D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[Vaalingrade]

Starting to think this should have been a "+" thread.

That wouldn't have stopped this.

 

[James Gasik]

That wouldn't have stopped this.

A man can dream.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And what you say of 5E is what I find to be true of 4E. And I tried - hard - to create greater diversity. 4E monsters were generally built on a very similar core with a few random abilities that were less definitional and more incidental.

I have a very clear recollection from about 6 months into the 4E era when the group of PCs were wading through a room of foes, slaughtering minions and pushing on to the big boss ... when one of them commented they were going to kill the orc on the right. Another player said, "You mean the hobgoblin? We're fighting hobgoblins, right?" They argued back and forth for a few seconds then turned to me. I had a confused look on my face, apparently, because a third player said, "I'm pretty sure he didn't say what we were fighting, just that they were shadowy brutes."

It wasn't that people were confused or made assumptions - it was that most of us never even noted that we'd failed to discuss what type of monster it was. It was just - interchangeable. That was the moment I realized that 4E would never be the D&D I'd known for so long.

This is another of those WTF? things for me, because a party that is unaware of the large tactical difference between Orcs and Hobgoblins, should be getting their clocks cleaned! Hobgoblins get bonuses to their defenses for massing up, and thus require specific tactics to defeat (if you let them all line up in a formation, you are screwed, or you better have some serious AoE damage potential). Orcs OTOH are very nasty when given a chance to charge into battle, and when killed up close get a final 'dying strike', which means you do NOT want to let them charge into melee with you! (there are a couple types of each monster with slightly different roles, I'm generalizing a bit, but these are the SIGNATURE abilities of each race).

I mean, OK, a GM doesn't give you the names of the monsters, that's fair, but you have knowledge skills and monster knowledge checks that are meant to insure that the GM DOES have to give you this, VITAL, info! You better be using those! I gotta say, this is not feeling like quality play.

Honestly, I'm not sure this is on point here, as I cannot think of a SINGLE thing that I would want to change LESS about 4e than the monsters! They are, mostly (Purple Worm, get back in your hole!) works of genius (OK, Dracolich, you're a genius alright, but you still suck as a foe). So, yeah, there are actually a few specific monsters I'd happily redesign, but if you compare 4e humanoids with any edition prior to 4e, the difference is stark! Heck, in AD&D the only differences between hobs and orcs is that hobs get 1 extra hit point, and a +1 to damage. Lets not talk about boring...

5e is a bit in the middle, the 5e standard Orc has only one special ability, it can charge with a bonus action. There are 3 other stat blocks, the Orog is just a CR2 orc, the Orc War Chief has a 1/day leader power and CR4, and then we have the spell casting Shaman, which is basically a level 3 cleric/orc. This is OK, but now lets look at hobgoblins; the basic one is not super different from the orc, it has a damage bonus when attacking targets near an ally, and a bow as a secondary weapon instead of the orc's javelins. They are not the same as orcs, and the tactical differences could be relatively similar to 4e (lets assume you play on a grid, but this is not a comparison of 4e to 5e thread). The other 2 hobgoblin stat blocks are a captain and a warlord, the captain has a leader ability similar to the orc war chief in overall effect, and the warlord is CR6 and adds in a couple added tricks (a parry reaction, and a shield bash) to the captain's leadership.

These are OK monsters, and given the slight differences in AC and a few select 'powers' they should work and feel a bit different. So in 5e you want to avoid getting ganged by hobs, and basically orcs just move into combat really quickly. Both teams leaders can throw out a bonus to a follower, and orcs get clerics. Honestly Hobs seem a bit boned in all this, they're rather vanilla!

Verdict, 4e monsters are quite diverse and their abilities are heavily themed and tactically significant. ABOVE ALL ELSE any tinkering with 4e that breaks this, is bad! So I vote "WTF do you mean?" on this proposal. I guess though, I'd have to hear a more concrete version to really say it was bad or good. Certainly some monsters can be improved, and MV actually reworked the hobgoblins and made them better!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I once ran an adventure in 4e where the players entered the Feywild and had to deal with the Goblins there, the weakest of which were level 11 Minions. They were surprised to fight Goblins, and wondered why they were so tough, but what I told them was, they were in the realm of an Archfey who did not want them there, so the very land was trying to kill them with harsh weather, and sapping their strength, so it wasn't just a case of the Goblins being stronger, but they were actually weakened (without me nerfing their abilities or anything).

