D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[MichaelSomething]

Wait, I thought it was empowering DMs so that they could do social/exploration stuff the way they wanted instead of having to rely on the books to tell you how to do it? Like how 5E does it.

So I never played 4e, and the reason I never did was because, when I first read through the books, it was really, really clear it was a combat game, to the point that most spells with non-combat purposes weren't in the PHB, they didn't have good or neutral monsters in the MM, to the point that dryads, I believe, became plant monsters, and they didn't even include the bard because bards are far more face characters than combat characters. Maybe they improved on this later on in the game, I dunno--my initial readings turned me off from the edition completely.

So, to fix 4e, I would do more to up the emphasis on social and exploration, at the least till it's 5e levels. From the get-go. I'd prefer a lot more social and exploration, of course.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh I just remembered something I said in another thread recently. More things that hinge on Bloodied, specifically powers that can only be used when Bloodied (or not). Like, for example, defensive interrupt/reactions that can only be used when Bloodied.

Like if something like 5e shield could only be used when you're low on hit points, I bet quite a few DM's would be less annoyed by it.

Also, also, ALSO! Interrupts and reactions. I don't know how many arguments I got into over this because "reactions resolve after their triggering event" and some jackanapes would make defensive powers that said things like "reaction: after being targeted by an attack, do something that would foil the attack". It was like being an MtG player in '92 all over again, where they made interrupts so they could counter things, and then realized "but hey, we could just get rid of interrupts and make counterspells instants!".

If you want something to properly foil an attack, format it in a way that isn't going to force you to produce six paragraphs of Cust Serv responses! There's no need to get cute with "reaction: when an enemy thinks about maybe attacking you" when you could just as easily say "interrupt: when attacked by an enemy"; they may functionally work the same, but one is just going to cause problems.

The most ridiculous case of this was a friend of mine who had a Drow and took a bunch of the Darkness upgrade feats. He could use darkness as a reaction to being targeted by an attack (with the idea this would impose the -5 penalty to the attack due to his darkness) but THEN also had "as a reaction when using darkness, move 30 feet". Every single time we sat down at a different DM's table in Living Forgotten Realms, we had the same argument about whether or not his feats let him avoid attacks from melee monsters.

 

[James Gasik]

Wait, I thought it was empowering DMs so that they could do social/exploration stuff the way they wanted instead of having to rely on the books to tell you how to do it? Like how 5E does it.

If they'd said that was the case, maybe people would have picked up on that, but having come off 3e's "subsystems for everybody" and with 4e's "precise rules for all combat", people got it into their heads that 4e was telling them they couldn't just do it their way.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I saw some people in this forum asking for 4e be released as a SRD to Creative Commons like 5e (and possibly 3.5e). Do not get me wrong, I liked 4e, but I think it was very combat oriented and did a bad service to other game pillars. And most powers were, quite frankly, more of the same. Even so, I think many of its flaws could be reworked, specially now we have many good ideas we could port from 5e backwards.

So, if you are not a 4e hater, how would you rework it? My personal takes would be:

• Bounded Accuracy. I would remove the +half level to everything and the +3 bonus to skill proficiency would be remade in a proficiency bonus linked to level (as 5e)
• More like Essentials. Different classes, different power progressions. Not really needed the same AEDU thing to everyone. Fighters would get lots of ways to change Basic Attacks rather than different powers, for example.
• Spell Lists. Even if we keep spells as powers, no need a power list to every caster class. Wizards and warlocks, for example, could both take "spells from the arcane power list". Perhaps same idea to martials, like A5e maneuver schools.
• Exploration and Social Powers. New powers to cover exploration and social pillars. In addition to other powers your class gives, not take in place of them.
• Subclasses earlier. Not wait to level 11 to take a subclass/paragon path/whatever. Like 5e, around 3rd level is a good start.

Of course, lots of mine suggestion would need rework lots of the game moving parts, specially to keep math working both in combat and outside it. But the above would be my initial blueprint. Now, curious to know how you would redo it.

I never thought of Paragon Path as a subclass. That's interesting.

• Codify the balance of different types of features in a class, so that every class can choose between the AEDU structure vs a more class feature based setup.
  • This means that the fighter can choose between daily powers and stances, for instance
• Reduce the math scaling. The fantasy of being basically impervious to random goblins at high level can be accomplished with monster type templates and other monster side, rather than scaling the math so dramatically
• Kill most sources of stacking numerical bonuses
  • Replace a lot of that sort of thing with dice tricks like reroll take the second, reroll 1s, etc, but a lot of it just outright kill
• I like your idea of exploration and interaction powers, I'll second that, and add that I'd really dig into rituals and martial practices, bring in 5e's downtime activiities, and see what I can make with them
• Powers consolidated a little bit, but not hugely. Some power sharing both makes sense and reduces clutter.
  • Do a best of review of powers and only update the best for each class.

