D&D 4E Gut 4E's Math

[Saeviomagy]

Since the end result of tweaking the level increases is to get the to hit numbers to work out the way they are supposed to (i.e. 10 to hit equal level monster at any level), then the fights really shouldnt get easier.

...except against monsters higher or lower level than you, which are expected to be more difficult or easier because you should need 10+level difference to hit/be hit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The fundamental problem with this concept is that you now have to make the "high level" monsters nasty in some way or other. That means giving them loads more hit points, which they already have, admittedly, but it also really means they need to do more damage. In essence the whole damage/hitpoints equality needs to be rebalanced too.

The end result is old D&D essentially. There was no scaling of monsters defenses particularly in pre-3.x D&D. There was a much more modest scaling of PC to-hit of +9 for a fighter over his career (to 18th level). Characters would get magic items that might give another +9 roughly but monster defenses mostly only increased from averaging say AC6 at level 1 to maybe -2 at level 18 with some very specific "epic" monsters that would go down into the -7 range or so. In any case it was a much flatter system.

The thing is you had to have a much steeper PC hit point increase curve to go with it. Everyone gets hit a lot more at high level. Magic weapons and defenses are also embedded into that system to a much greater degree than in 4e. A 2e fighter at level 18 with AC2 would die a horrible death in 5 seconds flat. Yet ONLY magic can boost his AC (or saves for that matter).

Its an OK system but with 4e style combat it will get sloggy slow at high levels. It worked OK for older editions because they simply assumed you'd have characters getting slagged left and right in 2 rounds flat, which 4e really tries to avoid.

I think its POSSIBLE to do this, but you will have to basically rewrite every feat, power, class feature, monster, etc to get it balanced the way you want it. Might as well write an RPG.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

The end result is old D&D essentially. There was no scaling of monsters defenses particularly in pre-3.x D&D. There was a much more modest scaling of PC to-hit of +9 for a fighter over his career (to 18th level). Characters would get magic items that might give another +9 roughly but monster defenses mostly only increased from averaging say AC6 at level 1 to maybe -2 at level 18 with some very specific "epic" monsters that would go down into the -7 range or so. In any case it was a much flatter system.

The thing is you had to have a much steeper PC hit point increase curve to go with it. Everyone gets hit a lot more at high level. Magic weapons and defenses are also embedded into that system to a much greater degree than in 4e. A 2e fighter at level 18 with AC2 would die a horrible death in 5 seconds flat. Yet ONLY magic can boost his AC (or saves for that matter)

That's kinda where I was going with this. I don't actually plan on trying to rescale all the math but on some level it REALLY looks a lot like THAC0 from an alternate universe - moreso than 3E did.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's kinda where I was going with this. I don't actually plan on trying to rescale all the math but on some level it REALLY looks a lot like THAC0 from an alternate universe - moreso than 3E did.

3E's math AFAIK is basically identical to the math in 1e and 2e (which ARE identical, "thac0" is just a +1/ level to-hit bonus). So in 2e fighters got a +1 to-hit every level, clerics + 2/3 levels, etc. There were NO other built-in progressions of any kind in 2e. Presumably PCs get better armor and magic weapons so their AC improved and to-hit for fighters might improve more than 1/level.

The point is that making the system totally "flat" means you have several issues, especially if you try to make it the same for PCs and monsters.

1) There's no room for optional bonuses for PCs. If both sides to-hit stays static then +10 is about as much wiggle room as the system ever gives you and that includes enhancement, stat bonuses, and conditionals. That isn't a lot of room to work with.

2) The same issue exists with defenses.

3) How do you make the higher level monsters meaningfully tougher? They can have higher to-hit and defenses but that only goes so far. The real problem is that if hit points don't change much with levels either you don't have much in the way of room to add damage bonuses to anyone either.

Oddly what ends up happening is a level 1 PC is not much less effective than a level 10 PC, he just has crappier equipment. This was pretty close to the case in old D&D, even with scaling to-hit because a LOT of monsters didn't really have highly scaled defenses. What you ended up with was combat where a couple of hits killed things and it was "fast" in a sense but not very interesting. Tactics were really pretty negligible.

I don't really think there is a lot of design space left within d20 is the problem. If the system used d100 then things could progress on a small curve and magic etc could give fairly small bonuses. 4e got it right by increasing hit points across the board, which allows a more scaled damage output, but then they're locked into the d20, which is convenient but too small.

 

[ggroy]

That's kinda where I was going with this. I don't actually plan on trying to rescale all the math but on some level it REALLY looks a lot like THAC0 from an alternate universe - moreso than 3E did.

THAC0 works fine where there's only one main static defense stat (ie. AC).

In a system with four different static defense stats (ie. AC/Fort/Reflex/Will), a THAC0 style system isn't so compact anymore and becomes more cumbersome in practice.

 

[interwyrm]

You could do...

Monster AC = 10 + (Monster Level - Player Level)

... or something similar. I've never been a big fan of having attack and defenses getting into the 30s or 40s anyway.

This creates slightly more prep work for the DM, and ought to speed up combat a bit for the players.