This thread is for discussing D&D 4e and the games it inspired, such as 13th Age, Strike!, Valor...

So I want to run 4E without a grid because my games are feeling a little too much like a tactical combat simulator.

Any good ways of doing this?

You probably want to use a different system entirely. Maybe try 13th Age?

Elemental also technically exists
Sadly, it never got more than one class

Napoleonic era works well enough, but I wouldn't do Napoleonic amry battles in 4E. Overall, the game would be about as realistic as Three Musketeers, Die Hard or Baron Munchausen

>Psionic specialized in being flexible.

I always wanted to see Ki as its own thing instesd of folding the Monk into Psionic. What would a Ki Controller, Leader, and Defender have looked like?

13th Age is pretty much 4e with more emphasis on theatre of the mind. Although the escalation die should be used in all d20-based games, it's that good.

>I always wanted to see Ki as its own thing instesd of folding the Monk into Psionic. What would a Ki Controller, Leader, and Defender have looked like?
Monk, Psion, Ardent and Battlemind.

>13th Age is pretty much 4e with more emphasis on theatre of the mind
and broken math on top of poor class design.

Depends on how you define it thematically and mechanically. You can't really extrapolate much from a single class.

>Psion, Ardent and Battlemind.

No

>Depends on how you define it thematically and mechanically. You can't really extrapolate much from a single class.

haven't thought about it in a long time desu

I don't just want to make Ki classes "wizard with slanty eyes" but I'm sure there's some space for them mechanically

Thematically? Fuck if I know. I tend to approach things from the mechanic side first.

Posted this last thread, but might as well get more feedback on the idea-

How would you feel about a 4e inspired system that removed 'more numbers' feats entirely? Anything that just gave a bonus to a number with no other flavour or benefit is gone, trying to make every single feat actually interesting instead?

Along with this, getting rid of the class feats that are straight up upgrades everyone playing that class should take, and instead giving each class 'talent' or some such slots, where all those quite dull mechanical bonuses are reassigned. You can't take all of them, but everyone gets a decent selection of them as they level up, letting you improve your features and such.

Possibly combined with reducing the number of feat slots overall, to make each and every one a more interesting, meaningful choice.

4e probably could have avoided a good number of them if they had more time to tune the system before launch. Weapon Expertise, Improved Defenses, etc. were all math fixes which could have been avoided with more attention on the monster math. A reboot with those fixes baked in is not a bad idea.

Splitting off class feature feats into 'talent' slots is a mixed bag. A bunch of classes will need to have extra talents added because they're short relative to other classes, and a good number of class feature feats are meant to key off multiclass or racial picks. I'm thinking you'll need to do some sort of balance pass with a value target rather than simply siloing these feats from the generic list.

Reducing feat slots isn't necessarily bad, but it further disincentivizes taking feats that aren't directly combat related. That is an unavoidable problem since feats became the default method of adding small customization options, but you're going to need a very clear direction to tackle it.

There are still lingering examples of plus numbers feats though, that I don't really see much value in in an of themselves, like the various '+2 to a defence' feats or scaling resistance to a damage type. While not innately bad, they just always strike me as pointlessly dull, better off being given a bit more texture to make them a more meaningful, enjoyable choice.

We're doing a full rewrite, so reworking and adding various extra 'talents' is on the cards. Balancing it might be tough, but hopefully we'll figure it out.

And something we're actually pondering, in parallel with splitting Utility powers into Utility (out of combat) and Support (combat) powers is having dedicated non-combat feat slots, or something equivalent.

A pet hate of mine is when systems force you to choose between cool, fluffy options and actually being useful, so I'm trying to avoid that as much as possible.

>dedicated non-combat feat slots
I like that.
>A pet hate of mine is when systems force you to choose between cool, fluffy options and actually being useful
I feel that.

