D&D 4.5E (Not Essentials)

[Lokiare]

Wow, lots of ideas. Very interesting. A lot of them mirror what I had already thought of, others I don't think would work very well.

So would anyone be willing to work together on an OGL version of 4.5E where we try to keep it as close as legally possible to 4E while still fixing the problems of 4E? We can set up some kind of wiki or something to work on it...

 

[sabrinathecat]

The problem with building a wiki is that people have vastly different ideas of what powers and mechanics should be. I've seen some ideas I like, and some that are way too complicated.
Powers should not read like a flow-chart: they should be simple and easy to understand. The warlock power "Decree of Khirad" is about the most complicated I'd want to see any power, be it from race, class, feat, paragon path, epic destiny, theme or whatever. It has an awful lot of components to it. (area effect: close blast, move everyone in the blast, roll to hit, miss = damage unless minion, hit = they attack adjacent or take damage, if they can't attack, they take damage).
The Base warlock is already the most complicated to play, in that it requires using all actions every round in order to get maximum benefit (minor to curse so creatures that get killed provide pact boon, standard to attack, and move action to get shadow walk for the defense boost).
So, my thought is to keep the mechanics as simple as possible. I don't want to have to make a skill check against each target in order to put in an effect that then lets me attack each target i beat with the skill roll. Too much like needing a flow-chart to find out what happened.
I think there should be a nice flavor benefit to a fighter with an int mod (maybe access to a clever feat?) or a strong wizard, or what have you. That could be fun.
I like having classes. Power sources however... Ditch psionics. Aside from the animal control in Beast Master, I have yet to come across a single example of a fantasy psionic architype. I suppose the Battlemind could be seen as an armored Jedi... maybe--it's a stretch. Primal doesn't really do anything for me either.
Cut down on key-words. Do we really need "shadow"?

There's a lot of bloat to cut, no matter where you go. That is an unfortunate side effect of WotC having to publish X pages of Dragon online every month. Not everything gets play tested. Not everything gets quality control. Not everyone notices there are better options than their pet whatsit. And if the publishers don't care because they need to fill page count or word count, the quality of the material is vulnerable.

 

[Sanglorian]

Wow, lots of ideas. Very interesting. A lot of them mirror what I had already thought of, others I don't think would work very well.

So would anyone be willing to work together on an OGL version of 4.5E where we try to keep it as close as legally possible to 4E while still fixing the problems of 4E? We can set up some kind of wiki or something to work on it...

I love the idea of a project like that. You might want to look at some of the other clones of 4E that people have been working on: http://fossilbank.wikidot.com/engine:dungeons-dragons-4e

(That includes one I was working on and might pick up again, Orcus, which is envisaged as a glossary and style guide for others to create 4E-compatible products, rather than a game in-and-of-itself).

I'd also put in a vote for dual-licensing the game under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike and the OGL (which would allow others to choose which licence they like) as I think the OGL has quite a few problems that the CC Attribution-ShareAlike licence fixes: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 

[Jhaelen]

1) Group Powers by Source (would cut down on the bloat), not Class, in fact, ditch Classes, choose a Power Source, a Role, and Features to support your concept.

I always wondered why WotC didn't use a (short) list of class-specific powers and a (large) list of common powers for a given source. It would have saved them a lot of work, made it easier to design new classes, and cut down on the power bloat.

 

[Garthanos]

[/LIST]

I'd go a lot farther. The 'Trained' bonus needs to be drastically reduced. In general, skill bonuses need to fall inside a narrower envelope.

At first level, it's by no means inconceivable that the gnome rogue in your party has a +11 Stealth check while the dwarf cleric in heavy armor has -1. That's a 12 point swing already, and it's only going to get worse as the party levels. With those numbers, a DC 15 stealth check is extremely difficult for the cleric and almost impossible to fail for the rogue.

As people were noting in a recent thread on level 27 characters, skill challenges become very dangerous in epic tier play as the gaps widen enormously!

The simple fix is to tighten the numbers up and then not have them advance with level. A more interesting fix might be to allow players to train in new skills as they level. Of course this might simply turn into an arms race as the rogue trains 'stealth' every time.

I'm not really wedded to a specific approach but there's gotta be a better way.

Your ideas keep skill divergence lower a goal I approve of but in that regards adding 1/2 on everyone per level really has no impact since the players archetypes all advance equally unless you have character levels varying a lot for some reason. (not particularly good idea that anyway).

