D&D 4E Using 4e as the basis of something familiar?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One of my chief problems with 3e has been the wonky mathematics (especially in regards to AC and Saves) at high levels. 4e purports to fix this problem.

I wonder if it would be possible to use the mathematical basis of 4e to create a form of the game that is more similar to earlier editions - that is, doesn't use the daily/at will/encounter structure - whilst maintaining the consistency of 4e.

Cheers!

At Will powers: Is there really a need to remove them? You don't need their nature as much as that of per day or per encounter powers.
Unless you just don't like wizards casting spells every round. In that case... okay. Throw them away.

My idea for per encounter spells:
How many per encounter abilities does a class have at a given level? Multiply this value by 4. Add +3 for every per day power it can use each day. That's the amount of total spell slots the class has. Per Encounter spells cost 1 slot, per day spells cost 3.
This allows you to reuse the existing 4E spells & powers without needing to rebalance them much, I think. You might want to give more spell slots, but limit each slot to a specific level. This will take a little more work, I guess, since I assume that the power differences between spells aren't that big (as in 3E). Maybe Montes "Book of Experimental Might" can help you here.

The big problem is: How do you make per encounter/per day powers work for non-spellcasters? I assume you want to keep them "mostly" balanced, and they should also retain special abilities.

My idea would probably be to make a simple token mechanic.
- Every basic attack generates one token. (regardless of success or failure)
- Every at will attack generates one token on a succesful attack. (at will attacks are stronger, but there is a higher chance you don't get to use your per encounter powers this way)
- Activating a per encounter power costs you 3 token.
- Activating a per day power costs you 9 token.

Maybe classes start with a "per day" token value, that they can distribute among encounters, so that a Warlord can actually use his Tactics at the beginning of a combat instead at the end.

Healing:
If you want slower healing rates, just don't reset Healing Surges after each day. Every 6 hours of extended rest, one Surge is regained.
I don't know how it would be possible to remove the Surges all together and still retain viability of non-magic healer classes. If that's not your concern (this was impossible before 4E anyway), you can remove any possibility to activate them without magic. Since all healing abilities will now be spells, they can't be used "nilly-willy", but the limit is only on the caster, not the character. (So need for Surges per day. Using the Healing Surge value as the basis for #hp healed still makes sense.)

 

[MerricB]

There's a couple things that concern me about 4e with regard to my more casual players, both related to how powers are described:

The first is how many powers a 1st level character has! This really won't be a problem for most of my players, but I can forsee that it will be confusing for certain players, who prefer the roleplaying... and whose ideas of manuevers are to describe them and let the DM adjudicate the result rather than having a selection to choose from.

The second is as regards pushes and slides and suchlike, not only because they're somewhat confusing for casual players, but also because of uncertainty about pits and the like...

Cheers!