D&D 4E Old-School Wild Talents for Dark Sun 4e

[CM]

My next 4e campaign is going to be Dark Sun and will be starting up in January. My group had DS games in both 2e and 3e previously and will now be using 4e. The last few 4e campaigns I have played mostly by-the-books but now I feel confident enough to do some homebrewing. We will most likely not be using the character builder this time around so I wanted to take the opportunity to adapt the old 2e psionic powers to 4e wild talents.

Linked below is a google docs list of 2e psionic sciences and devotions that I have attempted to adapt to a 4e approximation. They are intended to be roughly equivalent in power to a level 1 encounter, at-will, or daily, or a level 2 utility. At this point I'm not sure if we'll be using a point-buy system to acquire wild talents in our game (with different point costs for each talent) or if we want to try to balance them all against each other.

They do not have full 4e-style power stat blocks, but only have keywords where necessary. They also play a little fast and loose with the rules, but it should be apparent how they work to anyone familiar with 4e. I look forward to any feedback anyone has, and hope someone might find them useful.

4e Psionic Wild Talents (Google Documents)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish- in many ways, the 4Ed multiclassing feats are similar to the old 2Ed wild talents- you get a low-level power, maybe s skill and implement, and that's about it.

 

[CM]

I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish- in many ways, the 4Ed multiclassing feats are similar to the old 2Ed wild talents- you get a low-level power, maybe s skill and implement, and that's about it.

I am puzzled by your response. Like I said, the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting has a small number of at-will wild talents to choose from. That wasn't really satisfactory to me because in 2e, nearly any psionic power was possible as a wild talent, from disintegration to teleportation. In addition, I didn't want characters of non-psionic classes to have to track or use power points, so these abilities are all self-contained. Finally, I also missed the sci-fi feel many of the 2e powers had. The 4e versions are fairly bland.

These wild talents are not intended to be accessed through feats or other means--they are an additional set of options available to characters. Characters using this wild talent system are not intended to be balanced against characters that do not use it. It's a use-at-your-own-risk add-on.

 

[GreyICE]

It's not too hard to homebrew that system into a set of powers. I would make them a mix of Encounter Powers and Daily Powers, simply because of the nature of the beast. I'd also cut some.


Cutting Room Floor

All-Around Vision: Uncanny Dodge etc. do the same thing. If you want your powers to feel unique, don't replicate a common feat with them.

Detonate: Suffers the same scaling issues as everything else without implement/weapon keywords, and doesn't feel unique at all. Plus very similar to disintegrate.

Project Force: Extremely boring result to get. This system is not meant to be boring. Also a half-giant's fist does d6 damage?

Send Thoughts: Boring and a racial feature of a few races.


Serious balance issues

Absorb Affliction: Should either be a minor, or should allow an immediate save AND a save at end of turn at the cost of a standard. Standard is quite the action type to give up.

Alter Size: The definition of a minor action

Lend Health: This just seems... bad. Maybe give the target the Second Wind bonus to defenses? Leaders get better healing abilities as minor actions, yes this can go on a non-leader, but that doesn't quite justify the difference. Maybe make it minor? The comparison between this and Share Strength is ridiculous.

Magnify Pain: The definition of a tracking nightmare.


Overall I really like the system! I'd do a random roll though, it's just more fun. To make sure everyone is not a Wild Talent, I'd make it so that players could either choose to have a Theme or have a Wild Talent custom theme. Give them 1 Wild Talent power at level 1, and a second at level 5, rolled randomly. Some players should pick the coolness of Wild Talent, some will pick the known quantities of Themes.

 

[CM]

Thanks for your comments, I'll respond to them individually.

All-Around Vision: Uncanny Dodge etc. do the same thing. If you want your powers to feel unique, don't replicate a common feat with them.

Detonate: Suffers the same scaling issues as everything else without implement/weapon keywords, and doesn't feel unique at all. Plus very similar to disintegrate.

Project Force: Extremely boring result to get. This system is not meant to be boring. Also a half-giant's fist does d6 damage?

Send Thoughts: Boring and a racial feature of a few races.

Good point on All-Around Vision. I still want to keep the power but will see if I can come up with a more unique effect.

For detonate and project force (and other attack type talents) I wanted to have at least a few talents available to augment the ranged abilities of what might otherwise be melee characters. Obviously a caster or ranger might not appreciate these abilities, but a fighter or warlord might. Also I didn't add in any scaling attack bonuses at this point because we'll be using inherent bonuses and we might be running this game without the half-level bonus. Eventually when those questions are answered, attack powers will be re-examined for attack bonus.

As for uniqueness, while some of these powers have similar stats for combat use, their actual effect makes them more unique for out-of-combat use, I think. Detonate is a loud, flashy attack, disintegrate is more subtle. Maybe they could be reduced to a single power but you choose which effect you can create when you learn the ability.

Send thoughts does need some help. This first draft was mostly to convert the power. Like all-around vision it will have to be spiced up a bit.

