Xev20 - Attempt #3 - Premise and Start

[Xeviat]

Xev20 Outline
-Xev20 Start
-Xev20 Class Structure Discussion

5th Edition D&D, or D&D Next, was announced in weeks past. Before the release, I had been delving deep into the Roll/Keep system of Legend of the Five Rings, looking at using it for my own settings. The moment D&D5 was announced, I noticed a pattern. Before D&D4 was released, I was looking at abandoning D&D and using Mutants and Masterminds for my setting; D&D4 brought me back. Now with D&D5 just over the horizon, I had to step back and look at my gaming life and my setting. I could no longer ignore the fact that I have created a D&D setting through and through, and trying to be something else has been an unattainable challenge.

Initially, I swore off working on crunch, vowing to work on my setting's marshmallowey fluff until D&D5 comes out. But, Xathan's What Happened to d20 thread and his X20 musings have mixed with my unquenchable desire to work on crunch, and I have the itch again. It is a powerful addiction, and I will not be satisfied unless I scratch it. Now, this could end up turning into a collaboration with Xathan on X20 (notice both our systems have digits in common ...), but only if our brains mesh well enough; I wouldn't want to take over anyone's project.

So, I'm going to be working on a house D&D system which I will try to play with until D&D5 comes out. I want to get it into playing/testing order fast, but luckily it doesn't rely upon too much new material to get put together.

What I am basically looking at is blending D&D3's feel and look with D&D4's mechanical base. I can't just remove BAB and Save progressions from D&D3 and be done with it, but it's going to be fairly close to that. Heck, if I could just alter the player side of things so I can still use 4E monsters out of the book, I would be very happy; my unhappiness with 4E only stems from the player side of the game, after all. Here are the guiding principals which I want to keep to moving forward:

• 4E's base structure of attack and defense progression will be the base of the system. I don't care if a wizard's ability with a sword will progress at the same rate as a fighter's, as the fighter's starts higher and monsters progress evenly as well. On a d20 based system, a +5 difference in ability is always 25% of the die.
• Class progression will be closer to 3E, with class abilities spicing things up.
• Martial attacks will be written with more simplicity than power-cards, specifying simply what is added to a basic melee or ranged attack.
• Roles will be maintained, but no longer directly coupled with class. Most classes will be able to be most roles. Controller role may be consumed by the Striker, as anyone can choose straight damage attacks or attacks which dole out statuses.
• Classes will be condensed to the "standard" 3E classes, plus psionics: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Soul Knife, Wizard. Other classes will be builds within each class, or will be handled with multiclassing: Ardent is just a leader psion, artificer is just a leader wizard, assassin is just a rogue or maybe a rogue/wizard, avenger is just a striker paladin, battlemind is just a fighter/psion, invoker is just a controller (or striker) cleric, runepriest is dumb, seeker is just a ranger, shaman is a druid, sorcerer is a wizard, swordmage is a fighter/wizard, warlock is a wizard, and warlord is just a leader fighter.
• Feats should be nice, but not required. Feats won't be granting necessary power boosts. Every feat is a choice of specializing your character, or maybe learning a new trick; added versatility is versatility, situational strength, as long as those added options aren't more powerful than earlier options.
• Magic items will be more consolidated. I can't get rid of them like I have tried in the past, they are very much a part of the metagame of rewards. Without items, nothing is gained between levels (which shows a strength of classless systems).
• I want to avoid the need for Masterwork Armor and other things in the item progression, though heavy armor needs something to make up for the lost ability score boosts. I'll get to this more later, though.
• Multiclassing has to work more like 3E. "I took a level of barbarian" is such a part of my group's vernacular that it's a shame to see it go.
• As the base math of the system will look more like 4E, monster design will look more like 4E, based off a level grid.

I'm going to make individual threads for things when they start to come together. Right now I wanted to put out feelers and get opinions on these guiding principals. I also wanted to summon Xathan and get his input.

Xathan, Xathan, Xathan ...

[Xathan]

WHO SUMMONS ME!

Oh, hey Xeviat.

Alright, gonna focus on your bullet points, since those are the areas that need the immediate attention.

4E's base structure of attack and defense progression will be the base of the system. I don't care if a wizard's ability with a sword will progress at the same rate as a fighter's, as the fighter's starts higher and monsters progress evenly as well. On a d20 based system, a +5 difference in ability is always 25% of the die.

The fighter starting with a bonus is vital - otherwise the wizard will always equal the fighter, and that kind of kills the flavor. I'd like to get some clarification on this - how much higher will the fighter start? Will the fighter get the occasional boost (+2 to start, +2 at paragon, +2 at epic)?

Class progression will be closer to 3E, with class abilities spicing things up.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you mean abilities will be less codified/similar? Do you mean that there will be a greater, more easily noticed difference between classes? I'd like this point elaborated on in greater detail, because it could mean you're looking to get rid of my single greatest problem with 4e.

Martial attacks will be written with more simplicity than power-cards, specifying simply what is added to a basic melee or ranged attack.

I like that, because it gives more control to the player to describe what they're doing. Speaking of martial attacks, by the way, how are these going to be gained? Something similar to 4e? Something along the lines of Tome of Battle? Perhaps something akin to Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved?

