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Yeah, don't use random loot, use wishlists. Bear in mind that the players are not the characters and vice versa. What the player wants to make his mechanics fun and what the character wants aren't the same thing. And again, don't be afraid to refluff. Just because it says 'frost weapon' doesn't mean it isn't something the PC is doing - and conversely, just because it says 'grandmaster training' doesn't mean it's not a posh new sword.
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Apr 20, 2014 09:44
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The thing I prefer to do, which minimizes your work but may not be what you want to do, is boil down the treasure parcels to their pure gold amount. Split the gold evenly among the players, and let them buy whatever they want. Well, within reason, as a DM, you can restrict or ban whatever, like artifacts or boons. In-game, fluff it however you want, like them finding it in a dungeon or whatever. Less work for you, more agency mechanically for the players. Win-win, I think.
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Apr 20, 2014 09:52
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Incidentally, I worked out the average monetary value of parcels you get for level 1, hopefully correctly. For five characters you're supposed to get 700 GP and 4 items, for three it's only 375 GP and 2-3 items. Gems and art objects majorly skew each individual parcel's value, of course. e: for reference the theoretical max amount is 5700 GP but I'm pretty sure you have a better chance of finding gold and gems when you go outside and kill an actual wolf. I definitely agree with the wishlists, too. I fill my random lists exclusively from those. Not sure yet what I'll do if I ever roll up an item and there's no wishlist entry for that level. Either give them the cash value or one of my own choosing, I guess. Although it has to be said, I'm watching what my players do, and even when they only get items of their own choosing they hardly ever use them. Item powers are the first thing that gets forgotten about in my group. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 10:16
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What do you guys use for map generation. I've been looking into things like openRealm and maptools but they seem impenetrable any suggestions for either way to use things or good tutorials?
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Apr 20, 2014 11:10
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The other thing to consider might be to use the LFR treasure system - basically, one uncommon item per PC per level, no alternate rewards (boons etc) no rare items, common items are purchasable. Works pretty well.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:25
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Lots of good advice, thanks! I kinda had a hunch that the fixed enhancement rules shouldn't actually affect the random generation, seeing as it was made specifically with the parcel system in mind. I've been running 4E for a while and have always used wishlists and parcels before, so that's no stranger to me. This particular group likes random loot rolls though, and I was always kind of itching to try out the randomizer since I saw it in the Rules Compendium. I felt that Dark Sun would probably fit best with it (Lower magic, things are sparse within reason, etc). I had absolutely no intention of giving them nothing for treasure, of course, just found it surprising that it was THAT hard to actually roll some with penalties in play. Good to know that the way to handle it really IS the common sense thing of just re-rolling until you get an appropriate amount of parcels. I still intend to do some wish list type activity since it's still entirely up to the game master (Me) WHICH magic items get plopped into those slots when they pop up positive and junk items are a waste of everyone's time. I also actually tested the generation method yesterday and found that it's much simpler and balanced (Not to mention faster) if you ignore any penalties or bonuses to the roll lower/higher than -2/+2. Any lower and you run into my situation where you're rolling fifty thousand times just to get a few silver pieces and any higher than +2 you get insane amounts of drops all the time. So, if you have a standard 5 man party, don't add or subtract anything to the roll; less than 5, a simple -2 will suffice, and any higher than 5 just add +2. Doing this net me a nice, well rounded 7 parcel setup without a single need to re-roll anything, composed of two magic items of Level 2 (Common) and Level 3 (Uncommon) as well as around 400 GP worth of monetary treasure.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:15
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That's an entirely reasonable sum and as bang on the average as you're going to get. I wouldn't so much say "reroll until appropriate" as "reroll until there's something." I like random loot with wishlists because it frequently inspires my adventure design. For our next session the rolls came up with three different pairs of magic gloves and that's where the idea for the six-armed assassin training robot came from. And prepping for another session, what I'd written down as "two bandits" turned into a flashy swashbuckler who used Monkey Island-style insult swordfighting and his sinister second-in-command who resented his boss, all because I rolled a songblade and a rod for loot.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:32
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I don't even use wishlists. I use inherent bonuses plus "ooh this is cool." It makes item optimization tough - no full charge kits, for example - but my players were still destroying everything around their level in my Dark Sun game.
