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Rexides
Jul 25, 2011

I don't know if I am in the minority or not, but I think that "Hey, I know that it doesn't entirely mesh with your backgrounds, but if you could be invested in saving that girl I promise that it will lead to a great adventure and we will all have fun" is a preferable thing to say than pretending that your players are free to to anything they want in your world but you try to railroad them at every turn.

Not that I imply that you were railroading them or that they felt they didn't have agency, I just think it's preferable to depending on your players rolling 1s.

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ArkInBlack
Mar 22, 2013

cbservo posted:

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. :getin:

On one hand, you all but screaming to the heavens that you're invincible and cannot but stopped would really make the punchline of you walking back in after the encounter got trashed amazing, but on the other hand if this is control on the level of "okay now you get to do nothing this turn" please reconsider as losing actions is no fun and if you got three targets tossing them out it'll be the worst kind of miserable.

Also yeah there's probably a better way to get the plot moving then 'hope the players roll poorly'. Consider after a couple rounds of fighting having the VIP stay near the back behind even the rear and have them just kinda run out "in a panic" maybe dropping the macguffin, and if the party tries to stop them physically "well its not your turn"? Maybe have one of the previously mentioned ghouls do this fear attack that 'causes' the non-heroic npcs to flee as far as possible, as opposed to the push 3 on hit? Granted this might have helped before the session.

P.d0t
Dec 27, 2007
I released my finger from the trigger, and then it was over...
Looking at the Master of Stories [Multiclass Bard] feat from HotFW, I noticed it lets you use the healing from skald's aura once per encounter. Is this errata'd/nerfed anywhere? Because most leader MC only grant you their healing power 1/day..

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



P.d0t posted:

Looking at the Master of Stories [Multiclass Bard] feat from HotFW, I noticed it lets you use the healing from skald's aura once per encounter. Is this errata'd/nerfed anywhere? Because most leader MC only grant you their healing power 1/day..

Yes it was for precisely that reason. I can't remember where.

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!
When in doubt, check the errata. In this case, it's the one and only rules change for Heroes of the Feywild, published at the end of February 2012.

Torquemadras
Jun 3, 2013

Hello there, 4ed thread. I got recently started with 4e after DM'ing 3.5 for a long while, so I'm looking for advice on building a proper campaign. I threw together a trap-filled dungeon for a weekend, and me and my five buddies had a blast! They got creative, so I let them get away with trying to kill the big bad right at the beginning; so I let increasingly weak minions inherit the crown every time. :haw:

Four of my players now want to start a real campaign. I wanted to do something with an insanely hostile jungle and base building. So my questions are: what's a good point to start? Any pre-made campaigns I can borrow from and/or get inspired by? Also, what are some good guidelines on setting up encounters? The enemies I set up for the short dungeonrun did pretty well (I absolutely love minions, and the Ranger did too), but I'm a little stumped on how to deal with the insane amount of healing PCs seem to have now. But that could very well be because the party had a Cleric AND a Warlord. Still, any tricks for encounter building?

Already decided that the jungle will contain a disease that opens a portal to another dimension in your stomach, so that you literally vomit forever :toot:

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Torquemadras posted:

Already decided that the jungle will contain a disease that opens a portal to another dimension in your stomach, so that you literally vomit forever :toot:
You have no idea how badly I want to steal/emptyquote this.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Forgot to post this here, but I should have - I'm currently doing recruiting for a pbp game for new players to 4e or PbP, set in the Nentir Vale. Applications are open until Sunday.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

Rexides posted:

I don't know if I am in the minority or not, but I think that "Hey, I know that it doesn't entirely mesh with your backgrounds, but if you could be invested in saving that girl I promise that it will lead to a great adventure and we will all have fun" is a preferable thing to say than pretending that your players are free to to anything they want in your world but you try to railroad them at every turn.

An even better solution is to turn the question on its head. Saying something like 'You've heard of this girl before -- what do you know about her that makes you interested in her fate?' is a great way to get players involved.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

Torquemadras posted:

Still, any tricks for encounter building?

