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

[radferth]

Assuming you want to leave the system more or less intact:

1) Lower monster HP (PC's too, if needed).

2) Version of the divine classes that have some martial powers (even if just the at-wills), as opposed to all miracle, all the time.

3) Better fluff for monsters. As it is now, you could replace the fluff text for many of the monsters with "Here is something to fight" and loose nothing.

 

[Greg K]

I cannot rightly say why they don't just play a prior edition, or one of the myriad retro-clones that exist for nearly every edition previous fourth.

Just, because I prefer 3e doesn't meant there are not some things that 4e does right. For instance, seperating the non-biological elements from the races is something that I asked for in my pre-3e questionaire, but did not happen until 4e. I also like heroic tier multiclassing (except that I think there should be a way to get some of the other class features). However, I don't want to give up the 3e skill system or deal with a number of gamist and narrativist elements that I and the people I know find absurd about 4e (e.g, how daily items work, daily and per encounter martial exploits, overly broad skills, monsters having caps on the ability to fully utilize the bonuses from magic items that they are utilizing, etc.).

 

[Dausuul]

The overall theme of my revisions would be to reduce the amount of fiddling with the mechanics. 4E is a great improvement over 3E in this regard, but more could be done. Specifically:

#1: Gridded battlemats should not be the default assumption.

I agree with the overall sentiment on this. It's one area where 4E went in the wrong direction IMO; too many powers and abilities rely on exact knowledge of your character's location. (One idea I've been batting around my head for a while is the idea of a "gridless battlemat," where instead of having a grid, you sketch out a number of areas - main room, balconies, evil altar, alcoves, et cetera - and all you have to keep track of is which area your PC is in.)

Above all, I want to abolish the counting off of squares. The last thing I want players to be doing in the heat of battle is counting squares and measuring distances; I want them busy imagining the battlefield and coming up with crazy brilliant maneuvers. If there is a battlemat, you should need no more than a glance at it to tell what your tactical options are.

This does require a shift in design. A lot of the intricacy of 4E combat comes from those fiddly little battlemat movements. To maintain tactical depth, some other element would have to replace them.

#2: On the scale of "perfect game balance" to "simplicity," shift the game a bit more toward "simplicity."

I'm glad that 4E decided to take a solid, mathematical approach to balancing things, but there are some areas where they went overboard - particularly with magic items. The rules for tracking daily power usage are ridiculously convoluted. They should be streamlined; or, better, do away with magic item daily powers altogether and focus on encounter powers and always-on properties.

Likewise, I recently concluded that there was no good reason why healing potions ought to cost you a healing surge. In fact, healing potions that don't cost a surge would be a nice way for the DM to give the PCs a little extra go-juice for a lengthy series of battles.

#3: Design mechanics with ease of understanding in mind.

Please note that I'm not just talking about ease of use here. 4E is mostly good about that. I'm talking about ease of understanding; making the mechanic simple and intuitive, so that it's easy to learn.

In some cases, this is just a matter of presentation. Take healing surges. In my experience, new players often get confused about when they can spend healing surges and how; and I think it's because healing surges are presented as something you "have" and "spend," implying that you can spend them any time you like. Instead, suppose they were presented as follows:

Certain effects can inspire you. When you are inspired, you can recover hit points equal to one-quarter your maximum; if you do so, however, you lose a point of Stamina. Your maximum Stamina depends on your class and Constitution score. When you run out of Stamina, you fall unconscious until you take an extended rest.

Once per encounter, you can use the Second Wind ability. This ability inspires you and gives you +2 to all defenses until the start of your next turn.

After each extended rest, you recover all lost Stamina.

Mechanically it's identical to the current system, but the presentation makes it easier to grasp. It also provides Stamina as a tool for DMs to address issues like "What happens if I try to stay awake for three days straight?" (Answer: You lose X stamina per day.)

In other cases, the mechanics themselves could be streamlined. Attack bonuses are a good instance of this. I spend an awful lot of time talking other players through, "No, see, your attack bonus is equal to your Strength bonus, plus half your level, plus your proficiency bonus, plus the magic bonus on your weapon... and now your damage is your Strength bonus - no, don't add half your level - plus the damage die for the weapon, plus the magic bonus... but you're using this power, so you also add your Charisma bonus..."

