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Generic Octopus posted:You don't ignore Nusemnee's, it's not a typed resistance. Also resistances of different types also don't stack like that anyway; Resist All 5 and Resist Fire 10 wouldn't reduce the damage from a fire attack by 15, just 10. Huh, okay.
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Dec 31, 2015 02:19
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What would we say the essential 4th edition books are? I have DMG1-2, both monster vaults, and the RC. Are there any other heavy hitters that I should try to scrounge before they become too hard to find on the used shelves?
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Dec 31, 2015 03:00
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The PHBs themselves, at the very least PHB 1 because it has the core basic equipment rules, even if the other books can cover everything else. Heroes of the Fallen Lands / Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms can be stand-ins, but I'm sure you're familiar with our opinion of the classes in those. Dark Sun Campaign Guide so you have an official reference for the inherent bonuses rules. Heroes of the Fallen Lands so you have an official reference for the Improved Defenses and Melee Training feat taxes PHB 3 so you have an official reference for the Versatile Expertise feat. HOTFL / HOTFK have the weapon-type-specific Expertise feats. (although you could just look it up on the internets)
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Dec 31, 2015 05:30
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In terms of printed classes, you pretty much want PHB1 and PHB2. The third PHB technically includes classes, but most of them are dumb/bad, although the Hybrid rules are nice to have if that's your bag. Pretty much everything else is just player options, so it depends what flavour of character(s) you and your group feel like you might play the most. If themes are important to you, I'd recommend the Dark Sun player's book and Heroes of the Elemental Chaos; Heroes of the Feywild has the "Fey Beast Tamer" theme (which is popular) but TBH the themes in there never did much for me.
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Dec 31, 2015 05:40
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So does anyone have any suggestions for some particularly fun classes to play? I've greatly enjoyed playing as a Monk what with all of its movement options, and a centered breath the ability to forcibly move around enemy formations has been pretty great too. I'm not too concerned about how powerful they are in comparison to others, especially as I hear that even the worst aren't actually all that bad, but rather ones that have interesting mechanical niches and things to do most rounds besides simply doing another 2d8 damage to an enemy because fights against single enemies where there wasn't much else that I could do weren't all that great. Cirina fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 13:45
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As long as you avoid the terrible classes, they can all be pretty fun to play. It really depends on your preferences.
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Dec 31, 2015 13:54
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thespaceinvader posted:As long as you avoid the terrible classes, they can all be pretty fun to play. It really depends on your preferences. Problem is that I'm not really sure what my preferences are, this monk I'm playing is the first character I've played with in 4e since it was first released so I don't really have the experience to say. I guess what I'm hoping for is some suggestions for what to take a look at, rather than just randomly going through fourty some odd classes and hoping something catches my eye. Hearing about other people's favorites and why they enjoy the game is a pretty good bonus too. Cirina fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 13:58
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Fair enough. Try a few, see what you enjoy. Melee classes tend to play very differently from ranged classes, and the four roles all play very differently from each other. It's really difficult to say what you'll enjoy until you've played at least some kind of RPG enough to know what you enjoy in terms of characters. Personally, I enjoy playing melee guys who hit things with other things, and I like playing Defenders. My favourite class is probably the Berserker, but I'm unusual in that.
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Dec 31, 2015 14:04
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If you like a good punchmans with mobility, forced movement, and an interesting variety of nastiness to pull, especially against a single enemy, take a look at the Fighter's Brawler Style. Chokeslam dragons erry day
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Dec 31, 2015 14:15
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Really Pants posted:If you like a good punchmans with mobility, forced movement, and an interesting variety of nastiness to pull, especially against a single enemy, take a look at the Fighter's Brawler Style. Chokeslam dragons erry day I was also having fun as a Cleric|Wrathvoker
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Dec 31, 2015 15:59
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Pixie Brawler Best Brawler. Pixies suplexing dragons erryday. Basically a Nac Mac Feegle.
thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 16:02
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If you're not playing a warlord you're doing it wrong. LazyLord or BraveLord are my two favorites to play. Just something about screaming at people to heal, or telling your party rogue, "Hey, you didn't hit him enough... hit him again. Now again. NOW AGAIN." over and over.
