D&D 4E 4e Clone − help create it!

[Garthanos]

It’s not a question of whether it’s worth having balanced abilities, it’s a question of whether you can balance the abilities and still call your project a 4e clone. And the answer is no. If you want to make a 4e-style game of your own that balances the abilities and fixes other problems you have with 4e, great! More power to you! But it won’t be a clone of 4e.

4e achieved closer to balanced stats I think (and it may have been a subtle goal not fully achieved) , yes Dex was a bit super but by enabling other attributes to steal from it... it became less of a super stat. Intelligence allowed fast predictive thinking to do many defensive things that Dexterity normally did. Wisdom was easy to supplant initiative and so on. (since 4e had mini-feats in comparison to 5e you were spending less resources to go a different direction) .


In this category where 4e didnt balance them well, you can definitely find things like some stats had way to many skills attached Wisdom did and some had way too few so Int needed some mundane skill love... Engineering in place of Dungeoneering could give a non-magical int based skill as a fix for that.

Yes there is a temptation to fix

 

[Charlaquin]

4e achieved closer to balanced stats I think (and it may have been a subtle goal not fully achieved) , yes Dex was a bit super but by enabling other attributes to steal from it... it became less of a super stat. Intelligence allowed fast predictive thinking to do many defensive things that Dexterity normally did. Wisdom was easy to supplant initiative and so on. (since 4e had mini-feats in comparison to 5e you were spending less resources to go a different direction) .


In this category where 4e didnt balance them well, you can definitely find things like some stats had way to many skills attached Wisdom did and some had way too few so Int needed some mundane skill love... Engineering in place of Dungeoneering could give a non-magical int based skill as a fix for that.

Yes there is a temptation to fix

In my opinion, 4e didn’t so much balance the abilities as it removed the distinctions between them. Each class added their primary ability to attack and damage rolls with their class Powers. Initiative and Fort, Ref, and Will defenses could each be calculated with one of two abilities. And between +5 bonus to skill checks for training and +1/2 level to everything, the impact of abilities on skills was pretty minimal. Between that and point buy, everyone basically had a primary ability that they attacked with and boosted every four levels, two secondary abilities that contributed to defenses and stayed largely static, and three dump stats. Which ones were which was mostly a matter of flavor.

 

[Garthanos]

Which ones were which was mostly a matter of flavor.

Freeing up the flavor is perhaps the goal, ie my character uses predictive intellect and quick thinking for initiative.... his uses perceptual acuteness... and she physically reacts faster. Heroes play to their strengths.

4e did say divorce the mechanics from flavor as long as the mechanics work flavor is yours.

 

[Charlaquin]

Freeing up the flavor is perhaps the goal, ie my character uses predictive intellect and quick thinking for initiative.... his uses perceptual acuteness... and she physically reacts faster. Heroes play to their strengths.

Agreed, I thought it was a great solution. One which a 4e clone would presumably adopt, what with being a clone.

 

[Zardnaar]

An attempt (5E), I'll have to rename some of this stuff.

Fighter
Role: Defender
Power Source:Martial
Hit Dice level 1 2d20 (20)+ con modifier
Hit dice per level, 1d10+ con modifier
Armor Proficiency, light, medium,heavy, shields
Weapon proficiency, simple, martial
Skills: as 5E (including backgrounds)

Combat Challenge: Every time you attack you mark the target. Target has disadvantage on any attack that doesn't include you as a target
Second Wind, 5+ con modifier

Sentinel: you gain advantage on opportunity attacks. An enemy struck by your opportunity attack stops moving until the start of its next turn.

Fighter Weapon Talent. Fighters gain a +2 bonus to hit with any weapon they are proficient with.

Fighter Champion (Greatweapon)

Fighter Powers

At Will Talents
Cleave.
When you reduce an enemy to 0 hit points you may make an attack as a bonus action.

Reaper
When you miss you may deal damage equal to half your strength modifer. If you are a champion you deal damage equal to your full strength modifier.

Short Rest Talents (short rest = 1 minute)
Bash
When you hit an opponent you knock them prone.

Daily Talent
Villains Doom
You score a critical hit on an opponent. Until the end of the encounter you gain advantage to hit and an extra 1d6 points of damage.

Feat
Power Attack (-2 to to hit +3 damage).

 

[Tony Vargas]

In my opinion, 4e didn’t so much balance the abilities as it removed the distinctions between them. Each class added their primary ability to attack and damage rolls with their class Powers. Initiative and Fort, Ref, and Will defenses could each be calculated with one of two abilities.

Not initiative - DEX still had it over INT on that one - but otherwise, stats were paired for defense, and any stat could be a primary (attack) or secondary (riders, features) for a class or build, somewhere. That meant a concept that called for a particular high stat wasn't just dead in the water.

Stats still represented different things, acted as prerequisites, and added to different skills.
Some came out a bit ahead of others. DEX wasn't quite the uberstat it is in 5e, but it did add to Initiative and (like INT) AC/REF, and did add to a number of very useful skills, while most other stats added to fewer or less-frequently-used skills (or both).

STR was hurt by the introduction of Melee Training, in particular. Prior to that, Fighters & STR-primary Paladin & Cleric Builds (and even the STR-secondary 'brutal' Rogue build) had a distinct advantage in having solid basic attacks that scaled well to high levels. At-will Powers that counted as MBAs, and Melee Training made that less useful & distinctive, … and, the STR Paladin got an upgrade in Divine Power, the STR Cleric was supplanted by the 'battle' build late in the game, and the 'brutal' rogue just sort of faded away.

And between +5 bonus to skill checks for training and +1/2 level to everything, the impact of abilities on skills was pretty minimal.

Abilities could go pretty high, though, so a primary stat adding to a skill was going to give a relatively greater advantage at higher levels than low.

 

[Zardnaar]

I would cap ability scores at 20 a'la 5E.

 

[Garthanos]

Agreed, I thought it was a great solution. One which a 4e clone would presumably adopt, what with being a clone.

Using that technique is one of the features of my 5e hacks... things like a Battle Ready class feature for fighters
(to give them decent initiative even if they want a mental stat as secondary and strength as primary)

 

[Yaarel]

Fighter
Role: Defender
Power Source: Martial

The 4e source is so flavorful. It is one of my favorite aspects of 4e.

Identifying a class with a certain source works well.



On the other hand, identifying a class with a role never worked well. The class felt too rigid and inflexible against personalization. Towards the end, 4e abandoned roles by having archetypes with different roles.

I feel it is very useful to use ‘roles’ as keywords for a specific feature (feat, power, spell). Then a player who wants a certain feature immediately understands its ‘purpose’.

For a feature, the role or purpose, can categorize more specifically: attack, defense, mobility, barrier, stealth, detection, assistance.

(Here assistance is for powers that acquire an item or summon a creature, being somewhat multi-purposed.)

 

[Immortal Sun]

We will see how people feel about having 8 ability scores. But there are many good reasons to have these 8. They are equally powerful to each other. And salient to describe well various kinds of creatures and abilities.

Frankly, if you're breaking away from the core 6 ability scores right off the bat, you're better off not even making a retroclone 4E and just making an entirely new RPG.

Frankly, as a 4E lover, I'm strongly interested in fewer ability scores, not more​.