D&D 4E [4e] Paladin (feat) advice needed

[EzekielRaiden]

I think the easiest thing to do is make a structure that basically takes the 'dark blue' powers of 4e and constructs them in a point buy form where it wouldn't be hard to figure out that you could swap other 4e powers of similar levels into the structure. The game wouldn't necessarily have Come And Get It, but there'd be a Fighter class, he'd gain his 3rd encounter power at level X, and the point buy system would tend to generate powers similar to level 7 powers from 4e in overall power level.

And certain classes would make it easier to generate specific kinds of powers - the Wizard might get blast/burst for a lower cost, the Invoker multi-targeting for a lower cost, Druid close blast, and Psion getting to spam as examples of 4e controller options.

I'm with Mr. Alhazred on this one: these kinds of proposals remove what I think might be the best part of 4e.

Simply put? 4e doesn't let you COMPLETELY suck.* You always have something you're pretty good at. Not the best, not even necessarily awesome, but reliably good. Turning it into a build-it-yourself point-buy system wrecks that completely, while opening the door for "haha, I can combine THIS Controller feature with THAT Defender feature and THIS OTHER Striker feature to do 10+Str+Cha damage to all enemies within 5 squares every round!!" crap. Which means, more or less, returning to the problems of 3e: regular players have to plan things out way in advance just to keep up, while people who obsessively memorize all the options can break the system over their knees.

*Caveat: unless you're a Binder. Maybe Vampires and Seekers too, but even they are generally thought to be okay, just on the low end.

 

[MwaO]

I'm with Mr. Alhazred on this one: these kinds of proposals remove what I think might be the best part of 4e.

Simply put? 4e doesn't let you COMPLETELY suck.* You always have something you're pretty good at. Not the best, not even necessarily awesome, but reliably good. Turning it into a build-it-yourself point-buy system wrecks that completely, while opening the door for "haha, I can combine THIS Controller feature with THAT Defender feature and THIS OTHER Striker feature to do 10+Str+Cha damage to all enemies within 5 squares every round!!" crap. Which means, more or less, returning to the problems of 3e: regular players have to plan things out way in advance just to keep up, while people who obsessively memorize all the options can break the system over their knees.

If you do the system wrong, sure. But the point buy would be based on making certain things cheaper because you're role X and class Y. So a Wizard who wants to do a close blast 5 daze would find it reasonably inexpensive as would an Invoker who wants to do a multi-target ranged attack daze. But the Invoker would find the close blast part a bit more expensive and the Wizard would find the multi-target more. And a Fighter likely could do a close burst 1 option that didn't daze or a single target power that dazed, but not both.

And it wouldn't be pure point buy, but more slot based - you can fill 3 slots of unequal strength - a Heroic Tier Wizard might be able to get Daze with a single slot, but a Fighter might need all 3 slots.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you do the system wrong, sure. But the point buy would be based on making certain things cheaper because you're role X and class Y. So a Wizard who wants to do a close blast 5 daze would find it reasonably inexpensive as would an Invoker who wants to do a multi-target ranged attack daze. But the Invoker would find the close blast part a bit more expensive and the Wizard would find the multi-target more. And a Fighter likely could do a close burst 1 option that didn't daze or a single target power that dazed, but not both.

And it wouldn't be pure point buy, but more slot based - you can fill 3 slots of unequal strength - a Heroic Tier Wizard might be able to get Daze with a single slot, but a Fighter might need all 3 slots.

That sounds interesting--but also sounds like a really heavy, complex system from the player's end. Every power has a cost, but every cost is modified by your starting package? That's a lot of stuff to keep in mind, and gets ever more complex if you add in things like multiclassing or hybrids.

Though it does kinda remind me of the "passive tree" from the Diablo clone Path of Exile, or the "sphere grid" from FFX, just using differential costs rather than differential starting positions.

There is a different side to it though: if things are cheaper for same-class picks, doesn't that mean trying to do "cross-class" stuff actually leads to a character that can do fewer total things? Seems a little weird to "branch out" only to end up having half as many options as someone who stays "in-class"...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That sounds interesting--but also sounds like a really heavy, complex system from the player's end. Every power has a cost, but every cost is modified by your starting package? That's a lot of stuff to keep in mind, and gets ever more complex if you add in things like multiclassing or hybrids.

