The Campaign Builder's Guild

[note=Yes, another ...]4E D&D thread. Some ideas have come to me while discussing D&D Next on the WotC boards. Mostly, this is to get my thoughts down on "paper" and gather a few opinions. It is probably just a thought experiment, though if it has merit I will pursue it.[/note]So, I like D&D. No matter how hard I try, I always drift back to it. 4E was a tough time for me; I loved the system, and played a lot of it, but something about it felt odd. And while 3E doesn't feel odd to me, I do choose 4E over it because of the tighter system math and the way monsters work. In the end, though, I think the system felt weird because the classes were tied up almost entirely in their powers; those weren't interesting to read.

Yet, I don't think that is a fair assessment of 3E. 3E had its share of simple classes that were tied up in combat mechanics: the Cleric, Fighter, Sorcerer, and Wizard were entirely their abilities (spells or feats). The rogue didn't fair much better. Even still, one did not have to read through all of the spells, or all of the feats, to get an idea of what those simple classes did. Thus, in my attempt to "fix" 4E, I want to inject some flavor back into the classes, but I won't fret too much about a lot of their features being tied up in powers.

I will be starting with the Essentials classes as a baseline. Even the Cleric and Wizard, who retain the AEDU power structure, are given a few class abilities that go a long way towards flavoring the class past 1st level. Without going into too much detail, over the baseline wizard the "mage" from Essentials gains minor class abilities at levels 4, 5, 8, and 10. The Cleric does too. Somehow, even these tiny additions go a long way towards making the class feel more fleshed out.

The Fighter and Rogue go a step further. They still retain their at-wills, encounters, and utility powers (though their at-wills and encounters are reskinned), but they lose their dailies and instead gain some benefits that improve combat ability at all times; the rogue, for instance, gains +2 damage instead of a daily at 1st level. Theoretically, having +1 damage on your "damage per round" makes up for lacking a big boom once per day (over the day, the +2 damage may eek out ahead, but you lack the stopping power of a high damage attack). They also gain some minor abilities that are comparable to feats or enhance their encounter attacks.

While cleaning up these class tables, making them flow more regularly and standardizing them, I got to thinking about the nature of 4E's daily powers. Earlier, on the WotC boards, I illustrated that a typical Cleric, Sorcerer, or Specialist Wizard in 3E could pace themselves and use 1 spell per spell-level per fight and usually make it through the day; I was arguing that daily spell slots could be abandoned for encounter refreshing spell slots. I was then reminded of the new Bladesinger Wizard, who uses Wizard encounter powers as dailies (they have weaker dailies, then, but they have more potent abilities consistently). In an article on the Bladesinger, they pointed out how most of the iconic Wizard spells were made into encounter powers, rather than dailies. This made me consider a new direction to tackle 4E's daily powers, and a way to deal with some of the power bloat inherent in the system (where several classes have a power that does the same thing, rather than those classes all having access to the same power).

My idea is a simple one, on the surface: For the "primary casters", such as the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard, make their Encounter abilities their "spells", and have their Daily abilities be more intrinsically tied to their class. The essentials cleric does the exact opposite; their dailies are cleric powers while their encounters come from their domain. I am willing to do a switch: cleric dailies come from their domain, wizard dailies come from their school specialization.

This allows for another interesting effect: the hybrid classes, like the bard, paladin, and ranger, can have wizard, cleric, and druid spells respectively as their daily abilities. This allows many of the classes to access a pool of spells as they did before, while still leaving room for the hybrid classes to have their own abilities.

There is also room to roll the utility powers in with the encounter powers. Since utility powers are almost entirely combative in nature, the real choice could be between dealing damage or preventing damage, offense or defense. Giving spell casters more control of their choices may allow the players to feel less railroaded.

I would also be looking at some of the player system math holes and seeking to address them elegantly. Without writing another page on another topic so soon, I believe I will tackle the issue by looking at player feats (which monsters do not get); where monsters scale at an even +1/level to attack, damage, and defenses, players have a few holes and are given the choice of how to fill them. As long as a character's class abilities are sufficiently deep, players wouldn't feel that they "need" their feats to be their class; instead, you'd use your feats to develop your character in the theme and direction you want.

Tackling the powers may be as simple as going through the 3E spell list and rewriting them as 4E powers. It would be a large undertaking, but it would at least keep me busy. It may also be possible to do this under the OGL; I know there are other 4E Retroclone attempts out there, but you know how homebrewing is ... half the fun is the work.

Sorry that was stream of conscious. I just needed to tell someone; even if the wife wasn't sleeping, she doesn't care about this sort of deep system fiddling.

