I am seriously considering playing 3.5 with the good bits from D&D4thEd.
For starters, all crits are simpley max damage, including extra damage such as energy and sneak attack damage.
Also, the elemental caos is a gateway to the inner planes. The astral sea is a gateway to the outer planes.
Other suggestions are appreciated.
I won't lie, there are various rules ideas I have swiped from 4th and moved to 3.x for myself and it works out great. I have taken the way blasts and bursts work, the diagonal movement 1 for 1, the con score to starting hps, and action points for starters. There are some very good ideas in 4th edition design I like, but the feel isn't what I want from a longterm game so I'm snagging the goodies. I'm also doing so with Pathfinder, finding alot of good ideas but not all I'd personally like or agree with. On a side note I like the concept of minions and elites, and solo monsters for that matter, and Have been looking at implementing them. Also the way sneak attack and crits work on ALL things are nice to me, and while some few things just aren't able to be critted or sneak attacked most are in my games. But that's just me.
I agree with you on almost everything.
Just, minions.
When I tried to convert a first level dungeon to 4th, all the monsters where minions. I think the one hit point monsters should only be infantry in war scenarios. There also good to be used as body guards. To protect against assasins and snipers. First level summon monster should get you 1D6 minions.
As for sleep spells, I think things made of remains are capable of pretending to sleep. Undead and flesh golems have some residual memory of sleep.
I'm also thinking of implementing heroic, paragon, and epic in spell power levels. Paragon enlarge would be two size catagories while Epic would be 3 size catagories. 0-4th would be heroic, 5-9th paragon, and 10th up epic. I'll probably have to upgrade existing spells for Epic because of the rules mutation of 3X epic.
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For starters, all crits are simpley max damage, including extra damage such as energy and sneak attack damage.
Interesting - you chose the one biggest gripe I have with 4e, crits. Max damage crits? That killed most of the drama of combat. Now combat has been reduced to a mathematical game of attrition.
The part of 4e I think is the improved battlefield mobility. People are all over the place - sometimes too much so. But thats better than being nailed to a 5ft square.
I'm going to resurrect this thread 'cause it parallels a thought I've recently been having myself about combining the best of both systems. I’ve been looking at 4e for ideas to pirate into a 3.5 game. Off the top of my head, these are the things I’m looking to swipe:
• Standard, move, minor action trifecta. All actions will be redefined to fit in one of these. (I might keep the “full round” action for multiple attacks, but I’m not 100% committed to that)
• Will, Reflex, and Fortitude defense scores instead of a variety of saving throws. I like the way this puts the results in the hands of the initiator. I might allow a form of “defense save”, though, that allows a character to be actively involved in shaking off or escaping an effect. The straight “10+ saves” of 4e feels flat to me.
• Feats to multi-class. Although I won’t require a feat for every level gained, I really like the idea that it takes a little extra sacrifice to train in another class rather than just continue in your current one.
• The “+1/2 level” rule for all your attacks, damage, defenses and such. Not only does this represent the increased skill of the character, but it reduces the character’s dependence on magic arms and armor the game assumes a PC will have as the levels go up. Since I want to see fewer magic items in my D&D campaign, I’ll gladly give a 6th level PC and inherent +3 to hit and damage rather than handing him a magic sword. Mind you, a 16th level character’s +8 to hit and damage is a bit in excess of the +4 or +5 magic weapon he’d otherwise have, so I’ll have to adjust accordingly, probably with a futz to a class’s BAB.
• The 4e sleep rules are great. It’s about time there were rules for how much sleep a character actually needs.
• 4e has a smaller and more intuitive list of things that allow opportunity attacks and I’ll follow that lead by really questioning what actions would allow that. Why does attacking an enemy’s weapon, fer instance, promote an AoO? Is it just to keep players from doing it all the time?
