10 Ways to Play 4th Edition NOW!

[Chris_Nightwing]

For those of you that remember the transition from 2nd to 3rd edition, WotC one day put up a brilliant list of 10 ways to convert parts of your game early. Suddenly flipping AC to positive and converting your THAC0 to 20 minus your THAC0 for instance, was at first unusual, but then made complete and utter sense. If anyone can find that original list, I'd be very impressed.

With 4th edition on the horizon, I think it'd be nice if they did something similar. So without any solid information whatsoever, I thought we could come up with our own! I'll write down the ideas I've had so far, please help me out .

Freshly edited, any thoughts?

1) Saving throws get flipped to attacks, so instead of a +X bonus to a save, you have a 10+X defense that has to be overcome.

2) Remove all the cluttered attack options such as trip/bull rush/disarm and replace them with their SWSE counterparts and associated feats. If you lack the material, try removing them altogether.

3) Use reserve feats from Complete Mage to give spellcasters something to do every combat. If you lack the material, try letting spellcasters choose one signature spell to cast for free once per encounter.

4) Remove iterative attacks and give each class a damage bonus equal to their base attack bonus. This balances out damage more effectively than a bonus equal to half character level.

5) Let characters with special ablities such as Smite or Rage use them once per encounter instead of limiting them per day. Use maneuvers from the Book of Nine Swords to enhance fighters.

6) Combine skills, for instance Hide/Move Silently -> Stealth, Spot/Listen/Search/Sense Motive -> Perception. Remove synergy bonuses. Otherwise keep skill points, ranks and standard DCs for ease of play.

7) Critical hits only occur on a 20, and only do x2 damage, no matter what the weapon. Feats can modify the range and multiplier.

8) Give first level heroic characters 3 times their maximum hitpoints + 1 times their con bonus.

9) Give each character a Second Wind, usable once per day when they have less than 1/2 hitpoints, restoring 1/4 of their total HP.

10) Enhance the changes made by playing a particular race as character level increases. Grant abilities from the racial paragon classes of Unearthed Arcana every 5 levels.

 

[Nifft]

6. No Gnomes.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

7. Combine skills (Hide + MS = Stealth; Spot + Listen = Perception, Climb + Jump+Swim = Athletics, etc).

 

[Remathilis]

Can't help you with 3e->4e, but here is the original list (Dragon 264/10.99)

1.) Armor Class: Recalculate AC so it goes upward. Add to hit bonus (including THAC0 Increases) to hit rolls.
2.) Level Limits: Ignore them. Allow any class/race combo, but with a -20% XP to each class added beyond the first.
3.) Monk's and Assassins: Use from Greyhawk Supplement Scarlet Brotherhood (editor: a great sourcebook, IMHO). Monks must be lawful, assassins non-good.
4.) Character Creation: 4d6 method.
5.) Exceptional Str: recalculate the % str table so that the first tier is a 19, second a 20, etc. No more rolling.
6.) Initiative: Roll once per encounter. Allow refocus and delay.
7.) Combat Rounds: Use 6 second. Divide all time-dependent info by 10 unless already in rounds. All spells are resolved on caster's initiative (not casting time).
8.) Spell Bonuses: Give all spellcasting classes bonus spells like a cleric does, using Int for mages and bards and wisdom for paladins and rangers.
9.) Critical Hits: A natural 20 is a threat. A second confirmed attack roll does double damage, a failed second roll does normal damage.
10.) Healing Spells: Allow Priest characters (later errata'd clerics only) to trade a spell slot for healing equal to spell level in d8's (4th level spell=4d8). Paladins and Rangers (and later Druids) cannot do this.

After 8 years, they all seem intuitive, don't they?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

If they'd had implemented (2) fully it would have been interesting - two classes good, three classes bad! Critical Hits are probably taking a step back to simplicity though. I don't want to restrict anyone with this, so I think telling people to remove gnomes isn't a good idea, although it is hilarious. So:

6) Combine skills, remove synergy bonuses.

7) Criticals occur on a 20 and are always x2, feats can modify this range as normal.

 

[breschau]

EDIT 1. There is evidence for this in the WotC blogs. One post specifically mentions flipping saves.

