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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 5416491" data-attributes="member: 2804">I find this thread fascinating partly because I'm of a like mind to ferratus. I love the foundation that 4e provides to D&D but I would make changes to aspects that I dislike in 4e.1) My core dislike is the mini mandated nature of 4e combat. I vastly prefer narrative combat except for big set piece battles.The problem with moving 4e towards narrative combat is divorcing powers from minis. All the movement powers are a real pain in narrative combat. I came up with some house rules to address this though and posted them in the 4e house rules forum months ago. I can repost if there is interest.2) I also dislike the powers system principally because I dislike the encounter/daily power paradigm. I also hated daily based power usage and spell slots (another daily resource) in 3e and prior editions as well.I personally believe that controlling PC resource management should be entirely in the hands of the players. I believe the current system of splittling resource management between player choice and DM fiat is a heavy contributor to the 15 minute adventuring day.I don't see the one encounter and were camping issue as much in 4e as I did in 3e but now I see the 3 or 4 encounters and we're camping issue (often determined by how many surges the PC have left). Which is an improvement from a metagame standpoint, but IMO just as bad from a verisimilitude standpoint, especially if those 4 encounters took only about one hour of in-game time.Essentially, I'd prefer a system that gave PCs complete control over the refresh of their abilities after every combat and that didn't require ever camping or taking an extended rest in the middle of a dungeon. Trailblazer from Badaxe Games had some good ideas in that regard which I think are worth looking at, though its geared more towards DMs that want to use 3.5 as their D&D foundation instead of 4e.3) My next issue with 4e is the horribly bland nature of magic items, often offering nothing more than a bonus and an underwhelming daily power. This requires a bit more work on the DM's part, but I would probably use the inherent bonus rules and then all magic items are rare but are like mini-artifacts. The artifacts in 4e are more like how I think magic items should work.4) The next big change I might consider making in 4e is to remove the 1/2 level advancement from all PCs and to likewise also subtract 1/2 level from all monster bonuses and defenses. IMO, this grealy increases verisimilitude where high level PCs still fight epic stuff, but orcs and goblins are still a threat as well. Leveling up gives you new abilities, hit points, and damage output, but it ends the ever escalating bonuses that essentially makes high level PCs walking demi-gods.There are settings where that makes sense, but I prefer my game to be a bit more grounded. Sure the PCs are still extremely tough and powerful, but they should still have one foot grounded in reality. You can challenge mighty dragons, but getting jumped by assassins in an alley is still a threat.This rule is also good if you want to run a long term campaign where PCs found an empire or dynasty but you still want your players to be able to play those characters regularly without having to throw demon lords at them just to challenge them all the time.</blockquote>

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