If I were redesigning 4E, I would abolish the use of ability score bonuses that don't include half your level. I would also get rid of weapon proficiency bonuses. In general, the default case should be the simplest to calculate; and the default case is that you're proficient with the weapon you're using. The earlier editions had it right on this one. Nonproficiency should be a penalty, proficiency should not be a bonus. If you want points of distinction between different weapons, that's what class powers are for.

(I'd like to abolish magic item "plusses" as well, but that might be too much of a sacred cow. Perhaps the "plusses" could be some sort of encounter power instead; once per encounter, you can add the weapon's bonus to one attack roll. Likewise, once per encounter, you can add your magic armor's bonus to your AC.)

 

[Dragonbait]

I play 4E, but there are some 3E aspects I miss. So...

1) More robust multiclassing

While it's probably a pipe dream to go back to the 3E method of multiclassing I would really like a little more in this area.

2) Lower monster hp

Round for round, the game runs a LOT faster. It's just that.. There are sooo maaany rounds. Boss fights that last for 30 mins+ is okay, but piddle fights should not take that long.

3) Some non-combat options intergrated into the rules system.

Something like crafting, for instance.

 

[Runestar]

1) Revised epic rules - I believed that epic tier mechanics were barely playtested at all, seeing as that is when most of the broken stuff (like orb implement) start rearing their ugly heads.

2) Proper rules for playing monster PCs. And I don't mean just watered down LA+0 base race versions. Just as 3e allowed me to play a ghaele as an ECL20 PC, I too want rules for playing a full-fledged dragon or angel in 4e, though this may be too much to hope for, given that PC and npc creation no longer follow the same rules.

3) Rename 4e to something else rather than dnd. Really, I honestly think said brandname is more of a liability here than a boon.

 

[Cryptos]

1)

-Arcane magic class or overall that doesn't have a single Elemental spell/ability.

Yes! I'm certain more powers are forthcoming, but the focus in arcane classes toward the elements leaves me wondering what the hell the point of an elemental power source would be, and what exactly the 'theme' of arcane power is supposed to be (right now it seems like the only theme is damage + elemental damage type with several outliers.)

I'd expand on this #1 to say that there are other classes desperately in need of a broader array of powers, as well. But arcane is the most glaring example in terms of focus.

2) As others have said, a revised skill challenge system. I'd say you basically have to open it up and give it some air to breathe. Orient them more towards "here's the problem or situation... what do you want to do and how will you do it?" rather than "here's the four skills you need to use, and what you need to roll." I could understand where a computer game would need skill and social challenges to be more scripted because you can't do *everything* within the limits of a computer game, but it's criminally, horribly stupid to set up something so narrowly scripted for a tabletop roleplaying game.

3) Rules or even a fluff piece on non-encounter characteristics and play should be included at some point. I'm not in total agreement that we need a return to simulationism, but the issue should be addressed in some way for those that want something in print in regards to how to resolve things from making a cake for the duke's wedding to making a catapult for the duke's siege. Because otherwise, it will constantly be brought up as the "missing" part of D&D. I agree that it is absent, not entirely sure it's necessarily missing (from the standpoint of whether universal rules in print for them are necessary), but recognize some want it and they will continue to ask for it and possibly avoid 4e without it.

 

[Pierson_Lowgal]

1. Combat takes way too long (because of high HP totals & 50/50 hit chance as baseline).

Everything else I'm not in love with I can either deal with or houserule.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My unrealistic changes:

1. Dramatically change arcane magic so that it is more 'magical', has a lot more rituals around, more different types of rituals, better balance of daily spells etc. Perhaps turn implements into 'weapons', so wands have higher proficiency (e.g. +1 to hit) but scale damage dice back one notch (d8s to d6s). Orbs are as it stands. Staffs are two handed implements, but damage dice scales up one notch (d8s become d10s, etc). Some other implements can be introduced which are 'high critical' implements, or 'versatile' implements, taking cues from the weapons rules.
2. Give monsters more powers back. Make them more consistent. Admittedly one of the problems of 3e was that most monsters didn't get to use many of their powers because they were only alive for 2-4 rounds. However, with the increased hit points of everything, and the reduced damage done by everybody, I'm now seeing relatively boring monsters that can only do 3-4 different things at best which are lasting for 10-20 rounds. They should either have monsters that die quickly that have few powers, or ones that last longer having a greater variety of powers.
3. Dramatically change powers. It would be better IMO if you started off with some at-wills, some encounter and some daily powers, and as you gained in level you were able to migrate powers so some of your old encounters become at-will, your old dailies become encounter and you pick up new dailies. This would feel much more like organic growth of the character, gaining gradually more and more control over their most powerful effects - and even the martial characters would feel a little more natural.
4. Can I have four? My ideal change would be to move 4e to the Star Wars saga system of talents and powers. The class based talents gave an incredible degree of configurability of the classes. The powers (force powers) could sit alongside the non-force classes without overpowering them (the arcane/martial balance) and had good recovery methods. From my experience so far it was a far more extensible and pleasant system than the 4e one.

My (slightly) more realistic changes

1. expose the 'maths' behind powers. They are pretty big on supposedly making the maths on everything work better, but there sometimes seems to be little rhyme or reason behind the calculation of the various powers. Why is there so little difference between Cloudkill (19th) and Stinking Cloud(5th)? Why is Fireball so feeble compared to most other spells? What is the relative value (power level wise) of stun, daze, immobilise, blinded, push, pull, slide etc? What about range and area of effect? How does ongoing damage affect the ranking of a power? It is very difficult for anyone wishing to create new powers (or whole new classes) to assess what is the most appropriate place for new powers - and the lack of exposure of their internal rules (if they exist) is likely to produce rather seriously unbalanced stuff in the future, IMO.
2. Provide a LOT more rituals - seriously, at least 10 of every odd level for arcane and again for divine/nature people. A lot of the apparent problems of the lack of flexibility of the wizard (and perhaps cleric) is because they have such a paltry, useless choice of 1st level rituals - so all wizards end up with Tensers disk, comprehend languages, messenger and magic mouth (virtually). It would be interesting to include backfire rules which would enable wizards to skimp on either components, caster level or time (to do it more quickly) but with a chance of the spell failing or backfiring. After all, backfiring spells is a fantasy staple. You could include some 'war' rituals as well then - things like giant fireballs or such, which are much longer ranged or do much more damage or something - but are expensive and normally take 10 minutes to cast.
3. Fix multiclassing. At the moment it is a shambles. My suggestion (which I'm trialling at the moment) is that the initial multiclass feat lets you swap one of your at-wills for an at-will from the multiclass, and if necessary gives you a salient class feature (whether pact boon, hunters quarry etc). Paragon paths need to be fixed so that they remain available and effective to all classes/multiclasses.

 

[Cryptos]

You could include some 'war' rituals as well then - things like giant fireballs or such, which are much longer ranged or do much more damage or something - but are expensive and normally take 10 minutes to cast.

Siege rituals could be interesting. Rituals for both defending a fortification and laying siege to one. Your giant fireballs could take the place of catapults, for instance (imagine a bunch of grunts wheeling some ritualists sitting and chanting on a platform up to a castle instead of a catapult, while inside the castle walls another group of ritualists sit around trying to reinforce the doors with magic, repair structural damage as it happens, or fire back on the army outside the walls.) I could see a third party possibly doing them (this would have been something that would have been right up Necromancer's alley if they were still planning 4e stuff.)

You could even have a Chainmail-esque encounter challenge system with both arcane / divine and mundane components, where characters use skills or rituals to determine the outcome of the very large "Peter Jackson" battles. Consider that the final battle at the fort in Neverwinter Nights 2 can hinge on how well you build it up and support it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

- SKill choice. Why does every character of the same class have the exact same skills? I can see not bringing back skill points -- but why not just allow a choice of X trained skills from a subset Y for a given class?

- More flexible multilclassing (needs to be more than just a handful of powers)

- Actual fluff. Rulebooks should be fun to read and revisit ... not textbooks.

(Oh, and a #4 ... druids, bards, barbarians, and half-orcs in the initial core, with dragonborn and tieflings banished.)