D&D 4.5E (Not Essentials)

[AbdulAlhazred]

A complexity with using the OGL is that, as part of your contractual obligations, you agree not to use certain WotC text and ideas that potentially go beyond what would be protected via copyright and trademark law alone.

Of course in return they don't send you the "thanks, but you're done doing that now" letter. It does generally seem pretty fair. Some things like Mind Flayers are just VERY D&D. Honestly I think its good because it forces designers to invent new stuff instead of just rehashing Gary's Garage circa 1973.

Do WotC have registered designs or patents for 4e elements?

Unknown. In theory I guess you could do a search, but I'm not sure how hard it is. The Design Patent is a weird beast.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Good post.

I personally regard the non-gank aspects of 4e as a plus - I like the tactical consequences it has (sometimes described as "combat as sport"). But I think you're looking at the right places for changes to be made to achieve different sorts of dynamics.

I think 4e went a little too far. Clearly this was a sticking point, maybe in truth THE real core sticking point with 4e. I think all the other complaints ultimately stem from this one factor. Strategic planning was devalued too much, which undermined casters and made ritual magic into a dusty corner of the system instead of a centerpiece as it should have been. It added to the 'slog' factor greatly and just generally encouraged a kind of almost mindless tactical skirmish game playing mindset.

 

[Garthanos]

I think 4e went a little too far. Clearly this was a sticking point, maybe in truth THE real core sticking point with 4e. I think all the other complaints ultimately stem from this one factor. Strategic planning was devalued too much, which undermined casters and made ritual magic into a dusty corner of the system instead of a centerpiece as it should have been.

To those who wanted casters to be overly valuable, I am certain it undermined them... but those who wanted them to feel involved as part of the team instead of supplanting the team not so much

Maybe ritual casting would have been better balanced at high levels instead of over powered at high levels and over costed at low levels if it had been more centralized.

Short term skill use was warded from ritual magic.. but you might say more protracted skill use was not.

 

[Lokiare]

I've gotten a few volunteers to work on this project. I'm currently looking for a free wiki site that allows a kind of voting system to be set up. I don't want random people changing things. I want people to be able to vote on stuff.

Any suggestions?

 

[Sanglorian]

Of course in return they don't send you the "thanks, but you're done doing that now" letter. It does generally seem pretty fair. Some things like Mind Flayers are just VERY D&D. Honestly I think its good because it forces designers to invent new stuff instead of just rehashing Gary's Garage circa 1973.

That's a good point; given that I'd recommend just going with Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike/a public domain licence, rather than trying to mix either with the Open Game License and all the extra baggage that brings.

I've gotten a few volunteers to work on this project. I'm currently looking for a free wiki site that allows a kind of voting system to be set up. I don't want random people changing things. I want people to be able to vote on stuff.

Any suggestions?

My suggestion is to have a wiki that anyone can use, and get people to post all sorts of suggestions and content. However, keep the 'canonical' pages locked except for moderators, and have a place for people to vote and discuss the different suggestions and content - then a mod can edit the canonical pages.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's a good point; given that I'd recommend just going with Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike/a public domain licence, rather than trying to mix either with the Open Game License and all the extra baggage that brings.

I'm not sure you have a choice. The OGL insures that you can do at least certain things without fear of legal problems, and its actually a quite good general open license. It has a couple of clauses that are designed to specifically define what WotC was licensing and what they weren't, but its perfectly usable for other projects, and probably the only option for a game that leans heavily on D&D material.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've gotten a few volunteers to work on this project. I'm currently looking for a free wiki site that allows a kind of voting system to be set up. I don't want random people changing things. I want people to be able to vote on stuff.

Any suggestions?

MediaWiki? That would be the standard answer. It isn't normally literally locked down, but you can control who has edit permission and the idea is you use the discussion page to decide what needs to be done. I don't know about voting, but maybe there's a plugin that will do that?

 

[sabrinathecat]

I would argue that strategic planning was greatly enhanced, as everyone now has a reason to pay attention and plan what their characters were going to do, how they were going to respond, and put forward their best combination of actions, rather than just have one or two people dictate everything.
Rogues need flanks or stealth for combat advantage, Rangers need positioning for their multi-melee attacks, Fighters should be forward to be flank-buddies or form walls to defend the squishy characters in the back, warlocks need to move around to spread their curses and gain shadow-walk...

The wizards and sorcerors are not the over-powered, kill everything of the battlefield.

Rituals... well, like potion brewing, by the time you could do it, you usually didn't need it. They did nicely clear out the clutter of the spell lists to get the out-of-combat utility powers away from the critical attack powers. Prices were a bit steep at low-level, but by paragon, pretty cheap except for things like raising the dead/resurrection/etc. On the other hand, in all the campaigns and adventuring I've done since 4e came out (weekly game * 4 years--5?) we've only needed such things 3 or 4 times, and once was for a colt that didn't survive birth.

Now, it wasn't perfect, but it was a great game design.

 

[John Meyers]

1: Downloadable character builder and monster builder that is completely up-to-date with all rules.

2: mounted combat

3: multi-class feats for all classes that are sensible (I had a thread about fixing multi-classing a while ago)

4: equal support for all classes, or drop the class entirely

5: roles--not necessary

6: playtesting before publishing!!! (some of the mistakes are embarrassing)

7: books updated with all errata.

