Sunday, April 10, 2011

Let's talk 4e

I have a very complex love/hate relationships with it. The basis of the love is a really nice streamlined system that works incredibly well at low levels. The hate basically breaks down to how it becomes after a few levels (beyond 10 is a mess).

The crux of the problem is synergistic effects. That is, everything a player does starts to be effected by far too many options. Multiple feats, magic items, equipment, class choices, etc. all working together. In some cases this is broken, but mostly it is just overwhelming. At the table is means more accounting and math (which other than slowing the game down to a crawl as you total up the bajillion bonuses and effects) and that is boring.

The next problem is encounters take to long. Part of that is because of the first problem, but a larger factor is that hit point totals (for monsters and players, but mostly monster) become really high at some point. This means that players have to optimize to do a ton of damage or the encounter will take forever and get very boring very fast.

The last problem is the effect the first two problems have on the role playing aspect. Because character improvement is driven toward optimization because of high hit point totals, decision are made not for story effects but for game effects. That is not inherently bad, but irksome. Because encounters take forever (in some cases regardless of optimization) the time available for story factors is limited and players (including GM) tend to rush through it to get to the encounter so they can get through the encounter.

I believe these problems may have simple fixes.

The first is caused by too many options that in and of themselves are not broken, but the interaction between them is easily manipulated and the end result is overwhelming. The GM is simply not capable of keeping the vast array of multiple players abilities under any sort of control. There are entire worksheets that describe the interactions of multiple effects into a single ability. This is great for people who enjoy that sort of thing, but many people do not.

The second is just a reflection of an attempt at game balance and a belief of how damage should work and how long encounters should last. I believe a flawed execution and, frankly, easily fixed.

The last problem is one of necessity, easily corrected by correcting the first two problems.

The solution to the first problem is found by examining the source of the problem, that is, an over abundance of options. I personally have no concerns with race, class, or class abilities. There are numerous interactions, but not enough to warrant concern. Feat and equipment (specifically Magic Items) cause the majority of problems in my view.

I propose the following solutions.

Regarding Feats, the PHB (4e) describes feats as providing a small static bonus to some other number already on the character sheet. This is usually true, but not always. Some feats allow access to a new ability (such as certain divine feats) or character option (such proficiency feat or multiclassing feats).

These small static bonuses are part of problem number 1 because numerous small bonus mean numerous little math problems. Example of my meaning. It is easy to add 100 + 100. You do it in one operations. It takes longer to add 100 + 10 + 15 + 3 + 25 + 18 + 4 + 20 + 5. They are effectively the same, but take far longer to reach the same result.

The second concern is the introduction of stacking bonuses. By d20 rules, bonuses of the same type do not stack. Meaning you need to know not only the bonus, but also the type of bonus for any given bonus.

My easy solution to feats is that any feat that provides a static bonus is simply dropped from the game. Leaving only feats that allow new abilities or character options. The first retort to this will be that it will effect balance and the second will be that many classes will have no viable feat options.

My response to the first retort is the solution to balance can be found in my answer to the how magic items should work and my solution to magic items. My answer to the limitation of feat options is a slight change to character advancement. Simply put, feats may be exchanged for class abilities via the following table.

# of feats Exchange for...
1 class At-will power
2 class Encounter power or Class role At-will power (an at-will power from a class of the same role)
3 Class Daily Power or Class role Encounter power
4 Class role Daily power or Any classes At-Will power
5 Any classes Encounter power
6 Any classes Daily power

The option to allow cross-class powers obviously reduces the importance of multi-classing feats and I don’t care.

Regarding magic items, a nearly complete revision of the entire system is required, or a complete elimination of them from the game. Magic items, as written, are almost entirely without merit. As a simple solution that avoids too much revision I propose that magic items serve the role of providing small static bonuses to some other statistic sans any other effect. Some magic items (such as the Holy Avenger) are best revised into artifacts, especially if they are almost required by a given class (such as the Holy Avenger).

The actual execution of this revision is more complicated than I care to address at this point. The main factor being that I do not want items to provide powers (that is the role of a class). Magic items simply make the class powers work better. I am even willing to allow Magic items to provide static bonuses to ability scores to avoid item powers of any kind.

The simplest solution is to ignore the text of any item that requires the use of a daily item power. This will, of course, make numerous items meaningless and greatly disrupt the ‘level’ of many (if not most) other items. In the absence of a complete magic item revision, I accept that as a worthwhile alternative. A quick fix of increasing the items static bonus by some amount would likely correct that in most cases.

The second problem (monster’s with too many hit points) I would be best served with a complete revision of how damage works. As that would require a complete revision of every monster and power in the book...I don’t see it as a viable option. I do suggest 2 options.

Reduce hit point by half across the board. In general, this seems to work.

or

Minions can take 1 hit, Standards can take 2 hits, Elites can take 4 hits, and Solos can take 8 hits.
A hit is any time damage exceeds Constitution + a number based on Monster Role (10 for brutes, 8 for soldiers, skirmishers, or controllers, 6 for lurkers or artillery). If you fail to exceed this number the hit does no damage.
If a character exceeds this number by double, it counts as two hits (or an extra hit for each multiple of this number). Critical hits add 1 to this number.
Healing surges replace 1/4 of total hits. Healing effects replace hits in the opposite way damage takes them, the minimum is always 1.

I prefer the second. It would mean you would need to make 8 successful hits against Orcus (surviving nobody healed him...which is unlikely).

Character’s could survive a number of hits equal to 2 + half their level. The ‘damage threshold’ for characters is Constitution + class hit points per level. This makes players somewhat more resilient than monsters and I am very okay with that. It means less time spent healing up between encounters.

The final problem I believe could be solved by these house rules with no further modification.

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