D&D 4E 4E - more rules or less?

[ToddSchumacher]

I would prefer only two types of bonuses: A magic bonus (magic items and spells) and a skill bonus (from feats, class abilities and other non-magical sources) and only those two stack.

 

[tylerthehobo]

Less is more.

 

[Razz0putin]

less is more

miniatures should be only an option

classes should be suggested as was said however there should be ways to point buy a class in the DMG.

simplify the types of bonus as was said

and I'd prefer no save or die. It turns an otherwise interesting encounter into the equivalent of a Star Trek episode that gets solved in the last minute by some technobabble. I know it's balanced and fair, it's also Dramatically boring as hell.

 

[Nifft]

Less is more, isn't it?

Less is totally more. Seconded. -- N

 

[glass]

I voted the middle option. Depending on how you measure it, I think the next edition should have about the same 'rules bulk' as the current one, although with some reassignment of that bulk.


glass.

 

[ruemere]

Make things like swimming an independent ability...just roll once to see how good a natural swimmer you are, and leave it at that. If you decide to spend time later to upgrade your swimming, roll again; if the new roll is better, keep it.

Too much rock'n'roll. And, in addition, you propose another trait to keep track of.

In other words, take away the randomness inherent in roll-up. No thanks.

So what do you do when the rolls disagree with player's character concept?

Agree on casting times. Disagree on cost...if people want to spend money on spells instead of items etc., fine with me.

The wealth increase rate of a moderately succesful adventuring party is atrocious. I'd prefer people to pay with their character health (and deal with subsequent recovery) instead of hauling sacks of costly ingredients.

Buffs are a pain. Transport not so much, but the DM has to figure it into adventure design when the party is high enough level.

I would not mind buffs if the bestowed powers were reasonable. If a buffed combatant is vastly superior to anything else on a battlefield, it tends to diminish the hero factor. Also, it takes one supercharged character to break the game (by killing the softies, i.e. non combat oriented characters).

The overuse of transportation spells tends to reduce importance of travelling, borders, distances, fortifications, labyrinths, islands, mountains, jungles, planes and so on. In short, the element of mundane architecture and geography loses its appeal.
Also, the infamous SH&T combo can easily reduce any monarchy to anarchy within fifteen minutes.
(SH&T - Scry, Haste & Teleport, also used to describe any raid type of action during which supercharged group of characters assassinates key figures of opposing force - particularly succesful against any type of lawful government, difficult or impossible to prevent for anyone relying on core rules).

I like the cost associated with Raise effects; I'd also like to see a 1e-like survival roll to see if it works, failure meaning perma-death.

"Say-Lee, you've failed your roll. You die. Roll another character. Ooops, you failed another roll. You die. Roll another character. Oops, you failed again. Dice don't like you today, roll another character."

(clinical death)

Disagree completely. Dead is dead, and if your players can't handle this, tough.

I'm talking about streamlining the rules and improving the scaling of the system. Since it seems that you haven't run as many high level campaigns as I did, let me inform you about several rather cumbersome issues.

At higher levels amounts of hitpoints deducted through damage practically eliminate "dying" condition from the game. Whenever one takes 30 or 40 points of damage, it is rather improbable to hit -1...-9 range. Usually one either is left standing (0+) or dead (-10 and less). BAD SCALING.

Numerous high level spells take advantage of weakness of particular classes of characters. Direct damage destroys spellcasters, death spells take care of rogues and mind control eliminates weak-willed warriors. At low levels spell casters usually end up dying, rogues and warrios have about 30-40% chance to save. At higher levels similar tactics change outcome from dangerous (disabling and removing character from encounter) to deadly (killing and removing character from adventure). DISRUPTIVE.

Stereotyping the roles (as mentioned above) leads to uninventive rock-paper-scissors gameplay, overuse of buff spells and, worst of all, unbalanced encounters (generic encounters become dangerous if a team of likeminded characters sharing similar weaknesses appears, say... a military patrol meets a Kobold Sorcerer with Charm Person).

In short, the game should scale well up to 100th level, not merely to 8-9th (the average level, where differences in power become drastic... 9th caster level level fireball vs 9th level wizard hitpoints, 9th caster level Heightened Hold Person vs 9th level Fighter and so on).

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[MonsterMash]

I'd prefer a more rules light system than 3e, preferably with there being a clearer path to using features as modular parts of the system like feats or skills.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

None of the choices reflect my view. I'd like to see far, far less *rules* in the sense that HERO has a fraction of the rules of D&D - the existing rules are more broadly applied, with fewer fiddly exceptions. The amount of 'crunch' would remain unchanged, as would the circumstances covered.

 

[Seeker95]

miniatures should be only an option

They already are.

 

[Gundark]

I would want to see combat a lot more streamlined, as well as faster at higher levels.