Proposal: Replacing Half Level Bonuses

[amnuxoll]

Proposal: You no longer gain a bonus equal to half your level on defenses, attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks and initiative. Instead, every time you gain a new level you gain 6 "level points" that you can spend as follows:

- 1 point = +1 level bonus to one defense (Fort, Reflex or Will)
- 3 points = +1 level bonus to AC
- 2 points = +1 level bonus to all skills
- 1 point = +2 level bonus to a specific skill
- 4 points = +1 level bonus to attack rolls
- 1 point = +1 level bonus to initiative

You must spend all your level points as soon as you earn them. Your current level bonus to any of the above may never exceed 3/4 of your level.


==========

What does this do? At the cost of modicum of additional complexity it allows you to de-vanilla the probabilities in 4e without unbalancing it. Right now your probability of success or failure at *any* level appropriate task in 4e is pretty much fixed at around 50%. It doesn't matter if you're swinging a sword, climbing a wall or ducking a breath weapon. There is a little variability based on class, race and skill focus but not much. For the most part, it's always about 50%. I think that stinks. This house rule gives players the opportunity to make trade-offs and be better at some things in exchange for being worse at others. The 3/4 level limit prevents your base success probability from exceeding 75% so you still can't build a character who is always successful at something.

This also provides some nice mechanical hooks for roleplaying.
Example: The defender who is as strong as (and dumb as) a rock can concentrate on defenses at the expense of attacks, skills and initiative.
Example: The lilting swashbuckler can concentrate on attacks, AC, initiative and Reflex defense but fall behind on Fortitude, Will and skills.
Example: The MacGuyver rogue can maximize skill rolls at the cost of a little defense.

One potential negative: You do lose the guarantee that everyone in a 20th level party is better than a 1st level character at anything. I think the only time that this is a significant issue is with skills. If you wanted to, we could avoid that by keeping the fixed 1/2 level bump to skills and only spending 5 points per level.

FYI, if you balance the distribution of your points evenly you end up just slightly behind a PC who uses the standard PHB half-level bonuses. I figure you pay that small penalty in order to get the greater flexibility.

Just throwing it out there...
:AMN:

 

[Smeelbo]

Whereas I understand your motivation (I was upset by the relative lack of customization in 4E), I think it works against the design of 4E in a way that will have negative consequences.

Let me explain. 4E is based on the premise that characters should be balanced on a linear Level vs Level graph. This requires that all characters scale linearly with level, which is what + 1/2 level does.

One of 3.x's main flaws was that bonuses varied so wildly, that there was a minimal correlation between Level vs. Level. The difference between a character that focused on one skill or attack and more rounded characters is enormous, and rises with level. This gives us three basic cases for a party in a campaign.

1) One or two maxers and the rest rounders
2) All maxers
3) All rounders

Assuming the DM tries to appropriately challenge the party, these cases make his job more difficult. Challenges appropriate for maxers would not be appropriate for rounders and vice versa. It would almost as if they were playing different games, because balance against them is so different.

Worse, in all three cases, the characters would diverge as level increased. The maxers would become much better at their max, and relatively more awful at their mins. Rounders might choose to acquire new abilities instead of increasing their existing abilities, and so their effective power would not rise as fast as their level as they become more and more diverse.

What the 4E + 1/2 x level bonus accomplishes is to minimize the difference between maxers and rounders. This makes it easier for the referee to make appropriate challenges for all the characters in the party. In addition, it makes it easier in theory for Hasbro to publish appropriately balanced materials, whether adventures, or new classes, powers, or magic items.

So your proposed option makes it more difficult for both players (more bookkeeping) and the referee (harder to design appropriate challenges). Further, it is not strictly necessary, as you can already do much of the job already with feats, such as Skill Focus or Iron Will.

If you remove + 1/2 x Level for attack, and replace it with your proposed system, enough players will choose to bump attack rolls each level that the gap between maxers and rounders will render what balance exists null and void. Max attackers will choose + Level for attack, rendering the defense given in the Monster Manual obsolete.

I am greatly sympathetic towards your desire for customization, as I was a great fan of 3.5, but the more I examine 4E, the more impressed I am by its design.

