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Arivia posted:Tracking XP is a fun reward for playing specifically because it makes things numerically available and visible. Players like imagining how far they have to go and seeing their progress. I don't agree that this is any better than anticipating leveling up in a session or two, or after you kill the boss and take his stuff. Different strokes though.
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Jun 25, 2015 06:43
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I believe it's been shown that we respond better to irregular rewards than a completely predictable stream.
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Jun 25, 2015 06:45
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My Lovely Horse posted:True! By the Rules Compendium that's handled through quest XP, but I don't much like defining quests so rigidly. Usually I just generously round up XP every other session or so and call that the story part. I also meant that I think 4e works a lot better if you include some really one sided stomps every now and again, especially at low levels. Spend a fight or two establishing to the players which enemies are threatening and which aren't, then give them a fight against something like 6 minions, a Soldier and a Lurker who shows up on Round 2. Should end during Round 3 and the reduced complexity will keep them from taking more then a few minutes per turn.
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Jun 25, 2015 17:38
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Misandu posted:I also meant that I think 4e works a lot better if you include some really one sided stomps every now and again, especially at low levels. Spend a fight or two establishing to the players which enemies are threatening and which aren't, then give them a fight against something like 6 minions, a Soldier and a Lurker who shows up on Round 2. Should end during Round 3 and the reduced complexity will keep them from taking more then a few minutes per turn. I think it works to establish tone too. Typically 4e is meant to be a game where your main dudes are all badasses right from the get go, but if you spend early levels just getting your rear end handed to you by a bunch of kobolds and zombies then you start to feel like maybe you're just some dirtfarming peasant who got ideas above his station. A scene where your merry little band fights off 20 dudes with no effort makes you feel like Gilgamesh.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:51
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Exactly! It also serves to make the fights where you ARE desperately blowing Dailies and Healing Surges feel more tense.
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Jun 25, 2015 23:59
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I like to throw in hordes of minions that are hopelessly outclassed and which pretty much exist to draw opportunity attacks, get wrecked by defenders breathing in their general directions, give everyone something to do and provide running commentary. Those minions that yell in fear about how the barbarian just ripped one of them in half? That's them. Then again, I also like to go the other way and have a few enemies who hopelessly outclass the players, with some very important additions: they never outright no-sell stuff (so no immunities that shut down everything, no impossible AC), and there is always some way to severely weaken them. Mostly by using the environment, or being smart about their skill checks. I like to establish these guys in advance, so that the players know that THESE particular enemies will gently caress them up if they fight them head-on. Makes it more fun, if you ask me. It's nice to have the guidelines, so that you know what's mathematically pure overkill / a total joke, but there's a place for those too, if it makes for a fun scene...
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Jun 26, 2015 12:47
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I'm hashing out an encounter in a gambling-themed dungeon that's less "fight some dudes" and more "do a thing while you're being attacked." The idea is that the party has to do arcane stuff in a 6x6 area that serves as a roulette layout; every round I roll a number from 1-36 and if, say, 16 red comes up, then everyone on red squares and on squares with even numbers gets a small bonus, everyone on black or odd a penalty, and whoever's on the 16 gets a big fat bonus. Different bonuses for red/black and odd/even so you might win in one way, lose in another. Now I'm looking for effects that are appropriate to hand out on a roughly 50/50 chance. +2/-2 to attacks, to defenses, gain/lose 5 HP, I think all those would be good, right? For the big fat bonus there's only a 1/36 chance that it hits you, and it might not hit anyone at all, so I wouldn't mind if that was something significant. Spend a healing surge and gain bonuses to attack and defense for a round? Get an additional standard action on your turn? Roll twice take higher for attacks, enemies have to roll twice take lower?
