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One of the most important things that makes 4E good is how easy the system makes it for the DM to a fine-tune encounter difficulties. Because of this, players actually can chug along with really sub-optimal builds, provided the DM is alert enough to notice where the problems lie and adjust the adventures to suit. It can be a stickier problem if one or two players have heavily char-opted and another one or two are going with sub-par builds, but even then, a DM likely has options. If the striker is sub-par, you can adjust enemy hitpoints downwards. If the controller is super-optimized, you can adjust encounter structure to compensate, perhaps with more enemy controllers, or more minions, etc. This was much harder to do in 3.5, even though in 3.5 the game itself had baked-in power disparity that was far worse than what we're seeing described in the last couple pages.
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Oct 13, 2015 19:45
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Leperflesh posted:This was much harder to do in 3.5, even though in 3.5 the game itself had baked-in power disparity that was far worse than what we're seeing described in the last couple pages. Yeah, the main issue in 3e wasn't really much to do with damage (which is easy to fudge - if your striker sucks, just quietly add +10 to his damage every time he hits, solved) but more to do with ability to affect the plot. You can't quietly fudge in a way for the fighter to have access to all the plot-pulverising abilities a full spellcaster has in 3e. Meanwhile in 4e anyone can take Ritual Caster.
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Oct 13, 2015 23:31
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Rituals would have been cooler if they weren't mostly tied to Intelligence - based skills, primarily Religion and Arcana. Even poor clerics and druids who get Ritual Caster for free get shafted on that one, seeing as Intelligence is generally a dump stat for them (and like 80% of the classes in the game). But that's another one of those legacy issues that come with ability scores.
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Oct 13, 2015 23:40
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It's also easy to just house-rule. A fighter casts beefy rituals by flexing hard. 
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Oct 13, 2015 23:44
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Gort posted:Yeah, the main issue in 3e wasn't really much to do with damage (which is easy to fudge - if your striker sucks, just quietly add +10 to his damage every time he hits, solved) but more to do with ability to affect the plot. You can't quietly fudge in a way for the fighter to have access to all the plot-pulverising abilities a full spellcaster has in 3e. Meh, that stuff was easy enough to quash by DM fiat, and if anybody strenuously objects to losing the ability to put the plot in a gimp suit, gently caress 'em. Nobody wants to play with the guy who wants to pull the Jedi mind trick on every plot point. My problem with 3e is primarily how fast save/die and save/suck spells outstripped damage in terms of effectiveness. Even at L1, the Wizard's ability to Sleep an entire goblin patrol makes the Fighter feel like more of a wizard accessory than a legitimate adventurer, and that only gets worse as the levels go up. 4e has a bit of the same problem with controller superiority, but it isn't even close to being as completely loving awful as it was in 3e.
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Oct 14, 2015 00:48
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I think the lazylord was the ultimate in "doesn't use the primary stat" builds. It became so ingrained that it seemed intentional.
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Oct 14, 2015 03:07
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Kurieg posted:There's a half elf knight build that just uses con for everything, and adds it to MBA damage 3 times.
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Oct 16, 2015 01:59
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Knight, the stance that slows on a hit, multiclass Warden and grab the feat that makes it so when you slow with a hammer or mace you add Con mod to the damage. Then yes a Lightning Weapon or something to trigger Lyranndar Wind-Rider, and using a Con based Eldritch Strike.
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Oct 16, 2015 03:41
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Ryuujin posted:Knight, the stance that slows on a hit, multiclass Warden and grab the feat that makes it so when you slow with a hammer or mace you add Con mod to the damage. Then yes a Lightning Weapon or something to trigger Lyranndar Wind-Rider, and using a Con based Eldritch Strike. Better yet, MC an arcane class and abuse White Lotus Master Riposte, with the Knight's Aura getting around the no-marking restriction on WLMR. So you do twice your Con mod twice a round, while still being a full defender who slides and slows on every hit. Look up Super Duper Knight, I'm pretty sure it's been moved over to ENWorld. It's really strong, albeit dull because you just spam this trick every round, but that's Essentials martials in a nutshell.