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Dec 31, 2015 16:35
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Eopia posted:Problem is that I'm not really sure what my preferences are, this monk I'm playing is the first character I've played with in 4e since it was first released so I don't really have the experience to say. For my money Avenger is probably my favorite class. It's the Divine Striker class and appears in PhB 2. They are essentially the angry, wrathful arm of any given religion. If you want to roleplay Castlevania this is your go-to class. *Their core mechanic has them roll two d20 against a specified target instead of 1. Why not intrinsically exciting on its own it means you're much less likely to miss and twice as likely to crit. *They are extremely sticky, regardless of which Avenger build you make. They pull their marked targets closer, teleport after them, grow wings and fly after them - it's pretty hard to escape an Avenger. *While w'ere on the topic they have some of the best inherent fluff/SFX of any class I've ever played. I almost never felt the need to refluff their powers because they're all so cool. *Again, Castlevania.
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Dec 31, 2015 19:44
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ImpactVector posted:I'll second this. I got to play a brawler for all of one session, but it was a blast pretending to be "Hercules as played by Kevin Sorbo" (Dual Attack is slamming dudes' heads together). 3rding this, I played a brawler fighter who was "welterweight ufc champion Georges St. Pierre who woke up post knee surgery in a strange land a la John Carter of Mars", and it was tremendously fun to punch and kick (and double leg) everything, all the time. Doing the "stranger in a strange land" thing was also super fun too.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:19
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Drewjitsu posted:3rding this, I played a brawler fighter who was "welterweight ufc champion Georges St. Pierre who woke up post knee surgery in a strange land a la John Carter of Mars", and it was tremendously fun to punch and kick (and double leg) everything, all the time. lmao
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Dec 31, 2015 21:46
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What's a good class/build for a hamadryad?
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Dec 31, 2015 21:56
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I did pretty well with a WIS|INT Shaman|Cleric but it is hella complex and not for the faint of heart. WIS/INT Wizard, maybe.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:00
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Illvillainy posted:What's a good class/build for a hamadryad? Wizard or invoker, capitalizing on their racial power and ability scores.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:03
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Hamadryads make good Artificers
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Dec 31, 2015 22:12
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fatherdog posted:lmao I watched a ton of tuf when he coached, so I even got the accent down right. One of the other characters was a Psionic class, who provided translation to the group. It was pretty great. Edit: he wore a gi (refluffed scale armor) and since he was coming off knee surgery, he wasn't as mobile (hence the -1 speed that scale armor provided). It was a very fun character to have all of the mechanical and flavour bits line up. Legit Businessman fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Dec 31, 2015 |
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Dec 31, 2015 22:25
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Drewjitsu posted:I watched a ton of tuf when he coached, so I even got the accent down right. One of the other characters was a Psionic class, who provided translation to the group. It was pretty great. You should've convinced somebody to play Jean Charles Skarbowsky
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Dec 31, 2015 22:52
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Illvillainy posted:What's a good class/build for a hamadryad? Anything that's Wis, Int, or Cha primary, honestly. I say Wis/Int Avenger. It's not optimal, but it is my favorite Wis/Int class because Controllers blow and Avengers are awesome.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:59
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Drewjitsu posted:3rding this, I played a brawler fighter who was "welterweight ufc champion Georges St. Pierre who woke up post knee surgery in a strange land a la John Carter of Mars", and it was tremendously fun to punch and kick (and double leg) everything, all the time. My brain parsed this as "Stinger in a strange land" at first. It still worked.
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Dec 31, 2015 23:27
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Eopia posted:Hearing about other people's favorites and why they enjoy the game is a pretty good bonus too. Ranger is fun even if you want to be "sup-optimal" and use it to shoot bows. Bard is fun if you want to be the healer and be awesome at skills and also get some battlefield control stuff. One of the shorter-lived characters that I made/played was a Deva Paladin with a STR/WIS/INT spread, because I kinda wanted to be good at knowledge skills. Basically just smashed faces and barely qualified as a Defender, but was super fun to play and build, particularly around mid-paragon and using the Divine Power book.
