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Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


sighnoceros posted:

Alright well apparently one of our players is dropping out, so now we have 3 people including the DM. We have another player who might be joining in a month or so, and obviously the ultimate goal would be to have more players, but does anyone have any ideas for handling a D&D campaign with very limited players?

If you still want to do 4E,

-All the math tax feats (Expertise, Improved Defenses, Melee Training)--should probably be doing this anyway
-Hand out a free multiclass feat, in order to make sure every base is covered (mainly healing)
-Give everyone an extra skill training

The DM can also do things like give you, say, twice as many hit points, so nothing hurts as much (don't have monsters do half damage, as that means you can easily block all damage with the right powers). You can also consider increasing damage, but one-shotting monsters with a striker is going to get old.

The DM should also be less stingy about allowing extended rests.

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Orange DeviI
Nov 9, 2011

by Hand Knit
Extra uses of encounter skills or give em scrolls of skills, like the CLW scrolls of old

ArkInBlack
Mar 22, 2013

sighnoceros posted:

Alright well apparently one of our players is dropping out, so now we have 3 people including the DM. We have another player who might be joining in a month or so, and obviously the ultimate goal would be to have more players, but does anyone have any ideas for handling a D&D campaign with very limited players?

In addition to OTM's suggestion, toss in a companion or two, I think DM2 details how to make them. Especially if the party has no leader with the fourth leaving, leaders are important to having healing worth a poo poo in combat.

Rexides
Jul 25, 2011

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

You can also consider increasing damage, but one-shotting monsters with a striker is going to get old.

I agree with that. I tried it myself (I actually halved monster HP), and everything became too swingy. Either the player would miss and basically guaranteed the monster to survive for another round, or hit and pretty much one shot it. Keeping the damage normal might seem like it will slow combat down, and it will, but players won't feel it since their turns will come up twice as fast than when playing with a full party.

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost

ArkInBlack posted:

In addition to OTM's suggestion, toss in a companion or two, I think DM2 details how to make them. Especially if the party has no leader with the fourth leaving, leaders are important to having healing worth a poo poo in combat.
I'd vote this. Give each player a companion character that they can control to be their sidekick/squire. That'll keep your complexity down, but also let your party stay a little more well rounded.

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea
Two players would actually make running combat very simple. An encounter could be a single elite on its own, for instance.

sighnoceros
Mar 11, 2007
:qq: GOONS ARE MEAN :qq:
Yeah the goal though is to be able to have tactically interesting combats with varying combatants. So I was looking for some ideas other than "make all the enemies minions" to be able to have interesting scenarios. I'm not the DM but we're good friends and frequently discuss DMing so I have a few different suggestions to take to him from here and from the DMG2:

larger groups of weaker monsters (minions, lower level enemies, monsters that don't hit hard)
add simple companions for players to run
give players extra feats for math fixing, free multiclassing to cover missing roles, extra skill(s)
double hp for PCs
extra uses of encounter powers, allow extended rest more liberally

Regarding multiclassing, how do the hybrid class rules in 4e shake out? I have a bad taste in my mouth from "non-multiclass multiclassing" after 3e's Gestalt characters so I think I just discounted them completely in this version. Are they any good? Worth considering?

palecur
Nov 3, 2002

not too simple and not too kind
Fallen Rib
4E Hybrids open up some pretty interesting customization design space, but it's also considered pretty much the only easy way to accidentally make a really subpar character. If you're reasonably careful and have a halfway decent grasp of what works in 4E and what doesn't you can do well with hybrids, but I wouldn't make it my first character if you're newer to the system.

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost

sighnoceros posted:

Regarding multiclassing, how do the hybrid class rules in 4e shake out? I have a bad taste in my mouth from "non-multiclass multiclassing" after 3e's Gestalt characters so I think I just discounted them completely in this version. Are they any good? Worth considering?
Hybrid characters are basically a minefield of traps, but you can make some pretty good characters if you know exactly what you're doing. Generally you're looking to use one half of the character to boost the other half though (like adding Executioner to a class that does basic attacks to get the extra damage feature), so it's not really a Gestalt kind of deal.

