4e is now dead to me.

[ckafrica]

So you're not suggesting that all attacks automatically do something just the special ones?

There was a discussion a while back that all attacks should have some level of effect which didn't sit right with me even though we all hate when we make an attack that misses. I guess I'd rather all spells and attacks have some chance of failure against anyone even if it statistically gets reduced to rolling a 1 much of the time. I was getting a bit cheesed that our mage never actually seemed to have to roll dice last game we played up to 20th; it was too reminiscent of MtG.

[Username17]

So you're not suggesting that all attacks automatically do something just the special ones?

I don't understand. Why would people have non-special attacks? Variety is important. If the party's Orcish Fire Shaman is throwing around fire bolts every round, a Dwarven Warlord should be making dreadful shouts and overwhelming blows every round. Having people say "I attack" is boring.

If you want to intersperse different actions into the rounds, you should give players mutliple different abilities and then give the different techniques durations in excess of a single round so that people rotate through for best effect normally.

There was a discussion a while back that all attacks should have some level of effect which didn't sit right with me even though we all hate when we make an attack that misses.

Well it was put in the context of otherwise not changing the D&D rules, which was problematic (especially with charm). What you need to avoid is the situation where a sufficiently large group of enemies automatically beats you by just partialling out over and over again. That's why most attacks like that should carry over an opt-out clause for the target. A bunch of first level Goblin Warlords shouldn't be able to automatically paralyze a Giant by just using Overwhelming Attack each round and penalizing the Giant down to nothing without a roll. The Giant gets to simply soak the damage and ignore the penalties (he will take a bunch of damage, but he'll be able to attack the Goblins with a reasonable chance of success).

I was getting a bit cheesed that our mage never actually seemed to have to roll dice last game we played up to 20th; it was too reminiscent of MtG.

Everyone should roll dice. But the inability to roll a 7+ shouldn't make your actions completely worthless.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Not to crash that MTG/D&D combo there, but I've been tracking WOTC forum threads on the same subject for at least 2 years now, and it's pretty similar.
Only difference is that it took only Frank to reach the same conclusion that weeks of debate and idea collecting revealed in Wiz.
All in all, I'd still play that, but only if one can play something like a Pyromancer or Vulshok Sorcerer without being an animal-totem type of Shaman. Just pure elementalism.
Limiting class by color seems a bit too pre-emptive; IMO the party role and capabilities must fit color, not archetype/name.

Or maybe I'm just bringing old assumptions of "Bards do X" when I see Blue: Bard?
Ideally this would be a semi-classless type of setup, where one chooses 'chassis' (HP, BAB, saves, SP, etc) on one side and then abilities on the other; the better the chassis, which would be fluid or to some degree shiftable between the attributes... the worse the special ability options and slots per round/encounter/hour/day.

So, the result would be the color choices, and then:
1 the "weak" type chassis, crappy Hit Die in all or most aspects, many powers/range/intensity
2 the "medium" type chassis, balanced attributes, some powers
3 the "warrior" type chassis, best HD (or most aspects), fewest powers (or at least, variety of options)

[RandomCasualty]

1196759325[/unixtime]]
I thought about that. The Iron Heroes tokens are too complicated and not good. I also thought of making characters of different colors get mana under different circumstances (ex.: Red characters get Mana for each turn that their enemies take damage; White characters get mana for each turn that their allies take damage, etc...) But I think it's probably a bad idea. Characters should probably just make a "declaration" every round and some of the available declarations are "I will cast Hellstorm in five rounds..."

I always thought about a system where you get a counter every round you're in combat, no matter what you happen to do, or perhaps just a system where some attacks have a prereq: "Must be combat round 3 or later".

That way you force people to wait a bit to use their special attacks.

[JonSetanta]

1196765471[/unixtime]]

1196759325[/unixtime]]
I thought about that. The Iron Heroes tokens are too complicated and not good. I also thought of making characters of different colors get mana under different circumstances (ex.: Red characters get Mana for each turn that their enemies take damage; White characters get mana for each turn that their allies take damage, etc...) But I think it's probably a bad idea. Characters should probably just make a "declaration" every round and some of the available declarations are "I will cast Hellstorm in five rounds..."

I always thought about a system where you get a counter every round you're in combat, no matter what you happen to do, or perhaps just a system where some attacks have a prereq: "Must be combat round 3 or later".

That way you force people to wait a bit to use their special attacks.

