Undrave
Legend
We’ve had a few talks recently about reviving 4e and the impossibility of a proper retroclone due to the way the game license works. These talks also got me wondering if 100% copying the mechanics would even be a good idea, as 4e had its flaws and bloat that I would rather see streamlined.
This got me wondering if it would be possible to capture the SPIRIT of 4e without outright copying it. What was it about 4e that appealed to me, beyond its exact mechanics? In this thread I want to list the design principles and ‘big ideas’ of 4e that I would like to recapture in a game for it to satisfy me as a 4e successor. I hope you guys will pipe in, either in agreement or disagreement and maybe with new elements. These are not placed in any particular order, it’s just the order I thought of them.
Class based and level based: This one is fairly simple. I’ve tried a few and I really don’t particularly like class-less system. They feel overwhelming at times and it’s really easy to mess up the balance if there’s no decent restriction. It’s also simpler to progress a character with clear cut levels instead of like… build points. It’d be really easy to rebuild 4e as a pseudo class-less system where you have your power source and a boat load of powers but I think that would just end up as a mess and I would miss the strong identity of more rigid classes
Visible Design: The game designers had no problem telling us ‘This is how the math works at each level and the parameters if you don’t want to break it. Feel free to do so but you’ve been warned’. There was no pretention that this wasn’t first and foremost a game and not some sort of physics treatise on another world or something. It abstracted things for the sake of playability with no remorse and made all the dials very easy to tweak.
Classes with clear purposes: I liked that each class was built with a clear goal in battle and a distinct playstyle. The much maligned ‘roles’ were pretty brilliant IMO. Told you right away what to expect from a class. Your class does a thing very well and has a clear synergy in all its powers so if you take the path of least resistance you’ll end up with a good character with very little effort. You can, of course, twist the classes to play differently than the basic build as long as you have system mastery, but it doesn’t break anything. You didn’t have a class like the Monk that just feels like a checklist of ‘monk-like things’ with no real consideration given to how the class would actually play or be effective at its job.
Choices at every level: There’s nothing more boring than a dead level. When I level up, I like that it means something and that something is one that I pick, even if I only have two options to pick from, all the previous choices means that I can do multiple characters of the same class and still have different experiences.
Balance: Every option presented as equivalent was relatively equal in power. You didn’t have single overpowered characters, you really only had powerful synergies that emerged through teamwork. Party that knew how to play to each other strength felt incredibly powerful without one member specifically outshining everybody. Furthermore, the fiction you wanted to realize had no bearing on your strength or the complexity and flexibility of your character.
Same clock for everyone: While it wasn't executed perfectly, the use of Healing Surges showed that you can come up with mechanic that ensures everybody works on the same clock. No Short Rest/Long Rest class divide and magic can't extend that clock indefinitely. When the call to take a long rest arrive, it's rare that only part of the party agree and the other wants to keep going.
Defenders that really defend: Regardless of the method chosen, 4e was the first to really feel like being a frontliner meant something. You could, for once, become an actual wall that enemies had to overcome to get to your allies. It wasn’t just the DM’s courtesy resulting in the trope playing out, it had real underpinning mechanics.
Support that matter: Beyond simple healing, it felt GOOD to hand out bonuses. Being a good support character could do wonder and make you feel like a boss, even if you weren't the one doing the big damage!
Tactical Combat: Not much to say beyond that I like it. Moving around the battlefield and making the right decision mattered. Using the environment mattered. Paying attention to your allies mattered. You didn't just win in the character builder like you could with a spell caster in 3.X.
Attacker always rolls: This one is pretty simple but I really like a universal resolution mechanic. If the player wants to do a thing, they're always the one rolling. This also makes it much easier for support characters to support any type of characters equally.
Universality: Through the use of a consistent vocabulary, consistent syntax, consistent presentation, and a clever use of keywords, there was never any doubt that you were reading game rules and not just a piece of lore. Lore and flavor were their own things and the rules their own. Furthermore, if you knew the basics and had played one class, you had almost no learning curve to play another. When a new class was released I had no problem understanding it and being ready to play it right away. This universal language also applied to monsters, making the switch from player to DM all the smoother.
