D&D 4E Let's Make 4E!! (Brainstorming)

[glass]

The main thing I want in 4th edition is this:
Release date: 22 July 2014.

No, just to be sure: 22 July 3014.

Out of interest, what is so special about 22 July?


glass.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

You know, the main problem I've always had with D&D is it's combat system. It doesn't really support a system to allow someone to survive in melee when not wearing armor. With 18's in Dexterity and Intelligence a Duelist is still going to max out at an AC of 18 without magical assistance. I'd like to see a revised combat system that allows for more cinematic battles.

 

[Desdichado]

Ignorant prole. Get ye to Fantasy HERO and learn all about the crossworlds fantasy metagenre, the epic fantasy metagenre, the high fantasy metagenre, the low fantasy metagenre, the swords and sorcery metagenre, and the urban fantasy metagenre.

Too bad HERO's a clunky, poor system. That essay's probably the only thing worthwhile in the game. And I'm certainly not going to buy a $50 book to read an essay on metagenre's just so I can know what hong's talking about.

 

[Ylis]

I gave up on WotC after 3.0...I refuse to move on from there. I don't really like the system to begin with, and I definitely don't want to donate another $90 to new books when there will be a new set out (again) soon and then likely one (again) after that. 3.0 was a big change from 2nd ed, but I can't see that 3.5 is that much different than 3.0. Definitely not $90 worth of difference.
I'll stick with donating money to small d20 publishers that make good, different products...they could use the $90 a lot more than WotC.

 

[Mouseferatu]

You know, the main problem I've always had with D&D is it's combat system. It doesn't really support a system to allow someone to survive in melee when not wearing armor. With 18's in Dexterity and Intelligence a Duelist is still going to max out at an AC of 18 without magical assistance. I'd like to see a revised combat system that allows for more cinematic battles.

You know, if you combine the "level-based defense bonus" and "armor as DR" optional rules from Unearthed Arcana, you completely remove that particular problem. I hope we're quite some years from 4E yet, but it wouldn't surprise me one iota if, one it does come out, we see both of those as a core part of the rules.

 

[Felon]

Hmm. There are tons of things I'd love to see fixed. First and foremost, however, the designers really need to get their sh--err, their act together concerning monsters as PC's. There should be some attempt to build monsters along the same principles that character classes are, rather than blithely assume that an arbitrary level adjustment balances things out.

For instance, while a PC's major abilities are limited to a certain number of uses per day based on factors like level (rage, smite) or ability scores (turning), a monster's spell-like or supernatural abilities are usually available in one of three flat increments: 1/day, 3/day, or at will. The logic at work there being that if a monster can use an ability more than three times a day, then it may just as well function at will. Well, that doesn't work so great for PC's, because an "at will" ability by itself necessitates a huge level adjustment (LA). While some monsters like beholders pretty clearly need their abilities to be available whenever they need them, other creatures like mind flayers and ogre mages seem to be unecessarily laden with high LA's just because it was decided that there'd be no harm in being abile to launch infinite mind blasts or being able to turn everything and everyone around them invisible--after all, who cares about the abuse potential of a monster's abilities, since they'll only be around for a single encounter, right?

Also, there should no such thing as "humanoid hit dice". They are pointless and wasteful since, pretty much by definition, every and any humanoid should be able to take levels in a PC or NPC class. A bugbear's 3 hit dice supposedly makes it tougher than a gnoll's 2 hit dice, which in turn is supposed to be tougher than a 1 hit-die orc. But in practice, a player who tries to build one of these as, say, a fighter, quickly finds the reverse to be true. That's because he has to give up one character level fore each hit die the monster has (if it has more than one), and those humanoid hit dice absolutely suck when compared to what a character could be doing with those levels. Just assign a flat level adjustment.

 

[Acid_crash]

Personally I think Steve Long is the best thing for HERO in a long time...but that's just me.

As for a 4e of D&D, if they focus on the generic class system in Unearthed Arcana as the focal point then I'd consider buying it, but since I don't really like D&D anyways I probably won't. Conan, on the other hand, has taken d20 fantasy and did it right. 50 bucks well spent.

Frankly it surprises me just how many times in a month a thread like this gets started, and everytime the same arguments of anti-WotC get's started, or anti-d20 people come in and try to cause trouble, or people keep saying over and over again what they want to see in a 4e when it comes out in about five years, and so on...