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Oct 16, 2015 04:10
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Dire Wombat posted:Better yet, MC an arcane class and abuse White Lotus Master Riposte, with the Knight's Aura getting around the no-marking restriction on WLMR. So you do twice your Con mod twice a round, while still being a full defender who slides and slows on every hit. Look up Super Duper Knight, I'm pretty sure it's been moved over to ENWorld. It's really strong, albeit dull because you just spam this trick every round, but that's Essentials martials in a nutshell. You also use a flail so that Flail Expertise prones them.
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Oct 16, 2015 04:25
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Yeah, Super Duper Knight was a flail user IIRC.
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Oct 16, 2015 17:48
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I have just begun reading the PHB and, as someone who has not touched D&D since he was a teenager and thought that 3.5 was balanced (I refused to believe that they would have published them otherwise) the short list of available classes kinda stings.
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Oct 17, 2015 00:01
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Go get one of the Character Builders instead.
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Oct 17, 2015 00:03
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There's a pretty decent list of classes now, though they sort of tried to make the Essentials ones a bit more 3.5ish and fell back into some of the same issues with martials (if I remember right).
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Oct 17, 2015 00:10
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paradoxGentleman posted:I have just begun reading the PHB and, as someone who has not touched D&D since he was a teenager and thought that 3.5 was balanced (I refused to believe that they would have published them otherwise) the short list of available classes kinda stings. The PHB is by no means the whole game, not even CLOSE. There are three PHBs, a number of Power Source splats, several Heroes of the X books, including the two Essentials books, and 3 setting-specific books (Eberron, Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun) all of which have player content. In total I think there were over 40 classes and subclasses before the close of the game, though not all of them are worth playing.
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Oct 17, 2015 00:27
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IPlayVideoGames posted:There's a pretty decent list of classes now, though they sort of tried to make the Essentials ones a bit more 3.5ish and fell back into some of the same issues with martials (if I remember right). E-martials are repetitive to play for sure, but the right builds can be very effective.
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Oct 17, 2015 00:37
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Oh...oh dear. Gotta say, I am not fond of this idea of spreading your game through so many books, but I guess it's something WotC can't help itself from doing. I guess I will have to consider that D&D Tools thing... I can just purchase it once and have access to all the classes, if I understand the OP correctly?
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Oct 17, 2015 00:37
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The PHB was indeed missing the barbarian, the bard, the sorerer, and the druid, from the "main core" classes. On the bright side, when those did come out in PHB2, they were so much better then they were in 3e that it's pretty easy to excuse it. Technically it also lacked the monk but who the gently caress played a monk in 3.x??? Also  on looking up the PHB I found the wikipedia page for it literally has some random magazine talking about how 4e isn't D&D and is just an MMO for babies right in the middle apropos of nothing. Likewise the 5e section has literally nothing on 5e, but another reviewer attacking 4e.
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Oct 17, 2015 03:16
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Yeah, I never felt like wanting for classes, though I came in halfway through 4E so it might have felt worse in the beginning. If anything, there are way too many if you also take into account the Fun stuff you can do with hybridizing. That said, PHB 1+2 more or less completes the "classic" D&D collection of classes. What you may not realize is that two characters of the same class may end up playing pretty differently depending on what powers and feats and so on they choose. More so after heroic tier, when paragon paths and epic destinies start coming in. The game is quite spread across splat books and the magazines, but that's nothing new for D&D. There is an offline Char Builder you can use that has all the classes in one, but I don't know if we are allowed to talk about that one nowadays. As an off comment, what really makes me sad about 5E is not that it threw 4E by the wayside, but the fact that it didn't advance the game in any way, instead choosing to go back to 3E. I'd rather they had done something new and poo poo, than something old and poo poo.
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Oct 17, 2015 03:39
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I'm looking into running the Scales of War adventures, and was wondering for anyone who DM'd it if there's anything I should be aware of. Are there any adjustments that would help? Certain fights too big of a slog or something like that? How good of an adventure series would you consider it? Alternately, if you think there's a better adventure series to run, I'm open to suggestions. I'd like something that started close to level 1, though.
