|
Well I've been playing Disgaea a bunch lately. I think if the genesis of the idea can be attributed to any one thing, it's that. I do use inherent bonuses, just thought it might be nice to be able to get +2 stuff before the +2 inherent bonus kicks in, but then, that's just the regular item treadmill, isn't it. And as a venue to interact with the setting... nothing really keeps me from writing a blurb about a fire spirit on the item handouts but not attaching a huge subsystem to it.
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 12:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 17:50 |
|
|
Give Mitch an alignment and a goal. Then see what your player does. I'm not a fan of ample numbers of intelligent items though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 13:34
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Well I've been playing Disgaea a bunch lately. I think if the genesis of the idea can be attributed to any one thing, it's that. Maybe steal advances from 13th Age?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 18:05
|
|
|
So WotC has put most of the D&D Encounters Seasons up to their pdf store. Does anyone have some recollections of them? Which ones were particularly memorable? Or at least playable?
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 19:51
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:So WotC has put most of the D&D Encounters Seasons up to their pdf store. If you were intent on getting any, I would honestly only start with maybe last season's or this season's, because they're open-ended and there's lots of different things to do. Normally, Encounters is "Go here, there's a dull social interaction/horribly handled skill challenge, this encounter happens, end of game week." They are D&D starter kits, not serious material. That all changed with Murder in Baldur's Gate, when suddenly players get serious choices as to where they go and what they do when they get there. I still didn't like Murder in Baldur's Gate for other reasons (notably a lack of dungeons or dragons and a bunch of terrible Forgotten Realms-style untouchable NPCs). My Legacy of the Crystal shard game was insanely off the rails so I honestly can't give you a good impression of how that would normally handle. Scourge of the Sword Coast has been OK. All other Encounters books are "baby's first D&D."
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 20:01
|
|
|
Thanks for the input, I'm chiefly interested in how the 4e era Encounters fared. I don't really mind the babby's first D&D thing (in fact, beginner-friendly adventures would be a plus). If they have some memorable fights, interesting regions to visit (underwater, Feywild, whatever) and a few minutes of exposition worth of good backstory I'm good, railroading be damned. Mostly I'm just after some good adventures from the 4e crop, I guess. Hard to accept that all the good stuff has already been listed in the op. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 20:24
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:Thanks for the input, I'm chiefly interested in how the 4e era Encounters fared. (All Encounters are 4E... Even Baldur's Gate-onward. BG and the like include rules for 3E, 4E, and 5E setups in web pdfs). A reasonably experienced DM could out-design a pre-Baldur's Gate D&D encounter night with an hour of prep time and an Insider account, and as a DM, I was often tempted to. I am not kidding when I say they were on rails--they held your hand throughout. There were also often balance issues with the combat (too hard, too easy, monsters rushing the group and pushing players off the map back through the entryway), and the out-of-combat sections were severely half-assed filler. More than anything else, Encounters reinforced the idea that 4E was video game babby poo poo. You read some descriptive text aloud, you go through the motions with an NPC plot hook, you have a fight. Also, part of the draw of Encounters was that you got the maps, which, while not fantastic, save you encounter prep time. You wouldn't get that on PDF, I don't think. To tell the truth I am not a big advocate of modules, but if I were to recommend any that I've dealt with, it would be along the lines of the three latest Encounters seasons. You might also try a "low prep time" solution that allows you to build around it, like Dungeon Delve, which is going for very cheap on Amazon right now.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 20:44
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:If they have some memorable fights, interesting regions to visit (underwater, Feywild, whatever) and a few minutes of exposition worth of good backstory I'm good, railroading be damned.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 20:48
|
|
|
Okay, thanks, that's too bad. I'm considering MiBG, but I was led to believe that it's more of a loose, free-form scenario that does not really play into 4e's strengths (i.e. a tactical, more balanced combat system for challenging, cinematic encounters). For city intrigue, I might as well ditch D&D and play the scenario in a system better suited for improv, investigation and social challenges. Or better yet, port some old adventure to 4e and get on with the crunchy dungeon crawls. Speaking of which, a couple of adventures in the Dungeon Crawl Classics line were made for 4e. How fantastic/terrible were those? (Yeah, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for pre-made materials.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
My DM is running a 4E campaign and we haven't played in a long while. He's enforcing Essentials only, and I can't remember if the whole "expertise feat tax" thing is still an issue in Essentials. Anyone clear this up for me? Edit: Also, if using only Essentials, is there any way to make a semi-passable combination Leader/Defender? There are only 3 of us in the group and the others jumped on Striker and Controller...
