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Turtlicious posted:So I've done a lot more research, and what I'm looking for specifically is a Monster Encounter Designer that scales the levels for me, and gives me a list to pick from of monsters. http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/planner.php is what you want. Alternatively, if you want a general mix of monsters for an encounter, you can use this script: http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4eEncounterGen/index.php
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Sep 1, 2015 03:30
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Turtlicious posted:So I've done a lot more research, and what I'm looking for specifically is a Monster Encounter Designer that scales the levels for me, and gives me a list to pick from of monsters. The DMG1 tells you how to generate random encounters. Page 193: Roll a d20 1-4 = Easy encounter 5-16 = Moderate 17-20 = Hard Roll a d10 1-2 = Commander and Troops 3-4 = Wolf Pack 5-6 = Dragon's Den 7-8 = Battlefield Control 9-10 = Double Line And then pages 58 to 59 describe what these groups are. A Moderate encounter of Commander and Troops would be something like: One Controller / Soldier monster 3 levels higher than the party to represent the Commander Five Brute / Soldier monsters 2 levels lower than the party to represent the troops Just again watch out for the monster math, since AC/Defense levels might climb into frustratingly high levels if you're not careful, especially with Hard encounters recommending a "Commander" that's 6 levels higher than the party. The back of every Monster Manual organizes the monsters by level and role, so you can just pick and choose from there.
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Sep 1, 2015 05:57
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Also look out for anything that says 'levels lower than the party' because going lower than the party at all is likely to result in a walkover.
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Sep 1, 2015 09:22
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thespaceinvader posted:Also look out for anything that says 'levels lower than the party' because going lower than the party at all is likely to result in a walkover. I'd say this depends on how much your players look on the Internet for build advice.
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Sep 1, 2015 10:06
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Even poorly optimised characters will have an easy time against below-level opponents (though, below-level MM1 soldiers are a different matter, because MM1 soldiers had too high defenses and HP) unless they're actively anti-optimising by doing things like taking an 8 in their attack stat or whatever. At-level is about right for a poorly optimised party. But the good thing about running 4e is that it's very easy to boost or nerf a monster mid-fight just by surreptitiously knocking some HP or attack off it, or having it mess up tactically.
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Sep 1, 2015 12:03
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thespaceinvader posted:Also look out for anything that says 'levels lower than the party' because going lower than the party at all is likely to result in a walkover. I think lower-level monsters are a surprising challenge when their key abilities do not require single attack rolls (providing CA, auras, AoEs, et cetera). The surprise comes from the player realization that minion-killing multi-target attacks aren't killing these obstacles.
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Sep 1, 2015 14:08
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Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms is now available from DTRPG/DNDclassics. They're dragging out the release of 4e corebooks as hard as possible, but this finally makes it "street legal" to play a game of 4e using nothing but official PDFs.
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Sep 2, 2015 00:40
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I'm getting super tired of flipping back and forth between the pages of my monster vault and mm3 during combat. Can anyone recommend a program that I can run on a windows-based tablet that will allow me to display monster stat blocks? E: it appears as though the answer to my question is Masterplan and a DDI subscription. slap me and kiss me fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 14:34
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I've been looking into running 4e again sometime soon an familiarizing myself with the system again. I used Masterplan religiously back in the day, but I also see there is a program called 4eTurnTracker that looks pretty good as well. It looks little prettier than Masterplan and it supports importing monsters just by copy/pasting the stat block, which seems convenient with Masterplan's import tool being discontinued. It also has a player view for defenses and conditions, but no map support, which is fine with me since I'll likely be using a physical map or roll20. Does anyone have any experience with 4eTurnTracker?
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Sep 2, 2015 17:20
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Pfox posted:I'm getting super tired of flipping back and forth between the pages of my monster vault and mm3 during combat. Can anyone recommend a program that I can run on a windows-based tablet that will allow me to display monster stat blocks? I thought import DDI data to masterplan didn't work anymore?
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Sep 2, 2015 17:33
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The Belgian posted:I thought import DDI data to masterplan didn't work anymore? https://compendiumimport.codeplex.com/ Apparently.
