Gods & Heroes (4e Clone)

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

In the Disney flick Mulan we have examples of two fairly martial characters with lesser companion beasts which I would build as familiars in 4e - a falcon for one and a dragonling for the other (look at some of the familiars in 4e they actually do work for a martial hero). In 4e I built the guy from Ladyhawke as having a familiar hawk (or reflavored another flier as a hawk)...and the Gal as a LazyLord Ranger hybrid (aka a Mogli build)... Fun.

For the hawk I'd go Beastmaster Ranger with a Bird animal companion. For the dragonling... Well I'd argue you could have a drake/dragonling. Some might argue a dragonling would be an arcane familiar. I counter that with if you have a PC dragonmen race, then dragonlings shouldn't be inherently off limits to martial characters.

I dont see these as being Beastmaster beasts they arent up to battle companions... though a beastmaster companion just harrasses (ie flanks) as its default behaviors, I think one is ... hitting a fly with a hammer grade mechanic. I gave Navarre a dip of mc in bard and gave him the Gallant Hawk Familiar. Bard isnt great flavor wise for him but it is a classic to have heros trained by Bards so sticking my fingers in my ears and giving it to that blunt fighter of a man to represent the impact of the enchantment of him.

I built 3 of the Ladyhawke characters in the Creative Character build collection particularly fond of Mouse.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Thought I would mention I like the concept of Upgrade or Retrain *(often when I retrained I tried to find something that I could flavor as upgrading)

Once all the powers have been put in I'll be going back and making upgradeable versions of all the powers.

Great.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

If a warning shout was an everyman* ability (generally like the Bullrush or Charge in 4e) and you could take a feat to have it affect more allies that might be interesting.

Its a bit like the aid other thing

Good point. It's now called Improved Warning Shout

Cool

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Lots and lots of heros do warning shouts in the movies anyone with good perception is likely to do it in fact you choose to do it after you roll initiative you sacrifice some of it to improve an allies initiative ...but...

That interpretation isnt actually the results we see such a targeted warning shout in the movies is almost as always immediately followed by your ally getting in a preemptive attack or making a big active defense aka... its often an outright "Direct the strike" from the lazylords repertoire..

I've thought about making the "someone else gets an action" a universal ability. But I was worried about abuse and I'd rather not butcher the Tactician class as I rather liked it from 4th ed. I'll leave that to other games

What if we snuck it in... as a on crit effect. I know I know I am very fond of Warlord/Tactician. Dont want to step all over it ;-p. Warlords are my favorite and I concurrently invented the LazyLord "Princess Build" myself.
I think it doesnt have enough maneuvers if the Warlord wasnt stupidly easy to hybrid and multiclass it would be as locked in as the Vampire class.. but it is damn fun.


http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?274402-The-Non-Combatant-(Princess)-or-How-to-Abuse-a-Warlord

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

"point of recovery"

In 4e Anyone can spend an action (via a heal check to give an adjacent allie an extra saving throw to recover from a condition ended by a save).

Dang. I played 4th ed for 5 years and didn't know that. Good catch Garthanos!

Give a solo minions who primarily first aid him...  encounter design for the win. First aid working that fast in most cases I consider meh or even contrary ... but on saving throw things it does seem entirely appropriate.Skill use really just takes however long or short seems appropriate except where an explicit skill powers might say otherwise ofcourse.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

I personally think allowing one to do that for oneself only makes sense ... ie you are devoting your attention to shrugging off the affect.

Powers/Feats are cool for customization but sometimes hey they are heros lets make sure they all are able to do what the heros in the movies normally do - so I like versatile everyman abilities.

I'd definitely like this game to encourage "everyman" abilities (or general powers). That said I don't want to make them equal to an at-will power as otherwise there's no point using an at-will power and ultimately martial powers will be available to everyone while arcane and divine at-will powers remain the domain of arcane/divine characters only

Well there is that... of course given you can learn rituals with one feat and train arcana with a background one might be suprised what a DM might enable for improvisation too.  I like that arcane at-wills in 4e are actually worthwhile... they are really really lame in 5e and from what I hear pathfinder is just as bad or worse.

JohnLynch wrote:

Thanks for really digging into the rules Garthanos. It'll definitely help them shape up to be better overall

Im mostly skimming them and seeing what elements jump out at me. Glad to help though.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

When I first seen body slots for magic items. I thought what an in your face gamey tacky element

To me it's more about logic.  

Me dont need rules for simple logic typically
Chakras allow one to include a different sort of logic... things which one could have logically but which chakras limit or vice versi.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

I have since taken to thinking of them as items being bound to ones Chakra (7 seats of power within the body)

I saw that in 13th Age. Personally that feels more gamey to me then a "common sense" rule on 1 item in 1 slot.

Wasnt aware of that ... either like minds think a like or those guys pay quite a bit of attention to online posting ;p

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

alternatively I like how attunement works in 5e and may pull  that in to every game I play in some form. To tell the truth though limits may not really be necessary especially with inherent bonuses being digested in to the games default math. Just some thoughts.

I'd considered attunement, but like you concluded that with heroic surges it's probably not necessary.

JohnLynch wrote:

Maybe I've just played with people who are too argumentative or abusive of game mechanics. But I'd want a "one magic item per slot" rule just to stop someone from trying to wear five different vests at the same time (yes I've played with people who would argue this).

