D&D 4E 4e Lite - a rules-lite fast play version of 4e

[Harr]

Very nice, very nice

I agree about the action/item point thing, your way is much simpler, but my group in particular expressed an interest in stockpiling and managing their points so we're gonna see if it shakes out (we already use poker chips to represent each point, red for action and blue for item, thanks to the confusing milestone system of 4e, so there's little actual tracking, more just flipping chips back and forth).

Anyway, what I call "critical-triggered" damage is the extra damage on a magic weapon that only comes into play when you score a critical. For example, a Magic Weapon +2 (page 235 of the PHB) has +1d6 per plus = 2d6 "critical-triggered" damage.

Now, in the regular 4e rules as I understand them, on a critical hit ALL damage is maximized except for this critical-triggered damage, which still needs to be rolled. So for these rules, since all damage is doubled, the triggered damage is maximized, is how we see it.

Of course, another possibility, since people are already doing double-max damage on crits, is to do away with this type of damage altogether, since it can get crazy (for ex., our L5 paladin with a Symbol of Victory +2 would be doing around 80 damage in one blow if he crits with his daily... on the other hand, what are the chances?? It SHOULD be crazy to crit with a daily).

 

[Foxman]

Harr is correct about the critical triggered damage. Vicious weapons do d12's for the record

Of course, another possibility, since people are already doing double-max damage on crits, is to do away with this type of damage altogether, since it can get crazy (for ex., our L5 paladin with a Symbol of Victory +2 would be doing around 80 damage in one blow if he crits with his daily... on the other hand, what are the chances?? It SHOULD be crazy to crit with a daily).

Given everything else I dont think double max damage + magic is a bad thing - keeps everything moving...

I suggested the Defense because I know in my group its always like "what do you attack? fort? will?

If there was a good way to do it I would only have one attack number and one defense number

 

[erf_beto]

mshea and everyone else, I love all these suggestions (in fact, I've been thinking along those lines for some time as well, for a DM-less boardgame-like session).

Foxman, you could do something like in DDM 2.0: you have AC and one single Defense score, but each attack targets DEF(Fort), DEF(Ref) or DEF(Will), wich only matters if the creature has an ability like "DEF(Will)+4" - wich the player will probably remind you of.

The thing is, I like Healing Surges and Daily Powers - actually, not exactly: I like the idea of one big special ability that you save up until the right time (I think charging an action point for a daily is a great idea), and the "we should rest, NOW !!!" thought... The accounting is bad, specially if you're running multiple characters, but I think that in 4e surges are the resources that define your "health bar", even more than HP. So I will probably not get rid of them.

What I think would add a nice twist (and better management) in a game where players run multiple characters is shared resources, like a pool of action points. I'm thinking something like half the number of party members in AP, reset every encounter. A character can use only one AP per fight to get an extra action, but that doesnt mean he can't use an AP on his daily - its like i'm giving a daily called "extra action" to each character, wich you can activate by spending an AP.

I'm considering doing the same to magic item powers. Actually, I'd like to group more resources into one big pool: wanna use your daily power? 1AP; Want an extra action? 1AP; Want to activate your magic sword? 1AP; Wanna Second Wind? 1AP. (maybe too far out on the Second Wind... that would be a gritty game! )

I'm sure there are problems I'm not seeing, but I'd like to be able to do that...

 

[Foxman]

Foxman, you could do something like in DDM 2.0: you have AC and one single Defense score, but each attack targets DEF(Fort), DEF(Ref) or DEF(Will), wich only matters if the creature has an ability like "DEF(Will)+4" - wich the player will probably remind you of.

LOL I know well about it - here is a link to one of my articles I wrote for WotC: DDM 2008 Championship Maps
heh

The thing is, I like Healing Surges and Daily Powers - actually, not exactly: I like the idea of one big special ability that you save up until the right time (I think charging an action point for a daily is a great idea), and the "we should rest, NOW !!!" thought... The accounting is bad, specially if you're running multiple characters, but I think that in 4e surges are the resources that define your "health bar", even more than HP. So I will probably not get rid of them.

