D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Advantage/Disadvantage is a damn sledgehammer

Yup! Exactly why it's the only type of dynamic modifier in HoML.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

One aspect I really miss from 4e is the universal attack system where everything you want to do to an enemy is an attack roll. This doesn’t seem like it should matter who rolls, but 4e makes it WAAAAAY easier to create a universally useful support class.

I basically gave up on my idea of a 5e Warlord because it was impossible to avoid having to treat the Super Special Casters different from the rest of the offensive actions due to Saving Throws.

The Advantage/Disadvantage system is rather nice when in play, as it’s fairly simple, but it drains so many subtleties and nuances out of the game, and coupled with those damn saving throws, makes support characters super boring in 5e. Advantage is also very ‘all of nothing’. I liked 4e Combat Advantage as a thing that not only gives you a straight +2 to attack, but it also served as a hook to hang a bunch of mechanics. Advantage feels too strong for that part.

I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.

As you say, the problem is that Advantage is too powerful as it is; it is powerful enough that it should be an upgrade, or at least more like a weapon of last resort, especially since it doesn't stack and (originally) wasn't intended to have any stronger form.

But it isn't treated like that, is it? It is treated like the weapon of first resort. By the time you get to the late end of levels most games reach (upper single digits), it's quite possible to get Advantage on a lot of checks; by the early teens, it should be nearly everywhere. Yet it's also supposed to serve as the only real reward for cool stunt ideas or favorable circumstances and the mechanical hook on which multiple classes can depend AND completely non-stacking and (originally) non-improving, with no recognition for heightened benefit or extra special circumstances?

And then they went and broke even the main benefit of it being the last step in the line by having things like Elven Accuracy, where the player gets "super" advantage some of the time. So it isn't even the one-stop shop in absolute form, yet it remains the all-and-only of the buff world for most characters. It is incredibly frustrating; instead of having our cake and eating it too, we have sold our cake and then used the proceeds to get a chance to merely look at a cake we can't even eat!

 

[Minigiant]

I think Utility powers should be split into Defense Powers, Skill Powers, and Utility powers.

Defense Powers increase defenses, heal, grant movement, or grant THP.
Skill Powers increase skills, negate skill penalties, swap skills or associated ability scores to skills, or do something else with skills.
Utility Powers are everything else that is noncombat.

A/E/D/D/S/U?

 

[Vaalingrade]

To make room, we can get rid of Dailies!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think Utility powers should be split into Defense Powers, Skill Powers, and Utility powers.

Defense Powers increase defenses, heal, grant movement, or grant THP.
Skill Powers increase skills, negate skill penalties, swap skills or associated ability scores to skills, or do something else with skills.
Utility Powers are everything else that is noncombat.

A/E/D/D/S/U?

I think the main issue here is avoiding overwhelming players. It could get a bit overwhelming just with the stuff they already had. Nearly doubling the amount of power options isn't going to help that. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but I would want to make damn sure that the price paid is as low as possible and the benefit gained as high as possible. Otherwise, it strikes me as putting a design aesthetic ("give all distinct things distinct niches") ahead of actual usability by players.

Perhaps, as a compromise, having every Utility power give some combat benefit (offense, defense, or other), and also have a non-combat benefit (skill, ability, feature, etc.) that is unlocked or empowered by having a particular skill training or the like? Essentially, making every utility power a skill power.

 

[Minigiant]

I think the main issue here is avoiding overwhelming players. It could get a bit overwhelming just with the stuff they already had. Nearly doubling the amount of power options isn't going to help that. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but I would want to make damn sure that the price paid is as low as possible and the benefit gained as high as possible. Otherwise, it strikes me as putting a design aesthetic ("give all distinct things distinct niches") ahead of actual usability by players.

Perhaps, as a compromise, having every Utility power give some combat benefit (offense, defense, or other), and also have a non-combat benefit (skill, ability, feature, etc.) that is unlocked or empowered by having a particular skill training or the like? Essentially, making every utility power a skill power.

I think the path is to slow the acquisition of powers.

Your 2th level power is a Skill Power
Your 6th level power is a Utility Power
Your 10th level power is a Defense Power

And you replace them* at higher tiers.

*Paragon Path and Epic Destiny Utility powers are now Defense powers

But I'm a fan of cuting down level 1 class powers to 3 total and adding a zero level.

 

[gorice]

I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.

