Best parts of 4E that should be kept for 5E [Archive]

Person_Man

2014-05-15, 08:59 AM

Leewei

2014-05-15, 09:56 AM

I held out on 4E for years before finally giving it a go. It isn't really D&D, but it can certainly be a fun game at times.

The combat mechanics (push/pull/slide) and map effects are something that make the combat interesting in 4E. I'd like to see this in Next.

Epinephrine

2014-05-15, 10:56 AM

But 4E contained a lot of legitimate innovations. So which should be kept and included into the upcoming 5th edition/D&D Next? And are there any elements 5E must have for you to adopt it over 4E?

1. Roles, promoting team-based play
2. Healers that are actually fun
3. Powers/maneuvers for all classes
4. No reliance on "full attacks" or the like; being capable of acting in a meaningful way on a standard action (this helps keep fighting classes on par with casters)
5. No save or die/suck effects, instead, attacks versus defenses and generic 55% saves
6. Easily balanced encounters and meaningful ways to calculate CR (unlike earlier editions)
7. Well thought out orders of effects (like immediate reactions/interrupts, etc.) allowing for tactical decisions
8. Easy math (yes, even though I have taken graduate courses in mathematics, you can do a lot with simple systems)
9. Squircles (Tchebychev distances); yeah, took getting used to the square fireballs, but I like not having to look up the exact perimeter of various sized blasts, or worrying about whether one is double counting the second step, etc.
10. Shift/move/run
11. No infravision or other weirdnesses
12. Polymorph-type abilities that actually have balance
13. Continual improvement with no dead levels; sure, odd levels do tend to suck a bit more (often no attribute gain, no feat), but you always get SOMETHING.
14. Avoiding 3.5s multi-class nightmare to poach abilities (ooh, don't forget 2 levels of rogue for evasion!)
15. Also avoiding 3.5s multiclass nightmare for casters (did you MC a non-caster? Oh, you've nerfed yourself!)
16. Flattening power curve
17. Playable high level games
18. No gigantic spell lists, required buffs, dozens of types of stacking bonus (do you have Racial yet? Sacred? Profane? etc.)

I'm sure I can think of more. Basically, 4e has a lot going for it. Not meaning to sound edition war-ish, but I don't want to see 3.5 elements coming back, as I mostly prefer the 4e system.

Grey_Wolf_c

2014-05-15, 11:56 AM

It was lost over time to some degree, but the lessened tiers was really welcomed. No more "sorry, we have a CaDzilla in the party, so enjoy being useless in their shadow" situations. Even with the post-essentials classes, the difference between lowest tier and highest tier is not too bad.

Grey Wolf

Person_Man

2014-05-15, 01:07 PM

7. Well thought out orders of effects (like immediate reactions/interrupts, etc.) allowing for tactical decisions

Can you further explain/expand upon this point? Although I personally didn't experience it, my understanding is that one of the worst things about 4E was the extremely slow combat due to the bloat of different actions (Standard Action, Move Action, Minor Action, Opportunity Action, Immediate Action, Free Action, and a variety of powers which created exceptions to this action economy).

shadow_archmagi

2014-05-15, 03:34 PM

Can you further explain/expand upon this point? Although I personally didn't experience it, my understanding is that one of the worst things about 4E was the extremely slow combat due to the bloat of different actions (Standard Action, Move Action, Minor Action, Opportunity Action, Immediate Action, Free Action, and a variety of powers which created exceptions to this action economy).

I'd appreciate elaboration on this point too.

I'm assuming he means that there's a coherent system for determining in what order conflicting actions happened, thus avoiding 3.5's age old "Okay, so standing up provokes an AoO. Does that happen before or after I stop being prone?"

Epinephrine

2014-05-15, 04:14 PM

I'd appreciate elaboration on this point too.

I'm assuming he means that there's a coherent system for determining in what order conflicting actions happened, thus avoiding 3.5's age old "Okay, so standing up provokes an AoO. Does that happen before or after I stop being prone?"

Yeah, roughly that. It's clear that interrupts happen before the action that triggered them, while reactions happen after the action that triggered them has been completed. unfortunately, 4e is vague sometimes - I would like it better if it had more of a MTG level degree of rigour, so it was obvious for example whether the damage a cursed foe takes from attacking a warlock wielding pact blade is triggered before or after the action completes. I like things being specific.

cavalier973

2014-05-15, 04:59 PM

The "Four Defenses" model (AC, Fortitude, Reflex, Will) seems a much more elegant model than having saving throw charts.

Also, healing surges as a limit on the amount of healing that a character can get between extended rests.

Edit: Changed "Wisdom" to "Will". Thanks for the correction, GPuzzle.

While I'm thinking about it, in relation to the "Four Defenses", I liked that the character could use one of two abilities to get the defense score. STR or CON, DEX or INT, WIS or CHA.

GPuzzle

2014-05-15, 05:22 PM

Cloud

2014-05-15, 05:30 PM

I liked healing surges, or at least, what they accomplished. After playing a lot of 3.5 and 4e in both games PCs always went into encounters with full HP, which is something they should keep. However in 3.5 it was just a slow drain on a lesser vigor wand / healing belts, healing surges in 4e at least gave you only so much endurance in a day, without keeping you under full HP for a fight. ...So yeah doesn't need to be healing surges exactly, but a mechanic so that PCs enter fights at full health, while still getting worn out over the course of a day aside from spell slots would be nice.

4e also kept the maths pretty tight, which was certainly nice.

Oh and the focus on tactical combat, pulls, pushes, slides, and a tight control on flight/teleporting early on actually made positioning felt important.

Epinephrine gave a pretty solid list as well that I mostly agree with.

neonchameleon

2014-05-15, 08:08 PM

I'm an old school 1st edition gamer who switched over to 2nd ed, 3.0, 3.5, when each of them came out, and I also sometimes play Pathfinder or Fate. But although I made a good faith effort to try it out on multiple occasions, I never made the transition to 4E, and neither did anyone else from my immediate circle of gamer friends.

I liked parts of it. But I strongly disliked the highly granular, often boring nature of the Powers and Feats, and the repetitive grinding nature of most combats (use your Encounter Powers, usually in the exact same order, then use At-Wills unless things aren't going well, in which case you use a Daily. Though in fairness to the system, this is mostly a low-mid level problem that's solved by getting a greater variety of abilities at high levels).

But 4E contained a lot of legitimate innovations. So which should be kept and included into the upcoming 5th edition/D&D Next? And are there any elements 5E must have for you to adopt it over 4E?

1: Clarity of writing and simplicity of running. In my last year and a half running 4e I didn't have to look up a rule once that wasn't on a character sheet or monster statblock (of something in use) and i could take anything the GMs could trow.

2: Balance. In no other version of D&D is a thief or rogue anything like as useful to a party as a wizard.
2b: The Warlord, able to take on the necessary part of the Cleric's role; spike healing, while being something of their own.
2c: Rituals that are magic but can be carried out by anyone with the skill (although wizards and clerics are probably best at them)
The combination of which means that you can still play D&D with an all martial party. It's going to be fast and brutal sword and sorcery party, but it's not going to completely change the nature of the game. (Seriously, all martial parties are fun).

3: Minor action spike healing. Making healing fun.

4: Good DM tools to create monsters or encounters on the spur of the moment.

5: Minion, Standard, Elite, Solo, with the quality of design of Solos that showed up post MM3.

6: Forced movement.

7: Square Fireballs (although hexes are better if you have a hex map). Just saves time and adds smoothness.

captpike

2014-05-15, 08:45 PM

Can you further explain/expand upon this point? Although I personally didn't experience it, my understanding is that one of the worst things about 4E was the extremely slow combat due to the bloat of different actions (Standard Action, Move Action, Minor Action, Opportunity Action, Immediate Action, Free Action, and a variety of powers which created exceptions to this action economy).

the problem was that too many things were made into non-standard actions, not the action economy itself.

if they had not made so many OA and interrupt attacks, ideally no class encounter powers, and kept minor actions as minor it would have fixed alot of the problem with long fights.

were they making a 4.5e and in character I would make a huge poster and put in the offices saying "attacks are standard actions, and never attack the same target twice"

Eisenheim

2014-05-15, 10:28 PM

I will add my voice to all those saying that class balance/ability of every role to contribute equally and be fun to play is really the best thing about 4e that should be carried into later editions. Forced movement and tactical positioning is tricky. Clearly, you want an excellent system to handle it for groups that really enjoy it, but at the same time, one of the things that eventually ended my 4e play was the absolute necessity of using a map and miniatures for combat, which just adds time and hassle for groups who prefer more freeform combats and don't want to spend a lot of their session on tactics.

oxybe

2014-05-15, 11:43 PM

Forced movement and tactical positioning is tricky. Clearly, you want an excellent system to handle it for groups that really enjoy it, but at the same time, one of the things that eventually ended my 4e play was the absolute necessity of using a map and miniatures for combat, which just adds time and hassle for groups who prefer more freeform combats and don't want to spend a lot of their session on tactics

I think part of that is the "bunch of goblins on a featureless plain" or "bunch of orcs in a featureless room" effect.

After a 7 month hiatus of not playing a single TTRPG session (frustrations with the system and disinterest in the campaign), my old group started up a new campaign. I wasn't crazy about the system, but whatever... it gave me an excuse to hang out with my friends.

the first session had 2 fights which boiled down to "bunch of goblins on a featureless plain". these are the fights that I found VERY common in old D&D and are easily run in ANY version (yes, 4th ed included) because beyond the logistics of 6 PCs and just as many goblins... there really isn't much else to worry about. we we-re fighting in wide, empty streets / market square so the only thing we needed to ask was "is there a goblin in punching range? if no, can I charge one?" and the answer was very much yes.

