D&D 4e Retrospective

>>50821616
>>50821620
Staying in one class should be different but not generally better or worse than taking half a dozen.
Classes as thematically grouped features for convenience.
Essentially point-buy with levels and a large variety of prebuilt abilities.

>>50821661
That just turns it into a shitty point-buy system with fuck all granularity. Why even bother?

>>50821661
>Essentially point-buy with levels and a large variety of prebuilt abilities.

Then why not say you want that instead of classes? It'd be a lot easier to build a system like that instead of breaking the class structure over your knee, losing all of its inherent benefits in the process.

>>50821678
>Then why not say you want that instead of classes?
I still want classes though, for thematically grouped abilities and easier character building for players who dont want to spend as much time customizing their character. I just want them as more "example paths" than "forced paths".

>losing all of its inherent benefits in the process.
what benefits would be lost?

>>50821667
it would add more flexibility of character builds to d&d. that would be the point. why would it be shitty?

>>50821661
Staying in one class should be better unless there's a weird thing you're building for, because you're sticking to one thing instead of getting bored and changing your specialization all the time

I actually really liked 4e multiclasisng. Multiclass feats were a smaller, simpler option but you could still do interesting thing with picking out of class powers and qualifying for feats or PPs/EDs. Much less of a headfuck than 3.PF.

>>50821775
why is changing classes several times necessarily "changing your specialization" at all?

classes are nothing more than a grab-bag of mechanical abilities.

if i want to build my mage-hunter using a combination of ranger+paladin+monk levels in order toget some variety of abilities that better mesh up with my character concept, why should that be mechanically worse than if i follow a single predefined package of abilities?

>>50821741
>I still want classes though, for thematically grouped abilities and easier character building for players who dont want to spend as much time customizing their character.

So just arrange your point buy options into groups, or add tags to them like "martial" and then make example characters.

>what benefits would be lost?

The main fucking benefit, which is that classes come with a well defined identity and role. If you do this multiclass hodgepodge of a system, you just end up with characters who can do everything, lose any form of role protection you may have had, and reduce classes into a grab bag of abilities; which is what you could do with pointbuy anyway, and you could do it much more organized to boot.

>>50821832
Being a mage-killer shouldn't require you to multiclass. It's a very narrow concept that should be able to be applied to just about anything.

>>50821840
Your suggestion of tags would help you group abilities by role, and you could still have your default collections of abilities which you call "ranger" and are typical abilities for ranger character concepts.

but yes, an actual point buy system with the classes as example progression paths, with maximums and minimums on important core math balance mechanics like attack bonus and damage and hp would be what i'd view as the best approach to multiclassing.

>>50821832
Because they're classes, not point-bought features

A class is, almost by definition, a sort of specialization, they're features should mesh with each other to make a whole stronger than the sum of it's parts. Multiclassing comes into this as a means to specialize into something not covered by the base classes. Usually something silly, like the iaijutsu katana chucker mentioned in the previous thread.

The worst kind of multiclassing is what we see in 3.X fighters, which exist primarily as a two-level dip for martials to get some extra feats, that's boring as hell

>>50821888
my point is: why should i be punished for not following a single predefined path of progression? what is the justification for such, in terms of game balance?

personally, i see no such reason.

>>50821791
4e multiclassing was good

Even if the majority of weapon-using classes just multiclassed into fighter because fighter feats and PPs were so god damn good

>>50821945

If you're playing a class based system, you're opting to follow a single path of progression with a few branches and choices along the way. That's literally the point of a class based system.

Level by level multiclassing is just a convoluted mess.

>>50821945
You should be punsihed because you weren't following the pre-determined path of progression

That's what the path is for, if you're going to stray off the beaten path, you should only do so when you have a damn good idea of what will come of it, otherwise you're just asking for trouble

It's like you built a fighter with negative strength and massive intelligence and charisma, and now you're complaining about how much worse you are than everyone else, there's a point where it's not "ivory tower game design", it's just you being stupid

>>50821945
You shouldn't be. Classes should have broad concepts, but focused mechanics.

Mage hunter is a narrow concept with broad possible mechanical implications. It's window dressing.

You can be a mage hunter fighter, by being a fighter who resists magic really well. You can be a mage hunter thief who silences mages before they can cast spells. You can be a mage hunting Cleric who breaks enchantments left and right. You could be a mage hunting mage, who sucks the magic out of other mages to make his magic the best.

You don't need all of the above abilities in one package, and having all of those abilities in one package is redundant as well as cripplingly overspecialized.

You don't need a new class for that, and the fact 3.PF trained a generation of gamers think they do is fucking obnoxious.

>>50821956
I'd argue the sole benefit of classes is simpler chargen for the players who want it. level by level multiclassing (while poorly implemented in 3.x) is for players who want more customization; but the best case implementation of such is effectively a well-balanced point buy system.

>>50821986

The continual proof of the '3.PF causes brain damage' meme.

>>50821977
im not talking about choosing abilities that mesh together poorly. im criticizing the notion of designing abilities deliberately to be/make you more shitty if you multiclass at all because they dont stay level-appropriate unless you don't multiclass.

>>50821912
>Your suggestion of tags would help you group abilities by role,

Yes, but it would not eliminate the main problem, which is that instead of having an actual progression with focused roles, you are playing a game where you can basically grab any ability you want.

Even putting aside the mechanical implications, heavily encouraging picking up "combo" abilities like in a freaking card game (i.e. "strikers with defender features", which is why a bunch of the best 4e hybrids that aren't focused on exploiting above par essentials hybrids and battle cleric lore are defender | strikers), you still end up with player characters being all over the place in competency and direction.

>>50821986
I think you misread my post. im not talking about a "mage hunter" class.

I'm asking for a game balance reason why fighter1/slayer4/monk 3/paladin2/whatever6 is any less valid a way to build a character of a particular concept than "ranger 16".

Unless you're ascribing to the class=concept+role premise
>>50821840 seems to be suggesting, in which case, I guess the reason is "I want a game that only allows for this small fixed list of character concepts".

>>50822109

> I guess the reason is "I want a game that only allows for this small fixed list of character concepts".

But that's bullshit you fucking retard

>>50822149
Way to refute him, man. Well done.

>>50822109
>I'm asking for a game balance reason why fighter1/slayer4/monk 3/paladin2/whatever6 is any less valid a way to build a character of a particular concept than "ranger 16".

You dense motherfucker.

You shouldn't NEED to level-by-level multiclass in the game. You should be able to do your concept by picking the right class and sticking with it. Maybe poach a few abilities with feats or IDK.

Your "way of building a character" has no reason to be less valid in 3.PF. But 3.PF is a fucking terrible mess that misses the entire fucking point of classes, in favor of serving the MtG deckbuilding, Ivory tower loving community (which I'm not saying aren't enjoyable, but aren't what class based systems are for).

>>50822069
>a game where you can grab any ability you want
i dont see that as a bad thing.

>striker with defender features = maximum minmaxery. combo features! supermen!
sure, depending on implementation, thats possible.
but if its done well, and you have stats to be a striker, those defender features will be far less effective than if you were statted to fill a defender role.

and if you went evenly split between the two ypu might be adequate at both, but you'd be less effective at either than the character who specialized in one party role.

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>What did it do right?
It gave a really solid foundation for a Gamma World game.

>>50822109
Because balancing for that is exponentially harder than balancing for single classes or even split multiclasses.

>>50822179
never said i should "need to", im asking for a reason it is bad to have that option.

>>50822193
people seem to do okay balancing point buy systems, i'd imagine thats the approach you'd want to take to balancing such things, even if the consumers just see packages of individual levels with occasional options rather than the explicit point values and maximums/minimums.

>>50822203
Because having that option means you have level by level multiclassing, which means you have successfully removed the "specialized characters" benefit of class systems.

>>50822186
Agreed. They stuff they trimmed off made it awesome.

>>50822293
You mean niche protection?

Why does that need to be by class, rather than by individual character in a party.

IE: rather than build a party of twf rogues, or a party of somewhat adequate generalists, the group explicitly builds characters to fill different party roles.

I've never had issues with the unspecialized characters in shadowrun 4e, and thats entirely point buy.

>>50822234
If you're doing a class-based system that allows multiclassing and is meticulously balanced so that rampant multiclassing doesn't drop the quality of a character below a single-class character or raise it significantly above a single-class character, you really need to ask yourself "Why aren't I just making a point-buy system?"

Level-by-level multiclassing should be niche, it should be risky, you shouldn't be rewarded for doing it often, otherwise you might as well do away with classes entirely

>>50822359
>You mean niche protection?

If he meant niche protection, he'd have said niche protection.

Winddancer 1 gives you Flight, Assassin 1 gives you Death Strike and Glass Mage 1 gives you Invisibility that isn't broken by attacking, so Winddancer 1/Glassmage 1/Asssassin 1 is super broken because you can invisibly glide over to your target and Death Strike them each round! So OP!

Except this never happens because this is a class based system so you can never have all three abilities at the same time - Glass Mage doesn't get Death Strike, Assassin never gets Flight and the Winddancer doesn't get Invisibility.

