AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Have you seen 'Strike!', which is EXACTLY that, a 4e-esque d6 based system.
D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E
- Thread starter Mondaynightgamer
- Start date
Have you seen 'Strike!', which is EXACTLY that, a 4e-esque d6 based system.
tyrlaan
Explorer
The more I've been away from 4e (since I ended my 4e game a few months ago) the more I find myself unlikely to run it again. I'd play in it in a heartbeat, but the length of combat was becoming a bear, especially when we were knee deep in paragon. Slightly less significant are the online tools, which I stopped paying for once I wasn't running, and arguably aren't worth the cost if I were to entertain running 4e again.
The more I read about 5e, both the books themselves and the forums, and from some, admittedly minimal, play experience, it captures a style of game that no longer scratches my gaming itch. I find myself looking at 13th Age as a good alternative game. But with no actual games on the horizon, I've gotten back into working on a system of my own design, which is a good way to pass the time I suppose
The more I read about 5e, both the books themselves and the forums, and from some, admittedly minimal, play experience, it captures a style of game that no longer scratches my gaming itch. I find myself looking at 13th Age as a good alternative game. But with no actual games on the horizon, I've gotten back into working on a system of my own design, which is a good way to pass the time I suppose
Neonchameleon
Legend
I was watching the development back when it was known as Sacred BBQ. I forget why it didn't do what I wanted it to.
My Trifold 4e - the fairly straight retroclone (when I'm not using it for Mass Effect)
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, it looked like it was going through some evolution, but I don't know exactly at what stage it was when you saw it. I'm not sure its the last word in this kind of thing either, but when I looked at what they'd released pre-kickstarter it did seem pretty well thought out. I'm not sure the d6 DW-like mechanics quite scratched my itch, and of course I saw things that I would've done differently as well, but it seemed at least interesting and kind of unique.
My own hack reflects at least a couple of ideas that I saw implemented in interesting ways in Strike!
As for 13a, meh. I mean it seems like a decent game, but I thought that it suffered from the same issue as 5e in a sense. Trying not to be 4e so hard that it actually was worse off for it. There's just too much that I appreciate in 4e that isn't in either 5e or 13a, hence my own rules.
Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
I'm still running 4E but the availability of the 4E tools is a big issue for me too. I fully expect WotC to turn them off at some point but at least I now have Masterplan for building monsters (and a library of lots of custom and official monsters) plus a couple of other options to cover the other tools. (Another reason I had to look at alternatives was that my laptop would turn into a brick for 10-15 minutes each time I printed a character sheet from the Character Builder to PDF. That's just ridiculous and, obviously, there is no support for such problems.)
I've also found that it's vital you get your mix of monsters right for your players. In my case, that means lots of minions where due to a stat block power or a leader aura, they have a chance of shaking off a hit that would otherwise drop them. My players are enjoying combats more and we're moving through them faster. I also had to help them craft cheat sheets for their triggered powers as those seem to cause the most delays.
(snip) The more I read about 5e, both the books themselves and the forums, and from some, admittedly minimal, play experience, it captures a style of game that no longer scratches my gaming itch. I find myself looking at 13th Age as a good alternative game. But with no actual games on the horizon, I've gotten back into working on a system of my own design, which is a good way to pass the time I suppose
5E is great if you want AD&D with proper maths, professional design, and two decades' worth of people asking "Why?" and trying to answer that question. It really is AD&D3E and would have been a revelation back in 1999. It's still a good edition and I can see why people like it... but, like you, it just doesn't scratch the right itches for me as a DM. 4E has spoiled me particularly when it comes to monster and NPC design, the one area where I think no other edition comes close in terms of being able to take a concept and match that concept with appropriate mechanics without spending half a working day doing so.
13th Age is really good and I look at it lovingly from time to time. I still have this goal of getting some of my wife's family and friends to play RPGs at some point - the real unemployment rate in this country is about 60% so lots of people are doing nothing - and I am seriously considering using 13th Age to introduce them to RPGing.
I think it would also be a great system for online play as, unlike 5E, it actually supports theatre-of-the-mind-style combat with t-o-t-m-style mechanics. And it does a great job on monster stat blocks, much like 4E.
tyrlaan
Explorer
Yeah, I think it's a lame move on their part, but it's clear they will eventually shut down the tools. And by still charging full sub price, I'd imagine dropped subs will become increasingly common.