Classes will be condensed to the "standard" 3E classes, plus psionics: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Soul Knife, Wizard. Other classes will be builds within each class, or will be handled with multiclassing: Ardent is just a leader psion, artificer is just a leader wizard, assassin is just a rogue or maybe a rogue/wizard, avenger is just a striker paladin, battlemind is just a fighter/psion, invoker is just a controller (or striker) cleric, runepriest is dumb, seeker is just a ranger, shaman is a druid, sorcerer is a wizard, swordmage is a fighter/wizard, warlock is a wizard, and warlock is just a leader fighter.

Not much to comment on here - I love having all the various classes, personally. The big thing to consider is level 1 - someone who wants to play a battlemind or swordmage, for example, at level 1 would be missing half the class they want to play. Also, I worry about it suffering a big problem that building characters this way in 3e had - at the end, you're just not going to be as good period as a single class version (barring a PrC that blends the elements of your two classes. And I don't mean "not as good as casting or fighting" because that's a given, but just underpowered compared to a single class.

Okay, so I did have a bit to say there.

Feats should be nice, but not required. Feats won't be granting necessary power boosts. Every feat is a choice of specializing your character, or maybe learning a new trick; added versatility is versatility, situational strength, as long as those added options aren't more powerful than earlier options.

I like this design goal, but it's going to be a difficult one to achieve - any time a feat offers a numerical increase, it's a power boost, and even situational strength, so long as the player is smart enough to "trigger" the relevant situation often enough is a power boost. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just wish you luck.

Magic items will be more consolidated. I can't get rid of them like I have tried in the past, they are very much a part of the metagame of rewards. Without items, nothing is gained between levels (which shows a strength of classless systems).
I want to avoid the need for Masterwork Armor and other things in the item progression, though heavy armor needs something to make up for the lost ability score boosts. I'll get to this more later, though.

Bundled these two together. Again, would like details here - how consolidated do you plan on making the item list? Will you be getting rid of things like "Deck of Many Things" or other wondrous items that are kind of pointless but interesting? (I advocate in favor of keeping them, because they add a ton of fun, but that's me) And since you said you'll get more into it later, I'll wait on the rest - however, I missed the part where ability score boosts are going to be going away. Any particular reason why?

Multiclassing has to work more like 3E. "I took a level of barbarian" is such a part of my group's vernacular that it's a shame to see it go.
As the base math of the system will look more like 4E, monster design will look more like 4E, based off a level grid.

Bundled these two comments together for a different reason - I am 100% behind both of these, no reservations and no questions.

And I'm more than happy to collaborate on this with you. X20 is probably a pipe dream - I barely have the focus to create my own setting, let alone my own system, and I'll happily fly co-pilot on Xev20 (co-pilot because A) I occasionally vanish and B) If I think of this as your project that I'm a consultant on, it will curb my bossiness. :P)

[Xeviat]

4E's base structure of attack and defense progression will be the base of the system. I don't care if a wizard's ability with a sword will progress at the same rate as a fighter's, as the fighter's starts higher and monsters progress evenly as well. On a d20 based system, a +5 difference in ability is always 25% of the die.

The fighter starting with a bonus is vital - otherwise the wizard will always equal the fighter, and that kind of kills the flavor. I'd like to get some clarification on this - how much higher will the fighter start? Will the fighter get the occasional boost (+2 to start, +2 at paragon, +2 at epic)?

Of course the fighter starts higher. A basic sword swing is Strength plus bonuses, likely with something like proficiencies (because that was simply a genius way of countering armor bonuses). So the fighter starts at something like +6 (likely), and the wizard starts at +0. At 30th level, the fighter's sitting pretty at a +35, and the wizard has something like a +29 (if and only if the wizard has a magic sword). My point is the difference doesn't need to get bigger; a 6 point difference is still 30% of a d20's possible numbers. If the difference scales more than that, then we get into situations where higher level people can do effectively less than their low level counterparts.

Class progression will be closer to 3E, with class abilities spicing things up.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you mean abilities will be less codified/similar? Do you mean that there will be a greater, more easily noticed difference between classes? I'd like this point elaborated on in greater detail, because it could mean you're looking to get rid of my single greatest problem with 4e.

Which is your single greatest problem with 4e, that everyone follows the same A/E/D/U progression and after first level you're only really gaining powers and not nifty little things that make you feel more like the class that you are? I'd like to explore expanding upon the class differentiation that Essentials started, and otherwise bringing back a lot of the fun little flavorful things that were sort of relegated to class feats. Again, feats should be nice and not required means a feat for +Cha to healing for Bards is so no brainer that it should just be in the progression.

Martial attacks will be written with more simplicity than power-cards, specifying simply what is added to a basic melee or ranged attack.

I like that, because it gives more control to the player to describe what they're doing. Speaking of martial attacks, by the way, how are these going to be gained? Something similar to 4e? Something along the lines of Tome of Battle? Perhaps something akin to Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved?

I'll talk about the ideas more indepth later, but either martial attacks will be small effects that just sub in for the types of things that at-wills do in D&D4, or they could cost some sort of resource. I've been playing with the idea of having an Encounter Point resource, with things that would have been encounter powers working off of that (like power points in 4e). But it's really up in the air. I really liked the Mike Mearls "Book of Iron Might"s maneuver system, but that relied upon the fact that full BAB classes got more to hit then they actually needed.