[Note: Especially for LordVreeg]I am focusing primarily on combat balance at the moment; this is because I think balancing the out of combat issues will be far easier. I will be addressing out of combat abilities through utilities, skills, and feats, but by their nature they won't impact combat balance. Since I subscribe to the notion that everyone should be able to contribute in fights, since D&D is a wargame turned RPG, I want to make sure combat is tight; sorry to those who like playing non-combatants. Please keep that in mind.[/note]
Here is a list of things I want to solve with 4E for my rewrite. Again, this is being done to give me a project when I'm not feeling fluffy (since I'm doing some deep-level fluff for my setting at the moment), but I may end up using it if I don't like what comes out of 5E.

• Make the classes interesting to look at and read.
• Reintroduce classic spell lists (this one's going to be a toughy)
• Make many of the classes structurally different from each other while ensuring balance is maintained.
• Decouple role from class; all classes should be able to be several, or even all, roles.
• Reintroduce 3E style multiclassing
• Ensure players grow with monsters

Make the classes interesting to look at and read
The classes in the 4E book were boring to read. You could read the intro to the class, it's 1st level class abilities, and that was it before you were inundated with powers; powers were the rest that a class gained (Sorry, if you looked into the feats you saw some class-centric feats that were class abilities in disguise). The powers weren't interesting to read right out of the book for me; I really didn't care about them too much until I started DMing the edition enough. In 3E, you could read the couple of pages the class encompassed, and without reading all of the spells they had access too, understand the class. I know this is partially formatting, but many of the classes in older editions gained interesting things at different levels; they didn't just gain "spell" after "spell" (except for the cleric, sorcerer, and wizard).

The 4E class structure started out like this (for levels 1-10):

Level	Abilities
1	Class Abilities, At-Wills, Encounter, Daily
2	Utility
3	Encounter
4	-
5	Daily
6	Utility
7	Encounter
8	-
9	Daily
10	Encounter

4E Essentials reintroduced new builds for the classic four classes (cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard), and the cleric and wizard ended up gaining a bit without losing anything (except the cleric lost a tiny bit of choice). Boiling those two new builds down to their essentials (pun intended), I created this progression:

Level	Abilities
1	Class Abilities, At-Wills, Encounter, Daily
2	Utility
3	Encounter
4	Class Feat
5	Daily, Class Ability
6	Utility
7	Encounter
8	Class Feat
9	Daily
10	Encounter, Class Ability

Now, this isn't a whole lot, but you have to remember that the Cleric and Wizard of 3E were almost entirely just their spells; Clerics got turn undead and two domain powers, while Wizards just got awesomeness (oh, and a familiar). But if you look at Pathfinder, they made attempts to give the Cleric and Wizard extra things as they leveled, granted through their domains or their school specialization. So I'm choosing to do something similar. This is power creep over the 4E base classes, but it is on par with the Essentials classes.

This will be the base I use going forward.

Reintroduce classic spell lists
So, the hard one comes next. I put this so far up on the list because it informs later portions. You see, I feel one of the biggest missteps in 4E was the loss of classic spell lists. Not only were the spell lists sacred cows with components that had been around for quite some time, but they were also a shared language between many classes and the monsters. 4E ended up giving each class their own power lists, so we got strange things like "Bull's Strength" as a Psychic Warrior Battlemind power rather than a spell shared by most of the casters. It required, for instance, many of the weapon using classes to have a power that did the following: 1[W]+key ability modifier, push on hit. Why did this need to be a power that was reprinted 5 times, when it could have been a simple shared maneuver (bull rush, with a feat to do it on a weapon attack ...).

Now, introducing the spell lists would be difficult; the 4E power structure doesn't seem to support it at all. That is until you look long and hard at the base 3E casters (cleric and wizard). Both of the basic caster classes of 3E begin the game with 3 1st level spells per day (1 from the class and 1 from a high ability bonus; wizards get another from school specialization, clerics gain another from their domain). 3E assumed 3 to 5 encounters per day, just like 4E, since a "fair" fight was supposed to drain 20% of the party's resources. At the low-end, a caster could be conservative and use a spell in each fight.

This pattern extends all the way through till level 20. With the growth of their primary ability bonus (from level bonuses, enhancement bonuses from items, and a few wishes), they start most spell levels with 3 spells per day (they do get 6 or 7 spells per day of their lowest spell levels, which I may address later). Thus, traditional spells could be seen as encounter resources; the only advantage to them being daily is the ability to blow them all in a single fight if it proves to be necessary (I consider this to be a strength and a weakness of the system which I may choose to address later, possibly with "phased boss encounters", or something like that).

Interestingly enough, I think the designers agreed with me. If you look through the 4E wizard's power list, most of their encounter powers are classic wizard spells (burning hands, lightning bolt, chain lightning ...); fireball is a daily, which is one of the outliers, even though slightly earlier the wizard does gain a similar spell as an encounter. This lead the designers to give the Bladesinger (a wizard alternate build) wizard encounters as bladesinger dailies. This leads me to one of my first big revelations of this redesign: Encounters are Spells, while Dailies could be more intrinsic class abilities. Clerics will gain their dailies from their Domain (the 3E Cleric could only cast 1 daily spell of each spell level each day), while Wizards will gain their dailies from their school specialization. Druid dailies could end up being wildshapes (question mark?). Bard, Paladin, and Ranger dailies could be Wizard, Cleric, and Druid spells respectively. This would allow the spell lists to spread across multiple classes. It also leads into my 3rd issue; making the classes feel different.