Yuck sounds like a problem. To me attunement still has some potence since it integrates with the logic of magic items with variable potency based on who is using them even before we get to relic/artifact rules. That sentence makes no sense -- Basically I consider the idea a good starting rule it helps one track bling from the various sources be they magic items or boons or grand master training.

JohnLynch wrote:

Are there any items you see where you think they should be wearable in the same slot?

I remember thinking rings and necklaces and tattoos and similar things of that sort... you might have a armband and bracers and so on.   

JohnLynch wrote:

Thanks Garthanos. I'll have to look at how to integrate that.
I've been thinking about skills and I'm going to skip on working on them until I've looked at PHB3's skill powers. Once I've incorporated those and rituals into utility powers I'll have a look at skills because I think it will help define how skills work in Gods & Heroes and should provide some structure on what's possible for everyman abilities and we can then work in what's possible without specialised training.

It is all connected that is for sure.

It occured to me that if powers were all upgradeable you might make upgrading one on the fly by making a heavier expenditure a form of heroic effort.

Garthanos wrote:

It occured to me that if powers were all upgradeable you might make upgrading one on the fly by making a heavier expenditure a form of heroic effort.

Can you give an example of how you think that would work?

Also a new feat for the vows. A way to let level 1 characters take multiple vows without being overpowered (wording's a bit clunky):

Oathbound
Benefit: You are able to take as many vow feats as you wish for free. You must obey all of the restrictions these vows require, however you only gain the bonuses of one of the vows. After an extended rest you are able to decide which bonus you have for the day.
Special: This feat multiple times. After an extended rest you're able to gain an additional benefit from a vow.

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

It occured to me that if powers were all upgradeable you might make upgrading one on the fly by making a heavier expenditure a form of heroic effort.

Can you give an example of how you think that would work?

I spend a round doing no more than an at-will and spend heroic surge to perform the bigger effect the next round as a follow up or something similar... just spit balling.

JohnLynch wrote:

Also a new feat for the vows. A way to let level 1 characters take multiple vows without being overpowered (wording's a bit clunky):

Oathbound
Benefit: You are able to take as many vow feats as you wish for free. You must obey all of the restrictions these vows require, however you only gain the bonuses of one of the vows. After an extended rest you are able to decide which bonus you have for the day.
Special: This feat multiple times. After an extended rest you're able to gain an additional benefit from a vow.

hmmmmm start off with the feeling of being able to do all/any but with flexibility instead of potency, that has me grinning.

Garthanos wrote:

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

It occured to me that if powers were all upgradeable you might make upgrading one on the fly by making a heavier expenditure a form of heroic effort.

Can you give an example of how you think that would work?

I spend a round doing no more than an at-will and spend heroic surge to perform the bigger effect the next round as a follow up or something similar... just spit balling.

Kinda like power points and psionic class powers? Are there fixed upgrades for each power or flexible?
Like each expenditure spent could increase the damage dice by X, or add a status effect, or upgrade from melee 1 to close burst 1. I think it would be easy to write with guidelines for what heroic effort is worth rather than to have each power with and additional line for using heroic effort with the power.

TjD

Johns upgrades are options in the advancement system ... so I figured if there was a suffient price to periodically doing them (the action cost of not doing something big during the lead up is a tactical cost and the heroic surge is a strategic cost) it might be ok for a character to do a spattering of there future capability.

Since we were discussing Battle Beasts: Something mentioned in Next that I approve of is Separating Companions from out of the Class.

A fighter or paladin ought to be having a squire or fighting mount or war dog (or tamed pantangean war tiger) just as reasonably as a ranger having a battle beast or a necromancer having an ghoul or a Mage a Familiar... or a Psion having a floating crystal. Or the Shaman having a Guardian Ghost.

Choices about how significant they are to your fighting or magicking or whatever ought to use something like team fighting feats..

Every Batman needs to be able to have a Robin regardless of other aspects of his flavor.

Heya.

Your work looks good and promising, quite different from my own 4e clone in the making, but I think we have very different design goals

One thing however in particular sprung at me:

JohnLynch wrote:

[*]Feats:Feats had two purposes in 4th ed. Make you more powerful OR make you more versatile. By using the same resources for different purposes we've got the classic problem we've always had in jack of all trades, master of none.

Unlike D&D Next, I decided to make feats about versatility rather than powerful.

In the design process of feats for my own 4e clone I encountered an issue here, if feats are only for versatility and not for power some players will encounter the problem that they simply do not want feats, consider the following example:

Bob the fighter is a pretty standard gruff grunt, he wields a sword and shield as his favoured weaponry, but does not specialise in it, he wields a crossbow as a sidearm, but haven't used it during his last 5 adventures, he pays lip service to the god of war, but is far from a religious man. Now Bob's player is not interested in being a team commander, learning rogue/ranger skills, learning spell casting, learning languages, put Bob under wierd oaths, specialise in specific fighting styles or even learn how to use that crossbow that Bob never uses anyhow.

Here is a case of a PC not interested in versatility, all Bob's player is interested in for Bob is more cool ways to swing sword and shield and for Bob to get better at just that, swinging sword & shield. Whenever Bob gets a new feat his player have two options; either pick something that doesn't make sense for his envisioning of his character, or decide that feats are for sissies and ignore them. While option 2 sounds fine for Bob's player you will find that 9 times out of 10 Bob's player will get frustrated when all his teammates brag about their new feats and he has no options.

