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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 9:23AM
#41
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2009
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The only problem I personally would like to see addressed is the speed of combat. Lowering monster hps and upping their damage helps, but I would like to see hps reduced a bit more across the board.
"What is the sort of thing that I do care about is a failure to seriously evaluate what does and doesn't work in favor of a sort of cargo cult posturing. And yes, it's painful to read design notes columns that are all just "So D&D 3.5 sort of had these problems. We know people have some issues with them. What a puzzler! But we think we have a solution in the form of X", where X is sort of a half-baked version of an idea that 4e executed perfectly well and which worked fine." - Lesp
"They are making it clear that when modern design and common sense come into conflict with tradition, tradition wins." - Thecasualoblivion
"When I DM Next I feel that I might as well be running a game based off of notes scribbled on a paper napkin." -Reinhart
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 1:28PM
#42
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2003
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In terms of conditions, I think several of them could be put onto a continuum such that they could be tracked as a single thing (for the tables I've been at, tracking all the conditions takes up far more time than simple interrupts that inflict straight damage or turn hits into misses do).
For example... slowed and immobilized both reduce a target's speed and so could be combined together into a single "-X speed" effect with immobilization happening when the target's speed is 0. Likewise, you could put prone (lose your move action to stand), dazed (lose two actions) and stunned (lose all three actions) together into a single "-X actions" effect. Similar conditions could impart penalties to attacks, damage, and so forth.
I could also see removing duration tracking from such effects entirely, instead having them stack and then "burn off" as they come up.
For example, a target with a normal speed of 6 is hit with a -3 speed and then a -4 speed effect. On the target's subsequent turns they must first spend 7 squares of movement before they can again move normally. Some options might be...
- Use their move action to burn off six of the seven points while taking the rest of their actions normally. On the turn after that, they use another move action to burn off the remaining point and then move up to five squares normally.
- Use both their move and standard actions to burn off all seven points and still move five squares.
- Use a run action on their next turn to burn off all seven points and move up to one square, but suffer the penalties for running.
- Use some combination of normal movement and powers which provide movement to burn through the -7 speed effect in a single turn (ex. a move action followed by a power that let you shift 1 before or after the attack).
- Use their move action for something else and retain the -7 speed until next turn (then repeat the choices above on that turn).
* * * * *
The same process could be used for -X actions effects or penalties to attacks or damage; perhaps with some sort of cap to how much can burn off with a single action (ex. no more than -5 to attack rolls per power used so that a -15 to attacks would burn off over the course of three attack actions) so they don't completely cripple a character.
I don't know how well this would actually work in practice, but doing something to streamline the effects so that they're easier to track would be something I'd look at changing going forward from 4e.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 2:55PM
#43
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2010
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My main problems with 4E:
1. Reliance on Minis
The problem with 4E was that for every combat, regardless of how trivial, you basically had to dig out the minis. Abilities were heavily grounded in a gridded battlemap, and without the squares, it's impossible to actually do 4E combats, because exact locations are so important.
2. Length of Combats
In 4E, even trivial fights took a long time. Monsters just had way too much HP and PCs just had too much healing.
3. Phoenix Down Combat
It was just too easy to bring a downed PC back to combat in 4E. It took forever to take down a PC in combat, and when you did, the cleric would just instantly bring them back to combat on his next action. It produced this really stupid looking Final Fantasy style combat where the cleric was just tossing phoenix downs on people, and people were popping up then getting knocked down again. Felt more like whack-a-mole than heroic fantasy. I never had problems with most of the dissociative mechanics that 4E had, but a combat in 4E from a storytelling point of view just seemed ridiculous.
4. Lack of interesting abilities
Now I was never a fan of the caster dominance in 3E, but 4E seemed to get way paranoid about that and removed all the cool stuff and anything remotely open ended like illusions.
5. Monsters just sucked
The 4E monsters were just boring. You didn't really fear anything because they were too similar and didn't have enough abilities of note. Remember how you were scared as hell to fight stuff with energy drain in 2E? Or you had medusa's that could petrify you instantly unless you shut your eyes? That was all gone in 4E. You just fought a medusa with your eyes open, because the gaze was just another ability, and you were never really expected to think outside the box.
