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Gort posted:I think I'm going to experiment with a houserule where characters have infinite healing surges and at the start of each encounter you draw half of your dailies (which are then effectively encounter powers). The idea is to make each encounter independent of the other encounters. Anyone tried something similar? A lot of the tension with fights comes with running out of healing surges, especially towards the end of the day and in boss fights. You might want to give people caps on how many surges they can spend per fight, maybe similar to their starting amounts? You can then adjust it inversely to how hard the fight is - ie an encounter 3 levels higher than the average party level gives everyone 3 less surges for that fight, to ratchet up the tension.
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Sep 8, 2014 18:49
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Arivia posted:A lot of the tension with fights comes with running out of healing surges, especially towards the end of the day and in boss fights. Doesn't that just mean that the early fights don't have any of that tension, since players aren't near the end of their healing surges? I find that my sessions rarely have enough combats to run people down to no surges by the end of the session. I usually only have two real combats in a session - and my players tend to say, "gently caress no, we're not pushing on, Bob is down to one surge! Long rest time" rather than going down to the wire. quote:You might want to give people caps on how many surges they can spend per fight, maybe similar to their starting amounts? You can then adjust it inversely to how hard the fight is - ie an encounter 3 levels higher than the average party level gives everyone 3 less surges for that fight, to ratchet up the tension. Yeah, I considered doing something like "defenders get 4 surges per fight, everyone else gets 3" but I find that players tend to run out of ways to spend their surges before they run out of surges, though I suppose if you had a mountain of healing potions and continually chugged them, or focused a character build entirely on "spend a ton of surges every combat" you could do it. Given non-common healing potions, however, I think I'd rather just ditch that particular bit of book-keeping. Gort fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 19:08
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Gort posted:Doesn't that just mean that the early fights don't have any of that tension, since players aren't near the end of their healing surges? I find that my sessions rarely have enough combats to run people down to no surges by the end of the session. I usually only have two real combats in a session - and my players tend to say, "gently caress no, we're not pushing on, Bob is down to one surge! Long rest time" rather than going down to the wire. That would depend on how taxing those initial fights are, then. You only get so many healing words/encounter, and if you're spending healing surges on other stuff as well your surges can get depleted really quick. Also, part of it is adventure design - if you don't give the party any reason to keep going, they're not going to. Adventures where the world is actively happening regardless of whether the heroes save everyone or not, a series of encounters that happen in the span of a single night, etc, can make the party make the actual hard choice - do we stop now and heal, or is the Necromancer going to totally gently caress that village if we wait 8 hours?
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Sep 8, 2014 19:56
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Agent Boogeyman posted:My favorite powers are any that teleport a target. You can just designate a square straight up, they get a saving throw, and if they fail they fall prone AND take extra damage. Avengers get a lot of these, and I had a fantastic time playing one using "Tether of Light" which lets you teleport the guy you hit every time you hit them over and over. Or, as the case may be, you teleport a friendly barbarian up above a flying enemy and let him charge-fall into the creature to kill it with a mighty blow! 
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Sep 8, 2014 20:03
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S.J. posted:That would depend on how taxing those initial fights are, then. You only get so many healing words/encounter, and if you're spending healing surges on other stuff as well your surges can get depleted really quick. You're not going through a party's worth of healing surges in a single fight. You probably aren't going through it in two. Maybe in three? So no matter how taxing your fights, there will be fights where running out of surges is not a possibility, so if "a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges", you're still having fights where "a lot of the tension" isn't present. The other trouble with "just make the fights more taxing" is that then you're skirting a bit too close to the overpowering encounter that aimed to deplete a lot of surges but instead defeated the party because it was aimed too high. I think that instead, a lot of the tension comes from being out of powers that give you HP back, not from being low on surges. Encounter-based resource management rather than "adventure day" resource management. quote:Also, part of it is adventure design - if you don't give the party any reason to keep going, they're not going to. Adventures where the world is actively happening regardless of whether the heroes save everyone or not, a series of encounters that happen in the span of a single night, etc, can make the party make the actual hard choice - do we stop now and heal, or is the Necromancer going to totally gently caress that village if we wait 8 hours? Putting the burden on the DM to DM a particular way to accommodate your rules is not good design. No matter how much the party wants to carry on without surges (or in this case how much the DM wants them to) it's not a good idea to enter a combat with what is probably the big boss of the adventure, the guy you fought through all the minions to face, when you can't heal yourselves effectively. And if your party does decide to go into a fight with no surges? Well, then the DM either has to lowball the encounter, making the big bad necromancer seem weak, or they lose and feel like the DM was being a dick by putting them in a situation where they had no real choice but to go into combat with no surges. Neither of those options seem particularly good to me.