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


palecur posted:

4E Hybrids open up some pretty interesting customization design space, but it's also considered pretty much the only easy way to accidentally make a really subpar character. If you're reasonably careful and have a halfway decent grasp of what works in 4E and what doesn't you can do well with hybrids, but I wouldn't make it my first character if you're newer to the system.

Hybrids aren't really "cover-all-my-bases" characters, they're characters that, when built with solid system mastery, exploit one area of the game's design to the maximum possible advantage.

Knucklebear
Apr 19, 2005
Thanks for the advice! Capture will probably work out best in this case.

In other news, i'm realizing that I don't have the time to create my own campaign which I've been doing so far. Can you recommend some good modules for parties around 3rd or 4th level?

cbservo
Dec 26, 2009

by exmarx

ImpactVector posted:

Since you're explicitly doing a side quest thing and this is your first time DMing, you'll probably have pretty easy buy-in for your premise. I wouldn't worry too much about them going off the rails. And I really like the twist you've added in. It sounds like a great plan.

Insider makes building the encounters super easy. Just reskin like a madman.

First though, ask your DM how he's been tuning the encounters so far. Does he need to hit the high end of a Hard encounter with level +2-3 monsters just to make you guys break a sweat? Or are Normal encounters still a good challenge/warmup?

For the first encounter, look through the Monster Vault, MV: Nentir Veil, and MM3 monsters for a few elites with "witch-y" powers in the 9-13 range. It looks like there are actually quite a few good ones in Nentir Veil. For some variety though, don't be afraid to pick out a melee monster for one of them as well. Maybe one of the witches really likes her obsidian sacrificial knives.

If three elite monsters isn't looking hard enough based on what your regular DM says (it should come out to be roughly a Normal encouter for 6 players), don't be afraid to throw in a pet Manticore or something. Or even a 4th elite. A Charnel Otyugh would make sense in a swamp.

For the boss encounter, for a really memorable fight, maybe have the witch transform halfway through into something really nasty. Maybe she starts off as a reskinned Beholder, hovering a few feet above the swamp and shooting beams everywhere. Then when she gets bloodied, she could transform into a Flamekiss Hydra or the dragon Vestapalk (don't forget to use the Bloodied Breath attack as part of the transformation sequence). Feel free to add a pet for her too if you think she might need it.

Lastly, pick out a few minions to sprinkle in if things are looking too easy. Maybe one of the three has some dryad blood and some tree minions start popping in. Or the boss witch could call up the spirits of the dead witches (and anything else that had been killed in the area) to fight for her.

Thanks so much for the advice! I've found a nice blend of witches to use( Reskinned Blood, Frost, and Malachi's shade witch) as well as the Charnel Otyugh for the first encounter, and then I'm reskinning and modiying an Elesdri that will open up a can of Vestapak when it gets bloodied. One question- when Elesdri gets bloodied and becomes her dragon form, :should she keep her bloodied HP total from her first form, or does she get HP equal to a bloodied Vestapack? or is that something I should decide depending on how the encounter is going?

Now the hard part is over, now to make notes and build the rest of the drat quest.

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost
Happy to help! Hope it all works out for you.

cbservo posted:

One question- when Elesdri gets bloodied and becomes her dragon form, :should she keep her bloodied HP total from her first form, or does she get HP equal to a bloodied Vestapack? or is that something I should decide depending on how the encounter is going?
I'd decide that based on how it's going, yeah. Solo fights can be hard to gauge ahead of time, and it often depends on how many hard control effects the party has access to. I suspect with 6 players vs just the one solo (which would end up right in the middle of a Normal fight if you effectively just had the one) you're more than likely going to want to bring the dragon in at full health (and in that case you wouldn't Bloodied Breath right away, obviously).

Even then, there's a decent chance the first fight is actually going to end up being the more difficult of the two.

Though if they're having a tougher fight and you do end up bringing the dragon in damaged, I'd probably bring it in at its own bloodied value, yeah, since he has a lot more HP than she does.

ImpactVector fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 6, 2014

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
I'm bad at reading Dragon magazines, so a question: Did 4e ever come out with any rules for investing in businesses, stronghold building and ownership, et cetera? This is going to come up in one of my games soon and I'm just wondering if there was anything relating to it in 4e material before I go ahead and work out something with Pathfinder/3.5 rules.