Will they make a 4e someday...Yes they will. Will we want it...No because we will have spent so much money on 3.75 by then. Will we all buy it...most of us will because it will become the new standard, even if we don't want it, even if we think it stinks, we will buy it because most others will buy it also and because D&D is the most popular game and will never die. It will never die because so many people are D&D fanatics who will buy anything D&D no matter how bad the system bites... "It's D&D and its the best and nothing can top it," kind of crap by people who can't see beyond the veil D&D has created over the last 30 years.

***sorry, just ranting and pisssed about it all...nothing personal directed at any one person, I'm just getting fed up with how great D&D is being made to be when in reality it's just contrived, pointless, and boring compared to other more deserving games that get ignored by the D&D blinders that most people have.***

 

[hong]

You know, if you combine the "level-based defense bonus" and "armor as DR" optional rules from Unearthed Arcana, you completely remove that particular problem.

What is it with this fetish that people have with armour-as-DR?

It does not help solve the problem mentioned here, namely lightly armoured people in melee. If anything, it makes it even worse, because most people are going to want heavy armour to soak damage. If you combine this with the VP/WP way of handling crits, then EVERYONE is going to want heavy armour, simply because WP damage is so dangerous.

It's not any more realistic than armour-as-AC either. If you have a dagger or a sling, you do not damage someone in full plate by trying to poke a hole in their tin can. You do it by aiming for weak spots like the joints, the eyes, etc. Ie, you take a penalty to hit in return for the chance of doing damage -- a bonus to AC, in other words. There are just as many tradeoffs involved in armour-as-DR as there are in armour-as-AC, they're just in different places.

It scales horribly to different sizes of creature, at least if you want to give characters some semblance of a fighting chance. Giving a guy in full plate lots of DR to represent their imperviousness to sword blows is fine. Now try doing the same thing with a 50' long dragon. You might say that it's entirely plausible that a 50' long dragon is going to shrug off most blows from a 3' sword blade, but that makes for a pretty boring game. Unless you never intend for PCs to fight dragons and giants, but if so, you're throwing away much of what makes D&D, D&D.

To some extent you can fix all these problems by making Power Attack (or some modification thereof) an option available to everybody: by taking a penalty to attacks, representing aiming for weak spots, you can gain a bonus to damage. A called shot option, in other words. But if you do that, you're just back to armour-as-AC.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hong, I didn't say I was particularly a fan of the armor as DR system; I said it, combined with the level-based defense, solved the problem.

The DR granted under the Unearthed Arcana system is fairly low. In essence, people with low Dex will likely choose the armor for the DR, but people with higher Dex are actually better off going without. It's a choice, not something that's so overwhelming in one direction or the other that it's a no-brainer, the way it is under the current system.

Is it perfect? Of course not. But it does a much better job of balancing heavily armored fighters with Dex-intensive fighters than does the current system.

 

[Gothmog]

You know, if you combine the "level-based defense bonus" and "armor as DR" optional rules from Unearthed Arcana, you completely remove that particular problem. I hope we're quite some years from 4E yet, but it wouldn't surprise me one iota if, one it does come out, we see both of those as a core part of the rules.

I compared the armor as DR and defense bonuses in UA and Conan, and I gotta say, Conan's system is WAY better. Characters using finesse weapons (like a dagger, rapier, etc) can completely ignore the DR of armor if they roll high enough (a number above the required to hit roll of the attack equal to the DR of the armor), but barring vital area strikes reflected above, a dagger just ain't going to cut it against heavy armor. On the other hand, certain weapons have high armor piercing ratings (such as halberds, picks, etc) and can rip through armor by brute force. IMO, this is how it should be, and I'd LOVE to see 4.0 incorporate Mongoose's Conan armor as DR and dodge/parry based defense.

The main thing I'd like to see in 4.0 is less reliance on magic items, and more on character abilities. 3.5 is a step in the right direction, but magic items still play much more of a role in 3.5 than they ever did in previous incarnations of D&D. Not everyone wants super-high magic games, and the core rules should contain that option. Its easy to ratchet the power of the rules up, but MUCH harder to reduce power and have the game play well/not have twinky players moan and complain.

Also, ditch the whole stupid CR/EL thing. Its so subjective it means next to nothing since each group has different tactical preferences, class combinations, and equipment. Basing XP off such a subjective measure is really pointless. IIRC, people never had much trouble making challenging encounters in previous incarnations of D&D, so why do we need all the handholding of the CR/EL system now? Instead, either go back to the way 2E did and give a flat XP total per monster and/or give more roleplaying and story-based onjective rewards.