4E -> 3E Adaptations

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 10:42 pm

Dammit, my post got eaten. Basically, it occurred to me the other day that some 4E classes were cool and could be adapted to tome-compatible 3.5. My short list would be Druid (at-will shapeshift at level 1 with special attacks in animal form) Feylock (different warlocks being different is cool, and D&D has needed a fey class for ages; could keep or lose cursing) Shaman (a caster with a mobile source of magic effects is cool) Barbarian (multiple, obviously supernatural rage modes) Invoker (no mechanical reason, just think playing moses is cool), and Seeker (maybe dump this and make an arcane archer base class; basically, I want a magic arrow guy from level 1)

Question is: Is anyone else interested in this? What are people's favorite classes from 4E?

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:11 pm

Question is: Is anyone else interested in this? What are people's favorite classes from 4E?

Eh, a little, some stuff 4E has done would been nice for 3E nowadays. Though I myself am rather content with [Tome] classes providing fresh, fun mechanics where the rest of 3E classes I've just gotten fed up with.

Warlord, straight up, is one of my favorite classes I never played. The whole "lazy" character that can make other targets attack at his bidding is jawesome and not really replicated all that well. Kinda like White Raven, but going even farther with it. I really enjoyed the Warden (some have attempted at the class into 3E) Melee class that forces people to his terms, while transforming into cool Elemental-nature-like crap or Animals (Becoming Frosty Snowman, Literal Treant were cool, growing Ram horns reminded me of Battletoads) is pretty damn cool and I think could go much further under 3E paradigm. I'd definitely would like to see what a High Level Warden under proper power level scheme of 3rd edition could do. Though the famous forms for Warden I'm thinking, sound like they would easily all amount to: Giant Auras that damage, slow-down, and generate big area attacks for the Warden to engage many targets as possible, forcing them to die, and face him if want the torture to stop (Frosty Snowman going Ice Prince w/entire areas of cold, freezing fliers, ice armor, & freezing attacks/projectiles to the touch, Given how BIG Trees get is all kinds of high level fun w/vines and other crap surrounding up targets, entangling and sticking them to its bulk, as proceeds to murderize all of them).

Other than that, 4E once had a Paragon Path where one could Dual Wield Shields, wish D&D could emulate that.

I'm somewhat curious to what the original post was, hopefully wasn't too much detail lost?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:53 pm

Aryxbez wrote:Other than that, 4E once had a Paragon Path where one could Dual Wield Shields, wish D&D could emulate that.

Bizarrely, in 3.0E the dual-shield wielder was one of the very few non-sneak attack/cleric TWFers that (barely) broke even with THF -- assuming you were using Divine Shield and a piece of spotty errata.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:22 am

Aryxbez wrote:Warlord, straight up, is one of my favorite classes I never played. The whole "lazy" character that can make other targets attack at his bidding is jawesome and not really replicated all that well. Kinda like White Raven, but going even farther with it.

I read about a party that was one fighter and a bunch of lazylords a while back. The warlords were all nagging relatives who wanted the fighter to "live up to his potential" and just shouted contradictory advice during battle. Sounded pretty funny.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 1:57 am

Orion wrote: Question is: Is anyone else interested in this? What are people's favorite classes from 4E?

Conceptually the Bladesinger with its riders to attack actions and bladesong stance.

Conceptually, the Shroud Assassin that marks targets with shrouds, then has neat shadow-powers that act off of them.

The hybrid classing system was also neat. If I made a "4e made with hindsight" I'd have all the core classes be hybrid-able.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 6:28 am

4E had some powers with cool descriptions, such as the Warlock sending people to hell or causing the red moon to lift and paralyse people. Obviously they suffered from the problem of 4E playing out like FF7 where there's a fancy animation and then a damage number appears over the enemy head. So I could see a _____lock (Starlock being my personal favourite but they all had interesting ideas at least) being made as an interesting 3E class, if you hammered down the way you feel the power selection/usage should work and how it's different from other classes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 12:30 pm

Orion wrote:Dammit, my post got eaten. Basically, it occurred to me the other day that some 4E classes were cool and could be adapted to tome-compatible 3.5. My short list would be Druid (at-will shapeshift at level 1 with special attacks in animal form) Feylock (different warlocks being different is cool, and D&D has needed a fey class for ages; could keep or lose cursing) Shaman (a caster with a mobile source of magic effects is cool) Barbarian (multiple, obviously supernatural rage modes) Invoker (no mechanical reason, just think playing moses is cool), and Seeker (maybe dump this and make an arcane archer base class; basically, I want a magic arrow guy from level 1)

Question is: Is anyone else interested in this? What are people's favorite classes from 4E?

