I thought I'd post this here as I might get some reasonably adult responses. Fingers crossed...

I have 4E Essentials. It sits there, looking at me.

I have played Redbox basic from the late 80s, grew up playing and loving 2E AD&D. I missed 3.x and Pathfinder due to real-world overtaking RP interests. I tried D20 D&D/Pathfinder. Hated it so much I bowed out of two groups who were playing because the games didn't work well with me as a player.

Now I look at newer systems and I wonder what I can do with them. Well, this one.

I Like the mechanic, I like the tight delivery of spellcasting. I quite like the tone, but I don't like the idea of grid combat and I don't like Feats or powers. All I want to do is 'nerf' the martial feats and powers so that only the arcane and divine spellcasters can do 'crazy shit'.

By looking through the first 10 levels of the first 'Fighter' (The knight?) from the Essentials HoTFL book, by taking away all the powers and feats the fighter loses a lot of effectiveness in combat.

Here is my rough idea: Up fighter damage per weapon. Maybe keep some of the power descriptions but do away with grids and assign effects to 'in or out' of melee. Spellcasters still do what they do, just more like old D&D. No controllers or silly things like that (you may not consider them silly, YMMV etc). No pushes, no pulls, no environment effects, just dice and descriptions.

I have looked over a lot of the attempts to take 4E off the grid, but these assume you are still going to use feats and powers. I really don't care for them. Give the DM a good description and wing it. Roll to hit and don't worry about who is where when the feat stuff happens (or not in my case). A bit like the old days.

I know I could play something else, and I am probably better served by playing something else, but I fancy trying this for the hell of it. Thoughts, advice, ridicule?

So you want to remove what makes Martial classes both effective and fun, in favour of restoring the "casters uber alles" bollocks from 3.x?

A fighter is more than damage. It's locking down an opponent and forcing them into a potentially no-win situation: attack the fighter and be unable to do anything about the rest of the party. Attack the rest of the party and get hammered by the fighter.

Quote from: Kiero;636386So you want to remove what makes Martial classes both effective and fun, in favour of restoring the "casters uber alles" bollocks from 3.x?

A fighter is more than damage. It's locking down an opponent and forcing them into a potentially no-win situation: attack the fighter and be unable to do anything about the rest of the party. Attack the rest of the party and get hammered by the fighter.

As I said, I have no real experience with 3.x. I played, what, something like 3 sessions in total. Ever. So the comparison is lost on me, whilst it is a familiar thing I have heard.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;636389As I said, I have no real experience with 3.x. I played, what, something like 3 sessions in total. Ever. So the comparison is lost on me, whilst it is a familiar thing I have heard.

For context, under normal circumstances I hate using minis and grids. As I've discovered with 4E, that's because most games are absolutely shit at doing skirmish-scale wargames. In 4E it's actually enjoyable for me, and I like playing Martial characters (have played a Core melee Ranger/Essentials Scout and a core Fighter).

Essentials is a pretty well put-together package, even if the presentation is boring. As long as you dispense with the notion of "random encounters" or throwaway combats, and make each fight have a meaning within the context of what's going on, it runs just fine. That means at most 2-3 fights per session.

Something else you're missing with your changes is that 4th edition is a coherent whole where the parts are supposed to be balanced against each other. Nerfing the "Batman Wizard" wasn't just an aesthetic decision, it restores the idea that everyone in the party has a role to play, rather than being second fiddle to the dude in bathrobes.

The Roles work. They tell the player what their character's strengths are (and thus how to build a cohesive team), they help a GM design an encounter around the party they have, and how to challenge them in interesting ways. Rather than the complete crapshoot in earlier editions.

Essentials does a lot to alter the power of the "basic attack" for the martial types (Edit - like Slayer).  If you want to remove some feats and powers, I'd take some of the things that boost those basic attacks and just write them into the class itself.

Fyi,

The Weaponmaster Fighter 'has a lot of powers'

The Slayer Fighter does not, and is much more like a 1E/3E fighter.

Many classes in 4E are 'simpler' in design.

To get to your goal, it may be as simple as cherrypicking what classes you will use.

Quote from: Bill;636455Fyi,

The Weaponmaster Fighter 'has a lot of powers'

The Slayer Fighter does not, and is much more like a 1E/3E fighter.

Many classes in 4E are 'simpler' in design.

To get to your goal, it may be as simple as cherrypicking what classes you will use.

