D&D 4E The Dispensible 4E

[Dragonblade]

I'll also add that having some sort of charge mechanic that requires you to accumulate some resource to unlock abilities, either by pressing on through multiple encounters, or through something you earn within combat itself (or both) is a much better way to combat the 15MAD.

Most people advocate a 'stick' approach which I think is dead wrong. Players camp because they feel like they need to recover valuable resources before they press on. Punishing them for camping by throwing random encounters, or denying them recovery of these resources accomplishes nothing. It leads to player death, TPKs, frustration with the game and/or the DM.

Its better to take a 'carrot' approach that rewards players for pressing on. Sure you are getting low on HP, but having survived several encounters already means you have unlocked some crazy cool abilities that can help get you through that next encounter. To me this adds excitement to those battles and breaks us out of the Camp-Nova-Camp model of adventuring. If pressing on despite low HP totals gets your caster access to meteor swarm, or allows your fighter to cut golems in half, I don't know about you, but I'd be urging my party onward.

 

[Saagael]

Lightly armored spear-wielding skirmisher

Slayer, built with leather or hide armor using a spear. Plenty of fighter feats are focused around spears and polearms. Alternatively, barbarian, assassin, druid, ranger, shaman, warlord, avenger, monk, and maybe even bard.

Wolf rider

Beast Master ranger is probably the best, though you'd have to play a gnome or halfling for their small size to ride a normal size wolf. However there are ways by paragon tier to get a human that can ride wolves. Sentinel druid also works here; I made a very effective gnome druid that rode around on a wolf.

Also, just take the Fey Beast Trainer theme, reflavor the beast as a large wolf, and take the mounted combat feat.

A priest of an ocean god

This isn't a class, but I'll still give you a concept: Elementalist Sorcerer. There's even a build that's entirely built around manipulating water. Yeah, its not a divine class, but "priest" isn't a class, as I said. Its a theme. A hook. Your elementalist sorcerer in this case is more of a priest than a cleric would be (but that's a rant for later). Alternatively, monk could work (lots of forced movement could be reflavored as manipulating water, or moving like water, whatever). If you REALLY need a divine class, a cleric of Melora will do (but don't expect water-based attacks, its a freakin' cleric) or invoker would do. Just say its a cleric of an ocean god.

The issue with these concepts is that they're not classes. They're ideas. Classes define exactly WHAT you do. Defenders defend, Leaders lead, Controllers control, and Strikers strike. HOW you do that is not specific to a class. What role do you want your lightly armored skirmisher to fill? There are classes that'll match that concept in all four roles, and that range over every power source.

Your last two concepts are trickier as they're more niche. But they're still doable.

Now to bring the conversation back to the OP's topic, this is something I absolutely love about 4e, and is a very strong opposition point to those who say "4e railroads classes into certain roles!". You just reply "then play the same concept with a different class", or "then don't play like a <insert undesired role>". This is all to show that I'm a huge 4e fan, and will be after 5e comes out.

What I would like to see gone, though, that's easy:

* Feat taxes. I've already done away with these in my games.

* Un-inspiring magic items. I make my own items now, and use inherent bonuses.

* Hyper-focused classes. The seeker is probably the best example of this. Its one thing, and one thing only, ever and always.

* Diverse, bloated classes. The wizard, and all 15 version of it. I understand its to have a single list of wizard spells, and not separate lists, so the solution is to just have universal spell lists to begin with.

* Player entitlement. Yes yes, I know this isn't a mechanic, though I feel like with the codification of all rules (don't get me wrong, I strongly agree with keeping rules transparent), players begin to feel like if the DM makes any snap decisions that aren't RAW, players whine.

The biggest example of this I see is that during combats with big, important NPCs and villains. I should be allowed to make minor changes to stats and monster sheets to make a better challenge (read: fun). Though everytime I do something like this, players cry foul. "Why can he do so more damage with the same weapon I'm using, that's not fair!" I don't mean to give DMs license to be dicks (dick DMs will do that no matter what).

To be honest, I have no idea how to go about doing that; but that's why I pay Wizards to think.

Admittedly, I don't have the character builder. But to build a lot of core 3e and 2e concepts, you seriously need to dumpster dive through books just to build something like "necromancer," "poisoner" or "shapeshifter". All of which could at least be constructed in 3e's core rules.

Necromancer can be done with some reflavoring with the Shaman in PHB 2, and, again, is a concept that can be better applied with out-of-class mechanics (rituals, feats, etc), though I'll admit that Wizards screwed up with the 4e necromancer.

Poisoner can be done with the Assassin and its different builds. Again, another concept better suited to non-class features (a normal rogue can create poisons and apply them to weapons).

Shapeshifter is entirely in the original druid's territory, though the Warden kind of has a little bit of that theme, and the Barbarian could be tweaked to fit as well.

 

[Kynn]

No, I understand PERFECTLY what healing surges are. They are, as you said, a mechanic. In my words, a kludge. They are a gaming fix to a gaming problem that destroys the roleplaying element of the game.

They break the disbelief, nay, they shatter it, back up and run it over again and again.