What I think would add a nice twist (and better management) in a game where players run multiple characters is shared resources, like a pool of action points. I'm thinking something like half the number of party members in AP, reset every encounter. A character can use only one AP per fight to get an extra action, but that doesnt mean he can't use an AP on his daily - its like i'm giving a daily called "extra action" to each character, wich you can activate by spending an AP.

I'm considering doing the same to magic item powers. Actually, I'd like to group more resources into one big pool: wanna use your daily power? 1AP; Want an extra action? 1AP; Want to activate your magic sword? 1AP; Wanna Second Wind? 1AP. (maybe too far out on the Second Wind... that would be a gritty game! )

I'm sure there are problems I'm not seeing, but I'd like to be able to do that...

I also like the "save up the big thing to use idea as well.

I think I prefer less tracking of action points myself - which is why I suggested a reset of actions points to 1 per tier. That way its a choice between you daily power from your character OR using a magic item OR getting an extra attack in a round (at heroic level at least). At paragon with two action points there are more options available.

I think 1 AP per tier also better represents the amount of resources a regular game would have in terms of the power available during a fight.

I'm not wild a shared pool - a possible sorce of arguments between players. It might work for some groups, but I suspect it could be a real issue for others...

Thinking about a defense stat I've been brainstorming and have come up with:

Use the mod ability of your highest stat (likely a +3 to +5) +2 for light armour, +4 for heavy armour, +1 for shield, and the base 10 + 1/2 level.
Mind you that would be for a more custom type skirmish game

 

[SlyFlourish]

intent

I wanted to talk a little bit about my personal intent with these rules. My intent isn't to have a set of 4e house rules that I'd use for normal games. My intent is to have a stripped-down fast system to use for off-night games, one-shot games, or one-hour-with-the-wife games.

Thats probably the reason I want to keep things like action points and equipment triggers as simple as possible.

On the crit thing, I think with the doubling of max damage, it's already going to be pretty swingy. Adding any additional damage takes it way out of the actual capability of the weapon. For example:

Lets say a dwarf fighter at level 15 has 1d12+12 damage on his +4 war axe. His max damage in regular 4e would be: 24+4d6+1d12 (maybe he has high crit) or 60 damage. In my version his base damage would be 24, doubled to 48. Which is a little above average on a normal crit hit. Adding in the max additional dice takes it to 84. That's quite a bit higher than a max 4e crit.

The doubling of the crit is so simple and requires so little additional math. I'm tempted to just not count high-crit weapons, high-crit feats (which my simple character creation rules omit anyway), or other high-crit effects. The only item where this has a major effect is the vorpal weapon. You might make a special case for that one if you wanted to.

Anyway, I'm loving the discussion and I'm really glad to see Foxman in here hashing it out. I've loved his stuff since the minute it was up on the D&D Miniature site.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[erf_beto]

LOL I know well about it - here is a link to one of my articles I wrote for WotC: DDM 2008 Championship Maps
heh

So I was preaching to the choir it seems! LOL

I'm not wild a shared pool - a possible sorce of arguments between players. It might work for some groups, but I suspect it could be a real issue for others...

I suppose shared resources only work 100% when you're playing multiple characters (like in DDM skirmishes). Aside from that case, it would have to be an agreement between players to use this rule.

Thinking about a defense stat I've been brainstorming and have come up with:

Use the mod ability of your highest stat (likely a +3 to +5) +2 for light armour, +4 for heavy armour, +1 for shield, and the base 10 + 1/2 level.
Mind you that would be for a more custom type skirmish game

Is that meant to replace AC, the defenses, or combine both into one target number? I'm not sure why armor would improve your Will... maybe I don't need to think this hard

 

[Foxman]

I wanted to talk a little bit about my personal intent with these rules. My intent isn't to have a set of 4e house rules that I'd use for normal games. My intent is to have a stripped-down fast system to use for off-night games, one-shot games, or one-hour-with-the-wife games.

