Historical-based 4e games

[HalWhitewyrm]

In my opinion, 4E is the best version of D&D for "historical" style games, now that martial characters have an equal share of the special abilities and healing options that are no longer reliant on the constant presence of a cleric, as well as the limited magic of Rituals.

As I said, I still need to get to Rituals, but I was also excited by the idea that martial classes would have all these cool maneuvers (though to be fair, the martial classes were never really the problem in older editions), except the level of power increases exponentially as they go up in level 'till you have the martial equivalent of fireballs, so to speak, and that made me take a long pause. The complete lack of social classes is another big drawback at the moment (someone in this thread suggested Social as a new power source for classes, and while I absolutely love the idea, I'd have to write those up as well).

How are you handling these two issues in your game?

What I'm seeing is that I can run a pseudo-historical 4e campaign from the core books, but I have to have it err more on the side of high fantasy (medium fantasy, perhaps?) and I have to do a lot of work on my own anyway if I want to have it feature other non-combat elements.

I do have to say while reading the rules it did bug me that the with the cleric and paladin, every single thing they did is some divine effect, they never just hit the guy.

Yeah, I felt the same way.

 

[Odysseus]

Is there anyone out there playing a historical-based 4e game? If so, how are you approaching it, by adapting things to the relative tech/magic level of the setting or by dropping D&D somewhere in history? Am I correct in my impression of the game and should I just leave this idea aside?

I've just started a 4E egyptian style campaign.
What I did was.
Replaces the core races.
Replace the equipment, arms & armour with lower tech stuff.
Cap the PC level at 10.
Replace dieties with Egyptian mythos. And created extra feats for each dieties followers, not class prohibited.
One of the problems I had to get my head around . Is that PC class and level are representative of how good the PC is in combat. And not really much to do with the PC character. So a egyptian priest may actually be any class. By using feats and rituals the PC can do the priestly stuff.

 

[Grimstaff]

I do have to say while reading the rules it did bug me that the with the cleric and paladin, every single thing they did is some divine effect, they never just hit the guy.

Clerics and Paladins have Basic Attacks, like all classes do.

 

[Telémakhos]

Clerics and Paladins have Basic Attacks, like all classes do.

If I may speak for another poster for a moment, I think he or she is saying that most attacks done by these classes in most fights (unless there are a lot of Warlords in the party or a high incidence of opportunity attacks) have a magical effect in adition to the attack, thus making them more fantastic than their 3rd edition counterparts from one POV (which I happen to share).

I have ideas for a super-gritty dark ages game set in a post-apocalyptic Earth where a nuclear explosion gone wrong tore a rift in space and caused the multiverse to collide ending up with many worlds forged into one.

Even with such a fantastic back-drop, I want the feel to be muddy, bloody and nasty. So my idea was to eliminate the spellcasters and use rituals conservatively, as others have mentioned doing. I hadn't considered a level cap but after reading about E6 (an alternate advancement system for 3.x) I think it could work well.

Then again, my gaming group did not like 4E when we play tested and we are likely to borrow liberally but remain in a heavily house-ruled 3.5. But it is still an interesting mental exercise.

 

[Grimstaff]

As I said, I still need to get to Rituals, but I was also excited by the idea that martial classes would have all these cool maneuvers (though to be fair, the martial classes were never really the problem in older editions), except the level of power increases exponentially as they go up in level 'till you have the martial equivalent of fireballs, so to speak, and that made me take a long pause. The complete lack of social classes is another big drawback at the moment (someone in this thread suggested Social as a new power source for classes, and while I absolutely love the idea, I'd have to write those up as well).

How are you handling these two issues in your game?

I wouldn't say the power level increases exponentially at all, in fact the power curve seems very gentle. The damage output of Heroic level characters is pretty constant, and the chance to hit increases a bit slower than in previous editions. When you look at the amount of damage 4E monsters can take, its pretty well balanced. I would go so far as to say strategy, rather than raw damage output, is the real deciding factor in alot of 4E combat.

