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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Honestly, the more I think about it, I would just hack Dungeon World with the following:

1) Add Healing Surges, Second Winds, and class moves that trigger the use of surges in combat.

2) Give all monsters stuff that front-loads their payload (eg first damage is either best of 2 dice or +1d6 or something).

* Those two should engender the "Rally Narrative" that is quintessential 4e combat.

3) Deepen and broaden the tags and their usage (the Forceful tag becoming even more rampant than it already is - it is effectively "forced movement") and have synergy with the usage of tags (eg they trigger player moves).

4) Have each player start combat with 1 Prep (basically the encounter power facet of play).

Dungeon World (GMed correctly and deftly) hews so much to 4e's high-octane, push play toward conflict aesthetic and its action/adventure, big-damn-hero genre tropes (PCs start out extremely robust and merely broaden their resource-base as play progresses) that the only thing it is really missing is the "Rally Narrative" and some more depth in "team synergy" (it is already there, but to 4e-ify it, it needs to be amped up).

Yeah, DW is certainly an interesting game. I found more inspiration in the overall framework of narrative design. I mean I LIKE the DW approach to things at the detailed level as well, but at that level it scratches a bit of a different itch. My desire is for a bit more mechanical and tactical approach, so I have powers, turns, actions, and a grid, all basically extracted from 4e with a tweak or two.

I'm still working out some issues too. For instance 4e gives you TOO MANY options, each of which does a small something in combat. I'm trying to tweak the game so that its still equally tactical, but you deploy a smaller range of powers with greater effect, and the choices are more significant. This would also provide a bit more importance to situation, so for instance in my game surprise is more deadly than in 4e. You can employ larger numbers of slightly weaker enemies in more interesting and effective way too, as for instance a bunch of goblins surprising your level 5 party could be real trouble, whereas in 4e they'd pretty much do some trivial damage on a surprise round and then be blenderized and done. It does have a few consequences, making a mistake can be a bit more deadly, but I've been carefully maintaining the lack of arbitrariness in outcomes that I think was a real good thing about 4e. You won't lose due to the luck of the dice, but you may well make a dumb mistake and suffer harshly for it. Its just really a slightly lower level of granularity, but not much.

I'm also really making the rally narrative stay quite at the front and center. It could get fairly obscured in 4e. There are however other possibilities, like a prep narrative where you make a great move against a powerful foe initially due to preparation (surprise, or other means) and then enter a 'beat down race' which requires that edge to win. 4e wasn't great at that one, though it could be pulled off at times.

 

[Balesir]

Yeah, DW is certainly an interesting game. I found more inspiration in the overall framework of narrative design. I mean I LIKE the DW approach to things at the detailed level as well, but at that level it scratches a bit of a different itch.

I know just what you mean about a "different itch", and that's my take, so far, too (I'm reading DW now). There are a few games I would LOVE to see with DW's approach (I sat watching The Force Awakens thinking "lordy, lordy but this would work awesomely in a variant of DW!"), but it really does cover a very specific type of game.

You can employ larger numbers of slightly weaker enemies in more interesting and effective way too, as for instance a bunch of goblins surprising your level 5 party could be real trouble, whereas in 4e they'd pretty much do some trivial damage on a surprise round and then be blenderized and done.

I see this criticism of 4E a fair bit, and I just don't really see the issue. At 5th level a goblin encounter is a goblin platoon or two (huge 5th level swarms, some possibly elite and some with area bursts from volleys of arrows) led by a goblin chieftain and/or 5th level witch doctor/shaman/priest. Easily statted and challenging for a 5th level party. Maybe throw in a few (5th level) minions, or make the swarms convert to multiple minions when bloodied or "killed", for some added chaos and amusement...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I see this criticism of 4E a fair bit, and I just don't really see the issue. At 5th level a goblin encounter is a goblin platoon or two (huge 5th level swarms, some possibly elite and some with area bursts from volleys of arrows) led by a goblin chieftain and/or 5th level witch doctor/shaman/priest. Easily statted and challenging for a 5th level party. Maybe throw in a few (5th level) minions, or make the swarms convert to multiple minions when bloodied or "killed", for some added chaos and amusement...

