Where we've found 4e distinctly fun from other DnD editions:
1. the movement- and area-based nature of combat
2. the variety of tactical styles among the classes (and the number of classes)
Our problems with it:
1. Character creation's sheer amount of planning and choosing among if-thens and +1s just for combat effectiveness is not fun;
2. Running a character requires too much book-referencing (or too much book-to-sheet copying);
3. Combat feels like punching a sandbag for hours with small danger or consequence:
We will try these fixes:
-Drop feats entirely. (for multiclassing, see the next item)
-You are not limited to your class when selecting encounters, dailies, and (maybe) utilities. (You must still obey implement, beast, etc key words and cannot select more powers than you would ordinarily).
-Half-elves get an extra encounter (instead of at-will) power as an encounter power.
-Halve monster hp.
-Player characters get 2-3 hp/lv, not 5-6.
Has anyone tried something like this or sought to solve the same problems but differently? Any do's or don't do's?
PS: Before posting:
Slow combat is not the fault of our game table; I limit turns in combat to 10-15 seconds. Monsters usually do flee when bloodied or when the battle is obviously lost.
Do not recommend Character Builder. Tho' power cards would help, we have Macs, limited funds, and the problem is in too many choices, not lack of math courses.
I do like role-playing; I like it so much I'd rather be doing it instead of picking new +1s for my characters' combat blocks.
Feat removal
Not only does this kill customization, it also stops many archetypes from being built. I also don't see how this will speed up anything. If the issue is people don't know what their feats do, then you as a DM need to step up, if the character can't come up with an action that sounds like a hold action.
Extra at-wills
Do you mean everyone gets every at-will? Because if you thought there was too much referencing books, then your in for a surprise. Aside from a few gimmick combos (paladin with eyebite, etc) players won't gain any power. Almost every at-will does about the same amount of damage, and those that aren't the same stat as the "base class" will be useless.
To put it another way, how often do your players make melee basic attacks? That will be how often the "off class" at wills will be used. All of the class at wills will take twice as long to be used due to checking all of their options.
Just to recap real quick, Extra at-wills will mean players will take longer taking their turn, and will not increase the power of characters in a significant manner.
Less HP
This will speed up the game. I'd be tempted to not reduce the PCs and reduce only certain monsters, but that's up to you.
Having not played at your game I can't say what the "flow" at the table is like, if players take forever deciding their actions, I would look there before I tried changing rules.
If you're wanting your encounters to move more quickly, then you need to consider encounter design. Are you using monsters several levels higher than the players? Don't. Are you using higher-level soldiers? Really don't. Are you making encounters with too many soldiers and not enough brutes or skirmishers? Are you making encounters without enemy artillery or controller archetypes? Your encounters should focus on more, lower-level skirmishers, brutes, and controller/artillery. This alone re-shapes the battlefield into a more event-filled smooth-flowing process.
If your encounters are still moving too slow, you should look at your table habits. Who keeps track of your initiative? You may want to have a player do that. Do you use NPCs during combat? Make them into companion characters. Spread out the responibilities, and focus more on discribing actions, makeing the fight more interesting, and keeping track of monster tactics. Find out what is taking you the most time at the table, and find a way to make it easier and smoother.
You might also take a look at your players' table habits. Do they write down their abilities on easy-to-reference note cards, or do they just use the vanilla character sheets? Are they trying to keep track of 12 different modifiers and calculating their hit bonus every single swing? They shouldn't need to do that, most characters only have one or two circumstantial bonii (and even then, they're only +1 or +2, generally). The more your players write down, they less they need to reference books.
If your combat takes so long because eventually all your players have exhausted their options, they know how the fight is going to end, they're down to at-wills and grinding down monster hit points? Consider having the remaining monsters flee (this counts as defeating them for purposes of xp). If the fight is already one, and you know the very, very obvious outcome (for instance, there are just two monsters left versus your party, none of which are bloodied) just have the next hit kill the monsters. Your players might not even catch onto this sometimes, particularly if the monsters are already bloodied.
If you still want your combat to move quickly, get over faster, and make it far more risky, consider halving all hit point pools. Your monsters max hit points equals their previous bloodied value (Your gooble-gobblies have 25hp and are blooded at 17hp, instead of 50hp bloodied at 25). For players, bring their total hit points to their bloodied value, but do not change their surge value. I've heard this makes combat end much, much faster. Before you do this, though, ask your players if they think this is an OK decision. Don't just spring it on them.