This seems pretty confused. There already is a Spirit Shaman and a Druid in 3rd edition. And while you seem to have vague ideas of porting 4e mechanics for those guys, the ones you call out aren't actually things that those classes don't get in 3rd edition. Your idea here seems to be that they should get their shticks going at a lower level, which isn't really a 4e thing specifically but just a general complaint about the low levels and how things take too long to come online.

But on the flip side, your thing about the Feylock seems to be about fluff rather than mechanics. You say that you want there to be a fairy themed class, but don't provide any concrete ideas of how that would be mechanically distinct from a Beguiler.

I think that your core idea is that D&D should have a lot of classes in it that play differently and do their thing from level 1. I happen to agree, but there is absolutely nothing about that statement that says "4th edition Dungeons & Dragons" to me. Yes, you want a classplosion and yes you want a bunch of distinct flavors and mechanics to make your classploded classes different and yes you want them up and running at low level without having to slog around for 4 levels waiting for your main shtick to come online. But while that's all true, 4e doesn't really provide any of that.

To this day I don't understand why 4e didn't elect to do a full classplosion. As I mentioned in the Baneguard rant, it really wouldn't have been difficult to do in that edition.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:14 pm

4e Warlord was a decent reflavoring of the bard or buffer cleric from 3e. And the specific ways that the 4e Warlord interacted with the action economy were things that buffer classes did not do in 3e. I could see back-porting that idea into a Bard whose buffs allowed trades in the action economy instead of giving +N and immunity to _______.

The 4e Shaman was massivley different than the 3e Shaman or Spirit Shaman. With the mechanics that "you are in one place, and your magic is a damage sponge centered in another place on the battlefield" It's really not something you couldn't do in 3e with summoningsm bindings and familiars and project image, but compared to the other tricks you had as a full caster in 3e, it was more something you didn't even care about doing (even before the legacy familiar hosing and summon stealth nerfs MCs loved). I could maybe see trying to do something where co-location is viable from level 1 and actually stays competitive for the rest of the game.

And if Melee was at all a high-level viable thing in 3e, I could see a PrC that got good melee and swift action terrain alteration doing something like whatever the fuck the 4e Warden was supposed to do, but it really seems that the core Druid with Wildshape and full casting is going to overshadow that massively and forever. Also that sort of terrain alteration schtick kind of just loses to Freedom of Movement in pre-4e D&D.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:09 pm

The 4e Warlord was awesome. I loved the concept.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:13 pm

The 4E D&D Warlord was an extremely problematic class. Leaders in general were problematic in 4E D&D, but that class was the worst of it. Not just the fact that it was blatantly overpowered but because it took the whole No Self Buffs paradigm and completely ballsed it up. 5E D&D didn't even try to replicate the class for their bullshit small-time edition and one can't really blame them.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:10 pm

I don't think Warlord-style action shenanigan are doable in 3E. At least, they can't be slapped together by one asshole on a web forum without complete destruction of balanced gameplay. White Raven is as close as we're going to get.

D&D did have a class called "spirit shaman," except that it wasn't a real class (being just a nerfed druid) and what it did (cast spells off the druid list) had nothing to do with spirits, both because the druid list is much more physical/elemental than spiritual and because spirits don't fucking exist in D&D. You could go with a 3e full caster who just happened to have the minor bonus of casting spells out of a mobile spirit font, or with a fire mage style caster with a small selection of custom-written powers that exploit co-location.

The 3E druid has so little to do with the 4E druid that the shared name is more misleading than illuminating. I should probably write a 3.5 "skinshifter" class or something.

EDIT: Frank, you're right -- I'm riffing on things in the 4E books that inspired me, of which half are mechanical ideas and half are fluff. The fluff needs mechanical backing, of course. D&D has always said that warlocks could be fey or celestial but the mechanics have only supported demonic. Similarly, sorcerers don't have to be draconic but they do have a lot of mechanical support for draconic and very little for anything else.

The easiest way to do Feylock would be to revive the Spherelock and write up a suite of faerie spheres. That might even have crossover appeal toward a "True Fey" class or "faerie enchanter" class (the fey equivalent of fiendish conduit). I'm not strongly attached to the 4E mechanics. That said, if I were going to write a new class, I don't see anything *wrong* with the 4E model of numerous short hop teleports and 1-round invsibilities. It's not actually a class in itself (since classes need to actually do something), but it's a start.

