D&D 4E Throwing ideas, seeing what sticks (and what stinks)

[AbdulAlhazred]

The idea here isn't to give NPCs a bunch of items to alter their stats. The idea is to have items that are inspired by their stats. On the creature building front, absolutely nothing changes.

The purpose is to have magic be an integral part of the world for everyone - not just the PCs - and not have it break the economy in a million pieces.

By making power based on continued investments, we can sidestep this problem a bit : while, for a few days, PCs could end up with 10+ magical rods, staffs, wands, amulets and etc, in effect, those things are not worth much to almost anybody.

I call this the 'Drow Solution' because it is exactly what Gygax did with the Drow in D1-D3, all their items rot away within a short time period, although you can get some decent use out of them for a short while.

I'm just suggesting the alternative, single use items, as another way to accomplish pretty much the same thing. You can give away a bunch of them and not worry about it too much.

In essence, I'm providing two choices : try and use what they can (most of it will be useful, but even then, things will compete on the opportunity cost), or try and extract what they can out of items (I'm thinking ~1/20th of the usual worth in residuum

Yeah, another part of the 4e solution, which was really intended to allow recycling of old replaced items into a supply of residuum to run your ritual casting and maybe some small customizations. Its not a bad idea.

Also, for my circle of buddies, magic items are already "just gear". As such, the cool ones that stand out have the exact same characteristics as the cool "non-magical" items that stand out : they have player investment. Either from a cool picture that's been associated with the item, the sense of accomplishment when it was acquired, a particular description that struck a chord, or some completely random thing a player just decided.

I can try and make memorable items, but, IME, the ones that really stuck, weren't the ones I worked the hardest on - like, at all. So I've given up trying to "actively" make them "special" - I throw stuff at the wall as often as I can think of something possibly cool and then I have to just let the players decide if some of it, or something sparked by it, or something they saw on TV gets traction.

This is analogous to what I'm going for - but it's a different angle. But a very good one.

Yeah, I like the 4e ritual concept because it can make items into something interesting, basically an NPC.

And to just add to this, here's an idea: Artifacts as Companion Characters!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Death Priest rod - Death Curse - standard action, ranged 10, 1d8+Con(?) necrotic damage and -5 to all target's defenses until eont. Hit or Miss: you grant combat advantage and have vulnerable 5 all until eont.

Special: if you underwent the resistance ritual, you may cancel one of the drawback effects. If you undertook the full atunement ritual, you suffer none of the drawbacks, the penalty is increased to -5, and the spell deals 1d8 extra necrotic damage (and you should probably be an NPC: those things should not be done...)

Yeah, you have to bring in basically STORY elements to create a truly special thing here. I think that's one of the fundamentals of the whole thing, and I was greatly influenced by [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s play examples of things like players consuming magic items to power permanent (or at least highly potent) rituals or even to simply create non-standard but narratively appropriate effects.

 

[Garthanos]

The magic user impresses his ritual on his mind as a quick use... and forgets it after casting.

whatever could go wrong with bottled rituals.... will go wrong with bottled rituals.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

whatever could go wrong with bottled rituals.... will go wrong with bottled rituals.

Spell miscibility table?

 

[MoutonRustique]

Malleable Will
Am idea to help cement very strongly typed characters with malleable at-will (might be extended, but not right now)

The basic idea is that each power has 2 "modes" AND can be "upgraded" by expending a minor action.

Very rough draft examples:
Fireblast - close blast 3 OR ranged 10
Upgrade: burst 1 within 10

Lightning Bolt - close burst 1 OR ranged 10
Upgrade: close burst 2 OR up to 3 targets within a burst 2 within 10

Sword & Board - push 1, slide 1 (Tide of Iron basically) OR regular attack and gain resist (small amount) all
Upgrade: increase resist value by 1 OR attack 2 targets and push both (main hand and shield - don't loose shield defense)

2 Swords - attack 2 targets OR gain a small defensive bonus (with a regular attack)
Upgrade: close burst weapon attack OR shift 1 between two attacks

etc.

Down the line, characters could have but one at-will, but it would really cement the "theme" of the character (and it's "school" or origin). But that's just very vague projecting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Malleable Will
Am idea to help cement very strongly typed characters with malleable at-will (might be extended, but not right now)

The basic idea is that each power has 2 "modes" AND can be "upgraded" by expending a minor action.

Very rough draft examples:
Fireblast - close blast 3 OR ranged 10
Upgrade: burst 1 within 10

Lightning Bolt - close burst 1 OR ranged 10
Upgrade: close burst 2 OR up to 3 targets within a burst 2 within 10

Sword & Board - push 1, slide 1 (Tide of Iron basically) OR regular attack and gain resist (small amount) all
Upgrade: increase resist value by 1 OR attack 2 targets and push both (main hand and shield - don't loose shield defense)

2 Swords - attack 2 targets OR gain a small defensive bonus (with a regular attack)
Upgrade: close burst weapon attack OR shift 1 between two attacks

etc.

Down the line, characters could have but one at-will, but it would really cement the "theme" of the character (and it's "school" or origin). But that's just very vague projecting.

