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alcharagia posted:Here's a question that actually applies to reality: what are the weaknesses of the Psion class? For Psion, at least one of those "take and keep forever"s is at level 1 (Dishearten, I think?) and will also make your DM want to smack you for debuffing his monster's accuracy straight to hell.
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Nov 28, 2015 06:33
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alcharagia posted:Here's a question that actually applies to reality: what are the weaknesses of the Psion class? In general you pick on at-will at level 1 and that's what you do for the rest of your life. There are a few good Dailies (Living Missile and Living Barrage are stupidly fun) but, for the most part, you cast an area 1 burst that effects enemy attack by -lots.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:00
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alcharagia posted:Here's a question that actually applies to reality: what are the weaknesses of the Psion class? They're also kind of narrow, utility-wise, but at higher levels, Dishearten Augment 2 is both dull and insanely good. It's nearly an at-will AoE stun for its ability to neutralize enemies.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:49
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The fact that, like most/all power point using classes, the powers you pick at level 1 are the ones you'll be using for the rest of your career.Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:For Psion, at least one of those "take and keep forever"s is at level 1 (Dishearten, I think?) and will also make your DM want to smack you for debuffing his monster's accuracy straight to hell. This speaks to me on an intimate level.
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Nov 28, 2015 07:49
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Kurieg posted:The fact that, like most/all power point using classes, the powers you pick at level 1 are the ones you'll be using for the rest of your career. Hey, Battleminds use a level 7 power for their entire careers. Psions do get Forced Opportunity at 17+ as well as Dishearten, which can make an enemy provoke OAs from the whole party. Of course this is more of a leader thing, but at least it's different.
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Nov 28, 2015 09:12
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I'd love to run 4e pbp or on skype but the battle map aspect is really intimidating- I was the type to improvise-draw basically every map on a washable grid whenever a fight came up while running irl 4e. Are there any programs that make it super duper easy? Most of the ones I've looked into involve way too much set up. I don't want to have to upload a bunch of new art assets and poo poo and mess around with brushes, I just want some basic textures and obstacles I can slap on a preset grid and go.
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Nov 28, 2015 11:28
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The saving grace of Battleminds is that enogh of their powers are actually kinda fun, and they hybrid pretty well. Like fighter/battlemind (focus primarily on battlemind early on, MC bard, and go that one PP that lets you use charisma for your fighter stuff) gets some fun toys that normal fighters don't, primarily to give a real nice boost to their mobility. That's not even touching the horrors of brutal barrage cheese. Psions on the other hand are just...dishearten. Forever. I know literally nothing about argents so I can't comment there.
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Nov 28, 2015 11:29
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Mince Pieface posted:I'd love to run 4e pbp or on skype but the battle map aspect is really intimidating- I was the type to improvise-draw basically every map on a washable grid whenever a fight came up while running irl 4e. Are there any programs that make it super duper easy? Most of the ones I've looked into involve way too much set up. I don't want to have to upload a bunch of new art assets and poo poo and mess around with brushes, I just want some basic textures and obstacles I can slap on a preset grid and go. Roll20 and a tablet.
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Nov 28, 2015 11:33
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Mince Pieface posted:I'd love to run 4e pbp or on skype but the battle map aspect is really intimidating- I was the type to improvise-draw basically every map on a washable grid whenever a fight came up while running irl 4e. Are there any programs that make it super duper easy? Most of the ones I've looked into involve way too much set up. I don't want to have to upload a bunch of new art assets and poo poo and mess around with brushes, I just want some basic textures and obstacles I can slap on a preset grid and go. I have around 4 gigs worth of art assets for Maptool that I would imagine works on Roll20, seeing as how they're just simple image files. Regardless, on Maptool, it was pretty simple to just drag and drop, although it can be somewhat time consuming depending on how much effort you want to throw at it. Basic stuff is pretty easy though. If you want, I can discuss it further with you on Skype canadian-pirate. Lord Justice fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Nov 28, 2015 |
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Nov 28, 2015 11:45
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:will also make your DM want to smack you for debuffing his monster's accuracy straight to hell. This is me when I DM. Am I the only one who hates debuffs that prevent a character from doing anything? If I'm coming up with a debuff for an injury or poison I'm going to subject a character to, I'd far rather have them take double damage than make them do half damage. To me at least, the combat where the orc just stands there swinging at air all encounter until someone cuts him down is way less interesting than an actual battle with blows exchanged on both sides.
