D&D 4E 4E Redux

[Raith5]

I agree with your premises and goals but wouldnt it be easier to spice up 5e rather than totally transform 4e?

As I see if you revamp the battlemaster or give at will attacks to all martial classes, give monsters some further abilities/attacks you will go a long way to your goals with far less work.

 

[Zardnaar]

I could go 2 ways.

1. Make something more mass market, more SWSE less 4E as is.

or
2. Steamline

2 would be more or less 4E for the 4E fans but a few ideas from 5E would be used. I would dump level 21-30, the tiers would be 1-8, 9-14, 15-20 for heroic, paragon, epic. Game designers are human to and most people don't play at level 20+ anyway. Tha cuts the 4E PHB classes down by 4-5 pages each.

Bounded accuracy.
Similar to 5E but bit more spread out. Abilities would be capped at 20, things like skill focus and trained would be overhauled. No more +14 at level 1 on skill checks. Similar to 5E.

Powers would likely be a bit more like SWSE force powers. Each power source would have their own set, some might have requirements (Monk 5, Fighter 10 for example). More stuff would be added to the basic classes so the powers are a bit less redundant. For example something like 5E fighting styles would be used, the Ranger would have some sort of striker ability while the fighter would be like a tempest if you wanted and you could staple the effect of a power onto a basic attack. Might also go with 5E multiple attacks instead of increasing amounts of 1W,2W,3W etc. This would also close the gap between rangers for damage and other strikers. This wold also eliminate a lot of duplicate or near duplicate powers.

So yeah a lot of streamlining but things like AEDU would be retained. Might steal advantage/disadvantage as well.

 

[Xeviat]

I agree with your premises and goals but wouldnt it be easier to spice up 5e rather than totally transform 4e?

As I see if you revamp the battlemaster or give at will attacks to all martial classes, give monsters some further abilities/attacks you will go a long way to your goals with far less work.

That's been the back and forth in my head. Changing the monsters would require "CHANGING THE MONSTERS", and for some reason I feel like altering the class/feat chapters of 4E feels like less work than altering an entire Monster Manual.

Then again, altering the monster manual would mostly be creating a new monster by level table and then applying it to monsters based on their CR. It's still a lot of work, and adjusting the classes feels more entertaining.

Though representing the 5E classes in the AEDU structure of 4E would be fun, because I think less people would like it. I firmly believe 4E's failing among the pathfinder players was presentation.

 

[cmad1977]

What's you opinion on limiting yourself to the levels of 4E where you don't get that analysis paralysis?
Wouldn´t that do the trick?

So like... only 1st level? I’m in.

 

[MoutonRustique]

I've not done the math on this, but if you're looking for longer "4e-more" feeling combats, I imagine these changes could be applied "on the fly" without to much trouble :

• double monster hp
• give all characters a new bonus action that allows using 1/2 level HD to self-heal when they have fewer than half their hp remaining. You must complete a long or short rest before you can use this ability again.
• ... I would probably double the amount of HD a character has to "compensate"

It should allow for 1 or 2 more rounds and offer that "spring-back" feel. After that, it's a matter of giving monsters appropriately-thematic riders to their attacks, or a few special abilities to give them more personality in play.

I'm a big fan of the 13thAge approach of applying effects based on the attack roll. A simple example :
Ogre - on 15+, push back 10 feet. On even roll, target adjacent character (no new roll). On 20, knock prone.
These are cumulative (apply all that... apply.) So a "20" actually has all three effects.

Or, if you're rolling damage, you can apply some effects on high/low damage rolls.

Having these things trigger really frees-up brain space, and tends to make it flow smoother at the table. (IF the triggers are simple and few in number.)

 

[MoutonRustique]

So like... only 1st level? I’m in.

I'm actually curious to know how many would like a game where you never got more powers. You can choose better ones as you gain levels, and your numbers grow, but you never actually get more than 1 encounter and 1 daily.

On the flip side, I'm also curious to know how many would like a game where the numbers don't grow, but you get new and better powers as you gain levels.

It's not really possible to force thousands and thousands of players to spend thousands of hours just to sate my curiosity, but if I had Xavier's powers... I'd be pretty tempted to try it out.