Those +2 defense feats are part of those math fixes, monster attacks were scaling too fast relative to player defenses. Elemental resistance feats are one of those niche feats I've never seen anyone use, but mostly because it's a poor value relative to other feats. Too much opportunity cost typically, although for a very specific campaign I can see it becoming extremely valuable (e.g. you're about to take down a fire god cult, grab fire resistance and retrain it out next campaign).

Splitting combat and non-combat into separate resource pools is really the only way to prevent players from building towards one side at the cost of the other, but on the other hand the 4e combat framework is extremely detailed and the non-combat side isn't. Your non-combat rules are going to need a lot of fleshing out to make non-combat feats interesting without becoming yet another +x to rolls in these circumstances.

We're planning on doing a lot with the non-combat side. More out of combat powers and removing the GP costs from all non-permanent rituals are big things. We're thinking of making all rituals that don't have a permanent effect cost Surges instead, using them as a general resource rather than something specifically focused on combat.

I did this when playing 4e- that is, I required all the RAW feats and powers to be combat related, then I gave the players a separate budget for non-combat utility powers and feats. It worked quite well, other than the fact that we all felt that over time the amount of combat powers got a bit overwhelming.

Spending surges on rituals is weakening the split between combat and non-combat. It's tempting to reuse existing resources instead of defining new ones, but it puts you at risk of players shying away from using them once again.

If you want to rework some sort of generic metacurrency I'd probably start with Action Points, switch them regenerating every encounter instead of every other (and non-combat events counting as encounters) and keep the limitation of 1 AP used per encounter barring special circumstances. But you really need a better idea of how you want non-combat to play out to really design a good system.

I'm on board with the rest, but fuck off with your reduced feat bullshit. More feats, not less!

Channeling Brian Blessed reading an incredibly pulpy version of The Scatlet Pimpenel, I'd reckon that's how.

Can you 4etards think outside of builds and combat powers or is that beyond you.

I'm all for an all-around cleaned-up version of 4e. Maybe adjust/remove some powers while we're at it.
But who would make such a thing?

Well, I've seen a few different groups on Veeky Forums mention it, the one I'm part of is having a crack at it.

Our initial design goal is putting together the Heroic tier components of the four classic classes- Wizard, Rogue, Fighter and Cleric- with a single archetype and set of powers for each.

This will act as a functional prototype of sorts. We'll present the tweaked core mechanics and iconic character options to people in threads like this and elsewhere, with the general aim of having them be just as appealing, if not more so, than their 4e equivalents. We'll use that small selection to tailor things and figure out the strengths we should most capitalise on, before expanding our thoughts in both breadth and depth, more classes, more features as well as getting into the higher tiers of play.

Well, best of luck to you.
I'd love to see a full rehaul someday.

Assuming your prototype works out, is there any way for you to monetize? Like Patreon or something?
Because no matter how great your dedication, I can't imagine anyone finishing a project of that scope in just their free time.

We're keeping our options open. Maybe a Patreon to fund development and receive updates once we have enough to show to make it worth it, maybe a Kickstarter for printing and production costs further down the line. Although we also have some contact with a couple of different smaller publishers, and going for a traditional funding deal over crowdfunding would probably be better if we could manage it.

Still, we're not really thinking about money until we have something we think is worth selling.

fuck off, retard

I was thinking more about covering running costs than making money off of it in the end.

I just want to ask if you're aiming for just a 4.75 version, some sort of 4.pf or a whole new deal of it.
Because just math fixes looks unappealing because 4e have the chargen to help build. Some sort of chargen would be nice for any new take on 4e have the least of interest if it is only some minor fixes.

Found this wiki, which might be a good edition to the opening links: dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/D&D4_Wiki

As for fluff changes... um, can I just say everything? I literally loved every idea that 4e had for changing up from pre-4e's lore.

The patreon idea is the closest thing there, but that depends on having something to show as an indication that we're worth funding.

But it is.

