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

[Flynn]

The first thing I'd like to see is simple:

A Release Date. I'd like to stop seeing "the sky is falling" threads every few weeks as someone else finds another reason to believe that "4E is coming, 4E is coming!" on little or no evidence.

After that, I'd like to see elements of SECR and D20 Modern worked into D&D, but that's my preference. In the long run, I'll happily check out the core rules of whatever they make, and then decide whether or not I'll use it for my games.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I'd like to see:

4e D&D by Gary Gygax.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Keep classes and levels, otherwise it isn't D&D. Keep hit points and Vancian magic - they're simple and they work.

Keep the d20 system. Keep the tactical options. Keep attacks of opportunity.

Simplify the systems, keep tinkering with balance.

High level play doesn't work, imo. The simplest solution would be to go back to the original system of ending the game at 'name level' - around 10th. The other solution would be a reworking of the power of spells, making raise dead, plane shift and other high power effects only available at 20th level or so.

Physical combatants are more powerful than casters at low level, much weaker at high level. SR doesn't do its job of balancing this as self-buffers - clerics, druids and gishes - are unaffected. I'd like to see the game balanced at all levels 1-20 (or 1-10 if my above solution is adopted).

The are still far too many subsystems. Turn undead is the most obvious but not the only one. Many spells have their own little subsystems. Go down the HERO/GURPS route with spells. A few effects coupled with modifiers. Fireball still exists, all the spells do, but their rules are unified.

Unify, unify, unify rules. For example, why is the roll for forced march a straight CON check and not a save? Do away with stat checks, make em all saves. Apply this unification principle ruthlessly throughout. Prune, prune and prune again. Halve the size of the PHB. Don't worry too much about realism. D&D isn't a simulation, it has to work as a game. Less rules but keep all the player and tactical options.

 

[Ry]

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

I'd also like CCG elements, like locations, monsters, spells, feats and treasure all done as cards.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Off the top of my head:

1) More flexibility & variety- mostly in the form of "cafeteria lists" of abilities unique to classes from which players choose each new levels, like the 3.x Rogue.

2) Cascading Feats. With the sheer number of feats out there, its hard to keep track of their interactions & locations...even for designers. It also makes some builds (the really feat-intensive ones) so rare as to be almost not worth their ink & paper. When was the last time you saw someone run a size M mounted warrior, esp. a mounted archer?

Cascading feats would operate like this: You take a Feat- say Power Attack- and its benefits increase as the PC increases in level. After a PC with Power Attack gains 2 levels, the player could choose to gain the benefits of Leap Attack, Improved Sunder, or Cleave. 2 Levels later, more options open up- perhaps some as yet not extant within a currently published feat. As is obvious from the example, some Feats would simply dissapear, folded into their progenitor feats as level-based feat improvements.

IOW, it works much like the "cafeteria list" class option noted above.

3) Psionics becomes Core, with at least 2 classes placed in the PHB.

4) Maintain Vancian magic & the Arcane/Divine dichotomy, but expand the types of magic available within the game. Both historically and as things stand right now, D&D does not simulate ritual magic, animist magic, rune magic, tattoo magic, gem magic and many other forms of magical powers found in literature and RW legends.

One I'd especially like to see get full treatment was proposed in UA- an exhaustion system...hopefully based on Con.

 

[Driddle]

Regarding character development: Fewer limitations on access to class-specific abilities -- wild empathy, for example, and bardic lore -- and fewer stereotyped class labels. More flexibility to design what we refer to now as a "cross-class" character to fit a personal, specific concept without having to Wite-Out(tm) so many of the preexisting desciptors and class names. ... Or at least a more clearly defined system for swapping out nearly equivalent class abilities without the need for a library of "Complete" books and similar supplements filled with redundant prestige classes, feats and and "racial substitution levels."

 

[zen_hydra]

4ed should lose things like attacks of opportunity. I don't want to be forced to use a battle map and figurines to run combat. Any miniature war game elements should be either optional rules, or a separate game.

 

[Zaruthustran]

• AC should include the defender's BAB. Attacking Bob the peasant (wearing leather armor) and hitting Johan the Legendary Duelist (wearing leather armor) should be a different experience.
• Cool abilities should be "per encounter", not "per day". This includes spells.
• Spells should be more like the Warlock's invocations, and less like a mail-order catalog. Actually, I'd be delighted if they were more like Harry Potter spells: more like skills. Whatever the new iteration, the current spell system needs to go.
• HP/Damage should be more like the Saga system.
• Classes need to be streamlined/consolidated. D&D 3.5's two dozen base classes is ridiculous. There should just be divided by role: Melee guy, archer guy, magic blaster guy, magic support guy. No hybrid classes.

Whatever 4E is, it should be significantly different from the current game. D&D 3.75 would be a huge mistake, and no one would buy it.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think we'll see...

Substitution levels specific to the various races; this concept might even replace the Prestige Class.

A greater ability to switch out class abilities; I don't think this edition will go as far as making all class abilities into something anyone can take, but I bet the next one will. Each class should have at least three or four alternate class abilities.

I think we'll see a more streamlined rules set, with fewer Conditions and some optional tactical rules.

 

[Darklone]

OMG. A lot of the proposals here are things I don't want to see in 4E due to game design reasons.