PDA

View Full Version : Making Power Sources Relevant [4e]



Perseus
2013-09-02, 09:28 PM
Note: If you hate 4e please don't bring edition war into this... I'm a fan of every edition of D&D to some degree and I've seen threads devolve into that sort of arguments way to easy. (I'm guilty of this before and I'm trying to work on it :) ). Thanks!

So while playing in a 2e game the group was talking about how in 4e the power sources started off as this big ole awesome thing and just kinda died down...

Then someone had to consult the table for saves versus Death Magic and a Breath Weapon...

It clicked (and we stopped the game to talk about this for 15 minutes) and we thought of an interesting way to bring Power Sources back into 4e and perhaps mix things up a bit.

Rip out Fort/Ref/Will. They are gone.

Replace them with the following while using the same math rules as what Fort/Ref/Will used (10 + 1/2 Level + Mod + Feat + Item + Class + Race) or whatever it was.

Arcane/Psionic Defense
Divine/Shadow Defense
Martial/Primal Defense

For each defense you will be able to add a physical mod or a mental mod. For example for Arcane/Psionic Defense it could be that Dexterity or Intelligence boosts that defense. For Divine/Shadow it could be Constitution/Charisma that helps boost this defense while for Martial/Primal it is your Strength/Wisdom that boost this defense.

AC is gone with this system and Armor gives you Damage Reduction.

Cloth/No Armor: Resist Damage 0
Light Armor: Resist Damage 2
Heavy Armor: Resist Damage 4

Light Shield: Resist Damage 1 or +1 to Defenses (casters have a harder time targeting your body with the spell just as the weapon attacks can't get all the way through your defenses)

Heavy Shield: Resist Damage 2 or +2 to Defenses

Now this would be hard to put into 4e just as homebrewing any system can be. However since reading Heroes Against Darkness I've been thinking of setting up my own D&D Clone type game.

If I ever decide to go through with making the game (and if I get help) then I would want to potentially use this defense type or leave it as an optional way of playing. Some names may be changed depending on what setting I make ( I have a D&D Final Fantasy Tactics game I worked on in college...) but the general idea should be the same.

I'm off to bed now, but I wanted to put this out here so I would remember to work on it in my spare time along with my Good Hits table.

Thanks for reading :)