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This could use tweaking, and keep in mind I'm used to making tough monsters for High Paragon so this might be unfair, but...  madbomber.monster The basic thought is that instead of multiattacking like most Elites, she doesn't get penalized on damage when she makes AoE attacks. edit: And yes, Blaster Traps are a perfect "ally" for her, especially with her pushing attacks. 
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Feb 25, 2014 02:53
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That's really great. Thanks!
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Feb 25, 2014 03:05
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djw175 posted:That's really great. Thanks!
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Feb 25, 2014 03:23
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Consider using stun grenades that blind, deafen, or both (basically, say, Area Burst 1 within 5ish) Particularly if you want to play the stealth game, it can make her harder to target; you can't point out where the enemy is if your ally can't see or hear you. Don't be too much of a dick, but play it tactical.
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Feb 25, 2014 03:25
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P.d0t posted:Consider using stun grenades that blind, deafen, or both (basically, say, Area Burst 1 within 5ish) Idea: Instead of adding more powers, take the glue bomb, change it to Chaos Bomb and make it a variable effect - either random (you know, how she's a mad bomber) or something she gets to pick (either per-target or once per bomb). 1. Blind (EoNT) 2. Immobilize (EoNT) 3. Slow (Save Ends) 4. Push 3 and Prone 5. Ongoing 5 damage (save ends) 6. Daze (EoNT) An At-Will Blind or Daze is super-strong, though, especially at Heroic Tier, so I'd be careful about letting her pick. Maybe add an Encounter Power (Minor Action) where she gets to pick once.
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Feb 25, 2014 03:33
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I have a few questions about Weapon Master's Strike for Fighters. One, how does it work for weapons with multiple types, like a Glaive that's both a heavy blade and a pole-arm? Does it get both benefits? Two, what's the point of the Spear/Pole-arm benefit when Combat Challenge is baked into every fighter? Just for people multiclassing into fighter?
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Feb 25, 2014 11:14
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Keep in mind that the Combat Challenge isn't an OA. The Polearm effect lets you stack both if you desire.
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Feb 25, 2014 19:29
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I don't run games very often, but when I do I often find myself getting overwhelmed with keeping track of my monsters' powers, HP, and tactics in combat. I think I would have more fun DMing if I were better at that, so does anyone have any organizational tips and advice? I also feel like I end up playing pretty poorly and the PC's wipe the floor with at- or above-level encounters consistently.
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Feb 25, 2014 20:27
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Try using more minions, or two-hit monsters.
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Feb 25, 2014 20:43
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As far as HP is concerned, you can use some kind of digital tool (we use maptool, but that's too complicated if you only want to track HP). If you are running published adventures, then there is always a tactics section that can help you. Soldiers and Controllers can be a bit complex, so maybe use more skirmishers, brutes and artillery if you are designing encounters yourself. Also, I don't know which book you are using for your monster stat blocks, but the MM3 formatting makes it easier to optimize your monster's turns because powers are grouped by action type, and you can just pick one of each.
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Feb 25, 2014 21:03
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Looking for some advice with regards to pre-gens. Current group meets at a hobby shop and there's always talk of someone or other being interested in joining. So I'd like to have some characters ready for them, that they can then go off and customise or make their own. Only level four so it's not as if there's a huge amount of powers, yet. Still, anyone have any suggestions for some, or where I might look?
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Mar 1, 2014 05:38
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If you need some quick 4th level characters, I suggest you click this link. These are public characters, and in each, you can go to File -> Print and print them using a character sheet program, or download the character builder file which they can use to customize if they want.
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Mar 1, 2014 05:41
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I seem to remember some articles in Dungeon and/or Dragon mag about creating interesting character concepts that are somewhat outside the box and keeping them viable from level 1 to 30, how good were those as guides on how to make characters in a general sense?
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Mar 1, 2014 09:25
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My Lovely Horse posted:I request that the 4E Turn Tracker be added to the software list. It's a great program for tracking initiative, power/healing surge use, effects timing, saving throws etc., applying penalties to stats automatically if an according condition is present, and so on. You can import character and monster files, and apparently even program your own powers and have it handle the dice rolling, but it works just fine if you use it only as an initiative/effects tracker. dwarf74 posted:I can do it when I'm not on a tablet, but how does it compare to masterplan? Seriously I hope whoever made Masterplan has a really nice job doing interface design and usability. I've never seen a program where so many options are potentially required and each of them is right where you'd expect it, along with five others you didn't even know you needed.
