D&D 4e Powers: Does anyone miss them?

>>53401987
I miss powers simply because the long-rest/short-rest of 5e is retarded as fuck and leads to classes like Warlocks and Battlemasters needing to rest for an hour after every combat encounter or be useless. In 4e most of their abilities would have just been encounter-powers.

Encounter powers are 100 times better of a thing to base game design around than the resource-attrition design of 5e and it's rest system. Especially when it comes to casters who will shit all over the game unless you've thrown 6 to 8 encounters at them already that day to burn out their spell slots.

File: 1491007312197.jpg (1MB, 1032x1458px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1032x1458px

>>53403695

Warlocks were balanced around short rests being 5 minutes long, then Mike Mearls went full retard and made short rests an hour long.

That's why single-classed warlocks suck at level 3+

>>53403695
They're fine is you just say a short rest is the time it takes to get to the next encounter
Which is what my group does
I allows for players to do more cool shit instead of blowing their load and having to either sit back and do nothing or fuckoff for the rest of the day if you where a Caster or Full Attack every round if you where a Martial which is why I loved AEDU in the first place
It allowed far more options in combat that were viable and useful

>>53401987

The power system is why I hesitated to jump on the 4E train when it came. I felt that the power system, while a good idea, also had the side effect of breeding a mentality of looking at your character sheet for what to do, rather than at the game world around you for what to do.

I would say that instead of a power system, it should have been a list of potential ways to alter your actions to how you see fit.

For example, instead of just hitting a foe with your sword, you can try to apply a suggested rule to it to cause it to hit foes adjacent to your target, but at a -2 penalty to the attack roll or something.

Not sure if I'm conveying this clearly. It's late and I haven't slept well all week.

>>53403695
>leads to classes like Warlocks and Battlemasters needing to rest for an hour after every combat encounter or be useless.
Only if the players and DM are shit.

>>53404143
>I felt that the power system, while a good idea, also had the side effect of breeding a mentality of looking at your character sheet for what to do, rather than at the game world around you for what to do.
While that's true, some tables cured this by adding a card "Do something else" that was a direct reference to DMG page 42, that contained rules for coverting players' ad-libs into mechanics

File: What the fuuuuck.jpg (95KB, 909x839px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 909x839px

>>53404253
>Warlocks get 2 spell slots until level 10
>One of which will always be spent on Armor of Agathys
>The other which will always be spent on Hex
>Need to rest an hour to recover these spell slots
>Literally the way the rules are written
>"ACTSHULLY THE DM AND AND THE PLAYURS ARE SHIT, NOT THE ROOLS, LOL!"

OK.

File: 1474688833386.png (273KB, 600x550px) Image search: [Google]

273KB, 600x550px

>>53404143
>>53404289
Why the fuck is everyone suddenly so concerned about improvising wild and wacky actions, but only in 4e?

You hardly see anyone whining about 3.5/Pathfinder/5e having no real guidelines for improvising wild and wacky moves.

>>53404253
This needs to fucking stop.
>"The game is good if you ignore the rules! Only shitty players/DMs run the game the way it's written to be run!"
is not a fucking argument for the quality of a game.

>>53404333
Dunno man, my players keep coming up with off the cuff actions. Then again, I'm >>53404289 and 4E worked pretty well for us

>>53401987
There are a some games which I consider to be following up on the design of 4e's powers.
Most obviously and explicitly is Strike; there's not really much to say about it.

Rule of Cool's mostly-dead game, Legend, takes a bit of influence from it in some subtle ways. It also places a few things into its skill system that in 4e would be Role-defining and, along with Iconic and Style feats and 'places of power' abilities, build up to the same sort of weight and narrative connotation to character growth as Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies.
Plus the rules assume a Final Fantasy-esque fusion of magic and technology, which is a fun change of pace from the usual fare in a fantasy RPG.

And then there's Open Legend, which has a universally accessible list of 'banes' and 'boons' that are pretty much just open-ended 4e powers: so long as you meet one of the prerequisite attributes (and it's not something totally inexplicable) then you can attempt to use them. Or, if an attack lands by a wide enough margin, you can add the effects of a bane to it.

Honorable mention: Fantasy Craft.
While it came out at basically the same time as 4e, Fantasy Craft converges with it in some interesting ways when it comes to their treatment of weapons and how they reinterpret the idea of wealth by level, while also having something functionally reminiscent to 4e's powers: feats give you passive bonuses which modify other abilities, as per usual with a feat system, but most also give you either Utility-like abilities or stances and 'tricks.' The options there are robust and reward both specialization and generalization in different ways which can even redefine how classes operate thematically. The system is very malleable but, compared to 4e, quite verbose.

>>53404636
Stop shilling Strike!

Why does /tg/ keep shilling Strike!?

>>53404830
Do you have this text saved somewhere or do you type it out each time?

>>53404338
Except 4urries used it CONSTANTLY to tell everyone how bad PF/3.5 was. Why should it surprise you that it's okay for 4e but not for other games?

4e players are the worst sorts of hypocrites.

>>53404865
Could you please take your hurt pussy elsewhere?

>>53403695
Simple, just have short rests last 15 min to half an hour and long rests lasting 1 hour to 8 hours.

>>53404898
Why should I not state the truth, anon? Does the truth hurt you in some way?

File: 1487198052569.jpg (333KB, 898x1163px) Image search: [Google]

333KB, 898x1163px

>>53404865
But we're talking about 5e, not 4e.

>>53404865
>Except 4urries used it CONSTANTLY to tell everyone how bad PF/3.5 was.

...

Don't you have that backwards? Since 3.PF is really only playable if you either ignore or don't know the rules

>"The game is good if you ignore the rules! Only shitty players/DMs run the game the way it's written to be run!"

is exactly the argument you see the mroe devoted fans making.

>>53404333
This is just my conjecture, but I think it's because 4e had too many rules that it was hard to improvise actions. Not because the action couldn't be modelled mechanically (in fact the exact opposite) but because what you were trying to do probably already existed as someone else's power, so being able to do it for free would be unbalanced.

>>53405158
DMG, page 42, iirc.

>>53405158
>but because what you were trying to do probably already existed as someone else's power, so being able to do it for free would be unbalanced.

You can then just do a worse version of it.

The guidelines for improvised actions were basically made so your improvised action can't be as good as someone's non-improvised one, unless the circumstances are very specific.

So yeah, you can't attack+mark like a Fighter, but you can prepare an action to attack off turn, which in the fiction is basically doing the same thing but worse.

It only becomes a problem when some idiot goes "well, if the rogue can shift 1 before or after the attack as an at-will, my fighter could just do the same footwork, right?" as if martial skills weren't something you have to learn, and you could just "do" it.

File: 1489003239651.jpg (617KB, 649x850px) Image search: [Google]

617KB, 649x850px

>>53404289
4e DMG has a whole section that suggests how to allow for player improvisation and encourage it with your set pieces; even going as far to suggest Terrain Powers that are available in a given situation (riding a chandelier; tipping a burning brazier, riding along a current, etc)
It's way more than 5e, which boils down to "I dunno, maybe roll an ability check or do 1d4 + Str damage." And while I've seen plenty more people try to improvise strange or cool things in 5e, I think that's more due to the lack of built in interesting options than the framework. 4e allows players much more interesting combat by default.

>>53405239
Sure, I agree with you. Why was your post a reply to mine?

>>53405286
meant to reply to >>53404333

>>53401987
I miss 4e powers, no two ways about it.

Firstly, without them, we're back to martials having very little if anything to do that doesn't amount to "smack it in the face with your weapon. Yeah, maybe the wizards aren't as quadratic as they were in 1st-3rd edition, but that's not the same as fighters being boring.

Secondly, 4e ws the only edition where every caster's spell list was completely unique. With 5e, we've ended up with warlocks & sorcerers getting just watered down versions of the wizard's spell list.

>>53401987
I liked the video gamey feel but I'm not sure I could stand a long campaign of it.

File: 1465735662283.jpg (123KB, 500x605px) Image search: [Google]

123KB, 500x605px

>>53405822
>Secondly, 4e ws the only edition where every caster's spell list was completely unique
As someone who plays casters primarily this was fucking amazing.

Every martial player I've played with complained about martials doing nothing in previous editions and casters doing everything, I complained about wizards being able to do everything every other caster could do so what was the fucking point of playing another caster class.

With 4e and its Powers the individual Arcane classes actually felt like distinct and flavorful options and not knockoff wizards, and since martials where actually able to do shit other than full attack every round I ended up getting out of my comfort zone for a campaign and played a Warlord since it was all about that battlefield control

>>53401987
I wouldn't mind not having powers if the Battlemasters' """maneuvers""" weren't both the only thing like it in 5E and complete and utter shit. They're by far the least interesting and least powerful implementation of anything like it in the past 3 editions and that's including Essentials classes.

>>53404290
>One of which will always be spent on Armor of Agathys
>The other which will always be spent on Hex

or, you know, not.

>>53406015
You can forgo Agathis, but not using hex is just stupid.

(hex being a level 1 spell and EB being a cantrip instead of both being class abilities scaling with Warlock is even stupider, since it makes them ideal to poach by dipping).

>>53406033
What if, and hear me out here... What if it's not a combat encounter?

>>53406048
You already got invocations for those. Very few of your spells (especially the higher level ones) are actually worth the slots out of combat, unless you can always rest 1 hour guaranteed (in other words: would you use your 3rd level warlock slot that you need an hour to recover or have the wizard cast spider climb from his way more plentiful, and by this time, quite useless for combat low level slots?).

Admittedly, that one time when I circumvented an adventure by flying everyone over a chasm over a few hours was pretty fun.

>>53406048
Still doesn't make it better not to have Hex and Eldritch Blast/Strike as class features instead of spells

>>53405892
>the video gamey feel
Define please.

>>53404143
I can definitely agree with that feel, since I can pretty easily separate my 4e players into two groups.

The first are the guys that aren't creative at all, like I had one guy that would only play Rangers and at that only use "Twin Strike" if he wasn't going to use his daily.

The second are the guys that're a little more creative, like I once had one that was an assassin that would use his "Executioner's Noose" to basically become Indiana Jones but in all black.

