D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how D&D 4E could have looked

OK on this "I would’ve much preferred the ability to adopt any role within the core 4 by giving players a big choice at level 1, an option that placed an overlay on every power you used or that gave you a new way to use them."
Basically have Source Specific Powers and less class powers. But I think combining that with having BIG differing stances to dynamically switch role might be a better idea so that your hero can adjust role to circumstance. I have to defend this NPC right now vs I have to take down the big bad right now vs I have to do minion cleaning right now, I am inspiring allies in my interesting way, who need it right now.

and the obligatory
Argghhhh on this. " I wanted classes to have different power acquisition schedules"

And thematic differences seemed to have been carried fine.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Except oddly enough, level 15 PCs see DC 20 checks as often level 1 PCs see DC 15. And level 15 PCs don't see all that many DC 15 checks, just as level 1 PCs don't see all that many DC 10 checks. Almost as if it would be expected that they'd have a +5 to the skill check for some strange reason? Why is that?

Because while WotC tried to implement bounded accuracy they ended up not actually achieving it, especially in the higher levels where the constant modifier of proficiency bonus plus stat and Venger help you if there are other bonuses drives up modifiers. They tamped down on DC creep but ultimately failed to solve it. I think there are things they could have done that are missed opportunities. Most notably, they could have kept DCs down if non-combat challenges required multiple successes for more complicated tasks, e.g., "make three DC 15 checks to pick this complicated triple lock" with abilities like Expertise allowing the PC to do something qualitatively different rather than just boosting the roll, for instance to be able to accumulate multiple successful checks on a given roll. Saves could have worked the same way.

The skill chapter in the PHB is quite clearly the least thought through part of the book. Consider how much detail that combat and spells get and compare it to skills. For some people this is a feature. For me it's at best a lost opportunity.

 

[MwaO]

Good point. I was going to say that. The whole point of bounded accuracy is to avoid having to have a DC by level table and DC creep in general. Now I don't think they actually managed to avoid DC creep in some parts of the game but they tried.

Bounded Accuracy doesn't exist. 5e is 4e/2 math, just with a lot of smoke and mirrors to make it difficult to figure out. If you would get a +4 to hit in 4e from leveling up in 4e total due to everything, you ought to get a +2 to hit in 5e due to everything. If you would be expected get +12 to skills in 4e, you'll get +6 in 5e. You just have less certainty about when and how it might happen.

Examples:
A 1st level 5e PC likely has a +5 in their best skills. Over 19 levels, goes up to +11. That's +6.
1st level 4e PC likely has a +9 in their best skill. Over 19 levels, goes up to +21. That's +12.
1st level 5e PC likely has +5 to hit. Over 19 levels, they get +2 from stat, +3 from magic weapon, +4 from proficiency or +9.
1st level 4e PC likely has a +7 to hit. Over 19 levels, they get +2 from expertise feat, +4 from magic weapon, +10 from level, and +2 from stat assuming they started with an even stat. Or +18.

 

[Imaro]

Yes, absolutely, the Champion or a simpler Rogue build can do a lot. The player doesn't have to focus much on powers and such choices and can focus instead on things like tactical positioning, deciding whether taking an AOO is worth it to block off a foe or exploit some vulnerability, etc.

The "wake me up when there's a fight" is the type of player I was kind of thinking of, but my friend who just doesn't like complicated powers isn't quite that either. He finds choosing among too many options to be highly disengaging and disempowering from the fiction. (This is my interpretation, I doubt he'd use those words himself.) He doesn't want to have to manage a bunch of limited use powers. He just wants to be able to make good basic attacks, think about what his character is doing, where everybody else is, etc. I first met him in the 4E days and often wondered whether he wasn't a very good tactical player. He's plenty smart---he's got an advanced degree and isn't one of those "pity degree" examples---but in 5E that changed and he got much more into the loop of the character. He simply doesn't like thinking about lots of power choices. I get where he's coming from, though. There's only so much attention to go around and if I'm thinking of powers I often don't think about fiction.

