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So here's another question (and yes AXE COP you can read stuff into this about my games  )Most of what I've been running in 4e so far has been delves - 3 to 5 combats in a site, get in and get out. I have a number of upcoming campaign features I want to develop into full-on multi-level dungeons, with multiple adventuring days' worth of encounters, so forth and so on. Quite obviously doing it the same way I do a dungeon in Pathfinder would suck incredibly, and while I've got a pretty good handle on setting up terrain and set pieces for individual encounters, I don't have any great models for laying out dungeons in 4e. I know there have been some adventures published around them - I have a copy of Halls of Undermountain, for example, and there was Thunderspire Labyrinth or whatever - but I've heard mixed feelings on those. Does anyone have any good examples of actual dungeons in 4e, say from Dungeon Magazine? Doesn't matter what theme or level, just needs to be larger than a delve with preferably multiple levels.
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Aug 17, 2014 18:29
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Arivia posted:So here's another question (and yes AXE COP you can read stuff into this about my games I don't have any on hand, sadly, but I believe the Scales of War adventure path has a few. Also, posting to ask a quick question here in regards to monsters. I'm working on a campaign and a recurring monster that I want my characters to encounter would be a elite type that when it becomes bloodied it spawns a minion in a square adjacent to it, and when it dies it will spawn 2. The idea is that these are resurrected servants of a wizard who is in service to Llolth. The servants are ressurected by placing a particular type of spiders egg in the corpse of a recently deceased humanoid servant. The spiders will then hatch and are tiny enough to fit into the veins and arteries of the corpse, acting as a rejuvenating blood. They "heal" any injuries with their silk. When the host becomes bloodied some of the "blood" leaks out as a swarm and defends its host, and when the corpse dies, the remaining spiders swarm out and attack the person who dealt the killing blow. The idea is to make an enemy, an elite, that bleeds spiders, and to have that matter in combat. So is their an elite enemy around level 5-8 I can crib off of? Or should I just business card the monster and minion? Madmarker fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 16:26
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That sounds like a great idea, and it sounds like you've got the mechanics set already: when it's bloodied, have a triggered action to spawn whatever minion you choose next to it, and when it dies, as a no-action, it spawns two minions. Look at something like the Black Pudding for more on how a split action would work.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:00
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So, I'd like to talk about two race ideas I've had kicking around for a while and get some feedback. If anyone has ideas for what stat boosts they should have or racial powers, I'm all ears: 1. The Kudzans (I am totally original with names, honest). They're sapient vines, they also happen to build skeletons for themselves to aid in locomotion. Unlike most plant-based races you might see in fantasy settings, the kudzans are actually the most technologically advanced species around. They're naturally industrious and most of the artificers you might see are going to be kudzan. Culturally, they're pretty much Great Vine Britain. Imperialist and expansionist, the only thing really holding them back from an attempt at world domination is their ongoing (and seemingly neverending, they've been fighting for a long time) war with what is basically their France: a nation comprised of hamadryads (who have been refluffed to pretty much be the florans from Starbound) who are more classically in touch with nature. They have lots of druids and shamans. Generally, everyone else is just really happy that the plants are too busy killing each other to bother them. 2. The Luminoth (shamelessly stealing from Metroid Prime 2. Yup, great at names) are, well, moth-people. They're rather religious, and their religion is really their defining trait. It is based around light as a metaphor for truth. Unsurprisingly, they had a religious schism a ways back over whether there is a single objective truth Vs many subjective truths. The "Many Lights Heresy" led to one of the bloodiest (and dustiest) wars in the setting. Ultimately, their capital was turned into ground zero of a magical wasteland due to the usage of incredibly powerful light based magic. These days, there are not many of them left and they live as recluses in remote monasteries. The two religious factions still hate each other. Some of them do take to travelling though, so they're not unheard of.
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Aug 23, 2014 22:41
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They both sound fine, and they both sound eminently refluffable from what already exists. The former are either Hamadryad or Wilden. E: or Tinker Gnomes, or Warforged. The latter, are probably well-fitted to be Githyanki/Githzerai. Or maybe just Pixies. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 22:49
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thespaceinvader posted:They both sound fine, and they both sound eminently refluffable from what already exists. Hamadryad is already being refluffed as something else (Wildren racial power doesn't fit at all), and I was hoping to come up with a racial power that emphasized the whole "made of vines" thing. That or their industrious nature, possibly something related to the artificial skeletons that they make for themselves. I could see refluffing Githzerai for the Luminoth, though I think they ought to have a light/radiant based racial power of some sort. It's not hard to make a race in 4E, so while they might be achievable through reskinning other races, I'd like to go that extra mile to make their particular unique traits a bit more distinct with some mechanical reinforcement.
