Removing homogenity from 4e

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know if someone already said that, but I believe the fact that 4E combat is almost exclusively designed around dealing damage also contributes to the feeling of homogenity.

I can't say I was not really disappointed when I saw the illusionist powers in Dragon and instead of creating interesting illusions to deal with the party enemies in new and different ways he was just dealing psychic damage to them.

It is quite possible that the "Pacifist" build of the Cleric might not remain the only option to go beyond damage. But what probably will never go away might be that you have to bring down your enemies hit points to 0 to beat him.

But there are already some illusion attack powers now that don't deal damage and are considered very strong. And there might come more...

Maybe there is a potential for "not dealing" damage and still dispatching an opponent in the end - but it won't be a "instant death" type effect. More something like: "Sustain this power and hit 10 times and the opponent is killed/dominated/petrified for good."

 

[Drkfathr1]

My wife and I have been playing in a 4E campaign for six months now. Both of us feel the sameness to a degree.

There are ways of mixing things up and making them different, but we both still feel more satisfied with 3.5.

I think using the identical power structure and having the 1/2 level bonus to all classes is part of the homogenity we don't like.

It's not that individual classes with seperate powers don't play differently, they do, its just that they all use the same system for determining those powers, and its more combat oriented than ever before.

Yes, every edition of D&D is combat focuses, but 4E really feels like it skimped on the non-combat aspects of the game.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Using HP as the universal combat currency just makes the system more transparent.

I believe there are other ways to make the system more transparent.

3E never spent its time explaining that warriors were supposed to make the frontline of combat, or that rogue-types were supposed to scout and shine at skill-use, or that priest-types were supposed to use their best powers on party members instead of themselves, or that wizard-types were supposed to hide behind their friends and make their lifes easier with powerhouse spells.

Explaining that would have made a game transparent without the need of homogenity regarding character features, but they never did it, and I think that's a failure of the 3E era.

Making everything deal damage with almost every class feature is another way to make the game crystal clear, you can't go wrong gauging the power of character classes when all they do is deal damage in various ways. I just don't think is the best way to go, and I strongly believe it plays a heavy part in the feeling of homogenity that people describe here.

Cheers,

 

[FireLance]

Making everything deal damage with almost every class feature is another way to make the game crystal clear, you can't go wrong gauging the power of character classes when all they do is deal damage in various ways. I just don't think is the best way to go, and I strongly believe it plays a heavy part in the feeling of homogenity that people describe here.

If that is true, it's easily fixed. All you need to do is to add more powers similar to the pacifist cleric powers in Divine Power.

As an aside, it seems that the solution to the homogeneity problem is just to add more options. In retrospect, it seems kind of obvious...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Making everything deal damage with almost every class feature is another way to make the game crystal clear, you can't go wrong gauging the power of character classes when all they do is deal damage in various ways. I just don't think is the best way to go, and I strongly believe it plays a heavy part in the feeling of homogenity that people describe here.

I think it is still a trap that people can fall into that dealing damage is everything. Sure, in the end it only matters that you dealt enough damage to kill every enemy. But that's what always matters in combats. Even Save or Die abilities are not much more than saying "I deal enough damage to kill you, I just don't roll damage dice".
You have to goals in every combat - survive and beat the enemy. And you use tactics to ensure that you get to do both. And 4E is rich with abilities that facilitate tactical thinking and decision making. The homogenity is primarily on paper, but actual play what the homogenous slots that you have - feats, powers maybe even magic items - make quite a difference.

And I think that's also where the classes - while similar in structure - really differ, because they allow or require different tactics.

Clerics and Wizards had a very similar structure in 3E, too. They have to prepare spells, they have a similar number of spell slots. And that is the majority of what defines their abilities in the game. But what these spell slots actually fill makes quite a difference. Wizards can cast spells like Magic Missile or Fireball, Clerics can cast spell like Cure Light Wounds and Restoration.
A Cleric doesn't play like a Wizard in 3E, and nor does he play like a Wizard in 4E.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Where is the thing I can do as a rogue, or a wizard, or a fighter, that no one else does? It's not my combat role (others do that, though in different fiddly ways), it's not my out-of-combat role (others are basically my equal in this regard). What do I contribute to a party that is binary? That is "Oh, you don't have a Rogue, so you're going to suck at X."

I think this is a harder balancing act than even "power acquisition" rules, because part of 4e's philosophy is that everyone can contribute in some meaningful way all the time. Which isn't a bad philosophy, because it's boring sitting out a challenge you can't contribute to.

I dunno...there are some things that would alleviate the issue before we got to that point, I think. And maybe some sort of expanded roles system or whatnot is useful (In combat, a rogue is a striker! In exploration, the rogue is a trailblazer! In social situations, a rogue is a wit! The rogue is the only class with this unique combination; other classes have other combinations!) in just creating levels of difference.