Not sure what you mean by taking any non-at-wills you like. Are you saying grabbing multiple encounters/dailies per level? That kind of destroys the rest of the customization.
The half-elf dilettante works great as is in my experience. Making it an extra encounter would triple if not quadruple the number of half-elves in your party I bet. I would play a half-elf for it.
Halving monster hp - I have no idea. You've got some great suggestions already. Test it out. Post back how it worked best for you. I'm curious. Though I'm leaning towards the more making more monsters flee and just letting the next hit kill the monsters if the fight is just dragging out certain victory. Don't kill them as soon as the PCs get an edge, let them tell the monster is a toughie, but don't let it take an hour.
Player hp per level - Test it with your monster hp. You could easily not take enough away for lower levels and at the same time end up with not near enough hp for high paragon and epic tier.
2) Half-elves: seems irrelevant, and also seems to tip the scales even more in the favor of the PCs, rather than place any balance (not even sure if that is what you meant to do with this variant)
3) Monster HP: achieves what you stated you want with regards to sandbag-punching, makes monsters easier to kill and speeds up fights
4) Player HP: achieves what you stated you want with regards to danger, makes PCs easier to kill and speeds up deaths
Together variants 3 and 4 make surviving fights tougher for the PCs, while making them easier to end, so I guess it shortens things alot, but without adjusting damage from powers, this means resting will need to occur more often, something that D&D 4e tried to fix with the higher HP and healing surge mechanic. I like the 75% rule, and use that since its a good balance between both ends of that spectrum.
I have fixed the top post to be clearer; I am not giving anyone more at-wills.
Feats customize, but most merely accentuate abilities you already have (tho' channel divinity feats are another thing); they seem less dear than powers for customization, and they're easier to cut off from the rest of the system. Tactically selecting 16 or so of these optimizing doodads over the course of a character's career is a tad tiresome, as it expends more time and effort in character creation/preparation that could be spent playing the adventure; that's my problem.
I am aware the loss of feats casts a pall over the Invoker class but have not actually tested the difference this makes. (We haven't played one yet.)
For more clarification: character turns in combat are limited to 10-15 seconds. Monsters usually do flee when bloodied or when the battle is obviously lost, but halving hp makes this apply even sooner, and they still have time to use all their bloodied and other fancy abilities.
Selecting something for your character every other time you level up is tiresome. Expending time in character creation that could be spent in the adventure.
I am severly worried about where the currrent D&D "crowd" is going. But maybe it's always been this way and I've been in my own little bubble. We used to spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half making one character. It gets cut down to 15-45 minutes (rarely 45), and we're still trying to chop it down. Pretty soon we're just going to want pre-made packages.
If your party actually finds taking feats tiresome, then my party will take yours. They are on the edge of level 4 and are chomping at the bit to get their new feats.
To me what slows a lot of 4e down isn't the feats, but the powers.
I am debating on cutting at wills from the game, and asking people to go back to the tried and true "Basic attack". Maybe letting caster classes keep "Magic Missile" equivalents as a class feature or something.
I know the argument is that people don't like the monotony of "I basic attack again", but I think that was compared to 3.X where it was "I cast this spell and my turn takes 25 min because it is an 8th level spell" "Ok I basic attack" or maybe "I power attack for 4".
In 4e where no one players turn takes more than 4-5 min provided they know their "spells" even on the highest level spells, I don't think people will feel slighted if they "basic attack" again.
I am also thinking of re-organizing how encounters and dailies work. More along the lines of "You know all your encounters and dailies forever, but you can only use X per encounter/per day"
Also, I agree a lot of those annoying "+1 to arbitrary thing sometimes" feats are "unfun" and are more of a math fix than a fun choice.
I am seeing a disturbing trend here.
Selecting something for your character every other time you level up is tiresome. Expending time in character creation that could be spent in the adventure.
I am severly worried about where the currrent D&D "crowd" is going. But maybe it's always been this way and I've been in my own little bubble. We used to spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half making one character. It gets cut down to 15-45 minutes (rarely 45), and we're still trying to chop it down. Pretty soon we're just going to want pre-made packages.
