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I think that the Reavers of Harkenwold is a more fun adventure, but you need to start from level 2 (and I don't know if you can get it independently from the Essentials DM Kit). Probably not a good one for veterans because it's literally "These are the bad guys. You fight the bad guys and save the good guys. You will then be a hero", but it hits all the right notes for new players, there are a lot of occasions to RP that tie directly into the adventure, and you can plug any kind of situation at any point because it does not have a rigid structure.
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May 28, 2014 14:47
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That sounds...enticing. In fact, I will have one player who is experienced in many RPG's except D&D, and a couple who will need to have their cherries popped, if I may use that quite appropriate inappropriate expression. I will try to get a hold of that adventure. But if I was to decide to run KotS, would it suffice to replace the monsters with their MM3 versions?
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May 28, 2014 15:23
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The Slaying Stones is probably my favorite intro 4e adventure. It's pretty fantastic.
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May 28, 2014 19:58
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It's great, but I wouldn't advise it for new groups. It needs players to completely buy into the MacGuffin (which I found kinda stupid) and actively investigate, being careful with who they can trust or how they approach the various factions of the town. They can also completely miss the hints given, and the DM might have to improvise hard to get the plot on track. That's a lot to take in, which is hard to do if it's also your first time playing 4E (or rpgs in general), your own mileage may vary, though. It would have been amazing as a level 3 or so adventure, and a few pages back I suggested that it would be great if you could sandwitch this between the two parts of the Reavers of Harkenwold (have the Iron Circle seek the stone, players must stop them) but it's too much to ask of a new DM to convert.
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May 28, 2014 20:16
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My favorite 4e adventure is Seekers of the Ashen Crown. With the exception of its two actual dungeons overstaying their welcome a bit (each basically being the recommended 10 encounters for a level; skip a few boring ones and they're fine), it's a fun story with several points at which they can go do their own thing. You start at level 2, and it takes them halfway through level 5, if I recall. If you run the adventure at the back of the Eberron Campaign Guide as the intro, you can do 1-5.
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May 28, 2014 20:34
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I'm doing seekers right now and my party let me have Ashurta's Blade in return for my share of the gold (150g) niiiiice
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May 28, 2014 20:39
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My Lovely Horse posted:The answer is you shouldn't run Keep on the Shadowfell as written because it has outdated monster mechanics and would still be a terrible combat slog if it didn't. Mechanics even? Not just stats? Any way to fix the monsterd if I do decide to run it? Slogginess I might be able to solve by replacing some combat encounters with trapped treasure chambers. IIRC there are some rooms that could be easily converted (dig site and water pit spring to mind) Rexides posted:It's great, but I wouldn't advise it for new groups. It needs players to completely buy into the MacGuffin (which I found kinda stupid) and actively investigate, being careful with who they can trust or how they approach the various factions of the town. They can also completely miss the hints given, and the DM might have to improvise hard to get the plot on track. That's a lot to take in, which is hard to do if it's also your first time playing 4E (or rpgs in general), your own mileage may vary, though. It would have been amazing as a level 3 or so adventure, and a few pages back I suggested that it would be great if you could sandwitch this between the two parts of the Reavers of Harkenwold (have the Iron Circle seek the stone, players must stop them) but it's too much to ask of a new DM to convert. Well, the experienced player I spoke of is used to playing and DMing CoC, so he knows a thing or two about investigating and following the breadcrumbs. I'd count on him to drag the others along in the plot. If that doesn't work out, I'll be sure to prepare a plan B.
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May 28, 2014 22:54
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theroachman posted:Mechanics even? Not just stats? Any way to fix the monsterd if I do decide to run it? Slogginess I might be able to solve by replacing some combat encounters with trapped treasure chambers. IIRC there are some rooms that could be easily converted
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May 29, 2014 18:30
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It's worth noting that noted verisimilitude advocate The Alexandrian wrote a bunch of posts about making Keep on the Shadowfell a better adventure. You'll probably still need to convert the monsters to MM3 math, but I've heard good things about these changes.
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May 29, 2014 19:29
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I have a friend who was running it and asking for advice. I told him to turn every room into a random encounter/wandering monster -- roll a d6; on a 1-4 the room is empty. This speeds things up, and gives you a handful of "backup" events to play with if you want.