The other part about using the spell lists is that I may ultimately remove the distinction between Attacks and Utilities. Most Utilities in 4E are combative in nature; they just aren't blatant attacks. But to me, a one-shot attack can be balanced with a spell that grants an ally +1 to damage for the whole fight (especially when you know how long a fight is supposed to last); both are offensive damaging abilities, even if the damage is diverted to another character. Similarly, a spell that improves someone's defenses is only really useful in a fight; while it will lengthen a fight over throwing out some damage, it is more conservative in that you'll deal with PC deaths less often when you play defensively. Taken to it's extreme, healing spells can be seen the same way. Even movement spells could be in the same vein, assuming that a typical movement spell will protect a player from at least 1 attack (there's less point in moving), or put the player into an offensively advantageous position (harder to balance, but we can pretend it was to gain combat advantage, which can be numerically analyzed).

Utilities could be swapped out for yet more Encounter spells. That could be overload, as a 10th level character would now have the chance of 6 encounter attack powers, but it really wouldn't be any different from someone who has 3 encounter attack powers and 3 offensive oriented utility powers ...

Make many of the classes structurally different from each other while ensuring balance is maintained.
Another thing Essentials did was make the classes different from each other. The Fighter and the Rogue, for instance, trade their encounter powers for a singular class specific encounter power that improves and grows in uses as they gain levels (fighter gets a damage booster they can activate after a hit, while the rogue gains a bonus to hit and damage for a single attack before it is rolled). This was extended to other classes (like the paladin, who gets smite, and the ranger, who gets a shot with some controllery riders). The fighter and rogue also gain drastically different at-wills; the fighter gains stances they can switch between that improve their basic attacks, while the rogue gains unique movement abilities that also grant bonuses to their move actions. While I don't like these in practice (they interact too well with other abilities that exist to modify basic attacks, which are supposed to be weaker than at-wills), they do feel different than "just more spells".

The larger change in these classes is their lack of daily powers. Instead of daily powers, a deep look at the math shows they gain damage bonuses. In a game where the average number of combats in a day and rounds in a combat is known, these can be balanced. If a 1st level daily (note: fake numbers following) deals 20 damage more than a basic attack (or 10 on a miss; an average of 15 damage), there are 4 fights a day, and 8 rounds per fight, then a blanket +1 damage balances with the daily (32 rounds per day, +1 damage per attack, with 50% miss rate equals 16 damage per day with 4 fights). The fighter and rogue will shine in a day with more or longer fights, while the casters will shine in a day with less or shorter fights. I'm fine with those distinctions.

Along with the previously mentioned spell list considerations, changing up class's at-will and encounter abilities (or even utilities, which I want to discuss more at length later), could allow for a lot more variety within the classes.


Decouple role from class
Another thing Essentials did (have you noticed a pattern yet?) was introduce a few builds from a different role than the base builds. There was the Slayer (a Striker Fighter), the Hunter (a Controller Ranger), the Blackguard (a Striker Paladin), and the Guardian (a Leader Druid). I think there were even more opportunities for this, even going so far as to boil some of the classes together. A Warlord could just be a leader Fighter, an Avenger could just be a striker Paladin, and an Invoker could just be a controller Cleric.

This part isn't so hard. To help it, I'll be identifying which portions of a class belong to their role. The Hybrid rules will help me with implementing this (generally, you don't want a character to serve multiple roles in a single round). I may make a character's role choice lock in at first level, I may make hybriding a choice at first level, or ideally I'll just use the hybrid rules as inspiration (such as a fighter mark only working with a fighter attack, or possibly have all of the role actions require an action so you can't perform 2).

This will require more discussion, but I like the idea of boiling the classes back down to their 3E introductory list; I feel that most every basic concept could be done with these (the only one that I think stands out too much to be alone is the Gish, which I may make a class for when all is said and done).

Reintroduce 3E style multiclassing
This is also going to be very difficult, but I think it would be one of the more rewarding things I could do with the system. 4E's initial multiclassing system sucked; it was balanced technically, though it hardly made you feel like a member of the other class (plus, spending a feat to trade a power for another hardly felt like a gain in ability; if the powers were all equal, you were gaining an increase in options that ceases to be an increase once the choice is made). Hybrids felt more distinct, but that was more like 2E style multiclassing, where the decision was locked in from level 1. I, and many of my players, wanted to be able to start as a Monk, fall, and then embrace their inner rage (brought on by their failure as a monk) and become a Barbarian (yes, this was a concept that was my favorite 3E character I got to play).

