D&D 4E Character conversion problems for 4e (Short Essay)

[Irda Ranger]

Dear lord. There is too much anger and excitement on this thread for me to get involved. I think everyone should walk away from the computer for a few minutes, and maybe consider a nicer way of putting things. Without pointing fingers, the disdain in some posts is palpable.

I'm just going to speak to the OP's point:

I have concluded that converting any character from any fantasy source (whether role playing or literature) will be relatively easy to do with the 4e rules.

You mean they'll be able to make them in June, or "eventually"?

If you mean "eventually", then a lot of floodgates open. But if you mean in June: No. There's simply no way to "re-theme" any of the 4E base classes into a Psionicist (they've stripped out most of the Ench/Charm spells, remember?). No illusionists. No necromancers. No swordmages in June. How would you make Haplo from the Death Gate Cycle? What about an Akashic from Arcana Evolved?

Plus, there are many systems of magic out there that just don't mesh with D&D 4E. The novels of Jack Vance spring to mind.

But there's a broader problem: not all fantasy characters stick to a clear combat Role (Gandalf); others are just too powerful (Rand al'Thor). You simply can't make these "too good for PCs" characters. I think the combat role system will work out fine, but it is restrictive (in a good way, for a game).

I have also concluded that there could be many approaches to each character, and that if someone is having a hard time with the process, it is likely that they are focusing way too much on the mechanical description of their character from another edition/game, and not enough on what matters.

What matters? To whom? To you?

What if my character concept is that he's a great musician? What if I want his songs to mesmerize and enchant? Can I just hand-waive away the fact that Wizards use wands and don't Enchant people very often?

To start the conversion process, remove all game mechanics concepts from your mind. These will only hinder you. The constructs of the past do not map perfectly to the ways of the future. Your preconceived notions will diminish your satisfaction and lead you down a road to frustration. Do not approach 4e as you have always approached D&D. It is a different system with a different philosophy. But if you are open minded, the system seems to be very robust and flexible, and it can give you anything that you could want, as long as you accept a level of balancing that makes it fun for the whole group.

Hogwash, for the reasons above. I'll never get hung up over a couple Skill Points here or there, but if even the big details can't be found in the 4E rules, your system doesn't work. If what I "want" is a berserker who flies into a rage at the scent of blood, it's very likely that 4E will NOT give me what I want - and not for reasons of a berserker being unbalanced.

4e {rules} are extremely flexible and will give you anything that you can reasonably imagine.

[Han Solo] I can imagine quite a lot. [/Han Solo]

Frankly, no. Just no. I can imagine dozens of character concepts (no rules!) that simply won't work in 4E.

Now to start with your character creation process, you need to understand the difference between character concept, class, combat role, and out of combat capability.

I get all this. I'm not trying to be rude, but there wasn't anything in your post that was new to me. Maybe it helped others, but I see your post as a lack of imagination. Even ignoring simple precedent. How on Faerun could I make a Sha'ir or Zombie Lord using 4E rules? I can't. To say that a Warlock is "good enough" for playing either of those classes is a bit like trying to sell me a dead parrot. They're so far away from Warlock that the gulf is uncrossable.

Look, I think 4E is going to be lots of fun, and I'm sure that more and more concepts will be permissable as we expand the classes and feats available, but your post just comes across as naive and New-Agey. Some things simply aren't possible, and you can't wish them away by closing your eyes and wishing strongly to the contrary.

 

[Lanefan]

A few thoughts after lots of reading...

1. There's one thing from earlier editions that (from all I've seen) will not be convertible directly to 4e: characters that function at lower power than 4e 1st-levels. Note that this immediately includes 1st-level characters from all prior editions. 4e won't let you have a 6 h.p. 1st-level character who is just a commoner with a bit of training, and that's very sad. (we've yet to see how or even if it handles 0th-level commoner types or whether they are able to adventure; I'm already laying bets that a major early splat release will be the "prequel" book, that explains how to advance a character from commoner to 1st-level)

2. If the game isn't flexible enough to handle some characters in a party being "sub-optimal", there's a problem. Characterization should trump optimality every time they ever come in conflict; the game system needs to recognize this and account for it. The pacifist character is a good example - someone who wants to play a pacifist Healing Cleric, for example, should have the option of swapping in a useful non-combat ability to replace the never-to-be-used combat ability it'll start with, rather than just be told "get lost, we don't want you".

