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

[Nebulous]

Amen!

I hope they are able to tame the "Gear-dependence" monster of 3.Xe D&D. Kill it, kill it!!

Good God yes, i hope they fix this, but they've already admitted to "ramping up magic across the board." That really, really worries me. Despite how much i like many other of the conceptual changes.

 

[Nebulous]

I wish I could post this in a place where I knew someone from WotC was actually paying attention. But I figure page 2 of an ENWorld thread is better than page 29 of a Wizards thread. Here's what I want out of D&D in 4e:

• Familiars as a default class option - Flavor-wise, you might as well require wizards to wear pointy hats. In years of playing D&D, I think I've seen one person consistently remember to use (and roleplay) his familiar.
• 30 minutes of adventure, 8 hours of sleep - It's silly enough that my players to have to set up camp every time they advance three rooms through a dungeon. But if I want them to be invading an enemy camp, or participating in a war, that limitation gets ridiculous. What is fun about requiring an 8 hour recharge every three encounters for 50% of your party?
• Point-buy micromanagement - And I'm not even talking about character generation. The wealth and magic item creation rules leave players juggling tens of thousands of points in a search of optimal builds. And this leads to my two next complaints...
• It's all about the gear - Sure, finding magic items is fun. But if every 2nd-level fighter has a +1 weapon, why not just build that into the class? If every wizard is carrrying around scrolls, why not just add more spells per day (or per encounter)? Keep magic items special, like they are in nearly all fantasy literature.
• Dealing with loot - Actually, finding magic items isn't that fun. The process of dividing, identifying, and carrying around treasure can be a real pain. Characters shouldn't need to be followed around by a hireling with a wheelbarrow of holding just to avoid heading back to town every hour.
• Crappy rules for Diplomacy - I don't know if it really "discourages roleplaying," but Diplomacy sure sucks. Making it opposed is a start. Completely transforming it would be better.
• Crappy rules for non-combat action - At the very least, a chase scene shouldn't be something I have to houserule.
• A spell system that's at once redundant and contradictory - I echo the calls for fewer, more scaleable spells. And this is one case where taking cues from CRPGs actually makes sense: spell trees would be an improvement over the current schizophrenic grab bag. ("I've never cast a transmutation spell before, but now I'm an expert at transforming myself into a dragon!")

Wow, and I thought I really liked 3.5e rules. Guess it just goes to show there's always room for improvement.

I agree with everything you said, and from what i've been reading on the forums, there's a lot of repeated grumbling from us folks. I think D&D works pretty well, but it is still a flawed game system. The good news is that i think 4th edition is actively working on trying to fix at least half of the problems mentioned above. Of course, new problems will be created, but at least we have the power to house rule those too. I really would prefer keeping houserules to a minimum though with a solid base ruleset.

 

[Nail]

Can you expand on this thought? Because right now it looks like you're arguing that a guy who has one nuclear weapon doesn't gain any more power if you give him a second nuke. And I think you might mean something else, but I"m not quite sure I can see what it is.

Fair enough.

Gear has two problems in 3.xe D&D:
#1) It's necessary for character power (past level 5 or so), and
#2) If a PC's gear is removed, he's in serious trouble.

Given this is the Rules Forum, I'd rather not go on-and-on about my own house rules. I've already given a thumbnail version in post #69. ...And I'm sure there are even better ways of doing what I propose. ENWorld forums are great that way.

What I'm pointing to is that both of the problems I've listed have solutions. Heck, they both have models in fantasy books and movies...and even in the core 3.xe rules themselves. Try this for an example: How do you limit the power of magic spells, if every spell-casting class can get them?

Simple: You make getting spells level dependent.



In 3.xe, any Commoner 1 could use a Tome of Clear Thought +5 or a Mirror of Mental Prowess or a Vorpal Holy Flaming Keen Dagger +2.........and it doesn't have to be that way.

 

[Miar]

http://www.thealexandrian.net[/url]

Just as a odd note on this whole thing and wealth.. here is a link to some designer notes on doing away with wealth in the upcoming dungeoneer rpg. It's a kind of interesting thought..

http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2103&sid=3905084b26871f4226ab5e684518ea9d

 

[JustinA]

I agree with Felix and Nail. This post of yours was where this started going downhill and several of your posts since then have been in the same vein. What you should do to straighten this out is admit that you started this crap, apologize, and move on with the conversation instead of perpetuating this nonsense. The rest of us do not consider your post here "perfectly polite".