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Jan 1, 2016 05:12
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I've legit enjoyed basically every character I've played as...except psion, which was just spammy. I enjoyed the elementalist more because at least then you're spamming hilariously large numbers, and your role isn't making fights more boring. I admit I'm playing as a cleric|artificer in a game now and just using Magic Weapon 24/7 has it's downsides. Also? Never made a brawler fighter; I'm just not a MAYOR MIKE HAGGAR kinda guy. On the other hand, I have fond memories of a thri-kreen arena fighter who did That One Thing Arena Fighters Are Good At: combining quarterstaff proficiency with a two handed weapon. In this case, it was a spiked chain. Bugface had some awesome mobility and was ultimately super, super stylish, swinging around and slicin' into dudes from across the map and hurling them here and there. If you're REAL crazy you use your multiclass feat on spiked chain, and now you have a weapon in both hands that is both a light blade and a flail with reach 2 that prones and slides with almost every attack. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 06:40
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Kurieg posted:My brain parsed this as "Stinger in a strange land" at first. If I ever get a chance to play 4e again, I'm doing this character again, except as either hulk hogan, macho man Randy savage, or the Rock. Just lean into the over the top nature of the brawler fighter. ...And people still hate on 4e. Shameful.
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Jan 1, 2016 08:51
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Drewjitsu posted:If I ever get a chance to play 4e again, I'm doing this character again, except as either hulk hogan, macho man Randy savage, or the Rock. The Rock, as a Goliath.
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Jan 1, 2016 08:54
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Eopia posted:Hearing about other people's favorites and why they enjoy the game is a pretty good bonus too. My favourite ever concept was GOLEM, my Warforged Artificer|Warlord, based on the classic Killswitch build. GOLEM stood for Genius-Operated Living Exoskeletal Mechanism, though that wasn't what he told people, and the acronym he actually told people was somewhat fluid. I am Iron Gnome. My favourite character to play was my half-orc former Calishite slave gladiator who ate all the things and hit all the things with his Spiked Chain. He was a defending Berserker, and yeah, basically made all the things fall over and slide where he wanted them. Except that one time he got dominated for an entire fight because I *COULD NOT loving ROLL A 10*.
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Jan 1, 2016 11:56
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thespaceinvader posted:My favourite ever concept was GOLEM, my Warforged Artificer|Warlord, based on the classic Killswitch build. GOLEM stood for Genius-Operated Living Exoskeletal Mechanism, though that wasn't what he told people, and the acronym he actually told people was somewhat fluid. I am Iron Gnome. I have always wanted to do a game where everyone played as a D&D version of a marvel super hero Avengers style
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Jan 1, 2016 12:24
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Iron Man also works as a flight bonus-heavy sorcerer.
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Jan 1, 2016 12:36
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Other characters I have enjoyed in no particular order - pretty much none of which were my ideas (thanks, 4e character boards!): Barbarian|Monk. Play it MOSTLY as a barbarian - the monk is there to add some truly absurd mobility. Remember, full disciplines only restrict monk attacks - you can use the move action of a monk full discipline and then a barbarian attack after. This means you start out of the gate with shift 2; it only gets better when you add some of the monk Utility powers. Monks also have some supremely good dailies that can be way better then a lot of barbarian dailies, and the occasional great encounter. It just overall combines really well and helps kinda dispel the whole "don't hybrid two strikers" because you don't really have to worry about their striker mechanics not combining. Rogue. Just...just almost any given rogue. My preference is to cha high artful dodgers, but rogues are just so magnificent period it's neigh impossible to go wrong. You are super slippery, daggers let you use both melee and ranged attacks (and rogues have some good attacks for both), you have ALL THE SKILLS, a ton of cool and unique utility - it's literally the best rogue in the history of D&D, ever. Battlemind|Fighter. Another extremely high mobility defender. Battlemind gives you a plethora of interrupts at distance and some great mobility, fighter supples the punishment and pain. This character came together in Paragon when I took that one bard Paragon Path that lets you use Charisma for all your martial stuff; which isn't to say it didn't work before that, it did, it was just 90% battlemind then. Post-Paragon, you are a walking gently caress you to enemies. Once you're next to someone - or simply once you mark anyone - they have no way to escape your hammer smashing them in the face and sending them flying. The semi-classic Flameswitch. Deva Shaman|Warlord. The general gist is that pretty much all your attacks hand out bunches and bunches of free attacks to allies, usually with high bonuses. In Paragon, you now also add an insanely impressive action point nova. In Epic, you add a gigantic domination effect. 