Encounters in 4e are all about the terrain. Have lots of terrain hazards that they can be pushed into or hurl enemies through, and have bits of terrain that they can interfere with, interact with, or knock onto enemies, and you're going to have a good time.

crime fighting hog
Jun 29, 2006

I only pray, Heaven knows when to lift you out
I'm hoping to kick off a shiny new campaign in the next month or so, and am so excited! Our 3 year, level 1-30 Age of Worms 4e run was so much goddamn fun, I'm hyped to run another game, this time with blatant ripoffs!

But one problem we had (probably because I'm a poo poo DM) is combat definitely got very laggy sometimes. One encounter lasting nearly the whole session and so on. I fixed this somewhat in the last half of the campaign by halving monster HP but quadrupling the damage they did (and doing away with most stun: save ends effects because gently caress that).

But I'm in the market for more house rules. The escalation die sounds like something fun for both PCs and monsters, but what else should I look into?

My party at this moment looks like a Bard, Monk, Sorcerer, Warden and Rogue. We're going to do a few 'intro' sessions for a couple players who have never played DND before (one who has never played a TRPG before!) and then jump to level 12 so they can act like big drat heroes.

Hashtag Yoloswag
Mar 24, 2013

...I'm sorry. I can't seem to remember any of the rest.

crime fighting hog posted:

I'm hoping to kick off a shiny new campaign in the next month or so, and am so excited! Our 3 year, level 1-30 Age of Worms 4e run was so much goddamn fun, I'm hyped to run another game, this time with blatant ripoffs!

But one problem we had (probably because I'm a poo poo DM) is combat definitely got very laggy sometimes. One encounter lasting nearly the whole session and so on. I fixed this somewhat in the last half of the campaign by halving monster HP but quadrupling the damage they did (and doing away with most stun: save ends effects because gently caress that).

But I'm in the market for more house rules. The escalation die sounds like something fun for both PCs and monsters, but what else should I look into?

My party at this moment looks like a Bard, Monk, Sorcerer, Warden and Rogue. We're going to do a few 'intro' sessions for a couple players who have never played DND before (one who has never played a TRPG before!) and then jump to level 12 so they can act like big drat heroes.

The escalation die is a good idea, since you can use it not only as a way to quicken combat but also as a pacing mechanic; the best example I can remember is a combat taking place in a burning building, with the escalation die representing increasing states of disrepair and the consequences thereof.

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

crime fighting hog posted:

I'm hoping to kick off a shiny new campaign in the next month or so, and am so excited! Our 3 year, level 1-30 Age of Worms 4e run was so much goddamn fun, I'm hyped to run another game, this time with blatant ripoffs!

But one problem we had (probably because I'm a poo poo DM) is combat definitely got very laggy sometimes. One encounter lasting nearly the whole session and so on. I fixed this somewhat in the last half of the campaign by halving monster HP but quadrupling the damage they did (and doing away with most stun: save ends effects because gently caress that).

But I'm in the market for more house rules. The escalation die sounds like something fun for both PCs and monsters, but what else should I look into?

My party at this moment looks like a Bard, Monk, Sorcerer, Warden and Rogue. We're going to do a few 'intro' sessions for a couple players who have never played DND before (one who has never played a TRPG before!) and then jump to level 12 so they can act like big drat heroes.

Popcorn Initiative, or WFRP3e/EotE initiative where there are just initiative "slots" (all the players roll and a player will go on each of the initiative counts they roll, but it might not be the roller who goes on that one each turn; do the same for the monsters). Dunno if you have much problem with people not thinking about their turns in advance, but knowing they might have another turn coming up sooner than they thought encourages planning ("I should go next, because..."),

Chaltab
Feb 16, 2011

So shocked someone got me an avatar!
So does anyone know of an Owlbear race for 4E, 3PP or homebrew?

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

crime fighting hog posted:

I'm hoping to kick off a shiny new campaign in the next month or so, and am so excited! Our 3 year, level 1-30 Age of Worms 4e run was so much goddamn fun, I'm hyped to run another game, this time with blatant ripoffs!