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Mar 1, 2014 16:36
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My Lovely Horse posted:Little late following up on this but now that I've given Masterplan a whirl I feel I can give this question a proper assessment, which is that Masterplan is a feat of literal wizardry and I renounce the Turn Tracker now and forevermore.  That was pretty much my finding with Masterplan, too; it started out good but got amazing. Literally the only thing I couldn't figure out how to do on it was give attack roll penalties. And even then, I can create a fake condition called "-5 to attack rolls" to jog my memory.
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Mar 1, 2014 18:06
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So today I happened upon a rather strange situation regarding Flanking and the veterans at the D&D table.  The recreation above is what my friends called a "flank train". According to them - Since the calm Goliath is flanked (a status effect?), he is not counting as helping flank Monster 1 for the screaming Goliath. "Huh?" was my response verbatim, and I couldn't find anything about it in the rules compendium nor in the older Players handbook. Neither could they, leading to a very confused situation of "But we always played it like that... why are we playing it like that?". This brings up two questions: 1. Can we assume that Monster 1 is flanked even if Calm Goliath is flanked? 2. Is there such a rule in the older D&D editions? We're trying to figure out the origin of this, and we're coming up blank. It might just be some house-rule that became a "real" one, but who knows! 
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Mar 2, 2014 05:18
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Lamquin posted:This brings up two questions: I don't know of any such rule in 3e or 4e, which are the only two editions with flanking mechanics.
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Mar 2, 2014 07:44
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Lamquin posted:2. Is there such a rule in the older D&D editions? We're trying to figure out the origin of this, and we're coming up blank. It might just be some house-rule that became a "real" one, but who knows! That's probably someone's house rule in an attempt to stop every fight from turning into a flank train, since they very often do.
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Mar 2, 2014 08:48
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It sounds similar to the Blood Bowl assist rules, where you can only get an assist on a block from a player that's not in another player's threatened area.
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Mar 2, 2014 09:23
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But then, why should the Goliath be the one who can't flank and not Monster 1? I could look at that picture and say "Well, Monster 1 is flanked by the two goliaths, so it can't help flank Calm Goliath". How can someone come up with such an arbitrary rule, and how could it survive more than five minutes on the table?
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Mar 2, 2014 09:27
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Arguing that both of them are mutually flanked, and thus neither of them can provide a flanking bonus to an ally, is fairly reasonable. Claiming that the situation is somehow asymmetric is kind of  though.
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Mar 2, 2014 09:37
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Just to confirm: he's talking nonsense, there's no rule that says flank trains don't work, nor should there be. It's not like it's difficult to get out of it, you shift, once.
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Mar 2, 2014 09:56
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The relevant rules are on pages 217 and 218 of the Rules Compendium. The only things that can prevent a creature from flanking another creature are:
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Mar 2, 2014 10:03
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Insert Coin games have kind of died out, but I've always been interested in playing/running a 4E one again. Would there be any interest amongst you guys in running such a thing? 4E makes a fun tactical challenge, and we could even do rotating DMs.
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Mar 2, 2014 12:27
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Gau posted:The relevant rules are on pages 217 and 218 of the Rules Compendium. The only things that can prevent a creature from flanking another creature are: The 3e Rules Compendium says largely the same thing - you're flanking a creature if you and another creature are threatening it from opposite sides. 3e might arguably share the requirement for line-of-sight, depending on whether or not you infer that a blinded creature, which can't make attacks of opportunity, is still threatening its adjacent squares. So there's no 4e or 3e support for the notion that a flanked creature can't itself flank an opponent. Maybe it's a house rule relating to facing?
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Mar 3, 2014 05:44
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Gau posted:Insert Coin games have kind of died out, but I've always been interested in playing/running a 4E one again. Would there be any interest amongst you guys in running such a thing? 4E makes a fun tactical challenge, and we could even do rotating DMs.
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Mar 3, 2014 06:01
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The Leper Colon V posted:Insert Coin doesn't work nearly as well on PbP, where the fast-paced combat gets slowed down to "1-2 posts per day" speed. It would, however, work really well for a regular pickup-style whoever-shows-up Roll20 game or something.