Jade Mage
Jan 4, 2013

This is Canada. It snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three.

I don't remember any mention of it in any detail in 4e, maybe some mention in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium. If you're gonna go look at Pathfinder stuff, the place to start would be Ultimate Campaign, I understand it has a bunch of downtime rules.

Auralsaurus Flex
Aug 3, 2012
There are prices and descriptions for several buildings in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium and Adventurer's Vault 2 has some Wondrous Lair Items so you can film an episode of MTV's Cribs after you've pimped out your party's headquarters, but there aren't any real mechanics for how they (the buildings, not the wondrous items) function or anything like that, nor are there any rules for investing as far as I'm aware.

LightWarden
Mar 18, 2007

Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!
There was a tiny amount on organizations in the DMG2, but nothing really like what you were looking for. Mordenkainen's Magical Emporium has some stuff on hirelings, trade goods and miscellaneous things characters might buy, but nothing involving businesses themselves. The 3.5e DMG 2 has rules for running businesses starting on page 180. Similarly, Pathfinder uses a downtime system where player characters can run their own business and the like. Dragon Magazine had various feature articles on things like ships and the like, but I don't think that businesses were among them.

Basic problem with these systems is that the rate of return is hilariously low after level 5 or so since your income scales linearly with your check result but your wealth by level goes up much faster, so you're sitting around for months before you see anything you can even start to care about at high levels. Pathfinder's investments are a bit better since it's a percentage return, but it still involves letting your money sit around for a year and it's still only a few percent barring a really low-odds chance of a great return.

d20 isn't exactly the greatest place to start, but what are you looking for in a business system?

Apple Mummy
Oct 11, 2012

Dragon 395 has an article about strongholds. It isn't mind-blowing, but it has rules for fleshing things out beyond 'Keep - 50,000GP'. Worth a look if you have a DDI subscription, at least.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Basically my players got their hands on some schematics for making a special good (water clocks) and want to open their own shop, complete with buying property, hirelings, etc. The game isn't turning into Business Simulator 2014 - we've established NPCs will be doing the day to day stuff, but I'm just looking for resources to punch up the mechanics of actually creating and funding the business, generate plot hooks, and perhaps most importantly tell me how to deal with profits. 4E keeps a really tight track on treasure (I'm using parcels over the randomness of the Essentials system) and since they're still in heroic tier, 300g in profits for this month could mess with things pretty badly. Or in converse, parcels make treasure tight enough that dropping a parcel of loot to instead use as their profits would make exploring feel really slim, especially since we're using inherent bonuses so they're already 2 parcels down a level.

Edit: I have access to the 3e and 4e DMG2, Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign, and Power of Faerun, so that's where i'll start if I can't find anything else.

Cerepol
Dec 2, 2011


What do you guys use for maps in your games? Currently using master plan to run my game using its awesome second screen function. However it makes me somewhat inflexible when they do random things that include battle yet I don't have a place ready. Basically looking for something that allows me to sketch something out quickly like graph paper or the old white on blue maps rather than something overly complicated or packed like maptools.


On the topic of my group being 2 strikers and 2 controllers in the interest of being open I speed to them about switching and whatnot but basically the response was if we for we'll reroll. So I'll try building better encounters but I likely won't pull any punches in terms of tactics. E.g. the skeletons will continue hacking first target till death unless their controller directs otherwise.

Also in terms of availability for items in cities. What should I do or be expecting. Can they purchase whatever they want?

ImpactVector
Feb 24, 2007

HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?

Nap Ghost

Cerepol posted:

What do you guys use for maps in your games? Currently using master plan to run my game using its awesome second screen function. However it makes me somewhat inflexible when they do random things that include battle yet I don't have a place ready. Basically looking for something that allows me to sketch something out quickly like graph paper or the old white on blue maps rather than something overly complicated or packed like maptools.
I use one of these and some wet-erase markers. It makes it easy to sketch something out (or even have the players do it themselves).