But one problem we had (probably because I'm a poo poo DM) is combat definitely got very laggy sometimes. One encounter lasting nearly the whole session and so on. I fixed this somewhat in the last half of the campaign by halving monster HP but quadrupling the damage they did (and doing away with most stun: save ends effects because gently caress that).

But I'm in the market for more house rules. The escalation die sounds like something fun for both PCs and monsters, but what else should I look into?

My party at this moment looks like a Bard, Monk, Sorcerer, Warden and Rogue. We're going to do a few 'intro' sessions for a couple players who have never played DND before (one who has never played a TRPG before!) and then jump to level 12 so they can act like big drat heroes.

Make sure you're using MM3 or later monsters, and don't be afraid to call it if the fight is clearly going in the PCs favour.

The worst part of 4e combat is the mop-up.

Chaltab: nope, but refluffing Gnolls, Thri-Kreen, Half-Orcs, minotaurs or several other monstery melee races would work fine.

disaster pastor
May 1, 2007


Frankosity posted:

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?

Just saw this, so it may not still be useful, but: Vault of Darom Madar is very good, Marauders is very not-good, and Bloodsand Arena is a better intro than Sand Raiders and definitely worth running even if you don't use it as the introduction.

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea

thespaceinvader posted:

Make sure you're using MM3 or later monsters, and don't be afraid to call it if the fight is clearly going in the PCs favour.

The worst part of 4e combat is the mop-up.

Chaltab: nope, but refluffing Gnolls, Thri-Kreen, Half-Orcs, minotaurs or several other monstery melee races would work fine.

This is all excellent advice. I'm a fan of "you mop up the rest of the zombies/orcs/soldiers, everyone lose a healing surge" as long as the players are OK with it.

Soldier-type enemies are worth avoiding quite often, I'm a big fan of brutes. Do lots of damage, take lots of damage.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!
The other real point is: don't just make the combats about death to one side or the other. Give both sides goals that don't JUST involve 'murderdeathkill everything on the other side of the field' - the PCs are after an artefact, the monsters are infiltrating the city, etc etc etc.

Think, as a for instance, of that scene in the Two Towers movie where the orc berserker is running to bomb the walls. The most important thing was for the PCs to stop it, and they hosed up...

crime fighting hog
Jun 29, 2006

I only pray, Heaven knows when to lift you out
I'll check this out, thanks!

E: reply window left open for hours who does that.

I really got the hang of terrain and interactive features on the battlefield near epic level, though I'm constantly thinking of neat things to do for the future game now. One example was a titan they fought in the titan's temple that had 8 pillars supporting the roof. Got pushed into a pillar? Damage up the wazoo.

But both the players and the enemies took advantage of this, and after the 7th pillar fell I rolled and the roof caved in. The portal pooping minions collapsed, the titan lost tons of health and the PCs were buried, so I believe I had them roll athletics OR save ends (which ever favored them better) to dig out. One player died because they couldn't dig him out fast enough after the titan burst out and the fighter had to finish him off with a chunk of pillar.

Basically it's "How would this play in God of War?"

crime fighting hog fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Jun 26, 2014

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


Gort posted:

This is all excellent advice. I'm a fan of "you mop up the rest of the zombies/orcs/soldiers, everyone lose a healing surge" as long as the players are OK with it.

Soldier-type enemies are worth avoiding quite often, I'm a big fan of brutes. Do lots of damage, take lots of damage.

Losing a healing surge is pretty stiff in some cases. "Lose a healing surge or be bored by this mop-up that probably won't involve you losing a surge if you play it out."

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

crime fighting hog posted:

I'll check this out, thanks!

E: reply window left open for hours who does that.

I really got the hang of terrain and interactive features on the battlefield near epic level, though I'm constantly thinking of neat things to do for the future game now. One example was a titan they fought in the titan's temple that had 8 pillars supporting the roof. Got pushed into a pillar? Damage up the wazoo.

