For some really strange reason, I have a feeling I'm stumbling into either D&D Next or a close variation of it accidentally. If so, I apologize to D&D Next's development team in advanced. If not, well at least I'm at ease
After a bit of thinking, I realized something: I've actually unintentionally created a system that allows for just about any role, or even no role at all! If you look at the powers I've listed so far, all of them are altered by roles, but even without roles the powers work just fine Additionally, I've even made it (accidentally) work so that even if you don't have any powers at all -- at least with the "martial" sort of character, or someone who wants a 'simple' character creation process -- to build just about any character in less than 5 minutes -- calculate or roll your stats, determine your secondary stats (weapon, HP, defenses, attack roll, damage roll), and go! -- with just about everything else as optional! O.o
The fun part about this whole thing is that you can 100% decouple the classes from the rest of the system, so that even if you want a 3.5 style of class leveling, it technically works O.o I mean, let's say you want your Level 10 character to be 6 Wizard / 4 Fighter, you can tweak the system that 4 levels will benefit from your Defender/Striker role (including 1 weapon-based at-will and 1 weapon-based encounter attack power, as well as a utility that has a "martial" feel to it), and 6 levels would benefit from your Controller/Striker role (1 implement-based at-will, 2 weapon-based encounter attack powers, and 2 utilities that have a "wizardly" feel to it).
Features would then be completely transferred to the feat system, and the feat system revamped so that none of them involve actual mechanical fixes, then for a more 3.5E feel to the system, you could rule that each time you level, you choose a class (or role combination) and attached the relevant mechanics involved. For instance, you want to create a rogue up to level 3, then from then on become a cleric. Since Rogues would be Striker/Striker, from level 1 to 3 you gain access to Striker/Striker feats, then for the rest of the game you gain Defender/Leader feats.
It'd look like this: 1: Striker/Striker (1 striker feat, 2 striker at-wills, 1 striker encounter power, 1 striker daily) 2: Striker/Striker (1 striker feat, 1 striker utility) 3: Striker/Striker (1 striker encounter power) 4: Defender/Leader (retrain one at-will to use defender/leader features instead of striker features, increase ability scores, 1 defender/leader feat) 5: Defender/Leader (1 defender/leader daily) 6: Defender/Leader (1 defender feat) etc.
It's so astoundingly crazy I'm surprised I actually even thought of it O.o I mean, you get to be a Rogue/Fighter/Cleric/Wizard within a 4E-balanced system!
EDIT: You don't want powers? If you don't mind "dead levels" where increase in secondary stats is what you get, sure! You don't want feats? System still works! Again, if this looks almost exactly like how D&D Next works, I apologize to the developers ahead of time...
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
I have a character that is the cowardliest of all cowards. He starts as Leader/Defender, but completely ignores his defender role. He uses attack granting-attacks, healing spells and even some implement spells.
Something happens in his life, BAM he get's confident and starts training as a paladin.
From that level on i start taking more melee and offensive powers, stop neglecting my defender role and switch up my armor.
..I just went from cleric to paladin in a 4e balanced system... Holy crap...
I really like how you can just pick an armor that fits your character (no armor for mage, heavy armor for swordmage, light armor for ranger etc.)
What more features should we transfer to feats? We're mainly thinking classes, right?
Simple, "core", stuff: · Pacifism. Either deals no damage or a combination of being able to choose to do damage, but is penalized for damaging a bloodied creature. Increased healing. · Shielding swordmage: Defender aura becomes Aegis of Shielding: Area burst 1 within 10 (dosn't provoke OA), as an opportunity attack, when an ally within the burst takes damage you can reduce that damage by your secondary ability modifier. ·
Advanced Classlessness: · Beastmastery. · Shapeshifter druid will be a pain in the *** to make, luckily there's a very good shapeshifter on the forums we can probably borrow partly. ·
For the role decoupling to work seamlessly though, there has to be a tiny restriction: the amount of damage dealt by the striker feature, and the amount of damage healed by the leader feature, would scale based on your role level, rather than your character level. This would make a very complex and interesting tinkering for a character who is 3 levels defender/leader, 3 levels defender/striker and 2 levels controller/leader (for a total of 6 levels defender, 5 levels leader, 3 levels striker, and 2 levels controller), as it'd grant you some crazy amount of flexibility, but you're still limited to the convolutions allowed within each power (especially when assiging at-wills to a role or a pair of roles, preventing you from using all four roles ona single power).
