One of the chief complaints from my group about D&D has been the reliance upon magic items. They like finding them, as they like that little bit of character advancement that feels (at least within the confines of the game) to be out of their character's hands (even if the player gave me a shopping list). They like being able to aquire things that would otherwise seem out of type for there character's power source (you need a magic sword to get a flaming sword with a martial character, for instance). We once flirted with the idea of getting rid of magic items entirely and just increase the feats to every level; a solution I still like, but it was lacking a certain christmas-y feel that D&D players have come to expect.
But it would be nice if you didn't "have" to have magic items to make your character balanced. A solution has begun to bubble up in my mind after reading one of Monte Cook's new design articles: make magic items not required. Really, magic items only need to exist for keeping Attacks and Defenses on par with monster progression. The simple solution is to make enhancement bonuses part of the basic character advancement, just like they do for NPCs. This already exists as an optional rule in the DMG and Darksun, but I'm taking it one step further. Rather than having inherrent bonuses existing alongside enhancement bonuses, I propose to just get rid of the enhancement bonuses entirely.
Magic Weapons, Amulets/Cloaks, and Armor will just have Heroic, Paragon, and Epic versions. Then, magic items are nice, but you don't exactly need them to make your character as powerful as they need to be.
This then leads to another part of my design thoughts. All magic items could be balanced with one another if they all abide by the same action economy. It would not unbalance your character if a Heroic flaming sword granted a special at-will attack power, so long as that at-will attack power was on par with other at-wills your character has. Similarly, an encounter item power would be balanced if it were comparable to other encounters, if and only if all encounters were limited in the same fashion. Same thing with dailies.
The idea grew into an idea of pooling encounters and dailies and making them work off a resource, like how Psionics use power points. At the start of a combat, a character would have 1 point, and encounters cost 1 point to use. Using an at-will will generate 1 point, so a character can alternate encounters and at-wills. This has the added advantage of making sure that long fights, such as those against a solo 4 levels higher than the party (otherwise a balanced "very hard" encounter), do not get boring towards the end when everyone is slogging through their at-wills. Similarly, dailies could be pooled and limited to 1 daily per fight (preferably with some sort of class or power-source related trigger so they don't feel so gamey).
Standard design says a day is supposed to be 3 to 5 encounters, averaging 4. Post 9th level, a character has 3 dailies; post 19th, they have 4. This means that a character nearly has 1 daily per fight, if they are limiting themselves. So, daily attack powers could be pooled and a character could use one from the pool once per encounter and still remain balanced (as long as dailies were comparable with one another, just sometimes situationally more useful than others).
How long does an average encounter take? My math is seeming to show something like 6 to 10 rounds, assuming a 40% miss chance and just raw damage at-will usage. For some reason I was assuming 10 (which would work out to 5 at-wills, 4 encounters, and 1 daily used in each fight), but that just doesn't seem right.
But it would be nice if you didn't "have" to have magic items to make your character balanced. A solution has begun to bubble up in my mind after reading one of Monte Cook's new design articles: make magic items not required. Really, magic items only need to exist for keeping Attacks and Defenses on par with monster progression. The simple solution is to make enhancement bonuses part of the basic character advancement, just like they do for NPCs. This already exists as an optional rule in the DMG and Darksun, but I'm taking it one step further. Rather than having inherrent bonuses existing alongside enhancement bonuses, I propose to just get rid of the enhancement bonuses entirely.
Magic Weapons, Amulets/Cloaks, and Armor will just have Heroic, Paragon, and Epic versions. Then, magic items are nice, but you don't exactly need them to make your character as powerful as they need to be.
This then leads to another part of my design thoughts. All magic items could be balanced with one another if they all abide by the same action economy. It would not unbalance your character if a Heroic flaming sword granted a special at-will attack power, so long as that at-will attack power was on par with other at-wills your character has. Similarly, an encounter item power would be balanced if it were comparable to other encounters, if and only if all encounters were limited in the same fashion. Same thing with dailies.
The idea grew into an idea of pooling encounters and dailies and making them work off a resource, like how Psionics use power points. At the start of a combat, a character would have 1 point, and encounters cost 1 point to use. Using an at-will will generate 1 point, so a character can alternate encounters and at-wills. This has the added advantage of making sure that long fights, such as those against a solo 4 levels higher than the party (otherwise a balanced "very hard" encounter), do not get boring towards the end when everyone is slogging through their at-wills. Similarly, dailies could be pooled and limited to 1 daily per fight (preferably with some sort of class or power-source related trigger so they don't feel so gamey).
Standard design says a day is supposed to be 3 to 5 encounters, averaging 4. Post 9th level, a character has 3 dailies; post 19th, they have 4. This means that a character nearly has 1 daily per fight, if they are limiting themselves. So, daily attack powers could be pooled and a character could use one from the pool once per encounter and still remain balanced (as long as dailies were comparable with one another, just sometimes situationally more useful than others).
How long does an average encounter take? My math is seeming to show something like 6 to 10 rounds, assuming a 40% miss chance and just raw damage at-will usage. For some reason I was assuming 10 (which would work out to 5 at-wills, 4 encounters, and 1 daily used in each fight), but that just doesn't seem right.
