D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[D'karr]

Yes, you can make up some rigamarole 'reason', but its strained at best and is going to be something like "they don't like to do it, its against custom" or somesuch.

In these instances I believe that mechanical frameworks work best rather than trying to force the issue with weird "story" gyrations. Can a wizard use a sword? Yes. Effectively? Not necessarily. As effectively as a Fighter? Probably not.

So an Eladrin with Weapon Proficiency "Longblade" can be a wizard and still use the sword effectively because it is a part of the mechanical framework. A Human wizard has a disadvantage in using the sword. But if he wants to use a sword can take the "bladed weapons proficiency" and do so effectively. Is the Eladrin wizard better than a Fighter that gets the proficiency as part of his class and possibly gets an attack bonus as part of the class? Possibly not.

This, to me, works a lot better than "wizards can't use swords" as a class restriction/differentiation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree with the game finishing at 20, but that is just a matter of preference. That is if I'm understanding correctly your use of apotheosis as the completion of the character's (group's) destiny quest. I would simply have made Epic a 3 or 5 level progression instead of 10 levels (levels 21-25 are Epic, for example). 10 levels is hard to fill out, and Epic can drag if not enough is happening, IMO.

Yeah, I thought about that too. I've considered that maybe there should be say 18 levels of regular play and then 3 levels of Epic, with level 21 being a 'capstone' where all the crazy gets to REALLY hang out. That would be cool too. I thought 10 levels of heroic was OK, 10 levels of paragon was fine too, though I'd be OK even with say 6,6,3, which would be 15 levels total. I just sort of thought 20 levels was a bit of a nice nod to classic D&D, since level 20 is usually thought of as the 'endpoint' of character progression in most versions of the game (yeah, I know, not all, and technically all classic D&D is 'open ended').

I do agree with the removal of cruft - powers and feats. The idea of swapping powers was one that made little sense, though mechanically it was understandable why. Powers should simply scale better or have gradients with level. Redundant feats, should be culled, and more feats should be generalized so that they don't have stupid restrictions and can be shared instead of creating similar feats twice or more. On the other hand feats could have also been made to have more versatility so that they grow with the character. So a feat you pick at level 3, has more effects at level 8, etc. At level 8 you choose the new effects, or pick another feat. Things like that.

Totally agree on the use of the disease track. I've done this extensively to great effect in my game. Rituals on the other hand I'm a bit on the fence on. That is one area of the game that could really have broken entirely with the base framework and I would not have even batted an eye on. I think that one of their weaknesses is that they tried to standardize this area too much. This more than anything is what creates the whacky costs and other weirdness. I could have seen these become the "high magic" component of the game. Rain of Colorless Fire, a ritual - cost unknown/undefined.

I think you COULD in 4e have those sorts of rituals. They're not REALLY character resources though, they're more like plot devices. Though different from artifacts they serve a pretty similar purpose, something that shapes the narrative and may benefit the character, but is really ultimately its own thing. 4e to me always did a much better job of suggesting these things than other editions too. AD&D always seemed very 'guarded', like the advice on anything that wasn't in the book was "be suspicious, restrict it, don't give players an inch" but in 4e it was more like "well, here's all the really nailed-down stuff, now, when you want to open up a can of crazy, just go for it!"

Magic Items I can see the reason within the design space, so I'm not extremely bothered by them. For example the items in Mord's Mag Emp are more interesting than those before, but I can see design space for the wide range. With 4e I liked that they really made it so Magic Items could completely be an optional thing by using the Inherent Bonus.

How would you have corrected/improved what you mention about tactical insufficiency, which I'm not totally understanding?

Well, I just think that 'tactics' in 4e was very much centered on timing power uses, combining things into combos, and finding ways to front-load your firepower with things like interrupt speed attacks and such. Surprising someone is decent, but its not a BIG advantage. Terrain CAN sometimes be pretty handy, but in reality lying prone and sniping with a crossbow from the cover of even a small elevation is stupid awesome, yet it gets you a 5 point AC bonus, at most, often nothing. Attacking someone from higher ground? Nothing. Setting a weapon against a charge? Doesn't even exist, you can do the Ready Action, but there's no such thing as setting a pike. There's no system for loyalty or morale either, which is too bad. I think these things should be central to tactics, that is REAL TACTICS like you'd practice in REALITY. I don't want to eschew the cool fantastic elements by any means, but I would like to SHOWCASE them. The coolest moves tend to get buried in a heap of trivia. I think the 4e devs saw this too, as over time they tried in places like Essentials to pare down powers both in number and to a standard of more simplicity and more effect. I think you see the same thing with 5e's various class features in a lot of cases.

This would also help with certain problems that exist in 4e with combat. For instance, right now suppose a bunch of weaker enemies ambush the party. Its fun for a round or two, but pretty soon the PCs have got their actions and its just a fight against weaker enemies, somewhat time-consuming but trivial. Make surprise really mean something, more like it really does, BAD NEWS, and all of a sudden a group of weaker opponents isn't something to scoff at anymore if they get a jump on you. Sure, you'll win, and probably win pretty quickly, but it should be SCARY and make you blow some real resources to compensate for.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I started out with Moldvay Basic and in that one all weapons did D6 damage. There were optional rules to differentiate weapon damage.

