D&D 4E Am I crazy? I've just gotten a hankering to play 4e again...

[AbdulAlhazred]

In my estimation 4e is just about perfect here so I’d hew as closely to the source material as possible in your hack!

If I were to Hack 4e, what I would do is merely:

(a) Structure the game exactly like Blades (Free Play > Quest > Downtime)

b) Crib Blades attribute, position : effect, action resolution model exactly.

c) Change Stress (the Healing Surge of Blades) to Heroic Surge and come up with a new model of fallout when the meter fills.

d) Sub in 4e’s Quests, Theme, PP, ED for Blades Vice and other thematic do triggers. Though I would definitely keep xp for Desperate Action Rolls (as 4e is every bit about bold daring-do as Blades is).

e) Figure out alternative Win Con/Ladder to tier.

f) Come up with alternatives to Heat and all the other pertinent machinery.

g) Port Clocks in directly and sub out Skill Challenges (they’re basically the same thing with mechanical minutiae differences).

Well, HoML 1.0 did some of these things. It has Interlude and Challenge, there is no structured 'downtime', but normally that would happen during interludes. No checks are allowed during an Interlude, so all checks in HoML are part of a challenge.

HoML 1.0 has scaled success/failure. That was initially envisaged as just a 'degree of success', but I think it is more effective to interpret as something like PbtA "success with conditions" and "complete success". I think the attribute, position, effect model also has its appeal. I'm not sure if that is really a 'refinement' on the PbtA process, or just more applicable to the gritty "crapsack world" "things always go wrong" BitD tone.

HoML, currently, has 'Vitality Points', which I think would be better called 'Hero Points' since they drive everything. Running out simply limits your options pretty significantly. However, they are a daily resource, just like HS in 4e. Certainly there is room to consider the model of recovery and how that fits together with the other elements. So far the 4e model has served pretty well though. Certainly players spend their points considerately and their are ways to trade them for things like successes in a challenge.

HoML has a bit more general model than Theme, PP, ED, but the concept is preserved. Boons model things in a more flexible way, so you can attain things that are as trivial as some treasure, or as significant as dedicating yourself to a cause and acquiring a patron, complete with extra powers and such. The advantage mainly is a bit more flexibility than 4e has in terms of when these things happen narratively. 4e was a bit awkward here in terms of "oh, you're all level 11 now, go pick a PP." where in HoML it is much more organic to the story and to the character's path.

HoML has 'tiers', but they have little outright mechanical effect. There are less levels (20), so a lot less 'filler' is involved in the progression of characters than in stock 4e. "Mythic" PCs only happen at level 17, so that whole part of the game is one big capstone.

I'm not sure that 'heat' is really appropriate to HoML, although a character's level signifying how they will interact with the 'cosmic forces' of the mythic world could be seen as having a similar role.

The thing with clocks is, they are fine, but they represent everything as a single dimension of progress. The 4e-style SC system with its separate tallies of success and failure has the characteristic of 'bringing things to a head'. I mean, sure, a clock can tick down to one tick from failure, that's dramatic, but now success is many actions away. I guess you can pile together several clocks, that sounds a bit more complicated. I'm actually pretty satisfied with the SC mechanics that HoML is using now (there are some tweaks from the RC version in 4e in that there are ways to expend resources for auto successes within certain narrative constraints).

Overall the emphasis in 2.0, as far as it has been imagined so far, is to rework 'degree of success' in a more PbtA, or maybe FitD, style. That will be a more refined type of action resolution that matches the narrative focus better, but it will still have to live within a basically 4e style 'action sequence' (combat) model. I think that is quite doable.

Beyond that, I think making all dice thrown by players is just good for focus. Instead of 4e-style defenses HoML 2.0 has 'defensive feats', which are simply powers in 4e parlance which allow a specific attribute to provide a check to avoid the consequences of a GM action (IE an attack by a monster). This is pretty similar to how PbtA works. Obviously there are constraints on which defenses are appropriate to a given situation, but I haven't really worked that part out yet. Perhaps tags can help here (keywords basically).

As you can see, HoML 2.0 will be a good bit outside the realm of simply a 'hack of 4e', but it is still taking most of 4e's core model and simply making it more of a story game.

 

[Garthanos]

I think there is a tendency in tabletop RPG design to fetishize mobility. Mobility is only interesting when it actually makes the game more dynamic. By dramatically increasing everyone's mobility and making movement independent of the action economy 5e actually decreased the dynamism of combat.