If your party actually finds taking feats tiresome, then my party will take yours. They are on the edge of level 4 and are chomping at the bit to get their new feats.
Indeed, feat selection is fun, and normally builds onto a character.
Krusk: I do have to agree with the opinion you have of certain feats (I am guessing one such is feat Weapon/Implement Expertise..). Also that daily/encounter thing you speak of sounds like a nice lil throwback to earlier editions, makes your spells more..a part of your character. course I never really noticed when a spell I learned was taken off the list, except with replacement. Not including replacement, this happens only 8 times during the life of a PC. Course, you could create a schedule of learning different encounters and dailies, instead of allowing replacement at any level..
-Drop feats entirely. (Most feats are little boosts in certain circumstances or merely accentuate abilities you already have; for multiclassing, see the next item.)
I often think I'd be happier without feats too -- mostly they just add fiddly little modifiers that slow the game down. The biggest reason I haven't experimented with dropping them is: stuff like skill training, ritual caster and linguist. These things actually have a noticeable impact on your character, so I don't want to just throw them out as options.
-Halve monster hp.
-Player characters get 2-3 hp/lv, not 5-6.
I don't mess with PC hp, but I do lower monster hp and jack their damage. (I find that when 4e combat is really boring it's because monster damage is so pathetic.) I also have many monsters flee or surrender at bloodied, too. It adds a bit of reality to the game and shortens fights that desperately need to be shortened.
I've found that doing those three things makes fights just about right; long enough to feel dangerous and exciting to the players but not too deadly.
Well i encourage my players to research their character abilities after every game. i do this myself. I check what they have and try to build a trap or encounter where that ability makes him stand out. If he fails to notice i tell him whathe could have done. They are usually suprised and next session they are a little more prepared and have remembered a bit more details about their chars. This hastens their turns incredebly.
Also if they have labtops i encourage using the dnd dice roll application(google it) it's free and eliminates time to look for the right die.
(If u have a labtop)I use an MS excel, or it's equivalent, and make encounter sheet to track status efffects, damage, etc per round, This helps alot to remind you of all of those status effects who has em and when to save.
(if u don't have a labtop)I used to task someone, usually the most experienced dnd player, to remind us(the whole table table) who had status effects at the begining of each round or if he noticed we forgot(the most impressive tracking i saw a player do was he made a list of chars and then colums next to it to represent rounds and made symbols in place of effects and a little leyend at the bottom of the page). Another player was tasked with terrain effects or prone status. and so on.It helped to train them in Dming in case someone wanted to give Dming a try and made my job much easier. needless to say the game was faster.
The first thing you should do is ask your players if they feel that selecting feats is unfun or if they enjoy it.
The second thing you should do is have your players make their characters before they show up. It's such a simple fix. If you are losing time to PCs making their characters at game time, let them do it at home, I know when I DM I plan stuff before game time, let the PCs do the same.
No radical changes to balance and killing of customization required, just homework.
I am seeing a disturbing trend here.
Selecting something for your character every other time you level up is tiresome. Expending time in character creation that could be spent in the adventure.
I am severly worried about where the currrent D&D "crowd" is going. But maybe it's always been this way and I've been in my own little bubble. We used to spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half making one character. It gets cut down to 15-45 minutes (rarely 45), and we're still trying to chop it down. Pretty soon we're just going to want pre-made packages.
If your party actually finds taking feats tiresome, then my party will take yours. They are on the edge of level 4 and are chomping at the bit to get their new feats.
I've played 0e thru 3e and I don't remember spending this much time customizing a character's statblock each level before (tho' I could have if I used 2e's Player Options). The trend I see is character doodads to pick grow more numerous each edition: 2e introduced non-combat proficiencies (aka skills), 3e simplified skills but introduced feats, 4e simplified skills and organized feats better but increased their number and introduced powers.
4e made the customization granted by skills very quick and simple to accomplish by consolidating skills and having only trained and untrained, class and not (rather than the myriad degrees of access and training that cross-class skills and skill points left). Maybe if I gave each character only 3 feats each tier, all at the start of their respective tiers (and no feats outside of these), it would have the same quick and simple effect.
