People will say that this is up to the DM to add the flavor, or the player to describe his power for flavor, but as the sessions drag on, and the powers are used hundreds of times, really everyone just focuses on the effects, even if they don't really make sense.
As one who runs a weekly PF game, powers stifle attack flavor no more than Attack / Charge / Full Attack. The players may describe their very first attack in detail, but after that they just announce what mechanical action they are taking. The difference with 4e is that even with lackluster or no description, there's at least a power name being thrown out besides 'I attack,' and the rider effects make powers slightly more compelling than just binary miss/roll damage.
I think, regardless of powers or no powers, it will come down to a DM rewarding player creativity to get them thinking outside the box. It's sort of like how in 3e there are all these theoretical options - Bull Rush, Trip, Disarm, etc - but 90% of the time it's just a better idea to inflict the worst status condition upon enemies (death). However, if the DM set things up so these special actions could have actual meaningful consequences, they might be attempted more. In 4e, this would translate to a player saying "I want to try [THIS]" and the DM would flip to p.42 and say "Sure, it'll be a [type of check] of [level of difficulty]," and if successful it would have more effect than an encounter-rate attack.
4e D&D is not a "Tabletop MMO." It is not Massively Multiplayer, and is usually not played Online. Come up with better descriptions of your complaints, cuz this one means jack ****.
I highly agree with Chaos Storm's statement up above. I like skill based PC's better, powers are just not for me in my D&D.
Huh. As in only using skills, not using spells and augmentable attacks?
That, to me, sounds really boring.
I mean, most of what my players improvise with skills is influenced by how they built their characters, including powers.
I don't think an "only improv" skills system would ever appeal to me. Now, improv skills on top of standard "ol' reliable" actions are what fits my style better.
You neglected to mention your reason for dislike of healing surges, whose main reason for being seems to be making healing more reliable, interesting and a good measure of when to "call it a day". What did you find in them that you disliked?
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby (1937- )
Vanador: OK. You ripped a gateway to Hell, killed half the town, and raised the dead as feral zombies. We're going to kill you. But it can go two ways. We want you to run as fast as you possibly can toward the south of the town to draw the Zombies to you, and right before they catch you, I'll put an arrow through your head to end it instantly. If you don't agree to do this, we'll tie you this building and let the Zombies rip you apart slowly. Dimitry: God I love being Neutral. 4th edition is dead, long live 4th edition. Salla: opinionated, but commonly right. fun quotesShow
If you can't understand how someone yelling at another person would make them fight harder and longer, then you need to look at the forums a bit closer.
quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
I highly agree with Chaos Storm's statement up above. I like skill based PC's better, powers are just not for me in my D&D.
Huh. As in only using skills, not using spells and augmentable attacks?
That, to me, sounds really boring.
I mean, most of what my players improvise with skills is influenced by how they built their characters, including powers.
I don't think an "only improv" skills system would ever appeal to me. Now, improv skills on top of standard "ol' reliable" actions are what fits my style better.
Not that this would ever be in a DnD game, but here's how I imagine such a system might work:
Imagine a wizard having "damage" skills or "DoT" skills, "fire" skills, or "AoE" skills? I might have decide to attack with a spell, decide how many spell skills to pour into it, and that would that would determine its "cost." Maybe as levels go up, the number of "skills" I could combine would unlock. As a mid-level wizards, let's say I could combine three, so I hit up "fire," "damage," and "AoE" to brew up a fireball... "fire" is essentially useless unless attacking something flammable or weak to it, so that whould have a minor cost; damage would be standard, so a standard cost, and AoE can be really useful, so a premium cost. Maybe I could cast ten such spells a day, with an appropiate amount of spell "energy." I roll to hit/difficulty/etc., I hit really well, so I get to use more dice. Kaboom: fireball. When I'm out of "energy," maybe I have a no-cost fallback that is a simple damage arcane attack, maybe 1d6, so I don't need to wade into combat and be crunched. (Yeah, basically a knockoff of Mage: the Ascension...)
How would a warrior compete with such a wizard? Similar potentials for damage scaling via weapon skills, durability in combat, manuverability and battlefield manipulation. All the kinds of things that 4e powers do, only not nailed onto cards and locked in.
Cleric? Run much like the wizards, but with tradtional area of healing, summoning perhaps, radiance, etc.
