D&D 4E Broad reworking of 4e characters and combat

[RangerWickett]

Re: Afflict
I tried to have the level 1 afflicts all be fairly minor, akin to something you might get with an encounter power in 4e.

Remember, when someone's not bloodied, you only give them one step of the condition, not two. In order to knock someone unconscious with Afflict when they're not bloodied, you have to hit them four times, and then hit with four follow-up attacks, and they have to fail all their saves in the interim. Assuming you've got a fairly average "hit 70% of the time" party, even if all five PCs gang up on one guy, you get:

Chance of a given attack hitting -                                        70%
Chance of an Afflict hitting -                                              60% (-5 penalty, but Fort is lower than AC)
Chance of a successful hit that afflicts -                                  42%
Average number of successful Afflicts per round with 5-person party - 2.1
Chance enemy saves vs. condition to reduce it -                             55%
Average Afflict stage after one round of PCs hitting foe -                  1.55
Average number of rounds needed to knock out a foe -        4/1.55 = 2.58

I figure if a party devotes everything to walloping on a single enemy for two and a half rounds, it ought to go down. Of course, I figure after several of those hits the critter gets bloodied, so you might take him down in a round or two. Still, if 5 guys gang up on one thing, it should probably go down.

I'm all in favor of giving some extra defense to elites and solos, though. (On the other hand, I don't know that I'll ever run a solo again, not without tons of tweaks.) Maybe Elites suffer the effect of 1/2 the stage they're on, so to knock one out you need 8 steps. And Solos are 1/4, so knocking out a dragon is quite an involved process.


Also, Dominated is only an option for Charm attacks, which target Will. Disarm, yeah, should probably be Reflex.


Re: Losing Focus
If a two-weapon fighting brute expends his focus while holding a pair of heavy weapons, he's no longer 'wielding weapons.' He's just 'holding objects.' He'd have to drop or stow one, and hold the other with both hands. Fairly straightforward.


Re: Definitions and Unarmed Damage
That's the result of a separate retooling of weapons and damage I was working on. Since none of the attacks in my system deal multiple [w] damage, I wanted to make the distinction between small and large weapons be greater. Which led to a new weapon chart.

I'm attaching it, for anyone who's interested, but it's nothing special. Mostly just added damage, and changing weapons to all be the equivalent of 'military.' No simple or superior.


Re: Balancing Feats
I might make something like a two feat system.

Feat 1 - Style Novice. You gain the benefit entry of a style of your choice.
Feat 2 - Style Expert. You gain the battle surge and combat focus abilities of a style you took Style Novice for.

 

[Cwheeler]

Ok, the martial artist thing makes a little more sense now.

It still seems a little strange to me to have a martial artist dealing d12 damage with an unarmed strike. If I where playing this, I could think of very few instances where I'd be willingly using one of the lower damage dice. How would it play to drop medium and heavy to d8/d10 respectively?

A few notes after skimming the weapons:

• The damage for the Battle Axe seems a little high for a medium weapon, being two dice higher than any other weapon of it's category. Should it be dropped to d10?
  
• If you wanted to, you could put in some things to make the different weapon types function more differently - such as allowing light weapons to attack more frequently (perhaps as a move action), or medium weapons giving you a static bonus to defense.
  
• Another option with the weapons is to include a 'focused strike' option - By taking a full round to make a single attack, you can increase the damage dealt (e.g. one extra damage dice, adding +50% to damage dealt, etc..)
  

(Those last two options are mostly ways to balance other builds against the inevitable Brute/Two-Weapon Fighter powerhouses, although I actually like the idea of having more ways to distinguish light, medium and heavy weapons)


Idea on sample magic tradition:

Energy Manipulator.
Prerequisites: Trained in Arcana, religion or nature.
Benefit: Choose an energy type (fire, cold, acid, lightning, thunder, force, radiant, necrotic, psychic).
You gain a medium ranged attack that deals XdY damage of the chosen energy type.
Battle Surge: During this battle surge, you may make a ranged attack as a standard action. This attack is Blast1 and deals XdY damage.
Focus: While you are focused, you gain resist 5 to your chosen energy type. You may expend your focus to change the type of energy being used for this tradition.

It's quite a strait forward example, but should do the trick.


Using this system, you could do some really interesting specific magical traditions.

Illusionist and necromancer spring to mind...

 

[RangerWickett]

I've conglomerated all my ideas into this file. I'm rather busy for the near future, but if anyone has any thoughts on refining the system, or making the magic work, have at it.

Basically, for magic, I wanted magical traditions that give you attacks, and feats to let you tweak the way your magical attacks work. But each tradition lets you sort of make a little magic on the fly, with the GM's guidance.

I know it's unfinished, but I probably won't be able to put any more significant work into it for a month or more. Thanks for all the feedback so far.

 

[Cwheeler]

Interesting stuff. I think I'm liking this idea more and more. Not sure how much I like the 'Blaster, burster', etc, but it might grow on me.

Before you posted that, I did a quick concept write up for the Necromancer (which was quite similar to yours), and the Illusionist (which was a bit different from the mystic idea).

Necromancer

Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana or Religion.

Benefit: You gain a touch attack that deals 2d8 necrotic damage.

