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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. No, it's pretty terrible to invest in those Power Strike feats. There's not a single one that's worth bothering with. Prior to Epic you should be able to to prone someone every time you punish them thanks to World Serpent's Grasp, and your Power Strike will immobilise them anyway if you're using a hammer. Those feats are generally not worth the investment. If you're using a flail (and arguably, that's optimal until Epic), you can just take Lashing Flail/Dragging Flail/Flail Expertise and accomplish the same thing without using any limited resources, without costing yourself damage, and on every single hit.
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Jul 5, 2015 19:57
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drat, wouldn't want to play at your table. Sliding and proning shenanigans is my bag, which means all of my favorite builds work around Mark of Storm. Lightning just has great support, and if you can pull out thunder as well, you can deal a world of hurt. Admittedly, though, outside of the great level 11 features, Lyrander Windrider as a PP leaves me cold. The attack powers aren't useful to most classes because they're limited to cha or con stats and unless you can use a weapon as an implement, they don't even qualify for the PP's main features since they don't contain the lightning or thunder keywords. But, a +1 to attack rolls and +con mod damage in many cases can be worth it, and who doesn't like to fly? I'd still totally give the edge to Permafrost builds, though, at least in terms of damage output and accuracy, and some cold builds can take advantage of World Serpent's Grasp shenanigans if they absolutely, positively have to knock a motherfucker down. I'd just rather go Flail Expertise - Mark of Storm - Triple headed Flail - Pinning Grab and auto pin monsters err'yday. Or pick up spiked chain multiclass and literally become Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Or just go Lyrander Wind Rider + Avatar of Storm Epic Destiny and wield the power of the storm as Zeus or Thor himself.
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Jul 5, 2015 20:14
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Oh yeah, MoS is definitely the way to go for slide/proning if it's legal in your games. I tend to be indoctrinated to forget it by SO many years playing LFR. Though, for a flail using Knight, Lashing Flail/Dragging Flail/Flail Expertise actually works better, because it doesn't eat your enchantment. Less so for other classes that actually have at-wills other than MBA. Spiked Chain is a beast for slideproning, but unless you're using two weapons you don't need the multiclass particularly, the power swaps aren't really worth it. I love playing my slideproning Berserker for just that reason, he's great fun (unless he manages to get push out of reach, which is the pain of aura defenders).
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Jul 5, 2015 20:36
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thespaceinvader posted:Oh yeah, MoS is definitely the way to go for slide/proning if it's legal in your games. I tend to be indoctrinated to forget it by SO many years playing LFR. Usually if I'm building a spike-chain character, I'm looking at a class that can multi-attack/use two weapons, so mainly Fighter, Ranger, and Barbarian. Since it's a multi-class feat, unfortunately the Rangers and Barbarians are out of the running for things like Dragging Flail since they can't pick up the Fighter support, so they'll need the Mark of Storm in order to click, and even then they'll only be able to choose between the slide or the prone. To get the full potential, you really have to be a fighter, but then you become a multi-attacking, multi-target slide-prone monster. Give it to a Minotaur with the Beastblooded PP, and you've got a multi-target, multi-attack monster with REACH 2 at level 16. Of course, Barbarians can just say screw it and just use the spiked chain as a two-handed weapon, and all is right in the world.
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Jul 5, 2015 20:44
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Mm, I'm very partial to a ranger|cleric/spiked chain. But spiked chains work nicely for Knights, Berserkers and Slayers with just the Superior feat, though Knights are better off with Alhulak/Shield unless the reach is critical (it's not). MC Spiked Chain isn't bad, it's just not necessary in most of the cases I've looked at WRT slideproning, mostly because I don't generally try to op around slideproning AND damage on the same character.
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Jul 5, 2015 21:01
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Fighter spiked chain MC, then you take the PP that's supposed to be all about polearms but suspiciously never actually uses the word "polearm," it only talks about weapons with Reach - which you now have. Arena Fighter who picks Spiked Chain and Quarterstaff as their two arena weapons and uses Quarterstaff Expertise alongside the Spiked Chain to have 15 foot reach.
