D&D 4E If 5e Had Evolved from 4e...

[Tony Vargas]

That isn't to say individual scores aren't important for things like attacks and initiative. I haven't played the game yet, but I wonder if that helps alleviate the God Stats / Dump Stats.

Middle score from sets of three? It might take a little figure'n, but I'm sure an optimal stat array probably exists. Probably a couple of good scores, one or two one point higher than them, and definitely one dump stat (two if you could be certain they don't both occur in any triplets you care about). If there are a lot of carefully-assigned triplets to prevent anything like that, then the safe bet would be one dump stat and everything else equal.

 

[Manbearcat]

- Better "editorializing" in the rulebooks. I am a grown man who has endured a lot of significant hardship and adversity in my life so when I witness people being "offended" by the presentation of material in leisure time pursuit, I cannot help but shake my head or just stare incredulously. That notwithstanding, the fact that this offense exists and the fact that the "editorial" portions of the 4e base rulebooks are replete with trite and playstyle dismissive language such as the "Get to the fun!" section legitimizes the appeal for better authoring or editing or editorial focus. Some of those sections are horrendously bad and I can see why they would turn people off (specifically folks whose playstyles they passively dismissed).

- Better formal training, better educational tools and more examples for skill challenges in play (preferably video tools). Its a shame when an internet poster can spend 20 minutes putting together a small essay and better explain Skill Challenges than the core rulebooks do.

- Flat math, reduced number inflation, etc. Gut the + 1 to hit, defenses, skills, ability checks per 2 levels. Perhaps + 1 to these per tier (paragon and then epic)

- Following the above, kill + 1 to blah, blah feats dead. Feats should be as compelling and interesting as class features. They should focus or diversify archetypes...not merely add a bonus.

- Lose the + to hit on all magic items (retain + damage).

- Better scaling damage for PCs and monsters. Add + 1 to damage per 2 levels.

- Better multi-classing. Power swapping/broadening play style should not cost a feat. Tony Vargas's idea of using themes to assist in this may have legs.

- Increase potency of "dump stats" so that marginalizing them is moderately punitive.

- No class should start with 3 skills.

- A reputation/honor/legacy sub-system would be nice.

- Mass battle sub-system would be nice. Leveraging swarm mechanics would be good here.

- Review the "Grandmaster Training" system and tighten the numbers up. This is a great way to lessen the impact of magic item reliance for balance/progression maintenance that some folks disdain.

I'm sure I can think of more but those are off the top of my head.

 

[erleni]

Well, a reasonable, finite, skill list gives players a good idea what their characters can do, and makes balancing skill acquisition possible. Fuzzy skill definitions, whether from open-ended or ill-defined lists or backgrounds or catch-alls like ability scores aren't so stable a platform. But, then, I'm pretty hard on skill systems.

:shrug:

Some things I'd've hoped to've see from a direct evolution of 4e:

• Cleaner multi-classing, using an option like Themes to open up access to power-swaps rather than eating up feats.
• Race, Class, Background, Themes and other options all expanding the players options by allowing swaps rather than adding new powers or features.
• A rationalized skill system that didn't lean as heavily on certain stats, and was more evenly divided among the three 'pillars.'
• Class balance and Roles expanded into the other two pillars.
• Story-based alternative to the 'day' as a re-set point for 'daily' powers and healing surges.
• More milestone-based rewards for having long adventures.
• Cleaning up 'the math' a bit.
• Doing away with the claw/claw/bite theory of multiple attacks - ie TWFing doesn't give you two attacks - nothing should require you to make make multiple independent attacks against the same target to resolve a single action.

Pretty much what I would say. Can't XP you (must spread some love first).

 

[dammitbiscuit]

The real trick is working out what OTHER things will allow bonuses - something that the 3E designers failed to do. Having scores vary is great, but you need to understand how big the difference can be. +6 works great when ability scores are the only thing adding to defenses/attack, but much less well when feats, class abilities, magic items and spells also allow bonuses.

Cheers!

It never occurred to me before, but with a cap of +4, your racial bonuses still matter, surprisingly enough. You still want a racial bonus in your best stat - instead of using it to push your best score to a +5, you use it to push a +3 to a +4, which saves you a ton of point buy points.

As a side benefit, this makes it easier to pick from a wider variety of races. A race with the "wrong" ability scores can still hit the +4, same as anyone else, it just costs them more.

And if you do pick a race with the right primary stat, the extra point-buy points to spare make it easy to buy up your secondary stat if you don't have a racial bonus to it.

Think I'll be adding this cap as a houserule to my 4e games immediately, possibly even to my Pathfinder ones too.

 

[Pour]

Think I'll be adding this cap as a houserule to my 4e games...

I think I may as well for my next campaign.

I have to say, many of the ideas expressed here are making it into my next campaign. Insightful stuff, all.

 

[Marshall]

My own personal guesswork would have me believe:

1. Some form of skirmish/combat challenge to facilitate quick, complementary encounters to the more set piece, tactical ones.

This is available in 4e and is the number one thing that playtests of 5e reveal isnt really a problem in 4e. 5e's "faster combats" are ALL significantly underleveled for the PCs to face. The only fast combats are ones that you shouldnt be fighting. If you want fast, meaningless, non-threatening combats, by all means go ahead and run them. 4e is designed so that the only time you pull out the battlemat is when the combat is meaningful to advance the plot. Ie, every fight in 4e is a boss fight. What 4e needs is way to simulate grind-type, slow resource depletion days because meaningless fights in 4e tend to not consume ANY resources.