Yeah, I'm not saying you can't generate an encounter that has the flavor of 'some wimpy goblins ambush you!" and mechanics that make it dangerous. I think its just something that 4e doesn't HELP you do, in the sense that using stock monsters won't cut it.

The other thing is, scenarios like this can come up a lot on the fly, due to character actions, and its not as easy to just retool the goblins so this works now on the spot. Whereas in say AD&D if a bunch of goblins drop surprise on the level 5 party, it could be dicey and you don't need to tweak anything. I THINK 5e was kinda aiming at the same thing, except they successfully make tactical considerations pretty lobotomized. I mean basic tactics like "kill one guy first, then go on to the next" still apply, but NONE of the real synergistic 4e stuff is there to any degree. I think there's a middle ground where its not quite so fiddly and time-consuming as 4e can be, and a bit more adaptable without writing up new stat blocks, but not torn down to 5e's level of simplicity (nor neglecting the grid either).

 

[Tony Vargas]

I see this criticism of 4E a fair bit, and I just don't really see the issue. At 5th level a goblin encounter is a goblin platoon or two (huge 5th level swarms, some possibly elite and some with area bursts from volleys of arrows) led by a goblin chieftain and/or 5th level witch doctor/shaman/priest.

A 5th level party can still be hit by 1st-level monsters. A little early to be aggregating things, IMHO. Now, 15th level party, sure, stat out some Goblin swarms...

Yeah, I'm not saying you can't generate an encounter that has the flavor of 'some wimpy goblins ambush you!" and mechanics that make it dangerous. I think its just something that 4e doesn't HELP you do, in the sense that using stock monsters won't cut it.

There are third-level standard-issue Goblins. An ambush on favorable terrain with a Goblin Hexer leading with (the aptly named) Vexing Cloud, enough melee types to engage the whole party, and a comparable number of minions at range - well w/in exp budget and pretty darn annoying for a 5th level party. No re-statting or other special prep required.

The other thing is, scenarios like this can come up a lot on the fly, due to character actions, and its not as easy to just retool the goblins so this works now on the spot. Whereas in say AD&D if a bunch of goblins drop surprise on the level 5 party, it could be dicey and you don't need to tweak anything.

A 5th level AD&D fighter can attack goblins 5/round, and a stray Sleep spell can mop up 4-16 of 'em (anything beefier will insta-kill every goblin in it's area), so it'd need to be a lot of goblins to get dicey. Contrast that with minions the fighter cleaves 2 at a time (and can still miss), and which can survive fireballs when the wizard craps out on some of his attack rolls.

Maybe goblins and a 5th level party were a bad example.

Maybe throw in a few (5th level) minions, or make the swarms convert to multiple minions when bloodied or "killed", for some added chaos and amusement...

I've done the 0 hp swarms spawning minions thing (or even minion spawning from and re-entering swarms on other triggers), it's very appropriate ('realistic' even) and a little added fun.

I've done a lot of re-statting to bring higher and lower level monsters into line with PC level, and it's both easy and works very well. But, lately, I've tossed out the odd much-lower or higher level monster and run through it, and it's not as unplayable as you might think. The latter I'd provide some alternate way of ending the combat (one side or the other fleeing or 'losing interest' or whatever, or converting it to a skill challenge), but it didn't always prove necessary. The former were excessively easy, but not as excessively slow to play out as I feared, and gave the PCs the traditional sense of having really advanced in the intervening levels.

 

[Manbearcat]

I know just what you mean about a "different itch", and that's my take, so far, too (I'm reading DW now). There are a few games I would LOVE to see with DW's approach (I sat watching The Force Awakens thinking "lordy, lordy but this would work awesomely in a variant of DW!"), but it really does cover a very specific type of game.

Its funny you mention this. I approached my players (all well-versed in Dungeon World) very recently about this exact thing. The PBtA engine is so elegant, so intuitive, so extremely versatile, that it could trivially produce a fantastic pulp Star Wars engine. They agreed so our next game is going to be Star Wars via PBtA.