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Jul 5, 2015 22:07
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thespaceinvader posted:No, it's pretty terrible to invest in those Power Strike feats. There's not a single one that's worth bothering with. Prior to Epic you should be able to to prone someone every time you punish them thanks to World Serpent's Grasp, and your Power Strike will immobilise them anyway if you're using a hammer. Those feats are generally not worth the investment. It's not the superlative option for top of the CharOp, but I don't think it would be terrible on certain characters, especially those who don't qualify for Martial Cross-Training and thus will have three or four uses of Power Strike floating around by Paragon Tier. Hammer Strike sacrifices 1[w] from Power Strike's damage to daze the target until the end of your next turn. You're trading damage for control, which is a dubious decision for a striker, but not necessarily a terrible one for a defender provided your actual strikers are capable of capitalizing on things (especially if they're rogues or chargers). It generates CA for both melee and range, and shuts down some enemies who have dangerous or defensive OAs and immediates. You're also spending a feat in order to make this decision, so it is costing you. If you were to hypothetically take this feat at level 1 (not that I'm actually recommending doing that) it would be roughly analogous to taking Martial Cross-Training for something like Bell Ringer in a world where Bell Ringer didn't suck. Actually, since it's MBA triggered and thus can be used off-turn from your defender aura and on any ability score you can scare up, it's more like Martial Cross-Training into the bard's Lesser Flash of Distraction. Is it worth it? Well, a daze on an OA provoked by movement or shifting can potentially be a turn-ending move, especially once you add World Serpent's Grasp into the mix, but it's an option. At level 3 you get a second use of Power Strike per encounter, and a third at level 13 (plus one more at 11 if you go Stalwart Knight for your paragon path), so you have the ability to daze dudes off-turn several times per fight. Once you hit level 7 and pick up Staggering Hammer to immobilize, Hammer Strike means you can daze and immobilize a target as an OA/Immediate/granted attack, which makes it comparable to the Brawler's E13 Stranglehold power in terms of turn-ending lockdown potential, and you can do it several times per fight, and you can add in Hammer Shock as usual to increase the penalties. You're trading damage and a feat for a small pool of control which can be flexibly applied depending on the situation. If you almost never make off-turn attacks then this isn't worth it, but I'd certainly consider it on a non-Strength Knight (who'd wouldn't get much use out of Martial Cross-Training anyways) with a spare feat slot because I believe that the daze opens enough strategic options to justify the cost of a feat and 1[w] damage. Even then, I would still retire it at epic in favor of Overwhelming Impact but it's something to think about in mid-heroic to paragon. If Flail Strike was just "sacrifice 1[w] to prone the target" then I wouldn't really care, because as you said Flail Expertise/Dragging Flail/Lashing Flail already have that at-will without sacrificing damage (at paragon, anyways, getting sliding on your flail attacks in heroic takes a bit more work). The only reason I'd give this feat a second look is the line "if you do so, the target provokes an opportunity attack from you if it stands up adjacent to you during its next turn." So you're spending a feat to trade 1[W] damage for prone plus a chance at an off-turn MBA. On a slayer, scout or knight this could be nice, especially if you use that opportunity attack to knock your victim prone again in true Mortal Kombat fashion. The problem with this is that it's very DM-dependent, because if your target just decides "well, this is my life now, I'm just going to lie here" then you've traded a feat and 1[W] damage for a prone you could get elsewhere. It's still somewhat of a lockdown option for a flail knight in that case since you've increased the number of actions that can result in punishment but you probably have better options for your feat. Heavy Blade Strike could have some corner-case build uses for a heroic to maybe paragon slayer since it sacrifices power strike's damage for an MBA against a different target when you drop a dude, but unless you're swinging a glaive around it's going to be very map-dependent on having someone else to murder within reach after you murdered someone else and if you're strength based then you probably already have Rain of Blows or Bash and Pummel or something and thus don't have that many uses of Power Strike to actually make it worth the extra feat. It does let you double up on an enemy by bouncing off of minions if you have Cleave or something similar, but again that's map-dependent. Spear Strike lets you immobilize in exchange for 1[W], but World Serpent's Grasp fills a similar role at stopping most movement for a feat and that's at-will so it's not really worth it. I agree that the rest of the Power Strike feats are barely worth the effort of even mentioning, let alone actually taking. Mecha Gojira posted:Usually if I'm building a spike-chain character, I'm