>4e Retroclone

Strike! RPG.

>>44012651
do what I do my own 4e retroclone, make skills and powers share the same list and limits.

basically if you can choose 2 - 3 powers at level 1, you can choose stronger power or a skill power which is shittier but convey an additional use (basically a skill).

Think like pokemon Cut and Rock Smash. By itself it is shit as a power, but it usable as skills outside of combat.

Like in battle, the power "search" help to make enemy defense weaker against you and your allies attack for a duration. Outside of combat, it is used to look for clues and other stuff.

This allow your players to decide if they want to play a skillful character or a powerhouse in combat but a flowerpot during social interaction due to no helpful powers/skills.

Of course, with this rule in place, you have to increase the number of powers they can get but I think you get the idea.

Players have full options on how they want their characters to be.

>>44012651
>fagposting, the shittening

What a fucking queerbag.

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First off, you should look into Strike! RPG.

>>44012651
>What things from 4e would you like to see changed?
Statistic and feat bloat needs to get wrangled to something more manageable. I'd also like to see character creation be able to be completed in 20 minutes by a complete novice. I'd like to be able to have a group of new players be able to go from a blank character sheet to gameplay in 30 minutes or less.

>What aspects should I focus on keeping or building off of?
Tactical positioning of the PCs and NPCs was 4e's strongest point.

>Which classes did you find most fun and why?
I like classes that have interesting restrictions for a beneficial tradeoff. I thought the shaman was interesting because he could only heal people next to his pet, but his pet gave constant benefits to adjacent allies. I am aware he could get a feat to heal farther away from his pet, but his pet was always the starting point of the spell's range.

I also liked how the warlord could be played completely as a supporting character, maneuvering his allies around instead of doing direct damage.

>Which class archetypes are kickass enough to try to make core even if they wouldn't normally be (i.e. "gunmage")
Necromancer. I have no idea how you'd be able to make summoning a bunch of minions both manageable and bearable to the rest of the players though.

>>44012664
>>44013783
Please stop shilling Strike! every day.

>>44013783
I've briefly looked into Strike! given all the mentions around here, but it doesn't quite scratch my itch for crunch variety like 4e did. I'll read through it more thoroughly since it did at least look promising.

What do you mean by statistic bloat? It's probably not what you mean, but one thing I want to do away with is ability scores you use to derive ability modifiers from (since modifiers are all that get used anyway)

>>44012651
>fewer feats
Good. Go the 5E route, make Feats rarer or even optional but make them WAY better.

>out of combat for all characters
Skills are awesome. Those replacement Utility powers that require skill training are awesome. Try focusing on those before you work on anything else.

>equally useful powers
You can find some good guides to the top Powers for each class by build. Maybe focus on 1-3 really good powers by level, and if there's a cool one that's sub-optimal you can buff it a little to make it more interesting.

>tweak the skill list
Maybe let players use the higher of two attributes for certain skills?

>Fewer conditional bonuses
Advantage and Disadvantage are awesome, use them. Since they impose about a +4 / -4, make the powers that inflict those statuses deal less damage perhaps to compensate.

>interesting magic items
YES. DO IT.

>limit to level 20
If you want. Maybe consider working on converting levels 1-10 first and seeing how you feel? Test that with some groups and see if it holds up.

>combining strength and constitution
Test it and see if it works. STR-based classes are going to get a serious boost if you do that, unless you counter-balance it somehow you'll be in trouble.

>roles separate from classes
Sounds interesting. Each Class could choose between three different core class features; for example the Fighter could get a Defender Mark, a Striker Damage Boost, or a Leader Healing Ability.

>What things from 4e would you like to see changed?
Strikers need to deal less damage and Defenders need to be less 'sticky'. Battlefield mobility is fun and locking down enemies makes the game boring. Strikers deal too much damage and killing enemies is usually better than debuffing them.

>What aspects should I focus on keeping or building off of?
On the subject of roles being flexible, consider merging multiple classes together that have the same Source.

>>44014337
>Which classes did you find most fun and why?
Psion. Flexible Encounter powers are awesome and much more fun than any other class. Makes powers more complicated but you have fewer of them.