I'm still working out some issues too. For instance 4e gives you TOO MANY options, each of which does a small something in combat. I'm trying to tweak the game so that its still equally tactical, but you deploy a smaller range of powers with greater effect, and the choices are more significant. This would also provide a bit more importance to situation, so for instance in my game surprise is more deadly than in 4e. You can employ larger numbers of slightly weaker enemies in more interesting and effective way too, as for instance a bunch of goblins surprising your level 5 party could be real trouble, whereas in 4e they'd pretty much do some trivial damage on a surprise round and then be blenderized and done. It does have a few consequences, making a mistake can be a bit more deadly, but I've been carefully maintaining the lack of arbitrariness in outcomes that I think was a real good thing about 4e. You won't lose due to the luck of the dice, but you may well make a dumb mistake and suffer harshly for it. Its just really a slightly lower level of granularity, but not much.

I'm also really making the rally narrative stay quite at the front and center. It could get fairly obscured in 4e. There are however other possibilities, like a prep narrative where you make a great move against a powerful foe initially due to preparation (surprise, or other means) and then enter a 'beat down race' which requires that edge to win. 4e wasn't great at that one, though it could be pulled off at times.

Some thoughts on ways to accomplish what you're looking for:

1) Contract the tiers to levels 1-10 a la Neverwinter or 13th Age after it.

2) Reorganize Powers/Features:

Level 1: Background, Race Features, Theme Encounter, all level 1 Class Features, Heroic Feat.
Level 2: Class/Race/Skill/Theme (any of 1-10) Utility
Level 3: Remove Class Encounter and replace with level 11 Encounter and a PP-themed Second Wind Augment.
Level 4: ASI * 2, Heroic Feat.
Level 5: Remove level 5 Daily and put level 11 Paragon Path Utility there.
Level 6: Remove level 6 Utility and put Level 16 Paragon Path Feature
Level 7: Remove level 7 Encounter and put level 21 Epic Destiny Feature there.
Level 8: ASI * 2, Heroic Feat.
Level 9: Remove level 9 Daily and put Epic Destiny level 24/26 come back to life/miracle Daily there.
Level 10: Level 30 Epic Destiny Feature.

3) Make Surprise Round damage automatic critical hit and lower the number of Healing Surges available per day.

4) Increase damage expressions at levels 3 (Paragon Tier) and 7 (Epic Tier).

5) Add +2 hit and 1d8 damage buff for Bloodied PCs.

Sum total =

* 3 less feats to create wonky build synergy that can wreak havoc (also serves to lessen build decision-points).
* Less intra-race/class/theme build choices and powers.
* Nova nerfed.
* "Rally Narrative" augmented.
* Damage expressions buffed for more tactical stunting.
* Monsters deadlier putting PCs in Bloodied condition creating feedback loop of more dangerous PCs with Bloodied damage buff (Rally Narrative again). This also mitigates the "dump encounter powers straight away" propensity that some tables endure.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Its funny you mention this. I approached my players (all well-versed in Dungeon World) very recently about this exact thing. The PBtA engine is so elegant, so intuitive, so extremely versatile, that it could trivially produce a fantastic pulp Star Wars engine. They agreed so our next game is going to be Star Wars via PBtA.

I have a couple of very literal thinkers in my current table that don't take as well to DW-style. They had fun, but they just kept trying to force it into being a basic skill based game. It was too awkward, so for THAT group, we use d6 Space for our Space Opera (though we passed on playing Star Wars per se).

Some thoughts on ways to accomplish what you're looking for:

1) Contract the tiers to levels 1-10 a la Neverwinter or 13th Age after it.

10 levels is too few, I don't think it worked for 13a either. 20 levels is where we've landed. I think that will play out quite well. Score one for Gygax.

