D&D 4E I'd like to put 4E on a diet!

[TerraDave]

Why bother?...

Some of these changes will make charecter building fasters, some would make each round of combat a little shorter, some of would reduce the number of rounds in combat...

The cummulative effects would be to take less time at each step and pick up the pace. I.e. more adventure per hour invested.

It would also reduce uneeded complexity and make it easier for the DM and casual player...but the power gamers would still have plenty of options (I am not advocating getting rid of everything).

For #2, wouldn't reducing the number of encounter and daily powers actually increase time in combat? Take away the more powerful stuff and the characters will be down to at-wills faster than they would if they had more encounters.

Ya, I am aware of that, you need to bring HP down enough to get combats into fewer rounds, like 2-4 fewer, and you wont miss that extra encounter power.

I'm not sure about #6 because monsters have been increasing in complexity (not decreasing). Especially as better design now allows monsters to function as they should, instead of being sacks of HP with a terrible single melee basic attack (I can't even recall many post MM3 creatures that are just a single MBA outside of minions). Solos especially are much more complex, but then again they are five monsters and deserve the attention.

Oh, I have played plenty with 08 monsters, some were like you say, some had all kinds of things going on, given what they were. I think balance and role are key. E.g., from what I remember a MM1 kobold was significanly more involved then a hill giant. Thats the problem.

A solo can be more complicated both to challenge the party and as its the only thing the DM is running. A low level regular on the other hand should not have 3 other things to consider beyond its normal defenses and attack.

Playing PH1-only on the player side would get you most of the way there.

...

PH1 has held up well, there is good stuff in there. But there is still marking and quarrying and paladin and cleric builds no one wants and too many hp and too many high level powers...

 

[eamon]

I would absolutely love to see a slimmed down version of 4e. The number of rounds per combat is fine; it's the complexity of keeping track that isn't! And the same thing goes for levelling. It's not so much that 1 feat every 2 levels or whatever is inherently too many; it's just that there are way way too many pointless "options" to sift through nobody will take. Or, worse, some unsuspecting player will take, to the detriment of the entire table (unbalanced parties are a pain; and ineffective characters are boring - and that rubs off). You could for instance use this as an excuse to make power sources matter again, and group powers by source (and consider reducing the number of sources - class features can sufficiently distinguish classes).

And then there's just general streamlining. Pick either start or end of your next turn, and use that almost everywhere (except where tactically relevant). (Whatever you do, get rid of craziness like the warden's second wind, with two different durations). Get rid of pointless rules that almost never matter and aren't intuitive like "No OA's on your turn". Avoid free actions, and get rid of the free action attack limiting rule - if there are sources of OA's or free attacks that are broken, fix them instead of cluttering the rules. Decide which events are "uninterruptable" and stick with it - and don't pick a nebulous concept like "action" or "power". Get rid of player traps, such as the ability to mis-pick ability score increases - if you want increasing ability scores, increase them all (and get free skill/NAD etc. balancing) rather than letting players pick at levels 4/8. Avoid stuff that needs tracking in general - e.g. have hunter's quarry work on the nearest visible enemy as a property, rather than tracking effect. Clean up save ends effects - there are too many and creatures shouldn't become immune to effects just because they are already affected. In terms of conditions, get rid of a few: say, helpless, restrained, surprised & deafened and possibly weakened & marked. These things occur so rarely, they can be rolled into powers - in which, since there are now much fewer, slightly more elaborate explanations can fit.

But most importantly, get rid of tons of feats, items and powers!