With differentiating classes so much, power trading may not work as a method of multiclassing. This is unfortunate, as power swapping was a simple way to handle multiclassing (and it ensured no one got any more things than others). I may end up doing something similar if it can be managed (though I'd have to make sure that every level granted either a power or a class ability, and then characters could choose from a pool ...).

Traditional 3E multiclassing may prove to be impossible to implement. The classes at first level simply are not numerically even: wizards gain vastly less proficiencies (which directly speak to AC) and HP than other characters (like the fighter, who gains more AC and HP, or the rogue who gains more skills). Worse still, if HP was a function of levels (X hp/level), then it needs to be paired with something else that grows with level (which currently isn't in the class system); otherwise, characters would start at 1st level with a high HP class, then start leveling as a class with more potent class abilities.

Currently, I'm looking into pairing HP up with damage bonuses. Both HP and Damage scale with level similarly; looking at the Weapon Focus and the Toughness feats is enough to see the way they scale (+1 damage per tier, +5 hp per tier). At first level, +1 damage or +5 hp mean something, but at 30th level they both mean much less. If lower HP classes gain damage bonuses over high HP classes, then 3E multiclassing could work better (though clerics gaining bonus damage would be weird; rogues and wizards yes, clerics ... less yes).

I could always bake class power into their spells (like 3E did, where Arcane spells dealt more damage than Divine spells on average), but that might not be the best solution. Either way, at least I have a framework for comparing these class bonuses.

Ensure players grow with monsters
This last issue has been a thorn in my side since 4E's inception. We didn't notice it in our first game, which was played at 1st level, but we quickly saw it when we decided to run an Epic game: players didn't grow as fast as monsters. Just looking at the math, you can see that monsters gain +29 to attack, damage, and all defenses from 1st to 30th level. Players gain +28 or +26 (+15 from level, +5 from ability bonuses, and +6 from enhancement bonuses; armor increases by an additional +2 from Masterwork, while a character's weak defense only grows by +22 since its ability bonus doesn't grow nearly as much). Monster ability scores also go up at +1 per 2 levels, for a total of +15 to three scores, while player ability scores go up closer to +1 per 4 levels (ending at +10 to 2 scores and +2 to the others, including the usual Epic Destiny ability); this really only has an effect on opposed skill checks, but the difference is still there.

4E "corrected" this "math hole" with a few feats that immediately became mandatory choices: Expertise feats granted +1 to hit per tier (bringing their to hit bonus to a growth of +29), Improved Defenses granted +1 to non-AC Defenses per tier (bringing NADs to +29/+25), and even a +4 to one defense feat (helpful for shoring up a weak defense). While these feats did correct the math, they had two problems. First, they were out right better than most other feats (why pick a feat that gives +1 to attack on attacks of opportunity before picking a feat that grants +1 to attack on all attacks?). Second, their vast power made them automatic choices (eating up 2 of your 6 heroic tier feats).

While I was trying to correct this, I finally noticed a simple difference between players and monsters: players gain feats. While I don't like using feats like Expertise to fill the math hole, if the holes were the size of appropriate feats I'd be more fine with them. Feats then become a way for a player to customize their character to be on par with monsters; how they customize themselves is the real choice. Do they build up their character evenly, reaching the same attack, damage, and defenses as the monster? Do they build up their defenses more, strengthening their role as the party defender? Do they focus solely on damage? Do they choose circumstantial feats that make them better sometimes but worse others? It would suddenly be easier to balance feats.

Without the existing unbalanced "math hole feats", players lose out on the following advancements compared to monsters:

Attack: -3
Damage: -18 (though this is harder to define, as players do gain extra dice of damage on their attacks, in addition to gaining ability score and enhancement bonuses to damage)
AC: -1
Strong NADs: -3
Weak NAD: -7 (YIKES)

Characters currently get 6 feats per tier, for a total of 18 feats. +1 to hit is a fair feat (compare upgrading from a +2 1d8 simple weapon to a +3 1d8 martial weapon); +1/tier to damage is a feat (weapon focus); +1 AC is a feat (upgrading your armor, or armor specialization for those maxed out); +2 to an NAD is a feat (iron will; it's bigger than the others since one magic item grants +1 to all 3 NADs).

Now, AC has less of a problem than the others; the designers had the wisdom to add Masterwork armor bonuses when they likely noticed monster to hit was outstripping player AC. Yet, masterwork weapons or amulets weren't added in. I suggest that player ability scores were going to scale more like monsters; monsters go up by +7 or +8 over the game, while players only go up by +5; masterwork bonus is +2 ... Increasing player ability score bonuses would help all of these issues (except weak NADs, depending on how it was done), while Masterwork bonuses would help everything evenly.

Assuming I go forward with Masterwork, I now only need to address -1 to attack (weapon expertise), -1 AC (armor specialization), -1 to main NADs (improved defense, though bland), and -4 to weak NAD (iron will/great fortitude/lightning reflexes), and a handful of damage (weapon focus). I'm okay with players spending 5 feats on matching monsters. The other 11 feats can be used for fun things that add options rather than boost power, or people could use them for power boosters and be more specialized.

