Conversion: Feeblemind + the Designer’s Mind

Poisoncraft: Codex Venenorum is done and waiting for a trip through the Fred Hicks Prettification Machine. So I thought I would unwind with another 3e conversion. This is one of my favorites from the last edition:

Feeblemind power

I like this conversion for a few reasons. It gives the wizard another long-distance power, which is quickly becoming the last defining feature of the class. It has a pretty novel suite of damage effects. (I particularly like the penalty to Reflex defense, which seems odd at first blush but, in fact, makes perfect sense.) Finally, I like the conditional penalty to the saving throw, which is a fruitful area for further design exploration.

Just one problem….

Did you figure it out….

I didn’t notice until I started typing this post….

That’s right. Monsters don’t have the arcane keyword. So that last sentence is essentially useless. Sigh.

This points out an interesting design phenomenon for me. When I’m designing for 4e, I don’t have much trouble getting into the 4e mindset. For some reason, when I’m designing conversions from 3e to 4e, I seem to have these kind of niggling issues pop up. In fact, I had some similar issues crop up while I was working on the Poisoncraft conversion. I would find myself doing a straight conversion of something and catch myself in time to realize that it might be something that doesn’t belong in 4e at all. For Poisoncraft, I think this ended up making it a much better product because I found myself really focusing on the design issues, giving them greater scrutiny. Anyone else have similar experiences?

On the upside, there are a couple of easy fixes. You could just swap psychic for arcane. In some ways, this is a better fit than arcane anyway (though it lacks the traditional tie to its 3e progenitor). You could repurpose it to a monster power easily enough, perhaps for an evil mage NPC. What would you do?

1. Nick Wedig, May 18, 2009:

   I really dislike the penalty to Intelligence attacks. It really hurts just a handful of classes, and is pretty counter to 4e design.

   But I think you could change the power to be “-5 to ranged and area attacks” and avoid both the screws-wizards-and-swordmages-but-not-sorcerers issue and the no-arcane-for-monsters issue at the same time. Sure, Rangers would also hate the power, but why shouldn’t they? In the game fiction, having the mind of a two year old will impair shooting a bow as much is it would impair your Reflex defense.

   Also: in general, Save Ends is inappropriate for Encounter powers, and usually only shows up on Daily powers. This power can totally take a combatant out of the encounter, every encounter (if they keep rolling bad on saves) as it stands. Either it should be “until end of your next turn” or it should be a Daily power. And given how nasty Feeblemind was in the last edition, I’d say it should be a Daily. Maybe level 15?

2. justin, May 19, 2009:

   1) Intelligence penalty: This is something I’ve been looking at a lot, i.e., “screwing” a limited set of targets. I’m not sure why you say it’s “counter to 4e design”, but in any case, I’m not WotC, and I don’t need to design for the full set of players out there. The “limited screw” works incredibly well when it is used judiciously but a skilled DM. This design theme is one I explored further in Poisoncraft, where I’ve got poisons that impair specific class features, e.g., wild shape. This technique changes what can easily become routine combat, forcing the target to think creatively for other ways to contribute.

   2) I acknowledge the save ends-encounter power issue. I was indeed waffling about making it a daily. However, I thought it was okay given this specific power. You’ve already identified it’s limited applicability. If I recast it as a power for an NPC, it’s moot anyway, since NPCs only have encounter powers, not dailies. For the wizard PC, I’d want to let him use it whenever he could. In fact, if I were going to change the power at all, I would get rid of the save altogether and just have it last until the end of the next turn.

3. Eric Finley, May 19, 2009:

   Keep it as save ends – but grant resist 10 psychic to the target for the duration. And IMO strip out the Reflex penalty as, while it makes sense, it’s also an essentially Simulationist addition – which 4e clearly saves against with a +10 bonus.

   But if you’re looking to screw a limited set of targets, then I’d suggest applying it to Implement powers rather than to Int. Or maybe a small bonus to each. Or use the Int bonus like this: you suffer your Int bonus *as a penalty to the save*. In fact, that’s an area which is just begging to be explored further, especially in the world of curses… (“Musclebound: Add your Str modifier to all weapon damage, but subtract it from the attack roll.”)

4. Tim, June 28, 2009:

   IMO, the biggest issue with the power is that except for NPCs designed using the DMG 186-188 (and I don’t use these rules, preferring the monster creation rules for NPCs), no other opponents make attacks based on an individual stat. Also, few opponents are going to be making Arcana, History, or Religion skill checks during the course of a battle. I really don’t see why a wizard would want to take this spell other than for the penalty to Reflex (which seems kind of high to me) and to daze an opponent, and there have to be better spells that can do both. If I was going to do feeblemind, I would make it a mid paragon tier daily that dazes the opponent, prevents the opponent from using anything other than basic attacks, inflicts a penalty to all skill and ability checks, and prevents coherent communication.