6. Character gimmicks were too reliable
In prior editions you'd run into times when your primary gimmick would not work. Maybe the monster was immune to sneak attack, you needed a silver weapon or it was immune to mind-affecting effects. In any case, you just couldn't rely on one gimmick to win the day and had to adapt. In 4E, what you did pretty much always worked. If you were a rogue, you got combat advantage and you did sneak attacks, and that's basically it. If you were a fighter you marked stuff and hit it with a weapon. And your gimmick basically always worked, so that's what you did. Hell, as a fighter you couldn't even really use a ranged weapon effectively, so everone got locked into this very rigid archetype.
7. Character roles should differ based on the opponent
I hated the fixed roles in 4E. In my opinion, roles should be something that changes depending on the situation. For instance, Against an ogre, a fighter might be a defender and the wizard is doing the damage. Against an evil spellcaster, the wizard may be the defender (with counterspells and the like), and the figther is the guy rushing up to hit the enemy. I'd like to see more situations like that, where characters can play multiple roles and those roles are better or worse depending on situation.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 5:41PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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So as usual we get 4e haters posting awesome.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 6:01PM
#45
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Date Joined:
May 19, 2011
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4. Lack of interesting abilities
I have a Psion that can hurl you out of the timestream, force you to relive your most painful memories, slow time around you to a crawl, and completely rend the very fabric of reality around you. I reject your premise.
5. Monsters just sucked
No.
Remember how you were scared as hell to fight stuff with energy drain in 2E? Or you had medusa's that could petrify you instantly unless you shut your eyes?
Scared? No.
Not wanting to waste time and pull combat to a screeching halt while I go rewrite m character sheet? Yes.
As for the Medusa, there are much better ways to challenge a player outside of "You saw her, you die, make a new character."
6. Character gimmicks were too reliable
Um....shouldn't my "gimmick" be reliable most of the time? If it's useless, then it's a trap option, which can go die in a fire.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 6:15PM
#46
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2012
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@Dwarfslayer
Try to not use terms like "sucked" when talking about the things you didn't like. All it will do is bring out people targeting your post for that statment and start a flame war.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 6:58PM
#47
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2009
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My answers:
1) Get rid of enhancement bonuses. And I don't mean use inherent bonuses (enhancement bonuses on the character rather than his equipment) instead, I mean get rid of them.
2) Cut down on other bonuses, particularly on charging.
3) Weaken multiattacking somewhat. Although cutting down onbonuses may make this unnecessary - the problem with multiattacking is that it means you get to apply your bonuses multiple times, so if there are sufficiently fewer bonuses it ceases to be a problem.
4) Dump multiclassing as it currently exists. It's underpowered, overpriced, rigid, and restrictive. I'll get back to this subject a bit later. (But keep hybrids. In fact add a feat that will let the player pick a primary class and apply its class feature to all powers except those from the secondary class - basic attacks, power-swapped powers, etc.)
5) A general review to make everything more coherent. For example, anyone with the Knight Templar theme, regardless of class, ought to be able to take the Templar paragon path.
6) How is it that we need some "I whack it with my sword... again" simple weapon-using classes, but don't need any "I zap it with my wand... again" simple magic-using classes? Let's have a decent range of simple classes.
7) The complaint I usually hear about 4E Psionic power-point classes (I've never played on and am not really interested in them) is that an augmented low-level power is frequently both less expensive and more powerful than an unaugmented higher-level power. So the characters end up doing the sensible thing, spamming their low-level powers and rarely using high-level powers. Take a look and see if this is true; if so, fix it.
8) Have groups of powers for every game-mechanic division: class, race, power source, role, and theme for starters. The more specific a division is, the fewer powers it should contain; there should be perhaps only one or two "Fighter" level-1 dailies, but a larger number of "Defender" and "Martial" level-1 dailies.
9) Get rid of obsolete and too-narrow feats, trim redundant feats and powers, etc.
10) If something is too weak, fix it - don't add a feat that will allow the player to fix it.
11) Make it explicit that every class can function acceptably in multiple roles.
Now back to multiclassing...