So I can agree that while 4e encourages people not to take risks since powers are usually good enough and just sitting right in front of them, 5e feels like I'm on shaky ground the entire time since there's no guarantee that doing anything more than just punching the guy will give me some sort of advantage. Basically I could do all these fancy maneuvers, but if the DM treats it mechanically the same as just slashing then what's the point?

>>53405950

This is a big part of the martial/caster disparity that doesn't get brought up enough. Godlike casters who can do everything are fucking dull and samey.

It's one of the reasons I get confused when people claim all 4e classes are too similar. A 4e Wizard and Sorcerer are significantly more different from on another than the 3.PF/5e versions.

>>53405158
>but because what you were trying to do probably already existed as someone else's power, so being able to do it for free would be unbalanced.
The thing is, powers don't use skill checks. Wanna do something a power would let you do with just an attack roll? Add a skill check. There, done, balance restored.
It's literally no different than how you'd improvise in any other edition.

>>53408307

Except 4e actually gave you guidelines. They weren't ideal, but they're still more support for improvisation than the other editions ever had.

>>53407685
>like I had one guy that would only play Rangers and at that only use "Twin Strike" if he wasn't going to use his daily.
In his defense, that is pretty much how you play a ranger

>>53407737
One of the big things about those complaints is that they care more about broad structure and "ownership." Fighters "own" 11 feats to customize with. No one else gets 11 bonus feats all their own.

Wizards "own" the ability to have a spellbook and to specialize in a school of magic, giving them options to be masters of everything or specialists in everything.

Clerics "owned" healing spells and domains, allowing them to be painted by their choice of god.

Druids "owned" everything and were a walking army.

Paladins "owned" smiting and laying on hands and all kinds of features.

Monks "owned" flurry of blows and not needing equipment.

Sure a lot of it was massively redundant in the end (monks, fighters, rangers all full attacked and the sorcerer, wizard, and cleric all used spell lists that had a large overlap).

When people look at 4e classes, they see them as all being the same "forest" of AEDU instead of looking at the "trees" of each having their own power list to call their own.

>>53408331
I think this is exactly what I'm trying to get at. The "freedom" of 5e is nice, but without any suggestions on what to do its really easy to just get lost.

>>53408354

This is something I've noticed a lot. The complaints do very often seem to be more structural than practical, focusing entirely on how things look and are arranged instead of how they work in practice.

>>53408482
Because they com from people who never actually played (some not even read) the game. And for them the consistency of the rules that everyone could do the same since they where used to structure difference was the only actual difference.

>>53401987
Superheroics is like the worst possible genre to use that sort of thing in, as a universal thing. Superman doesn't run out of fist. Neither does the Hulk. In fact, the Hulk only gets MORE fist as time moves on and Superman can get more fist if he flies into the goddamn sun.

>>53404333
Because 3.5/PF is such a hilariously overcomplete game that the problem isn't that there's nothing there (like in 4e), it's that what's there has been thought up and is more rules to remember, which is lame for some fairly rare things, since they're usually in the realm of 'too much shit to care about for such a rare and circumstantial case'.

>>53408538

But you're kind of missing the point of what powers represent and how they actually work in practice.

>>53408554
In practice they don't work with superheroics. If any of those heroes needs to pull out a bigger fish attack, they can, assuming they have it/the author remembers they have it. The only guys who run out of crap (as per the way 4E uses them) are the guys using some types of technology (like missiles and rail guns), and like 90% of the time 'just hitting them harder' is the order of the day.

>>53408620

Again, you're kinda missing the point. Powers don't necessarily represent discrete in universe things you can do. They're much more or a narrative conceit, from the general nature of fight scenes.

People don't just spam their biggest attack all the time. Instead they stick to a few basic options, default and archetypal actions that make up the majority of any conflict- These are your at wills. Then, a few times in a fight, they'll bust out something special. It might not look any different to the normal, but based on the time or the context or the scenario, or just on the flow of the fight, it'll have a commensurately greater effect. Those are your Encounters. And then, every now and then, someone will pull something fucking ridiculous which turns the tables or ends the fight right there- And those are your dailies.

In that context, it makes perfect sense.

>>53408482
D&D is a game crippled by tradition. If it isn't adhering to the same mechanical practices it always has, regardless of how outdated, impractical or outright broken they are, it isn't D&D.

>>53408682
Yes and the Narrative of these characters is not 'oh, they can only pull this trick off once per encounter' or 'we only need to perform this trick once per encounter'. I don't give a shit how many different ways you try to shoehorn it in, but some motherfuckers can use the same trick repeatedly in the same fucking encounter. If you want that to be your daily, you're going to have to remember two things: 1) those asspulls end encounters instantly. No ifs ands or buts, the fight's over. 2) they can't pull those things out all the time either, meaning (once more) that it doesn't fit your stupid, inane, idea.

>>53408710

I'm not quite sure you entirely grasp the idea of narrative abstraction.

>>53408710
As a side note: those also don't come up very often, even in comics, and it's generally just Reed Richards who does that shit, though Iron Man also does it.

>>53408710
Sometimes I think the ttrpg genre is hopelessly restrained by literal autists

>>53408728
I think you are obsessed with a mechanic you ran across once in a shitty edition of a shitty game.

>>53408750
Insult me all you like, if you don't have a real argument, you're the idiot.

>>53403695
>>53403712
Make short rests five minutes, that can only kick in up to once an hour.

>>53408758

The funny part is that you even justified the existence of dailies as a narrative conceit

>) they can't pull those things out all the time either, meaning (once more) that it doesn't fit your stupid, inane, idea.

This is literally part of the narrative abstraction of Daily powers. They're not shit you can use all the time, so you (OOC) only pull them out when really necessary, which represents IC meeting the right conditions to make use of it.

>>53408538
Dude I just used a superhero pic so the thread would look flashy and not boring. This has nothing to do with actual superpowers, but instead the "powers" of the 4e combat system.

>>53408750
It really is. I mean, I know we call them "traditional games" and all but it seems like if you don't try to ape D&D (specifically 3.PF), you just get lost in the haze and accused of being a bad system.

File: dammit.gif (4MB, 659x367px) Image search: [Google]

4MB, 659x367px

>>53408796
Wait you weren't saying that at all. Nevermind.

>>53408876
Nah, it's cool.

>>53408779
In a way that doesn't actually match what we see in the comics or... frankly in any type of storytelling except, like, Naruto. If you wanted to run the powers in Naruto, that'd be fine

>>53408955
Think about how often the Flash actually decides to use his speed to its fullest potential vs. times when he gets shot and goes into a lightspeed seizure.

It makes sense in comics, though admittedly that's probably because capeshit is inconsistent by design.

>>53408955

...A fundamental part of the narrative flow of fight scenes only works for Naruto? The fuck?

>>53409000
When he does that, he doesn't just use it for "a round" it's often (whenever he's fighting Zoom or any other super fast type) an ongoing thing. When Thor decides he's had enough of these silly games and pulls out all the stops, he doesn't just blast one dude, or a radius of dudes, he demonstrates the literal godly super soldier nature that he possesses for the rest of the fight. You'd have to extend these abilities to end motherfuckers throughout the rest of the fight in prety much every case, and dailies would be so broken and overpowered that it's like ultimates in Overwatch only everyone already has them cocked and loaded at the start of the fight, and they do 5000% more damage.
>>53409006
Yes, because it's a shitty representation of the narrative flow of fight scenes in a roleplaying game.

>>53408955
Well if you really think about it most systems don't make much sense in a rl context either. Why can't a 5e Barbarian rage more than just 2 times per day? Shouldn't he be able to do it on command? Or what about 3.5 Paladins? Why can't they Lay on Hands whenever they want to instead of just Wis. mod. per day? They're supposed to be the champions of the gods, right? Why would Pelor bottleneck his champions just because?
So basically it just boils down to mechanical balance, and imo 4e's is the most fun for a player (and incredibly internally balanced)

>>53409077

What about it makes it shitty?

>>53409087
Oh, on that you're right, I don't like the 4E powers thing at all, but that is something that Dungeons and Dragons just isn't really willing to let go of and it's a neo-Vancian system all things told, but eh, I'm not about to disparage you your bag. I will, however, mock you furiously and call you an idiot (with valid reasons) if you decide to shoehorn them into a different genre.
>>53409097
Covered that in the rest of my post.

>>53409124

That just seemed to be more of you missing the point and failing to understand the idea of narrative abstraction, though.

>>53409132
If you didn't understand my point on it, then I cannot help you, but know that most superhero roleplayers aren't gonna put up with it.

>>53409164

I'm not saying most should, or even have to, I'm just pointing out that it isn't as ill fitting as you say.

The issue you have is that you keep trying to line up the mechanics, one to one, with what is physically happening in the scene, which is missing the point of the narrative abstraction. A lot of the time it might not look different, they might be trying the same thing, but the abstraction lets you assert greater consequences in that moment. Other systems might let things like that emerge naturally from already existing combat mechanics, but there's an advantage in putting it in the hands of the players and let them take a more active role in dictating the pace of the fight.

It's also kinda amusing how much of a big deal you're making of this, when Valor exists- A supers game which draws a lot of influence from the 4e powers system.

>>53409164
Yeah, but we're talking about 4e and 5e, not whatever superhero system you're running.

I would never take Call of Cthulhu's Sanity system and put it into 5e, even though the DMG has specific rules for doing just that, because in almost all campaigns they'd fit in terribly.

>>53409077
Any measurement of time you can give to Flash's abilities are moot because he's literally faster than time itself. "A round" might as well be "until the end of the campaign" for how fast he is.

>>53408482
Which to be fair, in games people care more about how things feel. After all you want the "feeling" of fun. If you look at a game and "feel" it won't be fun, odds are that guess is right.

The "big" thing that people find frustrating with powers is that not everyone wants powers. There are players who don't want *any* powers. They want to do their stuff always. And interval based power systems are saying "you can't do X more than once at all" to them. And that makes them frustrated because they want to do their stuff. Being told "the time isn't right" bothers them because it makes them feel either they aren't in control of their character, their character is just incompetent, or more often than not, powers exist in universe.

That last point is important. To a lot of players, they want to play in the universe of the game system. When you present character mechanics to them, that's something that exists IN UNIVERSE to them. And if it's an abstraction, that annoys them because mechanics need to aid in the universe first and foremost.