They are a mechanic that is too present. They 'ruin the mood' and need to be replaced by something that makes sense in the ROLEPLAYING world.

How do limits on the amount of healing in a day (and/or a set baseline of "this is what a healing spell does") shatter roleplaying and suspension of disbelief?

 

[nightwalker450]

I thought of another one... Ties back to the whole watering down of stats...

AC - Again got watered down (Dex, Int, Con, Wis) but worst of all, the heavy armor people were usually easily behind the unarmored people... Granted this was part of the mark mechanism by keeping them that close. But it meant that an armored person wasn't really armored, just compensating for lower stats (with penalties).

 

[Cybit]

So, thinking about this more...

1) Remove half level scaling. Actually, don't go back to the BAB either. Just make it attribute + weapon proficiency bonus. Now all of a sudden, the +1 a fighter gets every, say, 5 levels, becomes a big deal. Also, means that lower level monsters still are a threat in numbers. You can now also make magic items super rare and super powerful.

2) Healing surges are a little too gamist. While HP as a whole are gamist; Healing Surges might be a bit too far. Come up with alternate means of player resource management for multiple fights. Constitution checks could be a good way.

3) Make great initial adventures. Most people's first experience with 4E was Keep on the Shadowfell, which was very....eh. The initial set of published adventures were too gamist IMO.

4) Less codification of rules, and more guidelines. This allows the DM flexibility, without the players screaming "but that's not what the rules say!" (Paranoia does a fantastic job of this, because if you know the rules of the game as a player, that's treason, and your character is taken out)

5) Less options, but better ones. There are waaay too many right now, especially on feats. I have to pray that they will do something ala DDI (which is the best thing to come out of 4E, besides class balance), and a good set of tools will sell 5E as much as any other component.

 

[OnlineDM]

I've been playing (mostly DMing) 4e for a couple of years, and I love it! All of the things I'd want changed have already been mentioned, but my list is:

- Fiddly +1/-2/+3 bonuses that change round by round in combat from powers, feats. etc.
- The unfun-ness of stun and dominate (I've house-ruled these to make them more fun at my table)
- Boring magic items (I like the inherent bonus system better)
- Rigidly structured skill challenges (these should be more free-form roleplaying periods with suggested skills to use and evolving situations with each skill check)

I'm happy to say that magic items and skill challenges have gotten better over time. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium has awesome items, and later adventures do a much better job with skill challenges (though they're still not great).

 

[Arlough]

Covered in depth either earlier or in other threads but:

1. Rename Healing Surges something like "Reserves" or "Life Force" since that would seem to solve the problem people verbalize about Healing Surges.
2. Make in-combat healing rare. (reduce grind)
3. Eliminate combat bonuses tied to equipment.
4. Less power creep (interesting options okay, though)

At least, those are the most glaring issues.

 

[eamon]

Covered in depth either earlier or in other threads but:

1. Rename Healing Surges something like "Reserves" or "Life Force" since that would seem to solve the problem people verbalize about Healing Surges.

Frankly, I don't understand why healing surges even need to be limited. I'd rather just have a surge value to be used by things like second wind but not track surges individually. Surges don't really work well as a fatigue mechanism anyhow - if that's wanted (and a fatigue-like pacing mechanism might well be optional), some different system that takes into account strenuous activity in general might be better. Oh and while we're at it, let's get rid of the millstones aka milestones round our necks.

 

[EmbraCraig]

A few of big ones for me personally:

- reduce out of sequence actions in combat. The number of reaction and interrupt actions gets crazy sometimes.
- reduce the number of "until end of next turn" bonus/debuffs. I'm in two minds about this one, because they're a big way 4e actually promotes team work, but tracking them is my biggest gripe with 4e combat.
- Lose the +1/2 level scaling from everything... why do all characters get better at doing everything, even the things they've never done in their lives?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Actually, it is. You will recall the controversy over the expertise feats? The low accuracy of attacks in 4e means you pretty much need every little stupid fiddly bonus you can get.

No. It means accuracy is important. And people want to hit more. 4e pretty much worked for accuracy before the expertise feats due to power bonusses - and part of the controversy is that expertise feats were better than any other feat in the game. And yes, this was a problem.

But seriously? A feat that grants a +1/tier to hit bonus is your example?

So right away you need a primary bonus to your to-hit. That knocks out a lot of races right there, because you simply cannot get a twenty in your primary attack.

I am normally the most effective player at any of my tables at a tactical level when I'm not DMing. And I have never played a character with a 20 starting primary stat or even wanted to when optimising even for Lair Assault. The most effective player in any of my groups when I'm DMing doesn't use a 20 in her primary stat either.

The 20 is nice for a straight forward character but I'd honestly rather an 18 or with the right concept and design even a 16. The 16 Str/16 Wis/16 con dwarf fighter with dwarven weapon training never had any problem being a strong build.

And you need to hit or your turn is wasted.

Not true for any leader or defender, or even for most controllers.

So either you played a deva as an orbizard, or you were objectively worse as a wizard.