looking at a class that can multi-attack/use two weapons, so mainly Fighter, Ranger, and Barbarian. Since it's a multi-class feat, unfortunately the Rangers and Barbarians are out of the running for things like Dragging Flail since they can't pick up the Fighter support, so they'll need the Mark of Storm in order to click, and even then they'll only be able to choose between the slide or the prone. To get the full potential, you really have to be a fighter, but then you become a multi-attacking, multi-target slide-prone monster. Give it to a Minotaur with the Beastblooded PP, and you've got a multi-target, multi-attack monster with REACH 2 at level 16. Elemental Initiate theme gives an immediate action weapon attack with slide plus ki focus proficiency, allowing you to pick up an Abduction Ki focus and slide dudes on MBAs. Sadly it requires you to make attacks using the ki focus itself so you can't mix it up with weapon properties, but it'll serve until paragon.
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Jul 5, 2015 22:20
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Proning on an OA usually costs the enemy your turn, and dazing on an OA up to 3/enc is less useful than you think. And you can get most of that control by using a feat you should be taking anyway (World Serpent's Grasp) and a stance you should basically never be out of (Defend the Line) - if they provoke an OA or try to shift, you knock them prone next to you and cost them their move action, so now they make an attack at -4 or spend their standard standing up successfully, only to be knocked over again next turn anyway. If they proc punishment by attacking, you hit them, knock them over and now they're doing that at -4 too, and have to spend their move to stand up. Dazing is certainly better, and if you're swimming in feats might be worth considering, but I'm really unconvinced. And it's definitely not worth keeping Hammer Strike into Epic. Flail Strike: Proning someone as an OA when you're getting the OA for them standing up doesn't make them stay prone, because of the interrupt timing of OAs they're prone when you attack them (interrupts rewind to before the triggering event), so they just continue to stand up after you've hit them. Not that an extra BA isn't good, and it would possibly be worth taking on a Slayer if Gouges weren't pretty much the only weapons Slayers should usually consider using.
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Jul 5, 2015 22:29
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The best fighter build is tempest fighter with dual nets, Net Training and Foamgather Heritage + all the usual flail optimisation. Now you automatically prone and slide on everything you do, ever, and you can abuse the fighter brawler powers that are designed for barehanded grabbing while having two weapons. (Kinda low damage weapons to be fair.)
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Jul 5, 2015 23:04
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thespaceinvader posted:Proning on an OA usually costs the enemy your turn, and dazing on an OA up to 3/enc is less useful than you think. And you can get most of that control by using a feat you should be taking anyway (World Serpent's Grasp) and a stance you should basically never be out of (Defend the Line) - if they provoke an OA or try to shift, you knock them prone next to you and cost them their move action, so now they make an attack at -4 or spend their standard standing up successfully, only to be knocked over again next turn anyway. If they proc punishment by attacking, you hit them, knock them over and now they're doing that at -4 too, and have to spend their move to stand up. Dazing is certainly better, and if you're swimming in feats might be worth considering, but I'm really unconvinced. I agree about WSG + Defend the Line being core and that Hammer Strike is the first thing to go at epic, but dazing does open a lot of options if you have the feats for it, especially since it tightens the punishment even harder when you need it. You can mess with elites and solos in various ways, or anything that has an immediate/opportunity/minor action ability that may or may not be an attack. Since knights use OAs to punish then they can actually punish a solo with multiple turns multiple times, and can do things like daze a solo, let it shed the daze as part of the solo feature and then potentially redaze it either on its turn with a punishment or through a granted attack. I think multiple avenues for dazing offers enough enough of a flexible tactical tool to make it worth some consideration by mid-heroic if you're not going Martial Cross-Training and already have enough feats to cover your essentials, plus it grants easy CA and melee repositioning for you and your allies and the like. It's by no means vital, it's just something to think about. If you don't think it's a good use of a feat, that's fine too. Flail Strike can be nice on a spiked chain Scout, because they're not as attached to their weapon choices and there's always the MC Spiked Chain option if you want to take advantage of the scout's bonus with light blades. It would lock you out of Dragging Flail from the fighter MC though, but you're still martial so you'll qualify for Lashing Flail at paragon. Thanks for the correction about the OA tripping though.