But both the players and the enemies took advantage of this, and after the 7th pillar fell I rolled and the roof caved in. The portal pooping minions collapsed, the titan lost tons of health and the PCs were buried, so I believe I had them roll athletics OR save ends (which ever favored them better) to dig out. One player died because they couldn't dig him out fast enough after the titan burst out and the fighter had to finish him off with a chunk of pillar.

Basically it's "How would this play in God of War?"

That's not true at all

I shoulder checked him to death

although I was probably covered in pillar pieces

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!

Chaltab posted:

So does anyone know of an Owlbear race for 4E, 3PP or homebrew?

No, but 4e races aren't particularly hard to homebrew. Just pick three ability scores, some skill bonuses, a racial power and a miscellaneous feature or two. For an owlbear, I'd suggest modeling it off the dwarf or minotaur to emphasize toughness and the like (probably the former, since minotaur feat support and their racial power isn't the greatest).

I'd go something like...

+2 Str, +2 Con or Wis
Size: Medium (I know they're normally large, but that's a no-no for player races)
Speed: 7 squares
Vision: Darkvision
Languages: Common, elven (normally they're of animal intelligence and probably don't speak languages, but if this is for a player then whatever)
Skill bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 Perception

Fey origin

For the rest of the racial features, it depends on what the player wants out of it, but it could be some sort of natural weapon or hunting bonus against enemies under certain conditions. For the encounter power, I'd probably go with some sort of ability that activates on a hit against an adjacent opponent, with some sort of EoNT grab/immobilize/daze, with something like extra damage on your next hit against the grabbed target or granting CA if it's immobilized. Either that or some sort of persistence thing where you make an extra attack when dropped below 0 or something or something where you can feed on an adjacent dropped opponent to second wind/spend a healing surge.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

My Lovely Horse posted:

I need to step up my game. [...] 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.

The Belgian posted:

dragons are basically big lizards. they can fight dragons
At first I thought "but I want to keep dragons as a more special thing" but then that level 4 black dragon was right there in the Monster Vault. A dragon swamp serpent it is!

But more importantly, what's a good budget for an encounter with two combats back-to-back for a 6 character level 3 party? 1500-1600 XP, thereabouts?

Zeerust
May 1, 2008

They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

tzirean posted:

Just saw this, so it may not still be useful, but: Vault of Darom Madar is very good, Marauders is very not-good, and Bloodsand Arena is a better intro than Sand Raiders and definitely worth running even if you don't use it as the introduction.

Awesome. We got into our first session of Vault this week, so I guess I'll just start planning my own campaign earlier. I've got a question that maybe a more experienced GM can answer, on that note: near the conclusion of the module, it says that the vault itself contains treasure equal to 10 level 3 treasure parcels. Should I assume that that means just to actually use the level 3 treasure parcel list? So, 4 magic items from levels 7-4 and ~900 gold?

Incidentally, what makes Marauders so bad?

Torquemadras
Jun 3, 2013

Regarding monster encounters: what's so special about MM3 and more recent versions? When I gave it a quick look, it just seemed to change the layout a bit. Or does it have some important mechanical changes?

Anyway, another more practical question: I did another test run with my players. They had a Fighter (who constantly forgot his mark), a Warlock (whose curse we interpreted as the warlock being very very rude to people), a Warlord with a polearm, a Ranger with Two-Weapon Fighting and a Cleric. Besides the fighter forgetting to do his thing most of the time, the were quite effective - they had TONS of healing from the cleric and the warlord. They were all level 5. Basically, I'm not sure how to deal with all that healing they're getting! What's a good rule of thumb on how many healing surges the players should burn on average?

The healing itself isn't the issue - I got several people to make death saves, sure enough. I was just wondering how to best pace my encounters, according to the number of healing surges the players spend.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Changed layout is one thing, but the mechanics were indeed also changed to make enemies more exciting to fight. It mostly works out to higher attack bonuses and damage and less HP and lower defenses. An individual monster is more likely to be "holy poo poo he's wrecking us, kill him quickly, phew that was close" than "well he's not down yet but he hardly damages me anyway so I guess it's the At-Will again, jeez it's been four turns, die already."

