Salvageable Innovations from 4e for Nonenthusiasts

[Dannyalcatraz]

Does any one like the 4th edition death and dying mechanics?

Does any one like action points as presented in 4e?

Does any one like healing as a minor action?

Of those, I only like the action points.

Things I think 4Ed got right or at least headed in the right direction:

1. "Dead levels" basically non-existent
2. Rituals for magics that are primarily out of combat or touch other class' roles
3. Some clearer nomenclature for mechanics: you get your 3rd level spells at 3rd level
4. Certain weak or poorly defined classes got upgraded

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

- PCs being able to do things on other character's turns besides OA/AoOs. [Our warlord's turns take so long because the warlord is making all the other characters move around the battlefield and attack, and we all love it!]
- Tied to that, more abilities triggered by certain effects or benchmarks [Someone used an action point, triggering such and such; ally gets bloodied, triggering something; ally bloodies foe, triggering something to happen;].
- Saves don't separate widely at high levels [Good vs. Poor spread].
- "Replenishing hit points" isn't only the purview of divine magic (or resting for days).

 

[Herremann the Wise]

For me there are several things that 4e has shone the torch on but there is one that stands head and shoulders above the rest and that is focusing play on teamwork rather than individual contributions. And that is one action can achieve two results.

In previous versions, one action will get a single result and thus is focused on achieving what the instigator wishes. However, by having a one action has two results approach, both the instigator achieves what they want, but they also get this bonus extra result that other players can have their characters take advantage of. In this way, by performing an action, your character gets what they want, but as well somebody else's character gets a leg up too mechanically fostering teamwork like no other D&D edition to date. Where previous editions were a case of help someone else or help yourself (and thus your group), 4e really focused on getting both; having the cake and eating it too so to speak. Changing healing to a minor action is a corollary of this.

A close second is taking some advantage out of the loose definition that "hit points" has. While 4e does not overly capitalize on this in my opinion, I think it certainly pushes things in the right direction. Hit points need to be divorced from physical, action-affecting damage. 4e got hit points right but they got the damage component completely out of whack.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Lanefan]

In previous versions, one action will get a single result and thus is focused on achieving what the instigator wishes. However, by having a one action has two results approach, both the instigator achieves what they want, but they also get this bonus extra result that other players can have their characters take advantage of. In this way, by performing an action, your character gets what they want, but as well somebody else's character gets a leg up too mechanically fostering teamwork like no other D&D edition to date. Where previous editions were a case of help someone else or help yourself (and thus your group), 4e really focused on getting both; having the cake and eating it too so to speak.

A question: is it good that the secondary effect is always a benefit? Should there be instances where the secondary effect might be less than advantageous, to further add to the element of choice/risk?

Also, Herremann, if you divorce hit points completely from physical damage then what do you replace them with in order to quantify actual physical damage/condition?

Lan-"I'm the secondary effect you didn't want"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Also, its interesting you mention items, because item dependency (with regards to weapon/implement, armor, neck) is something I change when I play the system.

I don't care about item dependency so much, as magic items tend not to last all that long in my game in any case. But when I find new ideas for items I use 'em, and 4e certainly has some of those.

Just curious, what type of resolution system and action economy do you use with your system? Is there anything similar to "powers" in it? I know that some of these things are not innovations to 4e, but I still like to see what others like to use and how similar it may or may not be?

I don't have powers as such, or anything remotely close. My system is based on 1e. We roll d6 initiative each round except if you are doing two things e.g. you get two attacks each gets its own initiative; spells take a certain amount of time (varies by spell) to cast and can be interrupted; movement and other actions are dealt with pretty much case by case and if there's a variable involved e.g. how long will it take to dig a potion out of someone's backpack we just roll a d20 to give a rough idea relative to what might be normal and go with that. Things can and do happen simultaneously.

Not quite sure what you mean by "action economy".

Lanefan

 

[Herremann the Wise]

A question: is it good that the secondary effect is always a benefit? Should there be instances where the secondary effect might be less than advantageous, to further add to the element of choice/risk?