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Jul 5, 2015 23:19
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I'm going to be running a short 4E campaign for a few people who don't have any previous experience with D&D, and a friend of mine who has a lot. I don't have access to any of the Insider content, so most of my prep is going to be by hand. Are there any specific fan-made character sheets with better layouts and/or power card templates that I can fill out by hand or in a word processor that any of you would suggest I use? I'm going to make them a pool of characters to choose from since I'm more familiar with the system, but I'm looking for any possible ways I can speed up creating them so I can focus on writing up the actual adventure.
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Jul 6, 2015 04:31
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thespaceinvader posted:I love playing my slideproning Berserker for just that reason, he's great fun (unless he manages to get push out of reach, which is the pain of aura defenders). Brawlers have a similar problem when they get punted out of arm's reach, so I took notes on some of the gear that can help since there's not much that shows up in the guides: -Resolute armor (lvl 8+ Plate) reduces all forced movement by 1 square or by two squares if you have Mark of Warding. -Ring of Personal Gravity (lvl 16) reduces all forced movement by 1 square, comes with a potentially intriguing daily ability -Dwarfstride Boots (lvl 18) also reduce forced movement by 1 square -Mordin's Blessing of Iron (lvl 3+ boon) reduces push distance by 2 and lets you make an MBA as an OA if you get pulled adjacent, but doesn't do anything against slides. -Melora's Storm (lvl 3+) boon lets you shift one square as a free action after being subject to forced movement. Won't always help, but it's something. (Roll With It feat in paragon does the same thing) -Rune of Tide Inexonerable (lvl 17+) makes you immune to forced movement provided you somehow have a way to enter rune states or can come up with a way to share with someone who does (???) Then there's always being a dwarf, or rolling Dwarven Defender and simply laughing at any and all attempts to knock you away. There's also a few items that let you reduce or negate forced movement, but they tend to be encounter powers (Belt of Dwarvenkind) or daily powers. Not really a lot of options to defend yourself from repositioning in the lower levels though.
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Jul 6, 2015 05:00
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I have an idea for a 4e one-shot: recreate the original Deadmines dungeon as a series of set-piece battles, and have players refluff their characters to be as close to actual in-game classes as possible, as a sort of "well if 4e is tabletop WoW, then  "What would be a good level for characters to have enough buttons to press, though? I was thinking somewhere between 5 to 10?
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Jul 6, 2015 09:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:I have an idea for a 4e one-shot: recreate the original Deadmines dungeon as a series of set-piece battles, and have players refluff their characters to be as close to actual in-game classes as possible, as a sort of "well if 4e is tabletop WoW, then The Dead Mines is like the worst other than Uldaman though?
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Jul 6, 2015 09:18
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:The Dead Mines is like the worst other than Uldaman though? Well obviously I wouldn't be throwing in as much trash as you'd actually face - for encounters, you've got Defias Digger+Henchman+Conjurer patrol, Rhahk'Zor, Sneed's Shredder, Goblin Foundry, Mr Smite, and then Edwin VanCleef. That makes 6 in a "day"
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Jul 6, 2015 09:27
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Spiderfist Island posted:I'm going to make them a pool of characters to choose from since I'm more familiar with the system, but I'm looking for any possible ways I can speed up creating them I'd just ask them what broad concepts they want to play and generate characters off of those concepts. As long as you don't get too charop-y 4e can handle just about anything they come up with. Using the offline character builder you can crank out a solid character of any class in maybe 10 minutes. Maybe not optimal but certainly playable, especially when all the characters are at roughly the same char-op levels.