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Jun 28, 2015 16:33
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If you roll red, those in red squares gain combat advantage against those in black squares, and vice-versa. Maybe the squares that are disfavored vibrate or wobble or something. If you're in the right row or column, you gain a free minor action. Not sure how to represent that. If you're in the exactly-rolled square, you get an action point which you must spend immediately. To perfectly mimic roulette, you should also have a 0 and a 00 square. When that one comes up, everyone else loses... maybe the room gets a dose of poison gas, or darts shoot down from the ceiling, or the squares everyone is standing on physically flip over and you have to make a difficult acrobatics check to remain standing? It's a cool idea, I bet your players are going to get a big kick out of it.
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Jun 28, 2015 17:36
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Dimensional Scramble is the greatest at-will in the game
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Jun 29, 2015 05:50
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alcharagia posted:Dimensional Scramble is the greatest at-will in the game Yeah but Opening Shove though.
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Jun 29, 2015 09:21
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'm hashing out an encounter in a gambling-themed dungeon that's less "fight some dudes" and more "do a thing while you're being attacked." The idea is that the party has to do arcane stuff in a 6x6 area that serves as a roulette layout; every round I roll a number from 1-36 and if, say, 16 red comes up, then everyone on red squares and on squares with even numbers gets a small bonus, everyone on black or odd a penalty, and whoever's on the 16 gets a big fat bonus. Different bonuses for red/black and odd/even so you might win in one way, lose in another. I would say go really big with the effects. Combat Advantage if you're on the right color sounds good, refresh an encounter if you're on the right odd/even split maybe? You could go real Disgaea with it if you wanted and have the token that marks the effect be physically present on the board and subject to forced movement, letting the players create their own luck so to speak.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:29
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theironjef posted:Yeah but Opening Shove though. Opening Shove does not let me telefrag people
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Jun 29, 2015 18:42
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alcharagia posted:Opening Shove does not let me telefrag people And neither of them let you insult people till they die, unlike Vicious Mockery, which is why it is the best at-will.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:44
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Here are my roulette/magic areas, I'm gonna use one of these:  They're magic squares for occult reasons. On the left the red/black distribution is the same as on the actual roulette wheel*, on the right it's more aesthetically pleasing and has roughly the same ratio of red/black and odd/even. Plus, with the right, there's an immediately obvious advantage to surrounding an enemy who's on the loser colour that round. I'm probably gonna make that bonus an extra +2 so it stacks with CA from flanking. So: Red/Black: +2 to attacks against the loser colour while you're on the winner. Odd/Even: tentatively: recharge an encounter power. But actually I want those in the loser range to, well, lose something. Plus it should be something enemies can benefit from as well. I'm still thinking gain 5 (T)HP or take 5 damage. Damage reduction wouldn't apply, but also, the THP would stack. Same row/column: that one was exactly what I was missing for a chance between 1 in 2 and 1 in 36! You have a roughly 27% chance to be in the same row or column as the winning number. Now that could well be worth an encounter power recharge, or maybe a healing surge if you still have all your encounter powers/are a monster. Same exact number: 1 in 36 chance to get... yeah, an immediate standard action sounds about right. (Not Immediate Action-immediate of course, more like Haste.) Plus if you get this you automatically win in every other category as well. I was thinking I'd quietly ignore the zeroes. It's gonna take maybe 5 rounds at most to do this thing, and it seems a shame to waste one on "everybody gets hurt." Misandu posted:You could go real Disgaea with it if you wanted and have the token that marks the effect be physically present on the board and subject to forced movement, letting the players create their own luck so to speak. *I always thought that was more or less arbitrary; turns out there's almost something like a science behind it
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Jun 29, 2015 20:02
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So I'm going to run 4e for the first time somewhere in the near future-ish with my standard group of folks. They're doing class selection right now and so far I know I've got an avenger and a vampire. I know vampires have a reputation for being pretty sub-par, especially post-heroic. Anyone have experience with the class/recommendations on bones I can throw them that don't involve the word "hybrid"?
