Sadrik
First Post
Again it depends on your perspective. memorize 20ish powers (maneuvers) over the life of the game or peruse the diversity. Talk about analysis paralysis.
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Jetison the power system and use page 42 only
- Thread starter Sadrik
- Start date
As for the original idea:
- I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about "damage expressions based on your prime stat." The damage expressions on page 42 just have numbers, and don't have any stats involved.
- If you don't have any PP left, what are your options? Can you just make basic attacks? If so that seems to severely nerf classes that don't have good basic attacks, such as most spellcasting classes. (That said, do powers like Magic Missile and Eldritch Blast that can be used in place of basic attacks still count as basic attacks in this system?)
- I don't see what the advantage is of ever not doing an area attack if you can, because it seems like in this system, area attacks do just as much damage as single target attacks. Can all classes do area attacks or just spellcasting classes?
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And as for more general comments about the idea:
I'm a little unclear on whether you want the different attack combinations to be things that are set up at "character creation time" or whether they're made up on the fly at "game time." The OP seems to suggest that they're created at game time, while in the analogy to Champions - well, AFAIK, in Champions you set up your powers when you create your character, and then you use those powers over and over.
Another thing I'm a little unclear on is whether the "on-the-fly effect creation" is intended to be used by the player or the DM. What I mean is, which of the following are you envisioning:
1. The player observes the battlefield situation, and uses this system to create an effect that will work best. For example, "There's three guys clustered together, I know that Fortitude is their weakest defense, and they're vulnerable to lightning, so I'll make an area of effect attack that targets Fortitude and does lightning damage", and the system has a way to combine those effects on the fly. Here the "effect creation system" is being used by the player.
2. The player describes what their character is doing, and then the DM translates that into mechanics. For example the player says "I'm creating a gust of wind to push the bad guys back", and the DM says "Okay, blast 5, Intelligence vs. Fortitude, on a hit the target takes 1d6+INT damage, is pushed three squares and knocked prone." The power creation system is then a set of guidelines the DM can use to translate the player's description into a power. Here the "effect creation system" is being used by the DM.
A third important aspect of the system is whether you want it to be repeatable. In other words, suppose that in example (2) above, the player says "Okay, well, that looks like a pretty useful power, I think I'm going to use that all the time" and gives the same description every time he wants to use that power. Do you want the power effects to be the same? The issue with that is that what is likely to happen is players will build up a "library" of the most effective power effect combinations they can find, and then repeatedly use them, and you've basically gone full circle back to the "prepackaged power" system, except with a little extra leeway in case the prepackaged powers don't work. That explains some of the comments that you've been getting.
- I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about "damage expressions based on your prime stat." The damage expressions on page 42 just have numbers, and don't have any stats involved.
- If you don't have any PP left, what are your options? Can you just make basic attacks? If so that seems to severely nerf classes that don't have good basic attacks, such as most spellcasting classes. (That said, do powers like Magic Missile and Eldritch Blast that can be used in place of basic attacks still count as basic attacks in this system?)
- I don't see what the advantage is of ever not doing an area attack if you can, because it seems like in this system, area attacks do just as much damage as single target attacks. Can all classes do area attacks or just spellcasting classes?
---
And as for more general comments about the idea:
I'm a little unclear on whether you want the different attack combinations to be things that are set up at "character creation time" or whether they're made up on the fly at "game time." The OP seems to suggest that they're created at game time, while in the analogy to Champions - well, AFAIK, in Champions you set up your powers when you create your character, and then you use those powers over and over.
Another thing I'm a little unclear on is whether the "on-the-fly effect creation" is intended to be used by the player or the DM. What I mean is, which of the following are you envisioning:
1. The player observes the battlefield situation, and uses this system to create an effect that will work best. For example, "There's three guys clustered together, I know that Fortitude is their weakest defense, and they're vulnerable to lightning, so I'll make an area of effect attack that targets Fortitude and does lightning damage", and the system has a way to combine those effects on the fly. Here the "effect creation system" is being used by the player.
2. The player describes what their character is doing, and then the DM translates that into mechanics. For example the player says "I'm creating a gust of wind to push the bad guys back", and the DM says "Okay, blast 5, Intelligence vs. Fortitude, on a hit the target takes 1d6+INT damage, is pushed three squares and knocked prone." The power creation system is then a set of guidelines the DM can use to translate the player's description into a power. Here the "effect creation system" is being used by the DM.
A third important aspect of the system is whether you want it to be repeatable. In other words, suppose that in example (2) above, the player says "Okay, well, that looks like a pretty useful power, I think I'm going to use that all the time" and gives the same description every time he wants to use that power. Do you want the power effects to be the same? The issue with that is that what is likely to happen is players will build up a "library" of the most effective power effect combinations they can find, and then repeatedly use them, and you've basically gone full circle back to the "prepackaged power" system, except with a little extra leeway in case the prepackaged powers don't work. That explains some of the comments that you've been getting.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, I don't understand what you are getting at here.
