I'm a fan of both 3.x/Pathfinder and 4e. I see the positives and negatives of both systems and I've got my own hopes for 5e.
I'll start by saying I love where 4e was going, esp as a DM.
Monsters:
Breaking the monster/DM side of 4e, making it more complex like 3.x/PF would be a negative on my scorecard. I don't want to deal with monster level adjustment or monsters having to be built the same as players. If players want to play a monstrous race, I'll build a race entry for them. Don't complicate the DM side, I have enough to deal with while the players do the unexpected. I don't think I can stress enough how much I love current 4e monster design and statblocks.
Powers/Power Sources:
I like the concept of powers and power sources. I enjoy how they are done in 4e and it makes explaining character building to newer players easy. "This is the minimum actions your character can do, use your imagination and roleplay everything else." However, I'd have rather had 4e class powers not by class, but by power source. Lump all the martial powers together. Lump all the arcane together, Divine, Psionic, etc. Each power source would have design guidlines of mechanics that powers should incoporate and mechanics they could lightly dabble in. Classes then, would be "spell lists" that would say what powers in a given powersource pool had access to at given levels and powers shared between classes instead of unique to classes. I think the arcane power source has been edging close to this.
Fighters might have their power list solely in the Martial pool. Rogues would be mostly martial with a toe dipped in the Shadow pool and maybe the Arcane pool. Paladins a split between Martial pool and Divine pool, Artificers split between Arcane and Divine, you get the idea. This would make creating custom classes a lot simpler and reduce work I would think.
I think the racial powers are mostly fine.
Multiclassing:
I really like how multiclassing works in theory in 4e. Whatever my base class is, I want to always continue in my base class and get features/powers/whatever from it. I like dabbling in other base classes via feat selection and can determine how deeply I want to swim in that class. I like how PP and ED drape on top of my base class. Hybrids are an interesting option. I think it acheived what it set out to do in 4e.
I do not like 3.x multiclassing at all.
Skills:
I like what 4e did with skills (despite stealth being refreshed a few times, the final version is nice). I understand the 3.x crowd likes putting ranks into skills to show profiency. It shows mastery (or lack thereof) of skills and what my character can do in it's off time. I'm not a fan of this. I like being able to say "I'm trained at this skill" and "My race has a better affinity with this skill" and "Members of my class are generally decent with this skill" and be done with it. When building characters above first level (and even at first level), making sure where and when your ranks go into a skill was tedious and slows down creation considerably as I plan out my character. If I change my mind later down the road, this can have a large impact on my character. I feel the rank system rewards system mastery above having fun with the game. Furthermore, if for whatever reason you lost a level, remembering which skills got what and when can be a pain, leading to further slow down. I like my +5 trained and racial/class bonuses plus attribute mod. Nice, simple, fast.
I also understand the 3.x crowd likes the craft, perform, profession, and knowledge skills. Personally, I'm not a big fan of them, as they clutter up the char sheet, and DM wise, I don't want a check against a skill that I consider completely optional during character creation to be required in an adventure. Aside from Bard, I don't really see a need for perform. Crafting, and Profession... my characters kill things and takes it's stuff. If I'm not out adventuring, I don't really care what my character is doing. He may have been profession(banker) or craft(armor) at one point in his life, but now he is adventuring. I'm out looking for that rare material to craft with, I'm out exploring ruins with a treasure map that i found in the vault of my bank. When I'm done adventuring, I'm not going to have my character somehow fail and ruin teh dragon scale I spent a year adventuring for. I want to simply spend the gp/materials and end up with Dragon Scale Armor after several months in my forges. I'm certainly not going back to banking or farming until my character retires.
Perform is a slightly different beast. I don't want it tied to a single attribute, as say, perform(dancing) might be attached to dex, while perform(actor) would be atttched to cha. Personally, I think other skills and attribute rolls can handle this, but I can see the desire for it. I also think the use of Performing is more related to skill challenges during scenes. Performing for the target as a distraction while others do the wet work.
I like how the Knowledge skills were done in 4e and feel this is the best way to deal with them.
If my players insisted on these types of skills, I'd allow them, and some form of rank system under the label of "Background Skills", an entirely optional subsystem for roleplyaing. I'd much rather have my more important skills grouped with my stats on the front of my character sheet.
Skill Challenges:
In theory, I feel this is a great system. In implentation, it varies wildly. It's entirely up to the DM how to approach them whether they are clearly announced as such, or hidden behind the scenes. Obviously hidden behind the scenes so that the players are unaware they are in a skill challenge is best, but this goes with DM experience. It's a good crutch for new DMs to play out scenes, but attention needs to be made on explaining and giving examples on how to make this invisible to the player via story telling.
Healing:
I like healing surges. I think they heal too much. I think players have too many under 4e rules without a good way to spend them.