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Oct 17, 2015 06:54
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Markovnikov posted:There is an offline Char Builder you can use that has all the classes in one, but I don't know if we are allowed to talk about that one nowadays. We can talk about it but linking it is technically  . Just google "4e offline character builder" or something for links and installation instructions.
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Oct 17, 2015 08:21
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paradoxGentleman posted:Oh...oh dear. Pretty much grab the character builder. But I should add: just playing with the PHB will do fine. It's got more than enough in it to make most archetypes you could want to play, as long as you're not attached to the idea that you have to have 'fighter' on your character sheet in order to play a guy who fights.
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Oct 17, 2015 09:58
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Limiting yourself to certain books is a good way to keep the bloat down anyway.
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Oct 17, 2015 10:12
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thespaceinvader posted:Pretty much grab the character builder. Nah, I'm cool with refluffing classes (I spent most of the time reading the Cleric page thinking "man these could make just as much sense with playing a shaman that sics evil spirits on his enemies and helpful ones on his allies"), it just felt... weird, you know?
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Oct 17, 2015 10:55
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paradoxGentleman posted:Oh...oh dear. This has roughly been the model since 3E. However, the character builder gets you everything and makes it so that owning most of the 4E books is entirely unnecessary.
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Oct 17, 2015 11:43
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gradenko_2000 posted:Limiting yourself to certain books is a good way to keep the bloat down anyway. Yep. It's worth picking up the Rules Compendium though, it's a much better rulebook overall than any of the other ones.
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Oct 17, 2015 13:21
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Yeah, it has a great index, plus all the rules errata are worked in and as much as I dislike Essentials it did do a good job of clarifying the basic rules and adjusting the DCs.
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Oct 17, 2015 13:51
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So I'm going to be running Vecna Lives! for a few friends IRL as part of a larger campaign, and I've got a few months to figure it out, but I want to replicate the urgency of divine power being ripped from the earth without being a complete dick to the paladin. Obviously starting with flavour text is good, but but I want to let them know that the cut-off of divine powers will be A Big Deal. Is there a way to make some of his powers randomly fail without being a total dick? Like a suitable reward I haven't thought of when that triggers?
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Oct 18, 2015 17:33
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Make up some kind of preliminary quest or MacGuffin that lets him keep his powers instead.
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Oct 18, 2015 17:48
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I had something going on with my group's Warlock where her patron threatened to take her powers away. I just started making a big thing of it whenever she rolled a 1. Rather than say "you miss by a mile" or "he dodges your blast" I'd describe how "only a few harmless sparks appear where an Eldritch Blast should be." Impressed the group more than I thought. Later when things got more urgent I started doing it for every regular miss. I also made a random effects chart that triggered on a natural 1 and was about 70% harmless flavour effects, 30% minor penalties along the lines of the Chaos Sorcerer's "you must push every creature 1 square." Took a few of them off a 5E chart, even. She walked around with tree branches for arms for a while and also had her age reduced to 14. Of course, the idea was that she'd mend things with her patron eventually. Still, it was a nice way to drive the point home without actually interfering with character effectiveness. If the divine cut-off is a more permanent thing, you could describe how everyone's divinely powered abilities around him start to fail, except his, and let the party try to figure out why that's the case as well as deal with people who have come from far away in hopes the rumours of the Last Holy Man are true and he can help sick grandma, as well as shady characters who want his power for their own purposes.
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Oct 18, 2015 17:55
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Moriatti posted:So I'm going to be running Vecna Lives! for a few friends IRL as part of a larger campaign, and I've got a few months to figure it out, but I want to replicate the urgency of divine power being ripped from the earth without being a complete dick to the paladin. Obviously starting with flavour text is good, but but I want to let them know that the cut-off of divine powers will be A Big Deal. That sounds unnecessarily punitive and not so fun for the paladin. Maybe make another power source fail that won't hamstring your friends.