That kinda takes out the 'building up your character' element out of feats completely. Besides they are more than just numbers if you make them more. A level increase is more than just "you get feats"; it represents a point in the character's life where their training and hard work paid off (it just gets represented by the numbers). Going ten levels without feat development means I just get numbers in the other areas, and I can talk about it but its not the same since those are more general experience reflections. If you do that, its like telling me I can't explain my new aptitudes every so often with in-character statements like, "I spent my offtime training with this bow; watch me now!".
So I think feat removal from the system or grouping them in chunks like that is not good from at least the RP side of it. Same with dumping powers out, and going "okay I have these, lets roll". It takes some of the gradual progression element, that is actually quite enjoyable to me at least, out of it.
IMHO of course.
-Regards
Whereas too much time is spent in character creation instead of actual adventuring;Whereas running a character requires too much book-referencing (or too much book-to-sheet copying)
Shssss Don't tell to anyone its a Secret : CLick here for the MAGIC that will solve all your creation problem. take 10 min max to build a char lvl 5 if you have a basic knoweldge of what you want to create.
To me what slows a lot of 4e down isn't the feats, but the powers.
I am debating on cutting at wills from the game, and asking people to go back to the tried and true "Basic attack". Maybe letting caster classes keep "Magic Missile" equivalents as a class feature or something.
I know the argument is that people don't like the monotony of "I basic attack again", but I think that was compared to 3.X where it was "I cast this spell and my turn takes 25 min because it is an 8th level spell" "Ok I basic attack" or maybe "I power attack for 4".
In 4e where no one players turn takes more than 4-5 min provided they know their "spells" even on the highest level spells, I don't think people will feel slighted if they "basic attack" again.
I am also thinking of re-organizing how encounters and dailies work. More along the lines of "You know all your encounters and dailies forever, but you can only use X per encounter/per day"
Also, I agree a lot of those annoying "+1 to arbitrary thing sometimes" feats are "unfun" and are more of a math fix than a fun choice.
I think this would be cool, are you thinking of formalizing it?
"Wanna know why I use a hammer? Me pappy always smote the iron, saying, "Wait, and fate'll burn ye; shape it while it glows. Ye can't be there forever, but your marks stay when you go." Even when he's ash by kiln, his hammer sees me grow.
[Weapon Focus: +1 damage with hammers]
[Cleric with Astral Fire, Skill Training: Intimidate, Mettle]
"...Now you've done it. I don't know what kind of priestess she's supposed to be, but all those years stuck in a stone cell with switches to her knuckles tempered an inner fire that was an altogether different color from the ones the sisters intended."
Story will fit anywhere, anytime. Powers and feats can inspire character trademarks and idiosyncrasies as much as simple class selection and ability scores do in Basic D&D, tho' will more specifics.
I have always selected feats based on either personality or combat effectiveness, but neither seemed to build character further, and combat effectiveness alone is a poor companion for a story. I will try introducing this story-from-feats idea, you mention, babyj:
1. select feats for effectiveness
2. players derive new stories from those feats.
Thank you; I'll see if this makes character creation more play than chore.
The second thing you should do is have your players make their characters before they show up. It's such a simple fix. If you are losing time to PCs making their characters at game time, let them do it at home, I know when I DM I plan stuff before game time, let the PCs do the same.
No radical changes to balance and killing of customization required, just homework.
I wouldn't even say it's a matter of homework, but I agree.
I have two characters in two different campaigns, and I know exactly what their next available feat is going to be, and I have wish lists for what magic items I want for them. My dragonborn fighter/paladin is level 8, but I've already got plans for what feats and magic items he's going to try to get as far as level 14. I know what paragon path and epic destiny he's going to take as well. And it fits within the role that I want for him.
I've got the info written in a memo text file I keep on my laptop's desktop. If I'm waiting on a download, I pull out some books and look for stuff that my character might want. I spend more time on the forum and on Wikipedia than I do with this sort of thing.
I can now clarify a core problem: that kind of planning and wish-listing is not fun (for us). The reasons I'm using 4e (not, say, Basic DnD) is:
1. the movement- and area-based nature of combat
2. the variety of tactical styles among the classes (and the number of classes)
...But the amount of choices and planning that character creation entails are too much.
My current thoughts:
1. If these "extra" choices were dropped, we wouldn't have to deal with them.
2. If the planning and wish-listing had more to do with story and character development (take or leave the connection to combat), they would be fun.
