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It's more like I like how they do the blood-drainy thing. I was wondering how you'd make the class more playable but I'm getting the impression the answer's "not possible".
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May 15, 2016 22:33
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spectralent posted:It's more like I like how they do the blood-drainy thing. I was wondering how you'd make the class more playable but I'm getting the impression the answer's "not possible". That's replicated by the Thirst For Blood and Martial/Divine/Arcane/Whatever Vampire feats if you multiclass vampire.
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May 15, 2016 22:55
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Generic Octopus posted:That's replicated by the Thirst For Blood and Martial/Divine/Arcane/Whatever Vampire feats if you multiclass vampire. I mean MCing vampire without doing it by half elf shenanigans is a pretty bad idea because it leaves you with two surges and without most of the vampire's abilities to get them back.
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May 15, 2016 22:59
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spectralent posted:It's more like I like how they do the blood-drainy thing. I was wondering how you'd make the class more playable but I'm getting the impression the answer's "not possible". You get your DM to tack it onto another class. Vampires are terrible.
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May 15, 2016 23:14
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djw175 posted:I mean MCing vampire without doing it by half elf shenanigans is a pretty bad idea because it leaves you with two surges and without most of the vampire's abilities to get them back. Thirst for Blood gives you every surge generating mechanic the Vampire has (Blood Drinker), and the [Power Source] Vampire feats add to that. It's bad because it's pmuch a lame way to spend feats but it's better than being a single class Vampire.
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May 15, 2016 23:33
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If you wanted to fix the vampire you'd probably need to do all the following: 1) Add a straight to hit bonus 2) Add a straight damage bonus at paragon and epic 3) At level 16 or so add an ability that is every time you use a power as a standard action, you get a free melee basic or at will attack.
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May 15, 2016 23:46
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What about increasing base damage by a little bit and then giving them a striker mechanic that triggers against bloodied enemies?
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May 16, 2016 01:51
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You could figure out how many extra attacks a rogue, ranger, or fighter throws on average in a fight and let vampires use that many free Slams according to some pacing mechanism. "Each time you gain or lose a healing surge" could be cool.
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May 16, 2016 05:10
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Elfgames posted:What about increasing base damage by a little bit and then giving them a striker mechanic that triggers against bloodied enemies? I was mostly bench-marking them to elementalists who get as a damage bonus secondary stat+0/stat+2/stat+4, access to get accuracy boosts and easy at will multiattacks (static charge) AoE spells plus a class ability that lets you throw an addition target + bonus damage on 4 times an encounter at level 13. The Vampire has scaling damage, but lacks of accuracy boosters and additional target stuff, so honestly maybe the best solution is two extra class abilities: Predator's instincts: Vampire gets +1 to hit, +2 to hit against bloodied targets. Flat to hit bonus to help keep up with Elementalist. Vampiric Celerity: Trigger: Using an attack power. You can (Option 1: Make a vampiric slam against any target either before or after you shift from this power Option 2: make one additional creature a target of the triggering attack). If the attack's range is melee or ranged, the additional target must be within 5 squares of you. If the attack's range is area or close, the additional target must be adjacent to the burst or blast. In addition, you may shift up to half your speed. Attack Options Discussion: Giving a free slam is fairly safe. Giving an extra usage of the power makes Vampires a lot better as they are basically single target DPR. Free slams may be enough, but be more generous giving out uses of the power in that case. Special: You can use this power UsageX times per encounter, but only once per round. You regain one use of this power whenever (recovery mechanism). Possible Recovery Mechanisms: Bloodying an enemy, regaining UsageX: You can make this as blood themed as you want. 1/encounter starting at level 6, growing to twice at level 13, gain a use whenever you gain a healing surge? Lots of possibilities That gives you an easy multi-attack approach modeled off the elementalist's Elemental Escalation, plus boosted accuracy. You want to make that multiattack granter fairly generous if it's limited to once per round just because there are not that many rounds a combat. Basically they need to be able to use it 4 times an encounter from mid Paragon onwards. This will basically double their DPR, so sweet.
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May 16, 2016 06:13
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I've never played an Invoker, but I have intentions of writing one into my retroclone. What's sort of the definitive playstyle(s) or mechanics of the class, that should be emulated?
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May 22, 2016 18:02
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The ability to inflict some sort of malus on yourself to increase the power of your invocations.
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May 22, 2016 18:12
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P.d0t posted:I've never played an Invoker, but I have intentions of writing one into my retroclone. Well, more precisely, angelic/demonic summons, radiant attacks, and some light leadership stuff.