Classes will be condensed to the "standard" 3E classes, plus psionics: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Psion, Ranger, Rogue, Soul Knife, Wizard. Other classes will be builds within each class, or will be handled with multiclassing: Ardent is just a leader psion, artificer is just a leader wizard, assassin is just a rogue or maybe a rogue/wizard, avenger is just a striker paladin, battlemind is just a fighter/psion, invoker is just a controller (or striker) cleric, runepriest is dumb, seeker is just a ranger, shaman is a druid, sorcerer is a wizard, swordmage is a fighter/wizard, warlock is a wizard, and warlock is just a leader fighter.

Not much to comment on here - I love having all the various classes, personally. The big thing to consider is level 1 - someone who wants to play a battlemind or swordmage, for example, at level 1 would be missing half the class they want to play. Also, I worry about it suffering a big problem that building characters this way in 3e had - at the end, you're just not going to be as good period as a single class version (barring a PrC that blends the elements of your two classes. And I don't mean "not as good as casting or fighting" because that's a given, but just underpowered compared to a single class.

Okay, so I did have a bit to say there.

Which will be something I hope to address as things come together. I don't want multiclassing to be an after thought. Immediately, I can go back to one of my thoughts from 3E; I wrote level 0s into all of the classes, and I was working on a system to allow 0/0 multiclass characters at 1st level. Sort of like hybrids in 4e. A way to avoid weakness in multiclasses, barring PrC type things, woulc be to make sure that the individual power of spells or maneuvers is tied to level, not class level. A 15/15 Fighter/Mage can't get access to the level 9 (or whatever) stuff that an epic mage has, but he can cast his level 5 (or whatever) stuff with as much oomph as the epic mage can (which would be as oomphy as the 9th level, just not as grandiose). At high levels, though, I expect multiclassers to start getting things that blend the two classes, so again this will be something that will be thought on trough the entire project.

Feats should be nice, but not required. Feats won't be granting necessary power boosts. Every feat is a choice of specializing your character, or maybe learning a new trick; added versatility is versatility, situational strength, as long as those added options aren't more powerful than earlier options.

I like this design goal, but it's going to be a difficult one to achieve - any time a feat offers a numerical increase, it's a power boost, and even situational strength, so long as the player is smart enough to "trigger" the relevant situation often enough is a power boost. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just wish you luck.

Yeah, I don't think there's going to be very much in the way of numerical increase feats, except for things like speed or other things that don't really make you more "powerful". It's going to be tough. If all the options are more equal, and none are nobrainers to every single character of a broad concept, then it should be fine. On a related note, I am considering separating combat from noncombat feats, calling noncombat feats something like "talents" or whatever, so people don't feel like they're giving up on the strength of their character because they want to develop them with some of their points.

Magic items will be more consolidated. I can't get rid of them like I have tried in the past, they are very much a part of the metagame of rewards. Without items, nothing is gained between levels (which shows a strength of classless systems).
I want to avoid the need for Masterwork Armor and other things in the item progression, though heavy armor needs something to make up for the lost ability score boosts. I'll get to this more later, though.

Bundled these two together. Again, would like details here - how consolidated do you plan on making the item list? Will you be getting rid of things like "Deck of Many Things" or other wondrous items that are kind of pointless but interesting? (I advocate in favor of keeping them, because they add a ton of fun, but that's me) And since you said you'll get more into it later, I'll wait on the rest - however, I missed the part where ability score boosts are going to be going away. Any particular reason why?

Ability score boosts aren't going away, they just don't affect heavy armor AC since it doesn't use Dex. It could use Dex, but then its bonuses would have to be smaller and it just doesn't make sense (4E handled heavy armor better than 3e did, in my opinion). Sorry if that was confusing.

The consolidation I plan is to do something to keep there from needing to be a list of 5 thousand magic items. For instance, rather than listing out each and every single skill boosting magic item, write that in one entry and say which slots each skill is associated with (stealth can be boots, armor, or cloaks; thievery can be helm or gloves ...). 3E had a nice table for making your own magic items, and that was pretty sweet. I definitely want to keep the flavorful but kinda pointless magic items.

Multiclassing has to work more like 3E. "I took a level of barbarian" is such a part of my group's vernacular that it's a shame to see it go.
As the base math of the system will look more like 4E, monster design will look more like 4E, based off a level grid.

Bundled these two comments together for a different reason - I am 100% behind both of these, no reservations and no questions.

And I'm more than happy to collaborate on this with you. X20 is probably a pipe dream - I barely have the focus to create my own setting, let alone my own system, and I'll happily fly co-pilot on Xev20 (co-pilot because A) I occasionally vanish and B) If I think of this as your project that I'm a consultant on, it will curb my bossiness. :P)

Bossiness is fine. I get a little "my way or the highway" sometimes, so a little bit of leading would be nice. Everyone needs someone to tell them when their ideas suck.

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I'd like to discuss how to handle spells and maneuvers in a way that's fun and organic, but is more balanced than 3E spells. The compartmentalizing of attacks and utilities was nice in theory, but something just didn't work. Going back to the 9 levels of spells would be a possible direction to explore, with 3 levels per tier maybe. I'd also like to find a way to make it so spellcasters operated under slightly different principles (such as no at-wills, big encounters) than martial characters, so that they feel different.

One thought on maneuvers came from a player of mine way back when 4E started. He said something along the lines of "what if instead of martial powers being dailies, they were only usable in very specific circumstances). That got me thinking recently of this: what if martial maneuvers were powered by "trading in" your combat advantage bonus for maneuver effects? Really, the possibilities are endless on ways these could be handled, so I need some mind melding to get them going.

