D&D 4E [Continuation 4e] - a manifesto

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think the "auto-damage = auto-kill" is a bit.. too easy.
The key thing for a Minion is that they need to be easy to handle, which is why I like the 1 hit point mechanic for them, and I would avoid encounter or reacharge powers for them (since it forces you to track each minion seperately). Ideally, I just need to write down "n minions" somewhere and can mark off when one is dead. I'd also prefer to avoid any conditions on them, but that isn't always possible.

But they may be a bit too easy to kill, so here's my idea:
A minion has a damge threshold. If you deal at least 5 damage per tier to it, it immediately dies. If not, roll a save. If it fails, it is still dead.

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Regarding short and extended rests and milestones.

1. I am okay with extended rests becoming more difficult to make, or at least making this a clearly identifieable "dial" with alternate rules suggestions.
2. I would simply milestones to that each encounter (and any achieved quest goal is a milestone?). Each milestone grants you an action point and one recovery option - you cannot stack recovery options, you never have more then one. (Exception may be when an encounter allows you to also complete a quest?).
3. To compensate the effect of 1, during a short rest, you can use a recovery for one of the following effects:
   • Recover hit points equal to your healing surge value.
   • Spend 1 action Point to recover one daily utility power.
   • Spend 2 Action Points to recover one daily attack power. (Maybe the lowest level only, or first), during a short rest.
   • Spend 3 Action Points to recover 1/2 of your healing surges (rounded down) during a short rest. Only possible once per milestone
   This means you can always have 1/4 your hit points if you lived at all. And you have a chance to get dailies and healing surges back, but it costs you action points, which otherwise could be used to compensate the lack of dailies or surges. In regards to healing surges alone, 6 encounters are basically worth one extended rest, if you add in dailies, you may need another 4-8.
   

 

[Neonchameleon]

I recognize that they could simply be left out the question is how could they be altered to potentially be a satisfying part of the solution in speeding up non "boss" fights in 4.x. I didn't post in here to bash 4E elements come on people!

I've noticed modern minions (MV onwards) tend to either have a death effect or a way of cheating death or not being hit (for instance Kobold minions have an encounter "Get the hell out of a burst attack" power whereas goblin minions don't reveal their position if they miss from hidden, and orc minions get a standard action when they die). The simplest would be a damage threshold allowing strikers to one shot them - and anyone else to two shot them.

 

[GreyICE]

Zombies have a mechanic whereby if they take non-critical damage you roll a d20, and on a 15 and up they don't die. This is a remarkably simple mechanic, and makes them more resilient nicely.

Would this be a nice baseline mechanic, or would you prefer something like this?

Henchman - 2 hit (this henchman takes 2 hits to kill.) Henchman rule: all henchman die immediately if they take a critical hit.



On the rest idea, I think what I prefer is allowing players to spend a Stamina Point to go to either heal as normal or return to 3/4s hp, and then another if they want to heal to full. So if you're at 2 HP and are scared of wasting Stamina, you can spend 1 to go to 3/4s (say, 24 or something). This also increases the chances people will go into battle slightly wounded, which is a cool feeling. As for allowing people more options, I think the easiest way to do that is make feats that increase your Stamina Pool. That way on a per-campaign basis people can decide if they feel it's needed (and the DM could always houserule).

The point isn't necessarily that chapters should be longer than a day - it's that the DM should have more control over the paces of chapters than he currently does. AD&D, 3E, and 4E have all put that control in the hands of the player, a design decision I have always found baffling (especially when they talk about how they want to cater to different styles of play. If you just flat out say 'it's up to the DM' you've just done exactly that!).

 

[GreyICE]

Anyway, on the math:

I was thinking of hitting on an 11 as base, but then I thought, why not make it an 7-8 or so? There's several advantages to this:

Plus side:

1) Hitting is fun. Missing is not fun. If you baseline hit on an 8, you miss around 1/3 swings, versus 1/2. More fun!

2) Less optimization possible - it's a known fact that +hit gets more valuable as your chance to hit declines. With a high chance to hit, optimizing +hit isn't as necessary.

3) Easier to make a "tough guy" monster who is hard to hit without making the combat a complete drag.


Minus side:
1) Does this include controllers/leaders or not? A big thing of controllers is usually the -2 to defenses that they can inflict. It's one of their big things, outside of minion control. And Leaders can often buff hit. Do we put controllers into the baseline of 8, so it's 10 without them?

2) Leaders and other +hit buffs become a lot less valuable (possibly a feature).

 

[Shadeydm]

I've noticed modern minions (MV onwards) tend to either have a death effect or a way of cheating death or not being hit (for instance Kobold minions have an encounter "Get the hell out of a burst attack" power whereas goblin minions don't reveal their position if they miss from hidden, and orc minions get a standard action when they die). The simplest would be a damage threshold allowing strikers to one shot them - and anyone else to two shot them.

Logically that makes sense one could even make the case that any daily that hits should be an autokill striker or not. However the bigger question might be what the implication is for play experience. Is it ever satisfying for creatures to go from full health to dead in one hit except perhaps for the 1st 3 levels of heroic?

 

[GreyICE]

Logically that makes sense one could even make the case that any daily that hits should be an autokill striker or not. However the bigger question might be what the implication is for play experience. Is it ever satisfying for creatures to go from full health to dead in one hit except perhaps for the 1st 3 levels of heroic?