This is the mayor problem with feats offering only versatility and no power, not everyone is interested in versatility and for those players power seem to be the only option.

Personally I've gone the opposite direction that you do, feats offer power, period. While the power they offer can often come in the form of versatility I find it much easier to balance things out if feats offer a substantial power-up for the characters. Furthermore I think I'd as a player would be abit disappointed if a new feat didn't make my character more powerful.

-------
By the way, if you want to compare notes, experiences etc. I'd be up for being a sparring partner, my own clone in the making is put up here.

Garthanos wrote:

Every Batman needs to be able to have a Robin regardless of other aspects of his flavor.

Or should I have said every Gilgamesh needs his Enkidu... more genre correct

Garthanos wrote:

Johns upgrades are options in the advancement system ... so I figured if there was a suffient price to periodically doing them (the action cost of not doing something big during the lead up is a tactical cost and the heroic surge is a strategic cost) it might be ok for a character to do a spattering of there future capability.

Aaaah. This is what you mean :)I'd considered something like it in that I'd considered using some sort of point system where you could transform a daily power into an encounter power. This was to help allow one player to play a Vancian-style wizard using the same rules as an AEDU character (or as I should call them an ACDU character). I still spot some remnants of this system in the pre-requisites for powers that I need to remove.

Ultimately I scrapped it due to how fiddly it was and also how much trouble I was having with balancing things. Now that we've got heroic surges adding to the power economy I could definitely see revisiting this on an adhoc basis. But I'm just wary of potential nova-effects. That said I do like the concept.

It being dependent on your previous action isn't really an opportunity cost at lower levels. If a standard fight is going to last 4 rounds then I could quite easily do this:

• Round 1: At-Will power
  
• Round 2: Boosted daily power
  
• Round 3: Challenge power
  
• Round 4: At-will power
  

All I've spent is a heroic surge. The "must use an at-will power in the previous round" portion of the cost isn't actually a cost.

How about "by expending a daily power you can use an upgraded version of a lower level power. Both powers are expended after you do this." This may or may not require a heroic surge in addition. Assuming the numbers balanced, what do you think of that?

Garthanos wrote:

hmmmmm start off with the feeling of being able to do all/any but with flexibility instead of potency, that has me grinning.

Thanks :)It was mainly so that a level 1 Paladin can recreate the oathes from 3.5e without needing to wait until he's level 5 before he's gotten all the relevant vows.

Garthanos wrote:

Since we were discussing Battle Beasts: Something mentioned in Next that I approve of is Separating Companions from out of the Class.

I'd done this in a previous version of the rules. From memory you had to wait until your Paragon Class before you got one. This was intended to recreate the 2nd edition effect of everyone getting followers at a certain point in their career. I haven't revisited it yet for this version of the rules.

Garthanos wrote:

A fighter or paladin ought to be having a squire or fighting mount or war dog (or tamed pantangean war tiger) just as reasonably as a ranger having a battle beast or a necromancer having an ghoul or a Mage a Familiar... or a Psion having a floating crystal. Or the Shaman having a Guardian Ghost.

(checks version 2.2 of the rules) Yup it's there for both the Paladin and the Fighter for a horse animal companion. I restricted these two classes to a horse (or equivalent animal appropriate to your character's race) because they're iconic for those archetypes (knight in shining armour and a paladin's horse).

Garthanos wrote:

Choices about how significant they are to your fighting or magicking or whatever ought to use something like team fighting feats..

If you want a non-combatant animal companion there's no reason you can't just go buy a beast and have it by your side (take a feat that allows you to protect it and/or use your own heroic surges to save it). If you want it to be more resilient then you have the option of spending a feat to gain a combat ready animal companion that is just as effective as the druids or rangers.

Garthanos wrote:

Every Batman needs to be able to have a Robin regardless of other aspects of his flavor.

I ignored the point about cohorts because at this point I don't know what to do about them. They've existed in every edition of D&D except 4th ed, although my understanding is they've been problematic as well (some/all classes are restricted from using some of them in combat in 2nd edition. 3.5e/Pathfinder had problems too in balance unsurprisingly). What 4th ed did for animal companions for me is perfect (and I've built on top of that by making them a bit more independent). But it works because they're unintelligent beasts. Once you get an intelligent cohort I ask the question "why can't my cohort learn powers?" and at the end of the day the only thing I can say is because "that's what the game says" which I don't find very satisfactory. I'm also a bit unsure how to develop it (spend a standard action to direct your cohort, allowing it to expend one of your powers?).

Improved Familiars are a whole other story. I'd like to include them, I'm just not sure how (Paragon Class? Diabolist and gain an imp familiar?). Also I'm probably not the best person to tackle it as I've only seen 1 person use an improved familiar effectively and I'm not sure that what they did was the archetypical way of employing improved familiars (the player excelled at off the wall concepts that shouldn't work but somehow do).

Cohorts and Improved familiars will in all likelihood get tackled along with necromancers and summon spells (at this point not going to be in the core rules simply due to space. I'd like to have the core rules in a printable format and not do a Pathfinder where the book falls apart simply by using it due to the number of pages).