I'd like to see them heal for 1/5th instead of 1/4 HP. I want other uses for healing surges. It's a resource, let me manage it better. Let me spend 2 for an automatic success on a death saving throw. Why am I dying if I have healing surges stocked up? Let me spend 1 for a fudge die roll. How about 3 to regain an action point, or 4 to regain an encounter, or 5 for a daily.
On the subject of dying, I'm not a fan of death saving throw failures reseting between short rests. Extended rests sure, but not short. Let me spend healing surges to recover a failed death saving throw. Spend that resource!
Condition Track from SAGA:
I like this. Find a way to bring it in.
Math:
This is a hard one. Some people don't like having to take certain feats to maintain threat against monsters. But how to balance? I like the idea of at a certain level, each class has a class feature that lets you select as a bonus feat from a pool of what are essentially "math tweak feats", yet allow the character to specialize in something. For the arcane, you've got wand, staff, orb etc things you can add small effects in addition to the math tweak, martial, you can have similar concept for weapon groups. Just embed it as a class feature so people stop complaing about feat taxes, at least on this issue.
Personally, I'd like the monster system of 4e to remain unchanged and carry forward. Having a nice stable of monsters that I know inside and out from day 1 would be great.
Rituals and Martial Practices:
Good in theory. Needs better implementation. Hopefully the lessons from 4e will assist with this. Lower costs, using healing surges, etc.
Magic Items:
Much better now with the rarity system. Needs to be in the hands of the DM (not necesarrily the DMG) from day 1. Lessons learned from 4e about balance and property distribution need to be applied here. Needs more low level utilitarian artifacts that are clever roleplaying seeds for the player instead of just the next level armor, weapon, belt, etc.
Defenses:
I like the AC and NAD defenses. Keep 'em. Make sure each class has the option to select a power or two to hit something besides AC.
Books:
I love the 3.x/PF books. They are beautiful on the outside and inside. I love the cover artwork and illustrations in the 4e books, but I miss the 3.x/PF polish on the inside. On the plus side, everything in 4e is very easy on the eyes with blocked powers and such. I didn't have to read paragraph after paragraph on a page to find the one little feature I was looking for.
Vancian:
As done by 3.x/PF, no thank you. However, I am very open to preparing encounter spells. I already have to select from my choice of Dailies. Perhaps I have encounter selection as per 4e, but I get 1 extra encounter slot per tier where I can slot an encounter of my choosing from whatever encounter spells I know, including a second use of a normal encounter choice. I would be fine with this level of fiddly. It allows my character to discover new spells (something I like from 3.x/PF), have some added flexibility, and yet still have a core schtick that I use battle after battle and don't have to reference my book every time I take an extended rest.
Balance of both Vancian and AEDU worlds.
Mechanics:
Interupts are a small pain as a DM that brings combat to a grind (at least with new players. Experience players not so much) as things rewind. Esp having two different forms of interrupt and having to explain them. I do like them, but perhaps they can be done differently.
The rules for 3D are finally close enough to enjoy, but still awkward to explain. When encouraging having varied terrain, battles in the air, and underwater, this should be carefully thought out and gotten right the first time.
I like bursts and blasts. They are quick and simple. Cones are a pain.
I like 4e diagonal movement. It's faster. Thinking of movement in squares instead of feet is one less layer of abstraction I need to worry about unless I really need to know the distance of something, like during a jump over a gorge.
I like 4e Charging rules.
I like Auras and zones, esp for swarms.
Minions:
Great concept! Add Mooks (2 hit minions). A crit auto kills a mook. Add rules for crits on minions. Allow a crit to also kill another adjacent minion, or half damage on an adjacent non-minion, or auto kill another minion in a burst.
Classes:
As mentioned earlier, I think class powers should be power lists. However, class features is where each class should stand out. They should have some custom mechanic system specific to that class, outside of powers. This, I think, is where both PF and martial Essentials shine. This mechanic should get better without the use of feats as the character levels. Feats instead should stretch the mechanic in different directions, not affecting power. Example from 3.x/PF, metamagic feats. Example from 4e, dragonborn breath feats.
Races:
I love how 4e handles races. Bonuses and features, not penalties. Use lessons learned from 4e to better plan the races. Don't skimp on races in the first books. Eberron players need our gnomes, orcs, half-orcs, kalashtar and warforged, FR needs their drow, and DS need their muls and goliaths.
DDI:
Use schemas. Standardize your xml. Release schemas to public. Allow custom stuff in tools that validates with the schemas. Really liking current Dungeon and Dragon, but I miss print magazines. Have some sort of POD ability for Dungeon and Dragon monthly. POD of previous editions for subscribers. I'd much rather have dead tree than PDF, but that's me.
OGL/GSL:
Meh, don't care. Obviously don't give everything away like the OGL, but have the damn GSL ready on time, friendly to publishers, and UPDATED with new terms and such as books get released.