4th ed powers that reposition are best used when terrain matters or when you're trying to get a critter off the squishies, but in a featureless plains they're rather inconsequential to take note of. "you shove the goblin a bit and on his turn he scrabbles back to his feet and lunges at you." and that's it. anything more complicated is self-inflicted in these bare-bones scenarios.

now, the GM could have given us terrain to play with but as low level not-4th PCs in a pre-made module our options would have been limited to bull rush and little else, barring the more obvious additions of "precarious pillar that looks like it could be pushed over with a sneeze". we probably would have avoided the terrain if dangerous (or used it as a wall of sorts, knowing the gobbos wouldn't jump into certain death to hopefully stab us) or simply positioned ourselves so that the goblins need to go through it to get to us and pluck them from afar. not interesting use of terrain maybe, but our options are little.

however 4th ed does interesting terrain FANTASTICALLY, partially because everyone gets access to those pushy-pully powers, that everyone at least gets the option to play around with the interactions the terrain gives them.

I think the biggest issue is that we didn't properly train GMs when not whip out the battlemat, ie:facing a bunch of goblins on a featureless plain. those fights are boring and when using the full pushy-pully for little effect is not using the system to it's maximum... heck, you're probably just prolonging the rather inconsequential fight more then needed. we needed to better train GMs to recognize when to bring out the mat and when not to.

in our featureless streetfight, the gm just grabbed a bunch of d6s said "here is a rough idea what's going on with the goblins" and then grabbed a bunch of D20s to represent the PCs and said "here are your guys" and we went at it. the rather unimpressive skirmish wasn't deemed worthy of a battlemat and would have taken MUCH longer if the GM did whip it out, mainly due to undue prepwork and tile-counting for little payoff of being able to physically and mentally count 6 tiles and tell him "I kill the goblin with my minimum damage" instead of "I move 30ft towards the goblin and kill him with my minimum damage".

as a second thing, I would say HP bloat on some monsters beyond the point where PCs are down to a few @will powers and it's become an attrition war does happen sometimes and a bit better tuning could have been done, but I'm willing to let that slide for the most part as it seemed to be getting better towards MM3. however, I would have loved to see more discussion about ending fights prematurely if a clear winner is obvious, barring the string of stupid luck. I saw many posts on forums about how "we had all but won the fight but the DM had us grind out that last hundred or two HP" which is, IMO and old D&D tradition that didn't transition well... that each fight is to the death.

in old D&D, between save or die/rocket tag gameplay of late game, low-level swingyness of piddling HP and accidental crits of x3 damage with greataxes and the lockdown+dogpile of the midgame combat was rather dirty and to the death, add to this the propensity of some GMs to make survivors seek revenge, you left no mook or villain standing.

this didn't transition well to 4th ed and more discussion/care should have been brought to the DMG that teaches DMs how end fights when the victor is clear or resources have been used up.

p.d0t

2014-05-16, 01:02 AM

Marking.
No, Seriously.

p.d0t

2014-05-16, 01:05 AM

The combination of which means that you can still play D&D with an all martial party. It's going to be fast and brutal sword and sorcery party, but it's not going to completely change the nature of the game. (Seriously, all martial parties are fun).

For real. It really opens up the game for stubborn folks like me who really just want to play a specific archetype. Magic = Win, isn't fun if you just want to hit people with swords/arrows.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-16, 03:55 AM

I think the single best invention of 4E is the Warlord; I don't think I need to explain why.

The second best would be Themes, because they have a significant mechanical impact on how your character plays (they're more than "yeah, add these skills and we'll call it a day"). Related to this is the fact that most races are visibly different in gameplay; where in earlier editions it's sometimes easy to forget which race a character is unless he roleplays up the racial stereotypes, in 4E it's easy to e.g. spot the Eladrin because he'll be teleporting all the time (and Eladrin enemies also have this ability).

Lots of repositioning options, including forced movement and teleport powers, keep the battle dynamic and fun. Even in situations where forced movement doesn't make a tactical difference (e.g. goblins on an open plain), they're still fun.

"Save ends" is a good duration mechanic; it is much easier than keeping track of a four-round duration and having to mark that off each turn. For that matter, save ends is also much easier than having to remember who put that daze-until-end-of-my-turn marker there.

Having things to do outside your turn, as with immediate actions, is good. Having to make a distinction between reactions, interrupts, opportunity actions, opportunity attacks, and free actions (all of which are subtly different) is not so good. Also, while immediate actions are fun, having too many of them seriously slows down gameplay. I think 4E started out rather clever with this; with the game as first printed, most classes end up with one or two immediate powers which are pretty straightforward, like Halfling Dodge and the Shield spell. Then as more books were printed, the designers overdid this (and players started realizing that immediate powers are generally the top picks, because of action economy) and you can end up with characters with five or six immediates with complex triggers.

Which leads to the main downside of 4E, i.e. that combat is just very slow. 5E would do well to take out move action powers (you can still move, but moving is moving and not some other ability) as well as minor actions and action points (the two of which basically double how long a player's turn takes).

GPuzzle

2014-05-16, 04:03 AM

the problem was that too many things were made into non-standard actions, not the action economy itself.

if they had not made so many OA and interrupt attacks, ideally no class encounter powers, and kept minor actions as minor it would have fixed alot of the problem with long fights.

were they making a 4.5e and in character I would make a huge poster and put in the offices saying "attacks are standard actions, and never attack the same target twice"

You just killed a good deal of how classes are balanced. The Paladin would be worthless, except for Champions of the Orders with a way to stop the target from shifting away and Hospitalers with Bradaman's. The Warden would disappear. The Ranger would a whole lot of steam, and so would the Barbarian and the Fighter and just about anyone with a triple tap such as the Sorcerer. No more powerful status effects kills Controllers off for good - who would need a controler when your MBA is prone+slide 8+daze when they can't stun or dominate or leave them unconcious?

You see, these are fundamental parts of 4e design. And while most people want to get rid of it, you can't - it makes the game take even more time. Despite the overwhelm of options, we need those.

Epinephrine

2014-05-16, 07:10 AM

Which leads to the main downside of 4E, i.e. that combat is just very slow. 5E would do well to take out move action powers (you can still move, but moving is moving and not some other ability) as well as minor actions and action points (the two of which basically double how long a player's turn takes).

I could happily bin action points, as well as milestones. Neither seem to add anything much to the game. Minor action attacks are problematic as well.

Person_Man

2014-05-16, 08:25 AM

Yeah, something close to a simplified version of the 4E Action Economy would work well. My ideal action economy is: 1 Standard Action + 1 Move Action + 1 Reaction + 1 Concentration + Free Actions, and absolutely nothing that adds to or changes this economy.

Standard Action covers 90% of actions.

Move Action can only be used for normal movement, Shift, Charge (double move but must be in a strait line), or abilities/Powers/Fests which only grant some form of special movement and nothing else.

Reaction includes attacks of opportunity, counters, boosts, use of Action/Fate points, etc. But you're limited to just 1 per round, and thus it shouldn't slow down combat too much. Also, Reactions don't always require a trigger. Thus pretty much every player should have access to some kind of minor "dump reaction" to use, so that it's never wasted.

Concentration is any ongoing ability, Summons, buff, Feat which provides a bonus, Tome of Battle-ish Stance, Evasion, etc. You get 1 and only 1 at a time. This eliminates the problem of gaining a huge action advantage from Summoning tons of things or unintended combos from stacking (Power Attack + Shock Trooper + Headlong Rush + etc)

Free Actions cover all minor actions that do not have a direct impact on an enemy. Talking for 6 second or less, drawing or dropping a weapon or item, opening a door, ending an ability/Power/etc, and other very minor actions within the discretion of the DM. Gaining any benefit from a spell/power/ability/feat/etc is never a Free Action. By default you are limited to just 1 per round, but the DM may allow more within reason. (Talking and opening a door are ok, but drawing and dropping 10 weapons is not).

There are no "non-actions" or extra actions or completely passive bonuses of any kind except for armor and proficiency bonuses, which is the primary source of broken combos in D&D.

Marking.
No, Seriously.

Could you explain why?

Speaking for myself, as a DM I hate having to keep track of multiple status effects, which is really something that should only be done in a computer game, since the computer can track everything for you.

I could happily bin action points, as well as milestones. Neither seem to add anything much to the game. Minor action attacks are problematic as well.

I'm a big fan of Fate points (http://www.faterpg.com/dl/df/aspects.html), which are somewhat similar to Action points. But yeah, cutting down on book keeping is a good thing.

Yakk

2014-05-16, 08:38 AM

Everyone gets one action on their turn. In addition, you can move before, during or after that action.

In between turns, you can react. Doing so uses up your next turn's action.

Goal: Action economy is tight. If you want OA's to be viable, simply make the OA effect be way better than "make a melee attack": "make a melee attack, and if you hit, it is automatically a crit", as an example. (They did leave themselves open!)

Maybe tack on free actions.

...

Note that the Concentration you describe just becomes a universal 4e stance mechanic that applies to shapechanging, summons and combat stances.

Epinephrine

2014-05-16, 08:38 AM

Charge (double move but must be in a strait line).