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Sep 8, 2014 20:39
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Gort posted:You're not going through a party's worth of healing surges in a single fight. You probably aren't going through it in two. Maybe in three? So no matter how taxing your fights, there will be fights where running out of surges is not a possibility, so if "a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges", you're still having fights where "a lot of the tension" isn't present. The other trouble with "just make the fights more taxing" is that then you're skirting a bit too close to the overpowering encounter that aimed to deplete a lot of surges but instead defeated the party because it was aimed too high. The workday in 4e is balanced around 3 combat encounters per extended rest. That tends to be just enough to put the party on the edge of losing all their surges without actually doing it.
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Sep 8, 2014 21:02
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For me, a lot of the tension is rolled up into the d20 itself because its so drat swingy. A fight that should have been a cakewalk could turn sour towards the players simply by them getting dicked over by the dice. Likewise, fights that should be challenging can swing the other way when you're GMing and your big bad boss man keeps loving up his rolls. It's just the nature of any chance based game. When it comes to surges and resource management when I GM, my rule of thumb has always been 3-4 combat encounters before the team needs to take an extended rest per adventure. That way you can fill it with a nice handful of things that AREN'T just combat, like skill challenges in the form of puzzles, trap-laden rooms, investigations and the like. I think the DMG even says this is a pretty good way to tackle the adventuring day.
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Sep 8, 2014 21:06
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Wahad posted:Or, as the case may be, you teleport a friendly barbarian up above a flying enemy and let him charge-fall into the creature to kill it with a mighty blow! That reminds me of another thing that bothers me. RAW if you prone a flying target they instantly teleport to the ground. Which seems incredibly dumb. "Oh hey the enemy is flying over a chasm, well they're dead now."
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Sep 8, 2014 21:16
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The rules say that a flying enemy that's knocked prone "falls", but that doesn't mean they instantly hit the ground - it has a specific meaning:quote:Falling Prone: If a creature falls prone while it is flying, it falls. This means a flying creature falls when it becomes unconscious or suffers any other effect that knocks it prone. The creature isn’t actually prone until it lands and takes falling damage. quote:Falling while Flying: If a creature falls while it is flying, it descends the full distance of the fall but is likely to take less damage than a creature that can’t fly. Subtract the creature’s fly speed (in feet) from the distance of the fall, then figure out falling damage. If the difference is 0 or less, the creature lands without taking damage from the fall. For example, if a red dragon falls when it is 40 feet in the air, subtract its fly speed of 8 (8 squares = 40 feet) from its altitude. The difference is 0, so the dragon lands safely and is not prone.  e: misread this a little, except in high altitude they do fall the full distance immediately but it's not necessarily instant death for a flyer. I like the idea of a flying solo taking some damage and then crawling out of the chasm seething Party Boat fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 21:33
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Kurieg posted:That reminds me of another thing that bothers me. RAW if you prone a flying target they instantly teleport to the ground. Which seems incredibly dumb. "Oh hey the enemy is flying over a chasm, well they're dead now." Nah, the falling rules let flying creatures catch themselves in high-altitude falls. RC 209. You only fall 500ft, then fall another 500 til your next turn if you do nothing to stop it. Plus an athletics check to arrest the fall at 100 ft. Flyers be okay around chasms. e: beaten, but yeah, anyone who falls basically falls 500ft/round.