Cerepol posted:

Also in terms of availability for items in cities. What should I do or be expecting. Can they purchase whatever they want?
That's entirely up to you, especially if you're using Inherent Bonuses. If not, at a bare minimum you should probably allow for them to fill in the gaps of any of the "big 3" they're missing (armor, weapons, neck). Otherwise their math can start to fall behind.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Cerepol posted:

What do you guys use for maps in your games? Currently using master plan to run my game using its awesome second screen function. However it makes me somewhat inflexible when they do random things that include battle yet I don't have a place ready. Basically looking for something that allows me to sketch something out quickly like graph paper or the old white on blue maps rather than something overly complicated or packed like maptools.
One of my players makes dungeon tiles as a hobby that are, for all intents and purposes, commercial-grade. Not the most globally applicable advice I do realize.

That being said, if you want to stay in Masterplan:
- keep your old maps around and reuse them. Crop a different section, rotate or flip the map, or just have the party start in another spot, and it'll feel a lot different right away. You might want to have a simple graphics program running while you play so you can make quick edits.
- make simple all-purpose dungeon tiles for Masterplan so you can quickly throw something together
- keep a big blank white map tile around for Masterplan, and sketch things out using the drawing mode. Depends on how handy you are drawing with the mouse. You could also prepare that image file with a grid and quickly sketch out stuff on it in the aforementioned graphics editor before you load it into Masterplan, that should at least allow you to automatically draw straight lines and geometric shapes.

quote:

Also in terms of availability for items in cities. What should I do or be expecting. Can they purchase whatever they want?
By official rules, only common items, I think. But it really is up to you and what you'd be comfortable with them having, theoretically, as many as they want of. Personally I restrict freely purchasable items to:
- Magic weapons/armor/neck slot items - no frills, just the enhancement bonus
- items that give a skill bonus
- items that give a bonus to basic stuff anyone can do: saving throws, opportunity attacks, Action Point goodies, that sort of thing.
- Potions of Healing, Resistance and Vigor, Elixirs of Fort/Ref/Will

Drake_263
Mar 31, 2010
I must have some hidden sadistic tendencies. I'm designing some lowbie encounters for my adventure - the basic idea for this segment is that the party's going to explore an abandoned silver mine, in search of silver dust to save a town from a plague. The complication is, of course, that the mines aren't occupied - case in point, there's a kobold tribe living in the upper mines. They've been infected by the plague, too, and to make things harder, a hive of kruthiks recently breached the mines - so the kobolds are now caught between kruthiks in the upper mines and zombies in the lower mines. Predictably, they've fortified the hell out of their domain - I'm going to scatter simple pitfall and rockslide traps into the encounters to drive the point home, and the crown jewel..

3 wasp swarms (rat swarm with flight speed, lv1 skirmisher, 100xp) = 300xp
1 rock slide trap (lv1 lurker trap, 100xp) = 100xp
2 false floor traps (lv1 Warder trap, 100xp) = 200xp
Total 600 xp (This is a lv1 encounter for a party of six, to tweak it down for 5 players remove one bee swarm)

The idea is that the party's exploring the mines, and happens into a slightly larger chamber, a crossroads of sorts. One of the forks from the tunnel leads upwards at a fairly smooth angle - this is the trapped tunnel. Tripping a hidden tripwire fires the trap - and sets off a bunch of rocks sliding down from the upper end of the tunnel, frontmost being an Indiana Jones-type big freaking boulder rolling at high speed at them. (Before the trap fires, a character may hear a faint humming noise from up ahead - and one making a good Spot check may notice something funny about the lead boulder, namely that the thing looks to be made out of paper mache..)

On impact (whether the wall at the larger room or a character who fails to run for it) the boulder bursts apart - and proves itself to be an obscenely big wasp hive. The wasps, predictably, are pissed to high hell and proceed to swarm the characters, while the aftereffects of the rockslide are still going on around them. The characters now have to contend with clouds of angry wasps, hampered by difficult terrain from the rockslide - and the fact that the kobolds of course have set a couple of pitfall traps in the room the characters are likely to flee back to..

Agent Boogeyman
Feb 17, 2005

"This cannot POSSIBLY be good. . ."

