I’m Thinking of Giving 4e Another Shot

[Windjammer]

My first tip is: You don't need to be perfect when creating your hierarchy.
My take might be:
1. Push, Pull, Slide, Slow. Resist 5 (for ally or PC)
What it is depends on what makes sense for the described power. Yes, Slide is more flexible then push or pull, but the difference is marginal. How much you can slide/push/pull could be done in the 3.x way - every 5 points above the DC adds a square.
2. Knock Prone, Immobilize, Daze, Weaken, Ongoing Damage 5 (per tier), Ongoing Effect from 1. Resist 10.
3. Stun, Ongoing Damage 10 (+5 per tier), Ongoing Effect from 2. Resist 20.
4. Dominate. Ongoing effect from 3. Resist 25.

Of course there will be situations where a slide might be more useful than a knock prone. But that's ... well, situational. It's part of it being a tactical situation.

Now you need a way to press this into the tables format and think how to apply it. Maybe drop the damage step by 1 for each step up in your condition hierarchy (down to a damage of 0.) Higher DCs (+5 to DC or Defense in question) could also add one step on the condition hierarchy. One-Time effects get one free step on the condition hierarchy. I also like the idea of adding requirements like combat advantage to such steps. So you could say: "Yes, if you have combat advantage and beat the targets Fort/Ref by 5, this stunt will let you drop the target prone for free in addition to the damage effect.)

Could you present your proposal in a table format? I can see a couple of good ideas in there, but my head spins from comprehending your proposal in its entirety... Btw what does "resist" mean, and what's the number next to it? The DC number? Anyway, I'd hope that giving us a table would basically forestal the need to answer such questions in the first place.

Thanks for your effort so far - greatly appreciated!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'll try to give it a shot later when I'm home.

The Resist was just a random idea I had - granting an ally Resist (x) damage. There might be stunts that warrant that.

 

[Piratecat]

Folks, I'm seeing an incipient hijack onto the rules-before-roleplaying question. This isn't the thread for that. Feel free to start a new thread if you want to discuss it, but keep things focused here. Thanks.

4e has skills. Good skills. You could use skills.

This is true. I'm also a huge fan of rituals. If you want to see the PCs using them, give out ritual components as treasure and make useful rituals available in scroll or book form. We've had great success with them, but I think a lot of people forget they're even around.

 

[Pbartender]

That's beautiful and I try to to that as much as I can in my own games too. But one thing I constantly stumble over is to allocate proper DCs. To be sure, page 42 in the DMG correlates specific outputs of damages to skill use DCs - but what about the other conditions - knocking prone, dazing a creature, and so on? I've tried to do a hierarchy of these (i.e. which condition is more "powerful" and hence would demand a higher DC from a game-balance perspective) but always failed to come up with something.

So I'd like anyone who has done some progress on this point to share their insights with us, please! First round goes to Piratecat, who seems to hold promise.

It's simple... The DC is equal to the appropriate defense of the enemy you are trying to affect.

So, for example:

"I want to punch the enemy hard in the gut and knock the wind out of him!"
Strength attack (or perhaps Athletics) vs. Fortitude; a hit dazes the target until the end of your next turn.

As opposed to:

"I want to dazzle and confuse the enemy with a whirling display of brilliant swordsmanship!"
Dexterity attack (or perhaps Thievery or Acrobatics) vs. Will; a hit dazes the target until the end of your next turn.

The difference between stunts like this and powers is that you want to make certain that the powers are generally dealing more damage and have effects that last longer.

 

[Piratecat]

Right. And I adjudicate damage by picking higher numbers for attacks with no particular special effect, and lower numbers for attacks that hinder the enemy. When our archer shot a dragon in the eye to temporarily blind it, it was dex vs. fortitude, medium damage but granted a -3 penalty to attacks for a round.

(Shhh! And don't tell my players, but I lean towards the side of higher damage the first time each session that a player tries one of these, as encouragement to think outside the box.)

 

[Windjammer]

It's simple... The DC is equal to the appropriate defense of the enemy you are trying to affect.

That's the most useful thing I've "learnt" about setting stunt DCs on the fly...ever! Meaning, the numbers are sitting on the table looking straight at me (monster stat blocks). Thanks!