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May 22, 2016 20:04
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P.d0t posted:I've never played an Invoker, but I have intentions of writing one into my retroclone. Mechanically, invokers can do one or more of the following: + Lots of radiant damage to single targets or AOE + Lots of dazes and stuns (and domination by epic level) + Lots of fear effects + Pushes + Their utilities let them opt for some group buffs Their preferred power-gaming powers cause them to daze themselves, but mechanics in 4E are such that by mid-game they automatically un-daze themselves via Superior Will and lots of bonuses to saving throws vs. daze. It's generally difficult to make an Invoker who is not amazing in some way. I vastly prefer them to Wizard just because they don't have a bunch of stupid poo poo that does nothing/no one ever uses. You should try one some time.
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May 22, 2016 21:54
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dwarf74 posted:Moses poo poo. Angel Summoner?
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May 22, 2016 22:39
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So I saw upthread that people mentioned using 4e skill challenges RAW are a common mistake for DMs. I am an inexperienced DM and was wondering if anybody could suggest alternatives or house rules for skill challenges? edit: Also, I was planning to start a new camapaign and adapt the Hoard of the Dragon Queen published adventure from 5e over to 4e because it's what I have on hand and just from looking at it, I like the idea of the overall plot and some of the encounter it's got going on there. However, just from things I've seen around various places online and from reading the adventure module itself, it's clear I'll have to tweak a bunch of stuff to make it less terrible, but does anybody know of any really obviously terrible stuff in the first couple of episodes, or have any general advice? I might just end up using the modules suggested in the OP but both my players and I like the idea of a campaign that's part of a larger plot rather than a series of independent adventures. BattleCake fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 25, 2016 |
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May 25, 2016 18:51
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BattleCake posted:So I saw upthread that people mentioned using 4e skill challenges RAW are a common mistake for DMs. I am an inexperienced DM and was wondering if anybody could suggest alternatives or house rules for skill challenges? I just play them straight: a scene has a problem, the party has to solve it, they make individual skill checks with a DC that I set, with success and failure determining what happens to what's at stake. Just like if you were playing literally any other RPG.
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May 25, 2016 18:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just play them straight: a scene has a problem, the party has to solve it, they make individual skill checks with a DC that I set, with success and failure determining what happens to what's at stake. Just like if you were playing literally any other RPG. I thought this was how skill challenges always worked but I just looked it up in the DMG and realized that skill challenges was the whole achieving # of successes before # of failures. Is that what people were talking about?
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May 25, 2016 19:00
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BattleCake posted:I thought this was how skill challenges always worked but I just looked it up in the DMG and realized that skill challenges was the whole achieving # of successes before # of failures. Is that what people were talking about? There are a bunch of custom systems that try to address the issue (Obsidian was the big one), but none of them really offer much more than just straight skill rolls as needed.
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May 25, 2016 19:47
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Asking for a check here and there is not a skill challenge, those required a montage of every party member doing their part, one after another, and more often than not one or two had no applicable skills, especially if other characters cherry picked the few they were not terrible at, so they would anchor the rest of the team, since they had to contribute a check. Since the group succeeded or failed as a whole, a skill challenge just became another thing the table's tactician needed to minmax to keep the party from getting hosed.
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May 25, 2016 19:52
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Yeah that sounds pretty bad, I think we'll just roll with normal skill checks where appropriate. Thanks!
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May 25, 2016 19:55
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Or popcorn initiative action/puzzle montages.
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May 25, 2016 20:01
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BattleCake posted:So I saw upthread that people mentioned using 4e skill challenges RAW are a common mistake for DMs. I am an inexperienced DM and was wondering if anybody could suggest alternatives or house rules for skill challenges? Hoard of the Dragon Queen would be fine as long as you build balanced encounters. Just be emotionally prepared for them to take it off the rails and have one 4e encounter statted out in reserve at all times that you can reskin to fit whatever fight they've picked.
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May 25, 2016 21:01
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Skill challenges are dumb and boring because they take something that ostensibly should be used to differentiate characters (skills) and then uses them for exactly the same purpose (gaining # of successes towards cumulative total). It tends to completely divorce the source of the roll (skill, assosicate bonuses) from the result (gain more successes) to the point where completely unrelated skills can be substituted for one another (Arcana, Athletics) with almost no change in how the skill is rolled or what the result is. There's nothing wrong with letting players use a better skill instead of a bad one, but when the only visible result is # of successes accumulated you head into Snoresville. How a skill is used, what it's used for, and what the result is should really be the important part. This, to say nothing of the fact that a player will just run down their list of skills looking for the biggest numbers and asking whether or not they can apply Acrobatics in convoluted manner X.
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May 25, 2016 21:06
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Mendrian posted:This, to say nothing of the fact that a player will just run down their list of skills looking for the biggest numbers and asking whether or not they can apply Acrobatics in convoluted manner X. Somebody in this thread told a story about a player who maxed out Endurance and tried to use Endurance for all their skill checks. Win an argument by repeating yourself until the other side caves in out of frustration. Lose somebody tailing you by running up and down staircases until they can't keep up anymore. That kind of thing. I think that kind of stuff is hilarious and awesome and memorable. Nobody remembers "Oh, we solved opened the door's magic lock with Arcana checks" but everybody will remember diplomancing their way through it by knowing social customs of the lockmakers and how that would affect their designs and that they would never design a system around 5 keys because 5 is an unholy number, etc, etc, etc.
