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Sionak
Dec 20, 2005

Mind flay the gap.

Yarrbossa posted:



Also, I want to start designing the final encounters, but I'm utterly terrible at coming up with environment designs for encounters. I've been making a conscious effort to improve, and it's hit or miss. Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice finale showdown? At the moment, I imagine the party storming the throne room, and somehow leading up to a rooftop finale, perhaps having the roof falling apart due to some BBEG influence causing the battlefield to change and require jumps to reach the BBEG, perhaps being followed by a unique battlefield on another plane or taking place above the city for all the citizens to see. I would like to extend the final encounter, allowing the party to take short rests in between encounters to refresh their powers and keep things exciting once they blow all their big spells. They've complained before about the final showdown being too easy, or too quick so I want to potentially spend 2-3 sessions on them storming the castle and taking down the BBEG.


Obviously this depends on what you decide to do for the villain/s, but you could always bring weather into it, too. If the economic advisor is really a dragon, maybe he transforms into his full form and destroys the ceiling and some of the walls in a tower room, just as a storm whips up. Then you have a drop off to the ground, the wreckage of the room, potential lightning strikes, and a suitably dramatic backdrop for the big battle. For more cliche points, the storm could end and the sun could come out once the villains are all defeated - depends how subtle you want to be.

If the king is evil as well, perhaps he's more interested in a running battle - going from the throne room through traps, or using the royal guards to stall. (Maybe the royal guards have been enchanted to turn into ravenous monsters when the King says a certain phrase, or maybe they are more evil creatures, simply disguised as guards.)

If that doesn't work, maybe he takes the battle to a more public square and denounces the heroes as traitors. Having a whole slew of dirty tricks should drive home the usurper concept.

Sionak fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jul 14, 2011

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Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Ballpoint Penguin posted:

I would suggest using the character themes from Dark Sun as a basis for Faction mechanics.

Character themes are a great bit of setting spackle in general. There are also some "junior themes" consisting only of utility powers and class features that have shown up in Dragon Magazine, if the setting element doesn't suggest new and interesting ways of beating people over the head.

Astfgl
Aug 31, 2001

Yarrbossa posted:

What I'm in need of, is ideas for a good BBEG, or collection of BBEG's, to finish things off with. Currently, the only reason they've been able to put together is that his parents were killed and throne overtaken for economic wealth, but I'm open to the usurping king being a puppet for a bigger bad guy.

You could pull a Theoden and have the usurper enthralled to a single bad guy or a cabal of bad dudes. The usurper could be a decent guy who's being deceived by his advisors. The usurper could be a real shithead who pretends to be a saint--the public loves him but he's a secret sociopath or somesuch.

You could work in a Herbertian approach and go heavy on the intrigue. Maybe the usurper thinks he's doing the right thing and the bad blood between him and the party has been a colossal misunderstanding orchestrated by a shadowy third figure. It's always fun to have the players and villains gear up for the climactic battle then have the "villain" toss off a casual piece of dialogue that suddenly makes the group realize the "villain's" been played just like they were.

The real villain could be someone they met way back in one of the first few adventures, too, and he's been surreptitiously keeping tabs on them this whole time.

There's also the classic reveal/retcon that a trusted NPC has been working against them all along. You could have the PCs gear up for the big showdown, which typically involves visiting shops and other friendly NPCs, only to realize that one of them has been involved with the true enemy the whole time.

The easiest way to figure out bad guys is to start with the motivation. You've already got a plot surrounding the PCs--one's an exiled prince looking to reclaim his throne. You'll figure out your villains by figuring out how someone else could profit off of a deposed ruler. Everything else (physical attributes, occupation, social standing, etc.) falls into place once you can figure out what drives the villain.

You can take a broad approach and look at what might motivate someone to steal a kingdom. So what is there of value in this usurped kingdom? Does it occupy a strategic locale? Is there a site of great magical power somewhere in the kingdom's borders? Does it sit on a nexus of trade routes, or is it overflowing with natural resources?

If you wanted a more personal approach, then why might someone steal a throne? Do they think they're the rightful ruler? Do they think they're the most capable ruler? Do they want their children to rule once they're gone? Do they intend to rule at all, or just sink the kingdom into a costly series of wars? Perhaps there's some great state secret that can only be revealed to the current king, or perhaps there's a law which can only be carried out by the king that would greatly assist the villain in some fashion.