EDIT: I looked through the 4E PHB and the following feylock powers look interesting. I'll list first the ones that 3E mostly doesn't do, then the ones that it does

Otherwind Stride, Curse of the Dark Dream, thorns of venom, curse of twin princes, "shadow walk" feature; Eldritch Blast, Beguiling Tongue, Fey Switch, Mire the Mind, Warlock's Leap, infuriating elusiveness, raven's glamour,

ScottS · Post by **ScottS** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:10 pm

Orion wrote:I don't think Warlord-style action shenanigan are doable in 3E.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... nquisition
Meh? (I haven't seen/researched anyone playing with inquisitors so no idea how approximate to lazylord you can get or if there's anything similarly "interesting" you can do with feat swapping etc.)

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:44 pm

Regarding the lazy-lord playstyle, 3e spells Snakes Swiftness and Mass Snakes Swiftness are ones I generally enjoy. They're low level and cheaply wandable, letting you convert actions you don't have anything better to do into extra attacks for allies. Yes, casters typically have something better to do than let the schlubs on the front lines make an extra attack, but it is a great cheap fallback option.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:36 am

The 4e mechanic of themes is basically a TOME scaling feat. I do like the base mechanics behind 4e though and figure it'd be more worthwhile to create/fix classes and monsters for 4e than port existing classes to an already very very very bloated 3e

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 4:43 am

Josh_Kablack wrote:Also that sort of terrain alteration schtick kind of just loses to Freedom of Movement in pre-4e D&D.

Dammit! that's true, Even theoretical Colossal+ Orcwort Tree Warden auto-grappling/damaging (impaled on thorns) In giant Reach/aura sized, with huge sweeping attacks that force foes to fight the Warden would in fact be thwarted by a 7th level effect (even if 9th or 11th to be continuous). That said, I still kinda really want to see a High Level Warden given the [Tome]/3E treatment.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 5:40 am

Aryxbez, wouldn't the TOME Totemist or Soulborn be the best fit for that? Just make a bunch of tree themed powers for them to use.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 6:25 am

The turning into animal/magical nature beast thing is pretty much the Totemist, yeah. FoM fucks the lockdown aspects of the Warden, as has been said.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 6:46 am

Totemist isn't really a transform-y thing. Their buffs are like bonus size, fast healing, true sight. I think you'd need to hack the druid or find that one shaper class uber wrote. Or maybe reflavor a monk dip?

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:09 pm

I kind of liked the conceit of the Swordmage, I.E., reactive teleportation to defend your droogs. Not much else, though. Certainly not the name or the uggo Gensai fuckfaces they printed to go hand-in-hand with the class. But nightcrawler action is always welcome.

It would be a good fit for something psionic. The player names X willing participants and forms telepathic beacons in their minds; These beacons serve as metaphysical anchors, permitting the player to teleport to their immediate vicinities with precision and urgency, and informing him of their conditions. Give this guy an immediate action that he can use to intercede against an assault on a beacon once per turn, and some sneak attack. When he intercedes, it's either a surprise attack or lets him set up a flank with his protectee; so, in the style of Tome Knights or 4E Defenders, he persuades foes to come after him by dealing bonus damage when they go after anybody else.

That's the basis, and then there's room to expand on the telepathic and teleportation fronts for character advancement. You build him up to fully telepathic conversations through the network by level 6 or so. Let him foist beacons on unwilling minds for espionage. Let him switch people's positions, teleport anywhere in the visual range of a beacon, include other people in his jaunts, and planeswalk as those things all become level-appropriate. Maybe at some point you let him be the intermediary for party members to serve touch spells to each other from a distance? Let people in your network turn over control of their bodies to each other, or save them from death by distributing the load of their disembodied consciousness on everyone else until you can fix up their corpse and put their mind back? Force a legion mindslaves into a self-contained Matrix so their collective mental force can power a collossus or divination computer or warp gate or something? Plenty of ways to go with this when you leave the tier where "Surprise! I smack you in the face!" stops being a story-driving ability.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:20 pm

Yeah, I didn't put Swordmages on the short list but I liked that they had a magic theme that wasn't "self-buff, then melee" or "shoot fireballs," and their signature defender mechanic wasn't overly metagame.