Since mechanics need to be in universe, they then interpret the mechanics as in universe constructs. An encounter power that has the name of Mighty Swing exists in universe as a sword technique called Mighty Swing and can only be used every five minutes because that's what Mighty Swing is. Characters in universe can talk about Mighty Swing and how it can only be used once every five minutes.

To a lot of people narrative is a product of the interactions mechanics representing the universe, rather than the direct flow of the mechanics that then echo into the universe as a result.

This of course is all a symptom of table top rpgs being emulations first and foremost to most people.

I didn't think too much of them at the time, but since I've started playing systems other than DnD I kind of do miss 4e and it's powers. It's a fun and fairly simple way to handle a gird-based combat game. It gives you options on what to do, resource management, party synergy, and the dailies help give every character a moment to shine.

My main problem with it at the time was the narrative issues. I don't have a problem with dailies or encounters, I can handwave the abstraction and narrative conceit. What really annoyed me was the strict divide between combat and non-combat actions. For example, one power I recall described the character as reaching into the target's mind and forcibly ripping out the memory of the character. The effect was to do some damage and become stealthed. Now, if my character can rip out memories, wouldn't that be useful outside of combat? Yet it is clearly not intended to be used outside of combat, and has nothing even mentioning the possibility.

The system is not designed for narrative games. The rules for nonviolent interactions are inadequate for games where non-combat interactions are any more than generally brief, inconsequential interludes. This is true for all editions of DnD, but the fact that there was no reasonable way to deal with using powers outside of battle really exacerbated the issue.

Also, I found it very off-putting that you could literally summon angels down from heaven at first level to do 1d6+3 damage. Maybe it was really just intended for you to ignore flavor text.

The point I've been driving to is that 4e's power system is great for dungeon crawls, but you are better off using a different system for any other type of game. In my opinion, DnD only really does dungeon crawls well, and 4e does it the best of any edition. 4e has issues with narrative, but if narrative and non-combat interaction are meant to be an important part of your game then you really ought to consider a system other than DnD anyway.

File: 1459486158995.jpg (351KB, 822x1080px) Image search: [Google]

351KB, 822x1080px

>>53401987
I'm working on a game that tries to address the exact kind of feelings you have, OP. I can't go too much into specifics but the short version is that 4e-style Powers are derived from Skills, and each Skill gives passive benefits that make you fit a specific Role better in a particular way. For example, characters with Stealth get a sneak-attack like passive bonus and access to combat maneuvers that centre around flanking enemies, exploiting openings, and other assassin-like effects. There's pretty good rules so far for doing off-the-cuff stuff, especially combat tricks and inflicting status effects, and Skills basically let you specialize in specific kinds of effects and actions.

>>53403695
Instead of using Short and Long Rests, try this:

After spending five minutes outside of combat, characters may spend hit dice to recover hit points. In addition, a character may recover all Short Rest abilities by suffering a level of Exhaustion, or all their Long Rest abilities by suffering two levels of Exhaustion.

A character's first level of Exhaustion has no ill effects. The second level inflicts disadvantage to ability checks, the third halves their speed, and so forth as normal. Characters with six levels of exhaustion may not choose to gain a seventh in this manner, as that would kill them. They are just too tired to regain the use of their abilities.

A character that gets 8 hours of sleep, as well as food and drink, removes a level of exhaustion, plus one for each of the following that applies:
- They are staying in good quality lodgings representing at least a Comfortable lifestyle
- They receive medical treatment from another person (DC 20 Wisdom (Medicine) Check)
- You receive the benefits of a Greater Restoration spell

Greater Restoration requires a 1-hour ritual in order to reduce the target's exhaustion level by one, and a character cannot benefit from it more than once per day. Alternatively, don't let Greater Restoration remove exhaustion levels.

>>53409624

You're right in that 4e's non-combat side was weak. Rituals were under supported, guidelines for using the themes of powers outside of combat would have been great, and making non-combat utilities fight for space with combat utilities was a real problem.

Some friends and I are actually working on our own system, and we're really trying to take those principles and expand on the out of combat uses for them, including better support for ritual-equivalents and a dedicated slot for out of combat powers to give everyone some decent utility, along with more fleshed out guidelines for improvising based on a power.

>>53409699
My view is that 4E approached powers backwards for the most part (Skill Powers are a small exception to this).

It shouldn't be "I have this At-Will Power that lets me shoot fire at people, so I should be able to make flames whenever I want." It should be "I took a Power that lets me create and control small flames, this lets me shoot fire at people At Will, plus it gives me access to Fire-type Encounter and Daily Powers."

>>53409077
That's...literally how many daily powers work. Or in the case of a class like the barbarian, all of them.

>>53409812

I suppose you could design along those lines, but IMO that's kind of limiting, tying things together like that. Classes are already quite limiting, so letting people be more freeform in what capabilities they select makes more sense to me. I do agree that they needed more out of combat features and abilities like that, but I wouldn't like them all up so inflexibly.

>>53404865
>4urries
Did I fall asleep in a Time Machine?
Seriously, is this 2010? Because, I have some hilarious news from the future for ya'll

>>53409854
>Classes are already quite limiting, so letting people be more freeform in what capabilities they select makes more sense to me.
Exactly. You don't need classes at all. Instead of being a Rogue you could make a character with (for example) Acrobatics, Deception, Stealth and Thievery as your core abilities, then choose from the available Powers in those categories.

>>53409931

But then you lose the benefit of classes.

As I said, I can see the advantages of a more freeform system like you're suggesting, but the issue it brings along is that every set of powers needs to be compatible with every other set of powers, somewhat limiting what you're able to do if you want to avoid degenerate and ludicrous combinations.

Classes, through being exclusive and extensive bundles of mechanics, lets you create a really strong and consistent mechanical identity, doing a lot of stuff that you couldn't really risk in a more open system because doing so would break everything.

I guess it's a question of what you care about and what you want to do. Freeform gives you more combinations, but less opportunity for discrete interesting mechanics, classes gives you more ability to create those strong mechanical themes and experiment with the ruleset, but are also implicitly more restricting by design.

>>53404290
Why are you wasting a spell slot on Armor of Agathys?

Literally all you need to outshine most classes in the game is Hex and Agonzing Blast

>>53405950
>>53407737
>tfw wizards fucking squandered 4e
>tfw no 4e vidya ever

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

>>53410164
That was Atari, they had the DnD license then

>>53410164
They were apparently going to make an online tabletop, but all we got is that PC-creator (not that I'm complaining)

>>53410630

That whole thing to scuppered by the murder suicide.

Aside from the tragedy, it was a real fucking shame. If 4e really did have a complete, interconnected set of character creation and GMing tools, it'd be even easier to run and play, but it never achieved its potential.

>>53404931
Your truth is entirely subjective. If that's all you're going to add to this conversation please fuck back off to the edition wars hell that spawned you. Have a great day!
https://youtu.be/0LSGvziX_6Y

>>53409978
>But then you lose the benefit of classes.
The benefits of removing classes might well be greater, no point discounting it out of hand.

>every set of powers needs to be compatible with every other set of powers
>avoid degenerate and ludicrous combinations
>you couldn't really risk in a more open system because doing so would break everything
Look at Gamma World 7E and its Origins. Each gives a stat bonus, skill bonus, 1-3 passive abilities, and a Novice ability (usually an At-WIll, sometimes an Encounter), and at later levels you get a Utility Power, an Encounter Power, and a Critical Hit effect. There's 21 in the base game, another 20 in a future expansion, and you can (and are intended to) randomly combine two of them to make your character (eg. Seismic Pyrokinetic or Android Yeti). All their abilities function using the same core rules, a slightly modified D&D 4E system. Heck, the game has random powers you get and lose encounter to encounter via trading cards and it's all using a single set of unified mechanics.

Game balance is something you keep in mind while you work, but it's not the be all and end all of your system. Obvious game-breaking combinations need to be fixed of course but you can't really worry about someone taking Ability X and combining it with Power Y and Feat Z to do something they shouldn't.

>>53411621

I guess it's a design philosophy thing, because IMO you can and should worry about exactly that.

I'm not saying either way is better or worse, just that they necessitate different design foci and will create different experiences.

It also depends what you're going for. Gamma World is a goofy, funny game where crazy stuff happening is part of the point, so avoiding that kind of crazy accidental synergy is less important. Although it would still harm the game if someone accidentally became super OP and left the rest of the party in the dust, unable to meaningfully interact with anything.

Yeah such a great game. Your fighter was only useful once a day and your "utility" actions had nothing to do with the powers system. Anyone who thinks the 4e power system was anything but a lazy abstraction does not understand game design. Fighters didn't have much utility in 4e and anything they did have had to do with the developers bothering to put it in, not the shitty powers system.

Just because 3.5 and 5e are crap doesn't mean 4e is good. Nor does it mean 4es shitty design has anything to do with the change in balance because there are no martial classes in 4e. All 4e classes are casters. Your fighter daily attack? That's a spell. Because there is no other logical explanation why he can only do that once a day, besides post hoc bull shit rationalization.

>>53411848

Thanks for letting us all know you've not read 4e and have no idea how it works. It's a really useful contribution to the thread.

>>53410164
Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea, and new XCOMs are probably the closest we're gonna get.

>>53408354
This is an amazing insight to the problem that I had not considered despite witnessing the 3.5/4e edition wars in their entirety

very clever, anon.

>>53411694
Perfect balance is impossible in any game where options have meaning. The best you can strive for is keeping PCs of the same level/xp/etc within a reasonable range of power. I strive for 15-25% maximum variance between a fully 'optimized' and completely 'unoptimized' build. Gamma World 7E approaches that margin pretty closely, and I heavily recommend that you find and read it if you want to understand where I'm coming from.

I think your fear of...
>it would still harm the game if someone accidentally became super OP and left the rest of the party in the dust, unable to meaningfully interact with anything.
...is pretty unfounded, to be quite honest. Removing classes in lieu of skill/power 'packages' doesn't automatically lead to massive imbalance between party members. I think it's pretty well founded by this point that CLASS-based systems are quite bad at this, historically speaking.

Moreover, the entire concept of mutliclassing and hybrid characters just goes to show that mixing and matching abilities can, and does, happen in these games. Someone, somewhere, is going to want to play a sneaky thief who can turn invisible and has healing magic. The only difference between a class-based system and a class-less system is how many hoops the class-based system makes you jump through to get there. A class-based system that just flat-out says "No, you can't play that" is going to either get homebrewed so that you CAN do that, or the player is going to get frustrated and want to play something else that DOES let them play that.