As far as social skills, the skills in the PHB and the non-combat encounter guidelines in the DMG are sufficient for the level of diplomacy, etc, in my games. Martial characters can build social abilities through skill focus, but Social characters don't always have an easy time building their combat skills, so I don't really feel this is lacking.

Another nice DM aid for 4E historical games is the simple monster design guidelines. It's fast and easy to come up with a plethora of different human antagonists and a few monsters that conform to the historical/mythological analogues you're emphasizing. I made a nice batch of pict marauders, a longboat full of viking slavers, and a Grendel-style troll in less than an hour.

 

[Odysseus]

If I may speak for another poster for a moment, I think he or she is saying that most attacks done by these classes in most fights (unless there are a lot of Warlords in the party or a high incidence of opportunity attacks) have a magical effect in adition to the attack, thus making them more fantastic than their 3rd edition counterparts from one POV (which I happen to share).

But are they actually magical effects. If you ignore the fluff, alot of the time they are just doing extra damage.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I flipped open the PHB and looked at the fighter, ranger, rogue, and warlord powers, and none of them seem overly supernatural, at least not for a game with a touch of the mythic (I'm thinking Norse and Greek heroic sagas here).

I'm strongly considering a Viking-themed 4e game, and my basic plan is this:

1) Wait until Martial Power and Ari's barbarian are out, to increase Martial character options and add the barbarian/berserker
2) Disallow PC ritual access, but fold a few key rituals (Cure Disease especially) into the appropriate skills as Trained-only uses
3) Add critical injury rules using the Disease system
4) Create new human race rules that allow PCs to pick from many of the non-supernatural abilities and powers that other races have
5) Run game!


Pirates would be doable, especially Skull and Bones/On Stranger Tides-themed rules, but you have to do a few not-so-easy things:
1) Make a curse-focused magic class that's not overtly supernatural (big fireballs and the like), ideally with illusions and psychic damage
2) Switch bows for guns in a manner that makes sense
3) Tweak/rename existing martial classes for a more swashbucklery setting
4) Expand rituals and put most of the voodoo in there

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

I can't say I'm convinced but I will admit the thread is making me rethink things. I'll finish the PHB by the weekend and then I'll be able to see all the parts better.

 

[Deadstop]

Don't forget that there's an explicit instruction to rework the flavor text on any power you like. That should go without saying, of course, but it means you might be able to get away with "look and feel" changes to some powers instead of making up new power sets wholesale.

A fire-damage spell, for example, could easily be reflavored into some kind of "internal burning" curse, far more subtle in style than a hurled missile of flame. If you're willing to swap damage types, a spell that causes ongoing fire or acid damage could change to necrotic, and represent more of a wasting curse (again, with no visible beam or blast necessary).

Also, the Artificer playtest article in Dragon, while too over-the-top for your needs, introduced the idea that some powers can be flavored as devices or concoctions, some of which even require explicit preparation during the previous extended rest. That works well for a Conan-style setup, where magicians "throw fireballs" by whipping out breakable globes of alchemical mixtures. Dunno if that would fit your quasi-historical style or not.

Deadstop

 

[knightofround]

I'm writing a 4E mediterranean setting right now. I've decided to roll with the high-magic nature of the system. It's too tough to explain away things like healing surges, caster at-wills, highly specialized classes, rapid leveling pace, and enormous amount of punishment (high HP) that comes with the system. Cut those out and its not really D&D anymore, might as well play gurps.

In a way, I've found the high-magic route to be more liberating than the low-magic one. Opening up high level magic opens up more avenues for creativity. For example, my Rome has a population of 500k people, which is historically accurate...however the old 3E population rules made it so cities larger than 50k pop were rare. I'm freer to come up with stuff like aquaducts that pump freshwater from the plane of water, drugs that unlock the human genome which allow regular humans to become 4E's superpower-ish classes, etc.

In short, keeping the 4E crunch but using all the ancient world fluff. I'm starting to think its an better match than the 3E crunch because of the less dependence upon magical healing.