And I'm more than willing to steal ideas from other games too. Mutants and Masterminds, for instance, has flaws that can balance powers. If some of those were incorporated into maneuvers then they could remain balanced against basic attacks but feel cool and unique. Some type of stamina mechanic might be "not-D&D", but I do have ideas for that.

[sparkletwist]

Xeviat, I fixed your post because the quote tags were messed up.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me chiming in even though my name doesn't start with an X. :D

At 30th level, the fighter's sitting pretty at a +35, and the wizard has something like a +29 (if and only if the wizard has a magic sword). My point is the difference doesn't need to get bigger; a 6 point difference is still 30% of a d20's possible numbers. If the difference scales more than that, then we get into situations where higher level people can do effectively less than their low level counterparts.

I don't really agree with this logic.

I think those bonuses are kind of wacky because they're up over the top end of a d20's range anyway, but ignoring that, a fighter is supposed to be good at hitting guys. That's his thing. If, at level 30, he's only got the same +6 over the wizard as they had at level 1, but the wizard has a whole bunch of powerful spells that he didn't have at level 1-- well, life kind of sucks for the fighter. The wizard is still almost as a good of a fighter as him, and the wizard's got all those spells besides.

You aren't "doing effectively less" having the bonuses diverge unless the roll you need to hit enemies is scaling up at precisely the same rate as your level is, and, if that's the case, why even bother having progression at all? Otherwise, both of them are getting a nice bonus, so the wizard with the big bonus is in absolute terms going to be much more capable than a level 1 wizard, and a level 1 fighter, too, for that matter, but the fighter getting a massive growth in martial capability (much faster than the wizard) is what fighters get for being fighters instead of wizards.

One thought on maneuvers came from a player of mine way back when 4E started. He said something along the lines of "what if instead of martial powers being dailies, they were only usable in very specific circumstances). That got me thinking recently of this: what if martial maneuvers were powered by "trading in" your combat advantage bonus for maneuver effects? Really, the possibilities are endless on ways these could be handled, so I need some mind melding to get them going.

I like this idea. One of the things I emphatically disliked about 4e was that martial characters got put on a psuedo-Vancian system. It didn't make any sense, and it kind of cramped their style, when what (in my opinion, anyway) really should be happening is something like your idea from the other thread-- martial characters get less damage per attack, but more ability to make attacks, so the damage per encounter ends up balancing out with the casters.

I always liked Power Attack and its way of "trading in" a bonus that you don't really need for a bonus to something that can help you. In my own Asura system, as well as in other systems (FATE, Exalted, etc.) every attack is by default a power attack-- your bonus success from making an attack automatically turns into damage. Actually, perhaps one way to help fighters keep pace with casters is make this a class feature; in other words, to have some degree of a "power attack" be standard for a Fighter.

[beejazz]

Just commenting to let you know I approve of your design goals, and will be watching with interest.

A thought on balance: opportunity costs, diminishing returns, and rock-paper-scissors. If powers of the same purpose (attack, defend, move, hide, or seek) are roughly equal, and you can only choose one power per level, and some powers act as "answers" to other powers (in suitably subtle ways... like how monk trumps mage, but not like how antimagic field trumps mage)... if all these conditions are met, players will build characters as different as possible to cover all the bases.

Second thing to remember is opportunity costs and diminishing returns on a round by round basis. Something to keep in mind from M&M is that it is optimal to use alternate powers on attacks because you can only use one such power per round. Conversely, it's better not to take alternate powers on defense because those are always on. There's not as much benefit to having one changing defense power at a time as there is in having whatever attack you need at the moment. 3e did some weird things with this formula by having modified attacks. You could just stack modifications on a single attack, instead of diversifying attack types. TWF and sneak attack is one such example. It's not only abusable, it also often limits the interesting decisions a player could have made (because they can have it all).

Lastly, having powers pull from a similar pool equalizes them somewhat. For example, lightning is more combat useful than light. But if you'd spend the same spell slot to cast them, people will use torches to avoid wasting a spell slot on light. If torches are the default though, the whole party will be really grateful for your light spell in the water dungeon. Conversely, someone might actually refrain from using lightning if they may have to use light later. Light is pretty much as valuable as the pool it draws from because you need it. And pulling from the same source creates context for meaningful decisions (Do we want to waste our torches checking out the underwater secret passage? Should we not mess with that passage for fear of an ambush on our weakened wizard? Should we leave the torches where it's dry and come back for them?). Conversely, making light easy to cast, long-lasting, or low level will lessen the impact of the decision to cast it. Light in dungeons may get handwaved as these decisions become dull. And finally characters won't want to be built for "utility" because they want to shine in combat.

...

Went off on a little tangent there. Point is you should probably go with discrete powers over modified attacks, note that permanent effects are more powerful than instantaneous ones (because you can pile 'em on), make sure that utility powers are rare enough to generate decisions, and make sure that abilities are equal within their category (because you really shouldn't have to worry so much about whether light or lightning is more useful... that's the players' decision to make).

Xeviat, I fixed your post because the quote tags were messed up.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me chiming in even though my name doesn't start with an X. :D

At 30th level, the fighter's sitting pretty at a +35, and the wizard has something like a +29 (if and only if the wizard has a magic sword). My point is the difference doesn't need to get bigger; a 6 point difference is still 30% of a d20's possible numbers. If the difference scales more than that, then we get into situations where higher level people can do effectively less than their low level counterparts.

