D&D 4E What would you want to see in 4e?

[Sammael]

Here's my list. And, believe it or not, I tried to be objective rather than simply listing my house rules

1. WP/VP instead of hit points.
2. No absolutes (or very, very few absolutes)
3. Add the Aristocrat (a common fantasy archetype) as a base class
4. Rename Barbarian to Berserker to escape the cultural conotations
5. Reinforce the Bard as a true jack of all trades
6. Every class should have access to every defining class feature from level 1; hence, druids should get some kind of lesser wild shape right from the beginning
7. More high-level Fighter feat chains
8. Eliminate Paladin as a core class; make a prestige class based on the current paladin
9. Replace the Ranger with a Scout/Ranger hybrid (add skirmish but drop the combat styles and favored enemies)
10. Replace Sorcerer with Warlock (minus the whole "dark arts" baggage)
11. Change the skill cap to max rank = level. Eliminate cross-class skills. Instead, every class gets a competence bonus (variable with level) on a couple of signature skills
12. Merge similar skills
13. Improve the feats' categorization
14. Adopt one of the "metamagic on the fly" systems, but retain the old system as well
15. Favored Enemy should be a feat available to everyone
16. Armor as DR; if it's a core rule, people won't keep forgetting to apply it
17. Eliminate the X/day mechanic; I don't care how they do it, but I think the way kensai's power surge works may be the key
18. Rework the economics system to make it at least somewhat plausible
19. Reduce the dependence on magic items (but NOT, and I repeat, NOT in the same manner as Iron Heroes); also, reduce the expected treasure levels and eliminate all stat-boosting items (or make them MUCH more expensive)
20. To compensate for #19, give feats at every other level, or even at every level
21. Reduce the number of bonus types
22. Overhaul the CR system
23. Overhaul the ECL/LA system
24. Remove multiclassing penalties and get rid of the favored class concept (or change it dramatically)
25. Change the saving throw progression so that multiclassed characters no longer have ungodly saving throws
26. Change the BAB progression so that multiclassed character no longer suffer from really poor BAB
27. Change the spellcasting progression to make multiclassed spellcasters more viable (but still weaker than full casters)

 

[Nightfall]

So... wow. Everybody wants 4.0 to be their homebrew.

No...Just SCARRED LANDS!!!

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

PHB

Abilities - DEX modifies to hit roll. CHA modifies number of action points.

Races - The default assumption is human. The optional races are:

Dwarf
Elf
Elseblooded (Aasimir, Changeling, Genasi, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Spirit Folk, Shifter and Tiefling)
Gnome
Halfling
Hengeyokai
Warforged

Classes - Arcana Unearthed style casting. Fractional BAB and a BAB-like caster level progression for all classes. Standard clases are:

Artificer
Barbarian
Cleric
Fighter
Ranger (no spells, add Scout abilities)
Rogue
Sorcerer (spell-like abilities)
Wizard (school and element specialties)


Optional Classes:

Bard
Druid
Monk
Ninja
Paladin
Psion
Psychic Warrior
Samurai

Combat - AoO is optional, not default.


DMG

NPC Classes - Add Magewright. Commoner tops out at 5th level, the other classes top out at level 10.


MM

1 Hit Die = 1 level

 

[Mark CMG]

What would you want to see in 4e?

Copyright 2010

 

[MerricB]

Copyright 2010

I'm with Mark.

I want to see the basic structure of 3.5e retained. I don't want to see a lot of changes.

I would like to see:

* A revised system of Metamagic
* Turn Undead dealing damage to undead instead of being ineffective against high-HD undead.
* Diplomatic skills revised

Cheers!

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I can't imagine Fourth Edition being needful or even particularly desirable by 2010 or 2012.

It's not that I'm afraid of a new edition, or that I think they're trying to "screw gamers"-- I just don't think there will really be enough innovations to make a new edition worth it. For the most part, you can make your own "fourth edition" simply by picking up Unearthed Arcana and sampling other fine OGL products.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The words "Copyright 2010" in fine priint on the bottom of the first page.

[end]

 

[WayneLigon]

Of course-- our individual homebrews are how we think D&D should work in the first place, after all.

There's a number of my house rules I've left out of this list, though. While I think they work better, I can see how the core rules might be better for not including them.

See, now what's interesting is when I run or play 3.5E, I use very few house rules, and those are usually campaign-specific. Usually less than a half-page of minor flavor tweaks, like a different means of rolling for hit points or something. No major systems are changed at all.