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Jul 6, 2015 13:17
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:The Dead Mines is like the worst other than Uldaman though? The worst was a full Blackrock Depths run, both city and council.
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Jul 6, 2015 13:32
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LightWarden posted:Brawlers have a similar problem when they get punted out of arm's reach, so I took notes on some of the gear that can help since there's not much that shows up in the guides: I've found one of the most useful things to be the 2U that lets you stand as a minor - that way pushproning isn't anywhere near as big a problem. but all the forced-move reduction things (and indeed, on aura defenders, IRs that let you move after being attacked) are also helpful.
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Jul 6, 2015 17:39
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Khizan posted:I'd just ask them what broad concepts they want to play and generate characters off of those concepts. As long as you don't get too charop-y 4e can handle just about anything they come up with. Using the offline character builder you can crank out a solid character of any class in maybe 10 minutes. Maybe not optimal but certainly playable, especially when all the characters are at roughly the same char-op levels. I'm not in direct contact with most of the group, and I don't have access to the offline or online CB since I'm on a mac. The level 1 classes I'm going to make are as follows: Eladrin Bard Dwarf Invoker Human Fighter (with Combat Agility from Martial Power 2 instead of Combat Superiority) Dragonborn Sorcerer Half-Orc Barbarian I chose to switch Cleric and Wizard with Bard and Invoker since the Invoker's design as a controller is a little bit more tight and developed than the Wizard. Or, I could just run 13th Age and make pregen characters for them. I'm starting to lean towards that since I only have about a week to get this all done.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:10
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That sounds fine except that Combat Agility blows, use combat superiority for definite. I could whack together that set of characters in half an hour if you want.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:13
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gradenko_2000 posted:What would be a good level for characters to have enough buttons to press, though? I was thinking somewhere between 5 to 10?
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Jul 6, 2015 19:36
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Has anyone ever run a game where you just let everyone pick 2-3 encounters at level one? Basically just give them all the slots filled up and making them replace them as they level up?
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Jul 6, 2015 19:45
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Chaotic Neutral posted:7 gets the third encounter (slash at-will swap + big PP boost for psionics), so somewhere around there is usually my favored starting point pre-paragon. Sweet spot of the game is between 8 and 16 for me, preferably between 11 and 16. Themes do a lot to increase interest at early levels over pre-theme days. Misandu posted:Has anyone ever run a game where you just let everyone pick 2-3 encounters at level one? Basically just give them all the slots filled up and making them replace them as they level up? No, but I could see it working, at least, for classes that have more than 1 good l1 encounter and daily power. Might bend the monsters a little though.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:49
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Another cool variation might be to come up with some generic L1 Encounter and Daily powers to let your players choose from. Stuff that's strictly worse then the other options they'll get access to, but still gives them a little bit more to do so that fights don't bog down super quick.
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Jul 6, 2015 19:57
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Spiderfist Island posted:I'm not in direct contact with most of the group, and I don't have access to the offline or online CB since I'm on a mac. The level 1 classes I'm going to make are as follows: Yeah, like TSI was saying, could crank those out in half an hour or so, easy. I would definitely stick with 4e, btw. It's got a lot more polish to it than 13th Age and since you're pre-genning the characters yourself you can build them in a way that emphasizes simplicity over fiddliness so there's not a ton of -2s and +2s and everything-always-prones to be dealing with. Personally, I would choose to avoid the controller and just add an extra striker if I were you; extra DPS wraps fights up faster and I generally find that controllers often add a lot of fiddliness for fights without adding much in the way of fun, especially at low levels, and it's pretty easy just to design an encounter around not having one.
