A buncha changes I have concidered making - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

A buncha changes I have concidered making

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
stargazer_dragon
Jul 26, 2011 14:19:33 This is more for a personal list of things while I brainstorm. I like the basics of 4.0 but I would also like to see a lot changed, ben thinking of more or less writing a varient of the game and try it out just wanna brain storm and mull ideas over see if I can finetune a few thoughts and figure out what changes would improve the game to me.

[spoiler=Removing +1/2 level to most stats ]
   Ok to start with I hate +½ lvl to junk when I lvl up. There is no point to it the only effect is so you have more to do when you lvl up which I dislike having to erase half the char sheet to add this in. So removing ½ lvl from character lvl up and removing ½ lvl from monsters also.
[/sblock]

[spoiler=Paragon Paths ]
    Another thing I would like is if paragon paths included a list of powers you could select from when leveling up. I don’t want classes to stop giving a list of powers I just want paragon paths to have a power for each lvl from 11-20 that you could take instead of a class power if you wish. I mean a paragon path is more or less a specialized training; in essence it is equivalent of prestige classes from 3.5 so it I would like to have powers that were build specifically with the paragon path in mind. This gives a more special feal to paragon paths.
[/sblock]

[spoiler=Advanced races ]
Advanced races is another thing I would like to add in, To further explain I want to include a small list of powers selectable based on race. Power wise I want race and class to be similar, race powers should be innate abilities and stuff specific to the race. The player could then choose to gain either one of the races powers for that level or lower or one of the classes powers. Race powers should be built without role in mind and should include a few powers that would be good for any role. Powers should also use highest ability modifier so there good for any class. Race powers would also break the mold and use standard actions like class powers. I feel that race should be just as much of a impact on the character as class is. This further serves to make different chars more unique.
[/sblock]

[spoiler=Hybrid multi classing]

I also want to remove the current multi-class feats and replace them with a form of hybrid multi-class, I think hybrid had the feel of multicasting down and I want to make a line of feats that allows the effects of hybrid without actually choosing a hybrid. This means that with a couple feats you could take up to ½ of your encounter and/or ½ of your daily /utility powers and swap them out for the multi-class powers. A few more feats and you could gain some of the class features for that class just like you would gain them if you had made a hybrid. The advantage is you keep your main class features, disadvantage is it eats into your powers a touch more.
[/sblock]

[spoiler=Extended rest effects ]

Extended rests is something that I defiantly want to change, I have thought a lot about this one. What I have come up with so far is this. At the end of each encounter you regain HP as if you had spent a healing surge (you may still spend healing surges for further healing) At each mile stone you recover ½ your daily healing surges up to your max allowed. At each mile stone you also recover 1 daily power. (daily powers shouldn’t be used more then once every other encounter or so but perhaps at epic tier swap this to 2 daily powers)

The out come is that every 4 encounters you regain HP = to your max hp, you regain all of your daily healing surges, you regain 2 daily powers. You just no longer do it all at once and it isn’t triggered by a extended rest. This prevents you from having to try and make weaker encounters or reasons/ places for the pc to rest every 4 encounters or even more annoying the problem with when the players know they will only have the 1 battle that day. It maintains the same 4 encounter set up. Also this helps the party always have a few healing surges at the start of a fight since they recover them every other fight. I would personaly make it so they get a action point 1 fight and hit a milestone there next so they get something after every fight,

Alternately you could give them back ¼ of there daily healing surges after each encounter but seamed better to do it at every milestone. (also the dm is supposed to determine when a milestone happens sometimes it is 3 encounters if some are easy other times it is after a really hard fight even if that was the first encounter.)
[/sblock]

[spoiler=more to be added later ]
I am still brainstorming so will add more later, there is a bunch of other small things I would like to add / change.

[spoiler= ]

[/sblock]

[/sblock]

Feal free to leave feadback on any of the ideas I may well amend the idea before figuring out the full mechanics. The idea is to improve the game and the gaming experience and I am sure I will overlook a few things as I figure it all out.