It seems to me like just having 2 powers is simpler and more flexible. You can have any combination of the two, etc. Upgrades don't seem like a BAD idea. I'm not sure 4e desperately needs this mechanic, but it would be an interesting way to do a striker mechanic (and thus you might want to use it as a class feature independent of a specific power, though that limits it a lot). Anyway, I'm not against the idea, though it has the disadvantage of vesting the character's role function in its powers in that case (though this is already somewhat true of strikers).

In other words you could have a rogue class which had a list of powers with these upgrades, each of which added to the character's damage output or facilitated something related to their theme as a hard hitting trickster.

I guess you could have a new 4e design philosophy to just move ALL role features basically into the power list. That would simplify 'multiple-role character' design! Just power swap for some powers of a role you want to mix into yours. You could also mix in some thematics of a different class of your own role, so a sniper rogue could poach ranger ranged powers and that would work reasonably well.

I guess you could also have a theory of different enhancements based on build choices, sort of like what the Warlock has now.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Ritualistically Tiered
The hard level gated rituals are, at times, hurdles to the powers I want the PCs to have and the stories I'm going for.

Proposal: rituals are now gated by tier instead of level

My proposed implementation:

• rituals are gated by 1/2 tier (5 levels)
• all rituals require a caster check (skill check) which is a moderate difficulty check at the ritual's level
• a failure on the caster check means that all time spent is lost and 1/2 the components are expended without effect
• on a "1" on the caster check, the focus (if any) breaks - I admit, I just want to screw with my players a bit on this one
• a caster whose level equals or exceeds the ritual's level doesn't need to make a caster check

... I'm wondering if gating the rituals is required at all - I'm just worried about all those finiky bonuses to [Arcana]: without those hard gates, I can see players getting access to plot devices a good deal beyond their regular means...

Perhaps having a more robust system for increasing effective caster level would serve better: locations that allow a 2-3 level adjustment to type X rituals, an item that make type Y easier to use, etc.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Unleash Weapliment Critical Power!

A new baseline for magical weapons: Every weapon and implement gains a daily power that can be activated on a hit as a free action. The item's [critical effect] is applied. All the regular rules with regards to the number of daily item powers and such are to be followed. (Many weapons seem to have something along these lines already...)

As an option, I'm thinking of making the item "inert" for the rest of the encounter after using this power. I like the idea of it. It fits the fluff I'm going for, but I'm not 100% that the added bookkeeping is worth it in terms of return on investment if you will.

Also.

"Basic" [damage type] weapon/implements are now built with these powers as a baseline:

• as a minor action encounter power: all damage is switched to [damage type] until eont
• as a minor action daily power: all damage is switched to [damage type] until eoe
• both these effects are accompanied by a pertinent damage boost (~ +1d4 / half-tier)

"Least" weapons use a daily to activate until eont (+1 equivalent)
"Normal" are as described above (+2 equivalent)
"Strong" are as presented in the rules (at-will switching)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ritualistically Tiered
The hard level gated rituals are, at times, hurdles to the powers I want the PCs to have and the stories I'm going for.

Proposal: rituals are now gated by tier instead of level

My proposed implementation:

• rituals are gated by 1/2 tier (5 levels)
• all rituals require a caster check (skill check) which is a moderate difficulty check at the ritual's level
• a failure on the caster check means that all time spent is lost and 1/2 the components are expended without effect
• on a "1" on the caster check, the focus (if any) breaks - I admit, I just want to screw with my players a bit on this one
• a caster whose level equals or exceeds the ritual's level doesn't need to make a caster check

... I'm wondering if gating the rituals is required at all - I'm just worried about all those finiky bonuses to [Arcana]: without those hard gates, I can see players getting access to plot devices a good deal beyond their regular means...

Perhaps having a more robust system for increasing effective caster level would serve better: locations that allow a 2-3 level adjustment to type X rituals, an item that make type Y easier to use, etc.

Yeah, in theory, you can simply assign each ritual a DC. The problem, as you note, is that 4e allows for a HUGE variation in bonuses, and I think the Arcana check is actually the VERY worst offender!

In my own variant system this is no longer an issue, and in fact 'level' is just a way of stating a standard DC. Teleportation is HARD, and with no more than 5 or 6 points of possible optimization to your bonus you won't achieve it MUCH sooner no matter what you do (though you could take a big risk at somewhat lower levels and try to do it).

 

[Garthanos]

Ritualistically Tiered
The hard level gated rituals are, at times, hurdles to the powers I want the PCs to have and the stories I'm going for.

Proposal: rituals are now gated by tier instead of level

My proposed implementation:

• rituals are gated by 1/2 tier (5 levels)
• all rituals require a caster check (skill check) which is a moderate difficulty check at the ritual's level
• a failure on the caster check means that all time spent is lost and 1/2 the components are expended without effect
• on a "1" on the caster check, the focus (if any) breaks - I admit, I just want to screw with my players a bit on this one
• a caster whose level equals or exceeds the ritual's level doesn't need to make a caster check

... I'm wondering if gating the rituals is required at all - I'm just worried about all those finiky bonuses to [Arcana]: without those hard gates, I can see players getting access to plot devices a good deal beyond their regular means...

Perhaps having a more robust system for increasing effective caster level would serve better: locations that allow a 2-3 level adjustment to type X rituals, an item that make type Y easier to use, etc.

So I was noticing how some martial practices had nonsense levels... level 6 for effects that had to be level 2 now you have me thinking.