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Nov 28, 2015 11:58
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Mince Pieface posted:I'd love to run 4e pbp or on skype but the battle map aspect is really intimidating- I was the type to improvise-draw basically every map on a washable grid whenever a fight came up while running irl 4e. Are there any programs that make it super duper easy? Most of the ones I've looked into involve way too much set up. I don't want to have to upload a bunch of new art assets and poo poo and mess around with brushes, I just want some basic textures and obstacles I can slap on a preset grid and go. Roll20 has a buncha drag and drop items and basic terrain, it takes a little more planning than a whiteboard, but not much.
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Nov 28, 2015 16:39
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For what it's worth, this is what my roll20 battle maps look like: I had to explain a little, but the group was able to understand that the room on right lead out to a veranda, with stairs leading down to the courtyard to the left.
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Nov 28, 2015 17:27
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My old 4e DM was an interior designer so whatever he was working on essentially became that week's map after he did a bit of tweaking haha. Layouts of show homes and grocery stores with a few extra lines tossed on them work surprisingly well after a grid is applied  . Likewise I've gone and grabbed basic house blueprints for other games I've run and it works out all right. YOU ENTER THE WIZARD'S PRIVATE SANCTUM! 
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Nov 28, 2015 17:44
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To clarify, you definitely CAN whiteboard it, but given about 15 minutes and using only free assets and my custom sprites for characters, I made this: ...Which is not for 4e, but you get the idea.
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Nov 28, 2015 18:37
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Does everyone use FE sprites for characters, cuz I do that too.
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Nov 28, 2015 22:15
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No, but now I'm gonna because it's really kind of obvious they'd work well for it.
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Nov 28, 2015 22:44
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Gort posted:This is me when I DM. Am I the only one who hates debuffs that prevent a character from doing anything? If I'm coming up with a debuff for an injury or poison I'm going to subject a character to, I'd far rather have them take double damage than make them do half damage. The striker getting Weakened always drove me insane because it guaranteed an encountered taking an extra hour to do.
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Nov 28, 2015 22:51
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Ok cool, I didn't realize all of the features that roll20 had, I'd only played in fate games with it before so I didn't realize the full extent of what it could do. I'll have to play around with making some maps in it, but it's good to know you can make it super sketchy or decent looking with a little bit of effort. Playing around with it, is there an easy way to fill a texture into a bunch of squares at once? I can't figure out how to get the art assets down on the field except as a 1x1 token which would be annoying for like, a stone floor.
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Nov 28, 2015 23:29
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You can grab them by the corner and drag; its proportions will snap to the closest grid line. If you don't want that to happen, hold down alt while resizing it.
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Nov 28, 2015 23:42
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Apropos of nothing, it turns out that the per-pc encryption used by masterplan's compendium import is comparing your windows user name and computer name with that of the user and computer that created the library.
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Nov 29, 2015 03:31
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So what do people generally prefer/ what lasts longer: Insert-coin type games more focused on providing challenging and unique fights or more normal campaign style adventures? I have an idea for each but I can't decide what I'd rather do
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Nov 29, 2015 03:56
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Mince Pieface posted:So what do people generally prefer/ what lasts longer: Insert-coin type games more focused on providing challenging and unique fights or more normal campaign style adventures? I have an idea for each but I can't decide what I'd rather do I like insert-coin/arena sort of games, largely 'cause outside of my live group the only games I've done are pbp, and campaigns in pbp are painful (especially when they inevitably die).