So, this's been bugging me for a while... we all know that, of the non-Nentir Vale (Points of Light? Can never tell what people prefer to call it) settings, Forgotten Realms was widely hated, but Eberron was received more or less neutrally and Dark Sun was received positively, correct?

Do anons think 4e would have been better received if it hadn't posted a Forgotten Realms setting at all?

Because, I know they were trying to address a lot of the complaints about the setting, like the overabundance of novel characters and shit, but you can't deny the hateful backlash against FR was really pouring gasoline on the anti-4e flames.

>Do anons think 4e would have been better received if it hadn't posted a Forgotten Realms setting at all?
I don't give a rat's ass about the setting (or any other published setting for that matter), but Swordmage is one of my favorite classes, so no.

I'm similar. I very rarely care about established settings, although 4e Eberron is pretty fucking cool.

Given how bad a fit FR is for 4e, and how much shit they got over it, not doing it at all would probably be an idea. I just think it's a kind of shitty setting though.

So, folks, what were your favorite races in 4th edition, including the various Dragon Magazine-released "subraces" like Blood-Crowned Courtier Tieflings and Winterkin Eladrin?

Particularly interested in hearing if there was any love for the non-Tolkienian races.

Myself? Out of the corebooks, I loved the Dragonborn, the Tieflings, and the Shardminds best, though Minotaurs were also great stuff (thematically, if not mechanically and Vrylokas were pretty cool.

When I got my hand on it, the Dungeon Survival Handbook enthralled me with its Svirfneblin, Goblin and Kobold races. It rescued the former from its shoddy lore of old, as 4e had done with Gnomes, and the latter two finally had decent mechanics to make their race interesting to play.

Dragon Magazine really came through for me on the racial front; Gnolls, Shadar-Kai, Bladelings... so much goodness, but I think my absolute favorite were the Forgeborn Dwarves. So awesome.

I thought the way the dwarves, and by extension the azers, galeb duhrs, and eisk jaats, were linked to the giants was a really good way of doing dwarves.

>if it hadn't posted a Forgotten Realms setting at all
Then all the FRfags would just bitch that it was shit cause they didn't have their pet setting in it.

It wouldn't have helped.

reminder that leader classes are best classes

do you have the numbers for the Dragons they were in? I think I have all the pdfs saved somewhere and would like to read them.

I fucking love monster races. Viable and interesting Kobolds and Goblins, Bugbears, Thri-Keen, etc. The over-all favourite has to be Gnoll though.

Right here; I spent weeks going through Dragon and scouring D&D troves to put together this article, but requests like this make it worthwhile.

1d4chan.org/wiki/List_of_D&D_PC_Races#Dragon_Magazine_5

That link will take you to the 4e Races that appeared in Dragon Magazine.

thank you so much!

do you guys know where I can find the 4e comics?

readcomiconline.to/Comic/Dungeons-Dragons-2010

Here you go mate :)

>54327030
thank you, my friend!

without forgotten realms we would have never gotten the most patrician dnd class of all time, the swordmage

Well, I'm sure we could have figured out some other way to have it, but yeah, for the Swordmage, the Drow and the Genasi alone, 4e FR deserves its place, no matter the whingers who complain about the Spellplague.

So, whilst still wanting to hear I was curious now; what races do you wish had gotten the 4e treatment as well?

I've gotten familiar enough to Mystara to know I would have loved a 4e Aranea or Lupin, personally.

Yuan-Ti, Lizardfolk (and Poison Dusk variant) were races I was always looking forward to in 4e

With a few changes, ettercaps as presented in 4e could have been a good race.

Azers seemed like they could easily have become a player race, too.

I honestly kind of wonder how long would it take for /4eg/ to homebrew an expansion for Shadow.

Eh, I would have rather had Chitines or Aranea for a playable spider-folk race, myself.

Who knows? I had a complete "Necromancers as Pure Shadow Controller" class way back when WoTC's forums were a thing, but I lost it, and my googlefu is too weak to see if the Wayback Machine can help me recover it.