As you say, the problem is that Advantage is too powerful as it is; it is powerful enough that it should be an upgrade, or at least more like a weapon of last resort, especially since it doesn't stack and (originally) wasn't intended to have any stronger form.

But it isn't treated like that, is it? It is treated like the weapon of first resort. By the time you get to the late end of levels most games reach (upper single digits), it's quite possible to get Advantage on a lot of checks; by the early teens, it should be nearly everywhere. Yet it's also supposed to serve as the only real reward for cool stunt ideas or favorable circumstances and the mechanical hook on which multiple classes can depend AND completely non-stacking and (originally) non-improving, with no recognition for heightened benefit or extra special circumstances?

And then they went and broke even the main benefit of it being the last step in the line by having things like Elven Accuracy, where the player gets "super" advantage some of the time. So it isn't even the one-stop shop in absolute form, yet it remains the all-and-only of the buff world for most characters. It is incredibly frustrating; instead of having our cake and eating it too, we have sold our cake and then used the proceeds to get a chance to merely look at a cake we can't even eat!

Have you tried using the boon/bane or accuracy/difficulty method, as per Shadow of the Demon Lord/Lancer? That is, you add or subtract one d6 from the roll for each point, but only the highest of these d6 rolls is used.

I find it works really well in Lancer.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Have you tried using the boon/band or accuracy/difficulty method, as per Shadow of the Demon Lord/Lancer? That is, you add or subtract one d6 from the roll for each point, but only the highest of these d6 rolls is used.

I find it works really well in Lancer.

I have not, but I have other issues with this approach. Same goes for Level Up's dice. I don't personally think it's actually that good of design to encourage rolling and tabulating fistfuls of dice. That's a me thing though, so I don't make a big stink of it.

My personal preference would be to make a tiered system of benefits/detriments. Something like this (though it would, of course, need a ton of playtesting to make sure it works correctly):

For "basic" use, and as the thing to unlock something meant to be common but not guaranteed, effectively 4e's Combat Advantage: +2 to relevant rolls. Call it "Boosted."* It would also have an inverse -2 called "Busted,"* which could likewise act as something to unlock possible actions. Frex, the Bravura Warlord might have the ability to leverage an ally becoming Busted, or might have a core mechanic of enabling allies to acquire Boosted status in exchange for being inflicted with Busted. While it wouldn't stack, it would tally, so if you have three sources of Boost and two sources of Bust, you get +2; if the two cancel out exactly, you're neutral.

Then, for more advanced/important/dramatic buffs, you have 5e-style Advantage, which either you have or you don't. It doesn't tally, so if you have both Advantage and Disadvantage from any number of sources, you're normal. This would be used sparingly for stuff meant to be potent but not world-changing, that way it should generally matter a lot that a player can acquire it. It would also stack with Boost/Bust, allowing a spread of benefits: Boost alone pushes up the minimum but only gives a relatively small extra chance to succeed, Advantage alone gives a much higher chance of high rolls but can't push you past your limits, and Boost+Advantage gives you a really solid chance of success and potentially opens the door for higher success.

There would still be room for other modifiers, like granting +Cha mod to an ally's damage or whatever, but these would be used judiciously, only for things where it's really supposed to matter. (And it's not like 5e doesn't do stuff like that anyway.) Consumables might or might not be restricted to this system. I find that players usually need a lot of convincing to be willing to part with their consumables, so making them separate from the usual limits on bonuses is a way to use a carrot, rather than a stick, to encourage actually using the consumables you find.

*I'm not attached to these names. I just feel like they're quick, straightforward, and nicely assonant. "Boost and Bust" has echoes of "Boom and Bust," which doesn't really do much but is kind of fun.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here’s the types of bonus I would keep:

Permanent bonus: stuff you put on your character sheet. Anything you only need to calculate once per level to get a score and it all stacks.

Long Duration Bonus: That would be conditional bonuses (attack a bloodied foe) or based on powerful Powers. These powers granted bonuses would be the one I’d put on a duration track based on Saving Throws but in reverse (you want to roll high to KEEP the bonus). You would always only apply the highest bonus.

Short Duration Bonus: Anything ‘next roll’ or ‘until the end of the next turn’. You would only apply the highest bonus again. I’d keep those to +2 most of the time. Would only VERY rarely apply to attack rolls because of the following bonus type.

Combat Advantage: I like ‘grants combat advantage’ as a condition, it makes for a good tool to add to low level power and grant when taking advantage of the environment/your positioning. You either have it or you don’t.