I was really glad actually to see the back of straight-line charges, I love that in 4e you can charge while dodging around attackers and vaulting over tables/sidestepping hazards, as long as you close with your target every step. Charge as a standard action is something I really like, the move+charge works really well.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-16, 09:08 AM

Urpriest

2014-05-16, 10:09 AM

I'm not actually convinced that the system needs a separate charge action, with its associated fiddly bonuses. You can already move and attack anyway. If a single move isn't far enough, well, time to increase the default movement rate in the system.

That's because you're thinking of D&D rules as primarily interested in balance and in modeling real combatants.

Really though, most of 3e-5e isn't about that at all. It's about playing "D&D". Balance and verisimilitude are modifications, slung onto a conceptual D&D core. D&D happens to be a game where "charging" isn't "a way for a combatant to get farther and hit harder in exchange for being left vulnerable" it's "the thing that barbarians and similar characters do when they want to do extra damage". Charge in 3.5 and 4e was about the synergies and archetypes tacked on to it, not the mechanic itself.

Really, I think this is the biggest thing that 5e needs to learn from 4e: the idea that you don't enforce themes with the base rules, but with the associated supplements. Arcane and Divine do nothing different in 4e...except that Arcane feats and Divine feats are very different. Different weapons have only minor differences in 4e...except that they involve very different feat chains that benefit different types of characters. And so forth. Flavor from feats (or other such options) means you don't need "realistic" rules to make people roleplay, you incentivize the archetypes you want by making characters with them fun to build.

Yakk

2014-05-16, 10:14 AM

A way to handle charging that isn't charging:

Run: You move twice your speed this turn. Everyone has advantage against you until the end of your next turn, unless you hit them with a melee attack, and you have disadvantage with all ranged attacks.

Then, "being in melee":

Engage: When you make a melee attack on a target, you can choose to engage them in melee. If you do so, you become engaged with everyone else they are engaged with (and vice-versa). If you are forced out of melee range from each other you are no longer Engaged.

Disengage: You can spend an action to disengage from melee. If you simply move out of melee range with foes you are engaged with, they can all take an opportunity attack (except any foe you have hit this turn) against you.

Ranged Attacks while Engaged: If you make a Ranged attack while engaged in melee, foes in the melee can take an opportunity attack against you.

Defender feat: If a foe engaged in melee with you attempts to attack an ally of yours they are not engaged with, you can take an opportunity attack against them.

Note the mixture of a fighter's mark "lockdown" with theater of the mind mechanics.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-16, 10:15 AM

That's because you're thinking of D&D rules as primarily interested in balance and in modeling real combatants.
No, in this case I'm thinking about rules that are unnecessarily complicated without actually adding to the gameplay. For example, a charge restricts how you can move, interferes with the slow condition and running rules, restricts how you can attack, gives tiny bonuses, and ends your turn. That's rules baggage, and really not a "best part that should be kept".

Barbarians could easily be worded as "if you move directly towards an enemy and attack in one turn, you deal +1d6 damage per square moved", for example.

Epinephrine

2014-05-16, 10:39 AM

No, in this case I'm thinking about rules that are unnecessarily complicated without actually adding to the gameplay. For example, a charge restricts how you can move, interferes with the slow condition and running rules, restricts how you can attack, gives tiny bonuses, and ends your turn. That's rules baggage, and really not a "best part that should be kept".

Barbarians could easily be worded as "if you move directly towards an enemy and attack in one turn, you deal +1d6 damage per square moved", for example.

I hadn't thought much about it, but you are absolutely right that it's not a necessary thing to have as a standard part of the game. Even the sacrifice of a standard action for a second move action doesn't need to be an option, it's only this that necessitates a charge being a standard action, to allow combat to keep up with others. The combat system should ideally make it difficult to auto-win by kiting, I think you need that as an axiom, or melee is pointless.

Thinking about the realism vs. gameplay part a bit more, I realise another thing I loved/hated when I moved to 4e was the lack of maneuvers like smashing a foe's weapon, or disarming them. I hated it because it reigned in the realism and meant that you were suddenly very limited in what you can do. On the other hand, it is fabulous, since it means that a single good roll isn't going to completely ruin encounters or screw players. Smashing weapons/items is a horrible thing from a balance/gameplay perspective (though it can make for great story telling). I think that I like the less realistic combat (no disarming/sundering) compared to the more realistic but annoying combat. I think that the usefulness of things like a charge really need to be looked at with an eye to how it changes the game; charging doesn't really bring anything needed with it except the ability to double move and attack with certain restrictions. It feels like this is necessary when ranged foes can move and attack, since otherwise you might never get to a foe that can move away from you - you need to be able to cover more ground than he can, when you have the same speed.

GPuzzle

2014-05-16, 10:48 AM

I think what should be taken from 4e is the role system. I like the idea of everyone filling a different niche, and that you can minor in a role. Marks, while nasty to track sometimes, are one of my favorite things in 4e. Well, it's hard to find Defenders based solely on positioning (seriously, there aren't many of them), so punishing enemies for attacking your allies is a good thing for the Fighter or the Paladin, I guess.

Urpriest

2014-05-16, 10:49 AM

windgate

2014-05-16, 11:08 AM

Some positives:

1) Tactical Positioning. allows both sides to use the terrain and formation to protect their squishies.

2) Healing as a minor action. I hated being a healer in earlier editions.

3) Non-caster classes continue being useful in combat @ high levels

4) its extremely easy to build balanced and homebrewed monsters as a DM (see MM3 on a business card...)

5) The "defender" role.

Negatives:
1) Hit points for everything is too high. You can mostly resolve it with a 1/2 hitpoints (PCs and monsters) houserule but combat just slogs on under the default ruleset without it.

2) Skill system. I like the smaller skill list but the modifiers lack variety.

3) Solos. Just dont seem threatening enough with all the conditions players can drop.

neonchameleon

2014-05-16, 12:43 PM

Could you explain why? [Marking is good]

Speaking for myself, as a DM I hate having to keep track of multiple status effects, which is really something that should only be done in a computer game, since the computer can track everything for you.

I'm going to say Marking and the Iocane powder nature of it (the poison is in both glasses) is an excellent idea - but a Defender Aura gives you 90-95% of the benefit at a fraction of the overhead.

I'm also going to say unlimited OAs are a good thing - but you don't need both OAs and Immediate Actions. (No, especially not you you silly Knight).

Person_Man

2014-05-16, 02:38 PM

RE: Charge

Most races are typically going to be able to move 20-30 feet (4-6 spaces) per turn. That's a decent movement rate for moving around most dungeons or other enclosed spaces. And for those of us who play using miniatures, the size of the table we play on imposes a practical limit on the size of each floor of the dungeon and it's rooms. So you probably don't want players with a default base movement speed that's faster 40ish feet (8 spaces) for a variety of reasons, because if every player can just move almost anywhere on the map each round, why even bother with a map?

But when you're fighting outside of a structure, someone with a ranged weapon or spells can easily target you 50-300 feet away. Presumably some players are going to be melee focused. So for those players, you need some sort of option to move more quickly by default, without giving up your Action. Otherwise, enemies with ranged attacks and spells will always be able to fire and then fall back, without ever risking anything other then an attack of opportunity from melee oriented players.

It doesn't need to be fiddly. I hate the +2 to-hit & -2 to AC rule & no difficult terrain rule from 3.5. I think Charge should be double movement rate, but it must be in a strait line through unoccupied spaces. I think that's a fairly simple thing to include in the base movement rules somewhere, and it allows melee combatants to close quickly when on an open field, but with a limitation that prevents them from rapidly moving through most dungeons or other enclosed spaces.

I'm going to say Marking and the Iocane powder nature of it (the poison is in both glasses) is an excellent idea - but a Defender Aura gives you 90-95% of the benefit at a fraction of the overhead.

I'm still not getting where you're coming from.

My understanding is that certain classes can Mark an enemy, and then the player gets certain bonuses against that enemy, or the enemy suffers certain penalties. 5E is moving away from tracking a bunch of fiddly bonuses and book keeping, I support that philosophy, and Marking appears to be a fiddly bonus that involves book keeping.

Can you elaborate on your position a but more?

captpike

2014-05-16, 02:39 PM

You just killed a good deal of how classes are balanced. The Paladin would be worthless, except for Champions of the Orders with a way to stop the target from shifting away and Hospitalers with Bradaman's. The Warden would disappear. The Ranger would a whole lot of steam, and so would the Barbarian and the Fighter and just about anyone with a triple tap such as the Sorcerer. No more powerful status effects kills Controllers off for good - who would need a controler when your MBA is prone+slide 8+daze when they can't stun or dominate or leave them unconcious?

You see, these are fundamental parts of 4e design. And while most people want to get rid of it, you can't - it makes the game take even more time. Despite the overwhelm of options, we need those.

I should have specified, no class encounter powers with levels (ie no low slash)
the problem with powers like twin strike and low slash is that they are not options, they take away options. they are so good you have to take them. taking low slash is like getting a free standard action every encounter.

it would change how the game is balanced, but if carried through (and it would be a big change) it would put strikers on the same playing field, you would have more choices of powers then just non-standard action powers, or double taps. not to mention how much time it adds when you have a ranger do three or four times the attack and damage rolls as everyone else.

same with minor actions, if they remain minor you wont add any time. its when you can attack with them or move or something that it adds time.

you would not have the ranger problem. where they are too powerful, so powerful that no one can compete with you and that you have no real status effects because you already do too much damage (ass opposed to the warlock, who does OK damage and has cool status effects).

GPuzzle

2014-05-16, 02:46 PM

I'm going to say Marking and the Iocane powder nature of it (the poison is in both glasses) is an excellent idea - but a Defender Aura gives you 90-95% of the benefit at a fraction of the overhead.