It turned out fairly well, though I will admit, by this point in the campaign (I'd started them at level 1, and now, a year and a half later, they were level 12) I was starting to see a problem with challenging the group.

Their abilities synergized well, and there were a few encounter and Daily powers I was starting to dread, because they tended to turn the difficulty of what I was hoping would be tough battles inside out. Having already played a level 22 character in Scales of War, I knew this wasn't going to get any better over time.

Too many high level creatures basically had to have "cheater powers" to represent a threat, such as immunity to conditions and other abilities specifically designed to counter the players. I put my game on hiatus while I tried to brainstorm a better way to handle this (daze is a common debuff on player powers. If I use an enemy immune to daze, in my mind, at least, it's basically punishing a player for not taking another power, and it's not like they can just change powers willy nilly).

Unfortunately, WotC threw in the towel and removed all the online tools before I could get back to it, so that was the end of that game.

That's a very important change that I think needs to be made to not just 4e, but every version of D&D; not enough testing is done with high level play, and the "solution" seems to always be "just let monsters ignore player abilities", either through immunities, "I just save at this time" effects, or special abilities that completely neuter characters, like debilitating auras, huge AoE's that inflict negative status effects, off turn actions, multiple actions, and even negative status effects delivered by regular old attacks.

A lot of times, it can feel like the player is actively being punished for being given new abilities, which kind of confuses me. If your game can't handle giving someone a once per fight ability to give an enemy vulnerability to damage (one of the party Cleric's big "solo killer" powers), why did you give it to them in the first place?

Its a bit of a familiar problem. I thought it was MUCH worse in AD&D though, where there just isn't such a thematic component that can work to help you (though GMs did figure it out to a degree).

So, I think this is why the tier thematics are so important. You won't REALLY often challenge your PCs with anything short of very specific kinds of situations in Epic, not if they are competent players. You have to play with the understanding that 'beating stuff up' is a solved problem for a level 24 4e fighter. What you need are problems, and situations, that transcend one's ability to solve them with a battle axe! I remember an AD&D campaign where we got to high teens levels, and the GM was able to do that. Our goals became almost like Epic Destinies. My 2 characters each attained a type of apotheosis that was based on just taking their goals and drives and whatnot and taking them all the way to their logical endpoints. My ranger character literally slaughtered his way across the abyss, carving a path through millions of demons and destroying the demon lord that obsessed him, at which point he was pretty much indistinguishable from a demon himself... Did I win? I killed countless demons! My character was basically invincible at that point, and done.

 

[Atomoctba]

Starting to think this should have been a "+" thread.

I thought that when created the thread, but I like to hear ideas opposite to mine when they are argumentative and not just furious rabble. Even if I do not agree with the contradictory, arguments helps me to review my own ideas.

Anyway, of course the idea was not start an edition war, even because I like 4e, 5e and even 3e, just in different ways to like something. And despite all the flaws, real or imagined, 4e had, I think it (still) has a great potential if "redone" in the right way. But the "right way" is different to each person and the thread is also an attempt of a very curious man (myself) in learn the tastes of other people, other tables.

So, while the thread remains civilized, even if we all do not agree with this or that, I see no need to be a + thread. All I ask is just that, let us be all civilized and respectful when discussing anything

 

[James Gasik]

I thought that when created the thread, but I like to hear ideas opposite to mine when they are argumentative and not just furious rabble. Even if I do not agree with the contradictory, arguments helps me to review my own ideas.

Anyway, of course the idea was not start an edition war, even because I like 4e, 5e and even 3e, just in different ways to like something. And despite all the flaws, real or imagined, 4e had, I think it (still) has a great potential if "redone" in the right way. But the "right way" is different to each person and the thread is also an attempt of a very curious man (myself) in learn the tastes of other people, other tables.

So, while the thread remains civilized, even if we all do not agree with this or that, I see no need to be a + thread. All I ask is just that, let us be all civilized and respectful when discussing anything

Fair enough, though the posts full of "4e didn't have things that it totally did" can really wear one down and make them not even want to respond.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Aside: In some respects, 4e would have been a pretty neat basis for a Magic the Gathering TTRPG, with six power sources for the five main colors and colorless: Colorless (Martial), Red (Chaos/Elemental/Primordial), Green (Primal/Life), Blue (Arcane), White (Divine/Astral), Black (Shadow).

It's not how I would redo 4e, but it could see how the 4e World Axis and its associated powers could have been brought in line with Magic the Gathering.

The heartbreaker that exists in my head does this, but it goes for something more like....