#2
alitain
Jul 26, 2011 18:36:10 Well everything else aside, I'm mostly curious on your hatred for extended rests. They're a solid and good system. What you seem to have is basically not wanting the players to lose anything and keep fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and that's all they do. Not to mention you're bit about how players shouldn't use more than 1 daily power every other combat to me strikes as you trying to force your personal strategies on how you play the game on others. If someone wants to dish out their dailies, then they can. And then if they do it and they have more battles, tough that's their problem they made the choice.

It just seems like what you want it to make sure the players don't suffer really for using powers and all. I mean after 1 milestone most likely they'll have all their healing surges back because I don't know how many your group uses in a combat but we don't use many. Or if it's a really tough battle we use quite a few but usually are resting after that anyway.

I mean I guess it's to each their own. You seem to want a playing style that involves constant fighting with pretty much no downtime. That's cool if that's your thing, but it honestly isn't hard to let the group rest here and there sometimes. And if they can't rest they either figure that out and plan accordingly or use up all their powers early on and suffer.  This is system more seems to try and remove almost all penalties. They recover health automatically, HS, powers, etc really easily.

As for worrying about making weaker encounters and such, well not all encounters should be back breakingly hard all the time especially if they're successive battles with no downtime. The group should go against a couple weak battles leading to a boss, not four boss battles in a row. But again, if that's how you want to play by all means. You're system probably would work fine enough, but like I said it just seems to remove many of the penalties associated with burning through powers and such.
#3
stargazer_dragon
Jul 26, 2011 19:16:20

The key I think you are missing here though is during a extended rest they do not regain ANY healing surges or daily powers or HP. This addresses a more common issue then fighting 10 times in a day it addresses the issue when they fight once every few days. Like when traveling if they run into a random encounter or 2. even uber hard encounters become a lot easier when you know you can more then likaly blow your action point and dailies and surges becouse you just get them back after the fight.

As for healing after every encounter that I am still not sure about as it could be set to happen during extended rests instead of split and would make plenty of sence and effect the game only mildly, I was just tring to remove the issue where the party fights 1 encounter has a few days rest runs into anouther encounter has a rest. by setting HP recovery to after encounters representing the portion of there hp lost during combat that was purely moral and stamina.

So in short no it wasn't designed for them to never run out of healing surges or dailies and it wasn't designed so they can't use more then 1 daily during a encounter it was designed so extended rests don't recover all there resources and so they can recover resources without the need of a extended rest.
#4
alitain
Jul 26, 2011 20:26:50 The thing is, if the group only fights one battle in a day then they're traveling or something for a few days, it makes no sense that if they used all four of their dailies they wouldn't have them all back after the days of travel and rest. And I didn't miss the fact that extended rests don't do anything, that was clear.

Our group half the time only usually has a battle a day in are latest games. Works out fine enough, we travel, we rp, we fight, all is good.  Don't see where the issue is if that's what happens. We've also been in areas where the most rest you can get is a short rest and you go through a couple battles. We either waste powers or conserve them and push on, works fine. And then when there's down time we rest, recover, and continue on.

I guess I just don't see where the big problem is in leaving extended rests alone. They work fine in my mind. You're system seems to either hurt a group if they only have maybe one battle, or two battles split by a day or more where they would rest. If basically everything is attached to getting milestones then it could suck if they only face one battle in a day. I mean people have to sleep so you can't really expect a group to stay awake 24/7 till the next day and potential battle just to get a milestone to get powers and HS back.