While I’m at it, I’m looking at including a Vitality/Wound Point option to allow for some amount of easy post-combat healing and the “+1/2 level to AC” rule should allow me to implement a type of armor-as-damage-resistance rule without making the characters actually more vulnerable to enemies as they go up in level.
At the same time, I’ll be keeping my eyes on Pathfinder to see what the experienced game designers and players at Paizo have discovered to be unbalanced rules (especially in the spell department) and implementing their fixes whenever possible.
Then, aside from whatever rules I can’t think of right now, the rest of the game would be 3.5-ish.
And, since it’s been brought up, I absolutely won’t use the minion rules in my hybrid game. 4e has an insufferable attitude of “monsters exist only to be killed by PCs” and minions illustrate that better than anything else. I hate ‘em.
The straight “10+ saves” of 4e feels flat to me.
Honestly this is one of my biggest problems with 4e. It really feels like all you want to do is damage since saves are extremely easy to make, especially since elites get +2 and Solos get +5 which means any cool ability that gives a save gets blown off more often than not. Kind of makes those abilities arbitrary compared to big damage numbers. Also the way accuracy is worth more than damage (such as why power attack kind of sucks) Just kind of drains my enthusiasm.
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I am seriously considering playing 3.5 with the good bits from D&D4thEd.
Go for it! There is no reason at all you can't borrow bits and pieces from another game if you like them.
Personally, I've adopted the "bloodied" concept from 4E and I use it as a guideline for planning what happens in an encounter (most creatures think twice about continuing a fight once they are bloodied, some creatures will focus on a bloodied opponent, etc).
I remember when 3e came out, my group was in the middle of an AD&D campaign. We stuck with 2nd for quite a while, but replaced non-weapon proficiencies with 3e-stle skill points(we kept running into issues with spotting/sneaking/etc and the opposed check concept cleared them up rather nicely).
Honestly this is one of my biggest problems with 4e. It really feels like all you want to do is damage since saves are extremely easy to make, especially since elites get +2 and Solos get +5 which means any cool ability that gives a save gets blown off more often than not. Kind of makes those abilities arbitrary compared to big damage numbers. Also the way accuracy is worth more than damage (such as why power attack kind of sucks) Just kind of drains my enthusiasm.The straight “10+ saves” of 4e feels flat to me.
I'd hesitate a little before getting much more dramatic with the saves as I'm hearing some muttering that high level solo's are too easy because the players can essentially just keep them nerfed. Even at first level my party managed to keep a White Dragon pretty much nerfed and barely in the fight for three, maybe four, rounds. It was only after we ran out of nerf abilities that the Dragon came back strong and pushed us to our limit.
I think part of what might not be so obvious in the edition switch is that the mechanic has fundamentally shifted how these sorts of powers work. In 3.5 you had a very low chance of even effecting a significant BBEG with a nerfing power but if you did get lucky then the fight was pretty much over. Probably I can't dominate the evil wizard but if he rolls really low for his will save the fight is over. In 4E your power almost always works but it'll rarely work for long against a BBEG type enemy.
On a more partisan note I have to say I love the way 4E handles this sort of thing since I like having cool effects like mass confusion in my ranks or in the ranks of the DMs monsters or whatever other cool effect might be appropreate (powers that stick people to the floor or ceiling for example) but such effects are not as much fun if this essentially just ends the encounter - better to have people shaking off the effects on both sides so that these types of abilities make encounters more diverse and exciting instead of being so decisive that pulling off such a spell or ability essentially means the whole fight ends.
I agree on all points that the way the abilities work is fine, What I meant is more of a "for me" kind of situation, is that to me it just really feels like saves are trivial (except death saves seem to really hate my players) and effects seem little by comparison.... But thats probably the part of me not wanting to move on into the new that makes me buck the system instinctively :P
I'm going to resurrect this thread 'cause it parallels a thought I've recently been having myself about combining the best of both systems. I’ve been looking at 4e for ideas to pirate into a 3.5 game. Off the top of my head, these are the things I’m looking to swipe: ... good stuff
I am DMing PfRPG and 4e. I definitely like Fletch's 'starter' list.
