Fixes for "niggling bonuses/penalties"?

[Siberys]

If I ever have problems with 4e, it almost always has to do with remembering little things. Small bonuses and penalties, ongoing damage, and marking are the three worst offenders in this regard.

Marking
Now, in principle, marking is cool. The big problem is tracking WHO marks WHOM. It works fine for PCs, but for monsters, not so much. Hence, the following idea; replace marking with the following ability.

Defender aura 5; Enemies within the aura take a -2 penalty to attacks that do not target this creature. This penalty does not stack with other instances of Defender.

What about effects that care about whether a creature is marked, though? Make them immediate reactions that trigger when an enemy in the aura attacks another creature? Any ideas, or could this just be a "solve as they come along" type deal?

Design notes: There is no niggling thing to remember about this. It is constant, it is fairly significant, and it does not require me to remember WHICH monster applied the effect. The only problem is abilities that trigger off of being marked, whether they belong to players or monsters. What can I do about those?

Ongoing Damage
Ongoing damage is great, but there are at least 55 variations on it, taking into account damage types and the standard damage sizes of 2/5/10/15/20 - even more if you talk about PC-stat-based ongoing damage sizes.

With PCs, this isn't a huge deal - the players can keep track of that. But with monsters, I'd prefer not to.

One solution is to roll saves immediately, one after the other, until success, and then have the monster take damage for each die roll. Are there any effects that proc off of the enemy having ongoing damage?

Small Bonuses and Penalties
What I'm talking about here are those little bonuses to attack, damage, and defenses. I'm thinking about replacing them with a condition track, a la Saga Edition. The problem I have is getting a logical, easy to remember hierarchy. Should one track cover everything, a la Saga edition, each level giving, say, +/- 1 attack, 1 defenses, and 2 damage? Or should they be tracked separately?

 

[Stalker0]

One solution is to roll saves immediately, one after the other, until success, and then have the monster take damage for each die roll. Are there any effects that proc off of the enemy having ongoing damage?

This is an interesting idea. The only problem I see is it reduces some of the benefits of extra saves, and gives a huge bonus to saving throw bonuses for that round but overall it provides the same effect just in a more immediate way, I like it.

 

[keterys]

The most important thing to figure out whenever you make a replacement for marking is how to handle multiple Defenders. For example, in your case if you have two defenders the attacker is at -2 _no matter who they attack_. Might as well go for the wizard, at that point.

So few PC powers deal ongoing damage to monsters that I doubt a monster only solution is really all that necessary. But, sure, your way is fine as long as there isn't some other rider on the effect. If you want something that applies to PCs as well, things get more complicated.

Personally, I'd suggest adding in, say, two more conditions, something like:
Rattled: -1 to attacks and defenses
Empowered: +1 to attacks and defenses

and just make everything use that. No stacking. Just clear the chaff and move on.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Marking
Now, in principle, marking is cool. The big problem is tracking WHO marks WHOM. It works fine for PCs, but for monsters, not so much. Hence, the following idea; replace marking with the following ability.

Design notes: There is no niggling thing to remember about this. It is constant, it is fairly significant, and it does not require me to remember WHICH monster applied the effect. The only problem is abilities that trigger off of being marked, whether they belong to players or monsters. What can I do about those?

First up: most of the time you don't need to remember which monster marked a PC because:

*Usually monsters only have single-round marks, so whenever a PC is marked, it's by the monster standing next to him.
*If multiple marking monsters are standing next to a PC, it typically doesn't matter who he attacks: they're all tough creatures whos goal is to prevent the PC from attacking something that cannot mark.
*If, for some reason, you have some complicated plan involving marking, it's a rare enough thing that you can remember what is what.

Ongoing Damage
Ongoing damage is great, but there are at least 55 variations on it, taking into account damage types and the standard damage sizes of 2/5/10/15/20 - even more if you talk about PC-stat-based ongoing damage sizes.

With PCs, this isn't a huge deal - the players can keep track of that. But with monsters, I'd prefer not to.

When a monster deals ongoing, you tell the PC how much it is, and he tracks when he takes it and whether he saves.

When a monster takes ongoing from a PC, you can damn well be sure that the player will pipe up and tell you exactly how much damage it should be taking whenever it starts its turn. It's in his best interest to remind you.

 

[Stalker0]

When a monster takes ongoing from a PC, you can damn well be sure that the player will pipe up and tell you exactly how much damage it should be taking whenever it starts its turn. It's in his best interest to remind you.

This one is always important to remember when it comes to tracking.

And it has nothing to do with honesty or honor, we all forget things...and the brain is naturally going to forget things that hurt it (like taking ongoing damage) than things that help it (like that monster you just struck bursting into flames while you stand over it triumphant laughing manically while hold your flaming sword in one hand and your beloved wench in the other while holding your favorite mug in that magic third hand you picked up when you burst into the lair of Mulgath the Unwise and took it from his bleeding corpse.)

 

[Siberys]

Okay; I've put a bit more thought into these. The overarching goal of these changes is to remove any need for memory whatever - everything is immediate, and everything can be determined with a glance at the battlemat. These are what I've come up with;

Marking
Monsters with the ability to mark now simply have the following trait;

Defender
Enemies in squares threatened by this creature are marked. An enemy never suffers a penalty to attacking this creature from being marked.