Yarrbossa posted:

Also, I want to start designing the final encounters, but I'm utterly terrible at coming up with environment designs for encounters. I've been making a conscious effort to improve, and it's hit or miss. Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice finale showdown? At the moment, I imagine the party storming the throne room, and somehow leading up to a rooftop finale, perhaps having the roof falling apart due to some BBEG influence causing the battlefield to change and require jumps to reach the BBEG, perhaps being followed by a unique battlefield on another plane or taking place above the city for all the citizens to see. I would like to extend the final encounter, allowing the party to take short rests in between encounters to refresh their powers and keep things exciting once they blow all their big spells. They've complained before about the final showdown being too easy, or too quick so I want to potentially spend 2-3 sessions on them storming the castle and taking down the BBEG.

Ruins are always a good setting because you can change the landscape on the fly ("Your fireball struck an unstable section of ceiling, causing it to partially collapse and obscuring both your target and some of your allies!" or "Using your sheer strength, you're able to weaken and eventually collapse the dividing wall that separates you and your allies from the fleeing cultists!"). Ruins located near some geographic anomaly (a cliff, an ocean, a magical disturbance, a portal to another realm, a great chasm, whatever) are also fun because you can unexpectedly make that geography part of the battle. An old castle built on a cliff near a sea could have some of its floor give way and now there are holes that drop straight down to a rocky shore. A ruin built near a portal to another realm could have elements, structures or geographic features shift in and out of reality while a battle takes place. Unmooring the PCs also adds excitement, so having parts of the landscape begin to float, fall, or move of their own accord presents an engaging challenge.

Really, you can set the battle anywhere, and setting it an incongruous location (like a crowded street or a sleepy inn or a quiet church service) can often make the introduction of alien or threatening geography all the more interesting. So don't feel the need to be tied down to the "You arrive at a dark and lonely castle overlooking a foreboding moor" technique. Don't be afraid to set your climactic battles in unexpected locales.

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

OK, so I run an Eberron campaign (because Eberron is a cool setting for handsome people) and I was thinking about running a session or two based off something I found in one of the 3e Eberron lorebooks called the Race of Eight Winds. Basically, the contestants square off on a bunch of flying pavement stones, get some low-grade weapons, and go hog wild on a bunch of flying monsters. The winner is the one to bag the most kills.

Problem is, I'm not sure exactly how to run it. A skill challenge sounds like the best way to do it; I can track how well each PC is doing, and if one of the PCs doesn't feel like competing directly, they can be one of the schmucks on the ground stopping other people from cheating and knocking the PCs out of the game (and probably cheating like motherfuckers themselves). I'm really not terribly good at writing skill challenges, though; they always seem to turn into lovely dice-offs that no one really likes. Any thoughts on how to do this well? I feel like this is a cool concept that'll work as a great wind-down from the adventure arc they've been on for the last couple of levels

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


Is there a time limit to this contest? Why not just set up a combat or three with a huge number of whatevers (or a moderate number, with more whatevers being placed on the edge of the board every turn), tell the players it'll be over in N turns, and decide ahead of time how many kills they need to win?

Lord Twisted
Apr 3, 2010

In the Emperor's name, let none survive.

Hal Gill username posted:

I agree that you guys need to decide as a group if you want a really intensely focused game or more of a light and crunchy one and go from there. It's different if it's a game where people are expected to be in character and interacting with each other consistently than if it's a 'which villain do you punch next?' sort of deal.


One former Shadowrun GM of mine went through a phase where he thought we weren't paying enough attention to backstory and briefing information so we had a couple of times where a contact gave us an important phone number or keypad combo or something. When it came time to use it if you hadn't been paying attention and said 'yeah, I call that number', he required that you be able to come up with the actual number, otherwise your character hadn't been paying attention either and you were screwed. It only took a couple of those disasters before we were all paying very close attention.

Looking back on it it was kind of a passive aggressive way of dealing with it instead of just saying to the group that he spent time on this backstory and it would be nice if we paid some attention to it, but it did work!

