D&D 4E 4e/Other Mechanics You Like

[Arctic Wolf]

Hey all, how is everyone? The reason for this thread is so I can get a good idea of what people who play 4e, like myself, like the most about it, and the least about it. While the playtest for D&DN looks ok, the feelings I get from threads located on the board look to be concerned for the lack of innovations that 4e brought in the game. So I am going to try and work on a side project to make a 5e , with a few things I would like to add to the game, more *4e centered* as you would call it.

I know it might seem silly to some but I am free for the summer so I might as well do something interesting . Also if there are any interesting mechanics that you like, then feel free to mention them. Thanks everyone and I hope to recieve decent ideas from you all

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

There are several projects like this on the go already. You might want to check out Fourthparty. Best of luck.

 

[delericho]

Okay, I'll preface this by noting that I'm not exactly a big fan of 4e (it's actually my least favourite edition). However, there are some features that I really like...

- For me, probably the single best feature of 4e is monster and encounter design. The model of "role + level gives baseline, pick some powers, make some small mods, and you're good to go" for monsters is a really strong one (though I can see it causing problems for WotC - it's too easy to use, so they have limited market for monster books!). And the construction of having an XP budget, coupled with the advice on blending different monster roles is likewise very strong. (It's just a shame that their adventure writers didn't realise that an adventure needed to be more than a series of interesting combats.)

- I really like the 4e implementation of action points. Only thing I'd change would be to give 1 per encounter, on a "use it or lose it" basis.

- I like the 4e handling of both gods and artifacts.

- I like the class roles, but I think they were way too explicit with them. Making it clear that the Bard was a Cleric-substitute was a really good thing (since previously it had been the ideal class if you wanted to be able to do everything kinda badly). But locking in every class so it had one role, and so the game would hurt you if you tried to deviate from it... not so good. (And yes, I exaggerate. But, still, they went too far.)

- I also liked a lot of the formalisation of the language. Standard/Move/Minor actions were a good thing, as were At-will/Encounter/Daily powers. I didn't like the way that they felt the need to fill in every design space, even much-needed spaces, but the basic framework was surprisingly good.

And, since you asked, the things that I really didn't like:

- I hated the 1-1-1-1 diagonals. I'm not going to rehash the why of it here - there are long and annoying threads elsewhere if you really want to know. (For that matter, I didn't like that 4e all-but-required the use of the combat grid in the first place.)

- By locking down so much of what a character could do into his powers (and thus onto cards), the game also seemed to lock down too much of the player's thinking - most turns consisted of looking at the six specific cards the player had and determining which of these was the best to use. (Again, the game tried to avoid this... but it largely failed IMX.)

- I didn't like the massive proliferation of options, which made the Character Builder absolutely essential for me to consider playing the game. Any required electronic component is a deal-breaker for me going forward.

- And likewise, I hated the constant errata. There was a spell where my Wizard's powers changed every single session, which is really not acceptable.

 

[the Jester]

I consider myself a fan of 4e and a critic of its flaws. It's the system I am currently running, and it's one of those things where I'm constantly getting better at approximating my gaming ideal with it.

That said:

- For me, probably the single best feature of 4e is monster and encounter design.

GOD, YES. 4e monster design is SOOOOO SWEET. (See the Monster Project link in my sig if you want access to a metric buttload of monsters that I've converted.)

4e's strength isn't in the rules per se; it's how sweet and tight the math behind the rules is. Unfortunately, that's also its weakness- there are so many assumptions baked in that you really can't get away from without bending the game pretty hard, things like treasure values/magic item wealth (at least weapon/implement, armor and neck items)... certain feat taxes are close to obligatory... a certain level of stat optimization is almost required... and so on.

One of 4e's other key strengths is how strongly it promotes teamwork and group play. Unfortunately, this is a potential weakness too, since it shoehorns some groups into a certain type of "Who's playing the leader this time?" mindset, which has the illusion of limiting choice, and it also makes smaller-than-four-person groups less effective against an equivalent encounter than a four-or-more person group (i.e. a party of 3 has a tougher time against 3 standard monsters than a party of 4 vs. 4 standard monsters).

I do like action points; they're a lot of fun and get better as you hit paragon level. (I know that Eberron had 'em in 3e, but 4e made them quite mainstream.)