Intuitive encounter building: With monsters having their own roles in combat, with build in variety within specific species, and a simple XP budget system that no only worked but was easy to tweak to your desire, and suggested encounter groups, building encounters was a breeze. You could just grab the Goblin page of the Monster Manual and have an interesting enemy party without having to look much further.
Incomplete Lore: The 4e Lore was not in your face. You didn’t have, at the start, giant chunk of detailed History. Most of its world was hidden in the margins and you had to piece it together from all sorts of pieces, from introduction chapters to power descriptions to Paragon Paths introduction. The world was vast and filled with unknown areas you had to build yourself and connections you had to make on your own. The world wasn’t presented in a detailed painting, but rather as a coloring book page and you had to bring your own pencils. And when the game did give you giant chunks of exposition, it was mostly limited to being DM-facing, and all of it was in service of stimulating your imagination and getting you to create new adventures.
Cosmology for Adventurers: the universe was created as a place to have adventure in, not just as a working cosmic model. The gods are flawed and have complex relationship that can cause frictions. And alignments are vague abstractions of goals, desires and values, and not cosmic forces.
Truly epic epic levels: Every class, thanks to Epic Destinies, had access to insane endcap abilities that boldly and earnestly pushed you into the realm of mythical heroes. There was also a consideration to the END of your character’s career with prompts to help you reflect on what the ultimate goal of your character was and their claim to immortality, whether it be in legend, spirit or body. Your last level wasn’t just another bump, it was the end of a journey. This last one is a 'nice to have but not necessary' in that I wouldn't mind the game not starting with Epic levels available until later on.
Well that’s It for now. There might be more later but that’s the important ones. A game wouldn't need to be 100% the same mechanic as 4e to be able to hit those. I don't need the 6 D&D attributes and AC/FORT/REF/WILL defences for it to grab me, for exemple. Maybe there are some I'd have no problem compromising with some but not others. Who knows?
So, your turn guys... Go any of those you'd like to add? Anything you would rather not keep in a pseudo-clone? Things you disagree with or dislike among what I got laid out here?
This got me wondering if it would be possible to capture the SPIRIT of 4e without outright copying it. What was it about 4e that appealed to me, beyond its exact mechanics? In this thread I want to list the design principles and ‘big ideas’ of 4e that I would like to recapture in a game for it to satisfy me as a 4e successor. I hope you guys will pipe in, either in agreement or disagreement and maybe with new elements. These are not placed in any particular order, it’s just the order I thought of them.
Class based and level based: This one is fairly simple. I’ve tried a few and I really don’t particularly like class-less system. They feel overwhelming at times and it’s really easy to mess up the balance if there’s no decent restriction. It’s also simpler to progress a character with clear cut levels instead of like… build points. It’d be really easy to rebuild 4e as a pseudo class-less system where you have your power source and a boat load of powers but I think that would just end up as a mess and I would miss the strong identity of more rigid classes
Visible Design: The game designers had no problem telling us ‘This is how the math works at each level and the parameters if you don’t want to break it. Feel free to do so but you’ve been warned’. There was no pretention that this wasn’t first and foremost a game and not some sort of physics treatise on another world or something. It abstracted things for the sake of playability with no remorse and made all the dials very easy to tweak.
Classes with clear purposes: I liked that each class was built with a clear goal in battle and a distinct playstyle. The much maligned ‘roles’ were pretty brilliant IMO. Told you right away what to expect from a class. Your class does a thing very well and has a clear synergy in all its powers so if you take the path of least resistance you’ll end up with a good character with very little effort. You can, of course, twist the classes to play differently than the basic build as long as you have system mastery, but it doesn’t break anything. You didn’t have a class like the Monk that just feels like a checklist of ‘monk-like things’ with no real consideration given to how the class would actually play or be effective at its job.
Choices at every level: There’s nothing more boring than a dead level. When I level up, I like that it means something and that something is one that I pick, even if I only have two options to pick from, all the previous choices means that I can do multiple characters of the same class and still have different experiences.
