D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[Jester David]

Huh? It has tiers, and levels within tiers.

Yes, but I can't make the party play low power heroes by reducing point buy or make them gods and natural born champions by increasing point buy.
Nor did 4e have alternate rate of advancement, magic item acquirement (just two: all or none).

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yes, but I can't make the party play low power heroes by reducing point buy or make them gods and natural born champions by increasing point buy.
Nor did 4e have alternate rate of advancement, magic item acquirement (just two: all or none).

There actually was an "apprentice" type supplement for 4e, in Dragon or Dungeon a while ago. Not sure what you're referring to in the second half of your sentence though.

4e's advancement is fully tweakable, just as much as any other edition; you can increase or decrease the XP gain by whatever factor you want, or ignore it altogether and level at an arbitrary rate. Magic items can also be handed out at whatever level you want; distilling Inherent Bonuses down to the binary level you imply is taking it to extremes. I have used variations on that in my games for years. Usually it is Inherent with supplementary magic items.

You can play it such that you get the Inherent to cover expected minimums and any magic you get above that is a bonus, or you can ignore the big 3 entirely and just concentrate on wondrous items and those in all the other slots, or any number of other combinations. That doesn't even touch on Boons.

 

[mhensley]

I'm not sure what happened there. I didn't change it from the default color so it should have been fine (I'm assuming you run with the white background, it's readable okay with the black background). But I went into edit post, highlighted everything, and clicked on automatic for the font color. Is it readable now?

much better

 

[pemerton]

Yes, but I can't make the party play low power heroes by reducing point buy or make them gods and natural born champions by increasing point buy.

Well, that's not true of any version of D&D - it's not a points-buy game.

For natural born champions, start at higher level. (The DMG has rules for this.) For low power heroes, start at first level and reduce the rate of advancement.

Nor did 4e have alternate rate of advancement

You mean other than this from p 121 of the DMG:

Varying the Rate of Advancement
The experience point numbers in the game are built so that characters complete eight to ten encounters
for every level they gain. In practice, that’s six to eight encounters, one major quest, and one minor quest per
character in the party. . .

If you double the XP rewards you give out, your characters will gain a level at least every other session,
and hit 30th level in thirty-five sessions. . .. That can be great for a campaign that runs during the school year . . .

If you want to limit your campaign to a single tier (ten levels), you could cut the XP rewards in half and stretch that campaign out to nearly a year. Characters gain levels a little less often than once a month.​

Of course, even if those rules weren't there, halving or doubling the rate of XP gain is hardly a great GMing challenge.

 

[pemerton]

Magic items can also be handed out at whatever level you want; distilling Inherent Bonuses down to the binary level you imply is taking it to extremes. I have used variations on that in my games for years. Usually it is Inherent with supplementary magic items.

I use the Adventurer's Vault rules for boosting existing items in lieu of placing new ones. This achieves some of the features of inherent bonuses while also preserving the classic D&D item vibe.

 

[Jester David]

There actually was an "apprentice" type supplement for 4e, in Dragon or Dungeon a while ago. Not sure what you're referring to in the second half of your sentence though.

Yes, those were the rules by the Chatty DM IIRC. But after the "Level 0" it's into the game as per normal.

And yes, I missed an "or" in the second sentence.

4e's advancement is fully tweakable, just as much as any other edition; you can increase or decrease the XP gain by whatever factor you want, or ignore it altogether and level at an arbitrary rate. Magic items can also be handed out at whatever level you want; distilling Inherent Bonuses down to the binary level you imply is taking it to extremes. I have used variations on that in my games for years. Usually it is Inherent with supplementary magic items.

As much as I hate to use message board fallacies, this is the Oberoni Fallacy.
Yes, as the DM you can do whatever you want with experience, but that's adding a house rule outside the content provided by the game.

I would have liked a fast/normal/slow experience table along and a low magic/ high magic treasure parcel system. Some variation.

Excuding the four or five Unearthed Arcana articles in Dragon there's only a single optional rule in all of 4th Edition: inherent bonuses. And most of those were additive and didn't really change anything in the game. The focus just isn't on tweaking or customizing the game; you aren't given any tools or variant rules to hack the game.

 

[Jester David]

Well, that's not true of any version of D&D - it's not a points-buy game..

Then you roll dice for your ability scores?

You mean other than this from p 121 of the DMG:

Varying the Rate of Advancement
​

Of course, even if those rules weren't there, halving or doubling the rate of XP gain is hardly a great GMing challenge.

Huh... I stand corrected on that. Don't recall seeing that. I'll have to look at where that is in the book.
(Although having a chart and alternate advancement be more formalized would have been nice, and gotten the numbers in the character builder.)