Though it does kinda remind me of the "passive tree" from the Diablo clone Path of Exile, or the "sphere grid" from FFX, just using differential costs rather than differential starting positions.

There is a different side to it though: if things are cheaper for same-class picks, doesn't that mean trying to do "cross-class" stuff actually leads to a character that can do fewer total things? Seems a little weird to "branch out" only to end up having half as many options as someone who stays "in-class"...

Yeah, I hadn't really touched on this point, but I think the FUNDAMENTAL flaw with the whole point buy concept is this one. 4e already has tons of options and detail, so much that ordinary casual players don't find it to be an easy game to access and use, particularly without DDI. I cannot imagine that such a point buy system would HELP with this. Not only would it be likely to 'help' the most casual players to make suckier characters, it would likely add little to their experience of the game, except a creeping feeling that they were 'doing it wrong' or lots of hand-wringing about how to make Hoppy the Axe Wielding Dwarf, which IMHO should be basically a "pick this one option and done" kind of concept (and a LOT of people want that kind of play).

This is a lot of the reason Essentials was invented, as it tended to (if you used NOTHING but Essentials) greatly streamline the whole process. Now, obviously point buy WOULD eliminate thousands of powers, BUT it would have to replace them with MANY, perhaps thousands, of even more granular options in order to produce the same range of powers that exist now in 4e. In fact I'd venture to say that, without relaxing the 'crunchiness' of powers, it would be virtually impossible to implement most of the more interesting 4e powers as pure point buy. Many of them have weird and rather corner-case effects. So, you'd end up with a system that produced much more generic power effects. It might just be simpler to eliminate all but the most generic powers from 4e and just leave it at that. The end result might be pretty much the same, and have less downside.

In my design, and I know I've said this a few times, I've got the power list down to around the size of the old 1e PHB spell lists, roughly 300 powers. I did this by reducing the number of classes, moving a lot of powers into source lists (as was suggested above earlier as well), made all powers scaling where appropriate, cut back to 20 levels, and aggressively pruned out redundant powers. With just a few classes and somewhat heavier-weight themes there just isn't the need for the vast numbers of powers. Feats simply don't exist, as such, in my game either at this point, though in effect its still possible to achieve the same result with boons. The upshot is powers can still be quirky and unique, but its now VERY easy to find what you want and run with it. Most characters also have under 6 powers ('Epic' characters might weigh in at a dozen, but that's still WAY better than high level standard 4e).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In my design, and I know I've said this a few times, I've got the power list down to around the size of the old 1e PHB spell lists, roughly 300 powers. I did this by reducing the number of classes, moving a lot of powers into source lists (as was suggested above earlier as well), made all powers scaling where appropriate, cut back to 20 levels, and aggressively pruned out redundant powers. With just a few classes and somewhat heavier-weight themes there just isn't the need for the vast numbers of powers. Feats simply don't exist, as such, in my game either at this point, though in effect its still possible to achieve the same result with boons. The upshot is powers can still be quirky and unique, but its now VERY easy to find what you want and run with it. Most characters also have under 6 powers ('Epic' characters might weigh in at a dozen, but that's still WAY better than high level standard 4e).

...how many classes did you prune out, exactly?

 

[Manbearcat]

I have SUPER fond memories of playing DW.

Hopefully you have similar feelings in your current 4e game. I've run the same group of players through tons of Dungeon World, an absurd amount of 4e and a fair amount of Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy (and plenty of other Cortex+). When done correctly, there is a fair amount of overlap in play experiences between the three (genre conceits, pacing, tightness/codification of resolution mechanics, protagonism/big damn heroes, the conflict-charged scene as the locus of play).

It would be lovely for 4e to get a thorough renaissance treatment, one that kept true to the core spirit while polishing it up. Most people who have enough interest in that, I find, tend to want to go much, much further...I coined the phrase "mutations" as opposed to "clones"...