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Sep 2, 2015 17:44
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Entering monster stats into Masterplan is really quick though.Doctor Epitaph posted:Does anyone have any experience with 4eTurnTracker? I do wish it had more functionality. A layer of darkness based on sight lines and blocking terrain like maptools does, combined conditions for (save ends both) stuff (it would be such a small change - checkboxes instead of radio buttons), tracking immediate actions, attaching durations to zones and tokens and links between tokens, a way to have tokens overlap for swarms and mounts... My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 17:47
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The DDI import still works, I used it for a new campaign over the weekend. Edit: and while I'm here, is there any accepted wisdom for reducing MM3 hitpoints even further? My players have unintentionally optimised themselves as a party for defense over damage, to the extent that combat is still a grindfest whenever any NPCs fight to the death. I'd try something like -50% HP/+50% damage, but I've thought about this for all of 15 minutes and I'd like to avoid ruining a session with an accidental TPK or something similar. Sharrow fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 17:53
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I don't suppose there's a masterplan plugin that converts all monsters to MM3 math, is there?
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Sep 2, 2015 18:01
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I think Masterplan uses MM3 math as guidelines to build your own monsters, so you could edit them one by one and just click "recommended" everywhere 
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Sep 2, 2015 18:15
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The number of shits given over 4e content being freely available seem to be diminishing by the day. You can just Google 4e book pdfs and you'll find a bunch.
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Sep 2, 2015 18:27
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My Lovely Horse posted:I think Masterplan uses MM3 math as guidelines to build your own monsters, so you could edit them one by one and just click "recommended" everywhere Ha! (how long could that possibly take...)
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Sep 2, 2015 18:30
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My Lovely Horse posted:I do wish it had more functionality. A layer of darkness based on sight lines and blocking terrain like maptools does, combined conditions for (save ends both) stuff (it would be such a small change - checkboxes instead of radio buttons), tracking immediate actions, attaching durations to zones and tokens and links between tokens, a way to have tokens overlap for swarms and mounts... This was my main issue with Masterplan--there was always something that wasn't quite right. Seeing how it hasn't been updated in two years, I was just seeing if there was something better, thanks. My absolute favorite part of Masterplan was encounter generation. Being able to adjust your XP budget in real-time and use your libraries to quickly swap in monsters based on roles and subtypes saved me so much time. And 4eTurnTracker doesn't even let you filter by roles (from what I can see), so I'll definitely look into that.
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Sep 2, 2015 18:52
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Sharrow posted:The DDI import still works, I used it for a new campaign over the weekend. This: http://blogofholding.com/?p=782 is pretty spot on in my expereince. When you say optimized for defense over damage what does that mean exactly? A Barbarian, that's the party's only striker, who is using a shield instead of a two-hander has one fix, and a party with no strikers and lots of defenders has a different one.
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Sep 2, 2015 21:13
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Pfox posted:https://compendiumimport.codeplex.com/ Posting to say that this works beautifully. Does anyone know what books were written using MM3 math? Obvs MM3, Monster Vault, anything else? e: I can goggle quote:MM3, every Monster Vault. slap me and kiss me fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Sep 2, 2015 |
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Sep 2, 2015 23:33
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Everything after Monster Vault: Nentir Vale I think. Possibly also DSCS.
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Sep 2, 2015 23:36
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Pfox posted:Posting to say that this works beautifully. Really? Because every time I try to import anything its telling me it failed to log into DDI. Has anyone else got this working recently?
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Sep 16, 2015 00:16
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Trill Sandwich posted:Really? Because every time I try to import anything its telling me it failed to log into DDI. Has anyone else got this working recently? Use your email address, not your DDI account name.