Serious balance issues

Absorb Affliction: Should either be a minor, or should allow an immediate save AND a save at end of turn at the cost of a standard. Standard is quite the action type to give up.

Alter Size: The definition of a minor action

Lend Health: This just seems... bad. Maybe give the target the Second Wind bonus to defenses? Leaders get better healing abilities as minor actions, yes this can go on a non-leader, but that doesn't quite justify the difference. Maybe make it minor? The comparison between this and Share Strength is ridiculous.

Magnify Pain: The definition of a tracking nightmare.

Absorb Affliction: Good point on the action economy. I wanted to err on the side of caution to start. I played a warlord with magic armor that had a similar power as an at-will minor action. Perhaps this should be the same. Touch range is a significant limiter.

Alter Size: I can agree with this.

Lend Health: I think I'll make this ranged, and also grant a saving throw. As a standard action it still doesn't step on the toes of leader-class heals. I'll have to do some more comparison with the multiclass healing feats.

Overall I really like the system! I'd do a random roll though, it's just more fun. To make sure everyone is not a Wild Talent, I'd make it so that players could either choose to have a Theme or have a Wild Talent custom theme. Give them 1 Wild Talent power at level 1, and a second at level 5, rolled randomly. Some players should pick the coolness of Wild Talent, some will pick the known quantities of Themes.

Thanks again for your feedback. It's always good to have another pair of eyes on the work. At this point it looks like we'll either let players select one talent OR roll randomly for two talents and receive both. In 2e dark sun it was assumed every character was a wild talent (indeed, most NPCs too). I didn't think that changed for the 4e adaptation but I may have missed that part.

We might even let those characters that select one of the dark sun-specific themes (which aren't balanced with the more recent themes) select a bonus talent to account for the power difference, but that's still a few months off.

One thing I haven't addressed yet is the 10 classic psionic attack/defense forms. I think most or all of these names have been re-used for regular psionic class powers so maybe it's best to leave those be. I just miss the rock-paper-scissors aspect of those abilities.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I wasn't specifically tackling wild talents as an issue, but I've also thought about converting 2e powers to 4e. 2e powers tended to have great flavor, but needed a system like 3e or 4e that cared about game balance.

A lot of these powers would be rituals, ritual-like or let you use a specific ritual 1/day for free (no components, etc). Psychometry, for instance, would be a ritual. There's little need to use such a power "that fast". Absorb Affliction could be a ritual; I don't see why it needs to a minor action, since it's essentially Cure Disease without components.

I noticed a few powers mentioned (dis)advantage on skill checks. Were you planning on using 5e rules, or is that a rule you're importing from 5e?

A possible fix for Project Force - it used to knock opponents prone, but only on a "crit". If it's a "controller"-style power, I don't see why it can't just be "Xd6 damage, and the target falls prone". That's actually what I do when I have a monster with the Project Force power.

I am puzzled by your response. Like I said, the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting has a small number of at-will wild talents to choose from. That wasn't really satisfactory to me because in 2e, nearly any psionic power was possible as a wild talent, from disintegration to teleportation. In addition, I didn't want characters of non-psionic classes to have to track or use power points, so these abilities are all self-contained. Finally, I also missed the sci-fi feel many of the 2e powers had. The 4e versions are fairly bland.

These wild talents are not intended to be accessed through feats or other means--they are an additional set of options available to characters. Characters using this wild talent system are not intended to be balanced against characters that do not use it. It's a use-at-your-own-risk add-on.

This is still a balance issue, and not because wild talents are more powerful than non-talents. (Characters with themes are more powerful than those without, but lots of DMs use them, because themes are generally balanced with each other, and you should either have a "nobody has themes" campaign or an "everyone has themes" campaign.) The problem is that some wild talents are flat-out more powerful than others. These are more balanced than 2e, but there's still a lot of variance with each other. Because they address multiple categories (at-will vs daily, ritual vs attack vs utility combat power vs utility skill power [Enhance Body, for one]) it's probably not possible to balance these.

One thing I haven't addressed yet is the 10 classic psionic attack/defense forms. I think most or all of these names have been re-used for regular psionic class powers so maybe it's best to leave those be. I just miss the rock-paper-scissors aspect of those abilities.

I don't miss that aspect; it was like using Turn Undead every round. At least most of the attack modes had a place, in that you could use them against non-psions (mind thrust was the outlier there) but psionic blast was overpowered (it took away 80% of the target's hp, although only in their mind; still, that's a very fast KO).

For monsters, I often give them powers like Ego Whip (actually, WotC did too, although I think I've only seen two NPCs with it), Id Insinuation, etc, including the Will of the Way flavor text. I don't think Mind Thrust is broad enough to be giving to NPCs unless it's somehow plot-relevant.

Defense modes can go the way of the dodo. Alternatively, they could be used against any mind-affecting ability and not just psionics. (I've given a few monsters Tower of Iron Will, even though none of the PCs in my Dark Sun campaign are psionic; it simply gives the user and its allies a bonus to Will defense as an interrupt.)