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So, big thread, I know. I'd love to hear what anyone thinks. I'm getting antsy; I need input.  :weirdo:

I personally disagree with a lot of the design decisions made in 4e and I'm not that familiar with the crunchy details, so I probably can't help a whole lot, but I will say that I don't think being "interesting to look at and read" should be a priority when it comes to crunch design. Fluff, certainly, but I think the crunch should be concise and convey the mathematical information efficiently and simply. One of the stated reasons for eliminating spell stat blocks and just going with a narrative description of a spell for 5e was to make the spells more "interesting to read." What good is it being interesting if you can't get the needed information out of it? I do like that in your version there are no "dead levels" though. I hate those.

I also like the "ensure players grow with monsters." The "feat tax," where they had a mistake in their math and then corrected it by making a feat that was so good it was pretty much mandatory (and thus a "tax" since anyone who cared about optimization at all would have to take it) is just not a thing that should happen. The only reason it probably doesn't matter that much is that most feats in 4e are even more worthless than they are in 3e because they're so much more about making everything into a power.

One last thought: if you're trying to fix 4e, please fix skill challenges. :D

You may have misunderstood what I'm doing with spells/powers. I don't want to bring back the way they were written in 3E; I just want to bring back those lists. I especially want to present the powers in a list format for easy browsing/picking powers (a huge misstep in 4E, and one I put some time into trying to fix before getting very bored by the work).

As for "interesting to look at and read", the concern is about getting a player excited with a class, and also to convey what the class could do. Without reading the Fighter powers, one hardly knew what the fighter was going to be about. Reading the fighter powers was as boring as reading the 3E spells in perpetuity (something I put off for months into my 3E DMing). I will not hide crunch information in a paragraph of fluff. What I'm talking about is how paladins, rangers, monks, barbarians, bards ... most of the classes in 3E got interesting abilities that gave you an idea of what the class was about. The Cleric, Fighter, Sorcerer, and Wizard were all about their feats/spells, but the other classes had fun stuff going for them.

I do want to work on skill challenges. That's a big one. I've been playing with them more and more, both in D&D and in Mutants and Masterminds. They seem to work very well when the players have a goal in mind. They work very well when the players initiate them. They work very poorly when you throw them onto the players. I don't believe they need to be hidden from the players either. Imagine this situation, as an example of how I think skill challenges should be run:

[ooc]The heroes have made their way through a gauntlet dungeon filled with traps. At the end of the long maze, a Minotaur sits sleeping in the center of the room, propped up on his axe. What do you do?[/ooc]

Now, the players could choose to initiate combat; the moment you ask for an initiative check, players know combat has begun, you don't have to hide that from them. Similarly, I don't think you should hide that players are in a skill challenge, that their skill checks mean something. If the players decide they want to sneak past the Minotaur, I'd call for a number of stealth checks. Then I'd have a setback happen that the players have to react to; perhaps the sleeping Minotaur flops over and pins a player. Perhaps the Minotaur starts to wake up, and the players need to do something to get it back to sleep or draw its attention away. There are many possibilities.

The last skill challenge I did was a 1 on 1 chase. A goblin fled the battlefield, and the party ranger didn't want to let him go. The trees were too thick to just start firing arrows into them. I called for an endurance check to chase. I asked the player if they had anything they wanted to do to help them catch up. The player asked if they could search for a short cut, or an easier path through the underbrush, so I called for a Perception check. I called for another Endurance check to keep up. Then I called for a perception check; this one failed, so I said the Goblin slid into a ravine and the Ranger didn't notice it until too late (I made her lose a healing surge to signify the injury, but I could have just used some damage). I called for a few more Endurance checks, then a random Athletics check to leap over a fallen tree. The player came down to their last check; success or failure would determine the whole skill challenge. So instead of a skill, I called for an attack roll; the Ranger had closed enough distance to take a shot, but stopping to line up a shot would ensure the Goblin would gain enough ground so that it would get away ...

I've also been unable to watch non-combat action sequences in movies without thinking of them in terms of skill challenges. One of the things I think needs to be addressed, though, is the situation of spectator PCs. Many characters are going to not want to participate in a skill challenge if they don't feel they have anything to add. But what would happen if someone stayed out of a fight that you had balanced with the inclusion of all the party? The party would be at a severe disadvantage; their damage per round would be lower, and they'd have less bodies to soak up damage. It seems, to me, that skill challenges should be operating under a time limit, rather than a failure limit. Failures should create setbacks that need to be addressed, rather than outright hurting the party.

Skill challenges will be something I'll want to have a long talk about. I like their idea; I like quantifying exploration and social encounters in a way to make sure they are actually as challenging, time consuming, and taxing as a fight. I don't want "sneak around the Minotaur" to be an easier encounter than "fight the Minotaur" simply because I only call for one stealth check; that's not an interesting encounter. But I also want them to make sense, and not make the players feel like they have to grope for yet another thing to do so they can get that last skill success. It might be more of a challenge design question than a question about the rules of the challenges themselves.