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Aug 23, 2014 22:59
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IN that case... Plants say CON to me, and tinkerers/techies say INT< so INT/CON it is. Racial, I'm thinking taking advantage of the fact that they don't have skeletons - some sort of squeezing-based thing, similar to the Sandsoul genasi racial - maybe move action, move your speed, during this movement you may move through any space big enough to admit a vine; if you end your turn next to a creature you may make an attack, +scaling vs fort, target is grabbed. Abilities: you are always considered to have a hand free for grabbing and unarmed attack powers. Steal the thri-kreen's 1/turn weapon swapping. +Nature, +Thievery. Maybe use INT for thievery. Some sort of trancy thing. Luminoth: Pixie flight rules. +INT, +CHA? +religion, +arcana. Racial AB1 in 10 radiant Dragon Breath. Some other gameplay-related thing as well, not sure what though.
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Aug 23, 2014 23:27
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I'd say for the luminoth use Int or cha plus wis. Since their fluff is a religious war, you should make it easy for them to play most divine classes.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:30
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Yeah, good point. It's worth noting that if your players care about optimisation, these races are unlikely to be chosen, because a big part of opping race choice is racial feats, and now racial utility powers too.
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Aug 24, 2014 09:59
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On the spiderblooded: I did a similar thing once with a necromancer who'd stitched live rats under the skin of his zombies. I think their effect was that when they were bloodied, all those rats pouring out of them gave them Aura 1 with a nasty effect on anyone starting their turn in the aura. I can't for the life of me remember what it did, though you'll probably want to tailor it to the role you want the monster to have anyway.
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Aug 24, 2014 16:22
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Hey, so a friend of mine I used to game with way back when is back in town, and evidently when I left the group and a new DM took over, he started playing as a "sapling mage" who was completely immobile and toted around in a pot by the rest of the party. I don't even know what to start with here, can you guys point me in the direction of a prime reskinning candidate?
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Aug 24, 2014 16:45
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thespaceinvader posted:Yeah, good point. True, feat support is important. I'll see if I can come up with a few. Thanks for the suggestions on racial powers, they sound about right.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:11
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Dr Cheeto posted:Hey, so a friend of mine I used to game with way back when is back in town, and evidently when I left the group and a new DM took over, he started playing as a "sapling mage" who was completely immobile and toted around in a pot by the rest of the party. I don't even know what to start with here, can you guys point me in the direction of a prime reskinning candidate? Any race (as the apprentice who carries his pot) with the Arcane Familiar feat (the familiar is him) Maybe a Pixie with the flight speed representing an Enchanted Pot of Levitation.
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Aug 24, 2014 17:49
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Dr Cheeto posted:Hey, so a friend of mine I used to game with way back when is back in town, and evidently when I left the group and a new DM took over, he started playing as a "sapling mage" who was completely immobile and toted around in a pot by the rest of the party. I don't even know what to start with here, can you guys point me in the direction of a prime reskinning candidate? Warforged, he's clearly built and animated magical chassis for his bearer. Mechanically, people riding other PCs is a colossal mess, unfortunately.
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Aug 24, 2014 22:32
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Does anyone know how long Zeitgeist currently is, roughly? I think it looks really cool, as do my players, but one of them is extremely apprehensive about starting an unfinished campaign and I'm concerned that he might have a point considering the initial release date.
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Aug 25, 2014 18:31
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Dart posted:Does anyone know how long Zeitgeist currently is, roughly? I think it looks really cool, as do my players, but one of them is extremely apprehensive about starting an unfinished campaign and I'm concerned that he might have a point considering the initial release date. We're leveling every 3ish sessions after Adventure 1, though that might slow down for later adventures. We're finishing Adventure 3 shortly, and they just hit 7th level The rate new adventures have been coming out is slow, though, and there's always the risk the license will be yanked. It's been worth it, though.