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Nov 29, 2015 06:07
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Mince Pieface posted:So what do people generally prefer/ what lasts longer: Insert-coin type games more focused on providing challenging and unique fights or more normal campaign style adventures? I have an idea for each but I can't decide what I'd rather do The insert-coin type game would probably run a lot more smoothly and certainly would play to the strengths of 4e, and to be honest interesting combats are what I enjoy most about d&d in general haha. If you're doing something which is like a colosseum style betting match for the faceless masses watching the party fight, there's still plenty of time for players to get their roleplaying fix in between fights in the back room televised wrestling style .I addressed it a bit ago but campaigns on here especially in the D&Ds seem to start off strong and then kinda slow to a crawl as everyone starts posting further and further apart(aside from Really Pants' campaign which has been running almost 100% consistently for a bit over a year! Good job Really Pants), if you decide to run something make sure you set posting deadlines for yourself and your players and hold them to it  , there are enough willing 4e players around here that if you have one or two players who are dragging down what you're trying to run you can drop the troublemaker without issue should they be consistently causing issues.e: Preferencewise I do enjoy having the structured narrative of a campaign but they're hard to keep going. Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 06:26
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Turtlicious posted:Does everyone use FE sprites for characters, cuz I do that too. I usually use Chrono Trigger customs, I just didn't have that uploaded at the time.  Edit: That is also a fraction of a map that took much more then 15 minutes! Moriatti fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 08:17
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Mince Pieface posted:So what do people generally prefer/ what lasts longer: Insert-coin type games more focused on providing challenging and unique fights or more normal campaign style adventures? I have an idea for each but I can't decide what I'd rather do EDIT: Running games is generally a lot easier with my, uh... situation. I've been running big ol' campaigns on Roll20 for a couple years now, with my players understanding that we have to take a break every May and start up again in late August. The Crotch fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Nov 29, 2015 |
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Nov 29, 2015 08:35
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Mince Pieface posted:So what do people generally prefer/ what lasts longer: Insert-coin type games more focused on providing challenging and unique fights or more normal campaign style adventures? I have an idea for each but I can't decide what I'd rather do My advice here is to play to your strengths, which one would be more enjoyable for you to run for an extended period of time? DMing is more work intensive than playing, and the play experience is dictated heavily by how the DM operates. Essentially, playing to your strengths create a better playing experience. With that said, there's benefits to both, with 4E working better for the former as a system. 4E is, personally, the premiere tactical combat RPG which hasn't been topped to my knowledge, and focusing on that aspect when running 4E is always the best idea. In other words, if you're using a system, do what that system does well. However, 4E can handle a normal campaign just fine, even without having any fights at all (although it kind of becomes a kind of weird Fate-lite when you do that). Either way, it also comes down to your players. Speaking personally, there can be a large divide, with some people wanting to interact with the mechanics of the system, and some people wanting to avoid it as much as possible and "just RP". With the former your players would need to interact with the mechanics more and want to optimize, with the latter, your players would want to develop their characters more. Personally, both are enjoyable, especially when you optimize a character within the mechanics and force the mechanics to work with your concept, like with my Lazylord|Wizard/Bard language specialist. Regardless and ultimately, go with what works for you.
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Nov 29, 2015 09:34
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I can DM 4e, but my prior attempts at PbP have failed pretty badly, with players just ceasing to post after a week or two. Is PbP just not a good match for 4e? If you guys have any tips, I'd be happy to give it another go as DM. I have a homebrew setting/campaign I've run for a few years that I'd love to polish up by giving it a second run.
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Nov 29, 2015 11:57
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Iunnrais posted:I can DM 4e, but my prior attempts at PbP have failed pretty badly, with players just ceasing to post after a week or two. Is PbP just not a good match for 4e? If you guys have any tips, I'd be happy to give it another go as DM. I have a homebrew setting/campaign I've run for a few years that I'd love to polish up by giving it a second run. So the major thing with PbP is to give people time tables on when they should have a post in by. If they don't get in by that time, go ahead anyway. If the player has long unexplained stretches where they don't say anything, first try to contact them. If that fails, either put them on autopilot or replace them.
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Nov 29, 2015 12:02
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A Darker Porpoise posted:If you're doing something which is like a colosseum style betting match for the faceless masses watching the party fight, there's still plenty of time for players to get their roleplaying fix in between fights in the back room televised wrestling style I'm going to wax philosophical here a bit and say that the traditional dungeon crawl is already largely similar to, if not a direct analogue of, a "fighting tournament" style of play. When you present the players with three different dungeon corridors to go down, it's very similar to having three different competitors that the players need to defeat to advance to the next stage. The WWE-style machinations are roughly equivalent to the players engaging in "RP" in order to manipulate the situation upon entering the room to be as favorable to them as possible, up to and including either skipping the fight or auto-winning the fight altogether.