I never claimed to be perfectly polite. And, frankly, I'm not the one who claimed that Nifft's players are incapable of handling wealth-balancing mechanics without having the DM babysit their division of loot. Nifft did that. I was disputing it.

But this is not a productive discussion. Let's move on.

Gear has two problems in 3.xe D&D:
#1) It's necessary for character power (past level 5 or so), and
#2) If a PC's gear is removed, he's in serious trouble.

What I'm pointing to is that both of the problems I've listed have solutions. Heck, they both have models in fantasy books and movies...and even in the core 3.xe rules themselves. Try this for an example: How do you limit the power of magic spells, if every spell-casting class can get them?

Simple: You make getting spells level dependent.

In 3.xe, any Commoner 1 could use a Tome of Clear Thought +5 or a Mirror of Mental Prowess or a Vorpal Holy Flaming Keen Dagger +2.........and it doesn't have to be that way.

Okay, I see where you're going here. You're using level-appropriate guidelines to make sure that bonuses from equipment never make up the majority of a characer's capabilities (or extend those abilities very far beyond what they would be capable of achieving without the equipment).

There's a lot of mileage to be had there, I think. And I would agree, in general, that I would prefer to see more of a PCs' ability coming from their innate talents rather than their gear.

This is all very effective at limiting the quality of the magic items a character can benefit from, but it doesn't do anything to limit the quantity of magic items they can benefit from.

To take a simple example, consider the difference between a fighter who can afford a cloak of flying and a fighter who can't. This has a meaningful effect on the types of creatures that fighter can effectively face without having some sort of arcane assistance.

Even if you get rid of slot-less items, there's still the utility of gear-swapping and whether the available slots will be full of items pushing the cusp of level appropriate abilities or empty. Even if you limit the number of slots and the number of items which can be owned or used in a 24 hour period, you'd still be looking at variable ranges of power (unless you limited the effective slots to 1 -- and, at that point, you've simply amped up the difference in item quality and availability).

A final thought: I can certainly see my way clear to a design in which classes balanced without taking magic items into effect (and all classes benefit equally in terms of power balance from magic items, although the particular magic items will vary). It'll mean radically re-imagining the limits of the martial classes, but it's do-able and perhaps should be done. But even then, in order to have any kind of useful guideline produced by the CR system, the system will need to have a level-by-level expectation of wealth unless the system eliminates either:

(a) utilitarian magic items as a source of power in the D&D tradition; or
(b) allowing magic items to be bought

And evne in the case of (b) you'd simply be moving the mechanic from wealth guidelines to some other mechanic for controlling/expecting what the PCs will have in terms of magical equipment.

Just as a odd note on this whole thing and wealth.. here is a link to some designer notes on doing away with wealth in the upcoming dungeoneer rpg. It's a kind of interesting thought..

http://www.goodman-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2103&sid=3905084b26871f4226ab5e684518ea9d

Interesting direction. Basically a hyper-extension of wealth mechanics.

I like having robust wealth mechanics in most a modern-era or post-modern era game. There's just not that much fun in running a session of Tony Stark and His Accountant every so often in order to track mortgages and investments and so forth. In D&D, on the other hand, the importance of loot has always made attempts to implement wealth mechanics fail with me and my groups.

Glory might be a different matter entirely (particularly since it'll be part of a completely different game). Depends on how it's executed.

For me, personally, I suspect it'll be one of those mechanics that's too metagamey for my tastes. When I'm roleplaying I dislike making decisions that have no clear analog to the decisions my character is facing -- it yanks me out of the role. For example, I don't mind mechanics like that in Robin Laws' PANTHEON, but that's because I play the game as a storyteller and not a roleplayer.

Good God yes, i hope they fix this, but they've already admitted to "ramping up magic across the board." That really, really worries me. Despite how much i like many other of the conceptual changes.

But, OTOH, they've also said that they're going to eliminate the "christmas-tree adventurer" laden with magical ornaments.

This is why I'm generally trying to avoid actual prognostication on what 4th Edition will be. It's a tabula rasa with many statements being made about it which are (at least seemingly) contradictory. And it's in WotC's best interests to keep it that way for as long as they can (both to avoid giving firm promises about a system that hasn't been finalized and may change, and also to allow people to assume that 4th Edition will be whatever it is they want iit to be.)

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Nifft]

I'll pay you $50 for non-exclusive rights to it, do the editing and proofreading myself, publish it, and give you a 75% royalty on revenue.

