D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[James Gasik]

Yeah, MC'ing is really strong — most classes do not have top-tier EDU by 13th level, but many have 2 of each — it is a giant powerup if free. As some quick examples:
Wizard: Dark Gathering, Mirage Arcana, Shield
Invoker: Thunder of Judgment, Silent Malediction, Demand Judgment
Warlord: Vengeance is Mine, Stand the Fallen, Reorient the Axis
I have PCs who routinely do either an encounter and/or utility power swap and getting 3 for free is just wow.

I just want to add that the MC Feats alone were ridiculous; my Ranger had the Tactical Warlord Feat (I don't remember the name of it). I never took a single Warlord Power, but it gave me a skill proficiency and added +2 to hit for anyone in my party when they spent an Action Point; it was so good that people in my party often took my benefit over that of the actual Bravura Warlord we had in the party!

 

[Red Castle]

Well, when we were all playing 4e, we didn't need that, because we had all the tools we needed online. Which is the real reason my group stopped playing the game; when Wizards took those tools away, we suddenly realized we didn't have all the books, and we certainly didn't have all the patches and options that were given to us in online content, like Class Acts articles and the like.

Yeah, it was so easy with the DnD Insider character builder, everything accessible in one place and then you could just print the character sheet with all the powers with the right modifiers included.

Now, I know I can easily find a list of rituals ordered by level online, but I so much prefer looking through a book than scrolling down a screen.

 

[MwaO]

I just want to add that the MC Feats alone were ridiculous; my Ranger had the Tactical Warlord Feat (I don't remember the name of it). I never took a single Warlord Power, but it gave me a skill proficiency and added +2 to hit for anyone in my party when they spent an Action Point; it was so good that people in my party often took my benefit over that of the actual Bravura Warlord we had in the party!

There isn't one that gave a +2 to hit, but Resourceful Leader and Bravura Leader are two of the most powerful feats in the game — in heroic, in a 6 person party(5 can be affected by it), using approximately 2 APs per 3 combats typically(now 10 APs per 3 combats), average 1.5 hits for an AP action(15/3 or 5), having both feats(+7 damage), that's 35 points of damage per combat from 2 feats in Heroic.

Which is absolutely wild levels of power. And it stacks with the Warlords!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I just want to add that the MC Feats alone were ridiculous; my Ranger had the Tactical Warlord Feat (I don't remember the name of it). I never took a single Warlord Power, but it gave me a skill proficiency and added +2 to hit for anyone in my party when they spent an Action Point; it was so good that people in my party often took my benefit over that of the actual Bravura Warlord we had in the party!

From what I'm seeing, the relevant feat (Tactical Leader) should have only been +1, not +2. Still a powerful choice and possibly more tempting than Bravura Presence, which is mostly useful for highly mobile characters (free move action) or ones that have a nasty "this can be used as a Basic Attack" option. +1 to hit is more generically useful and doesn't have the downside that Bravura does if you miss.

 

[James Gasik]

There isn't one that gave a +2 to hit, but Resourceful Leader and Bravura Leader are two of the most powerful feats in the game — in heroic, in a 6 person party(5 can be affected by it), using approximately 2 APs per 3 combats typically(now 10 APs per 3 combats), average 1.5 hits for an AP action(15/3 or 5), having both feats(+7 damage), that's 35 points of damage per combat from 2 feats in Heroic.

Which is absolutely wild levels of power. And it stacks with the Warlords!

Yeah, after talking to my friend who played the Bravura Warlord, I had Bravura Leader, and often times the players would take my flat damage bonus over his risky ability; we thought it was strange that the Feat bonus could outshine the actual class ability.

EDIT: personally, Tactical Warlord was my favorite, only only because of "LazyLord" shenanigans, but because that bonus to hit was busted all to hell, especially with the Eladrin Paragon Path.

 

[Undrave]

Once you have the first MC feat for a class, you cannot take MC feats for other classes, but you can take more feats for that specific class if you like. I don't know if you get more skill training though.

I went to look yesterday and I completely forgot they added more MC feat in the Power books. They add more feature and add more skill training, but I don't know if you could stack them. And you had the power swap feats.

Totally agreed that taking multiple MC feats should meet the qualifications for paragon MC. If it did, PMC would be more attractive than "basically never."

I had completely forgot about Paragon MC, I was just thinking of qualifying for Paragon Paths. Maybe 1 MC feat and 1 Power Swap feat should be enough?