I'm also going to say unlimited OAs are a good thing - but you don't need both OAs and Immediate Actions. (No, especially not you you silly Knight).

The problem is that there are different kinds of marks.

The Swordmage delivers this Close Burst 2 specific mark that has punishment in it and stays until the person is dead.

The Fighter's generic mark triggers on attacks and the punishment comes in form of a class feature.

The Paladin has power-based specific mark that multimarks and effects every that is marked.

The Warden has generic marks that hit everyone adjacent to him and trigger through an specific "class feature" power.

The Battlemind has generic, long-lasting marks that hit up to two people and can add more through powers, as well as a basic "you deal the damage you dealt to my ally to yourself" type of punishment with more punishment through powers.

That's the problem, really.

They're different, so the "mark" thing is actually quite good because it's what used for everyone.

And for some reason I want to make a Half-Orc Paladin|Warden right now.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-16, 02:57 PM

That said, I agree that charge doesn't need to come with a pile of restrictions and little finicky bonuses. Just have a "charge" keyword, that comes into play when you "move directly towards an enemy and attack in one turn" (which would have to be a little more specific due to the word "directly", but presumably there's a slick way of handling that somewhere), and have barbarian be one example of a class that gains benefits when they "charge".
Yes, that works.

The combat system should ideally make it difficult to auto-win by kiting, I think you need that as an axiom, or melee is pointless.
While I do think charges (as Urpriest describes) should exist, I don't think they should be seen as the counter to missile attacks. Indeed, it doesn't work as such: you can very much auto-win 4E combat by kiting (case in point: make a party of four elven rangers and witness how easy it is to kill higher-level monsters from 60 squares away), it's just that doing so is boring so most people don't play it that way.

A good counter to kiting is allowing any warrior-type character to be also skilled with a bow so they can return fire; and having big penalties for range and cover would also help.

neonchameleon

2014-05-16, 05:15 PM

I'm still not getting where you're coming from.

My understanding is that certain classes can Mark an enemy, and then the player gets certain bonuses against that enemy, or the enemy suffers certain penalties. 5E is moving away from tracking a bunch of fiddly bonuses and book keeping, I support that philosophy, and Marking appears to be a fiddly bonus that involves book keeping.

Can you elaborate on your position a but more?

Marking (think soccer or basketball) does something that is needed in D&D but has long been missing. In the hands of the fighter it's effectively intimidation. "I've got my eye on you. Take your eyes off me and I will &*%$ you up, and you know it!" It's not MMO Taunt-style mind control, instead it gives the NPCs a choice. Attack the fighter - in which case you are attacking the person in plate armour. Or attack someone else or even creep back in which case you're taking your eye off the expert killer for long enough for them to mess you up badly.

Defender Auras do much the same thing - but because they mean the fighter just owns the space around them they are easier to resolve as you just look at the map to see whether they apply, rather than having them on specific people. It's not quite as accurate but a whole lot less book keeping.

p.d0t

2014-05-16, 06:22 PM

Could you explain why?

Speaking for myself, as a DM I hate having to keep track of multiple status effects, which is really something that should only be done in a computer game, since the computer can track everything for you.

Marking isn't just "yet another annoying status effect to track," it's what lets a defender do his goddamn job. Otherwise you end up with gentlemen's-agreement DMing where the monsters attack the guy with high defenses and HP, despite it being sup-optimal. Or you don't, and clothies die from adversarial DMing.

The problem with Defender Aura and/or marking is when teleportation or forced movement get involved, they can become sorta useless (depending on the class)

Kurald Galain

2014-05-16, 06:42 PM

There are ways to let a defender do his job that don't involve marking mechanics.

GPuzzle

2014-05-16, 06:50 PM

Like what? What can you do if he attacks your allies?

Tvtyrant

2014-05-16, 07:06 PM

Like what? What can you do if he attacks your allies?

D&D 3.5 had tripper and grappling builds that functionally did the same thing, although they took a lot of optimization and were terrible compared to casters.

I liked marks as a concept, but they acted contrary to the interests of 4E IMO. 4E is geared towards single attacks (by which I mean attacks and movement together) and lots of tactical movement, which the mark system undermines.

GPuzzle

2014-05-16, 07:48 PM

D&D 3.5 had tripper and grappling builds that functionally did the same thing, although they took a lot of optimization and were terrible compared to casters.

I liked marks as a concept, but they acted contrary to the interests of 4E IMO. 4E is geared towards single attacks (by which I mean attacks and movement together) and lots of tactical movement, which the mark system undermines.

Lots of tactical movement... the mark system actually takes advantage of that to make your team better by hindering the enemy's movement. If you can move but your enemy can't, you're ahead of them.

And that's why the mark system doesn't undermine, it builds on top of that to make your team better.

tcrudisi

2014-05-16, 08:36 PM

Well, I think its easier to say what I would change rather than what I would keep.

1. Enlarge Spell - now for Sorcs only!
2. Those blaster wizard powers? Now for Sorcs only!
3. Twin Strike is /outta/ here!
4. Charge package would mostly be removed.
5. The math feat taxes are gone! (Superior Fort/Ref/Will and Expertise feats) ... but replaced with *gasp* the proper math! *women faint*
6. The Strength cleric powers are given to the Runepriest (and slightly modified so that they work for it, naturally)
7. Get rid of all minor action attacks.

That's all I can think of for now.

OracleofWuffing

2014-05-16, 10:43 PM

oxybe

2014-05-16, 11:49 PM

to use 5th ed parlance, a marked creature would have disadvantage on any roll that doesn't target the marker and individual classes might have different interactions available with their marked quarry.

the main benefit of the marking concept was that it was often reliably applied either as part of any attack action (regardless if it did damage or even hit) or as a minor action, leaving you free to do other actions in the meanwhile. this allowed the defender types to not just actively hinder attacks against their allies, but also allow them to do other cool things on their turn too.

grappling and tripping, historically speaking, took up your standard action and were highly unreliable unless you focused on virtually only doing that for most of the early game. late game you might be capable of branching out into other things but that is still a considerable amount of time spent trying to grapple/trip and little else.

now, the last public package I remember seeing allowed a fighter variant that did things like tripping as part of an attack action, but if memory serves the attack first needed to connect AND it had a save attached to it AND it wasn't available until like level 3 or 5.

this is one of the concepts I hoped would have stayed in 5th ed from 4th: a reliable ability to give enemies a choice: focus on you OR take an action against another party member with consequences attached.

Telwar

2014-05-18, 03:19 PM

One person (in 4e's case, the actor) making the rolls. It's simple, it's elegant, and it just makes sense.

Defender rolls makes sense as well, personally.

And that's really, at the heart of it, why I don't intend to invest in 5e. Going back to the idea that casters affect the world around them and the target can maybe save (in other words, that their success is assumed) whereas the non-casters have to roll to hit a goblin with a sword, irritates the hell out of me.

Talyn

2014-05-18, 06:59 PM

Epinephrine

2014-05-18, 07:41 PM

As for combat taking forever - combat taking forever is a symptom of people not knowing the freaking rules. Learn the rules, and there is no reason why your combat turn should take longer than 90 seconds. Of course, getting all seven people around a table to all learn the rules is a herculean task in itself...

yeah, part of the problem with long turns in my group is the effort to optimise everything, down to which square to stand in in case you are needed for a flank, to avoid a burst 2 from the enemy, etc. That and the amount of time eaten by immediate actions, delays, and readied actions. I very seldom as the DM manage to get any action off uninterrupted or responded to.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-18, 07:54 PM

I know people are complaining about the minor action, but as someone who is playing a 5e game right now, I miss the minor action to death. Seriously, I like 5e's combat (is reminds me of 2nd edition, which is the system I started with), but give me a way to bring back healing surges and minor actions!

I think that a minor action class feature is probably fine, such as paladin mark or warlock curse. However, having a list of minor action powers, including item powers, to pick from every turn is not so good. For example, epic tier characters tend to have four actions in their first combat turn (standard, move, minor, action point), all of which get used on some particular power or item power that they have to pick from a list and resolve; this takes well over 90 seconds.

The issue is probably that after the first year, the designers forgot that minor actions are supposed to be minor, and that anything complicated or indeed any attack should not be a minor action ever, nor should every character be entitled to "fill up" his action economy by using a (different) minor action in every turn of combat.

Boci

2014-05-18, 08:29 PM

I'm not sure there was anything I liked about 4th ed that I would want to see reproduced in another system. When it comes to the innovation and changes of 4th ed I'm kinda all or nothing, and most positive traits were not in a vacuum, either joined at the hip to other features or having implication to the whole game. I guess the action economy could be cut and pasted relatively easily, especially being able to trade actions down properly.

Person_Man

2014-05-19, 08:43 AM

Marking (think soccer or basketball) does something that is needed in D&D but has long been missing. In the hands of the fighter it's effectively intimidation. "I've got my eye on you. Take your eyes off me and I will &*%$ you up, and you know it!" It's not MMO Taunt-style mind control, instead it gives the NPCs a choice. Attack the fighter - in which case you are attacking the person in plate armour. Or attack someone else or even creep back in which case you're taking your eye off the expert killer for long enough for them to mess you up badly.

Defender Auras do much the same thing - but because they mean the fighter just owns the space around them they are easier to resolve as you just look at the map to see whether they apply, rather than having them on specific people. It's not quite as accurate but a whole lot less book keeping.

Oh, ok. So if I'm hearing you and other similar posts correctly, you basically want some kind of Aggro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_%28video_gaming%29), or some stand in mechanic that allows Defenders to be good at their roles. (And not just low-rent Strikers with higher hit points/AC/Defenses/etc).