Quote from: XeviatI especially want to present the powers in a list format for easy browsing/picking powers (a huge misstep in 4E, and one I put some time into trying to fix before getting very bored by the work).

I like this idea. It's hard for me to describe it in terms that aren't rather ephemeral and subjective, but I just never got that feeling of being able to customize your character in 4e, like I could in Pathfinder.

However, based on this, I stand by my point about feats and powers in 4e. In 3e, you had class features, maneuvers, etc., in other words, "things you could do all the time." Then you had feats, which often added a new "thing you can do." Some feats just added a bonus to an existing ability, but those weren't usually as good. On the other hand, in 4e, it seems to me all of your "things you can do all the time" are covered by powers. When you gain new things that you can do all the time, you acquire new powers. This is a simplification of 4e, and I generally support it as one thing that 4e did ok-- however-- the problem is, this makes feats pretty much exclusively small bonuses to things that you may or may not care about. Sometimes they're bonuses to things you care a lot about, but then that feat is pretty much always used on the same thing by everybody; it becomes a "feat tax" and it's still not a good thing.

So, my question is, if everything interesting is covered by powers, and you're adding more flexibility to the list of powers, do you really even need feats at all?

Quote from: XeviatIt seems, to me, that skill challenges should be operating under a time limit, rather than a failure limit. Failures should create setbacks that need to be addressed, rather than outright hurting the party.

This is pretty much the #1 thing that you could do to make skill challenges better. The whole idea of the skill challenge was to get everyone involved, but if less-skilled members know that all they're going to contribute is a failure, which will count against the party, the smart thing to do is to not bother. That's no fun for anyone.

I like how you weaved the skill challenge into a narrative of events, rather than just saying "it's skill challenge time, roll X, Y, and Z checks" and made the whole thing into a boring exercise in mechanics. I don't much like how it came down to make or break at the end, because anything that requires sequential successes multiplies the probability, and that adds up pretty fast. For example, even something that has a 90% chance of happening becomes a 50/50 shot if you have to do it 6 or 7 times in a row. However, by changing the whole mechanic into "time based" rather than "failure based," you'd fix this, I think.

I'm thinking feats are going to be used for fine tuning characters. The power system inherently makes sure that players are good at combat. You could then use your feats to make yourself better at combat, or you could use them to strengthen your ability in social or exploration encounters. I also think that feats should exist for things like getting new at-wills, or circumstantial bonuses that encourage your character to play differently from others. I want to be judicious with "feat bonuses", so that you can't stack things sky high.

Remember, the Wizard needed feats in 3E.

Skill Challenges are hard to do well, but like I said, movies use them so much that I want to have them in the game in some way. I think they could also be used for things like magic item creation for little minigames.

Sparkle, and anyone else, what are your thoughts on merging Utilities and Encounters into the same thing, since so many Utilities are combative anyway?

Quote from: XeviatSparkle, and anyone else, what are your thoughts on merging Utilities and Encounters into the same thing, since so many Utilities are combative anyway?

Personally, I like this. Generally, 4e is a little too combat-focused for my liking, and a great many powers are written solely with respect to their use in combat.  What if you want to use Ray of Frost to freeze something, or Scorching Burst to set something on fire, or something? The DM pretty much just has to make stuff up because 4e as written only concerns itself with combat effects. So, I'm actually indifferent about merging Utility and Encounter powers from the standpoint of Utility powers being useful in combat-- what I like is that it would also encourage thinking through both the non-combat as well as the combat applications of a power. That is something I support quite wholeheartedly.

I will definitely focus on that, making combat spells less "only combat". While I will be rewriting the 3E spells for ease of reading and balance, they aren't all going to be boiled down to "X damage with effect". Heck, I'd like to see some more alternate effects quantified, like using a cold spell to slick the ground rather than damage something. Some of that can be handled by universal keyword notations; for instance, how much water is frozen by 1 cold damage, how much water is evaporated by 1 fire damage, ect.

Today, I have been looking into player vs. monster scaling. There are a few methods for correcting these descrepencies. The way the system is designed, it is important that players and monsters scale at the same rate, so that they are on even footing and level gains are meaningful; while the scope of battles at epic level should be bigger, I don't believe they should be inherently harder. Then again, that could be an argument made, but it's not my style.

Now, monsters gain +1 Attack, Damage, AC, and NADs each level: this totals +29 from 1st to 30th. They also gain +1 to 3 stats (one of Str/Con, Dex/Int, Wis/Cha) every 2 levels (this is important to opposed skill rolls): this totals to +7/+8 to those ability modifiers (monster stats are 13 or 16 +1/2 per level).