Smeelbo

 

[Nifft]

I would always put 4 points into ATTACK BONUS. Every single time.

Screw skills.
I would have +15 to hit by level 30.

Cheers, -- N

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

Maybe not.. but...

I won't rehash Smeelbo's excellent analysis of the situation, but let's not drop the hammer on this too quickly. We already know that you can remove magic items pretty much completely from the game by giving everyone a +1 Awesome bonus to attacks and defenses about every 5 levels. What if you wanted to run a magic-lite game where all of the magic items the characters found did an absurd number of weird things and were just as dangerous as they were helpful? (a la 1E and to a lesser extent, 2E) Every level, you get an Awesome point; apply them as per AMN's system here except that you can hold them over from level to level. Eh?

 

[amnuxoll]

I am greatly sympathetic towards your desire for customization, as I was a great fan of 3.5, but the more I examine 4E, the more impressed I am by its design.

Smeelbo

You've pretty much nailed my intent. I too was sick of the rampant character build abuse in 3.5e. But my feeling is that 4E has over-corrected for this. My proposal was intended to dial back on the control a bit without giving away the farm. I'm not convinced that I have not accomplished that here.

In 3.5e one key to a "good" build was synergy between class abilities. This house rule is not reinstating that. Also, point-buy systems have a proven track record in many other game systems.

But yes, I agree this is taking a step back from the design philosophy of 4e. I just think it's a step in the right direction. Thanks for the thoughtful reply!

:AMN:

 

[Nifft]

I won't rehash Smeelbo's excellent analysis of the situation, but let's not drop the hammer on this too quickly. We already know that you can remove magic items pretty much completely from the game by giving everyone a +1 Awesome bonus to attacks and defenses about every 5 levels. What if you wanted to run a magic-lite game where all of the magic items the characters found did an absurd number of weird things and were just as dangerous as they were helpful? (a la 1E and to a lesser extent, 2E) Every level, you get an Awesome point; apply them as per AMN's system here except that you can hold them over from level to level. Eh?

The magic item removal formula is a fixed set of bonuses over the course of 5 levels. You can't skip an attack bonus point and assign it to AC, for example. That's part of the point.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Alex319]

I would always put 4 points into ATTACK BONUS. Every single time.

Screw skills.
I would have +15 to hit by level 30.

Cheers, -- N

Actually, you'd only have +7. He said you can only max at +3/4 of your level.

The overall idea of more character customization seems like a reasonable idea. Basically, you'll have to decide, quantitatively, about how many points you want characters to be able to be "off" from the standard. Then you could set up a point system that enables people to trade away that many points.

Another thing to think about is how the customization scales across multiple levels. Let's say you want players to alter their attack bonuses, skills, etc. by 4 points in either direction by 30th level via customization. If you do it linearly by level (like you do in your system) then they would be at +2/-2 worth of customization by 15th level, and it would take them until 7th or 8th level to even get a +1/-1, which might be too slow for your tastes. Instead you might want a system that will let people get that customization in early, but doesn't let players get extremely high boosts at high levels.

I have an idea of how to do this. I don't have time to post it right now but I'll post it later tonight.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

Nifft, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you here. Magic and mundane gear is modular. If my rogue chooses to wield a +2 proficiency bonus weapon and burn a feat to get medium armor, he (or she) is down a point of attack and up a point (or two) of AC. Obviously not in the same way, but the effect remains. That's not game-breaking. My tempest fighter could wield two daggers to gain an extra point to attack and drop damage and there wouldn't be a problem there. Furthermore, if I don't have a Cloak of Resistance +1 by fifth level - say I'm playing LFR and I haven't come across a module where that is a treasure bundle - I'm certainly at a disadvantage, but not hopelessly so.

Customization inherently carries with it the opportunity and possibility to be less than optimal. If you want to be able to customize meaningfully, there are going to be ways to paint yourself into a corner. That being said, it's not as offbalancing to replace a modular system with another modular system. It seems clear after many lengthy discussions that dropping the non-modular +1/2 level bonus is a Bad Idea. A modular magic item system replaced by a well thought-out modular point buy system will carry some balance risk, but acceptably so.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Alex319]

Well, anyway, here's my idea as promised.

