Hey everyone!

So, I've been tinkering with this idea for a while now, and I thought I would create a thread to serve as a home base for theorycrafting, design, and development of a project I'm tentatively calling 4EX. 4EX is intended to be a new TTRPG system growing out of experiences with D&D 4E. The basic idea behind 4EX is to keep the core of what made D&D 4th edition great while addressing its weak spots and expanding on its strengths.

For example, here are some of the high-level goals I have for 4EX:

* Fix Core Math & Design: The 4E ruleset evolved over time, but not all content was updated to match the latest game rules. I want to start designing characters and monsters utilizing a full range of ideas and concepts (as seen in PHB2, PHB3, Dark Sun, Gamma World, etc) to improve the range of playstyles and mechanics
* Reduce Mental Load: 4E can be taxing to play at times due to math-heavy design that is challenging for sometimes-tired human brains. I want to try to reduce the number and effect bloat, but retain the interesting and meaningful choices
* Improve Conflict Resolution: Tactical play is what 4E does best, but it's not right for every combat or scenario. We need better levels of resolution to encourage better game pacing and different moments of storytelling

Now, here's where this forum thread comes in. Building something together is more interesting, engaging, and collaborative. D&D 4th Edition was a contentious edition, with passionate supporters and detractors, and I think we can make a better system by having a process where we can voice opinions freely even if we can't please everyone. Your feedback, suggestions, and critiques will be invaluable in shaping 4EX into the best game it can be.

Over the next few days & posts I'm going to try and lay out my foundational ideas for where I'd like to take 4EX and how I'd like to drive this project forward, but I wanted to get the conversation started and see what kind of interest may be out there for a project like this.

When reimagining D&D 4th Edition, I often think about remaking classes and the challenge of tracking ongoing effects. However, the core math of the system deserves attention first. I'll use the term "Bounded Bonuses" to describe this concept (a terminology I prefer to 5th edition's "Bounded Accuracy").

Why Address This Now?

Defining Bounded Bonuses upfront is crucial for two reasons:

Rules Compatibility: Clarifying our approach is important if we want to assess rules-compatibility with D&D 4th Edition.
Design Clarity: Establishing this core pillar guides our design decisions, ensuring a cohesive system.

The Issue with 4th Edition's Bonus System

While 4th Edition has implicit bonus expectations, character optimization can lead to unexpectedly high bonuses. This isn't inherently bad, but it can create complexity. In 4EX if we outline an explicit expectation for our core math, we can:

Explicitly Allow Variations: Narrative-driven bonuses (e.g., special circumstances, training or magical items) can be intentionally included (with GM approval).
Improve Clarity and Readability: By making bonus expectations clear, we reduce confusion and make the game more comprehensible

I came to many similar (and many different) conclusions when I started my 4E-based project.

Ultimately, every 4E project I've ever seen (including my own) ends up deviating so significantly that they are no longer compatible and can at best be considered a spiritual successor.

Part of this is because most who actually embraced 4E saw it as attempting to fix many longstanding problems we had with D&D through the slaughtering of many sacred cows... therefore we see nothing wrong with continuing the slaughter to further refine if until you refine it right out of being a new version of 4E and into it's own thing.

The second reason is because the bulk of 4E's mechanics are discrete elements (powers) and none of it ever made it into an OGL meaning you need to start from effectively scratch and either design the thousands of powers and hundreds of monsters needed or develop shortcuts to allow power sharing or building or split classes into an Origin/Role matrix that combines smaller general lists to create something that would pass for a powers list... and again drags you further from 4E's each class having its own batch that reinforced its feel.

This is not to discourage you. I think a lot of good ideas got throw out with the bathwater in the reactionary pushback of 5e. However, I am advising you that if you're following where 4E first led the end result will not look much like actual 4E (though it can play reasonably close in terms of action economy and checks and effects).

If you're curious what a nearly finished version of what you're starting looks like, PM me and I'll introduce you to mine.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 02, 2024, 08:21:03 PMI came to many similar (and many different) conclusions when I started my 4E-based project.

Ultimately, every 4E project I've ever seen (including my own) ends up deviating so significantly that they are no longer compatible and can at best be considered a spiritual successor.

