D&D 4E Another Review of 4e

[Sylrae]

I don't understand the phrase "planar based cleric". If you explain it to me I'll see what I can come up with.

I meant a cleric based around planar shifting spells and planar binding. There's a bit of stuff, but not enough to make it your main focus anymore.

The other things here are summon/control creatures. Those are assistant creatures, which as I said before were intentionally removed. However, I would like to point you at Astral Defenders(Cleric 9) and Knights of Unyielding Valor(Cleric 10). Both of them summon ghosts to fight for you. And wizards can summon a gigantic ogre, which is mostly intangible and invisible. The spell is Bigby's Grasping Hands(Wizard 15).

There are others, mostly look for the keyword "conjuration" and be ready to apply flavor.

I thought you were referring to the removal of familiars, not the removal of summons. (not Both). and yeah~ that bugs me. as you could see it was right at the top of my list as far as PHB goes.

Warlord, high dex and light blade. Some relevant abilities: Warlord's Favor(Warlord 1), which provides one nearby ally a +2 bonus to attack rolls against a certain enemy for one round; and Bastion of Defense(Warlord 1), which gives your allies either a +1 bonus to all defenses or a handful of temporary hit points. And note that the high dex you'll want for the light blade can easily make hide armor as good as chainmail, so you can have your full movement speed.

Hmm. very strange. I admit, I didn't even look at the warlord twice. I figured it was a fighter with some leadership abilities. Which it sortof is, but its a little more bardlike than I was expecting. Still not quite as good, with the lack of spells, but its much closer than I was expecting.

Fey warlock. Witchfire(Warlock 1) is that same unearthy flame that druids use for faerie fire, and Thirsting Tendrils(Warlock 17) and Thorns of Venom(Warlock 23) both call forth plants to do nasty things to your foes.

If that's not enough or not soon enough, recall that nature damage spells often use fire or lightning, wizards can throw around plenty of both of those. Toss a little flavor on Web(Wizard 5), making it roots growing out of the ground instead of webs appearing out of nowhere, and you've got the makings of a fine nature caster.

It Kindof works, though the key elements of a druid are things you think had good reason to be removed in many instances. the animal based spells were big, and I'd definitely miss things like barkskin, and entangle is definitely a bigger spell than web, but I guess web works as a small scale substitute. Liveoak would definitely be missed. I suppose if you took some warlock wizard and cleric together youd have a sort of druid substitute, but it would be lacking some of the key abilities I would want, and I'm not sure what the limits of 4e multiclassing are yet. I'll have to look over them again. Can you have stuff from 3 classes?

You mean a character who, when his back is against the wall, goes into a frenzy, striking out at all who threaten him? Like a fighter using the Rain of Steel(Fighter 5) stance?

Fair enough.

Nobody's making you use a weapon or wear armor. In reference to the weapon keyword, page 56 of the PHB says quite clearly "You can use an unarmed attack as your weapon."

Making such a build viable is a little bit harder. I'd go with a ranger in cloth armor(which is only called armor so that it doesn't need a separate list of magic effects that can be applied to it) using the Two-Weapon build. All of your powers still work, because you're using a one-handed weapon(the unarmed attack) in each hand. Scale the dex score way up for the armor class, you'll be 3 points behind someone of the same dex in hide, but other Two-Weapon rangers will usually have higher strength and lower dex than you do, so you'll probably only be 1 or 2 points behind, which is annoying, but not immediately lethal. And you'd have to check with your DM on this, but the enchant item ritual allows you to imbue a normal item with magic. Running with the conceit that the unarmed attack is a weapon, each of the unarmed attacks you use should be enchantable. Of course, you only get that bonus when you are using the unarmed attack as the weapon in the power(no enchanting a weapon and the hand wielding it to get double bonuses ).

This one is stretching it more than a little. I suppose it's as close as you're gonna get though.

They noncombat abilities aren't gone, they're just reworked, with the addition that you don't usually have to choose between combat abilities and non-combat abilities. So now you can have characters who focus primarily on social abilities and fight very well. Any character can get skill training and skill focus in all of Bluff, Diplomacy, and Insight by level 10. It's easy to arrange to have all of those by level 6, and possible to have them all by level 4.

I was referring to class abilities that are non-combat, not skill points.

Whew! That one was fun. Got any more?

These are I suppose sortof what I was going for, but they don't focus on the main things I was looking for very much. They just have a handful of the abilities.