Fuck that, Ki expansion when?

Come up with a way to make Ki anything more than "Psionics with an Asian Name", which WoTC admitted is why they made Monks a Psionic Striker, and sure.

I could see it if you go with the idea that Ki is the flow of life energy through everything. It means that Ki is just well...Primal. We have that power source. Doesn't really make for a 'Ki Expansion' like that guy wants though.

Ki currently doesn't exist, so it can't be expanded.
And Ki has not been defined thematically or mechanically, so we can't make stuff for it either.

Yep. I think Wizards literally put out something admitting that, in the end, all of their studies pointed to folding Ki and Psionics as the best way.

After all, what "Ki Classes" are there? Monk works, as we saw in the PHB 3. But Bushi? That's just a Japanese Fighter. Ninja? Japanese Rogue or Assassin. Wu Jen? Well... maybe you could argue its "Five Elements Magic" was unique enough to make it a possible class, but I don't really see how. And the Basic wu jen was essentially a wizard/monk hybrid.

Question about 13th Age:
I hear it bandied about a lot that this game has a clusterfuck of math imbalance, but I can't really find anything about the math issues with it online other that a blog post about the ranger's dual-wielding. Can someone explain them to me? Would also be nice if you could link to a fix if you know of one.

Wu Jen at this point works 100% fine as a Animist Shaman imo.

Which sorta goes into 'Monk could have been Primal and it would have been cool/ki is fine as primal'

Touhou has talked about the issues, in these threads for example:
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/43530325/#43533070
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/47191606/#47197304
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/54189262/#54189845
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51201312/#51212350
The last two ones also have some links to various fixes, though I haven't tried any myself.

Not so sure I see it as a Shaman, myself. Maybe I ought to track down what they said about Ki - I think it was an issue of Dragon where they revealed the first teasers of the Monk?

Talking of dragons... everyone knows that Dark Sun 4e found a place for dragonborn, one of the more controversial changes of that sourcebook. However, they actually weren't taking the piss with the Dark Sun fandom; there really is a race of draconic humanoids in Dark Sun, and has been since AD&D.

They're called the Dray, and were created by Dregoth, the Sorcerer-King Lich. They appeared in the adventure "City by the Silt Sea" and were even presented as a playable race when they did.

But... statistically, they don't mesh up very well with Dragonborn.

I can understand why WoTC did it, but I'm curious; any anons have thoughts on what a proper 4e conversion of Dray might have looked like?

>Not so sure I see it as a Shaman, myself. Maybe I ought to track down what they said about Ki - I think it was an issue of Dragon where they revealed the first teasers of the Monk?
Dragon 375 according to this site: highprogrammer.com/alan/gaming/dnd/4e/role-source.html

Don't have it on hand to check.

It exists in the sense that the Monk works on a totally different frame than the Psionic classes, which have Power Points and a small number of powers that they augment for Encounter and Daily equivalents.

The problem there isn't that we need more ki classes, because monk does that well enough alone, but rather that there's no power=point using psionic striker

Which there really should be, Wilder works really well for that

Is there a link to PDFs?

I ask my local store if they have any of the books and they said they haven't had them for years :_:

Runepriest and Seeker started out as Ki Leader and Controller, respectively.

Proofs? I can kinda see it for Rune priest, no idea about seeker though

Some article on WotC site I've read forever ago

So you define the Ki power source thematically as
>Like a Monk.
and mechanically as
>Like a Monk.

That's not the Ki power source, that's the Monk power source. And we don't need anything like that.

>So you define the Martial power source thematically as
>Like a Fighter.
and mechanically as
>Like a Fighter.

While it's true that Martial, Arcane and Divine correspond to original DnD classes, it doesn't mean Rangers or Rogues are defined by being a variant of Fighters

No, we define the Martial power source as the commonality between Fighter, Warlord, Ranger and Rogue, i.e. raw non-magical skill and higher damage output than is usual for the class's role.