 

[Faolyn]

Wait, I thought it was empowering DMs so that they could do social/exploration stuff the way they wanted instead of having to rely on the books to tell you how to do it? Like how 5E does it.

The point is, it seemed to very deliberately say that there wasn't any social or exploration in 4e. As I said, no face class, no spells that weren't primarily combat, few or no monsters that weren't going to attack the party on sight--I believe they even said that they didn't want to stat up monsters that weren't going to be used in combat. This may have changed in later books, but in the beginning. 4e was, to me at least, the most combat-simulator version of D&D ever.

 

[Voadam]

The point is, it seemed to very deliberately say that there wasn't any social or exploration in 4e. As I said, no face class, no spells that weren't primarily combat, few or no monsters that weren't going to attack the party on sight--I believe they even said that they didn't want to stat up monsters that weren't going to be used in combat. This may have changed in later books, but in the beginning. 4e was, to me at least, the most combat-simulator version of D&D ever.

Its funny, I felt the reverse.

4e skill challenges seemed far more conceptually designed to dynamically engage PCs mechanically in non-combat than straight DC skill roll 3e.

3e had lots of specific DCs and micromanagement rules about jumping distances and such, but it often felt like it was point managed to specialize PCs in doing one non-combat thing or see how much you fail mechanically at anything non-combat. 4e felt more designed for actually using skills in a game of epic fantasy heroes.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The point is, it seemed to very deliberately say that there wasn't any social or exploration in 4e. As I said, no face class, no spells that weren't primarily combat, few or no monsters that weren't going to attack the party on sight--I believe they even said that they didn't want to stat up monsters that weren't going to be used in combat. This may have changed in later books, but in the beginning. 4e was, to me at least, the most combat-simulator version of D&D ever.

I thought rituals were supposed to be the replacement for non combat spells?
And Skill Challenges were suppose to support social and exploration activities?
And couldn't any CHA based class with access to diplomacy or whatever be a face class? Like the Warlord??

Or course I never understood what people mean by "support."

Thought I will admit that finding powers that were useful outside of combat was too rare. They were there but they were few and far between; as well at buried under dozens of attack powers.

 

[Raith5]

The point is, it seemed to very deliberately say that there wasn't any social or exploration in 4e. As I said, no face class, no spells that weren't primarily combat, few or no monsters that weren't going to attack the party on sight--I believe they even said that they didn't want to stat up monsters that weren't going to be used in combat. This may have changed in later books, but in the beginning. 4e was, to me at least, the most combat-simulator version of D&D ever.

The books definitely give out that vibe and the game does tactical combat so well you want to be doing it all the time. But I played a 4e campaign to 30th level and we had a lot of memorable skill challenges and meaty social encounters that sometimes took up a whole session. But I have to say that while I really liked 4e there was some of the system that needed to be refined and playtested etc. Skill Challenges was one of those sub systems that needed a fair bit of DM activity to work properly.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So I never played 4e, and the reason I never did was because, when I first read through the books, it was really, really clear it was a combat game, to the point that most spells with non-combat purposes weren't in the PHB, they didn't have good or neutral monsters in the MM, to the point that dryads, I believe, became plant monsters, and they didn't even include the bard because bards are far more face characters than combat characters. Maybe they improved on this later on in the game, I dunno--my initial readings turned me off from the edition completely.

So, to fix 4e, I would do more to up the emphasis on social and exploration, at the least till it's 5e levels. From the get-go. I'd prefer a lot more social and exploration, of course.

I hear this an awful lot, and I still don't understand it. 4e is no more "a combat game" than either 3e or 5e--and in several ways, significantly less of one. Skills are both much more powerful and much more accessible than either 3e or 5e. "Spells with non-combat purposes" ARE in the PHB. They're called rituals. They chose to put only 8 classes in each book to keep the books focused. PHB2, which came out all of 9 months later (June 2008 for PHB1, March 2009 for PHB2), covered all the missing baseline classes except Monk. I've no idea what you're talking about regarding the MM, since it's got plenty of typical neutral creatures (owlbear, berbalang, manticore, griffon, shambling mound, etc.) It's got angels, unicorns, storm giants, and (yes) dryads...who ARE plant-beings, why is that an issue exactly? The ancient Greeks thought "hamadryads" were semi-divine trees, after all (with some myths positing the "dryad" alone as merely the projected spirit of the hamadryad tree body.) Specifically they are "medium fey humanoid (plant)." All "(plant)" does is tell you that dryads breathe and eat, but do not need to sleep; they're still humanoids.