Design Notes[sblock]Goals;
• Make marking abilities on monsters have no tracking requirement.
• Make the marker a preferred target even if there are multiple markers near each other.

This accomplishes the first goal by making it a function of physical placement, as opposed to a condition. The second goal is met by making creatures with defender unable to benefit from an ally's marking capability. Thus, -2 to attacking anyone but those with defender.[/sblock]
Ongoing Damage
Ongoing Damage is applied immediately. If the ongoing damage is a save ends effect, roll saves until success. Then the target of the ongoing damage takes the damage once per die roll.

Note
Some effects trigger when targeting a creature taking ongoing damage, such as the Venomous Action class feature of the Venomed Soul paragon path. Instead, these effects trigger when targeting a creature with an effect that causes ongoing damage.

Design Notes[sblock]Goals;
• Remove any need for tracking of ongoing damage on either the player or DM side of the board.

Yes, I know the player will remember outgoing ongoing damage, simply because it is in their favor. Regardless, I don't want to have to track it if I can get away with not doing so.

As for other riders - those can be tracked separately. I could be wrong, but I've always read 'a and b (save ends both)' as just a way to shorten 'a (save ends) and b (save ends)'. If I've been reading those sorts of entries incorrectly, this is the perfect time for me to formalize that change. [/sblock]
'Niggling Bonuses and Penalties'
Idea courtesy Keterys, above.
Add the following new conditions;

Fatigued
• You take a -1 penalty to attack rolls.
• You take a -1 penalty to all defenses.

Empowered
• You get a +1 penalty to attack rolls.
• You get a +1 penalty to all defenses.

When to use Fatigued
Whenever an effect gives a single target a penalty to an attack roll, a damage roll, or a defense, and the effect does not last until the end of the encounter or remain while a certain game-state condition is met (such as bloodied) the target is fatigued for the same duration instead.

Whenever an effect gives a group a bonus to an attack roll, damage roll, or defense against a single target, and the effect does not last until the end of the encounter or remain while a certain game-state condition is met (such as bloodied) that target is fatigued for the same duration instead.

When to use Empowered
Whenever an effect gives a single target a bonus to an attack roll, a damage roll, or a defense, and the effect does not last until the end of the encounter or remain while a certain game-state condition is met (such as bloodied) the target is empowered for the same duration instead.

Whenever an effect gives a group a penalty to an attack roll, damage roll, or defense against a single target, and the effect does not last until the end of the encounter or remain while a certain game-state condition is met (such as bloodied) that target is empowered for the same duration instead.

Special
Second Wind remains as-is.

Design Notes[sblock]Goals;
• Remove any need to track small bonuses and penalties to attack rolls, damage rolls, and defenses.

This does that, and does it well. The only problem is with regards to damage bonuses and penalties, but a bonus to attack rolls is a bonus to damage in a sort of circuitous way, I guess. Additionally, this removes quite a bit of the granularity of the current system, but SOMETHING has to be sacrificed for this to work...

This is actually very similar to how I had the Condition Track set up; replace "fatigued" with "move one step down on the condition track" and "empowered" with "move one step up on the condition track", and you had it at its basic. The other rules that made it work were as follows;

• The condition track went from -5 up to +5, and started at zero. The bonus/penalty applied to the same things fatigued and empowered applied to - attack rolls and defenses.
• Duration wasn't tracked. Instead, at the end of your turn, your condition track would move one step closer to 0. Duration was instead determined by how big the bonus was, because bigger bonuses would take longer to 'decay' to 0. Save ends effects moved you up or down two steps; all other effects only moved you one.
• Finally, effects that granted a save could instead be used to move the target's condition track one step closer to 0.

In the end, though, fatigued/empowered seemed more robust.[/sblock]

Thoughts?

 

[keterys]

You may end up wanting it to be +/-2 instead of +/-1 ... I'm guessing playing some with it will show there. -2 attack and -2 defenses from at-wills is definitely stronger than what we have now, possibly too much so, but avoiding 'Okay, -2 from Astral Seal, -2 from Guiding Strike, -6 from Frigid Darkness' and keeping players happy (with the 2 instead of 1) is perhaps worth making the buff. Dunno

 

[Siberys]

Good points. My group'll be playtesting this soon, and if it seems too weak player-side we'll try upping the bonus. The flipside of that, though, is that the penalties are also smaller. Small penalties may be, psychologically, preferred over larger bonuses. We'll see.

 

[Wik]

Ongoing Damage
Ongoing damage is great, but there are at least 55 variations on it, taking into account damage types and the standard damage sizes of 2/5/10/15/20 - even more if you talk about PC-stat-based ongoing damage sizes.

With PCs, this isn't a huge deal - the players can keep track of that. But with monsters, I'd prefer not to.

One solution is to roll saves immediately, one after the other, until success, and then have the monster take damage for each die roll. Are there any effects that proc off of the enemy having ongoing damage?

Interesting idea, but gives more power to the PCs. After all, they hit with all their damage at once, meaning if they use the same power again next round, the damage would effectively "stack". Normally, when you're suffering ongoing 5 from one effect, you're basically immune to that second effect's damage. Now, you don't have that round of "immunity", so you can stack your damage effects.

Not to mention the obvious "if the ongoing damage kills him this round, he can't hit me or heal himself next round" problem.

 

[keterys]

PC powers rarely have ongoing damage. It's definitely not a boost for PCs.