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Aug 25, 2014 18:58
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I could use a little dangerous terrain help guys, is this a dumb idea? One of the places my players will have to go is a time machine laboratory that got blown the gently caress up. They're trying to reach the time machine in the basement to save the world but there are time warp bubbles on the map that wander around. Anything that gets sucked into them gets aged/de-aged by a number of years. Would it be dumb to have a sort of counter, like you roll 3d6 each time they get knocked into one and say "You age 13 years" and if they reach a certain number, like 100 over their original age, they die? Or should I just keep it to damage/slowed effect? It does seem like needless book keeping if I go that route.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:14
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Something like a random Save Ends effect could be interesting. Like when you enter a bubble you roll a die and are randomly slowed, dazed, stunned, etc.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:36
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crime fighting hog posted:I could use a little dangerous terrain help guys, is this a dumb idea? I would make it a degenerative effect. For every 10 years past whatever their race's equivalent to 50 years old is, give them a -1 to check rolls up to 100 years old. After 100, give them a -10 to HP for every 10 years.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:37
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crime fighting hog posted:I could use a little dangerous terrain help guys, is this a dumb idea? Way too much bookkeeping, imo. Just roll a d6 each time they get sucked into one and apply a status based on what they got aged/de-aged to. "You're elderly and your hip has started to go! Slowed, save ends." "You've grown old and feeble! Weakened, save ends." "You've hit middle age and are struck with the crushing realization that you've spent your entire life doing nothing but killing things for money which you spend to get better at killing things! Dazed until EONT."
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Aug 26, 2014 16:48
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I like all those! Agh, too many choices. Most likely I'll have a long rest get rid of all effects as they're shaking off the magical, artificial aging. It'd seem rather dickish to have them be 97 years old for the rest of the game!
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Aug 26, 2014 16:50
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fatherdog posted:Way too much bookkeeping, imo. Just roll a d6 each time they get sucked into one and apply a status based on what they got aged/de-aged to. "You're elderly and your hip has started to go! Slowed, save ends." "You've grown old and feeble! Weakened, save ends." "You've hit middle age and are struck with the crushing realization that you've spent your entire life doing nothing but killing things for money which you spend to get better at killing things! Dazed until EONT." Yeah I think this would work better. The other solution both involves too much bookkeeping and is kind of boring (count numbers until you die!). There's plenty of cool things you could do with time travel. If you want to avoid the same basic status effects you could try something like "falling into the time bubble has dislodged you from this timeline! You teleport to a random square with burst 2 every time you take an action (save ends)" or "your age is rapidly oscillating, at the end of each of your turns roll a d6 to determine what size you change to" or "you have become so old that you're starting to literally fossilise, at the end of each of your turns you become Petrified until the start of your next turn" and so on.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:55
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Okay I actually really like that idea of jumping to a certain age spot. 1. Adolescence: you are suddenly 15 years old again, awkward and shy. Weakened, save ends. 2. Middle Age: You are struck with a mid-life crisis that adventuring has an awful 401k. Dazed, save ends. 3. Elderly: you are incontinent. Stunned, save ends 4. and so on. The randomly shuffling through the timeline is sweet too, but I'm saving that for later when they're dealing with planar tears and poo poo.
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Aug 26, 2014 16:56
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Guys I'm in need of a +/- level 4 monster, preferably non magical and non-sentient, that has an attack that immobilizes at a distance or has the word 'ephemeral.' Thanks, I'm running into walls on this one
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Aug 26, 2014 17:09
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It's totally unrelated to your dangerous terrain idea but what if you had a bunch of different areas in the fight that were from different areas in the past -- say, one was from a peasant's revolt, one was from the orcish invasion, one was from the undead assault -- and when enemies moved from one bubble to another, they switched from rioting peasants to orcish warriors. They'd keep any damage taken and conditions but might suddenly have a completely different set of actions.
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Aug 26, 2014 18:36
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There's tons of cool stuff you can do with time effects. The obvious ones like "the area you are standing in is back during before/during the planet's formation/ice age, take x vacuum/ fire/toxic/frost damage." I'm a fan of "your body has regressed to that of a previous precursor race, you get x benefit /condition" or "your future self shows up to help, missing an eye and wearing tattered versions of your own clothes ". Positive terrain effects are fun too. I'm imagining a kenku PC temporarily becoming a T Rex.
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Aug 27, 2014 00:20
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Ok Contest Time (with no prize other than my gratitude). Im building a campaign around this: Roughly 1000years ago, a very powerful evil was destroyed by a fierce warrior, said to be the best ever maybe. The oracles of all kingdoms gathered and determined that an even greater threat is coming. The goal will be to.resurrect the champion by finding his/her bones armor and weapons and some magic stone or something. I'm exhausted and can't think right now. What race / class / weapon for this legend? Even a name would be welcome also art if you have it. I might end up commissioning a piece if they complete this thing. Ifigured some DM would be itching to create something. If you want to make a character sheet, should be lvl 30 and can be very overpowered. My initial thoughts were Critvenger with that lvl 30 crit weapon, but am open to almost anything. Kbye
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Aug 27, 2014 00:46
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jimcunningham posted:Ok Contest Time (with no prize other than my gratitude). Im building a campaign around this: But the power was in you all along
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Aug 27, 2014 00:53
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Just looking for input i guess, cause i don't want it to be a dark haired white human fighter. Something interesting but not wacky.