Rogue? Stealth, subterfuge, tinkering, manuverability, bondage, etc.
Wizards, warriors, clerics, and rogues: classic DnD archetypes, unlocked with exploration of skill trees.
Could this be broken on day 2? Maybe, but I seem to remember a certain Star Wars system that functioned something like this back in the day.
The following is heresy and dangerous. But then again, D&D has always been about a game that can be adapted to anything.
1) Ditch CLASS. You have all of these wonderful powers out there in the world just waiting for a hero to come along and learn it or gain it or whatever, but NO, you can't have it even if you're capable of learning all sorts of other things. Instead, treat all Powers, Rituals, and Feats like a treasure the character can aquire. Then take the best part of 4e and build fluff and story to go along with aquiring these things.
2) Ditch LEVEL. I didn't say to get rid of experience points, just levels. Experience points simply imply that a character is ready mentally, physically, and however else to get better or gain new powers or health or that sort of stuff. I'll leave it to you to figure out how this fits with idea #1. (Just imagine as a DM giving a player the option of gaining more HP or maybe a +1 to saves.)
3) Keep EVERYTHING. Go all the way back to the first editions and figure out how to bring it in to the game mechanic. More importantly, make it so the DM can easily include elements from past versions or even house rules.
4) DO NOT create 5e. Instead of creating a new step or form or whatever, use this as a chance to broaden the field. Make it so that all forms of D&D are supported fully. Personally, I suggest a system like that used in TeachersPayTeachers.com. Make the online account worth more than the books. Provide the books in eBook form cheaply and rerelease eBook forms of all past books (99¢ books for the oldest.) Character builder that keeps the DM's house rules, allows complete customizations, and lets the DM add in home brewed items and powers and, well, everything.
Of course, this fourth idea kind of says that number 1 and 2 are just suggestions.
5) CORE. Establish what the real core (not core mechanic) of D&D is and make it possible to connect all of these other things to that. D&D is a group getting together to have characters face challenges, mostly in a fantasy type of world. D&D is dice that affect outcomes. D&D is a Dungeon Master with a scenario/adventure/world.
Faster Levels: I've been DMing since 3rd edition and from the start levels always happened too slowly. In 3e I gave out arbitrary ammounts of xp, dispensing it like candy on halloween. In 4e I began using the xp of the monsters but never dividing it by the number of players in the party. This made it so that characters leveled every 1-3 sessions. That might seem excessive but it always felt right to me. It took players about a year to a year and a half to take their characters from 1st to 20th level where I usually wrapped things up. In a traditional game that would have taken 4 to 5 times as long! I've never met anyone who has legitimately taken a group of characters from 1st to 20th level but using speed xp I've led 5 groups through full class progressions. That's five groups who were able to use those upper level abilities every one else just dreams about. No one has ever told me they felt cheated.
If 5e was built around a system that allowed a group that played once a week to reach 20th level after about a year I would welcome it.
(p.s. My sessions tend to center around role playing so most nights there is one fight. A big night would have two and at least once every other month there is a session with no combat at all. My accelerated xp might ruin some groups, but even in games where I haven't DM'd the ammount of xp always felt small.)
I second this. Keep combat and non-combat abilities seperate. Each should draw from different resource pools. If I choose for my character to be a linguist, then they can't be a blacksmith, but they sure as hell should still be able to swing a sword well.
Same goes for the monsters. The combat stat block is combat centric (attack, offensive spells, etc) and the non-combat block has interesting roleplaying abilities (Djinni's wish, vampire's inability to cross running water, etc)
In 4th and previous editions you're forced to make a choice between being optimized for combat or actually taking interesting RP feats and powers. The problem is, with death around always around the corner it's difficult to justify a bonus to bluff or the ability to use history instead of arcana over something that makes you more effective in battle. It would be nice if the two sides of the house were completely separate.
A clean way to handle this dilemma is to have two completely distinct “classes.” Combat class like fighter, wizard, etc.., and non-combat classes like face-man, scholar, or thug. A player would choose one of each, with the second list being the home of skills like diplomacy and bluff and knowledge whatever. As long as the non-combat classes never had abilities that could be used effectively inside a battle there would be no need to sacrifice RP choices for combat ones.