Quite simply, classes don't make games more balanced, they just force player characters into archetypes that players are probably going to subvert or defy anyway.

My biggest problem with 4e was never the base system of powers, I actually love it.
My problem with 4e was the number bloat, HP started high which made encounters last a long time, skills could get to an absurd number very quickly on someone that is trained and specialized, leaving the GM with trying to challenge that person and make it impossible for the rest of the party or make it easy for the person and possible for the rest of the people, defenses getting really out of hand on some people, etc.
If someone fixed the basic math of 4e it would have been one of my go to systems.

>>53412046

It's not about having perfect balance, it's about aspiring to it.

And, again, balance wasn't the main point I was making, it's about the design space classes open up.

Just as an example, in a class based system, you could make a class with two distinct types of power- Type A, basic attacks with relatively low damage, and Type B, bonuses applied to attacks along with an additional effect.

Within the class, it remains balanced, because the total damage of the combination is within the acceptable margins for its level and degree of power.

Trying to make that work outside a class based system, however? Either you completely lock down its design, giving it only internal synergies, losing out on some of the fun of mix and matching, or it becomes completely overpowered as you end up combining a type B boost with another attack power which already has a higher base damage.

It's just an example of the concept in action.

Again, both methods can have benefits, but with a class based system you are more free to come up with complex, interesting internal mechanical systems. There's room to mix and match through hybrid and multiclassing, true, but it's very limited and very costly, to the point that most benefits gleaned from it are balanced with respect to the amount of investment it took you to get there.

You can see examples of it in action in point buy systems like Mutants and Masterminds or Valor. They're both cool systems with a lot of options, but all of their options are quite simple and basic. You achieve the complexity through your ability to combine them together, but you lose out on some of the really weird and unusual abilities classes can have by default in class based systems, and quite often they're relatively difficult to build and emulate even in a roughly similar point buy.

>>53411866
Explain how anything I said was wrong.

>>53412160

The monster math got fixed, although I'm a little confused as to your arguments about the skill math. Can you give some examples? Adding half level to skills made it seem like skill parity was actually more even in D&D than in other editions, as even if you don't invest points in it your base value still increases.

>>53412170

Read the thread, we already did.

>>53412211
I mean for example I can make a level 1 Bard with +13 in a CHA based skill (let's say Diplomacy) and a +10 in another skill I decide on that's also CHA based (let's say Bluff).
That's a huge difference when it comes to someone that has above average CHA (so 14, for a +2 or a +7 if they train in it, +10 if they decided to put a feat in it)
In a D20 bases system, every +1 is a 5% increase so while the number differences between a +7 and a +10 might not seem huge (and that's not even bringing up the +13) you are talking about 15% more successes in the good case (30% for the +13) and between 35% to 55% in the more "extreme" case of just having a +2 as opposed to a 10 or a 13.
This creates a problem for a GM that wants to challenge players, who do I try to challenge? the party or that one guy?

>>53412295

But... That's a smaller disparity than would generally exist in any other edition of D&D. Why do you cite it specifically as a 4e problem?

>>53409547
But... that's stupid

Like, I can sort of understand that, but when you look back at other D&D editions it doesn't hold up, why do barbarians have a limited number of rounds in which they can rage? Why can rogues only target vulnerable points when their opponent is distracted? Why is it easier for a wizard to be good at jumping than a fighter even without magic? (that last one is 3.5 only but still)

>>53412333

The real answer is obfuscation.

4e was honest with its players. It told you exactly what things were, how things worked, and generally bared its mechanics for all to see, making them easy to use and understand.

And some people hated it. They raged and fumed and got upset not because anything was new, but because they were actually being made aware of it for the first time. Every edition, before and since, has indulged heavily in obfuscation, in clouding mechanics behind layers of fluff or never directly stating the principle behind something, effectively letting people sustain their ignorance rather than being forced to acknowledge that they were actually, y'know, playing a game and should understand the rules.

>>53412330
Sorry, I should have mentioned that I come from the TSR era D&D, not the WotC era D&D. I am not a huge fan of WotC era D&D other than 4e.

>>53412333
There is people out there who understand the rules of the system as the rules on the universe and have a hissfit every time some game have different rules for pcs and npcs. There are actual autists in the board anon.

>>53408776
What does that fix?
>As is
>Good fight guys, let's take a lunch break to recharge before we go at it again!
>5 minutes once an hour
>Good two consecutive fights guys, let's take a lunch break, and then still only do one fight between breaks for the rest of the day

>>53412440
I... exactly how long do you think a person can fight for his life without resting?

>>53412440
You have to spend the 1 hour resting in the current version. In this other one, you can spend it questing instead.

>>53412486

That it's entirely irrelevant to a game about heroic fantasy adventurers.

In a more grounded system with a sense of authenticity and realism, you might have a point. D&D is not that system.

>>53403799
Yeah I think I'll just use this from now on

>>53412486
Depends on who you ask. Generally the 3.PF response is "literally forever" if you're a Fighter.

>>53412486
The depends on the tone of game you're going for. Capes might have infinite use of their powers, heroic fantasy like 4e has daily limits but can recharge plenty with a 5 minute break between combats, lower than that is 5e with daily limits and 1 hour recuperation, or even the "gritty realism" variant with 1 day short and 1 week long rests, and some games like CoC your character will never recover from a "fight".

I prefer 4e to 5e, if only in execution and not idea. You're always going to have some problem players who aim for a 30 minute workday, to recharge all their best powers. But at least in 4e every character is on the same page; with 5e the party splits between those that keep going all day like rogues, short resters like monks and warlocks, and long rest casters. You can fine tune and balance it all you want, but every group plays differently, and 5e's math assumes 6-8 encounters and 2-3 short rests a day which UA surveys have clearly placed as WAY higher than most groups' average.

>>53401987
>In 5e if you aren't a magic-user you don't have much mechanical utility, especially in battle
What are you talking about? Have you seen battle master? Barbarians totem powers? Rogues?

>>53412165
>Trying to make that work outside a class based system, however? Either you completely lock down its design, giving it only internal synergies, losing out on some of the fun of mix and matching, or it becomes completely overpowered as you end up combining a type B boost with another attack power which already has a higher base damage.
There's a huge number of factors you're not taking into account, here's a few off the top of my head.
- Does the system allow you to use two different powers on a single attack?
- What are the costs for using multiple powers simultaneously?
- What is the character giving up in exchange for the secondary 'higher base damage power'?

>There's room to mix and match through hybrid and multiclassing, true, but it's very limited and very costly, to the point that most benefits gleaned from it are balanced with respect to the amount of investment it took you to get there.
Like I said before, and I'll quote myself, "The benefits of removing classes might well be greater, no point discounting it out of hand." Your argument, from what I understand and please correct me if I'm mistaken, is that classes are good because they have unique internal mechanics (barbarian rage, monk ki, rogue sneak attack) and going classless means you lose those interesting qualities and unique feeling. My argument is that you can replicate the same mechanics and feeling with a-la-carte class feature selection in a classless system.

Your argument, and once again correct me if I'm wrong, is that multiclassing is intentionally limited and costly so it's difficult to get things outside of your class' narrow field of expertise. My argument is that player should define their OWN fields of expertise, decide what THEY want their character to be able to do, not the game. Let the GM decide if my thief can learn healing spells without being a priest, not the book.

>>53412536
I'm pretty sure back in some of the original playtest material Rest Times where abstract by default and up to the GM to decide. Eventually that changed and you get what is in the final product, but it is entirely possible to houserule Rest Times to whatever you want.

>>53412736

Roughly, yes, but again I'll cite the common examples of systems with freeform power selection like Mutants and Masterminds or Valor which prove at least the general tendency I'm arguing towards- That removing classes tends to move the system away from unique mechanics and towards a more generalised 'take simple things and combine them into cool things approach'.

And while this isn't bad, it does change how you design things and what things you're able to easily include within the system.

I don't dislike classless systems. I play and enjoy a lot of them. But on the whole, I do believe that the tendency holds true- That without being able to define specific parameters that they operate within, vis a class, it's a lot harder to include certain mechanics without severe risk of busting up the system, to the point that it's generally not worth the effort.

The example I gave was a very broad, general one, meant to illustrate the point rather than being perfectly consistent in itself, but as another example...

Suppose a system where Wizards are fragile. One of their Powers is a spell that lets them become significantly more durable for a time, making up for that weakness. It might give a significantly higher defensive bonus than the equivalent given by another class, but it remains balanced due to the Wizard initially being more fragile.

This is hard to replicate in a point buy system, because if the fragile character can significantly enhance their defences at a cost, what stops an extremely tough character using the exact same thing to be nigh on invulnerable?

Everything being available to everyone implicitly forces you to compromise. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but it is a trait of that style of design that you must take account of and work around while doing so, which can and does mean toning down or avoiding certain areas of design space.

>>53412651
In every edition of D&D I've played we have averaged 4 fights and 1 non-combat encounter per day

This is reaching back to the mid-90s across more groups than I can remember, so I assume it's fairly standard

Why the hell would they think people would double the amount of encounters per day?

>>53412798
I mean, back in the original playtest you had Sorcerers that were actually interesting and different but we ended up with the boring 5e Sorcerers we have now.

>>53412946

Because doing so gives an implicit advantage to daily casters, letting them pretend to care about balance while wanking wizards like they always do.

>>53412955

God I miss the playtest dragon sorc. They were so fucking cool.

>>53412973
They were, they were very unique in that they got more powerful in melee the more spells they used and it made them an actual choice as opposed to now where if you are an Arcane caster, you should be a Wizard

>>53413021
My least favourite thing about 5e is how much sorcerer stuff they gave to the wizard instead

Stuff like arcane recovery, overchannel and spell mastery all feel more like sorcerer things than wizard things. And Lore Master is just embarrassing

>>53413076

Being fair, 4e did make this mistake as well. Basically all the Evocation Wizard powers should've been Sorc powers instead.

>>53413119
There's always going to be some overlap there, but i think 4e handles it better by, as a general rule, giving wizards lower power spells that hit a wider area and sorcerers higher power spells more limited in AoE

>>53413119
But in 4e, they just didn't know any better in the beginning.
For 5e, they got it right in the playtest and proceeded to apparently intentionally fuck up.