Wish-lists..if put in that form, are really nothing more than which stats you want boosted. But what other form can players put them in when its still to come? Its kind of like buying a magical item during higher level character creation, versus finding it during the course of a quest. If I have it before I joined the party, I as a player probably want to explain it myself. But wish-lists...well those are different. They are fine, so long as the loot doesn't drop out of the sky, so to speak. While feats should be something the player decides to elaborate on, I think it's up to the DM to make those fit, and build character/plot using those wish-lists and whatever else they have to go on.
Ex: Lvl. 1 Bard created, and the player says "Wishlist: 3rd level wondrous, a Fochlucan Bandore". This is just an implement at that point, something to use with his spells to increase their effectiveness. But let's say that I'm the DM. I might put them on a quest around level 2, in which there's a travelling thief that stole the merchant's stock of ritual components, as well as some stuff a neighborly old man left him in his will. Among the various items is a dusty lute (basically the bandore, since it can truly can be any instrument and still fit) and a few silver figurines of famous princesses. The merchant tells them, "Bring back those bottles and me lady statues! Oh, and ye can keep whatever else ye find, plus that dustbox..heck I never played it anyways.."
Now when that Bard finds the dusty guitar in the theif's loot, and (hopefully) gives it a strum, he finds that while old and dusty - it has a vibrant tone that seems to bring up thoughts of fervor and strength. There is also a struggle attached to the obtaining of the Bandore, and so it becomes a prized part of the Bard's equipment.
Every element of this game, be it an item, feat, what have you..can be more than mechanical and thus, interesting and fun.
I can now clarify a core problem: that kind of planning and wish-listing is not fun (for us). The reasons I'm using 4e (not, say, Basic DnD) is:
1. the movement- and area-based nature of combat
2. the variety of tactical styles among the classes (and the number of classes)
...But the amount of choices and planning that character creation entails are too much.My current thoughts:
1. If these "extra" choices were dropped, we wouldn't have to deal with them.
2. If the planning and wish-listing had more to do with story and character development (take or leave the connection to combat), they would be fun.
You as a DM can limit the races available for a certain campaing. Choose the best ones that fit to the story you want to tell. Same for clases and items. Less options less stress and it's logical.
Later on you might create another campaing that include those races or clases u left out. Remember as DM you are the game designer. simple as that.
This reminds me of my first go as a DM. the party was made of goblins, undead, humans, dragonborn, tieflings, warforged, deva, and elfs, alignments ranged from lawful good to chaotic evil. and deities they worshiped were, vecna, raven queen, kord, bahamut, corellon, avandra, Sune, loth, elistraee.
Result?
They stabed, beat, stole, slaped, assasinated, poisoned, framed and murdered each other before they even got out of the first town.
OK, last thing I am gonna say about this off-topicness (which I enjoy but I will save the thread readers!):
Wish-lists..if put in that form, are really nothing more than which stats you want boosted. But what other form can players put them in when its still to come? Its kind of like buying a magical item during higher level character creation, versus finding it during the course of a quest. If I have it before I joined the party, I as a player probably want to explain it myself. But wish-lists...well those are different. They are fine, so long as the loot doesn't drop out of the sky, so to speak. While feats should be something the player decides to elaborate on, I think it's up to the DM to make those fit, and build character/plot using those wish-lists and whatever else they have to go on.
Every element of this game, be it an item, feat, what have you..can be more than mechanical and thus, interesting and fun.
I should have mentioned that I do chat with my DM about what I'm looking at. A long time ago, I was eyeing the throwing sheild. Instead of just getting gold and buying it, or even finding it at the end of an encounter, Chupa (my character) happened to not get as much treasure at the end of an encounter. The group continued on, and gets into a chase with some orc raiders. One of them chucks a shield at Chupa, and Chupa gets right angry when the shield returned to the orc. I readied an action to have him try to catch it next time the orc chucks it, the encounter turned into a deadly game of catch.
The group continued on, and gets into a chase with some orc raiders. One of them chucks a shield at Chupa, and Chupa gets right angry when the shield returned to the orc. I readied an action to have him try to catch it next time the orc chucks it, the encounter turned into a deadly game of catch.
RollerBall!!
I think this would be cool, are you thinking of formalizing it?