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Sep 8, 2014 21:37
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Kurieg posted:That reminds me of another thing that bothers me. RAW if you prone a flying target they instantly teleport to the ground. Which seems incredibly dumb. "Oh hey the enemy is flying over a chasm, well they're dead now." I'm trying to think of an elegant solution to this. maybe have them drop twice their movement when they're hit which should be the ground for non lethal falls (slower flyers being less aerodynamic fall slower). Then have them need to spend a movement action on their next turn to break the fall or they go splat. That way stunning a flying target over a cliff is still lethal as they can't take an action to save themselfs but knocking them prone just takes them out of the fight for a turn. Edit: beaten by people who know the rules far better then me, good to see the game designers thought of a solution before me. vvv also fixed vvv Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 21:38
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Vorpal Cat posted:less arrow dynamic
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Sep 8, 2014 21:41
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Jack the Lad posted:Unfortunately you can't teleport people up: Forced movement may not normally allow you to move people into the air, but I'd handwave it in cases where you've got the target grabbed and are capable of lifting the target (using your strength stat for normal, or substituting your attack stat if you're using some sort of ability). That way you can use abilities that let you move and drag the target around (such as the fighter's Slamming Rush) to jump into the air and then Final Atomic Buster a dude into the ground for some extra damage. I'd also make Fastball Special a warlord at-will. I'm also partial to the idea of letting you use forced movement to slam your foes into or even through obstacles for extra effects, though you'd have to limit the damage to 1/turn to stop it from turning into the next version of the now-patched zone abuse.
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Sep 8, 2014 22:43
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Gort posted:You're not going through a party's worth of healing surges in a single fight. You probably aren't going through it in two. Maybe in three? So no matter how taxing your fights, there will be fights where running out of surges is not a possibility, so if "a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges", you're still having fights where "a lot of the tension" isn't present. The other trouble with "just make the fights more taxing" is that then you're skirting a bit too close to the overpowering encounter that aimed to deplete a lot of surges but instead defeated the party because it was aimed too high. I didn't say you were. And you can definitely get through those healing surges in 3 fights if you're building the encounters correctly for your party. quote:Putting the burden on the DM to DM a particular way to accommodate your rules is not good design. No matter how much the party wants to carry on without surges (or in this case how much the DM wants them to) it's not a good idea to enter a combat with what is probably the big boss of the adventure, the guy you fought through all the minions to face, when you can't heal yourselves effectively. That's not what I actually said though? You're not having to accomodate rules at all, here. You're making it sound like they're literally 100% out of resources in your example before entering the final fight, but that isn't what I said (or meant to imply, anyways). You put the big boss fight at the end of the series of encounters so that, yes, by the end of it they are out or almost out of resources, maybe even had to make some death saving throws. If they want to go into the fight with all of their dailies and healing surges remaining, they can, but they certainly don't have to - the game doesn't suddenly stop one way or the other, but from what you're describing the real issue is that you're basing your encounter design on a per-session basis rather than a per-game-day basis, and that isn't necessarily going to work with the base game rules, although it's almost certainly a solvable issue. Has there been an issue with splitting up your adventuring day between multiple sessions with your group? I do like the idea of every class/role getting X healing surges per fight, though, I think that's workable. Maybe have a fatigue timer, if necessary, so that after a certain number of encounters they start the next fights with X-1, then X-2, etc healing surges in the same adventuring day? S.J. fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 22:55
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Generic Octopus posted:Nah, the falling rules let flying creatures catch themselves in high-altitude falls. RC 209. You only fall 500ft, then fall another 500 til your next turn if you do nothing to stop it. Plus an athletics check to arrest the fall at 100 ft. Flyers be okay around chasms. This would be cool feature to utilize if the party was fighting a group of flying enemy's on an airship and they need to keep knocking them down to keep the numbers manageable, maybe add some net launching ballistas the players can use which knock back the target a few squares then restrain it and knock it prone. How long does it take for something like a harpy to fly 100 squares straight up anyway? If it takes to long you could add some leaders who can use wind magic to pull back those who fall. It would be funny having something get knock down at the start, then spend half the battle getting back only to get knocked prone the turn it comes into range, then again so is writing: Wind Call At will Standard Action Ranged 200 Target One Flying Ally Effect: The target is pulled 100 squares. Edit: switched from my phone to an actual keyboard. Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 23:18