Other things I like:
- Keep savings throws but maybe use best of two ability score mechanic for bonus.
- 5' Shift as Move action. (Eliminate withdrawl and partial withdrawl and gives movement options.)
- 'Sprint' gives +10' movement in straight line with penalties to AC and attack.
- Charge as standard action up to half movement (unless Sprinting) with movement restictions. (Eliminate partial charge and allows Charge readied action.)
- Cones and touch based spells(Close Blasts and Bursts) do not give AoO. (Why would someone make a close combat spell that makes you vulnerable?)
- Rituals or something like it.
- Modified healing rules. Probably something like HP reserves from Unearthed Arcana. But make Cleric healing a Move Action. (So you can fight and heal in a round.) Basically, Clerics keep you in the fight but out of combat (rest) you don't need a cleric unless you have Ability damage.
- Increase ability gains from levels, but reduce certain magic items.
- Reduced magic items because of the +1/2 level bonuses.
- 20% sale value of items (magic and mundane) but allow magic item powers to transfer 'easily'.
- Feat trees that allow a second attack; sometimes with movement. 2nd attack feat trees; one for Charge, one for Spring Attack, one for Combat Expertise. Cleave already allows second attack for Power Attack tree. Bull Rush and Overrun become part of Charge feat tree. To unify system all 'Charges' (Charge, Bull Rush, Overrun) allow AoO but one feat (Improved Charge) eliminates all these AoOs.
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Personally, I've adopted the "bloodied" concept from 4E and I use it as a guideline for planning what happens in an encounter (most creatures think twice about continuing a fight once they are bloodied, some creatures will focus on a bloodied opponent, etc).
I think that aspect has always been part of the game, it was in the Basic set, with its 'morale check' for monsters at half-hp.
It just never had any mechanical effect on the bloodied character's abilities before. They either stayed or ran, they didn't get an adrenaline boost, or become more vulnerable to special attacks.
As with all new rules, whether the players accept it will depend greatly on how often they benefit from it, versus how often they get nobbled by it...
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It really feels like all you want to do is damage since saves are extremely easy to make, especially since elites get +2 and Solos get +5 which means any cool ability that gives a save gets blown off more often than not.
Isn't that already the case in 3.5?
Consider that an elite, or solo, would actually have a CR 2 or 4 higher than the regular opponents, with the attendant increases in Hit Dice, ability bumps, feats, etc.
It really feels like all you want to do is damage since saves are extremely easy to make, especially since elites get +2 and Solos get +5 which means any cool ability that gives a save gets blown off more often than not.Isn't that already the case in 3.5?
Consider that an elite, or solo, would actually have a CR 2 or 4 higher than the regular opponents, with the attendant increases in Hit Dice, ability bumps, feats, etc.
I'll concede that point, but at the same time the way saves work in 3.5 isn't so universally set that way as some saves are bad and others good (such as how a fighter gets good fort but crappy reflex and will)and that opens all kinds of new options, such as using reflex and will based spells instead of fort ones. While this last point is why the f/r/w have translated to defenses now and is kind of still there it just becomes the easier target to do damage and get an effect as opposed to just get your fight ending effect off. Also it seems from my experience that saves are way easier (especially for villians) to make in 4e than in 3.x (The dc is always 10 in 4e while the dc changes dependant on the situation leaving variable times of success and failure). This is where it leaves me thinking Damage just looks better seeing as it is a sure thing regardless and if they die no need for stun etc. Just kind of how it plays out, again in my experience YMMV. :)
I like the bloodied concept but what good is it without powers that use it? (e.g. If your opponent is bloodied then ... , If you are bloodied then ...)
I already use Alea markers for having taken 25%, 50% (Bloodied), 75% of your hit points.