I agree that a stripped down system would be great for these. I'm eyeing it for this use as well.

On the crit thing, I think with the doubling of max damage, it's already going to be pretty swingy.

I agree with your math. In the end adding for highcrit/magic weapons would likely throw out the system.

If we really want to dig into the math however, I'm not sure about the max/2x max system. It does make things fly faster (more damage) but things could get a little squirly. I would normally consider "average" damage for something like this.

Consider the following

With a daily "Brute Strike" power a fighter is doing 3d8 + 5 damage with a +1 weapon
Average = 18.5 hp damage
Max = 33 damage
Crit = 33 + d6

Consider another fighter doing an encounter power of 2d12 + 9 with a vicious +1 weapon
Average = 22
Max = 33
Crit = 33 + 1d12

You can see that the average number can varry depending on the size & number of dice and the bonus added even when the max is the same. This means that when you compare a brute and a soldier's damage, even if they both did the same max, the brute would average higher normally.

It takes less math, and is quicker to just look at a MM creature and do max damage. However with a small amount of prep time I think it would be possible to pull up a monster and do a small amount of math and get the average damage from a monster.
I would suggest two numbers for a monster Average and Crit.

All that said it is much quicker to just do max damage

So I was preaching to the choir it seems! LOL

LOL no worries

Is that meant to replace AC, the defenses, or combine both into one target number? I'm not sure why armor would improve your Will... maybe I don't need to think this hard

It would be ment to replace all defenses/AC into a single stat. As to why? Look at HP - what is it really? Its not just "physical damage" its an abstraction. Take a look at AC - its not really how hard you are to hit (guys in platemail tend to be slower and easier to hit) it represents how hard you are to hit AND lay in some damage. This idea is just abstracting out how hard it is to hit something be it a spell or a sword. anyways just a little brainstorming

 

[SlyFlourish]

If we really want to dig into the math however, I'm not sure about the max/2x max system. It does make things fly faster (more damage) but things could get a little squirly.

There's two purposes to the max damage thing. One, its easy to calculate. Two, it radically speeds up combat. Average damage probably works better overall in the system but combat would be roughly the same amount of time. With max damage, it moves a lot faster.

I'm going to try this out this weekend with a quick two encounter scenario using three characters (for my folks and my wife to play).

I'll post it when I have it ready.

 

[Harr]

About the max damage: My reason for adopting it is also the increase in speed. You are not only saving yourself the time to actually roll damage, you are saving yourself all those rounds that go "Woo I hit with a 19! roll damage... 1." Better luck next round. In theory it should half the time a monster or a player takes to go down even before counting the time saved in rolling and adding up dice.

And in my experience this is a change that not only a fast-play version but also the regular version of 4e needs. Consider mshea's example of a dwarven fighter level 15 with high-crit - doing 84 damage on a critical hit.

Level 15 brute? Wouldn't even get down to *bloodied* with 84 damage. Soldier or skirmisher would get bloodied, but barely. This is with a fighter character having high crit hitting a critical, ie what will probably be one of the highest-damage hits in the entire combat. It does have the potential to change the tide of the battle, but only just barely - and that is what a critical should do in my opinion.

Also critical hits in combat are scored 5% of the time (and some of that 5% is bound to fall to skill checks or such, so less)... I don't think it could have that much of an impact, I think you could even make a rule that has critical hits be auto-kills and it wouldn't really change the battles that much overall (except for making players feel totally awesome when they score one).

Anyway, I realize you guys have different goals from mine, since I'm actually trying to change the actual regular game, but I also have a game this weekend and will write about what happens. Could be I'm totally wrong here

 

[Harr]

Actually, if you're looking for the most simplicity without the squirliness of double damage, why don't you just do: normal hits are max damage, critical hits are max damage plus max "critical-triggered" damage, including high-crits and whathaveyou. Seems the best of both worlds for what you want