But then if there are multiple encounters w/out a break in a day, you're going to be getting back HS quickly and most likely wont run down on powers until maybe the last battle in a day. Just seems a little problematic.
#5
stargazer_dragon
Jul 26, 2011 20:42:36 For starter the entire game balence if based on having about 4 encounters per day. If the players know they will have less then they use resources much more freely making the resource worth less and throwing the game balence off, likewise if you have more encounters then your resources are stretched further and therefore the balence is shifted in the other direction. Not saying you should never have less or more encounters in a day but on the average the game is balenced by 4 encounters a day

As for why you wouldn't regain your powers after a extended rest answer me this why do you regain them during a extended rest? why can you not use a encounter power round after round, why can't you use a daily power every encounter? the entire reason you don't get to use encounter powers at will and why you have to wait for dailies to recharge is for game balence. it's not like resting for 5 minutes suddenly lets you regain the use of a specific encounter power. I mean if we are using realism then theres no reason a fighter couldn't swing his sword and make a encounter power every single round. I mean you could argue that he gets tired but then why can he swing his sword in 1 way this round but is to tired to do it again untill he rests so he uses a harder more powerfull attack instead?

honestly if you want to get som realism you would have to assigne power points and make dailies cost x points and encounters cost conciderably less then let the player decide how to use up his power pool.

Which could actualy be a fun way to use encounter/daily power kinda like psionic classes
#6
stargazer_dragon
Jul 26, 2011 21:24:53 The thing is, if the group only fights one battle in a day then they're traveling or something for a few days, it makes no sense that if they used all four of their dailies they wouldn't have them all back after the days of travel and rest.

Perhaps count each full day without a encounter the same as a milestone. Thematicaly though perhaps your power is gathered during combat from the adreniline and actions. since you don't use your powers outside of combat perhaps only when you use your powers and form a bond with your power source do you have the connection that allows you to draw forth some of the energy that fuels your powers.

