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Gort posted:Thing is, though, if players have novaed all their surges and power away in the first fight or two, it's logical that they'd want to rest and get them back. At that point you can either: Give them compelling reasons not to Nova, side objectives or personal goals that require immediate attention. Fighting some kind of incursion? # of villagers saved directly relates to how many extended rests players take. Kidnapped family in the backstory? Gotta get through this dungeon before the prisoners are moved. Loot-loot murderhobo's? The thing at the bottom of crypt 27 knows you're coming and is going to destroy everything it can't use itself just to spite you in a ritual that taxes x amount of hours. It's not that hard to play to your players motivations and give them reasons to make taking an extended rest part of quest/story management instead of just "welp, blew my dailies time to rest now."
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Jun 29, 2014 20:34
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This all smacks of that "A good DM can make a good adventure no matter how bad the rules" excuse you hear people use for bad games. I'd sooner the rules supported what I want to run than to have to keep coming up with excuses why the players can't play in an optimal manner.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:01
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Gort posted:This all smacks of that "A good DM can make a good adventure no matter how bad the rules" excuse you hear people use for bad games. I'd sooner the rules supported what I want to run than to have to keep coming up with excuses why the players can't play in an optimal manner. Which is why we're suggesting 4e isn't the game for you; it just doesn't fit your playstyle without basically rebuilding it from the ground up.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:07
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Yeah, honestly the "five minute adventure day" problem is one of the oldest and most widely addressed adventure and encounter design challenge in D&D. Keep on the Borderlands addresses it for Pete's sakes. And 4E does a ton to mitigate it already with encounter powers and surges. You shouldn't rewrite the rules around it. You should just communicate with your players and write adventures address it in a variety of ways. Advise and warn your new players. Let them learn the risks of nova-ing the first room of a 5 encounter dungeon they can't just run away from. Let them learn the joys of nova-ing the horde of goblins attacking the town. Let them learn the joys of hording their dailies through a tough dungeon, so they can nova the boss. I've never understood the dislike for daily resources in 4E. They are tougher to design around than encounter resources, sure, forcing you to think more holistically about how your encounters link together, but that strikes me as just a natural part of designing adventures. They can be swingy because of the whole nova thing, but that's by player agency, not randomness, so I don't really see it as a problem. I think they add up to a dynamic resource management subgame that can be played by both the players and DM (through adventure design) to make different adventures play and "feel" different. E: Gort, the difference here is that 4E is actually a pretty solid game. But it might not be the game for you and your group. People have suggested a pair of really good games that do what you want to do with 4E. PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:12
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PeterWeller posted:E: Gort, the difference here is that 4E is actually a pretty solid game. But it might not be the game for you and your group. People have suggested a pair of really good games that do what you want to do with 4E. It is entirely the game for my group, we've played forty levels of it already. That's why I'm somewhat wise to its flaws and would like to address them with some house rules. I'm a little tired of talking about this particular issue, though. Anyone got good house rules for feats? I feel like sixteen by level 30 is too many and it'd be cool if they were more like powers where you have a limited number (like say, five) but you swapped out the worse ones for better ones as you level up. Gort fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:39
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Dropping a nova in the first room isn't actually bad tactics in 4E. Daily/action point/daily as a maneuver potentially saves your healing surges and potentially saves other characters from having to make similar expenditures.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:42
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Gort posted:It is entirely the game for my group, we've played forty levels of it already. That's why I'm somewhat wise to its flaws and would like to address them with some house rules. Last thing I'll say about it is that you could try having them select 2-3 dailies for each levels daily slot, and then whenever they use them, they have to cycle to another daily the next time they recharge their daily powers. Then just don't let them re-use any of a particular levels dailies until they've cycled through all of their selections. Might make things a little more varied. The feat issue is much harder to tackle - banning feats is really the best way to handle the gross amount of nonsense you have to go to, and to switch to a 13th Age style feat progression system like you're describing would take a long time to go through and build the feat progression lists. Which is do-able, but would take a while and in all honesty would require you to rework a lot of the feats to make a worthwhile progression system. S.J. fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 22:06
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It depends on exactly what your problem with feats is. If its that trawling through all jillion of them 16 times is a pain in the rear end, then the answer might be to declare that that at certain levels the players can only pick from a much smaller list. Like at levels 1,2,6, and 10, they have to pick from the essentials improved defense or expertise feats. But level 4 and 8 are free choices. If the problem is only that there are a jillion of them, you'd need to settle on banning feats from dragon or something. Maybe let players pick feats as normal for heroic tier, but only from feats that have a increases by tier component. The problem with these choices is that that it eliminates many builds and nerfs classes that were patched with feats. I think an ideal solution would be to bake feats into Themes/Paragon Paths/Epic Destinies. Something like the Guardian gets defense and toughness related feats at certain levels. If you put in the work, you'd have something pretty solid, but it's only worth doing if you know you are going to stick with 4e for another 20 or 30 level game. wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 22:08
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Meh, 90% of the feats are crap. When you pick from the actually good ones, it's a lot easier.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:11
