Scratchpad Ramblings

I’m about 4 sessions behind on The Valley blog entries.

There are two reasons for that.

One, I got lazy. I just kept putting it off.

Two, I recently lost my jump drive with all of my information about The Valley. While I did have a backup, it’s about 6-9 months old.

So I will probably write something up for that eventually, with what happened compiled into a single entry. It will probably have something missing, but that’s not really a big issue.

As you’ve read, we’ve recently not been entirely happy with 4E.

It’s currently residing in an area of “don’t hate, but don’t like either”.

That has gotten my creative thoughts running amok.

What if we could combine some of the best aspects of each of the versions of D&D made so far?

We certainly can’t combine everything into some Doomsday Edition of D&D (vague Starfleet Battles reference there), but I’d like to think we could make something usable.

Even if we never play it, I’m going to knock about some ideas.

The ideas thoroughly thought through, but I think they’re a good start.

First, it has to be a simple and elegant design.
Adding too many options and restricting options will kill most games. Sometimes adding a new mechanic can kill a game. I want something that “just feels right”.

Simple:
Initiative does not change from round to round. Roll once and you’re done for the combat (a la 3E).

Unneeded:
Modifiers for the roll based on levels. How much threat could a kobold be to a level 10 rogue? At least give the poor guy a chance at going first, because you know he’s not likely to live long.

Elegant:
Remove all modifiers to initiative and make it a straight d20 roll and that is your initiative order.
Now each PC whose roll + dexterity modifier is 20 or higher gets to act in the surprise round.
Monsters may or may not get to act in the surprise round based off of the DM’s judgment or the encounter’s design.

It gives a simple mechanic, it keeps the value of a base stat, and gives everyone an equal chance to act rather than what we seem to have in 4E where it almost always ends up as PC’s act, and then monsters act.

Here’s something that is so simple I almost forgot it could be done this way:
The only time an attack of opportunity attack occurs is when you leave melee (as in stepping away from an opponent).

Go ahead and cast your spell or use your bow in melee.
It doesn’t seem quite realistic, but dragons and wizards aren’t real either.

I look at it like this. Spell interruptions just don’t seem fun in any edition. But if I remove that then casters can get into melee and cast away.

This a bit unfair to the bow users; why should they get shafted. Roughly a square is 5’x5. I’m pretty sure an arrow or slung rock can do some damage from 5’ away.

So I think that attacks of opportunity should only occur when you try to leave melee; not when you leave a square, not when you cast a spell, and not when you use a ranged weapon in melee.

Then there are things that many find clunky or unneeded, but I’m ok with them.

For example 1E alignments and the Vancian magic system.

I liked having the 9 alignments so long as they were a general guide to follow rather than a list of things you can do, can’t do, and must do.

Every PC can have their Chaotic Neutral “Wolverine” moment, but in the end they should still be the good guys.

It seems that a lot of people hated the Vancian setup for memorizing spells and then forgetting them once they’re cast.

I never truly hated it, but I certainly understood that a lot of spells were worthless the higher level you went.

Then came the 3.5’s Spell Compendium and voila, low level spells are worth something again by giving them a small effect but making them an instant cast.

Now that doesn’t help with the problem of “Oh no! Our thief failed his lock pick check and the wizard didn’t memorize his Knock spell today.”
4E fixed that with rituals.

So now casters no longer have to reserve spells for a “just in case” utility spell and our high level casters can put their low level spells to encounter use.

Of course you let them still cast basic cantrip type spells as an “at-will” and I’m also leaning to giving them a Magic Missile at-will attack as well, but I’m not that far ahead in my thinking.

Now one thing about all editions prior to 4E was that spellcasters were so much better than non-spellcasters at higher levels.

While it has most certainly been awhile since I’ve looked at it, the BECMI Master’s Set (and Rules Cyclopedia) had a tiered weapon skill setup that allowed players to do more with their weapons as they leveled up and specialized more in their weapons.

