D&D 4E My 4e problem.

[BendBars/LiftGates]

You already know this, but your plan of coming up with a plausible, unique build for each ethos for each class is impractical beyond all hope of possibly accomplishing it. Even a publisher like Wizards wouldn't try it. It's far too much to do in your spare time. Think about it: between the two Player's Handbooks, there are now 18 classes (I think...). It is orders of magnitude beyond what you could possibly be asked to come up with in your spare time just to provide several times more options than your players will possibly be able to make use of.

And think about what the effect will be. Will it even make the game more fun? If your players care about the campaign being like the last campaign and nothing else, then maybe. But think about this: If someone wants to play a Valra Wizard, for example, and you make 2 powers per Ethos per class level, that player gets to choose from only 2 power every time. For all the extra work you're doing, you're almost eliminating player choice and railroading the character building process. Tsk tsk.


How about this? Emphasize the Ethos flavor with feats that encourage thematic power selection. That's what 4e is all about, actually. Look in Martial Power or a bunch of the Dragon articles (or just the DDI Compendium) for Multiclass Feats and Technique Feats.

One series of "multiclass" feats per Ethos per power source would be cool. Even that will be a pretty hefty chunk of work, but nowhere near what you'd be signing up for otherwise, and wouldn't slash character options. Here's what it would look like:

Holy Warrior [Multiclass Holy Warrior]
Prerequisites: Valra ethos, any martial class
Benefit: You gain training in the Diplomacy skill.
Once per encounter, you may choose one ally to be under your protection. That ally gains a +1 bonus to all defenses whenever you are in an adjacent square until the end of the encounter.

Holy Warrior Novice
Prerequisites: Valra ethos, any martial class, 4th level, Holy Warrior
Benefit:
You can swap one 3rd level or higher encounter attack power for this other cool and flavorful power...

Holy Warrior Expert
Prerequisites: Valra ethos, any martial class, 8th level, Holy Warrior
Benefit:
You can swap one 6rd level or higher utility power for this other cool and flavorful power...

Holy Warrior Specialist
Prerequisites: Valra ethos, any martial class, 10th level, Holy Warrior
Benefit:
You can swap one 9rd level or higher daily attack power for this other cool and flavorful power...



Or, do it as a Technique Feat. With this, you pick a theme, in this case one ethos and one power source. A character who matches those two qualities can choose the feat and gains a specific rider bonus on one of his at-will powers, depending on his class.

Holy Warrior
Prerequisites: Cha 13, any martial class, Valra ethos.
Benefit: You gain a benefit with any of the following powers you possess.
Commander's Strike (warlord): if the target of this power is of the Sodra ethos, your ally may add half your Charisma bonus (round up) to the attack roll.
Crushing Surge (fighter): if the target of this power is of the Sodra ethos, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier.
Riposte Strike (rogue): if the target of this power is of the Sodra ethos, you may add your Charisma bonus to the attack and damage roll of your riposte.
Twin Strike (ranger): if the target of this power is of the Sodra ethos, you deal extra damage equal to your Charisma bonus.

 

[Cadfan]

BendBars/LiftGates covers most of it.

But given that your project is essentially impossible, what about trusting your players?

Tell them to pick an ethos and a class, and then tell them to make their character fit the ethos as best they can. If they care about your setting, they will do just fine. They will pick classes and ethoses that can be matched up, and create characters that work well within your system. It might still be true that its hard to create a particular class/ethos combination, but that doesn't really matter since the viability of unselected choices isn't going to affect your game. And any NPCs you need that use unviable options can be custom built as per regular 4e principles with only the powers they actually need to function.

Under this system, you wouldn't have to create even a single power, unless you wanted to use an NPC from an unviable option, and then you'd only have to create the powers known by that NPC.

If you can't trust your players to do this, well, I guess what you should do depends on why you can't trust them. That's up to you.

 

[Nytmare]

Two different possibilities jump to mind for me.