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May 29, 2014 20:48
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Hubis posted:Back when I ran 4e (we're kind of on hiatus) the best sessions I ran, in terms of everything from table efficiency to player enjoyment to the utterly meaningless metric of how much fun I as the DM had, were those adapted from the "Lair Assault" model. Depending on the adventure I'd alter it a little, something like offer a normal Short Rest as a trade off (after 3 rooms, you have to choose whether to go straight to the end or take a breather and deal with something harder) or as a reward of some sort, but in general it just seems like the *right* way to do something like 4e. Any advice on how to create an encounter modeled after Lair Assault? I remember having a lot of fun with Attack of the Tyrantclaw, even if it meant dying repeatedly, so I think you might be on to something here.
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May 31, 2014 17:13
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Start with a pool of experience for a single encounter of (Party Level+5). Use that to allocate 2-3 encounters of From PL-3 to PL-1, and a finale that's PL-1 to PL+1. Include things like traps, and consider the possibility of some encounters being skippable, or being triggered if the party makes a mistake of some sort. When you run it, just pretend "Short Rests" don't exist -- treat all encounter powers as daily. Anything with "Encounter" duration lasts the entire event.
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May 31, 2014 21:47
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Hubis posted:Start with a pool of experience for a single encounter of (Party Level+5). Use that to allocate 2-3 encounters of From PL-3 to PL-1, and a finale that's PL-1 to PL+1. Include things like traps, and consider the possibility of some encounters being skippable, or being triggered if the party makes a mistake of some sort. When you run it, just pretend "Short Rests" don't exist -- treat all encounter powers as daily. Anything with "Encounter" duration lasts the entire event. Do note that if PCs are built for this format, it will be rather easy. I find a better way to go is 2 short, very hard set-piece encounters that end daily powers and allow short rests. Before each is a skill challenge that will make the next fight a little harder on a failure. Also be sure to really emphasize the dungeon as a part of the fight. Tyrantclaw wasn't super good about this but the first one and especially the Drow one did it well, I thought.
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Jun 3, 2014 10:36
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Hey can someone explain to me what the gently caress is up with the new books coming out starting in July? Are they 5e? 4e? 4.5? Do I have to go to the Next thread in DDRD to find out? 
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Jun 4, 2014 17:48
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Captain Walker posted:Hey can someone explain to me what the gently caress is up with the new books coming out starting in July? Are they 5e? 4e? 4.5? Do I have to go to the Next thread in DDRD to find out? It's 5e/Next. They're doing a staggered release, more stuff comes out in Aug/Sept/Nov (PHB, MM, and DMG respectively).
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Jun 4, 2014 17:53
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Cool, thanks. I'm tempted to pick up the starter set to see if there's anything to it.
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Jun 4, 2014 17:54
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Captain Walker posted:Cool, thanks. I'm tempted to pick up the starter set to see if there's anything to it. Discussion for this thread: How long do you think the online support for 4e will last?
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Jun 4, 2014 18:10
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Poison Mushroom posted:I've played a couple playtests, and wasn't impressed, but that's a discussion for another thread. If they do decide to shut it down (which I'm sure they will as soon as it stops being profitable), I hope they at least release another offline builder for people to use.
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Jun 4, 2014 18:15
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Poison Mushroom posted:I've played a couple playtests, and wasn't impressed, but that's a discussion for another thread. Your guess is as good as anyone's. Fortunately, CBLoader exists. For those who do want to check out Next, they're releasing the Basic book (which seems to be a set of pregens for the most part, plus some character building options) as a free PDF on 15 July, so you can check it out for free. First decent digital decision they've made about Next, really.
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Jun 4, 2014 18:21
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So, my first Dming session I mentioned a couple pages ago is coming up this Sunday. I have one problem with my quest. The encounters are good, I've got the settings all laid out, got a couple Plan B's and C's in place for when players try to avoid doing what I want them to do...but I need to get from one point to another and I don't know how to do so. I have a runaway witch hiding out in a town trying to lay low from three other members of her coven trying to capture and sacrifice her. I have her meeting the players and explaining the situation, but I need her to get captured (she wants to be, she secretly wants the heroes to dispose of her competition for POWER) by the three so the witches can prepare to sacrifice her. And I'm stumped. Is it as simple as "Put her in a room and one minute she's there and the second she's gone"? Should I do something to distract the heroes if they choose to keep guard? Should i do a skill challenge, and if so, how can I make them "win" but still lose the NPC? Any help is appreciated, thanks!
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Jun 4, 2014 21:31
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cbservo posted:Any help is appreciated, thanks! To make it plausible, maybe she gets up in the middle of the night and wanders off (she can tell the person on watch it's to pee, but maybe she actually sensed the minions and thought it'd be a good chance to be captured).