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
Wait, does cross-leveling (a la 3.5 and Pathf.) work with this system? I thought too much was based on features and too little based on powers to make it possible.
Wait, does cross-leveling (a la 3.5 and Pathf.) work with this system? I thought too much was based on features and too little based on powers to make it possible.
Think of it this way: powers are structuralized features
Since striker features scale at levels 11 and 21, you're best off being a striker primary or a dedicated striker if you'll want to get the best of your being striker-y. Healing scales more rapidly, but still at such a pacing -- and because healing is very, VERY useful -- it's hard not to stay in your own role. But for those who are defenders or controllers, whose capabilities are more power-based, it's a slightly different matter: you'd want to stick to your role not because you want to enhance your inherent features, but because you want to maximize on your powers
It's mostly a matter of technicalities when you think about it :D
I'm considering mentioning it as an optional modification of the system, and not part of the core concept, just like how "classes" would simply be a bunch of feats based on roles, that allow you to gain additional benefits, or modify your role features, depending on how you want to mix and match those feats
In the meantime, I'll probably have to focus on cleaning up the whole thing Perhaps limiting the system to basically just four actions (standard, free, none, move), with the following restrictions: Free - 1/turn, unless specified None - 1/triggering action [except for action point] Standard - 1/round, unless granted by an action point Move - 1/round
That way, opportunity actions, minor actions and immediate actions would be free actions
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
I agree to wait with the core system alterations for now xD
I like your new Free Action, but since it's not nearly as free as 4e's free action I think a new name would be appropriate:
Suggestions: Prompt Action, Rapid Action, Sudden Action, Immediate Action, Instant Action, Abrupt Action, Hasty Action, and of course Swift Action (for nostalgia).
Wait, the fact that we're changing actions, doesn't that mean the players won't be able to use already-made paragon paths? We'll now I might have a problem with that. Can you make sure that giving players to immediate actions 1/turn isn't gamebreaking before this is settled?
I agree to wait with the core system alterations for now xD
I like your new Free Action, but since it's not nearly as free as 4e's free action I think a new name would be appropriate:
Suggestions: Prompt Action, Rapid Action, Sudden Action, Immediate Action, Instant Action, Abrupt Action, Hasty Action, and of course Swift Action (for nostalgia).
Wait, the fact that we're changing actions, doesn't that mean the players won't be able to use already-made paragon paths? We'll now I might have a problem with that. Can you make sure that giving players to immediate actions 1/turn isn't gamebreaking before this is settled?
Rapid Action and Swift Action seem interesting terms to use, maybe I'll stick to Swift Action I'll avoid using "Immediate Action" because there's already an existing term in the game.
Already-made paragon paths are generally easy to port/translate in the following manner:
Minor actions are Swift Actions that you can only use during your turn, once per turn. Immediate interrupts are Swift Actions that you can only use once per round outside your turn, that is resolved immediately before the triggering action is resolved. Immediate reactions are Swift Actions that you can only use once per round outside your turn, that is resolved immediately after the triggering action is resolved. Opportunity actions are Swift Actions that you can use once per turn outside your turn, that is resolved immediately before or after the triggering action is resolved (usually immediately before). Free actions are Swift Actions that you can use at any time (normally during your turn, or after a trigger), is resolved immediately after the triggering action is resolved (unless if the free action must be resolved immediately before the triggering action is resolved in order for it to function), and do not count towards your normal limit on Swift Actions.
This guideline will appear as part of the rules with a section I'll have to introduce: "Using Other 4E Options in Classless 4E" That way, you can have a classical Fighter standing next to a Controller/Defender, and a Warlord alongside a Striker/Leader, and still play within the same ruleset
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
I completely agree with the action-simplification, given that you'll make the chapter explaining the conversion for those that want to use other 4e stuff :D
Holy crap you're right