2) Convert Weapons, Necks, and Armor into Heroic, Paragon, and Epic versions.
3) Look into balancing item powers by action economy.
4) Explore new ways of using limited-use encounter and daily attack powers, in line with action economy, in order to make long fights interesting and to keep characters from nova-ing in short fights.
I think questioned how long a standard fight is supposed to take? At first level, a typical monster will have around 36 to 41 hp, and a typical hit does an average of 6 to 10 damage (depending on who is doing the hitting). This means 6 to 4 hits, or 12 to 8 rounds with a 50% miss chance. Do traditional combats take 10 rounds? If they do, then I proposed an idea for power regeneration that would spread limited use abilities out more and not frontload fights (which makes the end boring).
1)That sounds good.
2)And the weapons, armor, neckaces, etc., wouldnt give you any attack defense or damage bonuses? Just a tier Scaling attack?
3)They already are balanced. 1 item power/encounter.
4) This whole action economy thing is getting way unbalanced.
The average encounter takes 5-6 rounds, not 10. The typical hit does not do 6-10 damage, even if your not a striker. Strikers deal much more, for example a ranger using twin strike with a greatbow deals 2d12 plus 1d8 damage. The miss chance is more like 30 percent. If you could use an encounter power every other round, it would make the PCs way overpowered. If there was a problem with Players complaining about fights taking too long, they would have fixed it already.
My advice to you is to use 1 and 2, but drop action economy and just keep the normal system for at wills, enounters, and dailies.
2) No tier scaling attack, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Enhancement bonus would be build into character progression. Weapons and such can grant other abilities, just not an attack/damage or defense bonus (except for circumstantial stuff that items grant).
3) There used to be a rule on 1 daily item power per day per tier, but that rule was stealth removed in Essentials (or it was left out of Essentials). There's no such limit on how many item-based encounter powers you can use, if you can manage to wrangle up enough items that have them; unless I'm horribly off-base here.
And fights taking too long in out of combat time is one of the chief complaints about 4E in my group, and one of the chief complaints I have seen fielded here. Half of that problem is that they become boring slug fests at the end of a fight when you're all out of your expendables.
2)i mean the abilites, will they scale by tier? such as maybe ongoing 10/20/30 damage, 1d6/2d6/4d6?, because spending an item daily in epic to get ongoing 5 damage is quite silly.
3)Well im not sure whether they removed or whatever, but my thinking is this:1 daily item power/enoucounter. As many item encounter powers as you want.
Well do your players always have a solid win?, if you want to speed combat up, i wouldnt take more rests, that would make the fights too easy. You have to challenge them, so maybe what you could do is have a few more monsters, but down the HP on all your monsters, making the monsters go down faster and keeping the players on their toes, while maintaining a solid challenge.
So you think you want to restructure how powers are limited in combat? I love the idea. Let's see if I understand the mechanics you suggested...
Each character starts an encounter with 1 point (we could call them action points, but that's taken; how about encounter points? EP for short...). The use of an encounter power costs 1EP. Using an at-will power earns the character 1EP. What about dailies? Perhaps they cost 3EP. Increase the starting value to 3 at the beginning of an ecounter. This may encourage players to hit with their daily attacks first, but in most cases where they want to use a daily, they'll start the fight that way anyway. What about duplicate powers? Under this rule, I'd allow players to use an encounter power more than once, since each use costs 1EP. The same for daily powers. In order to earn EPs, you have to spit out at-will powers, so there's a delay in using encounter/daily powers.
I suppose this approach could result in characters relying on their combo maneuvers too much. One daily or encounter, combined with a magic item, or feat selection, may be used repeatedly because the player can, and because it's effective, and thus it would restrict creative approaches to combat.
That ranger's damage is an average of 11 plus 4 from striker damage; that fits in the range of my 6-10, since strikers will deal more. Rogues get something like 1d6+6+2d6, or 16, or 9 without striker damage.
2) Of course the item abilities will scale with tier. That's the purpose of having Heroic/Paragon/Epic tier items.
3) I'd be fine with a limitation like that. I'd rather tie items into the character ability recharging, so if your daily recharges you can use one of your dailies or one of your item's dailies; this way items are providing more options, not more power.
My players win fights that are fairly put together, but many times the last end of the fight becomes a slug fest. If I encourage alternating encounters and at-wills, I think I'll see more entertainment in the combats.
I'd also like to have players not unlearn their lower level powers as they gain levels, and even have powers scale at certain levels. This way a higher level character gets more options, but they don't get more uses than they had before.
1) Build Attack and Defense enhancement bonuses into character progression (smoothing things out to +1/level like monsters).
2) Convert Weapons, Necks, and Armor into Heroic, Paragon, and Epic versions.
3) Look into balancing item powers by action economy.
4) Explore new ways of using limited-use encounter and daily attack powers, in line with action economy, in order to make long fights interesting and to keep characters from nova-ing in short fights.