I've yet to check out "Strike!" but from my limited familiarity with it, it seems to have some general consensus modifications to the base 4e chassis (decoupled roles, siloing combat and noncombat resource components - I think). Once I get a look I'll have more commentary.

NC sent me his tri-fold a few years ago. It was quite a good go of it.

 

[MwaO]

That sounds interesting--but also sounds like a really heavy, complex system from the player's end. Every power has a cost, but every cost is modified by your starting package? That's a lot of stuff to keep in mind, and gets ever more complex if you add in things like multiclassing or hybrids.

The important thing is not that you can use the system to consistently generate powers. The point is that you have a system that consistently generates powers approximately at the dark blue level of 4e powers. And that's not hard because there aren't generally going to be the kind of unique powers that potentially break the system.

Which then means the following:
You can then add powers that don't quite follow the system, but players/DMs know approximately how you got to them.

Someone who knows 4e and sees that a level X striker power does Y+Z, which happens to be identical to a level X 4e power, they can then go, 'aha'

And because you fix the multi-attacking/off-action damage problem, a lot of the sky-blue/gold problems go away. i.e. bonuses don't stack, all bonuses come from specific places, any damage listed outside the initial value is 'extra' damage, and there are options that allow +1/2/3 per W/I per tier. And again, a lot of problematic 4e feats/items/etc...get reduced in value too. But they're usable as is.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

...how many classes did you prune out, exactly?

Well, actually this is kind of a 'semantics thing'. The arrangement we are currently working with has 3 classes, Warrior, Mystic, and Trickster. However, these are really almost more like 'base classes', because you would always a theme, which is closer conceptually to most of the D&D-like classes. However its NOT quite the same thing, as there's actually no rule enforcing a particular correspondence of theme and class. Your 'Knight' can easily be a 'Trickster' instead of a 'Warrior' (maybe he's a bit of a Musketeer type for instance, but he's not a 'rogue' exactly). Of course its questionable whether or not all of the various possible combinations will be coherent or mechanically viable, though I've really killed off most impediments to combining things in useful ways.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, actually this is kind of a 'semantics thing'. The arrangement we are currently working with has 3 classes, Warrior, Mystic, and Trickster. However, these are really almost more like 'base classes', because you would always a theme, which is closer conceptually to most of the D&D-like classes. However its NOT quite the same thing, as there's actually no rule enforcing a particular correspondence of theme and class. Your 'Knight' can easily be a 'Trickster' instead of a 'Warrior' (maybe he's a bit of a Musketeer type for instance, but he's not a 'rogue' exactly). Of course its questionable whether or not all of the various possible combinations will be coherent or mechanically viable, though I've really killed off most impediments to combining things in useful ways.

Ironically, this actually sounds somewhat like a system I doodled up in my head a while back. I had Warrior, Trickster, and "Sage" as over-classes (I called them "groups"), and then organized the power sources into a MTG-like pentagon/star pattern. Martial - Shadow - Arcana - Nature - Radiant - Martial. (Psionics would then be the "purple" of this set.) Adjacent things share some similarities, e.g. Martial has buffing, THP, and a little real healing (a dabble of Radiant) and taunts, mind games, feints etc. (a little bit of Shadow) while its core shtick is expertise with weapons. And all Tricksters have battle-/situation-manipulating effects, which vary in nature and application depending on the power source: the Martial Trickster is the Warlord/Tactician/Captain, whose daring gambits and preternatural strategy turn defeat to victory and risk into profit; the Shadow Trickster is the Assassin, who poisons enemies and confounds their senses; the Arcane Trickster is the Bard whose music can soothe allies and subvert enemies, etc.

Do your "themes" feature any elements that can't be easily acquired through advancement? That's one of the things that always bothers me about most systems like this. "Classes" become no better than a bucket with generic stuff dribbled in, and anyone can easily become 75% as much Wizard as "the Wizard" or whatever. In my (completely abstract, un-written, theorized) system, there would be a couple unique features for each individual class (e.g. Paladins--Radiant Warriors--would get certain unique features that Sorcerers--Arcane Warriors, think a hybrid of Swordmage/Spellthief/Sorcerer--wouldn't and vice versa).