Depends on satisfying, really. The PCs are fighting an enormous demon who spawns lesser demons from eggs, like a Queen. She is surrounded by powerful honor guard, and she herself sits in the center, spewing corrupting bile at the players. As the honor guard falls, she becomes more frantic, until when the last dies she lets out a huge, mind-tearing scream. The eggs around the room start popping, releasing white, wriggling demonspawn - identifiable as young versions of the spawn they just destroyed. Tearing through this Pyrrhic defense, the PCs focus on destroying the Queen and the spawn surrounding them, until at last the queen falls. As she does, the spawn let out a collective shriek and dissolve into a sticky, grey goo that slowly evaporates back to the abyss that spawned them.

 

[Xethreau]

On Minions: I like to take a lot of my inspiration from movies and scinima. One one hand, I like the idea of minions being more threatening and taking two hits to kill. On the other hand, it is not only realistic but also a trope in film that most adversaries go down in one hit. I like what we are saying about the MV+ minions, and that they should still be dangerous; but I ask, why not as dangerous offensively as a normal enemy? Instead of always dealing minimum damage, you could still make a 1-hit-killed enemy dangerous by giving it average damage - and perhaps "retribution." There is no reason why action heroes should not be able to take out your average joe with a single shot, even if he is the party defender or leader.


On Resting: I was thinking about this - do we even like action points and milestones? Action points, in their 3e form, already exist in the SRD, and I guess we can use that as a baseline. But what about milestones? I have never, repeat, never found a milestone relevant in my campaign. I recognize our mileage may vary, but it seems like an empty mechanic to me.


On Hit Rates: I like the lower assumed die rolls, though with our assumed ability scores the system will likely take some readjustment. I think it would not make controllers and leaders less useful - I think it would make them MORE useful, and in fact AS useful as they appear to be by fluff. (Obviously this will need playtesting)

 

[GreyICE]

Hmmm, milestones seem like a clumsy solution to the problem of "why wouldn't you rest after every encounter," which we solved by brute force.

Maybe give players a limited number of action points per chapter, 1 per encounter still? Or hell, maybe only Martial characters get action points, that's their daily powers (that's a... pretty sick daily power actually).

 

[D'karr]

On Minions: I like to take a lot of my inspiration from movies and scinima. One one hand, I like the idea of minions being more threatening and taking two hits to kill. On the other hand, it is not only realistic but also a trope in film that most adversaries go down in one hit. I like what we are saying about the MV+ minions, and that they should still be dangerous; but I ask, why not as dangerous offensively as a normal enemy? Instead of always dealing minimum damage, you could still make a 1-hit-killed enemy dangerous by giving it average damage - and perhaps "retribution." There is no reason why action heroes should not be able to take out your average joe with a single shot, even if he is the party defender or leader.


On Resting: I was thinking about this - do we even like action points and milestones? Action points, in their 3e form, already exist in the SRD, and I guess we can use that as a baseline. But what about milestones? I have never, repeat, never found a milestone relevant in my campaign. I recognize our mileage may vary, but it seems like an empty mechanic to me.


On Hit Rates: I like the lower assumed die rolls, though with our assumed ability scores the system will likely take some readjustment. I think it would not make controllers and leaders less useful - I think it would make them MORE useful, and in fact AS useful as they appear to be by fluff.

I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing here but what is the complete purpose at this time. The more the "rules" and the "math" varies from the default, the more difficult it is to keep backwards compatibility to the "base" system.

Am I completely missing the point of this exercise? I thought that the idea was to design an SRD that was fully compatible. From there variants can be explored and published in any form, but to do that we need to keep the base compatible.

In other words a minion/standard/elite/solo needs to remain a minion/standard/elite/solo in the base sense. The same for rests, etc. From there we can offer multiple variations on a theme. The Hinion (2 hit minion), the "super rest", the Plot Stone (Plot based milestone), etc.

Please explain if this is not what we are trying to do because I seem to be missing the point.

Thanks.





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[GreyICE]

I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing here but what is the complete purpose at this time. The more the "rules" and the "math" varies from the default, the more difficult it is to keep backwards compatibility to the "base" system.

Am I completely missing the point of this exercise? I thought that the idea was to design an SRD that was fully compatible. From there variants can be explored and published in any form, but to do that we need to keep the base compatible.

In other words a minion/standard/elite/solo needs to remain a minion/standard/elite/solo in the base sense. The same for rests, etc. From there we can offer multiple variations on a theme. The Hinion (2 hit minion), the "super rest", the Plot Stone (Plot based milestone), etc.

Please explain if this is not what we are trying to do because I seem to be missing the point.

Thanks.

If we attempt to remain backwards compatible with 4E, we almost certainly WILL be infringing on WotC's property rights, and they would have the legal right to shut us down and/or sue us.

For instance, we cannot:

1) Reproduce 4E specific names or charts
2) Alter any existing 4E races or powers
3) Use any specific 4E terms that may be copyrighted or trademarked.

That and the only purpose of such an exercise would be to 'patch' 4E, something that's not, frankly, a super-interesting thing. It seems better to rebuild a 4E-style system that shares a lot of similarities, and on the way eliminate some of the funky stuff, resulting in a smoother, cleaner system. Also, since we don't feel the need to push out books on a regular schedule to make a profit, we can focus on improving the options we do have, with new options added only when they actually ADD something to the game.