4e Development Trends

Where as I think this a great house rule, I think that by RAW it becomes more difficult to create. All of the powers are written explicitly with STR vs. AC and whatnot. Rewriting the game to say ATTACK vs. AC where ATTACK = 1/2 level + weapon/implement + feats +5 (and the with further level bonuses).

I suppose you could create a feat that says your prime stat counts as +5 for you powers or something. That could make this idea RAW still.

Oh, I see this more as a "5E" thing, though I wouldn't make any bets on that, either. There are good reasons to separate attack and damage rolls, and there are good reasons to not do it. ;)

And maybe I shouldn't have said easy. ;)
 

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I recently house ruled attacks to not use abilities at all. Essentially, abilities and magic weapons do not increase your attack score, you gain a base attack equal to your level -1 per tier, and you gain a +5 bonus with weapon or implement attacks if you are proficient with the weapon or implement. Weapon and Implement Expertise from PHB2 still in but they are paragon level (+1 when gained increasing to +2 at 21st level). My players are very excited about it to say the least.

4E focuses heavily on ability scores. In AD&D ability scores were important, but unless we are talking about Strength, most scores stayed the same until you died, maybe increasing by 1 if your DM was generous with the magic tomes. In 3E you could gain +6 (+12 in epic . . .) to each ability easily (you were expected to do so for your primary as well as Fort/Ref/Dex) and gaining +5 by a tome or a wish was hardly an issue either. This made starting scores look less important since they were so far behind the scores you would have by level 20 (though DCs made you max out your primary if a caster like crazy).

4E wants you to max out your attack score. And would like you to have a great secondary score as well. And don't forget you may want high scores for feats which may not match your secondary or even primary. Oh also you want to keep defenses up so try to spread the scores across the groups . . . 4E is never SAD.
 

I recently house ruled attacks to not use abilities at all. Essentially, abilities and magic weapons do not increase your attack score, you gain a base attack equal to your level -1 per tier, and you gain a +5 bonus with weapon or implement attacks if you are proficient with the weapon or implement. Weapon and Implement Expertise from PHB2 still in but they are paragon level (+1 when gained increasing to +2 at 21st level). My players are very excited about it to say the least.

4E focuses heavily on ability scores. In AD&D ability scores were important, but unless we are talking about Strength, most scores stayed the same until you died, maybe increasing by 1 if your DM was generous with the magic tomes. In 3E you could gain +6 (+12 in epic . . .) to each ability easily (you were expected to do so for your primary as well as Fort/Ref/Dex) and gaining +5 by a tome or a wish was hardly an issue either. This made starting scores look less important since they were so far behind the scores you would have by level 20 (though DCs made you max out your primary if a caster like crazy).

4E wants you to max out your attack score. And would like you to have a great secondary score as well. And don't forget you may want high scores for feats which may not match your secondary or even primary. Oh also you want to keep defenses up so try to spread the scores across the groups . . . 4E is never SAD.


From what we've seen of the PHB II, few if any feats have stat prerequisites and some feats (like melee training) cut down a bit on the MAD issue. The expertise feats may also help to free up some ability points that would otherwise be spent frantically pumping up your attack stat (since everyone is now essentially a 3.5e caster in that regard). I think the developers are purposely trying to cut down on the MAD issue though whether they go far enough is up to individual DMs to decide.
 

Well as far as characters who use weapon powers are concerned, the Weapon Mastery feats are still something you need to built for. And you probably will want a paragon weapon feat as well.
But I never meant that 4E is MAD to the point where it is actually a problem. I am worried about the obviously amazing feats from PHBII. Not just the expertise feat but the Defense feats as well. I always thought that a system should always allow you to pick all the options that give you your optimal play style before having to round up the math and with too many math enhancing feats I am worried we won't have room for cool feats in our builts unless we sacrifice heavily.
 

I think M&M actually did it fantastically by seperating your physical stats from your actual in-combat stats. Strength gave you strength, but it didn't make you hit stronger in melee.
I've played universal systems that were like this: it wasn't your strength score that determined how much you could carry... you had a strength skill that you rolled. It created an unfortunate disconnect in my head when I had an ungodly strength attribute, but couldn't pick up a brick.
 

Eh, I don't know that a solution for anything -- you'd just end up with Fighters who have ridiculously awesome Strength (as now) and Fighters who have absolutely miserable Strength -- the middle ground is still no-man's land. It's kind of the same situation that 3E Fighters had with Intelligence -- if it wasn't unusually high, it might as well be 3, because it really just stops mattering.

