Personalized Powers

[Sadrik]

Garthanos, you have a very nice page with some excellent ideas.

 

[dragon23ca]

One of my players renamed 'dreadful word' to 'fuzzy bunnies'. As thats the word she wanted to be dreadful. And another of my players renamed 'lance of faith' to 'lance to the face'.

 

[Garthanos]

Garthanos, you have a very nice page with some excellent ideas.

Thanks! Some of the ideas really have version flavor on them (ooh eck) but many could be advanced in the context of 4e too.

I hope to see even more threads like this one, here...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...-visualization-skinning-fly.html#post4763039\
(tide of iron still needs some help I think)

Perhaps focusing on another classes core at-wills... Rogue or Cleric would be good next.

 

[Garthanos]

One of my players renamed 'dreadful word' to 'fuzzy bunnies'. As thats the word she wanted to be dreadful. And another of my players renamed 'lance of faith' to 'lance to the face'.

Heh, my name is Lance... so that takes on all together new meaning

 

[Leif]

I think what is significant is that it is the players who are being encouraged to do the re-visualization. I am inclined to give the wizard free class feature is to allow any power with an energy key word to be swapped out with any other that the class has initially when you take it. Or at the cost of a feat to allow this at-will for a set of energies (I am an elementalist).

Heck not just Wizards, Swordmages, Warlocks just about anybody. Paladins and Priests ought to be locked in closer to whatever there god's feature energy type(s) are and feature weapon type is (but since I allow players to help me build my world a bit we can probably create a god with their favored types.)

For me the energy type has a large impact on visualization, if you are really allowing the players to re visualize I don't think it should be written in stone.

Yes, I agree totally! The players need to be involved in this process in order for it to have the desired effect. (Which is making the game come alive and be more fun for everyone.)

In my http://www.enworld.org/forum/playing-game/249118-whirtlestaffs-wizards-academy-revisited-ic-2-a.html, (3.5 game, btw) I try to encourage this (in particular for spell effects), but I also see no reason why the same spell should look the same each time that it is cast. As long as the results are mechanically the same, the fluff aspects of what actually happens can be changed as much as the caster desires, I firmly believe.

Now, applying this to the exploits of a 4E Martial Character is something that adds an entirely new wrinkle to the situation and holds plenty more promise, too! I've not given this adequate thought yet to even try to speak intelligently about it, but I surely hope that I do so very, very soon.

 

[Garthanos]

As long as the results are mechanically the same, the fluff aspects of what actually happens can be changed as much as the caster desires, I firmly believe.

Now, applying this to the exploits of a 4E Martial Character is something that adds an entirely new wrinkle to the situation and holds plenty more promise, too! I've not given this adequate thought yet to even try to speak intelligently about it, but I surely hope that I do so very, very soon.

Great the more hammer's in the imagination forge the better!
One very useful thing I noticed you can freely add a specific situation limit I only describe it "this way" when this condition occurs.... when the sun is behind me ... when my enemy is bloodied etc.

 

[Leif]

Great the more hammer's in the imagination forge the better!
One very useful thing I noticed you can freely add a specific situation limit I only describe it "this way" when this condition occurs.... when the sun is behind me ... when my enemy is bloodied etc.

But then, how do you keep up with your different versions of the same powers? It seems like you would need a whole notebook for each class to have adequate room for everything! Not to mention complete tables of contents and very specific word indices to find anything that you were looking for.

 

[Garthanos]

But then, how do you keep up with your different versions of the same powers? It seems like you would need a whole notebook for each class to have adequate room for everything! Not to mention complete tables of contents and very specific wor indices to find anything that you were looking for.

The idea is just to get people out of there rut... yup make it up "on the fly" the big list is not even used directly most of the time... a given character might usually use only a few of the descriptions... and every once in a while ... those other ones pop out... there is a happy medium in there... between spamming one thing and the full library of description...

But it is easier to remove than add. ;-).

 

[Garthanos]

One Idea I had was to have the powers on cards and have 8 or 10 flavor texts on the backside of each card ... as readily available reminders.

 

[Leif]

One Idea I had was to have the powers on cards and have 8 or 10 flavor texts on the backside of each card ... as readily available reminders.

Great idea, but, I tell ya, it sounds like more work than I planned on when the DM bug bit me.