D&D 4E What I'd Like to See in D&D® 4e

[MoogleEmpMog]

The solution is a universal damage mechanic for all spells, at least for the main parts. You need mostly the number of damage dice, the range, the area of effect and the saves to know what the effects are - the distinction of the spells are the flavor descriptions.

"You feel the searing flames on your skin, where they leave only burned flesh."

"You feel coldness fueling your soul, trying to rip it apart."

The difference between the spells? Two different damage types, nothing else. Elements of Magic Revised does it already.

I'll have to hunt down a copy of Elements of Magic, then; this is exactly what I want to see in spellcasting.

 

[Verequus]

You should be cautious at RPGnow (no, there is still no printed book available, but that could change) to buy the revised version, because the original version is still available (or was the last time I looked).

 

[Lamoni]

A halfling with Str 16 is the same as a human with Str 16. Therefore he should be able to wield a longsword with equal damaging potential.

I apologize if this was already responded to (I didn't finish the entire thread).

The halfling DOES wield his longsword with equal damaging potential.

The two PC's see a sword on the ground. The halfling picks it up and does 1D6+3 damage. Then the human takes the sword for his turn and does 1D6+3 damage. Whether it was actually a medium sized shortsword or a small sized longsword makes no difference on potential damage... only whether it is easier for the human or the halfling to use.

Edit: Comparing strength based on carrying capacity isn't always too accurate. Every strength based check is determined by your strength modifier, not your carrying capacity. If the human was actually stronger, wouldn't he have an easier time breaking a rope? The carrying capacity could be due to bone density and body structure. Thick bones can generally support more weight than smaller ones... but with more strength training your bones become more dense to help compensate. The carrying capacity might also try to compensate a little for room. There is much more room on a human to place things before it encumbers them. Transfer it to a halfling and there just isn't room. Anyway in conclusion, carrying capacity isn't as good of an argument as it first appears when comparing strength.

 

[A'koss]

How I'd tackle the 4th Edition.

I seem to have missed this thread - time for cast Resurrect Thread!

While I would keep many of the core 3e mechanics - d20, Skills, Feats, Spell breakdowns by Level, Level-based Advancement, Hit Points and the 6 ABility Scores, I would tackle remaking the game with serious eye on game balance - particularly at higher levels.

I would start with a new philosophy - How long should a challenging encounter last at any given level?

That means no more "one hit wonders", no more game fubaring magic and I would greatly reduce the growing disparities in the game between the various classes. Disparities in AC, HP, Saving Throws, Skills and Attack Adjustments. At higher levels, to challenge one character often means that a weaker one is in serious trouble or even one-round roadkill. No more - a fully healed party can expect to last a good number of rounds against a challenging enounter.

I would tailor the game towards allowing more "cinematic" experimentation, allowing for longer combats at higher levels. A fully healed party (of at least moderate level) should have the opportunity to try all kinds of crazy tactics and cinematic stunts without worrying that failure will be immediately rewarded with death. I would mold the game so that power escalation would be more predictable at all levels, especially high level gaming and keeping an "opening" for epic level advancement.

Magic would be toned down in power at the higher end of the scale, but I would love to incorporate a spell point system which would allow greater flexibility and simply more spells to cast for Wizard players to compensate. A wizard, in my mind, is all about the magic - he should rarely have to resort to conventional weaponry. But at the same time, his magic should not overshadow what other classes should be able to do at that level. I would change most of the combat spells so that they required some kind of attack roll in order to succeed or to have the maximum effect. You hurl fireballs and lash out with a lightning bolt. Again, magic would be toned down in such a way the damage output would be lessened, but compensated by the fact you can cast spells more often... That, to me, is a big part of the fun of playing a wizard - throwing magic left and right in a big cinematic battle. With a lot more attack rolls for spells, you have the opportunity to score critical hits which I think just adds to it.

Will Save Effects... I would institute something like Resolve Points, which I posted here not too long ago. In a nutshell, Resolve represents a characters ability to resist mental attack, fear, horror, torture, energy drain or do something extra-heroic (like hero points). In my low-magic game I tied it into many feats and character abilities which provided a natural balancing factor. You don't use too much or Resolve goes down and you become more suseceptable to Resolve attacks. That takes care of the Save or Nerf spells and effects.