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If the harpy had like, fly speed 8, and +2 for running, it could cover 20 squares with a double move in a turn. Alternative (or in addition) to the wind-shaping leaders, could have updrafts be a terrain feature. And then the harpies could also have wind-based pushing/sliding/prone-ing moves to mess with PCs or maneuver allies.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:30
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Generic Octopus posted:If the harpy had like, fly speed 8, and +2 for running, it could cover 20 squares with a double move in a turn. I like the idea of using wind callers because that way knocking down harpy will also keep the leader busy resummoning their flock instead of attacking the party, I would give them an wind attack that damages players and pushes them around (put some railings on the ship so the party isn't in danger of going over themselves) and also a power to move themselves 100 squares as a standard action in case they get knocked down themselves. It also lets the party shut down the respawns by killing or stunning the leaders. Just set it up so that if no harpy is within 50 squares of the ship they break off the attack. It would be kind of silly to get down to one or two and have pcs wait 5 turns twittling their thumbs while the last two harpy slow make there way back. Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 8, 2014 23:42
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AXE COP posted:That's why assassins are not very good! You could try to compensate by giving him the feat that makes placing shrouds an act that enemies don't notice, then giving him more opportunities to set them up out of combat. That way when a fight begins he can jump out of stealth and hit the shrouded guy for a massive alpha strike, which should both make him more useful and feel more like an actual assassin. What if assassin shrouds were more of an internal counter thing and could be invoked on any target. So instead of putting them on targets you put them on yourself and use them up whenever. I think there are powers and feats that have effects on your shrouded target; I haven't worked that out yet.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:00
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Friends don't let friends play Assassins. They make them play Avengers or Rogues instead.
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Sep 9, 2014 01:04
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Executioners are OK, but generally improved by hybridding.
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Sep 11, 2014 19:52
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There's essentially no convincing reason that the various flavors of assassin couldn't have been rolled into avenger or rogue as build options.
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Sep 11, 2014 20:52
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:There's essentially no convincing reason that the various flavors of assassin couldn't have been rolled into avenger or rogue as build options. Except as a reason to sign up for DDI!
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Sep 11, 2014 20:54
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In my continuing quest to find interesting options or ideas, does anyone have an opinion on what the best 4e Adventures were (paths or single-shots) that aren't Neverwinter or Madness of Gardmore Abbey?
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Sep 15, 2014 14:38
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Reavers of Harkenwold (the DM kit adventure). The Eberron adventure Eyes of the Lich Queen.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:10
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UrbanLabyrinth posted:Reavers of Harkenwold (the DM kit adventure). Eyes of the Lich Queen was 3.5; Seekers of the Ashen Crown was the 4e one (which I do like and recommend, just keep an eye on the length of the dungeons that aren't Ashurta's Tomb).
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Sep 15, 2014 16:45
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There was one I really liked where the party ends up entering the mind of a Dawn Titan, but I can't remember what it was called, it was an LFR mod.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:48
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Madmarker posted:There was one I really liked where the party ends up entering the mind of a Dawn Titan, but I can't remember what it was called, it was an LFR mod. Being Dawn Titanovich
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Sep 15, 2014 16:50
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RPZip posted:In my continuing quest to find interesting options or ideas, does anyone have an opinion on what the best 4e Adventures were (paths or single-shots) that aren't Neverwinter or Madness of Gardmore Abbey? I saved this standard response from (I think) forums-poster Elmo Oxygen 4e Published Adventures.txt posted:Can you guys recommend some pre-printed adventures to run? I'd like something low level to keep it simple.
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Sep 15, 2014 17:56
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RPZip posted:In my continuing quest to find interesting options or ideas, does anyone have an opinion on what the best 4e Adventures were (paths or single-shots) that aren't Neverwinter or Madness of Gardmore Abbey? Halls of Undermountain! 
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Sep 15, 2014 18:00
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RPZip posted:In my continuing quest to find interesting options or ideas, does anyone have an opinion on what the best 4e Adventures were (paths or single-shots) that aren't Neverwinter or Madness of Gardmore Abbey?  Also, check out Zeitgeist. It's amazing. Running it now, in fact - we're just starting Adventure 4.