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Sep 16, 2015 00:19
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Pfox posted:Use your email address, not your DDI account name. I tried that, sadly it still refuses to recognize my log-in credentials. e: I think that you can only do it with older insider accounts, because now when you register you create a wizards account. If I start up the compendium and attempt to access something requiring a login, it won't accept your wizards login info there. You need to log into the ddi main page first, then start the compendium. Trill Sandwich fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 00:49
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When I get that issue (On a wide range of apps) I have to launch it in a google chrome browser, (sometimes firefox,) and be logged in, then it'll work. For some reason that functionallity screws up all the time, and it's a pain in the rear end, as the Kassoon encounter generator will gently caress up too. e: How do I transfer from the encounter builder to the initiative tracker on the Kassoon site? Turtlicious fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 07:08
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I'm tossing around the idea of running Zeitgeist with my wife and a friend of ours. One of our recurring RPG problems is time to prepare and finding time to play, but with only our own three very similar schedules to work with and some premade adventures, that's not aa big a problem. We're all experienced with 4E, so this won't scare us off the game (and running this is easier than learning a new system. Time, remember?) So, first, for general 4E stuff: how should I run the gameplay? The obvious answer is just to go with 2 PCs, but that has problems of its own (role coverage, high chance of death spiral). One thought I'd had was having each player play 2 PCs. They can be one "character" for the sake of RPing and what not, but for gameplay purposes there's two pieces on the board, two sets of skills and powers, etc. This has the downside of complexity, but hell, we play Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem, it's not like outfitting and playing two characters is some great chore. I'm planning on asking their opinion but if anyone has insight/experience on which approach might work better, or if there's a third option to put forth. Secondly, if I do have two PCs, I'm assuming fewer enemies is the recommended way to scale down encounters. Additionally, are there any suggested classes/role combinations to encourage or avoid? I mean, other than a Binder and a Seeker team. Third, is there anything I ought to know going in re: Zeitgeist? Any major dealbreakers, bits that look fine on paper but are unfun in play? General advice and such is appreciated, too.
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Sep 16, 2015 09:22
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Trasson posted:So, first, for general 4E stuff: how should I run the gameplay? The obvious answer is just to go with 2 PCs, but that has problems of its own (role coverage, high chance of death spiral). One thought I'd had was having each player play 2 PCs. They can be one "character" for the sake of RPing and what not, but for gameplay purposes there's two pieces on the board, two sets of skills and powers, etc. This has the downside of complexity, but hell, we play Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem, it's not like outfitting and playing two characters is some great chore. I'm planning on asking their opinion but if anyone has insight/experience on which approach might work better, or if there's a third option to put forth. You could give each player one regular PC and one companion character? Companion characters are simplified characters that are designed for this kind of situation (for example, they don't need equipment except for a weapon, their defences are all determined by their role & level). If you have the offline character builder you can make them by selecting striker/leader/defender/controller as "class" in the builder.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:32
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Trasson posted:I'm tossing around the idea of running Zeitgeist with my wife and a friend of ours. One of our recurring RPG problems is time to prepare and finding time to play, but with only our own three very similar schedules to work with and some premade adventures, that's not aa big a problem. We're all experienced with 4E, so this won't scare us off the game (and running this is easier than learning a new system. Time, remember?) i tried having players run multiple PCs for a few sessions back when 4E was new-ish, and the biggest roadblock that i ran into is that if your players aren't willing to completely familiarize themselves with two different sets of powers and equipment and etc. then choice paralysis becomes a real thing. the act of picking powers or gear out of a book or program is pretty painless when you're doing it with no real time constraint, but when you now bring those characters to the table and have to make decisions about what they are going to do, a lot of people take forever because they're more worried about making a tactical mistake than just playing the game. if your wife and friend aren't super min-max people this might be less of a problem, but if they're the kind of folks who like to really scrutinize every option at every turn, having them run two characters just drags everything out edit: maybe mandate that one of their two characters (maybe the backup one) has to be from an essentials book, using only powers and gear in the essentials book? i recall a lot of the archetypes in those books had fewer powers than classes from the older core books, which might make playing the second character a little less thought intensive Freaking Crumbum fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 15:26
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Speaking generally about Zeitgeist - it's awesome. The biggest consideration is that many of the maps - most, actuality - are goddamn enormous. So keep that in mind.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:30
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To crib an idea from a different RPG: assuming the two players take completely different trained skills to cover as much ground as possible, but they still can't cover all 17 categories, let them be trained in all the other categories anyway, but mark them with an asterisk. Whenever the players want to use that skill as a trained skill, it's actually a contact doing it for them.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:35
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If you guys want any of the WotC 4e charop guides, better act fast. Anyone capable enough with Web poo poo able to scrape those guides?