>>53413211
I remember they were asked if people wanted to keep vancian casting, the poll said no and it was taken down a bit before the end of it and replaced by a poll that said yes. The designer said that he was happy that the people wanted to keep that piece of shit in the game

>>53413273
Now, to be fair, D&D players have been fighting with D&D designers over how shit vancian casting is since the early 80s

>>53413273

Yeah, the lies and manipulation in the playtest were so fucking blatant it was hard to believe. All the cool new shit was well liked, and they stripped it out anyway.

>>53413299
does anyone have the playtest?

I would love to try out the stuff in it, but I haven't been able to find it

>>53413119

In 4e's defence: Wizard came out long before Sorcerer did.

Less in 4e's defence: Yeah, the wizard is still a bit all over the place due to it's legacy status.

>>53413336
I was always sort of annoyed how there's a feat that is practically necessary to all 4e controllers, but is only actually available to wizards and only works with wizard powers, leaving wizards permanently in a position of power over all other controllers. There really hasn't ever been an edition of D&D without wizard superiority

4e was quite right. A very solid system that could become even greater if they kept that route with 5e.

I could see Martials not having dailies, Divine having even more Channel Divinity abilities, Psychic focusing on Augmentations... Every power source having its own subsystem inside the AEDU, instead of what were (and became again) the norm said >>53408354 that made people learn very different systems before even choosing their character. That, with the intricacies of each power having its own "specific rule beats general rule" could have been even greater.

Don't get me wrong: 5e is great for what it proposes itself ("gritty", low power, "we're adventurers"), but it isn't 4e ("we're heroes").

>>53413403
>Don't get me wrong: 5e is great for what it proposes itself ("gritty", low power, "we're adventurers"), but it isn't 4e ("we're heroes").

Eh, my problem with 5e is that it doesn't really do gritty well after mid levels, and neither does it do low power and "not heroes" if you play a caster heavy group.

>>53412725
>Have you seen battle master? Barbarians totem powers? Rogues?

Not him, but yes I have. None of them come close to utility basically any spellcaster brings to the table. Especially out of combat.

File: 081712_Classes.pdf (701KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

701KB, 1x1px

>>53413325
Not the whole thing, but I DO happen to have the Dragon Sorcerer on hand, along with the Expertise Dice Fighter.

>>53413325
The 5e general keeps a seemingly complete version in their trove
Link: https://mega.nz/#F!oHwklCYb!dg1-Wu9941X8XuBVJ_JgIQ!haAllZob

>>53413504

God, it really shows you what watered down shit the battlemaster was.

>>53413563
I was also working on some homebrew that would have allowed spending expertise dice to bypass having to roll skillchecks for non-combat rolls made during combat, if that makes sense.

For example, leaping from one balcony to another, sliding down the railing fo the stairs, then attacking a creature at the bottom. Let's say a STR check, a DEX check, and an attack roll, respectively.

Assuming we have a STR Fighter, he can choose to make the STR roll, since he's confident in that, but spend an Expertise Die to skip having to make the DEX check and just assuming he succeeded(more dice for harder checks obviously), and then makes the attack roll, spending any Expertise Dice left on the damage roll.

>>53413627
You could also just add the d6s to the roll; maybe even after he fails it as a reaction.

>>53413563
>>53413627
Someone should make a 5e playtest retroclone

Just take all the good ideas they threw out and make a full game out of them

>>53413662
Also an idea. Expertise Dice were flexible enough that either would work fine.

>>53413504
The Dragon Sorcerer was GREAT. It added a melee frontliner after the spells were spent, instead of being just a different-flavor wizard.
Since mechanics can't be copyrighted, this could be used on an OGL 5e variant game, no?

>>53412880
>Suppose a system where Wizards are fragile. One of their Powers is a spell that lets them become significantly more durable for a time, making up for that weakness. It might give a significantly higher defensive bonus than the equivalent given by another class, but it remains balanced due to the Wizard initially being more fragile.
Alright, like Mage Armour. Gotcha.

>This is hard to replicate in a point buy system, because if the fragile character can significantly enhance their defences at a cost, what stops an extremely tough character using the exact same thing to be nigh on invulnerable?
Well, Mage Armour doesn't stack with worn armour. That's what stops them from becoming significantly tougher. In other examples of similar effects, like Stoneskin in 5E, the spell requires concentration and is a 4th level spell, which is a powerful resource that can't be accessed until the mid levels and even then, sparingly so.

Remember, by the way, that a warrior who (for example) learns Stoneskin is giving something else up in exchange. A point-buy analysis of D&D 5E classes suggests that a 4th level wizard spell slot is equivalent to about two feats, or a +2 to two stats. So, a warrior could have Durable and Heavy Armour Master or he could cast Stoneskin once per day, which only lasts until he takes a short rest or loses his concentration. Also remember that nothing stops you from making a warrior with Durable and Heavy Armour Mastery, and then having your buddy cast Stoneskin upon you, and that's entirely possible without multiclassing.

Overall, I think you're a little too scared of mechanical imbalance than you should be. A road doesn't have to be totally flat to be driven upon, it just needs to go in the direction you need it to. Potholes are to be expected, and if you won't drive unless the road is perfect then you'll never get anywhere.

>>53412725
>>53413475
Am OP.

A good example is the fact that while a 2nd-level rogue can move around a little in combat (mostly to make up for the fact they'll have pretty low HP and AC), a 2nd-level cleric can pick up something like silence which can:
1. stop other casters
2. stop conversations
3. obscure own conversations
4. help with hiding

So he can use his stuff in all sorts of ways, while I can run away (as a bonus action, mind you) without getting thwacked.

>>53413723
Overall, I think you keep missing the point.

Mage armor and Stoneskin had to be made non-stacking/hard to stack exactly because other characters could easily have access to it. >>53412880 was talking about unique buffs others don't have access to.

Say, for an example where 5e utterly fails to take combinations of abilities into account, eldritch blast and agonizing blast/hex combined with quickened spell for the infamous sorclock.

>>53413563
I think the most frustrating thing fore me with the playtest fighter is that they somehow struck on probably one of the most flexible fighter mechanics they could have, that hit that magic sweet spot where it could do both the simple full attack all day every day fighter, and the complex tricky manuver master fighter, all without having to change a thing to make either work.

>>53413723

I feel like you're somewhat missing my point.

There are mechanics that, unless you are able to strongly define the context they're used in, are very likely to unbalance a system or otherwise have strongly negative effects due to their interactions with others. Anything that influences action economy is a classic example of this, in a vacuum more action economy is always a better option than almost anything it could be compared to.

With a class based system, you can define the context around those mechanics, mitigating the risk. For example, a class with an implicit ability to influence the action economy might do so at a cost of having less potent powers in all others areas, to make up for the fact they got to use more of them.

Without a class based system, you cannot define the context around those abilities, meaning you either ignore them or risking the negative effects they might have. In the case of action economy, you could end up with a situation like Shadowrun, where every character who wants to be at all capable in a fight needs a a way to get extra initiative passes. It becomes a non-optional part of the system, more of a tax on your resources than a real choice you're able to make.

Alternatively you're forced to design into them so many restrictions that it defeats the point of a flexible system. Being able to pointbuy things together is no fun if you're forced to neuter potential synergies at every turn.

>>53413834
To add to that, the amazing new gish archetype they made for warlocks that is best used to make sorlock EB-spam stronger

>>53413883
Or to 1 level dip to make paladins full CHA.

>>53413400

Which feat is that?

>>53413403

They were moving in that way as they went on.

Psionics played different to others and the Primals were playing with it too (Shaman splitting powers between spirit and self, Barbarian turning any daily power into a massive strike etc). Essentials was sort of the death of that though as it changed the paradigm right when the devs were confident enough with AEDU to actually play with it.

>>53413834
The fact that 5E failed doesn't mean that other games will necessarily fail. It just proves that 5E's playtesting was done poorly, which is obvious to anyone who participated.

>>53413857
I'm not missing your point, I just don't agree with you.

1) Why does your game need to have action economy increasing abilities? If they break the game then don't include them. D&D 5E did the same with instant death effect and for good reason.

2) If an action economy ability exists, make it appropriately costly to invest in. You're acting like going classless means every option is equally accessible and costly. Proficiency in a skill isn't equal to being able to cast a 9th level spell every day. Initiative passes in Shadowrun are only mandatory because the game is badly designed in that they're way too cheap for the benefits they give. If initiative passes cost five times as much resources to purchase they'd be more reasonable.

You're mis-representing classless system quite badly. You're acting like not following a rigid class system means everyone can get access to all the best stuff immediately, when we both know that's not true. And here...
>Alternatively you're forced to design into them so many restrictions that it defeats the point of a flexible system. Being able to pointbuy things together is no fun if you're forced to neuter potential synergies at every turn.
...you're implicitly complaining that if things are too restricted there's no fun coming up with powerful combinations. That's the meaning of synergy, when two things combine to become stronger than the sum of your parts. You want pointbuy to offer powerful synergies but you complain that pointbuy allows powerful synergies.

There's literally no pleasing you. I don't think there's anything I can say to you that will satisfy your demands. You want balanced perfection but you want it to be exploitable enough to optimize. I can't resolve your contradictions.

>>53414201

It's not about contradictions, it's about compromise. Classless systems force you to make those compromises to make things work. And, as I've kept repeating, it isn't a bad thing! But it's an example of a downside they have in contrast to class based systems.

Do you need action economy mechanics? No. But it's a lot easier to play around with them and figure out a way for them to work if you can define the context around them. Which was my whole initial point. Having constrained bundles of mechanics provided by classes opens up design space that is a lot easier to explore in that context than in the context of a classless system where everything is available to everyone.

>>53413403
>Martials have no daily powers, additional Encounter powers instead. Can mix and match them however they like. All Martial powers are Reliable.
>Divines get more Channel Divinity uses and options as they level up
>Psychics work as they are now, maybe with fewer dailies, more power points, and more at-will powers known
>Arcanes know twice as many At-Will, Utility, Encounter, and Daily powers. They have the same number of Encounter and Daily powers they can use per encounter (Utility uses are doubled).
>Primals enter enhanced states with passive bonuses whenever they use dailies and stay in them until the end of the encounter

>>53414103
Spell Focus

-2 penalty to any saving throws made against an effect from a wizard spell you cast

No other controller gets anything like it

>>53414381
Another point where 5e would be better without multiclassing is actually related to the action economy; 2 levels for fighter Action Surge is worth it for basically everyone but absolute purists.