I don't really agree with this logic.

I think those bonuses are kind of wacky because they're up over the top end of a d20's range anyway, but ignoring that, a fighter is supposed to be good at hitting guys. That's his thing. If, at level 30, he's only got the same +6 over the wizard as they had at level 1, but the wizard has a whole bunch of powerful spells that he didn't have at level 1-- well, life kind of sucks for the fighter. The wizard is still almost as a good of a fighter as him, and the wizard's got all those spells besides.

You aren't "doing effectively less" having the bonuses diverge unless the roll you need to hit enemies is scaling up at precisely the same rate as your level is, and, if that's the case, why even bother having progression at all? Otherwise, both of them are getting a nice bonus, so the wizard with the big bonus is in absolute terms going to be much more capable than a level 1 wizard, and a level 1 fighter, too, for that matter, but the fighter getting a massive growth in martial capability (much faster than the wizard) is what fighters get for being fighters instead of wizards.

Most of what you argue presupposes a system where wizards gain more options than fighters, deal more damage, or both.

As for "always fighting orcs" (why have everything scale the same way numerically), it's different if options become qualitatively different at higher levels (for example, by expansion of options, or by unlocking whole new things like flight). Additionally, if the population of the world doesn't change levels while you do, there's a qualitative difference between escaping four guards and thrashing an army of them.

Lastly, if a wizard has no cool combat tricks keyed to sword use (or has no damage progression with swords, which the fighter might have) he's still both significantly less competent a fighter and unlikely to swing a sword. Any more than the fighter would be a threat to the wizards role if he could cast first level spells with a really high skill rating.

One thought on maneuvers came from a player of mine way back when 4E started. He said something along the lines of "what if instead of martial powers being dailies, they were only usable in very specific circumstances). That got me thinking recently of this: what if martial maneuvers were powered by "trading in" your combat advantage bonus for maneuver effects? Really, the possibilities are endless on ways these could be handled, so I need some mind melding to get them going.

I like this idea. One of the things I emphatically disliked about 4e was that martial characters got put on a psuedo-Vancian system. It didn't make any sense, and it kind of cramped their style, when what (in my opinion, anyway) really should be happening is something like your idea from the other thread-- martial characters get less damage per attack, but more ability to make attacks, so the damage per encounter ends up balancing out with the casters.

I always liked Power Attack and its way of "trading in" a bonus that you don't really need for a bonus to something that can help you. In my own Asura system, as well as in other systems (FATE, Exalted, etc.) every attack is by default a power attack-- your bonus success from making an attack automatically turns into damage. Actually, perhaps one way to help fighters keep pace with casters is make this a class feature; in other words, to have some degree of a "power attack" be standard for a Fighter.

Another option would be to have fighters learn tricks they can use all the time, but allow them to pull from outside their repertoire by trading in combat advantage. This might allow some solid standbys alongside increased flexibility.

[Xeviat]

Thanks, I didn't notice that the tags were weird.

The fighter isn't just his bonus to hit. And +35 on a d20 vs. a 43 DC is the same as +5 on a d20 vs. a 3 DC. The fighter is going to have abilities that run counter and parallel to the wizard's abilities. If the wizard is sitting on a +20 to hit with a weapon he picks up, or relatedly a fighter with a +20 with a bow and +35 with a sword, you're basically saying "don't try it". It's the same as skill bonuses that used to get ridiculously outstripped in 3E: a 20th level fighter had no chance of spotting/listening a 20th level assassin sneaking up on them. 4E still has a big disparity in skill bonuses, but the disparity is at least smaller and easy DCs are called for when a group check is necessary.

Not sure about the power attack thing, or the notion of having more bonus than you need. I'd rather have some sort of pool of maneuver effects that can be added in, perhaps traded for some to hit or some damage, but that's going to be a bit off. I think "fixing" the 4E spellcasters till they feel right will be the easiest at first, and I can probably start from the 4E Essentials fighter, ranger, and rogue for the rest.

Damage per encounter is something that will take some discussion as well. How long do we want fights to last? 4E fights last about 8 rounds from my experience, which is okay on paper. Combat takes a long time, though, because each turn ends up running long in my group. I don't know if this is because players have so many options that they get confused, or if it's because everyone is trying to squeeze every ounce of power out of their three actions, or because everyone is watching their immediate effects ... but something is slowing my group down. Slow combat is one of the big 4E complaints.

As for my thoughts on powers in general, I really want to do away with the daily power as it's currently known. I hate the work day in D&D, and I want it gone. I want the day to flow with the plot. If the party is breaking into a small fortification and it shouldn't take two days to clear it out, then let them keep going unless some realistic thing is stopping them (not I'm out of daily powers ...).

An old thought I had was to pool encounters and have them run off some sort of pool of "encounter points", similar to how 4E Psionics works. Rather than starting every fight with all of your encounter points, though, you generate them from using at-wills. This would encourage people to alternate at-wills and encounters, spreading things out so long fights don't become boring slugfests and short encounters aren't giant novas. It also helps balance out casters and noncasters, if we can easily judge how many encounters will be used (to keep DMs from having to carefully balance short and long fights).

I'd also like to discuss the types of differences people want to see between casters and non-casters. Sparkle's been a part of my musings on this before.