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Jul 5, 2015 01:29
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LightWarden did a long analysis of the Vampire class here
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Jul 5, 2015 01:37
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The Crotch posted:Anyone have experience with the class/recommendations on bones I can throw them that don't involve the word "hybrid"? Don't. Seriously, that's the recommendation. Don't. The normal vampire is awful. It has an interesting surge mechanic coupled with terrible performance. They'll drop below par well before leaving Heroic and the gap between them and the other classes only expands from there on out. The amount of buffing you'd have to give the class to make them worthwhile has you basically remaking the class. The only real way to make Vampire viable is to hybridize it; the Vampire MC is not worthwhile because you gain the Vampire's surge mechanics without gaining any of the powers that make that mechanic work and you will end every fight by stealing surges from your friends. Vampire|Rogue is probably the best of these; dex/cha is a very strong rogue statset, martial vampire can give you 2 free surges per fight, and the rogue skillset of quick powerful strikes and dexterous evasion blends well with the whole vampire vibe.
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Jul 5, 2015 02:38
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The Crotch posted:So I'm going to run 4e for the first time somewhere in the near future-ish with my standard group of folks. They're doing class selection right now and so far I know I've got an avenger and a vampire. Going to echo the above poster on this as well, don't let a new player (I'm assuming your group is new since this is your first time) play a Vampire, or, for that matter, anything from the Heroes of Shadow book. 4E works best on the concept of refluffing its component parts, I.E, playing a Rogue that acts like a vampire in roleplay, or anything else you want really. It's best to work from a mechanics angle initially in 4E, ask your players what they want to do in a combat situation, and work within the system to create that result. Then, changing the fluff to suit their character should get you where you want to be.
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Jul 5, 2015 02:58
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My players have mixed levels of experience with the system, but this one's brand new to it, yeah. I'll talk to him about hybrid and dhampir/vryloka options with other classes. Fella just loves him some vampires.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:04
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If you want to play a vaguely effective vampire-thing, go brawler fighter, take the vampiric heritage feats from that one early dragon that gives you stuff to do that triggers off grabs, and maybe the monk multiclass feat that gives you monk unarmed attack damage so you can refluff it as vampire-fu with fangs and punches.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:06
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The Crotch posted:My players have mixed levels of experience with the system, but this one's brand new to it, yeah. I'll talk to him about hybrid and dhampir/vryloka options with other classes. Honestly, I'd recommend a Vryloka with whatever class looks good to the player. Hybrids are not something you really want a new player using or attempting to create. Vampires in particular require several char op tricks to get running properly, which, naturally, requires a fairly comprehensive understanding of the system. It's best to just stick to one class and one build within that class and focus on that when you're new, and branch out into more complicated char op stuff later.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:11
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My experience with a mid-heroic vampire was that it was plenty capable of keeping up with other characters. The thing about vampires is that they don't get any multi-attacks and so can't apply all their static damage bonuses multiple times in the same turn; if you put them alongside other characters that also don't do that they're basically on par.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:13
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I played 4E for a while, but stopped just before Essentials came out. I'm now going to DM a new game. A goon was selling off a bunch of books so I bought a pile based mostly on the interesting titles. The books included three Player's Option books: Heroes of the Feywild, Heroes of the Elemental Chaos, and Heroes of Shadow. I uh, guess I should have read anything about them before I bought them? They say on the backs that they require Essentials. Are these books at all useful to me, or to my players, who also don't have Essentials? Or should I look to resell them now.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:28
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Leperflesh posted:I played 4E for a while, but stopped just before Essentials came out. I'm now going to DM a new game. A goon was selling off a bunch of books so I bought a pile based mostly on the interesting titles. Those three books just contain either new classes which you don't need the Essentials books for, or options for existing classes, which may or may not be in the Heroes of the Fallen Lands or Forgotten Kingdoms books. If you have a Player's Handbook, you should be more or less fine with those books, although it's worth pointing that they range from crap (Heroes of Shadow) to generally all right (Heroes of the Feywild). Edit: I'd recommend looking into the 4E Character Builder, which has an online component maintained as part of WOTC's Insider subscription service which kind of sucks and is hard to find (I don't know where it is now, I just know it exists), and an offline program which was updated by goons and is actually pretty good for what it is. It comes with all the options from everything in the game, and if you want, I can supply you with it. Lord Justice fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 04:34
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An offline character builder sounds an awful lot like A Good Thing I'd Use.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:45
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Leperflesh posted:I played 4E for a while, but stopped just before Essentials came out. I'm now going to DM a new game. A goon was selling off a bunch of books so I bought a pile based mostly on the interesting titles.