There are the abilities you simply can not make available early/cheap in a system where you are free to mix and match stuff (pointbuys, level by level multiclass) but you are allowed to do them in strict class based systems.

Point in case, stacking all the striker features, or combining them with fighter marks in 4e (which is how essentials hybrids become the most optimized damage dealers), which are all first level abilities.

>>53413838
What makes this most depressing is that basically everyone liked Expertise Dice Fighter. Everyone.

I can't stress this enough. The playtest forum was basically a mixed group of 3.PF, 4e, and the occasional TSR player, and basically everyone was in agreement that Expertise Dice was good. It's bonkers that they'd get rid of it, though mostly because Mearls was still assblasted that the community basically forced him to give Fighters options at gunpoint.

>>53414569
>though mostly because Mearls was still assblasted that the community basically forced him to give Fighters options at gunpoint.
Right, must've been just after he hexed your cows to give soured milk.

>>53414396
>Martials have no daily powers, additional Encounter powers instead. Can mix and match them however they like. All Martial powers are Reliable.
I'd let only Fighters have reliable, but yeah.

>>53414381
I don't agree with you, and I think you're misrepresenting the nature of a classless system in order to justify your point of view. You keep using terms like compromise and context and design space when what you're really saying is "I'm right and you're wrong." Everything you've said is your opinion, just as everything I've said has been mine, and that's fine... but the one thing I do know is that you contradict yourself, and that's not just a matter of opinion.

You don't want abilities to interact synergistically...
>There are mechanics that, unless you are able to strongly define the context they're used in, are very likely to unbalance a system or otherwise have strongly negative effects due to their interactions with others.

...but you want abilities to interact synergistically.
>Alternatively you're forced to design into them so many restrictions that it defeats the point of a flexible system. Being able to pointbuy things together is no fun if you're forced to neuter potential synergies at every turn.

I can't really take your opinion on these systems seriously if your greatest fear is also the thing you want them to do. So, yeah, I think I'm done with this conversation.

>>53401987
Yes, I'd rather they had improved instead of making the list more complex, but they have excellent value.

>>53414733

Can you really not see how those two are compatible?

Part of the fun of a classless system where you can build a character flexibly is finding interesting and enjoyable synergies to make use of, defining your mechanical identity through how things interact.

This makes it only more important, as a designer, to ward off any potentially dangerous interactions ahead of time. You don't want your system to contain landmines that could accidentally fuck with a player just trying to find cool things for their characters to do.

Making things non-interactive and completely gutting synergy is boring for the same reason. It stops you expressing yourself creatively through how you build your character, which undermines the point of that kind of system.

>>53414641

Well yeah. Mearls wouldn't want to try to make cows give sour milk with martial options.

>>53401987

My ideal would be 4e style Encounter, Daily, Utility and Interrupt powers, also Marking as a system in general, but get rid of At-Wills in favor of 2e style simpler combat actions.

I think more than anything having to pick from 4-6 powers that are your 'basic attack', in addition to having a Basic Attack power, was more off putting and harder to justify for some people than an Encounter based power which could be rationalized as not using the same technique twice against the same opponent, running out of magical/divine/primal/etc or stamina (for martials) reserves, and so on.

>>53415858

Why, though?

I love At Wills, giving everyone a basic, reliable option in combat that can still be mechanically more interesting than just 'Hit them and do damage'.

>>53415983

Because a lot of it can be baseline stuff you either stunt or spend a small recharging resource for. Most boil down to a push/pull/mark/minor heal/etc effect. That being more free form would be ideal, as there were always At-Wills that got ignored or had to have a secondary class archetype built almost explicitly for it.

>>53416041

I'm always leery of getting rid of consistent mechanical options in favour of 'people can improvise'. It's better to have both, things you can fall back on when you can't make something up.

And everyone being more able to do different things at will... I don't know. Having to choose was more interesting, IMO. You had to specify your general capabilities rather than always being capable of doing a little bit of this or that. It created a more consistent mechanical identity for each PC, right down to those core choices.

>>53415983
Barring like, maybe four of them in the whole game (not counting psionic classes, as their design and balance parameters were very different), at-will attack powers were generally so weak and so rarely used that they were a horrible waste of your attention, just parsing and getting to know them, and every time you sporadically remembered their existence in some moment of need you'd generally come off disappointed.

Like "Oh wow I'm sure running out of options at this late stage of this unusually long combat. Ho boy I could sure use a power that does X. WAIT, I've got an at-will power like that don't i!?" (5 minutes later) "Yeah no, I'm going to use this encounter/daily power instead. It doesn't exploit the strategy of the situation but even used for no particular occasion it's still more than 1.5x as good as using the perfect at-will for the job."

That said, I wholeheartedly agree that they "can still be mechanically more interesting". But not if they're so weak that they end up being used as rarely as in 4e (barring Win Strike et. al.). Then they're just a horrible tragic waste of mindspace and everyone's time in return for little more than ample and repeated disappointment.

>>53416041
>>53416135
Come to think of it, including both the Champion and the Battlemaster Fighter was probably kind of a shitty attempt at trying to cater broadly to different preferences in the realm you're talking about.

Too bad neither of them is excellently designed. Most of the battlemaster's options are too anemic and over-limited in power and scope, and the champion should've had something that made them better at stunting.

>>53416263
Which makes dumping the Expertise Dice Fighter all the more tragic, since it could do both with the same mechanics.

Want to just play an autistic full attack Fighter? Just throw all those dice in with your damage rolls you mad bastard.

Want something more complex? here's a bunch of maneuvers you can spend those dice on instead! You lose out on some damage, but you can control the battlefield more easily.

Want to do a bit of both? Well go for it.

File: shadow.jpg (27KB, 548x658px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 548x658px

>>53414396
>Shadow gets to wear black

>>53416212

That doesn't really fit my experience with 4e, I must say. I get quite a lot of use out of my at wills, although most of my experience playing it has been heroic tier. It might be that it changes significantly beyond that.

>>53416135
>And everyone being more able to do different things at will... I don't know
I don't like. Starts to weaken role protection. 4e is built upon niche protection and teamworking. When I can forgo 1[W] for a Push at will, why would I need class X?

>>53416212
At-Wills, IMHO, should be the less used power, and have mainly the function to open the opportunity for a better placement of Encounter powers.

>>53416212
I'm a bit confused, you say at-will attack powers are all weak an rarely used, but they aren't. Every enabling at-will for leaders is a vital part of what makes them function, twin strike is why the ranger is the king of damage, and without AoE at-wills minions can become a serious, serious problem very quickly.

I can sort of agree with you in regards to the rogue and maybe the avenger, but those are the only two classes that have the problem you're talking about

>>53414733
>>53414789

'Compatible' is being generous. He posted two halves of the same point and claimed they were a contradiction. It's clear he never understood what was actually being talked about.

File: 7508b094f2aa67635a063c207a6c30ef.jpg (695KB, 800x1131px) Image search: [Google]

695KB, 800x1131px

>>53416212

This was the ideal in 4e, but in practice, many optimized builds revolved around optimizing for a single powerful at-will power, and then loading up encounter/daily attack power slots with non-standard-action powers.

Consider the infamous pixie assassin (executioner)|warlock spamming charges with Eldritch Strike, or just about any warlock build that revolves around spamming Hellish Rebuke.

>>53416562

Say it with me;

'Twin Strike'

>>53416562
>Barring like, maybe four of them
>not counting psionic classes, as their design and balance parameters were very different
>At this point repeated; (barring Win Strike [sic.] et. al.)

File: 75a4ed61e02f137ee662a3e4688ce42f.jpg (2MB, 1420x1920px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1420x1920px

>>53416623

Twin Strike is actually *not* a good example of this, since rangers have standard action encounter/daily attack powers that exceed Twin Strike.

At level 1, for example, optimized rangers are probably going to pick Two-Fanged Strike, and a melee ranger will certainly enjoy one-shotting standard monsters with Jaws of the Wolf.

Compare this to a pixie assassin (executioner)|warlock, who wants to dedicate absolutely all of their standard actions to Eldritch Strike.

>>53416469
And the Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Monk, Fighter, Bard, Druid, Shaman, Warden, Artificer, Assassin, Swordmage...

>>53416821

Just listing classes isn't the same as actually making a point

>>53416834
It is if you've played the game. You're clearly not the target demographic of my post, as the whole discussion assumes you know enough about this that I won't have to post several PHBs worth of at-will powers for you to peruse while I patiently wait.

The fact that you honestly expect that you belong in this conversation shows a baffling level of egomania.

>>53416562
Well you can bring up any meme build and say its a reason for why the system is bad, but not everyone is playing PunPun, right?

However, I can see what the previous poster was saying in that a lot of times At-Wills would just boil down to an automatic action, however I still think that being able to do something distinct from everyone else was still pretty fun. And what's more than that (at low levels at least) if you were a fighter with a push for example, you could use that to line up for an area attack for your wizard or something like that. That's something that's just about impossible in 5e that I kind of miss.

>>53416887

>You disagree with me therefore you clearly don't understand

That claim of egomania might be projecting, dude.

>>53416212
As a follow-up to this I do want to add that if you really only play early and mid heroic tier, at-wills are mostly fine. They're only really a terrible disappointment if you actually play through most of the game's character levels.

>>53416887
If he's asking for you to clarify just because he doesn't get your point, doesn't mean that he's ignorant, just that you're bad at describing your point (or its not as obvious as you think). I played 4e from 10-16 and I don't get what you're saying (outside avenger).

>>53416922
OP here.
That'd explain why I like them so much. I don't think we ever got past 5th level when I was playing, and because of that even though I was just using the same two powers it never got old to me.

>>53416447
>although most of my experience playing it has been heroic tier. It might be that it changes significantly beyond that.

As someone who has played quite a bit of Epic level 4e, it really doesn't. At-Wills still definitely have their place.

>>53416905
You seem to have some trouble understanding why I said that. Lemme help you out.