That opens up a LOT of design space you would never have in a point based system where everybody can learn everything.

>>50822363
see
>>50821661
>>50821741

The best multiclassing for a d&d-like would be a point buy system with levels setting maximums and classes as example progressions for convenience.

like a more tactical d&d flavored mutants and masterminds, with example progressions and a larger variety of prebuilt abilities, designed to make mediocre generalists rather than being able to fill all roles simultaneously and expertly.

>>50822359
>IE: rather than build a party of twf rogues, or a party of somewhat adequate generalists, the group explicitly builds characters to fill different party roles.

Cool. Why jump through the hoops of doing that when you can just do so through classes, which are already set up to fill those niches?

I'm also going to go ahead and assume (probably wrongly but what the hell) that you are also thinking "class as character". For example, an entire party of two weapon using roguish characters could each have a different class and fill a different role; except if you have been browbeaten by 3.PF into thinking that only characters with "rogue" written on their sheets can be rougish.

>I've never had issues with the unspecialized characters in shadowrun 4e, and thats entirely point buy.

Which is the reason why I think pointbuy is superfluous in SR and most games where character roles are expected; the characters will specialize anyway, so you may as well give them classes.

>>50822441
Sooooo.... not multiclassing at all, but rather point buy with guidelines, gotcha

Why do you keep arguing about "multiclassing" if all you want is point buy then? Come to think of it, why are you even arguing about this in this thread?

>>50822435
>abilities which would be stupid broken if combined with other abilities don't have to worry about those other abilities because the players can't take them if they're in different classes.
ah. I see what you mean. I suppose that is a benefit you wouldn't have in a game with more flexible chargen. I'm not sure it's worth the cost in flexibility, but yes, you wouldn't include such abilities in a game where all of the options are attainable by all characters, they'd need to be designed in a way where they can be combined with other abilities without breaking things.

>>50822473
continued discussion from last thread. 4e multiclassing was criticized, 3e multiclassing was claimed as a great idea/first step with poor implementation, and as better than the 4e option, even in its flawed state. discussion continued over to new thread.

>>50822462
>Which is the reason why I think pointbuy is superfluous in SR and most games where character roles are expected; the characters will specialize anyway, so you may as well give them classes.
the pointbuy gives you the freedom to decide how you're going to fill whatever party role(s) you've chosen for yourself.

>>50822556
>the pointbuy gives you the freedom to decide how you're going to fill whatever party role(s) you've chosen for yourself.

You could still do that with classes. A class only has to make you fill the role, not predetermine how you do it. In SR, I'd probably handle it by having money act as your "point buy" pool to buy the tools of your trade with; spells, cyberstuff, decks, rigs/robots, etc, while class would be your passive benefit granter thing.

Or possibly set it up like Stike! where you pick role+class (although of course SR roles are pretty different from Strike! roles).

>>50822637
i suppose that could work too, sure. but your example has money serving as the pb.

or (talking all pb) you could put points into the roles, determining how good you are at each and how specialized you are, with maximums and minimums by level; you'd be free to choose whichever abilities you had the points for, but the power of those abilities would be keyed off of your role specialization.

striker stats with defender abilities? the defender abilities would be much less effective for you, but you'd have them.

>>50822637
Having mechanical "classes" be roles, and simply provide your stats, and having the abilities be per-level point-buy, with thematic classes as example power packages, could be good, but you would need to have abilities that play nice with eachother and can't "combo off" a la mtg.

>>50822882
I don't see what's wrong with 4e's class system as it is

>>50822882
You could apply the "combo" abilities to the "non-combo" part of the character (basically, the class) and have the rest be handled by feats/equipment/whatever.

>>50822911

This. A lot of the suggestions feel bizarrely over complicated for no real gain.

>>50822911
some people feel its insufficiently flexible.

>>50822919
true, or have the combo abilities in different "trees" of combo abilities, with non-combo capable abilities simple taking points from a general pool.

>>50823039
Really?

With hybridization, multiclass feats, power swap feats, and paragon paths and epic destinies like travelers' harlequin and eternal seeker, you can basically ignore class restrictions in 4e. It's a very fluid class system

>>50822556
Except, its not what happens in SR. Or you become super specialized or you are fucked.

>>50823158
Granted, MCing to any great degree is incredibly expensive, and many hybrids have the issue of class features being barred from cross class interaction

>>50823818
Well, yes, it's costly to do so, because the system is balanced around the classes working as themselves, so some class features are bullshit OP when combined with powers or features from another class

For example, imagine a 4e Ranger, but instead of having the hunter's quarry class feature, she has the Oath of Enmity class feature. That character would be the strongest 4e striker, far outstripping any other Ranger build

>>50823989
Or be a twin strike avenger

>>50824055
Would be far stronger than a twin-strike avenger

Access to all ranger powers is a big deal, the real strength of the ranger isn't just twin strike, it's every level of encounter and daily powers they get. Starting with jaws of the wolf and off-hand strike and culminating in ultimate confrontation

Not to mention saving an entire tier's worth of feats and a multiclass feat along the way

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Alright folks, we're talked about what 4E did right and what it did wrong. Now let's consider how to fix it. Let's start by isolating some core mechanics and ideas that worked well and should be improved, but not removed.

>Power Sources (Arcane, Divine, Martial, possibly Psionic and Primal)
>Roles (Controller, Defender, Leader, Striker)
>Hit Points
>Healing Surges
>Encounter Powers
>Utility Powers
>Passive Defences
>Skills (or Backgrounds with the same function)
>Paragon Paths
>Epic Destinies

Let's also list out the mechanics that need heavy improvement and revision, or otherwise should be put as Optional Rules or removed entirely.
>Attributes (Stick with existing 6 and rebalance them or create a new attribute array?)
>Feats (replace with passive Utility powers instead?)
>Magic Items (make optional and not part of core monster math?)
>At-Will Powers (incorporate into Roles or Power Source directly?)
>Daily Powers (consider replacing with more Action Points or something else on a Daily resource schedule)

Also on the to-do list:
>Make Arcane, Divine, and Martial power sources really distinct and different from each other
>Make the benefits of Role more uniform (all Strikers get X, or a choice of Y or Z, or something like that)
>Improve the skill system so that being Trained matters more in the mid to high levels
>Several things I've likely forgotten

>>50824964
>Make the roles more uniform
That's exactly what you don't want. Every Striker has a distinct identity and that's a good thing, not a bad one. There's already something like it,
>Every Defender draws enemy fire and protects important targets
>Every Controler has AoE and Debuff skills good for dealing with lots of weak enemies or softening up big ones
>Every Leader has some form of healing, and provides skills making certain enemies easier to kill, guiding the flow of battle
>Every Striker deals a lot of damage, being the main tool by which enemies fall.

Now, multiple things I read on 4e Party Composition have basically said the whole thing is Striker focused, which we may or may not want to keep.

>>50825046
>Every Striker has a distinct identity and that's a good thing, not a bad one.
I know, that's why I'm proposing something like the following:

Striker: At 1st level choose one of the following:
- Hunter: Once per turn you may spend a minor action to mark the enemy nearest you. Your first successful attack against that enemy each round deals +1d6 damage. This increases to 2d6 at level 11 and 3d6 at level 21.
- Opportunist: The first time each round you hit an enemy that's granting you combat advantage, you deal +2d6 damage to them. You can only deal this bonus damage once per round and only while wielding a light blade, crossbow, or sling.
- Avenger: Once per encounter you may spend a minor action to mark an enemy you can see. While your enemy is adjacent to you, and no other enemies are adjacent to you, you may roll twice to attack them and take the higher result. When your marked enemy is reduced to 0 hit points you regain the use of this ability.

There could be a few others in that list as well, maybe as much as five or six.

>>50825084
I don't like the way this sounds. A role had limited mechanical benefit in the game beyond simple language that would help a player understand how a class might work. Having it be what determines key features, which should instead be used to give each class a distinct mechanical identity to separate them from others of the same role (which was one of the better design aspects in how 4e classes were made) flies in the face of the whole point to a class. It's not good design at that point. Just giving options for options sake. Slapping all Striker features to the Striker role and giving a player free reign of them invalidates all Striker classes out the gate. There's no point to classes at that stage.

4e shined for how each class (despite what some might believe) was distinct from one another at their core. Fighters and Paladins were both defenders, but they used their marks differently, and had different areas of expertise in how they protected their allies. This made them both feel very distinct in actual play despite seeming similar on a surface level. It's one of the more memorable aspects of the game itself. If you're going to refurbish it, keeping that as one of the key things to maintain should be a higher priority.

>>50822515
>I'm not sure it's worth the cost in flexibility

That's fair.

My answer depends on whether you ask me as a player, as a GM or as a game designer.

As a player, I want the ability to make the character I'm imagining. When a class exactly supports my concept, that is best. Second-best is a point-buy system that can be manipulated into almost supporting my concept. Worst is a point-buy system that cannot support my concept. (E.g. I cannot make a D&D wizard in Gurps, or a competent not-spell-using melee warrior in 3E D&D)

As a DM, I appreciate characters being predictable in power, and I appreciate not having to make a lot of decisions about character building.