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:15
|
|
GOONS ARE MEAN
|
sighnoceros posted:My DM is running a 4E campaign and we haven't played in a long while. He's enforcing Essentials only, and I can't remember if the whole "expertise feat tax" thing is still an issue in Essentials. Anyone clear this up for me? Essentials is fine for building a leader but I wish DMs wouldn't do this. "Essentials is more simplistic and easier" is a total myth, all you get from Essentials is a boring power selection. You could make a warpriest or a skald fairly easily.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:27
|
|
|
Besides, you don't want a leader/defender hybrid, you just want a leader. A Warpriest can do a bit of off-defending if built right though. Essentials still needs feat taxes, but at least the essentials expertise feats all do something in addition to 1/2/3 to hit. But yeah, limiting to just essentials is kind of gonna get boring.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:34
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:(All Encounters are 4E... Even Baldur's Gate-onward. BG and the like include rules for 3E, 4E, and 5E setups in web pdfs).
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:36
|
|
|
MadScientistWorking posted:I wouldn't use Baldur's Gate and onward encounter design as to paraphrase the chat thread when I mentioned one of the encounter design the general feeling was,"What rear end in a top hat of a DM runs your games?" I'm a little confused by how you parsed this. I don't have any actual DM experience with post-MiBG, technically, because even though I ran Legacy of the Crystal Shard, it went badly off-script in the first session and never recovered. When we did MiBG we did it in 5E, and the less said about that, the better. AND, I think our DM is largely inventing his own encounters for Scourge of the Sword Coast. So, no, I wouldn't really know about the new encounter design. That being said, these are the first three Encounters seasons that have involved real modules, frankly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
Yeah I'm not sure why he insists on it either. Oh well. So you would recommend a Leader instead of Defender as a more necessary role? I'm trying to decide between a Warpriest and Knight.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:54
|
|
|
Yes, leader is by far the more necessary role. Without one, you'll have no access to surges during combat without spending standard actions (or healing potions for < surge value), which means combats will wind up on a knife edge; if someone goes down you choose between keeping yourself up by killing the enemy, or getting them back up. D&D doesn't work that well with 3, either. Suggested party size is usually 5.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Yes, leader is by far the more necessary role. Without one, you'll have no access to surges during combat without spending standard actions (or healing potions for < surge value), which means combats will wind up on a knife edge; if someone goes down you choose between keeping yourself up by killing the enemy, or getting them back up. There are plenty of defender powers that allow you to spend healing surges. I'd say defender is more necessary of the two roles. Edit: At least, this was my experience playing regular 4e. Gort fucked around with this message at 10:06 on May 1, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 08:41
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I'm a little confused by how you parsed this.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 11:13
|
|
|
Gort posted:There are plenty of defender powers that allow you to spend healing surges. I'd say defender is more necessary of the two roles. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case if you strip out everything but Essentials, which basically leaves you with very few choices for customization in each of your classes. Going with a dwarven Sun Warpriest.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 16:16
|
|
|
Gort posted:There are plenty of defender powers that allow you to spend healing surges. I'd say defender is more necessary of the two roles. Definitely not mine. Without surge access for others on an encounter basis, you really struggle. It's not impossible to build a defender as an off-leader, but it's not easy. I've played in Defenderless parties and in Leaderless parties, and the latter is a LOT easier.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 19:53
|
|
|
Three players can work pretty easily like so: -Very tanky defender -Leader who deals a lot of damage -Any striker I ran a group like this and they did very, very well. It's the controller you don't need (the number of monsters you're facing will be small, too).