>Which class archetypes are kickass enough to try to make core even if they wouldn't normally be (i.e. "gunmage")
Focus on the core rulebook and see where that gets you. Only expand when you feel like the existing options don't cover what you want in your game. Learn to walk before you try to run.

>>44013808
"what can be done to make an improved 4e?"
"check Strike out, it's an attempt at the things the author liked about 4e"
"WAAAAH STOP SHILLING STRIKE"

>>44014063
Strike lets you mix and match class roles, which is cool.

>>44013783
>>44012664
Does anyone have a pdf of Strike?

>Fix the math. Holy shit.

>Throw feats in the trash where they belong.

>Make the rules for powers modular so that they don't turn into the same thing the spell list has been in every previous edition.

Fighters use the same set of rules for all at-will powers with a simplified create-your-own system in place, etc.

>Remove the level scaling of literally everything rule.

>Make a longer list of skills, with less rules.

Because it's already simplified to "trained or not trained" so just make it so instead of a scaling DC check, it's just a small set of things trained people can do that untrained people pretty much can't.

>Fold rituals into skills as per above.

>Remove the magic item stat boost requirements for progression.

Put in some guidelines to make magic items novel, rare, and unique instead of just another way to increase average dps. You have to make sure the DM understands that they can't be handed out like candy or else it will unbalance the game, because that's exactly what these items SHOULD do (in small ways).

I would go so far as to gut the existing classes and just create generic rules for each role, so that it's easy to make your own god damn classes, or tweak the existing ones, with some really clear-cut guidelines/do's n don'ts. So instead of three or four different defenders in the core rules, you would just have "defender type." The fighter would just be an example. I mean everything is already so abstract you have to fluff it out during play anyway, so why make the rules more complicated than they need to be, especially in an edition where character creation takes forever?

>>44012651
Make the Power Source matter.
Fighter are Martial Defender, so they use Martial Powers.
Ranger are Martial Striker, so they use Martial Powers.
etc. You get the idea.

Let the Power Source determine the Powers of a Class and let the Class Features define the Role of the Class. This also minimizes your work since you don't need X identical powers for each of the martial classes just to do the same.

Also if you want to use feats use the 5th Edition approach. It is by far the best approach to feats I have seen so far... And when we are at it. Make them optional as well.

You could make the Enchantment Bonuses on Magic Items range from +1 to +9. This allows you to get rid of all mandatory to hit feats.

Last thing would probably be to hand out 3 attribute raises on the respective levels. Reason for this would be that this allows for a natural progression of all 3 defenses. In the current system one of them drops like a rock, making you less powerful on higher levels. They tried to fix this with feats which didn't not work at all.

That would be my suggestion how to make a working Retroclone

>>44012651
I wanted to do something like that too some time ago but i lack time atm.
Here's some ideas i came up with.

1)Hp and generally Numbers bloat are amongst the worst drawbacks DnD 4 has. It's not by any means the only rpg that has this problem BUT it's very noticeable, it makes hours long chores of some fights and skill challenges AND generally ruins suspension of disbelief.
To solve this, healing surges are now called HP, and the old HP are now called stress points. A critical hit is described as an actual wound and "eats" your HPs directly, normal hits are just battle fatigue and light scratches and damage stress points.
Second Wind sends you back to full stress.

2) to further expand on the theme of 1, each level you gain stress as normal, and gain either 2 (defender classes) or 1 (anyone else) HP. Bards, Warlords etc give you back Stress, Clerics can give you back some HP.

3) You can also spend stress to regain the use of a encounter or daily power you allready used. This costs an amount of stress proportional to the power's level and represents you forcing the circumstances to get another shot at using the power if you're martial, or you straining your spirit with excessive magic if you're a caster.

4)I'd Also have liked to unify the system abolishing skills, feats and stats in favour of a "power" system not unlike FATE's aspect system to represent the dame things, i guess not unlike you said about skill powers.

>>44017376
I don't know, something like Come and Get It is clearly a Defender power instead of just Martial power, I can't see why a rogue would use it. You'd have to upgrade the power of class features considerably, and come up with something controllery since they don't currently have any unifying theme.