This I believe may keep a balance between the classes without giving fighter-types “spells” like they do in 4E.

Given that I’ve never been happy with 3E/4E combat speed, it should be no surprise that I would prefer the BECMI/1E/2E designs for most everything else, with reasonable modifications of course.

As much as THAC0 was irritating, I’m ok with keeping it.
One of the best things 3E did was replace it with the Base Attack Bonus design, but the BAB system broke down with…
I could redesign monsters and the armor class system to the 3E style, but then all the old modules that I’d like to use would have to be fixed before I used them.

Multi-classing the 1E way, yeah I’m all for keeping that too.
Naysayers scream that 1E’s multi-classing created broken characters and multi-classed PC’s never really lagged single-classed PC’s.

First off, creating a broken character is going to happen no matter what. It’s a simple reality with gamers. You either accept it and go with it, or you try to stop it until another exploit is found, then you try to stop that one, and repeat. The rules system can change, but exploits will always be found.

Unless something that is found it truly broken, don’t worry about it. Let the player have his day.

As for level-lagging, it’s there, especially at higher levels, but it’s not as pronounced as it was in early 3E.

In my opinion, they were pretty well balanced. Not necessarily perfectly, but I remember envying a straight-classed mage when I played a multi-classed one because they got the better spells faster.

Also, the need for a tank to be “sticky” is gone if you have a couple of PC’s who are fighters that can actually run some blockage to protect the casters. That is best attained through multi-classing.

Here is my recollection of a standard 6 PC group in1E AD&D; 1 fighter, 1 cleric, 1 thief, 1 magic-user, and 2 multi-classed with at least one of those being a fighter. And sometimes the thief was a fighter/thief. There are tons of combinations, but the general design was the same (2 healers, 2 warriors, 2 magi, 1 sneak, and more).

Another thing that I liked more in the earlier editions vs. is now is that permanent magic items meant something and they were not required (barring fighting a monster that needed a magic weapon to be hit).

In 3E, if you were high level and didn’t have magic items, you were in bad shape.
In 1E, if you had only 1 permanent magic item at level 7, your DM was a bit harsh, but you could most certainly survive fights.

Next: Random encounters

3E/4E’s overly long fights made the random encounters extinct. There was no time for a fight that wasn’t crucial to the story unless you had an eight hour long game session.

In the early editions if you didn’t have a random encounter it was because the DM chose to ignore them (usually because he was sick of them). Otherwise it only cost you 10-15 minutes of your time and prevented a 5 minute adventuring day.

Something else the early editions had going for them…you could level up reasonably fast.

In 4E, you usually have to recreate your whole PC if you got a new item or ability. Now one minor change is not big deal and you can probably not worry about it (like going from a simple +1 weapon or armor to +2), and swapping out a power won’t take too much time, and neither will an even level, or stat increase. But when you add all of those together…

But not everything from BECMI/1E/2E is usable, or preferable.

I like that gold value is based on 10.
AD&D 1E had (and I don’t think I’m recalling this correctly), 10cp = 1sp, 20sp=1gp, 2ep=1gp, 5gp=1pp

Save or die effects should definitely be gone from 95% of the effects. A bite from a tiny centipede should not kill a level 10 fighter outright because he rolled a nat 1.

Permanent level drains should not return; though a version of non-permanent level drain should exist (like save every day until you’re back to normal).

Rolling for hit points…not fun if you suck at rolling.

4E has minions. I loves me some minions. That can easily be implemented, even if just using a bunch of low level monsters (kobolds, goblins, etc.)

3E has easy conversions of cleric spells into healing. This can also be easily implemented.

4E has a clear setup of actions; standard, move, and minor. Earlier editions had only vague rules for it. This may be a bit harder to implement, but it could be winged for a while.

4E made critical hits more interesting and less lethal to the party while still making them hurt.

3E/4E gave wizards more spells with a higher intelligence. Also something easy to implement.

Then there’s the stuff that all the editions didn’t quite handle right.