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To Beejazz (you posted while I was posting); very yes. If powers all cost points from some sort of mana pool, for instance, and prices are done alright, then people will choose between spending 1 point for light or 5 points for lightning. Utilities can tap from the same resource without feeling bad, possibly.

And I'm aware of some of those ways to abuse the M&M systems. In one of my variants for the system that I was putting together for my fantasy games, I was giving everybody a 1 point/level "offensive power array", requiring all extras to be balanced by flaws (and not counting power feats in this total). Defensive abilities were totally separate, as the only time someone would be okay trading their offense for defense is times when they aren't going to use their offense anyway. I have had defensive alternate powers before, though, but only off of a defensive array, or for "turtling" powers.

The only modified attacks I'm looking for are maneuvers for non-casters. When standard at-wills are things like 1W+Str+Con, or 1W+Str+damage to second target, or 1W+Str and shift 2, we can draw a conclusion and say that all of those riders are equal to each other. If the basic attack is 1W+Str, then bam, we have a formula. It's far easier to write and far easier to read for a fighter player if, instead of having fully fledged power cards, maneuvers just list what you add to a basic attack and what you take away (like Rapid Shot in 3E).

And I'm really starting to dig the idea of trading combat advantage for other things. It fits the theme of maneuvers, as they're only useful when you have an opening, that opening is a real mechanical thing and not a narrative construct, and there's a cost-benefits decision. If there's some type of thing a warrior could do with a minor action to get combat advantage, then it becomes something like a skill check to have a chance of failing a maneuver.

[sparkletwist]

Most of what you argue presupposes a system where wizards gain more options than fighters, deal more damage, or both.

You are correct. I presupposed that because that's pretty much how 3.x works. :grin:

Maybe I misinterpreted what Xeviat meant, but from trying to get "D&D3's feel and look" I thought he was going for a system where the classes feel like they have some uniqueness to them (unlike 4e) and casters still have their unique flavor and big guns. So I was working from the perspective of maybe needing to give fighters a way to keep pace with that awesomeness so they could be awesome too, in their own fighterly ways.

As for the attack bonus thing, I'm going to concede that I'm far from a D&D enthusiast or expert, and I'm probably not just of the right mindset for high-level D&D play. I like "always fighting orcs" in the sense that orcs, at least in the proper context, remain a credible threat. If you're so far off the top of the range of the d20 that it's pretty much impossible for a mook to do any harm, then thrashing an army becomes less of an epic battle and more of an exercise in tedium because it's auto-hit and auto-kill on every attack and you just have to mow through them. Granted, the DM can make this challenge more interesting, but just inflating the DCs to match your inflated hit bonuses so everything feels even again feels like a non-solution, when the real problem is with the mechanics themselves.

Or maybe the problem is with me and I should just go play E6 if I want to play this kind of game.  :D

[Xeviat]

I do want classes to have uniqueness to them. And I'm more than willing to explore a way where the wizard can have powerful limited use effects while the fighter has more reliable effects. Now, I can also see Fighters utilizing endurance to power limited use effects, as long as they're simple and make sense; for instance, in the 4.5 that was D&D Essentials, instead of getting encounter powers the fighter got Power Strike, which added some damage to their attacks. At first you could only do it once per encounter, but it went up to 4 per encounter eventually. This is just an endurance mechanic, and if those dice of damage could be traded in for special effects (or more importantly, if you could add those dice of damage to maneuvers that normally don't deal damage, like a trip, we'd have the maneuvers I'm looking for). Power Strike doesn't do as much as Fireball does, but the fighter's basic attack also could start considerably better than a Wizards basic wand attacks.

Or something.

One of the things 4E did for mooks was the minion. But every mook isn't a minion. Fighting an entire army of heroic level warriors when you're epic level should have the warriors treated as mobs (swarms of larger creatures). Hacking your way through them kills countless people, but you still have more to deal with.

[Xathan]

Gonna focus on one thing: the attack bonus stuff.

I'll admit I'm leaning more towards Sparkletwist's side of the discussion: while +5 does mean 25% more likely, it seems off to me that a fighter is ONLY 25% more likely to hit with a sword than a wizard that never bothered to touch one until level 20 or 30 or whatever.

One thing that might solve this problem would be incremental attacks, a la 3.5. At level 20, a wizard with a sword is 50% as likely to hit something with a sword as a fighter, and can only attempt to do so twice per round, whereas a fighter can attempt it 4 times per round - 5 if he's dual wielding, which is a much better choice for a fighter than a wizard. if that difference was changed to 25% more likely AND the fighter still gets twice or more tha basic swings than a wizard, then you have a combination that is a bit more balanced. It showcases that the fighter is better (quicker and more accurate) with weapons than a wizard. That could be how attack bonues are varied in Xev20 - a fighter gets an increase compared to a wizard lower than the difference in 3.5, but also gets a increased number of attacks WITH less penalty between attacks than a wizard of the same level, giving the fighter more options in that regard where the wizard as a greater selection of abilities but cannot use as many each round as the fighter.

[Xeviat]

Multiple attacks per round is something to consider for differentiating martial from magical; it makes it considerably easier to balance a 1d6/level fireball against a 1d8+strength sword if the fighter can swing a couple times. We'll have to discuss that part later.

I think the attack bonus thing was a wrong part to target first. I should have talked about skills and defenses. In truth, depending on how ability scores alter, the fighter and wizard's sword attack bonus is likely to drastically change. In 4E, the difference can fall behind so far that the wizard will never pick up a sword, and that's fine as long as the wizard never HAS to pick up a sword. But the wizard does HAVE to be targeted by a Fort attack, does have to make a Notice check, and does have to have something to do every round.