Exactly if there is no cost to movement (really restricted opportunity attacks) and little unique expressiveness ( In 4e the movement powers establish style of movement between different types of characters), it is really lacking.

 

[Undrave]

On that teleport front, one of my players built up entirely to be able to use the avenger's sequestering strike, which on hit lets them teleport their target 1+dex modifier squares and then teleport to a space next to them, to go straight up, and put her self diagonally adjacent to their target, and then have both fall to take extra damage. she then took proficiency in acrobatics to help mitigate fall damage, and sought out both cat step boots and a neck slot item that reduces fall damage to become an FF dragoon. It was amazing to see her open a fight with angelic alacrity(lets your essentially dash before the attack) the use an action point to grab some bad guy and throw them both high in the air, and this was just one character in this over the top party. The edition just lends itself to such cool stories both at and away from the table.

Brilliant! Now that's some good lateral thinking! Plus, you can put yourself adjacent, but lower, than the target to reduce the fall damage!

In all fairness, this is really true of any edition. 4e fights would end up being very static if there wasn't a good bit of room to move around and some powers, or something else, to make people want to move. It was pretty easy to make that happen in 4e as soon as you grasped the concept. Sadly it wasn't really well explained in any of the books, and the adventures pretty much flopped on doing it (there are some cases where they got close, Kobold Hall had a couple of medium good ones).

I remember the second adventure in the original campaign they released... I forgot the name... H2, Thunderspire Labyrinth! It was FILLED with like 5/10 feet wide corridors it was SO annoyingly narrow! You couldn't do anything but stand there and smash away on the front line. It was CLEARLY not designed with the new mechanics in mind. We were lucky out Ranger (who was a Beastmaster by that point) had a Reach weapon and a beast that could climb walls because otherwise it would have been pretty difficult for them to do any attacks.

We never did finish that adventure.

What I would love to integrate into 5e are some of(not all, if only because the edition couldn't really handle all of it and play well) the movement abilities, whether it be more forced movement, or have flanking matter, but not advantage, maybe literally the +2 from combat advantage. Or even try out a type of mobility to boost AC or something, just to make those dex boys move around more. Maybe importing the rage powers from barbarian as an incentive to get those guys charging more. maybe making sneak attack not work as well if you just stayed still all round. I know this isn't a 5e thread, but I've just been stuck on the problems with lack of movement and while 4e wasn't perfect, it did way more than the editions on either side of it to fix that problem.

Maybe lighter armour should require you to move around to get the full DEX bonus?

Speaking of mobility, I was wonder if the game would be more mobile if not EVERYBODY could do OA but only specific class/monsters?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Brilliant! Now that's some good lateral thinking! Plus, you can put yourself adjacent, but lower, than the target to reduce the fall damage!

I remember the second adventure in the original campaign they released... I forgot the name... H2, Thunderspire Labyrinth! It was FILLED with like 5/10 feet wide corridors it was SO annoyingly narrow! You couldn't do anything but stand there and smash away on the front line. It was CLEARLY not designed with the new mechanics in mind. We were lucky out Ranger (who was a Beastmaster by that point) had a Reach weapon and a beast that could climb walls because otherwise it would have been pretty difficult for them to do any attacks.

We never did finish that adventure.

Yeah, well, H1 was equally poor in this regard. There were a couple of fights where things were a bit more open, but the main part of the adventure was a pretty typical dungeon maze sort of arrangement... The design of each room seemed like someone had kinda thought "hey, I need to throw in some sort of tactical something here", but the overall architecture was just way too constricted, and then it was filled with a lot of Hobgoblins, which took forever to kill...

Maybe lighter armour should require you to move around to get the full DEX bonus?

Speaking of mobility, I was wonder if the game would be more mobile if not EVERYBODY could do OA but only specific class/monsters?

Well, the whole 'OA' thing might aught to be questioned, yes. I mean, it stems from the 1E AD&D combat rules in which any attempt to leave melee was penalized by allowing the opponent an ENTIRE ATTACK ROUTINE for free against the (always much worse) AC of your backside. I'm not sure why Gary put that rule in the game TBH. I can see wanting to discourage 'hit and run' tactics to a degree, or at least injecting them with a level of riskiness that would make them not entirely optimal. Still, it was a harsh penalty!

Every version of the game since has maintained some version of that rule, but I wonder if it has ever really been thought through as to if it is really contributing to the game. I would note that the 4e version is much milder, the enemy gets one MBA against your full defense, and a single hit is generally less significant than in older editions. Still, nobody provokes without a very good reason.

