Masterwork Armour ?

[Belphanior]

As an aside, does anybody have an idea which kind of masterwork plate armor is "better", the high AC ones or the resistance ones?

Specifically I speak about:
* Layered plate or Rimefire plate?
* Warplate or Specter plate?
* Godplate or Tarrasque plate?


The former types have a higher AC and can prevent 5-10% of attacks altogether, including status effects. But the latter will also protect against the damage from NAD-attacks and ongoing damage. Statistically, does one kind dominate over the other?

 

[kaomera]

There are other initial design solutions which were better (course, too late now).

Like not increasing ability scores by 8 or 10 in 27 levels. The ability score bonuses screwed up all of the defenses and required special rules.

...

And the reason for ability score boosts (or masterwork boosts for that matter) is because of the simple jarring math of:

I don't feel (personally) that removing ability score increases would have been a reasonable choice for the 4e designers. I also don't believe that ability score increases where included to make the 1-30 math work; I think it's the other way around. The general (level-based) ability score bonuses added in 3e "let the genie out of the bottle", IMO. A lot of players just wouldn't be satisfied with not getting their ability score increases, and IMO ENWorld would be flooded with threads calling for WotC to issue errata or about houseruling them back in.

I do agree that these increases muck up the math. Just about everything messes up the math in 4e, really. At some point you have to decide what's "close enough". The designers made that choice and (surprise, surprise) not everyone agreed with it. I just don't see what they could have done differently that wouldn't have caused at least as many problems, overall.

 

[Stalker0]

So, let's eee a show of hands for a revised 4th edition rulebook after less than two years....

Yeah, didn't think so.

I think its a bit early for a 4.5, but I personally was saddened when they announced at the beginning of 4e that there would be no 4.5.

I think 3.5 was one of the best things that happened to the system. It took advantage of the tens of thousands of hours of playtest experience acquired by the gaming populous over several years and rebuilt the system to fix the most egregious bugs. It gave the system new life, and I think extended its timeframe several years.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think its a bit early for a 4.5, but I personally was saddened when they announced at the beginning of 4e that there would be no 4.5.

I think 3.5 was one of the best things that happened to the system. It took advantage of the tens of thousands of hours of playtest experience acquired by the gaming populous over several years and rebuilt the system to fix the most egregious bugs. It gave the system new life, and I think extended its timeframe several years.

This.

Now that the model is totally different, it would be good if in 5 years or so, they came out with a 4.5 that took advantage of the many hours of playtest experience of the gaming community.

Plus, it allows them to sell a bunch of the same books (effectively) and keeps them in business longer.

 

[eamon]

I think its a bit early for a 4.5, but I personally was saddened when they announced at the beginning of 4e that there would be no 4.5.

I think 3.5 was one of the best things that happened to the system. It took advantage of the tens of thousands of hours of playtest experience acquired by the gaming populous over several years and rebuilt the system to fix the most egregious bugs. It gave the system new life, and I think extended its timeframe several years.

I would also appreciate the option of a more polished base system; 4e with the kinks worked out. I also wonder if they won't backpedal on the issue: as KarinsDad points out, it's in their (economic) interest; and perhaps they said that back when they thought there weren't going to be any base-game kinks to work out. There clearly are, and these issues don't require a wholesale redesign, just a few adaptations that happen to permeate the game.

I could imagine that a "phb1 revisited" book would suffice - though it'd need to retconn some later feats out of existance (expertise, say).

 

[Belphanior]

On the other hand, I'm sure their market research indicated that most people weren't exactly thrilled by 3.5 when it was published. Quite a few people gave up on buying D&D products, while 3.5 itself wasn't a high incentive to start buying if 3.0 didn't already do it for you.

Obviously I don't have access to full data but there is a good chance that there's good economic reasons for them to not make 4.5, or at least not for many years to come.

 

[Jhaelen]

Umm, I really, really, really, don't want to see D&D 4.5, ever.

I prefer them continuing to update rules in the MMX/ PHBX / DMGX books.

And I hope it will be a long time indeed till they release D&D 5E.

 

[KarinsDad]

Umm, I really, really, really, don't want to see D&D 4.5, ever.

I prefer them continuing to update rules in the MMX/ PHBX / DMGX books.

And I hope it will be a long time indeed till they release D&D 5E.