8: ONE SET OF STEALTH RULES THAT MAKES SENSE!!! Those got changed so many times that I have no idea now how it works.

9: equal racial support, or drop the race entirely

10: Broader Open Game License!--like 3.0 first had before Book of Erotic Fantasy made them change it.

Definitely have to agree on this one! 'good thoughts - especially the point about play-testing. The damage expression problem should have been resolved long before publication - Heck, I played 4e for quite some time before I even realized this was the major problem. I've had to borrow some tricks from various sources on-line to speed things up (like using +1 tokens as a reward for thoughtful, entertaining, or fast play). We use a turn-tracker for initiative and conditions (absolutely essential, IMHO). I've also done away with the ever-escalating enhancement bonuses by using the inherent bonuses rule (It's a an administrative pain to keep handing out upgrades to equipment). One thing I'd like to see re-visited would be Skill Challenges. I've had to consciously streamline these, and almost never use them alone (almost always combined with combat).
I've played all versions of DnD so far (except Next) and I'm currently heavily invested in 4e (I"m a po'boy, you see (Dear WoTC . . . )), but one thing I've learned from gaming is that a good DM can make almost any system work - as long as I can improvise a compelling story and challenging combats (my players are the tactical gaming type), people keep showing up at the table (it's definitely NOT my Quesadillas!). In a way, it's almost a GOOD thing that 4E was so "BAD", because my players and I have managed to craft a pretty good game using the rules that we like (which is most of them), and tweaking or discarding the ones that we don't like. Our house-rule document is about 3 or 4 pages long, with a good chunk devoted to modifications to the enchanting rules.
But, I digress - 1-3, and 6-7 above are the ones I'd definitely put resources towards if I worked at WoTC, and had successfully argued to keep development of 4E alive!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would argue that strategic planning was greatly enhanced, as everyone now has a reason to pay attention and plan what their characters were going to do, how they were going to respond, and put forward their best combination of actions, rather than just have one or two people dictate everything.
Rogues need flanks or stealth for combat advantage, Rangers need positioning for their multi-melee attacks, Fighters should be forward to be flank-buddies or form walls to defend the squishy characters in the back, warlocks need to move around to spread their curses and gain shadow-walk...

The wizards and sorcerors are not the over-powered, kill everything of the battlefield.

Rituals... well, like potion brewing, by the time you could do it, you usually didn't need it. They did nicely clear out the clutter of the spell lists to get the out-of-combat utility powers away from the critical attack powers. Prices were a bit steep at low-level, but by paragon, pretty cheap except for things like raising the dead/resurrection/etc. On the other hand, in all the campaigns and adventuring I've done since 4e came out (weekly game * 4 years--5?) we've only needed such things 3 or 4 times, and once was for a colt that didn't survive birth.

Now, it wasn't perfect, but it was a great game design.

I'd call what you're talking about just basic tactics, its hardly colorable as 'planning' at all, though it often does involve a bit of basic "I'll do X this round so I can do Y next round". The planning I'm talking about is a whole other thing. Lets imagine you are playing 1e and your party has decided to go beard the dragon in his lair. Would you just march in, expecting to duke it out and prevail? You'd be rudely toasted in round one if you did that. No, instead the party will go look for some sort of fire protection magic (potions or whatnot, maybe even brewing some if the DM doesn't make it TOO onerous). They'll probably scout out the area, looking for the best ground to fight on, research spells that would be handy to use in the upcoming fight, etc. They might even hire some mercenaries or possibly dream up any of a dozen other tactics designed to get them in striking distance of said dragon without taking the horrific and usually fatal levels of damage dragon breath would usually dish out. A 4e party wouldn't bother. They MIGHT, if they thought the challenge level was extreme, pick up some consumables, change the wizard's spell load-out a bit, etc, but the game is oriented towards simply being able to march into a situation and meet the challenge without elaborate pre-planning. Furthermore you won't really gain a huge advantage by planning ahead. Protective magic is temporary and marginal, surprise has modest advantages, terrain likewise, and no one attack or spell is overwhelmingly effective.

This was a mistake in the design of 4e. It swings too far in this direction. I'm pretty sure the 5e designers, the guys who wrote 13a, etc all pretty much agree on that. Frankly I think throwing out the way 4e was designed is a poor short-sighted overreaction, but I don't think they were wrong to believe that 4e went too far in some sense.

As for rituals, I have two observations. 1st they are far more effective, useful and worthwhile than most players give them credit for. This is more a presentation issue than a problem with the implementation (though there is always room for improvement in some aspects). I think in a game which engages the players in strategic thinking to a higher degree this will also be less of an issue.

Of course there's always the real question, how far outside of the box of 4e design can you go and still call a game "4.5E". How much does it have to hew to the original design? This is my real difficulty with all the work in this area that people have done. It seems like games either sacrificed the good elements of 4e (13a certainly did), or they're minor tweaks that don't really go far enough. For my tastes nobody has both revised the game sufficiently in the ways that it really needs, nor managed to keep what was essential about it if they did rework it. Of course everyone has their own tastes, mine might not be very widely shared.