This summer I started playing some basic D&D with him and it was a lot of fun. Now I want to start using 4th edition rules. I considered staying with basic longer but decided against it for two reason: 1) I really like 4th edition mechanics and 2) even though he is only 7 I expect 4th edition or similar editions (e.g. 4.5) to be around well into his teenage years.
The process I went through in developing 4th ed (lite) is to eliminate rules that were not part of the core combat mechanics and to eliminate the tactical detail of 4th edition (mostly conditions and powers that shifted allies or enemies). My goal was to change as little as possible and concentrating on taking out stuff that could be added back in later. As in the early editions of the game combat will dominate the rules and freeform role-playing will dominate non-combat encounters. I also eliminated options in character creation and progression. These also can be added back in later.
Now on to what I came up with.
1) Feats, Skills, Rituals, and Utility powers were eliminated. These are things that can easily be added later when he is ready for them.
2) For races I eliminated the Tiefling and Dragonborn. I also call the Eladrin and Elves Wood and High Elves, respectively (the class choices were to give the game more of a feeling of earlier editions and not necessarily t simplify).
3) I limited the classes to Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard. The only role I don’t have covered is the leader role. That is a deliberate decision based on the simplifying the tactical complexity. More classes can be added later. I am thing about putting in the Swordmage when I get the FRPH.
4) I limited each class to 2 at-wills, 1 encounter, and 1 daily power at 1st level. Then at every other level they get an encounter or daily power added (an encounter at 3rd, a daily at 5th, an encounter at 7th, and a daily at 9th). For now I am limiting progression to the Heroic tiers. Each class will only get one class feature (e.g. Fighter will get Fighter Weapon Talent, Rangers will get Hunter’s Quarry, and Wizards will get Arcane Implement Mastery). Below are the attack powers that I choose for each level.
Fighter
1st Lvl At-Will: Cleave
1st Lvl At-Will: Reaping Strike
1st Lvl Encounter: Steel Serpent Strike
1st Lvl Daily: Brute Strike
3rd Lvl Encounter: Precise Strike
5th Lvl Daily: Rain of Steel
7th Lvl Encounter: Reckless Strike
9th Lvl Daily: Victorious Surge
Ranger
1st Lvl At-Will: Careful Attack
1st Lvl At-Will: Twin Strike
1st Lvl Encounter: Dire Wolverine Strike
1st Lvl Daily: Split the Tree
3rd Lvl Encounter: Shadow Wasp Strike
5th Lvl Daily: Excruciating Shot
7th Lvl Encounter: Hawk’s Talon
9th Lvl Daily: Close Quarters Shot
Wizard
1st Lvl At-Will: Magic Missle
1st Lvl At-Will: Scorching Burst
1st Lvl Encounter: Burning Hands
1st Lvl Daily: Sleep
3rd Lvl Encounter: Shock Sphere
5th Lvl Daily: Fireball
7th Lvl Encounter: Fire Burst
9th Lvl Daily: Wall of Fire
This is about as far as I got. My question for the forum is what rules of thumb should I use to nerf the monsters given that the players will be missing the leader role and the more tactically detailed attack powers. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.
I've been DM'ing a game for my sons (11 and 7), their friends and one of the dads. My 7-year old plays in this and does pretty well. I assume your thinking of doing something for just your 7-year old, right?
I'm not sure that you'll need to nerf the monsters too much. Probably include more healing potions as treasure than you otherwise would to make up for the lack of healing powers.
I've been DM'ing a game for my sons (11 and 7), their friends and one of the dads. My 7-year old plays in this and does pretty well. I assume your thinking of doing something for just your 7-year old, right?
I will try to get my 11 yo nephew too. I will have to see if any of their friends are interested, but probably just the two of them as players for now. I am thinking about having them each run 2 characters.
You aren't in the Detroit-area are you? Maybe we can join your campaign?
I will try to get my 11 yo nephew too. I will have to see if any of their friends are interested, but probably just the two of them as players for now. I am thinking about having them each run 2 characters.
