D&D 4E Throwing ideas, seeing what sticks (and what stinks)

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's the thing though about the d6 and +/-. You don't need to worry about that, you just need to ask the following questions:
What's your AC?
What's your defense against spells?
What's your offense?
Do you have any special bonuses/penalties? Where # of bonuses ought to be 2 or less.

A Fighter might be:
Strong AC, Strong defense against spells, Balanced Offense. Balanced Reflex.

A Barbarian might be:
Balanced AC, Balanced defense against spells, Strong Offense, +Fort/Reflex.

A Wizard might be:
Weak AC, Strong defense against spells, Strong Offense, -Fort.

You just get the general level of X right, then shift 1-2 specific things over the whole character to get it right. And in general, don't offer opportunities to shift more things further.

Well, its just that in effect you now have a LOT of different 'defenses'. Each one specific to a given keyword or set of them. So you will do a lot of figuring, instead of just "here's my AC" you need to consider if its a spell attack, a fire attack, etc etc etc and determine if you have a defense that's high, medium, or low. To some extent that will happen in any game, it just seems like your begging for it to become very common for there to be a lot of these modifiers.

 

[MwaO]

Well, its just that in effect you now have a LOT of different 'defenses'. Each one specific to a given keyword or set of them. So you will do a lot of figuring, instead of just "here's my AC" you need to consider if its a spell attack, a fire attack, etc etc etc and determine if you have a defense that's high, medium, or low. To some extent that will happen in any game, it just seems like your begging for it to become very common for there to be a lot of these modifiers.

Not really.

One of the things about improving defenses being assumed is that you let the player explain why his defenses have improved rather than pegging it to a specific item.

To use an example, let's say my PC goes from 5 to 6th level. Meaning, he ought to improve all his defenses by 1. Let's say I view a Ring of Fire Resistance as one of the reasons my defenses went up? That means my defense is now Strong against Fire, right?

Nope. It means I have at least one reason for why my defense against non-AC attacks went up by 1 - I have Strong Defense against Fire assuming I'm attacked by a formerly at-level monster. But that's what I should have anyway...

Basically, what it boils down to is that PCs hit most monsters most of the time on a 3+ and Monsters hit most PCs most of the time on a 4+ unless they're targeting a particularly bad defense, such as a Wizard's AC...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not really.

One of the things about improving defenses being assumed is that you let the player explain why his defenses have improved rather than pegging it to a specific item.

To use an example, let's say my PC goes from 5 to 6th level. Meaning, he ought to improve all his defenses by 1. Let's say I view a Ring of Fire Resistance as one of the reasons my defenses went up? That means my defense is now Strong against Fire, right?

Nope. It means I have at least one reason for why my defense against non-AC attacks went up by 1 - I have Strong Defense against Fire assuming I'm attacked by a formerly at-level monster. But that's what I should have anyway...

Basically, what it boils down to is that PCs hit most monsters most of the time on a 3+ and Monsters hit most PCs most of the time on a 4+ unless they're targeting a particularly bad defense, such as a Wizard's AC...

Sorry, many of my brain cells probably called it quits decades ago (all due to age, ignore any rumors that there could be other reasons for this!).

What happens if a monster now hits me with a Frost attack??? My defense is 'ordinary'? Then I IN EFFECT have a 'Fire Defense' and a 'Frost Defense'. I keep trying to come up with a way to avoid this scenario. One thing that is at least satisfying about resist/vuln is it means your defenses are indexed by the 'form' of the attack, and the damage you take is indexed by the damage type. Sort of puts them into neat pigeonholes, even if in the final analysis it might be simpler to do away with one or the other (doing away with to-hit rolls of course being an option, but not one very commonly endorsed, so far). You could do a combination via attack modifiers plus damage determined by the number of points over your target number obtained on the check. That could be indexed by level as well, and other things of course, like class/aspect of the attack, etc.

 

[MwaO]

Sorry, many of my brain cells probably called it quits decades ago (all due to age, ignore any rumors that there could be other reasons for this!).

What happens if a monster now hits me with a Frost attack??? My defense is 'ordinary'?