Fair enough. But I agree with Kurald - there are ways to let a defender do his job that don't involve marking mechanics or additional book keeping.

Examples:

Give the Defender a wider threatened area, so that enemies are more likely to trigger Reactions from him.
Give the Defender really powerful Reactions. You attack my ally while standing in my threatened area or attempt to move away from my threatened area, I get a powerful counter attack against you that also stops your movement and ends your turn.
Make the Defender really sticky. 3.5 Knight does this by imposing a penalty on Tumble and making the area around the Knight difficult terrain. I'm sure we could come up with 5E equivalents that don't involve book keeping. For example, "Enemies cannot take the Withdraw Action while adjacent to the Defender."
Give the Defender superior delayed Actions. For example, I delay my attack with a spear/pike until an enemy comes within my threatened area. If an enemy moves into my threatened area, I deal double damage with all attacks.
Give the Defender superior Aid Another type abilities. When I take the Aid Another Action to defend an ally, all enemies have Disadvantage to attack him. Or just make it a default ability. While adjacent to a Defender, attacks against your allies have Disadvantage or Physical Resistance.

Correct me if I'm wrong though, but it seems to me like 5E doesn't have roles. Classes just sorta do what they do, and are a mishmash of different abilities.

Tegu8788

2014-05-19, 11:46 AM

I really like what Marks do. If they allow a class to impose the same catch-22 some other way, I'm down for that.

I also like minor action class features. Defenders Mark, Leaders "- Word," most Strikers get a bonus to damage. Controllers, I wish they had something. I agree not every round needs to have something do everything, and it's gotten bloated, but I do like the action economy.

Monster building, and XP value, is great. Minions are a lot of fun, either throwing out a dozen for a bar fight, filling out an encounter that needs just a little more juice, or for a Titan with a weak ankle, I love Minions.

Sub-builds, specializations, alternate class features , whatever you call it, I like it. I know its not new, but I feel like 4E had a lot of them, which I like. It may feel like bloat to others, but I love having options.

Making Casters useful at low levels in combat, and not gimping martial characters at high levels.

Making refluffing so easy. I like that.

Themes, a way of tacking some extra mechanics onto a class so it's individualized. I see this as a variant of earlier MCing.

Roles, and power sources. Yes, they may have gone to far trying to give a combo for everything, but who doesn't love the Warlord or Swordmage? They don't need to be as exclusive as they are, but being able to be a Fighter (Defender build) or a Fightet (Striker build) would be nice.

And a thing I don't think has been mentioned yet, the general lack of player penalties. You aren't penalized for choosing an unusual race/class combo. You don't lose levels for fighting certain bad guys. Penalties are save-ends where they exist, and there are no Save or Die situations.

Sol

2014-05-19, 12:53 PM

I haven't kept up too well on 5E, probably because of how wholly the early playtest materials discarded all lessons learned from 4E, but in my mind, the single greatest thing 4E brought was official developer endorsement of refluffing/reflavoring mechanics to fit whatever concept you imagine.

There are times and places where it's overused, or used to obfuscate re-using the same optimal mechanics every time, but in general, it allows for even the most oddball ideas to be fully functional, playable characters, who contribute their share to the party. One of my favorite such creations recently is a toxomancer, who mechanically is just an ooze master water elementalist using a mordant dagger as a weapliment. I also once described an earthsoul genasi as, literally, a mountain, who developed a consciousness due to eons in the feywild, and manifested a mortal form to protect herself from fomorian miners.

In 3e, the answer to these things was, "wait until someone writes a (probably bad, definitely redundant) race/class/prestige path that explicitly matches this concept," or, if the DM allows, write it yourself. "Use something fairly similar that we already have rules for, and just change the names of things," is a much cleaner, simpler answer, that has enabled far greater balance parity between options.

There's still far more inexcusably terrible power/feat/paragon path/theme/ED options than I'd like, and some of them are still specific enough to common tropes that they're pretty effective traps, but in most cases, there's at least 2-3 options at every step that can create equally or nearly equally viable characters, which you can then describe in any of 10 ways each. That's plenty of variance for me.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-19, 03:06 PM

Sol

2014-05-19, 03:23 PM

I'd say this is probably the worst part of 4E. Too many players I've seen have concluded that there exists no relation between how an ability is described (fluff) and what it actually does (crunch), and therefore they take the mechanically optimal build and just rename a few parts.

When players start refluffing an elf to a dwarf because they'll get +1 to hit that way, there's really something wrong.

*shrug* I think the thing that's wrong there is dwarves having a -1 to hit, to be honest. But I do see some people use refluffing more often than they should to use optimal things instead of things they think are cool. Where it is great is when it allows creative re-describing of already awesome things, and where it allows really out of the box concepts that don't have any stock representation in the system. If someone uses it to describe a mordenkrad as a dagger, something's gone woefully wrong. If someone uses it to describe a mordenkrad as the detached leg of their warforged best friend, who was deactivated by corrupt police, it's both awesome and a story hook.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-19, 03:56 PM

*shrug* I think the thing that's wrong there is dwarves having a -1 to hit, to be honest.
They don't. They just have an attribute bonus to other stats, as part of their racial identity.

If someone uses it to describe a mordenkrad as the detached leg of their warforged best friend, who was deactivated by corrupt police, it's both awesome and a story hook.
Yes. Like I said in another thread, you don't get to refluff a Fireball spell as "you leap forward, punch three enemies in the face, then teleport back to where you were standing". Refluffing a Fireball as an alchemical bomb, planar rift, or a blessing of the god of fire should be possible, though.

Tegu8788

2014-05-19, 04:48 PM

I think, as long as you respect the Keywords that are there, you should be fine when it comes to refluffing. "My, that dagger is certainly a large, two-handed hammer."

Sol

2014-05-19, 05:56 PM

They don't. They just have an attribute bonus to other stats, as part of their racial identity.

Yes, I understand the rules interactions we're discussing perfectly well, thanks.

I feel that the races are more than adequately differentiated, particularly in 4e with the plethora of racial feats, utility powers, and the freebie racial encounter power, and that asking some race/class combinations to essentially suck it up and be at -1 to hit is an entirely unnecessary relic of the past. There's no good reason that a dwarf should be a worse wizard than an eladrin, other than stereotypes, which are even sillier in a fantasy setting than they are in the real world.

Certainly, they moved in the right direction with flexible stat bonuses in 4e, but honestly, I would have preferred a single racial and a single class bonus to one stat each, that don't stack.

Kimera757

2014-05-19, 06:14 PM

I think that a minor action class feature is probably fine, such as paladin mark or warlock curse. However, having a list of minor action powers, including item powers, to pick from every turn is not so good.

This is exactly my attitude, only toss in off-turn attacks as well. Healing Word or Divine Challenge or Combat Challenge Attack are the kind of non-standard-action-attacks I like. Minor action rogue power? Off-turn powers? Not so much.

The issue is probably that after the first year, the designers forgot that minor actions are supposed to be minor, and that anything complicated or indeed any attack should not be a minor action ever, nor should every character be entitled to "fill up" his action economy by using a (different) minor action in every turn of combat.

Yeah. They have to make money somehow. There's a lot of glut and weak (and occasionally overpowered) glut in Dragon Magazines and various splatbooks. A dragonborn warlord in my campaign (where I'm a player) took both Inspiring Dragon Breath (an awesome feat) and Harlequin Style (a feat that weakened his leader abilities, but could give him +4 to all defenses in a game that's a bit grindy to begin with). Both were from various Dragon Magazines, I believe.

Another thing that contributes to grind is high AC. My party (the one where I play, not DM) reached 6th-level for the last game we played about an hour ago. Our average AC should be 21. Our monk was easily hitting 26, and that's without the runepriest being able to give us +5 AC when using Word of Mending plus other defensive buffs (some of which were untyped). Our enemies attacked AC, except for one that could sometimes attack Will. If the DM hadn't rolled so many 20s the last encounter (over level +4) would have been pretty easy.

I know people are complaining about the minor action, but as someone who is playing a 5e game right now, I miss the minor action to death. Seriously, I like 5e's combat (is reminds me of 2nd edition, which is the system I started with), but give me a way to bring back healing surges and minor actions!

I played a session of All Flesh Must Be Eaten last year. Each round is one second. You can't even shoot someone and then pocket your pistol in one round. Lame :/ (You can do things like that in Fate, which is great but yet so different from D&D.)

Correct me if I'm wrong though, but it seems to me like 5E doesn't have roles. Classes just sorta do what they do, and are a mishmash of different abilities.

Unfortunately. Without roles, it becomes difficult to say what classes should be good at. Bards in 3e were weak, and clerics were unfocused, due to lack of strong roles.

Cloud

2014-05-19, 08:52 PM

Hmm, on roles actually, I'm really torn.

I really love them in 4e, and even in 3.5 my group would always have an 'arcanist', '"healer" (yes, I know it's bad, really just someone with access to the divine spell list that used a wand)', 'skill monkey', and 'big stupid fighter' (well Barbarian/Crusader/Warblade). Though, there certainly is something nice about 3.5 about being able to have a Factotum, Incarnate, Binder, Warlock, and Bard for example team up, and just, rely on a diverse pool of abilities to get things done, not roles.

So...hmm...I think I'd still like roles in the game, just, maybe make it clear they're not necessary or straight-jackets. Also if 5e is more like 3.5 in that ALL the multiclassing and classes are just boxes of abilities, no one class is a role anyway, your final build is.