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Jun 4, 2014 21:56
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For that scenario, it might be easier to start off with her having been captured, and have her hire the PCs through an intermediary (whether familiar, henchman, or ally) or via a ritual that lets her contact them from a distance. That way, you don't have to railroad the PCs or assume their plans fail. (And if you go the ritual route, you can even have her tell the PCs about the situation and then have her voice or image break off with a scream as she's ambushed, to give it some extra urgency.)
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Jun 4, 2014 22:03
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Psychologically, it's difficult to "force" PCs to fail at something without making them feel like they're being railroaded. If they've done a bunch of stuff to prevent her from being kidnapped and defended her in combat and you have to fiat it anyway because of the plot, it tends to get players annoyed. My advice would be either of the following - A) set up a combat where there's a twofold "goal" - maybe the place they meet the witch for her to explain things has some important looking item in it, goons burst in, and she screams "PROTECT THE IDOL!". If she gets kidnapped while they're "succeeding" at protecting something else, it feels much less railroady, and if the item is maybe visibly one part of a whole - maybe it's got an obvious hole in the middle that corresponds to a necklace that a successful Perception/Insight check means you'll "let" the PCs remember the witch was wearing - it's a good McGuffin to send them off to "rescue" her as per your plot. B) Set up a combat where goons try to kidnap her, and it's tough but obviously (to the PCs) possible to stop them. If they fail, things proceed as normal but they feel like you gave them an honest chance, and the fact that she was dragged off alive means they have an obvious trail to go "rescue" her, as above. If the PCs stop them, have the witch panic about not being able to hide from them and never being safe, and have her try to talk the PCs into going off to stop them once and for all. If they agree, all is good; if they don't, you've given her a much more foreshadowed motivation to "wander off".
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Jun 4, 2014 22:07
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Well, I was planning on having the witch be hiding out in the village for a couple months, at least. I prefer to keep it somewhat localized, as the group I'm with does not like to go on Multi day treks, especially since they are in the vicinity of our next main objective of the overarching quest
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Jun 4, 2014 22:08
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cbservo posted:So, my first Dming session I mentioned a couple pages ago is coming up this Sunday. If she's trying to be captured and they don't twig this straight off, she slips away from the PCs. They were looking the wrong way. And you leave a trail of breadcrumbs to show she slipped away. Only if they are really alert will they prevent that.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:23
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cbservo posted:I have a runaway witch hiding out in a town trying to lay low from three other members of her coven trying to capture and sacrifice her. I have her meeting the players and explaining the situation, but I need her to get captured (she wants to be, she secretly wants the heroes to dispose of her competition for POWER) by the three so the witches can prepare to sacrifice her. This wasn't part of your question, but I have to ask: Do you think this will ever become relevant to the plot from the PC's perspective? For them, it will be just another Damsel is Distressed -> Slay Dragon -> Undistression Achieved scenario. If I were you, I would worry more about how to make her plot obvious to the PCs before it's set in motion so they decide how to deal with the situation rather than figuring out the best way to pull a gotcha. But anyway fatherdog's plan B is your best option.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:25
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fatherdog posted:Psychologically, it's difficult to "force" PCs to fail at something without making them feel like they're being railroaded. If they've done a bunch of stuff to prevent her from being kidnapped and defended her in combat and you have to fiat it anyway because of the plot, it tends to get players annoyed. My advice would be either of the following - That's a really, really good idea, actually. I had toyed with the idea of her having a necklace that would eventually serves as a catalyst for the ritual that would allow her to feed off the essences of her dead witch friends. For 6 level 10 PC's, what would be a good number of monsters for a distraction encounter? One that they could beat pretty easily but have her get carted off?
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Jun 4, 2014 22:28
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Rexides posted:This wasn't part of your question, but I have to ask: Do you think this will ever become relevant to the plot from the PC's perspective? For them, it will be just another Damsel is Distressed -> Slay Dragon -> Undistression Achieved scenario. If I were you, I would worry more about how to make her plot obvious to the PCs before it's set in motion so they decide how to deal with the situation rather than figuring out the best way to pull a gotcha. I'm planning on leaving hints throughout that she's not who she seems, that no one in the village knows who she is. My group doesn't care about overarching plot so much as long as the encounters are fun and challenging. Edit: drat phone posting, sorry about the double post cbservo fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jun 4, 2014 |
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Jun 4, 2014 22:31
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So I'm going to be starting a game of Dark Sun 4e soon, and it's my first time running D&D - or much of anything, really. I've got all the published adventures for the setting earmarked to help me get into the swing of running the system, building encounters etc., but having heard about how dire a lot of the published campaigns are I just wanted to check if they're actually, you know, good. I was going to introduce the players to the game - some haven't played 4e before - with the introductory Sand Raiders scenario, then I was looking at The Vault of Darom Madar, Marauders of the Dune Sea and Revenge of the Marauders. Are these all generally okay? Was there any I've managed to miss / non-Dark Sun modules that can be adapted with relative ease?