With two leaders you can probably play a bit fast and loose with your players. Combats can be tougher since they have twice the healing available, other obstacles can more frequently cost healing surges since they get so much more out of each surge with two leaders around, and overall they can probably go longer (ie. more encounters) between extended rests. If PCs still drop below 0 that seems like it's well paced, actually! If you frequently find the party arriving at the last encounter before an extended rest with very few surges and that leads to serious problems regularly, maybe consider going with less encounters between rests.

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jun 27, 2014

Mendrian
Jan 6, 2013

Torquemadras posted:

Regarding monster encounters: what's so special about MM3 and more recent versions? When I gave it a quick look, it just seemed to change the layout a bit. Or does it have some important mechanical changes?

Anyway, another more practical question: I did another test run with my players. They had a Fighter (who constantly forgot his mark), a Warlock (whose curse we interpreted as the warlock being very very rude to people), a Warlord with a polearm, a Ranger with Two-Weapon Fighting and a Cleric. Besides the fighter forgetting to do his thing most of the time, the were quite effective - they had TONS of healing from the cleric and the warlord. They were all level 5. Basically, I'm not sure how to deal with all that healing they're getting! What's a good rule of thumb on how many healing surges the players should burn on average?

The healing itself isn't the issue - I got several people to make death saves, sure enough. I was just wondering how to best pace my encounters, according to the number of healing surges the players spend.

Basically, under the hood, monsters have some fairly reliable guidelines about their Defenses, Damage, and HP that stays true for most monsters of their level/type with a little variance between them. The assumptions that guide MM1/MM2 were a little different from MM3, the net result being MM3 fights tend to be quicker but bloodier. MM1 in particular is notorious for monsters that can take a ton of damage but do not really threaten the players in a way that is interesting or exciting, since they tend to do very little damage and the effects are predictable and dull.

As to your practical question, there's no easy way to answer that. Players will burn surges in response to damage, so the easiest way to encourage tension is to ensure damage is being metered out properly - avoid low damage Soldiers, using Brutes and Artillery liberally to ensure players are paying their taxes. You figure, in general, players will spend a Surge only if a monster deals damage equal to (or more often in excess of) their Surge value. Defenders will spend more than other players (typically) assuming you aim for the NADS, and back row casters will spend fewer surges. Since you can't really control how much damage a monster deals or how timid the players are, it's difficult to speculate. My players typically spent most of their surges between combats getting back up to full HP.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Aim for the NADs

Torquemadras
Jun 3, 2013

Mendrian posted:

Basically, under the hood, monsters have some fairly reliable guidelines about their Defenses, Damage, and HP that stays true for most monsters of their level/type with a little variance between them. The assumptions that guide MM1/MM2 were a little different from MM3, the net result being MM3 fights tend to be quicker but bloodier. MM1 in particular is notorious for monsters that can take a ton of damage but do not really threaten the players in a way that is interesting or exciting, since they tend to do very little damage and the effects are predictable and dull.

Oh, cool. Gonna check those out, then. I'm a big fan of horrendously bloody encounters, and (probably as a direct result) my players tend to use every chance to rest they can get. That's how they could afford throwing out tons of healing surges every encounter. If I make individual battles more violent AND punish frequent rests, that should put even the cleric on the ropes...
I totally see what you mean, though. I used one MM1 monster, a rotting corpse (?), that shot from a distance and greatly reduced attack rolls as an aura directly around it. The result: the melee fighters surround it, monster slaps them with weak melee attacks, nobody hits it due to the aura, everybody hates the thing. Booooh. Let's see what MM3 has.

quote:

As to your practical question, there's no easy way to answer that. Players will burn surges in response to damage, so the easiest way to encourage tension is to ensure damage is being metered out properly - avoid low damage Soldiers, using Brutes and Artillery liberally to ensure players are paying their taxes. You figure, in general, players will spend a Surge only if a monster deals damage equal to (or more often in excess of) their Surge value. Defenders will spend more than other players (typically) assuming you aim for the NADS, and back row casters will spend fewer surges. Since you can't really control how much damage a monster deals or how timid the players are, it's difficult to speculate. My players typically spent most of their surges between combats getting back up to full HP.