SgtFreakshow wrote:

if feats are only for versatility and not for power some players will encounter the problem that they simply do not want feats

This is why I'm hoping and praying I can make utility powers use the same resource as feats (i.e. take a feat to gain a utility power). It makes both of the systems optional and each player can control how many of each they want.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Bob the fighter is a pretty standard gruff grunt, he wields a sword and shield as his favoured weaponry, but does not specialise in it, he wields a crossbow as a sidearm, but haven't used it during his last 5 adventures, he pays lip service to the god of war, but is far from a religious man. Now Bob's player is not interested in being a team commander, learning rogue/ranger skills, learning spell casting, learning languages, put Bob under wierd oaths, specialise in specific fighting styles or even learn how to use that crossbow that Bob never uses anyhow.

Here is a case of a PC not interested in versatility, all Bob's player is interested in for Bob is more cool ways to swing sword and shield and for Bob to get better at just that, swinging sword & shield.

It's funny you say this as I'm designing feats with Bob specifically in mind. My solution is two-fold: (1) make more feats (2) hopefully balance utility powers against feats (I'm skeptical of whether or not this is achievable but we'l wait and see).

Going through the current feats Bob could take:
Level 1) Combat Expertise: -2 to attack for +2 AC. Boost to AC for Bob isn't out of character based on the fact he's a sword and boarder.
Level 2) Improved Disarm: Deal 1dW less damage to disarm an enemy of it's weapon.
Level 4) Improved Sunder: Instead of damaging the enemy, damage their weapon or shield.
Level 5) Improved Trip: Deal 1dW less damage to trip an enemy.
Level 6) Multiattack: Forgo dealing 1dW damage to get an extra attack this round (opposite to 3.5e vital strike).
Level 8)Power Attack: Full Power Attack! (Sorry. Power Attack is a favourite feat of mine in Pathfinder. I always full power attack in Pathfinder and Paragon tier 4th ed).
Level 10) Point of Power: Spend an action point to deal more damage with a particular attack.
Level 12) Versatile Training: Get an extra at-will attack! (can be taken multiple times)

That said, I've run out of feats at this point and Bob still has 11 more feats to go. So I do need to make a lot more feats (it's my goal for Bob specifically to be able to help 19 feats that help his character). That said, I have run out of ideas for now so I'm moving on to other things. I do come back from time to time and add more feats as I think of them (shield bash as a feat?). We'll have to wait and see whether or not I'll succeed and let Bob have his fun character.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

This is the mayor problem with feats offering only versatility and no power, not everyone is interested in versatility and for those players power seem to be the only option.

Specialisation was introduced in 2nd edition and developed further in 3.5e to such a degree that everyone was forced to become specialists and generalists couldn't survive. Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Skill Specialisation. All of these things require mean that if someone specialised in knowledge (religion) in 3.5e there was no point in anyone ever rolling a knowledge (religion) check unless they had likewise specialised. Specialisation punish the generalists.

PHB-only games fix this by simply not having enough feats to allow someone to boost their power level every single time they gain a feat. As such Bob would be likwise left out in the cold under such systems. But once you get to the end of a system's life cycle you end up with everyone being a specialist and no-one being able to play a generalist. Which means you also end up with end of cycle characters being more powerful then PHB-only characters (even in 4th ed. Just see the expertise feats from PHB2).

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Personally I've gone the opposite direction that you do, feats offer power, period. While the power they offer can often come in the form of versatility I find it much easier to balance things out if feats offer a substantial power-up for the characters. Furthermore I think I'd as a player would be abit disappointed if a new feat didn't make my character more powerful.

Only if they come from a system where feats made them more powerful If Bob's player was brand new to gaming and played Pathfinder and then played Gods & Heroes I think he'd be happy playing a fighter in Gods & Heroes. In Pathfinder he gets power bosts from:

• BAB increasing
  
• Class features
  
• Feats
  

That's it. Nothing else. In Gods & Heroes he gets power boosts from:

• Level bonus to attack and defenses
  
• Class features (including Paragon Class and Epic Class)
  
• Powers
  

Here he has the same power boosts. It's just he ALSO has feats to make him more versatile (assuming he finds enough feats that make him versatile in character-appropriate ways).

Now I said Pathfinder and Gods & Heroes and handily skipped over 4th ed. This is because IMO 4th ed got it wrong. They tried to do too much with feats and what we ended up with were more powerful characters and most people I gamed with ignored the versatility feats.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Personally I've gone the opposite direction that you do, feats offer power, period. While the power they offer can often come in the form of versatility I find it much easier to balance things out if feats offer a substantial power-up for the characters.

Going the opposite route is definitely a viable tactic as well. My main point is simply this: Don't give me feats that offer versatility and then give me feats that offer a power boost. Because I'll end up wanting to take the versatility feats which are probably flavourful, but be forced to take the +1 to X feats.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

By the way, if you want to compare notes, experiences etc. I'd be up for being a sparring partner, my own clone in the making is put up here.

Thanks. I'll have to have a look at it.

JohnLynch wrote:

This is why I'm hoping and praying I can make utility powers use the same resource as feats (i.e. take a feat to gain a utility power). It makes both of the systems optional and each player can control how many of each they want.

Hrm, during the design of my own clone I thought about this too, I however scrapped the idea, but it would be interesting to know your thoughts on this, how are you trying to accomplish it?

I do still run utility-like powers as part of some feats, though these aren't connected to the actual utility powers of classes.