When the goal for extending combat is to delay the point in time when characters can use their "finisher", I turn to video games as example of a good idea... mostly, 1v1 fighters such as Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, and so on.
Rather than simply waiting for rounds to pass, the character must fulfill the conditions for a "charge" which then hit a maximum like a "charge bar". For warriors this means weapon hits, for buffers the buffs, for blasters the explody stuff.
Then when levels 1, 2, or 3 are reached, the abilities of appropriate intensity can be unleashed, which then drain that charge bar. Some games deplete the whole thing, most don't have gradiated levels of charge.

[ckafrica]

I don't understand. Why would people have non-special attacks? Variety is important. If the party's Orcish Fire Shaman is throwing around fire bolts every round, a Dwarven Warlord should be making dreadful shouts and overwhelming blows every round. Having people say "I attack" is boring.

Sorry been to long playing where "I hit him 2 times" was a large part of the whole thing. Yes having cool special attacks each round is definitely better.

I would need to see how the reduced effect was balanced to be sold. If I have a super sneaky guy who is hard to hit, I want it to mean something and if people always get some effect, "hard to hit" isn't a as good a strategy. Maybe a scalable effect pattern so -5 is still something but more than that is tough.

[Draco_Argentum]

1196760858[/unixtime]]
So Frank do you mean that all actions will have a guaranteed effect? That starts to sound a bit like playing a card game to me. Can you clarify for me? Cheers

Based on playing the Descent: Journeys in the Dark board game I think guaranteed effects are a good idea. Waiting 5-10 minutes for your turn then fluffing the attack rolls is a real downer.

I always thought about a system where you get a counter every round you're in combat, no matter what you happen to do, or perhaps just a system where some attacks have a prereq: "Must be combat round 3 or later".

I think this would be better stated as "Two or more rounds after you use an ability tagged [opener] on a target you may use this finisher on that target." Hopefully that stops the monkey in a barrel loophole.

[RandomCasualty]

1196768213[/unixtime]]
I think this would be better stated as "Two or more rounds after you use an ability tagged [opener] on a target you may use this finisher on that target." Hopefully that stops the monkey in a barrel loophole.

I don't consider monkey in a barrel to really be all that big of a problem. I mean, it's one of those things that would be a real bitch to balance out for a computer game, but it's so obvious to a DM when the PCs are cheesing it out that he can just disallow it using common sense. I suppose you could throw in a restriction that the enemy must have also been in combat for 3 rounds too, or something like that if you really want to get into semantics, but the idea is to keep things simple.

It's the main reason I think it's easier than having openers and all sorts of other new mechanics.

The easiest way to counter monkey in a barrel is just for the rules to say "don't be a dumbass."

[Draco_Argentum]

Okay, you went for the extreme example. Heres something that might happen in a game.

You are beating on mooks for three rounds then the BBEG rocks up. You unload with your now charged maneuvers and he gets owned. That is probably not a desirable scenario. Importantly, the PCs weren't being tools about it. The DM just wanted the bad guy to make a dramatic entrance into an ongoing fight.

[RandomCasualty]

1196771571[/unixtime]]

You are beating on mooks for three rounds then the BBEG rocks up. You unload with your now charged maneuvers and he gets owned. That is probably not a desirable scenario. Importantly, the PCs weren't being tools about it. The DM just wanted the bad guy to make a dramatic entrance into an ongoing fight.

Ok. hmm... yeah, that's true. I may have to rethink this a bit.

[tzor]

1196735790[/unixtime]]You know the old timers would go insane if WotC combined Magic and D&D.

As a qualified old timer I would say that I would not go insane. I've seen divisions of magic that were confusing with every edition; color actually has this bizzare simplicity that makes sense.

Now the 2Eers who starting playing with 2nd Edition I can't speak for. :tonguesmile:

[RandomCasualty]

Another interesting thing about the magic item article:

Don't know if it's OK to drop a flying carpet into the hands of your 9th-level PCs? Well, the fact that the carpet's listed as an 18th-level item should clue you in that it'd have an enormous impact on your 9th-level game.

I'm guessing this probably means that flight is gonna be delayed until around 15th level or so.

[Catharz]

1196771571[/unixtime]]Okay, you went for the extreme example. Heres something that might happen in a game.

You are beating on mooks for three rounds then the BBEG rocks up. You unload with your now charged maneuvers and he gets owned. That is probably not a desirable scenario. Importantly, the PCs weren't being tools about it. The DM just wanted the bad guy to make a dramatic entrance into an ongoing fight.