The more things I can point to on my character sheet and say "I am the only character who can do this," the better the class variety gets, I think.

Which brings us to the OP. I don't think this is an insurmountable problem for 4e. Heck, talking like this, it seems that 4e could even probably accept some add-on systems to mostly solve the problem. And those that don't have a problem don't need to use any of the sub-systems.

Hmm...brain churning...

The problem (referring to the above something that only x can do) with this is that you can easily end up with circumstances that negatively impact the game, all for the sake of niche protection.

A prime example of this was 3.x rogue Trapfinding (which, IIRC, stated that only classes with trapfinding could find traps with a DC 20 or higher- most traps). Your character could be a master trap maker with a +50 search check, but unless you took a level of rogue (or one of the few other classes with Trapfinding) you could locate only the crudest of traps. It neither made sense nor benefited the game (IMO).

It was problematic because if you didn't have a trapfinder in the party, traps became that much more deadly (most DMs I knew simply would avoid using them without a trapfinder, because we weren't the biggest "Gotcha!" fans).

I think that a better approach would be to accentuate something that a particular class excels at. For example, rather than declaring that only rogues can find traps I think it would be better for the game as a whole to simply give them a bonus to finding traps. Of course, the pitfall of this is that it can easily lead back into the situation where either the rogue is the only one who can find the trap (because the DC is adjusted for a rogue with trapfinding) or the rogue automatically succeeds at trapfinding even when blindfolded (the DCs are calibrated so that anyone has a chance for success).

One solution might be to offer the rogue a small bonus (such as a +2 which doesn't much unbalance the DCs), or a feature that guarantees he's one of the characters with the highest trapfinding ability (such as allowing him to use his highest ability score in place of Wisdom when searching for traps) to reflect his expertise, but I imagine most would consider this insufficient differentiation.

Another possible solution that I've toyed with in my head would be to offer non-combat add on features (I think of them as Kits, akin to 2nd ed) that allow PCs to do something that they previously couldn't do. One example would be a Noble who is automatically able to call in favors (on a limited basis of course) based on his family's prestige (the other PCs could still, of course, earn political favors to call in, the noble simply gets bonus favors for "free"). The biggest challenge that I can see for this is simply thinking of enough interesting new "abilities" that don't step on the PCs' capacity to adventure normally (in other words, avoiding things like the aforementioned Trapfinding).

As a parting note, I would like to point out that 4e does already possess such features to a limited degree. For example, the Rogue Level 6 Utility Power, Chameleon, grants him a chance to remain hidden when another creature gains line of sight to him. That is something that no one else can do.

 

[Mallus]

3E never spent its time explaining that warriors were supposed to make the frontline of combat, or that rogue-types were supposed to scout and shine at skill-use, or that priest-types were supposed to use their best powers on party members instead of themselves, or that wizard-types were supposed to hide behind their friends and make their lifes easier with powerhouse spells.

Not rehash an old set of complaints --who am I kidding, that's exactly what I'm doing-- in 3e rogues can easily be out-rogued by spellcasters w/wands (and other sundry items), priests make wonderful self-buffers who can then go toe-to-toe better that fighters, and wizards don't hide so much as they render themselves immune to threats (via invisibility, flight, various explicitly defensive spells). This is kinda what I mean about transparency...

 

[Fifth Element]

So perhaps one avenue is to grant extra class features at each tier. Not suping up existing class features, but giving new, additional ones that differentiate a paragon Fighter from a Heroic fighter, aside from numbers, number of powers and PP.

Absolutely a great idea.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Not rehash an old set of complaints --who am I kidding, that's exactly what I'm doing-- in 3e rogues can easily be out-rogued by spellcasters w/wands (and other sundry items), priests make wonderful self-buffers who can then go toe-to-toe better that fighters, and wizards don't hide so much as they render themselves immune to threats (via invisibility, flight, various explicitly defensive spells). This is kinda what I mean about transparency...

I believe you're right; that's not very transparent, and sounds like a design failure to me, I just don't believe that 4E fixes the problem; in fact, it just tries to ignore it by taking the feature out of the game (yes, I believe that different classes being effective at different degrees in various situations is a strong feature or previous editions).

Cheers,

 

[Mallus]

The problem is, everyone participates.

This is never a problem for me. I've never seen a session ruined by too many players getting in on the action, whatever the 'action' might be.

Maybe this is because I've traditionally DM'ed more that I've played. I don't like to have to worry who's going to shine during any particular part of the adventure. I don't like having to script 'rogue encounters', so the rogue has his moment in the spotlight. I like to let the adventure go where it (ie the players) will, and having to plan around narrowly-defined, niche-protected characters makes that more difficult.

At no point do you shine.

You shine when you have your character do something clever or entertaining.

AFAIC, it's bad to have classes that by design can't make meaningful contributions in a given encounter type. You differentiate character classes by how they take action, not by whether they can take action at all.