This is 100% the best way to do it. Or make it so that if, for example, they're doing an infiltration mission and they don't concentrate on stuff (like the name of the loving god the cult they're infiltrating worships like my group did last session) they just get absolutely battered by angry enemies. I don't demand unwavering attention 24/7 but I've made it clear that I have absolutely NO tolerance for the ol' "You never told us that!" stick if they were chattering about anime or whatever.

E: Often a good way to do it is just to say "Look guys. I have to spend probably 3-4 hours preparing this stuff, and the mental strain of keeping the entire world in my head and making it all plausible. You play, which lets not kid ourselves is easier. You could at least listen to what I'm saying."

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost
I asked this in the 4e thread a while back to no response: Does anyone have any decent GM/RPG/Gaming podcasts to recommend? I'm looking for something to listen to in the car and at the gym, preferably with an emphasis on GMing tips/ideas, 4e/Gamma World, indie RPGs, or board/video games (in that order).

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Lord Twisted posted:

E: Often a good way to do it is just to say "Look guys. I have to spend probably 3-4 hours preparing this stuff, and the mental strain of keeping the entire world in my head and making it all plausible. You play, which lets not kid ourselves is easier. You could at least listen to what I'm saying."
That's true, and probably a good technique if they want to care and want to play in a focused way but have just fallen into bad habits. However, if they don't want to care, then why make them?

If you're resenting all the prep work then you have lots of options. You can play D&D with much lower prep than you've been doing. It's possible - I do it. You can get it down to about 1 hour per session. The key is to stop planning the plot in all its detail, go along with what your players do and improvise. The prep you still need to do is round up a word document or whatever with a bunch of cool level-appropriate monsters you want to use and maybe some traps. If your players contribute more to the world creation they're more likely to remember things. Names may always be hard, though, especially if you use fantasy names instead of real ones.

Or you can play any of the many games that don't need so much prep.

Also that whole "I'm doing all this extra work so you guys owe me. Sort of. But I do like it. But it's still more work..." situation that groups get into is really socially difficult because in general if I play games with you, I don't want to feel like I owe you something for that privilege. But at the same time, one player is in fact putting in a lot more effort than the others.

Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jul 17, 2011

Lord Twisted
Apr 3, 2010

In the Emperor's name, let none survive.
I don't try to make it into blackmail, I just point out that at the end of the day I do enjoy DMing but it takes away from my personal enjoyment of the session if noone is listening to me after the work I have put in, and that detracts from everyone's experience.

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Doc Hawkins posted:

Is there a time limit to this contest? Why not just set up a combat or three with a huge number of whatevers (or a moderate number, with more whatevers being placed on the edge of the board every turn), tell the players it'll be over in N turns, and decide ahead of time how many kills they need to win?

I seriously didn't think of that. It'd probably be easier that designing a skill challenge from the ground up at least. I'll try coming up with some special movement rules and terrain that'll make it fit the idea of the contest better

UrbanLabyrinth
Jan 28, 2009

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence


College Slice

Fungah! posted:

OK, so I run an Eberron campaign (because Eberron is a cool setting for handsome people) and I was thinking about running a session or two based off something I found in one of the 3e Eberron lorebooks called the Race of Eight Winds. Basically, the contestants square off on a bunch of flying pavement stones, get some low-grade weapons, and go hog wild on a bunch of flying monsters. The winner is the one to bag the most kills.

Not sure where you got that from, but the RoEW is literally a race between eight flying mounts (and their riders). It's a full-contact race, but it's hardly a 'kill all the flying monsters' competition.

See http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041220a for more details.

Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

Not sure where you got that from, but the RoEW is literally a race between eight flying mounts (and their riders). It's a full-contact race, but it's hardly a 'kill all the flying monsters' competition.

See http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041220a for more details.

Huh, well then. The version I was reading in Sharn: City of Towers was pretty bare-bones, and I guess I didn't read it closely enough. It just says something like "Galifar II liked watching people flying around on critters so the city has a big thing in the sky a year!" and I guess I misinterpreted that pretty heavily

Actually, I definitely misread it, because it specifically talks about using flying mounts, not skystones or anything. That's what I get for trying to come up with sessions when I'm sleep-deprived, I guess. Whatever, I like my idea and I think my players will too, I'm just going to roll with it

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


ImpactVector posted:

I asked this in the 4e thread a while back to no response: Does anyone have any decent GM/RPG/Gaming podcasts to recommend? I'm looking for something to listen to in the car and at the gym, preferably with an emphasis on GMing tips/ideas, 4e/Gamma World, indie RPGs, or board/video games (in that order).