I do concede, however, that your efforts are making me reconsider 4e a bit more. I was enthused about it for a bit then I looked at it and playtested it and thought it might not be worth the cash to get it. Instead of just adding 4e elements to my 3.x game I may go the other route and use 4e as the base for my games. It's a bit oversimplified for me, but having at wills, encounters, and dailies is something I like, and a bunch of the new mechanics are an improvement.

I dont like all the stuff you cant swap out as much though. It seems the effect they were going for with the classes was modularity. maybe they should have gone modular all the way. your monk setup is sortof viable, but all the naturey stuff could go out the window.

It may not be as hard to houserule 4e to be the game I'm looking for afterall (though I don't think I'm going to ever want to use minis ). I imagine it won't take that many houserules more than my 3.x games. (I'm up to 75 pages for my upcoming campaign, counting custom races, classes, feats, spells, and mechanics) I use so many houserules I might just make my own PHB for my players. lol (I've been seriously considering it.) Some ofthe houserules are constant (about 40 pages worth) and the rest are more to do with the custom setting I'm using.

There are things about 4e that bug me in the core books, but given time for houserule designing and some further supplements it might work out for me.

I will probably hate the new FR (don't like what I have heard) (I liked its completeness - even the part where the players could say I was wrong occasionally if they had evidence of something I didn't know), but FR is one of those love it or hate it things. I don't get their new design plan on that one. they said its effectively a new setting and all the main things that make it FR will be gone. if thats the case why not just make a new setting? the FR players I've talked to don't think they'll like it, and the people who do seem to like it are those who hated FR. you'd think instead of getting rid of the FR fans they would just make something else for the people who don't like FR.

derailing the topic just a little more, what about the Races? without LAs, and with no negative stat mods, what is it that makes the creation of new races viable (I mean, you could make a handful, but there's only so many combinations of +2 to one stat and +2 to another that you can make)? plus wouldnt the lack of LAs make it virtually impossible to make races with really outlandish abilities?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

derailing the topic just a little more, what about the Races? without LAs, and with no negative stat mods, what is it that makes the creation of new races viable (I mean, you could make a handful, but there's only so many combinations of +2 to one stat and +2 to another that you can make)? plus wouldnt the lack of LAs make it virtually impossible to make races with really outlandish abilities?

Remember that the concept of Level Adjustment was only introduced in 3E with Savage Species and made core in 3.5. For what it's worth, I was rarely happy with the results - especially those with outlandish abilities. (Beholder PC? Vampire PC? Mind Flayer PC? Dragon PC? Or Awakened Bear PC?)

I think 4E might have a better framework that could eventually allow something like LA. The biggest advantage to me seems that even the base-line races are powerful, so you should be able to reign in some of the stronger racial concepts and keep them alive.

I am pretty convinced that neither 3E nor 4E works well if you leave the humanoid base-line. The moment you don't know how magical equipment can be "applied" to the monster, you're usually in some kind of trouble. Anything that is humanoid though, can always be brought in line with base racial statistics.
For strong racial powers (Mind Flayer Mind Blast?), multi-class like racial feats could be used. (Power-Swap), or special Paragon Racial Paths (see the Warforged Paragon Paths in the online Dragon).

 

[theNater]

I meant a cleric based around planar shifting spells and planar binding. There's a bit of stuff, but not enough to make it your main focus anymore.

If I'm understanding you right, I think you might get a little mileage for that out of multiclassing into warlock. Star pact has some strange spacial anomalies that might qualify as planar. There's Frigid Darkness at 3, which reads like teleporting a chunk of empty space onto your target, Tendrils of Thuban at 15, which summons some tentacles to mess up your foe, and Banish to the Void at 27, where you zap your foe into nowhere for a short period. Combine those with what the cleric already has, and you might have the feel you want.

It Kindof works, though the key elements of a druid are things you think had good reason to be removed in many instances. the animal based spells were big, and I'd definitely miss things like barkskin, and entangle is definitely a bigger spell than web, but I guess web works as a small scale substitute. Liveoak would definitely be missed. I suppose if you took some warlock wizard and cleric together youd have a sort of druid substitute, but it would be lacking some of the key abilities I would want, and I'm not sure what the limits of 4e multiclassing are yet. I'll have to look over them again. Can you have stuff from 3 classes?

It's not so much that I think there was good reason, the developers have said on occasion that those extra player-controlled characters were intentionally removed, often citing "economy of actions" as the reason. I have been pretty solidly swayed by their arguements, but that's not relevant to the conversation at hand.