Now, I realize what you say actually appears on page 42 of the DMG (s.v. "If the action is essentially an attack..."). But for some reason that escaped me, and I've only ever focused on the table beneath.

 

[vagabundo]

I've been toying with this:

For characters in the martial power source, PC's roll two every round before any actions, a on either allows for an encounter power and a on both dice allows for an encounter or daily. For this to work a fighter does not expend his encounter or daily, so he could spam a daily a few times in one encounter - if he is a lucky punk. The die rolls simulate chance and circumstance.

 

[Dausuul]

I've been toying with this:

For characters in the martial power source, PC's roll two every round before any actions, a on either allows for an encounter power and a on both dice allows for an encounter or daily. For this to work a fighter does not expend his encounter or daily, so he could spam a daily a few times in one encounter - if he is a lucky punk. The die rolls simulate chance and circumstance.

Interesting idea, although it seems like it might take a lot of the strategy out of the martial classes... and might slow the game down. On the other hand, it might turn out to be a lot of fun. If you try this, I'd love to hear how it plays out.

 

[Obryn]

I’m thinking about giving D&D 4e another chance. I’ve tried to play it three times and attempted to DM it once, but playing the system as is doesn’t really match up very well with my play style. Now that most of the blatant omissions have been covered by the PH2 & MM2 I’m willing to take another look. What I’m going to try to do with this thread is to go over what I think needs to be house ruled in order to make the game fit and to get some advice from others with similar play styles on how they’ve managed to make use of 4e.

I wish you luck! If you have a good time, great! If you don't, at least you have other games you already like.

I’ve read here on EN World that the 4e designers have rejected the use of Ki as a power source. I think I can understand why. These martial powers are already 90% ki-like anyway. It would be just a combination of psionics and the martial power set.

I think this sounds like a great solution if you're looking for an "explanation" of martial powers. I was an Earthdawn fan for a long time, and in that system, everyone used magic.

If a supernatural explanation helps patch your suspension of disbelief, I think it's a great solution.

Treasure Parcels

Treasure parcels don’t work and will never work for the type of game I want to run or play. This concept can’t be saved and must be thrown out completely.

If an encountered monster uses a bow and that monster is defeated then the party now has that bow. The creature and its bow doesn’t just evaporate leaving behind a scroll and a +2 dagger. The creature may indeed have those items and if it has items that can be used to defend itself then it will most likely do so.

It’s up to the players how they go about acquiring their loot. If they’re skillful and lucky they may end up with more then a level’s worth of swag. Good on them. As the DM I’ll adjust. If they’re having rotten luck or have made poor choices that leave them with insufficient money for their level then I’ll have to adjust for that too. It’s part of how D&D has been played historically and I’m not going to give up on suspension of disbelief by using regulated treasure packets.

There are dozens more topics to cover, but this post is getting too long. At least for one of my posts. I’ll continue with more topics on a later day(or expand on these topics based on discussion), but hopefully this first post will serve to start some positive discussion on how to modify 4e to work with old school type D&D role playing.

I'm indifferent to treasure parcels, but then again, I've always been sort of Zen in my treasure allocation anyway. I will probably never use the system as-is, but it's not like I'd stick closely to a random table system, either.

I try to keep my PCs somewhere around the very bare-bones wealth-by-level in 4e. That is, a magic item of level +1, a magic item of level, and a magic item of level -1. But I don't stress too much about it, honestly.

I don't know of any random tables, but good luck! Let me know if you find them.

-O

 

[Pbartender]

Right. And I adjudicate damage by picking higher numbers for attacks with no particular special effect, and lower numbers for attacks that hinder the enemy. When our archer shot a dragon in the eye to temporarily blind it, it was dex vs. fortitude, medium damage but granted a -3 penalty to attacks for a round.

My tendency is to essentially allow for a basic attack* if the player is using one of their own weapons, and only consult the chart if the damage comes from an otherwise improvised source.

*I typically use the Charge action as a benchmark for stunts... essentially combining two basic actions with perhaps a small extra benefit. For example, I recently allowed characters to make Athletics checks to combine a jump check with a basic melee attack so that those without ranged attacks could try to engage a low-flying target that was otherwise unreachable.