So the guy who uses moves based primarily on strength, in a loose sense, is solving problems with athletic means. The guy who relies on sheer quickness and agility is doing 'acrobatic' stuff. I admit, these two are somewhat closely related, but it still feels like there's a decent flavor difference

Clearly, a guy who solves combat with pure strength would be used to just pushing through opposition with pure bullheadedness. Someone who uses agility and acrobatic stuff would need a certain amount of spatial awareness and be used to go AROUND stuff and be flexible.

MCing is MUCH MUCH BETTER than most 'charops' and casual players seem to think. Giving the ability to just swap without any cost is actually pretty OP. I know MOST people here will probably not agree, but I know @MwaO has stated this same opinion. I would agree though that PMC sucks, though there might be a very few specific ones that are OK. Certainly the hybrid rules killed PMC stone cold dead, and its easy to see why.

I think the problem is the swap feat are kinda boring. I think each class should have its own bespoke swap feats that give a little extra.Even if its just additional skill training.

Like Vaalingrade above, I'm of the opinion that preserving the distinct classes is actually important for keeping the game balanced and functional, unless you want to truly completely rebuild the whole game, not just clean it up or tweak it a bit.

Yeah it'd be easier to build a whole power point system from scratch than turn 4e into one.

And not have classes limited to only one role, a class would give choice of two or more.

Naaah... I think classes having a single MAIN role with room for secondary roles, it makes for a more solid design because you have 1 clear goal in mind. When you read that first half page of a class description you know EXACTLY what the class is trying to accomplish. Trying to do everything results in a 5e Monk that doesn't do anything well. Maybe once you got a few years experience you can branch out, but at the start you gotta stay focus.

As far as powers it kind of bugged me to have low level powers I really liked, then get to higher levels where you swap out a lower level one for a higher level one and to not have an option to do the same type of thing at the new power level. I vaguely remember hitting that with my ranger advancing with cool interrupt/reaction powers at lower level which I worked big into my build as an action economy focus, then later having mostly options to just hit for more damage/attacks on my turn.

I agree that it's a problem. I think I would rather have powers improve with level than always have completely new power. I think a built-in scaling would be better, possibly with extra uses instead, and it's always why I suggested cutting the main class at level 10 and having the Paragon Path be the source of additional power past level 11 and the Epic destiny past 21.

That's part of why, if I ever made a 4e heartbreaker, I'd put in what I call "Skirmish" rules. Rules for running really fast, low-engagement combats, that can capture the "fight five kobolds...several times" kinds of combat from earlier editions, while still providing meaningful stakes and conflict. Essentially, if full "social combat" rules would be like taking Skill Challenges and expanding them into a complete "social-tactical" experience, these proposed Skirmish rules would be like distilling down the combat engine into something like a Skill Challenge, fast, light, and flexible, but not as deep as proper combat rules. In the ideal case, "Skirmishes" would be satisfying enough on their own that you could effectively treat "Skirmish-only 4e" as the "Gygaxian Combat Module," sort of the logical opposite of the vaporware "Tactical Combat Module" that the 5e designers promised.

Hmm... Minions only, no damage roll, once you get hit three times lose 1 Healing Surge. Maybe a simplified play field with 'close combat' and 'long range' zones? Someone spends a daily and the whole thing is done instantly?

Runepriest becoming a subclass of Cleric, Seeker to Ranger, and...what, exactly? Eliminating those two leaves 23 classes. Just by keeping the thirteen found in 5e you're already more than halfway to keeping all of the remaining 4e ones (13/23). Swordmage, Avenger, Warden, and Shaman are all really cool, so I'm not sure if we can justify cutting them; that's 17/23. I never cared for the non-Monk Psionic classes, the whole design around Power Points and Augment abilities is deeply flawed, but just axing them seems like such a waste. That leaves Assassin, Invoker, and Vampire; Assassin has plenty of history (it was even a class in 3e!), so that seems to be out too, but perhaps you want it gone. Where would Invoker go--Wizard? Holy magic seems incredibly out of place for a Wizard, but diluting Cleric by building a whole separate controller side into it seems just as bad. Vampire is some really cool design, but I guess we could ditch it....and in so doing, we'll only have gotten rid of 2 (obvious picks: Runepriest/Seeker) + 3 (Augment-based classes) + 3 (Assassin, Vampire, Invoker) = 8 classes. That's still 17, and with some painful sacrifices to get there.