As a game designer, I definitely prefer the vastly more open design space in strict class based games.

What this actually means is that, as a player and a DM, I prefer 4E (for two different reasons, mind) but as a game designer I prefer OSR editions because you can go as off the ledge as you want and just declare that This Class Doesn't Multiclass if you're in one of the editions that let some classes multiclass.

>>50824964
> Only 10 or so. More levels And Epic Paths in expansion.

Reducing class variety seems like the last thing you want.

And I'd rather not every power source have a single unifying gimmick. They work better as broad sets of mechanics and themes, IMO.

>>50826981
This. While each power source might seem like a good way to umbrella everything, they work better for a qualifier than anything else. The class itself should do the most of the heavy lifting for identity.

>>50824146
>These enemies that are literally intended as unimportant trash to be swept away should require the DM to track their HP values rather than just dying when they get hit.

I'm sorry that 3.x trained your hindbrain to expect game rules to pretend to simulate reality.

>>50827182

>The linked post

Holy fuck there are people that damn stupid?

>>50826242
>There's no point to classes at that stage.
Well, the Ranger and the Rogue aren't terribly different really. They're Martial Strikers with the exact same Hit Points and Surges, and with very similar preferred attributes, armour, weapons, and defence bonuses. Rangers get a bonus feat and bonuses to attack the closest enemy to them, Rogues get dagger and shuriken bonuses and bonuses to attack enemies that grant them combat advantage. The description of both classes says that they're all about hit-and-run tactics, darting in for massive damage before moving on. They both tend towards melee or ranged weaponry.

The only major difference between the two is the skill selection and flavour, that the Ranger travels the rural, wild parts of the world whereas the Rogue navigates urban environments rife with traps. Adjust their skill selection a little and they're practically the same.

>>50826638
Yeah, there's a lot to do in an overhaul of 4E. Personally I'd reduce the levels somewhat, 1-5 for your role's Encounter Powers, 6-10 for your Paragon Path, 11-15 for your Epic Destiny, and maybe something beyond that for demi-gods and the like.

>>50821616
>Right
Looked at the format and was willing to change it.
Keyed skills to level instead of having point buy bullshit.
Clearly defined class niches and worked within them.

>Wrong
Nixed a lot of potential for depth in dungeon crawling, either by having an ambivalent relationship with "utility" content or as a consequence of unrelated shifts. Balance-per-fight instead of balance-per-day makes snowballing too dangerous to be a staple of gameplay. Many turns per fight (admittedly more a problem on release) reduces the value of getting a free turn via initiative. New healing structure made limping through the dungeon unlikely. That sort of thing.

Needlessly kept a lot of focus on attrition. Initially a lot of the daily and encounterly shit was a beefing up of at will shit, healing was more plentiful than it had been, and again (on release) you would get through fewer combats per session. Tracking this shit felt like a waste when plausible options to totally nix attrition (rituals, stance systems) had already existed somewhere in 3x's line.

Within that attrition system 4e limited options needlessly. If you have three dailies you can do each one once, but not one thrice. With the ambivalent relationship to utilities and the dungeon crawl as a game, this feels unnecessary.

Applied excessive standardization to the attritional system. There were no classes (on release) that were fully at will or fully encounterly or fully daily. There wasn't even any leaning one way or another. If the resource management aspect had been excellent that might have worked, but without it? It simply came across as an annoyance for many of us.

Kept a bunch of unnecessary distinctions and cruft. Do you need both abilities and skills? Do you need both powers and feats? Do you need everyone to get a daily at level x and an at will at level y, when you could just have your pick off a list? Do you need so many levels, or so many small variations on similar powers?

>>50827319
Ranger is focused on multiattacks, the rogue is more about big single attacks and. Rogue is also a lot more mobile in practice, but needs to rely on all kind of tricks to get that CA.

Although they are pretty close, they are different enough imo.

>>50827361

I am finding it very hard to parse your overall point.

>>50827361
>>50821616
>Change
Already working on a ground up overhaul that no longer bears a close resemblance to the source.

Almost fully at will. Casting times, a stance system (you can't do two big things or things with duration simultaneously), and interruptions work fairly well as non-attrition limiters.

Mages feel a little vancian without precisely working that way. They'll have stances that take a while to cast and can be interrupted by damage. Some stances allow rituals to be done quickly, which ends the stance. So that's sort of prep-lite and inspired by reserve feats. Also lets me limit shit like charm or sleep, which you should really only have one chance to cast in a fight.

Healing feels a little 4e-ish on hp. In combat healing is weak and some martials have self-healing options. Ritual healing does all of someone's hp, but if the whole party needs it you're likely to trigger random encounters. Some hp works a little like vile damage or Fallout 4 irradiation so you'll eventually need to get to a temple or some shit. Lets you have proper limping through in ways other versions haven't done.

Then there's all kinds of little shit changed. There's an active defense system and AoOs run on the same pool of actions. Everybody's a little sticky, since AoOs interrupt and end what provoked them. Initiative gets you more like 1.5 turns and robs your foes of reactions in combat that can easily end in 2 hits.

I've been working on this shit for ages, but might finally have folks to test it on/with.

>>50827501
Responding to the OP's questions. Seeing 4e as not different enough from prior editions (I know I may be alone in that). Blaming 4e's backlash largely on its poor pacing on release. Shooting the shit. Do I need an overall point?

>>50827582

I guess not. I was just finding it somewhat tricky to figure out from your statements what you actually wanted the game to be.

>>50827644
I was really hopeful when they said it'd be like a combination of SW Saga and Bo9S. I was hoping for something light and streamlined numerically, which I got. But I was really disappointed by the seemingly arbitrary limits placed on AEDU on release. And the combat ran long on release. And most of my favorite character concepts sort of got nixed and stayed nixed near as I can tell.

I played it later when updates and supplements had somewhat improved things, but I had some pretty specific hopes and now I'm stuck with an itch that's probably just not gonna get scratched ever.

>>50827414
>Ranger is focused on multiattacks, the rogue is more about big single attacks
You're absolutely right. Still, what would happen if you let them share the same pool of powers? Characters would gravitate more towards multi-attacks, or big single target damage, or a mix of both.

Personally I think it would be nice if the Ranger filled the conceptual role of Marital Controller. We got to see what that would look like with the Hunter from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, I really like the idea of a Green-Arrow-style Ranger shooting arrows that explode into nets and create smoke-clouds, maybe even dragging people around the battlefield.

>>50828474

I'd prefer to keep class powers distinct.

I think if you want common power pools, liking utilities to power sources is a better idea.

>>50828934
Yep, my idea is to link Utility Powers to power sources, as well as including a General category that covers things like skill powers, passive bonuses associated with feats, and the like.

>>50821616
>What did it do right?
For the types of games that I run, everything. However, if I step back, and look at it from an outside perspective, the individual benefits are
>The difference between high optimization and mid optimization is not so vast as to make the latter useless.
>Combat is internally fun enough to be a tabletop wargame in its own right.
>Monsters were built off of a fundementally different chassis from PC's, which was easily reskinable, and ULTRA easy to build challenging but not impossible combat encounters.
>Focused on what it was good at (combat) and didn't water down its strengths trying to do everything.

>What did it do wrong?
Personally, I feel like it did nothing wrong, but if I step outside of the type of game I run
>changed too much from an established formula that had dominated the market for a decade, and defined the genre for the majority of living players (despite how many people claim to be <3e grognards on /tg)
>different classes played much more similarly to each other than they had in 3e
>Character building was no longer an internally satisfying deck-building game.
>While combat was fun, it took a loooong time compared to the previous edition, especially before you got used to the rules.

>What would you change?
Personally, almost nothing, though I do have a slew of house-rules. Feats should be fun, and not necessary. Equipment should be fun, and not necessary. Essentials can suck a bag of donkey dicks. There is really no advantage to still using the 6 stats, when in 4e there are REALLY just 3 (Power, Finesse, Spirit) with two sub-stat expressions of each primary stat.

>>50828474
If you let them share the same pool of powers, you'd have rogues with ranger powers running around doing even more ludicrous damage than rangers already do

Why do so many 4e houserule suggestions end up buffing ranger powers? 4e Rangers do not need help, they're already the kings of nova and the kings of DPR

>>50827319
Rogue is considerably more of a team player

>>50827743
That sounds suspiciously like RoC's Legend.

>>50822234
No, not really, point buy systems are extremely hard to balance for without forcing structure on the game like Shadowrun does, and even then Shadowrun has heinous balance issues. Games like GURPS and M&M simply label problem abilities and extras instead of balancing them.

Tangentially related, but does anyone recall the name of the site that has the compendium? I can't recall what it was called and I don't know if it's just been taken down or what.

>>50831526
http://funin.space/

>>50830847
If the problem is that Ranger powers are too strong, maybe those powers need to get nerfed. If one 4E class/build combo is overpowered it should be weakened so it's more in line with the other options.