No, that's the point. It isn't. You have the same defense against both attacks. You've justified having a ring of fire resistance as being the reason why you're a typical defense PC against Fire. For a Rogue, he might define it as Evasion-like abilities. A Fighter might say he's really tough. Etc...the trick of picking a ring of fire resist is that you then have to explain why all your other defenses are at the same level - maybe the ring of fire resist is the one missing thing or it helps overcome a curse or it just nudges your defenses on average up a notch while covering a relative weak spot.

The point is to have the player come up with reasons why he's better defended and it can be campaign dependent. In one campaign, there might be an emphasis on realism. In another campaign, it might reflect that magic items literally grow on trees. In yet another, it might represent mystical beasties. Have the player figure out a story that the PC could tell at a bar to impressionable non-adventurers about how the PC did it.

To use Hercules as an example - why did his defenses improve? He killed the Nemean Lion and took its hide. Why did his Strength improve to ridiculous levels? Because it was how he defined how he got more dangerous, but additional Strength doesn't really explain being able to fight a Hydra. So the player of Hercules came up with the idea of using the Lion's skin as magical armor and the DM went along with it.

The general point is to get away from explanations of why a PC needs a lot of magic items to be functional, but rather why they're just assumed into the build. That can then let a DM focus on the character defining magic items that are beyond the ordinary. And that number can be very, very low...

 

[MoutonRustique]

Boons as progress really are the central idea of my concept though. Because they represent progress and 'rewards' in a holistic way the concept really drives the game design in different directions. Its not JUST about 'progress'. What is in the game becomes deeply affected. For instance it starts to become irrelevant HOW you got your 'Superior Presence', is it an item? Is it a 'feat'? Is it a 'class feature'? Whatever it is, its a boon! Obviously an item is materially different in a narrative sense from a feat (one can be lost or sold, the other cannot) but in a mechanical sense even your powers could simply be boons. In fact as a general rule I've decided that I think MOST power acquisition should be in boon form. So you get to actually select powers based on your level, but which ones you can choose from is mostly shaped by the set of boons you have.

This can have a lot of narrative aspects to it. For instance I thought about a scenario like this "Go to the altar of Iun and endure the vigil of purification of the mind to gain the boon of Iun (access to power XYZ)" which seems pretty thematically cool, now the adventure structure is VERY VERY CLEAR, all the rewards the game has to offer are suddenly aligned! It also naturally provides for different motivations (the rogue isn't especially excited by this adventure, though he may well find something along the way to make him happy). Now, think of an artifact. It grants a couple of boons, you pick it up, you level, and you can now select the powers associated with it. IT REALLY TAKES OVER THE STORY at least for that character. There's no real doubting what the agenda is right now, and the player picked it! He could have stuck with his other powers, basically said "meh, this is cool, but I'm not going to focus on it". Nope, instead its front and center, and he's going to be going after whatever this here artifact is all about, for as long as its around. This whole thing even provides a pretty good rationale for the 'faded hero', once he had a bunch of boons, he gave the magic sword to his son, the helm of brilliance was lost in the cave of darkness, he retired and the favor of Erathis was withdrawn, now he's just 10th level, before he was pretty much a demigod.

I like this idea - it's kinda the opposite of how oWoD did things (you got small amounts of xp that you spent, when you had spent enough, you gained a "level".)

It's also really cool that it simply turns on it's head one of the older problems of tying fluff to increases in power : training and going on a "off screen" quest was all done in the background after you'd gained enough "progression points" during adventures. Now it's the reverse : go get that power to progress.

I'm not sure it's the direction for me - but it's starting to make its way into subsystems in my mind... It's percolating.

Right, but how is the damage done by a magic missile different from that done by an arrow? They both impart kinetic energy on the target. In truth there's nothing to distinguish them in my mind. In fact the ORIGINAL magic missile spell, in OD&D, was exactly that, you simply conjured up an arrow and it flew at the designated enemy and attacked him, with the stats for a heavy crossbow bolt IIRC.

I'll side-step the question and instead go with : what would you call/name a [tag] to mean "will harm insubstantial targets such as spirits and ghosts whilst also having a physical presence that can affect physical entities - and is usually considered fairly strong" ?