Hit Points... They would be static for PCs by default, but with the option to roll if you really wanted. The reason being that HPs play a huge roll in game balance and in order to have a more predictable (and therefore DM-manageable) game, you need to control this. I would compress the numbers between the classes, bumping up the low characters and provide more HPs at 1st level. Con bonuses are the biggest problem at higher levels - so they gotta take it on the chin. Even small Con bonus differences at higher levels translate to huge HP disparities between the classes. Con's gotta do something different other than provide bonus HPs - perhaps increasing the character's healing rate (even magical) and other misc. effects.

Stat disparities can be problematic at higher levels in other ways - it doesn't need a heavy hand, but perhaps characters should get +1 to all stats at every X levels. That would help level things out. I would also remove stat influences from spell saving throws - just have a static mechanic with feats that would allow you to give a small boost to specific classes of spells. No more prestige classes and feat stacking that allow you to create virtually unsavable spells.

Classes... I've touched upon Wizards already and how I'd reduce the disparities between the classes. I'd also like to see more customizability and unique abilities amongst the classes. Fighters for example, they have the flexibility, now I think they deserve a list of Fighter-specific abilities to choose from as well. The same goes for the other classes - provide more options so that not all paladins are carbon copies of one another. Perhaps one focuses on healing more, another in turning, another in demon-slaying...

Combat... Make combat more flavorful for the fighter-types. Wizards have all their neat spells, fighter-types should have multi-round tactical options, cinematic fighting styles and squad-based tactical options. I would change the current iteritive attack scheme so that each character has *one* Base Attack Roll. If you want to make multiple attack, you choose to do so by taking a cumulative -4 penalty to all attacks (for each additional strike). That means if I have a BAR of +20, I can make two attacks @ +16 each, three attacks at +12 each and so on. This reduces the number of useless attacks at higher levels and allows the player to choose from making a small number of accurate strikes - against a powerful dragon perhaps, or making more, innaccurate ones - say against low level mooks.

Probably enough for now...

Thoughts?

A'koss.

 

[Plane Sailing]

it doesn't need a heavy hand, but perhaps characters should get +1 to all stats at every X levels.

Conan OGL does exactly this... +1 to all stats at 6th/12th/18th level (in addition to the normal +1 per 4 levels)

Also I like your iterative attack idea much better than the existing one. I wonder how you would want to do Flurry of Blows? Perhaps have a smaller iterative penalty (say -3)?

 

[A'koss]

Conan OGL does exactly this... +1 to all stats at 6th/12th/18th level (in addition to the normal +1 per 4 levels)

Where do you think I stole the idea...

Also I like your iterative attack idea much better than the existing one. I wonder how you would want to do Flurry of Blows? Perhaps have a smaller iterative penalty (say -3)?

Thanks! Actually, I hadn't thought about flurry of blows... but your idea sounds pretty good.

Continuing with the changes I'd look at making...

Open-Ended Rolls... I've used them for a long time and love 'em. Anytime you roll d20 and get a N20, you roll again and add. Skills, Attack Rolls, Saves, Critical Hits (see below), etc.

Critical Hits... They are a bit heavy handed in the core game IMO (too many LL deaths...) but I do like the idea of potentially unloading a real devastating blow. I might change it to what I used in our low magic game - If you roll 10 or more above what you need to hit, regardless of weapon, you inflict Max. Damage + Normal Damage. For each additional 10 you beat the minimum number to hit you roll for damage normally again and add to the total.

Critical Saves... Same idea as Critical Hits. Roll 10 higher than you need to save and you reduce the effects (if any) by half. Roll 20 higher than you need to save and you completely negate any effect. Since I would be instituting some kind of Resolve Point scheme (Will Save powers, among other things, now inflict Resolve Damage instead of all or nothing) critical success is quite widely useful.

Critical Skill Success... You get the idea... Roll 10 or more above what you need to accomplish the task and you get some special perk (dependent on the skill). With open ended rolls you can achieve some fantastic things if you roll well enough.

Spell Resistance... +X to Save vs. Magic. With Critical Saves, you get the idea where this is going... Obviously, this takes away that extra roll and very little chance your wizard's spells won't have at least *some* effect on the spell resistant target.

Probably enough for today...

Cheers!

A'koss.