I don't really follow much 4e stuff, but so keep that in mind.

Awesome, and in no particular order: 2gms1mic, the Walking Eye, Voice of the Revolution, Theory from the Closet, Geeknights (they have a games-specific show, but I kinda like all of what they talk about)

Defunct, but probably still worth listening to the archives of: the Durham 3, Independent Insurgency, Have Games Will Travel

Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jul 18, 2011

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Lord Twisted posted:

I don't try to make it into blackmail, I just point out that at the end of the day I do enjoy DMing but it takes away from my personal enjoyment of the session if noone is listening to me after the work I have put in, and that detracts from everyone's experience.

Yeah, totally. I absolutely know where you're coming from. I just personally got to the point where I started to resent the amount of prep I was doing, so I just decided not to do so much. Now I do much less prep and feel much better about it. So I was just pointing out that if you want to do less, it's possible.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
dnd3.5e: I need a decent idea for how to (attempt to) split my PCs away from the NPCs they're currently patrolling the imperial highway with. The setting is lowish magic & vaguely ancient Persian-flavored. I do have a major disaster set up to occur "back home," which ideally they'll be 8-10 days out from when they split. It's going to be a fairly serious magical catastrophe that I have most of the deets down for; it's just this lingering NPC thing I haven't had much inspiration for--I want to get the party off the DMNPC teat.

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

RedTonic posted:

dnd3.5e: I need a decent idea for how to (attempt to) split my PCs away from the NPCs they're currently patrolling the imperial highway with. The setting is lowish magic & vaguely ancient Persian-flavored. I do have a major disaster set up to occur "back home," which ideally they'll be 8-10 days out from when they split. It's going to be a fairly serious magical catastrophe that I have most of the deets down for; it's just this lingering NPC thing I haven't had much inspiration for--I want to get the party off the DMNPC teat.

How did the PCs and NPCs come to be working together in the first place? Are both groups in the service of the imperial army? Maybe a trade caravan or diplomatic entourage or something gets attacked by bandits and the NPCs volunteer to help escort it to its destination, sending you to the nearest city to report the incident and request extra patrols on that road.

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost

Doc Hawkins posted:

I don't really follow much 4e stuff, but so keep that in mind.

Awesome, and in no particular order: 2gms1mic, the Walking Eye, Voice of the Revolution, Theory from the Closet, Geeknights (they have a games-specific show, but I kinda like all of what they talk about)

Defunct, but probably still worth listening to the archives of: the Durham 3, Independent Insurgency, Have Games Will Travel
Thanks Hawkins, you rock. I'll check some of these out.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

Thuryl posted:

How did the PCs and NPCs come to be working together in the first place? Are both groups in the service of the imperial army? Maybe a trade caravan or diplomatic entourage or something gets attacked by bandits and the NPCs volunteer to help escort it to its destination, sending you to the nearest city to report the incident and request extra patrols on that road.

That may well do it. The PCs aren't in the imperial military per se; they were hired on to assist in a patrol by a quasi-military organization of knights errant (with recognition from the emperor and local lord). One of the PCs is actually a part of the organization, which has a sizable contingent of paladins and NG/LG types. This patrol mission is more or less his evaluation for becoming something other than low man on the totem pole.

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


ImpactVector posted:

Thanks Hawkins, you rock. I'll check some of these out.

Thought of two more: Canon Puncture is still ongoing, and Sons of Kryos is an old one that I used to love.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Doc Hawkins posted:

Thought of two more: Canon Puncture is still ongoing, and Sons of Kryos is an old one that I used to love.
Sons of Kryos is no longer available. Judd says he'll get around to uploading the old episodes at some point, but he hasn't done it yet. If you were to have their episodes saved on a hard drive somewhere, there are a lot of people who would be very grateful for a torrent.

sighnoceros
Mar 11, 2007
:qq: GOONS ARE MEAN :qq:
Trying to think of something for my players to spend their gold on. This is 4th edition, and I'm doing the "no magic items" thing with inherent bonuses and boons, but the party still gets gold. Without magic items to save up for, I'd like to provide some sort of semi-interesting money sink. They are staying in a small, out of the way trading/farming village and this is probably going to be their main base for most of the campaign. I was thinking of allowing them to invest in the town and build it up some but not sure how to best handle it and what kind of effects it should have, prices, etc. I took a look at the Pathfinder Kingmaker adventure path because that has players build kingdoms but that's WAAAY more in-depth than I was thinking.

