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thespaceinvader posted:DO NOT USE PCS AS MONSTERS. Huh. Well, good to know. Let's see if there's any good monsters with nasty charge attacks, then! And, yeah, he's supposed to be a recurring threat. With the last big villain I had back in 3.5, I quietly doubled his hp because the players nova'd him in the very first round, so I know what can happen... I think I'll give him either an emergency teleport (LAAAAAAAAME) or outright tarrasque-like immortality, meaning the PCs need something special to kill him for good. Would make for some sweet scenes, too, like the dude jumping in an active volcano to escape or whatnot.
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Jul 13, 2014 12:16
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There's a better way: talk to the players about it. Get their buy-in on the idea that it would be fun for him to escape and become a recurring villain, and they'll probably get on board with the idea and it'll happen. Also, start off with him as a non-combat character, way too powerful for the PCs. Don't even roll initiative, talk to the players, tell them he's too much for them right now, find out what their characters do when faced with someone they KNOW is too much for them. Then have a fight where he's a solo, and runs them off - maybe they're raiding his base for some MacGuffin, and they have to get it and get out before he kills them. Then a couple of levels later, an elite - he attacks, they beat him back. Then a standard; they attack him, he escapes. Then a below-level standard, at which point they punk the gently caress out of him and go take on his boss. But most important is getting the buy-in of the players - and not being too disappointed if they don't like the idea. If that happens, change it, go with something else; don't force them into something they're not interested in. And yeah, RESKIN ALL THE THINGS. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 12:26
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Torquemadras posted:Huh. Well, good to know. Let's see if there's any good monsters with nasty charge attacks, then! If he's immortal why would he need to escape from the players? Wouldn't they need to escape from him?
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Jul 13, 2014 12:37
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You can legitimately pull the "you guys left him for dead, but guess again!" move once, but after that point expect every fight to end with "...and then we behead them all". I think that you can have the villains use cheesy escape plans as long as you provide full mechanical and meaningful narrative rewards to the party. If you halve XP/treasure because he managed to escape, it's bullshit. If they get full XP/treasure, but the villain escapes with the Mcguffin and burns an orphanage for good measure on his way out, that's double bullshit. Seriously, I have found that whenever I keep plot complexity down to G.I.Joe levels of villainry, along with "You win this round,
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Jul 13, 2014 12:39
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Was there ever a book of traps, hazards & fantastic terrain published for 4e?
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Jul 13, 2014 14:02
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Not that I know of. The DMGs have some of those sorts of things, but mostly 4e's monsters rather than traps and terrain.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:11
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The D&D wiki has a handy index for both: Traps and hazards here, Terrain here. There's some more terrain in the Rules Compendium as well. Do note that the ones from the DMGs and MotP need some adjusting because DCs are way too high. Check any given DC against the DCs by level table in the DMG, note if it's easy, normal or difficult, and substitute the DC from the new table in the Rules Compendium. Managed to take a paladin in plate armor out of a fight entirely with an unmodified pit trap because between the high DC and the armor check penalty it became mathematically impossible for him to climb out. Also from my experience monsters work better than traps in a combat encounter, but fantastic terrain is always good and you can add as much as you want without getting a stupidly high XP budget.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:34
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If you want to have multiple run-ins with him before the party finally defeat him then I would base the powers around that. Give him some way of cheating death that's costly enough to him that just killing him will slow his plans down while he gets a new body, but not stop them outright. Maybe you could do a thing where killing him brings a cost to the adventurers, too: like, each time he resurrects himself he has to feed on the planet's life force to do it, so every time the players kill him the world gets a bit shittier. It's generally not a good idea to go into a fight with a plan for how the fight will unfold. I think of fights like I think of skill rolls. They're a fork in the plot, and you should have a cool thing ready to happen if the PCs succeed, and a cool thing ready to happen if the PCs fail.