>since you don't need X identical powers for each of the martial classes just to do the same.
What are those right now? Rangers and fighters both have a +accuracy -damage at-will but are there others.

>>44013783
>Necromancer. I have no idea how you'd be able to make summoning a bunch of minions both manageable and bearable to the rest of the players though.

Honestly, you'd be best off doing them as zones.

Difficult terrain and an attack against anyone that ends their turn there.

>>44014337

>Strikers need to deal less damage and Defenders need to be less 'sticky'. Battlefield mobility is fun and locking down enemies makes the game boring. Strikers deal too much damage and killing enemies is usually better than debuffing them.

So classes should be worse at their exact purpose? If a Defender can't restrict mobility he's hardly doing a good job as a defender.

>>44017672
Strikers are TOO GOOD at dealing damage, and dealing damage is often the most important or useful role a character can play. You don't need healing, crowd control, or defender auras to protect against a dead enemy after all. Rich Baker, a designer of 4E, even stated after the game came out that "4th Edition is, for better or worse, a striker's game." If anyone can be said to be an expert on 4E, it's him.

Defenders are TOO GOOD at being sticky. It's not just the fact that they can impose penalties to enemies that don't attack them, or make attacks of opportunity against ones that attack their allies, it's the fact that they can cancel their movement consistently to prevent them from exiting the Defender's threatened space. You can totally say that this is a feature, not a bug, but I don't find it leads towards fun and interesting combat, and that's my totally subjective opinion, not a fact.

>>44017657
Yes many powers would need a redesign or would simply be dropped as part of the power source.

Come and Get It could still work as a class feature power for a fighter, or a defender paragon path, but in its current form not as a typical Martial Power. To be quite honest I can't remember all of the 4E powers. In fact I can remember hardly any of them.

One of the biggest mistakes from 4E was the lack of iconic powers. If every martial class uses the same martial at-will powers. People will recall these pretty quickly because the names are often in use.

I mean a good theme for martial powers could be requirements or certain bonuses depending on weapon type. Daggers are for fast and many attacks, swords for mobility and tactic on the battlefield, axes for brute force, etc.

The idea would be to remove the defender, the striker powers and what not from the power pool and keep what makes all classes martial. So that creates a clear identity.

Let the fighter be a defender and rogue a striker. Use class features to let them fill their role and make powers in a way a fighter will use a power to defend someone and a rogue will use the same power to cause massive damage.

>>44018272
Wait, so did you play with someone using the drow black-hole build?

Because that's the only defender build I can recall that's capable of totally and consistently keep multiple foes adjacent to them

OP here.

Thanks for the ideas, all. This gives me a lot to work with.

>>44019830
Thanks to you anon!
Have a good day! Or night!

>>44019830
Glad to hear it, OP!

I was working on my own 4E clone for a while, except that I was converting over material from Magic of Incarnum and planning on including those as base classes among the psionic and martial characters. I was also pulling in a lot more elements from the most recent edition of Gamma World. But I never finished.
I hope your version will come along better than mine.

>>44023102
>>44012651
I guess I'll share a few of the things I was doing with my clone, in the hopes that it will help you, OP. The rule book isn't really complete enough to share the pdf (it's all scattered across multiple open-office documents.)

>Strikers
I cut striker as a dedicated roll and made all the classes strikers in some capacity. There's just so many different ways of dealing damage:
Charge damage
TWF damage
Ranged damage
Sneak Attack damage
Blast damage
Ongoing damage
Buff Other PC's damage
Bypass Damage-Resistance damage
Increase Enemy's-Vulnerability damage (Radiant Mafia, Frost Cheese, etc.)

So every class is a striker.

>Defenders/Controllers
I sort of fused and divided the defenders and controllers into four rolls:
Melee Zone-Controller (like trip builds from 3.5)
Ranged Zone-Controller (more like wizards from 4E)
Grappler (melee single-target lockdown)
Removal (ranged single-target lockdown)

I was going to have one class for each of those roles.

>Leaders
I was going to have four leader classes.

In total, I was hoping to have about eight classes, half with some form of control/defending capability, half with some form of leadership capability, and all of them with some kind of striking capability.

And all the classes were going to be hybrid-style, so everybody picks two classes.