Battle Surge: As a standard action once during this surge, you may raise the corpse of a dead creature. This corpse has HP equal to the creature's healing surge value, and can make basic melee attacks that deal half the damage that the creature did in life.
You can animate a maximum of three creatures at any one time. If you choose to keep any creatures animated between encounters, you start the next encounter as if you have already used 1 battle surge/creature kept.
Maintaining a resurrected elite uses 2 surges, and maintaining a solo uses 3.

Combat Focus: While you are focused, you can use a move action to make all of your undead move, or a standard action to make all of your undead attack.

Illusionist

Prerequisite: Int or Cha 15, trained in Arcana

Benefit: You gain access to the ghost sound cantrip.
As a standard action, you may create an illusion. Make an attack vs will against the target creature(s). If you succeed, they believe the illusion is real. Interacting with the illusion grants a save for disbelief.
The size of the illusion can be up to a blast equal to your level (blast 1 at 1st, blast 2 at 2nd, etc..)

Battle Surge: As a standard action during this surge, you may create an offensive illusion that deals 2d8 Psychic damage and (status effect) to each target in Blast 1, Save ends status effect.

Focus: While you are focused.. ????

I also messed around with Arcane Trickster -

Arcane Trickster

Prerequisite: Dex 15, trained in Arcana.

Benefit: You may make Disable Device and Thievery checks at short range.
You gain aceess to the ghost sound and Mage Hand cantrips.
You may make attacks with light weapons as if they had reach.

Battle Surge:???

Combat Focus: ???

I know they're not quite in line with your system's write up style, but I did them before I saw the document.

As a side note - I'm not sure if I like making people take a feat to get access to schools of magical training. I can understand taking a feat to get access to the spells, but it seems like too much of a cost just for the traditions.

If I wanted to create, for example, a 'Dark Paladin' type character, I'd probably want to take Drednought, Commander and Necromancer.

It just seems like a bit of an extra limitation. (could just be me though)


And finally, a build option for sh#ts and giggles (probably martial training)

Airbender

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13, Wisdom 13

Benefit: You gain a short ranged attack vs Reflex that deals 1d10 damage and slides the opponent 1.

Battle Surge: Once during this battle surge as a standard action, you may make a blast 1 attack vs Reflex within 20 that deals 2d8 damage and slides each target 2.

Focus: While you are focused, you may shift 1 as a free action once per turn. You may expend your focus to shift 5 as an immediate interrupt.

I've gotta say, this system seems like it could turn out to be a lot of fun!

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You should edit your first post to include your updated rules doc.

 

[RangerWickett]

You should edit your first post to include your updated rules doc.

Done.

 

[Cwheeler]

What do you want Manna-based magic to look like?

Plain ole damage? Useful utilities? Are you planning on using it alongside rituals?

(I think Monte Cook's World of Darkness had a decent point-based spell system. Might be a good starting point...)

 

[RangerWickett]

Mana magic would basically be anything 'magical' that is not just 'simple attacks' or 'short duration trick.' Like, depending on your tradition you might have mage hand as a cantrip, but you'd need mana to levitate a large boulder and hurl it at a foe. And in such a case, damage would be ad-hoc, as per pg. 42 in the DMG.

Looking at 3e spells, stuff like invisibility, levitation, fly, protection from energy, enlarge person, haste, and so on would all require mana, probably. It depends a lot on how much you give traditions in their 'basic abilities' and 'battle surge' or 'focus' sections. I dunno, should an air mage have to be focused to fly, or should he need to gather and spend mana?

Or you could use mana to do ritual-type magic: remove afflictions, teleport long distances, scry, communicate, etc.

So ultimately, I'm not sure what's best. I'm open to about anything.

 

[Cwheeler]

Perhaps air mages should get discounts on flight-based spells. That would make sense.

I'm pretty busy over the coming week, but I'll see if I can find the time to do some work on a spell system.

The one biggest hurdles that I can see is making the cost of the components for the spells scale in cost for different tiers, as well as making sure that a high level caster isn't broken by their ability to throw around neigh-infinite small spells.

Edit: Ok, Just put this together. It's not much yet, but it should work as a starting point:

Notes for Ranger Wickett's spell system.

Can each component have a heroic, paragon and epic version? Each component version scales in cost in accordance to the power/tier.

the cost of elements such as range, action speed, area spread, duration etc. can scale with tier as well.

Also making a difference between the power of utility spells:

Flight - Heroic: Basic levitation
Paragon: Clumsy flight
Epic: Skilled Flight

Invisibility - Heroic: Invisible to one/specific number of targets
Paragon: Actually invisible.
Epic: Improved invisibility.

Heroic spell costs:
Medium Damage: 1MP
High Damage: 2MP

Range: Touch, -1MP
Short, 0MP
Medium, 1MP
Long, 2MP


Action: Full Round, -1MP
Standard, 0MP
Move, 1MP
Minor, 2MP
Immediate Interrupt 3MP

Duration: Instantaneous: 0MP
One Round: 1MP
etc...


Area (burst/blast/etc.)
1: 1MP
2: 2MP
3: 4MP
4: 8MP
Etc.

Specific Targets:
1 target: 1MP
2 targets: 2MP
3 targets: 4MP
4 targets: 8MP
Targets are willing: -1MP/Target

Utility: Basic effect: Detection, skill bonus, etc. 1MP.
Advanced Effect: Levitation, Illusion, invisibility, etc 2MP

Hope that helps.