Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 kieferz Jul 20, 2009 15:48:41	The two campaigns I usually run are going to be resuming after a summer hiatus in a couple of weeks, and I've been thinking more and more seriously about a couple of houserules that I might implement. I've already decided that I'm going to allow my players to rebuild their characters, or swap out for new ones, at the start of the first session; what I'm thinking about doing at the same time, however, is allowing them to work with me to design their own powers. I like to think that I've got a decent grasp of the design paradigm for 4th edition, so I think I can tell when something they want is over or underpowered; the idea would be to allow them to build a character's combat abilities around a concept, not the other way around. They'd still use the class features from a published class, and I'd probably suggest to them that they stick to published feats, but all of their powers they could design themselves so long as they fit the general style of the class. The mobility-centric ranger could have more "shot on the run" style powers; the player who wants to have a white-wizard style character could pick up plenty of radiant powers, as well as temp HP powers with his Cleric multiclass, and the cleric of a storm god could get more lightning powers than are otherwise available. Anyhow, that's the part that I'm pretty confident on, although if anyone has criticism, I'd welcome it. The other part is the one I could use advice on: a lot of people have pointed out that at low levels, with only one encounter and one daily, combat gets kind of repetitive. To counteract that for my low-level group, I'm thinking that maybe I'd change the power structure around: From level 1, you get 2 at-will, 3 encounter, 3 daily, and 3 utility, all of them with level-appropriate power. As you level up, they get more powerful, but you never get more. As I said, this is the tentative part of my plan, so I could really use advice on it.
#2 valcien Jul 20, 2009 22:14:55	From what little I know, not being able to swap out powers would be game breaking, plus I think in terms of monotony, it might be worse to have the same powers indefinitely. I'm all for houserules, though.
#3 Shiftkitty Jul 23, 2009 15:04:10	I'm always in favor of tweaking things to fit the concept. One deal I did involved a feat that allowed a spellcaster to instantly alter the kind of damage his attack did as a minor action. So Magic Missile does Force damage, but you know that the monster you're facing is vulnerable to fire. Change it up and your MM is now a streaking ball of flames. Same damage, different flavor. Our next experiment would allow a PC to draw from any power that matched his power source. A wizard could draw from any arcane power, just tweaking the Attribute modifier, so that a CHA-based attack in one class would become INT based for the wizard. (Jury's still out, may leave the attribute thing alone. If your CHA sucks, you just have trouble with that type of spell.) I can trust my players not to optimize. They're very flavor-focused.