Sorry, no. 3rd party of my choosing edits. You haven't earned the right to sit in judgment over my work.

Suffice it to say that, I consider personal insults like "you are incapable of imagining something" to be rude.

If you're going to bother using quotation marks, at least learn how to copy & paste. It's frustrating to have a conversation with someone who claims I've said stuff that I did not say.

- - -

Anyway, back on topic: decouples obviously has extremes ("eliminate wealth" being one extreme; "unlimited wealth" being the other), and I don't really care if a system fails at those extremes. There's lots of room for a working system which allows a DM to scale wealth up or down and not break his game.

Low-wealth campaigns are a staple; they're one of the most popular deviations from Core that I've seen around here. It's hardly a stretch of one's imagination.

- - -

What if wealth didn't lead to more powerful magic? What if more powerful magic was only accessible to those that were already powerful?

I'm working on an Incarnum-like system where pretty much everything keys off of invested Essentia (yes, it's also an Exalted-like system). Magic weapons are things in which you can invest Essentia -- they have no power without a powerful dude behind them, though powerless dudes can't break them with normal weapons.

It's designed to allow wealth to determine one's flexibility rather than one's instantaneous power. Still gotta hammer out spellcasting, though.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nail]

Low-wealth campaigns are a staple; they're one of the most popular deviations from Core that I've seen around here.

usually that's how I DM. As a player, I've almost always been in "Core Standard" wealth campaigns, however. Both are good fun: and as you've said, the new system should support both.

I'm working on an Incarnum-like system where pretty much everything keys off of invested Essentia (yes, it's also an Exalted-like system). Magic weapons are things in which you can invest Essentia -- they have no power without a powerful dude behind them, though powerless dudes can't break them with normal weapons.

Very Cool!

I've also written up such a system (I steal the word "Incarnum" to mean the pool of points PCs have to invest in magic items). Really, it's a very simple and robust idea, which has been easy to integrate into 3.xe. ....It's so cool that you are independently working on that!

It was that Magic of Incarnum flop of a book, wasn't it, that gave you inspiration? That's true for me anyway: the WotC book didn't work, but the core idea behind it does.

 

[Nail]

Okay, I see where you're going here. You're using level-appropriate guidelines to make sure that bonuses from equipment never make up the majority of a characer's capabilities (or extend those abilities very far beyond what they would be capable of achieving without the equipment).

Right! And since the pool of points the PC has to spend on magic items is limited by level, wealth becomes a footnote, rather than a central portion on the PC sheet.

This is all very effective at limiting the quality of the magic items a character can benefit from, but it doesn't do anything to limit the quantity of magic items they can benefit from.

Possibly....I understand and agree with the concern. But given that magic items are cheap, but you can only use so many items at a time, it's not as much of a problem as you might think. .....at least, it hasn't been in my game.

Most of the time the limiting factor is "actions in combat". Since everyone only gets a swift, std, and move action each round, switching around items carries a large cost.

.. in order to have any kind of useful guideline produced by the CR system, the system will need to have a level-by-level expectation of wealth unless the system eliminates either:

(a) utilitarian magic items as a source of power in the D&D tradition; or
(b) allowing magic items to be bought.

I think the level-dependent magic item solves that problem without taking anything away. IMC it has, at any rate. The PCs have bought magic items, and the PCs use those items as a source of power. They have wealth (houses, farm fields, loot taken from fallen enemies), but don't feel required to convert it all to Magic Gear. The magic items they use don't form the majority of their effectiveness, as it would with 3.xe D&D.

IMO.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I'd like to see a Ranger or Archer that is actually better than a Fighter who specializes in Archery. As it is now, a ranged Fighter is better than the ranged Ranger. Sure, the Ranger has supplimental abilities that help him in the wilderness, but nothing directly tied to archery and nothing that the Fighter can't get on his own through feats.

I am hoping that "clearly defined roles" for classes is what they mean by this...

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'd like to see a Ranger or Archer that is actually better than a Fighter who specializes in Archery. As it is now, a ranged Fighter is better than the ranged Ranger. Sure, the Ranger has supplimental abilities that help him in the wilderness, but nothing directly tied to archery and nothing that the Fighter can't get on his own through feats.

The ranger has more skills, better saves, spells, species enemy... shall we go on? All the fighter does... is fight. Until that changes, fighters need to remain the undisputed best of any style they choose.