Players gain +10 to 2 ability scores (if their epic destiny gives +2 to 2 stats like the baselines do) and +2 to the others, or a bonus of +5 to 2 modifiers and +1 to the others. Their attack bonus grows by +26 (+15 level, +6 enhancement, +5 ability). Their AC grows by +28/+27 (+15 level, +6 enhancement, +2 masterwork, and +5 ability; or +15 level, +6 enhancement, and +6 masterwork for heavy). Their primary NADs (those attached to their class stats) grow by +26 (+15 level, +6 enhancement, +5 ability), while their weak NAD (not attached to a class stat) grows by +22 (+15 level, +6 enhancement, +1 ability). Damage grows by +15.5 (+4.5 from [W] addition on at-will (assumed average die is 1d8), +6 enhancement, and +5 ability), though this is harder to analyze with the frequency of player Encounter and Daily powers (for monsters, limited use powers have +50% damage, yet they also recharge).

I am aware that monsters do not have feats, so feats are likely a way for players to shore up their weaknesses. Monsters also don't have magic items, so that's another way to handle things. Players get 18 feats, and they have ten item slots (head, neck, arms, hands, 2 rings, waist, feet, weapon, and armor). But I don't want things like "Weapon Expertise"'s +3 to hit gumming up the balance of feats and items; I'm willing to accept an amount of using these to patch holes, if and only if those feats are still varied and balanced enough so that there are actual choices. I also wouldn't want there to be need for more than 1 feat to patch a hole per; currently, only 1 feat is needed to be spent to ensure a light armor wearer's AC remains on par.

First Question
Should I increase player ability score gains? Or should I simply increase player skill bonuses to keep them on par with monsters?

The nature of ability score gains needs to be addressed first. Interestingly, if player ability scores went up at the same +1/2 per level rate that monster ability scores grow, the masterwork item bonus to light armor would not be necessary; It would grow by +29 (+15 from level, +6 enhancement, +8 ability). I find that curious; no feat is needed to balance it, no extraneous item, no patchy "masterwork" feature. Extended across everything, it fixes attack bonus and primary NADs; it does not fix the weak NAD, which only gains +1 if all attribute bonuses are doubled (putting it at +23, now +6 behind the strong NADs). Damage still lags at only +18.5, but it's closer.

If I patched the ability scores like this, feats would not be needed to shore up the discrepancy between players and monsters. One could take that to an extreme conclusion and say that feats should then be never used for combative ability (gaining options would be fine, but no actual strength like a damage boosting feat). Maybe feats would grant new at-will powers, or new encounters (if it didn't add to the number you could use in a fight), but gone would be things like +1 damage/tier. This has some real possibility; feats would truly become "Nice but not Required".

Alternately, since the real weakness in comparing players to monsters in relation to ability scores is from skills, as opposed ability checks are non-existent, a simple skill boost to trained skills, or all skills, may be all that is required. I do kind of like the idea of using some feats to balance characters, as it means they have some choice in how they want to balance their character: do they spend one feat each on attack, damage, ac, hp, NADs, and their weak defense? Or do they purchase circumstantial feats? Or do they focus on offense or defense? Trouble is, a player may spend all 18 feats on these raw combat abilities, potentially gaining as much as +3 to everything (which puts them on par with level 32 monsters).

Eliminating raw combat feats may be the best way to improve them. Gone would be the need to balance "Linguist" with "Weapon Focus"; Weapon Focus could grant a new weapon-specific at-will, which doesn't really raise a player's base numbers.

Hu, that sort of went beyond "one question". Considering the path I went down, I'll let this simmer for a bit. This is the first big choice, and it needs to be addressed.

So I started rewriting the 3E spells; it's going to take me a long time. The more I read them, the more I wonder what will take me longer: rewriting the 3E spells to 4E style, or rewriting the 3E monsters to 4E style. The main thing I love about 4E is how tight the math is. I can import that math to the PCs in 3E rather easily (remove BAB and save progressions, give everyone +1 to attack, ac, and saves), but monsters would require a lot of work. I'd need to analyze the damage dealing capability of PCs and set monster HP accordingly.

I'm not sure which would be easier, and which would be more rewarding. I might be able to simply remove the Wizard's quadratic scaling (remove scaling from their spells, as psionics was in 3E initially), which would scale back player damage considerably.

Halp me make a decision.

Personally, I wouldn't try to rewrite the whole 3E spell list. That's going to be a lot of work, and if it's the kind of thing you're just impulsively diving into, you might get quite a bit done and then realize that you actually wanted to go a completely different direction-- or something else that invalidates what you've done.

This is probably subjective, but I think the same "tight math" that benefits 4e in some ways also impacts it adversely. It's from that, I feel, that you get the sense of not really improving (because monsters improve at so close to the same rate as players) and the desire to remove most of the truly crazy spells and abilities from 3e also means that high-level 4e characters just don't feel like they can do as much as high-level 3e characters. To some extent, this might not be a bad thing, because high-powered 3e is kind of gonzo crazy, but 4e sometimes feels like they replaced "linear fighters, quadratic wizards" with "logarithmic everybody."