I just want something that the players can spend their money on and feel like they are getting something from it.

Xand_Man
Mar 2, 2004

If what you say is true
Wutang might be dangerous


ImpactVector posted:

I asked this in the 4e thread a while back to no response: Does anyone have any decent GM/RPG/Gaming podcasts to recommend? I'm looking for something to listen to in the car and at the gym, preferably with an emphasis on GMing tips/ideas, 4e/Gamma World, indie RPGs, or board/video games (in that order).

The Walking Eye is pretty good. Self-critical hits is run by one of my gaming buddies, so I'll throw in a plug for that as well.

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

gos_jim posted:

Trying to think of something for my players to spend their gold on. This is 4th edition, and I'm doing the "no magic items" thing with inherent bonuses and boons, but the party still gets gold. Without magic items to save up for, I'd like to provide some sort of semi-interesting money sink. They are staying in a small, out of the way trading/farming village and this is probably going to be their main base for most of the campaign. I was thinking of allowing them to invest in the town and build it up some but not sure how to best handle it and what kind of effects it should have, prices, etc. I took a look at the Pathfinder Kingmaker adventure path because that has players build kingdoms but that's WAAAY more in-depth than I was thinking.

I just want something that the players can spend their money on and feel like they are getting something from it.

Let them hire artisans, laborers, and dragons for their little kingdom. Once it gets bigger, neighbors get jealous, and that money's going to go toward deterring and defending.

Lugubrious
Jul 2, 2004

I've never played or DMed for a group where building up a home base/castle/city hasn't been greeted with unbridled enthusiasm.

sighnoceros
Mar 11, 2007
:qq: GOONS ARE MEAN :qq:
Does anyone know of any decent resources/guidelines for player-built cities? I'm not having any luck on google. There are probably dungeon/dragon articles about it or at least ideas out there somewhere but I can't find them. I know I can just make it up but I'd rather have some guidelines to work with rather than reinvent the wheel.

Son of Thunderbeast
Sep 21, 2002
I picked up a crit-hit deck on a whim this past Saturday and am looking forward to using it in my game. I emailed the players about it (one of whom is a goon) and told them about it, then gave examples of what were on the cards.

Each card has four different effects on it, depending on the damage type of the weapon. Each of the following were taken from different cards:

MY TEEF! (bludgeoning)
Normal damage and 1 Con damage. Target loses bite, gains 20% spell failure chance for verbal spells.

NAILED IN PLACE (piercing)
Double damage and target cannot move (DC 20 Str check negates)

DISEMBOWEL (slashing)
Double damage and 1d4 Con damage and 1d6 bleed

SIDE EFFECT (magic)
Double damage and you become invisible for 1d4 rounds


Does anyone have any recommendations for good crit-fumble decks? These seem like fun ways to spice up the combat a bit :)

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


GM Advice: critical failures are a waste of time, focus on having interesting, reactive combat set-pieces instead.

Are you planning on having things besides the PCs draw from that critical hit deck?

Son of Thunderbeast
Sep 21, 2002
Nah, PCs only. Maaaaaaybe the major NPCs (like the BBEG and a couple of his major captains or something) but probably not.

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost
If you're doing D&D then yeah I'd definitely agree ditch the fumble stuff. I always thought it was dumb as hell to have a 5% chance to drop your sword or whatever when we did it in high school.

Re podcasts: Yeah, SoK were great back when I listened to them a few years ago. Then I stopped when I went on an RPG hiatus and now they're gone. :(

Mojo Jojo
Sep 21, 2005

gos_jim posted:

Does anyone know of any decent resources/guidelines for player-built cities? I'm not having any luck on google. There are probably dungeon/dragon articles about it or at least ideas out there somewhere but I can't find them. I know I can just make it up but I'd rather have some guidelines to work with rather than reinvent the wheel.

I've not found one myself, and it's something that comes up quite often.