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Gort posted:This all smacks of that "A good DM can make a good adventure no matter how bad the rules" excuse you hear people use for bad games. I'd sooner the rules supported what I want to run than to have to keep coming up with excuses why the players can't play in an optimal manner. Right before you start your next session, excuse yourself to the toiler, but leave a note on the table with this: quote:I put down my mtn. dew on the table with the logo facing me: The encounter is easy and you should not blow your dailies on it. Then come back and give them a knowing nod.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:27
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I'm in a PbP here that gives you a free teamwork feat (the guild stuff like silent shadows/wall crawlers/roof runners etc) and a free 'roleplay' feat (non combat stuff like linguist, master communicator, practised study, little things to round out your character). It works pretty well and lets you pick up stuff you'd never have touched otherwise.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:38
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Gort posted:It is entirely the game for my group, we've played forty levels of it already. That's why I'm somewhat wise to its flaws and would like to address them with some house rules. Right on, man. Like I said, I don't see the daily resource management as a flaw, but to each their own. I totally agree about feats. I haven't ever been satisfied by house-ruling them out because so much of the little incidental character defining stuff like proficiencies and skills are tied up in them. The only satisfactory solution seems to be limiting them in some way, but I've never implemented any hard and fast house rules doing that. I've just nudged my players away from making some poor choices here and there.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:13
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I guess limiting the number of feats would require you to do a crapload of work writing out an entire new set of feats.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:23
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I'd kind of like to cherrypick 5e feat design for 4e and build feat packs - you pick i dunno, one megafeat per 5 levels, it comes with 2-3 feats worth of stuff, and there are way less to choose from. Because 4e's 'complete' now a project like this wouldn't be undercut by 17 new books of feats coming out. What would be the impact of ditching feats completely at this point? I guess you have a few different types - ones unlocking new options, ones straight making your numbers better, ones offering new tactics, and then fluff ones like I AM A VAMPIRE. It'd be nice if the second kind could be ditched.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:52
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I think adopting a 13th age like Skill System would help too.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:10
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Is there a link to the sacred BBQ anywhere? I thought there was a thread but I can't find it.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:16
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S.J. posted:Is there a link to the sacred BBQ anywhere? I thought there was a thread but I can't find it. There was, but I don't think anyone bothers to keep links around to yet another failed lovely goon project.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:39
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Gort posted:This all smacks of that "A good DM can make a good adventure no matter how bad the rules" excuse you hear people use for bad games. I'd sooner the rules supported what I want to run than to have to keep coming up with excuses why the players can't play in an optimal manner. It seems like your saying "NOVAing is an ideal strategy and I need to change the rules to make it non-viable, because if players NOVA all their dailies in one encounter then they'll put themselves in a really bad situation" Either it's a strategy so good as to be a major problem, or it's a mistake the PCs need to learn to avoid. Learning "the hard way" doesn't have to mean killing the party, but it sort of feels like you are frustrated with the way the power economy works in 4e making encounters too easy (which is a real issue, definitely) but not really willing to have them pay the price. It reminds me a lot of how Monopoly gets ruined by all the "house rules" like the Free Parking lottery.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:46
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The Sacred BBQ thread has been archived (I don't have archives, so that very well could be a bad link) since Jimbozig left TG, but this appears to be the most recently released playtest document.
Auralsaurus Flex fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jun 30, 2014 |
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Jun 30, 2014 04:38
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Auralsaurus Flex posted:The Sacred BBQ thread has been archived (I don't have archives, so that very well could be a bad link) since Jimbozig left, but this appears to be the most recently released playtest document. Thanks man.
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Jun 30, 2014 04:40
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Gort posted:I guess limiting the number of feats would require you to do a crapload of work writing out an entire new set of feats. My bad. I chose my words poorly. I didn't mean limiting the number of feats (though that's another option), I meant shortening the list of feats, getting rid of the poor choices and tightening up what is available. One option is to maybe decouple feats from class progression. Give everybody the math feats for free and then give out others as RP rewards.
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Jun 30, 2014 05:48
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I'm looking into getting into some form of D&D with some friends but as far as I'm aware we all have zero experience aside from a couple of us having played some old Infinity Engine video games (D&D 2E I believe?). Should I just go ahead and buy the 4E red box or is it worth just waiting a couple of weeks and trying out 5E? Presumably the benefit of 4E at this stage is that there's a lot more preexisting content to use but, given that we're all new, by the time we get around to seeing it 5E might be more fleshed out and I don't know whether one version is more easily accessible than the other. Thanks in advance for any help, sorry if this is in the wrong thread.
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Jun 30, 2014 10:20
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4e is way easier and better for new players. Get the Red Box - stuff for 4e might be more expensive as it comes out of print, but you won't be disappointed. 5e/Next is not good.
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Jun 30, 2014 10:24
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The merits and demerits of 5e aside, the books are getting staggered releases, so the whole thing doesn't come out until November.
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Jun 30, 2014 10:43
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I have taught 4E to drunk people while drunk and successfully played for like four hours. It is poo poo easy to learn.