One (the one that's a lot of work) would be to go through all the existing powers and assign ethos(es?) to each one. Then either have a set of rules dictating how many aligned powers you need before you could take a sympathetic or antithetic power (2:1 and 3:1 I'd guess?). Or have a set of rules dictating what your ethos is based off of what powers you've taken.

The second would be to have a set of abilities for each ethos that got tacked on regardless of what class the person took. Kinda like a suite of channel divinity feats that you got each tier.

 

[Michael Morris]

BendBars/LiftGates covers most of it.

But given that your project is essentially impossible, what about trusting your players?

Tell them to pick an ethos and a class, and then tell them to make their character fit the ethos as best they can. If they care about your setting, they will do just fine. They will pick classes and ethoses that can be matched up, and create characters that work well within your system. It might still be true that its hard to create a particular class/ethos combination, but that doesn't really matter since the viability of unselected choices isn't going to affect your game. And any NPCs you need that use unviable options can be custom built as per regular 4e principles with only the powers they actually need to function.

Under this system, you wouldn't have to create even a single power, unless you wanted to use an NPC from an unviable option, and then you'd only have to create the powers known by that NPC.

If you can't trust your players to do this, well, I guess what you should do depends on why you can't trust them. That's up to you.

This isn't a trust issue - I don't know where you're getting that at. The point of the setting as it is currently written is that spells and the like are attached to color. Learning a spell of a color puts the player under the influence of that color. Because of the way the system currently works any spellcasting class can learn any spell, but no one character can short of acquiring on the order of 30th level spell slots or the like (in which case they're already broken beyond repair, and the ability to use any spell is the least of the DM's concerns in that theoretical situation).

As to supporting all 18 classes? Meh - I used to try poupouri world a long time ago but it's been a long time since I'd allow anything. Honestly I can't allow dragonborn or tiefling into the setting as is so why should I worry about whether or not all 18 classes are supported.

PHB II and the discussions I'll be bringing up over the next few weeks in this forum are basically it. If I can't figure out how to get 4e to work with my setting then I guess I'll live with being a grognard. One thing I have learned, 4e is more deeply flawed as a D&D base ruleset than 3e is despite being a major improvement over it in several areas. It has promise so I'm going to try to come up with something just like I did with Player's Option.

 

[fissionessence]

Part of what distinguishes the ethoses is that they do some actions well and others not so well and still others not at all. It's a puzzling problem.

Then why do you want all classes to fit under all ethoses? Or am I misunderstanding? I agree with keterys that some classes should exist within certain ethoses, and not within others. Hopefully each ethos would get a good mix of class roles, though; let's take a look:

Defender
Fighter - Seems to fit easily into Abora, Shunra, Sodra or Valra.
Paladin - Pretty squarely into Valra. You could find 3PPs to fit Sodra as well.
Swordmage* - Balcra, Shunra or Sodra.
Warden - Abora or Shunra.

Leader
Cleric - Valra.
Bard* - Any but Sodra.
Warlord - Any.
Shaman - Abora, Shunra or Valra.
Artificer* - Balcra or Valra.

Controller
Wizard* - Balcra, Shunra or Sodra.
Druid - Abora or Shunra.
Invoker - Shunra, Sodra or Valra.

Striker
Rogue - Balcra, Shunra or Sodra.
Ranger - Abora, Shunra, Sodra or Valra.
Warlock* - Balcra, Shunra or Sodra.
Sorcerer* - Balcra, Shunra, Sodra.
Barbarian - Abora, Shunra or Sodra.
Avenger - Sodra or Valra.

* The powers from this list will fit into varying different ethoses; choose only ones that fit your ethos(es), or modify the flavor of the ones you choose so that they fit.