That said, there are two possible avenues I've yet to explore:
1) Kingsmaker adventure path from Pathfinder. It's a series of adventures that seems to end up with the players doing a spot of city building from what I understand. Paizo will have a players' handbook for the path on their site, and it might include the gist of how those rules work. If not, then you may have to bite the bullet and buy it (obviously, check it's what you want first).

2) Reign. It's not D&D, but it's a game system which is based around controlling factions. The guys on this board love it (there's a thread floating around somewhere, I think it's called One Roll System or something similar). I've a feeling that there's a free version of the rules or something? I could be wrong.

CCKeane
Jan 28, 2008

my shit posts don't die, they multiply

I don't like crit fumbles, but if you are into them, I recommend just giving an attack of opportunity at -3 or whatever to the opponent being targeted.

I like fighting monsters, not spending 3 rounds picking up a sword.

veekie
Dec 25, 2007

Dice of Chaos
Well you could make a Gamble Deck.
Make a set of cards with Supercritical/Fumble pairs on each card. Optionally include a pair of lesser effects(Superhit/Supermiss) if you can somehow find the space. Not including hit/miss makes it more a pure luck thing though, most Gamble draws won't change things.
Players draw from the deck as they declare the attack, if they want. You add the effect they draw to their attack, depending on if they nat 20, nat 1, hit or miss.

Basically you can risk it on a dramatic attack, rather than be beset by such luck all the time. Only for when they NEED it to squeeze through.

veekie fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 20, 2011

Lord Twisted
Apr 3, 2010

In the Emperor's name, let none survive.
I just had a frankly exhausting one shot for my seasoned players who've mostly gone off to uni. We're all on holiday and they wanted to try a level 30 one; we had one a few weeks ago where they fought down Imix from MM3... so this time they fought Tiamat.

Essentially the session boiled down to Tiamat infiltrating an Astral Sea bastion to try to steal a collosal magical diamond while her legions held off the protectors of said diamond. She didn't reckon on our heroes! Artificer, Rogue/Ranger, Bard, Paladin, Wizard

I will say some things about level 30 sessions

1) The mathematics involved, epecially when you have bard powers giving multiple rolls to a twin striking rogue/ranger who has 5d8 sneak attack damage and has a stance which gives him extra attacks out of turn is frankly horrendous. Like seriously what the gently caress. Tiamats Chromatic Breath alone - with the bard power I'm rolling 10 d20s to determine if people are hit, applying 3-4 modifers to each roll depending on the person and their positioning, and then 10d8s for the damage. It took 2 hrs 15 mins to resolve this battle.

2) The amount of damage thrown out by each side was horrendous.

3) I am never using Tiamat again because oh my god 5 initiative counts is too goddamn much

4) "Kiss of Death", the Rogue power, is retarded before it was errat'd and Wizard should be ashamed for not even reading the loving power. Its an infinite damage loop, I had to hosuerule it during the session as the CB didnt factor in the errata.



So I considered Tiamat to be, hands down, strongest solo in DnD. Anyone prove me wrong for 4th edition? What is the strongest enemy? Tiamat gave them a serious run for their money. Rogue/Ranger had no surges left at all, Wizard had gone down twice, Paladin was out of heals, Bard was out of heals, only the Artificer was OK but thats because he's savvy as hell as a player and kept himself out of sight, using a regen potion he'd stored up to make sure his HP was tip top. 1-2 more rounds and there would have been people not getting back up. Tiamat is pretty goddamn brutal.

Alaster
Nov 18, 2006

Hanging just next to your door in the hallway is a painting of an EXQUISITE WIZARD. Your mother collects these awful things IRONICALLY.

CCKeane posted:

I don't like crit fumbles, but if you are into them, I recommend just giving an attack of opportunity at -3 or whatever to the opponent being targeted.

I like fighting monsters, not spending 3 rounds picking up a sword.

you could do it like dark sun - if you roll a 1 on your attack roll, you can change it from a miss into a hit at the cost of drawing from the critical fumble deck, so there's a strategic decision to make with LOLWHACKY if you want!

IntelligibleChoir
Mar 3, 2009

Lord Twisted posted:


4) "Kiss of Death", the Rogue power, is retarded before it was errat'd and Wizard should be ashamed for not even reading the loving power. Its an infinite damage loop, I had to hosuerule it during the session as the CB didnt factor in the errata.