One option might be to limit provocation. Maybe ranged attacks could provoke, but not movement? The only issue I have there is it makes charging through the lines pretty low-risk. I think in 5e you only get one OA per ROUND. If OAs were immediate reactions in 4e instead of a special thing of their own, that would essentially do the same thing, but it does tweak with a lot of existing powers and class features.

 

[Garthanos]

Maybe lighter armour should require you to move around to get the full DEX bonus?

Hmmm that is intriguing

 

[Garthanos]

One option might be to limit provocation. Maybe ranged attacks could provoke, but not movement? The only issue I have there is it makes charging through the lines pretty low-risk. I think in 5e you only get one OA per ROUND. If OAs were immediate reactions in 4e instead of a special thing of their own, that would essentially do the same thing, but it does tweak with a lot of existing powers and class features.

Note movement has benefits in 4e like attacking on a charge and similar things I think it is much better to increase that reward if you think the cost of taking opportunity attacks is too high. Make powers that increase damage on a move OR ones where like mentioned the improving defense from moving.

Risk and cost analysis is where tactical gaming enters the field... 5e stripped that a lot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Note movement has benefits in 4e like attacking on a charge and similar things I think it is much better to increase that reward if you think the cost of taking opportunity attacks is too high. Make powers that increase damage on a move OR ones where like mentioned the improving defense from moving.

Risk and cost analysis is where tactical gaming enters the field... 5e stripped that a lot.

Yes, but I prefer to generate tactical choices as organically as possible. That is one of the issues I had with 4e itself. Much of its 'tactics' simply amounts to "we made up this mechanical effect without much regard to any narrative element, it 'just works this way'." That certainly creates a form of tactics, but it is a rather artificial and gamey sort of tactics. I'd rather that tactics arose organically out of considerations like "being attacked from an unexpected direction is bad" and "high ground is advantageous", and "cover is protective." Now 4e SOMEWHAT models those, but at best they are either on a par with simply mechanistic non-narrative effects, or mostly just co-opted (like CA) by those.

So, yes, moving makes you a more difficult target, certainly for ranged attacks, and perhaps the fact that your future position is uncertain (IE if you implemented some sort of "target an attack and it goes off later" sort of thing). I think the tactical implications of facing, delayed effects, a more substantial surprise effect; these would produce a more organic and classic style of tactics. THEN you can leverage that with powers, so maybe a defensive power that keys DEX has a requisite that you moved two squares in your last turn. Something like that. 'Charge' effects could be built into certain powers too. Powers which produced delayed or conditional effects (sort of like a 'land mine' say) would also be interesting.

Of course, I'm aiming at a pretty 'heroic' sort of tone, so maybe not all of these would fit well with that, I'm not sure.

 

[pemerton]

I remember the second adventure in the original campaign they released... I forgot the name... H2, Thunderspire Labyrinth! It was FILLED with like 5/10 feet wide corridors it was SO annoyingly narrow! You couldn't do anything but stand there and smash away on the front line. It was CLEARLY not designed with the new mechanics in mind. We were lucky out Ranger (who was a Beastmaster by that point) had a Reach weapon and a beast that could climb walls because otherwise it would have been pretty difficult for them to do any attacks.

I didn't run H2 as written but used bit of it - the first somewhat keep-like bit (with the goblins in the kitchen - the Chamber of Eyes) and the Well of Demons. In both cases I made some changes to deal with the mobility issue:

For the Chamber of Eyes I did two things. First, I joined the introductory encounter (with the hobgoblins torturing the prisoner) onto the Chamber of Eyes: (i) run the corridor in the introductory encounter onto the entryway into the foyer of the Chamber of Eyes; (ii) add a secret passage exiting the NE corner of the hobgoblin chamber via a secret door and running diagonally, with staircases, up to the balcony in the Chamber of Eyes foyer; (iii) add a spyhole/arrowslit on the E wall of the hobgoblin chamber (near the barrels) looking onto the Chamber of Eyes foyer; (iv) add a portcullis that the hobgoblins can drop in the entryway to their chamber, making the secret passage the only easy path between their chamber and the Chamber of Eyes.