Then again, I don't see a party as a high-efficiency machine-like military unit, nor do I play that way; it's just too dull.

3. Someone else already hit this, but it bears repeating: Barbarian should be a race, not a class. A magic-distrusting less-intelligent less-civilized sub-race of Humans that can function in any class that does not use arcane magic.

4. For flavour reasons, Bardic magic really needs to be cut adrift from arcane magic in how it functions. Bards do things by manipulating sonic energy, pure and simple; they are the only class that does so, and in all editions this gives them their niche. If the mechanics reflected this instead of trying to shoehorn them in with arcane casters, Bards as their own separate class would be a lot easier to explain.

Lanefan

 

[hong]

Dear lord. There is too much anger and excitement on this thread for me to get involved. I think everyone should walk away from the computer for a few minutes, and maybe consider a nicer way of putting things. Without pointing fingers, the disdain in some posts is palpable.

I'm just going to speak to the OP's point:


You mean they'll be able to make them in June, or "eventually"?

If you mean "eventually", then a lot of floodgates open. But if you mean in June: No. There's simply no way to "re-theme" any of the 4E base classes into a Psionicist (they've stripped out most of the Ench/Charm spells, remember?). No illusionists. No necromancers. No swordmages in June. How would you make Haplo from the Death Gate Cycle? What about an Akashic from Arcana Evolved?

Plus, there are many systems of magic out there that just don't mesh with D&D 4E. The novels of Jack Vance spring to mind.

But there's a broader problem: not all fantasy characters stick to a clear combat Role (Gandalf); others are just too powerful (Rand al'Thor). You simply can't make these "too good for PCs" characters. I think the combat role system will work out fine, but it is restrictive (in a good way, for a game).

What he said.

Consider the corollary to "you can build everything you need right now": that means all the classes that are in the pipeline are superfluous. I really don't think so.

 

[Graf]

This is continuing to be whiny and absurd. You can't build and Akashic in 3.5 either. That's why monte cook make up his own class in his own DnD-derivative game. Pointing to things that never existed in 3.5 and screaming that they aren't there in the first book of 4.0 really suggests that you've detached completely from reality.

The OP was a long, well written and thoughtful post. Smug "corollaries" to things they never said aren't some sort of brilliant rebuttal.

Seriously, if you want to post your opinion just start with "my opinion... mechanics... so important... etc etc."

But if you want to diss/correct/whatever OP you should read OP first. It's not that long a post.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A few thoughts after lots of reading...

1. There's one thing from earlier editions that (from all I've seen) will not be convertible directly to 4e: characters that function at lower power than 4e 1st-levels. Note that this immediately includes 1st-level characters from all prior editions. 4e won't let you have a 6 h.p. 1st-level character who is just a commoner with a bit of training, and that's very sad. (we've yet to see how or even if it handles 0th-level commoner types or whether they are able to adventure; I'm already laying bets that a major early splat release will be the "prequel" book, that explains how to advance a character from commoner to 1st-level)

That doens't sound like a character concept to me. "I don't want to be any more powerful then an average human" is not a concpet that will work for long in D&D.
It will be a campaign issue, if you want to start as a dirt farmer and work your way up to the top.

2. If the game isn't flexible enough to handle some characters in a party being "sub-optimal", there's a problem. Characterization should trump optimality every time they ever come in conflict; the game system needs to recognize this and account for it. The pacifist character is a good example - someone who wants to play a pacifist Healing Cleric, for example, should have the option of swapping in a useful non-combat ability to replace the never-to-be-used combat ability it'll start with, rather than just be told "get lost, we don't want you".

I think you're a bit missing what the system is designed to do: Whatever you do with the character build rules, you won't accidentally make a ineffective character. (You probably can still do so if you try. Playing a Wizard that runs into melee without any feats to support it won't be effective, but that's what the system will tell you).

The problems begin if something that doesn't sound so bad conceptual (greatsword wielding opportunist in 4E? Dagger & Dual wielding Rangers in 3E?) can't be implemented easily with the rules, simply because there are no mechanical elements (feats & classes) to represent it.
That's not the same as aiming for playing a character that is weak in combat.