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Mar 3, 2014 08:20
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Gau posted:It would, however, work really well for a regular pickup-style whoever-shows-up Roll20 game or something.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:41
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I'd be down to play, work permitting. Knowing my luck and Night shift, probably not but won't know until you set out a time.
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Mar 3, 2014 15:46
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I'm interested in whatever anyone gets going that involves Roll20 4E with goons.
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Mar 3, 2014 18:46
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Has anyone tried to import the fail forward mechanics (or succeed with complications) of Dungeon World in 4E? The discussion we are currently having about skill checks in the Next thread got me thinking about it, but I am more interested about using it in combat rolls. In my current campaign I currently have just few players so a missed roll is not just a huge thing since that player will get another turn soon, but we are probably gonna get another two this weekend and I don't want to see sad faces in my table.
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Mar 4, 2014 11:40
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Well, there are plenty of powers with miss lines or effects, and I tend towards saying anyone who wants to fail forward in combat has the opportunity to take some of those. I'd hesitate to introduce any global miss effects flat out because presumably the powers with miss lines or effects are balanced against those without. That being said, in 13th Age you deal your level in damage on a miss (on weapon attacks, but magic mostly has special effects on a miss, even if it's just half damage) and while that would scale too fast in 4E, it goes in a good direction. Maybe something like if you miss, you do your enhancement bonus in damage. I dunno.
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Mar 4, 2014 11:58
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It even works well with Minions, since they never take damage on a miss. 
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Mar 4, 2014 13:03
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Rexides posted:Has anyone tried to import the fail forward mechanics (or succeed with complications) of Dungeon World in 4E? The discussion we are currently having about skill checks in the Next thread got me thinking about it, but I am more interested about using it in combat rolls. In my current campaign I currently have just few players so a missed roll is not just a huge thing since that player will get another turn soon, but we are probably gonna get another two this weekend and I don't want to see sad faces in my table. If you want to kludge something together, you could roll before declaring what power you're using; a hit means you hit with an encounter or daily power, a miss means you hit with an at-will power (or miss with an encounter/daily that has an Effect or Miss line, your choice). As usual, Essentials classes would complicate the picture.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:22
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P.d0t posted:If you want to kludge something together, you could roll before declaring what power you're using; a hit means you hit with an encounter or daily power, a miss means you hit with an at-will power (or miss with an encounter/daily that has an Effect or Miss line, your choice). That really only works if your powers are basically just straight up +damage or whatever. I mean, if you're trying to push an enemy away with a basic attack, rolling well enough to trigger Come and Get It is a waste. Conversely, if you really need to pull a bunch of dudes toward you, only rolling well enough to pop Cleave is as useless as a miss. Maybe you could split hit effects into damage and OTHER_STUFF, with a partial success giving you one or the other and a full success giving you both? GimpInBlack fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 03:01
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Some friends have been pestering me for forever to play 4e with them, and I did last weekend. It was pretty fun, but I was pretty overwhelmed by the layers upon layers of dice rolls. Also, there's no way I could create a character without someone looking over my shoulder at this point. It was pretty fun, and we had some laughs. I got my golaith warden killed in the third encounter against some kobolds(?) which is apparently a feat in itself. I think I pissed off the dungeon master by not following his obviously laid path, though, which is why I guess he threw an army at me 200 feet from the town gate. Anyway, just thought I'd share. I'll probably play again.
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Mar 5, 2014 04:36
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Blue Raider posted:Some friends have been pestering me for forever to play 4e with them, and I did last weekend. It was pretty fun, but I was pretty overwhelmed by the layers upon layers of dice rolls. Also, there's no way I could create a character without someone looking over my shoulder at this point. That's impressive you really have to try to die in 4e especially in early levels unless your DM was truly just being a dick.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:40
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I tried to kludge together DW and 4ed. After a session and a half we went back to straight DW. It's not impossible, but you just end up trying two make two well designed systems do what they weren't meant to do.
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Mar 5, 2014 06:16
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socialsecurity posted:That's impressive you really have to try to die in 4e especially in early levels unless your DM was truly just being a dick.
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Mar 5, 2014 08:05
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"Kobold army close to the town gates" sounds almost like you were playing Keep on the Shadowfell and ran into Irontooth. _That_ encounter was a PC-killer if ever there was one.
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Mar 5, 2014 13:48
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