I don't at all blame you for being put off by the presentation, but like...a whole bunch of this stuff is simply false, and some that isn't false is pretty willfully ignoring what's actually there in the rules (e.g. rituals, SCs, Bard showing up less than a year in, etc.) Is there any wonder people get frustrated with the way folks talk about 4e? You're talking about fixing problems that weren't there and addressing absences that weren't even absences!

This is like the thing someone else mentioned, about letting anyone with the relevant skills learn rituals...that's literally already a thing. All you need is the Ritual Caster feat, exactly the same as 5e. And you don't even strictly need that if you don't want it--you CAN buy consumable ritual scrolls that provide one-off uses!

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As for my own stuff:

4e, as a system, is mostly fine. With all due respect, screw all that "call it something other than D&D" nonsense--that's crappy gatekeeping at absolute best and honestly 99% of the time just the same old horrible "It's an MMO on paper"/"it's a boardgame not an RPG" tripe repackaged for the modern, discerning edition warrior. DOUBLY so all the pearl-clutching about "grid-filling" which wasn't even a thing.

What it needs is:

• Vastly better presentation. The power cards make powers easy to read, but too monotonous. Find a way to keep almost all of the clarity and specificity of the existing powers, while restoring some of the reading-a-parchment-tome "feel" of 3e.
• More playtesting on skill challenges, Stealth, etc.--stuff that got tuned up post-release but shouldn't have needed to be tuned up. Run all of that through another pass or two just to make sure.
• Run a high-pass filter through all the powers and feats. People make WAY too big a deal about the number of feats etc. 4e had, but it was excessive and should be trimmed down. Cutting out somewhere around half of all feats and class powers would improve things immensely.
• Improve and expand on both Skill Challenges and Rituals. They're both great ideas, the former just needs a tune-up and examples of how it can really shine, while the latter needs to be pushed harder as part of "this is how you do cool magic things."
• An actual gazetteer/field guide/etc. for the "Points of Light" setting. Because it's honestly a really cool setting and a lot of people would never have poo-pooed 4e nearly so hard if they understood the lore grounding for a number of the classes (and races, albeit to a lesser extent.)
• Fewer first-level choices by giving characters good starting options. Give everyone a rock-solid At-Will, so they can pick a contextual one as their second. Possibly, give each class a specific starting Encounter and Daily power, maybe allowing them to be changed later, but again making sure these things are rock-solid good options. Smooth the road to a starting character WITHOUT taking away power or strategic depth.
• Integrate Themes and Backgrounds into a single thing: "Heroic Origins." These explain where you came from, what got your adventure started, why you're choosing to be a hero. Potentially, they might offer an alternative stat increase choice, so long as it isn't the same as what you get from race (e.g. a Dragonborn with the "Former Farmhand" Heroic Origin could not choose +2 Str from race and +2 Str from her Origin, but an Eladrin could have +2 Str and her choice of +2 Int, Dex, or Cha.)
• Add rules for "Zero Levels"/"Novice Levels" which spool out the "Heroic Origin" to variable degrees. At slowest, you start with almost nothing Well-designed "Novice Level" rules are extremely important for addressing divergent and potentially contradictory desires from different cultures of play for D&D.
• Useful tools for home-brewing your own powers, races, HO/PP/ED, etc. Page 42 is great for improvisation, but having a tool that would give you reasonably balanced powers/etc. you create yourself would be enormously helpful, and would make a major rebuttal to the only-half-true claim that it's hard to homebrew for 4e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If they'd said that was the case, maybe people would have picked up on that, but having come off 3e's "subsystems for everybody" and with 4e's "precise rules for all combat", people got it into their heads that 4e was telling them they couldn't just do it their way.

Frankly, it doesn't really matter what the books say. Because people constantly make claims, even to this day, about what the 4e books claim or instruct, which are either flagrant misinterpretations of the text, or explicitly contradicted by the text.

They could have explicitly said in bright red letters on every page "we have used fewer rules for non-combat mechanics because we expect DMs to have a better idea what they need for that than we do," and people would still make these claims. The actual content of the books is entirely unrelated to what people think about the books.