Second, I was prepared to run the introductory encounter, C1, C2 and C4 as a single encounter with waves. The PCs first heard the prisoner being tortured (I made it someone they had already met earlier in the campaign who they knew had been captured by goblins/hobgoblins and were hoping to rescue) and entered that chamber. The portcullis (iv above) was dropped, trapping them in that room. As they made fairly short work of the hobgoblin soldiers the warcaster opened the secret door and fled up the passage (ii above) with half the PCs chasing him while the others finished off the soldiers. The PCs correctly feared that he was going to get reinforcements. The PCs narrowly failed to stop him on the balcony, and he went through the other door and alerted the goblins in C2. I had the bugbear engage the PCs on the upper level, while the skull cleavers came out through the main doors to make missile attacks - some of the PCs jumped down to engage them, while others fought the bugbear and one who had been left behind in the first room attacked through the spyhole (iii above). The warcaster meanwhile went on and alerted the chief, who came forward to join the skullcleavers with his wolf while the archers controlled the long-ish corridor with cover from the shrine doorway (I eliminated the second warcaster as unnecessary).

This was a very dynamic encounter, with PCs moving around through the various corridors in the entry way, going back and forth into the original room to take advantage of the arrowslit, and in the end causing the hobgoblin archers to retreat after defeating the rest of the goblins. (They then took on the archers with the rest of C3 - roused from their drunken revelling - as a separate encounter.)

I also decided that the duergar would wait and see what happened rather than joining in on the potentially losing side of a fight - the PCs discovered the duergar in their rooms as they were looking for somewhere to take their short rest and ended up negotiating a contract with them, paying 300 gp to be delivered in a months time to pay for the release of the slaves (the players preferred this to the thought of having to assault a duergar stronghold).

In the Well of Demons I also ran the gnoll encounters together as a single more dynamic encounter (again leaving the tieflings out of the equation, figuring that they would make a more interesting encounter after the gnolls had been dealt with). The interesting aspects here were (i) the players thought the first chamber with the motely crew of monsters was the more challenging encounter, and so blew quite a few resources on it and therefore were really pushed to the limits with the gnolls, (ii) the use of the connecting tunnel from the boar room to the entry chamber as a way of making the PCs fight on two fronts (and yes, enemies were pushed into the well) and (iii) replacing the barlgura demon with a naldrezu (sp?) from MM2, which is a lurker that captures a PC and teleports it away to munch on it - combined with the two-fronts aspect this introduced extra mobility and tension into the fight.

 

[Garthanos]

Yes, but I prefer to generate tactical choices as organically as possible.

To me that just reminds me of the bad old days where the best tactic was not heroic or cinematic but some stand still and focus fire.

CA is just a mechanical description of a possible benefit from various things which are Narrative and include many variations of narratives AND that is looking at as though I don't know it isn't just a benefit of higher ground or whatever is entirely wrong.... like worrying about keywords.

I made a power that requires X amount of movement to allow scanning the battlefield to gain a use of an encounter power... it meshes action economy and actual well defined effects while encouraging movement.

This can work on a battlefield with higher ground or not... it allows the Warlord to simply use his movement to find the right spot to see what he needs to better plan the next stage of the fight its adaptable enough to reflect a wide number of combat stories.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me that just reminds me of the bad old days where the best tactic was not heroic or cinematic but some stand still and focus fire.

CA is just a mechanical description of a possible benefit from various things which are Narrative and include many variations of narratives AND that is looking at as though I don't know it isn't just a benefit of higher ground or whatever is entirely wrong.... like worrying about keywords.

I made a power that requires X amount of movement to allow scanning the battlefield to gain a use of an encounter power... it meshes action economy and actual well defined effects while encouraging movement.

This can work on a battlefield with higher ground or not... it allows the Warlord to simply use his movement to find the right spot to see what he needs to better plan the next stage of the fight its adaptable enough to reflect a wide number of combat stories.

I don't necessarily agree with your initial assessment. Sure, 'stand still and focus fire' COULD be the 'best' tactic in some specific situation, but that is ABSOLUTELY true even in 4e as it is. Even in cases where an encounter is designed to promote mobility things can 'go wrong' and produce a slugging match. Many times players simply default to that kind of tactic.

I just prefer the tactics to be logical and make sense regardless of the details of specific characters or powers, although certainly they can be enhanced or even based on a particular advantage one gives. Mostly 4e is OK in this regard, but I really aim for slightly more straightforward play in some cases.

This is more a 'tuning' of the formula than a radical change though. I mean, your idea for a movement requirement to enable another power is fine, I think it is similar to some things I'd suggested.