Humm. There's also [disintegration] and ["disruption"] to account for... where would they fit best? Probably [Slashing] (and they'd have a specific rule to ignore armour.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, that's the point. It isn't. You have the same defense against both attacks. You've justified having a ring of fire resistance as being the reason why you're a typical defense PC against Fire. For a Rogue, he might define it as Evasion-like abilities. A Fighter might say he's really tough. Etc...the trick of picking a ring of fire resist is that you then have to explain why all your other defenses are at the same level - maybe the ring of fire resist is the one missing thing or it helps overcome a curse or it just nudges your defenses on average up a notch while covering a relative weak spot.

The point is to have the player come up with reasons why he's better defended and it can be campaign dependent. In one campaign, there might be an emphasis on realism. In another campaign, it might reflect that magic items literally grow on trees. In yet another, it might represent mystical beasties. Have the player figure out a story that the PC could tell at a bar to impressionable non-adventurers about how the PC did it.

To use Hercules as an example - why did his defenses improve? He killed the Nemean Lion and took its hide. Why did his Strength improve to ridiculous levels? Because it was how he defined how he got more dangerous, but additional Strength doesn't really explain being able to fight a Hydra. So the player of Hercules came up with the idea of using the Lion's skin as magical armor and the DM went along with it.

The general point is to get away from explanations of why a PC needs a lot of magic items to be functional, but rather why they're just assumed into the build. That can then let a DM focus on the character defining magic items that are beyond the ordinary. And that number can be very, very low...

Except that now what you SEEM to be proposing is there's no difference in various characters (modulo class and whatnot possibly) but you 'explain' them differently. I'd find that dull frankly. I WANT differences in characters! Material differences. Not ones that are usually so vast that they create huge issues in play, but ones that are big enough so that when everyone gets breathed on by the dragon that the guy with the fire resistance ring is still standing and the other characters aren't (at least potentially, maybe they DO have things that make them tough enough).

I mean, I get it, essentially "if you're level 20 then by the gods you will survive the dragon's breath, somehow!" and there are some obvious points in its favor, but I just think that people are going to feel like there is insufficient differentiation on that side of characters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I like this idea - it's kinda the opposite of how oWoD did things (you got small amounts of xp that you spent, when you had spent enough, you gained a "level".)

It's also really cool that it simply turns on it's head one of the older problems of tying fluff to increases in power : training and going on a "off screen" quest was all done in the background after you'd gained enough "progression points" during adventures. Now it's the reverse : go get that power to progress.

I'm not sure it's the direction for me - but it's starting to make its way into subsystems in my mind... It's percolating.

Danger Sheep Robinson! This is a powerful meme! Once I thought about it for a week I was just irrevocably sold on the idea.

I'll side-step the question and instead go with : what would you call/name a [tag] to mean "will harm insubstantial targets such as spirits and ghosts whilst also having a physical presence that can affect physical entities - and is usually considered fairly strong" ?

Humm. There's also [disintegration] and ["disruption"] to account for... where would they fit best? Probably [Slashing] (and they'd have a specific rule to ignore armour.)

Well, I would sidestep that and just say "huh, I guess insubstantial things are immune to 'force' of all sorts!" I mean its not like there's a law of nature here that we have to obey. I don't even know any basis for this trope in fiction or tradition.

 

[MwaO]

Except that now what you SEEM to be proposing is there's no difference in various characters (modulo class and whatnot possibly) but you 'explain' them differently. I'd find that dull frankly. I WANT differences in characters! Material differences. Not ones that are usually so vast that they create huge issues in play, but ones that are big enough so that when everyone gets breathed on by the dragon that the guy with the fire resistance ring is still standing and the other characters aren't (at least potentially, maybe they DO have things that make them tough enough).

I mean, I get it, essentially "if you're level 20 then by the gods you will survive the dragon's breath, somehow!" and there are some obvious points in its favor, but I just think that people are going to feel like there is insufficient differentiation on that side of characters.

Basically, how much of that actually provides differentiation, though and what parts are just illusion. Is slowing the game tremendously worth minor amounts of differences?

If you really want differentiation on a defensive element, you need to pay up for it, because for the most part, finicky defenses don't lead to benefits in play. And you can do that, just it would be a lot harder to do so in this imaginary edition than in 4e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Basically, how much of that actually provides differentiation, though and what parts are just illusion. Is slowing the game tremendously worth minor amounts of differences?