Tegu8788

2014-05-19, 09:56 PM

I think in a similar way on it. I love how Roles make it easy to know the basic abilities of each class, and it's very easy to make a "complete" team. I also think that a number of classes that cross roles are great. I love the Paladin, the Warlock, the Bard.

What I'd like to see is having different classes have the option to choose which role they play. Fighter could pick the Marking feature to be a Defender, a damage boost to be a Striker, a buff/heal feature to simulate the Warlord, a grappling/net/chain bonus to be a Controller.

So, you've party doesn't have four roles, but you have the option to have a couple mixed roles. Paladin (Defender/Leader), Bard (Leader/Controller), Druid (Controller/Striker), and Barbarian (Striker/Defender) would make for a well balanced party under this system. But that's me. I like non-standard parties.

Have the roles still exist, just don't hold everyone to them.

Seerow

2014-05-19, 10:06 PM

A lot of the things I'm going to mention are going to be coming from a perspective of "Things I liked the idea of in 4e but would love to see implemented better". Because honestly, that's how I felt about the majority of 4e. There were great concepts, but a lot of the execution fell short of where it should have been.

1) Minor Actions. Going to comment on this first because discussion of it caught my eye while I was skimming the thread. Minor actions should exist in the core rules. We saw how it worked not having them in 3e (eventually got brought in via splats, and left some weirdness in core that would have been averted if it had been there from the start). We also see the same thing happening again in 5e's playtest materials, with their steady introduction of various "Do this as a free action once per round" or "When you take an action" actions. Simply put, there is a mechanical need for something that is not free but not a standard action. That isn't something you want to offload to a splat book, or put as a class feature for one class.

That said, minor actions should be more focused in what they do. I mean an easy way to slap down the whole action paralysis thing is to not let minor actions actually cause effects on their own. Make them things that augment other abilities. Spend a minor action to apply a metamagic/improve your next attack. Spend a minor action to sustain that spell/maintain your stance. Things like that. Stuff like "Spend a minor action to take an extra attack" or "Spend a minor action to heal an ally" shouldn't exist. That should suffice to speed up play, while keeping minor actions for the purposes that they are genuinely needed for. You should also have a couple of simple, easy to run, resource-free minor action options. This would be just so players can have something to default to when other things aren't particularly relevant. This will save some table time in agonizing over "wasting" an action, or flipping through character sheets double and triple checking for some other power you could use this turn.

2) Healing Surges. The exact tuning of them was off, and it screwed with 4e's pacing. But having all healing proportional to the health of the target being healed was a HUGE step forward. Similarly, having a universal resource outside of your daily spells that gets worn down by attrition is great. 4e may have had too many healing surges per character, or given too easy access to them with not enough trade offs, but the core concept there is great and should be kept. 5e's hit dice are a poor substitute that does not fill the same niche in any way.

3) Roles. Having distinct roles to fill in combat is a big deal. You notice how every so often to this day we still get people wanting to play a Tank or a Healer in 3.5? 4e letting that happen explicitly was again, a great move. Shoehorning each class into a specific role caused problems, but the idea of having an explicit role and giving tools to fit the role chosen is something that should stay. It should just be a case of "Pick class, then pick role" rather than "Pick role, then pick class"

These two points aren't really a part of 4e, but 4e hinted at them in fluff... just failed to follow through mechanically. I feel they're worth mentioning, but kind of off topic.

A) Explicit Tier Breaks. This was probably the biggest missed opportunity for 4e in my eyes. You have characters who explicitly become demigods at level 21. Advancing from 10 to 11 or 20 to 21 is a big deal in world, and marks a big shift in campaign focus.... except where it doesn't because the design stayed focused on small scale tactical combat for all 30 levels. Not saying you should stop getting abilities to support that at a point, but I think the game would have been a lot better if Paragon Paths gave things we were used to seeing from 11th-13th level casters in 3.5, and if Epic Destinies gave things somewhere between a 17th level caster and one with Epic Spellcasting.

Either way, the explicit tier break was a great idea. They just didn't push it hard enough, and left things too similar in each tier. Going from Paragon to Epic should be a much bigger deal than it ended up being in practice.

B) Explicit Power Sources. Again, this is a ship that 4e kind of missed the mark on, but imagine if you had "Arcane, Divine, Martial, and Primal" as distinct power sources, and all classes within a given source shared some degree of overlap on powers/resource? So you can have a rogue or ranger learning the same combat tricks as a fighter, rather than writing the same ability 3 times in 3 different classes. Basically here reverting closer to 3eish, but with martial types having an actual resource and abilities, and Divine/Primal being more distinguished from Arcane.

GPuzzle

2014-05-20, 03:59 AM

Thing is - Divine and Primal are different from Arcane. Each feat involves a theme. There's a crapton of "allies gain bonus X when Y" in the Divine power source, even when they're not leaders. Primal seems to be focused on toughness and control, with both class features and feats supporting that, for example.

The "minor in role" of a class is determined, generally, by its class feature and its power source.

Well, except for Psionics, they're jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-20, 04:27 AM

Thing is - Divine and Primal are different from Arcane.

Upon closer scrutiny this is not really the case, not all that much. Every power source has "when X then Y" effects, and control and toughness effects, and so forth.

One of the big things in 4E that falls under "nice idea but could have been implemented better" is that they should have made greater distinction between power sources. Take an example from Magic: the Gathering, where in early editions the colors were rather messy, but eventually they came up with distinct attributes and abilities for each. For example, make it so that all divine powers are "enemies in burst" whereas all arcane powers are "creatures in burst"; or have certain conditions like ongoing-fire be found only on primal powers, but not on divine. Perhaps divine should be able to give bonuses to defenses but not to attack, but conversely it would be the only power source that uses temporary hit points.

It is not for nothing that the 4E design team eliminated two of the originally planned power sources, and left a third to a minor side role at best - they hadn't made enough distinction between the five "big ones" yet. (and for that matter, they should eliminate all mental effects that target fortitude, and physical effects that target will; same principle)

Yakk

2014-05-20, 10:14 AM

Roles where good, but where a bit forced.

Instead of 4 combat roles, they should have gone with archetypes: Big with weapon, little sneaky, smart with magic. Then pairs of same (big with magic, sneaky with magic, big with sneaky).

If you want combat roles, I'd avoid the silo of 1 roll per class. Do 4 choose 2, which comes to 6 pairs of roles, and no pure role classes. Ideally force a choice on a per-action basis: a Fighter could either deal extra damage/more accuracy (striker) or mark (defender) on an attack. A Paladin could place a Divine mark on a target (defender) or boost an ally (leader). A cleric can boost an ally (leader) or hinder foes (controller). A rogue can backstab for damage (striker) or disable them (controller). A warlord can boost alies (leader) or protect them (defender). A ranger can slay (striker) or rally allies (leader).

Mix in power source, and you have (5 power sources)x(3 archtypes)x(4 choose 2 roles)=90 distinct class slots.

Person_Man

2014-05-21, 12:18 PM

kieza

2014-05-21, 03:33 PM

...there needs to be a strict and clearly defined action economy (otherwise you get a ton of free actions, non-actions, and when you take your Action you also get this other actions), limit to daily healing (otherwise healing is basically infinite), and roles (otherwise class balance is basically impossible)

I agree with your first two points, but I think that they could loosen the strictness of class roles. My ideal would be if all the major features which made a class a leader, defender, etc. were just class features, and then power selection allowed you to either specialize in that role or branch out. This would allow for there to be a single pool of powers, using the same ability scores, for an entire power source, containing powers associated with all four roles.

captpike

2014-05-21, 04:00 PM

I agree with your first two points, but I think that they could loosen the strictness of class roles. My ideal would be if all the major features which made a class a leader, defender, etc. were just class features, and then power selection allowed you to either specialize in that role or branch out. This would allow for there to be a single pool of powers, using the same ability scores, for an entire power source, containing powers associated with all four roles.

in my ideal game every class would have two roles, and they could decide where to be in the spectrum between them.

the importance of roles is that it gives a baseline for everyone, and it makes it easy to tell what classes should be doing. you can do that without having one role per class.

georgie_leech

2014-05-21, 06:59 PM

in my ideal game every class would have two roles, and they could decide where to be in the spectrum between them.

the importance of roles is that it gives a baseline for everyone, and it makes it easy to tell what classes should be doing. you can do that without having one role per class.

Just don't go to the 3.5 extreme either, where some classes get one and others can fill multiple roles at once.

captpike

2014-05-21, 08:29 PM

Just don't go to the 3.5 extreme either, where some classes get one and others can fill multiple roles at once.

ya it would take more then a little testing to make sure it works, and that you have real trade offs. so you cant be fully competent in two roles at once, or all of them like the 3e wizard.

not easy but it would be cool, and you would not need as many classes.

georgie_leech

2014-05-21, 09:29 PM

ya it would take more then a little testing to make sure it works, and that you have real trade offs. so you cant be fully competent in two roles at once, or all of them like the 3e wizard.

not easy but it would be cool, and you would not need as many classes.

"Need," perhaps not, but that doesn't make all overlap bad. Rogue's and Warlock's were both Striker with a Minor in Controlling out of the box, but one focused on Melee and higher damage with the other sticking to Ranged and more Controlling. I don't think 4E would have been any better if only one of them existed in the PHB.

captpike

2014-05-21, 10:15 PM

"Need," perhaps not, but that doesn't make all overlap bad. Rogue's and Warlock's were both Striker with a Minor in Controlling out of the box, but one focused on Melee and higher damage with the other sticking to Ranged and more Controlling. I don't think 4E would have been any better if only one of them existed in the PHB.