I second this. Keep combat and non-combat abilities seperate. Each should draw from different resource pools. If I choose for my character to be a linguist, then they can't be a blacksmith, but they sure as hell should still be able to swing a sword well.
Yes. At the very least, backgrounds (a-la 4e) should be in the core rulebook.
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade." "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all." -Kipling
Defenders: We ARE the wall!
I've replaced the previous Edition Warring line in my sig with this one, because honestly, everybody needs to work together to make the D&D they like without trampling on somebody else's D&D.
Miss d20 Modern? Take a look at Dias Ex Machina Game's UltraModern 4e!
here's my idea: you don't have to choose a power, a feat, a class, a race and a theme; you pick a race, some general statistics and "buy" everything else with points
everything you buy gives you always something active to do or modify what you have (like powers, or class features do now, or like some rare feats (like enlarged spell)) but never passive bonus like +1 to something
with level you gain also bonus to abilities/skills/static attribute (passive +1 to something here you can get them)
you are never allowed to switch active powers with passive bonus or viceversa
there are no classes, just things with some prerequisites: - low level spells are for everyone. Medium level spells require some lower level spells, HIGH level spells requires medium level spells -add keywords to this powers like "arcane" or "defender" and you can balance the as you want
"classes" are build suggestet by the designers
you can easily "multiclass" by picking different powers
YES YES YES. I agree 100 %. There should be a crust of "standard D&D archetypes" on the outside and a gooey, balanced modular build mechanic layer underneath.
You could still have the "fighter" class, or you (your DM) could build a tailored class with the underlying mechanics. A good example of this idea is the custom class option from Exodus (the Glutton Creeper port of Fallout P&P).
You built a character class out of base attack progression, skill rates and other character pieces. Worked pretty well, actually.
One of the biggest things I would not like as a (simulationist) GM is the 4e idea of different rules for monsters as opposed to PCs. I like the versimilitude that comes from consistent rules across the whole system.
Having Played/DMed 4e since it came out, here are some of my thoughts:
The base maths of the game needed better initial testing.
Monster defences scaled faster than player to-hit, so the expertise feats were needed.
Player Non AC Defences scaled slower than monster to-hit, so the improved defences and Superior Fort/Ref/Will feats were needed. Even with this only two of the average character's three NADs would scale at the same rate, so most characters get hit most of the time by monsters targeting one of their defences.
Monster Damage scaled at approximately +1 per 2 levels while Player HP scaled at +5 per level. By level thirty monster's were doing about half the % of player HP per hit that they were at level 1. (ie. lvl 1 monster does 7 damage to player with 28 hp, or 25% of players hp. a lvl 30 monster would do 22 damage to a player with 175 hp, or 12.5% of the players hp)
Monster HP scaled even faster than player hp, averaging 8 hp per level. A Warlock who hits for 1d10+1d6+4 (with curse) is doing 13 damage with each hit to a lvl 1 monster with 30hp, which is 43% of the monster's hp. To maintain the same damage per round at level 30, the warlock would need to do 118 damage per round to a monster with 276 hp. That means, the average damage the warlock does has to go up by 3.6 each level to maintain the same pace of combat at all levels.
When options are available, there should be a significant difference between them, and there should not be options that effectively do the same thing, but are strictly worse.
For example, compare Two-Fanged Strike to Singular Shot, both level 1 Ranger attack powers. The difference between them is that one attacks twice for 1[w]+dex and the other attacks once for 2[w]+dex, plus both have a different conditional bonus for adding extra wis mod damage. Both are single target damage dealing powers, with only slight mechanical differences. Two-Fanged Strike has a higher average damage, thus making Singular Shot an effectively worthless power. To make matters worse, Singular Shot was published in a later book.
The gap between generalization and specialization needs to be broadened.
For example there are many, many feats that give only an insignificant bonus for specialization over their generic counterpart. Dirty Fighting is a great example. It gives a cool bonus, but the one attack in some fights that you're able to make with that bonus means the feat is actually only worth about 0.1 damage per encounter, which is terrible.
The power gap between many At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers needs to be broadened.
There are many classes where it is worth while to focus on your At-Will powers, and try to boost those, because your Encounter Powers aren't much better. This is particularly true of the Avenger and Warlock, where their encounter powers lack the damage needed as a Striker.
In too many cases higher level powers are worse, or equal to, lower lever equivalents.