The attack bonus difference in 4E can go from a fighter's +8 to hit (18 str, sword, fighter attack bonus boost) and a wizard's +0 (10 str, no proficiency) all the way up to something like +37 for the fighter and +22 for the mage (and that's if he's using a magic sword).

I just didn't like 3E BAB because the Wizard was never going to use his BAB, so why did it matter (except for touch attacks, but those were a foregone conclusion except vs. light armored foes).

[Xeviat]

Now, for a bit of a poll, as the premises seem to be largely okay with everyone (after some fine tuning). Here's a list of things which I found problematic in 4E, some with suggestions on how to fix them. I'd like a player's opinion, not a designers opinion, on how these things make you feel.

1) Scaling Ability Scores and Defenses: As your character grew in power, you got +1 to 2 scores at 6 different instances, making 2 of your scores grow by 6 more than the others; the others grew by 2. This meant that, at best, one of your defenses fell behind the others by 3, and this wasn't accounted for in the basic math. This could be "fixed" by having all ability scores scale at the same rate, but that doesn't feel right (my level 30 barbarian has an intelligence of 16 now ...). It could be assumed, as long as mathematically it is akin to a trade off; yes, my Fighter's Will scaled by 3 less than his others, but the others are now (cumulatively) 3 higher than the baseline, he's affected by Fort and Reflex attacks far less often. Achillies heals are fine, but when they get bigger they become problematic.

Ability Scores and Class Builds: Some class builds had their primary and secondary attribute on the same defense. This proved problematic because they now had two weak defenses, and significantly less gained from their ability scores than others. Strong and Tough, Fast and Smart, and Wise and Charming are all character types that are made a bit weaker than the others by virtue of the ability score parring. Perhaps this could be balanced by having defenses be cumulative, adding together both; these builds would then have one very high save, and two lower saves, where everyone else has two average saves and one low save.

Masterwork Armor/Expertise/Improved Defenses: There was an error in the system math in 4E. Monsters improve at a perfectly smooth +1/level to everything d20 based. Players improve +15 from level, +4 from ability scores (or +1 to their tertiary scores), and +6 from magic items, for a total of +25 compared to the monster's +29. Players had some feats for +1 to AC, or +2 to one defense, and circumstantial bonuses to attack. Masterwork armor was thrown in to give a +2 bonus to AC; when combined with the feat, the player AC didn't lag terribly (+28). The saves and attacks were left behind, and were later patched with other feats.

I don't like this. I don't like patches. I want to build this right into the math. A +1 bonus at Paragon and Epic tier might be the easiest thing to do; it's not as smooth as the monsters, but everything I've tried to do to find a smooth progression just feels off. Players start a bit more powerful than monsters at 1st level anyway, so the players progressing more slowly could be considered a feature, as long as we're calling it out from the beginning. Again, I don't want feats to be required, so I definitely want these out.

Daily Powers/Healing Surges: I just hate these. It's part of my initial assumption, but it bears repeating here since I'm calling out 4E directly. I don't want daily powers at all. If we go with some type of mana/endurance pool, then "daily powers" would just be expensive, and can thus be balanced that way. Healing surges were a cool way to limit how much a healbot could pump you up, but they also lend into that workday. I don't want the system telling you how many encounters you have to have in the day, because they players could always choose to stop and not go forward. It's better to make sure each encounter is balanced and be done with it. Healing surges could become an encounter pool. Running out of healing surges throughout the day could be replaced by an endurance check/mechanic, ignored, or replaced with injuries.

Magic Item Necessity: It's kind of annoying that you need magic items. I want to want them, but I don't want to feel like I have to have them. Especially in 4E, where humanoid enemies weren't decked out in magical gear too, it just felt strange to be different. One of the strengths of 3E was that everyone was playing from the same toybox, and it made it feel believable and natural. Now, I can't abandon the +X Sword, it's too iconic and it wouldn't be D&D without it. Maybe this is okay, as long as there's only 3 items you have to have (weapon/implement, armor, amulet/cloak), but I'd still like to consider other ways to do it. Maybe a +X sword is just granting +X to damage; giving that up isn't a huge hit on your character, especially if you're getting a different item instead. A +X armor could give X damage reduction. A +X amulet of protection could give ... I don't know.

The biggest thing that I think should be changed with magic items, though, is an odd one: I don't think magic items should grant scaling bonuses to skills, or anything that's d20 based. +2 to stealth is a bonus at 1st level and at 30th level. I think magic items associated with skills should give you magical ability with that skill. A cloak of stealth could let you hide without concealment, and a more potent one could let you hide while being directly observed. Gloves of thievery could let you pick locks faster. Boots of Acrobatics could let you walk on water or not set off pressure plates. They make you different, not better at hitting that DC. Now, if they were limited to a +2 bonus, like a proficiency bonus, then they could be manageable; it's all a matter of making sure a skill DC table by level isn't overly complicated.

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I'm getting close to being able to start a thread to talk about basic class design. I'm pouring over the Essentials classes in 4E, since those are actually differentiated between martial and magical. They also have more class abilities, which with a little work could allow for a structure. Perhaps classes could alternate class ability and power at each other level, so multiclassing could remain a bit more balanced; certain combinations get you more class abilities, others get you more power options.