Early editions made magic item creation too hard and taxing while 3E/4E made it almost a joke.

Early editions had limited options while later editions gave too many.

Secondary skills never felt right to me in any edition.
In my opinion PC’s are heroes; they don’t have much time to train for anything outside of their specialized skill-set. A fighter should probably know just enough for basic upkeep of his armor and weapons, but if he’s talented enough to make a magic sword then maybe he shouldn’t be an adventurer.
Return adventuring skills to judgment calls from the DM, usually as a d20 roll vs. a stat.

4E has hit points returning overnight, 1E/2E has 1 hit point returning per day, and 3E had 1 hit point per level returning.
My thought is a bit more complicated and is a decent compromise.
You have two sets of hit points, fatigue and bloodied. Each is 50% of your total hit points.
When you take damage it come from your fatigue hit points first.
When you get healing it replenishes your bloodied hit points first.
When you rest after a combat you get all of your fatigue hit points back.
When you rest overnight you get all of your fatigue hit points back, and a small number of bloodied hit points back.
It’s not quite elegant, so it’s still being worked on, but I like this.

I have other ideas, but they’re all quite nebulous and in need of more thought.

It was easy in earlier editions to not use a battlemap at all and just give a rough explanation of the area.
Unfortunately you have killer DM’s who place every monster on top of the mage even though the mage was being covered by your plethora of 1E fighters, or players who can magically be anywhere at once.
That kind of makes rules for a battlemap required.

And on that thought, while I think it’s a bit harder, I preferred 3E’s system for that (or, if you’re older, the gold-box 1E AD&D computer games); your movement cost is 1 per square or 1.5 for a diagonal and spell radii are measured in the same manner.

Plus some players like seeing a tactical setup.

As long as we don’t turn the game into D&D chess (a la 3E/4E), I’m cool with keeping a battlemap.

I liked 1E’s barbarian from Unearthed Arcana, but its role-playing requirement made it impossible to use unless you ignored them.

3E’s barbarian was more usable, but easily got bogged down in its own math (I made a spreadsheet for dealing with that). The whole fun of playing a barbarian is to not to have to think!

BECMI & 1E gave the party XP for each gold piece they looted.
I’m not sure if I want to keep that or dump it, but if I dump it, then each monster should have its XP increased by the average amount of gold it was designed to have.

1E required time and money for training up a level.
Should that return?

What about level limitations?
I’m against them, but if a race’s special abilities are that strong, then they need to have something going against them.
(It always struck as wrong that an elf could live for over a thousand years, but could never get to level 6 as a cleric – per the 1E rules.)

Some spells will need a redesign.
Should Haste still cost a year of a person’s life? If so, shouldn’t it cost dwarves and elves more?

Buff spells should be kept simple.
Why did 1E’s Bless need for you to not be in melee combat yet?

Should a thief’s backstab ability return? Should we stick with sneak attacks?

I know I’m not going to bring back specialized magic-user classes (illusionist, abjurer, etc.) and cleric domains aren’t needed.

Should we allow PC’s to build strongholds to attract followers?

You can kiss non-magical alchemical items goodbye.

PC’s should not have to babysit other PC’s who are more than a few levels lower than them.

No magic item should be disenchantable for “magic dust”.

Wands should have charges.

While I like action points, I’m not sure if I want to keep them.

There is no need for PC’s templates right?
It just seemed like an option designed specifically for munchkins.

Should metamagic spells be introduced?
I certainly see no reason why a higher spell slot could be used for a lower level spell and then allow that lower level spell to be counted as its new level for that casting.

There should be no racial modifiers that make you seem foolish for not playing a certain race/class combo.
“Oh you want to play a wizard? Then you want to be an eladrin. Bow-using ranger? Elf.”

What bout the odd 1E classes like monk, druid, and bard?
They level oddly, sometimes you have to kill someone to level, or you have to level up other classes first.
They will require some work.

A lot of things will require some work.
I think it’s doable if done in simple steps, the easiest ones first.