I can try to bang something out tonight for you if you want. I'll drop a new thread about it whenever I finish it.
Feats customize, but most merely accentuate abilities you already have (tho' channel divinity feats are another thing); they seem less dear than powers for customization, and they're easier to cut off from the rest of the system. Tactically selecting 16 or so of these optimizing doodads over the course of a character's career is a tad tiresome, as it expends more time and effort in character creation/preparation that could be spent playing the adventure; that's my problem.
I'm very confused by this statement. Character building/customization takes less time than in any previous edition (and most other games, honestly).
Leveling up should take 5 to 15 minutes, max, none of which should be table time. Powers are fun, but Feats are the flavor. Personally, I would have a very hard time playing a character in which I could not select feats.
It seems like you have a table full of optimizers, but if you do, I would expect them to have their progression mapped out ahead of time, simply printing off the level snapshot from the CB every session... Where is the actual time going?
EDIT: Clarity! It occurs to me that I may be taking DDI for granted. I could imagine selecting feats to be a rather arduous process if I wasn't simply presented with a list of feats for which I was eligible at any given level. I'm not about to suggest you go drop $70 on a year of DDI to fix your issue, but I will heartily endorse it.
May I suggest maptools, pretty easy to use and there is plenty of pre-designed "frameworks" that you can use. The program will even make record keeping easy. I use it as a white board to keep track of players healing surges, encounter, dailys, etc; as well as doing the rolls for monsters.
Hell you don't even really need math skills put the info in once, it does it all on its own.
Feats customize, but most merely accentuate abilities you already have (tho' channel divinity feats are another thing); they seem less dear than powers for customization, and they're easier to cut off from the rest of the system. Tactically selecting 16 or so of these optimizing doodads over the course of a character's career is a tad tiresome, as it expends more time and effort in character creation/preparation that could be spent playing the adventure; that's my problem.
I'm very confused by this statement. Character building/customization takes less time than in any previous edition (and most other games, honestly).
I'd say that character building takes less time than it did in 3e, but before that making characters and leveling up was sinfully fast. [Some might even say boring.] Unless you're using the 2e Skills & Powers book, you can make a character in 5-10 minutes without even opening your PHB. Leveling up is usually a matter of rolling your hit die, maybe dropping your Thac0 by 1 and maybe assigning a skill point. (Yes, a skill point.)
EDIT: Clarity! It occurs to me that I may be taking DDI for granted. I could imagine selecting feats to be a rather arduous process if I wasn't simply presented with a list of feats for which I was eligible at any given level. I'm not about to suggest you go drop $70 on a year of DDI to fix your issue, but I will heartily endorse it.
It's true, many of us don't use DDI. I for example would much rather read a book than a screen. One might argue that if a computer program is necessary for ease of play, then the game is in fact too involved. (I don't happen to think so, but it is a solid argument.)
I'd say that character building takes less time than it did in 3e, but before that making characters and leveling up was sinfully fast.
Fair enough!
It's true, many of us don't use DDI. I for example would much rather read a book than a screen. One might argue that if a computer program is necessary for ease of play, then the game is in fact too involved. (I don't happen to think so, but it is a solid argument.)
Well, like any RPG, your options are strewn across a massive array of sources. I don't think that implies any additional involvement or complexity (which means I agree with you), it's simply an inevitability of game publishing.
I would much rather read a book than a screen too, but DDI is well worth my money. Find the exact text of a power from any place in the world? Yes, please.
...but that's enough shilling for right now.
EDIT: Clarity! It occurs to me that I may be taking DDI for granted. I could imagine selecting feats to be a rather arduous process if I wasn't simply presented with a list of feats for which I was eligible at any given level. I'm not about to suggest you go drop $70 on a year of DDI to fix your issue, but I will heartily endorse it.
Indeed..books are much more true to the "soul" of D&D - but DDI does have enormous benefits for a group of players..even just one player or the DM having it in a group. It might be the best thing since the d20! (our sliced bread)
In the interest of brevity during level up and creation, of course..
I love books, too. I buy pretty much every one and read through them a lot. But for just character creation and leveling, the CB is amazing. Not to mention when one of your players "misplaces" their character sheet, you can just print off another one.
If you really can't afford it, I'll say it again, get your group to pitch in. If they refuse, then they can stop complaing about character creation time or go play another version/game.