I will also discuss the return to the 9 spell levels. With 3 per tier, they could come in at 1st, 4th, and 8th levels at each tier. Or there could be 10 spell levels (core 9 plus "super epic"), or they could grow like they used to and have 15 ... this is just a thing to discuss later.

[beejazz]

As for the attack bonus thing, I'm going to concede that I'm far from a D&D enthusiast or expert, and I'm probably not just of the right mindset for high-level D&D play. I like "always fighting orcs" in the sense that orcs, at least in the proper context, remain a credible threat. If you're so far off the top of the range of the d20 that it's pretty much impossible for a mook to do any harm, then thrashing an army becomes less of an epic battle and more of an exercise in tedium because it's auto-hit and auto-kill on every attack and you just have to mow through them. Granted, the DM can make this challenge more interesting, but just inflating the DCs to match your inflated hit bonuses so everything feels even again feels like a non-solution, when the real problem is with the mechanics themselves.

Or maybe the problem is with me and I should just go play E6 if I want to play this kind of game.  :D

The "always fighting orcs" meme refers to scaling enemies with few differences beyond math. Like in Skyrim when bandits and undead become more powerful over time, so fighting them doesn't feel any different.

I agree that low level foes should remain a threat (at least in large numbers) which is why I like systems that limit how often you can defend yourself. You may want to check out my work when I get a little further through D20fying it.

Gonna focus on one thing: the attack bonus stuff.

I'll admit I'm leaning more towards Sparkletwist's side of the discussion: while +5 does mean 25% more likely, it seems off to me that a fighter is ONLY 25% more likely to hit with a sword than a wizard that never bothered to touch one until level 20 or 30 or whatever.

One thing that might solve this problem would be incremental attacks, a la 3.5. At level 20, a wizard with a sword is 50% as likely to hit something with a sword as a fighter, and can only attempt to do so twice per round, whereas a fighter can attempt it 4 times per round - 5 if he's dual wielding, which is a much better choice for a fighter than a wizard. if that difference was changed to 25% more likely AND the fighter still gets twice or more tha basic swings than a wizard, then you have a combination that is a bit more balanced. It showcases that the fighter is better (quicker and more accurate) with weapons than a wizard. That could be how attack bonues are varied in Xev20 - a fighter gets an increase compared to a wizard lower than the difference in 3.5, but also gets a increased number of attacks WITH less penalty between attacks than a wizard of the same level, giving the fighter more options in that regard where the wizard as a greater selection of abilities but cannot use as many each round as the fighter.

Will abilities apply to attack skills? Because in that case, the range can start around 10 instead of 5. And if attack abilities scale, the gap can drift even further.

As for incremental attacks... the extra rolling slows down the game a bit. If the fighter's rolling 4 or 5 times per round it'll slow things down. Consider an attack power that allows the fighter to hit everyone in melee range with one attack (but with no damage bonus). That way, you can avoid extra rolling or fighters deliberately getting surrounded by a specific number of enemies. And it'll still have the feel of a fighter chopping down a group of weak foes.

...

RE: The last post: I don't know much about 4e's system math, so I can't speak to some of what you're saying, but IIRC 4e healing's effectiveness was keyed to the recipient's level instead of the caster's. This nixed some weirdness about how it got harder to heal you (or heal naturally) as you leveled. One thing you can do is just make fights fair as is and make really effective healing a ritual. And I'll definitely second the point about no math patching in feats or magic items.

[Xeviat]

My complaint about healing surges was how they stop the day. If I write an adventure where the players need to get to the top of the tower before midnight or else the wizard will summon Beelzebub, then I don't want my players to stop and rest. I'm a fair DM, so I make 3 encounters leading up to the wizard, for a total of 4 that day, and I carefully balance the XP totals so one fight is easy, two are normal, and one is hard (hard just before the wizard, just to make things difficult).

Then, my players go all out in the first fight and blow all their dailies. Suddenly, the rest of the fights become significantly more difficult. I remind my players of the urgency of the day, so they move onto the second fight. It's a drag, they have already used a lot of their cool abilities, and they take more damage and take longer in the fight then they otherwise would have. They're almost out of healing surges now, and definitely won't make it through the hard encounter coming up. I could drop the encounter and just move onto the wizard ... or we could just drop dailies.

Now, this might be about play styles, but I think removing methods for players to screw themselves over is best. I think exhaustion can be simulated another way, and would be a great way to limit the day to a reasonable number of encounters (when the DM says you've had enough, you start making fort saves or endurance checks to resist exhaustion). Then you get to feel cool if you can make those checks to such a degree to drive your less hardy companions on (lets say this is a group check for fairness).

[sparkletwist]

Well, I think the players have to be partially to blame here. They knew that they only had one day and they knew their powers were daily. I agree with you that removing traps for players to screw themselves is a good idea, but I also think that players should still have to be smart. Using up all of your daily powers on the first fight when you knew you couldn't rest for the day and you could be almost certain you had more fights coming is just a bad move, and if things are hard for the players going forward, so be it, they kind of earned it.

That said, the whole idea of going nova and having a 15 minute adventuring day does make me support the removal of daily powers in general. :)

[Xeviat]

If we find we want a more limited effect, a once/2 encounters ability could simulate a daily, like action points.

I started up a thread on the class structure, and I definitely need help here, especially whether or not to mix utilities and attacks.