The player levels his character, or lets take the worst case scenario, you're making up a brand new level one PC.
The player at level 1 has to choose 2 at-wills out of at most around 8 choices, 1 encounter power out of again about 8 choices, and one daily out of again about 8 choices. Yes those are a fair number of choices, made once each. At each level up there is another similar choice for most levels. The player only needs to study 8 things at a time. Usually several of those choices are easily eliminated.
During play the player needs to choose each round between one of at most about 20 powers and at level 1 the choice is between 4. Again most of those choices are usually eliminated right off the top.
Using the PP system you outline ALL of the 20 choices exist every single round and the decision is more complex because it has to balance using a resource pool of PPs (and the choice to "use" or "burn" each one no less). On top of that the choice is possibly multi-faceted because the player may want to stack multiple effects. Admittedly many of these choices may also be eliminated right off the top, but to be useful the system has to at least allow several choices in any given round and various permutations. It seems hardly likely that the available choices to be made will be much less than what would be needed to select one of a number of powers available to a paragon tier or higher PC using powers.
From the DM's perspective it is not accurate to say that the DM needs to know 1000's of powers. The players will only ACTUALLY have at most 100 or so powers in a worst case scenario at high levels. On top of that the players should have all the powers in play printed on power cards. In practice the DM rarely needs to know the details of any given power until it is used and at that point it is almost always pretty straightforward as long as he has a good grasp of the general rules.
With the PP system its true the DM needs to only know 20 maneuvers, but he also needs to understand all the potential permutations of each of these maneuvers. He's also going to have to come up with rulings as each permutation comes up to determine how they interact with each other, etc. Ideally he should know all of this ahead of time, but we'll imagine that only a fairly small subset comes up in actual play. That still probably means fully understanding 100 or more permutations. Most of them will be simple and unremarkable, but so are most powers.
IMHO the "analysis paralysis" imposed on the player each and every round of play as they try to balance out use of PPs and come up with effective combinations is easily at least as serious as with powers. On top of that the player never really knows for sure how the DM will interpret different combinations and is thus always subject to either second-guessing the DM or else playing 20 questions with the DM where he has to start asking questions with every action to find out if it makes sense for him to do a specific thing.
I think the overall result is going to be a lot of disagreements where the players have a different view of what should work how vs the DM plus a lot of backtracking and questioning. All on top of the initial choosing of an action each round. I can only say my 30+ years of DMing experience doesn't make me confident this is a faster and simpler alternative to powers.
And in the final analysis does it gain you much? Page 42 already exists. Admittedly it is intended to cover "special" actions, but its always a player option to try something. I'm not convinced you're creating a more flexible system by doing away with powers.
I think its something you'll really have to run in a real game for a few levels and decide if it works or not. I suspect you'll find there will be some tweaks you will need and added complexity required to make it workable. It may end up working well for you and I'm not discouraging trying it, but I don't think I could add much in the way of constructive input about the mechanics without running it and truthfully I'm not that enthused about running heavily house-ruled systems. Even if they are marginally better than the base system its always a big hassle getting everyone to go along with it and customizing every new bit of content that comes out so it works with your variant system. Given that 4e works reasonably well it seems like the payout is small at best.
Sadrik
First Post
Excellent comments!
Use your prime stat for the attack roll and add it to the damage.
Basic attacks, it sucks but you are tapped, fatigued just enough or simply cannot do anymore powers until you get a breather.
Agreed, when the maneuvers get designed I think that they would have to use different PP costs or different damage expressions (perhaps high for melee vs AC) Medium for melee vs another Defense and low for an area attack or some sort).
Well I am a little unclear as well, this is just an idea and not a thing written in stone or anything. Looking at the goal of limiting diversity though I think it would make sense that certain classes got access to certain of the 20 maneuvers and then, for instance the rogue might have access to "Melee vs Reflexes" attack and it is really up to the player to decide how that attack operates thematically (stealthy, quicker, precise or whatever). A wizard might have access to the "Burst vs Fortitude" attack and he might define it as any number of things form lightning to glass shards or whatever.
Honestly I don't know. I like both approaches. Some sort of hybrid approach would be nice. If the players could add some special effects to the powers on the fly but the base power was the same would be nice but it may be too powerful. It would probably make the most sense to have the player write out the power's special effect with the power. In fact the player may take the same power multiple times with different special effects. Similar to champions, Energy Blast power can represent a lightning attack, laser beams, a thrown returning hammer, on and on. Again the idea here is to remove complexity without removing the feel.