Or you played a gnome and were harder to kill. Or you played a human and were both more versatile and, to add insult to injury, had an extra feat - which was extremely useful in heroic tier. My orbizard got far more use out of his extend his at will abilities than he ever did out of the saving throw penalty (you'd be surprised how obnoxious a well placed storm pillar can be when you extend it) and so would get barely any benefit from being a deva - and would lose out on a feat when he was incredibly strapped for them.

Yes, the Deva made a very slightly superior orb wizard. Not all orbizards stunlocked (mine never did - he was a battlefield control mage). Are you really saying that there should be no race/class combinations that are better than any others at any subspecialty?

You are taking a small difference and claiming that it's a mountain. The question is whether they are viable. Not whether they are razor-optimised. Unless you have two people of almost identical builds side by side one of them is unlikely to be feeling useless in 4e except through bad play. This is not the case in 3.X where just putting a druid and a monk into the same party causes massive problems.

To make things worse, the developers handed out racial feats which straight-up made already good race/class combinations better (such as that one feat in Arcane Power for gnome illusionists, Gnome Phantasmist or something. I have the book, I'm just in school). So despite the fact that your orc illusionist sounded badass in your head, he is in all ways worse than playing a gnome. And for a game who advertised "any race, any class", that is straight up terrible.

He's slightly worse than playing a gnome. He's at -1 to hit and possibly -2 to damage on the rare occasions an illusionist rolls damage (rather than simply drops mass status effects like imobilised and -5 to hit with Maze of Mirrors). This isn't terrible. It's far closer to a gnome illusionist in power than a 3.X sorceror is to a wizard, even if the wizard is choosing to behave like a sorceror.

The feat you're thinking of isn't that good - it's implement expertise that only applies to illusions with as a rider implement focus that applies only to illusions - most illusions don't roll for damage so the damage bonus doesn't help and e.g. Staff Expertise has a way better rider and can be used for non-illusions. So it's effectively a narrow version of Implement Expertise that slightly rewards specialising in a fluffy area for gnomes, when being able to target multiple defences is a good thing.

Did they lower the hit points so fights don't take forever?

No. They just made monsters much nastier so you use fewer of them or lower level monsters. That works to make combat not take forever.

And what does it say about 4e that they've had to errata their entire monster system?

By adding 1/2 point/level to damage? That they learned from their mistakes and showed a willingness to listen that was badly needed in other games.

Well, orc illusionist comes to mind, but I don't think that's what you meant..

It's viable. Just not completely optimised.

Lightly armored spear-wielding skirmisher comes to mind.

There's a plague of players playing slayers armed with gouges and hide armour. It's one of the Character Optimisation darling builds. If you want to do it with the PHB, you put your fighter into hide armour (perfectly viable with a decent dex) give him a spear - and then the odd power like Rain of Blows (PHB) (the single most overpowered heroic tier encounter power in the PHB with the arguable exception of Come and Get It) catches them up.

For that matter my most recent new PC was a beserker carrying a greatspear. And wearing robes. There were some very nice synergies in there. Not built to prove a point. Built because I liked the concept. (And no he wasn't "optimal" - he was using Int rather than Dex for his defences for starters, but he was damn effective).

Wolf rider comes to mind.

This I'll grant. It's the only point you've raised so far that I can't rebut.

A priest of an ocean god comes to mind.

Why? What can't you do?

Admittedly, I don't have the character builder. But to build a lot of core 3e and 2e concepts,

Fine. Go build me a monk using 2e rules. It was after all a core 1e concept. But is right out of 2e.

you seriously need to dumpster dive through books just to build something like "necromancer,"

Explicitly presented mage option in Heroes of Shadow. (I don't like the implementation admittedly). This isn't dumpster diving in my book - it's not taking a prestige class from one book feats from three separate books, and spells from another two.

"poisoner"

Executioner Assassin. Heroes of shadow. He even has rules for preparing his own posons.

And seriously? You're claiming that poisoner was a viable concept in 3.X? When before 6th level you had to roll to avoid poisoning yourself with blade venom or any other poison you ready for use? The 4e poisoner when it turned up (which was quite late, admittedly) left the 3.X one in the dust. Now you can mention that 4e's mundane equipment is lacking here and I'm not going to disagree.

"shapeshifter"

PHB2 druid. Next?

And again, the 4e implementation of this concept starts from first level. The PHB druid can't shapeshift until 5th level and has an entire pile of stuff cutting across the theme like a mandatory animal companion and being able to challenge the wizard at evocation.

All of which could at least be constructed in 3e's core rules.

Fine. Now construct me a warlord in 3e's core rules. Or a warlock. Or if we're allowed the PHB2, a shapeshifter. Or for that matter a fighter that can keep up with wizards.

As for your point about noncombat, I will simply submit that 4e's noncombat rules consist entirely of skill challenges (which the devs admitted don't work) and rituals (which cost too damn much and do too little). So there's that.

You missed the utility powers. Which still means that it leaves 3.X in the dust where it was spells and a much worse skill system.

D&D has never had many good non-combat rules (the Wilderness Survival Guide being the arguable exception). 4e is less bad than previous editions. This doesn't make it GURPS.