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alexandraerinAnd particularly, the class architecture for it.
Along the lines of more natural multiclassing, one thing I would dispose of would be the idea of power lists being strictly by character class. Powers that basically stand as class features would be limited by class, obviously. But if a power requires the equivalent of a class feature to make sense, then that would be the prerequisite rather than membership in the class (in case something in the system later lets someone else grab those features). Otherwise, instead of restrictions, there would be incentives.
If your class is geared towards weapon attacks, you'll do better attacking with special fighting techniques than with spells... but if you want to be able to throw out a bolt of fire every once in a while, you shouldn't have to go digging through sourcebooks looking for the combination that lets you do so.
The other half of the incentive system would be that powers "intended for" a particular class would have extra effects when used by them, in the manner that some powers in 4E reward a particular build/feature choice.
This change would allow for other improvements that could address some of the criticisms of 4E; specifically, the common complaint of "saminess" and my personal concern about the lack of unification within a power source. While these two ideas seem contradictory, they actually stem from the same source.
The concept of saminess is that after a while it doesn't matter whether you're pulling a bowstring or praying to the gods or casting a spell, the game mechanics are identical. The spell's more likely to have elemental damage, the prayer is more likely to have radiant damage, and the bow attack is more likely to do untyped damage, but other than that you could be rolling the same die, inflicting the same condition, and affecting the same area.
My complaint about the lack of unification is that with every arcane class having a different spell list (as one example), there's very little sense that they're all doing the same thing. The reason I think these two problems are related is that they both come down to the fact that there aren't really any universal distinguishing characteristics of "an arcane power" or "a martial power" or "a divine power". Again, you can sometimes divide things up along type of damage likely to be involved, but the categorical names they're given (spells, exploits, prayers, et cetera) are purely cosmetic.
So the architecture for powers would be based around those categories: Spells. Fighting Techniques. Stuff like that. Then there can be a unified set of rules that applies to Spells and one that applies to Fighting Techniques. They'll both occupy the same character resource slot, the rules for both will be *similar*, but different enough that casting a spell feels like casting a spell.
I have some thoughts on what casting a spell should feel like to distinguish it from using a fighting technique, too, or else I wouldn't be aiming for a framework that distinguishes them, but that's a subject for another post.
Now, in 4E, "incentives" towards certain choices tend to mean "traps for making other choices", and to the most ardently hidebound practitioners of game theory that will always be the case. But since one of the other fixes this system would contain is a more forgiving RNG, this would be less so. A character with no bonuses to hit with a type of attack still has a 50% chance of succeeding against the average target, which is sub-optimal but hardly pointless.
Along the lines of more natural multiclassing, one thing I would dispose of would be the idea of power lists being strictly by character class. Powers that basically stand as class features would be limited by class, obviously. But if a power requires the equivalent of a class feature to make sense, then that would be the prerequisite rather than membership in the class (in case something in the system later lets someone else grab those features). Otherwise, instead of restrictions, there would be incentives.
If your class is geared towards weapon attacks, you'll do better attacking with special fighting techniques than with spells... but if you want to be able to throw out a bolt of fire every once in a while, you shouldn't have to go digging through sourcebooks looking for the combination that lets you do so.
The other half of the incentive system would be that powers "intended for" a particular class would have extra effects when used by them, in the manner that some powers in 4E reward a particular build/feature choice.
This change would allow for other improvements that could address some of the criticisms of 4E; specifically, the common complaint of "saminess" and my personal concern about the lack of unification within a power source. While these two ideas seem contradictory, they actually stem from the same source.
The concept of saminess is that after a while it doesn't matter whether you're pulling a bowstring or praying to the gods or casting a spell, the game mechanics are identical. The spell's more likely to have elemental damage, the prayer is more likely to have radiant damage, and the bow attack is more likely to do untyped damage, but other than that you could be rolling the same die, inflicting the same condition, and affecting the same area.
My complaint about the lack of unification is that with every arcane class having a different spell list (as one example), there's very little sense that they're all doing the same thing. The reason I think these two problems are related is that they both come down to the fact that there aren't really any universal distinguishing characteristics of "an arcane power" or "a martial power" or "a divine power". Again, you can sometimes divide things up along type of damage likely to be involved, but the categorical names they're given (spells, exploits, prayers, et cetera) are purely cosmetic.
So the architecture for powers would be based around those categories: Spells. Fighting Techniques. Stuff like that. Then there can be a unified set of rules that applies to Spells and one that applies to Fighting Techniques. They'll both occupy the same character resource slot, the rules for both will be *similar*, but different enough that casting a spell feels like casting a spell.
I have some thoughts on what casting a spell should feel like to distinguish it from using a fighting technique, too, or else I wouldn't be aiming for a framework that distinguishes them, but that's a subject for another post.
Now, in 4E, "incentives" towards certain choices tend to mean "traps for making other choices", and to the most ardently hidebound practitioners of game theory that will always be the case. But since one of the other fixes this system would contain is a more forgiving RNG, this would be less so. A character with no bonuses to hit with a type of attack still has a 50% chance of succeeding against the average target, which is sub-optimal but hardly pointless.