Arivia posted:

Basically my players got their hands on some schematics for making a special good (water clocks) and want to open their own shop, complete with buying property, hirelings, etc. The game isn't turning into Business Simulator 2014 - we've established NPCs will be doing the day to day stuff, but I'm just looking for resources to punch up the mechanics of actually creating and funding the business, generate plot hooks, and perhaps most importantly tell me how to deal with profits. 4E keeps a really tight track on treasure (I'm using parcels over the randomness of the Essentials system) and since they're still in heroic tier, 300g in profits for this month could mess with things pretty badly. Or in converse, parcels make treasure tight enough that dropping a parcel of loot to instead use as their profits would make exploring feel really slim, especially since we're using inherent bonuses so they're already 2 parcels down a level.

Edit: I have access to the 3e and 4e DMG2, Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign, and Power of Faerun, so that's where i'll start if I can't find anything else.

I personally love it when players wind up doing this sort of thing. How I would handle it in this case is, if you're using the standard parcel system, every experience level just reserve one of the monetary treasure rewards (Probably the one of lowest GP worth) and hand it out to them as their collective earnings for their business period. Basically, however long it takes the party to advance an experience level should be a good representation of the amount of time it'd take for their store to turn a reasonable profit. It would also be a good representation of how well their business is doing, since their profits would steadily increase.

For funsies, every now and then you could have them deal with a skill challenge over the course of a business period and maybe if they do well, they get a different parcel worth more or in addition to the parcel already reserved. Like, maybe say something goes wrong at the business and the players get a notice about it. They get a choice, either take a hands on approach or let their workforce handle it. If THEY decide to drop whatever they're doing to go help out at their own business, it's skill challenge time. If not, just award them the usual low end parcel at the end of their experience level. You could also make it a slow skill challenge in general, where it literally takes the entire experience level's worth of time to complete (This is a great way to pad extra exp and incorporate a really long, high end skill challenge into a campaign). They fail, they get the low end parcel you always reserve. They succeed? They get a higher parcel instead.

These are just in addition to any kind of cool plot ideas just owning the business in the first place generates on its own (Maybe they have to deal with pirates who stole a shipment! GASP! Or maybe smugglers are reselling your quality goods on the black market! OH NO!).

In general, when it comes to parcel handouts during an adventure, the things players really watch out for is the magic item handouts. Finding money is cool and all, but everyone LOVES finding Magic Items. So generally don't make one of the Magic Item slots into the "Business Earnings" parcel. Trust me, it won't feel sparse at all if you reserve the lowest GP worth parcel. Also, there's absolutely nothing saying you can't divide parcels into even more parcels. Like maybe they find half of a parcel in one room, then later find the other half somewhere else. Sometimes I even take the Magic Item slots, convert it to GP, then use that GP pool to replace it with an equivalent grouping of Magic Items worth the same amount. Like say, if there isn't a particularly interesting Level 3 Magic Item that you or your players want, but they DO have a Level 2 Magic Item they've been hankering for. Convert the Level 3 Magic Item parcel to pure GP, then replace it with that Level 2 Item in addition to whatever GP amount is left over. I also do this with the pure GP parcels sometimes since one or two of those could combine to make for an additional Magic Item handout. The parcel system is there just to make sure the players get the wealth they're expected to at any given level, and more specifically the Enhancement Bonuses necessary to survive. It doesn't necessarily have to be ten parcels exactly.

Rexides
Jul 25, 2011

Arivia posted:

Basically my players got their hands on some schematics for making a special good (water clocks) and want to open their own shop, complete with buying property, hirelings, etc. The game isn't turning into Business Simulator 2014 - we've established NPCs will be doing the day to day stuff, but I'm just looking for resources to punch up the mechanics of actually creating and funding the business, generate plot hooks, and perhaps most importantly tell me how to deal with profits. 4E keeps a really tight track on treasure (I'm using parcels over the randomness of the Essentials system) and since they're still in heroic tier, 300g in profits for this month could mess with things pretty badly. Or in converse, parcels make treasure tight enough that dropping a parcel of loot to instead use as their profits would make exploring feel really slim, especially since we're using inherent bonuses so they're already 2 parcels down a level.