Now this I think was one of the benefits/flaws of 4e's design depending on your preference... By creating a standard resource allocation, usage and recharge template (AEDU) that all classes used...it was easier for players to jump from class to class without relearning resource allocation and management. However they were also assuming that all players would find that one template for allocating and managing resources fun and that players would also want to play with it over and over and over again...

 

[MoonSong]

That’s like giving Batman super strength.

Or a green lantern ring?

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Now this I think was one of the benefits/flaws of 4e's design depending on your preference... By creating a standard resource allocation, usage and recharge template (AEDU) that all classes used...it was easier for players to jump from class to class without relearning resource allocation and management. However they were also assuming that all players would find that one template for allocating and managing resources fun and that players would also want to play with it over and over and over again...

Good point. I tended to find them rather monotonous after a while. I'd have been happier if different power sources had functioned substantially differently, for instance if martial classes had essentially been mostly at wills with minimal or no encounters and no daily powers at all. That way if I wanted to play that kind of character i could without having to ponder whether I'd use a Daily or figure out how to not choose Daily powers through some machination of the system.

 

[Garthanos]

Good point. I was going to say that. The whole point of bounded accuracy is to avoid having to have a DC by level table and DC creep in general.

An epic demigod character having nearly the same chances of getting past a mayors cellar door as the level 2 apprentice seems bloody silly. That said there was way too wide of variation between unskilled and as able as possible even between characters of the same level due largely to power creep (it might not have been that way at first) .

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

An epic demigod character having nearly the same chances of getting past a mayors cellar door as the level 2 apprentice seems bloody silly. That said there was way too wide of variation between unskilled and as able as possible even between characters of the same level due largely to power creep (it might not have been that way at first) .

Oh definitely, it's a matter of the dynamic range. Some areas of the system posit 0 advancement (non-proficient saves, skills) while others grow too fast (proficient or expertise, with a synergistic stat).

What I think they should have done is made more use of advantage or rerolls. For example, proficiency using advantage means the overall range of the character's ability is the same but rolls are somewhat higher and, more importantly, much more reliable yet still uncertain.

 

[Parmandur]

Except oddly enough, level 15 PCs see DC 20 checks as often level 1 PCs see DC 15. And level 15 PCs don't see all that many DC 15 checks, just as level 1 PCs don't see all that many DC 10 checks. Almost as if it would be expected that they'd have a +5 to the skill check for some strange reason? Why is that?

Source...?

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Bounded Accuracy doesn't exist. 5e is 4e/2 math, just with a lot of smoke and mirrors to make it difficult to figure out.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it doesn't exist. I think they didn't accomplish their goal as well as one might want and missed some opportunities because they excessively adhered to the D20+Stat Bonus+Skill bonus structure.

 

[Garthanos]

