D&D 4E Let's Make 4E!! (Brainstorming)

[Stalker0]

I'm feeling creative. I figured what the hey, let's get some people together and actually work on the enworld version of 4e.

What I want to do is brainstorm ideas to change, and then put each idea into a seperate thread to be worked on.

so: DO NOT POST IDEAS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING JUST WHAT TO DO.

Here's a list of some things I would like to see worked on.

1) Continue the 3.5 thrend of trying to get players more reliant on their own abilities and not magic.

2) Revamp the metamagic system (good idea, bad execution).

3) Change the skill systems (it works, but man it takes forever to do, its clunky, and just a pain)

4) Change item creation back to more of a power component system (if they can list material components for every bloody spell in the ph, why not just do it for the items?) And make the system more user-friendly.

5) Make the magic system a bit more customizable (I don't think vanacian is going anywhere, but let's go ahead and see if we can customize somethings).

6) Change spells? Change the feat system?

7) Make all abilities scores more useful to everyone in general. 3e went a long way towards doing that but it needs more. Concrete mechanics to making int and cha more useful in general would be good.

 

[LGodamus]

lets not....I dont wanna give WOTC the wrong idea and make em think they can stick us with another edition in a year or two

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

lets not....I dont wanna give WOTC the wrong idea and make em think they can stick us with another edition in a year or two

Amen, brother. Stalker, no offense, but every time I see one of these "What do you guys want to see in 4e?" threads I cringe. I hope and pray that 4e is *at least* ten years away.

Let's enjoy what we have and house rule what we don't like.

 

[glass]

Amen, brother. Stalker, no offense, but every time I see one of these "What do you guys want to see in 4e?" threads I cringe. I hope and pray that 4e is *at least* ten years away.

Except that commercial reality says it won't be, it will be at most 5 years away. Which means if the collected genius of ENworld wants to have any influence over it, we have to be discussing it now.

glass.

 

[eryndel]

If you want to do this, I'd remove number 7 (I can agree with everything else, I like the magic item system the way it is but I see reasons why others don't)
However, I've found in my games that there aren't any real throwaway abilities. Sure, some characters will choose a dump stat but will likely really suffer from it. i.e. The prototypical strong fighter who chooses one of the personality stats as a dump. If he chooses Wisdom, he suffers on his Will save, if he chooses Int, he get's little in the way of skill points. (And that can be enforced by having situations where skills are useful.) If he chooses Charisma, use diplomacy checks.

A well rounded game (I'm using this term to define one that has a reason to use combat abilities, skills, and roleplaying.) will find the character above to suffer from lack of something. I personally feel people complain that Charisma is often an easy dump stat because GM's don't make enough use of Charisma/Diplomacy Checks. Diplomacy tends to be one of the most often used skills in my games.

frex: to abuse a trope, the characters are in an inn and the innkeeper can give them a quest. The innkeeper is initially pretty indifferent to the characters, it's a DC 15 Cha/Dip check to being that to friendly. So, by changing that reaction the character's can get what they want. Friendly gives them the quest, indifferent gets nothing, and unfriendly might get you chased away.

Sure, that turns something that normally is just roleplaying into something purely mechanical. However, it's good to do that if characters abuse the limitations of their abilities. In every game where there was a low Charisma character, I'd always have them at some point in time trying to argue a case or get someone to do something for them, and that's where I have them roll that Charisma. They regret having that low Charisma after a while.

I've blathered on enough... to actually add something constructive to the thread, I would mind seeing
7 or 8) A spell creation system that makes it easy and encourages independent spell creation.

Werner

 

[Hjorimir]

I'm feeling creative. I figured what the hey, let's get some people together and actually work on the enworld version of 4e.

What I want to do is brainstorm ideas to change, and then put each idea into a seperate thread to be worked on.

so: DO NOT POST IDEAS ON HOW TO DO SOMETHING JUST WHAT TO DO.

Here's a list of some things I would like to see worked on.

1) Continue the 3.5 thrend of trying to get players more reliant on their own abilities and not magic.

2) Revamp the metamagic system (good idea, bad execution).

3) Change the skill systems (it works, but man it takes forever to do, its clunky, and just a pain)

4) Change item creation back to more of a power component system (if they can list material components for every bloody spell in the ph, why not just do it for the items?) And make the system more user-friendly.

5) Make the magic system a bit more customizable (I don't think vanacian is going anywhere, but let's go ahead and see if we can customize somethings).

6) Change spells? Change the feat system?

7) Make all abilities scores more useful to everyone in general. 3e went a long way towards doing that but it needs more. Concrete mechanics to making int and cha more useful in general would be good.

1) Continue in what way? Please give an example.

2) Nah, I like metamagic as is.

3) I don’t agree here. My group has found the skill system to work rather smoothly.

4) Best idea you’ve listed so far. Item creation feats are the worst culprit to inflating character power. Of course, I have my own approach to this and I'm guessing other DMs have ways of controlling the influx of magic items.

5) Customizing for the sake of customizing is pointless (and the purview of DMs for their own campaign). No need to monkey with the system unless we accomplish something. Have you identified an issue?

6) I could see changing some spells (but, again, this is best left to the DM more often than not). Feat system works great and I don’t see the need for modification. Again, if you can, please give an example.

7) Couldn’t disagree more, actually. But I’m firmly in the ‘I-don’t-like-die-rolls-over-role-playing’ camp. In my campaign, rolling a social skill is a privilege and not a right (but my players knew this going in and planned accordingly).

Talk of 4.0 would be more worthwhile if we had two things: a major system change (for example, no levels...not that I am advocating that per se) and something that would be gained in the revision (not just something different, it has to be something better).

 

[der_kluge]

I've always felt that a d100 system would be a lot more interesting. It would scale a lot nicer, and remove some of the problems D&D has.

For example, it would make magic items a lot more interesting. +17 sword with +23 cold resistance. How would that compare to, say, a +15 sword with +12 fire resistance, and +10 sonic resistance? Lots more versatile.

You could drop the whole ability modifier thing, so it would end up being simpler.

And just use the Artificer's Handbook rules for item creation. Much more precise system, IMHO.

 

[Ferox4]

Don't get me wrong here, I am being sincere when I say, "Shaddap!"

 

[rounser]

1) Continue the 3.5 thrend of trying to get players more reliant on their own abilities and not magic.

Going too far down this road might undermine D&D's reward structure...we don't know though.

3) I don’t agree here. My group has found the skill system to work rather smoothly.

For my tastes, it's too open ended as it stands - I think it needs caps and more relating back to ability scores and levels. It's great in that it gives players a lot of customisability, but I think that it's just too wishy washy and floating in scope to be very useful - I remember someone involved in the Neverwinter Nights design saying that you can't predict that a character of level X will have a certain skill rank, which means that there's no designing adventures with that assumption built in. 1E and 2E were better in this respect, as in 1E you knew roughly what a theif of level X would have in pick pocket, and in 2E the semi-official "ability check" was unrelated to level.

5) Make the magic system a bit more customizable (I don't think vanacian is going anywhere, but let's go ahead and see if we can customize somethings).

So long as they don't get too creative. The Epic and Psionics books can be considered WotC designers having stabs at presenting alternative magic systems, and both came out not-so-good. It would be a pity to have that sort of weakness end up in the core rules of next edition.

 

[MerricB]

I've always felt that a d100 system would be a lot more interesting. It would scale a lot nicer, and remove some of the problems D&D has.

I detest d100 systems, and the reason is because the maths gets painful.

Bonuses of +2 and +5 and +6 are easy to deal with. When you start talking about +18, +41 and +133 then people's heads start exploding.

Cheers!