I don't mean that much, the best example would be the seeker, instead of having a ranger and a seeker you would instead have one class.

most 4e classes would not be combined in this way, but you could streamline some.

neonchameleon

2014-05-22, 06:13 AM

For example, make it so that all divine powers are "enemies in burst" whereas all arcane powers are "creatures in burst"; or have certain conditions like ongoing-fire be found only on primal powers, but not on divine.

This, in my view, is absurd. Divine Casters now never set people on fire, and never call fire down from the sky that doesn't leave those the caster likes unharmed. Clerics and Invokers never use anything like Shatter, Sound Burst, Flamestrike, or Storm of Vengeance, and never summon swarms of locusts. And wizards never cast any precisely targeted spells.

(and for that matter, they should eliminate all mental effects that target fortitude, and physical effects that target will; same principle)

Give me examples of what there is that breaks this rule please. Because there are reasons for mind control to target fortitude if it's a brute force approach. And there are rare times physical effects will target will.

You should be going for thematic design of the powers rather than this sort of consistency that doesn't pay attention to what the powers actually represent.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-22, 06:58 AM

This, in my view, is absurd. Divine Casters now never set people on fire, and never call fire down from the sky that doesn't leave those the caster likes unharmed.
It's divine fire. Why wouldn't it leave your allies unharmed?

You should be going for thematic design of the powers rather than this sort of consistency that doesn't pay attention to what the powers actually represent.
No, the aim here is to make power sources distinct. That may indeed involve moving powers to a class that suits them better (just like how Magic moved certain effects to a different color). Currently, there's no rhyme or reason to why most classes get those particular powers instead of others.

Person_Man

2014-05-22, 08:33 AM

In defense of Roles:

D&D is a class based system. In theory, classes are useful because:

1) If a player wants to roleplay an archetype or a specific character from a story, all they have to do is pick the class that best reflects that character. Want to roleplay Aragorn or Robin Hood? Play a Ranger.

2) Roles allow for better niche protection, which in turn can lead to better game balance and teamwork. Failure to observe niche protection leads to the CoDzilla problem (where Clerics and Druids are more effective at melee combat then Fighters and Barbarians) and the Batman problem (where enough supplements allows a class like the Wizard or Sorcerer to fill any niche). This will ALWAYS happen in a game that is heavily supported through supplements written by dozens of different writers, UNLESS the game designer specifically designates and enforces clear Roles and/or Niches for each class.

Now, I'm open to debate about how many Roles there should be and what they should cover and to what degree Power Sources are used or not used. I'm also cool with optional modules that allow you to mix and match. (Though really, if that's what you want to do, you should just play a game system with point based character creation, like GURPS).

But 3.0/3.5/PF basically ignored this, and over time classes/prestige classes/archetypes basically became completely unmoored from fluff and niche. 4E corrected this with Roles. And while I may not love the particular implementation of how they did it, in general Roles worked for most of the run of the game. So I don't see a compelling reason to throw away a good idea just because it's a part of the Edition I least enjoy.

neonchameleon

2014-05-22, 10:05 AM

It's divine fire. Why wouldn't it leave your allies unharmed?

Because fire burns. And not all miracles are harmless or Gods protect their worshippers let alone the worshippers of other gods like that.

No, the aim here is to make power sources distinct. That may indeed involve moving powers to a class that suits them better (just like how Magic moved certain effects to a different color). Currently, there's no rhyme or reason to why most classes get those particular powers instead of others.

The problem is that your method appears to be much closer to saying "All walls must be blue, all buffs must be white".

GPuzzle

2014-05-22, 11:49 AM

Well, just look at the current power sources.

Divine has great defenses (everyone gets a +1 to all NADs and good armor, even the controller!) and has things that work on leader and buffing (Bless Weapon, Rain of Blood, Battle Cleric's Lore...).

Primal hampers the ground and has a ton of hit points (except for the Leader).

Martial makes things die fast, be it by making your allies attack more or making yourself attack more.

Arcane works by either hampering your enemies, buffing your allies and applying that in areas.

They work in feat and features, not powers (well, sometimes they work on powers). It's not how the powers work, it's what these powers do.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-22, 02:00 PM

Well, just look at the current power sources.
Yes, I've seen lists like that before. But that doesn't really work, because they're made after the fact: you're assuming there is a pattern there and discarding evidence that doesn't fit, whereas what I'm suggesting is that the developers should deliberately put a pattern there, which they haven't really.

For example, great defenses? Yeah, martial does that too. "Things that work on leader and buffing"? Arcane can do that just fine. Hampering the ground? Yeah, psionic power source does that easily. And so forth.

Tegu8788

2014-05-22, 03:17 PM

I think if each source did a couple of things it would work better.

Divine-friendly, buffs, defenses
Arcane-bursts, lasting effects, buffs
Martial-defenses, high damage, healthy
Primal-healthy, difficult terrain, elemental
Psionic-debuff, control, augmentable powers
Shadow-debuff, high damage, evasive

Would there be overlap, of course! But that some core things stick out. I get the feeling that there was an effort in the beginning to make the Sources different, but when they had to stick one in every Role some of it got mixed around, and/or it wasn't implemented as best as it could have been.

Kurald Galain

2014-05-22, 03:23 PM

I think if each source did a couple of things it would work better.
Yes, I agree.

An additional option is to give status conditions to particular power sources. For example, daze could be in psionic and arcane; flight could be in arcane and primal; immobilize could be in primal and martial; and so forth. This would need a couple additional conditions, but the principle is interesting - again, this is precisely what Magic also does (e.g. first strike is white and red, trample is red and green, etc).

shadow_archmagi

2014-05-22, 04:09 PM

Now, I'm open to debate about how many Roles there should be and what they should cover and to what degree Power Sources are used or not used. I'm also cool with optional modules that allow you to mix and match. (Though really, if that's what you want to do, you should just play a game system with point based character creation, like GURPS).

I admit that I'm not a super 4E veteran yet, but Power Sources, as far as I can tell, aren't really a game mechanic so much as just a thematic grouping tool.

I actually quite like them, because they allow for nice grids. Player can say to me "I'd like to play a priest who stands on the front lines and protects people" and I can follow the Divine column down to the Defender role and say "Play a Paladin!"

What I'd like to see is having different classes have the option to choose which role they play. Fighter could pick the Marking feature to be a Defender, a damage boost to be a Striker, a buff/heal feature to simulate the Warlord, a grappling/net/chain bonus to be a Controller.

Have the roles still exist, just don't hold everyone to them.

I have to strongly disagree with this. Classes are defined by their role; a big guy who hits really hard and focuses more on damage than on protecting his teammates is a Barbarian, not a Fighter. If two players can join my party, one of whom is a ranged controller, and the other of whom is a melee defender, and they both introduce themselves as Dwarven Fighters, then they've imparted no useful information, and would be better off saying that they're Martial Controller/Defenders, at which point why even have the label of Fighter?

georgie_leech

2014-05-22, 04:28 PM

I have to strongly disagree with this. Classes are defined by their role; a big guy who hits really hard and focuses more on damage than on protecting his teammates is a Barbarian, not a Fighter. If two players can join my party, one of whom is a ranged controller, and the other of whom is a melee defender, and they both introduce themselves as Dwarven Fighters, then they've imparted no useful information, and would be better off saying that they're Martial Controller/Defenders, at which point why even have the label of Fighter?

This message has been brought to you by The Society of People Who Think Names Should Mean Something.

StabbityRabbit

2014-05-22, 07:00 PM

1. Roles. Roles were a great concept which made it easier to build a cohesive party than in other editions. They also let you generally know what you're supposed to be doing as a class very easily.

2. Power sources. I also rather liked power sources as I didn't have to read an entire class description to know what it was. I could see that the power source is primal and know that it represents a person who reveres the spirits of nature, and dislikes people who worship gods.

3. At wills and powers in general. My favorite thing that 4e did was the options you had from round to round. Everybody always had a decision to make. Which kept combat way more engaging than constant basic attacks and instant "I win" spells ever did. Even at the end of the day you still have to decide between which at-will to use, and that's still an engaging decision.

All in all I agree with the people saying WOtC should've made the power sources more distinct. That would've made class decision even more meaningful, and would've allowed veterans of the system size up classes based on just power source and role. Instead of having to look at all the class features and more than a few powers in order to learn if you want to play a class.

Person_Man

2014-05-23, 08:02 AM

3. At wills and powers in general. My favorite thing that 4e did was the options you had from round to round. Everybody always had a decision to make. Which kept combat way more engaging than constant basic attacks and instant "I win" spells ever did. Even at the end of the day you still have to decide between which at-will to use, and that's still an engaging decision.

It's worth noting that Pathfinder basically added at-wills to casters in the form of Cantrips/Orisons, and added Powers to lower Tier classes in the form of Talents/Tricks/Powers/etc. But it seems like 5E has basically abandoned the idea and reverted to 3.5-ish style class design.

StabbityRabbit

2014-05-23, 09:31 AM

It's worth noting that Pathfinder basically added at-wills to casters in the form of Cantrips/Orisons, and added Powers to lower Tier classes in the form of Talents/Tricks/Powers/etc. But it seems like 5E has basically abandoned the idea and reverted to 3.5-ish style class design.

But the talents/tricks/whatever don't really count as most of them are passive benefits rather than something you choose to do. I do agree about Pathfinder's casters though. Casters are fun all day long, AND get "I win" spells. So I'm not sure how I feel about cantrips. Paizo does get points for trying to make everyone fun all day long.