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Nov 29, 2015 17:35
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djw175 posted:So the major thing with PbP is to give people time tables on when they should have a post in by. If they don't get in by that time, go ahead anyway. If the player has long unexplained stretches where they don't say anything, first try to contact them. If that fails, either put them on autopilot or replace them. The major thing in PbP is that you have to be willing to breach the nerd social contract and call people out on their poo poo. I've been in multiple 4e games where the DM's friend stops posting for three weeks, and the whole thing stands still, and once they get back and it moves again, I've lost all interest in the character/setting/game and drop out. When you set a timetable, enforce the timetable. If someone has to be gone for awhile for family emergencies or something, NPC them or let another player play their character in combat. Do not take huge breaks between posts, especially in the middle of combat.
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Nov 29, 2015 18:26
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Iunnrais posted:I can DM 4e, but my prior attempts at PbP have failed pretty badly, with players just ceasing to post after a week or two. Is PbP just not a good match for 4e? If you guys have any tips, I'd be happy to give it another go as DM. I have a homebrew setting/campaign I've run for a few years that I'd love to polish up by giving it a second run. The problems you have had in previous attempts are to do with PbP, not 4th edition, which is no more prone to people failing to keep up with posting as any other system.
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Nov 29, 2015 21:59
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Apologies if this gets asked a lot, but I just got the builder up and running. Are there current class guides for the basic PHB classes, or did all of those get eaten when the Wizards forums went the way of the dinosaur?
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Nov 30, 2015 02:23
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Goon Raenir K. Artemi saved all of the class guides here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4YaBeuqOG0qcG94VlhLSmJ1dnc&usp=sharing
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Nov 30, 2015 02:37
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Most also got saved on ENWorld's lifeboat.
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Nov 30, 2015 02:46
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gradenko_2000 posted:Goon Raenir K. Artemi saved all of the class guides here: This is probably going to sound dumb. How do I view these as non-HTML? Edit: Man, even half of the ENWorld guides are showing as HTML. 
SageNytell fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 03:10
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SageNytell posted:This is probably going to sound dumb. How do I view these as non-HTML? So what I did was save the thing to my drive and then download the whole thing. Once you extract it, you can click on the html links and it'll put the pages together
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Nov 30, 2015 03:19
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So here's a sketch of how I would imagine running an insert-coin type game. The conceit is the PCs enter the Path of Ascension, a series of trials on the way to Godhood. quote:Starting at level 1, you will progress through a series of Areas. Each World has 4-7 Areas, including one boss fight. You must complete at least 4 Areas including the boss to progress, but you can choose the order of Areas and if you want to complete any additional Areas. The boss fight must be last, and when you complete it the group progresses to the next World. At the end of each World all players level up. I'm thinking of having character options somewhat restricted at first but with rewards opening up more options. Does this sound interesting/sustainable to people?
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Nov 30, 2015 03:28
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Mince Pieface posted:So here's a sketch of how I would imagine running an insert-coin type game. The conceit is the PCs enter the Path of Ascension, a series of trials on the way to Godhood.
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Nov 30, 2015 03:32
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I'd say that's a good concept for a PbP of a combat-focused game. Strip out all pretense of "RPing as a set-up for who, what, how, where and when to do the next fight", present the fights as a list of options that you can pick from, and go from combat to combat. If you have dedicated posters, it should be possible to go through turns at a decent clip, since the interactions are fully defined by rules and mechanics.
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Nov 30, 2015 03:36
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Poison Mushroom posted:The big problem I see is that the players' class choice is going to be hugely determined by what's available from the start. If there's no guarantee of getting, say, Divine Power, then most players probably wouldn't take a chance on a class that needs it. Oh yeah agreed, and it would be a pain to do in that way in the character builder anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of locking certain feats that are sometimes considered 'OP' like the Dragonmark feats or Wintertouched/Lasting Frost or say the Morninglord PP. I could see this maybe being still a little problematic for some builds, so I'm not 100% committed to the idea yet. I do want to find a way to give unique rewards for side objectives though.
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Nov 30, 2015 03:51
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