I loathe the incredible amount of tracking involved in combat, especially once you hit the higher levels. Also the exxxxtreme option overload in having thousands of feats and powers to choose from; I'm with delericho in that a system that has the same strong need for e-support as 4e will lose my interest. (I do recognize that it's not all option overload making this an issue, some of it is the amount of math and all the stuff you gotta write down in order to make a complete character sheet by hand- I firmly want a system where blank paper and pencil are all you need to make a complete character sheet, where you do not need a worksheet to figure out your bonuses.)

I'm of mixed mind about healing in 4e; I really like surges but I really hate that there is no way to ever require weeks of rest of recover from serious wounds.

4e's magic items are great in basic conception but only so-so in execution. Too many are kind of boring. But there are tons of gems out there, once you excuse the "necessary for the math" bits on offense/defense items.

Another of the things that 4e does really well is encounters, especially combat encounters. This focus on the encounter is kind of limiting, though, because of the need to balance the encounters against the party; again, strength and weakness at once, thank you tight math.

I know I'm one of the only ones, but I'm a huge fan of skill challenges. Strong conception, weak presentation. However, I've tried hard to get to know the potential of the skill challenge system and I've learned to tweak it substantially. Sometimes there's no "Fail the challenge on 3 failures"; sometimes it's "How many successes can you get in x rounds?"; sometimes it's "the number of successes before 3 failures determines how long it takes to travel across this inhospitable wilderness"; and so on. The system as it is presented tells you to do this, but most of the published examples in books and modules are terrible. SPOILERS for Keep on the Shadowfell: [sblock]KotS's example of a skill challenge when you meet the undead knight is particularly egregious- he basically asks your party for someone to show their Arcana skill and so forth.[/sblock] Change the presentation and make it something that makes sense and you're better off. Also, I rarely tell the party that they're in a skill challenge, though they often figure it out.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Like [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION], I don't really classify as a 4e fan, but I will confess to warming up to it after discovering the electronic tools-- when the game was first released, I was infuriated by my inability to build any of my preferred character concepts, but with the second and third Player's Handbooks and the electronic tools, I can finally build characters I'm actually interested in playing.

And now that I no longer consider the game unplayable, there are quite a few things I actually really like about it.

Love:

• OHMYGOD, monsters. Especially dragons.
• Class specific at-will powers.
• Racial powers.
• Minor action ranged healing powers.
• Less reliance on healer role. Healing surges.
• The Martial power source. I still never play them, but at least they're finally awesome.
• Attacker always rolls.
• Primal power source finally separate from Divine.
• The psionic augment mechanic.
• Ritual magic.
• Simple weapon stats and simple critical hits.

Hate:

• Not enough at-will powers. Thirty levels, and you only get two (or three) at-will powers at 1st level, and they only improve at 21st.
• Encounter and Daily powers: I'm fine with them being limited, but you can only use each individual power once and only once per Encounter/Day? This is everything that's wrong with Vancian magic turned up to 11.
• Having to forget your powers to learn new powers when you level up.
• Multiclassing. The original multiclassing system is unforgivable. The hybrid multiclassing system is only marginally better.
• Combat takes way too long. Yes, I know, fixing my other complaints would make this worse. That doesn't make it better.

 

[delericho]

I do like action points; they're a lot of fun and get better as you hit paragon level. (I know that Eberron had 'em in 3e, but 4e made them quite mainstream.)

I actually quite dislike 3e-style Action Points - they're enough of a bonus to be fiddly while not enough to make a massive difference, they're a per-level resource which seems to lead to the BBEG encounters becoming anti-climactic (as the PCs have kept all their action points and are now spending them freely so as not to lose them), and the "you can use them, but only up into success or failure is known" is a real pain - I find it speeds play a lot if I tell the players the DC up-front, but that is now disallowed by the book.

Whereas the 4e version, where an action point gives an extra action? Yeah, that's good - a simple, intuitive, and fun mechanic.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Hey guys, thanks for the good feedback you have given already. It is really helpful . One of the ideas I am tossing around is only having at-will and daily spells. While most spells would have an at-will version, some would only be a daily version, and you could turn the at-wills into dailys.