Whereas the Ki power source is currently defined as the commonality between Monk, i.e. Monk-ish-ness and Monk class features, powers and feats.

Then neither would a Wu Jen or Sohei be defined like that.

Wu Jen is more of an Elemental class anyway.
Sohei might work, possibly as a Striker (and Monk can be Controller, where he probably belongs). What would other classes be?

>Sohei might work, possibly as a Striker
Self-correction: I was thinking about Kensei. Who's Sohei again?

What would either have in common with Monks both mechanically and thematically?

>Wu Jen

Just one of the few Oriental classes I could remember from 3.5 lol

Sohei are like the weeb paladins, yeah?

Do you want Ki-powered classes or Monk-powered classes?

>What would other classes be?

The Ki controller/artillery can be all DBZ style ki blasts and shit

Sooo... Zen Archer... Seeker in other words, but less shit and with less poison

Well, I'd love some kind of suggestion for a definition of the Ki power source that isn't "something somehow related to Monks".
I mean, I might have overlooked something, but so far, the only thing anyone has established about Ki as a power source is that Monks are in it.

>Sohei are like the weeb paladins, yeah?
Well, historically, they're buddhist warrior-monks, so I guess yeah

You also might've missed the fact that unlike Arcane/Divine bullshit, Ki or Qi or Chi is a real-world term. So Ki classes would be ones that rely on mastery of their internal inherent energy, which, admittedly, is something between Martial and Psionic, which is why Monk got kicked into the latter when Ki was cut for being "Being Asian the Power Source"

I've got some interesting ideas for Ki classes which I guess I should type up.

I always thought that the Full Discipline powers were sort of odd, in how they restrict you to using your move and full action from them in the same turn or you waste part of it, which usually wasn't a huge problem but just felt awkward.

>which, admittedly, is something between Martial and Psionic
Yes, and that is why that definition is completely useless in designing a Ki power source for 4e.
If Ki is to stand as its own distinct power source, we need some sort of definition that clearly distinguishes it from both Martial and Psionic.

To be fair here, lore for Psionic is that it isn't really natural and inherent, it's the consequence of the destruction of the Living Gate and the way the world fights against the Far Realm

Martial is an odd duck in that it's not supernatural and reliant on training and mastery of your body... but it's also clearly capable of results that would make a "realism" junkie bleed from his ears. I like to think that this is explained by this fantasy reality simply being unlike ours.

Ki could be like put it, based on being through training and meditation in tune with the all-permeating energy of the world(s). Though I disagree that it would be just like Primal, because that one clearly works via Primal Spirits

>I've got some interesting ideas for Ki classes which I guess I should type up.
Yes, you should

But... not really?

Each power source has a variety of classes and archetypes beholden to it and primal had some heavy offense to its name.

Barbarians did obscene amounts of damage, but could offtank as necessary. The warden was tankier but I found they did almost as much damage via aoe as the barbarian did to single targets.

Thematically who cares, 4e is all about fluffing anyways.

Mechanically though, I would say Ki should be about mobility and flexibility, chaining combos from turn to turn, and self-buffing. I would probably design them such that they are low powered to begin each encounter, but if you play them right they are quite strong. For example, your Sohei defender fights a fire giant - using Flame of the Inner Being technique he absorbs fire damage and uses that power up to his ki to shed a status effect, then he uses Iron Crane Iajutsu to attack a second fire giant. On his next turn he can use the second part of Flame of the Inner Being, since he used the "tank" part successfully last turn, to punish an enemy this turn, and his damage is buffed against the giant he marked with his Iajutsu attack and he has n interrupt technique from it available for the off-turn.

Maybe when it's not 2 am.

>Flame of the Inner Being technique
>Iron Crane Iajutsu

I don't care how cheesy it is, I'm a sucker for this shit.