>>50831133
All the more reason to make the Ranger more of a controller like the Hunter, thus more of a team player.

>>50832149
Why does ranger need to be more of a team player?

You're actively trying to make rangers less defined as their own class, why?

>>50827028
I don't mind certain power sources having a little bit of one role in them though desu.

Like how all Arcane classes had a little controller in them, most divine classes had a bit of Leader in them, etc.

>>50832357

But that kind of works as a broad general slant to their powers, rather than some of the examples given in this thread and the last one of having a single ubiquitous mechanical gimmick for each.

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The line could have used more good pre-built adventures. The game's still D&D, so even though the math works better than any other edition, it still requires a lot of heavy lifting on the DM's part, especially on account of the big, setpiece-driven encounter design. And I've got a job and shit to worry about.

If they had put out a Heroic series of Eberron adventures, I'd have been over the moon.

>>50832493
Dungeon magazine had a fair few Eberron Adventures in it

But sadly, most 4e pre-built adventures kind of sucked. They were good for one thing though, and that was giving DMs pre-made places to fight

4e thrives on having interesting battle locales, moreso than other editions thanks to the tactical slant of the game, but making interesting places to fight is much harder than balancing encounters to the party

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>>50821616
4e was a great system that just shouldn't have called itself D&D.

>What did it do right?
Balance to roles, which gave classes the freedom to fill those roles in unique ways.

Crunchy as hell, with a shitload of interesting feats to pimp out characters without sacrificing party utility.

>What did it do wrong?
Build around software tools to gen chars, then fucked that up multiple times, only one of which was a murder-suicide.

Emphasis on and nerfing to tournament play. Constantly fucking with shit just because some asshats found an exploit.

Magic items were shit. Just... just shit.

>What would you change?
Give each power crunchily different bits, like how roles work. Example: martial characters get extra at-wills that explode in damage when they roll high or whiff if they roll low, primal characters all have short-duration, transformation-themed burst powers, etc.

Magic items are limited to one or two per character, since the game is balanced without them anyway, and all of them are intelligent with their own desires. Upon activation, the GM decides if the player's satisfied them enough to cooperate. Maybe a persuasion/intimidation roll too.

>>50832683
I like 4e magic items. they were supplemental instead of being the main focus

>>50832786
There was actually an official article where a dev begged DMs to come up with their own items that weren't shit, because all the ones they published had to be tournament-legal and therefore almost completely ineffective.

Boots of Spider Climbing is the only magic item I can ever remember using.

>>50832683
>mount

>>50832926

You know you would

>>50832907
Well I liked the low powered stuff. I was never a fan of things like belts of giant strength or staves full of whole spell lists

>>50832357
You can do both - powers that come from your Power Source and powers that come from your Role.

A Divine character would have access to Channel Divinity powers, which would lean towards Leader-type effects (as they do now). An Arcane character could get a passive that applies forced movement and maybe combat advantage to their attacks in certain situations, and thus a Controller role. Martial characters have better weapons and perhaps an accuracy and/or damage boost, so they make good Strikers. Perhaps Primal characters could have more hit points and healing surges, perhaps good AC as well, so they tend towards Defenders. Of course they'd get maybe a choice of (for example) 10 encounter powers from your source, four for their primary 'role' and two for each of the others, and they'd have a short list of Utility powers and options to choose from.

Roles naturally give their own passive abilities and a list of encounter and utility powers you can choose from. They'd key off of whatever your Basic Attack was, so if you have (for example) an Arcane at-will power that lets you blast fire at your enemies, you'd use the defence it targets, the damage die of the at-will, and the type of damage as the 'base' of the attack.

>>50833320

Ehh, I don't like that degree of overlap. I think it'd just result in things feeling as samey as 4e is often accused of being (even though it isn't).

>>50833450
Well, some people >>50832357 like the idea of Power Sources leaning towards one Role or another. You, and probably others, don't like the idea as much. I could take it or leave it, personally I like the idea of Power Sources determining how you manage your encounter powers.

>Martial characters treat them as Reliable
>Divine characters get a secondary list of Channel Divinity powers. They can use one per encounter, and they're mainly big, immediately, temporary boosts to allies and debuffs/damage to enemies.
>Arcane characters know twice as many (or more) but are limited in how many they can use per encounter
>Psionic characters get Power Points and can spend them to enhance or alter their powers, maybe make their at-will attacks.
>Primal characters get a secondary list of Forms they can enter (like Rage and Wild shape). They can use one per encounter, and they're mainly low-powered but long-term buffs to yourself and allies

This gives the different Power Sources something cool about them, while still having them draw from the same general list of powers based on their Role.

>>50833892

I really don't like every power source having a single mechanical gimmick.

>>50833892
I think power-source feats, paragon paths and epic destinies provide plenty of cool stuff

Like the reincarnate champion ED, or the white lotus arcane feats, or the bard power-source PPs, or the martial style feats

Bump for any more? For all the trolling back and forth, there's also been a lot of interesting ideas shared.

>>50834822
I use specialized homebrew rules for all class options that double-up on an NAD with their primary and secondary stats (str/con, dex/int, or wis/cha)

The exact value shifts across all the options, because some are far stronger than others (compare a dex/int rogue to a cha/wis paladin), but for the most part it's just letting them use their secondary stat to calculate one of their other NADs (dex/int rogues get to use intelligence to calculate their will, wis/cha clerics get to use their charisma to calculate their fortitude, etc.)

>>50835018

I've pondered something like this, but trying to make it a more systemic solution than having to make a specific exception for every class. It's tricky, though.

>>50835034
One solution I came up with was a series of feats for using an attribute for a different NAD than the natural one, but only if said attribute is lower than the other attribute under the same NAD

For Example

Nimble Mind
Heroic tier
Prerequisite: Dex 15, Int 13
Benefit:As long as your Dexterity modifier is equal to or greater than your Intelligence modifier, you can use your Intelligence modifier in place of your Wisdom or Charisma modifier to determine your AC.

The problem with this solution is that it just adds to the number of feat taxes in 4e, and even if costing an extra feat isn't a huge price to pay for a cha/wis paladin or str/con warden, it really eats into what a cha/wis bard or str/con barbarian is capable of

>>50835119
>AC
Mean to say Will defense, but I am a moron

What would you do if you were going to remove accuracy and rolling to hit as an item from the game entirely? How would you make combat function without just replacing it with an evasion or soak mechanic instead?

>>50835419
Stamina bidding.

You get X stamina/turn. When attacking, or being attacked, you blind-bid any number. If the defender bid more, it's a miss, if the attacker, it's a hit, if it's equal, it's a glancing hit for half damage/effect.

Or just recalculate things so everyone has about miss chance% more health.

>>50835897

That just makes isolating and taking down a single target universally the best strategy.

>>50836236
Yeah, that basically replaces the bonuses you get from flanking/ally buffs/etc.

>>50836264

It's on a completely different scale. Ganging up on an enemy gives you an advantage, but with that stamina bidding system everyone alpha striking the same guy is automatically the best way to win. He physically can't have enough resources to resist all the attacks unless the party has no change against him anyway.

>>50836297
The same is true of normal play as well, though, except now the target can choose which attacks miss against him instead of relying on the 20-40% miss chance.

Also, elites/solos could have more stamina, or automatically bid some number of stamina on each attack against them.

>>50835419
Why would I want to do that?

>>50835419
Why not go Pillars of Eternity, where to hit is barely modified at all, defined by class but hit/miss inside a threshold grants a graze effect with less damage.

>>50837899

I actually really like a lot of what Pillars of Eternity does with its mechanics. I'd be kinda tempted to use their version of the six stats instead of the D&D defaults.

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Attribute

The only downside of using something like that, or varying the stats in general, is alienating more of the D&D crowd.

>>50837920
The fewer 3tards the better

>>50836355
I'm sort of tired of accuracy being the king thing for most every class to be effective at their job and would like to see what might happen if I was to take it away and guarantee hits so people might put effort towards things other than another boring +1 to their attack rolls.

That said, it's mostly just a thought experiment to throw science at the wall to see what sticks.

>>50837899
While it's not quite what I was after, it is a neat little item. I can see having each increment of 5 on a d20 be miss, graze, hit or crit, with defenses being a minor penalty to the roll and accuracy being a minor bonus. Hell, that might become the driving attack mechanic for my actual rewrite.

I have a question for anyone who knows their 4e rules here

If an attack deals a certain damage type due to an extraneous feature (say, a melee basic attack dealing fire damage because of a flaming weapon), does that attack automatically gain the corresponding keyword to that damage type?

>>50839187

Yes, it does. It also loses it if it ceases doing that damage type.

Is this in any of the FAQs, erratas or rulebooks or is it just something assumed?

What things did you actually LIKE from Essentials? I only ever see people say Essentials was shit, surely there was something good in there.

>>50821616
Did Right: unified mechanic done well. Everybody is usefull. Powers needed more work but most were ok. Mechsnically robust.

Did Wrong: too little utility, too little variation in Powers and classes, heritage rules popping up everywhere.
In general It dared too much to satisfy old fans And too little to be something really innovative, so to many it fell flat.