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Sep 15, 2014 18:20
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Friday night I ran the group through the Town on Fire scenario and they exceeded my expectations, though near the end we had 3 people making death saving throws (but none died!) before the last bad guy was stabbed to death. They saved 3 of the 5 burning houses thanks to the rogue and monk kicking down doors. No one used arcana to water-bend to put out flames, sadly  After that they headed up to the tower of mystery and were set upon by the guardian, a solo who goes twice per round with a bunch of little robot minions. I gave the solo a massive slide power to knock people into lava pits and it was fun, but he died quick. It was a good session. Now I'm gearing up for the first real dungeon of the campaign, an ancient warmachine foundry, so I'm thinking of having a fight on a conveyor belt like that part in Star Wars but not lovely and some holograms of exposition.
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Sep 15, 2014 19:05
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dwarf74 posted:This is part of the OP.  I was also thinking of the Dragon adventures - there's a few interesting ones I've picked up, especially Lord of the White Field which look interesting, but I'll take another look at Reavers and such too.
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Sep 15, 2014 19:11
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Hammer Rhythm feat: Does or does not kill minions on a miss? The feat text wording is key: If you miss with a melee attack with a hammer or a mace and you wouldn’t otherwise still deal damage on the miss, you deal damage to your original target equal to your Constitution modifier. This damage receives no modifiers or other benefits you normally gain to weapon damage. Because you wouldn't damage the minion on a miss, is the minion now damaged by Hammer Rhythm?
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Sep 16, 2014 05:17
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I think a big keyword on minions is that they never take damage on a miss. Which probably overrides that feat because it's an absolute.
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Sep 16, 2014 05:23
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Right, the specific (the feat) overrides the general (minions not taking damage on a miss).
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Sep 16, 2014 05:37
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It's a rather important distinction because I'm working with an epic hammer fighter build that gets huge bonuses whenever you kill something.
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Sep 16, 2014 05:42
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I'm pretty sure the 'wouldn’t otherwise still deal damage on the miss' is just supposed to exclude powers that already deal damage on a miss. I think minions are still not going to get hit.
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Sep 16, 2014 05:42
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S.J. posted:I didn't say you were. And you can definitely get through those healing surges in 3 fights if you're building the encounters correctly for your party. yeah the thing that jumped out at me about Gort's situation is that it seems that IRL session = in game session. I've read that a lot of groups do this, but I have never really understood why. The thing about 4th edition healing surge system is not "a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges", it is "within an encounter a lot of the tension comes from being low on ways to spend surges" coupled with "within an adventuring day a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges and other daily resources". It is important that these 2 work side by side. Each individual encounter (apart from one near the end where the actual surges have been depleted) can be balanced and tense and gruelling without the DM throwing the kitchen sink into 1 mega encounter (there is nothing stopping him doing that either). If you have any classes or races that use healing surges in any meaningful way (dwarves with their minor second wind, paladins with lay on hands, wardens, magic items etc, or characters that have optimised surges in any way) you need to be careful about messing with the expected numbers and management there of. Dailies have a similar issue. The relative power level of different class dailies are based around them being a limited resource. If you can daily all the time some classes come out way OP and some get shafted.
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Sep 16, 2014 06:09
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You guys are overthinking Hammer Rhythm. It adds a Miss: effect line to all melee weapon powers that don't already have one, specifically "Miss: If you have a Hammer or a Mace equipped, deal CON damage to the target." Miss effects don't deal damage to minions, so it wouldn't trigger.
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Sep 16, 2014 06:16
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One of my players was quite disappointed to learn he couldn't take the Skill Power feat more than once. He's now looking for ways to get more skill powers and, last I heard, has kinda latched on to their introductory paragraph in PHB3 because it says you can exchange "class powers" for skill powers through retraining. I told him the rest of the paragraph pretty clearly referred to class utility powers and not to be silly. Got me thinking though. Unlimited skill powers through the feat are a bad idea because you end up with a long unwieldy list and decision paralysis, but would there be any harm in allowing someone to take skill powers in place of attack powers? Pretty sure I'm not going to do it either way, just curious.
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Sep 16, 2014 06:24
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