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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 4:45AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2010
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I agree with most of these.
+1 to calls to separate combat and non-combat feats as a resource in character creation so that you don't take a penalty in battle for wanting flavor.
This is something Next needs to be aware of regardless of what other direction it takes.
Agree the 4e feat and power lists need to be taken to the threshing floor and have the chaff blown away.
Themes need to be more character defining.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 4:52AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2010
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I believe there is a word for such a person, something like editor?
I think 'editor' is a pretty basic term for what they really need. I'm sure they already have an editor but they need someone who actually understands the game.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 4:57AM
#13
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1) Definately separate combat feats and abilities from non-combat feats and abilities so that players are not forced to choose one from the other. This is a place where backgrounds and themes that they've shown in 5E could really shine.
2) The Psionic classes felt and played very differently from the vast majority of the other classes (no encounter powers) and the essential Slayer and Knight played very different from the vast majority of the other classes (no daily powers). They should have had more variation in how classes selected and used powers, while keeping within the same general framework of AEDU.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 5:19AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Apr 11, 2009
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I already agree with most (if not all) of what was suggested here, but I'll add the following:
There is a trend regarding expansion of the game:
-You start with just the PHB1 races, classes, feats, and other options.
-All was fine and dandy then and we could make a level 1 character in 15 minutes flat.
Then came PBH2, PBH3, the Power book series, Dragon Magazine, Adventurer's Vault, etc
-Now there are dozens of races and classes, thousands of feats, and hundreds of other options to sift through
-Now creating a level 1 character is at least a 1 hour ordeal
Two solutions:
-Stop making so many extra and unnecessary options, especially when new options make older options invalid, obsolete, underpowered, but you still have to sift through it all.
-Or, in the digital tools, allow us to check and uncheck the source books we want to reference so we can look at a reasonable number of options rather than the hundreds to thousands we have now
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 5:32AM
#15
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If I were writing an edition with the starting point being 4e? Yeah, there's lots of stuff that can be done. 4e is a good system but it could easily be the best system ever.
1) 20 levels - 30 levels just creates a need for excessive amounts of stuff to fill in all those levels. Reduce the game to a 20 level system. That would help with a LOT of other things too. There's now only a need to find 10 +1's for the PCs for instance, which is easier.
2) Basically the current rewrite of the combat system that is in 5e is all pretty good stuff. There are a few problematic bits in there right now that will need fixing, but it is a good first cut at a faster and easier combat system.
3) Pool powers by power source - Instead of having 8 different arcane classes with each having a full suite of powers, etc move a lot of the powers into common source based pools. This alone would eliminate something like 50% of all powers.
4) Themes and theme-like elements - Again as 5e is doing, which so far seems reasonably good in general. The idea being to shift creating your character concept from a whole lot of small choices to a very few large choices. This cuts out a lot of system mastery and general fumbling through books now required for the average player to do interesting things with their character.
5) Rewrite the rituals - The ritual SYSTEM IMHO is not bad, but ALL rituals should be scaling with a scaled cost/benefit mechanism. You can cast Knock for cheap and open some cheesy level 1 lock, but if you want to open some high level lock, you're going to be paying 1000's of gold for that, best to leave it to the rogue if you can.
6) Scaling powers - This would be another 50% reduction in power list sizes. Instead of half a dozen similar powers that ramp up what is basically the same thing just have powers that can go in higher level slots and do more powerful stuff. Again, 5e has definitely latched onto this idea.
7) I'd cut back some on the numbers of surges and make access to healing a bit less prevalent. Actually PHB1 vintage 4e had almost got the healing availability right at first. Things just proliferated. Give people options for healing rates/recovery so people can tweak things more.
8) I think in general items have been dealt with in later updates. There might still be some more work that can be done on presentation.