Uuuuuh... NADS = Nearest Active Damage Source? As I said, the fighter frequently forgot his mark, so the character with the most stopping power was the warlord and his poleaxe; otherwise, I made the enemies rush the cleric and the warlock, unless they've been seriously wounded by somebody else. My players usually spent all their healing surges in battle, since the cleric gave them so many chances to heal, and during the mop-up of the last few enemies there are plenty chances for the cleric to grant healing and do nothing else.

...I have a feeling I should REALLY punish frequent resting.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

NAD: Non Armor Defense, i.e. Fortitude, Reflex, Will. Armor tends to be a defender's strong suit (:v:)

On resting: there are short rests (encounter powers regained, spend as many healing surges as you want) and extended rests (all powers, HP and healing surges regained). Characters can take a short rest after every encounter, extended rests should be less frequent, generally every 4-6 encounters. That works best as something that everyone just agrees on, rather than enter into a DM-vs.-players metagame where one side constantly comes up with schemes to let the party rest and the other constantly has to try and shoot them down. Officially a short rest is 5 minutes and an extended one 8 hours, but a lot of people tend to play it by ear and simply give out extended rests at opportune moments even if they don't involve eight hours of sleep for the characters.

The short rest should always be given. Things just don't work out otherwise. You can occasionally have two fights in one encounter, just budget it as one very hard fight and have two waves of enemies. If your guys are having an extended rest after every fight, yeah have a chat with them about it and come to an agreement, i.e. they should be aware that you're pacing for several encounters between extended rests. Once they know that spending all their surges in one fight will become not a smart idea.

Very basic good tactics: monsters do their best to get directly to the non-defenders and take them down. It's the fighter's job to stop them from doing that. It may seem cruel but believe me a fighter is more than up to the task (if he doesn't forget his mark).

My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jun 27, 2014

fez_machine
Nov 27, 2004

Torquemadras posted:

Oh, cool. Gonna check those out, then. I'm a big fan of horrendously bloody encounters, and (probably as a direct result) my players tend to use every chance to rest they can get. That's how they could afford throwing out tons of healing surges every encounter. If I make individual battles more violent AND punish frequent rests, that should put even the cleric on the ropes...
I totally see what you mean, though. I used one MM1 monster, a rotting corpse (?), that shot from a distance and greatly reduced attack rolls as an aura directly around it. The result: the melee fighters surround it, monster slaps them with weak melee attacks, nobody hits it due to the aura, everybody hates the thing. Booooh. Let's see what MM3 has.


Uuuuuh... NADS = Nearest Active Damage Source? As I said, the fighter frequently forgot his mark, so the character with the most stopping power was the warlord and his poleaxe; otherwise, I made the enemies rush the cleric and the warlock, unless they've been seriously wounded by somebody else. My players usually spent all their healing surges in battle, since the cleric gave them so many chances to heal, and during the mop-up of the last few enemies there are plenty chances for the cleric to grant healing and do nothing else.

...I have a feeling I should REALLY punish frequent resting.

Check out the Monster Vault for the best of MM1 and 2 redone according to the MM3 guidelines.

Another Monster fix is to always have a soldier monster mark like a fighter as standard, this would have been a cross the rule books change from MM3 onwards but it was opposed by Grogs, so some soldiers mark but others don't, make em' all do it, plus it reminds the fighter to mark as well.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

My Lovely Horse posted:

NAD: Non Armor Defense, i.e. Fortitude, Reflex, Will. Armor tends to be a defender's strong suit (:v:)

On resting: there are short rests (encounter powers regained, spend as many healing surges as you want) and extended rests (all powers, HP and healing surges regained). Characters can take a short rest after every encounter, extended rests should be less frequent, generally every 4-6 encounters. That works best as something that everyone just agrees on, rather than enter into a DM-vs.-players metagame where one side constantly comes up with schemes to let the party rest and the other constantly has to try and shoot them down. Officially a short rest is 5 minutes and an extended one 8 hours, but a lot of people tend to play it by ear and simply give out extended rests at opportune moments even if they don't involve eight hours of sleep for the characters.

