D&D 4E Testing "Try 4e" house rules

[baradtgnome]

Diagonals: 1-1-1.

I'm curious to learn the first time a character chooses a diagonal escape path to get out of a 'round' area of effect. I wonder how often that might come up in play. Or are you using the diagonal counting and squaring the round spells too?

 

[Captain Eru]

Well, this is true for casters, but for melee characters, rampant multiclassing can be a good thing. You can pick up quite a few abilities while meeting prerequisites for a Prestige Class.

Even the non-spell casting multi-class characters suffer from it though. I’ve seen a number of campaigns where Barbarian-Rogues and Fighter-Rogues were cursing themselves for multi-classing as the campaign got into the higher levels. The simple and undeniable point is that in D&D, an ad hoc character will never be as good at fulfilling what the designers intended. A fighter is a tank on the battlefield. A fighter-rogue, a barbarian-ranger, or any other combination might be close, but none will be as good at fulfilling that job in later levels.

 

[Zelc]

Even the non-spell casting multi-class characters suffer from it though. I’ve seen a number of campaigns where Barbarian-Rogues and Fighter-Rogues were cursing themselves for multi-classing as the campaign got into the higher levels. The simple and undeniable point is that in D&D, an ad hoc character will never be as good at fulfilling what the designers intended. A fighter is a tank on the battlefield. A fighter-rogue, a barbarian-ranger, or any other combination might be close, but none will be as good at fulfilling that job in later levels.

Well, yes, but if you're planning on taking a Prestige Class, it's not as big a deal. For instance, Fighter 2/Barbarian 1/Psychic Warrior 2 can be a good lead-in to War Mind 10. You get 4 bonus feats, Rage 1/day (more with a feat), and losing higher level class abilities isn't such a big deal since you get the War Mind ones and you weren't going to get any above level 5 anyway. Something like Fighter 1/Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 2 can also be very good for a grappling build.

This works with just about any 10-level fighting PrC, or possibly even a combination of several smaller fighting PrCs.

Similarly, Chameleons usually benefit greatly from dips in several classes with the first 5 levels. While Cleric 5 with Practiced Spellcaster for crafting is extremely strong, so is something like Rogue 1/Cleric 1/Duskblade 3 (Trapfinding, Turns, and Arcane Channeling).

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

OP: have you considered using defenses in place of saves?

I'm thinking just add 10 to everyone's saves, and have spellcasters make "attack rolls" of d20 + (save DC - 10). Obviously this isn't quite as elegant as 4e probably will be, but it'll let you see whether the players enjoy rolling magic attacks more than rolling saves.

 

[Rechan]

MerricB, I thought that you could crit against most things in 4e - including undead?

Or was that just zombies?

 

[Klaus]

OP: have you considered using defenses in place of saves?

I'm thinking just add 10 to everyone's saves, and have spellcasters make "attack rolls" of d20 + (save DC - 10). Obviously this isn't quite as elegant as 4e probably will be, but it'll let you see whether the players enjoy rolling magic attacks more than rolling saves.

Actually, it's "add 11", since ties go to the defender. There's a variant rule in Unearthed Arcana called "Players roll all the dice" that does this (and AC).

 

[Zelc]

Be warned that doing this will make reroll effects a lot better for casters and a lot worse for defenders since now spell "attack" failures can be rerolled but successes probably can't. You may need to change reroll save effects to force your enemy to reroll the spell "attack".

 

[MerricB]

MerricB, I thought that you could crit against most things in 4e - including undead?

Or was that just zombies?

I'm sure you can... but that also involves a new relationship of damage, so Sneak Attack does different damage, nor can you make the iterative attacks of 3e (which can really multiply the effectiveness of SA). So, I'm not going to adopt a rule which significantly changes how the game works.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Just a quick report on today's session - four 15th level PCs with two cohorts (approx 12th level):

Diagonal movement benefits are pretty much negated by proper placement of terrain. I used lots of pits, walls, etc. The fighters could protect the wizard easily... just as long as they all weren't standing in the middle of a big empty room, which they weren't dumb enough to do. Let's face it, a monster with a speed of 8 and you can pretty forget protecting the wizard anyway! Non-issue.

No-one got to negatives; I need better monsters! Death & Dying not tested.

Second Wind pretty much likewise. It doesn't help that I've got a couple of AC-maxed fighters: AC circa 40! Not many monsters can hit them.

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

Merric - you need to video your games and stick them back up on Youtube.