4e is in the end a game about teamwork and working together (which is probably one reason why it got hated so much), and this leader ties so much together so perfectly. It's one flaw - and it's a biggie - is that it absolutely requires a team with good MBAs. At least two of them.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:12
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I'm sure there are more optimal feats for Rouges, but I like "Cunning Stalker". Which gives you Combat Advantage against any enemy you are the only creature next to (enemy or ally). So you can challenge someone to a duel and still use sneak attacks on them instead of needing flanking or status effect fuckery. Also if your GM won't house rule "Just make Rogues proficient in rapiers Jesus, they nerfed it into a Military weapon", Taking one of those Backgrounds that unlocks a free Military weapon proficiency can be nice. A worse feat than that for Avengers I still like, "Avenging Resolution". Against your Oath target (The guy you get to reroll melee hit rolls for), all your weapon damage die rolls of 1 or 2, can count as 3. Then you pair it with a 2d4 or 2d6 weapon and act like your God is rigging the dice for you. Again, I'm sure there are more efficient things, but feels good never rolling less than max or near max damage. I know I was loving glad I took it when the very first time I used a daily power on an Avenger, I rolled four 1s and two 2s for damage, and actually killed the enemy instead of annoying it. Section Z fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 02:02
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Avengers going down the path of ignoring RNG are also my favorite, so you're at least not alone in liking a bad thing.
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Jan 2, 2016 04:53
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Section Z posted:I'm sure there are more optimal feats for Rouges, but I like "Cunning Stalker". Which gives you Combat Advantage against any enemy you are the only creature next to (enemy or ally). So you can challenge someone to a duel and still use sneak attacks on them instead of needing flanking or status effect fuckery. Frost cheese is the most reliable way to get CA for rogues. Frost weapon + lasting Frost(? A paragon feat that hands out front vulnerability) + permafrost(? Gain ca against Frost vulnerable enemies) is the best way. You also increase your damage out put too. Until paragon tier, though, that's not a bad way to get ca. Although rogues are a touch squishy, which can get you into trouble.
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Jan 2, 2016 05:30
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The best and most reliable way to get CA for a rogue is to be a skeleton piloted by a Pixie charging around the battlefield forever 
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Jan 2, 2016 05:43
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So I posted before in here about starting up a new 4e campaign that I want to do. I wanna make boss monsters and while I have a good idea, I want to do it right the first time. I know about the MM3 on a Business Card to get quick good calculation on some of the monster's stats. Is there any good guide (from the rule books or online) for creating monsters? Or is looking at the MM3/Monster Vault monster stats generally the best way to get the feel of what the monster should be like at specific levels? I'll be making a boss monster for each level from 21-30. They'll be the only encounter per session, so should they be Elites or Solo? Seems to me that if they're gonna be Elites they won't be fighting alone. Also, what would be good level for a multi-tiered final battle for PCs at level 30? I see there's a couple monsters that are above level 30 but of course I don't want to make anything that's basically impossible to kill. It's been a long while since I last played 4e (I'm too used to Pathfinder now), and 4e's got a ton of tightly designed rules that I want to make sure I understand correctly when it comes to designing these monsters. My goal with these battles are to make them challenging but fun and varied. Also confused on Expertise feats. Not sure if I should be giving my PCs the Versatile Expertise feat or let them choose a specific weapon expertise feats? What's the general consensuses on this? Sorry for so many questions. Just want to make sure I understand everything before designing!