"Red": Martial
"Green": Primal
"White": Divine
"Blue": Arcane
"Black": Shadow
"Colorless" (or "Purple"): Psionic

Under this structure, there are (at least) three classes per source: Warrior, Sage, and Trickster. As a very general pattern, Warriors take hits and manage enemy attention, Sages enhance allies and manipulate terrain, and Tricksters create/exploit weaknesses and defy limitations. The order would differ from MtG's order though. The cycle would go Martial -> Divine -> Primal -> Arcane -> Shadow -> Martial. Shadow and Martial share an interest in grit and superlative skill (since the Shadow Warrior would be styled "Ninja.") Martial and Divine share heavy armor (or at least high defense) and soldier-like discipline. Divine and Primal share an emphasis on health and healing. Primal and Arcane share the command of elemental forces. Arcane and Shadow share the emphasis on secret/forbidden knowledge. For Martial, the classes would be Fighter (Warrior), Warlord (Sage), Rogue (Trickster); for Divine, they are Paladin (Warrior), Cleric (Sage), Avenger (Trickster.) (Primal would be Werebeast/Druid/Ranger; Arcane, Swordmage/Wizard/Bard; Shadow, Ninja/Warlock/Assassin.)

Being a Warrior does not mean you don't deal damage--because everyone can decide to do that. I would, of course, like to offer the option of being very heavily specialized in indirect contributions, but indirect contributions are extremely finicky and massively debatable, so that might not be as fully-supported as the most ardent folks would desire. Instead, being a Warrior means your overall focus in on wading into the fray, taking and holding important enemies' attention, and being Big Scary to induce opponents to deal with you (despite your high defenses) instead of your enemies. Sages strengthen allies, manipulate the terrain, and coordinate the movement of their allies; "strengthening" often means healing, but not always, sometimes it takes the form of buffs, granting saves, that sort of thing. (Though every source has a healer--the exception to the general "Sages have healing" rule would be Wizard, which would have very minimal to nonexistent healing abilities, while the Trickster Bard would have a healing path.) Tricksters would do a lot of different things, but many of them would be of the "set 'em up and knock 'em down" variety, or carving a bloody swathe so someone else can follow behind, etc.

Psionic would have just one class: Monk. Instead of having a focused list of options like most classes, it would have the ability to build into whatever you want, but at the price of potentially being garbage because you didn't build wisely. This embraces both the transcendent-enlightenment idea of the Monk in particular and Psionics more generally, and gives Psionics a clear and obvious mechanical difference. I imagine the more "Warrior"-inclined Monks might be flavor-able as doing Green Lantern style hard-light constructs to protect themselves and others, but I wouldn't mandate such flavor, since the whole point is to support the player doing what they want to do.

Edit:
Note that this means "Elemental" is not a distinct power source, but something shared, mostly between Primal and Arcane. The one power source that would basically never use "Elemental" powers would be Martial, because that's just not really what that source does. Likewise, being "party-friendly" is something centered in Divine, but also found in Martial and Primal--it's mostly or totally absent in Arcane and Shadow because those are the paths to power that have the least care for collateral damage. Etc. Weapon-keyword attacks would be centered on Martial, with Shadow and Divine also getting a lot of them, and Arcane/Primal getting relatively few.

We can also see some interesting things in this. Arcane is opposite Divine and Martial, emphasizing the individualist pursuit of power (neither the massed-forces nature of Martial, nor the from-a-higher-power nature of Divine.) Shadow is opposite Divine and Primal, emphasizing its profane nature and generally destructive, consumptive effects. Martial is opposite Primal and Arcane, which are arguably the most overtly "magical" of the power sources--emphasizing that Martial is the product of physical effort and practical, learned skill, rather than mumbo-jumbo. Divine is opposite Shadow and Arcane, the two "phenomenal cosmic power" sources and the ones most likely to fall into "you were so busy asking if you could, you never asked if you should" territory, aka high Int, low Wis. Primal is opposite Shadow and Martial, the two that are the most at home with the purely material, cities and tools and politics etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmm, I'd understood it as multiple target damage, battlefield shaping, and debuffing/position control/action denial. Would there be something else you think would aid in clarifying the role? (and/or did I misunderstand it?)

