D&D 4E Making 5e more like 4e.

[Capricia]

5e has some pretty cringeworthy design decisions made in the name of legacy, which has led me to coming up with a few houserules for what I see are the worst issues.

Attacks of Opportunity

You can now make an Attack of Opportunity as an Opportunity Action. Every characters can make one Opportunity Action per Turn. Using Opportunity Actions does not affect your Reactions. As well, casting a spell that does not make an attack roll now provokes an Attack of Opportunity.

Only one AoO a round, when AoO damage is already made low because of the way damage scales based on the number of attacks you make, is baffling. Moreso when plenty of classes need their Reaction for other things. That, and casting a fireball in melee should be harder than a firebolt.

Healing Surges

Instead of hitdice, all characters will have a number of healing surges. Characters have a number of surges based on their class, plus their constitution modifier.

Fighter:10
Rogue:8
Cleric:8
Wizard:6

Healing Surges have a value equal to 1/4th of max HP, rounded down. Anytime a character receives a healing effect, they can choose to spend a surge to enhance the effect by this value. For instance, if a level 5 fighter with 60 hp used Second Wind and spent a healing surge, they would heal 1d10+5 from Second Wind, plus 15 from the healing surge.

Healing Surges can also be spent at any time during a short rest. All healing surges recover after a long rest.

Hit Dice provide such meager healing that they really do make a cleric required if a party wants to have more than one or two moderately challenging fights a day. Healing Surges were elegant and good.

Short Rests

Short rests are 5 minutes.

Having the fighter need a whole hour while the other three classes can go at nearly full power all day is dumb. If Second Wind bothers you, limit it to only be used when at half health or lower

Strength

If you possess a strength score of 15 or more, your carrying capacity becomes equal to your strength score times 100 instead of 15. So with 20 strength, you could carry 2,000lbs of equipment and lift, push, or drag 4,000lbs

Add half your strength modifier, rounded up, to Constitution and Dexterity saving throws.

Strength loses out a lot against dexterity, as this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?356698-So-Is-The-Dex-Based-Fighter-Just-Strictly-Better&prefixid=dndnext clearly shows.

Charisma

You can use Charisma instead when a saving throw calls for Wisdom.

Because all saving throws were not created equal, and fighting off a mind control spell with the force of will just makes sense.

 

[Uskglass]

I like the thoughts here.
Here are a couple of ideas/options for contributing.

Opportunity Attacks. making them 1/turn would work and is easy. Alternatively, to stay closer to the 5e ruleset I'd consider allowing multiattack on AO, letting the player decide about how to allocate the attacks in the round: all on a single target or on multiple ones in different turns. Whatever the choice, this will use the character reaction for the round.

Healing Surges: as an alternative to fixed HP %, I'd try to use an HD representation for those. Something like: 1 HD/tier + Con mod. So the HP values for a 17th level Fighter with Con 16 would be 4d10+3. (I haven't done a math check, this is just ballpark)

 

[DavidFoxfire]

I usually DM with some 4th Edition play even as I focus on 5ED play. Here's a list of "Transition" guiderules I go by:

• Short Rests are 10-15 minutes, and you can use your Hit Dice like Healing Surges.
• You have Move (can be split), Minor (for 1 bonus action) and Standard.
  • And in some campaigns, I give everyone an Action Point as an Attendance Prize: You can spend that when you cannot otherwise spend a Bonus Action, but you can't take both Bonus Action and Action Point. They also carry over sessions and extended rests, so players can stock up on Action Points for Boss Battles where I can let them use more than 1 Action Point in the encounter.
• I always use a gridded map if I can help it; squares are 5 feet across, and you can move in all 8 directions.
• Use of cards for powers, to help you remember what to do, are allowed, although you have to make them yourself.

 

[Jimbro]

Not a bad idea. I like the hack a lot. Let us know how it works out!

 

[DavidFoxfire]

Forgot one: I always let heals start at Zero. When casting a healing spell on a downed (negative hit points) PC, I always heal them up to zero, and then add on the points given by the heal.

I like giving the players a fighting chance.

 

[Rune]

I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to alter 4e so it plays more like 5e than the other way around. Specifically, altering the math to apply bounded accuracy (and ability score caps) should do the trick. That, and adding Advantage/Disadvantage.

 

[Rune]

Forgot one: I always let heals start at Zero. When casting a healing spell on a downed (negative hit points) PC, I always heal them up to zero, and then add on the points given by the heal.

I like giving the players a fighting chance.

5e doesn't have negative hit points. 0 is as low as you can go, at which point, you are dying. Any healing starts at 1 hp.