What would have I done: Abolished feats And stats: Everything is a "power" now with various recharge mechanisms.
Powers are now more similar to FATE's traits but there's no metaplay source of power to accumulate and spend, rather various "conditions".
Call HP "Stress" and Healing Surges HP. Criticals directly drain HP, most physical And psychical combat damages Stress, 0 stress You're incapacitated And out of the fight. You get back "stress" for resting, healing, sacrificing HPs. You get back HP by medical And magical attention.
(Yes, I neutralized the Whole "hurr durr the warlord is dumb he heals by talking!" Pseudoargument. You're wellcome).
Classes are now just lists of powers, You can freely take from more than one list.
Level is now backwards: You get XP, you spend it to get more powers And when you spent enought you go up a level and can take better powers. Powers not from your class don't count.

More or less that's all.
I'm working on a homebrew on these terms more or less. /tg/ will know more when It's ready.

>>50839298
Nearly all the expertise feats were excellent, and the added feats in general were mostly very good
Nearly all the classes make great hybrids
At-will stances were a good idea that were unfortunately underutilized
The basic attack focus gave warlords powerful meat puppets

>>50839307
>Yes, I neutralized the Whole "hurr durr the warlord is dumb he heals by talking!" Pseudoargument. You're wellcome
Accepting the argument as valid enough to bother dealing with makes you as dumb as those arguing it

>>50839307
Oh, another thing it did wrong: unnecessary number bloat + flat statistics.
Why even bother adding big Numbers together when all level appropriate challeges have more or less 50% chance of being resolved? D&D5 got this right: might as well just keep the numbers low.

Other ambiguous points: Skill challenges were explained like shit but the general idea of representing a complex task as a series of contested rolls by various actores is good. Badly implemented but reworkable.

>>50839358
All It took was changing two names.
It's more of a middle finger than anything else.

>>50839332
I wouldn't argue that the hybrid classes in essentials were good

Sure they were powerful, but they were powerful because they were poorly designed, each one gave you way more of the classes features than a hybrid should give.

>>50839298
Pretty much everything in Essentials not directly related to the classes was good.

Essentials was when races got access to a third potential attribute boost wasn't it? That was a really nice change, it vastly expanded on what you could do in the game and removed some of the human superiority

>>50839371
>Why even bother adding big Numbers together when all level appropriate challeges have more or less 50% chance of being resolved?
So John the Cornfarmer couldn't have comparable stats to Bob the Chosen of Kord.
It existed entirely so more levels made you into big goddamn heroes

>>50832926
>>50832938

my brothers

>>50839431
>Sure they were powerful, but they were powerful because they were poorly designed, each one gave you way more of the classes features than a hybrid should give
Which was balanced out by the fact the classes by themselves were a wasteland of underwhelming class features

>>50839445
Why would higher numbers be the difference between a dirtfarmer and an adventurer?
I'd rather the adventurer be able to do things the dirtfarmer just can't.

>>50839445
To be fair, while I agree my big, hard and fat numbers felt good to look at on my character sheet, the number bloat was a cheep way to achieve this. Past a certain level, certain threats should have stopped being threats. I see no reason why Bob would even remotely fear John in a non mechanical way unless he was helpless, so why apply the mechanics to it?

>>50839491
Also It creates the whole "gotta max out my two class stats or I'll be worthless" bag of shit

>>50839528
Well, honestly, the only D&D edition to fix that problem was 5e with that lovely 20 point cap

I prefer 4e over 5e in general, but that is definitely something 5e did very, very right

>>50839509
You know what would feel even better?
Having a full page long list of Powers instead. Full of utility, skill Powers, stats and weapon powers etc.

>>50839580
I agree and said so here:
>>50839371
I don't know If 20 is the best number to cap to, but their heart was in the right place.

>>50839491
They can, they just also do regular stuff far better
>>50839509
If the stats aren't arbitrarily inflated, then the hectopeasant remains an everpresent threat, and that's not okay for big goddamn heroes
>>50839589
The powers list already provided mentally crippled thousands of players, more would've irrecoverably shattered their feeble minds. Option paralysis was a real and serious problem in 4e and the primary culprit in 3 hour combat encounters

>>50839307

>Making literally everything powers

Ehh... I think you'd lose a lot of distinction and differentiation the system offers by having powers be active things while letting other things remain passive.

>>50839625
>Option paralysis was a real and serious problem in 4e
Fair enought, it was. Then perhaps streamlining options?

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>>50839307
I don't like anything about this idea. There was nothing wrong with feats and healing surges

>>50839625
>If the stats aren't arbitrarily inflated, then the hectopeasant remains an everpresent threat, and that's not okay for big goddamn heroes.

I don't see it personally. The peasants are under constant threat from fucking level 1 minion goblins. I scarcely see them as a threat even from a 1st level perspective.

>>50839589
Are you fucking nuts? This was the whole problem with 3e, and while 4 e curbed it, it didn't curb it hard enough. Option bloat was what started the game on its downward spiral in the first place.

>>50839675
Well, there is a problem in 4e regarding feats

Namely feat taxes, shit like expertise and improved defenses are really boring, but are the top picks for everyone. Giving them out for free sort of fixes the problem, but then you end up with the further issue of everyone getting that little bit stronger by having two extra feats under their belt

>>50839644
Well obviously that would require having active and passive "Powers". Basically a "power" would be a quanta of character differentiation rather that "a cool technique you know".
Witnessed the dubs.

>>50839691
And the heroes would be und constant threat from level 1 minion goblins if their stats remained comparable to dirtfarmers. Toss enough goblins at them and the PCs will die horribly, unless their numbers are so inflated the goblins literally cannot touch them. If you simply handwave it then some asshole is going to look at the numbers and realize PCs aren't so tough and murder them with angry green midgets

>>50839691
>Option bloat was what started the game on its downward spiral in the first place.
And yet in 4e everyone was there making idéntical characters, completelly prevedibiles once you knew race, class and subclass because there was One True Way of making each character archetype.
>>50839675
Fair enought, What would You do instead?

>>50839691
I don't think the option bloat in 4e ever got too bad

Except for clerics, god damn did they get overloaded with powers

Also fluffy feats, fun bot mostly superfluous, and there's far too many of them. You won't debilitate yourself by taking them (unless it means not taking an expertise feat), but you'll certainly be making yourself distinctly weaker

>>50839675
>
Agreed. Feats are necessary, despite their many problems - Consistent passive effects that you can gain over levelling that affects your powers is a good idea.

That being said, they were mishandled. There were lots of boring or useless feats. There were lots of redundant feats that were enhanced or weaker versions of other feats. Work feats more like how 5e made feats that gave large bonuses more rarely and it'd be a good start.

>>50839691
>Option bloat was what started the game on its downward spiral in the first place
Agreed. I think that 4e would have been better, IMHO, with fewer Powers that would scale with level instead of having to change powers every other level. Instead of having 4-5 options per level, just have 1-2 that aren't necessarily stronger than the other options, just different - Things like flight and more exotic abilities would require higher levels, but you don't need 15 different names for Fireball. It would also make multiclassing more dynamic - Picking up Paragon powers or early-level powers that scaled with level means that while you miss the really dynamic abilities, multi-classing into Rogue for Stab Really Sneakily is still worthwhile instead of worthless.

>>50839735
The feat taxes were math fixes that should've never been feats in the first place, but built into the normal scaling of the game. It's not giving pcs two extra feat slots, it's allowing them unrestricted access to the slots they should've had to start with

>>50839773

>And yet in 4e everyone was there making idéntical characters, completelly prevedibiles once you knew race, class and subclass because there was One True Way of making each character archetype.

I never experienced this outside of theoretical optimisation discussions. In actual games we almost always ended up mid to low optimisation, with the more analytical players tending to prefer 'Make this unusual race/class combination work' than 'pick the absolute optimal selection'.

>>50839765
>And the heroes would be und constant threat from level 1 minion goblins if their stats remained comparable to dirtfarmers
Good, in how many fantasy stories do people become superheroes when they're strong enought?
Also in 4e minions existed for a reason: allways making an horde of chums an adeguate challenge, but to do this You had to make higher and higher level minions. I'd much rather having orcs being viable enemies for the whole game and be done with It.

>>50839830
You were lucky. My players lurked the optimization fori for ideas and it showed.
We had some Great fights tho.

>>50839831
>Good, in how many fantasy stories do people become superheroes when they're strong enought?
Silmarrillion

>>50839765
> If you simply handwave it then some asshole is going to look at the numbers and realize PCs aren't so tough and murder them with angry green midgets.

Good. The more shit DMs that out themselves like this, the better. Let them lose player after player because of that crap is what I say. Maybe they'll finally learn something, or at least quit DMing.