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Apr 21, 2014 12:57
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I haven't bothered with wish lists since we're all new to 4E and nobody knows what they want. I mean, I even gave the artifcaer a pile of residuum, aka "turn this into whatever you want" four levels ago and he's till sitting on it. I think inherent bonuses help out with this stuff for the campaign. Nobody is really worried about items past one or two they've picked up that are very distinctive and cool to them.
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Apr 21, 2014 22:18
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So, does anyone know if there are any good rules, homebrewed or otherwise, for firearms for 4e? I'm looking for some rules for old-style muskets.
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Apr 22, 2014 14:45
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SunAndSpring posted:So, does anyone know if there are any good rules, homebrewed or otherwise, for firearms for 4e? I'm looking for some rules for old-style muskets.
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Apr 22, 2014 15:29
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Easiest is just to use crossbows. If you want old-fashion slow reloads, there's not really all that much you can give the muskets to make it worth spending your turn reloading them, unless you want to make it a theme/magic item with an encounter power attack and price accordingly.
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Apr 22, 2014 15:40
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I'm lucky in that my players have no patience to go magic-item shopping, so I can just hand them whatever I think would be sweet and some pocket change for expendables and they're happy. I think I've had one player want to swap an armour I hastily picked out of the PHB at the end of a session for one they would rather have had, and that's in about thirty-eight levels of playing.
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Apr 22, 2014 18:41
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My players also also pretty bad at choosing magic items, so I'll just give them inherent bonuses, gimmicky wondrous items, ritual scrolls and grandmaster training/divine boons/whatever because they tie in better with the narrative.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:27
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I mean, that's my ideal way to handle magic items, but my players really wanted them to play a bigger role. And now they're not using them so I dunno.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:53
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My Lovely Horse posted:I mean, that's my ideal way to handle magic items, but my players really wanted them to play a bigger role. Players are evil and must be punished. But seriously, they never know what they want because chances are the amount of time they spend thinking about the campaign is approximately 0. Which can be pretty frustrating as a DM.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:56
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I like to go Zelda with it and have themed dungeons which key into the more gimmicky magic items. One dungeon was a haunted lighthouse and featured enemies that got stronger in darkness. The cleric had recently received an item which generated light and boosted one of her at-wills, but the rogue was using shadowdance armour - so there were some interesting tactical considerations for the team to get their teeth into.
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Apr 22, 2014 20:36
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Okay, I had a brainflash while thinking about hydras, as one does, and am redesigning my assassin training 'bot fight. How about this: Its body and six hands are separate creatures. Body has 80 HP, each hand has 20 HP and regeneration 5. Whenever the body takes damage, one of the hands takes the damage instead, unless it's damage from an Assassin Shroud attack. Effects and conditions still go on the body, and once the body is at 0 HP, fight's over. Attacks go the usual hydra way: one for each hand it has, with damage bonuses once it has only 2/1 left. Hands don't grow back though, what's gone is gone. They can beat it the slow way and it should be managable, if difficult, but they can also shortcut the whole thing by cleverly using the assassin without everything hinging on him. And plus, it teaches the valuable lesson to fledgling assassins that you always focus on your target and set up distractions for its defenses. Only thing I'm a bit uneasy about are the actual HP values since it's a striker-heavy party and they might end up one-shotting the hands without even meaning to. But so far, does that sound like it would work better? e: one single area attack is just gonna wreck this thing's poo poo, isn't it? Back to the drawing board. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 20:51
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I think regardless of how you do treasure you should consider throwing in random "hey that looks cool" or randomly generated loot. Even though players definitely want stuff that fits into their build and you absolutely should make sure they can get the stuff that makes their character work, random goodies they didn't know they wanted are fun.
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Apr 22, 2014 21:19
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What in the opinion of the thread is the easiest class for a new player to learn that has the most return?
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Apr 28, 2014 18:36
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:What in the opinion of the thread is the easiest class for a new player to learn that has the most return? Joke Answer: Vampire Serious Answer: Probably either one of the essentials class or one of the PHB1 classes. Depends on what they want to play. Although I can't really talk, I guess. My first class was a wizard.
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Apr 28, 2014 18:43
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Ranger is really good
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Apr 28, 2014 18:47
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Thief or slayer, probably, but as long as you start at level 1 I can't imagine a class overwhelming you. Picking a card to play from the five in front of you is not difficult, and you've already proven that you're willing to do some pre-game research, which puts you ahead of 90% of players I ever DMed for.