The short rest should always be given. Things just don't work out otherwise. You can occasionally have two fights in one encounter, just budget it as one very hard fight and have two waves of enemies. If your guys are having an extended rest after every fight, yeah have a chat with them about it and come to an agreement.

Dungeon World's Grim Portents work really well here. For every threat to the PCs and the things they like, you write down a list of escalating ways the PCs can tell the situation is getting worse. So if the threat is a cult in the sewers, your list might read:

1. A body turns up in the town fountain with an unholy symbol carved into it.
2. The herbalist has all his supplies stolen.
3. The temple of Lathander is burned down by cultists.
4. Chanting can be heard from the sewers.
5. Demons burst out of the sewers and attack the city.

Then every time the players take an extended rest, you advance things one step. That way there are always visible, worsening consequences for taking too long, but there is no single 'beat this time limit or die' criteria.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

That is pretty great and I shall steal it immediately.

Torquemadras
Jun 3, 2013

Whybird posted:

Then every time the players take an extended rest, you advance things one step. That way there are always visible, worsening consequences for taking too long, but there is no single 'beat this time limit or die' criteria.

Yeah, I figure something like this would work well. Unfortunately, I have two smartasses among the players - one who tries to game the rules, and another one who tries to game the story. I can deal with them separately, since the rules guy only looks for small advantages and the story guy actually comes up with cool additional story bits, but together, they mercilessly expose whatever I haven't thought of. Keeps you on your toes, actually. They constantly try to recruit their weaker enemies (I only give them minions :p ) and, well, get extended rests. I guess an obvious, transparent time limit where they can tell it's gonna get worse if they don't hurry would be the way to go, because they can't weasel their way out of that one!

edit: Haha, just thought of a fun one. PCs get a quest to find and kill a mysterious beasts that keeps killing villagers. They find its lair, the only place where it reliably returns to. Wait too long, and important NPCs start to die... And if the quest giver dies, guess who won't feel obliged to honor somebody else's promise of reward :getin:

Torquemadras fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Jun 27, 2014

Gort
Aug 18, 2003

Good day what ho cup of tea
The extended rest/adventuring day mechanic is one I dislike. If it's clear that this will be the last encounter before a rest, I shouldn't have to deal with my players novaing all their dailies into it.

Similarly, you can nova healing surges with the right powers and items, which means in the early encounters you're not threatened and later on you can just tell the DM, "Nope, outta surges - extended rest time."

It's not a huge deal, but it makes work for the DM to continually come up with reasons why the party has to have three more fights before they sleep, or to risk upgunning encounters because players will nova them.

I'd prefer the default largest unit of time to be the encounter rather than the adventuring day. So, instead of healing surges per day, you get surges per encounter. The problem I'm having trouble with is what to do with dailies - they're necessary to make combats not turn into "Use encounter powers, then at-wills" but having them recharge every encounter just makes it "Use dailies, then encounters, then at-wills". Perhaps have them cost a surge to use?

Rexides
Jul 25, 2011

I agree, I hate the adventuring day, but 4E needs a strong out-of-combat metagame that is affected by combat performance if it wants to move away from it. The Grim Portents idea is a cool one that can be used as the over-arching mechanic. For example, every time you need to use a daily power, you roll to see (say, 20% chance) that you advance on the table. That way you have a power that is accessible in every encounter, but not freely when you consider the overarching story. Healing surges could probably be handled the same way, say having to use a total of five among the party advances the table. Basically Whybird's idea, but removing the "a day passes" step because it's just noise.


My Lovely Horse posted:

Changed layout is one thing, but the mechanics were indeed also changed to make enemies more exciting to fight.

The orcs are a great example of this. In MM1, the defining orc ability is an encounter attack that heals the orc (after it first becomes bloodied). Doesn't even have to land, the orc just gets HP, which could might as well be baked into it's initial HP for all the players care, not to mention that tracking encounter powers for non-solo monsters is a lovely overhead. The only possible tactical consideration is trying to bring down orcs as fast as possible once they are bloodied so they don't get their action, but you should be doing that anyway for any monster so who the gently caress cares?