Use themes. Aggressively. Have multiple silos of themes - multiclasses (as in borrowing from another class or attempting over a few levels to change primary class) are just one silo, exotic weapons are another, class options yet another. A character during level-1 creation gets to choose some number of themes (at least 2) from different silos. Then the character can add one additional theme while leveling up any time beginning at level 2, another at any time beginning at level 6, and so on - all from different silos, OR *spend a feat* for the privilege of taking a theme from a silo he's already taken from.
(For that matter, consider turning roles into one silo of themes. A Fighter with the Striker role, rather than the Defender role, would then be much more obviously supported. If you do this you might need to break the combat roles up a bit more, differentiating Melee Striker from Ranged Striker and Melee Controller from Ranged Controller - which brings up the concept of Ranged Defender...)
"The world does not work the way you have been taught it does. We are not real as such; we exist within The Story. Unfortunately for you, you have inherited a condition from your mother known as Primary Protagonist Syndrome, which means The Story is interested in you. It will find you, and if you are not ready for the narrative strands it will throw at you..." - from Footloose
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10 months ago ::
Sep 21, 2012 - 11:18PM
#48
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2012
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I am a fan and there is plenty I would have (and actually tried to) change about 4E.
However, the most important thing is that I would have added a bajillion feats/class features/utility powers that were really out of combat and open ended. So far, backgrounds in 5E and rogue's schemes seem to have hitted this as a home run for me. In general, I would have made the game so that when designing a character or running a regular session with a combat encounter plus a couple other noncombats, there would be less crunch on the combat and more in the non-combat. By the time essentials came out I was pretty impressed with what we were getting, but the edition started too bad.
Also, the presentation: roleplaying is about inmersion and different presentation for the mechanics for different classes would have gone a long way.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 7:06AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Oct 25, 2010
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I have a Psion that can hurl you out of the timestream, force you to relive your most painful memories, slow time around you to a crawl, and completely rend the very fabric of reality around you. I reject your premise.
I'm not talking about combat abilities so much as non-combat stuff. Even something simple and basic like creating an illusory orc to trick some guards or disguising the party with magic was something you couldn't do.
Scared? No.
Not wanting to waste time and pull combat to a screeching halt while I go rewrite m character sheet? Yes.
As for the Medusa, there are much better ways to challenge a player outside of "You saw her, you die, make a new character."
It's no so much a challenge issue as it is a flavor issue. To me, every monster in 4E feels very similar, it's just something you go out there and hit until it stops moving.
I personally like monsters that create some degree of fear in the PCs, where they're saying "Holy crap, I don't want to fight that."
The main issue with 4E is that every monster is basically your typical final fantasy hit point attrition monster. Sure maybe it drops a status effect here or there, but its base way of fighting is hitting you with stuff, whether it's big claws or dragon's breath. And the way you win the fight is by hitting it back. In 4E, there was this sort of air of confidence that you had as a PC that you didn't have in prior editions, where you feel like you can take on the world and nothing can really hurt you.
From playing other editions, I just didn't like that flavor in 4E, and it'd be something I'd change. Others may disagree I'm sure, because this is a purely "feel" issue.
Um....shouldn't my "gimmick" be reliable most of the time? If it's useless, then it's a trap option, which can go die in a fire.
I certainly don't advocate trap options, in fact that's what I absolutely despised about 3E, was the countless pitfalls and character traps you could fall into. But that's not to say that I believe every character should have one all powerful gimmick that never gets nullified either.
There are instances where a gimmick shouldn't work. A fire mage shouldn't be able to burn everything. A rogue shouldn't expect that striking vital points is always going to work on a gelatinous cube.
I'm in favor of having more options (and I mean nontrap options) that you choose between rather than just having one "this is what I do" character. I want fighters to have a sword and a bow, and be competent with both, so you have more options when you encounter a flying dragon instead of hoping it lands like in Skyrim. If your archer's bow doesn't work because of a wind storm, you shouldn't just throw your hands up in the air and say "I've got nothin'"
I like to see characters with multiple options, so if one gets nullified they can adapt.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 22, 2012 - 7:46AM
#50
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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I like to see characters with multiple options, so if one gets nullified they can adapt.
I can build a paladin warlock with features from every role... you want a versatile character why arent you building one?
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