So basicaly during combat you use shadow powers which in tern creates a link betwean you and the shadowfell allowing you to draw some of the shadow energy from the shadow fell during a short rest a milestone would represent that you have managed to draw enough of this power to recover the use of some of your powers IE regain a daily power. This would also further thematicaly explain why you recover your encounter powers during a short rest. I mean it explains it better then why you magicaly regain the use of the powers during a extended rest. Least to me it makes sence more then sleaping and poof you regain the power to use your dailies again.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 stargazer_dragon Jul 26, 2011 14:19:33	This is more for a personal list of things while I brainstorm. I like the basics of 4.0 but I would also like to see a lot changed, ben thinking of more or less writing a varient of the game and try it out just wanna brain storm and mull ideas over see if I can finetune a few thoughts and figure out what changes would improve the game to me. [spoiler=Removing +1/2 level to most stats ] Ok to start with I hate +½ lvl to junk when I lvl up. There is no point to it the only effect is so you have more to do when you lvl up which I dislike having to erase half the char sheet to add this in. So removing ½ lvl from character lvl up and removing ½ lvl from monsters also. [/sblock] [spoiler=Paragon Paths ] Another thing I would like is if paragon paths included a list of powers you could select from when leveling up. I don’t want classes to stop giving a list of powers I just want paragon paths to have a power for each lvl from 11-20 that you could take instead of a class power if you wish. I mean a paragon path is more or less a specialized training; in essence it is equivalent of prestige classes from 3.5 so it I would like to have powers that were build specifically with the paragon path in mind. This gives a more special feal to paragon paths. [/sblock] [spoiler=Advanced races ] Advanced races is another thing I would like to add in, To further explain I want to include a small list of powers selectable based on race. Power wise I want race and class to be similar, race powers should be innate abilities and stuff specific to the race. The player could then choose to gain either one of the races powers for that level or lower or one of the classes powers. Race powers should be built without role in mind and should include a few powers that would be good for any role. Powers should also use highest ability modifier so there good for any class. Race powers would also break the mold and use standard actions like class powers. I feel that race should be just as much of a impact on the character as class is. This further serves to make different chars more unique. [/sblock] [spoiler=Hybrid multi classing] I also want to remove the current multi-class feats and replace them with a form of hybrid multi-class, I think hybrid had the feel of multicasting down and I want to make a line of feats that allows the effects of hybrid without actually choosing a hybrid. This means that with a couple feats you could take up to ½ of your encounter and/or ½ of your daily /utility powers and swap them out for the multi-class powers. A few more feats and you could gain some of the class features for that class just like you would gain them if you had made a hybrid. The advantage is you keep your main class features, disadvantage is it eats into your powers a touch more. [/sblock] [spoiler=Extended rest effects ] Extended rests is something that I defiantly want to change, I have thought a lot about this one. What I have come up with so far is this. At the end of each encounter you regain HP as if you had spent a healing surge (you may still spend healing surges for further healing) At each mile stone you recover ½ your daily healing surges up to your max allowed. At each mile stone you also recover 1 daily power. (daily powers shouldn’t be used more then once every other encounter or so but perhaps at epic tier swap this to 2 daily powers) The out come is that every 4 encounters you regain HP = to your max hp, you regain all of your daily healing surges, you regain 2 daily powers. You just no longer do it all at once and it isn’t triggered by a extended rest. This prevents you from having to try and make weaker encounters or reasons/ places for the pc to rest every 4 encounters or even more annoying the problem with when the players know they will only have the 1 battle that day. It maintains the same 4 encounter set up. Also this helps the party always have a few healing surges at the start of a fight since they recover them every other fight. I would personaly make it so they get a action point 1 fight and hit a milestone there next so they get something after every fight, Alternately you could give them back ¼ of there daily healing surges after each encounter but seamed better to do it at every milestone. (also the dm is supposed to determine when a milestone happens sometimes it is 3 encounters if some are easy other times it is after a really hard fight even if that was the first encounter.) [/sblock] [spoiler=more to be added later ] I am still brainstorming so will add more later, there is a bunch of other small things I would like to add / change. [spoiler= ] [/sblock] [/sblock] Feal free to leave feadback on any of the ideas I may well amend the idea before figuring out the full mechanics. The idea is to improve the game and the gaming experience and I am sure I will overlook a few things as I figure it all out.
#2 alitain Jul 26, 2011 18:36:10	Well everything else aside, I'm mostly curious on your hatred for extended rests. They're a solid and good system. What you seem to have is basically not wanting the players to lose anything and keep fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting and that's all they do. Not to mention you're bit about how players shouldn't use more than 1 daily power every other combat to me strikes as you trying to force your personal strategies on how you play the game on others. If someone wants to dish out their dailies, then they can. And then if they do it and they have more battles, tough that's their problem they made the choice. It just seems like what you want it to make sure the players don't suffer really for using powers and all. I mean after 1 milestone most likely they'll have all their healing surges back because I don't know how many your group uses in a combat but we don't use many. Or if it's a really tough battle we use quite a few but usually are resting after that anyway. I mean I guess it's to each their own. You seem to want a playing style that involves constant fighting with pretty much no downtime. That's cool if that's your thing, but it honestly isn't hard to let the group rest here and there sometimes. And if they can't rest they either figure that out and plan accordingly or use up all their powers early on and suffer. This is system more seems to try and remove almost all penalties. They recover health automatically, HS, powers, etc really easily. As for worrying about making weaker encounters and such, well not all encounters should be back breakingly hard all the time especially if they're successive battles with no downtime. The group should go against a couple weak battles leading to a boss, not four boss battles in a row. But again, if that's how you want to play by all means. You're system probably would work fine enough, but like I said it just seems to remove many of the penalties associated with burning through powers and such.