-----

Customization Modifier (CM) System)

Each score (attack, skills, etc.) is given a static bonus, known as the CM (Customization Modifier).

You "purchase" CMs using a point buy system. Each bonus costs a given amount of customization points (CP). The total CP spent must be zero or less; i.e. if you want a positive CM for one score then you must balance it out with a negative CM for another score. Effectively, you "sell back" certain scores by getting penalties (negative CP) and you use those to "purchase" bonuses (costing positive CP.) Of course you can choose not to use the system at all and take zeros for all your CMs.

CP Cost Table:

Score             -4  -3  -2  -1  0  +1  +2  +3  +4

Attack Rolls      -15 -12 -9  -5  0  +6  +12 +20 +28
One NAD*          -4  -3  -2  -1  0  +1  +2  +3  +4
Armor Class       -7  -6  -4  -2  0  +3  +6  +10 +14
One Skill         NA  NA  NA  NA  0  +1  +2  +3  +4 
3 Related Skills  NA  NA  NA  NA  0  +2  +4  +6  +8
All Skills        -7  -6  -4  -2  0  +3  +6  +9  +12
Initiative        -2  -1  -1  0   0  +1  +2  +4  +6

*Non-Armor Class Defense (fort, ref, or will)

Special Notes for Skills:

You may not sell back (choose a penalty for) one skill or three related skills. If you want to get points by selling back skills, you must sell back all of them.

If you purchase an "All skills" option, you may purchase "one skill" or "3 related skills" packages, and the bonuses stack. (You can also purchase the same skill as a single skill and in a "3 related skills" package. However, it is still limited by the maximum CM you are normally allowed. For example, if you are 10th level, and you have +2 to all skills, the most extra you can purchase for an individual skill is +1.

You can of course get a penalty to "All skills" and offset it with bonuses for specific skills. For example, if you want a -3 to all skills except Diplomacy, you can get -3 to all skills (giving 6 more CP) and then buy +3 to Diplomacy (spending 3 CP).
----

At each even level, you can change your CM allocations without using a retraining option. The maximum and minimum CMs you are allowed at each level is as follows:

LV  Min Max
1    0   0
2    -1  +1
3    -1  +1
4    -2  +1
5    -2  +1
6    -3  +2
7    -3  +2
8    -4  +2
9    -4  +2
10  -4  +3
11  -4  +3
12  -4  +3
13  -4  +3
14+ -4  +4

 

[Smeelbo]

Heroic Feat: Dabbler, +2 feat bonus to two skills

At minimum, I'd try to remove bonuses to attack from your customizations rules. Either it would become no choice at all, i.e., everyone would grab every attack bonus to attack they could, or else those who did not grab every attack bonus they could would be at an increasingly severe disadvantage in combat, and appropriate encounters would be harder to design.

What about skill points then? Well, except for the fact that a given character can't have enough feats, I'd say Skill Focus is good enough. For example, a Warlock who wants to take advantage of hiding might use a couple feats to Train and Focus Stealth, and even with a crappy DEX, they'd be good enough.

Do you really need skill points on top of that? And if you do give skill points, but not the opportunity to buy attack bonuses, then the combat centered characters will be given something that they may not find useful, while your skill monkeys will use the skill points to max their favorite skills.

Similarly, is there really any reason to mess with defenses beyond what is already available?

The solution might be as simple as something like this:

Heroic Tier Feat: Dabbler
Requires: INT 12+ or WIS 12+
Choose 2 skills. Gain a +2 feat bonus with each of these skills. You may select Dabbler multiple times, choosing different skills each time.

Clean and simple, adds only a single feat to the game, and allows characters to dabble in skills for the cost of a single feat. Might be too good in comparison to Skill Focus, but does not stack with it or Jack of All Trades.

My gut tells me to tinker as little as possible with the rules, until I really understand them a lot better.

Smeelbo

EDIT: I started my post off-line before dinner, and have not yet considered the proposed MLB in detail. At first glance, it at least attempts to address many of my concerns.