JohnLynch wrote:

It's funny you say this as I'm designing feats with Bob specifically in mind. My solution is two-fold: (1) make more feats (2) hopefully balance utility powers against feats (I'm skeptical of whether or not this is achievable but we'l wait and see).

Going through the current feats Bob could take:
Level 1) Combat Expertise: -2 to attack for +2 AC. Boost to AC for Bob isn't out of character based on the fact he's a sword and boarder.
Level 2) Improved Disarm: Deal 1dW less damage to disarm an enemy of it's weapon.
Level 4) Improved Sunder: Instead of damaging the enemy, damage their weapon or shield.
Level 5) Improved Trip: Deal 1dW less damage to trip an enemy.
Level 6) Multiattack: Forgo dealing 1dW damage to get an extra attack this round (opposite to 3.5e vital strike).
Level 8)Power Attack: Full Power Attack! (Sorry. Power Attack is a favourite feat of mine in Pathfinder. I always full power attack in Pathfinder and Paragon tier 4th ed).
Level 10) Point of Power: Spend an action point to deal more damage with a particular attack.
Level 12) Versatile Training: Get an extra at-will attack! (can be taken multiple times)

That said, I've run out of feats at this point and Bob still has 11 more feats to go. So I do need to make a lot more feats (it's my goal for Bob specifically to be able to help 19 feats that help his character). That said, I have run out of ideas for now so I'm moving on to other things. I do come back from time to time and add more feats as I think of them (shield bash as a feat?). We'll have to wait and see whether or not I'll succeed and let Bob have his fun character.

While I'm glad you keep poor Bob in mind I can't really wrap my head around alot of the feats you gave as examples for him, yes expertise, power attack, point of power and versatile training are all good (though I balancing power attack and point of power in 4th edition seems like kinda a headache).

My problem here lies in 'power feats' these are feats pretty much lifted from 3rd edition, where they are fine, into a system that scrapped those kinds of feats because the AEDU system obsoleted them, deal minor damage and trip, disarm a foe as a standard action, make an attack against a foe's weapon and deal lesser damage but attack twice, all of these sound like at-will powers and with your Versatile Training feat it makes even more sense to have these kinds of attacks as at-will powers.

JohnLynch wrote:

Specialisation was introduced in 2nd edition and developed further in 3.5e to such a degree that everyone was forced to become specialists and generalists couldn't survive. Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Skill Specialisation. All of these things require mean that if someone specialised in knowledge (religion) in 3.5e there was no point in anyone ever rolling a knowledge (religion) check unless they had likewise specialised. Specialisation punish the generalists.

PHB-only games fix this by simply not having enough feats to allow someone to boost their power level every single time they gain a feat. As such Bob would be likwise left out in the cold under such systems. But once you get to the end of a system's life cycle you end up with everyone being a specialist and no-one being able to play a generalist. Which means you also end up with end of cycle characters being more powerful then PHB-only characters (even in 4th ed. Just see the expertise feats from PHB2).

I completely agree with you on this point, personally I think that flat bonuses to defenses, damage rolls and attack rolls should be handled with the outmost care in feats, if not avoided completely, that does not mean however that I think power-ups should be avoided, there are many other means of granting increased power through feats than flat numerical bonuses.

I really think the problem with specialization arose from designers not thinking their flat bonuses through, you could simply amass too many flat bonuses from a combination of specialization and generalist feats that you'd break the math of the system. This is luckily a problem systems like ours that are created by a single designer, will rarely if ever suffer from.

JohnLynch wrote:

Only if they come from a system where feats made them more powerful If Bob's player was brand new to gaming and played Pathfinder and then played Gods & Heroes I think he'd be happy playing a fighter in Gods & Heroes. In Pathfinder he gets power bosts from:

• BAB increasing
  
  
• Class features
  
  
• Feats
  
  

That's it. Nothing else. In Gods & Heroes he gets power boosts from:

• Level bonus to attack and defenses
  
  
• Class features (including Paragon Class and Epic Class)
  
  
• Powers
  
  

Here he has the same power boosts. It's just he ALSO has feats to make him more versatile (assuming he finds enough feats that make him versatile in character-appropriate ways).

Now I said Pathfinder and Gods & Heroes and handily skipped over 4th ed. This is because IMO 4th ed got it wrong. They tried to do too much with feats and what we ended up with were more powerful characters and most people I gamed with ignored the versatility feats.

True, it might just be me being used to feats granting power, however it is a point worth noting, because most D&D players will have grown used to this by now.

I certainly agree that 4e got it all wrong with the feats, like I stated in my first post, feats cannot be power OR versatility, either pure power, pure versatility or power AND versatility.

And again, my feats offer the combination of power and versatility, the flavourful versatility feats offer power boosts that make them just as viable as the more simple power-up feats designed for characters not interested in versatility.

Actually thinking about it... the Expertise feat is pretty rubbish really...

The basic monster vs. PC math of 4th edition ensures that offense is always preferable to defense for PCs in 4th edition from a tactical point of view, take a pretty standard sword n' board fighter at 5th level, now this guy could kill himself in approximately 2 rounds (assuming all attacks hit) whereas he wouldn't be able to take out a standard 5th level skirmisher in 2 rounds, that would take 3-4 (assuming all attacks hit), likewise the skirmisher would spend considerably more time killing the fighter.

This means that if you take an action that sacrifices offense for defense the bonus to defense have to be greater than the penalty to offense or this ability will almost never be used, just think about full defense actions, when did you last see a PC use one of these outside of weird mark/full defense combos?