I never found the 4e DMG easy to navigate. Nothing was every where I thought it should be. I had to tab the crap out of mine.
Not a shot at the book, just a fact. Whoever organized it just thinks differently than me.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yes, those were the rules by the Chatty DM IIRC. But after the "Level 0" it's into the game as per normal.

So adding in one extra level that takes an extra session is... somehow magically the answer?

As much as I hate to use message board fallacies, this is the Oberoni Fallacy.
Yes, as the DM you can do whatever you want with experience, but that's adding a house rule outside the content provided by the game.

No, not buying it. Oberoni refers to a specific loophole or flaw in the rules as presented and that by suggesting Rule 0 as a way to "fix" it.

As pemerton points out above, it's even in the DMG! It's a dial before dials were cool. I guess that makes it the hipster of the D&D world.

I would have liked a fast/normal/slow experience table along and a low magic/ high magic treasure parcel system. Some variation.

Excuding the four or five Unearthed Arcana articles in Dragon there's only a single optional rule in all of 4th Edition: inherent bonuses. And most of those were additive and didn't really change anything in the game. The focus just isn't on tweaking or customizing the game; you aren't given any tools or variant rules to hack the game.

You don't need any; never have. I would like to have seen more support for making adjustments in the character builder, but I've hacked the game plenty, and it all works fine. In fact, it was easier than ever to do so and still preserve some semblance of balance. I didn't have to worry that any change I made would have ridiculous cascade effects throughout all the other interdependent game systems.

I applaud them for finally making these things we DMs have been doing since OD&D "officially sanctioned" but the argument that there are no tools or variant rules is just not supported by reality.

 

[Balesir]

This is part of why I'm glad I'm not on the design team. The critical <thing that makes 4e appealing> seems to vary a lot between 4e fans. It may do so for fans of earlier editions, but they seem less vocal or specific about it. In aggregate, it makes it seem tough to appeal to them as a group without basically redoing 4e. I do wonder if a more 4e-ish chassis could serve to cover the broader D&D audience, but I think the edition wars soured that milk. I just can't imagine trying to sell such a thing to the whole audience.

I can't speak for what other 4e fans want for DDN to appeal to them, but I really don't think what I am looking for requires anything close to "redoing 4e". The example games I listed are pretty diverse, and very unlike 4e - but all have tight, clear, elegant (in the mathematics sense of "as simple as possible but still fully and certainly meeting the intended aim") rules.

If DDN managed to have such a basic rules structure I would be far more interested in it, regardless of the other changes included. As demonstrated by PTA, the rules mechanisms themselves don't need to be anything even vaguely similar to 4e to be included in clear, explicit and unambiguous rules. There's room for a myriad of RPG systems, but these days I definitely regard having precision, clarity, structure, explicitness and lack of ambiguity as simply good design. The rules document is there as a communication; clear, precise, complete communication is always better than unclear, imprecise, ambiguous, vague or cluttered communication.

 

[Jester David]

No, not buying it. Oberoni refers to a specific loophole or flaw in the rules as presented and that by suggesting Rule 0 as a way to "fix" it.

It refers to the ability to house rule fixing problems, that a problem does not exist because you can house rule it.
I said that the inability to customize or have mid-treasure games was problematic. You said "no it wasn't" because the DM can choose to give out less treasure than prescribed. That's saying fixed treasure parcels are not a problem because you can house rule how much treasure is awarded.

You don't need any; never have. I would like to have seen more support for making adjustments in the character builder, but I've hacked the game plenty, and it all works fine. In fact, it was easier than ever to do so and still preserve some semblance of balance. I didn't have to worry that any change I made would have ridiculous cascade effects throughout all the other interdependent game systems.

I applaud them for finally making these things we DMs have been doing since OD&D "officially sanctioned" but the argument that there are no tools or variant rules is just not supported by reality.

My favourite book for 3e was Unearthed Arcana that did just that. I loved a mass of pre-designed hacks done by experienced designers who know the game, designed to avoid "ridiculous cascade effects". (Sometimes successfully, sometimes not.)

I did a little toying with 4e when it first came out, making some house rules and the like. I eventually gave up because my players were entirely reliant on the character builder, and it was too much effort to get the game to do what I wanted.
It was easier to go with a game that stated closer to what I wanted, a game with a better payoff:effort ratio.

And no everyone wants to hack a game system themselves, especially an unfamiliar one. I agree that 4e was quick customizable once you got the hang of it, but that took some time and skill. And the game itself didn't offer any suggestions or help, and because of the GSL prohibition on altering the rules (and fluff) there were not even any 3PP to do the work for you or mine for ideas.