In Monster Vault, orcs get a free attack when they are dropped to below 0 HP. This is a possibility that the players can meaningfully respond to (ie, pushing the orc away from melee range before finishing it off), and minions can benefit from it as well.

My Lovely Horse posted:

With two leaders you can probably play a bit fast and loose with your players. Combats can be tougher since they have twice the healing available, other obstacles can more frequently cost healing surges since they get so much more out of each surge with two leaders around, and overall they can probably go longer (ie. more encounters) between extended rests. If PCs still drop below 0 that seems like it's well paced, actually! If you frequently find the party arriving at the last encounter before an extended rest with very few surges and that leads to serious problems regularly, maybe consider going with less encounters between rests.

Eeeeh, that doesn't really add up. Having two leaders does allow you to have more bloody fights, but since the number of surges per day is not affected by the number of leaders, it means that you will get fewer fights between extended rests.

Unless the "get more HP" effect healers have on the party when they spend healing surges during short rests stacks, but even then it's not big enough to count for more than a couple extra surges.

Torquemadras
Jun 3, 2013

Reading that, it seems to me that the whole division into Daily/Encounter or rather Extended Rest/Short Rest is another artificial construct of D&D, one that arguably makes the mechanical aspect more fun, but can be rather hard to justify at times. Not to mention the unintended sideffects that happen when players "game" the system - or, rather, take the rules to their logical conclusion. The balanced game might expect you to have three to four encounters without extended rest inbetween, but realistically, players seem more likely to retreat/rest when they think they might need it.

I think I'll try two things: first, let the players know the consequences of time. The rest mechanic is tied to time, so I'll have time matter. Second, I'll keep things unexpectable: if the players know a huge fight is coming up, by all means, let them save up their good abilities for that one; but they cannot know how much resistance they'll met getting their, or getting out, or how long exactly one encounter will be (they might have to attempt a Metroid-style escape with a countdown, for example). In my experience, I'll have to spontaneously add or remove challenges anyway, so I could try steering players into that direction...

Oh well. I guess it's the same problem as in 3.5 with spellcasters, only now, everybody behaves like one...

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

There's a pretty decent difference between "when the players think they might need a rest" and "when the players need a rest" where the former more often than not is equal to "not fully rested" (and if yours are trying to find ways to rest after every single fight it does seem they skew in that direction). A 4E party can probably go into a fight with no dailies left and two surges between then and still come out fine.

Not a hard one, though, be fair.

Still though, when you're a player and you decide to play 4E, you've actively decided to play a fantasy fight game where you can go a good while without resting and still kick rear end, and I guess I don't get why you'd then turn around and say "actually can I rest more". Same with the 3.5 spellcasters really. Like, that's not something anyone at the table should butt heads over when you're already sat down to play.

Piell
Sep 3, 2006

Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer


Young Orc

Gort posted:

The extended rest/adventuring day mechanic is one I dislike. If it's clear that this will be the last encounter before a rest, I shouldn't have to deal with my players novaing all their dailies into it.

Similarly, you can nova healing surges with the right powers and items, which means in the early encounters you're not threatened and later on you can just tell the DM, "Nope, outta surges - extended rest time."

It's not a huge deal, but it makes work for the DM to continually come up with reasons why the party has to have three more fights before they sleep, or to risk upgunning encounters because players will nova them.

I'd prefer the default largest unit of time to be the encounter rather than the adventuring day. So, instead of healing surges per day, you get surges per encounter. The problem I'm having trouble with is what to do with dailies - they're necessary to make combats not turn into "Use encounter powers, then at-wills" but having them recharge every encounter just makes it "Use dailies, then encounters, then at-wills". Perhaps have them cost a surge to use?

Make dailies per-session or per-adventure section.

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starkebn
May 18, 2004

"Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"
I haven't been able to play this way, but I'm fond of the idea of only being able to use one of your 'dailies' per encounter - and them recharging every encounter. So call them something else and just use extended rests to replenish surges and HP

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