Beyond that is just presentation. 4e doesn't seem to present the basic tools in a way that works well for a lot of people. Everything that is in the game actually can work quite well and we've had lots of amazing games. OTOH I read posts constantly where people seem to have missed practically everything and gotten some entirely different idea out of it what the game is about. I don't know who was responsible for the overall style of presentation, but it clearly wasn't effective.
I'm sure there are a lot of other little details, but it is not really worth spending that much time on it. 5e is doing a bunch of the things on my list, sadly it is also doing a bunch of things that are just downright 'unimprovements' at the same time. We'll see how that goes.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 5:38AM
#16
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Spend More Time on Skill Challenges: Spend 10 pages on this, not 1. There is so much potential in the idea, but it takes a lot of finesse to make them work well. The goal is to create a game about skill scenes that leads to a resolution with some granularity of degree of success. Discuss consequences for each failed roll instead of failure after 3. Discuss allowing more than 3 failures. Discuss example consequences for failed rolls or 3 failed rolls. Give example skill challenges that have been extensively playtested for: Stealth/B&E, Complex Traps, Searching/Exploration, Info Gathering, Negotiation/Diplomacy, Interrogation, and Arcane/Religious Ritual. Given that you can write a skill challenge that's level independent, this would be extremely valuable.
Free Ritual Casting: The time cost is enough for me. Make ritual casting free except for magic item creation. Rituals do not need to have a cost in gold pieces as well as time to make them special. The gp cost is too much of a deterrant. Also, list the cost for a scroll for each ritual in a table; because more often than not my players want a ritual for only one specific thing, so they'd usually rather buy a scroll than buy the ritual. Also, release more rituals! You could also assign rituals a rarity like you did with magic items, if you want to keep some rituals super special.
They're Not Powers: The Essentials martial classes should become the base martial classes. The original 4e martial classes can be presented as advanced rules versions (fighters with daily exploits can still exist, but move them to a sourcebook). Remove the word "powers" from the books entirely. They're either Spells or Abilities. The base word for them should be "Abilities" with the caveat that whenever they use magic at all, they get called "Spells." Classes like Warden, Paladin and Swordmage would use "spells" under this nomenclature. You can call divine spells "Prayers" or "Invocations" if you like.
Essentials Solos and Elites: Convert all of them to Essentials updated versions (shrug off Stun effects). Move Unconscious, Dominate, Daze and Stun up the level ladder for monsters so that the only time you see it at Heroic is 9th and 10th level; and even in Paragon, restrict thhem to Controller type monsters. At Epic, go hog wild.
Up Front about Design: We know that the Epic Tier was designed to have longer, more epic combat. In practical terms that means combats take longer in real time and game time (more rounds, and more minutes per round). Be up front about that. I know lots of people who jumped into an Epic game only to find 90 minute battles that constantly risked TPK.
Add Optional Stuff for Hardcore People: Publish a single book with save or die monsters, save or die traps, traditional old school D&D exploration, riddles and puzzles with dire consequences, spheres of annihilation masquerading as portals, etc. Call it the Fifthcore book. The OSR people should read it and weep with joy without returning to THAC0 and "theater of the mind." Those OSR grouches need to look up Fourthcore. Sure there's no Find and Remove Traps percentage or boring fighter who gets reduced to a THAC0 and damage expression, but they'll find the feel they're looking for. That sort of thing should come out as an officially supported expansion.
Theater of the Mind: In the DMG, you should have rules for running simple combats without a grid. This is possible in 4th edition, but in the instructions for designing a combat encounter, it encourages you to keep the threat level at "level-1" or higher. Well, a 5th level party can kill a pair of goblins in a single action, but the TotM section should discuss why this encounter could A) still be interesting (the goblins will shout an alarm if they aren't killed quickly and stealthily), B) not require a grid (keep the terrain simple; be upfront about position description).