So, remember that this is happening In the context of a conversation that fundamentally assumes we're both actually able to discuss 4e D&D.
>Just listing classes isn't the same as actually making a point
Here's the only way I can translate this: "I don't know these classes well enough to know that they're valid examples, so I'm going to categorically ignore your point until such a point that you spoonfeed me every single at-will attack power of all of these classes."

But if that's true then you have nothing of value to contribute, you insufferable dipshit

>>53416979

Yeah, no.

I've played and enjoyed 4e, and I disagree with you. I've found the at will powers of a lot of classes to be fun and useful, including a few on that list, as well as seen all of them played and used by other people.

Meanwhile, while you were busy being a condescending cunt to me, multiple other people have also disagreed with you, while you've focused entirely on insulting me rather than actually arguing your point. Could it be that you don't actually have one?

>>53410164
We did get that shitty Flash MMO though.

>>53417014
Given that your answer is plainly an attempt at winning, and would be identical whether you were speaking in good faith or bad faith at this stage, I have nothing more to say to you other than this;

I thoroughly enjoy discussing things with people who disagree with me. If you had mentioned any examples of at-will powers you liked or furthered your stance in the discussion with any contribution whatsoever when you had the chance, you would have received no scorn from me.

>>53417130

This from the person who, without context or explanation, submitted a list of classes and then acted as if they'd actually contributed something to the conversation?

Go fuck yourself.

>>53416469
>I can sort of agree with you in regards to the rogue and maybe the avenger, but those are the only two classes that have the problem you're talking about

>And the Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Monk, Fighter, Bard, Druid, Shaman, Warden, Artificer, Assassin, Swordmage...

You are correct that, if you ignore the context of my post entirely then it is indeed lacking context clues.

>>53416821

>Artificer

Fucking seriously?

Have you never heard of Magic Weapon?

>>53417187

But in the context of the post you quoted, your point makes literally no sense, as they clearly disagree with you. All you're doing is making an assertion without any basis or rationale.

>>53416821
Cleric can grant a saving throw with an at-will, Wizard has at-will AoE and an at-will forced MBA, Sorcerer also has at-will AoE, Monk has at-will AoE and all their at-will powers come with an at-will movement option, Fighter at-wills are boring by default but they can take feats to add features to them and make them pretty crazy, Bards have an at-will enabling power and can lower enemy attack rolls by 2 at-will, Druid has magic stones, Shaman has two at-will enabling powers, Warden has an at-will range-2-pull-1, which they do not have on any of their encounter powers, Artificers have an at-will power that's so good that you'd be hard-pressed to find a reason to NOT use it instead of an encounter power in magic weapon, assassins are shit all-around and swordmages have an at-will AoE


Oh, and while rogues and avengers have at-wills that are barely more than MBAs, they also have a boatload of minor action and off-turn encounter powers, so they tend to use them a lot anyway

>>53417195
Fuck. You're absolutely correct.
I completely forgot the artificer had a gold at-will power.
My bad. I have no defense other than forgetfulness.

>>53417221
>attack powers

>>53417245
?

>>53417221
>swordmages have an at-will AoE
Given that they've got plenty of Encounter and Daily AoE, isn't that exactly an example of
>(...) I'm going to use this encounter/daily power instead. It doesn't exploit the strategy of the situation but (...)

I mean you'd have to run out of all the other AoE you'd gotten, including the ones from your paragon path and epic destiny.

>>53417334
>what are minions

>>53417356
With most parties, already dead due to plentiful, better, and bigger static damage effects, generally.

>>53417372
My group gave minions saving throws against static damage. MM3 stuff becomes a bitch though.

>>53417334

And all the others?

>>53416888
>meme build
Does "meme" even mean anything by this point?

>>53417591

Being fair, it's a pretty accurate descriptor for most of the shit THF discusses. Theoretical stuff that the vast majority of groups would never actually play, and only really exists as a number crunching exercise or something for the ultra hardcore end of the playerbase.

File: jack_coor_by_daveallsop-d378l29.jpg (442KB, 1600x1793px) Image search: [Google]

442KB, 1600x1793px

I would love At-Will powers if they scaled with level
5e's Cantrips are kind of what I'm talking about, you have a basic ability that you can do at any time that does X damage and maybe Y effect and as you progress in level X and Y get better

>>53417619

They do have the upgrade to 2W at 21, but you're right, it could be a lot better.

File: 1459794479377.jpg (160KB, 1024x708px) Image search: [Google]

160KB, 1024x708px

>>53417628
I know they get one upgrade but it would be better if it was every 5 levels instead of once at level fucking 21
Very early playtest material had a good bit of AEDU in the design with Fighters getting a lot of At-Wills in the form of Expertise dice and Maneuvers and Wizards getting a few Encounter based spells and At-Will Cantrips to go with their Daily spells

5e has a lot of problems for me, bounded accuracy chief among them, but the fact that dope ass new ideas from the playtest and a sort of 3.pf 4e hybrid system was thrown away for what we got

File: a95b2d08c7899fc403a136a8e4e8a7c9.jpg (707KB, 836x1136px) Image search: [Google]

707KB, 836x1136px

>>53417609

I had seen someone other than me play a pixie assassin (executioner)|warlock build when such a build first became available.

I had also assisted someone in building their own pixie assassin (executioner)|warlock, which was subsequently played.

I have also helped people build Morninglords for paragon-tier games.

These are builds that actually see play.

Never mind that, as >>53417195 points out, the artificer is a good example of a class that wants to be mostly spamming a single at-will power (Magic Weapon) and using standard actions only for Punishing Eye. The artificer has enough non-standard-action encounter/daily attack powers at level 3+ for this to happen.

>>53417747

Yeah, it was a damn shame. I don't hate 5e, but it's such a bland fucking system it's hard to really feel any enthusiasm for it.

>>53417762
I really would love to play a Lazylord IF I HAD A PARTY TO PLAY WITH ;_;

>>53417764
I remember "Meh" being the general opinion of it during and shortly after the playtest.

And honestly, "meh" is the worst possible thing your system could be. If it's good, people will play it and recommend it. if it's bad, people will be angry and tell everyone else about how bad it is, and them and the people they tell will play it so they can continue justifying their hate for it. If it's just "Meh" no one gives a shit one way or another, which means people don't talk about it.

>>53417862

Being fair it doesn't seem to have hurt 5e. The bland, safe and basic approach seems to have appealed to a pretty huge chunk of the core D&D fanbase.

>>53417876
Because they're cry babies that love their 5e "safe space" of not really innovating, just a minor improvement here and there and a coat of paint.

>>53417954

While I can understand the sentiment, you also can't exactly call it a bad design choice on the 5e developers part. We can bemoan the interesting system it could have been all we like, but they clearly created a product that appealed to their strongest demographics and they've been rewarded for it.

It annoys me personally that such a lack of innovation is getting such high praise, but to go further would be indulging in badwrongfun bullshit, and that'd just make me a hypocrite.

>>53401987
To my knowledge, superhero RPG systems tend to have modular powers, defined by category of effect with many possible variations to add on. For instance, there's usually only one "damaging beam" power, but you get to choose the amount and type of damage, the properties of the beam, what body part it comes out of, and when it can or can't be used.
D&D 4E powers are the opposite of that, completely specific like trading cards, for the sole purpose of inflating page count. It was a wrong turn for the franchise, extending the splatbook bloat of caster classes to all classes.
Yes, I know there's one magazine article that SAYS you're allowed to slightly modify powers at the DM's discretion to fit a character concept, but it's not expected to occur in most campaigns, or else a comprehensive modular option would've been provided to cover everything.

>>53417609
I couldn't explain it better myself. These are builds that most people wouldn't come to naturally.

However, >>53417762 makes a good point in thatif you want to be ultra-optimized, at-wills take away from the game since some can be so powerful that they make any other action a waste. I can see that becoming a problem in say, tournament play, but the players I play with aren't the kinds to theorycraft to that extreme, and if I were DMing I'd probably shut them then and there if I caught whiff of them doing that (assuming it's impeding the others' fun).

Basically if you have to go on EN World or have someone to spell it out for you to make a character broken enough to only use one power, I think that's fine.

>>53418066

That is not how 4e works in practice at all, though.

>>53418094
Yeah I'm not sure why having more potential options for all classes is a bad thing

>>53418318
I think what that anon is saying is that instead of a lot of specific individual powers it would be better to have one or two features with multiple uses?

>>53418697
So like a better Battlemaster basically? He can Basic Melee or Ranged attack and then throw on a modifier?

File: Power Shrug.gif (428KB, 200x183px) Image search: [Google]

428KB, 200x183px

Well, I wouldn't say I MISS them, because 4e is still my go-to game, at-least for DMing. I have been running the same 4e game for over two years, and it's going strong. When this one ends, I'll probably start a new one.
>>53413403
>5e is great for what it proposes itself ("gritty", low power, "we're adventurers"), but it isn't 4e ("we're heroes").
This. This is the big difference between 4e and 5e to me. They are fundementally different games. The former is a game about playing the goddamned heroes in a traditional fantasy novel, while 5e is about playing somewhat above-average people in a gritty fantasy world. Two difference experiences that comparing them is silly.

File: 1420399192673.gif (499KB, 500x408px) Image search: [Google]

499KB, 500x408px

>>53403799
>>53403712
>>53403695
>>53408776
Yeah. 1 hour short rests are one of the things that made 5e seem a bit silly to me. The idea of resources that are expected to renew before the end of the day are cool, but making them "do literally nothing for an hour" to recharge kind-of makes them not-really-encounter powers. The number of situations in which you can safely fuck off and do literally nothing for an hour, but cannot safely fuck off and do literally nothing for 8 hours are so few and far between that unless your DM is literally bending over backwards to shoehorn in yet another time sensitive ticking clock that's soft enough to allow for a short rest but NOT a long rest, encounter powers are just once-per-day powers, and if your DM IS bending over backwards to make encounter powers worth their weight in intended-balance, it starts to stretch the suspension of disbelief after the third session. Hell, even if you get to the point where it stops stretching your suspension of disbelief because you've been playing 5e so long that this feels normal now, a game that forces the DM to work THAT HARD just to function as intended can't be said to be well crafted.