The one in the compendium doesn't appear to be errata'd and it seems to use free action attacks. I guess I don't understand the issue.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
Another podcast I didn't see mentioned yet: Narrative Control.

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!

CCKeane posted:

I don't like crit fumbles, but if you are into them, I recommend just giving an attack of opportunity at -3 or whatever to the opponent being targeted.

I like fighting monsters, not spending 3 rounds picking up a sword.

Yeah, this. Even though being attacked is generally bad for the character, it means the player is involved in something that's relatively engaging: being attacked. Inconveniencing a player by making them do something boring is rarely going to be the right option. Having something bad happen to you is more interesting than just failing.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Lord Twisted posted:

to a twin striking rogue/ranger who has 5d8 sneak attack damage and has a stance which gives him extra attacks out of turn is frankly horrendous

On this: the Twin Striking Rogue|Ranger (presumably a Hybrid? If not, then Sneak Attack could only be 1/enc, and isn't that useful) isn't that good. He can't sneak attack on Twin Strike, and he can't sneak attack OR quarry on the out-of-turn attacks granted by the stance, which assuming this is Kiss of Death, are Melee Basic Attacks. Each striker extra dice feature works only on powers and paragon path powers from that base class, and Melee Basic Attack is not a class or class PP power, even if it was granted by one.

Kiss of Death's pretty nasty, but you can only make one free action attack per turn, so it's not that nasty, and it is a 29th-level daily, you should expect those to be pretty nasty.

The Artificer shouldn't have been able to use a potion of regen to get him past bloodied, it doesn't take you further than that. But it is a very useful means of ameliorating damage.

Also, fighting a god SHOULD take you a good while. It's likely to be the climax of an epic campaign, having it take 2 1/2 hours doesn't sound awful, as long as the players are enjoying it. Doing it as a one-off one-shot doesn't give it the significance it was perhaps intended to have.

Overall, though, it sounds like the session was enjoyable to me. I'm not entirely sure what the problem was, except for some slightly iffy rules interpretations.

Lord Twisted
Apr 3, 2010

In the Emperor's name, let none survive.

thespaceinvader posted:

On this: the Twin Striking Rogue|Ranger (presumably a Hybrid? If not, then Sneak Attack could only be 1/enc, and isn't that useful) isn't that good. He can't sneak attack on Twin Strike, and he can't sneak attack OR quarry on the out-of-turn attacks granted by the stance, which assuming this is Kiss of Death, are Melee Basic Attacks. Each striker extra dice feature works only on powers and paragon path powers from that base class, and Melee Basic Attack is not a class or class PP power, even if it was granted by one.

Kiss of Death's pretty nasty, but you can only make one free action attack per turn, so it's not that nasty, and it is a 29th-level daily, you should expect those to be pretty nasty.

The Artificer shouldn't have been able to use a potion of regen to get him past bloodied, it doesn't take you further than that. But it is a very useful means of ameliorating damage.

Also, fighting a god SHOULD take you a good while. It's likely to be the climax of an epic campaign, having it take 2 1/2 hours doesn't sound awful, as long as the players are enjoying it. Doing it as a one-off one-shot doesn't give it the significance it was perhaps intended to have.

Overall, though, it sounds like the session was enjoyable to me. I'm not entirely sure what the problem was, except for some slightly iffy rules interpretations.


Don't get me wrong it was fun, I was just commenting on how relatively exhausting it was compared to a paragon or heroic tier.

To address though:

Kiss of Death was, pre-errata, a damage loop. We didn't look at the errata, and rules as written on the character sheet meant that the rogue could trip it off of his own attacks.

Also Artificer used more than just a potion of regen, but thats just a minor point.

To restate one of my questions - any enemies tougher than Tiamat? These guys love a challenge!

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Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


Alasdair Crawfish posted:

you could do it like dark sun - if you roll a 1 on your attack roll, you can change it from a miss into a hit at the cost of drawing from the critical fumble deck, so there's a strategic decision to make with LOLWHACKY if you want!

That sounds pretty cool. In Weapons of the Gods, if the GM can think of a really dramatic failure that would "drive the story" in some way, she can offer the player an experience point to agree to that outcome. I think the example in the book was, not only do you fail to infiltrate the enemy camp, you're spotted, the alarm goes out, everyone knows it was you, you'll probably have to fight your way out, etc.

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