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 19:55
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Definitely not mine. Yeah, when I was new to the game I tried to play a game once as the tank+healer (PHB Paladin) and.. yeah. OneThousandMonkeys posted:It's the controller you don't need (the number of monsters you're facing will be small, too). Comes down to DMing/encounter building; basically, IMHO don't throw ranged+immobilized at the party if they can't do ranged attacks, and don't use a lot of minions without a controller.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Yeah controller is probably the least essential role. Many classes have ways of dealing AoE damage for minion clearance, a defender is essentially a melee controller in many ways, and some strikers like rogues and monks and warlocks can do respectable lockdown. Meanwhile it's hard to replicate marking and incredibly hard to replicate the power of granted surges. Really if wizards didn't have such absurd dailies I don't think there'd be any argument for having more than one in a party.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:31
|
|
|
What do I do with a group that's 2 strikers and 2 controllers? Encounter wise they seem to get a bit screwed by everything. Should I just murder one and force a new character?
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:33
|
|
|
A pile of minions backed up by a leader-class monster, maybe a Skirmisher or Artillery type, sounds about right -- Controllers get to clear out/disable masses of minions, strikers get to go shankadelic on the leaders. I'd tune down the average damage a notch to account for the lack of Leaders, maybe have some environmental healing effects if your game's fiction supports it. The answer to a table problem is almost never 'murder someone's PC'. In this case, encounter composition is pretty drat tunable in 4E, so tune. Alternately, talk to people and see if you can talk someone into switching, or sweeten the pot by saying 'if someone wants to multiclass Leader, I won't even charge you a feat slot', then you've got at least 1 daily heal. Speaking of multiclassing, does anyone else think multiclassing is insanely feat-intensive, given how high Heroic feat taxes are already? I've considered making all the power-swap feats free -- you only pay a feat slot for the initial multi, then you get a slotless feat at 4,6, and 8, and you can take the swaps of encounter attack/utility/daily attack in any order you like (because gently caress waiting till level 10 to swap a daily). Does that break anything, do you think? Even with this houserule in, nobody in my Eberron game is going for multiclassing.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
Cerepol posted:What do I do with a group that's 2 strikers and 2 controllers? Encounter wise they seem to get a bit screwed by everything. Should I just murder one and force a new character? Echoing "don't murder the PC's", but thankfully every power source has a leader and defender class. Maybe you can convince one if the controllers (both to be honest) to transition into the leader and defender roles respectively, If you find it too difficult to tune the encounters for a leaderless, defenderless party.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
Cerepol posted:What do I do with a group that's 2 strikers and 2 controllers? Encounter wise they seem to get a bit screwed by everything. Should I just murder one and force a new character? Make every encounter a sea of minions surrounding an elite, and pull every punch you can think of.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 21:04
|
|
|
Cerepol posted:What do I do with a group that's 2 strikers and 2 controllers? Encounter wise they seem to get a bit screwed by everything. Should I just murder one and force a new character? Talk to the players about one or more of them changing class, and/or add a leader companion character.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 21:33
|
|
|
AXE COP posted:Really if wizards didn't have such absurd dailies I don't think there'd be any argument for having more than one in a party. Agree. I pretty consistently have been in parties without a controller, and specifically without a Wizard; the only guy I've seen play one is a grog whose last character was a Cleric, so I'm not entirely convinced he knows that classes beyond the "4 core" are actually good/do exist. e: thespaceinvader posted:Talk to the players about one or more of them changing class, and/or add a leader companion character. Or just tack the basic leader mechanic onto an existing character. Minor Action, Close Burst 5, surge+1d6/5lvls+mod, 2-3-4/encounter ...or something along those lines. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 21:40 on May 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
Cerepol posted:2 strikers and 2 controllers That usually happens when people are just interested in the name of the class and don't care about the fact that, for example, an avenger is more or less a striker paladin, fluff-wise. Just talk to them and see if they can switch to a class with the same power source, but different role.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 21:54
|
|
|
Rexides posted:That usually happens when people are just interested in the name of the class and don't care about the fact that, for example, an avenger is more or less a striker paladin, fluff-wise. Just talk to them and see if they can switch to a class with the same power source, but different role. We had a new-to-4e guy once who was like "I wanna play a scummy/sneaky Cleric" and we were like "Do you care about healing? If no, you're an Avenger."