I liked the 4E Monk's "full discipline" moves, but Dungeonomicon Monk already does that. I REALLY liked the mechanic for enchanted Ki Foci and will definitely import that.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:43 pm

Personally, I heavily disliked the Swordmage class. Like, back when I still had enough hope for 4E D&D to purchase actual books reading this class felt like a kick in the taint.

Seriously, what exactly was the fucking point of the class? The Swordmage they presented (nice name BTW; what's next, Axethief? Monkhammer?) didn't conform to any genre representations of a swordmage. Like, think of all of the characters in fiction that wield phallic pieces of metal and use magic spells: Saber, Sasuke Uchiha, Eragon, Zelgadis, Elric, Rand al'Thor, the Red/Blue Mage in Final Fantasy, the Quest for Glory hero, and even obscure examples like the protagonists of the Shadowrun video games and Ness. Of all of those characters, Saber is the closest character that the class actually represents and that's only if you ignore that setting your sword on element crap.

Nah, the only reason why the class existed was because the D&D game developers had up a huge chart with columns labeled 'Roles', rows labelled 'Power Source', and the individual cells actual classes. Then someone noticed that while there was an Artificer for the Arcane Leader cell, Wizard for the Arcane Controller cell, and Warlock for the Arcane Striker cell the one for the Arcane Defender cell was left blank. So fuck a game representation of actual gishes, (I hate that word, too, even more than Swordmage) let's just fill in the fucking chart like OCD manchildren!! We can't just let blanks exist in our twee little chart! You don't make classes to add to the story or entertain players, you do it to fill in charts!

On a less vitriolic note: what was so great about the enchanted Ki Foci? You wrapped your hands in bandages and you applied weapon properties to whatever weapon you were holding, including your unarmed strikes. Not only is that not a particularly new mechanic but it brings its own set of baggage I do not like.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:17 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:(nice name BTW; what's next, Axethief? Monkhammer?)

Yeah I've kind of taken it for granted at this point that binomial nomenclature is the sure sign of thematic bankruptcy. If you can't come up with a single word, or a compound word that's already in the dictionary, then you just might not be dealing with an idea that bears the weight of a core class. There's a broader exception at the prestige-class level of specificity, but mostly this is a category of names which are only appropriate for the MTG cards that people just leave on the table when they're finished with a draft.

Top of my lexical shitlist: "Duskblade." What the fuck does that even mean?

The Swordmage they presented didn't conform to any genre representations of a swordmage.

Actually, it does: The JRPG hero that attacks by flashstepping into a shiny, hyper-acrobatic assault and then turns around and runs back to his party's front line to bob up in down in a fighting stance until his turn comes up again.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:29 am

You're being sarcastic, Eikre, but I would've accepted a swordmage that fought by teleporting around the battlefield to smack people that dropped their guards and then popping back to their original position. I can think of magic swordsman characters who do that.

But the swordmage didn't quite work like that. For one, only one of the builds, Aegis of Assault, actually did something even vaguely resembling that. What's more, you were a tank character, so your goal was to try to get people to dogpile you/round up enemies in a corner so that A.) other characters could turbonuke (at 4E speeds, mind) the opposition and B.) you could more easily use your 'punish people for not focus all their attention on you' powers. Again, the magic swordsman character who comes closest to doing this is Saber but the class still fucked up because the Swordmage wasn't especially tanky or magey. 95% of your schticks were: teleporting around the field, hitting people with a stick of held or thrown sharp metal, or setting your sword on element and hitting people with it. No curing, no buffs, no summoning, no conjured walls (unless you count some weak-ass short-range elemental power), no ablative barriers, no zones of control, no anti-magic, and no status effect more powerful than slow + prone. I think the three coolest powers the Swordmage got was a short-range teleportation lock, growing to troll size, and making a duplicate that functioned more as a distortion in space to attack and be attacked from than an extra token on the board.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 12:48 am

Swordmages can actually do all of Cloud's & Squall's limit breaks. Omnislash, the spinning shockwave and the ground slam shockwave, even Meteorain.

Obviously you would go with the teleport swordmage. They have other nice stuff, mostly lightning-based. Pull someone into melee with a lightning rope. Chain lightning off of a melee attack. Boomerang sword throw. Immobile & phase lock. Shadowclonejutsu. Teleport self & melee opponent.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 1:25 am

Please tell me that you were being snarky. Even if you were being sincere, then could you please at least lie to me and tell me that you were being snarky? I need to know that you nor anyone else weren't, hell, couldn't be sincere with that lost post, otherwise I've lost all hope for D&D.

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