#3 stargazer_dragon Jul 26, 2011 19:16:20	The key I think you are missing here though is during a extended rest they do not regain ANY healing surges or daily powers or HP. This addresses a more common issue then fighting 10 times in a day it addresses the issue when they fight once every few days. Like when traveling if they run into a random encounter or 2. even uber hard encounters become a lot easier when you know you can more then likaly blow your action point and dailies and surges becouse you just get them back after the fight. As for healing after every encounter that I am still not sure about as it could be set to happen during extended rests instead of split and would make plenty of sence and effect the game only mildly, I was just tring to remove the issue where the party fights 1 encounter has a few days rest runs into anouther encounter has a rest. by setting HP recovery to after encounters representing the portion of there hp lost during combat that was purely moral and stamina. So in short no it wasn't designed for them to never run out of healing surges or dailies and it wasn't designed so they can't use more then 1 daily during a encounter it was designed so extended rests don't recover all there resources and so they can recover resources without the need of a extended rest.
#4 alitain Jul 26, 2011 20:26:50	The thing is, if the group only fights one battle in a day then they're traveling or something for a few days, it makes no sense that if they used all four of their dailies they wouldn't have them all back after the days of travel and rest. And I didn't miss the fact that extended rests don't do anything, that was clear. Our group half the time only usually has a battle a day in are latest games. Works out fine enough, we travel, we rp, we fight, all is good. Don't see where the issue is if that's what happens. We've also been in areas where the most rest you can get is a short rest and you go through a couple battles. We either waste powers or conserve them and push on, works fine. And then when there's down time we rest, recover, and continue on. I guess I just don't see where the big problem is in leaving extended rests alone. They work fine in my mind. You're system seems to either hurt a group if they only have maybe one battle, or two battles split by a day or more where they would rest. If basically everything is attached to getting milestones then it could suck if they only face one battle in a day. I mean people have to sleep so you can't really expect a group to stay awake 24/7 till the next day and potential battle just to get a milestone to get powers and HS back. But then if there are multiple encounters w/out a break in a day, you're going to be getting back HS quickly and most likely wont run down on powers until maybe the last battle in a day. Just seems a little problematic.
#5 stargazer_dragon Jul 26, 2011 20:42:36	For starter the entire game balence if based on having about 4 encounters per day. If the players know they will have less then they use resources much more freely making the resource worth less and throwing the game balence off, likewise if you have more encounters then your resources are stretched further and therefore the balence is shifted in the other direction. Not saying you should never have less or more encounters in a day but on the average the game is balenced by 4 encounters a day As for why you wouldn't regain your powers after a extended rest answer me this why do you regain them during a extended rest? why can you not use a encounter power round after round, why can't you use a daily power every encounter? the entire reason you don't get to use encounter powers at will and why you have to wait for dailies to recharge is for game balence. it's not like resting for 5 minutes suddenly lets you regain the use of a specific encounter power. I mean if we are using realism then theres no reason a fighter couldn't swing his sword and make a encounter power every single round. I mean you could argue that he gets tired but then why can he swing his sword in 1 way this round but is to tired to do it again untill he rests so he uses a harder more powerfull attack instead? honestly if you want to get som realism you would have to assigne power points and make dailies cost x points and encounters cost conciderably less then let the player decide how to use up his power pool. Which could actualy be a fun way to use encounter/daily power kinda like psionic classes
#6 stargazer_dragon Jul 26, 2011 21:24:53	The thing is, if the group only fights one battle in a day then they're traveling or something for a few days, it makes no sense that if they used all four of their dailies they wouldn't have them all back after the days of travel and rest. Perhaps count each full day without a encounter the same as a milestone. Thematicaly though perhaps your power is gathered during combat from the adreniline and actions. since you don't use your powers outside of combat perhaps only when you use your powers and form a bond with your power source do you have the connection that allows you to draw forth some of the energy that fuels your powers. So basicaly during combat you use shadow powers which in tern creates a link betwean you and the shadowfell allowing you to draw some of the shadow energy from the shadow fell during a short rest a milestone would represent that you have managed to draw enough of this power to recover the use of some of your powers IE regain a daily power. This would also further thematicaly explain why you recover your encounter powers during a short rest. I mean it explains it better then why you magicaly regain the use of the powers during a extended rest. Least to me it makes sence more then sleaping and poof you regain the power to use your dailies again.