I agree, but I think where people actually got bollixed up was that they were absolutely used to the master problem remover/blaster that was the trad wizard. WotC comes along and tries to make a controller wizard, but they had trouble because they couldn't bear to totally reimagine it. So, you have this guy that sorta blasts things, but with the idea of moving/slowing them, or maybe making them go around the bad thing, etc. That WORKS, but it LOOKS LIKE A BLASTER in a fiction sense, and it was easy to sit down with 4e and just think, OK, fireball, that's my offense, Sleep for being more quiet, and pick the Staff, and basically try to build blasty the wizard. It FAILS UTTERLY. I mean, I've seen some real hard fail 4e wizards that just sat their trying to do their mediocre damage and not getting why they had little impact.

OTOH if you built a hard control orbizard, until they nerfed it, the game cried uncle and rolled over on its back! I mean, you could negate that by not giving the player every item they wanted, but otherwise it was a pretty gnarly build!

And the wizard was all spells, its class features are really weak and frankly almost don't matter (except the orb one, always take that). So, that created the problem of a class without a supporting role feature. Other controllers don't suffer from that, but it can create wizard problems (like Hybrid wizard is always kinda nasty, saved mostly by the fact that Hybrid Shielding Sword Mage is downright broken).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It was there. Maybe not codified as rules, but... with 4e, monsters were given roles for how they would work in combat, not as anything else. Rituals were way in the back of the book, whereas spells were listed right with the classes. And there was no real way for me to make a non-combat, utility caster (all of the utility spells were actually combat buffs), for instance, or even a simple illusionist who never inflicted true damage. I can do that in any other edition. Again, maybe they corrected that in later books, but that wasn't there from the beginning and it turned me off.

Oh, my gosh, my utility wizard near broke the game! lol. It was a bit later, so I had some added options. I took the tome implement and then extended spellbook, and the Wizard Apprentice Theme. I had spells and rituals coming out my ears. I often had 3 choices of which power to take on a given day, and when I leveled I just kept adding fun stuff, like alchemist, and various feats that give you more access to stuff. I started collecting potion formulae, making scrolls, other consumables, etc. Pretty soon we were going into battle buffed to the gills, invisibly sneaking the whole party into a fort, etc. And the great part was, my character still kicked ass in combat. It got to a point where the GM was starting to wonder what exactly would happen when I got to take the Paragon and Epic tier feats and stuff that buffed rituals up even more (not to even imagine Sage of Ages and etc.). Summoning also turns out to be rather nasty, especially if your party optimizes for it, though that aspect of my character wasn't so crazy. Still, this was an excellent way to get to use combat powers in almost ANY skill challenge.

In short, you gotta do more than read, you gotta play. Really, come play with us. I lost all the sheets I had stored on DDI, and didn't back up some, so I don't think I have the utility wizard sheet anymore, but its easy enough to make. Play it sometime, I guarantee you will have a TON of stuff to do!

 

[Aldarc]

Psionic would have just one class: Monk. Instead of having a focused list of options like most classes, it would have the ability to build into whatever you want, but at the price of potentially being garbage because you didn't build wisely. This embraces both the transcendent-enlightenment idea of the Monk in particular and Psionics more generally, and gives Psionics a clear and obvious mechanical difference. I imagine the more "Warrior"-inclined Monks might be flavor-able as doing Green Lantern style hard-light constructs to protect themselves and others, but I wouldn't mandate such flavor, since the whole point is to support the player doing what they want to do.

I toyed around with a heartbreaker before, though I reduced the number of attributes to four: Might, Agility, Intellect, and Spirit. My workaround for including Psionic was to essentially separate the Intellect-casters (Mages) from the Spirit-casters (Mystics), likewise the Warrior was the Might-class and the Rogue was the Agility-class. (I can't remember how the classes were called.) So the Blue Mage was more of an Arcane Wizard while the Blue Mystic was the Psion. And one could extend this for the other Colors as well.

Edit:
Note that this means "Elemental" is not a distinct power source, but something shared, mostly between Primal and Arcane. The one power source that would basically never use "Elemental" powers would be Martial, because that's just not really what that source does. Likewise, being "party-friendly" is something centered in Divine, but also found in Martial and Primal--it's mostly or totally absent in Arcane and Shadow because those are the paths to power that have the least care for collateral damage. Etc. Weapon-keyword attacks would be centered on Martial, with Shadow and Divine also getting a lot of them, and Arcane/Primal getting relatively few.

I would probably prefer having Red be Primordial Chaos rather than Martial and to keep Martial as "colorless," but this is your heartbreaker you are talking about and not mine.

But this is all quite the aside from the topic of how we would do 4e. I did want to note that 4e would have been a pretty decent opportunity for WotC to build around the Magic the Gathering colors as 4e power sources.