 

[Raith5]

That's been the back and forth in my head. Changing the monsters would require "CHANGING THE MONSTERS", and for some reason I feel like altering the class/feat chapters of 4E feels like less work than altering an entire Monster Manual.

Then again, altering the monster manual would mostly be creating a new monster by level table and then applying it to monsters based on their CR. It's still a lot of work, and adjusting the classes feels more entertaining.

Though representing the 5E classes in the AEDU structure of 4E would be fun, because I think less people would like it. I firmly believe 4E's failing among the pathfinder players was presentation.

Fair enough. I think you could try making a loose list of attributes which could attach to 5e monsters on the fly. For eg: adding a 20' push to giant attacks, adding a 20' aura that does 1-8 necro damage to a specter, etc.

 

[sfedi]

With new players I normally dont start with the daily.
And in some cases without the encounter power entirely.

Those cuts are made to mantain simplicity and usually last 2-4 combats.

 

[cbwjm]

And here I was thinking about bringing in some of the 4e changes to 5e. I'm thinking of doing away with hit dice and using healing surges (4 + con modifier for everyone) as well as giving everyone a 10 hit point kicker at the start to make level 1 and 2 more durable (Well, I guess all levels would be more durable but it would be more noticeable at levels 1 and 2). I'm also thinking about adding in the at will powers for martial attacks as manoeuvres but haven't quite figured out how to add them in with extra attacks at the moment, as in, should I scale them with extra attack or allow the effects to apply to each attack. Currently I'm leaning towards allowing the effects to apply to all attacks so that an 11th level fighter can cleave 3 times and deal their strength modifier damage to another enemy with each strike.

If I scaled them then I would probably make them kind of like cantrips that only level with each instance of extra attack and each use would use the full Attack action. A 5th level paladin cleaving would deal 2[weapon damage]+modifier to one target and 1[weapon]+modifier to a second. More overall damage but if they chose to smite, it would only affect a single target. At 11th level with improved smite, they would only be dealing that radiant damage to the primary target while the 11th level fighter would be dealing 3[weapon]+modifier to one target and 2[weapon]+modifier to a second. Feats like Great Weapon Master (or is that the fighting style?) might not be as desirable with these manoeuvres but I haven't really looked at the math to see how they compare to using the multiple attacks from Extra Attack.

But enough about what I want to do, I will be interested to see what changes you make for 4e. It definitely had a lot of options to keep up with so cutting them down would help with the learning curve for new players.

 

[Xeviat]

And here I was thinking about bringing in some of the 4e changes to 5e. I'm thinking of doing away with hit dice and using healing surges (4 + con modifier for everyone) as well as giving everyone a 10 hit point kicker at the start to make level 1 and 2 more durable (Well, I guess all levels would be more durable but it would be more noticeable at levels 1 and 2). I'm also thinking about adding in the at will powers for martial attacks as manoeuvres but haven't quite figured out how to add them in with extra attacks at the moment, as in, should I scale them with extra attack or allow the effects to apply to each attack. Currently I'm leaning towards allowing the effects to apply to all attacks so that an 11th level fighter can cleave 3 times and deal their strength modifier damage to another enemy with each strike.

If I scaled them then I would probably make them kind of like cantrips that only level with each instance of extra attack and each use would use the full Attack action. A 5th level paladin cleaving would deal 2[weapon damage]+modifier to one target and 1[weapon]+modifier to a second. More overall damage but if they chose to smite, it would only affect a single target. At 11th level with improved smite, they would only be dealing that radiant damage to the primary target while the 11th level fighter would be dealing 3[weapon]+modifier to one target and 2[weapon]+modifier to a second. Feats like Great Weapon Master (or is that the fighting style?) might not be as desirable with these manoeuvres but I haven't really looked at the math to see how they compare to using the multiple attacks from Extra Attack.

But enough about what I want to do, I will be interested to see what changes you make for 4e. It definitely had a lot of options to keep up with so cutting them down would help with the learning curve for new players.

Want to work with me on this? I've actually already started the process of replacing Extra attack with 1-2-3-4[W] damage scaling at 1, 5, 11, 17 (replacing extra attack with unique class features; makes multiclassing feel different and differentiates the classes). I've started on a maneuver system for 5E too. Adding in cantrip style weapon attacks that sacrifice ability damage to gain effects wouldn't be hard at all.