Basically my resource system would that you would have several *charges*. So you can use at-wills all day long without suffering too much, but if you consume a *charge* you can turn that spell into a daily and it will waste the resource.

So lets say a lvl1 wizard starts off with 5 *charges*. He can use the at-will version of cloud of daggers all day. Now if he wants to have more hmph he can consume 1 *charge*, having 4 charges left for that day, and do more dmg/add a more lethal effect.

Also, I was considering having casters have another type of charge that would have more power but if you messed up you could be put in a bad situation, like the spell exploding in your face or passing out. This was also going to reduce some of the spells since some of them are just upgraded versions with different names.

I hope that was a better day of explaining it. So what do you guys think? Especially with casters having a more dangerous lvl of spells?


P.S. Yes I know this is like the psionic power point system. I do like it since it does make sense to me

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Basically my resource system would that you would have several *charges*. So you can use at-wills all day long without suffering too much, but if you consume a *charge* you can turn that spell into a daily and it will waste the resource.

This is a little worrisome. I prefer encounter to daily powers, mainly due to issues with player psychology.

Players seem to like encounter powers. It lets you do something cooler than usual without much in the way of cost. They also recharge, so PCs feel like they're near full-strength every encounter. (Same issue with hit points; each encounter, PCs usually lose healing surges, so they're getting drained, but their hit points refresh. Players feel their characters are "full" and so are less likely to hide and require time-sensitive plots to push them forward.)

D&DN playtests have this issue where wizards and clerics have only a few daily spells, so you see/read about PCs who spam magic missile or radiant lance, except once or twice, when they're willing to dish out a daily spell. (The playtest wizard has 5 or 6 at-wills, but only two of them are useful in combat, and one of those doesn't do damage.) D&DN only gives PCs a few useful at-wills, and while 4e has a large library of them, each PC only gets 2 or 3 of them.

I think a lot of DMs prefer daily resources, as it gives PCs something to manage over the course of a day. This takes a bit more work, requiring pacing encounters (the old random encounters) and various ways to avoid the 15 Minute Day problem.

Also, I was considering having casters have another type of charge that would have more power but if you messed up you could be put in a bad situation, like the spell exploding in your face or passing out. This was also going to reduce some of the spells since some of them are just upgraded versions with different names.

For the same reason that critical misses are considered a bad rule (the miss having an additional effect beyond being an auto-miss), I also think this is a bad idea. I think it's an attempt to replicate sword & sorcery fiction, but the fiction already bears little resemblance to the game. (Unlike in D&D, mishaps are predictable. If the author is good, they're only predictable to the author, but in either case, the author determines when a spell works and when it doesn't.)

Warhammer 40K has dangerous psionics. (2e has dangerous spellcasting, but that's much rarer.) My experience was a disaster. I would think that a spellcasting adventurer would have a better handle on how powerful their magic is than those cackling power-mad evil sorcerers in the fiction who are always summoning demons too powerful to control.

Being able to upgrade powers/spells is cool, IMO, but I'd be leery of throwing out what makes 4e good while doing so.

 

[the Jester]

I think 4e already has too much to track for many players. Adding the equivalent to power points is fine for certain players, but might overwhelm others; that's why I like that psionics has it as an option. If you want to use that system, you can play a psionic character, whereas if you don't want the extra layer of resource management, you don't have to.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not enough at-will powers. Thirty levels, and you only get two (or three) at-will powers at 1st level, and they only improve at 21st.
Encounter and Daily powers: I'm fine with them being limited, but you can only use each individual power once and only once per Encounter/Day? This is everything that's wrong with Vancian magic turned up to 11.
Having to forget your powers to learn new powers when you level up.
Multiclassing. The original multiclassing system is unforgivable. The hybrid multiclassing system is only marginally better.
Combat takes way too long. Yes, I know, fixing my other complaints would make this worse. That doesn't make it better.

Pretty much agreed (though I have no problem with Vancian magic per se)- and I'll add this: the whole "1 roll/turn" in combst thing gets pretty annoying when you miss. Every session, our warrior players gripe about waiting for their turn, rolling a single die to resolve the results of their combat actions, and missing. (It doesn't matter if it was the only miss of the night, either.) Powers that do damage on a miss only muffle the complaints, but do not silence them.