D&D 4E My plans for a 4E revamp

[Xeviat]

Personally, I was in the some boat once (port the best ideas from 5e into 4e), but I found it easier for me and our group to go the other way and pull our favorite parts for 4e into 5e.

Which parts did you do? I did consider sitting down and writing an "Advanced Monster Manual", and then making a variant feat system so you get feats and ASIs. Since it would be compatible with 5E, it might get more use.

 

[Xeviat]

It is doable.

Like you said, the roles except for controller were defined by a by a class feature.

So having something like a fighter choose between

• Fighter's Mark (A mark) for a defender
• Fighter's Strike (+Con to damage) for a melee striker
• Fighter's Sight (+Str to damage) for a ranged striker

Is a simple way to do it.

How you do controllers I have no idea? Change attacks to cones? Have automatic conditions to damage types?

Been questioning the controller role a lot actually. Part of me thinks controller should be artillery, and have their typical controller feature be a way to get attack bonuses so their powers land more. Strikers would focus on damage, artillery on ranged accuracy; whether or not you build a toolbox of powers or you just go for aoes would be up to the class/player.

 

[Minigiant]

Been questioning the controller role a lot actually. Part of me thinks controller should be artillery, and have their typical controller feature be a way to get attack bonuses so their powers land more. Strikers would focus on damage, artillery on ranged accuracy; whether or not you build a toolbox of powers or you just go for aoes would be up to the class/player.

Well when I redesigned 4e for my little cousins, I split controllers into Blasters that got the AOE powers and Nerfers that got the status effects. Strikers dealt heavy damage but had "escape" powers.

in reality there were 6 roles

1. Defender- Marks and melee damage
2. Blast Strikers "blasters" - AoE damage and escapes
3. Controllers- Ranged damage and debuffs
4. Leaders- Heals and buffs
5. Melee Strikers "Skrimishers"- Melee damage and escapes
6. Ranged Strikers "Snipers"- Ranged damage and escapes

So you could break up the casters a bit more into the 3 unofficial splits of striker and controller.

 

[Garthanos]

• Condensed Classes, and classes with multiple roles: I like the idea of classes being broad things in the world

I like this but sub classes just feel like a remake of the class... I would rather have stances to allow hot swapping I want to be both any given role based on something that isnt static think of how the Berserk is both? Roles are almost mindsets allow a martial artist to swap mindsets trivially sure why not.

• Shared Power/Spell lists: Rather than having each class have, for instance, an encounter power for 2W+Stat and Slow, powers and spells will be more shared between classes. This will largely be source, but be a bit broader (weapon powers, skill powers, arcane spells, divine spells, some universal spells).

You do that role collapsing you will get some of that almost automagically

 

[dave2008]

Which parts did you do? I did consider sitting down and writing an "Advanced Monster Manual", and then making a variant feat system so you get feats and ASIs. Since it would be compatible with 5E, it might get more use.

Well, first you have to undestand that we are not trying to make something for general consumption. It just has to work for us. If something we change has ramifications for class we are not using, it doesn't affect our game so we don't care. 2nd we are mostly martial characters. Third, some of the 4e rules we ported to 5e were our 4e houerules. Basically here is what we did:

1. Monsters: I like making monsters and I have good feel for the system. I can make and adjust them on the fly (pretty much) to make them interesting. However, I did post a thread where I made some "elite" monsters: 5e hardcore monsters. I also make use of swarms mechanics for masses of enemies (you will see some of those in the link too) and minions. I actually think 5e "legendary" monsters work better than 4e solos, if you use them at the right level.
2. Heroic Surges: Like healing surges, but you can spend them in more ways. See powers below.
3. Rest: We adopted the 5 minute short rest.
4. Powers: Reminder, we are mostly martial characters. Power levels are set at 2/3 their 4e value (to accommodate the change from 30 to 20 lvls). At first level you get to chose one at-will, encounter, and one daily. Then, whenever you would get an ASI you chose another at-will, encounter, and daily power instead (no feats or ASIs at all). However, we said to use a power you had to spend a heroic surge (HD). Heroic Tier powers cost 1 surge for encounter and 2 for daily; Paragon Tier cost 2 for encounter and 3 for a daily, and I assume we will do 3 & 4 at epic, but we are not their yet. You can substitute an extra attack for one surge. So essentially once you have two attacks you can always use an encounter power, and fighters could spam dailys once they get three attacks.
5. Bloodied: We use the bloodied condition, but it is not half hit points. HP are abstract luck ,exhaustion, close calls, scratches and bruises. Bloodied hit points (BHP) are real damage. You only have set amount of bloodied HP based on size you don't get more. BHP = [STR mod + CON mod] x Size (Medium = 1). We had a version of this change in 4e.
6. DR: When you take damage to your BHP, your armor's DR kicks in. So any damage to your BHP is first reduced by your armor's DR. Armor DR = armor AC-10. WE had a version of this in 4e.

I feel like I am missing something, but that is the basic idea. For us, it was the interesting powers that made 4e what it was. I can handle all the monster stuff on the fly (mostly). We have other changes to dying and resting that aren't 4e related too, but that is what i can think of from 4e at the moment.

 

[Garthanos]

The decayed form of class collapse would be classes based on sources.
Hero (Martial) - Wizard(Arcanist) - Druid (Animist) - Priest (Channeler)

 

[NotAYakk]

The decayed form of class collapse would be classes based on sources.
Hero (Martial) - Wizard(Arcanist) - Druid (Animist) - Priest (Channeler)

Except I think class and power source should serve different masters.

"A champion in plate armor, wielding a seord and shield, standing between her allies and the foe" is a class to me. That class could be powered by divine, martial, psionic or other power source. What more, I could see a game where your power sources are limited in capacity, and part of adventuring is seeking out more (or upgrading yours).

Classes should be archtypes, roles should be patterns that subclasses use, power sourcrd should be in-world things to hang mechanics off of.

 

[Garthanos]

Except I think class and power source should serve different masters.

"A champion in plate armor, wielding a seord and shield, standing between her allies and the foe" is a class to me. That class could be powered by divine, martial, psionic or other power source. What more, I could see a game where your power sources are limited in capacity, and part of adventuring is seeking out more (or upgrading yours).

Classes should be archtypes, roles should be patterns that subclasses use, power sourcrd should be in-world things to hang mechanics off of.

I prefer flexible tricks so my character isn't bound by his role and 4e has that to a degree I want more of that to me binding role up in subclass is still binding it up. ie the desire was to collapse classes and to my thinking subclasses just put more branches on the tree the same as adding new class features to support a new build does. There is actually more sharing with the build paradigm and more possibility for tricks like maneuvers or stances to allow one to flexibly present the role you need right now.

To me less specialization is the key.

 

[Garthanos]

There is a thread around here where we adjusted the monk to be more of a full controller using feats it gives some ideas. It adjusts the flury into something that allows multiple enemies to be affected but what if something like which flurry you used was a stance that one could assume by meditation for a minute.

 

[Garthanos]

What more, I could see a game where your power sources are limited in capacity, and part of adventuring is seeking out more (or upgrading yours).

Well that would give source some mechanical bite that it doesn't have currently that is for sure.