D&D 4E Stuff I wish they'd have left from the 4e playtest

[Kunimatyu]

I hope they put out the formulae for less HP grind -- my biggest complaint with 4e so far is that everything takes so long to kill. Fights are a lot cleaner than 3.5, yet still take exactly the same amount of time...

 

[tombowings]

I think they did leave it like that.

Standard action: attack opponent #1
Minor action: mark opponent #2 with Divine Challenge
Move action: move adjacent to opponent #2 and end your turn there

No?

But you would have to keep switching between opponents every round. I mean tie one up with Divine Challenge and keep another at bay with melee attacks.

 

[Soel]

I recall one playtest featuring skill challenges as having an element of wagering to them, where if you wagered for a hard dc and beat it, you got a bonus to the next roll in the challenge. Seems like such a thing would've been cool.

 

[Kzach]

• Races grant benefits at levels 1-10 like paragon paths and epic destinies, and racial feats make an elf fighter and a dwarf fighter play very differently (Races and Classes, web previews)

• Wizard and fighter powers heavily dependant on weapon/implement and secondary stats, making the orb/staff wizard and the sword/axe fighter as different to play as a melee/blaster cleric or a fey/infernal warlock (Races and Classes, leftover PHB fluff, web previews)

Although I wouldn't want powers to be heavily dependant, I would like the wizard and fighter powers to be more affected by secondary stats like other classes are.

But basically, those two are ones that I wish had been included.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The Wizard traditions sounded kind of interesting, I wish they had kept that idea in some form (just not the cheesy names like Golden Wyvern Adept!).

I am not a fan of the names, but definitely of the idea of wizard traditions. Maybe, if I run a homebrew, I will "re-create" them, using the existing feats and R&C or preview texts as a starting point.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I am not a fan of the names, but definitely of the idea of wizard traditions. Maybe, if I run a homebrew, I will "re-create" them, using the existing feats and R&C or preview texts as a starting point.

The problem is: It's probably a total re-write of the wizard, because there are so little powers where a second ability stat would make sense. Plus, I get the feel that the staff had more forced movement going on before - and was keyed to Wisdom first.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Flazzy]

According to Races and Classes, staff used to affect lines and cones, and indeed added a push effect to spells.

 

[Staffan]

As I recall, R&C and the first version of the wizard preview had the wizard's implement affecting things based mostly on their area types.

The revised wizard preview had removed the Tome implement, and changed things so the implements and traditions were tied to energy types instead. There is still a weak echo of this in the rules, with feats like Burning Blizzard (+1 damage with cold and acid spells).

I remember when 4e was first announced, and I wrote a rather lengthy post about what I hoped they'd do with damage spells to provide a more distinct feel to each energy type (not here, but on CM or NTL). I really didn't like the way they were pretty much treated as interchangable in 3e supplements - seriously, scintillating sphere (fireball but with electric damage) was an absolutely worthless idea, as was Energy Adaption.

The 3e PHB had the right idea, where energy types were considered pretty distinct. For example, I don't think the PHB has any acid spells that do a lot of instant damage, they're all "damage over time" spells. Similarly, sonic spells do low damage, but is better at destroying objects and very few monsters have sonic resistance.

I think my ideas were something like:

• Acid: low direct damage but can do a lot of ongoing, ignores SR due to being actual stuff instead of just energy.
• Fire: does the most direct damage, may have a bit of ongoing damage but not as much as acid. Little to no special effects. Big on explosions.
• Cold: Comes with side effects that slow and immobilize. Sometimes does partial physical damage (e.g. ice storm).
• Electricity: Side effects that stun. Tends to be either single-target or lines, not areas.
• Sonic: Low damage, hard to avoid. Extra-good against objects and object-like creatures (e.g. constructs).

 

[Victim]

It seems to me like energy attacks for wizards do tend toward those principles. Fire spells tend to be about damage, not status effects. Lightning spells usually avoid proper areas, and go for multi-target things. Ice spells almost always have some movement related status condition attached and go against Fort more than other area attacks.

There are some exceptions like Shock Sphere though.