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Apr 28, 2014 18:57
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Gort posted:Thief or slayer, probably, but as long as you start at level 1 I can't imagine a class overwhelming you. Picking a card to play from the five in front of you is not difficult, and you've already proven that you're willing to do some pre-game research, which puts you ahead of 90% of players I ever DMed for. We might be starting at mid-paragon. I would be designing the whole character from the ground up, so it would be easy to pick up the options that have a good simplicity/reward tradeoff. She's played before but that was like 2008. I am thinking PHB ranger would be easy to play and be rewarding (really, most strikers).
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Apr 28, 2014 18:59
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:We might be starting at mid-paragon. I would be designing the whole character from the ground up, so it would be easy to pick up the options that have a good simplicity/reward tradeoff. She's played before but that was like 2008. I am thinking PHB ranger would be easy to play and be rewarding (really, most strikers). Don't start at mid-paragon if you can avoid it.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:44
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Horse: I think including an action point ability that lets the training dummy regrow its hands instead of taking an extra action might help out. If the fight is going poorly for the dummy it spends its APs regrowing hands, but if its going well for the dummy it can spend them to press its advantage. Monkeys: Try looking around for character builds, not so much for the build per se, but for the explanation of how the build works. Knowing your good combos ahead of time and knowing the situations to use your situational abilities in saves a lot of hemming and hawing at the table. Power choice and class features seem to be less of a problem for most players than tracking the zillion conditional feats and equipment choices that you might take. At-will and Encounter utility powers are a tiny bit better for novice players too since the player won't worry about wasting a daily on the "wrong" fight. EDIT: For feats, if you pick an essentials expertise feat, improved defenses, superior weapon/implement, that takes care of 3 out of your 8 or so feats and are good choices for nearly every character. If you go with a Slayer Toughness, Durability, Heavy Armor Agility, Improved Initiative, Resilient Focus, are all decent always on choices. At Paragon you could also look at: Armor Specialization, Fleet Footed, Danger Sense, Eyes in the Back of Your Head, and Luck of the Gods are also some decent always on feats. Depending on the characters primary weapon that will alter your choice of weapon based feats. If you are using character builder be sure to use the search feature when looking through feats, since there are SO MANY to page through. wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 19:45
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Feats and magic items are what my very own fantasy D&D 5e would concentrate on the most. Well, and faster combat.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:54
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wallawallawingwang posted:Horse: I think including an action point ability that lets the training dummy regrow its hands instead of taking an extra action might help out. If the fight is going poorly for the dummy it spends its APs regrowing hands, but if its going well for the dummy it can spend them to press its advantage. I can build a guy that requires very little stat-sheeting, although it's usually a rogue. Get CA (probably all the time), throw these dice, done. I mainly wanted to see if the thread had any ideas.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:02
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A friend of mine was trying to introduce his group to fourth edition and had me roll up one of each of the essentials classes. If memory serves all the strikers were pretty easy to pick up, but that was at level 1. Anything with a baked in damage bonus like the Hexblade, sorcerer, or slayer would probably be good since they don't have to worry about cursing/hunting/CA-ing things.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:19
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:We might be starting at mid-paragon. I would be designing the whole character from the ground up, so it would be easy to pick up the options that have a good simplicity/reward tradeoff. She's played before but that was like 2008. I am thinking PHB ranger would be easy to play and be rewarding (really, most strikers). Strikers are generally the simplest to play (you have one job, Do Damage), but please, please don't start mid-paragon. Trying to learn to play 4e is difficult enough, trying to do it when nearly all of the complexities possible in the game have happened, is ridiculous. Slayers are easy, but unless they've got some actual tactical options (i.e. power swaps for Fighter powers, some feats that give bennies with CA, an interesting weapon) they very quickly become deadly boring.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:31
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thespaceinvader posted:Strikers are generally the simplest to play (you have one job, Do Damage), but please, please don't start mid-paragon. Trying to learn to play 4e is difficult enough, trying to do it when nearly all of the complexities possible in the game have happened, is ridiculous. To add some clarity: She's there for exactly one week of the game, because she's traveling in. We are all sick of playing heroic and starting lower for a person who is going to be gone makes no sense.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:39
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What if you just make a character using the companion rules? Basically something like a reskinned monster? She will participate for like, what? Two sessions tops?
