party can become more powerful. They can augment their numbers through hirelings. They can build strongholds (if the game does not fall apart before then. A lot of DMs did not like the stronghold/ builder game of earlier editions because.... control. The prevailing attitude back then. And, the fact any great amount of gold came at the end of module or campaign and group fell apart or started over back at low levels)

But, it isn't XP itself.

It's a rule that is buried (where it needs to be) as a footnote of DnD only remembered by the greybeards. And laughed at.

 

[Zardnaar]

Still...

Gold is, at the end of the day, a commodity. In the 3e DMG, it even talked about crashing economies and inflation if too much is unleashed. It should not lend itself to XP. Probably the reason that rule was ignored along with weapon speed, level caps, etc by a lot of groups.

Now, yes, with gold a party can become more powerful. They can augment their numbers through hirelings. They can build strongholds (if the game does not fall apart before then. A lot of DMs did not like the stronghold/ builder game of earlier editions because.... control. The prevailing attitude back then. And, the fact any great amount of gold came at the end of module or campaign and group fell apart or started over back at low levels)

But, it isn't XP itself.

It's a rule that is buried (where it needs to be) as a footnote of DnD only remembered by the greybeards. And laughed at.

I found it a less stupid rue than letting PCs buy magic items and easily create them. Turned D&D into D&D the Accounting where the goal was essentially just to get he most powerful dingbat you could afford, and everything else was really only there to be sold or reduced to residium.

 

[Advilaar]

I found it a less stupid rue than letting PCs buy magic items and easily create them. Turned D&D into D&D the Accounting where the goal was essentially just to get he most powerful dingbat you could afford, and everything else was really only there to be sold or reduced to residium.

Not as fun for some DMs... Also, touchy subject sometimes. There are some (a few who are very controlling) DMs who view any campaign that does magic item creation and shops as "Monty Haul", "munchkinism", and a host of other snarl words.

It's work, too. You have to populate shops and such. Monsters and NPCs, you will have to give magic items to, too.

But, the players LOVE to spend their gold and feel they are changing the world, advancing on their terms, and can create valuable things. Anything they do not use, a henchman could use. It's one of the things henchmen are for

And, worth it! Worth it to see happy players!

But, it did made me rethink magic items and their marketability. For instance, Trident of Fish Command. I guess it could be a statement piece for Mr. Neptune cleric. But, I could think of cooler tridents to cap off a High Sea Priest regalia set. Think something that shoots ice rays, summons water elementals, and counts as a holy symbol. It would be an incredible boon to a fisherman. Just command the fish to come up. It's all fun and profit till you destroy an ecosystem or you become KOS to all manner of water fey and druids! But still, not sure who would make an item like that.

 

[Garthanos]

Classes using different advancement tables is probably something I would have tried to get rid of in any combined rules set. To the extent that I couldn't get rid of it in a rules system intended to invoke 1e AD&D nostalgia, I would definitely do some adjustments to the old tables to create better balance than they did.

I consider the differing advancement a concession saying we did badly in the design and level does not mean power its almost meaningless.

 

[Zardnaar]

I consider the differing advancement a concession saying we did badly in the design and level does not mean power its almost meaningless.

The advantage of it though is the old scgool MCing which modern D&D has struggled with since 3E. 5E has its bugs with MCing, 4E didn't really have it as such (I don't count the MC feats or hyvbrid system as proper MCIng). Some of the clones have overhauled it. The old xp system (at least in BECMI) also did a better job of balancing things for the most part (2E fighter>5E fighter relative to their editions). 4E tried but the cure was worse than the disease. OSR Thieves still kind of suck you could overhaul that class.

Its not like a lot of the OSR stuff is perfect its just better than what they have come up with since. For example in 5E bounded accuracy is great but they carried it a bit far and the monsters are really weak because of it. The 4E half level thing and having defences scale up to around 30 might have been a better idea but keeping the 5E ability score caps. 4E/OSR scaling defences (instead of 2 and in effect 1 for a lot of classes) was also a better idea conceptually IMHO.