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Jul 6, 2015 21:30
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thespaceinvader posted:That sounds fine except that Combat Agility blows, use combat superiority for definite. Khizan posted:Yeah, like TSI was saying, could crank those out in half an hour or so, easy. I would definitely stick with 4e, btw. It's got a lot more polish to it than 13th Age and since you're pre-genning the characters yourself you can build them in a way that emphasizes simplicity over fiddliness so there's not a ton of -2s and +2s and everything-always-prones to be dealing with. Thanks to both of you for your advice! TSI, I'd gladly take on your offer if you'd still be willing to make those PCs. I'd prefer if you kept it to PHB 1 - 3 material just for simplicity's sake, but other than that feel free to write them up however you want. If you need a location to drop off any PDFs, my email is [removed]. I dunno if I'll get rid of the Invoker, since having 3 strikers in the party instead of 2 may make things a little too lopsided and killy, and I doubt including one will slow down things much more than having any other combat role in a 5-person game. Spiderfist Island fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 03:29
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Not gonna have time tonight or tomorrow I'm afraid, but might do Thursday; when do you need them?
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Jul 7, 2015 17:47
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thespaceinvader posted:Not gonna have time tonight or tomorrow I'm afraid, but might do Thursday; when do you need them? By Saturday, so take your time. Again, thanks a million for this. Do you mind if I take down my email now from that post?
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Jul 7, 2015 17:59
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Yeah, take it down, I'll post again here if and when they're ready.
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Jul 7, 2015 18:04
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Still working on my gambling themed dungeon. At one point, the party has to win the Boss Key from a slot machine. Because its a magic slot machine and the spirit who powers it is loving bored, it summons monsters if you lose. You can spin the reels while you're next to the machine. It's a 3d6 roll to determine the result. Once you've started playing, you can hold any number of reels in position and respin. Each time the reels stop, though, the result creates an immediate effect, mostly summoning monsters but with a few beneficial effects (that are mostly there to distract the player from the actual goal, the Boss Key). So essentially, the goal is to get 6-6-6. If you get 1-3-6, you can keep the 6 and spin only the other two wheels, and so on. I'm thinking there are beneficial effects on all "same three" combinations, and anything else summons creatures. The idea is for one guy to desperately keep spinning while the rest of the party holds off the creatures. Was thinking of assigning one number to each monster type and working out a system to determine what kind of creature gets summoned by what kind of combination ("highest number present summons creature X" or something) but maybe it's enough to just say "losing combos summon one of these monsters"? (Obviously there's gonna be some sort of failsafe in case they have 6-6 and the last 6 just doesn't pop up. Also, applications for skill rolls - Thievery could manipulate reels with a magnet or something, allowing for an immediate reroll). Should a spin cost money? I'd reimburse them when they eventually win, but just as a temporary motivation to get things done. I feel like it's a good basic idea that I'm not quite having the right mechanical grasp on yet...
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Jul 11, 2015 19:16
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My Lovely Horse posted:Still working on my gambling themed dungeon. At one point, the party has to win the Boss Key from a slot machine. Because its a magic slot machine and the spirit who powers it is loving bored, it summons monsters if you lose. You can spin the reels while you're next to the machine. It's a 3d6 roll to determine the result. Once you've started playing, you can hold any number of reels in position and respin. Each time the reels stop, though, the result creates an immediate effect, mostly summoning monsters but with a few beneficial effects (that are mostly there to distract the player from the actual goal, the Boss Key). I would consider some kind of failsafe, just in case. It is hypothetically possible they'll get 6-6-? and just keep spinning that last reel dozens of times, which could get pretty tedious. Other than that it sounds pretty cool!