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 22:26
|
|
|
Paladins do defending/off-leading fairly well, and bards can do leading/off-controller well, or even almost full-time controller if you MC wizard and then go into Resourceful Magician so you can poach wizard powers. Then roll a tiefling, pick up Royal Command of Asmodeus in epic level and spend most of the encounter laughing maniacally as you literally dominate every monster on the board.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 22:32
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:We had a new-to-4e guy once who was like "I wanna play a scummy/sneaky Cleric" and we were like "Do you care about healing? If no, you're an Avenger." OR he can play a blackguard. OR he can play paladin, which feature support for scummy gods and their scummy followers, and as far as I can tell are better than blackguards.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 22:33
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Or just tack the basic leader mechanic onto an existing character. That too. All you really need is the smoothing effect on encounters of having during-encounter surge access on an encounter basis without someone needing to disengage from combat (ideally also boosted, or your adventuring day is sharply limited in length). The problem with most non-leader-class options is that they tend to be either limited per day, need to be melee touch range, or both. FWIW Blackguards can make benchmarks by charging, and are practically built for Frostcheese, but they're a: never gonna be sneaky, and b: not very flexible in terms of potential. They do what they do perfectly acceptably, but without access to multi-attacks they're never gonna be *good*.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 22:47
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:OR he can play a blackguard. OR he can play paladin, which feature support for scummy gods and their scummy followers, and as far as I can tell are better than blackguards. Secret Option C) Paladin with Gray Guard paragon path  ...actually there are better options but I'm having fun with it in our particular campaign.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 22:50
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Secret Option C) Paladin with Gray Guard paragon path Yeah I am playing a gray guard who puts everything into damage instead of healing. He does... A lot of damage, but blows dailies left and right.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:11
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Yeah I am playing a gray guard who puts everything into damage instead of healing. He does... A lot of damage, but blows dailies left and right. We're running a "skills are important" campaign, so my Gray Guard is a STR|WIS Deva build for charge-spamming, but we've mostly been fighting solo dragons for the past like... 4 sessions, so YMMV. DP has some nice combos in there with marking/channel divinity/ardent vow, but I feel like you have to trade some of that down for bursts IMHO if you're ever expecting to fight minions. I crit 4 times last fight and everyone was like 
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:19
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:We're running a "skills are important" campaign, so my Gray Guard is a STR|WIS Deva build for charge-spamming, but we've mostly been fighting solo dragons for the past like... 4 sessions, so YMMV. I'm a paladin of Tempus, so I took an executioner axe, Righteous Rage of Tempus (this is incredible), and a full charge kit. This creates a pretty massive nova. All the DPR is front-loaded on Ardent Vows. It's fun but you have to juggle damage bonuses round-by-round. I can post him later if you want.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I can post him later if you want. Yeah, for sure. I'm a lazy poo poo when it comes to charop, so I went with a trusty olde greataxe. I might have added things wrong, but when I crit on my Inevitable Strike, (at level 16) it did like 106 damage. (This is probably pitiful but for my table it was utter insanity) The wizard crit for 32 and we had a good laugh about it.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 17:50 |
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Righteous Rage of Tempus high roller
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 23:49
|
|