2. A retooling of the skill challenge system (incorporating some 4thcore 'gambit' stuff); potentially Next pillar-themed challenges, aka exploration challenge, social challenge, combat challenge (mentioned above) mixing skills, abilities, backgrounds, and player savvy.

The only thing 5e is doing right so far is divorcing skills from class. Having Background and Theme contribute to trained skills would go a long way to improving all PCs contributions in exploration and interaction.

3. Smaller numbers, but the same solid, transparent mathematical foundation.
4. More detailed item creation (thus producing more interesting magic items) for players and DMs, providing clearly charted options and some sort of budget system so that they were as easy to assemble as monsters in an encounter.

4e's major failing here is that a LOT of its magic item bloat is caused by low level +X items that dont change from +1 to +3 to +6 and just arent ever going to be used at that level.(and an amazing amount of flatly garbage items to start with).

5. Campaign frameworks and rules variants, allowing for more easily-applied and defined campaign types: low magic, high fantasy, renaissance, seafaring, mystery, espionage, etc; coupled with tweaks in rules (inherent bonuses, variations of milestones and resting, a more robust diplomacy/bluff/intimidate system emulating social combat, etc)

Heh. A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S.

Specifically, ones that DONT SUCK. 4e's Number 1 failing is few adventures and nearly zero of any quality whatsoever. The only reason Pathfinder survives today is that Paizo puts out gold star adventures. Its not just that they make the game easy to pick up and play but that they describe HOW to play the game. Adventures are 70-80% of the exploration and interaction pillars. 4e's lack of them is where the entire "You cant roleplay in 4e" argument came from.

6. A more robust action point that could do more than a standard action.
7. Playtesting of levels 1-30, with Paragon and Epic playable from the get go. Similarly, all three tiers supported from the start to the finish.
8. Less bloat and more definition.

Consistent support for all published material. I dont need 10 types of Fighter with 400+ powers, or 17 types of Wizard(3 of which have NOTHING to do with any other Wizard subtype) with 1000+ powers when there are classes that only have two builds and Races with one feat.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

I think I may as well for my next campaign.

I have to say, many of the ideas expressed here are making it into my next campaign. Insightful stuff, all.

I think the typical 4e player would get annoyed if I dropped a 20 page document filled with house rules in front of them.

However, like you said, there's a lot of great stuff in this thread. Stuff I've either already implemented, fantasized about implementing, or stuff where I've noticed a problem but hadn't hit upon a solution yet. Stuff I'd love to use, now that someone has taken the time to figure it out and write it down!

Spotting your signature, I wonder if you know whether "fourthparty" is considering a revamp / overhaul on the order of the most popular ideas in this thread? Like Pathfinder, but going further to fix and improve more things.

 

[Pour]

Spotting your signature, I wonder if you know whether "fourthparty" is considering a revamp / overhaul on the order of the most popular ideas in this thread? Like Pathfinder, but going further to fix and improve more things.

Boy, I wish. If you joined and created a thread, perhaps you could recruit a few good people. I do know of two internet community attempts, C4 and the 4e SRD Wiki (I can link to them in a later edit). I think there may be one or two more besides that, but I'm not sure any of them have the legalese fully sorted out, or the resources to really produce it.

That said, if the system was tight, and the community was involved, and playtests ranged the 4e games going on here even just here on EnWorld, I'd happily use it. I imagine many of us would. I trust many of these community members more than the current design team. I just wish they could contribute some of their genius to actual personal projects, cause I know they'd be awesome.

Fourthparty is largely an effort to produce grassroots supplemental support in any form, but unfortunately, and I'm partially to blame, it's tough work when it's not your day job. I think deadlines are the most difficult thing to inspire with a community effort, never mind finding time and energy, maintaining interest, and actually running games for fun alongside of it. There's no pay, either. Hah, yeah, excuses, excuses...

For what it's worth, if we could create a comprehensive list of fixes born from this thread, and another list of mechanics for the larger 4e fan base to try out, I think we'd be on to something.

I'm actually curious how some people flattened, altered, and tweaked the math. Some have alluded to doing so in houserules already, and I really would like to see specific numbers if possible.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

Boy, I wish. If you joined and created a thread, perhaps you could recruit a few good people. I do know of two internet community attempts, C4 and the 4e SRD Wiki (I can link to them in a later edit). I think there may be one or two more besides that, but I'm not sure any of them have the legalese fully sorted out, or the resources to really produce it.

I would probably use Reddit, honestly - with as many "good people" from Fourthparty and Fourthcore as possible overseeing the project.

The system of upvotes and downvotes, and threaded replies, is just far, far superior to a linear forum system for efficiently discussing and evaluating the popularity of a bunch of ideas. example other example

I like ENWorld and all, but I find many forum "conversations" start out interesting, and quickly become a few people loudly repeating themselves, with the squeezed-out majority needing a downvote button so they can bury the noise. Downvotes are like a moderator, except The Power is Yours a la Captain Planet.

 

[Pour]

I would probably use Reddit, honestly - with as many "good people" from Fourthparty and Fourthcore as possible overseeing the project.

The system of upvotes and downvotes, and threaded replies, is just far, far superior to a linear forum system for efficiently discussing and evaluating the popularity of a bunch of ideas. example other example

I like ENWorld and all, but I find many forum "conversations" start out interesting, and quickly become a few people loudly repeating themselves, with the squeezed-out majority needing a downvote button so they can bury the noise. Downvotes are like a moderator, except The Power is Yours a la Captain Planet.

Good call. Build it, and they will come! (also, post a link for me hehe)