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Aug 27, 2014 01:08
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jimcunningham posted:Just looking for input i guess, cause i don't want it to be a dark haired white human fighter. Something interesting but not wacky. You could use something like Valinhall from Will Wight's Traveler's Gate series. Basically, magic is pulled from one of several distinct realms each with its own flavour. At some point a mighty warrior named Valin managed to create his own realm that he filled with relics stolen from the other realms, which each lent him abilities for combat he could summon at will. Each relic was housed in a seperate challenge room, and aspirants must first defeat the guardian of that room in order to draw upon the relics power. The downside to this magic is that if you draw on it too heavily, the realm can reach through into you and turn you into a living, rampaging manifestation of the realms values (in this case, strength through combat), which is what happened to Valin in the end. Maybe your mighty warrior could have founded/discovered something like this - it explains why he was so awesome, gives you a potentially unique area to explore and the ability to dish out some neat powers/items that you could justifiably take away once the big bad dies/realm gets destroyed/champion reincarnates and summons to himself.
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Aug 27, 2014 01:24
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jimcunningham posted:Ok Contest Time (with no prize other than my gratitude). Im building a campaign around this: How about this? The ancient warrior was a mighty Deva Paladin, and in order to defeat the previous evil had to contain the evil entity in a living vessel, so he chose himself. Only it turns out that the contained vessel would become possessed, and in a last ditch effort to destroy the evil for good was forced to kill himself in hopes that would finish it off. Only it didn't. 1000 years later, the Oracles have seen a new evil and the twist that wouldn't be revealed until late game is that this new evil is the Deva resurrecting... as a Rakshasa. Thus the players' quest to find the artifacts and the Deva's body to resurrect him is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Good job breaking it, heroes. Agent Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 02:36
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The main thing you're going to want to watch for is the way that a race to resurrect a big hero means that the PCs' greatest achievement is to cheerlead an NPC who is bigger and cooler than they are. Don't let this happen, it's not fun for anybody.
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Aug 27, 2014 09:16
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Okay fellas, here's a nasty little rules question for which I couldn't find ANY definite answer. It's about weapons as implements. In my 4ed game, the party's had two Defenders and two Leaders; it worked out, but one Defender (a Warden) didn't have as much fun as he thought he would, so he decided to go with a Striker instead, and one of the Leaders (a Cleric) followed suit. Now we're looking at a new Sorcerer and a new Warlock. The remaining Defender is a Swordmage. Naturally, they want to use daggers & swords as implements, but I discovered the rules are quite wonky on that subject... - For starters: what properties of a magic weapon, which makes no mention of being used as an implement whatsoever, apply when used as an implement? The text only mentions that you use the enhancement bonus, but nothing regarding powers, properties and critical. I'm inclined to allow anything except powers, since it's all magic and could thus have a reasonable effect on implement powers channeled through it, whereas the powers are only meant for use in weapon powers. Thoughts? - In the same vein: do weapon traits play any role? This is only important for the Swordmage, since he can use a large range of swords as implements. Some of those swords have traits like Brute oder High Crit or whatnot, and I'm not sure if those have any effect whatsoever when used as implement. So far, I said no because you don't get the proficiency bonus for implement use either: it's an inherent weapon trait which has no meaning for implements. - And finally: my players were a little disappointed (the Sorcerer, at least) when they found out that "regular" implements seem vastly superior to any dagger or sword. Now, the Swordsage doesn't mind - he's got a couple of powers with the Weapon keyword -, but the Sorcerer is a little heartbroken he can't effectively play his kidney-stabbing backalley mugger sorcerer. I offered him to turn an existing implement into a dagger version; it wouldn't be that great as a proper weapon, but the same as an implement. Are there any better solutions? Or do you think some existing Magic weapons would be advisable with the ruling I've mentioned above (only enhancement, critical and properties apply for implement use)? A link to an official statement on that would be nice, but I didn't find anything.