I started with the 3 little brown books, there WASN'T ANY different damage dice, lol. Honestly, in the original game it didn't make a heck of a lot of difference if you swung a dagger or a great sword. If you used the default chainmail combat system there were some differences between them as far as parrying and who struck first, but a hit was a hit. Any other differences would have to come out in the fiction, generally. Obviously you could stick your knife between your teeth and climb a wall, not so much with a greatsword, etc. Some of that would profitably be rendered into rules today, but I think 4e and other more recent D&D's have overdone it. Even AD&D kinda did.

 

[D'karr]

I LIKE classes, but then I always find that I like them more in theory than in practice...

I like the mechanical design space of classes and the mechanical progression of levels. Mainly because they provide a discreet package that can be easily altered and compared between varying pieces. With a solid base framework you can do comparisons between levels and figure out what needs to be tweaked in the comparisons. Your idea of swapping proficiency for training is an example of the type of design comparisons that class/level systems make more simple.

If within a defined range a Melee Class of Level X has comparable output to a Casting Class of Level X then you can make informed design choices. Does the Melee Class need a boost? Do the spells at Level X need changes, etc.? It even let's you move the pieces around so that race, backgrounds, etc., can have mechanical significance/weight in the game. Why do dwarves not have many wizards? Maybe because mechanically they don't lean enough in that direction. Why do dwarves have many fighters? Maybe because mechanically they lean in that direction.

With mechanical frameworks like that then it becomes fun when someone breaks with tradition and decides to play a dwarf wizard and then finds a way to make a very effective one. Instead of saying wizards can't use swords or dwarves can't be wizards.

 

[Manbearcat]

As a general question what things from 4e would you (general you) have liked to have seen improved, explored more in depth, or expanded?

I won't rehash most of the other responses to this but I agree with most of them. I'll just choose 4 off the top of my head.

1) I would have rewritten the certain sections of the various books with a more decisive, clear voice on general play procedures, genre expectations, and best GMing practices.

2) I would have liked to have the xp paradigm in the system adjusted. Specifically, I would have liked (1) xp only on failed skill challenges, (2) quest xp on the various tiers that is focused on realizing theme/PP/ED (akin to DW bonds/alignment and Cortex + Jobs/Milestones...Hackers Guide has this for D&D and they use Quests), (3) xp on stunting/play that hews to archetype and pushes play towards high octane action-adventure, (4) an "End of Session" move as in DW where the group goes over the play session and xp is rewarded for various things (such as "did we learn something new about the world" or "did we defeat a notable monster").

3) I would have liked a thriving Healing Surge (and a different name for them) economy that was synched into all of the relevant action resolution of the system from Rituals to Skill Challenges (see 4 below) and possibly and possibly for an Encounter Power recharge roll (eg spend a surge for a no action 5, 6 recharge roll).

4) I thought the final product of RC Skill Challenges were absolutely great. However, I would have preferred a few changes to make the meta-action slightly more fun and offer more decision-points:

Treat failure in SCs akin to MHRP's conflict resolution. In MHRP, GMs can activate 1s rolled by PCs to up their resource capabilities (they gain dice or step up current dice) which translates to escalating the conflict and upping the stakes in the fiction. In return, the players are given plot points. This is sort of the paradigm of RC SCs with Hard DCs:Advantages except it passively defaults to this set-up, thus it doesn't carry the emergent, evolving dynamism of the conflict resolution mechanics and the interesting decision-points (for player and GM) that MHRP does.

In 4e, the GM would gain a Hard DC for future deployment in the challenge while the PC would gain a token to spend a Healing Surge to mitigate the escalation of the conflict and the impending disaster brought on by the micro-failure (in the same way that advantages are used in RC SCs).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I won't rehash most of the other responses to this but I agree with most of them. I'll just choose 4 off the top of my head.

1) I would have rewritten the certain sections of the various books with a more decisive, clear voice on general play procedures, genre expectations, and best GMing practices.

2) I would have liked to have the xp paradigm in the system adjusted. Specifically, I would have liked (1) xp only on failed skill challenges, (2) quest xp on the various tiers that is focused on realizing theme/PP/ED (akin to DW bonds/alignment and Cortex + Jobs/Milestones...Hackers Guide has this for D&D and they use Quests), (3) xp on stunting/play that hews to archetype and pushes play towards high octane action-adventure, (4) an "End of Session" move as in DW where the group goes over the play session and xp is rewarded for various things (such as "did we learn something new about the world" or "did we defeat a notable monster").

3) I would have liked a thriving Healing Surge (and a different name for them) economy that was synched into all of the relevant action resolution of the system from Rituals to Skill Challenges (see 4 below) and possibly and possibly for an Encounter Power recharge roll (eg spend a surge for a no action 5, 6 recharge roll).