 

[ssampier]

What I'd like to see...

less need for minatures/counters (an alternate AoO would be nice)
a beefed up gnome
Action Point system in core rules

Things I won't look forward to, but may happen anway...

more minatures
Point buy as default character build
More Prestige classes
Cat races

 

[s/LaSH]

Critical Skill Success... You get the idea... Roll 10 or more above what you need to accomplish the task and you get some special perk (dependent on the skill). With open ended rolls you can achieve some fantastic things if you roll well enough.

Spycraft and Stargate SG1 have specific critical successes (and failures!) for skills. While that system requires action points to activate crits, the results could certainly serve as a blueprint for this sort of thing.

And I heartily approve of open-ended rolling. It's my fav'rit. About the only thing I'd investigate would be the probabilities of the thing, ensuring that spectacular results occurred not too often, but not too infrequently. Oh, and there has to be some way of tweaking the margins. Imagine a weapon that didn't have a margin of 10, but 7. It would be much more lethal on a good roll. Or some means whereby rerolls occurred on 19 and 20, perhaps an enchantment. It might add complexity, but it would add options.

 

[A'koss]

Spycraft and Stargate SG1 have specific critical successes (and failures!) for skills. While that system requires action points to activate crits, the results could certainly serve as a blueprint for this sort of thing.

Interesting... I may have to investigate...

And I heartily approve of open-ended rolling. It's my fav'rit. About the only thing I'd investigate would be the probabilities of the thing, ensuring that spectacular results occurred not too often, but not too infrequently.

Indeed...

Oh, and there has to be some way of tweaking the margins. Imagine a weapon that didn't have a margin of 10, but 7. It would be much more lethal on a good roll. Or some means whereby rerolls occurred on 19 and 20, perhaps an enchantment. It might add complexity, but it would add options.

We actually tried that in our LM game for a while but because Base 10 is so nice to work with we found it better to create a similar result through other means. For example, let's say you have a "Crit Enhancement" value of +5. If you roll a critical hit (+10 or more above the minimum), you get an additional +5 attack bonus towards the critical hit. So if you rolled 15 above the min you needed - you get a "double" critical as though you rolled 20 above. That way you're not having to juggle odd numbers in play keeping it quick. And when you're getting into the really high level play... quick is good.

Now on today's 4th edition wish list...

Die Progression... This are one of those suggestions that has both some nice benefits and some negative reprocussions. One thing that continues to irk me somewhat in 3e is the fact that there are no grazes from high level attackers and their huge damage modifiers allow for little range in damage. We tested a rule in our LM game whereby every +1 to damage increased the damage die rather than a straight modifier. Here's the die progression we used:

1 - 1d2 - 1d3 - 1d4 - 1d6 - 1d8 - 1d10 - 1d12 - 1d8+1d6 - 2d8 - 1d10+1d8 - 2d10 - 1d12+1d10 - 2d12 - 1d10+2d8 - 2d10+1d8 - 3d10 - 1d12+2d10...

For example, if you had a Fighter with a 20 Strength (+5), Weapon Focus (+1) and a +3 longsword (base 1d8, +3), he'd have a total of +9 damage modifier. So the Fighter would inflict 1d10+2d8 (3-26, Avg. 14.5) damage per blow. That gives you some greater variability in damage, a chance for some grazing wounds to occur and our group found it a lot of fun.

The flipside of course is that with greater variability in damage means less predictability and that generally favors the monsters in the long run. But since I made a point earlier that I would definitely be looking to increase the survivability of characters (particularly at higher levels) it should work out alright.

Damage Reduction... One of the benefits of the die progression scheme is that if you want powerful monsters to have DR - just say that they reduce the damage die you inflict. For example, a dragon has say... DR 4. The fighter in the first example would now reduce his damage by 4 steps against the dragon if he could not bypass it. Now he's inflicting 1d10+1d8 damage per blow. It has a certain elegance to it I like and it gets around problems where weaker attackers can't inflict any kind of damage because of a high static DR modifier.


That's good for today methinks...

Thoughts?

 

[woodelf]

I can't help but be fearful that we will see 4e next year. If that is the case, I have no choice but to retire my PnP RPG hobby, because it is much cheaper to buy CRPG. I mean, if WotC dishes out new version of the D&D every 2 years or so, then it's no different than videogame releases.

I presume that's hyperbole? I'm not seeing how choosing not to keep up with the latest WotC RPG releases is synonymous with giving up D&D, much less RPGs.