Damage bonus: Only type to be on magical items (get rid of those +X and absorb them into the math or as short duration ability). Always expressed as an extra die so it’s easy to keep physical track of them.



My idea was to make them Encounter Reaction triggered when a creature succeeds at a saving throw.


Wizard: The target reroll the save (possibly with a penalty)

Druid: Creates difficult terrain in the Target’s square(s) and every adjacent square.

Invoker: Maybe the creature takes some Radiant damage?

Seeker: Gets a ranged basic attack against the target.

Psion: Creature can’t take reaction until the next turn


Stuff like that.

On the subject of the Seeker, if I were to keep them, I would make them THE sling class, and give them power themed around throwing magically infused seeds and rocks. Make them the best at creating hindrance on the battlefield. Imagine a guy throwing a see with his sling and then a large tree trunk magically appears in the middle of the battlefield! And his allies get stronger just by standing next to it! Or his attack makes carnivorous plants sprout that snap at you like beasts, or a small rock hits you and suddenly you feel like you weight twice as normal and your feet sink into the ground.

As I've said, in Heroes of Myth and Legend there are exactly 4 modifiers, Ability (which rarely changes, and each skill/implement/weapon is tied to one), Level (obviously doesn't change THAT often), Proficiency (+5), and 'Permanent Bonus', which covers all other sorts of "I have something that always gives me this bonus (which may be situational itself)." The first 3 have single possible sources, so there's no stacking possible. Permanent Bonus simply doesn't ever stack, by rule. You get all 4 of these, and that is it, nothing else, ever. This makes play FAST, you don't have to do any calculations unless whatever you are rolling isn't something you added the bonuses for before (or you have a bonus that has a condition on it so maybe it doesn't always apply). Everything else is Advantage/Disadvantage. Honestly, IME HoML plays MUCH faster, and you will not miss what you imagine you are losing from this. In any case powers can always describe special situations where they might work better or worse, or those kinds of rules can be tied to keywords in most cases.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.

As you say, the problem is that Advantage is too powerful as it is; it is powerful enough that it should be an upgrade, or at least more like a weapon of last resort, especially since it doesn't stack and (originally) wasn't intended to have any stronger form.

But it isn't treated like that, is it? It is treated like the weapon of first resort. By the time you get to the late end of levels most games reach (upper single digits), it's quite possible to get Advantage on a lot of checks; by the early teens, it should be nearly everywhere. Yet it's also supposed to serve as the only real reward for cool stunt ideas or favorable circumstances and the mechanical hook on which multiple classes can depend AND completely non-stacking and (originally) non-improving, with no recognition for heightened benefit or extra special circumstances?

And then they went and broke even the main benefit of it being the last step in the line by having things like Elven Accuracy, where the player gets "super" advantage some of the time. So it isn't even the one-stop shop in absolute form, yet it remains the all-and-only of the buff world for most characters. It is incredibly frustrating; instead of having our cake and eating it too, we have sold our cake and then used the proceeds to get a chance to merely look at a cake we can't even eat!

But is that an inherent flaw in the mechanic, or is it simply bad designer discipline? Because in HoML there is TOTALLY clean line. All things that are non-situational, that simply relate to the character itself, are bonuses (technically there are penalties, but they would almost never come into play). All things that are purely situational and don't relate to the character are Advantage/Disadvantage. Its a clean line. You CANNOT (without breaking the spirit of the game) invent a power which gives someone advantage, even situationally. I'd note that, of course, this does get a bit slippery in the sense that, say, you give a PC a power that practically guarantees they can flank, then it verges on "a power/feature of the character that grants advantage" but I think that this still works out OK. Like, OK, my rogue can flank pretty well. However, it still isn't a given! Goblins can shift when you flank attack them, so bummer it doesn't work so well on them. Flanking requires a buddy, and space to move in, etc. Plenty of terrain situations, enemy controllers, etc. can put paid to that.

But, given that certain capabilities would combine with things like flanking, or invisible attacks, etc. that means there's some design space that needs to be watched. I'm OK with that, its a fair price to pay for a lot of simplicity! Nor was 4e at all immune to similar considerations anyway. Avenger crit shenanigans are a thing because they can be piled onto their class feature, and that's OK! I mean, HoML rogues are really expected to get advantage a fair amount and to try to find ways to get it more.