Furthermore it's worth noting that +1 AC does not equal +1 attack, since attack bonuses applies to all kinds of attacks, while AC bonuses only grants bonus to AC, if someone attacks your will defense while you have buffed AC the buff becomes useless.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Actually thinking about it... the Expertise feat is pretty rubbish really...

The basic monster vs. PC math of 4th edition ensures that offense is always preferable to defense for PCs in 4th edition from a tactical point of view, take a pretty standard sword n' board fighter at 5th level, now this guy could kill himself in approximately 2 rounds (assuming all attacks hit) whereas he wouldn't be able to take out a standard 5th level skirmisher in 2 rounds, that would take 3-4 (assuming all attacks hit), likewise the skirmisher would spend considerably more time killing the fighter.

This means that if you take an action that sacrifices offense for defense the bonus to defense have to be greater than the penalty to offense or this ability will almost never be used, just think about full defense actions, when did you last see a PC use one of these outside of weird mark/full defense combos?

Furthermore it's worth noting that +1 AC does not equal +1 attack, since attack bonuses applies to all kinds of attacks, while AC bonuses only grants bonus to AC, if someone attacks your will defense while you have buffed AC the buff becomes useless.

Expertise:You can sacrifice your offense against an enemy you are attacking in favor of disrupting a selected enemy attacks against yourself. (disrupted enemy gets an attack penalty equal to the penalty you take in offense up to 2 points)
Expertise Defender variant: Your expertise turned towards disrupting affects any attack made by enemies you have currently marked. (since the first form might not even give you anything if the enemy chooses to attack an ally perhaps the defender variant should be standard)

This example certainly demonstrates the difficulty of measuring the price/profit factor.

The way that  I wrote it above one could disrupt the attacks of an enemy at range... so perhaps it ought to require the enemy be within reach of the weapon you have equipped or the power you have used this round or something?

EDITED: I think I might allow only 1 point of attack to be sacrificed and penalize damage by 1 as well. These effects would in a team work context compound with other allies with expertise if they focus on an given enemy and that could be way too good.

Note because in 4e spells are attacks this is nicely useful and you arent fighting against various subsystems like in earlier editions actually making this easier in my opinion.

JohnLynch wrote:

It being dependent on your previous action isn't really an opportunity cost at lower levels. If a standard fight is going to last 4 rounds then I could quite easily do this:

• Round 1: At-Will power
  
• Round 2: Boosted daily power
  
• Round 3: Challenge power
  
• Round 4: At-will power
  

All I've spent is a heroic surge. The "must use an at-will power in the previous round" portion of the cost isn't actually a cost.

A subtle element the earlier in a fight you use the big stuff the more in effect they protect you and take out enemies before they can harm you. One might limit a little more by making it only basic attacks and If you want significant hurt it uses ones standard action completely during the lead up. And with either case if you are harmed during that build up? loose hit points or have a negative condition inflicted you loose the boost.

You are certainly right the cost gets higher and more meaningful as you advance that is certain. (maybe it cant be done at low levels?)

Another potential cost is what I call an aftermath (it might be specific to the power),  For Instance In 4e there are powers like the Malediction Invoker Powers which harm the user  it affects the user with a negative condition I would like more of those... that actually makes me think "magic" is dangerous.

A really big effect might even have an impact both before and after. The action economy idea is actually bigger the idea is a variant to actually replace daillies and encounter powers with powers that take about 2  actions and 3 actions.

I have to say I prefer somewhat longer fights really 4 rounds is just too fast unless the fight is pretty darn inconsequential a fight that one could at moderately higher levels use all challenge powers? ummm right wasnt really a challenge (and cant really claim tactics have much effect in that short of time I know 5e plans for 4 but to me thats not "normal" thats just a minimum).  In fights that fast the abilities which regenerate in bloodied for instance become pretty meaningless or even the whole bloodied concept almost gets washed away as no significant time is likely spent in that state. I also really like powers that cannot be used unless you are bloodied. They make me think of that idea I have for "desperation" powers.

Shrug

A part of me would like dailies to be called Climactic Powers then the scheduling for how often you recover them being adjusted wouldnt have to be based on game world time or be discordant. If you have changed encounter powers to be Challenge powers well why not ;-p

Garthanos wrote:

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Actually thinking about it... the Expertise feat is pretty rubbish really...

The basic monster vs. PC math of 4th edition ensures that offense is always preferable to defense for PCs in 4th edition from a tactical point of view, take a pretty standard sword n' board fighter at 5th level, now this guy could kill himself in approximately 2 rounds (assuming all attacks hit) whereas he wouldn't be able to take out a standard 5th level skirmisher in 2 rounds, that would take 3-4 (assuming all attacks hit), likewise the skirmisher would spend considerably more time killing the fighter.

This means that if you take an action that sacrifices offense for defense the bonus to defense have to be greater than the penalty to offense or this ability will almost never be used, just think about full defense actions, when did you last see a PC use one of these outside of weird mark/full defense combos?

Furthermore it's worth noting that +1 AC does not equal +1 attack, since attack bonuses applies to all kinds of attacks, while AC bonuses only grants bonus to AC, if someone attacks your will defense while you have buffed AC the buff becomes useless.