I hadn't thought too deeply about Psionic, but I had a general idea that it transcends the boundaries between groups and sources, being a wide-open playing field you intentionally get into only if you're prepared for the challenge of making a character that keeps up with the rest. Keeping it from being abusive would of course be a challenge, but having like...discipline-trees or something might work. Sorta like how the 13A Druid works.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ironically, this actually sounds somewhat like a system I doodled up in my head a while back. I had Warrior, Trickster, and "Sage" as over-classes (I called them "groups"), and then organized the power sources into a MTG-like pentagon/star pattern. Martial - Shadow - Arcana - Nature - Radiant - Martial. (Psionics would then be the "purple" of this set.) Adjacent things share some similarities, e.g. Martial has buffing, THP, and a little real healing (a dabble of Radiant) and taunts, mind games, feints etc. (a little bit of Shadow) while its core shtick is expertise with weapons. And all Tricksters have battle-/situation-manipulating effects, which vary in nature and application depending on the power source: the Martial Trickster is the Warlord/Tactician/Captain, whose daring gambits and preternatural strategy turn defeat to victory and risk into profit; the Shadow Trickster is the Assassin, who poisons enemies and confounds their senses; the Arcane Trickster is the Bard whose music can soothe allies and subvert enemies, etc.

Do your "themes" feature any elements that can't be easily acquired through advancement? That's one of the things that always bothers me about most systems like this. "Classes" become no better than a bucket with generic stuff dribbled in, and anyone can easily become 75% as much Wizard as "the Wizard" or whatever. In my (completely abstract, un-written, theorized) system, there would be a couple unique features for each individual class (e.g. Paladins--Radiant Warriors--would get certain unique features that Sorcerers--Arcane Warriors, think a hybrid of Swordmage/Spellthief/Sorcerer--wouldn't and vice versa).

I hadn't thought too deeply about Psionic, but I had a general idea that it transcends the boundaries between groups and sources, being a wide-open playing field you intentionally get into only if you're prepared for the challenge of making a character that keeps up with the rest. Keeping it from being abusive would of course be a challenge, but having like...discipline-trees or something might work. Sorta like how the 13A Druid works.

Well, first of all, I got rid of 'Arcane' as a power source. All arcane means is "something not widely known, obtuse, secret, or mysterious", so it IS NOT A POWER SOURCE (what would it be, the power of ignorance?). The real reason is it is just nebulous and unbounded and thus consumes all else. I have Elemental, Spirit, Martial, Shadow, and Nature. I don't really care about psionics, and hadn't thought of it particularly as an M:tG color analog, but I guess I don't have an issue with that. Other games have done the same sort of thing, and it didn't start with M:tG either. I might consider calling Martial 'Ki', and just limiting it to the more internalized aspects of that. Warrior themes can then pull from that, for say a fighter-like concept where you do studly combat stuff. Martial works though, but I consider it a bit more fantastic than most people would.

In my theory the 3 classes aren't tied to either roles or power sources directly. Instead that falls to themes. So the 'Paladin' would be a Spiritual weapon user, probably of the warrior class. A more mystical paladin might choose to be a mystic (and that could work out similarly to the 4e chaladin or something closer to the STR cleric maybe). I thought of a Shadow Trickster as being an illusionist. Maybe a Nature trickster would be a bard, more like the old 1e bard and less like the later wizard-lite versions.

The other thing that enters the discussion here is going back to my concept of boons as advancement. I don't care that much about 'gaming the system' so to speak. At least not in the 4e-esque way. I WANT all the pieces to play together. The GM is going to be the one dishing out boons according to narrative. The intent is that 'build science' just doesn't exist in this paradigm. Yes, the GM can of course cater to the players, and they can make choices to go after boons that have mechanical advantages for them, but its just not the focus of the game. Instead you make stuff work together so that the players don't think about that, instead they think about what's cool in a narrative context, and it 'just works' for them. Instead of a design that discourages the fighter from taking 'wizard stuff', let that just work for them. It will just work in a 'fightery way'.