Specifically, all the Essentials classes are simpler than their Core counterparts.

I've been hoping for a "4E Lite" type rules set for a long time -- one that allows for some of the cool options of 4E without the extra details that seem to bug me as a GM. I may have found one.

13th Age seems to be a lot like a "4E lite" game. It has some elements of 4E and some of 3E, so it's more complex than the OD&D that I'm used to running but it seems to be a lot easier to play. Disclaimer: I've played in a few sessions of 13th Age but have never actually run a game. It may seem totally different to me once I run a session.

I like your basic concept of trying to lighten the 4E rules. 13th Age gets rid of the tactical mini aspect of the game but seems to retain things like feats, at-will powers, and other features I associate with 3E/4E.

Quote from: finarvyn;636507I like your basic concept of trying to lighten the 4E rules. 13th Age gets rid of the tactical mini aspect of the game but seems to retain things like feats, at-will powers, and other features I associate with 3E/4E.

Yeah, one of the big appeals for me with 13th Age is it's support of miniature-less play and its abstraction of movement and distances. I'd say that calling it a 4E lite game is a pretty fair comparison, though I like how every class still has a unique gimmick. The separate sorcerer and wizard spell lists was something nice as well. :]

These are all good, thanks.

One way I have thought about approaching this is to just wing the distances and/or rewrite the effects so that the buffs effect those in melee combat, an adjacent push/pull could affect any NPC creature or PC in melee, cut hitpoints, up damage and scale back the swarm of minions.

I will have a fiddle around with it and see what happens.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;636555These are all good, thanks.

One way I have thought about approaching this is to just wing the distances and/or rewrite the effects so that the buffs effect those in melee combat, an adjacent push/pull could affect any NPC creature or PC in melee, cut hitpoints, up damage and scale back the swarm of minions.

I will have a fiddle around with it and see what happens.

That is preety much what I do when gming 4E without a map or minis.




Well, I use more minions, but pretty close

I care not for balance or fun, but I have slimmed these two down...

4e fighter
HP 15+con (+6 each level)
+2 Fortitude
Skills:
Athletics
Diplomacy
Dungeoneering
Endurance
Intimidate
(Choose 3 at lvl 1)
Automatically get:
Armour proficiency of choice
Weapon proficiency of choice
Class features:
Double damage
Toughness
Weapon focus

4e thief
HP 12+con (+5 each level)
+2 Reflex
Skills:
Acrobatics
Athletics
Bluff
Insight
Perception
Thievery
Stealth
Intimidate
(Choose Stealth, Thievery and 4 more at lvl 1)
Automatically get:
Armour proficiency of choice
Weapon proficiency of choice
Class features:
Backstab
Skill focus
Alertness
Jack of all trades

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;6369104e fighter

Skills:
Athletics
Diplomacy
Dungeoneering
Endurance
Intimidate
(Choose 3 at lvl 1)

This is the "dumb fighter" bullshit that needs to die. Give the fighter five Skills and add Perception, Insight and History to their list.

I'd just open the skill list to everyone, according to your design.

If I wanted to go back and alter 4e I would have to think hard why. It is a pretty tight design overall. Though if I did as my goto regular RPG I would not only dump skill restrictions. I'd also dump AEDU, keep Rituals, dump half level bonus on saves and skills, dump surges, change the attribute modifier progression, cap the AC/BAB progression, remove bubble minions, dump most of the DMG recommendations, make multiclassing harder, and dump heavy mod stacking, etc. But then I should just play a different game then.

However I'd just work with the system and change my game expectations. If I run it like Shining Force, I could get a really good game. The surges would HAVE TO GO, and HP would have to be like halved for everyone. I don't know about AEDU, that would be a lot of editing.

Quote from: Opaopajr;636990I'd just open the skill list to everyone, according to your design.

That's a nice idea, does away with pigeon-holing someone with skills.

Quote from: Opaopajr;636990If I wanted to go back and alter 4e I would have to think hard why. It is a pretty tight design overall. Though if I did as my goto regular RPG I would not only dump skill restrictions. I'd also dump AEDU, keep Rituals, dump half level bonus on saves and skills, dump surges, change the attribute modifier progression, cap the AC/BAB progression, remove bubble minions, dump most of the DMG recommendations, make multiclassing harder, and dump heavy mod stacking, etc. But then I should just play a different game then.

Yeah. Agreed. I'm just tweaking and fiddling around with it for the hell of it. Boredom mostly!!