Seerow

2014-05-23, 09:31 AM

It's worth noting that Pathfinder basically added at-wills to casters in the form of Cantrips/Orisons, and added Powers to lower Tier classes in the form of Talents/Tricks/Powers/etc. But it seems like 5E has basically abandoned the idea and reverted to 3.5-ish style class design.

That's not entirely fair. 5e last I checked has at-will cantrips (and they even scale in damage/usefulness far more than the Pathfinder Cantrips), and most of the low tier classes got some new abilities, even if they are optional and/or suck. It's not really fair to say Pathfinder adopts the 4e ideology here while ignoring 5e stuff that is exactly the same. Instead, it is far more fair to say that both systems are garbage and fail to provide meaningful alternatives to daily resource management.

StabbityRabbit

2014-05-23, 09:37 AM

captpike

2014-05-23, 10:54 AM

Surrealistik

2014-05-24, 01:22 PM

Most of my issues with 4e are sorted out in my houserules list here:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=199598

Essentially, I'd like to see 5e basically be 4e with those rules & revisions, or something like them, with the following additional changes:

#1: Classes would be revised to draw upon a shared pool of powers, instead of having their own unique sets. Class unique powers will be the exception, not the rule, and will exist as class features. Classes would be defined by their unique class features rather than primarily by their power sets.

#2: Classes would define one stat bump, while race would define the other as applicable.

#3: Classes would grant more trained skills.

#4: More creative powers with unique effects that don't involve mixing and matching status effects, numerical bonuses/penalties, forced movement and damage (though these themselves are fine there should be more variety).

#5: More emphasis on non-combat and narrative orientated powers; classes would gain such powers in addition (not in place of, or otherwise in a mutually exclusive way) to more combat focused utility powers and standard combat powers.

Person_Man

2014-05-27, 08:24 AM

That's not entirely fair. 5e last I checked has at-will cantrips (and they even scale in damage/usefulness far more than the Pathfinder Cantrips), and most of the low tier classes got some new abilities, even if they are optional and/or suck. It's not really fair to say Pathfinder adopts the 4e ideology here while ignoring 5e stuff that is exactly the same. Instead, it is far more fair to say that both systems are garbage and fail to provide meaningful alternatives to daily resource management.

Fair point. The larger issue that I'm trying to get at is that an elegantly designed class always has the option to do something meaningful/fun/interesting, but also has some sort of mechanism in place to encourage or require variety, especially in combat.

A spellcaster is boring if he runs out of spells and can't do anything but use a hand crossbow (a common low level problem in 1st/2nd/most editions, but not 4E). But a Fighter is also boring if he does nothing but make a vanilla melee attack almost every round of every combat with no variety, even if it deals a lot of damage and is thus very useful/effective.

That's why Tome of Battle and 4E were such a huge steps forward in class design (even though I don't love the way they implemented it in 4E), why Pathfinder often feels like it's trying to occupy a middle ground of 3.5+ other stuff, and why some parts of 5E feels like a step backwards. I don't necessarily need or want an explicit defacto At-Will/Encounter/Daily setup for every class. But every class needs SOMETHING useful it can do every round, and some meaningful menu of cool options that cannot be spammed repeatedly every round.

kieza

2014-05-27, 05:21 PM

#1: Classes would be revised to draw upon a shared pool of powers, instead of having their own unique sets. Class unique powers will be the exception, not the rule, and will exist as class features. Classes would be defined by their unique class features rather than primarily by their power sets.

I agree--maybe group powers by power source, though? With a small assortment of universal powers? That way Artificers, Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks and Wizards all draw from the same set of arcane spells, and can also pick up some simple sword tricks (like defensive strike, careful strike, etc.) if they feel like it.

#2: Classes would define one stat bump, while race would define the other as applicable.

Why have stat bumps at all? They threw off the math in 4e, because you wound up with an extra +4 to two stats and +1 to the others, and it didn't really contribute much. Especially since you already got +1/2 level to everything. Just make sure that there's plenty of room for initial stat customization, and leave it at that.

#3: Classes would grant more trained skills.

I agree--along with a little bit of expansion to the skill list. I'd like to see a couple more of the old knowledge skills make a comeback--split Engineering from Dungeoneering, add in Nobility, or some other "social knowledge" skill, separate Survival from Biology, etc.

#4: More creative powers with unique effects that don't involve mixing and matching status effects, numerical bonuses/penalties, forced movement and damage (though these themselves are fine there should be more variety).

I personally think this would be great--but they should start with the simple stuff in the PHB's, and then offer this as a supplement. Unique effects are going to require more complicated rules, and I think a lot of groups would like to have the basics first, and then an option to expand to more complicated abilities. Fireball is nice and simple. Long-term domination effects, illusions, polymorphs, and so on require more rules, and more judgement calls for the DM.

#5: More emphasis on non-combat and narrative orientated powers; classes would gain such powers in addition (not in place of, or otherwise in a mutually exclusive way) to more combat focused utility powers and standard combat powers.

Again, I think that this would be best implemented as a supplement to the basic rules--but one that's planned from the beginning, not tacked on as an afterthought. It would also be a good place to implement "minor skills" which have very niche uses, like Craft (basketweaving), Perform (oratory), and Knowledge (advanced mathematics)--they should be separate from the "adventuring and combat" skills.

I think this is one of the admirable goals of Next--make the basic rules simple, and release CLEARLY LABELED modules that introduce more complicated variations. It would make it simple for new players to learn, while allowing old hands to have more customization, or more simulation--and it would also be nice to have the complexity of the content clearly marked, for when you're running a game with new players, or kids, or a one-shot where you don't have time to figure out exactly how every one of your players' powers works. Or if you just want to have a nice, low-key game with as few rules arguments as possible.

Surrealistik

2014-05-27, 06:05 PM

Call me old fashioned, but I like the idea of ability bumps making certain races slightly better at certain roles.

As for #1, 4 and 5, yes, these changes are best added from the ground up; you essentially have to completely overhaul all of the classes for them to work well, but this can be done without affecting the core of 4e's ruleset which is fantastic and superior to 5e's IMO.

As for #1, the restrictions on the shared pool would be more granular than simply power sources I think, but choices would be overall much broader than tailored class specific lists.

GPuzzle

2014-05-27, 06:20 PM

Well, it already does affect. More related to power source, though.

I mean, look at the Eladrin (Arcane). Or perhaps the Dwarf (Primal and Divine). The Tiefling's also there (Arcane and Psionic). The Half-Elf is split through three (Arcane, Primal and Psionic). Or the Half-Orc (Martial). Of course there's the odd one such as the Tiefling and the Half-Elf being particulary good at being Paladins, the Half-Orc being good as a Barbarian, the Dwarf being an excellent Battlemind...

Surrealistik

2014-05-28, 10:27 AM

Person_Man

2014-06-03, 02:43 PM

One thing I've noted is discussion about the lack of material differences between the powers of the difference power sources in terms of their nature and tone (whether they tend to be striky, or focus on control, debuffs, etc).

While I'm unsure how true this is (I could look into it later by doing some keyword searches on the 4e compendium), I would agree that each power source should tend to coalesce around a different, distinct niche, with primary, secondary and tertiary traits, not unlike Magic the Gathering's colour wheel, and its distribution of traits.

Agreed. The "sameness" of Powers was one of my least favorite parts of 4E. Although it makes sense to have things standardized (#W + ability score + Status Effect), you want the Powers to be different from each other in a meaningful way.

Along the same vein, I hate duplicative spells/powers/etc in general. I don't need six different Cure spells. Just have Cure Wounds heal 1dX per class level hit points (or whatever formula you want to use) and consume a Healing Surge.

maxlongstreet

2014-06-03, 03:56 PM

Having all classes having different powers/maneuvers instead of generic attacks, giving it the feel of a tabletop combat game was IMO is by far the best part of 4E, and if 5E doesn't eventually have this in the DM's guide or in expansion modules, I won't even give it a look.

There are definitely ways to improve the combat system, but I don't think genericizing the powers is the way to go - when I want that I'll play GURPS. AD&D has a proud tradition of unique, idiosyncratic powers, and that should not be reduced or gotten rid of - if anything it should be increased, so that powers/maneuvers aren't a disguised way of using the same few generic attacks.

Where the combat system really could be improved is to reduce the importance of static modifiers for doing damage, and increase the importance the power itself. Right now, dealing damage is all about loading up the highest possible static modifiers and then getting the most possible attacks - the actual damage of the power isn't that important for all but the lowest levels.

I'd like to see a limit on static modifiers, perhaps by having ability scores only modify to hit, and not damage, severely limiting modifiers in feats and items, and raising the base damage of the high end powers.

Yakk

2014-06-03, 04:26 PM

As an example of how things can go further:

The Champion/Fighter archtype uses [W] as its main method of dealing damage. At level 1, they might roll 2[W] for damage, and on up from there. You can sacrifice [W] for extra effects -- the value on the [W] does not matter, so you tend to sacrifice low rolls. The extra effect is determined before you roll by your combat stance, and you gain advantage against foes by switching up stances.

The Sneak/Thief archtype might deal 1[W] with its powers, but most of its damage comes from extra dice, and those extra dice might be situational (require isolation, flanking, etc). The extra dice can be used for extra riders, where the value on the die you activate determines what effect you impose, and the number of dice with that value determines the size of the effect.

The Sage/Wizard archtype might use a die pool system, where you roll a pool of dice against an enemy defence or attribute, and your effect scales based on how many of the dice "connected". The table used is determined by what spell/power you used, and the number of dice you roll by how much you invest in it.