>>50839872
What will happen is people will say "4e sucks" and just stop playing. You know, like they actually did

>>50839773
Bullshit

Err, sometimes, some classes had options so ludicrously powerful that there was no excuse to ever not take them (low slash and tumbling strike for rogues come to mind), but for the most part, a suboptimally built character in 4e, as long as it wasn't intentionally made shit by doing something stupid like dumping strength on a fighter, can still contribute meaningfully

I remember an explanation for this given in a 4e general at some point. Imagine a perfectly balanced character has a "contribution value" of 100%, building characters psuedo-randomly, doing things like picking powers that fit a build theme or just making your first 4e character, will generally produce a character with a "contribution value" between 85% and 110%. Optimized characters tend to be worth 120% to 130%. It doesn't matter how much you unintentionally screw up character creation, 4e as a system is solid enough to prevent you from not contributing to the party in some meaningful way, even if you aren't contributing as much as you theoretically could be

>>50839857
Mine did too, but to optimize ideas they already had. The wonderful thing about 4e is that you can optimize damn near any build and still maintain variety

>>50839831
Myths and Legends from all over Europe and to a lesser extent Asia

>>50839830
The game was well-balanced enough, or at least easier to fiddle with, so that I got a lot of that too.

Because the game is tighter, there are objectively 'correct' builds for characters, especially low-level, but the fun part about 4e was how unnecessary that was most of the time. You could splash in powers you thought were cool, you could make gimmicky builds based around less-than-optimal powers - I remember making entire builds around teleportation effects and completely ignoring dealing damage in certain striker classes, and the party still got along fine.

Besides, if you want to talk optimization, 3e has the exact same problem, and Pf does to - Despite the huge amount of options, 95% of it is all shit so everyone that's bothered studying up just takes the same ability. Every fighter takes Power Attack for a reason, after all. It's just how games work - If there's something you want to do, there's better and worse ways to do it.

>>50839954
I keep trying to make a psion based around time control, time bender PP, Master of Moments ED, multiclassed into wizard for the time stop utility, powers that can be fluffed as time-space control. But I've been optimizing for too long, I can't get rid of the nagging thought that I'm just doing it WRONG. I've been doing it since the early days of 3.5 and it's just part of how I play now.

How do I stop being an optimizer?

>>50839916
>some classes had options so ludicrously powerful that there was no excuse to ever not take them (low slash and tumbling strike for rogues come to mind)
Come and Get It/Warrior's Urging were practically fighter class features, as was Castigating Strike on a paladin
There was no conceivable reason to not pick Storm/Hurricane of Blades on a barbarian
You had to be mentally ill to not pick Twin Strike on a ranger

>>50839995
You can't, the roots are too deep. Pulling them out would be very painful.

>>50839995
You've just gotta play more games, or use your optimizing powers for good and make shitty builds viable again. Or go for the 'douse in cold water' method of starting up Edge of the Empire, FATE, y'know, something where optimizing is practically discouraged.

>>50835419
There are two basic things you want to keep track of during an attack:
Did your attack hit?
If it hit, how damaging was it?

In order to do this, there are generally four variables tracked.
Attack
Damage
Evasion
Soak

For player engagement's sake, you want one of the first two and one of the second two to be rolled for/manipulated in some way by the player. If you don't want accuracy to be a thing, you still want a variable soak or evasion step so as not to make combat feel like 3.PF save or die-o-rama. The soak/evasion step doesn't have to be a roll, but it does have to be a dependent variable. For example, you have different defensive resistance modes and each one has a turn cooldown or an ablative limit, so you have to switch up in order to match your opponent's tactics.

>>50838750
To go off of this, taking away options by thrmselves never fixes shit unless the option is antithetical to the game functioning. You chase accuracy in 4e because the creature defense math puts you at about 55/60% ToHit at best against level appropriate opposition. You fix that by baking in the accuracy bonuses that get chased down or lower monster defenses so the ToHit% is around 75% or so, before debuffs and shit.

It seems like a lot of people agree with the idea of reducing quantity but increasing significance.

A version of 4e with only 15 levels, 5 per tier, giving you less Powers and Feats in total but making them all much more significant, with inherent scaling and/or the ability to upgrade powers, seems like something that would be of interest to a lot of people?

How many powers and feats of each type would you want through those fifteen levels? Enough to ensure everyone has fun things to play with and new tricks in their arsenal, but not enough that you end up just as bloated, only faster?

>>50840567
That's basically what I'd like to see. Your Power Source and Role give passive benefits at level 1. At levels 1-5 you get your encounter powers based on your Role, at levels 6-10 you get your Paragon Path powers and benefits, at levels 11-15 you get your Epic Destiny powers and benefits. You start with one Utility power/option and gain an additional one each level. You can take a feat in place of a utility power. +1 to half your stats at levels 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, and 14. +1 to all your stats at level 6 and 11.

>>50840942

Role specific benefits suck and remind me too much of Strike. It's much more fun if you allow every class to fulfil their role in unique ways.

>>50840971
This. Each class's difference was part of what I loved about 4e. It's boring when every defender defends in the exact same ways as every other defender.

>>50840942
I'm honestly not fond of the idea of classes being turned into just role/power source combos

If that's just how it worked, we wouldn't have rogues and rangers, warlocks and sorcerers, bards and artificers. Roles and power source are just guidelines, the classes have an identity of their own.

You don't need to burn it all down and start again a la carte. Just have some of the powers of each class be usable by other classes that share the same power source or role.

So adding a new Barbarian class might provide a few spirit channel-y powers that any Primal character could take, and a few "go apeshit" powers that any Striker could take, and a few signature powers that only it can use to differentiate itself from everything else.

>>50840567
I would keep 30 levels. And make at least 2 powers for each "concept" (brawler, great weapon fighter, battlerager and so on for the fighter, for example) so to have diversity alongside concept neutral powers.

>>50840971
>>50841031
>>50841040
You can give a choice between several different benefits for a Role. For example, make every Striker's damage/accuracy passive an option, so they can have a rogue-like sneak attack, a ranger's quarry, an avenger's oath of emmity, and so on.

Creating a unique, distinct class for every Power Source and Role combination can be good, but you also get a lot of inevitable overlap between them. If you really want to keep the spirit of uniqueness, maybe isolate a handful (5-10) powers that define a combination, then let people choose from their unique powers and a larger pool of General powers that's available to everyone, or to certain Roles. Rangers get a few Ranger-specific options but draw largely from the general Striker power list.

>>50841502

I just don't see any benefit to doing things that way at all.

No role powers, build every class individually, draw utility powers from source. You have an element of breadth while not compromising the interesting identity of each class, and it gives you the option of doubling up further down the line if you want to explore that design space.

I just don't see role powers as doing anything but homogenising the system.

>>50841502
The spirit of uniqueness comes with set design goals, specific play styles, and a good, but not bulk, selection of powers. There's no sense in making Role the determining factor of that beyond a little note of 'Hey, I have these sorts of powers, so play me if you want to do something like that', because the class features should help you determine how you play a character. A Tempest Fighter and a Brawler Fighter play very different from one another, even though they're both Defenders.

Sub roles should be explored more in my eyes rather than making the main role a big deal. Let the class' main role determine the overarching goal of the Fighter's power and feature selections as a Fighter, not as a Defender. From there, you can explore other ways to diversify by giving them ways to be a Defender/Striker (Tempest), Defender/Leader (Knight) and Defender/Controller (Brawler), each one unique to the Fighter himself.

Naturally, you can do whatever you want with your own rewrite. But I and many others are not fond of the build-a-class idea that you're pitching.

Is there any trove or repository for all 4e shit like there is for /5eg/? I want it mostly for posterity and possible referencing.

>>50843025
There's a google drive with all the books, funin.space for the compendium, and CBLoader for character options.

If you look around, /4eg/ threads usually have them in a pastebin in the op (4plebs archive is your friend).

>>50821616
Who designed those logos?

>>50840000
That being said, 4e wasn't so unbalanced that not taking those wasn't completely crippling. They were the best options at those levels by far, but not so much that you were useless without them.

>>50844651
It was just so hard not to. You'd get strange looks at a table if you showed up with no twin strike on your ranger

>>50844933
Depends on what you are going for.
If you are playing a hunter, there is a more appropriate at will with similar damage output.

>>50844933
>>50845187

Human Scout with throw and stab is pretty cool as well.

>>50844933
If your group is brain damaged sure.

>>50844933
I've never seen a ranger without twin strike, but I've seen paladins without castigating strike, fighters without come and get it and barbarians without storm of blades

The weird thing about this is looking at ranger compared to warlock, where warlock forces you to take eldritch blast/strike as if it's a necessary part of being a warlock (which it kind of is), but rangers are given the option of just not taking twin strike, when there is no conceivable reason not to do so

How would you improve oft lamented out of combat side?

Better support for rituals and martial practices? More non-combat powers?

A big one, I guess, is if and how you'd replace skill challenges with some sort of interesting, varied out of combat resolution system for things more complex than a couple of skill checks.

>>50846636
Better rituals/practices would be good. Probably should have been put on the surge as a daily resource sooner.

Skill challenges are good, when used right. Making it more involved would make it worse, not better.

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>>50846636
>How would you improve oft lamented out of combat side?

Who says it needs improved?

If you had to replace daily powers, how would you do it?