I wonder if this point buy stat generation is really all it is cracked up to be. Sure, its "fair" when compared to rolling 3d6. But 3d6 has the charm of making smart fighters, or charming rogue. In 4E, you are punished for selecting sub-optimal point buys because average is bad.

Let's jump in the way back machine and travel to those heady days of 1E and 2E. An 11 Str fighter was fine. He might not be a world beater, but he could easily hold his own in a fight. In fact, he was just an average fighter and the game system doesn't punish you for being average. It does reward you for being exceptional. Get lucky and land a 17 in strength, well, here is a +1 to hit and damage. Get unlucky and have a 9 in str, well hell, you can still be an average fighter (it took a 7 in Str before you had a combat penalty to hit). A character with a 16-18 stat was special in early editions.

Returning to the world of today, a player playing a fighter who drops an 11 into strength will be laughed out of the room. 18 is average for a fighter strength now, not 11. The game's math is built around this fact. The game system's math punishes you for dropping an 11 into strength (to the tune of -4 or -20% on attack rolls) the equivalent to a 2 Strength fighter in 2E. A -5% chance for 16 is still pretty harsh (the equivalent of a 7 strength in 1E or 2E).

Because of point buy stats, the average shifts from 10.5 (from 3d6 fame) to 18 (when you factor in +2 racial bonuses). 18 is the new 11 for point buy characters. The flip side of this is that 10 is the new 3. Imagine a world where every mage has Str 3 and Int 11 and every fighter has Str 11 and Int 3. This is the world that 4E math expects.
 

I wonder if this point buy stat generation is really all it is cracked up to be. Sure, its "fair" when compared to rolling 3d6. But 3d6 has the charm of making smart fighters, or charming rogue. In 4E, you are punished for selecting sub-optimal point buys because average is bad.


Because of point buy stats, the average shifts from 10.5 (from 3d6 fame) to 18 (when you factor in +2 racial bonuses). 18 is the new 11 for point buy characters. The flip side of this is that 10 is the new 3. Imagine a world where every mage has Str 3 and Int 11 and every fighter has Str 11 and Int 3. This is the world that 4E math expects.

When I gave a 4e a try I made all the characters roll abilities. The only game I do not use random roll for ability generation is Mutants and Masterminds, and HERO. I like the way Point buy is built into those systems.

I am still someone that likes High Abilities in my players. So I worked out a system that gives a base average of 14 instead of 10.5.

After the 4d6 was rolled (dropping the lowest) for each ability I allowed the player to roll 1d4 and add the points to any ability they liked any way they liked up to racial maximums.

I calculated the average to be a 14. Lowest ability was typically a 9.

I had planty of characters where the highest ability was 16.
 

Let's jump in the way back machine and travel to those heady days of 1E and 2E. An 11 Str fighter was fine. He might not be a world beater, but he could easily hold his own in a fight. In fact, he was just an average fighter and the game system doesn't punish you for being average. It does reward you for being exceptional.
You're also an average fighter in 3.x and 4th if you've only got a strength of 10 or 11.
However, all editions punish you for being a suboptimal fighter when you're strenght score is not really high. Because you also get more experience points for having higher strength, you hit better and do more damage, as you point out further down, such a fighter is several billion times more desirable than the STR 11 fighter in whatever edition there might be, be it original, 1st edition, Advanced, 2nd edition, 3.x or the newer 4th edition.
Being a suboptimal character that doesn't do a good job with somebody else's character who simply got much more luckier when rolling stats is being punishment in itself.

I'm tired and sick of rolling stats, as I did in Wizardry, or in AD&D 2nd edition. And if I want to be a smart and strong fighter, I can easily do this in a point-buy system which exists in 3.x and 4th edition, without being penalized like in prior edition.
 

I hope that other classes will gain this sort of depth, rather than more towards a SAD design.
I think that making the game more SAD actually improves the games options. If the assumption is that your character is going to have an 18 or 20 in your primary (like it already does) embrace that design restraint but don't make more design requirements like secondaries and tertiaries. That just muddies the water and makes characters forced into certain stat placements and abilities. Why needlessly do that? Open it up give more options. Do you really expect that every class (they are planning on quite a few) is going to get the necessary development space to make every nuanced option a reality. I don't, I think that is a pipe dream.