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Jul 13, 2014 14:51
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Getting buy in from the players is probably the best bet, I had a main villain that had continual immortality by being bound to an unending thunderstorm and the understanding was that if killed he'd just come back stronger in a week or two. Because the players knew this, they knew that any conflict with him was just about loving up his plans until they could finally take him out (being dead for a week is still super inconvenient). I was thinking about that campaign since we haven't played in months. I only noticed when we played dungeon world that our two newbies were the ones who really got invested in the whole collaborative world building thing I tried to do. In Dungeon World especially, while everyone else had "I'm an elf from the woods" stuff, the new guys were the ones who definied the entire Elf civilization and the nation the players started in. I tried to get everyone to do it in D&D but I think all the other players just expecting the DM to forge the entire setting meant that it was a bit of an uphill struggle.
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Jul 13, 2014 15:02
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My Lovely Horse posted:The D&D wiki has a handy index for both: Traps and hazards here, Terrain here. There's some more terrain in the Rules Compendium as well. Thanks, but I saw those already. You're right that monsters are the real focus, but it's a shame that there's still really little traps. Was thinking about an encounter where my PCs fight zombies in a hallway in a necromancer's basement. Thought about having corpses in the hallway maybe knee-high trying to grab the PCs or something. The 'grasping vines' fantastic terrain from the plane above seems great for this.
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Jul 13, 2014 15:47
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The Belgian posted:Was there ever a book of traps, hazards & fantastic terrain published for 4e? The darksun campaign guide of monster manual has some poo poo just like that.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:12
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The Grimtooth's books are just as good now as they were back then. 
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Jul 14, 2014 09:05
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Has anyone had any luck with, like, a series of Zelda-styled theme dungeons for a game? Most of my group seems to be about "mostly combat with some chances to roleplay in between", and that format seems pretty suitable for it, as well as giving me a lot of latitude for interesting encounter design. ("Why is the floor made of rotating and shifting tiles that screw with your initiative score and warp you around the battlefield? Because this is the Time dungeon, obviously!")
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Jul 14, 2014 21:36
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Corbeau posted:The Grimtooth's books are just as good now as they were back then. Is that a challenge I hear for valegame?
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Jul 14, 2014 21:37
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Poison Mushroom posted:Has anyone had any luck with, like, a series of Zelda-styled theme dungeons for a game? Most of my group seems to be about "mostly combat with some chances to roleplay in between", and that format seems pretty suitable for it, as well as giving me a lot of latitude for interesting encounter design. ("Why is the floor made of rotating and shifting tiles that screw with your initiative score and warp you around the battlefield? Because this is the Time dungeon, obviously!") Fun terrain is practically necessary to give the game longevity; while I haven't done anything really zelda-like (like, not a literally [theme] Temple), I've used/seen warp tiles, moving floors, semi-random elemental effects in certain areas of the battlefield, etc.
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Jul 14, 2014 21:50
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Poison Mushroom posted:Has anyone had any luck with, like, a series of Zelda-styled theme dungeons for a game? I once had a trapped tower of a wizard as a dungeon; the whole place was on lock-down, there were magical traps everywhere, and the owner was OBVIOUSLY paranoid, so there were ridiculous saftey mechanisms everywhere. For example, several rooms were separated by magical curtains, and if you stepped through without 1) wearing a hat, 2) wearing special slippers and 3) announcing your love for the wizard's art, you would step into a prison cell instead of the actual room behind the curtain. The players knew about those rules very soon (after escaping the prison cells). Afterwards, they had to find ways to keep communicating while being separated by various magical barriers. There also were mechanical guardians which shot high-damage lasers at any intruder (VERY Zelda-like), and the players had to find a way to get past without being seen / deflect the laser. My players really liked that one: first, figuring out how the place works, and then abusing the various rules for their purposes. They ended up blasting the laser traps with the tower's bathroom mirror, and used tactical hat removal to teleport to the now open prison cells whenever they had to block the proper way there. Also, I used several traps that the players could actually carry with them to disable other blockades - like using a sleep-inducing toybox to lull a guardian dog to sleep, etc. Basically, I placed solutions for barricades and gave them some hints. If they had another creative idea, sure. They usually end up visiting all rooms anyway for treasure, so it's not like I'm wasting effort! But then again, I actually drew the entire dungeon on paper, and pieced the rooms together whenever they entered a new one. Having the entire dungeon before you like a Zelda dungeon map definitely helped with the puzzles that were more spread apart. So, you can imagine that I built a Zelda-like dungeon myself, only instead of typical Zelda gadgets there's puzzle-solving neat things scattered around in a way that makes the dungeon solvable. In my experience, it also helps immensely to highlight everything important, so that the players remember and feel smart for finding solutions in earlier parts of the dungeon. Did that make sense? I hope it did...