Well perhaps something like this is not you and your group. This allows some subjectivity and creativity to enter the arena and I know that is not for every group. There are a myriad of games that go this approach with ALL of their powers and not just the attack ones. So on face value the attacks alone should be pretty easy to accommodate. There simply are not that many permutations.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Well, I don't want to be in a position of just trying to pour cold water on anyone's ideas, I think experimentation is fine. It sounds like the idea is at pretty basic stage anyway and thus it isn't really at the point where it would be useful to critique it too much. Hopefully its useful to hear some of the most general objections though
I don't think the existing powers need be as stereotyped though as you seem to be taking them to be. Maybe some groups feel overly constrained by having precise mechanics but at least in the games I've run you can do a LOT of stuff with powers. Usually they get used in a way that the rules cover completely, but there can be all kinds of variations in use. I've seen a lot of pretty surprising results of creative power use. I don't think the designers ever intended them to be a straight jacket, just a set of well-defined maneuvers.
Since well over half of the published material consists of powers, I think it is safe to say that they are relatively integral to the 4e system. While it's possible to take page 42 and stretch it to cover everything powers normally do, it seems inefficient to do so when there are many alternative game systems out there that already have that sort of free form design of powers on the fly. If that's what you want you could play Mage or Unknown Armies or Earthdawn or something else. Actually, I think you would end up with a better, more elegant system if you simply took the principles expressed on page 42 and designed your own system around them.
One other thing to keep in mind. People like getting new powers and abilities. It's fun. What's the point of leveling up if all you get is a stat boost and the ability to use the same range of abilities more often? Your character isn't really changing, it's just becoming more powerful in a sort of generic sense. This is why all good games incorporate an advancement system that allows characters to acquire new abilities in addition getting better at the ones they already have.
One other thing to keep in mind. People like getting new powers and abilities. It's fun. What's the point of leveling up if all you get is a stat boost and the ability to use the same range of abilities more often? Your character isn't really changing, it's just becoming more powerful in a sort of generic sense. This is why all good games incorporate an advancement system that allows characters to acquire new abilities in addition getting better at the ones they already have.
Neuroglyph
First Post
I'm in agreement with Jstomel - my players LOVE getting new powers and they also love figuring out how to synergize them together to create exciting "one-two" punches that devastate a monster. IMO, 4e powers offers a level of tactical combat that is superior to all other versions of D&D.
If you want to remove powers and strip the game of what makes it truly unique, then you'd probably be happier playing an earlier version of D&D or perhaps an entirely different game system altogether.
Sadrik
First Post
I don't think that is fair. If I don't like the hyper tactical-combat nature of 4e I can change it. Don't tell me to just go play another game. That is not the solution I am looking for.
I want to take the core rules and play without the powers. Have the players make up what they want to do and then do it with a clear and finite list of attack powers that can be adapted to the attack.
Engilbrand
First Post
They can already do that, though. The powers are a "clear and finite list of attack powers". Sure, they've already got certain effects tacked on, but there are much easier ways to change things. I implemented Spiffy Points as a way of allowing the players to do something a bit different with an attack. It works fine.
The flavor text can be changed constantly. If your players are stuck describing each power the same way, completely removing the powers won't help. I'd be willing to bet that they fall into even more of a rut.
Why not let them have their powers, but they also have a "Cool Stuff" power they can use. That's the thing you would base off of page 42.
Completely stripping a major part of the system to do something already in the rules seems odd.
The flavor text can be changed constantly. If your players are stuck describing each power the same way, completely removing the powers won't help. I'd be willing to bet that they fall into even more of a rut.
Why not let them have their powers, but they also have a "Cool Stuff" power they can use. That's the thing you would base off of page 42.
Completely stripping a major part of the system to do something already in the rules seems odd.
Sadrik
First Post
The problem is that they are just too fiddly and bog down play (imho). If I give players the ability to make up their own attacks based on their character class and remove all of the attack power levels:
1at-will
1enc
1day
3enc
5day
7enc
9day
13enc
15day
17enc
19day
23enc
25day
27enc
29day
That is 15 distinct levels of attack powers. Comparing briefly to prior editions and this makes sense, 10 spell levels now 15 spell levels 20 level to 30 levels. However, it gets a bit messy and hairs are being split, some powers that are lower level are clearly superior to some powers that are higher level. What I want to do is take those 15 power levels and do away with them. Make 10 base powers that level up with the character so are scaled the way page 42 is.
Having all of the attack power minutia does not enhance the story of the game. It detracts, imho. Removing the attack powers and putting in a versatile and useful set of powers that the players can use as creative conduits really would enhance play. Below is my first draft of such a system.
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