Pushing the 4th edition envelope

[Quickleaf]

I was inspired by [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] to start a thread about how I'd tweaked 4e to get an "old school" feel to my campaigns. Beyond that, I would like for this thread to serve as a discussion place for some of the more radical/creative adaptations of 4e rules to achieve a certain play style.

One of the assertions I periodically come across is that 4e isnt conducive to old school dungeon-crawling. To kick off this thread I'd like to challenge that notion and provide some examples of things I've done to achieve a traditional D&D feel:

• Skirmishes: 4e's encounter building designs are meant to produce epic set-piece fights. If I want a different encounter model, I need to change the design principles I use. Focus on equal or lower level threats, limiting brutes and soldiers. Consider introducing an intermediary monster type between minions and standards, "humanoids" for lack of a better name (with 33% standard HP, and old damage expressions). Then use standard MM3 stats for large or non-humanoid monsters. Use plentiful minions with close attention to complimentary monster roles, terrain, and hazards to make the encounter more challenging than the low-powered monsters would otherwise suggest. Also, with a bunch of these smaller skirmish-scale combats potential, you can also make alarms and reinforcements a greater threat. This allows you to reincorporate random encounters without worrying about spending an inordinate amount of time on combat. These sorts of smaller encounters are recognized quickly by players who will not look to their daily powers, preferring to save those, and thereby reducing the number of options they have to choose from. I am continuing to experiment with non-minis/grid encounters, simultaneous initiative, and fights using only at-wills & page 42.
  
• Leaning on Healing Surges: As other 4e DMs have noted, the main limit on how much adventuring happens in a day are the PCs' healing surges. Old school gaming relies on strategic thinking and resource-management; the more clever players can get with lateral thinking the fewer resources they have to spend. Healing surges should be the main resource the players try to conserve. Thus, look to monsters like wights that drain surges, skill challenges/hazards which cost healing surges, and provide options for the PCs to achieve cool effects by spending healing surges. For example, I allowed a spellcaster PC to improvise a dispel magic spell by spending an equivalent arcane power, and making an Arcana check to determine how many healing surges it cost her. Don't be afraid to overdo it at first, it is better to err on the side of hitting the PCs surges too much than too little. As a corollary to this, you need to provide disincentives for the PCs wanting to take an extended rest such as monsters re-spawning or adapting to PC tactics. This de-emphasizes the encounter and makes the overall adventure more important.
  
• Exploration Skill Challenges: One of the defining features of old school play is that a lot of time is spent exploring massive dungeons or foreboding wilderness. I have found that using a skill challenge structure (not strictly limited to skills) and linking it to overland travel, rations/water/henchmen, and random encounters is a great way to handle exploration that is more abstract than following a large keyed map. Some key things to keep in mind are to give teeth to the failures in an exploration challenge; let the PCs get split apart, captured, or exposed to dangerous traps. On the matter of traps, include more of them and make them nastier than the ones presented in RAW! Also keep in mind that exploration encounters should be given thought about how they can be overcome without resorting to combat.

Those are my preliminary thoughts. Look forward to chatting more on the subject

 

[tuxgeo]

Regarding your point about fights using only at-will attack powers and page 42: do you find that this encourages your players to play Human PCs having the bonus at-will attack power in place of the later "Heroic Effort" feature?

Or is there no noticeable trend in that direction?

 

[fjw70]

One thing I have wanted to try out is to only allow a short rest once per day and require a week's rest rest for an extended rest.

 

[Nikosandros]

One thing I have wanted to try out is to only allow a short rest once per day and require a week's rest rest for an extended rest.

The characters would be stuck spamming at wills all day long, wouldn't they?

 

[fjw70]

The characters would be stuck spamming at wills all day long, wouldn't they?

Most fights would be against minions and the PC would rely on at-wills and page 42 stunts. Encounter and daily powers would be reserved for the tougher non-minion fights.

The purpose would be to recreate old school style game play with lots of small fights.

 

[fjw70]

I have experimented with two-hit minions (let's call them mooks). They have an hp threshold of 5+level. If you damage them and meet or exceed the threshold then you kill them out right. If you do less than the threshold then you bloody them. Any damage to a bloodied mook kills them. Also they do twice the damage of a minion.

 

[Balesir]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm currently converting the old "Pool of Radiance" CRPG for 4E play. It's too early days, yet, to say much about results (I'm still running an existing campaign through Epic; the PoR conversion is going at a relaxed pace!), but as a result of some noodling I've come up with some general thoughts:

I'm rolling together several original "encounters" to make one 4E "encounter". The idea is not that this will all happen as one big fight, but rather that 5 minutes is quite a long time to hang about in the proximity of hostile creatures, so the PCs will get a Short Rest only after a section of the "dungeon" has been cleared out.

This model has benefits in terms of tactial richness (the "battlefield" can extend to several rooms and passages), "phasing" of minions (different groups naturally appear at different times as they are in different rooms to start with) and combining traps and such with combat (the trap might be encountered "alone", but nearby creatures might attack if it isn't dealt with quietly/quickly).

One thing I realise I need is some improved systems/processes for sight and sound. The larger distances and walls/doors in between means that detection will not be as simple as "you know where any non-hidden creature is". The whole party keeping quiet/concealed and groups of monsters being undetected until they act will be crucial.

Overall, though, after designing some sections I think this could work well. The exploration of a full dungeon "section" becomes a 4E extended "encounter", with hide-and-seek, trapfinding and "wandering monster" fights all rolled into it. When a relatively secure perimeter has been "cleared" (by whatever means), the characters get to rest before tackling the next section.

 

[fjw70]

4e without feats is something else I want try some day. I would probably give each PC a +1 feat bonus to attacks and defenses for each tier of play, and make superior weapons military weapons.

 

[Halivar]

Well, here's an old thread from the Way Back Machine with some ideas I had for pushing the 4E envelope. Turned out fantastic in play:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...bjectives-(other-than-quot-kill-em-all-quot-)

 

[vagabundo]

I like the ideas here. I love a lot of 4e, but I never ran a good campign in it. For a variety of reasons it fell apart and wasn't fun.

If I was to do it again I would run maybe a Nether<sp?> Vale sandbox. I'd maybe remove feats. I'd want to remove some of the fiddlyness of character creation. Maybe import Advantage/Disadvantage from 5e. I'd probably allow learning of new powers/spells a will. And break he system in all sorts of ways.

I feel most of the stuff I want to fix is on the PC side, the DM side is so flexible anyway that I feel I can build anything I need with the systems that are there.

4e is so awesome on the DM side.