I'm with you, I don't think I would cut classes completely. Except maybe the Runepriest because I'm not sure what it exactly brings. I'd rework the Seeker (possibly changing its name) because a Primal ranged weapon specialist could have an interesting niche. I'd also rework the Battlemind because it feels like the most bland of the Psionic class and the most 'grid-filling' class in the game.

In terms of Essential I know I would fold the Slayer into the Ranger to keep the Fighter purely defender. And I'd probably try to structure the Vampire in a way that would guide more 'Monster as Class' in the future.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

If there is something that I would maybe rework a little bit I think is make the rituals a bit easier to use.

I really love the inclusion of rituals and that 4e separated combat and non-combat spells to answer the old problem of Clerics mostly just memorizing Cure Light Wounds and Wizards Magic Missile instead of utility spells that might not be useful, but from my experience, not a lot of players actually bothered looking through them. And that’s a shame because some are great! But I think the components cost were a little too high, and time to perform too long. Presentation might have been a problem too, with players needing to navigate through multiple books and magazine to see all rituals available…. It would have been nice to have a ritual compendium including all rituals available in one easy to use book.

This was a big mistep for 4e IMO. Designing rituals as a seperate system that covered all the big non combat magic and making it easily accessible to all parties was great, but they only included a small subset of old spells in the PHB (they had almost all the classics covered by the end of 4e) and rituals were treated as a sort of add on instead of a core part of the game (almost no new rituals in adventures, no expectation that PCs would use them in published adventures, etc.).

Imagine if in the PHB you had:

1) all the classic ultility spells were in the PHB as rituals
2) more differentiation into Arcane, Primal, Divine categories
3) classic full casters got access to only rituals in their category (Wizard = arcane, Cleric = divine) but in exchange got free rituals which increased in level and were put into a table as a Class Feature that looked like the old spells cast per day tables (although much less spells). Something like:

At 30th Level -- 4 / 3/ 2 . meaning 4 free per day of Level -4 or less, 3 free Level -3 to Level -1, 2 free at Level

4) ritual caster feat got you a reduced progression of free castings

This would have thrown a bone to the traditional full casters without really upsetting anything much about 4e balance.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I went to look yesterday and I completely forgot they added more MC feat in the Power books. They add more feature and add more skill training, but I don't know if you could stack them. And you had the power swap feats.

I went digging, apparently this was never solidly answered, and I was remembering my "well it seems reasonable" as a definitive thing. Because I actually posted about this on a different forum years ago! What's relevant, though, is that it's never said you can't do this, and the one thing that could be used as a mechanical hook for saying you can't (the "<Class> Multiclass" tag) is present on all feats that require you to be a multiclass character, not just the "entry" feats. This implies that there isn't anything formally preventing it, it's up to the DM to decide.

I had completely forgot about Paragon MC, I was just thinking of qualifying for Paragon Paths. Maybe 1 MC feat and 1 Power Swap feat should be enough?

Oh if you want to qualify for PPs, you literally only need the initial multiclass feat. That's it. Once you have the MC feat, you count as a member of that class for all purposes that aren't "you must have this very specific feature" sort of things.

Clearly, a guy who solves combat with pure strength would be used to just pushing through opposition with pure bullheadedness. Someone who uses agility and acrobatic stuff would need a certain amount of spatial awareness and be used to go AROUND stuff and be flexible.

For my part, I had considered reducing "core" stats to four: Might (or Body), Dex, Wits (Int + "good decisions" parts of Wis), and Presence (Cha + "willpower" part of Wis.) That makes every stat clearly valuable and (very roughly) equal in importance. There would also be three "combat" stats, Impact, Finesse, and Style. Impact is what adds to raw damage. Finesse is for rider effects. Style is for class-specific mechanics (e.g. Paladin Lay On Hands uses.)

This has never gone beyond raw-concept stage so I don't even know if I'd keep it now.

Hmm... Minions only, no damage roll, once you get hit three times lose 1 Healing Surge. Maybe a simplified play field with 'close combat' and 'long range' zones? Someone spends a daily and the whole thing is done instantly?

Perhaps! This idea is even more raw than the previous--just a design goal, really, with little actual concept of how it would be done. Those are all ideas I had at least considered though, particularly the "spend a daily and it's over" part since that's a significant expenditure. IIRC, one idea was that players could choose to sacrifice a healing surge to ensure an attack hit. Minions-only might be awkward with a controller in the party--might make them immune to DOAM, or steal 13A's "mook" rules where a group of creatures behaves as a swarm, with ablative HP.