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Apr 28, 2014 20:49
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I can build a guy that requires very little stat-sheeting, although it's usually a rogue. Get CA (probably all the time), throw these dice, done. I mainly wanted to see if the thread had any ideas. Ohhhh, I thought you were asking for yourself! In that case, I'll buck trends a bit and suggest a caster of some sort. They take a bit more work in terms of character building, but during play they almost always have a lot less to worry about. Gimmie a bit and I'll post a build or two. EDIT: Wait, no, do what Rexides said.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:51
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Whatever you go for I'd strongly recommend making a custom character sheet / cheat sheet. Use it to list examples of when best to use certain powers, and simplify the descriptions / effects as much as possible. It's what I do for all my characters (bcos I'm dumb).
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Apr 28, 2014 21:04
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Rexides posted:What if you just make a character using the companion rules? Basically something like a reskinned monster? She will participate for like, what? Two sessions tops? Yep, this. Get some of the baseline striker DPR/nova calculations (basically, for mid paragon, does ~50 damage per at-will attack, can kill a standard with an AP round), and make a character that does that. gently caress chargen rules, just make one. Hell, if she's only there for a session, just get her to describe what she's doing and work it out pretty much entirely narratively, it'll probably liven up the game no end.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:04
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thespaceinvader posted:Yep, this. Get some of the baseline striker DPR/nova calculations (basically, for mid paragon, does ~50 damage per at-will attack, can kill a standard with an AP round), and make a character that does that. gently caress chargen rules, just make one. Hell, if she's only there for a session, just get her to describe what she's doing and work it out pretty much entirely narratively, it'll probably liven up the game no end. This is the best idea. If your group isn't particularly serious you could even make her into some sort of ridiculous Mary Sue Plot Character who dies in the last session she's around for.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:30
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Or the opposite, if the rest of the party likes the character so much that they want her to hang around after the player is gone, having it done by companion rules means that you don't add that much complexity to the table.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:33
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Blackguards are boring as gently caress tactically but I find their push-button hoop-jumping just interesting enough for a do-damage class. I had pretty good success giving a total newbie a charge-barian after I explained the strategy. Granted, this was in heroic.
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Apr 29, 2014 00:38
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wallawallawingwang posted:Horse: I think including an action point ability that lets the training dummy regrow its hands instead of taking an extra action might help out. If the fight is going poorly for the dummy it spends its APs regrowing hands, but if its going well for the dummy it can spend them to press its advantage. Meanwhile I had a new idea to make handling magic items more involved and flavorful, while at the same time unsure if that's even something I want for my game. I'd have every item explicitly connected to a spirit, and the stronger your connection to the spirit, the better the item is mechanically; so you find a +1 flaming sword that has Mitch the Fire Spirit bound to it, and when you're good buddies with Mitch or feed him enough residuum or whatever, your sword eventually becomes +2, +3 and so on. Only I'm not sure what kind of thing you should have to do to become good buddies with Mitch. I thought about just getting into a friendly fight with him as a test of worthiness but if everyone does that regularly for all their items we'll never see any plot happening ever again. Then I thought about buying residuum but I explicitly don't want 10,000 GP worth of residuum to be just a thing you pick up at the store or even find in a dungeon. Maybe you have to make an appropriate ritual sacrifice of valuable goods that costs you just about what it takes to upgrade the item, or maybe upgrades just start showing up on my random loot lists in whatever form seems appropriate at that point, or maybe, as I said, I'm using inherent bonuses anyway so file that idea under "nice idea, maybe some other game." e: basically it's just the artifact system but I'm also not about to track artifact relations for every individual item six characters lug around.
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Apr 29, 2014 10:50
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I usually roll my eyes at any custom magic item system that doesn't start with "characters get inherent bonuses by default, and now on top of that...", but that's just me. Generally I wouldn't bother with something like what you describe unless I specifically planned to make it a huge part of the plot, because of all the upkeep you mentioned. You could probably pokemon it and say that a character mainly interacts with one of his items (the weapon, probably), and the personality of the other items becomes relevant only when he uses some kind of defining property (daily, or some kind of triggered reaction). In any case I would probably try to divorce that interaction from mechanical benefits (see inherent bonuses), because it won't be just a magical item treadmill, it will be a magical item treadmill that talks back.
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Apr 29, 2014 11:24
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