Since you will be dealing with actual (fantasy) money, you should work with 4E's parceling system. First of all, I don't think the PC's should finance this themselves, because dropping a large amount of money up front will mess up with their adventuring needs. Have a wealthy NPC (or more) invest in their business, this way there is less risk for the PCs, and it could also provide some good hooks.

Once per level, they should get to run a group skill challenge (I'd make it a complex one) that represents running the business. Diplomacy, Bluff and Insight are obvious "Sales" skills. Streetwise and Intimidate could also help, if you can think if something. Arcana and Religion could probably help you find specialty clients. If they succeed at the skill challenge, they get XP for the challenge and a nice parcel (level+3?) representing their profits after the investor gets his cut. Since it's bad to not have anything happen when they fail, maybe the investor get's angry at them and tells them to perform a favor for him.

Maybe you could even build an entire "adventure" around this if the players need to level up before they can tackle the next adventure. Start with a couple skill challenges about organizing the business and trying to find customers. This might attract the attention of the local thieve's guild who might want some protection money, which can lead to a couple combat encounters to spice things up. Maybe later they will be invited to the house of a local lord who wants to see the invention in action, but when they get there they find out that someone else claims that they stole his own invention. For the finale, have them investigate the competitor and maybe drive him out of business by proving that he is a fraud. Then award an entire adventures worth of money at the end, signifying a successful business venture.

e:just ten minutes late

Apple Mummy
Oct 11, 2012

My players are going to be participate in a trial by combat, but a third party wants one of the accused to survive. I'm sure they'll think of something, but just in case is there some type of item/ritual that can be used to fake a death, either theirs or their victm's?

Orange DeviI
Nov 9, 2011

by Hand Knit
'illusion magic'

Agent Boogeyman
Feb 17, 2005

"This cannot POSSIBLY be good. . ."

Rexides posted:


Maybe you could even build an entire "adventure" around this if the players need to level up before they can tackle the next adventure. Start with a couple skill challenges about organizing the business and trying to find customers. This might attract the attention of the local thieve's guild who might want some protection money, which can lead to a couple combat encounters to spice things up. Maybe later they will be invited to the house of a local lord who wants to see the invention in action, but when they get there they find out that someone else claims that they stole his own invention. For the finale, have them investigate the competitor and maybe drive him out of business by proving that he is a fraud. Then award an entire adventures worth of money at the end, signifying a successful business venture.

e:just ten minutes late

Haha, that last one is great, and a fantastic way to possibly tie in any over-arcing plot already going on in the campaign with such a little side venture. Like maybe the Lord who invites them to his house is the evil guy the PCs are trying to stop in the long run, or maybe the inventor who claims fraud is! I actually did something similar in the very first game of 4E I ever ran. The players picked up on clues I had been dropping that one of the Noblemen they were working for was trying to woo one of the other Noblewomen of the court. So they decided to play matchmaker and sent flowers and gifts on their employers behalf without him knowing about it. I had planned for their employer to be in rather big trouble, but because of their little cupid side quest, the noblewoman (Who, unknown to the players at the time, happened to have connections with the bad guys) called in some favors to save the day because she was smitten by him and wanted to return the favor for all those lovely gifts she thought he had been giving on his own behalf.

is that good
Apr 14, 2012

Apple Mummy posted:

My players are going to be participate in a trial by combat, but a third party wants one of the accused to survive. I'm sure they'll think of something, but just in case is there some type of item/ritual that can be used to fake a death, either theirs or their victm's?

You're the DM - if there isn't one pre-written just write one up, if you really need to codify how it's used.

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth
Yea pretty much, that sounds like a cool idea, if there's no official way just make up a magic potion of deathsleep or whatever, your world bro.

wallawallawingwang
Mar 8, 2007
I wish more games spent the rule space detailing running a business or organization. I've heard that Reign has really good organization rules, but that's literally all I know, if someone else knows more I'd love to hear an overview.

On top of using the GP parcels as profits, you could probably use at least some of the alternate awards and boons too. If the party breaks up the criminal undergang that tried to extort protection money, someone gets the Law Bringer boon, giving them bonuses with other merchants and government types. If the party donates a massively-difficult-to-build-requiring-special-adventures, water clock to the most important cathedral of the time god, maybe someone gets a time related boon.