You aren't in the Detroit-area are you? Maybe we can join your campaign?
Sorry, no - Seattle area. Probably a bit too long a commute.:P
I can definitely see that limiting total choices is good if you only have the 7 year old (or even him plus one more).
I'm not sure that you'll need to nerf the monsters too much. Probably include more healing potions as treasure than you otherwise would to make up for the lack of healing powers.
On the healing thing, maybe I will allow a free healing surge during each encounter and also allow the the normal second wind surge.
my 6-y-o son loves it! :D
so now he loves "playing D&D", and he doesn't want to just roll the dice and do a minis battle, no, he wants the full story!
so he's playing the good guys, I give him a "quest", there's some inbetween encounter, and usually a final battle.
I use only the minis' basic attacks, defenses and HP, sometimes their encounter powers, it works great and lets him do some maths.
for more diversity, you can download some mini cards and stats somewhere from the WotC website.
so 4e lite? take the minis and maybe add some skills, maybe ability stats.
AKW
I left his feats and class abilities in, but they're more "behind the scenes" things, and I don't even have them on his version of his character sheet.
He's got a list of all of his at will, encounter, and daily abilities, and understands roughly what each one does, but during combat I just have him tell me what general action he wants to take, and then we translate it to the board. I don't have him making any real tactical decisions apart from who he wants to fight or where he wants to move. I try not to bog him down with the minutiae of shifting and opportunity attacks, but I tell him when and where they creep up, and try to explain what's going on outside of the mechanical descriptions.
Having a steady stream of potions helps. Beyond his Second Wind, he's got Comeback Strike, and that's usually enough, though I tend to fudge a die roll or two when he dips too heavily into the realm of bloody-dom. He also just picked up whatever the magical armor is that gives you a free healing surge as a daily ability.
What has really shocked me about the entire thing is how much he enjoys talking to random NPCs. He loves to interact with anyone who is willing to talk to him in game, and often remarks at how it's his favorite part of the game. In addition to that, the fact that the game world exists beyond the set "video game" path he's so used to also really took him by surprise. He really likes being able to wander around and go anywhere he wants.
The thing that has really REALLY taken me by surprise is the reaction he's had to some of the things that he did in the game. At one point in the last adventure, he attacked an NPC after talking to him for a couple of seconds, assuming that since he was a skeleton and on the battlemat, that it must be something that he was supposed to fight.
When the skeleton reacted by chastising him, soundly beating him to near death, and kicking him out of the dungeon, my son got really sad and apologetic because he thought he was going to be in trouble with me. The "morality play" aspect of a role playing game is something I never really thought about outside of the fact that so many games out there seem to degenerate into sociopathic murderfests, and it wasn't something I was expecting.
When we started playing, I saw the entire thing as mostly a trick to have him practice his addition and subtraction, and maybe occasionally do some abstract problem solving. I really wasn't expecting him to respond so strongly to the imaginative play, or to pour so much thought into the ethics of dungeon delving. We had an exchange earlier where he had threatened a pair of kobolds to try to squeeze information out of them and he flubbed the intimidation roll. Faced now with two kobolds who made the mistake of trying to call his bluff, he killed one of them in an attempt to convince the other one to start talking.
I didn't know what to do. My son ruthlessly murdered a helpless (albeit make-believe) creature and it was partially my fault. At the time I decided to ignore it but my initial reaction was to personify the kobold he just killed and make the other kobold her husband. In retrospect, I can't even begin to imagine what kind of damage that would have done to my son. If he felt guilty about picking a fight with a skeleton and was afraid that I was going to ground him, what would his reaction have been if he suddenly discovered that he had murdered someone's wife or mother?
As a DM I realize that I'm pretty big on consequences, and now I'm kinda worried about what my nine year old's reaction is going to be if I slip up and he notices my somewhat cynical view of how the world works. My main push is going to be to keep the world as black and white as possible, at least for now. The good guys are good guys and the monsters are monsters, unless everyone knows about it well in advance.