Except that if they decide to ever do wholesale changes (like to multiclassing) it will probably invalidate the previous system.

The reason to put out a new system is if it is superior mechanics-wise.

I'll give some examples:

1) Replace "until start/end of PC's/foe's next turn" with "until end of PC's next turn" for ally buffs and with "until end of foe's next turn" for enemy debuffs (or anything negative on the enemy which is not save based). That speeds up the game because every one of your positive effects ends at the end of your turn and every negative effect on enemies lasts until the end of theirs. As is, there is quite a bit of game slow up as people figure it out, or forget it, or whatever. Better yet is to make all negative effects end on a save. That's even better.

2) Temporary hit points clash with minion rules. One set of rules or the other (or both) should be adjusted to take into account the other set of rules.

3) Improve multi-classing. Make it a type of dual classing. In for a penny, in for a pound as opposed to allowing players to cherry pick the best options (like healing one's self).

Granted, each person has their own list and will disagree what is good and what is not. But, WotC could use polls and other mechanisms, and have several years worth of data and research as to what works and what doesn't.


Alternatively, take the rules changes and the errata, clean up the core books with them, and sell them as .PDFs. It's faster to search a .PDF than it is to look something up in the book anyway.

But, it's annoying to look something up in the PHB and overrule a player or some such, and the next day find out that the rule has since been changed. I'd prefer one source of rules, not rules spread over 10 books (I'm talking about core rules here, not rules specific to a new class in a new book).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm going to have to cast my vote with KD as far as ability score boosts. I think it was basically a poor idea. The one thing it does is give the PCs a bit more of a feel of becoming far more powerful than a normal person, but I don't think it does a lot of that either. Basically when everyone has scores in the high 20's by end game they just don't feel all that special.

Maybe a boost to 2 stats at 11th and 21st and a feat that let you boost one stat 1 point 1 time. That would still give the PCs a feeling of getting stronger, let you tweak your stat allocation a bit as you progress and yet not really impact the math of the game much since the best a character could do is toss on 3 extra points over 30 levels to one stat and assuming he started with an odd score that's worth a +2 to his ability mod in one stat and at most +1 to two others if they were odd scores as well.

I don't think the issue with NAD progression is really a "flaw" in the design of the game though. I think the idea was to insure that every character had a single weak point they would have to work on and take into account. If the player really wants to focus on evening up their NADs they CAN do so either with clever score allocation, feats, or items. They'll lose out a bit somewhere else, but there should be SOME room in the system for trade offs. If the math was some sort of perfect inalterable progression then every character would be a total stat clone of every other character by definition. Same with monsters.

Exactly what the bonus progressions would be in some idealized version of the system is hard to say. They could have taken a number of different approaches. Monsters could have progressed at +1/2 levels like PCs for example. I kind of think this might have been nicer as it means each monster is more useful over a wider range of levels and more defined by its damage output and other characteristics vs mainly by its defenses and to-hit progression.

Personally I really seriously doubt there will ever be a 4.5. At least not for many years to come. The 4e rules system is pretty tightly integrated and tweaking math or cleaning up the wording and terminology of the PHB (aweful that way, can't they hire some actual game designers) would basically mean editing and reissuing EVERY single other book in the 4e lineup. The changes would be more than just superficial too. Items, powers, classes, etc would need some rebalancing and significant playtest, etc. Frankly 90% of the people playing 4e could probably care less anyway. The system works and a better tuned version would basically not give them anything really new.

The comparison to 3e -> 3.5e isn't really apt. 3e didn't have minor issues with a few numbers. It was an unworkable system that could only really be played at most levels with massive house ruling and extensive patches. It HAD to be fixed because it was pretty much impossible to write commercial adventures for it since you either couldn't play it as written or if you did the power levels of PCs was so all over the map that encounter CR was a meaningless number. 4e is a totally different case. Its 10x better structured than 3e was and the things people are complaining about are like a mouse compared to the elephant of 3.x problems.

 

[CapnZapp]

So, let's eee a show of hands for a revised 4th edition rulebook after less than two years....

Yeah, didn't think so.

Not supposed to be a revision, not in the 3.5E sense at least.

Just fix things in upcoming printings, issue online errata (for free) and summarize the changes in the PHB4 (or PHB17 or whatever).