On some of those above I kind of stretched the flavor of the class, but I don't think I went too far on any of them (that's without being totally familiar with your world). Take the character class and just describe it in a way that fits into the ethos the character has chosen. If you're worried about certain mechanics fitting into certain ethoses, consider that in order to uphold the law and community, the good king must sometimes use underhanded maneuvers to root out uprising evil in the society. And who better to perform these assassinations than a rogue who agrees with the mantra of the kingdom, and who knows that what he does must be done in, the name of all? The actions this rogue is performing seem obviously black-mana aligned, but he is doing them for his beliefs, which are white-mana aligned (and that is how is ethos is defined, right?).

If you're worried about actual elemental effects, such as fire coming from the Abora, just reskin powers so that they fit the magic of the ethos in question. One of my players wanted to play a shadowy psychic version of the witch doctor (from One Bad Egg), so I told him to pick either fire or lightning to change to necrotic (a lot of the witch doctor's powers use those damage types). He chose lightning, so now any power he picks that uses lightning uses necrotic instead. He picks those powers along with the ones that do psychic effects, and he has the character he had envisioned. Something like a Shunra wizard should work fine; just have the player pick all fire and lightning powers, maybe replace the cantrips with some alternate feature (or maybe not) and you're good to go.

Honestly, if you want every mechanic to fit into every ethos it's in perfectly, and you want every class to be available in every ethos, I have no idea how you made a 3.5 version of this concept work in the first place. Then again, I have a feeling I don't totally understand what you're trying to do here (and what's standing in your way of doing it).

~ fissionessence

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another possibility that might be worth considering is to have feats for alignment to various ethoses, and the feats give a big bonus to one area and a small penalty to another

e.g. Scion of Valra gets +2 to all powers with the healing keyword but -1 to powers with (appropriate keyword). Scion of Shunra gets +2 on powers with fire keyword but -1 to powers with healing keyword

Set these up in a form that makes sense for you and go with that?

Alternatively, create a set of powers which are related to ethos rather than class, and create 'multiclass' feats which allow PCs to multiclass into one (or more) ethos, and then use power swap feats to get powers from the ethos.

Cheers

 

[Engilbrand]

Things will need to change. That much is clear. I find the idea to be absolutely staggering. Why, if you're willing to change some things, aren't you willing to change others?
If Clerics seem too much of one type, I'll assume that it's because of the fact that they tend to deal Radiant damage. Switch it to Necrotic as appropriate. Do that as necessary.
4e isn't more "deeply flawed". You're trying to do something that neither it nor any other system I'm familiar with is designed to do. I'm sure that you've made it work with other systems or editions, but I have no doubt that a lot of changing had to happen.
How much do your players play into the idea? Is it really that important to your setting?

 

[Roger]

The point of the setting as it is currently written is that spells and the like are attached to color. Learning a spell of a color puts the player under the influence of that color. Because of the way the system currently works any spellcasting class can learn any spell

I think this is your answer right here.

Attach all powers to colours.

Characters can learn any power.

That could potentially get a little weird, but it's where I'd start.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[keterys]

It should mostly work fine - there's a couple of powers that should not cross streams (like, defenders getting "don't fight me" powers from strikers) but those situations are pretty rare.

 

[wannabesuperman]

Based on what I've read, you've got at least a passing understanding of M:tg design structure, so that's how I'd approach your problem, if I were you.

Go to page 55 of the 4e PHB. You'll find lists of Power Sources, Damage Types and Effect Types. There are over 25 different "Types" listed there. Assign each Power Source to one (or two) of your alignments; assign each Effect Type to two (or three) allied (or opposed) alignments; and then do the same with each Damage Type.

You'll probably want each type of damage to be available to 4/5 of the alignments (in other words, excluded only by one alignment).

The effects should be based on the interactions between alignments, and so should deal with two or three at a time, some because of how they work together, and some because of the tension among them.

It'll be a system that sometimes undermines a build for players that want to roleplay well, but it'll be a rich character-building exercise when more options are available.

If you want help figuring this out, just say so. I love projects like this.