I like speculating what would make 4E a better game, though, definately. As much as I'd like to think we've reached the peak of gaming excellence with the 3E basic engine, I know that's not true. Everything can be improved. We've seen some excellent systems in Arcana Unearthed, Iron Heroes, Midnight, Mutants and Masterminds, Blue Rose/True20, Grim Tales and others. I hope some of those ideas can find a way into 4E or whatever comes afterwards. I just hope against hope for my one big wish: the all-in-one rulesbook that isn't a 600-page tome.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would really like D&D to retain its high magic feel, but I would enjoy less reliance on magic items, especially those that lead to the extreme power difference between high and low level characters
Maybe there should be no +x bonus anymore, but instead only special abilities for weapons and armors.
So a flaming longsword wouldn´t have any additional enhancement bonus, it would just deal additional fire damage (or maybe not even that, maybe it would just replace its ordinary damage with fire damage)

I like the flavour idea of items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power, but I don´t like the resulting item reliance. Maybe a Gauntlet of Ogre Power would grant the fighter a +2 enhancement bonus to Strength, but only for a single strength (-related) check or roll per day (though on the other hand, don´t like the whole rolls per day story - though for magic items, it is more reasonable than for class abilities).

For similar reasons, boosting spells should be a bit less important.

Turning Undead should be removed, at least the current mechanic. Maybe it should just work like Intimidate (except the Cleric would use Knowledge (Religion) and it works even though undeads are mindless and immune to mind affecting abilities) ...

I would prefer a lot of class abilitites as feats. Sneak Attack, Uncanny Dodge, all these could well be made feats. Consequently, characters should have more feats (1 feat per 2 levels like in Iron Heroes is nice). Basic Martial Arts ability would be nice if available to everyone, the eastern style Monk can then concentrate on extreme flashy effects...

Abilities should be less related to uses/day. Maybe the inherent drawbacks should outweigh it - Smite Evil could be a fullround or standard action for a Paladin, not allowing multiple attacks.

More flexibility for classes - The afromentioned Paladin might be indead a wrong class - the AE Champion is basically a flexible version of this class - and it removes the need for a "Anti-Paladin" classes (Black Guard).
Basically this ties to how generic classes should be - I don´t think Expert, Warrior and Spellcaster are enough, especially since they are dull and evoke no direct associations to roles they play (except a very basic). To few classes for a class based system and beginning players trying to come up with their first character idea...


Maybe it would be nice to use skills in place of saving throws and BAB. Maybe remove class or level based saving throw modifiers - a reflex save is just a dex check, and the saving throw DC against a spell would only be 10+INT (for wizard-like casters). Skills like Weapon Training (Swords) or Weapon Training (Bows) replace BAB. (That´s a bit hard to pull off, since you would have to interact with multiclassing and class skills in a sensible way...)

 

[Kapture]

The great thing about DND is that as narcissic as this thread is, I'm getting tons of ideas for games. That's really because, not in spite of. Damage dealing turning and quickie metamagic are cool with a capital K.

Five notes:

There is already a non-Vancian magic/point based mechanic: Sorcerers. If you count psionics and warlocks, that's three. There are four more coming out between now and April. How many do you want to include in the "core" game?

Like Armor as DR, variable spell effects are another layer of record keeping.

Any game with VP/WP would leave me cold. I've tried it. It makes combat longer and duller instead of more realistic and unpredictable. It adds a whole new layer of hit points to cleave through in every battle. Hack, hack, hack. See Dick hack.

I really like the idea of making non-human (monster) races predictable and stackable, but what happens when you want a really wacky monster like a tiny 1 HD creature that has an aura of pulsing death around it? Or a sprite. Then you have to shim your expectations of level advancements with goony artificial concepts like ECL and CR and etc again.

I like Mustrum's idea of more specific magic items. I'm tempted to use it. I'm not sure how that would reduce reliance on magic items in the game. Currently the reliance on magic items comes from the challenge rating system. What would fix that is not another edition, it's a body of literature on how differing circumstances effect CR's (and really, how to build monsters). For instance: In low magic games, creatures with magic DR and two CR's higher. In games without specific pluses to magic items, every encounter above third level is two levels higher. And etc. Really, a couple of dragon articles. Right now the information is spread all over the place. I suspect that's just an issue that will evolve over time. CR/EL was a really interesting addition to DND, and I bet there's a decade worth of tweaking involved in getting it right. That's, what, five years to go?

Who really cares what a Barbarian is called? Likewise, why are Hengyoki and Warforged more core than Bards, Druid, Monks, Ninjas, Paladins? How big do you want the core book to be?