2) Reorganize Powers/Features:

Level 1: Background, Race Features, Theme Encounter, all level 1 Class Features, Heroic Feat.
Level 2: Class/Race/Skill/Theme (any of 1-10) Utility
Level 3: Remove Class Encounter and replace with level 11 Encounter and a PP-themed Second Wind Augment.
Level 4: ASI * 2, Heroic Feat.
Level 5: Remove level 5 Daily and put level 11 Paragon Path Utility there.
Level 6: Remove level 6 Utility and put Level 16 Paragon Path Feature
Level 7: Remove level 7 Encounter and put level 21 Epic Destiny Feature there.
Level 8: ASI * 2, Heroic Feat.
Level 9: Remove level 9 Daily and put Epic Destiny level 24/26 come back to life/miracle Daily there.
Level 10: Level 30 Epic Destiny Feature.

Yeah, just expand this up to 20 levels. 1-8 is heroic, 9-16 is paragon, and 17-20 is Epic (which then becomes a bit more compressed into a dramatically tighter story arc sized thing).

We did away with ASIs entirely, they simply contribute to skewing bonuses excessively and to making non-core attribute related ANYTHING become worthless without really adding that much to the game.

The result is you get +10 total level bonus across 20 levels, you get 13 feats total, and roughly 5 cycles of power picks, depending on exactly where you drop specific ones (it doesn't translate exactly from 30 levels to 20). However, I think 4 rounds of power picks is even better, but I still have to work out some of the details. I've also cut back on the total number of powers you have, so that means a bit more of them are replacements vs adding a power. 4e just gets overboard with the sheer numbers of powers on your sheet after a while. Even at low levels it gets pretty bad if you play with themes, and some combinations really get crazy, like say a Deva Cleric where you have significant racials and several extra class powers beyond the standard ones. I am to not have that happen.

3) Make Surprise Round damage automatic critical hit and lower the number of Healing Surges available per day.

I don't think THAT's necessary, but making the surprise round an actual round instead of a single standard action, and giving everyone who's acting in the surprise round advantage (which is about roughly +4 to hit) seems to be enough. We've debated an initiative penalty for being surprised as well, which would tend to make the second round actions of the surprisers come up first as well.

5) Add +2 hit and 1d8 damage buff for Bloodied PCs.

Sounds more like a good class feature to me, but maybe. I never was very enamoured of all these 'increase the pace' mechanics. Let the players decide to step it up if they want, or not.

Sum total =

* 3 less feats to create wonky build synergy that can wreak havoc (also serves to lessen build decision-points).
* Less intra-race/class/theme build choices and powers.
* Nova nerfed.
* "Rally Narrative" augmented.
* Damage expressions buffed for more tactical stunting.
* Monsters deadlier putting PCs in Bloodied condition creating feedback loop of more dangerous PCs with Bloodied damage buff (Rally Narrative again). This also mitigates the "dump encounter powers straight away" propensity that some tables endure.

Yeah, I'll have to think about that last part. I want to see how things go and how various powers work out first. In other words, provide some of that built into powers and class features. It makes it more engaging for the players when they're the ones producing the effect. At least its a theory

 

[Tony Vargas]

10 levels is too few, I don't think it worked for 13a either.

10 levels is very neat and intuitive ("on a scale of 1 to 10j..."), but I agree it squeezes 13A too much, because they /also/ had 'tiers' w/in it.

20 levels is where we've landed. I think that will play out quite well. Score one for Gygax.

Was there a 20-level cap before 3.0? I'm sure I recall 1e tables going above 20...

 

[MoutonRustique]

I've written down a lot of messy kinda this and that. We have had little chance to really PLAY of late, a foray into 5e intervened, and then there was a general "lets play something else besides D&D for a while" sentiment. Really what I'm missing is a lot of the nuts and bolts. I mean I have devised a set of core rules, not hard given they're basically 4e with a few minor tweaks, and some different progressions and whatnot. Its certainly a pretty big mess, and some parts have been revised based on different experiments and discussions, while other parts are no longer consistent with those parts, etc. Not that I can't share it, but it may not make a huge amount of sense in total.

No worries - I understand perfectly : I've had games where about half (I'm exaggerating for effect) the rules are just in my head.

