3E, 4E and modularity [Forked from: The Nature of Change(...)]

[Giltonio_Santos]

Forked from: The Nature of Change (or, Understanding Edition Wars)

I'll start a new thread from Hussar's post, as the original already went through a dozen different tangents:

But that's not entirely fair either.
How easy would it be to strip out Vancian casting from 3e? Say I wanted to add powers to 3e. How would I do that? It took two entire books, Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle to do even a half assed job of doing it. Five hundred pages of rules is not exactly a light lifting job.

I don’t think that is true. To recreate any 4E class in 3E, all you need to do is create a new core class with an array of powers working at will, per encounter or daily. You can choose to use the 4E template, or maybe the classic spell template, or even a totally new one, but it’s very easy anyway. The same kind of modularity would easily allow me to create a D&D game with no vancian spellcasters.

You're basically complaining about the lack of backwards compatibility. But, 3e is barely compatible with what came before either. Try adding a clerical Sphere system to 3e and watch how much work you have in front of you. Try bringing in racial level limits into 3e and watch what happens to your game. How about using a 1e era initiative system with the 3e combat rules? Not exactly an easy fit.

I believe some of those changes would really cast mass confusion upon the group of players and the core rules, like the initiative or the level limit examples, but spheres are a simple matter of distributing spells that already exist in small groups and determine who has access to what. One more time, I believe this is possible because of the modular nature of 3E.

Can you mod 4e to look like 3e? Probably. It'd be a huge amount of work, but you could probably do it. Can you mod 3e to look like 2e or BD&D? Again, probably but it'd be a huge amount of work. What's the difference here?

I strongly believe that modifying 4E to be similar to any previous edition of D&D would be hard, not to say almost impossible. The degree of restriction forged by the rules in order to create the perfectly balanced system that plays like 5th level for 30 levels is so high that I don’t even know if I can do simple things, such as change rogue weapon talent for swords and bows instead of daggers and shurikens. Does doing that will screw my game?

On the other hand, 3E is so modular that we have various subsystems playing together. You can have a party of a druid, a fighter, a psionic, an incarnum user and a shadow caster adventuring together and everything works fine. With some minor adjustments, I’d even allow you to play in this game with a class taken from the 4E player’s handbook. I believe 3E has enough modularity to easily receive it.

So, I think I can say one of my basic problems with 4E is the lack of modularity. Its subsystems are built so strongly into the core of the game that you simply cannot tinker with them. I'd like to be proven wrong, though...

So, I’d like to ask a question to the 4E adepts. If someone comes to your game wanting to play a fighter and after looking through all those at-will/encounter/dailies says: “Whatever. I just want to be able to attack; give me a feat every other level instead of powers and we’re set.”
Would you allow it? If the answer is yes, do you believe this fighter would have to be balanced up, down, or is good to go?

Cheers,

 

[El Mahdi]

I'd allow it, and it would be good to go.

 

[malraux]

So, I’d like to ask a question to the 4E adepts. If someone comes to your game wanting to play a fighter and after looking through all those at-will/encounter/dailies says: “Whatever. I just want to be able to attack; give me a feat every other level instead of powers and we’re set.”
Would you allow it? If the answer is yes, do you believe this fighter would have to be balanced up, down, or is good to go?

Cheers,

Powers are the new feats. 4e feats are severely scaled back from what 3e feats do. If its a player that just wants to hit things (ignoring the fighter's combat challenge stuff) then his best bet is to go with a reflavored rogue. If he just wanted to basic attack all the time, then yes, the character would be very unbalanced and weak.

Though really, are there all that many more selections to make with fighter exploits vs feats?

 

[Cadfan]

I wouldn't allow it.

The character would have to be balanced up.

I would, however, help him create his character. I'm sure that for any actual person, we could find a character that he'd enjoy.

I wouldn't allow it because I don't believe that there's anyone out there who can't handle a level 1 Fighter. Its got two at will attacks, one encounter, and one daily. The at wills can easily boil down to "hit one guy hard," and "hit one guy and hit the guy next to him a little." The encounter can easily boil down to "hit one guy so hard he falls down," and the daily can be "hit one guy REALLY hard once per day, and if you miss, you can try again later." Yes, there will be more powers over time, but that gives the player hours of game time to get familiar with what he's got before things complexify.

If the player can't handle that, I honestly don't want him at my table. I shudder to think of what will happen when he has to add double digit numbers to make an attack. If he can handle that, and he just doesn't want to try, then he hasn't got the attitude I'm interested in in my players. He won't like my plot lines anyways.

The 4e feats only fighter would have to be balanced up because 4e feats aren't like 3e feats. They're powered down, and modifier stacking is more restricted. He'd end up taking a superior weapon, weapon focus, toughness, and then... stuff that doesn't stack with that. I guess he wouldn't HAVE to be balanced up, he'd be survivable, but he would be noticeably weaker than a regular fighter.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don’t think that is true. To recreate any 4E class in 3E, all you need to do is create a new core class with an array of powers working at will, per encounter or daily. You can choose to use the 4E template, or maybe the classic spell template, or even a totally new one, but it’s very easy anyway. The same kind of modularity would easily allow me to create a D&D game with no vancian spellcasters.

I've noticed in this regard one primary aspect that can change things a lot: Challenge Ratings and Encounter Design Guidelines and their effects on class balance. Both 3E and 4E do have them. (Well, for 4E it's mostly based on the XP value, but it's the same principle.)

If you add a lot of Encounter powers in 3E, the "attrition" model inherent to the guidelines can easily fail. And on the other hand, you might also have a lot of problems with high difficult encounters, since you lack the "punch" of daily powers.