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Jul 5, 2015 04:51
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I have the official WoTC offline character builder working. My players include a bibliophile who likes to use books instead, so if they're actually useful at all, then that's cool and I'll keep them around. e. These instructions got it working for me: https://rogue-elements.obsidianportal.com/wikis/offline-character-builder
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Jul 5, 2015 04:58
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Chaotic Neutral posted:The powers, themes, and feats are always at least worth a look due to cross compatibility. Their 'new' base classes (including the reskins like Sha'ir) are almost uniformly bad or better as hybrids, but some of the new options for existing classes - particularly the Monastic Traditions in HotEC - are really quite good. The Desert Wind monk is surprisingly badass.
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Jul 5, 2015 05:57
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Ferrinus posted:My experience with a mid-heroic vampire was that it was plenty capable of keeping up with other characters. The thing about vampires is that they don't get any multi-attacks and so can't apply all their static damage bonuses multiple times in the same turn; if you put them alongside other characters that also don't do that they're basically on par. No multi-attacks, no minor attacks, no multiple target attacks. No control. Fairly weak striker feature. The list of strikers with all of those problems is the list of terrible strikers that you should avoid using. The Vampire can maybe match the At-Will DPS performance of the real classes early on, but the problem here is that past L3 nobody is depending on At-Will DPS, really. The Avenger is using Avenging Alacrity into Fury's Advance with double rolls using a greataxe for monster crits and huge accuracy. The fighter is dropping rain of blows, the sorcerer is making GBS threads damage bonuses across the battlefield, the warlock just smacked one guy and then made him smack his neighbor which triggered the fighter's mark and let the fighter get a smack in on him too... and the Vampire is using the same At-Will he was using at L1, just with slightly larger numbers maybe. That's at L3. It gets worse from there on out. Even if the DPS was competitive(it isn't), this lack of options and powers still ends up sucking and making the class miserable to play.
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Jul 5, 2015 06:11
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The Crotch posted:My players have mixed levels of experience with the system, but this one's brand new to it, yeah. I'll talk to him about hybrid and dhampir/vryloka options with other classes. If your player really wants an undead-themed class by RAW, the Revenant is very good if a bit feat-intensive, since they're the toughest race to kill. They can poach one racial power from any other race by taking a too to represent their past life too, which is really cool.
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Jul 5, 2015 06:26
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Essentials was Mike Mearls, famed for 5e, trying to remake 4e into his own vision. It is mostly hot garbage, with a few glittering gems, but all those gems come from the very back end, likely when Mearls was too busy making 5e to poo poo on 4e more.
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Jul 5, 2015 09:30
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What are those? I have only read Heroes of the Feywild and found it quite good (though I'm a sucker for fairy stuff). Anything else worth getting from the Essentials era?
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Jul 5, 2015 11:19
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HotF is pretty solid. HotEC is OK. HoS is only worth it for hybrid executioner which isn't technically actually IN that book. The two base Essentials books are mostly  except the Slayer and Knight which are fun (but only if you include pre-E and Dragon supplementary materials with them, they suck with just those books as sources, and the Mage which is just another Wizard build.
thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 11:25
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I will admit that one thing Essentials did well was create a couple classes that can easily be played with your brain on autopilot and still contributing if you're mostly playing for the social or roleplay aspect. I mean, there's other builds that do that, too (lazylords come to mind) but credit where credit is due, "classes with strong at-wills" is not a bad goal. Quick example, if someone new to 4e came to me and said "I don't care about all those powers or whatever, I just want to hit stuff with a greatsword", I'd probably roll them up a Slayer. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jul 5, 2015 |
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Jul 5, 2015 11:53
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While I've never run into a player that didn't want a deeper level of interaction with the game's mechanics after being able to familiarize themselves with it, I think that sort of "a character that just hits stuff" has to go with the provision that you'd let them reroll to something else if and when they want to graduate beyond it. And Essentials still doesn't pick out feats for you, so there's still that layer of character creation that's needlessly complex. Personally, I'd go with the Class Compendium guides for "locked in" progression paths: http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Templar#Templar http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Arcanist#Arcanist http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Marshal#Marshal http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Scoundrel#Scoundrel http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Weaponmaster
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Jul 5, 2015 13:15
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Littlefinger posted:What are those? I have only read Heroes of the Feywild and found it quite good (though I'm a sucker for fairy stuff). Anything else worth getting from the Essentials era? HotEC has the elemental sorcerer, the fire variant of which is the holder of the "Strongest RBA Ever" award. If you're in a party with a warlord then the both of you are going to have a lot of fun. As long as you weren't too attached to the idea of having daily powers, or Encounter powers that were in any way different than just buffing your 3 At-Wills.
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Jul 5, 2015 14:35
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The Elementalist is really pretty potent. The ice one can not only go permafrost, their encounter power gets a crazy Daze rider eventually. Add in some Arcane Admixture and Rolling Thunder and it's insane. It's not a particularly challenging class, but it can definitely fill its role.
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Jul 5, 2015 15:28
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Slayer is probably the most optimisable E-class IME, though Knight comes a close second in Epic thanks to Overwhelming Impact making you daze all the things. Fighters have silly-good striker support that Slayers can steal.
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Jul 5, 2015 15:33
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dwarf74 posted:The Elementalist is really pretty potent. The ice one can not only go permafrost, their encounter power gets a crazy Daze rider eventually. Add in some Arcane Admixture and Rolling Thunder and it's insane. Similarly, if you have access to Eberron Material, Air Elementalist can pick up Mark of Storm and take Lyrandar Wind-rider in Paragon to happily fart high-damage sliding lightning at things forever. thespaceinvader posted:Slayer is probably the most optimisable E-class IME, though Knight comes a close second in Epic thanks to Overwhelming Impact making you daze all the things. Fighters have silly-good striker support that Slayers can steal. Knights are fun because they're basically the only defender where what you do with your standard action isn't really all that important (outside of whatever you picked for Martial Cross Training) because it's the exact same stuff you do off-turn, which makes throwing down a Battle Standard of the Hungry Blade to create a black hole of death every single fight a quality choice. Plus they're one of the only classes in the game where it's not a terrible idea to invest in one of the Power Strike feats from the MME book (specifically Hammer Strike and maybe Flail Strike, which let you turn your OAs into potential turn-enders). Slayer and Scout can potentially do alright with Flail Strike, since it could work as an attack-generator, but that relies on the DM somewhat. Hexblades aren't up to slayer standards, but they're not completely terrible other than the fact that their biggest weakness is that they don't natively get anything resembling an encounter alpha until Quicken Spellcasting at epic. But a hexblade that MCs into Fighter or rogue can do decently, since they're at an intersection of support for arcane, teleportation, energy subtypes (cold and radiant primarily), and weapons. Pretty one-note though (Teleport ->charge-> white lotus riposte ->repeat).
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Jul 5, 2015 18:37
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LightWarden posted:Similarly, if you have access to Eberron Material, Air Elementalist can pick up Mark of Storm and take Lyrandar Wind-rider in Paragon to happily fart high-damage sliding lightning at things forever. The wind rider and the mark of storm are the reasons dragonmarks are banned from my 4e games. Mark of healing is pretty unbalanced too, but only since it adds saves to every but of healing a leader can use. Compared to those two, making(like alchemy but less terrible) and handling(bm ranger math fixes??) Are barely worth considering.
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Jul 5, 2015 18:51
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