Expertise:You can sacrifice your offense against an enemy you are attacking in favor of disrupting a selected enemy attacks against yourself. (disrupted enemy gets an attack penalty equal to the penalty you take in offense up to 2 points)
Expertise Defender variant: Your expertise turned towards disrupting affects any attack made by enemies you have currently marked. (since the first form might not even give you anything if the enemy chooses to attack an ally perhaps the defender variant should be standard)

This example certainly demonstrates the difficulty of measuring the price/profit factor.

The way that  I wrote it above one could disrupt the attacks of an enemy at range... so perhaps it ought to require the enemy be within reach of the weapon you have equipped or the power you have used this round or something?

EDITED: I think I might allow only 1 point of attack to be sacrificed and penalize damage by 1 as well. These effects would in a team work context compound with other allies with expertise if they focus on an given enemy and that could be way too good.

Note because in 4e spells are attacks this is nicely useful and you arent fighting against various subsystems like in earlier editions actually making this easier in my opinion.

So
Expertise: By focusing on disrupting an enemies attacks you can reduce both their reliability and potency  however by doing so you are giving up some of your own offensive capability and are affected similarly.
Effect: Both you and a target you attack this round suffer -1 to attack and damage rolls.

The effect of this in a team environment with multiple allies would be very useful but I think might be within scope.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

My problem here lies in 'power feats' these are feats pretty much lifted from 3rd edition, where they are fine, into a system that scrapped those kinds of feats because the AEDU system obsoleted them

In 4th ed Wizards get the spellbook class feature. This gives them a level of versatility that no other class gets. I've boosted the spellbook class feature (making it accessible to all arcane characters and allowing you to take the same feat twice to get multiple powers at each level. If you spent enough feats you'd be able to eventually recreate an AD&D spellbook if not a 3.5e one). The disarm/trip/sunder feats are essential in granting weapon characters (not just martial ones) that same flexibility.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

deal minor damage and trip, disarm a foe as a standard action, make an attack against a foe's weapon and deal lesser damage but attack twice, all of these sound like at-will powers and with your Versatile Training feat it makes even more sense to have these kinds of attacks as at-will powers.

These feats are superior in terms of flexibility to at-will powers in that you can use them with any power.

An at-will power grants you 1dW+attack bonus+condition. With these feats I can take Vital Strike and I've now got a fair amount of flexibility at level 1. If you want to just deal damage you can deal 3dW. If you want to trip them (granting a rogue combat advantage and stopping them from running away) you can deal 2dW + trip. Heck. You can now trip someone as part of AoO.

While if you use these abilities with at-will powers you'll deal negligible damage. If you use them with challenge and dailies you can still do a fair amount of damage and gain a fair amount of flexibility (one challenge you might use a disarming strike, next challenge with the exact same power you can deal a tripping strike).

SgtFreakshow wrote:

And again, my feats offer the combination of power and versatility, the flavourful versatility feats offer power boosts that make them just as viable as the more simple power-up feats designed for characters not interested in versatility.

That's the route D&D Next has gone with it's megafeats. Something I don't find particularly satisfying.

SgtFreakshow wrote:

Furthermore it's worth noting that +1 AC does not equal +1 attack, since attack bonuses applies to all kinds of attacks, while AC bonuses only grants bonus to AC, if someone attacks your will defense while you have buffed AC the buff becomes useless.

Good point.

Garthanos wrote:

So
Expertise: By focusing on disrupting an enemies attacks you can reduce both their reliability and potency however by doing so you are giving up some of your own offensive capability and are affected similarly.
Effect: Both you and a target you attack this round suffer -1 to attack and damage rolls.

The effect of this in a team environment with multiple allies would be very useful but I think might be within scope.

Sounds good to me

Garthanos wrote:

Another potential cost is what I call an aftermath (it might be specific to the power), For Instance In 4e there are powers like the Malediction Invoker Powers which harm the user it affects the user with a negative condition I would like more of those... that actually makes me think "magic" is dangerous.

That would work. I question how good the 4th ed versions of such powers were (although that could have been a result on being on a controller). I did have a lot of fun with those powers though.

Garthanos wrote:

I have to say I prefer somewhat longer fights really 4 rounds is just too fast unless the fight is pretty darn inconsequential a fight that one could at moderately higher levels use all challenge powers?

The aim for me is that 1 standard fight = 1/4 of your daily resources. So after 4 rounds (assuming cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard) everyone's used all of their challenge powers, available healing (with potentially only second winds left) either an action point OR a daily item power and if they're high enough level 1 of their 4 daily powers.

1 hard fight = 2/4 of your daily resources. So in the standard adventure day you could have 2 standard fights and 1 hard fight and by the end of your hard fight you've pulled out everything you possibly could in order to survive that combat.

What the main thing I'm trying to avoid is everyone blowing their challenge powers and 1 of their dailies early and then spending 1 hour of throwing at-wills to

Garthanos wrote:

ummm right wasnt really a challenge (and cant really claim tactics have much effect in that short of time I know 5e plans for 4 but to me thats not "normal" thats just a minimum). In fights that fast the abilities which regenerate in bloodied for instance become pretty meaningless or even the whole bloodied concept almost gets washed away as no significant time is likely spent in that state. I also really like powers that cannot be used unless you are bloodied. They make me think of that idea I have for "desperation" powers.