It also gets very problematic if you mix classes. A class with a lot of encounter and at-wills can easily make a Wizard feel useless. Unless the Wizard gets frequent resting opportunities, when he will quickly overshadow the guy relying on weaker at-will and encounter powers.
(Of course, you could give him stronger powers, but then the Wizard will always be overpowered!)

You could create a class that might have a "Replacement Power" feature that gives you feats instead of powers in 4E. But it would quickly break down.

But an interesting aspect might be to "rip out" the encounter/daily powers entirely (for all classes) and replace them with an alternative resource model - for example something like Iron Heroes Tokens.

One of the advantage of the Encounter Design guidelines in 4E that they basically support a "15 minute adventuring" day or an 8/encounters per adventuring day model - without making any class more powerful then the other. (That was a source of imbalance in 3E resource model - if a spellcaster could count on his rest, he could blow the opposition up and let non-spellcasters would be mostly there to appreciate the firework. If not, the Wizard would have to hold back and sling only weak spells or use his Crossbow.)

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Vancian casting. Sorcerer casting. Bard song, turn undead, and smite evil. Divine feats.

What do all these have in common? They're all Core mechanics that all differed from one another while achieving the same overall results. Later on, there's Incarnum, shadow casting, Tome of Battle, truenaming, etc, etc. Each of the Tome of Battle classes had their own method of getting their maneuvers.

4e has only one system: the powers system. All classes use the powers system. All classes WILL use the powers system. The powers system is, quite frankly, the only system you will ever see in 4e.

 

[I'm A Banana]

4e has only one system: the powers system. All classes use the powers system. All classes WILL use the powers system. The powers system is, quite frankly, the only system you will ever see in 4e.

And we hates it, my precious.

So, I think I can say one of my basic problems with 4E is the lack of modularity. Its subsystems are built so strongly into the core of the game that you simply cannot tinker with them.

We also hates that. Nasty, filthy forced pigeonholing.

But an interesting aspect might be to "rip out" the encounter/daily powers entirely (for all classes) and replace them with an alternative resource model - for example something like Iron Heroes Tokens.

Yeeessssss, prrreciousssss....

Actually, my favorite idea for 4e so far involves having all four of those at-wills, and just having them change and grow as you level up, so that instead of having 20 different powers, you have one power that might be able to do 20 different things.

Like that "hit him really hard" daily maybe can also knock people over, or sometimes can hit the guy next to him, too. So I don't have to remember three different powers, I just have to remember one, and it can follow from there.

I think I'd rather have one multi-tool than a whole box of individual tools. But perhaps I am just entranced with the idea of cascading effects at the moment.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, my favorite idea for 4e so far involves having all four of those at-wills, and just having them change and grow as you level up, so that instead of having 20 different powers, you have one power that might be able to do 20 different things.

Like that "hit him really hard" daily maybe can also knock people over, or sometimes can hit the guy next to him, too. So I don't have to remember three different powers, I just have to remember one, and it can follow from there.

I think I'd rather have one multi-tool than a whole box of individual tools. But perhaps I am just entranced with the idea of cascading effects at the moment.

I am not really sure what's the big difference, except that the power would probably always be thematically similar? But I suppose I would subscribe to your newsletter (at least for the free 3 months trial) to see what it's all about.

(I am just reminded of the game The Witcher where your fighting styles improve and eventually add also more attacks. So, at the beginning of the game, you would make one attack, but at higher levels, you would add a second, third or fourth. But this only applies to melee combat...

 

[Jack99]

Actually, my favorite idea for 4e so far involves having all four of those at-wills, and just having them change and grow as you level up, so that instead of having 20 different powers, you have one power that might be able to do 20 different things.

Like that "hit him really hard" daily maybe can also knock people over, or sometimes can hit the guy next to him, too. So I don't have to remember three different powers, I just have to remember one, and it can follow from there.

I think I'd rather have one multi-tool than a whole box of individual tools. But perhaps I am just entranced with the idea of cascading effects at the moment.

I mentioned this in another post a while ago. You could in theory have on one hand three types of attacks (at-will, encounter, daily) that scaled with level, and on the other hand some "effects" to add to the attacks. The better the effect, the less damage the attack would do. This would also prevent the use of the best effects on the weaker at-will attack.

That would cover all the martial classes basically.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am not really sure what's the big difference, except that the power would probably always be thematically similar? But I suppose I would subscribe to your newsletter (at least for the free 3 months trial) to see what it's all about

It's not exactly revolutionary for 4e -- you could kind of do it within the powers structure if you wanted. The idea is basically that new daily or encounter effects will "key" off of what you can do at-will.

So let's say I'm a wizard. I have Scorching Burst. Maybe once per encounter, I can sort of flip my switch, put a little bit more oomph into it, and it causes my enemies to go prone (a la Icy Terrain). Maybe once per day, I focus it into a lingering effect (a la Flaming Sphere). The power I use is Scorching Burst, but it can have those cascading effects.

This thematic "chaining" of powers means that each attack I have flows logically from one before. Rather than a deck of 6 different things, I have 3 different things, all of which I can use in 2 different ways.

This could help solve the "dailies are useless if you miss" problem by making it an option you could "turn on" if you hit (if Scorching Burst hits, once per encounter, you can knock the enemies prone as well. If it doesn't hit, well, you can still do that).

Basically all you need for this is to get a "chain" of powers going, re-working encounters and dailies to key off of at-wills. Give the kid a few more at-wills (another one at paragon and epic tiers?) and you've got something effectively the same as the "powers" system with a different driving force behind it, a theme, and only 2-4 (or so) powers to remember, because each additional effect is another note under those powers, rather than a brand new power.

It's more psychological than mechanical, but psychology is a HUGE (and under-appreciated) part of playing D&D. It's part of why Rangers get so much love/hate, really.