I know that a lot of the movies and television shows he watches involve things like this, but I think they afford him a level comfort since it's someone else making the decisions and dealing with the consequences of their actions.
So, in summation: make sure they understand their powers, a stream of healing potions never hurts, and don't warp their poor little psyches till they're at least teenagers.
My initial thought would be to do a more "back to the roots" style simplification with fighter, cleric, wizard (or perhaps those three plus thief/rogue). I'd do a similar thing with races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) but my son wants to play the new ones.
I like your charts with powers obtained at each level. That seems to make the rules flow a lot better. I was going to eliminate skills in my trimmed down version, but a couple of people on various boards have suggested that the new skills system is a lot simpler than 3E and that I should give them a try.
Overall, this concept of a "4E lite" rules set intrigues me. I bought the starter set as well as the "big 3" core rulebooks, but I think I would be happier (at least at the onset) with fewer options for my players. Perhaps later on I can gradually bring more of the rules into my game.....
Use the NPC templates for classes:
1 at-will, 1 encounter (+1 if over 10th level), 1 daily (+1 if over 20th level), and 1 utility (+1 if over 10th level, +1 if over 20th level).
Two skills per class, and Thief gets Stealth and Theivery in addition.
Humans still get an extra at-will, but half-elves use the at-will of another class as a second at-will (yes, I know that boosts their power), but... I'd also remove the half-elf's skill bonuses.
Next step, Classes:
Fighter, Thief, Magic-user, and Cleric.
Fighter- fighter class, I like your basic changes.
Thief- ranger class, but with the bonus skills I noted above, Sneak Attack as a class feature, and limit the abilities to ranged weapons (daggers return for the next attack: magic daggers). Utilities and class skills are from the rogue class.
Magic-user- warlock class, actually. Change everything to Int-based, give him the rituals as a class feature, and use wizard implements (staff/orb/wand) to replace warlock rods/pact blades. The one at-will is Eldrich Blast, and if a human wizard, give him Magic Missile as well.
Cleric- cleric class, with some exceptions. Healing Word becomes at-will, and you remove all str-based powers. Second class ability is Turn Undead as an encounter-power. I think the at-will should be lance of faith, and second at-will should be the Warlord's 'target ally makes a basic attack', with a bonus to attack based on cleric's charisma.
Now, comments on the four classes I suggested:
First, I expect he still likes BIG damage. This means striker. He will want to play the striker role very often. Which means each class needs to be primarily striker. Secondary roles are defender and leader. The other two have more classic secondary roles, 'A Wizard Did It' and skill-monkey. I can see good reason for opening the magic-user's choices to both warlock and wizard, but I don't know how much concern you have towards balance. Here's the two ways I'd mix the classes. If I didn't care about balance, both would be open, attack scores would be based on INT, and secondary effects would be on WIS. In concern for balance, encounter powers are from the warlock class, and dailies are from the wizard (Split utilities on a case-by-case basis, or the same way).
Now, because the characters (due to the NPC template) are limited to roughly 4-6 powers, then you want to halve any monster's hit points. This will reduce the number of rounds it will take to kill them.
From here, the first new class I would introduce is the Warlord, with it's STR/(int or cha) focus, and cast it as the mix of all four classes. He gets Thievery/Arcana/History, plus any one skill. I'd also call it the bard, and it gets one healing word per encounter. I would introduce this class once players want to mix two-three of the classes together.
I completely agree with your idea to remove the two 'unusual' races from their selection. On the other hand, they will eventually want access to other races. The first new race you introduce should have a strength bonus, and the second should be another small race. Which ones they are probably depends on what fiction they've read. (remember, Kender have a +2 racial bonus to theivery and 'pick-pocket' as a free action once-per-round at-will instead of halfling luck, but are otherwise identical)
I've said words like 'should' and 'will'. I don't mean that I am absolutely right, or that you've done anything wrong. I'm simply presenting my thoughts as to how to make '4e lite'. I gave some thought to it about a month after I got the books for my own reasons, and this is the first time I've put it into words.