D&D 4E Looking for thoughts on my kitbashed 4E

[Garthanos]

Here's another way to look at 'Ki', it is basically your level. Its the 'juice' you get by advancing in level. Thus there isn't really a 'power source' of 'Ki', instead your Ki can advance in any power source, it just depends on which one(s) you use. In terms of its 'Asian flavor' that's something you just have to provide, but TBH 4e does crazy Kung Fu/Wire Fu etc. pretty darn well already. You can always play it up some and certainly some builds are most amenable to doing that. This is a lot of why I thought the 4e OA themes were a good solid design. They just give you a bit of fluff and some nicely flavored powers you can pick if you need a bit more help with that end of things.

I think 4e could use some more over the top , more split the mountain. for me that includes martial types need better multi-attack and controller effects.

Maybe even weaker minions (yeah I know but mowing down dozens is Cu Culaine and Lancelot and Conan and Kane ) virtually a terrain effect that you can chop away and colateral damage ...
Instead of making the hulk build of fighter meeker could they have somehow gone the opposite?

 

[Garthanos]

Here's another way to look at 'Ki', it is basically your level. Its the 'juice' you get by advancing in level. Thus there isn't really a 'power source' of 'Ki', instead your Ki can advance in any power source, it just depends on which one(s) you use. In terms of its 'Asian flavor' that's something you just have to provide, but TBH 4e does crazy Kung Fu/Wire Fu etc. pretty darn well already. You can always play it up some and certainly some builds are most amenable to doing that. This is a lot of why I thought the 4e OA themes were a good solid design. They just give you a bit of fluff and some nicely flavored powers you can pick if you need a bit more help with that end of things.

That isnt bad one of what might be an issue with other paradigms about Ki including my own are they tend to ties themself rather tightly to martial weapon focused types

 

[Xeviat]

It might not fit into all settings, but I was thinking of stealing the spirit companion from the shaman to give to the Cleric. A guardian spirit, a servant of the cleric’s deity (or the cleric’s deity itself in the case of an ancestor spirit in an animist world or something) coming with you. But this could be just another familiar. Effects could often originate from it. Perhaps it can sustain its own effects, making the Cleric playstyle focus on buffs?

Just tossing out ideas.


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[AbdulAlhazred]

It might not fit into all settings, but I was thinking of stealing the spirit companion from the shaman to give to the Cleric. A guardian spirit, a servant of the cleric’s deity (or the cleric’s deity itself in the case of an ancestor spirit in an animist world or something) coming with you. But this could be just another familiar. Effects could often originate from it. Perhaps it can sustain its own effects, making the Cleric playstyle focus on buffs?

Just tossing out ideas.


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Well, the Shaman, if you think about it, only really fits in as a special class in specific cosmologies. 4e engineered it such that the various 'spirit' classes (Clerics, Shaman, Warlocks, Druids, etc.) made sense in their milieu, but in a purely animistic kind of world, say something basically designed around Shinto, then it wouldn't really make that much sense anymore.

 

[Xeviat]

Well, the Shaman, if you think about it, only really fits in as a special class in specific cosmologies. 4e engineered it such that the various 'spirit' classes (Clerics, Shaman, Warlocks, Druids, etc.) made sense in their milieu, but in a purely animistic kind of world, say something basically designed around Shinto, then it wouldn't really make that much sense anymore.

See, my setting is an animistic setting and I was thinking that it fit more in there. Clerics are differentiated from Druids in that clerics serve their god, whole Druids are partners with the spirits. Let’s say a cleric serves their village’s god, who is embodied by the hill and waterfall that provide water to the village. The cleric could then be accompanied by a water spirit or an earth spirit who is the focus of much of their spells. In 3E, I had considered something similar, with the spirit embodying the cleric’s domains.


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[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess what I mean is, when you don't have separate classes of beings (spirits and deities) you don't really need separate character classes (clerics and shaman) either. Now, the one class you might have could well be sort of a mashup of the 4e cleric and shaman, that would be cool.

 

[Igwilly]

Honestly, that’s why the shaman (the animist version) is so hard to fit into a setting.
I like those guys a lot, but such spirits need to be an important element of the cosmology, and often I just don’t know how they fit. My cosmologies may seem to be a huge mess, but everything is organized in my head, with each element having their specific places. However, the shaman (animist) requires a whole set of divine beings, their spirit world and all of that, and they are hard to fit with classic D&D polytheism, especially when dealing with the Druid vs Shaman dichotomy I often face in earlier editions.
One example is actually 4th Edition: from quite some time, I eliminate either the divine power source or the primal power source, depending on how I want the campaign to be. Rarely allow both, there’s too much overlap. Not that past editions didn’t have this problem. As I mentioned, I often face a Druid vs Shaman dilemma, and those shamans usually are left behind.

 

[Xeviat]

I guess what I mean is, when you don't have separate classes of beings (spirits and deities) you don't really need separate character classes (clerics and shaman) either. Now, the one class you might have could well be sort of a mashup of the 4e cleric and shaman, that would be cool.

That’s what I was saying. Merge the cleric and the shaman to give the cleric something more unique. Especially since I’m taking the cleric’s martial bent away to protect the Paladin’s nich and having invokers be a kind of cleric.


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[Garthanos]

That’s what I was saying. Merge the cleric and the shaman to give the cleric something more unique. Especially since I’m taking the cleric’s martial bent away to protect the Paladin’s nich and having invokers be a kind of cleric.

There can be only one heavily armored relgious healer dude...

 

[Xeviat]

There can be only one heavily armored relgious healer dude...

That would be the Holy, I mean Leader Paladin.


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