As to the druid, it is hard to faithfully replicate a 3rd edition druid into 4th edition. That's not surprising. But you can get a decent part of the feel of "wielder of nature magics", especially if you're willing to reflavor.

You can't usually mix 3 classes, but the half-elf can do it a little by taking a main class, multiclass feats, and using the racial ability to aquire an at-will power from another class as an encounter ability. So, maybe you can get by with one power from wizard or warlock, have the other be your main class, and multiclass into cleric?

This one is stretching it more than a little. I suppose it's as close as you're gonna get though.

Yeah, that's not exactly pretty, though it does sound kind of entertaining. Being a crazed little shirtless halfling running around the battlefield punching everything in sight could be fun, in its own strange way. If you're working with a DM who's willing to play with flavor a little, you could just say that through anointing your hands with mystical oils(costing the same as a pair of longswords), you've managed to get your unarmed attack damage up to longsword damage.

I was referring to class abilities that are non-combat, not skill points.

There's still a few of those, living in the utility powers so they don't compete with your attacks. One I noticed while looking ahead for my paladin was the level 2 power that provides a +4 bonus to Diplomacy checks for one encounter. Not really useful in combat, but pretty dang useful in social settings.

These are I suppose sortof what I was going for, but they don't focus on the main things I was looking for very much. They just have a handful of the abilities.

Do remember that at level 30, a character has 4 encounter powers and 4 daily powers. If you've got 2 of each that fit your theme, you're pretty well focused.

derailing the topic just a little more, what about the Races? without LAs, and with no negative stat mods, what is it that makes the creation of new races viable (I mean, you could make a handful, but there's only so many combinations of +2 to one stat and +2 to another that you can make)? plus wouldnt the lack of LAs make it virtually impossible to make races with really outlandish abilities?

My understanding is that the really outlandish abilities now become high-level racial feats. Epic feats in particular seem pretty mighty, so if you have something really extreme, maybe an epic racial feat, with related heroic and paragon feats as prerequisites. A little less extreme might be an epic feat without prereqs, or something.

Also, I'd like to thank you for being a good sport about reflavoring. I've bumped into people who have indicated that reflavoring Web as roots is totally, horribly wrong because it says right in the book that it's a web! Knowing that reasonable discourse is still possible makes me .

 

[VannATLC]

I was referring to class abilities that are non-combat, not skill points

Er.. why? Honestly. What do you want to do that can't be done via the ritual system, or via good use of language/logic?

 

[Sylrae]

I'm not saying we should all go out and play penguins and blink dogs; but not all the humanoid shaped monsters have racial stats anymore.

what if I want to play a satyr? or a sprite? or a centaur? (these are not such weird ones).

how about the vampire (the 3.5 vampire template was absolutely awful. LA too high and didnt have all the weaknesses it shoudl have. If the half vampire needs to feed. logically the vampire would need to more so. but it didnt. feeding was just an attack.
what about other things like templates? like a lich?


or outsiders that are humanoid in shape?
Succubus, Rakshasa, Imp, Pit Fiend, Balor, Marilith, Glabrezu?

or maybe a dryad?

I think all of these should be viable as players (at least later in the game)

I'm all for some sort of savage progressions if necessary, but I'm just saying these are all things over the standard +2LA which they seem to have made the new 0 (hence the no ECL drow)

I don't want to double check right now. are there still all sorts of nifty templates?
in my 3.x games I came up with a sweet houserule using a template. instead of driders as monsters, they're drow with the tauric template and the other creature it uses as a base is any of the giant spiders. that gives you like 8 or 9 types of drow across a couple books with different types of poison and some slightly differing abilities. then I just houserules that they still count as abberations even though the template doesn't say they do (so they match the driders)

Just thought it was nifty

 

[hong]

what if I want to play a satyr? or a sprite? or a centaur? (these are not such weird ones).

Yes they are, actually.

 

[TimeOut]

What stops you from writing stats for these races yourself?

 

[Sylrae]

as for the planar cleric, I was actually talking about spells that aren't conventionally used as attack spells, things for traveling between planes, sending other people to other planes, opening portals and pushing people through/pulling them through, and planar binding is back to the summoning thing, but you only get one thing and its usually pretty big.

I hadn't looked at the upper levels enough to realize you had so few abilities. does that mean thats how many spells a wizard has too?