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Jul 11, 2015 19:30
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Hey, how about this: each number on each reel (except 6) summons a monster only once and never comes up again after, so eventually 6-6-6 is the only remaining combo. You might go through 15 monsters before you get there, you might get a 6 on the first spin and that's 5 monsters that'll never enter the encounter. (Or, of course, roll 6-6-6 immediately.) Maybe 6 summons as well but it's at least one step closer to winning the key. And once you do hit 6-6-6 the whole party gets a hefty bonus so they can mop up quickly, or if the fight's been going on for a long time it just outright destroys the remaining monsters. Obviously some percentage of those monsters would be minions or lower level. 15 same level monsters would be terrible. Would save me the trouble of coming up with benefits for 5-5-5, 4-4-4 and so on, when those are only supposed to be a distraction anyway. e: 6-6-6 summons an elite enemy that is holding the key. Yesss. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 19:54
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I have two problems with that slot machine setup. The first is that it's possible to throw 6-6-6 immediately and short-circuit the mechanics almost entirely. Unlikely, granted, but possible. The second is that it's also possible to sit there rolling forever without ever getting 6-6-6. Either one will make the encounter sort of suck. This is one where I'd honestly just rig it. Determine you want the fight to last X spins and then just use the rolls to determine what comes up on rounds 1 through X-1. This lets you pace the encounter properly without having to rig it on the fly to account for bad RNG. This is something to consider with every fight in a gambling dungeon, imo; you need to have some way of mitigating the RNG baked into encounters to prevent them from dragging on past the point where they are fun or finishing up before they feel satisfying.
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Jul 11, 2015 21:11
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I'm willing to take the chance of an immediate 6-6-6. It's a 1 in 216 chance, and considering how often I let them shortcut minor obstacles on a 1 in 20 chance, it seems fair enough. If I run it so rolled numbers get "used up" it's going to take at most 6 rounds. That's already long for a 4E combat, but nothing we haven't had before. I could always cut things short at that point if the fight's been going on for too long already.
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Jul 12, 2015 07:42
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Perhaps something where the "numbers" are actually pictures of enemies that come to life? They animate and step off the wheel, removing them from the pool. Your 6 could be a piece of the key to the boss room.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:25
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That sounds pretty fun actually. Plus the opportunites for a 'seven ate nine' punchline somewhere...
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Jul 12, 2015 22:28
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Winged Orpheus posted:Perhaps something where the "numbers" are actually pictures of enemies that come to life? They animate and step off the wheel, removing them from the pool. Your 6 could be a piece of the key to the boss room. The other thing about the key is, the monsters are all undead (it's the adventure theme), one of the players has a Skeleton Key magic item on his wishlist, and, well, I think you can guess the rest... e: I also weeded my roulette mechanics. They're now: Same color (50% chance): whoever stands here gets +2 to attacks vs. creatures on the other color Same row/column (roughly 30% chance): whoever stands here can score crits on 19-20 Same square (roughly 2.7% chance): get a standard action immediately It's a bit less "all out insanity" that I hoped, but I'd rather juggle and explain less additional mechanics than more, and reviewing the small battle map it's already going to be pretty frantic. Plus all my other ideas were like, spend a healing surge, gain some THP, and when you look at that, those are all things that drag a fight out. e: so if it does go over 6 rounds and they summon everything that's on the reels, that's roughly two full same-level encounters on the table there. I'm committed to the idea but maybe I'll halve monster HP. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 07:12
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I think what the slot machine is missing is a way for the players to interact with it other than fighting baddies and blind luck. What if each of the reels is spun separately from a different lever? Each is positioned on a different wall of the room, and it's a minor action to set one spinning (with standard-action skill checks to influence what it lands on). The PCs have to get it to land on three keys to progress. Also in the room is a hard-to-kill monster: bloodying him takes him out for a turn but then he comes back in, healed up. They have to hold him off while getting the reels to land on three keys and preventing him from respinning successfully-landed reels himself.
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Jul 14, 2015 11:10
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I rather like that! But I also don't see how it's going to end in anything other than "immobilize the monster, ready actions to pull the levers at the same time using the best skills you have." Still, worthy of consideration! I'm definitely planning to allow all sorts of skill checks for spinning the reels. Thievery to directly influence the machine, Arcana to mess with its magical workings, Religion to send a prayer to Avandra... even Perception or Insight to notice a pattern or feel out a sweet spot in the mechanism. Depending on the roll they could get to respin one or two reels, or even directly move it one space up or down.
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Jul 14, 2015 19:51
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Do they have to put money into a slot before each pull? Because I feel like the gambling is a critical part of the essence of a slot machine. And of course, if I were making the dungeon you're making, the overarching theme would be: the house always wins.
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Jul 14, 2015 22:46
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