And yes, Masterplan is amazingly awesome
. I'm not completely in love with it's Monster Builder, but it gets the job done.After 5 years of running my game, I think I had sorted out what makes a good challenge for them, but not necessarily what made a fast challenge for them. I like your idea for triggered powers; they were definitely part of the delay. Another possibly my own fault - instead of magic items, I gave them "boons" each level. They were a handy tool to deliver plot in an unexpected way, but I think it made for just more stuff for them to sift through when deciding on their action each turn. Though I suppose if they had magic items instead it would have played out about the same.
I think for us, the proliferation of options by the time you hit paragon was just so vast that it led to a lot of decision paralysis, especially when you factor in that we played every other week (at best) for about 3 hours. That frequency of play leads to a good chunk of time lost to re-remembering how your assorted powers work, etc.
So, so, so agree.
Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
Yeah, I think it's a lame move on their part, but it's clear they will eventually shut down the tools. And by still charging full sub price, I'd imagine dropped subs will become increasingly common.
And yes, Masterplan is amazingly awesome
I've got it humming now so I'm more than happy with it. I've been spending a bit of time over the past few days exporting monsters from Adventure Tools - I had all my custom monsters already exported - and my only complaint is that I cannot print as nice a stat block to PDF.
I did much the same thing: they each have 3-5 alternative rewards on top of their magic items at level 11 and the character are quite complicated. But, honestly, all it takes is a little bit of work. A single page with triggered powers listing the triggers and effects. Another page with standard tactics. I mean, it's not rocket science and all it takes is a few minutes before the session to refresh yourself. Heck, I do it as the DM and I also have to run the NPCs and monsters.
Again, a few minutes preparing and reading a cheat sheet and anyone with a more than average IQ should be good to go. And, frankly, it's still a lot easier to prep a 4E Paragon Tier class than a mid-level spellcaster in any other edition: everything's there on the bloody character sheet!!!
MoutonRustique
Explorer
My greatest sadness with 4e is the loss of potential :
- the GSL and C&D mindset killed 3rd party support in all forms
- the mechanics didn't get the time (vs the man-hours - which it did get, but it isn't the same : humans need actual time to pass to figure things out; not just MOAR WORK!) to really evolve and explore what they could do
There are no really good tools for 4e. Don't get me wrong, there are a few nice ones, and a few that could have been awesome (Masterplan being one of these) but were hit with the C&D so hard...
Things that are obviously good ideas but were never made :
- a customizable output character builder : I don't believe that anyone can honestly say that the character sheets we got were good. They were pretty, but never useful for play.
4e plays much easier for players if their characters actually look like monster stat-blocs. While it's true that they all have a whole lot of building blocs, in play, they're not really all that hard to handle - there are few situations w/o an obvious choice - and the pertinent numbers don't really change all that much.
- an encounter builder that actually outputs your encounter in a useful form for TT play! I mean... COME ON! Those stat blocs practically beg to be used in a WYSIWYG printing editor - that I have to make a print-screen, post it in paint, crop it and use it in Word is a freaking blasphemy! A BLASPHEMY I say!
On another note :
Has anyone used the 13Age monster abilities approach in 4e?
I'm talking about the "odd natural hit" = action 1; "even natural hit" = action 2, etc. It just seems like one of those excellent things 4e didn't get the time to get around to.
It's a very elegant design and it can be used with the same intent/purpose of random recharge, attacks that should get something more "on a good hit", and many other situations.
Lastly
I'm trying to figure out a way to re-1E-fy the attack option a tad : a bit more abstract. My main target is removing multi-attacks as they are currently presented.
My ultimate goal would be to consolidate everything from a round into a single attack and damage/effects sequence.
Advantages:
- easier to estimate PC cabilities
- easier play in combat (hopefully)
- quicker play in combat (hopefully)
- easier to bring in things like DR (which I really like)
- a bit less jarring on the "attacks are abstract, but not this one, but yeah this one too, but really it's a single swing, but not really, but yeah kinda..." that bothers me a bit in some situations
- reduces static modifier damage supremacy
- can make monsters even better* which sounds impossible - but it's true!
- something else I'm forgetting at the moment...
I've also got charge in my sights - I'm not fond of it (I actually dislike it a fair bit.) It's just too easy to justify all those little bonuses that end up making it the best option in almost all cases (a little +1d6 dmg, of course, he's charging, makes sense. Oh! and let's add a little push to that, makes sense. Oh! and this and that and... WHERE DOES IT END!? )
Well, this turned out much, much longer than I intended...