It's been commented on that they can cause pacing problems and limit effective adventure structures, but how else could you do a more limited tier of higher end powers beyond Encounters?

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>>50846636
Fuck skill challenges. I get why they're there, but fuck them. Even after all these years, fuck them sideways.

If you really MUST lead crap DMs by the hand in making noncombat stuff, replace them with a skill check track. Every time the group makes a roleplaying victory, they get a check. When it fills up and goes ding they get an XP blob as reward.

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>>50821616
>What did it do right?
Game/class balance.

>What did it do wrong?
-Made reliant upon a buggy series of online tools.
-relied upon pre-gen encounters in the monster manual rather than the kind of information that gives you a feel for how to use the monster and leaving the balance info to the DM's guide.
-if you were playing combat with all of the rules, you were taking a long time to track battles because EVERYONE was fucking throwing down modifiers.
-Splitting fan favorite classes among several forty dollar player's guides loaded down with a bunch of other crap that no one asked for.
-Throwing essentials into the mix, further confusing everything.

>what would you change?
-Release Fifth Edition

>>50822186
Oddly my friends who hated 4e, loved Gamma World. It was bizarre.

4E just had the misfortune of being called DnD 4E. It just evokes to much baggage for good or ill.

And my biggest bet peeve is the gear treadmill coupled, with gear bullshit. Not even cool gear bull shit like the utilizing magic items in ways differing from expected, but If I carry this low level shit dagger i get an extra d8 damage on a charge, and if carry this other weapon I also get extra damage without even wielding it type bull shit.

>>50846706

A lot of people botched about it. Even a token 'solution' might have value.

>>50850477

*Bitched

>>50847662
Action Point augmentation over Encounter Powers. This way you have one every checkpoint (forgot the used name, the 3 encounter thing-y).

>>50851556
Milestones.

Not a bad idea. APs were really strong though, so you'd be hard pressed to spend them on a daily.

Also, you'd have to rebalance the barb somehow.

Unless of course you took away the "main" use of APs, extra actions; which would be fine imo, having a "double turn" to set everything up at the beginning of the fight makes things go down too quick imo.

>>50821616
>What did it do right?
Marketing, appealing to the MMO generation of players, balancing classes, digital integration.

>What did it do wrong?
Hard balancing classes to the point of dullness, failing to follow through on digital integration, and although I don't know how they would have avoided it, offending the established fan base.

>What would you change?
Pointless question. It would be easier to build a new system from the ground up than list all the shit about DnD I would change, from fluff to mechanics to conceptualization.

>>50852159

>Hard balancing classes to the point of dullness

Can you expand on this? It's a point that's expressed a lot but I find it interesting just how different some peoples thoughts behind it are.

>>50852159
Wasn't the 4e marketing on of the biggest problems with 4e?

>>50852250

It was part of the perfect storm that torpedoed the system, yes.

>>50852250
Marketing and presentation were probably what lead to the split on the user end; OGL being torpedoed is what lead to it on the publisher end.

>>50852609
Wasn't torpedoing OGL the direct reason why 4e was made in the first place?

>>50852671
I think the guy with the money at WoTC wasn't sure the dev team could make a good, solid game that would survive in the OGL environment. So they made the GSL. I guess that came from above the devs.

>>50852938
That sounds... foolish

It seems far more likely that the guy with the money at WotC just wanted to kill all the OGL competition that 3.5 products already had by making a new RPG that didn't fit under the banner, then put too much faith in company loyalty over product loyalty

>>50852187
What's to expand on? It's 4e, there's one class that got reprinted 50 times with slightly different flavor each time.

>>50853039

Except that's completely untrue and has no basis in fact?

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>>50853043

>>50853039
The most reprinted class in 4e was the wizard. With the original (arcanist) and four variations (mage, sha'ir, witch and bladesinger), for a total of 5

You are off by a factor of 10

>>50853039
m80 that's like calling all 3.x full casters one class because they all have 9 levels of spells.

>>50852159
>Marketing, appealing to the MMO generation of players, balancing classes, digital integration.
>all the biggest complaints
>did right
Lolwut

>>50853708
>grognards in charge of what's right and wrong

Shouldn't you be busy fellating Paizo?

>>50853858
As a 4e fan everything you said save class balance is hilariously wrong. The marketing failed, the game didn't actually appeal to the mmo generation, and the digital integration was botched at every step. I don't know what you're smoking to think otherwise but you gotta let me in on it

>>50847701
Skill challenges are fine. The trick is you never tell your players you're doing one. You just present them with a problem and ask what they're gonna do about it.

>>50847701
>>50855115
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GvOeqDpkBm8
I have to agree with this guy

>>50855115
To be fair, the system of skill challenges is pretty pointless on all spectrums no matter how they're sliced. You can have players do what they ask in a numerous amount of ways, and decide that if they do it right or fuck up and complicate things somehow that it counts as an encounter for the party to gain XP from. Skill Challenges were a great idea in conception, but the implementation suffered, and not just because of how they were written and utilized. They just serve no purpose out of the gate.

>>50852187
Most of the classes felt extremely similar or outright identical. Spellcasters effectively bece refluffed archers. Bards and healers dealt damage as if they were combat classes. The reduction of skills available, and of the differential between skill points between classes, made it difficult to impossible to play a skill based character. Being a jack of all trades or a pure support or pure utility character was no longer a thing. Being a healer and buffer wasnt a thing, or a face, or a minion master. Everyone was just a damage dealer, and what utility and diversity existed was largely flavor.

>>50852250
>>50853708
I know that from my own experience, the game drew in a LOT of new, younger players, who bought a lot of books, and that for a while, a ton of people were subscribing to that DnD Insider thing. Now, it also backfired with a lot of people, and the digital integration went nowhere, bht initially, it seemed like they were really trying to grab the next generation of gamers, the WoW generation, and it sort of worked. I knew lots of players who fit that demographic. The problem was they didn't hold that audience well, and appealing to it pissed off a lot of existing players. But I'd still say it was one of the game's strong points from a business perspective.

>>50855726
Taking everything at face value of damage is a stupid assumption to make. 4e was a combat driven game system. No one here who supports the game would dare say anything to the contrary. It could do role play and non combat story telling well enough, but most folks who play it play it to kill shit in tactical combat like big damn heroes. With this as the premise, harping on it for allowing all players to contribute to the central most activity of its game play is like harping on Call of Cthulhu for being a PC eater. It's fucking obvious. What goes on in spite of that is where the depth and differences come from.

>>50855726

Wow, you are amazingly stupid if you actually played the game and came away actually believing that.

>>50855726
>Being a healer and buffer wasnt a thing
>The main function of the leader archetype wasnt a thing
Uhhh...

It's astonishing how wrong people can be about a system after all these years. Opinions are opinions, but the amount of factually incorrect statements are ridiculous.

Is it really just the standardised formatting that throws people off so much?

>>50857587
It's amazing the lengths people will go to to internalize bad information because they like it better than the truth.

>>50856550
You couldnt heal people unless they had healing surges. So you could be a healer, cast your heal spell on someone, and it would do nothing because they were out of surges. I dont know what you want me to say.

>>50856003
>harping on it for allowing all players to contribute
I'm not harping on it because everyone did damage, but because that was really all anyone did. In 3rd ed, i could male rogues, bards, or casters you went entire campaigns without dealing damage and were still the most impactful members of the party. That really wasnt possible in 4th, because skills and utility powers were so nerfed. I understand why they did that, but it still made the game feel like it had fewer options for gameplay. That's all I'm saying.

>>50857968
Are you bitching about not having Sabe or Suck and Sabe or FIES options. Because Skills are fucking use in 3.PF.

>>50858278
Holy shit auto-stop fucking my texto...

>>50857869
I'll take that over buying 500 Wands of Cure Light Wounds and having virtually infinite health.

>>50855726
>Being a jack of all trades or a pure support or pure utility character was no longer a thing. Being a healer and buffer wasnt a thing, or a face, or a minion master. Everyone was just a damage dealer, and what utility and diversity existed was largely flavor.

This is a thread about D&D 4e anon. Pathfinder General is thataway.

>>50857968
>In 3rd ed, i could male rogues, bards, or casters you went entire campaigns without dealing damage and were still the most impactful members of the party.
That's because damage in 3.PF is probably the worst way to try end a fight when you could just outright remove them from combat.

>That really wasnt possible in 4th, because skills and utility powers were so nerfed.
Lazy Warlord is a thing, and a build that almost never did a point of damage by itself, and just made everyone else do more attacks. Incidentally, they're also the best Leader in the game solely BECAUSE of their utility on top of the standard leader healing.

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Is anyone playing 4e right now over on Roll20? Anyone willing to let another player into their 4e Roll20 campaign?

>>50857869

That was the point of healing surges. To set a limit on the number of times per day someone could be healed rather than the old 'Cure light wounds wands' economy of previous games.

>>50857968

How did you make a 3e rogue who did no damage and was an impactful member of the group? Sneak attack is the most key feature of the class and it's a pure damage feature.