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Jun 4, 2014 23:09
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cbservo posted:That's a really, really good idea, actually. I had toyed with the idea of her having a necklace that would eventually serves as a catalyst for the ritual that would allow her to feed off the essences of her dead witch friends. For 6 level 10 PC's, what would be a good number of monsters for a distraction encounter? One that they could beat pretty easily but have her get carted off? Use a standard XP budget but spend most of it on minions; while they're fending off the hordes trying to get to the item a couple of the non-minions can make off with the witch. You don't have to go buck wild with the minions but you're going to want to err on the side of more monsters, especially since a couple are gonna be running.
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Jun 5, 2014 05:41
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I need to step up my game. Last session my players were a man down and his PC was a companion character for that session, and they still went through four encounters without blinking and had plenty of surges and daily powers left by the end of it. Only time things got remotely tight was when the bard was almost dropped by an errant crit on a nasty recharge power but that was gone as fast as it came. I don't mind and they're having fun, I'm just starting to feel faintly silly playing up NPCs and monsters as "holy poo poo don't mess with this guy, whatever you do don't go in the basement" and they're messing with the guy and frolicking in the basement and come out casually dusting themselves off going "you guys see something down there?" with jingling pockets. They're only level 3  Next time I'm planning for a swamp which is lizardfolk territory and by god that should at least be noticable. Or else I'm just gonna start playing it for laughs.
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Jun 10, 2014 21:47
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My Lovely Horse posted:I need to step up my game. Last session my players were a man down and his PC was a companion character for that session, and they still went through four encounters without blinking and had plenty of surges and daily powers left by the end of it. Only time things got remotely tight was when the bard was almost dropped by an errant crit on a nasty recharge power but that was gone as fast as it came. dragons are basically big lizards. they can fight dragons
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Jun 10, 2014 21:56
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If they finally make a PC version, I can essentially throw my 360 in the closet at that point.
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Jun 10, 2014 22:27
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:If they finally make a PC version, I can essentially throw my 360 in the closet at that point. Is there a 360 something that is worth playing for us 4e fans?
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Jun 11, 2014 00:16
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Oh fun, very wrong thread. Sorry.
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Jun 11, 2014 00:30
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I hear XCOM is pretty good. What I'd really like to do in the swamp is a Predator parody. Maybe I'll reskin a dragon as the most dangerous and sneaky lizardfolk of them all.
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Jun 11, 2014 06:14
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Has anyone tried making a Shaman with the Character creator recently? Its only letting me select one at-will power, I'm wondering if there's a bug or if I'm crazy or if they nerfed shamanses.
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Jun 17, 2014 01:39
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Knucklebear posted:Has anyone tried making a Shaman with the Character creator recently? Its only letting me select one at-will power, I'm wondering if there's a bug or if I'm crazy or if they nerfed shamanses. Shamans only get to pick one at-will. The other is determined by their selection of spirit.
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Jun 17, 2014 01:47
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AXE COP posted:Shamans only get to pick one at-will. The other is determined by their selection of spirit. Thanks for the clarification. A little investigation showed that it's not giving me the protecting strike power for selecting the protecting spirit.
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Jun 17, 2014 01:54
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So my first session as DM went pretty well. Y'all were right about the players not wanting to do anything I set in front of them. I had to get incredibly creative and lucky with my main npc to get them to follow her. They mowed down my minions in my first encounter ( gently caress the Mage and his illusionary wall!) and were about to kill my two high level ghouls when I had my npc go crazy out of fear and start heading towards the monsters trying to get out of the inn. They tried to talk to her diplomatically...and that was when the dragon born with high diplomacy rolled a one, which I used as an opportunity to send her screaming out of fear towards the enemy. They then tried to grab her...and rolled another one, which I used to have them miss and grab the macguffin that would let them follow her instead. This Sunday will be interesting as they're just outside the room with three witches. They may mow through minions, but they do not do nearly as well against magic using controllers. Especially three of them plus a charnel otuygh. 
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Jun 17, 2014 04:42
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