- the GSL and C&D mindset killed 3rd party support in all forms
- the mechanics didn't get the time (vs the man-hours - which it did get, but it isn't the same : humans need actual time to pass to figure things out; not just MOAR WORK!) to really evolve and explore what they could do
There are no really good tools for 4e. Don't get me wrong, there are a few nice ones, and a few that could have been awesome (Masterplan being one of these) but were hit with the C&D so hard...
Things that are obviously good ideas but were never made :
- a customizable output character builder : I don't believe that anyone can honestly say that the character sheets we got were good. They were pretty, but never useful for play.
4e plays much easier for players if their characters actually look like monster stat-blocs. While it's true that they all have a whole lot of building blocs, in play, they're not really all that hard to handle - there are few situations w/o an obvious choice - and the pertinent numbers don't really change all that much.
- an encounter builder that actually outputs your encounter in a useful form for TT play! I mean... COME ON! Those stat blocs practically beg to be used in a WYSIWYG printing editor - that I have to make a print-screen, post it in paint, crop it and use it in Word is a freaking blasphemy! A BLASPHEMY I say!
On another note :
Has anyone used the 13Age monster abilities approach in 4e?
I'm talking about the "odd natural hit" = action 1; "even natural hit" = action 2, etc. It just seems like one of those excellent things 4e didn't get the time to get around to.
It's a very elegant design and it can be used with the same intent/purpose of random recharge, attacks that should get something more "on a good hit", and many other situations.
Lastly
I'm trying to figure out a way to re-1E-fy the attack option a tad : a bit more abstract. My main target is removing multi-attacks as they are currently presented.
My ultimate goal would be to consolidate everything from a round into a single attack and damage/effects sequence.
Advantages:
- easier to estimate PC cabilities
- easier play in combat (hopefully)
- quicker play in combat (hopefully)
- easier to bring in things like DR (which I really like)
- a bit less jarring on the "attacks are abstract, but not this one, but yeah this one too, but really it's a single swing, but not really, but yeah kinda..." that bothers me a bit in some situations
- reduces static modifier damage supremacy
- can make monsters even better* which sounds impossible - but it's true!
- something else I'm forgetting at the moment...
I've also got charge in my sights - I'm not fond of it (I actually dislike it a fair bit.) It's just too easy to justify all those little bonuses that end up making it the best option in almost all cases (a little +1d6 dmg, of course, he's charging, makes sense. Oh! and let's add a little push to that, makes sense. Oh! and this and that and... WHERE DOES IT END!? )
Well, this turned out much, much longer than I intended...
Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
I think 4E needed designers and developers who actually used it for their home games. And that was not always the case. There's an adventure design seminar on YouTube hosted by Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls at some Con where the audience asks the two WotCites to tell them about their campaigns. Chris, of course, mentions Io'mandra or whatever whereas Mike has to say, "I'm not running a campaign." It was like the 2E days where designers didn't actually play the game they were working on....
I only got around to using Masterplan about a week ago and the version I have is brilliant. Even the monster builder is really, really good. I've also now got offline versions of the Character Builder and Compendium: I'm ready for WotC to turn off their servers and/or Silverlight to go to its death.
Early on when my players were trying t grok 4E, I turned their character sheets into monster stat blocks. They got it. I agree; it is the perfect format for character sheets, and I do something similar with the cheat sheets I have mentioned a few times in this thread.
Hmmm, I wonder if someone could get CBLoader to export a character sheet in that format?
I have experimented with it a little but, so far, I've really just gone with expanding critical ranges and boosting damage and effects that way. But I "buy" the increased damage from the critical with lowered damage from the normal attack effect. Anyway, it's a concept I plan to play with a bit more and, of course, it is inspired by 13th Age.
Interesting. I must admit, I really don't tinker with the PC side of 4E at all as I decided that it was going to be all Character Builder, all of the time. Depending on how much tinkering I can do with the offline version, I may take a fresh look at some character options much in the vein you are suggesting but I will wait until after my next campaign. My next campaign features a knight and a slayer and this will be my first time seeing the Essentials classes in action. If simpler works, then maybe I will look at E-versions of some of the other complicated classes.
Neonchameleon
Legend
One reason I slimmed down Trifold 4e as much as I did. (Another reason was to save paper). There were also vague plans I had to make character sheets work off mobile apps that created monster-style statblocks.
On a side note this is something I absolutely despise in 13A - from the player side. "Roll to attack before you worked out what you were trying to do at a closer level than stick the pointy end in people". And yes, I've occasionally used the trick with NPCs. (Odds and evens I found works - but more than one type of trigger that way is too much).
It's easier when you roll your own classes
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