Ultimately, it's the party and possibly also the DM that has to support a combat-suboptimal character. The party must be willing to cut some slack to the less effective character and prepare to compensate, and the DM has to be willing to reduce the combat difficulty to accomandate the character. And since this can be difficult to achieve, it is generally better if the system attempts to make it easier to avoid suboptimal characters. The system itself can't really handle suboptimal character - that's why they are subotpimal in the first place!

Then again, I don't see a party as a high-efficiency machine-like military unit, nor do I play that way; it's just too dull.

I don't think you have to, though it will probably feel very "natural" using the class powers together and be effective. Off course, you can go further and conciously optimize everything and have battle plans ready before you ever fought your first fight.

3. Someone else already hit this, but it bears repeating: Barbarian should be a race, not a class. A magic-distrusting less-intelligent less-civilized sub-race of Humans that can function in any class that does not use arcane magic.

4. For flavour reasons, Bardic magic really needs to be cut adrift from arcane magic in how it functions. Bards do things by manipulating sonic energy, pure and simple; they are the only class that does so, and in all editions this gives them their niche. If the mechanics reflected this instead of trying to shoehorn them in with arcane casters, Bards as their own separate class would be a lot easier to explain.

Lanefan

I think "manipulating sonic energy" sounds still very arcane (or at least technical) to me. It seems more about manipulating or influencing soul & spirit with artistic skill. Bardic Music appeals to the heart and souls of people.

 

[hong]

This is continuing to be whiny and absurd. You can't build and Akashic in 3.5 either. That's why monte cook make up his own class in his own DnD-derivative game. Pointing to things that never existed in 3.5 and screaming that they aren't there in the first book of 4.0 really suggests that you've detached completely from reality.

You say this like it's a negative thing.

The OP was a long, well written and thoughtful post. Smug "corollaries" to things they never said aren't some sort of brilliant rebuttal.

It takes a refined appreciation of antipolysyllabism to realise the value of brevity.

 

[Derren]

Here is the crux of the issue. 4E will not let you make a useless character. 4E assumes you will be filling a role in the party. Is it possible to have a character concept that doesn't fit with those two 4E assetions? If so then not all characters can be transferred from 3E to 4E. I would argue that's not a bad thing.

While I consider this to be a bad thing.
Sure, not being able to make useless characters alone is good, but when this is achieved by restricting the choices the players can make overly much then I consider this a disadvantage especially for experienced players.

 

[hong]

While I consider this to be a bad thing.
Sure, not being able to make useless characters alone is good, but when this is achieved by restricting the choices the players can make overly much then I consider this a disadvantage especially for experienced players.

Experienced players will know all the tricks required for intentional suck. The easiest of them is not to roll the dice.

 

[Imp]

The OP was a long, well written and thoughtful post. Smug "corollaries" to things they never said aren't some sort of brilliant rebuttal.

The OP was a drawn-out argumentative screed intended to try to convince people with doubts that the moon is in fact the sun and the new boss is (re this particular issue at least) not the same as the old boss; it appears to hinge on the notion that 4E classes are just combat roles, like Iron Heroes classes are, which, uh, works if you ignore large swaths of text and completely free up skill choices (possibly not a bad idea, f'rex a rogue flavored as a mage, with mage skills, could be pretty cool) but that's probably going to be a very very liberal interpretation of the game rules, as in, more-work-than-it's-worth liberal. Why do this? I dunno, I suppose to stamp down concerns, by & for people who utterly don't share those concerns, which can be a nice teambuilding exercise I guess but winds up being a bunch of useless information. As someone who is concerned about whether & how much 4e will allow me to play the characters I want to play, I'm finding I have to completely ignore this stuff, and just focus on looking at the rules when they actually come out. No idea what threads like this actually do.

 

[Imban]

This is continuing to be whiny and absurd. You can't build and Akashic in 3.5 either.

You're entirely right! Unfortunately you also missed the point by a mile. You can't build an Akashic in core 3.5e D&D, that's why the Akashic class was printed at all. Saying you can convert any fantasy character concept to 4e D&D is patently silly, because the provided classes don't cover everything or even a terribly large section of the universe of valid concepts. Heck, even with all the things available in 3e as of this writing, there are still fantasy characters who would be a pain, if not impossible, to create.