That said, I think making Basic Attacks based on your Primary stat is smart. That just means they're useful to non-Str characters.
I think this is a perfect example of what needs to be done with the overall system. But taken to the next level it will completely free up character design. Options baby options. With a completely SAD system you can then choose whatever options you want outside of your primary. You decide what feats you want to qualify for, you decide what skills you want to be good at, etc.

That said, I'm at something of a loss as to how to reduce the reliance on a single stat without tearing the system to pieces.
Completely embracing SAD will make it a forgone (which it already is), with that being a constant it frees up a lot of design space.

4E focuses heavily on ability scores.

4E wants you to max out your attack score. And would like you to have a great secondary score as well.
Here in lies the issue, if you have to have a great primary and then you are also required to have a good secondary and possibly a tertiary or second primary. Every class winds up looking cookie cut. When designing my characters I dont want to come out of the WotC cookie cutter factory I want to make my own unique character. They have not given you much free space to do that with your stats. Embracing SAD will free up those areas to make the character you want not the character WotC designers want.

And don't forget you may want high scores for feats which may not match your secondary or even primary. Oh also you want to keep defenses up so try to spread the scores across the groups . . . 4E is never SAD.
Exactly, although I draw a different conclusion. 4e is so MAD it can be frustrating. Freeing up class requirements free up those stat resources for options like feats, defenses etc.

I think the developers are purposely trying to cut down on the MAD issue though whether they go far enough is up to individual DMs to decide.
I agree there feat selections for PHB2 really push the fold, their design should continue to be far reaching and free up the stat constraints that are imposed, make the assumption class primary is an 18 or 20 and move on (as it already is whether they consciously designed the game that way or not). Let the player decide what their secondary and tertiary are not the designer.

I always thought that a system should always allow you to pick all the options that give you your optimal play style before having to round up the math and with too many math enhancing feats I am worried we won't have room for cool feats in our builts unless we sacrifice heavily.
I agree, some blurbs in a future supplement (DMG2?) might be nice with applying a few of the "fix it" feats for free at character creation.

It created an unfortunate disconnect in my head when I had an ungodly strength attribute, but couldn't pick up a brick.
Well D&D has moved in that direction whether we like it or not. Targeting energy bolts with your CON, Crossbowing with your STR, swinging a sword with your INT - by realism's standard these would be tossed out the window. I mean you can easily explain away these issues like you are so tough it allows your magic to target better, or you leap forward with your strength slightly when you pull the trigger of the crossbow, or you are so smart you can calculate the trajectory of your sword to give maximum effect. I am and I think most people are beyond the realism problem. 4e is any stat = any use.

Let's jump in the way back machine and travel to those heady days of 1E and 2E. An 11 Str fighter was fine.
3e and 4e both torqued up stat reliance, I think this is a function of (.5*stat)-5. Before you needed a 15 or higher to get a stat modifier. My experience though was every fighter type had 18/xx and every thief had high DEX to increase their thieving skills still. I think the stat formula was a good addition. I can see an argument for: 1-3 = +0, 4-6 = +1, 7-9 = +2 etc.
18 is the new 11 for point buy characters. The flip side of this is that 10 is the new 3. Imagine a world where every mage has Str 3 and Int 11 and every fighter has Str 11 and Int 3. This is the world that 4E math expects.
Very effective analysis. It is an interesting shift that I had never considered.
 

You're also an average fighter in 3.x and 4th if you've only got a strength of 10 or 11.
However, all editions punish you for being a suboptimal fighter when you're strenght score is not really high. Because you also get more experience points for having higher strength, you hit better and do more damage, as you point out further down, such a fighter is several billion times more desirable than the STR 11 fighter in whatever edition there might be, be it original, 1st edition, Advanced, 2nd edition, 3.x or the newer 4th edition.
Being a suboptimal character that doesn't do a good job with somebody else's character who simply got much more luckier when rolling stats is being punishment in itself.

I'm tired and sick of rolling stats, as I did in Wizardry, or in AD&D 2nd edition. And if I want to be a smart and strong fighter, I can easily do this in a point-buy system which exists in 3.x and 4th edition, without being penalized like in prior edition.

You are an average fighter in 3E with a str 10/11 for 3d6 in-line character generation. Deviate from that, and 10/11 stops being average.

I'm not suggesting you always roll stats or always point-buy stats. I'm simply looking at the changing trend in average stats. If 10 is the base for all stats in a point buy, then 10 is not average. From the point of view of the game math, your strength 10 fighter is the same as a str 2 fighter from 2E. 10 is the base, 18/20 is the average controlling stat for a class (Str for Fighter, Int for Wizard, etc).
 

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