Shrug

It'll depend partly on how optimised your tactics/players are (not characters, but players). Focused fire, everyone working together, using optimal tactics (not saving up all their dailies for the final end boss but instead spreading them out over multiple battles so that no single battle drags on forever and ever and ever). Using the optimal tactics you might get 4 rounds whereas a party using less than optimal tactics might take 6 or 7 rounds.

Ultimately it will also come down to finding the right amount of deadliness which can challenge an optimal party vs not TPKing an inexperienced group with a standard challlenge.

Garthanos wrote:

A part of me would like dailies to be called Climactic Powers then the scheduling for how often you recover them being adjusted wouldnt have to be based on game world time or be discordant. If you have changed encounter powers to be Challenge powers well why not ;-p

Encounter powers were changed to avoid stepping on WotC's copyright (taking my cue from 13th age). I wouldn't be against changing the name for daily powers, but if you change how often they can be used is it still relatable to 4th ed? Maybe an optional rule would be better that was basically the equivalent of 13th age's recharge rate (which seems to be whenever the GM says so with some brief guidelines about 4 typical encounters between recharges).

JohnLynch wrote:

I wouldn't be against changing the name for daily powers, but if you change how often they can be used is it still relatable to 4th ed? Maybe an optional rule would be better that was basically the equivalent of 13th age's recharge rate (which seems to be whenever the GM says so with some brief guidelines about 4 typical encounters between recharges).

The default implementation would be a daily renewal providing for full connection to 4e and other possibilities something that can be presented as alternatives. (I guess to my thinking it makes it more flexible by calling it after its purpose instead of a particular implementation).

JohnLynch wrote:

Garthanos wrote:

Another potential cost is what I call an aftermath (it might be specific to the power),  For Instance In 4e there are powers like the Malediction Invoker Powers which harm the user  it affects the user with a negative condition I would like more of those... that actually makes me think "magic" is dangerous.

That would work. I question how good the 4th ed versions of such powers were (although that could have been a result on being on a controller). I did have a lot of fun with those powers though.

The flavor of them is rather like... I cast a sleep spell at my enemy but in doing so I dip in to the sandmans coffers and cant help but feeling groggy myself. Rather like being burned when you wield fire, I am very much a fan of "Price for power" concepts.

Anything new yet?

@JohnLynch

You had messaged me a few months back and I had sent a reply but never got word back. Are you still looking for some help?

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Anything new yet?

@JohnLynch

You had messaged me a few months back and I had sent a reply but never got word back. Are you still looking for some help?

I'd be curious to know that myself as collaboration might be the best approach to getting at least one of our varied 4.5E (none are precisely retroclones that I've seen) projects to the finish-line.

Chris24601 wrote:

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

Anything new yet?

@JohnLynch

You had messaged me a few months back and I had sent a reply but never got word back. Are you still looking for some help?

I'd be curious to know that myself as collaboration might be the best approach to getting at least one of our varied 4.5E (none are precisely retroclones that I've seen) projects to the finish-line.

I agree. A strong collaboration could lead to one of the projects detailed here getting complete. Not to mention lots of input from different players, people, and "designers" could really help strengthen the games.

How is this project progressing? I'm digging several,of the clones around here. The more, the merrier...

Sadly, Gods & Heroes hasn't been updated in more than a year (indeed, the author hasn't made any new posts since about a week after posting the last update). I fear its a dead half-system (i.e. it really only has the character creation section, but no rules for play or monsters to fight). While you could probably adapt elements/rules from 4E I don't think its ever going to be more than that unfortunately.

C4's Points of Light at least has rules for monsters and combat in the material he's put out, but it hasn't been updated since last November either. If he is working more on the project its being done offline and not being shared.

My "clone" just got updated today and I've been running regular playtests locally (another one coming up tonight). It can be found HERE.

I wish I still had more competition though. Vibrant interaction forces a refining and improvement of concepts that just testing alone might not lead to.

That said, I can understand WHY a lot of these have fallen by the wayside. As others have said, a 4E retro-clone has always been a daunting task due to the sheer volume of material that basically needs to be re-created from scratch (because the OGL/d20SRD is only of limited use).

I've been blasting away at my project with most of my free time for a YEAR now and am only now getting to the point where the mechanics are finally in a state where you could run an actual campaign with them (It still needs a LOT more monsters, plus traps, diseases and obviously a heaping gob-ton of fluff... but the end of the mechanical portions of the system is in sight). I think the only reason I've lasted this long is sheer stubbornness to see it done and because of the support and feedback of those who have reviewed and playtested it.

Then again it could just be that, like me, the above authors have limited free time and have prioritized actually working on their project over talking about it here. One of the things I noticed early on about posting here was that I could either talk about my plans for the project here or I could actually work on the project to have something to really show for it, but I couldn't do both very well. That's why my posting has been so utterly sporadic, usually after I've completed a major update to the system and wanted to share it out... because I'm too busy actually working on the project (only a fraction of which actually ends up as typed pages in the document; first I have to lay everything out and work out mechanics... something I usually do with pen and scratch paper before I actually put it into the document).

For all we know, "Gods & Heroes" and "Points of Light" could pop up with Kickstarters tomorrow because they started before I did and haven't been spending near as much time chatting about it on message boards. At least, that's my hope for these other projects.

That's too bad the updates ceased on those two clone projects. I'm hoping that both of them are quietly updating in the background and just haven't released any new info in the wilds yet. Your project looks great and I am going to investigate further...