If you really want differentiation on a defensive element, you need to pay up for it, because for the most part, finicky defenses don't lead to benefits in play. And you can do that, just it would be a lot harder to do so in this imaginary edition than in 4e.

Well, I'm VERY much in favor of a simpler approach to the differentiation, like "OK, you're an Axe Dwarf, you got the stupid ridunculous FORT and all that jazz, next!" vs 4e's incredibly labored approach of larding on feats on top of class and race features, bolstered by powers and properties. You can see how 5e moved in that direction, obviously a mediocre CON 'Axe Dwarf' may not have much of a leg up on a high CON human with the right feat (I'm not actually sure if there's a feat in 5e that really says "my FORT kicks royal arse!" TBH). Certainly there's 'wiggle room' in 5e, which is good. Nobody will touch the most uber CON-maxed Axe Dwarf, but you CAN build with most choices and get something that is 'much better than average' most categories. Also the categories in 5e are fairly low granularity. In 4e you could be monstrously resistant to poison and still be pretty much a wimp in every other respect, but in 5e you pretty much get the "I'm tough!" package deal, which is fine with me too, I think 99% of players are not looking for something super niche.

I'm not sure why differentiation should be 'expensive' or 'hard' especially. Obviously if the granularity of the system is d6 then such things are going to be 'once in a character lifetime' stuff, so it will be expensive in the sense of all happening in one big step. If there are 20 levels to the game (for example) then possibly a player might afford to jack all his defenses, at the cost of not doing too many other things. So perhaps jacking a defense is a 'once in 3 levels' sort of thing, and equally jacking your offense would probably be in the same ballpark (a bit more costly I'd venture, but not twice as much). So, I could see the 20th level guy with a jacked up FORT/REF/WILL/AC and 'HIT HARD WITH MY AXE', and maybe one other thing, some signature effect or whatever. That would account for what he gets at 6 of the 20 levels, so you still need some 'color' stuff, or more conditional 'once a level' things to cover about 14 other level ups.

And that uncovers one advantage of the "many small incremental bonuses" architecture, you get a lot of stuff to fill up all those levels with.

 

[MwaO]

Well, I'm VERY much in favor of a simpler approach to the differentiation, like "OK, you're an Axe Dwarf, you got the stupid ridunculous FORT and all that jazz, next!" vs 4e's incredibly labored approach of larding on feats on top of class and race features, bolstered by powers and properties. You can see how 5e moved in that direction, obviously a mediocre CON 'Axe Dwarf' may not have much of a leg up on a high CON human with the right feat (I'm not actually sure if there's a feat in 5e that really says "my FORT kicks royal arse!" TBH). Certainly there's 'wiggle room' in 5e, which is good. Nobody will touch the most uber CON-maxed Axe Dwarf, but you CAN build with most choices and get something that is 'much better than average' most categories. Also the categories in 5e are fairly low granularity. In 4e you could be monstrously resistant to poison and still be pretty much a wimp in every other respect, but in 5e you pretty much get the "I'm tough!" package deal, which is fine with me too, I think 99% of players are not looking for something super niche.

I'm not sure why differentiation should be 'expensive' or 'hard' especially. Obviously if the granularity of the system is d6 then such things are going to be 'once in a character lifetime' stuff, so it will be expensive in the sense of all happening in one big step. If there are 20 levels to the game (for example) then possibly a player might afford to jack all his defenses, at the cost of not doing too many other things. So perhaps jacking a defense is a 'once in 3 levels' sort of thing, and equally jacking your offense would probably be in the same ballpark (a bit more costly I'd venture, but not twice as much). So, I could see the 20th level guy with a jacked up FORT/REF/WILL/AC and 'HIT HARD WITH MY AXE', and maybe one other thing, some signature effect or whatever. That would account for what he gets at 6 of the 20 levels, so you still need some 'color' stuff, or more conditional 'once a level' things to cover about 14 other level ups.

If you look at the math of 5e's treasure allocation, it basically hands out 1 permanent magic item per 4 levels and 1 consumable every level.

It isn't necessary to hand out a permanent magic item every level - that leads to bloat by requiring a ridiculously large number of good magic items to create differentiation. If you can only have 3 items that work(ala 5e), everyone's a little bit more different than they are in 4e.