Balance: Every option presented as equivalent was relatively equal in power. You didn’t have single overpowered characters, you really only had powerful synergies that emerged through teamwork. Party that knew how to play to each other strength felt incredibly powerful without one member specifically outshining everybody. Furthermore, the fiction you wanted to realize had no bearing on your strength or the complexity and flexibility of your character.
Same clock for everyone: While it wasn't executed perfectly, the use of Healing Surges showed that you can come up with mechanic that ensures everybody works on the same clock. No Short Rest/Long Rest class divide and magic can't extend that clock indefinitely. When the call to take a long rest arrive, it's rare that only part of the party agree and the other wants to keep going.
Defenders that really defend: Regardless of the method chosen, 4e was the first to really feel like being a frontliner meant something. You could, for once, become an actual wall that enemies had to overcome to get to your allies. It wasn’t just the DM’s courtesy resulting in the trope playing out, it had real underpinning mechanics.
Support that matter: Beyond simple healing, it felt GOOD to hand out bonuses. Being a good support character could do wonder and make you feel like a boss, even if you weren't the one doing the big damage!
Tactical Combat: Not much to say beyond that I like it. Moving around the battlefield and making the right decision mattered. Using the environment mattered. Paying attention to your allies mattered. You didn't just win in the character builder like you could with a spell caster in 3.X.
Attacker always rolls: This one is pretty simple but I really like a universal resolution mechanic. If the player wants to do a thing, they're always the one rolling. This also makes it much easier for support characters to support any type of characters equally.
Universality: Through the use of a consistent vocabulary, consistent syntax, consistent presentation, and a clever use of keywords, there was never any doubt that you were reading game rules and not just a piece of lore. Lore and flavor were their own things and the rules their own. Furthermore, if you knew the basics and had played one class, you had almost no learning curve to play another. When a new class was released I had no problem understanding it and being ready to play it right away. This universal language also applied to monsters, making the switch from player to DM all the smoother.
Intuitive encounter building: With monsters having their own roles in combat, with build in variety within specific species, and a simple XP budget system that no only worked but was easy to tweak to your desire, and suggested encounter groups, building encounters was a breeze. You could just grab the Goblin page of the Monster Manual and have an interesting enemy party without having to look much further.
Incomplete Lore: The 4e Lore was not in your face. You didn’t have, at the start, giant chunk of detailed History. Most of its world was hidden in the margins and you had to piece it together from all sorts of pieces, from introduction chapters to power descriptions to Paragon Paths introduction. The world was vast and filled with unknown areas you had to build yourself and connections you had to make on your own. The world wasn’t presented in a detailed painting, but rather as a coloring book page and you had to bring your own pencils. And when the game did give you giant chunks of exposition, it was mostly limited to being DM-facing, and all of it was in service of stimulating your imagination and getting you to create new adventures.
Cosmology for Adventurers: the universe was created as a place to have adventure in, not just as a working cosmic model. The gods are flawed and have complex relationship that can cause frictions. And alignments are vague abstractions of goals, desires and values, and not cosmic forces.
Truly epic epic levels: Every class, thanks to Epic Destinies, had access to insane endcap abilities that boldly and earnestly pushed you into the realm of mythical heroes. There was also a consideration to the END of your character’s career with prompts to help you reflect on what the ultimate goal of your character was and their claim to immortality, whether it be in legend, spirit or body. Your last level wasn’t just another bump, it was the end of a journey. This last one is a 'nice to have but not necessary' in that I wouldn't mind the game not starting with Epic levels available until later on.
Well that’s It for now. There might be more later but that’s the important ones. A game wouldn't need to be 100% the same mechanic as 4e to be able to hit those. I don't need the 6 D&D attributes and AC/FORT/REF/WILL defences for it to grab me, for exemple. Maybe there are some I'd have no problem compromising with some but not others. Who knows?
So, your turn guys... Go any of those you'd like to add? Anything you would rather not keep in a pseudo-clone? Things you disagree with or dislike among what I got laid out here?
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