I think a secondary effect that was a disadvantage would be very interesting. The biggest change that the game has to make in a future edition (at least according to the system I'm developing at the moment) is to go from a binary resolution system to a ternary resolution system. By having three possible results rather than two, you can really get some funky stuff happening (such as what you suggest above). When I've got my system written up, I'll attach an alpha of the rules here at EN World. I've only been working on it for about 6 years.

Also, Herreman, if you divorce hit points completely from physical damage then what do you replace them with in order to quantify actual physical damage/condition?

Lan-"I'm the secondary effect you didn't want"-efan

Hit Points
In an ideal system (again speaking from the personal ideal I'm currently forging), hit points represent what they have always meant: the capacity to turn a serious blow into a less serious one, luck, endurance, a handful of scratches that stings but nothing that a kiss won't fix, divine providence, inner strength, the will to keep going. Hit points are readily "restored" with a quick break or rest. The beauty is, that you can also "spend" hit points to do particularly exhausting actions or actions that require a special degree of effort.

Wounds
Real physical damage however is represented by wounds which for example are represented numerically by points of damage - a 10 point wound. Without assistance, a wound heals by 1 point every day - so as to define what a point means. And so healing from a wound is slower than restoration of hit points. If the total number of wounds equals a particular amount, then your character is incapacitated which typically means they can't do very much except feel a stack of pain. If the total number of wounds equals or exceeds a further amount, your character is irrevocably dying. It might take them a little while to go but at this point mundane healing (as well as most kinds of divine healing) cannot work. Great for last dying words and so on. Consciousness is a different effect that does not rely on hit points or wounds.

Hit Points and Wounds
The thing that makes the whole thing work is the capacity to transfer wound point damage into hit point loss. In this way, a potential wound is instead a fairly harmless scratch that as hit point loss is easily restored. This is something most can readily achieve in combat. There are instances where the capacity to transfer may be denied (typically with critical hits [soft,standard or hard] and "unavoidable" physical damage) although even then, there are a bunch of things that help protect a character from taking a wound even under the worst circumstances.

By well and truly dividing the two, all the silly conundrums that come up in regards to Schrodinger's cat, healing, the "bloodied" condition and so on are instantly negated, including the need for a party to have a divine healer (although a mundane healer outside of combat helps get the troops back in fighting trim). So yeah... that's what I'm doing.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The HP/Wounds dichotomy isn't all that rare, either. HERO- my favorite system- has STUN and Body, for instance. Taking STUN hurts. Taking Body can kill.

 

[Stalker0]

There's also the vitality/wound system in star wars.

 

[Argyle King]

I'd keep the idea of passive scores.

 

[Starfox]

Overall, I think 4E had some great ideas (if not original) but that the implementation is horrible. Sad if this became pretty anti-4E, but thats in the nature of the topic for me.

Things to salvage from 4E:

The idea of tiers of play. I like how this was structured, and how to style different adventures into different parts of the PCs career.

The cosmology. I like the feywild and the shadowfell. I like the Astral Sea (I don't find it incompatible with the older systems). I like the elemental chaos after some consideration, tough I still have regions where one region is dominant. And I like the backstory of the god-primordial war and the role of giants, elementals, and demons in the cosmology.

The idea of an action economy - but NOT the implementation. Too many kinds of actions slows down play.

The diversification of the elves - elf/eladrin/dark elf. I've taken this further IMC. But I still kept them as one race, just with divergent abilities. The proliferation of races has always been one of DnDs weaknesses - I prefer 20 different orc tribes with different traditions to 20 separate races of evil humanoids. However, this is not a 4E issue.

The simplified monster generation - when it works.

Minions - but implemented differently. Having them be BOTH harmless and defenseless made them less than terrain.

The idea of at-will magics, spells you never run out of. But again, the implementation is horrible. Powers with restricted uses should be situational, not all-around more powerful. Running out of them should not mean the game slows down to a pillow fight.

The structuring of various (martial) stunts into powers is interesting and encourages these of stunts. But again the implementation is lacklustre and encourages repetitive gameplay. You may not do the same trick twice in a fight, but instead you do the same trick EVERY fight. This mechanism can be salvaged, but must be rewritten.