That's not how it usually works. Normally, the BBEG would wait for the PCs to throw a Bahamut and then make his entrance because all the mooks are dead.

If you want to play up the fact that the opponent is higher level then have him walk right into the Ultima Attack. The PC will know he's serious business when he keeps coming.

If you really think those two scenarios are lame, then the 'charge up' period would basically be painting a target long enough for the air strike to get them. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that you will have killed the target before the strike arrives, and in the case of a Hellfire bombing it's an area effect which will clobber the BBEG anyway.

[JonSetanta]

1196785038[/unixtime]]

1196735790[/unixtime]]You know the old timers would go insane if WotC combined Magic and D&D.

As a qualified old timer I would say that I would not go insane. I've seen divisions of magic that were confusing with every edition; color actually has this bizzare simplicity that makes sense.

Now the 2Eers who starting playing with 2nd Edition I can't speak for. :tonguesmile:

I'll attest as a 2Eer, I'm all for it. And it seems RC and DA have their own discussion going on so I'll.. uh.. do.. stuff.

[Crissa]

Same here, I started with 2nd.

-Crissa

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I started with Rules Cyclopedia D&D.

[ArtD]

I don't like the selection of classes and races in 4E. The newcomers are not exciting at all. I didn't even know what an eldarin was.

Started with the Basic D&D boxed set, by the way. Both editions of AD&D were terrible. I'm glad that 3E realized it didn't have to be "Advanced." 3rd edition was the first thing to come after the basic game that wasn't a complete mess.

[Voss]

Oh, no 3rd is a complete mess too. Its just messy in a different way.

No one really knows what an eladrin is. The name is kicking around in 3rd, but the 4e version will be quite different.

[JonSetanta]

*coughcough* I know what Eladrin are... or at least, what they were as described by AD&D Planescape monster books.
Knowing whether all of that info has changed or not since then is tricky...

My vote is for more "Feylike", with an easily playable Eladrin PC race (in addition to the more advanced types) as replacement for the wonky, tasteless "Feytouched". Blech.

[Voss]

Pretty much feytouched high elves, from the hints that have been dropping. With some minor teleportation abilities for... no apparent reason.

[Username17]

So I've been thinking about Races, because D&D is filled with that sort of thing and has been since they wrote the Hobbit class back in the 70s. And I think that races shouldn't come with stat modifiers. Races should have suggested attribute distributions, but if you want to play a Mighty Halfling, that's between you and your DM.

Anyhow, as far as Races go, having less is actually having more. That is, the more races you have the less interesting stuff there is to say about any of them, and the less races you have the more cool things any particular race can do. Ideally I would want about 5 races in the whole world, because then there's enough for everyone to be playing something different if they want to be the UN Commandos and yet the pool is still small enough that every race can have a real backstory and flavor description.

But of course, both D&D and M:tG are built on the half-paragraph and the attached painting. And that setup benefits less from lowering the number of races than a setting writeup does. In any case, you're stuck with a double-armload of races. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't cut them down. Chaos Gnomes and Quaggoth, for example, have to go. Like double quick. Eberron is such a retarded setting in part because it feels compelled to have all that crap in it. The game world would be stronger if it didn't.

And so we have to ask ourselves how many playable races and how many monstrous races we are going to have. Because the world really should be built up as a coherent unit rather than as a laminar series of crap piles atop itself with additional ancient empires added one after another until we forget what is going on or why we care. I figure that 20 is a good cap for both. And even though the basic Player's Handbook will only cover half of that for the playables and basically none of the monsters, it should still establish what they all are right at the beginning.

So anyway, here's a list of potential inclusions:

• Black Races
  Gremlins
  Gnolls
  Hobgoblins
  Ratlings
  Risen
  Tieflings
  Blue Races
  Deep Ones
  Gnomes
  Merfolk
  Green Races
  Bugbears
  Catfolk
  Elves
  Lizardfolk
  Sprites
  Red Races
  Dwarves
  Goblins
  Kobolds
  Orcs
  White Races
  Halflings
  Humans

This list proably has to be pruned even.