EDIT 4. Remove iterative attacks and give all characters a damage bonus equal to one-half their character level. That's how it's done in Saga at least.

8. Drop skill ranks. Use the "skill points per level" as the number of trained skills a character has. Non-class skills advance at 1/4 character level. Class skills advance at 1/2 character level. Trained skills advance at character level (i.e. 5th-level character has a +5 bonus to trained skills). Skill Focus feat is changed to +5 bonus. Add a Skill Training feat that grants one additional trained skill that must be chosen from the characters class skills.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Use a 'points of light' setting - human civilisation is an island in a sea of monsters, severely pressed.
Use reserve feats from Complete Mage.
Use monsters from MM5.
Use Bo9S.

 

[drothgery]

EDIT 4. Remove iterative attacks and give all characters a damage bonus equal to one-half their character level. That's how it's done in Saga at least.

Yeah, but if you check out the thread over in general for the 'Fantasy Concepts' project, you'll see that adding BAB produces damage outputs that are much closer to what 3.5 does. Since you'll still be attacking 3.5 monsters, this matters.

8. Drop skill ranks. Use the "skill points per level" as the number of trained skills a character has. Non-class skills advance at 1/4 character level. Class skills advance at 1/2 character level. Trained skills advance at character level (i.e. 5th-level character has a +5 bonus to trained skills). Skill Focus feat is changed to +5 bonus. Add a Skill Training feat that grants one additional trained skill that must be chosen from the characters class skills.

Again, I'd suggest the 'way to play 4e now' would be to use the Maximum Skill Ranks option from UA; skill DCs (and skill-boosting magic items) are based on the 3.5 setup, and unless you want to rework things considerably (because the DCs achievable by low-level characters will be much higher, and those by high-level characters much lower), using the Saga system as-is in D&D is probably more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

With 4th edition on the horizon, I think it'd be nice if they did something similar. So without any solid information whatsoever, I thought we could come up with our own! I'll write down the ideas I've had so far, please help me out .

Excellent idea!

1) Saving throws get flipped to attacks, so instead of a +X bonus to a save, you have a 10+X defense that has to be overcome. (No real evidence for this except SWSE, but hey)

2) Remove all the cluttered attack options such as trip/bull rush/disarm and replace them with their SWSE counterparts.

Right, and add in the SWSE feats regarding them, too.

3) Allow spellcasting classes to use one spell of each level they can cast every encounter. Have classes that prepare spells select which will spells will renew each day and let spontaneous casters effectively get a free slot per spell level every encounter.

Whoa there! I think I see where you're going with that one, but I don't think that radically changing the spells like that, with no thought to balance issues, will help anyone.

I think probably it would be best to give every Wizard and Sorcerer a bonus feat which they can use to get one of the feats from the Complete Mage (Is that the one?) which gives characters a bonus attack ability as long as they have a spell of a certain type and level memorized.

However, YMMV.

4) Remove iterative attacks and give each class a damage bonus equal to their base attack bonus.

Add in the SWSE feats for bonus attacks, rapid shot & rapid strike.
[qutoe]5) Let characters with special ablities such as Smite or Rage use them once per encounter instead of limiting them per day.[/QUOTE]
That sounds good, as long as you give fighters a bonus feat every other blank level (or perhaps even every level). Give clerics and druids a bonus feat every two or three levels that they can use for appropriate combat feats, too. That would be in keeping with SWSE.

Other suggestions:

Give every first level "heroic" character three times full hit points. Sorry NPC classes.

Stop rolling to confirm criticals. And you should probably change all multipliers to X2.

Use Second Wind! This is the number one addition to 4E, in my opinion.

Use action points. These will change in 4E, but they are a nice addition that puts some control in the PCs hands, and it (and second wind) will help keep them alive if you have balance problems and throw something at them that they can't handle.

Increase the bonus to ability scores given by race by +2 every ten (or perhaps fewer) levels. Also, you might want to increase the range of abilities like darkvision too. Generally, make characters get more like their race as the go up levels (you might want to look at the racial paragon classes in Unearthed Arcana for this).

Change skills to SWSE version. Mentioned by another poster.

That's about all I can think of.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Well I've updated the list, I'm thinking we should try to make it more book-neutral if possible. Not everyone has a vast library.