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Sep 16, 2015 17:33
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dwarf74 posted:If you guys want any of the WotC 4e charop guides, better act fast. This perfectly encapsulates how poo poo post-4E WotC are. 
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Sep 16, 2015 17:45
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Companion classes aren't really up to the same tasks as regular classes- Defender companion marks on its MBA but has no actual form of mark enforcement while the striker's bonus damage is terrible. Leaders and controllers are a little better since more of their role comes from powers, but lacking dailies can hurt. For Zeitgeist stuff: As a player, not all themes are created equal. Docker has a good power, but its level 10 feature is mostly situational outside of maybe one gimmick build that might not actually even work Eschatologist is garbage from top to bottom: its power has terrible requirements, terrible restrictions and an underwhelming effect, while most of its features are largely gimmicky or useless save for the level 1 ability to fiat away a creature's death Gunsmith has great features to the point where it's probably a good idea to have one of them in the party if you want to use guns with a non-terrible load speed. I'm not sure why the power doesn't let you add your ability modifier to it Martial Scientist's bonus proficiencies are pretty drat nice on just about every character concept, and the powers can be pretty interesting (but since most of them are secret it's hard to tell what your character might be able to use). Skyseer is somewhat underwhelming since its power doesn't do all that much compared to most other fate-powers since it locks you into using the roll and basically just means that you'll know beforehand what you can do with the power, but it also means that it can lock out one of your abilities if you roll a 1 or something. Its level 10 feature is also underwhelming since by that point you can just buy a bag of holding and stuff every piece of mundane gear you might need into it. Spirit Medium has a nice enough power if you use it against the right opponent (and if you're not a striker or defender whose standard actions are required to do your job), and some nice features that can come in handy given the nature of the game. Technologist's features are all about boosting its power (plus the undefined feature of being able to better use whatever weird tech you run into), so if you want to make the most of the theme you need to do some thinking. It can have some interesting results on the right character, especially if you take the feat to boosts its HP to your bloodied value. Vekeshi Mystic has nice features, but its power scales weirdly, since it gives you up to six uses of it per encounter, but only once per round and it only triggers under certain circumstances, so later uses stop being relevant unless you either switch it to once per turn or halve the number of uses and then increase the damage. Yerasol Veteran also has good features, but the power needs some tweaking since it's a standard action leader-ish ability that doesn't let anyone attack, making it more of an emergency button akin to second wind or making a heal check on an ally. The divide gets even sharper when you get into paragon paths Applied Astronomer has some interesting features if you randomly rolled the ones you wanted. Damage on the powers doesn't include your ability modifiers though for some reason. Logos has some great options in its features and powers, and can really do well. Eschatologist might be a garbage theme, but this is probably the easiest path for theme outsiders to qualify for. Mad Shootist has some good features and interesting combinations if you have the right single target ranged weapon attacks. Only letdown is its underwhelming daily (unless the attack is a minor action attack). Monument of War's abilities range from actively bad to merely "meh", with powers that involve shooting yourself in the face for mediocre damage. A bad case of adherence to flavor hamstringing the mechanics. An attack negation daily utility is probably the best feature here. Notorious Celebrity is definitely a gimmick path whose value increases if you have some way to take advantage of having minion chaff on the field, such as mass enabling to take advantage of the extra bodies on the field and mass marking/punishment so they're not just being chewed up (admittedly, it's better them than you) and prompt you to waste your surges on them. A really nice encounter power that lets you use other powers as an immediate interrupt when someone hits you or an ally, giving you lots of opportunities. Level 16 feature is pretty conditional though and kind of weak. An interesting path for something like a paladin. Polyhistor boosts basic attacks, which means it's interesting on classes whose basic attacks are common, such as fighters (who use them to punish) or many essentials classes like knights, hunters, hexblades, scouts, thieves, or slayers (who probably have better options). The more you use and boost basic attacks, the more you'll get out of it. Depending on the stance you can get some interesting options going, such as immediate reaction attacks to enemies who get too close or letting you inflict serious conditions on grabbed enemies. Very