D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[James Gasik]

Well then there is the Thief of Legend who can steal the color out of your hair, or all the world's memory of your heroic deeds, or basically any nonsensical thing whatsoever! There was a brief period when a tranche of EDs came out that were just completely amazing like that. Those are the ones I love most, that Dark Wanderer is really up there though, and I think there's also Planes Walker that is similar.

Well, that might be one option, to like do a 13th Age incremental leveling kind of thing? Like you get the AP feature, and then the first power, etc.

I love the Thief of Legend. Or the one I took, the name of which I can't quite recall (Legendary Warlord maybe?) which has a higher level ability that, if you should die or be separated from your party, a lieutenant of yours, who has all the same abilities as you, shows up to replace you, Dread Pirate Roberts style!

 

[James Gasik]

Oh thinking about Skill Challenges, there was one class that could really make them far easier affairs; the Bard. With a Feat, you could get +4 (I think) to all untrained skills (as opposed to the +5 for being trained), and that made published adventures so much easier!

 

[Aldarc]

It still seems a bit hard to see how you thematically define Blue/Arcane.

I think that the same is true no matter which color you choose. The boundaries have never been perfect.

That said, what I had in mind here with my MtG-inspired fantasy heartbreaker was never meant to be perfectly analogous with Magic the Gathering. Here I imagined Arcane as being more cosmic, dealing with space, time, and energy/mana. So force magic, illusions, and some chronomancy, etc. It was inspired by things like the Arcane Mage in WoW or the Mesmer in Guild Wars 2. If you still feel this is a bit more nebulous, that's fine. It was an intellectual approach to magic. The magical equivalent of a physicist. And again, my plan was for the psion to represent the more mystical side of things as mind over matter reflected to the self and body/mind perfectionism. You can do what you want with your own MtG-inspired fantasy heartbreaker. I'm just telling you what was in mine.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh thinking about Skill Challenges, there was one class that could really make them far easier affairs; the Bard. With a Feat, you could get +4 (I think) to all untrained skills (as opposed to the +5 for being trained), and that made published adventures so much easier!

Bards naturally have +1 (untyped) to all untrained skill checks (Skill Versatility), and a feat from Dragon 383 called Bard of All Trades gave a further +3 feat bonus to untrained skill checks. Note, however, that even without being a Bard, you can pick up Jack of All Trades, a PHB feat that gives +2 to all untrained skill checks; coupled with any other source of bonus (racial, item, consumable, etc.) this is usually enough to get by, so long as the check doesn't require training. For example, the Exceptional Factotum Helm from Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium gave a +1 item bonus to untrained skill checks (+2 as a paragon item, +3 as an epic item), and there were a couple powers that granted power bonuses to untrained checks. Getting some consumables that apply to specific checks would also make a big difference.

I don't know of any features which let you count a skill as if it were trained without actually becoming trained (even if temporarily), but if you could, that'd be amazing with a Bard of All Trades + Exceptional Factotum Helm + a Runepriest buddy (to give you Mark of Skilled Effort.) You'd be getting 4+(1 to 3)+5 = +10 to +12 on untrained skills once per encounter, which is perfect for ritual casting, while still being able to act as though you are trained. Even without the Runepriest friend, you'd still be effectively trained in every skill just with the feat and the item--focus your actual skill trainings on skills that need it, like Arcana and Religion, and let your raw talent take care of the rest.

Kind of reminds me of how there were ways to substitute Arcana for like half the skills in the game, and then to juice your Arcana into the stratosphere. A guy in my favorite (and sadly untimely-ended) 4e game was probably moving gently in that direction with his Wizard.

 

[James Gasik]

Bards naturally have +1 (untyped) to all untrained skill checks (Skill Versatility), and a feat from Dragon 383 called Bard of All Trades gave a further +3 feat bonus to untrained skill checks. Note, however, that even without being a Bard, you can pick up Jack of All Trades, a PHB feat that gives +2 to all untrained skill checks; coupled with any other source of bonus (racial, item, consumable, etc.) this is usually enough to get by, so long as the check doesn't require training. For example, the Exceptional Factotum Helm from Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium gave a +1 item bonus to untrained skill checks (+2 as a paragon item, +3 as an epic item), and there were a couple powers that granted power bonuses to untrained checks. Getting some consumables that apply to specific checks would also make a big difference.

I don't know of any features which let you count a skill as if it were trained without actually becoming trained (even if temporarily), but if you could, that'd be amazing with a Bard of All Trades + Exceptional Factotum Helm + a Runepriest buddy (to give you Mark of Skilled Effort.) You'd be getting 4+(1 to 3)+5 = +10 to +12 on untrained skills once per encounter, which is perfect for ritual casting, while still being able to act as though you are trained. Even without the Runepriest friend, you'd still be effectively trained in every skill just with the feat and the item--focus your actual skill trainings on skills that need it, like Arcana and Religion, and let your raw talent take care of the rest.

Kind of reminds me of how there were ways to substitute Arcana for like half the skills in the game, and then to juice your Arcana into the stratosphere. A guy in my favorite (and sadly untimely-ended) 4e game was probably moving gently in that direction with his Wizard.