Its pretty stupid flavor wise for a high level combatant to get hit just as often by a low level enemy as he used to when he was low level and if he is enough better than that enemy having it become frequently easy (ie better armor class better defenses instead of desparate hp expense) doesn't hurt my feelings either.

 

[Garthanos]

I always wondered why WotC didn't use a (short) list of class-specific powers and a (large) list of common powers for a given source. It would have saved them a lot of work, made it easier to design new classes, and cut down on the power bloat.

Was there much over lap in the initial offering? I suppose one could argue many of the powers could have been designed with an intent so as to be used by more than one class, then modified more by class features.

 

[Quickleaf]

Wow, lots of ideas. Very interesting. A lot of them mirror what I had already thought of, others I don't think would work very well.

So would anyone be willing to work together on an OGL version of 4.5E where we try to keep it as close as legally possible to 4E while still fixing the problems of 4E? We can set up some kind of wiki or something to work on it...

I appreciate the spirit, but in addition to [MENTION=89838]sabrinathecat[/MENTION]'s observation that there are differences of opinion on just what constitutes "fixed" or "problem", there is the issue of legality.

As far as I udnerstand it, the GSL only applies if you sign on to it. Without the protection (and restriction) of the GSL, the closer you try to get to 4e the shakier ground you are on. A game like 13th Age is able to use many 4e ideas but not be in legal trouble because they changed so much; there are definitely tastes of 4e in it, but it is (as I understand it) a very different, looser, rules-lite game.

Generally I avoid work that feels like recreating the wheel, and I'm more focused on making awesome adventures than on rules tinkering. That said, if a Creative Commons project inspired by 4e got off the ground I'd be excited to help it grow.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I appreciate the spirit, but in addition to @sabrinathecat's observation that there are differences of opinion on just what constitutes "fixed" or "problem", there is the issue of legality.

As far as I udnerstand it, the GSL only applies if you sign on to it. Without the protection (and restriction) of the GSL, the closer you try to get to 4e the shakier ground you are on. A game like 13th Age is able to use many 4e ideas but not be in legal trouble because they changed so much; there are definitely tastes of 4e in it, but it is (as I understand it) a very different, looser, rules-lite game.

And more specifically, they made up new names for rules and ideas that are clearly based on 4e. For instance, 'staggered' is essentially identical to 'bloodied' but uses a different name. If you understand 'healing surges' in 4e, you know 90% of what you need to know about 'recoveries' in 13A. And so on.

Concepts from 3.x, of course, they can borrow from without worry thanks to the OGL.

 

[Lokiare]

If 4.5 is going to be a revision along the lines of 3.5. I would say that essentials would have been awesome to continue with. I personally do not get the hate for ir.

But if we are doing drastic revisions I would go for something like savage world's with hit points. Generic abilities that can have whatever trappings you want.

Perhaps how the supers book does it. With modifiers for much more customizable powers.

Setting aside the differences in classes. Essentials basically destroyed most of what 4E was about. Essentials introduced the idea that every challenge scaled with character level. Before Essentials challenges had a set DC and you only had a single chart telling you what DC would possibly challenge a character of a specific level. So you knew that a stuck wooden door was a challenge for 1st and an steel reinforced door was a challenge for a level 10 character. Which meant that you could put stuck wooden doors in level 10 dungeons, but if you wanted to challenge your characters you would throw in a steel reinforced door at some point.

Essentials took the other way out and said all doors are DC X relative to the characters level. Most of the complaints people leveled at 4E that weren't true were codified into Essentials. I could handle it if Essentials was just the class variability, but not the rules changes that destroyed the game and made a mockery of what 4E was about...

 

[Lokiare]

Your ideas keep skill divergence lower a goal I approve of but in that regards adding 1/2 on everyone per level really has no impact since the players archetypes all advance equally unless you have character levels varying a lot for some reason. (not particularly good idea that anyway).

Its pretty stupid flavor wise for a high level combatant to get hit just as often by a low level enemy as he used to when he was low level and if he is enough better than that enemy having it become frequently easy (ie better armor class better defenses instead of desparate hp expense) doesn't hurt my feelings either.

I'm hoping we can solve this by coming up with an equation for how many hit points a point of defense is worth and vice versa so being able to hit a high defense monster of your level might kill it in 1 hit, but getting that hit will be difficult. Ideally instead of all monsters of a level having the same defenses and hit points which only vary slightly by role, you would be able to make high and low defense and high and low hit point monsters for a wider variety. Which is why I say 4.5E I mean to improve on the 4E design where possible...