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Jul 14, 2014 22:21
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Arivia posted:Is that a challenge I hear for valegame? I might be better off with Grimtooth if the alternative is rolling more combat dice.
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Jul 14, 2014 23:31
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I'm pretty sure I read somewhere--possibly here--that the monsters in Monster Manuals 1 and 2 are designed poorly, and that MM3 monsters are made "correctly," but I can't find or remember where I read this. Does anyone know what this is about? Should I avoid using MM1+2 monsters?
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Jul 17, 2014 03:11
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Sergeant Baboon posted:I'm pretty sure I read somewhere--possibly here--that the monsters in Monster Manuals 1 and 2 are designed poorly, and that MM3 monsters are made "correctly," but I can't find or remember where I read this. Does anyone know what this is about? Should I avoid using MM1+2 monsters? It's in the OP of this thread, under the math fixes heading.
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Jul 17, 2014 03:14
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Arivia posted:It's in the OP of this thread, under the math fixes heading. lol I'm dumb. Thanks.
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Jul 17, 2014 03:24
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I recently finished DMing a campaign that took a little over 2 years and saw the players rise from level 4 to level 20 (should've been 22 by XP, but I capped them). We used the following houserule: "Healing and Dying Everyone is restored to full HP at the conclusion of every encounter. Healing Surges are no longer per day, but instead per encounter. Everyone has three Healing Surges per encounter (except for those with a theme that gives an additional Healing Surge). The Durable feat grants an additional Healing Surge in each encounter. Death is not an expected game element - there are no resurrection mechanics. A PC below 0 HP is simply Unconscious. A PC who reaches their negative bloodied value is Defeated, and can only be returned to battle by game elements that normally revive dead characters. If the entire party is Defeated, an encounter ends. What happens next will depend on the situation." For those who have been experiencing ire toward 4e's adventuring day design, I recommend trying it out. It's pretty easy to balance encounters around it, helps achieve a faster pace, and ensures that people aren't totally resource screwed if their dailies are gone.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:02
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Most of the MM1 monsters are replaced in the Monster Vault, but for the MM2 I use the "MM3 on a business card" formulas to adjust the numbers. A bit of work but there are some cool monsters there.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:40
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Xalidur posted:Healing Surges are no longer per day, but instead per encounter. Everyone has three Healing Surges per encounter (except for those with a theme that gives an additional Healing Surge). The Durable feat grants an additional Healing Surge in each encounter.
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Jul 17, 2014 04:42
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I'd argue that not just paladins, but defenders as a whole could probably use one or two additional surges. I like it, though, especially the Death/Defeated rule, which is an idea I've been mulling over for a while myself but haven't gotten around to bring up to my group yet.
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Jul 17, 2014 06:12
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Xalidur posted:I recently finished DMing a campaign that took a little over 2 years and saw the players rise from level 4 to level 20 (should've been 22 by XP, but I capped them). We used the following houserule: This isn't remotely about healing and dying, it's about the adventuring day. And as the interminable discussions a couple of pages back proved, the adventuring day is VERY difficult to remove from 4e's design, as it's a core feature OF the design and basically everything in the game is in some way connected to it. You can do the death and dying parts (i.e. -bloodied or fail 3DSTs is defeated rather than dead) already, and without monkeying with surges. Indeed, that part is a great idea - all DMs should be aware that just because the rules say dead, doesn't mean that the PC IS dead, it just means that they're out of THIS fight.
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Jul 17, 2014 22:59
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thespaceinvader posted:This isn't remotely about healing and dying, it's about the adventuring day. And as the interminable discussions a couple of pages back proved, the adventuring day is VERY difficult to remove from 4e's design, as it's a core feature OF the design and basically everything in the game is in some way connected to it. That thing you did for sixteen levels in your campaign? It's very hard to do and it'll never work out. Gort fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 23:22
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Gort posted:That thing you did for sixteen levels in your campaign? It's very hard to do and it'll never work out. You did a hard thing, well done? E: I didn't say it'll never work out, I said it's hard. if you want to make the effort to do it, and it works out, great. But it's difficult to make work properly, with some classes more than others.