I'll start by saying I love where 4e was going, esp as a DM.
Monsters:
Breaking the monster/DM side of 4e, making it more complex like 3.x/PF would be a negative on my scorecard. I don't want to deal with monster level adjustment or monsters having to be built the same as players. If players want to play a monstrous race, I'll build a race entry for them. Don't complicate the DM side, I have enough to deal with while the players do the unexpected. I don't think I can stress enough how much I love current 4e monster design and statblocks.
Powers/Power Sources:
I like the concept of powers and power sources. I enjoy how they are done in 4e and it makes explaining character building to newer players easy. "This is the minimum actions your character can do, use your imagination and roleplay everything else." However, I'd have rather had 4e class powers not by class, but by power source. Lump all the martial powers together. Lump all the arcane together, Divine, Psionic, etc. Each power source would have design guidlines of mechanics that powers should incoporate and mechanics they could lightly dabble in. Classes then, would be "spell lists" that would say what powers in a given powersource pool had access to at given levels and powers shared between classes instead of unique to classes. I think the arcane power source has been edging close to this.
Fighters might have their power list solely in the Martial pool. Rogues would be mostly martial with a toe dipped in the Shadow pool and maybe the Arcane pool. Paladins a split between Martial pool and Divine pool, Artificers split between Arcane and Divine, you get the idea. This would make creating custom classes a lot simpler and reduce work I would think.
I think the racial powers are mostly fine.
Multiclassing:
I really like how multiclassing works in theory in 4e. Whatever my base class is, I want to always continue in my base class and get features/powers/whatever from it. I like dabbling in other base classes via feat selection and can determine how deeply I want to swim in that class. I like how PP and ED drape on top of my base class. Hybrids are an interesting option. I think it acheived what it set out to do in 4e.
I do not like 3.x multiclassing at all.
Skills:
I like what 4e did with skills (despite stealth being refreshed a few times, the final version is nice). I understand the 3.x crowd likes putting ranks into skills to show profiency. It shows mastery (or lack thereof) of skills and what my character can do in it's off time. I'm not a fan of this. I like being able to say "I'm trained at this skill" and "My race has a better affinity with this skill" and "Members of my class are generally decent with this skill" and be done with it. When building characters above first level (and even at first level), making sure where and when your ranks go into a skill was tedious and slows down creation considerably as I plan out my character. If I change my mind later down the road, this can have a large impact on my character. I feel the rank system rewards system mastery above having fun with the game. Furthermore, if for whatever reason you lost a level, remembering which skills got what and when can be a pain, leading to further slow down. I like my +5 trained and racial/class bonuses plus attribute mod. Nice, simple, fast.
I also understand the 3.x crowd likes the craft, perform, profession, and knowledge skills. Personally, I'm not a big fan of them, as they clutter up the char sheet, and DM wise, I don't want a check against a skill that I consider completely optional during character creation to be required in an adventure. Aside from Bard, I don't really see a need for perform. Crafting, and Profession... my characters kill things and takes it's stuff. If I'm not out adventuring, I don't really care what my character is doing. He may have been profession(banker) or craft(armor) at one point in his life, but now he is adventuring. I'm out looking for that rare material to craft with, I'm out exploring ruins with a treasure map that i found in the vault of my bank. When I'm done adventuring, I'm not going to have my character somehow fail and ruin teh dragon scale I spent a year adventuring for. I want to simply spend the gp/materials and end up with Dragon Scale Armor after several months in my forges. I'm certainly not going back to banking or farming until my character retires.
Perform is a slightly different beast. I don't want it tied to a single attribute, as say, perform(dancing) might be attached to dex, while perform(actor) would be atttched to cha. Personally, I think other skills and attribute rolls can handle this, but I can see the desire for it. I also think the use of Performing is more related to skill challenges during scenes. Performing for the target as a distraction while others do the wet work.
I like how the Knowledge skills were done in 4e and feel this is the best way to deal with them.
If my players insisted on these types of skills, I'd allow them, and some form of rank system under the label of "Background Skills", an entirely optional subsystem for roleplyaing. I'd much rather have my more important skills grouped with my stats on the front of my character sheet.
Skill Challenges:
In theory, I feel this is a great system. In implentation, it varies wildly. It's entirely up to the DM how to approach them whether they are clearly announced as such, or hidden behind the scenes. Obviously hidden behind the scenes so that the players are unaware they are in a skill challenge is best, but this goes with DM experience. It's a good crutch for new DMs to play out scenes, but attention needs to be made on explaining and giving examples on how to make this invisible to the player via story telling.
Healing:
I like healing surges. I think they heal too much. I think players have too many under 4e rules without a good way to spend them.
