Class Design: The Runepriest

Honestly, I love this class so much that I don't think it should be changed at all.  Take the Cleric for greater healing, take a Runepriest for buffs and status effects.  Probably the most fun I've had is having a Dwarf Runepriest two-hand a Warhammer with the Dwarven Weapon Training feat.  +3 damage before any ability modifiers, coupled with his buffs and status effects, and that's a pretty stalwart front-line priest.  :D

While I haven't written much here, I'm going to throw out a few concepts that I've been working on to apply to the Wizard.

First, schools of magic need to come back.  Second, speciality needs to come back.  Further, I think that a wizard who specializes should get a bonus encounter spell, while giving up two other schools.  Unfortunately, this will require writing every single spell into one of the schools, and coming up with a bunch of new ones to make that sacrifice worth something. :/

Also, familiars should come back.  I think that scribing scrolls can work, but how to do so will be problematic, given how many spells are available to a wizard from 1st level.

Class Design: The Cleric

Continuing the trend of minimalist changes, here's the cleric!

He's a terrific healer.  Leave him that way.

Surge value + d6 PLUS WIS mod.  Damn that's a lot.

Add:

Turn Undead as a power that has a number of daily uses equal to CHA modifier, to a minimum of 1.

Cleric can gain his deity's Channel Divinity without taking a feat.

;) I think this works by minimizing messing with the class.  Yay!

Feat Design: Two-Weapon Fighting

Here is another lost artifact from 3.5: the capacity of a character to pick up two weapons and fight with them.  Some characters' entire concept depended on this, and those players undoubtedly felt alienated with the new edition.  I tossed around a few ideas on how to work this within the 4th edition concept of characters actually being beginner heroes at level 1.

Two-Weapon Fighting
The character has been trained to use two one-handed weapons in unison for combat, allowing her to perform two basic attacks with one standard action.  The naturally unwieldy nature of such a technique incurs a -4 penalty  to the attack roll of each attack.

This primarily helps take care of some of the balance issues in giving a character the opportunity to double the amount of damage one may do in a single turn, yet the negatives make is such that, while the character will not be very proficient early on, gaining +1 to hit every two character levels gives a very natural and enjoyable progression as he/she improves with the weapons.

Cheers!

Which Races?

And here's another huge problem with 4th edition: too many PC races, some of which are insane.  Dragonborn and Eladrin are pretty big here.  They should be in the Monster Manuals if anything.  Same with the Tiefling.  Being a race in a PHB is kind of a status declaration: that those in the front of the book are more prominent in the world they have created than those that can be found in the Monster Manuals.

To fix this, let's begin with the basics:

Human
Elf
Dwarf
Halfling
Gnome
Half-Orc

Excepting the gnome, these are the races we've all grown up with, and, for better or worse, Tolkien is still affecting our perceptions of how fantasy characters should be.  So, let me look and see which additional races I would include, and why.

Ok, I admit, there's only one race I'd like to add, just to give the party an option of having a really out-there addition to the party: the shardmind.  I like this race because of its role in that big Gate thing that kept the Cthuloid monsters away from Earth, and when they gained sentience post its destruction, they still try to kill off as many creatures from the Far Realm as possible.  This is amazing for character motivation, and they're prime material to be a spellcasting class.  Beyond that, any additional character races should be in the back of the MMs.

Class Design: The Paladin

Salvete,

Continuing my ideas of how to redesign some of the classes to be distinct in their own way, it's time to work on the Paladin.  I think 4th edition has it right that there can be paladins of different Gods of different alignments, so I won't be changing that.  Sacrilege, I know.

First off, no plate at level 1.  For anybody.

Next, I want to bring back Detect X, where X is the opposite of the second part of your alignment.  So it's either Detect Evil, or Detect Good.  With that in mind, I can then bring back a really cool class feature: Smite.

Smite
Encounter
Charisma vs. Will
12 + Charisma modifier damage.
Special: A paladin may only use this power a number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier, with a minimum of one.  This power may be used only against monsters that one's Detect ability identifies.  The base damage increases to 24 at 11th level, and 36 at 21st level.

Finally, I would like to bring back the whole "special mount" thing.  At fifth level, the paladin gains the service of a superior example of an animal.  The mount can be called once per day, and it remains for a number of hours equal to one's paladin level.

To try and keep the paladin similar to the fighter, I think that taking away his at-will powers will help make them more similar.  Both classes will keep their special challenges though.