File: PHB1 Page 55 Snipit.jpg (40KB, 485x257px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 485x257px

>>53418066
>Yes, I know there's one magazine article that SAYS you're allowed to slightly modify powers at the DM's discretion to fit a character concept, but it's not expected to occur in most campaigns, or else a comprehensive modular option would've been provided to cover everything.
>that one magazine article
>magazine article

lolwut? Since when is the PHB a magazine?

>>53419934
I despise Short Rests in 5e. So I changed the requirements to be 1 hour of rest and a meal. At least that way to imply that short rests are something characters want to do in character.

>>53419751
The problem is that I've already been in three 5e games that would have functioned better as 4e games because of how the DM tried to push the party up as "heroes"

File: That Just Sounds Exhausting.jpg (15KB, 200x200px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 200x200px

>>53420060
that could be a problem. Knowing the right system to mesh with your concept is important. I wouldn't run a game about the retinue of chosen ones overthrowing the evil empire in 5e, and I wouldn't run a game about dungeon survival horror in 4e. I mean, a good DM can make any system work for any concept, but why work that hard?

>>53420046

...so PCs would eat like 8 meals a day?

Martial powers yes.

Magic powers fuck no.

>>53420152
Well considering how much strenuous activity they do, they probably need it

File: a7608782cda9d60fd74f126f86d40698-d3h40xd.jpg (121KB, 900x1165px) Image search: [Google]

121KB, 900x1165px

>>53419993
Played a Warlock who was basically Quan Chi right down to his Eldritch Blast looking like a flaming green skull

>>53420169
Care to expand on this?

>>53416469
Rogues have some interesting builds based around Riposte Strike. Every single Avenger that's even moderately optimized takes Power of Skill.

>>53422126
Power of skill is taken to turn an at-will into an MBA, it's not worth taking if, for example, you have a wis-based MBA to begin with

>>53417862
>And honestly, "meh" is the worst possible thing your system could be.
Not if we're talking about D&D. This is a franchise that sustains itself on sheer inertia.
If this was a new system/name that has yet to prove itself, "meh" would indeed be a death sentence. But for D&D, the goal is not to make an exceptional system, but one that is bland and inoffensive so as to minimize the number of people that can serious issue with it. The brand name does the rest.

You could say that the playtest was literally too good, or at least too interesting for WotC's plans with D&D.

>>53408710
Have you never read a comic? "I won't be able to use that trick again" is like staple writing. Throwing out cool shit and then immediately backpedaling it is cheap adventure writing 101.

>>53420169

What?

>>53420169
>>53421976
>>53424592
Not him, but it sounds to me like this guy likes the current vancian magic system, but would like martial characters to be able to have more options.

>>53409641
That's fucking retarded.

AEDU was great simply because it made playing a low-level spellcaster not feel like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPW48lBCH7Q

>>53418094
The number of pages devoted to nothing but powers is an objective fact. Several powers are identical to other powers but with one more damage die or a keyword added.
>>53419993
That's modifying fluff, not crunch. There's a world of difference between saying "I describe my fireball as looking like a green skull" and saying "my fireball has the mechanical effect of immobilizing targets on a hit instead of a damage roll but still has the DOT effect" and you know it.

>>53426112
>The number of pages devoted to nothing but powers is an objective fact. Several powers are identical to other powers but with one more damage die or a keyword added.
4E created a framework that describes pretty much any ability in the system (not entirely unlike the effects-based approach of Champions and its successors), then used this framework to create widgets that classes use. Of course some look similar. That's pretty much the only way to make classes and effects meet. And you can't simply drop classes if you're D&D.

>>53426678
Then give me the framework directly so I can have access to all those options in one place, instead of having to search through a quarter million pages for the one premade widget that's close enough to what I want.

>>53426773
So this is a formatting issue, not an issue with the system?

>>53426773
http://funin.space/

>>53426807
Of course it is.

>>53426773
Again, that defeats the point of classes, which you can't drop because it's D&D

>>53426807
It's an issue with the system being based on premade specific power cards instead of point-buy custom power framework like a superhero system. The framework has not been directly published in any official D&D media.

>>53426985
>that defeats the point of classes
I don't see how. Just make certain point-buy options available only to certain classes, or available at different costs depending on class. There's also plenty of class features besides powers to differentiate classes.

>>53426985
Nah, you just have to write a differently configured framework for each class.

>>53427110

Go play Valor. Also see above as to why going point buy/freeform creation harms your ability to design strong and coherent mechanical identities within classes.

>>53427114
4E has one framework within which everything works. All classes, all powers, all monsters.
Having a separate framework for each class would leave you either with a mess like 3.PF or with blandness like 5E

>>53426112
>The number of pages devoted to nothing but powers is an objective fact. Several powers are identical to other powers but with one more damage die or a keyword added.

I never really saw this as an issue in 4e, especially when you have things like 3.PF that has the exact same issue, but far worse since those abilities are only useable by half the classes despite taking up almost the entire book.

>>53427348
I just mean that you could rewrite all existing powers in the form of a different framework for each class.

>>53427390

But what would be the point?

>>53427390
>>53427400
You mean something like:
>Melee Basic Attack
>Hit: vs AC
>On Hit: 2[W] damage

And in the Rogue:
>Piercing Strike
>As MBA, but deal -1[W] and aim Reflex

Less writing the same shit, more applying modifications to a template?

>>53427400
To appease the complainer.

>>53428211
Yeah, pretty much.

>>53428211

That seems like it'd get more annoying to use, not less, as you'd still need to sort through lists of modifiers and keep cross referencing them with the base powers.

>>53428578
Yeah, I (>>53428211) think that too, with a lot of page flipping to look the default power where each modification is made. Easy to miss some added keyword unless WotC sold the Power Cards alongside it.

I just understood what >>53428319 wanted, but do not agreed on that solution. I think the best way is to make encounter and dailies scale (so a 3rd level power scales at 13 and 23) instead of having a power "equal-to-but-more-powerful", and dual style powers like the Psychic ones.

Like a ShieldBearer Power that granted both a Tide of Iron effect and some sort of Immediate Interrupt to increase AC of an ally.

>>53428880

Something I'm working on with a few friends is the idea of powers getting a few mutually exclusive upgrade options as you go, letting you tune and customise what they do as you level up. It's a bit fiddly, but we think it could be a fun middle ground between the two.

>>53428972
I think this can work on several levels. Martials get "and" powers that offer basically 2 powers in one, casters can select upgrades mutually exclusive (like either lighting bolt or fireball, or by making a zone of either acid or cold) to reduce the raw powers available without missing anything.

>>53429090
>>53428972
...

Isn't this basically kinda sorta Heroes of the Storm talent trees?

>>53429510

In a sense, I suppose. It's not like the mechanic came from there, and we're going for a lot more options, since we're going per power rather than mutually exclusive class upgrades.

Then again, that might actually be an interesting alternative to class feats. Instead of burning feat slots to just upgrade your core capabilities, which is honestly pretty boring, have mutually exclusive class talent choices every few levels, leaving feats for breadth and interesting things beyond your class.

>>53429510
Never played it. How they done it?

>>53429553
Class should be about power increase. Feat should be about versatility increase, yeah.

>>53429602

In HotS, rather than skill levelling you get in DotA or League, you have all your abilities (Q, W and E) from the start, but are presented with three or four mutually exclusive talent choices every few levels, which vary from upgrading an ability to gaining a new secondary ability or some form of passive buff. It gives you a sense of progression without it just being pure numbers, and lets you adapt your characters capabilities to the needs of the match.

It works well in practice, and I do think the same principle might make sense, although applied differently as it's a matter of long term progression rather than levelling within a single match.

Specifically, getting rid of every talent which is just 'x class features is improved' in favour of a few talent choices for each class. Some class feats are cool, ones that let you do things in different or interesting ways, but it'd take all the boring 'you should probably take this' ones away and let you focus on stuff that's fun instead.

Things like Leaders getting an extra use of their basic healing power and so on, basic stuff which is useful but it's kinda dull to waste a feat slot on.

>>53429602
>Never played it. How they done it?

Every hero gets 3-5 starting abilities (usually 3 active, 1 passive).

Every level (including the first), you pick between 3-5 exclusionary upgrades tailored to your hero. Some are new abilities (actives and passives alike), some are upgrades to existing abilities.

Also, your numerical stuff scales with level.

>>53429602
Each hero starts with about 3 abilities and a trait. At first and every couple of levels they get to choose from a few talents which usually modify one or more abilities and rarely give a new active button. At 10th level you get to choose one of two heroics which are generally powerful and have large cooldowns. At 20th you also get talents which enhance your heroic among others.

When too much chaning on the rules makes a homebrew a whole different system?

[D&D4E] Characters start as Heroes and ascend to Gods (instead of 5e "start as adventurers, ascend to legends"). Keeping in mind the scope of the game avoids misintent;
[NUMENERA] Player Always Rolls (players have attack and defense bonus, and roll to overcome the enemies attack and defense ratings). Makes the players focus on “DM’s Turn” instead of having him rolling for each of the 8 minions, 2 Soldiers and 1 Artillery monsters. Cleans up space behind Screen. Harder to fudge bad rolls that could end in anti-climax.
[BLACK HACK] Level Diference Bonuses: Characters roll with a bonus/penalty based on the difference between character and enemy levels, so a level 2 Fighter have a +1 bonus against a level 1 Goblin but a -1 bonus to a level 3 Goblin. Less number altering on the character sheet. “Removes” the ½ level bonus. Doesn’t grant a better sensation of growing in power. More math to be made on-the-fly.
[D&D5E] Advantage/Disadvantage. Rolling more dice is fun. Less math. Less modifiers to be stack may reduce tactical thinking over how to get one safe way to be 100% on advantage.
[D&D4/5] Proficiency/Trained.
[D&D 4E] AEDU.
[D&D 4E] Defenders Marks;
[D&D 4E]
[13th AGE] Escalation Die;
[AD&D 2nd / D&D 5E] Kits/Backgrounds (with its Ideals/Bonds/Flaws).
[GURPS] 3d6 instead of d20. But then I would have plenty of grognards screaming that it isn't D&D anymore REEEEEEEEE

>>53430096
You could mix the Kits/Backgrounds with 4e's Themes and make them matter mechanically speaking as well

>>53431020
Off course that will happen. Love Kits and loved how they returned in 4e as Themes. A shame they weren't in the PHB1