I'd like to see them heal for 1/5th instead of 1/4 HP. I want other uses for healing surges. It's a resource, let me manage it better. Let me spend 2 for an automatic success on a death saving throw. Why am I dying if I have healing surges stocked up? Let me spend 1 for a fudge die roll. How about 3 to regain an action point, or 4 to regain an encounter, or 5 for a daily.
On the subject of dying, I'm not a fan of death saving throw failures reseting between short rests. Extended rests sure, but not short. Let me spend healing surges to recover a failed death saving throw. Spend that resource!
Condition Track from SAGA:
I like this. Find a way to bring it in.
Math:
This is a hard one. Some people don't like having to take certain feats to maintain threat against monsters. But how to balance? I like the idea of at a certain level, each class has a class feature that lets you select as a bonus feat from a pool of what are essentially "math tweak feats", yet allow the character to specialize in something. For the arcane, you've got wand, staff, orb etc things you can add small effects in addition to the math tweak, martial, you can have similar concept for weapon groups. Just embed it as a class feature so people stop complaing about feat taxes, at least on this issue.
Personally, I'd like the monster system of 4e to remain unchanged and carry forward. Having a nice stable of monsters that I know inside and out from day 1 would be great.
Rituals and Martial Practices:
Good in theory. Needs better implementation. Hopefully the lessons from 4e will assist with this. Lower costs, using healing surges, etc.
Magic Items:
Much better now with the rarity system. Needs to be in the hands of the DM (not necesarrily the DMG) from day 1. Lessons learned from 4e about balance and property distribution need to be applied here. Needs more low level utilitarian artifacts that are clever roleplaying seeds for the player instead of just the next level armor, weapon, belt, etc.
Defenses:
I like the AC and NAD defenses. Keep 'em. Make sure each class has the option to select a power or two to hit something besides AC.
Books:
I love the 3.x/PF books. They are beautiful on the outside and inside. I love the cover artwork and illustrations in the 4e books, but I miss the 3.x/PF polish on the inside. On the plus side, everything in 4e is very easy on the eyes with blocked powers and such. I didn't have to read paragraph after paragraph on a page to find the one little feature I was looking for.
Vancian:
As done by 3.x/PF, no thank you. However, I am very open to preparing encounter spells. I already have to select from my choice of Dailies. Perhaps I have encounter selection as per 4e, but I get 1 extra encounter slot per tier where I can slot an encounter of my choosing from whatever encounter spells I know, including a second use of a normal encounter choice. I would be fine with this level of fiddly. It allows my character to discover new spells (something I like from 3.x/PF), have some added flexibility, and yet still have a core schtick that I use battle after battle and don't have to reference my book every time I take an extended rest.
Balance of both Vancian and AEDU worlds.
Mechanics:
Interupts are a small pain as a DM that brings combat to a grind (at least with new players. Experience players not so much) as things rewind. Esp having two different forms of interrupt and having to explain them. I do like them, but perhaps they can be done differently.
The rules for 3D are finally close enough to enjoy, but still awkward to explain. When encouraging having varied terrain, battles in the air, and underwater, this should be carefully thought out and gotten right the first time.
I like bursts and blasts. They are quick and simple. Cones are a pain.
I like 4e diagonal movement. It's faster. Thinking of movement in squares instead of feet is one less layer of abstraction I need to worry about unless I really need to know the distance of something, like during a jump over a gorge.
I like 4e Charging rules.
I like Auras and zones, esp for swarms.
Minions:
Great concept! Add Mooks (2 hit minions). A crit auto kills a mook. Add rules for crits on minions. Allow a crit to also kill another adjacent minion, or half damage on an adjacent non-minion, or auto kill another minion in a burst.
Classes:
As mentioned earlier, I think class powers should be power lists. However, class features is where each class should stand out. They should have some custom mechanic system specific to that class, outside of powers. This, I think, is where both PF and martial Essentials shine. This mechanic should get better without the use of feats as the character levels. Feats instead should stretch the mechanic in different directions, not affecting power. Example from 3.x/PF, metamagic feats. Example from 4e, dragonborn breath feats.
Races:
I love how 4e handles races. Bonuses and features, not penalties. Use lessons learned from 4e to better plan the races. Don't skimp on races in the first books. Eberron players need our gnomes, orcs, half-orcs, kalashtar and warforged, FR needs their drow, and DS need their muls and goliaths.
DDI:
Use schemas. Standardize your xml. Release schemas to public. Allow custom stuff in tools that validates with the schemas. Really liking current Dungeon and Dragon, but I miss print magazines. Have some sort of POD ability for Dungeon and Dragon monthly. POD of previous editions for subscribers. I'd much rather have dead tree than PDF, but that's me.
OGL/GSL:
Meh, don't care. Obviously don't give everything away like the OGL, but have the damn GSL ready on time, friendly to publishers, and UPDATED with new terms and such as books get released.
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