D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[Thalionalfirin]

Oh how I dreamed of a fatigue system in D&D.

Wasn't there a fatigue system in 2e Player's Options?

 

[Janaxstrus]

Encounter and daily powers are things I never want to see again.

I don't care for the overly tactical 4e combat at all. When I wanted tactical combat, I played Minis...I mean before they killed that with 4e too.

 

[KarinsDad]

The idea that a character sheet needs to be filled with dozens of highly specific abilities is nonsensical and makes it pretty difficult to actually play the game.

The main issue that I had with this is the fact that a power that could be written in a sentence or two took 1/9th of a page and that players had 6 to 50 such abilities.

I'm currently moving and I've gone through a lot of my old gaming material. I found a lot of 3E and earlier character sheets where everything that was needed was on a single sheet of paper or two sheets for the most part.

Regardless of other 5E solutions, I hope that they get rid of the 4 to 8 page 4E character sheet.

 

[keterys]

I actually thought encounter powers made a lot of sense for 4e martial characters. After a rest, you can do a few extra big powerful hits before you're too tired to do more. Dailies are a lot more questionable.

Then again, I also find the idea of dailies a little dubious for spellcasters without attaching the full context of Vance, which frankly we don't. I'd just as soon they could muster up a certain amount of spell energy until they rest.

And then you could let folks actually fatigue themselves or take hp damage or channel energy or whatever as alternate means to pull deeper from the bucket and do powers again, or at increased effectiveness.

But generic dailies for anyone? Meh. Problematic from a fluff perspective, problematic from an adventure pacing perspective.


And big lists of more options that are rarely worth doing doesn't really help. And often don't make sense - Disarming is a big deal, so you have to make it pretty painful to attempt. So it gets big penalties and grants an OA in 3e. Unless you feat to avoid those things. At which point, you can disarm every attack? That's... pretty ludicrous. Now, if we can get a combat system that opens up more options against enemies that are fatigued, dazed, whatever? Sure, that's more viable. Now you're not disarming every single enemy, but only those you get the drop on.

Or maybe recharge rolls, so you can do some things often, but not casually on demand.

Unless folks do find it more realistic when the spiked chain wielder whirlwinds every enemy within 10-ish feet for damage and trips them up. Every turn. Every combat.

 

[keterys]

you could have a "encounter" power level effect trigger whenever the character makes an attack roll and gets a score of 16-19 and a "daily" power level effect trigger whenever he gets a natural 20.

Yeah, that's a pretty solid idea and could apply to all kinds of character concepts. Sadly, I must spread around XP before I give you again.

 

[Rhenny]

Well if the suspension of belief harming, powers economy is a problem for many people... how about just removing the encounter/daily powers and increasing the viability of the basic combat actions.

How hard is it to make a nice list of combat actions that are not extremely complex, viable at all levels, and interesting.
Bullrush, distract, disarm, grapple, trip, throw, overrun, manyshot, two weapon attack, push, grab, power attack, cleave, shield bash, low blow..

I agree. I think it will be nice to give spellcasters a few at will powers (for when they run out of spells), but for martial classes, they should give them options all the time.

I could see having an options card that clearly states how to do specific maneuvers (instead of attack powers). It would quickly show how to grapple, rush/shield bash to push, rush/shield bash to knock, to trip a foe, feint or confuse enemy, move/attack/move, aim carefully, use coup-de-grace, tumble through threatened areas, etc. Depending on the severity of the outcome, negative modifiers could be applied. Perhaps some classes could be better at some maneuvers than others, or feats could be gained at different levels to add bonuses to specific maneuvers (although that might add too much complication).

If special maneuvers are active attacks vs. defender abilities (with level modifiers) then maneuvers should be well balanced for use at all levels, and a 1st level fighter could try to knock a 10th level monster down, but the chance would be remote. This is what D&D is about. "Say Yes." Give martial classes a chance to have fun with options.

 

[Minigiant]

And big lists of more options that are rarely worth doing doesn't really help. And often don't make sense - Disarming is a big deal, so you have to make it pretty painful to attempt. So it gets big penalties and grants an OA in 3e. Unless you feat to avoid those things. At which point, you can disarm every attack? That's... pretty ludicrous. Now, if we can get a combat system that opens up more options against enemies that are fatigued, dazed, whatever? Sure, that's more viable. Now you're not disarming every single enemy, but only those you get the drop on.

Or maybe recharge rolls, so you can do some things often, but not casually on demand.

Unless folks do find it more realistic when the spiked chain wielder whirlwinds every enemy within 10-ish feet for damage and trips them up. Every turn. Every combat.

Of course each option would need a notable restriction/cost/penalty to make it not all silly or suspense breaking.

 

[BobTheNob]

Totally with OP on the "gamist" nature of AEDU. I would add to his observations that one aspect of this that really dragged for me was the same-same'ness it gave to characters (Feel free to disagree. This was how I observed it).

I totally love the idea of martial powers being in the "real world". They are just physical things anyone can do, just the fighter does them better than the rest. Beef up and nut out a bunch of at-will options(with conditions on execution...min distance for change, cant grapple collossal) that anyone can call on, then give the fighter a whole slew of feat options for tweaking them, thats my call.

 

[Mattachine]

I think a great way to change encounter powers in 4e is by using power points, like 4e psionics.

You could change the name to whatever you want (like vitality, fatigue, etc.). During an encounter, the character can "spend" effort to make otherwise at-will attacks even better.

Dump dailies, boost the amount of points, and perhaps add some ways to regain points during a fight--this is what I am doing for my 4e superhero game I am working on. Love it.

 

[Halivar]

Yikes. If 5E does not have AEDU, I will cobble them back on. "I attack, I attack, I attack" is simply not a valid play-style for me anymore.