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Aug 27, 2014 09:40
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Agent Boogeyman posted:How about this? The ancient warrior was a mighty Deva Paladin, and in order to defeat the previous evil had to contain the evil entity in a living vessel, so he chose himself. Only it turns out that the contained vessel would become possessed, and in a last ditch effort to destroy the evil for good was forced to kill himself in hopes that would finish it off. Only it didn't. 1000 years later, the Oracles have seen a new evil and the twist that wouldn't be revealed until late game is that this new evil is the Deva resurrecting... as a Rakshasa. Thus the players' quest to find the artifacts and the Deva's body to resurrect him is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Good job breaking it, heroes. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the plot to the next Diablo game. quote:The main thing you're going to want to watch for is the way that a race to resurrect a big hero means that the PCs' greatest achievement is to cheerlead an NPC who is bigger and cooler than they are. Don't let this happen, it's not fun for anybody. The hero was so powerful that he grew, and grew, and grew in size and stature until he towered over the world. When he fell, his body split into many pieces, each of which the heroes will have to recover and reassemble in order to reanimate him. But the long, long death and darkness have caused his muscles and nerves to atrophy to near uselessness, and his body has changed from flesh and bone to rock and iron. Fortunately, the heroes can direct each body part individually for the climactic final battle and form the coherent whole. http://youtu.be/7mQuHh1X4H4?t=1m3s
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Aug 27, 2014 09:42
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Torquemadras posted:Okay fellas, here's a nasty little rules question for which I couldn't find ANY definite answer. It's about weapons as implements. In my 4ed game, the party's had two Defenders and two Leaders; it worked out, but one Defender (a Warden) didn't have as much fun as he thought he would, so he decided to go with a Striker instead, and one of the Leaders (a Cleric) followed suit. Now we're looking at a new Sorcerer and a new Warlock. The remaining Defender is a Swordmage. Naturally, they want to use daggers & swords as implements, but I discovered the rules are quite wonky on that subject... http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateCompiled.pdf should explain how weapons-as-implements work on page 90. Using a Weapon as an Implement: If you’re able to use a weapon as an implement, the weapon works like a normal implement for you, but you use neither the weapon’s proficiency bonus nor its nonmagical weapon properties with your implement powers. When you use a magic version of the weapon as an implement, you can use the magic weapon’s enhancement bonus, critical hit effects, properties, and powers. However, some magic weapons have properties and powers that are worded in such a way that they work only with weapon attacks. Also, a weapon’s range and damage die are usually irrelevant to implement powers, since such powers have their own ranges and damage expressions. UrbanLabyrinth fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 10:03
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Quote =/= edit
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Aug 27, 2014 10:09
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jimcunningham posted:Roughly 1000years ago, a very powerful evil was destroyed by a fierce warrior, said to be the best ever maybe. The oracles of all kingdoms gathered and determined that an even greater threat is coming. The goal will be to.resurrect the champion by finding his/her bones armor and weapons and some magic stone or something. Maybe the legend talks about one mighty hero, but it turns out that it was a group of people who brought that evil down, and the name of their group was what became the name of "the hero" as the story was passed on from generation to generation. Then "ressurecting the champion" becomes reforming that group with new people, maybe having to find their old magic weapons and spells that they once used. Maybe each PC could be a descendant of that original adventuring party. Or maybe they were tricked and the thing the PCs resurrect was actually the evil that the legends spoke of, which they then have to destroy. Anything but having the PCs play second fiddle right at the end o the campaign.
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Aug 27, 2014 12:20
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jimcunningham posted:Ok Contest Time (with no prize other than my gratitude). Im building a campaign around this: OK so DMPC's tend to be kind of sucky, especially if the player's entire mission is "get this guy awake so he can do all the hard work while we watch". So how about this? The warrior spent so long fighting the forces of magical evil that he started to take on some of their essence. He's not inherently magical, but he's facetanked so many spells of darkness, evil curses, corrupting hexes and other bad mojo that he's now literally radioactive. The players' quest to revive him isn't so they have an overpowered ally helping them in battle - it's so he can take one swing and basically unleash a nuclear explosion of magic, weakening the Big Bads or clearing out enough of their chaff that the players can decapitate the greater threat themselves. RPZip posted:The hero was so powerful that he grew, and grew, and grew in size and stature until he towered over the world. When he fell, his body split into many pieces, each of which the heroes will have to recover and reassemble in order to reanimate him. But the long, long death and darkness have caused his muscles and nerves to atrophy to near uselessness, and his body has changed from flesh and bone to rock and iron. Fortunately, the heroes can direct each body part individually for the climactic final battle and form the coherent whole. Rexides posted:Maybe the legend talks about one mighty hero, but it turns out that it was a group of people who brought that evil down, and the name of their group was what became the name of "the hero" as the story was passed on from generation to generation. Then "ressurecting the champion" becomes reforming that group with new people, maybe having to find their old magic weapons and spells that they once used. Maybe each PC could be a descendant of that original adventuring party. Alternatively these are both great. AXE COP fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 12:20
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These are all really good. Thanks!
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Aug 27, 2014 13:45
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