D&D 4E 4E - What Rules Need Fixing?

[AllisterH]

Turning... Counterspelling... Grappling... yeah I'd say those would be the top three.

Just as a personal preference... I'd like it if Level = HD = CR... if a Creature is powerful enough to warrant a CR 5 then it should have the racial HD of 5... likewise level adjustment should just go away. It should be balanced with any other 5 HD creature including PCs.

Sorry for the rant,
William Holder

Nice idea but wouldn't work.

A 5HD fey is going to be different iin power compared to a 5HD humanoid and a 5HD construct. There just isn't any way to balance this for PC use.

The only rules I would like to get rid of would be static DCs against opponents. THings like Tumble etc...

 

[Nifft]

Polymorph -- oh god make it go away.

Counterspelling -- make it useful or take it away.

Turn Undead -- tables are bad.

Casting Defensively -- too easy at mid to high level.

Stacking Buffs -- accounting is painful, dispel magic is double painful.

Cheers, -- N

 

[backbeat]

One I would really like to see is the removal of single stat dependence for most spell casters. It prevents level adjustment 0 races with mental stat increases, and it really limits the character options for that class. You can play a fighter using DEX and Con to make up for a weak STR score. A low INT Wizard is just unplayable.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A clearer explanation of all types of Actions in the game. Not necessarily a change of rules (although simplification would be desirable) but the present explanations in the PHB could be improved.

A revamping of the Monk, Paladin -- MAD is a significant design flaw in a core class IMNSHO. I think we could justify revamping the Ranger as its concept has really wandered around.

If we were to dare touch sacred cows, I think that Unearth Arcana's Warmain/Unfettered (heavy tank/nimble fighter) split of the Fighter class is simply superior to what we have now.

Revamp of the multiclassing rules. Not necessarily a massive overall, but there are a lot of fiddly issues that could be improved. Fixing this could make over half the PrCs obselete.

Turning should be a Domain ability and/or Feat chain. The Divine feats are an interesting attempt at sexing up the red-haired child of a core class ability, but it is still a band-aid.

Generally speaking, I think that really using Domains could differentiate the Clerics of different gods much better. Spontaneous casting and Turning are obvious things that could be tied closely to domains. Ditto weapon proficiencies and class skills.

All Core PC classes should have 4+Int or more skill points. Only PrCs can justify being narrow in this respect.

Ditch the Half-Elf and Half-Orc.

 

[frankthedm]

Turning... Counterspelling... Grappling... yeah I'd say those would be the top three.

Just as a personal preference... I'd like it if Level = HD = CR... if a Creature is powerful enough to warrant a CR 5 then it should have the racial HD of 5... likewise level adjustment should just go away. It should be balanced with any other 5 HD creature including PCs.

Do note LA includes Boosted ability scores {Monsters normally have 10's and 11's] and a LOT more gear than the Mosters has when it is challenging the Party.

Only way for a gearless creature to challenge PCs and have 1HD per CR would be to have an unearthly CON score, still putting them outside the realm of playability.

I do expect 4e to have more monsters Built to be PCs, so hobgoblins and teiflings will be worth thier LA, if they have one. The ogre might only have -2's to it's mental stats.

 

[Nifft]

Ability Boost Items -- they are crack. Take them away.

Single-Stat Spellcasting -- particularly in combination with the above. Glass hammers break too easily.

Probably more later. -- N

 

[Aleolus]

Honestly, what I would like to see is a racial cap on ability scores. If they stick with the 4d6, drop the lowest, than the max you can have in any ability is 18, +/- racial modifiers. For instance, an Elf would have a max Dex of 20, but a max Con of 16. Makes it more balanced, because you can't just put all of your stat points into one stat, getting it ungodly and the others at first-level range.

 

[Li Shenron]

Thanks felix for simplifying that. I would like 3.5 to stick around longer even with all the things I dislike about it. I mean I just dont want to think of my hundereds and hundereds of dollars in books obsolete.

If you have used those books, then the money wasn't wasted...

If you never used them, well in that case they were equivalent to "obsolete" since the start, aren't they?

 

[Li Shenron]

Now that we all know that 4E is going to happen in the near future, what changes do you hope they make to the 4E rules (compared to the 3.x rules)? What rules need fixing the most?

There are very few things that bothers me about 3.0:

1) some combat rules are more complicated than they really need to be: Grapple, Mounted combat, Aerial combat

2) Poison rules are completely wrong in concept

It's been announced that one of the purposes of 4e was to simplify the game (but wasn't that also an early target of 3e??). Grapple is specifically mentioned. However I am SURE that while something will be simplified, something else will be designed needlessly complicated again. Maybe not in the core, but as soon as supplements are coming out, the ruleset will be bloated again for those who try to use all the supplements. It's just that too many designers have a drive for complicating things in name of realism or just because.

 

[Patlin]

Very minor and obscure point: I'd like a ring of "wizardry" to give at least as uch benefit to a Wizard as to a Sorceror