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Jul 17, 2014 23:55
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Gamma World is built around no healing surges, but the game has largely been re-balanced so that in-combat healing is difficult to get and very powerful when you do have it.
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Jul 18, 2014 00:12
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Gamma World is built around no healing surges, but the game has largely been re-balanced so that in-combat healing is difficult to get and very powerful when you do have it. I believe you full heal after combat too, don't you? Been awhile, someone needs to run Gamma World again.
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Jul 18, 2014 00:49
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Ryuujin posted:I believe you full heal after combat too, don't you? Been awhile, someone needs to run Gamma World again. Right. Gamma World has some incremental advancements over 4E, but still clings to ability scores and fiddly weapon and skill rules.
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Jul 18, 2014 00:51
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NorgLyle posted:Did you do anything special for Paladins or other classes that have mechanics based around the regular Healing Surge rules? I didn't, because no one was playing such a class in the campaign - FWIW, the party consisted of a Fighter|Warden, Ranger (Archer), Essentials Thief, Tactical Warlord, Wizard, and Warlock. The Warlock played an Essentials Slayer for the final ~5 encounters in the campaign because her character came to a pretty metal story-death of the mutually planned variety. However, I used a relatively extensive list of houserules with the understanding that such rules would shift the game balance in a different direction than 4E core, and that some builds might be more or less powerful than "expected" in this environment. I made sure to work with everyone such that their characters were playable and fun. Had someone wanted to play, say, a PHB Paladin, we probably would have discussed replacement features. thespaceinvader posted:You did a hard thing, well done? At this risk of sounding a bit trite, every campaign has such challenges; even running bog-standard 4E, there are lots of class and systemic imbalances that DMs need to correct. So I think it's a better perspective to ask, "what do I gain from making these changes?" rather than focusing on who loses something. There'll be a problem either way, and I prefer to pick my own battles. And I'll insist that my houserule is easier for the DM, not harder, having been the DM of this game as well as other games without its particular set of rules. I could always balance every encounter around every PC having three (or more) surges. There was absolutely no adventure/dungeon design anxiety about pacing their healing capabilities.
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Jul 18, 2014 01:06
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Out of the list of monster sources in the compendium, which ones have post-MM3 / good math? I'm assuming Monster Manual 3 Dark Sun Creature Catalog Monster Vault Monster Vault - Nentir Vale Neverwinter Campaign Setting Anything else?
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Jul 20, 2014 03:38
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Heard a horror story about someone else's 4e game. Anyone ever heard of a 'wolfwere'?
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Jul 20, 2014 03:54
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Cassa posted:Heard a horror story about someone else's 4e game. Anyone ever heard of a 'wolfwere'? Yeah, I've heard of them before. They're basically wolves who can turn into humans, reverse werewolves. Spooky, I know. A quick googling suggests they're a D&D creation and are part of Ravenloft more than anything.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:01
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I see, they the kind of beasty that could give a level 7 party a hard time? I heard talk of it having 400hp or something like that.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:03
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Cassa posted:I see, they the kind of beasty that could give a level 7 party a hard time? I heard talk of it having 400hp or something like that. Uh... if they have a dickbag for a GM? Sure, why not!
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Jul 20, 2014 04:06
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Sounds like it, wanted to check on the monster compendium, but subscriptions lapsed since my group moved to other things.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:07
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No wolfwere in the compendium. Bunch of easily-reskinned werewolves, though. Just so everyone's aware, a GM used this to gently caress up a party: 
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Jul 20, 2014 04:10
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There doesn't seem to have been an official 4e conversion of the wolfwere. There's a couple of jackalweres in the MM3, but those are level 3-4 monsters with 50ish HP apiece. If I had to guess I'd figure that the DM tried to emulate a previous edition's version of the wolfwere by giving it some kind of regeneration and hosed it up so that it ended up healing more damage than it took in any given round.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:11
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Found a likely culprit. Cursed Werewolves are level 8 brutes with regeneration 5 and 98 HP. Do decent damage and can prone on an at-will, I could see that roughing up a party. Higher level werewolves get even higher regen.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:15
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