Yeah, there was a lot of complaining on the official boards (back when WotC had those) about how Arcana was the skill to have in 4e.

 

[MwaO]

I don't know of any features which let you count a skill as if it were trained without actually becoming trained (even if temporarily), but if you could, that'd be amazing with a Bard of All Trades + Exceptional Factotum Helm + a Runepriest buddy (to give you Mark of Skilled Effort.) You'd be getting 4+(1 to 3)+5 = +10 to +12 on untrained skills once per encounter, which is perfect for ritual casting, while still being able to act as though you are trained.

You just need to be trained in Acrobatics & Arcana, two relatively easy skills to pick up with Bard or via MC'ing Bard. If you have a consistent source of temp hp out of combat, Sensate = +3 power bonus to all skills at 10th. Have a +2 item bonus to all skills and there you are at +9 if a Bard at all skills with Bard of All Trades.

Ironically, Bard of All Trades is not the best feat in the game at doing this. Beginner's Luck is, the Wild Sorcerer feat, which when you have a +6 Charisma Bonus, you effectively generate all outcomes of Bard of All Trades with 4 specific exceptions. Except that passive checks are as if you rolled a 10, so it boosts your passive checks too because you pick even then. And once it gets to +8 or +9, it is significantly better than Bard of All Trades.

 

[MoonSong]

Yeah, there was a lot of complaining on the official boards (back when WotC had those) about how Arcana was the skill to have in 4e.

Yeah. I found it annoying that a wizard could outbard a bard, because bard rituals required arcana -as there was no perform skill-.

 

[Undrave]

It still seems a bit hard to see how you thematically define Blue/Arcane. I mean, one of the virtues of the M:tG color system is that they DIDN'T name the 'sources' they just called them by color names. It means NONE of them has baggage, and whatever associations were made are fairly 'clean'. So Blue, being just a color, gets associated with water, and mind/control. While it is explained as being 'mind magic' and thus might come across as similar to Arcane, it really isn't similar at all, IMHO. I would honestly equate blue with PSIONIC, not Arcane. Arcane actually feels more like colorless! All the weird artifacts and whatnot, all super high magitech lost arts. Now, maybe that creates some problems, but I don't think so, Red is elemental, and honestly does Martial have a color at all? Every color has martial heroes, they're like these Chinese Chi 'Martial Arts World' guys in their dramas, some use fire, water, ice, shadow, they're all drawing from martial and every group has its martial 'foot soldiers'.

I think colors in Magic are better described as philosophies, an approach to problem solving.

Well, that might be one option, to like do a 13th Age incremental leveling kind of thing? Like you get the AP feature, and then the first power, etc.

Well, I was thinking about it and Epic Destinies are already pretty gradual and you’re already working towards your immortality. You don’t really BECOME your Epic Destiny until the end of the campaign, you know? So, for that one it’s just something thematic the players should start to contemplate at lv 19 or even 18.

But for Paragon Path there’s usually a level of discovery or special tradition involved. Maybe we could classify the Paragon Paths into 5-6 broad thematic category (‘Ancient Legends’, ‘Famous Organization’, ‘Self Discovery’, stuff like that) and each of those categories has a simple prerequisite you should hit before level 11? Like, a Paragon Path based on exploring the potential of your species requires you to have at least 1 feat with your species as a prerequisite? Maybe they could all be based on feats with prerequisites? Anything so your Paragon Path doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere and feels like a natural extension of where your character has been so far. You could then either pick your Paragon Path in advance and make sure to hit the prerequisite, or just see what your previous choices have made available to you.

Just a thought.

Bards

Can we take a second to appreciate that 4e gave us the best Bard spell ever: Vicious Mockery? Also had support for Bow Bards.

Yeah, there was a lot of complaining on the official boards (back when WotC had those) about how Arcana was the skill to have in 4e.

At least it made INT a valuable ability score. Maybe instead of ‘replace skill with Arcana’ it could be features that replace the ability score of a skill with INT?

 

[MoonSong]

Ok, my approach to a revived 4e would be:

Not messing with math, keeping that stuff as is. There is some value to bounded accuracy, but swinging dice with giant modifiers is part of the feel of 4e.
Remake all monsters on MM3 math.
Now, for some actual changes, keep AEDU, but allow some variation, for example, allow martials and sorcerers to spam encounter powers.
Make it so powers scale at key levels, and consolidate similar powers to be rider-based depending on role and keywords. For example, all arcane casters can cast, say fireball, but a controller makes it into a debuff, a striker into more damage, and a defender into a mass-mark.
Speaking of power selection, classes have some exclusive powers, but most share powers by source, and having access to more keywords -by multiclassing, or because a theme/PP/ED, or because your race-enhances your access to more powers.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Each of the two lore entries is at least 2 complex sentences. They are not one-liners.


We will have to agree to disagree on that. I used Hags for a bunch of things in one of my campaigns. They were a significant factor, and IIRC nobody fought any of them (there might have been one time).

It's funny hags were exactly why I used 4e MM for lore in my 5e campaign. Hags were a significant faction in my campaign. I also used Mordenkainen's; but wanted more about specific hags