Designing 4ever: Stealing the Power Sources of D&D 4e

Expected read time: about 5 minutes

We’ve been eyebrows-deep in the guts of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, taking the parts we like and re-designing them for 5e—and making some tweaks to 5e as well! We’re currently referring to this amalgamation as “Project 4ever”.

Today we’re going to dig into the heart of 4e and pull out one of its core elements: power sources. We’ll discuss what they are and what their purpose was, and then focus on the five main ones: Arcane, Divine, Martial, Primal, and Psionic.

If you already know all about 4e’s power sources, feel free to skip to the section, “So, What Are We Stealing?”

Feel the Power

I think most people familiar with 4e would call the power sources primarily mechanical elements, but I’m most taken by what they mean narratively. 4e is a game of heroic fantasy! Every player character essentially has superpowers, evoking an action-packed narrative. The “power source” describes the energy each character draws on to fuel these abilities.

For the most part, a character’s power source is defined by their class. 

But let’s dig in a little deeper.

Arcane Power

The prime example of an arcane class, the Wizard, draws on the arcane energies infusing the cosmos, using their hard-won knowledge to release it in the form of spellcasting. Other arcane classes include the Artificer, Bard, Sorcerer, Swordmage, and Warlock. 

Divine Power

The Cleric is granted access to the divine power of a deity or plane through their faith, allowing them to both heal allies and smite foes. The Paladin is another iconic divine class, and in 4e was joined by the Avenger, the Invoker, and the Runepriest. 

Martial Power

The Fighter’s exemplary martial training and sheer toughness allow it to go toe-to-toe with even the biggest, baddest monsters. This same prowess and grit fuels the Ranger, Rogue, and Warlord classes.

Primal Power

While those first three power sources have been a part of D&D from the beginning, 4e introduces the concept of the primal power source. Magic powered by nature and primal spirits falls into this category, and is the well from which Barbarians, Druids, Seekers, Shamans, and Wardens draw their power.

Psionic Power

Psionics also have a long history in the game, but 4e explores the idea further, debuting the Ardent and Battlemind classes alongside the Psion. The Monk also shows up in this category, its mastery of self re-interpreted as a branch of psionics.

So, What Are We Stealing?

There's so much we're stealing. But those super heroic vibes—we want those especially. Each class we design in Project 4ever (and there will be many of them!) is going to be assigned a power source, and its features are going to lean into it. 

Each power source is also going to act as a descriptor—a tag of sorts—that other mechanics and rules can refer to. For example, the Talent system we've been working on (essentially mini Feats) sometimes have one power source or another listed as a prerequisite. Similarly, the occasional subclass might also have such a prerequisite.

Each class also gains a feature at level 4 that has to do with the power source of that class, and it's the same across all classes of that power source. This is a special feature that goes into the new version of Inspiration, which we may as well introduce now.

Inspired to Act

4e has a mechanic called “action points”, which every character gets every so often. Basically, you can spend an action point to take an entire additional action—essentially like the Action Surge feature of the 5e Fighter. 

In addition to this, every 4e Paragon Path (sort of like a high-level subclass) includes a bonus thing that happens whenever you spend an action point, such as teleport a short distance, gain a bonus to any attacks you might make as part of that action, turn invisible before or after the extra action, etc. 

In Project 4ever, we’ve taken the idea of action points and incorporated them into 5e’s Inspiration mechanic, letting you spend your Inspiration to take an additional action. As you can imagine, it significantly adds to the power of Inspiration. Plus, as mentioned above, every class gets a feature at level 4 that grants you something extra when you spend your Inspiration, a bonus determined by the power source of your class.

For example, in the first four classes we’ll be releasing, the Fighter and the Rogue will represent the martial power source, sharing this feature:

With all this extra emphasis on Inspiration, the hope is that the DM will remember to give it out, and players will remember to use it, and in doing so help their characters to tell more heroic, action-packed stories. As for changes to how Inspiration will be given out, we’ll get to those in another article!

Wrapping it Up

So there’s the ramble on 4e’s power sources and what we’re doing to bring them into 5e! We mentioned a bunch of classes, about half of which aren’t currently in 5e, and we’re going to bring over and redesign most of those. 

Have you ever played or read D&D 4e? Do you have a favorite class or paragon path or special ability that you’d like brought over into 5e? Let us know in the comments below, and we’ll see what we can do!

Next time we’ll get into a much-missed aspect of 4e: combat roles! Make sure to sign up for the newsletter so you can know when it drops.

Until then, happy gaming, and we’ll see you in the Archives!