I'm with you, I don't think I would cut classes completely. Except maybe the Runepriest because I'm not sure what it exactly brings. I'd rework the Seeker (possibly changing its name) because a Primal ranged weapon specialist could have an interesting niche. I'd also rework the Battlemind because it feels like the most bland of the Psionic class and the most 'grid-filling' class in the game.

Runepriest definitely feels weird, in part because it's the most obvious leftover from the scrapped "Ki" power source. Seeker is similar but not quite the same, since as you say it could be fun having a controller specialized in ranged weapons rather than implements. Perhaps it would be worthwhile taking leaves from FFXIV's interpretation of the Final Fantasy Dancer class.

In terms of Essential I know I would fold the Slayer into the Ranger to keep the Fighter purely defender. And I'd probably try to structure the Vampire in a way that would guide more 'Monster as Class' in the future.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The Vampire implies the interpretation of Shadow as the "monster" power source. Necromancer/Lich would make a lot of sense as either Leader or Controller, I favor the former because the whole "WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE" thing just feels like an awesome subversion of what a Leader usually is. The controller could be some kind of manipulator or charmer, maybe Succubus/Incubus or Mindflayer or the like, turning the enemy against their own. Then you have two more concepts to integrate: the "Mummy" or some other kind of undead that makes for an obvious Defender, and the Werebeast, which could potentially be used for either Defender or Striker depending on how you wanted to implement it. And then the Assassin takes on a new thematic role: the character who has become like the monsters she fights in order to fight better. The other side of Van Helsing.

Likewise, filling in some of the missing Essentials stuff, like the missing Druid seasons.

 

[Undrave]

Runepriest definitely feels weird, in part because it's the most obvious leftover from the scrapped "Ki" power source. Seeker is similar but not quite the same, since as you say it could be fun having a controller specialized in ranged weapons rather than implements. Perhaps it would be worthwhile taking leaves from FFXIV's interpretation of the Final Fantasy Dancer class.

Runepriest also runs into the weird thing where DnD never seems to know what to do with the idea of 'runes' or what they represent... Or how they manifest in the world.

Personally 'd make them linked to Artificer with them being able to inscribe runes on gear, including other people's, to grant bonuses but I guess that's not how DnD want to do it... (And real life Futhark Runes were a mostly divination tool once they were replaced by the latin alphabet...)

And you have the issue that there's only two of them, with powers having specific rider for the specific rune. Having a series of runes from a larger selection you know as class features could be fun if the powers could be future proofed. I think modelling it on the Invigorating and Rattling keywords would probably be the better idea so that the rune themselves bring a, albeit more generic, bonus and the powers can be more independant. Give them an at-will to change rune while in combat, like a specialized Dodge action. Maybe the runes are in category? Each category having a keyword? Like you have Elemental Runes, Material Runes and Astral Runes, representing aspect of the big three: Elemental Chaos, The World, Astral Sea. I guess in this system Runes would be described as the words with which are written the 'laws of the universe that binds them together' or something? You pick a certain number from any of the category and you chose which one is active? I dunno... just spit balling here.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Runepriest also runs into the weird thing where DnD never seems to know what to do with the idea of 'runes' or what they represent... Or how they manifest in the world.

Personally 'd make them linked to Artificer with them being able to inscribe runes on gear, including other people's, to grant bonuses but I guess that's not how DnD want to do it... (And real life Futhark Runes were a mostly divination tool once they were replaced by the latin alphabet...)

And you have the issue that there's only two of them, with powers having specific rider for the specific rune. Having a series of runes from a larger selection you know as class features could be fun if the powers could be future proofed. I think modelling it on the Invigorating and Rattling keywords would probably be the better idea so that the rune themselves bring a, albeit more generic, bonus and the powers can be more independant. Give them an at-will to change rune while in combat, like a specialized Dodge action. Maybe the runes are in category? Each category having a keyword? Like you have Elemental Runes, Material Runes and Astral Runes, representing aspect of the big three: Elemental Chaos, The World, Astral Sea. I guess in this system Runes would be described as the words with which are written the 'laws of the universe that binds them together' or something? You pick a certain number from any of the category and you chose which one is active? I dunno... just spit balling here.

I've always loved the idea of runes and found many D&D implementations disappointing.

Honestly, I feel like a "Runic" power source would be a perfect choice for the thing everyone always asks for, the "all powers on one list" thing where every class simply gives their own spin on it. That would show both the strengths and the limitations of such an approach.