Part of this is because most who actually embraced 4E saw it as attempting to fix many longstanding problems we had with D&D through the slaughtering of many sacred cows... therefore we see nothing wrong with continuing the slaughter to further refine if until you refine it right out of being a new version of 4E and into it's own thing.

The second reason is because the bulk of 4E's mechanics are discrete elements (powers) and none of it ever made it into an OGL meaning you need to start from effectively scratch and either design the thousands of powers and hundreds of monsters needed or develop shortcuts to allow power sharing or building or split classes into an Origin/Role matrix that combines smaller general lists to create something that would pass for a powers list... and again drags you further from 4E's each class having its own batch that reinforced its feel.

This is not to discourage you. I think a lot of good ideas got throw out with the bathwater in the reactionary pushback of 5e. However, I am advising you that if you're following where 4E first led the end result will not look much like actual 4E (though it can play reasonably close in terms of action economy and checks and effects).

If you're curious what a nearly finished version of what you're starting looks like, PM me and I'll introduce you to mine.

Hi Chris!

Thanks for the thoughts so far. I'm fully aware that the end result of my process may end up not being compatible with 4E. I'm open to that possibility, although what I don't want to do is immediately jump into a morass by introducing a huge number of system-alterations all at once (naturally I already have a few ideas in mind, but I haven't written up anything that dramatic yet).

My ideal plan is to start with rules alterations that aren't necessarily compatibility-breaking. At some point I will undoubtedly want to make compatibility-breaking changes, and that's when the 4EX project will fork into something else with a different name and identity.

That being said, I obliquely mentioned this in my previous post, but I want to make it more explicit here as this is an important starting point for discussing 4EX's mathematical implications.

Scope of 4EX & Compatibility

One issue that is difficult to ignore when attempting to develop homebrew 4E content or 4E-compatible rules systems is that D&D 4th Edition has a level range of 1-30. It is very difficult to homebrew character classes for 4E because writing a 4E class means developing a burdensome number of powers, many of which become obsolete over a character's lifetime. 4E divides these 30 levels into 3 tiers of power, Heroic, Paragon, and Epic Tier.

With 4EX I want to plan up front to only have 10 levels of character advancement. The reasons for this are very obvious:

• Scope - Fewer levels means less content to develop, and less filler content
• System Math - Fewer levels eliminates numerical bloat to the system math
• Play Utilization & Focus - Few D&D games (4E or otherwise) exceed 10th level, and nothing in the 4E ruleset explicitly changes between level 10 and level 30. The rules system provides the same experience, a more epic campaign simply requires story, imagination, not higher numbers.

Before I go too far I want to talk about an overall design issue that I'm hoping to address with 4EX.

The Core Mechanic
The Core Mechanic of D&D 4th Edition is the 1d20 roll, with modifiers, opposing a target DC value. The player rolling the 1d20 check must meet or beat the target DC value.

This is a great and simple design. 4EX will not be making any changes to the core mechanic. However, that mechanic also carries into it a set of assumptions I'd like to tackle.

Default Success Rate
The core system assumes a flat 55% success rate on a 1d20 roll against DC10. In itself, this is not a problem, however the assumption of failing on 45% of all rolls leads to a challenge of meshing the overt style of heroic fantasy, to the system assumption of failure roughly half the time.

In 4th Edition, this issue is officially remedied with a series of <X> Expertise feats, which corrects the mathematical issue so players are better able to feel heroic. Modern 4th Edition play tends to simply grant these feats freely, as these feats are viewed as a feat tax that crowds out other interesting character-building choices.

With 4EX we could simply address the problem in the same way, however this strikes me as inelegant. While I don't have a singular fix in mind for this, I hope as this develops the system assumption can be integrated into the design of 4EX. The target I'd like to strive for is, all-else-being equal, players succeeding approximately 65% of the time on rolled actions. In my experience this is a spot wherein players don't feel like rolling the dice is a coin flip (with a high chance of a player's entire turn being "wasted"), but in which tactical play is rewarded.

It's also important we keep in mind this range when considering Bounded Bonuses as the real range we have to play in for bonuses to remain relevant is less.