interesting on a knight or brawler fighter. Steamsuit Pilot is a path with a great idea that ultimately fails to deliver. The core feature is something that's basically plate armor, but without penalties to movement and some checks, plus some options for stuff like speed/carrying capacity boosts. The big problem is that the suit doesn't like you- every time you take damage (attacks, ongoing, zones) you have to make a saving throw; fail three of those throws and you take a -2 penalty to attacks and checks until you take a short rest. This can penalize you pretty quickly, and if you're the kind of character who gets through most fights without actually being attacked or taking damage... why do you need power armor? The AP feature could be boosted to Resist 10 all instead of 5 all without problem, and the level 16 feature is more of a novelty feature that lets you pack up your suit Tony Stark-style but it takes a standard action to put it back on and turn it on, so you can't get much out of it in combat. The powers all have drawbacks to using them- the encounter weakens you (save ends), the utility immobilizes you (save ends) and the daily does 10 fire damage to you each round (which you'd have to roll suit saves against if you're not resistant) and can deactivate your suit until you spend a standard action to make a saving throw to start it back up. None of these powers are really great enough to justify their downsides outside of a Hero's Poise paladin gimmick. For such a cool idea it's just a huge pain in the rear end that's designed to gently caress you up because the designers once again let flavor hamstring mechanics. Urban Empath is also garbage, since you lose all your features whenever you leave an urban environment. The upside to this is that it defines an urban environment as a contained area with a population density of at least 1000 people per square mile, which is only about 1 person per 28,000 square feet (about 2/3rds of an acre), so if you're sitting in a wagon or a cave you're in an urban environment. If your DM doesn't reduce fractions then you lose your features and your powers go to garbage pretty quickly, with your encounter power becoming no better than a basic AoE at-will. Vekeshi Excoriant has some interesting features and powers, including an AP feature that lets you occupy three different spaces at once until the start of your next turn, which can be pretty nice on a knight or something. The encounter power can murder all minions on the map instantly and the daily is a summon with a radiant multiattack so you can really do some damage in the right party. An interesting enough path. LightWarden fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 17:45
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dwarf74 posted:If you guys want any of the WotC 4e charop guides, better act fast. They're not taking it down until the end of October, plenty of time to move the relevant stuff off-site.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:50
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dwarf74 posted:If you guys want any of the WotC 4e charop guides, better act fast. Wow, that's terrible. Some of it can probably be scraped with Internet Archive or something similar.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:51
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Lemon Curdistan posted:This perfectly encapsulates how poo poo post-4E WotC are. "Uh, just talk about it on Reddit" is an incredible cop-out.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:53
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For the magic community that works out somewhat okay because from what i understand the magic subreddit is actually competently managed. I'm pretty sure there isn't a 4e one of equivalent value.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:54
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Kurieg posted:For the magic community that works out somewhat okay because from what i understand the magic subreddit is actually competently managed. I'm sure there's a very happy 5e subreddit, and that's the only true D&D that actually matters. The black sheep is to be forgotten.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:59
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Didn't a video game company pull this angry stunt a year or so ago. Except they didn't actually give any warning or notice to the sub Reddit or ensure that any of their employees were moderators.
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Sep 16, 2015 18:03
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I have a Warden in my group with Polyhistor. Spending dice to boost defense has been a Rockstar for him. On a better suited class it would be really scary. The Celebrity's One-Upsmanship has also been an encounter-changer. Its features also get incredibly strong when combined with the less impressive parts of the Docker theme... Especially the audience summoning utility with the Docker 10 feature. His groupies' defense bonuses can have a huge impact, but I don't like how long it makes his turns. Our Monument of War fighter uses his E11 every combat. Without fail. The mass mark side effect has been well worth it for him. It does have a nice area, but...
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Sep 16, 2015 18:04
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