As for the Channel Divinity class feature, add an option where the paladin can get his chosen deity's divinity power without spending a feat, because those things are damned precious.

Truthfully, I'm fine with keeping the rest of the class as-is, and I find that these new features will help differentiate him outside of being able to wear heavier armor than the fighter, as well as getting healing abilities.

Which Armor?

So, there are two simple methods to incorporate light, medium, and heavy armor into the game.

Method 1: Bring back the armor chart from 3.5

Method 2: In the 4th edition rulebook, there are 6 sections of armor.  Divide the first two into light, the second into medium, the final into the heavy category.

I'm leaning towards the former method.  The categories are already extant, and there's a very clear progression in how characters' armor improves in a few ways when he's able to get new stuff.  Full Plate giving 8 AC and +1 from DEX is pretty nice.  It also gives several different kinds of shields, each of which begs to be circumvented by a flail.  Naturally, just about everything concerning the MMs would have to change to incorporate this difference, but I think that it would be worth it, and not require too much effort.  If nothing else, just use it for humanoids that wear armor, and you're good to go.

Finesse Weapons

I hate the Weapon Finesse feat.  Your character gets only ONE feat at first level, and if your character concept is a rogue or some kind of DEX-based person without a high STR, then you have a stupid disadvantage to hitting enemies just because weapons to-hit and damage rolls use Strength.  With that in mind, as well as the stereotypes associated with such weapons, I thought of a list of certain weapons that could be considered "finesse," allowing one to use either STR or DEX at least on the to-hit roll.

So far, I've considered that the dagger, quarterstaff, one-handed spear, and rapier should be considered finesse weapons.  Also, I think it would be neat if every character could take the Weapon Finesse feat anyway, just then it would apply to all weapons.

I think this primarily helps those classes who may just want to use a weapon so they can use their DEX mod to help with fighting.

:D

Class Design: The Fighter Part 2

So, I've been thinking about two class features that would be cool for the fighter, given his lack of at-will powers to make it slightly more fun than "I hit it with my sword."  To that end, I think I should detail two class features: Fighter Weapon Specialization and Stances.

Class Design: The Fighter Part 1

One of the iconic classes of the game, the Fighter has the poor position of only being as good as his weapon.  In essence, the class concept is "I hit it with my X," which works in previous editions, yet is infernally boring without having extra combat options unavailable to other classes, as well as having interesting weapons to work with in the first place.

Which Classes?

Here's a big problem with 4th, much like with any other RPG: too many classes, no balance.

Which Skills?

Continuing my idea of how to improve 4th edition, I'm wondering on how to fix skills.  There need to be more, and most of those on the character sheet need to be unpacked.  I'll start with the skills I think should stay packed together:

Hmm.  Every rogue will take hide and move silently, but it should be an option to play a rogue who kinda plays against type by maybe not being much of a lock picker, but more of just a gearhead who likes disarming and making traps.  Furthermore, I think that plenty of characters can benefit from sleight of hand.  

Keep Stealth, diffuse Thievery.

I also dislike Perception and Insight.  Also, those passive Perception and Insight stats are stupid.  Toss them, bring back Sense Motive, Spot, Search, and just about all the other skills.  I think one of the funniest things that can happen to a party is having some of them being terrible Riders, which is part of what I think makes Siuan Sanche so hilarious.

Furthermore, reduce Craft, Perform, and Profession down to just a single skill each.  The additional spaces can be used for these.  Also, leave the knowledges as they are, rasae tabulae to be filled in.

Huh.  It's quite funny how easily fixed that was.  Now characters will be able to make themselves known for being skilled at something that the other characters may not have access to.  The question then becomes how to fix the class skills such that characters can actually make themselves differentiated by having enough different skills to be trained in.

;) Just a little differentiation to fix something that was over-corrected.

Anyone else think that the "Basic Attack" section on the 4.0 Character Sheet is unneeded and hilarious?

4th Edition D&D: What Worked, What Did Not

To begin, I find that only in 4th Edition has my character ever felt like he/she/it stands well above normal people in that he was able to take more hits, fight for longer, and be a damned hero at level 1.  Previous editions have you cringing from encounter to encounter with only very few healing sources available.  Cowardice is not heroic. :P

So, I'm going to start with the Character Sheet, and move on from there, going from concept to concept.