Head-space has a way of being organized in many dimensions - putting that on paper usually requires a 2 or even 1 D approach and the translation can be... difficult.

I've tried using mind-mapping, but the learning curve to get to "effortless ease" is always too long for my (lack of) patience... Maybe in a few years when I update my computer and get a touch screen that'll ease the process...

 

[MoutonRustique]

On the level number and range and such my recent revelation has been this : accept to restrain the campaign.

I've come to the realization that what I want is usually for the campaign to have a certain feel - in standard 4e, the feel changes a great deal (as it should!) during those 30 levels. It's way to much work crunching or spreading the crunch - it's better to just be up front and say "this game is going to be level 13-18 : they're way above average, can mow down squads, but they can't take on the entire castle by themselves yet." Or something to that effect and just play with progression rates and methods.

All this being said, respecting these kinds of ideas is harder than keeping your new year resolutions - so, you know, I'm going to keep hacking in about... aaannndd I've gotten an idea (I kid you not - it happened as I typed!)

But the initial point stands!

I see ~5 kinds of games (or actually, "feel" would be a better term) in 4e - it's just a matter of choosing the one you want and then not shooting yourself in the foot! But then again, hacking the game is just so much fun!

As to 13th Age - I agree, it does feel pretty "squeezed". On the other hand, it's the kind of game where they might even had gone with 9 levels with every 3rd having massive jumps in power. IMO it's the kind of game where "I gain a level" is supposed to be a game changer.

It's like 10 is too narrow for a granular progression, but then, it's to big for what should really be a "3 levels" game with a small number of "sub-levels".

... now I'm liking this "3 levels" thing... It would have beautiful parallel with creature construction : solo to elite to standard to minion. Ok, maybe a 5 level game so the initial solos could be faced as minions. And... if you add in 6 sub-level of granularity to each level, you get... (suspenseful drum roll) 30 levels! ... and we're right back at the start...

Sorry for the ramble - but then again, this is my ramble thread! (Also, feel free to ramble as well, I don't have a monopoly on ramblings - I won't judge you for it here.)

How interesting this would be : a thread where once you type, you can't take it back. The spelling would likely be horrendous (), but it would be very interesting to see all the starts and stops in all the ideas and propositions...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

10 levels is very neat and intuitive ("on a scale of 1 to 10j..."), but I agree it squeezes 13A too much, because they /also/ had 'tiers' w/in it.

Was there a 20-level cap before 3.0? I'm sure I recall 1e tables going above 20...

TECHNICALLY AD&D and OD&D have no absolute limit. However you don't really gain anything except a trivial amount of hit points beyond 20th level. Magic Users/Wizards, and Cleric/Druid/Priest will get some additional spells, but in any practical sense you're topped out, and there's nothing out there that's going to present a challenge that you'd need to go higher up to overcome. I mean, some people played these 'super high level' games, but it usually turned into either a homebrew version of Immortals, or just off-the-wall Monty Haul like play. In any practical sense the game was over at 20, and Gygax himself gave out a free pizza to any player achieving level 20, and then retired the character (I understand only a couple of people ever got there). So, yes, in effect Gygax was calling the game 'over' at level 20, without saying "you can't continue, it absolutely ends here."

So, yes, 3.0 is the first edition where 20 is a hard limit, but even there I believe they then produced some sort of Epic Level Handbook, correct? 4e is the first time that the game effectively stated outright "there is no level beyond 30, just godlike beings and they don't really have level progression, we just rate them for challenge purposes."

I think putting that at level 20 and simply rescaling things such that level 21+ are 'godlike' is simply a minor redesign intended to reduce the need for added levels of 'filler'. While there are certainly interesting things available in 4e at all levels, for any one character, there are always a goodly number of those levels that aren't all that interesting. Often you find that 2-3 different levels provide encounter or daily powers that are largely just slight variations and scaling that exist mainly to fill out the choices at that level. Pruning back doesn't reduce options in any practical sense, but it insures they're less redundant and each level has some real solid payoff. Cutting out an extra 5 points of bonus growth is just icing on the cake.