Another option is to create a set of business stats, either using the classic 6 or a custom set. When players use their skills or go on adventures to benefit their business, it gains stat bonuses. If a player, say, uses their insight to see how to best arrange the store so that its pleasing to customers, the business gets a bonus to its charisma. Heck, if you feel comfortable enough with reskinning on the fly you could use the combat rules and occasionally run a battle with the business against the market place, with various obstacles and boons depending on how well the players ran the business during the time period, and profits decided by how well the fight goes.

Rohan Kishibe
Oct 29, 2011

Frankly, I don't like you
and I never have.
I use Reign rules in my 4e game, though granted I haven't had much opportunity to implement them recently. The basic story is I introduced an old abandoned floating city populated by near-drone like worker Warforged and my players basically just took over the place.

The basic gist of it is that there are rules for "companies", which can be any organisation from a business venture, to a cult to a city or kingdom. A company has a number of stats, governing the loyalty of the people in the company, wealth, territory, influence and so on, and in order to perform certain actions you roll d10s equal to the two stats. So if your company was a mercenary band and you wanted to attack another you'd roll Might+Treasure. What you want is matching dice, so a roll of 1, 1, 1, 1 is better than 9, 8, 7, 6.

There are rules for absorbing other companies, espionage and getting your name out there. in Reign itself Treasure can translate into Wealth (PC scale money), so with a little tweaking you can adjust that for 4e money. It's fun and I enjoy it. There's apparently a Fatal and Friends article on it I'd link but archives ain't working for me. :shrug:

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Oh god, I have a new player joining my game and just got word that she picked a Battlemind. What do they even do?

e: after a quick look, wreck my encounters apparently

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 15:56 on May 9, 2014

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

My Lovely Horse posted:

Oh god, I have a new player joining my game and just got word that she picked a Battlemind. What do they even do?

e: after a quick look, wreck my encounters apparently
What level?

1-6, not much at all.
7+, wreck your encounters.

Also, they have scary tricks that make them great at working with other defenders.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

That's great news because there is another defender! Level 2, though. Little grace period there.

Chernobyl Peace Prize
May 7, 2007

Or later, later's fine.
But now would be good.

And, added bonus, since you've got a player using the Battlemind as opposed to BEING that player, you won't have to worry about the psionic problem in general and the battlemind problem specifically that once they've picked their two good at-wills, they're effectively out of power selection beyond dailies.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

And, added bonus, since you've got a player using the Battlemind as opposed to BEING that player, you won't have to worry about the psionic problem in general and the battlemind problem specifically that once they've picked their two good at-wills, they're effectively out of power selection beyond dailies.
Battleminds, other than the Lightning Rush issue, are probably the best designed psionic class and actually benefit from trading out (most of) their at will powers for more badass ones.

But yeah, Lightning Rush is forever. And one of the "tricks" I mentioned.
(1) Fighter marks enemy.
(2) Enemy attacks Fighter.
(3) Battlemind Lightning Rushes enemy, attacking them and redirecting the attack to herself.
(4) Whoops, enemy is now attacking Battlemind. At -2 because they're marked.
(5) Fighter punishes enemy for Mark violation.

... All of which is out of turn.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
Basically, they either Lightning Rush or Brutal Barrage, and wreck your poo poo, but not much else.

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


Battleminds yeah either go Lightning Rush or Brutal Barrage commonly. Hopefully your player is OK at charop because without Melee Training they tend to be miserable at punishing marks--a monster can just walk away from them unless they have a power that works as an opportunity attack. Melee Training should very definitely be a free feat for everyone.

They also tend to spec in either mobility or resisting a lot of damage.

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djw175
Apr 23, 2012

by zen death robot

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

Battleminds yeah either go Lightning Rush or Brutal Barrage commonly. Hopefully your player is OK at charop because without Melee Training they tend to be miserable at punishing marks--a monster can just walk away from them unless they have a power that works as an opportunity attack. Melee Training should very definitely be a free feat for everyone.

They also tend to spec in either mobility or resisting a lot of damage.

Don't battleminds tend to have ways to follow if their target moves away?

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