Advice for Any Edition
Slow the Creep: Any edition should release the core classes and races, feats, etc.; then move on to moduels and settings for a year or two before releasing new classes/races/feats/etc. 18 months of public release and everyone playing these base classes, races, etc. will give you a million times more information than playtests ever have. When you've determined where the holes are after a long tail of time, release new classes/races/feats/etc. to adjust the balance. Is Fighter doing too little damage? Release a few fighter-only feats that adjust his damage up. Is Druid really easy to break? Errata a few rules to nerf existing Druids and release a simpler version of Druid so DMs can restrict players to the new Druid if they want. Better, this gives you a chance to develop the settings and modules that make you the big bucks. See below!
Be Money Grubbing... Sorta: You guys who accuse WOTC of trying to milk you for cash are being whiners. Look at the Amazon sales rank of the best selling RPG book (IIRC it's the Pathfinder PHB right now). Then sit down and get the tissues out. Then compare it to the kindle version of the Angry Birds Strategy Guide. You're gonne be glad you got out the tissues. Companies in this industry don't make a lot of money, even on the best selling RPG books; and it turns out you can't even copyright rules (you can trademark proper nouns and copyright setting though). I'm not rich but if I can pay $50 for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, I can pay $50 for the 5th edition Sharn, City of Towers Module 1. There's a huge disconnect when people complain about "money grubbing game companies" charging $45 for Madness at Gardmore Abbey while paying $15 a month ($180 a year!) for a MMO or $60 to download Skyrim on release day. But to maximize penetration, keep the core rules books and the player books for campaign settings as cheap as possible. That's what I mean by be money grubbing "sorta."
Focus on the IP: Again, advice for any edition. My advice to WOTC is to take my Slow the Creep advice to heart because of the money. Here's why: I bet WOTC licensed the Neverwinter IP to Atari for Neverwinter Nights for a sum of cash significantly greater than the total profit made on every single Forgotten Realms sourcebook ever printed for all editions put together. The money is in the IP. And the IP is in modules and campaign settings. Once you've got the rules out, develop your IP and market it to us heavily. Get us to wait on the next Eberron gazeteer/campaign module with bated breath. Include premium items: Battlemats, tokens, art, player handouts, cards, tiles. Spend time and money developing them well because the real money is in the IP. Sell the player books cheap to get penetration but price the DM stuff at a premium to keep production values high.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 6:44AM
#17
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I would remove the 1/2 level scaling bonus from monsters and players as well as removing expertise feats and improving ability scores with level. I would change the monster math to accomodate this. I would remove all racial restrictions on feats but also cut down on 90% of the feats in the game, especially ones that only add flat + attack or damage. I would make inherent bonuses be mandatory ad have them apply to skills as well (basically 1/5 level saling instead of 1/2 and removes magic item dependency).
I would also switch trained skills to roll 2 take highest instead of flat +5 and allow any class to choose any 4 trained skills.
For powers I would rather see more at-wills (3 or 4 for everyone), and less everything else. A system with 3 at will, 3 utility, and 3 special seems about right. Special would be the players choice of encounter, daily, Vancian, or other. Vancian would give people more spells but of a weaker type and at a daily usage. So someone who chooses all Vancian special slots would have 9 spells to memorize each one about as strong as an encounter power. Someone else can choose 3 daily powers and another person 2 encounter and 3 Vancian daily.
I would try to make powers more even across the field and have pools that multiple classes can choose from. I would also cut monster HP in half across the board.
I really like the base mechanics of 4e but I wish it was simpler and more streamlined. Numbers bloat also tends to happen and the scaling math of the game is somewhat poor. These suggestions would help lots of these problems.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 8:35AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2010
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I never played 3(.5)E, outside of Neverwinter Nights 2, but jumping from 2E to 4E was a marvel in simple design, to me. I liked the way 4E didn't require complexity, but allowed for it (I really like the idea of Essentials for the same reason). My biggest complaint about 4E was the mad dash to keep creating sourcebooks to sell, and the resulting layering on of more and more redundancy and complexity.