Er.. why? Honestly. What do you want to do that can't be done via the ritual system, or via good use of language/logic?

there were alot of cool spells in 3e with no combat application, something like that maybe. or abilities that give you bonuses in certain social situations, or charm, dominate comes to mind, I dont recall if thats in 4e. That type of stuff.


as for not weird with the races, they aren't that weird as they don't have unusable physiologies, they can speak, and they stand upright. and have arms and legs. and playing a satyr is no more weird than a minotaur (which is listed with racial stats (unusually weak ones, but there's no LAs so what do you expect)

as for whats stopping me from making stats for them, nothing is stopping me, though with the lack of LAs it would be hard to figure out how to give them the racial abilities where they may be more than what a standard race has.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

as for the planar cleric, I was actually talking about spells that aren't conventionally used as attack spells, things for traveling between planes, sending other people to other planes, opening portals and pushing people through/pulling them through, and planar binding is back to the summoning thing, but you only get one thing and its usually pretty big.

I hadn't looked at the upper levels enough to realize you had so few abilities. does that mean thats how many spells a wizard has too?

there were alot of cool spells in 3e with no combat application, something like that maybe. or abilities that give you bonuses in certain social situations, or charm, dominate comes to mind, I dont recall if thats in 4e. That type of stuff.


as for not weird with the races, they aren't that weird as they don't have unusable physiologies, they can speak, and they stand upright. and have arms and legs. and playing a satyr is no more weird than a minotaur (which is listed with racial stats (unusually weak ones, but there's no LAs so what do you expect)

as for whats stopping me from making stats for them, nothing is stopping me, though with the lack of LAs it would be hard to figure out how to give them the racial abilities where they may be more than what a standard race has.

In short, we didn't know how to do this exactly in 3.0, either. Savage Species introduced Level Adjustments, and suddenly, there was a way. It wasn't necessarily a good way, I'd say.
3E Level Adjustment tried to cover two aspects
- Ability Score Modifiers
- Spell-like, supernatural and extraordinary abilities.
If a monster could cast Fireball 3/day, you'd have to ensure that it wasn't available before level 5 (you normally can't get fireball earlier than that), so it got an LA of 5. If it also granted a +6 bonus to Strength, it would probably have an LA of 8 or 7 (since +6 to Strengths results in +3 to attack, which normally requires 3 levels. Since you don't get other benefits, like HP, skill points and so on, a lower adjustment might be warranted.)
The problem is that a lot of "guesstimating" goes into these LA numbers, and if you combine such diverse aspects, the numbers will come off wrong.


I think 4E might use the framework of multi-classing feats for this. The above monster could grant you a level 8 feat that allows you to swap a daily for a racial fireball. So, you don't need a level adjustment for this.
Since monsters in 4E don't have as many special abilities as in 3E, you'll probably never run out of feats or powers to swap.

Ability Scores pose the remaining problem. If you stick to the humanoids (including feys and giants), you can probably just follow the regular baseline for ability scores.
If a stock Ogre has a Strength of 22, but the Ogre has only a +2 bonus to Strength, it might hurt your inner simulationist, but in play, you won't notice the difference - Once you're at the Ogres level, you will be just as tough and strong as he is.

 

[theNater]

as for the planar cleric, I was actually talking about spells that aren't conventionally used as attack spells, things for traveling between planes, sending other people to other planes, opening portals and pushing people through/pulling them through, and planar binding is back to the summoning thing, but you only get one thing and its usually pretty big.

There's an 18th level ritual called Planar Portal that allows for all of the willing planar travel you want, though it does require knowing the address of the target location. Combine it with True Portal and you can go anywhere on any plane you have at least one address on.

If you're pushing/pulling unwilling targets into/from other planes, that's an attack and should be resolved with an attack power. It could be argued that you can chuck somebody through a Planar Portal who didn't want to go, if you're willing to go through the setup.

I hadn't looked at the upper levels enough to realize you had so few abilities. does that mean thats how many spells a wizard has too?

Yes and no. Wizards get 4 encounter spells, like everybody, and they get to cast 4 daily spells per day. However, they get to memorize 3 of their 4 daily spells from a list of 6 in their spellbook each morning(the fourth is the daily from their paragon path). They can also increase the size of the list to 9 through the Expanded Spellbook feat.

Those are the attack powers. Everybody's also got 7 utilities by 30th level, and wizard spellbooks double(or triple) those up as well.