4) I thought the final product of RC Skill Challenges were absolutely great. However, I would have preferred a few changes to make the meta-action slightly more fun and offer more decision-points:

Treat failure in SCs akin to MHRP's conflict resolution. In MHRP, GMs can activate 1s rolled by PCs to up their resource capabilities (they gain dice or step up current dice) which translates to escalating the conflict and upping the stakes in the fiction. In return, the players are given plot points. This is sort of the paradigm of RC SCs with Hard DCs:Advantages except it passively defaults to this set-up, thus it doesn't carry the emergent, evolving dynamism of the conflict resolution mechanics and the interesting decision-points (for player and GM) that MHRP does.

In 4e, the GM would gain a Hard DC for future deployment in the challenge while the PC would gain a token to spend a Healing Surge to mitigate the escalation of the conflict and the impending disaster brought on by the micro-failure (in the same way that advantages are used in RC SCs).

Sounds interesting. I think I need to review the RC's SC rules though because I really never consciously used them as-written. I mean I probably did basically the same thing, and I certainly read the section a number of times, but by then we'd been playing for 4 years, there wasn't a lot of need for us to tweak what we were doing.

 

[cavalier973]

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I mean the most straightforward is to class as wizard, MC into Swordmage, or use the Arcane Implement Proficiency feat, and then use your sword as an implement. Not too hard, but given the vast numbers of feats and options... It also only gets you a very basic "use my sword as a wand" sort of level of capability. You could go on into the rather involved power swapping process and get swordmage powers, but it was very unoptimal and took 10 levels to really get you what you wanted.

I LIKE classes, but then I always find that I like them more in theory than in practice...

One could also choose to play an eladrin wizard, which would begin with proficiency with long swords.

 

[cavalier973]

One could also choose to play an eladrin wizard, which would begin with proficiency with long swords.

The rule that bugged me was that a character without proficiency with shields got no bonus from using one. It makes more sense to grant the bonuses (or, at least the AC bonus), and apply a penalty to attacks, etc.
Further, it's strange to require a character to spend 2 feats to be proficient with heavy shields.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One could also choose to play an eladrin wizard, which would begin with proficiency with long swords.

So what? When would you EVER as an eladrin wizard use a sword? The only time it MIGHT come up, in theory, would be if you happened to be in a position to do an OA and for some WEIRD reason you actually drew your sword during your turn. You would NEVER EVER attack with the thing, and your OA would be pathetic as well, given an Eladrin Wizard will be lucky to have a 12 STR (maybe 14 at epic, wow). You could totally waste a feat on Intelligent Blademaster, but you still don't have an effective attack that even matches Magic Missile for effectiveness, and you can burn a feat to avoid OAs from using that in melee, and there are a million ways to buff it.

No, in 4e (not that 3e is much better in this way mind you) it requires rather elaborate measures in order to be adequate with both a sword and spellcasting. At the very least you have to pick a fairly obscure class. In 4e Swordmage only appears in the FR player's supplement, Blade Singer is in HotFW, a very late release most people don't have, Hexblade is in HoS, which most people skipped and was also late era, and that about covers it. There WERE good gish options, they were just either very tricky builds requiring specific feats and gear, or very far from being part of the 'core' elements of the game (and still often not the simplest classes to build with).

4e is a great game, but in terms of straightforwardness of builds it is heavily overshadowed by 5e. Pretty much every classic sort of build you would likely see in most 4e games is a single simple choice in 5e, which 'sub-class' you pick at level 2/3 and possibly one or at most 2 feat picks to fully flesh out. Its not a perfect system in that they (IMHO) stupidly stuck 3e-style MCing in there which forced them to ditch the very cool 4e concept of "you are fully your class at level 1" to stop cherry-picking, but that's just a peculiarity of 5e, you could as easily build a system that did it all at level 1 and was still just as straightforward.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The rule that bugged me was that a character without proficiency with shields got no bonus from using one. It makes more sense to grant the bonuses (or, at least the AC bonus), and apply a penalty to attacks, etc.
Further, it's strange to require a character to spend 2 feats to be proficient with heavy shields.

Yeah, there were some things that were just overdone. The "you need to spend a feat to chain your way up through every armor type" setup was a bit stupid too. Again, I think 5e is a good bit cleaner in this respect at least in terms of just breaking it down as shields, and heavy, medium, light armor. I think they have too many fiddly types of armor in 5e, but then again 4e probably did too. In my own hack I believe I now have 4 states of armor, none, light (leathers and hides and such), medium (chain and other similar 'piece metal' armors), and heavy (your plate-type armors and such). There's really no historical justification for believing that greater distinctions are very meaningful, nor that there's any unique skill involved in wearing boiled leather cuirass vs a jacked leather coat with maybe a couple small sewn in metal plates at the most critical spots. Nor can anyone even tell you for sure what 'scale mail', 'banded mail', and 'splint mail' ARE let alone how they could possibly differ, they're all just 'piece metal' along with true mail, etc. Honestly, while I'm FAR from a simulationist, I think that basing these subsystems on utterly fantastic and unreal sorts of assumptions does a disservice to the game at a fundamental level. Its trivial enough to invent fantastical elements on top of a basic structure drawn from real-world experience. Once the basic structure is some completely fanciful non-sense it gets a lot harder.