>>50858647
Also enchantment wizard

Maybe one or two actual damage-dealing abilities, with the rest either being hard control abilities or hypnotic effects making enemies attack each other

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I don't know why you all still play literally worst edition when far superior versions of D&D exist (namely 3.PF). All this talk of balance is just plain ridiculous, no edition is balanced so might as well go with the version of the game everyone loves and adores and drop D&D: World of Warcraft Edition!

>>50859958

I can vouch for enchantment wizard being incredibly fun to play and pretty unique role-wise.

>>50860042
> Its a "D&D: World of Warcraft Edition! Meme" Episode

>>50860942

I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic?

>>50861689
Considering there's plenty of people who use that argument unironically, I don't blame him for thinking it's serious.

>>50857968
Except that's not the case at all. Even strikers gain secondary effects to their attacks. Damage was first, true, but it was only one of two items. In my post before, the term 'tactical combat' was key. In 4e, doing enough damage to kill a target in two turns was a big help, but you couldn't always do that. And everyone knows it's impossible to do every single time. You generally built with some other effects to back that up, so that you could help to manipulate things in your favor. That is where this utility that you're looking for comes into play.

Take a Wizard as an example. A Wizard has some damage field powers to them. The damage is there, but it's honestly a secondary aspect to it. Such fields often are more important for map control. You put a field up, and possibly force enemies to leave an area that is no longer safe. But those enemies might be moving into an equally unsafe area with a Fighter suddenly in their face. They either eat the field's damage, or hope the Fighter isn't as big a threat as he seems. It was a very round about way of controlling the map, but it was control nonetheless.

As for fewer options, that's honestly a good thing. The option bloat isn't a good way of design, and it was still something that 4e suffered from near the end of its life. Too much choice is never a good thing, and 4e didn't suffer for a lack of choice.The game also brought the idea of reflavoring to its table, suggesting that what a character might do thematically might be very different but similar than what they could do mechanically. Magic Missile deals Force damage, but no reason you couldn't play it as shooting chunks of earth if your Wizard concept was a Geomancer.

It might boil down to opinion, but I think you should take a second look at the game. It was more in depth with what you could do than you realize (And like all DnD games, having a decent DM helps with that).

To any anon with ideas about "reducing/streamlining" 4e, you want to read Last Stand, where the Roles literally become the stats and the HP.

Add your own powers on top, and study the monster stats to create your own.

>>50864065
>Last Stand

Link?

I'm coming up with tons of bullshit searching for last stand.

>>50855593
About a minute in and he's outlining the party's daring escape from the keep (and forgive me, but I don't have time just this moment to finish watching; seems well done, though, adding it to my Watch Later list) and I'm assuming he's going to use it as an example of a skill challenge--but that's also simply what adventuring in D&D should look like with or without them as a universal backbone. Marrying it full stop to a very specific system distracts a lot of less savvy players and DMs and kind of traps them in a joyless shoebox of "this check; okay, this one; now this one; only five more to go, guys; okay you failed too much so bad things happen"

Yes, good GMs will make good use of it--but good GMs don't really need the help in that respect and would be using skills this way already.

>>50864407
Not him, but I managed to track down a copy.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBGv7T2YMphNXc5ZjVYcC05M00/edit

The designers, Funhaver Games, went defunct two years ago and it doesn't seem to be available via legitimate means anymore.

>>50864589
>https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBGv7T2YMphNXc5ZjVYcC05M00/edit

Thanks bro.

>>50864589
Not the guy you are replying to but first off, thanks for sharing, second, this looks more GammaWorld inspired with its random character generation deck.

Not saying that's bad, just thought I'd mention.

>>50851819
Barbarian have to use APs to rage and the type of rage differ based on their feats and archetypes.

Bump for more interesting discussion

>>50821616
I liked fighters they had cool shit
If only 5th edition had the same cool abilities for fighters PLUS archetypes

>>50865695
Right, but with the usual milestone-AP economy that'd mean the barb could only rage like, once every 3, maybe once every 2 encounters. I think that's kinda meh.

Then again, maybe I'm just used to barbs raging all-day everyday.

>>50866223

I do really like archetypes as 5e/PF do them. 4e kinda had them with the various choices of features but I'd love to see a 4e version that made your choice of Archetype (or another term for subclass) a bigger factor, giving you some extra class variety.

>>50866247
It's technically less variety, since you are locked into the powers/abilities you have with an archetype, while in 4e you can pick freely between the powers (it's usually not a great idea to pick shield-based or grapple powers on a polearm fighter, but you can).

>>50866277

I'm more thinking making the feature choice matter at more than level 1, and scale better. Still leave power choices free, but also add some nuance to the core of each class.

I was actually thinking about this when playing Sentinels of the Multiverse with some friends. It's a co-op superhero card game where each hero has a set deck of cards representing their equipment and abilities you use to defeat a villain.

The interesting thing is that each Hero has multiple 'Variants' which change their character card and the powers they have available. And despite using the exact same deck of cards, the choice of which hero variant you use can completely change how a hero feels to play, despite using the same deck.

Of course you couldn't do the exact same thing, but it's a neat idea, changing up a central ability while keeping the peripherals the same to create a different experience.

>>50866312
I mean, many DO scale, and you do get an important thing from archetypes: feat choices. Many of those should be automatic. That'd probably help with differentiating things.

>>50866247
I took the idea of themes with my rewrite and ran with it for subclasses, building a sort of selection of options to build on top of the base class to make each class have its own sort of goal. Taking Fighter as an example, Weaponmasters are all about changing from a few weapon types to gain bonuses with their powers, where as a Slayer is all about big two handed weapons and invoking fear in hit enemies by rattling them, and doing more damage to fearful enemies. Naturally, this takes some existing class design and shuffles things around a bit.

I also liked what 13th Age did with Talents, where you can pick some extra features every couple of levels to diversify yourself a bit more on a personal scale.

Would you guys give each theme a specific gimmick with their power selection, or just hand everyone the same power pool and let them figure it out themselves?

>>50821616
I wish the dmg had a section that told GMs "hey, periodically, throw in enemies that are below the party's CR, so they can feel like the badasses they are instead of just pointlessly inflating numbers"
Because God damn, when we were level 19, the goblins were fucking level 19 too, which just made the game a fucking treadmill.

>>50866936
That's a standard problem with pen and paper games where you can tinker to level up shit because people are allergic to using lower level monsters than your party. It's also why the lower levels are so fucking boring, people can create complex and interesting games where you don't inflate numbers or require 50 new abilities before you fight the final boss but for the love of god no one can make interesting monsters for level 1-4, gotta have low level be rusty knife shank town where the most interesting thing is this monster has 2 damage dice or the fact it can bullet soak.

>>50866936

More guidance on that would be a good idea, although it is the kinda thing a good GM can make work.

Heroic tier Goblins are scrappy, fighting with makeshift weapons and bestial ferocity. Paragon and Epic Goblins, though? They're the fuckers with pseudo-class levels, wearing the mismatched gear of fallen adventurers. They've done this shit before.

Although I think it keys into a larger issue with 4e that I've noticed. A lot of GMs take the tactical aspect too literally and always have the enemies use proper tactics, which I think kinda spoils it.

A pack of wild animals or a mob of mindless undead shouldn't always perfectly engage to avoid the Defender or never cluster to avoid Controller AoE's. Doing so takes a lot of the fun out of the combat and really undermines the fluff side of things.

On the other hand, saving that shit for actually living, intelligent opponents can make those fights feel really different and dangerous. Enemies who are smart enough to know your tricks and actively try to counter them feel much more special when every goddamn wolfpack and zombie horde isn't doing the same thing.

Should Rangers remain the primary TWF class? Is there a reason for it beyond 3.5 imitating Drizzt?

The relationship has never really seemed clear to me, other than that single reference which has lost a lot of relevance and doesn't really apply outside of D&D anyway.

>>50867362
Every class that should have a the ability to fight with two weapons in 4e, can. Not just Rangers

Tempest Fighters, Whirling Barbarians, Two-weapon rangers and melee rogues (not directly for rogues, but due to using light blades there's basically no reason not to have a dagger in your off-hand and they can make excellent use of two-weapon feats)

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>>50866936
Perkins' first DM Experience article actually gives just that advice.

Also these should be required reading for GMs. Great advice in general.

>>50867413
A non-twf ranger is handicappee. Twf is their thing, and they are the best at it

>>50867545

And the question was whether this made sense. I don't really associate 'Rangers', conceptually, with two weapon fighting. It's odd.

>>50867545
Ranged rangers are still pretty darn good you know.

And compared to other classes that use two weapons they're only the best at damage, whirling barbarians are bulkier and more mobile, rogues have far better control powers, and tempest fighters are Defenders, they have a different set of goals to the striker classes

>>50867552
They were the only people who *could* TWF at one point, but I don't blame you for not thinking of them like that specifically. They've had a lot of theme and niche issues in D&D over the years; over time everything that made them distinct became baked into core mechanics in one way or another.

>>50867480
They were mostly put into DMG 2 I think

DMG 1&2 are pretty good.