To all D&D fans - what are the top 3 specific changes 4e needs in your opinion

[Betote]

- A more detailed skill system. The fall back to NWP was a big step backwards IMO.
- More variety between classes. I feel like they're all more or less the same (powers that almost always are "X damage and side effect Y").
- Revised hp for monsters and minion rules. In the 4e combats I've played out, there seems to be 2 phases: The first half, which is kinda fun and where the tactical options are staged, and the second half, where you already know the end result of the combat and just wait for the bag of hps to be slowly depleted blow by blow.

With these 3 things revised, I'd be more than happy to make 4e my campaign game of choice. I could even get over the stressed suspension of disbelief because of all the flashy powers that non-magic classes seem to have and the DBZ effect as just genre assuptions

 

[Thanee]

- powers with less focus on combat
- classes that are not forced down one or two possible pathes
- actual multiclassing

honorable mention:
- wizards that are not warmages

Bye
Thanee

 

[Ant]

I'm not a big fan of 4e. My top 3 are:

1) less hit points for everything and/or up the damage count: Fights become a monotonous war of attrition -- every combat sees me filling up that little space for hit points and then some.

2) put healing back where it belongs, with the healing classes: I accept (and really like) the abstract nature of hit points but this is stretching it to the point of breaking.

3) I like Vancian magic but I hate the fact that now everyone has it.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

- An extra tier of powers which are explicitly for non-combat use. Yes, the characters get to use all sorts of cool powers during combat - but what can they do in other situations?

Exalted can be plundered for ideas for this one. Heck, they even made the Bureaucracy skill cool.

- Far more rituals.

- More support for the epic tiers. in the PHB, there are far too few feats, and too few epic destinies.

 

[ExploderWizard]

- Perception as a passive trait

- Having more than one ability score useful for a particular skill or check.

- The more freeform, less method intensive ways of designing NPCs and monsters.


These are the 3 things I would KEEP. I would ditch everything else and start over.

 

[Umbran]

Hm.

- Fewer powers that depend on the details of positioning and movement (so we can step away from the battlemap more easily

- Interesting powers that are not combat related.

- More fluff for monsters.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Bare in mind when you read these that I'm not a fan of a number of things D&D does and am simply answering the question literally.

—Eliminate or severely scale back resource management: Game play goes a lot smoother when you aren't constantly having to second guess using an ability.

—Eliminate tactical movement tracking (and Attacks of Opportunity, just to be thurough): You can do a lot more interesting things when you have no idea what the battle looks like.

—Streamline power description and provide non-combat things for the class to do:
1) The first part speaks to how too many of the powers seem to be the same power with slightly different wording. You do not need three different entries for "do 1d6 damage of element type X", you only need one entry that tells you to choose what type. Even if there are things like different secondary effects you don't need completely separate entries if only one or two lines are different.
2) Non-combat powers have always been more interesting than combat powers.

 

[Nebulous]

1) Magic has GOT to be tweaked to make it feel more like magic of earlier editions (or just have a new flavor unique to 4e, which it does have, but i'm not in love with it). I realize that in the past this caused wizards to outstrip every other class eventually, but at least they were fun to play and offered strategic opportunities.

2) I don't like the clinical layout of any of the 4e books, and much of the art style is not to my taste. I know i'm not alone here, there's been a lot of complaints about this.

3) Evocative monster write-ups, not just attack powers.

 

[steenan]

1. Much more fluff for monsters. Ecology/ social structure, non-combat abilities, non-biased descriptions of typical personality traits. The MM having half the number of monsters, but with good descriptions would make the game 200% better for me.

2. Non-ritual (that is - castable in seconds, possibly during conversation) noncombat magic. Spells with interesting effects longer than a few rounds.

3. Good, consistent in-game descriptions of wounds and healing. Simple rules for how a character with given number of HPs and healing surges feels and looks. It's quite possible that doing it requires making healing magical in nature, like in Earthdawn, instead of "will to fight" etc. - let it be so.

 

[scruffygrognard]

3 changes eh?


1] Go back to classic races (elf, dwarf, human, half-orc, half-elf and gnome) in the PHB.
2] Go back to classic classes (cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, paladin, rogue, wizard, bard) in the PHB.
3] Change how powers work (feels too gamey for me) and reintroduce utility spells to the game.