And then, the Monstrous Races. A Monstrous Race is a group of people who start off as some kind of opponent level. Player character versions have a minimum level, and towns of these things are really small:

• Black Monstrous Races
  Demons
  Ghosts
  Medusa
  Wisps
  Blue Monstrous Races
  Djinn
  Tritons
  Yakfolk
  Green Monstrous Races
  Loci (Dryads, Naiads, Nymphs, whatever)
  Sphinx
  Treefolk
  Red Monstrous Races
  Dragons
  Giants
  Ogres
  Slaad
  Trolls
  White Monstrous Races
  Angels
  Blink Dogs
  Unicorns

Straight up beasts (like Basilisks and Displacer Beasts) can be added at whim. However, there can also be some legendary races. These races inherently have more than one color and can be totally pimp. They also have an excuse to be very rare and have no major effect on the setting because they are legendary. Some of the Legendary Races to be used include:

• Beholders (Red/Black)
  Ilithid (Blue/Black)
  Titans (Blue/White)

But the key concept of legendary races is that you can actually write a book later on called “Races of Legend” or something that has a list of them.


The difference between a player character and an NPC is that a Player Character definitely has a “destiny” - meaning that they get to have a full complement of special abilities for their level. An NPC may be the same way, or they may only have a limited selection of level-appropriate abilities. So when you're up against a 6th level Troll, it has a 6th level attack and a 6th level passive regeneration defense – but that's it. It does not have a list of 6th level options, and it probably doesn't have a 6th level finishing move. In this way, monsters don't do anything numerically inappropriate for the level you are fighting them, but their inherent tactical limitations make them defeatable by players.

Races offer racial powers of various levels that a character can select. So even if you happen to be playing a Red Character you can grab yourself some scattered blue powers if you happen to be a Merfolk. Essentially racial substitution levels are built into the race.

And the basic book would probably only have one or two sample races for each color. So out of the PHB you'd be choosing from:

• Dwarf
  
• Elf
  
• Halfling
  
• Human
  
• Merfolk
  
• Orc
  
• Risen
  
• Tiefling

All the others would get a picture and a brief description, but they would get rules later. This way the core races could get more explanation and playtest time.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

1196789806[/unixtime]]If you really think those two scenarios are lame, then the 'charge up' period would basically be painting a target long enough for the air strike to get them.

That really is the idea. Charge up on a target so you can kick that targets ass. No transferring your charge from crappy targets to good ones. Especially no transferring your charge from manufactured targets to real ones.

You don't want the PCs to deliberately not kill a mook in the gatehouse just so they have a bunch of novas ready to rock in the throne room.

[Catharz]

1196860722[/unixtime]]

1196789806[/unixtime]]If you really think those two scenarios are lame, then the 'charge up' period would basically be painting a target long enough for the air strike to get them.

That really is the idea. Charge up on a target so you can kick that targets ass. No transferring your charge from crappy targets to good ones. Especially no transferring your charge from manufactured targets to real ones.

You don't want the PCs to deliberately not kill a mook in the gatehouse just so they have a bunch of novas ready to rock in the throne room.

The issue remains that to do this reasonably you declare a finishing move on a target, and three rounds later you can take an action to use that finishing move (unless you decided to start charging up for something else). This means that you have to be careful about targeting restrictions. A character could sneak up on someone, charge up for three rounds and then smash them into the ground.

And forcing someone to attack the same target every round before unleashing a storm of vengeance is silly for two reasons. The first is that it destroys a lot of a character's flexibility. You know in advance what you're going to do once you select a target: attack them until you can use your finishing move, or until they die (whichever comes first). Second, if you're fighting an orc warband then you attack the ground (because it won't die on you).

[Username17]

Maintaining a standard combat length.

It is an article of faith amongst most game designers and that having combats become notably shorter or longer as characters go up in level is undesirable. I don't actually wholly agree. I think that as one rises in level that one should take a longer time to blast through same and higher level opponents, and go through mooks faster. By the time one gets to the Epic landscape, one should be wracking up large numbers of kills every round and a boss battle should individually be a major undertaking.

What this means is that multi-target attacks should be more common, easier to use, and larger in effect the higher level you get. What this also means is that the encounter standards should stress higher level characters fighting larger numbers of mooks rather than just larger mooks. And finally, this means that [Average Hit Points / Average Damage Output] should approach infinity as level approaches infinity.

Seriously. The system should be divergent because you're only ever going to see level 30 even in the crazy land of the super epic.

Now one could jolly well do this by having Hit Points increase proportionately faster than damage output; or by having attacks hit less often for higher level characters; or any of a number of other schema. I suggest having characters reduce incoming damage due to armor and abilities while having hit points and damage rise proportionately in a very similar fashion. I suggest this because I am a very bitter individual and Mike Mearls is a douche.

-Username17

[Koumei]

1196898907[/unixtime]]I suggest this because I am a very bitter individual and Mike Mearls is a douche.