I think questioned how long a standard fight is supposed to take? At first level, a typical monster will have around 36 to 41 hp, and a typical hit does an average of 6 to 10 damage (depending on who is doing the hitting). This means 6 to 4 hits, or 12 to 8 rounds with a 50% miss chance. Do traditional combats take 10 rounds? If they do, then I proposed an idea for power regeneration that would spread limited use abilities out more and not frontload fights (which makes the end boring).
1) already exists somewhat; see Inherent Bonuses or Fixed Enhancement Bonuses from Dungeon Master's Guide 2, or Dark Sun Campaign Setting (respectively).
Alternatively, reducing the "constant" bonuses to 4 + level + proficiency might work; see Character Companions from Dungeon Master's Guide 2.
2) Oh so you mean that the item effectively grows with the character, so that when he reaches the item's level or something, they automatically get the benefit of the upgraded version of the item... why not just say free item upgrade? Combined with Inherent/Fixed Enhancement Bonuses, you could easily have the items upgrade no hassles.
3) Item power balancing by action economy? Maybe www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4... could help?
4) I'm not exactly sure why the interest in keeping fights long, when one of the most common complaints in 4E is that fights *are* long enough as they are; besides, monsters are generally meant to drain party resources, then die just about as quickly as they deal damage.
> hit does an average of 6 to 10 damage (depending on who is doing the hitting).
A typical first level monster will usually have HPs in the 25-35 range (depending on type) and a damage-focused character or someone using their better powers/attacks will average more than 6 to 10. (And those who don't provide some other benefit that improves the party's effectiveness in other ways.)
That said, the system could probably do with a reduction in monster durability, but cutting down on encounter and daily (or whatever they're replaced with) power use will counteract any benefit that comes from doing so.
Perhaps have EP (encounter points) and DP (daily points)
Encounter points are recovered by using at wills which works prety good I personaly think
While daily powers could be recovered when a char spends a action point or perhaps if you desire more improvised actions they can be recovered during a action point OR when they use a inventive improvised action.
Personaly I kinda like the idea of dailies usable with spending a action point as long as you hit with a at will or encounter power first, then allow extra action points to ocationaly be earned with particularly inventive improvised actions.
This would give the game a combo kind of attack that feals all super strong and special and allow a reliable use of encounter powers. you could even simply say that encounter powers take a single round to recharge becouse the player needs to catch there breath for a second and remove the need to use a at will during the off round.
So say round one the party rushes in and blast with there encounters (which often happens curently)
Round two some of the players use there at will but player c has to move close so don't get to use his at will
round 3 all players again get there encounters back, this way a player isn't punished for not having range even more then he is now.
* Using inherent bonuses for defenses snd attacks.
* Realize that 4e is way to combat-oriented already, and item daily/encounter powers can easily be cut from the game if the story is interesting enough
* Knowing that everything is relative. You characters are never underpowered, only underpowered compared to _________, so if the lack of items is making them underpowered, just scale the difficulty down a bit and you'll be fine.
Ill read the rest of this thread tomorrow and check how much sense this post made xD
I am using inherent bonuses, but at the same time I'm removing the enhancement bonuses from items. This way, items aren't a required part of character progression, they're just gravy (though the skill bonuses might be "required" if they're assumed by Hard DCs). I set the inherent bonuses at level 5, 9, 15, 19, 25, and 29; I also moved ability bonuses to 3, 7, 13, 17, 23, and 27 (this way they aren't on the even levels when characters gain their +1/2 per level bonus).
First level fights will end up being a smidge harder; I threw out the Expertise feats, which my group was all taking at 1st level, so now their attack bonuses are lower. I like it.
And I'm not trying to make combat longer, I'm trying to make long combats more interesting by spreading out player ability uses. I want at-wills to be used more at high levels, I want to limit novaing. The only part of combat length that bothers me specifically is the length of player turns, but I think this is due to a couple of my players who are too tactically focused.
I'd like to cut item daily powers, because my group avoids dailies like the plague.
Encounter Points
After a short rest, start with 1EP per tier
Spend 1EP: use an encounter power
Use an at-will power: regain 1 EP
Daily Points
After an extended rest, start with 1DP per tier
Spend 1DP: use a daily power
Spend an action point: regain 1DP -- this happens in addition to whatever you normally would use an action point for.
Item Powers: If you don't want them, get rid of them. Using the above system should give you enough access to encounter/daily powers that the players won't need item powers, and the recharge options will let the players acquire more uses as the day progresses. You'll probably see more encounters in-between extended rests because the only thing that forces the players to rest would be a lack of hit points.
Personally, if I used a system like this, I'd also allow players to spend more than 1 action point per encounter.
I would make action point per encounter restricted to teir 1 at low teir 2 at mid teir 3 at end teir if you even play end teir which many don't.
I would keap item powers becouse they ad flavor or go the old rout strip them and grant passive like +2 flame damage per teir of the weapon ect so there is a small bonus that makes the item desirable but it is a constent bonus like they once were
So a player might have a teir 2 flaming longsword and a teir 1 shadow plate mail gaining +2 stealth and + 4 fire damage
just ideas didn't actualy check what gear it curently offered and not played 4.0 in a few months now (we made out own system and use it now instead)