If I were to give advice to the Next designers, it would be to reinforce the idea that a simple (not constrictive, just uncomplicated) framework is the best place to start, and any additions should add depth and dynamics to the game, not simply more layers.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 9:15AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2003
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... what do you think is wrong with it? What things don't work, what would you have changed? Let's for a moment play with the idea, that D&DN was based on the 4E framework. What things would you do away with, what do you find lacking and would like to add to its next iteration? Note, this is meant for people who genuinely like and prefer the fourth edition, so no need to post "no powers, less mmo" - kind of stuff, thank you.
I'd start by taking a look at more of the sacred cows and questioning whether they're really necessary. Some key ones to consider would be...
1) Ability Scores: Other than determining your hit points and carrying capacity, the actual SCORES for your ability scores are not used for anything inside the game itself. So why not replace the 8-20 (which is an artifact of the old point buy mechanics attempting to simulate the results of the old 3-18+racial modifiers die rolling system) with simply buying the bonuses to the ability scores outright?
In addition to lowering the complexity (no more need to calculate ability score bonuses), it would also close the math hole (the net result of +1 to two ability score bonuses at 4,8,14,18,24,28 and +1 to all ability score bonues at 11 and 21 would be a +4 bonus to two attrbutes and a +1 bonus to all the rest over and above what 4E provided without the feats... making the math fix feats unnecessary).
2) Armor Class: Is it actually still needed as a seperate defense or could its aspects be folded into the Reflex defense (and Fortitude to a lesser extent) instead? This would also require questioning the nature of weapon proficiencies and how armor works in the game which could also stand some looking at.
For example, older editions gave you a penalty for using a non-proficient weapon. If we returned to that (i.e. proficiency eliminating that penalty) there would be no need to have an AC 2-3 points higher than your other defenses and attacks against Fortitude (a knockdown attack), Reflex (the default strike), and even Will (a feinting strike designed to leave your ordinary defenses open) would all become easier to implement as options (whereas weapon attacks against non-AC defenses are quite potent due to the weapon proficiency bonus).
The type of defense a weapon is normally used against could also then become a property to better distinguish between types. By the same token, armor and shields might provide bonuses to Fortitude (that poisonous stinger failed to breach the plate armor), Reflex (the ridges of the armor are effective at turning aside blows), and/or DR (the thick padding beneath the plates absorbs a few points of damage from each blow) in different combinations to create greater diversity in armor types (depending on the character the armor that grants +2 Fort/+1 Reflex might be a better choice than +1 Fort/+2 Reflex or one that might provide +1 Fort/+1 Reflex/1 DR).
Maybe keeping Armor Class is a better decision, but it would certainly be one of the things I'd want to test if I were pushing the 4E design concepts forward.
3) Resources: Is a mix of at-will, encounter, and daily resources the best way to balance characters against each other and against encounters in the game? Some alternate approaches to explore might be...
- Spell/Endurance Points (every power beyond the classes at-wills costs X points to use and some number of these points are recovered during a short rest).
- Recharge (once you use a power you must wait X rounds before you can use it again, with the strength of the power determining its recharge time).
-Combination (powers cost a variable number of points to use and the character regains some number of points each turn).
4) Non-Combat Options: Could we do away with feats as a combat resource (i.e. they would provide non-combat abilities while powers and class feature provide combat resources)? Could backgrounds and themes be used to balance non-combat resources the same way that classes are used to balance combat resources?
Those are the first four things I can think of in creating a "Next" iteration of 4E.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 01, 2012 - 9:21AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2010
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I would say AC could be split into Fort and Reflex alone, depending on the type of armor you're wearing, and have it less to do with what kind of weapon you're facing.
Light Armor protects less by absorbing damage as by deflecting and allowing you to dodge attacks by not hindering movement -- Reflex Defense.
Heavy Armor protects by absorbing damage and deflecting attacks through resistance, rather than your ability to move -- Fortitude Defense.
It would be an interesting switch in the dynamic where Heavy and Light armor protect in different ways, but Light Armor isn't always inferior to Heavy Armor.
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