This is another issue I've been having with my Avenger. I started off with a 2[w] encounter power and a 3[w] daily at level one. Now I'm into Paragon tier and my best encounter is still 2[w] and my best daily is still 3[w].
In general, Encounter and Daily powers should be flashier.
This ties back into the often heard complaint that magical classes aren't magical. There's just not enough of a gap between At-Will, Encounter and Daily Powers, not only in power level, but also in creative uses.
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule. Many summons are super impressive, but the have an extra set of rules that go along with them. Some of the big Save Ends effects are great, to the point where they've gotten nerfed on many occasions for being able to lock down enemies.
In general, when a Daily Power is used, it should have a significant effect on the encounter as a whole, and too many just don't.
Combat and Non-Combat capabilities shouldn't be mutually exclusive.
This also goes for generic flavour stuff. I shouldn't have to give up my character's combat abilities to become a better climber or be a smooth talker.
Alternatively, put in more support for non-combat abilities, making them equally important. The Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files RPGs both did a great job of this.
Feats need to be better organized
This ties in with the previous point. Right now there's too much happening in Feats. They need to be separated and better organized. Keep combat feats separate from noncombat ones, and then further separate out class and racial feats.
The module system talked about in Legends and Lore would work great here. Give players X combat feats from the general category, +1 from the racial and class category. Give "power up" modules to allow for extra class/racial feats, or instead "power down" modules that require your X combat feats to include at least one racial and class feat, instead of getting the +1 of each.
In addition this kind of break down would help to balance feats. For example, there could be a Damage category. Here you could have some general damage boosters, such as Weapon Focus, and then some specialized ones such as Dirty Fighting. If you keep almost all sources of damage bonuses in this feat category, then it's simple to avoid the huge untyped damage bonus scaling that is currently causing Multi-Attack powers to be so powerful.
Multiclassing is balanced but boring.
Character Builder is amazing to have, but buggy and annoying.
Too much gear with crappy daily powers, or that doesn't scale (ie daily attacks with fixed bonuses to hit)
Race, Background and Theme are all cool, but often don't actually have much impact on the character.
Most epic destinies are boring. There are only about a half dozen of them that I'd actually look forward to getting for more than the +2 to some stats.
Ultimately I enjoy DnD. 4e has a lot going for it, and I really like the combat side of things. I enjoyed Characters much better in 3.5, they just felt like the had more, uhhh... Character. I'd really like to be able to rebuild my Changling Chameleon Skill Monkey, and have him feel like he serves a purpose to the party. I want to be able to make my Blackguard Demonbinder, or somebody with the mobility of a Blade Dancer, or make a Hellfire Warlock/Binder. Hmmm... I guess I can do the last, but it's just not as awesome as it was in 3.5
For 5e I'm really excited about the modular approach that was hinted at in Legends and Lore. I think it could work great
The big thing that they need to do to make me happy is to give me something cooler than Close Burst 3, Cha vs Will, Stunned(Save ends).
edit: And they also need to make the formatitng in the preview match what actually shows up in the post *sigh*, I hope this looks better...
Having Played/DMed 4e since it came out, here are some of my thoughts:
The base maths of the game needed better initial testing.
Monster defences scaled faster than player to-hit, so the expertise feats were needed.
Player Non AC Defences scaled slower than monster to-hit, so the improved defences and Superior Fort/Ref/Will feats were needed. Even with this only two of the average character's three NADs would scale at the same rate, so most characters get hit most of the time by monsters targeting one of their defences.
Monster Damage scaled at approximately +1 per 2 levels while Player HP scaled at +5 per level. By level thirty monster's were doing about half the % of player HP per hit that they were at level 1. (ie. lvl 1 monster does 7 damage to player with 28 hp, or 25% of players hp. a lvl 30 monster would do 22 damage to a player with 175 hp, or 12.5% of the players hp)
Monster HP scaled even faster than player hp, averaging 8 hp per level. A Warlock who hits for 1d10+1d6+4 (with curse) is doing 13 damage with each hit to a lvl 1 monster with 30hp, which is 43% of the monster's hp. To maintain the same damage per round at level 30, the warlock would need to do 118 damage per round to a monster with 276 hp. That means, the average damage the warlock does has to go up by 3.6 each level to maintain the same pace of combat at all levels.
