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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles JG" data-source="post: 5705143" data-attributes="member: 61501">1) Lose the maths progression treadmill for attack & defence or make it purely level dependent. This ensures the maths works & removes what is for me the only “video-gamey aspect.”2) Lose numerical ability scores. Have eg strong as a quality that improves melee damage & some skills. A bit radical, but 4e pushes you into stereo typical designs anyway so assuming fighters are all “strong” with the option to be “very strong” would not make much difference but might make things feel less mathsy. Losing the ability score increases would also be a bonus. 3) Simplify conditions.There are slightly too many that last for odd durations & have many different numbers. One (stacking?) “combat disadvantage” & another for advantage would be fine. I love ongoing damage as it can provide great tension so that is spot on for me. 4) Speed up combat a bit – about 30% faster would suit me. This could probably be done with a bit of maths fixing (maybe 25% more damage all round) & a bit of simplification of conditions. 5) Make one big fight a day an option. I do not mind that trivial fights take too long in 4e as I do not see the point of them anyway in any edition. I do miss the fact that it is hard to balance a single big fight as the characters are balanced over a 4 ish encounter adventuring day. Adding pauses other than short rests might to this. It would also make them more explicitly narrativist which would not suit some. You might have “pause”, interlude, milestone, Rest. Pauses refresh an encounter power & let you spend a surge or refresh second wind. The others are as before but more at the DMs discretion, though not entirely so. 6) Make magic items magical. (Yay for trite titles!) They should provide powers & fun properties not bigger numbers or worse running to keep numbers. Well you could keep +1 (to hit) as a sword power but it would always be that +1 bonus. 7) Split powers/feats/features into 2-3 groups & make people pick from each. Combat effectiveness, Combat options, non Combat options. The one to perhaps lose is combat effectiveness by factoring it in. Combat effectiveness is bonuses to the numbers, mostly attack/damage. Combat options would be uses for skills in combat, extra powers or the ability to add riders to powers. Most current utility powers fit here & more interesting feats. Out of combat I would like some skill based powers that do not compete with our combat ones. Such as professions & backgrounds or craft skills & also the non combat feats & utilities.8) Make power sources mean something. Share mechanics & powers across a source with class based riders & other features for variation. Psionics sort of does this now, except Monks, but the rest have very limited feel that you are playing eg a primal character rather than a martial one. 9) Fix multiple attack maths.If two powers are balanced at level 1 & one adds static bonuses twice as fast they will not be balanced at level 10 (twin strike how I loathe thee). I am sure what the best way to do this is but the most obvious is to only add static bonuses once. That is odd for AOEs, though these are less problematic being anti focus fire. ~Admin note: please don't use fonts and colours - makes it harder to work with site stylesheets ~</blockquote>

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