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Oct 18, 2015 18:03
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Right, I was thinking about giving him a different benefit, or the said Mc Guffin, but this:My Lovely Horse posted:Of course, the idea was that she'd mend things with her patron eventually. Still, it was a nice way to drive the point home without actually interfering with character effectiveness. If the divine cut-off is a more permanent thing, you could describe how everyone's divinely powered abilities around him start to fail, except his, and let the party try to figure out why that's the case as well as deal with people who have come from far away in hopes the rumours of the Last Holy Man are true and he can help sick grandma, as well as shady characters who want his power for their own purposes.
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Oct 18, 2015 18:30
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Moriatti posted:So I'm going to be running Vecna Lives! for a few friends IRL as part of a larger campaign, and I've got a few months to figure it out, but I want to replicate the urgency of divine power being ripped from the earth without being a complete dick to the paladin. Obviously starting with flavour text is good, but but I want to let them know that the cut-off of divine powers will be A Big Deal. I'd do most of it with flavor/fluffy type things. Spell effects are a gross sickly yellow instead of bright white radiance. Wounds he heals all scarred up and ugly instead of cleanly. Maybe adjust damage types from radiant to necrotic/poison/etc if that wouldn't provide a gameplay disadvantage for him. Instead of "no power source", give him a tainted one. Could also fluff missed abilities as an "unanswered prayers" kind of thing, so that if he whiffs with Price of Cowardice or the like it's not because he actually missed, it's because he went looking for the power to use it and couldn't find it. Khizan fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Oct 18, 2015 |
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Oct 18, 2015 23:42
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Moriatti posted:So I'm going to be running Vecna Lives! for a few friends IRL as part of a larger campaign, and I've got a few months to figure it out, but I want to replicate the urgency of divine power being ripped from the earth without being a complete dick to the paladin. Obviously starting with flavour text is good, but but I want to let them know that the cut-off of divine powers will be A Big Deal. No. Don't do this. Also, neither Paladins nor Clerics derive their powers directly from the gods, both will explicitly continue to have access to them even if no one's there to answer prayers or their god decides they don't like them. Just tell them that when they use their powers they can very distinctly feel that the connection with their deity that is normally there just isn't - it's like they're shouting down an empty corridor instead of talking in an occupied room. Outright tell them that they instinctively know this is a bad sign and needs to be fixed. Otherwise, just refluff some of his missed attacks as missing not because the Paladin character missed but because the divine power fizzled out. Don't randomly gently caress over one of your players, especially not for metaplot reasons outside of their control.
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Oct 18, 2015 23:56
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Don't randomly gently caress over one of your players, especially not for metaplot reasons outside of their control.
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Oct 19, 2015 00:36
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Right, I was looking as a way to alternately reward them, but I think just having their powers have the same flavour text as they did when the players were on the Demi-plane of dread, and having him notice a horned owl that is suddenly following the party around and looking at him expectedly, while all NPC divine characters are having their spells fail.... That seems like it would accomplish the same task, while also having a nice foreshadowing to the end of the adventure, and not having him alter his tactics to his powers work differently.
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Oct 19, 2015 12:00
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IPlayVideoGames posted:I'm looking into running the Scales of War adventures, and was wondering for anyone who DM'd it if there's anything I should be aware of. Are there any adjustments that would help? Certain fights too big of a slog or something like that? How good of an adventure series would you consider it? I'm in a group running that. Our DM said he's using some kind of wiki for it? The wiki had a lot of guidance for the first half or so, but tapered off as we went deeper in.
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Oct 19, 2015 17:02
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Are there any standout third-party supplements for 4e that aren't adventures, like classes and feats and whatnot?
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Oct 19, 2015 18:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:Are there any standout third-party supplements for 4e that aren't adventures, like classes and feats and whatnot? why would you want more feats? half of them need to go as is.
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Oct 19, 2015 20:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:Are there any standout third-party supplements for 4e that aren't adventures, like classes and feats and whatnot? Zeitgeist? gets quite a lot of press in this thread and seems reasonable, but no, mostly 3p stuff just didn't get made for 4e, because of the licensing restrictions, and the fact that it was so much easier to write for PF.
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Oct 19, 2015 23:25
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