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Jun 30, 2014 10:47
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We are definitely biased towards 4E here, so you probably won't hear any suggestions for 5E. Also, you are not looking to to get into "some form of D&D" but "some form of TRPG". Since you are coming from CRPGs though, D&D 4E is the crunchiest game you can play right now (other suggestions might have been Dungeon World if you watched that Community D&D episode). The Red Box is sweet to start with, but if you care about more content later on, you should consider getting a DDI subscription. You get an online character creator, all the content that was ever released (except of the last couple books or something?), updated monster database and customiser, and also online rule lookup, it's great. Wizard promised to keep the service running as long as there are enough subscriptions, so I don't think it's going away any time soon.
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Jun 30, 2014 11:01
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4E is the most accessible of the bunch, though it's still not totally newbie-friendly. If everybody there is new to it then a first-time game will likely go much more smoothly if whoever is GMing has read through the book and generated PCs for the players in advance of the session. Also, choosing which module to play is a big deal. Some pre-written D&D modules are much, much better than others.
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Jun 30, 2014 11:10
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Rexides posted:We are definitely biased towards 4E here, so you probably won't hear any suggestions for 5E. Equally, if you ask the 5E thread in it's new home in DDRD whether you should play Next you're equally likely to get a resounding 'hell no' so it's less 4e fans who are biased against 5e and more people with a basic understanding of what makes a game fun.
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Jun 30, 2014 11:20
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Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm going to go ahead and get the Red Box and see how that goes. Hopefully it's not too much of a trainwreck!
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Jul 1, 2014 05:34
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Dart posted:Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm going to go ahead and get the Red Box and see how that goes. Hopefully it's not too much of a trainwreck! Keep up us to date~
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Jul 1, 2014 05:48
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Dart posted:Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm going to go ahead and get the Red Box and see how that goes. Hopefully it's not too much of a trainwreck! Some types of trainwrecks make for the best RPG sessions. 
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Jul 1, 2014 22:36
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Dart posted:Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm going to go ahead and get the Red Box and see how that goes. Hopefully it's not too much of a trainwreck! If you learned 2E you can learn just about any version of D&D, you should be fine. I have taught 4E to ten-year-olds and grandmothers in the same session.
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Jul 1, 2014 23:04
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Corbeau posted:Some types of trainwrecks make for the best RPG sessions. With this in mind you may want to record it for our pleasure
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Jul 2, 2014 07:15
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Rules Question: As a Hybrid Ranger|Cleric, does using Hybrid Talent: Channel Divinity to gain a Cleric encounter power mean you can take Ranger powers in your actual power slots?
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Jul 2, 2014 17:18
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No, since Channel Divinity is a class feature and not from the global standard structure of attack powers that all classes get (Channel Divinity powers don't have "Levels" like other attack powers do). It DOES, however, qualify you for the feat Divine Channeler which allows you to snag an additional Channel Divinity power from another class that uses Channel Divinity if you want to spend a multiclass feat on it. This will also open you up to the standard multiclass options for the class you chose with Divine Channeler as normal. I know that last bit didn't have anything to do with the question, but thought I'd mention it if you felt Hybriding was a bit too restrictive in variety. Edit: wait, maybe I misinterpereted the question. The Hybrid Talent option will give you the Cleric Divine Channel power in ADDITION to any attack powers you already have, just so we're clear (AKA: it doesn't replace an attack power because it isn't an attack power, it's a class feature). Agent Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jul 2, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 18:10
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Someone mentioned feats meant as fixes for classes. Is there any list for these, and why are they not just baked into the actual class? I guess to allow people to just not pick the fix for their class?
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Jul 5, 2014 15:56
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The main ones are 'use your attack stat for MBAs' feats (or more often powers, sometimes items) for defenders - Intelligent Blademaster for SMs, Virtuous Strike (power, or Wrath of the Crimson Legion tiefling feat) for Charisma Paladins, Babu Gauntlets for Rogues, Twisted Eye or Eldritch Strike for Battleminds etc etc etc. Basically they're feats that do DtAS things.
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Jul 5, 2014 16:20
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This is a technical question about DnD Insider. I use it, and would like to know how to download compendium info to a local drive. Under the magazines there is an actual download button but I do not see anything like that under Compendium entries, additionally compendium entries seem to come one at a time like for monsters. Can someone help me here? It keeps getting mentioned as a thing to do. For 4e fans I'd recommend the offline character builder for speed and ease of use, though an limited insider subscription is great for the magazines and seeing how amazing CBuilder is, if you haven't ever used it. It changed my life.
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Jul 6, 2014 04:57
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I don't know of any means to scrape the database other than the offline builder, but I'm sure there used to be one (MasterPlan?) but it might have been C&D'd to death.
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Jul 6, 2014 09:22
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Doctor Borris posted:This is a technical question about DnD Insider. I use it, and would like to know how to download compendium info to a local drive. Under the magazines there is an actual download button but I do not see anything like that under Compendium entries, additionally compendium entries seem to come one at a time like for monsters. Can someone help me here? It keeps getting mentioned as a thing to do. try this http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41720073/compendium/native29.zip no support starkebn fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 09:55
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