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Jan 2, 2016 06:03
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If it's absolutely just the one monster, then it has to be a Solo. Using the MM3 Business Card guidelines: A Solo monster has 4x the HP of normal monsters, so a level 21 Solo would have 768 HP for Skirmisher, Controller and Soldier types; 944 HP for Brute types; 588 HP for Artillery and Lurker types A Solo monster has the same Defenses as normal monsters, so a level 21 would have 35 AC and 33 Fort/Ref/Will, +/- 2 to Fort/Ref/Will depending on the stat pairs. Soldier types would have 2 more AC for 37 AC final. Brute and Artillery types would have 2 less AC for 33 AC final. Their attack bonus would be +26 versus AC, and +24 versus Fort/Ref/Will Defenses (the DMG 1 also suggests that Brutes should have 2 less attack bonus to reflect high-damage-but-low-accuracy attacks, but I'm pretty sure that's been deprecated by MM3) The MM3 Business Card lacks damage expressions, and my preferred reference for those is the DMG42 blog. Using this table to extract appropriate damage expressions, we get: A level 21 monster's low damage expression is 3d6+11 A level 21 monster's medium damage expression is 2d12+16 A level 21 monster's high damage expression is 3d10+19 A level 21 monster's limited damage expression is 4d8+24 The DMG 1 tells us how these damage expressions should be used: Use low damage expressions for multi-target and AOE attacks, the melee attacks of Artillery types, and any attacks of Controller types that also inflict status effects Use medium damage expressions for general at-will powers and as a baseline against everything else Use high damage expressions for Brute at-wills, special Lurker attacks that are related to their lurking, and anything that you need to step up from Medium Use limited damage expressions for Encounter and Recharge powers The DMG 1 has additional guidelines specific for Solo monsters: They should have a +5 bonus to Saving Throws They should have 2 Action Points One of their At-Will Powers should hit as hard as Encounter Powers. Or rather, create an Encounter Power, and let them use it at-will They should have two Standard Actions on their turn The DMG 2 has further guidelines: Once a Solo becomes Bloodied, one or more of the following should happen: * An Encounter Power is Recharged, and/or an Encounter Power is immediately recharged and used, with becoming Bloodied as the trigger * Gain a new At-Will Power that deals more damage than normal At-Will Powers, or all Powers start dealing more damage once the monster is Bloodied * Gain an extra attack every turn, either as a new Minor Action, or as part of a multi-target Power, or as an increase in the area or range of an AOE Power * Gain a damaging Aura * Immediately move, with becoming Bloodied as the trigger, along with gaining new movement options including powers that can Shift, Teleport or Fly. "anything to keep the fight from becoming static" You should also study how the MM3 Solos themselves are practically built, as there are some more ideas there such as shrugging off disabling effects, giving them extra initiative counts, and the likes.
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Jan 2, 2016 06:37
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Also worth noting, if you're running a true solo at epic and your group is even vaguely optimized; the monster is going to need a way to basically ignore or work through lots of status effects or it will be skull hosed with dazes/stuns/dimensional prisons/whatever the gently caress.
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Jan 2, 2016 06:55
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Vinchenz posted:I see there's a couple monsters that are above level 30 but of course I don't want to make anything that's basically impossible to kill. Assuming you strictly follow the +1 Defenses per level layout of the game, anything that's more than 4 levels above the players is going to be annoyingly difficult to kill just from the sheer miss chance. That's why IIRC the highest level monster you'll see is the Lolth at level 35 Vinchenz posted:Also confused on Expertise feats. Not sure if I should be giving my PCs the Versatile Expertise feat or let them choose a specific weapon expertise feats? What's the general consensuses on this? Versatile Expertise gives you +1 to attack rolls per tier for any weapon you want to use. The weapon-specific Expertise feats give you +1 to attack rolls per tier for that weapon type, and an additional bonus effect, in exchange for only working with that one specific weapon. My personal stance is that you start with Versatile Expertise, and just give players the option to swap it out for a weapon-specific Expertise if they're CharOp-savvy enough to want to do so.
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Jan 2, 2016 07:28
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Network42 posted:Also worth noting, if you're running a true solo at epic and your group is even vaguely optimized; the monster is going to need a way to basically ignore or work through lots of status effects or it will be skull hosed with dazes/stuns/dimensional prisons/whatever the gently caress. Yeah, I played a paragon campaign where we basically went a long stretch of just going into a room->fighting a dragon->repeat, and it was pretty loving dumb. It was mildly challenging when our best-optimized characters were my paladin and the party's fighter. Then I changed to a Bard and the mild increase in my control abilities just ruined solos' days.
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Jan 2, 2016 07:31
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