When options are available, there should be a significant difference between them, and there should not be options that effectively do the same thing, but are strictly worse.
For example, compare Two-Fanged Strike to Singular Shot, both level 1 Ranger attack powers. The difference between them is that one attacks twice for 1[w]+dex and the other attacks once for 2[w]+dex, plus both have a different conditional bonus for adding extra wis mod damage. Both are single target damage dealing powers, with only slight mechanical differences. Two-Fanged Strike has a higher average damage, thus making Singular Shot an effectively worthless power. To make matters worse, Singular Shot was published in a later book.
The gap between generalization and specialization needs to be broadened.
For example there are many, many feats that give only an insignificant bonus for specialization over their generic counterpart. Dirty Fighting is a great example. It gives a cool bonus, but the one attack in some fights that you're able to make with that bonus means the feat is actually only worth about 0.1 damage per encounter, which is terrible.
The power gap between many At-Will, Encounter and Daily powers needs to be broadened.
There are many classes where it is worth while to focus on your At-Will powers, and try to boost those, because your Encounter Powers aren't much better. This is particularly true of the Avenger and Warlock, where their encounter powers lack the damage needed as a Striker.
In too many cases higher level powers are worse, or equal to, lower lever equivalents.
This is another issue I've been having with my Avenger. I started off with a 2[w] encounter power and a 3[w] daily at level one. Now I'm into Paragon tier and my best encounter is still 2[w] and my best daily is still 3[w].
In general, Encounter and Daily powers should be flashier.
This ties back into the often heard complaint that magical classes aren't magical. There's just not enough of a gap between At-Will, Encounter and Daily Powers, not only in power level, but also in creative uses.
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule. Many summons are super impressive, but the have an extra set of rules that go along with them. Some of the big Save Ends effects are great, to the point where they've gotten nerfed on many occasions for being able to lock down enemies.
In general, when a Daily Power is used, it should have a significant effect on the encounter as a whole, and too many just don't.
Combat and Non-Combat capabilities shouldn't be mutually exclusive.
This also goes for generic flavour stuff. I shouldn't have to give up my character's combat abilities to become a better climber or be a smooth talker.
Alternatively, put in more support for non-combat abilities, making them equally important. The Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files RPGs both did a great job of this.
Feats need to be better organized
This ties in with the previous point. Right now there's too much happening in Feats. They need to be separated and better organized. Keep combat feats separate from noncombat ones, and then further separate out class and racial feats.
The module system talked about in Legends and Lore would work great here. Give players X combat feats from the general category, +1 from the racial and class category. Give "power up" modules to allow for extra class/racial feats, or instead "power down" modules that require your X combat feats to include at least one racial and class feat, instead of getting the +1 of each.
In addition this kind of break down would help to balance feats. For example, there could be a Damage category. Here you could have some general damage boosters, such as Weapon Focus, and then some specialized ones such as Dirty Fighting. If you keep almost all sources of damage bonuses in this feat category, then it's simple to avoid the huge untyped damage bonus scaling that is currently causing Multi-Attack powers to be so powerful.
Multiclassing is balanced but boring.
Character Builder is amazing to have, but buggy and annoying.
Too much gear with crappy daily powers, or that doesn't scale (ie daily attacks with fixed bonuses to hit)
Race, Background and Theme are all cool, but often don't actually have much impact on the character.
Most epic destinies are boring. There are only about a half dozen of them that I'd actually look forward to getting for more than the +2 to some stats.
Ultimately I enjoy DnD. 4e has a lot going for it, and I really like the combat side of things. I enjoyed Characters much better in 3.5, they just felt like the had more, uhhh... Character. I'd really like to be able to rebuild my Changling Chameleon Skill Monkey, and have him feel like he serves a purpose to the party. I want to be able to make my Blackguard Demonbinder, or somebody with the mobility of a Blade Dancer, or make a Hellfire Warlock/Binder. Hmmm... I guess I can do the last, but it's just not as awesome as it was in 3.5
For 5e I'm really excited about the modular approach that was hinted at in Legends and Lore. I think it could work great
The big thing that they need to do to make me happy is to give me something cooler than Close Burst 3, Cha vs Will, Stunned(Save ends).
edit: And they also need to make the formatitng in the preview match what actually shows up in the post *sigh*, I hope this looks better...