Personally, I think the best compromise might be:
- Remove some of the completely absurd high-level stuff but leave the spell list mostly alone.
- If the casting is anything like 3e, remove the crazy "clerics can cast any spell" thing.
- Give higher level mundane fighters some "quadratic" abilities so they can at least feel like part of the same game.

The bulk of what makes casters so much more powerful than non-casters are some of the ritual-level spells in 3E; if they were siloed into rituals, instead of spells, they might be a bit more under control; at least theoretically "anyone" could access them.

But without the tight math, judging the strength of 3E monsters is a total crapshoot. Dragon HD, for instance, is better than a barbarians: for every die, they get d12 hp, +1 bab, and +1/2 to all saves. Yet, Dragon CR goes up roughly at +2 per 3 HD; clearly this means dragons are stronger than barbarians at any given level of HD.

The trick to making people feel like they're growing is to not always throw them against monsters of their level. If level 1 deals with tracking down a goblin barrow, level 2 deals with fighting the goblins, and level 3 involves following the clues to the goblin mastermind, players will feel like they have grown stronger if they regularly continue to face some of the same goblin types they faced at 1st level. The same can be done in 3E, but judging CR is an art, while judging 4E monster level is closer to a science. 4E monsters are also easy to put together.

Now, I'm only playing devil's advocate to your position because I'd like to discuss it. I understand the whys of your point, even though the points themselves don't fit with my opinions on gaming. I'm more than willing to be swayed.

Were you saying to start from the 3E chassis?

Quote from: XeviatThe bulk of what makes casters so much more powerful than non-casters are some of the ritual-level spells in 3E; if they were siloed into rituals, instead of spells, they might be a bit more under control; at least theoretically "anyone" could access them.

I like the whole idea of what they were trying to achieve with rituals in 4e. But! It seems like the actual things end up being kind of annoying because they take too long to cast. The whole idea where every casting costs money seems like it's just there to introduce pointless bookkeeping, too-- it's like we're making casters actually keep track of their material components.

Quote from: XeviatBut without the tight math, judging the strength of 3E monsters is a total crapshoot. Dragon HD, for instance, is better than a barbarians: for every die, they get d12 hp, +1 bab, and +1/2 to all saves. Yet, Dragon CR goes up roughly at +2 per 3 HD; clearly this means dragons are stronger than barbarians at any given level of HD.

Well, Dragons are kind of infamously under-CR'd. I see what you're saying, but it's not like 4e doesn't have monsters that mess up the whole monster strength curve, too. (Needlefang Drake Swarm anyone?)

Quote from: XeviatThe same can be done in 3E, but judging CR is an art, while judging 4E monster level is closer to a science.

This may just be subjective, but I think that "tight math" and a certain blandness kind of go hand in hand-- a lot of the weird magic is gone and 4e fights are much more about a slugfest, which means they "just work" better, but there's also a certain color that's missing. I don't know enough about 4e encounter design to be able to actually debate your assertion, though.

Quote from: XeviatWere you saying to start from the 3E chassis?

Pretty much.

Granted, part of this is subjective. I know more about 3e (and especially Pathfinder) and the whole thing just appeals to me more than 4e. I do think it's a more solid design, personally; I just don't like some of the core assumptions of 4e. And, being OGL will give you a lot less legality problems should you release/publish anything, for whatever that's worth.

If I were to mod anything in 3E, they would be these:

1) Armor boosting items would not stack; you'd get the best of your deflection, armor, shield, or natural armor bonus enhancements. Characters would gain a level bonus to AC, to ensure that their AC scales with attack.
2) Everyone's attacks and saves would scale at the same 1/2 per level bonus. Added to ability bonuses and enhancement bonuses, characters would gain +19 over 20 levels.
3) Monster scaling would change to an even +1/level; it would scale just like players. For humanoid threats, some of that bonus would be coming from enhanced items. Enemies having enhanced weapons in 3E was something I liked; it did add to the amount of loot they dealt with, but it also ensured that they would never be significantly behind in their own enhancement bonuses (which would make it feel less like an item grind, I think).
4) Feats would need to be altered to not significantly alter the core numbers (attack, damage, ac, saves). Feats would contribute to combat options, and exploration and interaction abilities. Feats that granted combat abilities or combat bonuses, things comparable to 4E's martial powers like cleave, would either be adjusted into attack options (give up your full attack to do this, which can be comparably balanced), or they will be locked into class progressions (similar to how spells are locked in).
5) Last, I'm very tempted to steal 5E's backgrounds system.

Monster HP and damage would need to be evalutated and adjusted. Altering the Monster Manual would probably only require changing some numbers, rather than the rewriting work that would go into the 3E spells.

I'd still be sorely tempted to segregate rituals and to tweak spellcasting to be encounter rather than daily. In the end, it might be the same as tweaking 4E, but at least it could be OGL.