Design parameters for this D&D Storytelling Game:
*It looks like D&D...if you blur your eyes. It uses all the poly dice, has 6 ability scores, HP, AC, maybe a Saving Throw, and not much else.
*Possibly no math at all. Except for maybe adding and subtracting Hit Points. (Like Tails of Equestria.)
*Battles are designed to be resolved in possibly just one (or a few) rolls. Fights last no longer than the real time it takes for a typical fight scene in a film or novel to be resolved.
*PCs don't die when defeated, unless a story twist calls for it. Perhaps all PC deaths are consensual.
*Characters begin with only two or three powers (maybe: culture power, class power, + one chosen power).
*All choices can be randomly rolled if the player wishes. There's a random table for character creation.
*Gain exactly one power each level. A spell is a power. By 20th level (20 sessions), a character will still only have 22 powers.
*Spell lists either trimmed to iconic Basic D&D list, and/or synthesized and somewhat abstracted like True 20 spells or DDM spells.
*No XP bean counting - just level up after every session.
*Except for marquee items, treasure is abstracted as Treasure Level or something.
*Simply D&D is kinda like Lone Wolf or Super Endless Quest, but still a TRPG.
*Except for special equipment. a party (or solo character) is assumed to have "coincidentally remembered" every kind of ordinary equipment necessary for the adventure. Including a 10' pole, if there is a hazard which calls for it. Its presence is retconned in the moment: "Hey, good thing I carried this 10' foot pole with us."
*No counting of rations, water, or arrows. Only starve or run out of ammo if a story twist calls for it.
*Encumbrance similarly streamlined.
*Designed for a complete story to last no more than 1 or 2 hours. In fact, there could be a timer with the game to make sure! (Or maybe not.)
*Is presented as a comprehensive and legitimate "lens" on the entire D&D Multiverse, which is distinct from the "5e lens." (Like how BECMI D&D was officially held to be a different "reality", wherein there were only four human classes and three demihuman races in the whole world.)
* However, unlike BECMI D&D, this D&D Storytelling Game would theoretically include every race and class ever seen in the D&D Multiverse (because it's fun to choose race & class, and to see new races and classes to chose from)...but each race and class would be streamlined into a much less granular "one power per level."
*Any class can be multiclassed at any level. Just choose Class Power from that class list and voila!
*Perhaps (like PF2), all or some racial/cultural powers can be chosen at any level, to form "multiraced/multicultural" characters. And justified by a retcon: "Hey, I just learned that my great grandfather was a dwarf. I'm going to start exploring that heritage."
*Setting wise, the classic dungeons of the D&D Multiverse are represented as 1-to-2-hour long "television episode / novella / film"-sized stories, completable in a single session. Even mega-dungeons are narratively condensed, where various key scenes of the iconic dungeon are played out, but separated by "cut scenes" which are just retroactively narrated in a quick paragraph of boxed text.
*World hopping from the start. Everyone is a member of the Adventurer's Guild (from AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn). (Like Pathfinder Society.) The Adventurer's Guild spans the entire Multiverse, including the more inaccessible worlds such as Athas. The Adventurer's Guild has planar teleportation (and chronomantic time-travel) resources to get the players anywhere, in any time. It is an assumed trope that the party is sent on adventures throughout the Multiverse, even from first level. That's just part of the game.
*As for products: the modules are printed in a small format (say, 7x10-inch). Could be softcover (cheaper) or hardcover (if Hasbro's business model requires a bit higher price point). Either way, the Simply D&D product line should be a lower price point.
*All modules are scalable from 1st level to 20th level (or possibly 36th level like BECMI or 40th level like 2e Epic), so that any series of Simply D&D modules could be used in any order of play. Has an appendix which gives scaled stats for every encounter. For example, the 1st level Tomb of Horrors, where Acerack is hardly more than a Skeleton with Wizard spell or two. (Sacrilege?! Well, that's pretty much how the Lich of the Fantasy Forest gamebooks was portrayed. Same for the Skeletor-looking Lich which Strongheart and the Kids easily defeated on the way into Castle Venger in the D&D View-Master story.)
*Besides the usual dungeon crawl modules and wilderness modules (Isle of Dread), there could be a sort of World Sampler (or "Worldbook") module, which takes the characters on a whirlwind adventure to iconic sites throughout a single D&D World, such as a Mystara Worldbook module which gives the players a map of the whole world, and has a plot hook which takes them to a scene or two in Threshold, then to Castle Amber, to Alphatia City, to the Savage Coast, to the Hollow World, to the Immortal City of Pandius on the moon, etc...all in one session! And the module comes with a "splatbook" appendix consisting of power options covering the unique races and classes of that world: "Hey, now that you've visited Mystara, you might pick up a level in Atruaghin Shamani or Darokin Merchant. Hey, and you discovered, when you picked up the Scent power, that one of your ancestors was a Lupin! Bow-wow!"
*Make a Simply D&D module for each of the iconic D&D novels (Icewind Dale, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, etc...or maybe even condense a novel trilogy into a single session! The War of the Lance in 2 hours!). Module comes with Simply D&D stats for the iconic characters of the novel (Drizzt, Raistlin, etc), scaled to the difficulty level seen in the novel, or you can play it with your own character, and scale all the encounters up or down using the appendix.)
*Really tie together the timelines of the D&D Multiverse, and play on that in a clever, "meta" way, using the existing concepts of "paraverses" or "tangents." Like: "For this module, we're going to visit the Curse of Strahd timeline of Ravenloft. Next module, we'll visit the Classic Timeline of Ravenloft!" See: https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/timeline

That's the kind of D&D i'd like to play. .

Have you looked at Fate?