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May 25, 2016 21:33
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Khizan posted:Somebody in this thread told a story about a player who maxed out Endurance and tried to use Endurance for all their skill checks. Win an argument by repeating yourself until the other side caves in out of frustration. Lose somebody tailing you by running up and down staircases until they can't keep up anymore. That kind of thing. There is nothing wrong with this if the group is willing to take it far enough, no. Like, if there is a scene that results from those off-the-wall skill uses, and that scene is cool, then I don't think that's a problem. Like, if you want to tell me you know enough about locks to somehow argue your way out of an interrogation, then that's cool, but tell me what the hell that is. "I roll Acrobatics. I do a backflip and the dude interrogating me is so impressed he lets us go" sounds funny on paper but it gets pretty tedious after fifteen or sixteen sessions. It isn't memorable if it's part of an unending litany of go-nowhere suggestions. As a one-off or two-off, it's fun and potentially hilarious. Your examples are great because they tell us how the skill is being used, and it's being used in a fairly believable way. If the DM or other players wanted to riff off of that, they could.
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May 26, 2016 02:08
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BattleCake posted:I thought this was how skill challenges always worked but I just looked it up in the DMG and realized that skill challenges was the whole achieving # of successes before # of failures. Is that what people were talking about? Yes. The most you could stretch it would be if the players came up with a plan that rationally requires multiple people doing multiple things at a time or in a row, and you establish those facts, and you make skill checks for each discrete section of the plan ... but really still not that much different from what you'd get from playing skill checks completely straight: The Wizard uses Arcana to create an illusionary distraction outside the big bad's house The Rogue uses Stealth to sneak themselves, the Bard and the Fighter inside the house while the outside guards are distracted The Bard uses Bluff to drum up a story about how they're really supposed to be inside, to keep the inside guards occupied The Fighter uses Athletics to carry the big, heavy MacGuffin out of the room while this is all going on Now, you could say that it's a skill challenge requiring so-and-so many successes, but just making individual "played straight" skill checks at every step of this four-step process would reach the same conclusion (and probably flow better in the event that the Fighter fails that final check, because what happens then?)
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May 26, 2016 02:19
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I think the key to using skill challenges is that the situation should be changing in response to player success/failure. From the player's perspective it should absolutely look like playing skill checks completely straight (in fact I think this is one area of 4e where complete transparency is inappropriate). The Fighter failing his athletics check to carry the MacGuffin should probably not result in him having trouble lifting it, but should introduce a new wrinkle to the situation that the party then has to deal with. Maybe he realizes that the MacGuffin won't fit out of the room's only doorway. Maybe the MacGuffin starts doing loud or flashy MacGuffiny things. Maybe I am bad at coming up with these, but still think that I have a point.
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May 26, 2016 18:51
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Like a dumbass I gave my six person party two NPC companions, but hear me out. The idea is that the party is on the home stretch to the chapter boss fight, and they're supposed to choose whether to have the NPCs help in regular battles on the way or keep them as an ace in the hole. Option A conserves the party's own resources but obviously risks the NPCs premature expiration, option B puts a stress on the party but gives them two fresh pairs of hands to help against the final boss. (The final boss is a beholder, and since they autoattack anyone who starts their turn, it should still be an edge, but a slightly dulled one.) I'm thinking each NPC gets an at-will power, one encounter power OR other helpful feature and as a special bonus one daily power, non-recoverable, all taken from existing classes or monsters; on the other side of the scale they get only one healing surge each, also non-recoverable. Maybe none at all, come to think of it, because the paladin hands out THP like candy. Does that sound like an appropriate power level considering the specific circumstances?
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May 30, 2016 10:16
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I've been using the companion rules which give them an at will an encounter and a utility. This works very well in practise.
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May 30, 2016 11:37
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I was thinking the additional daily could serve a bonus goodie/resource to be planned around, but come to think of it, maybe that should be an effect on the level of a daily item power or consumable rather than a bona fide class daily.
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May 30, 2016 13:32
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I was also about to ask about NPCs, since I'm going to be running a sandbox module soon. In most RPGs I just make NPCs resources to a fight, but in 4e, I'm not certain that will work as well. Should I just make various helpful NPCs passive buffs? I don't really want to drag the combat turns down with NPC on NPC violence unless I need to, but I want to let the group have an option to talk NPCs into joining them, since that is very old school and I'm running old modules.
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May 30, 2016 15:28
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I turn NPCs into specialized encounter powers. One of my players exhibited kindness to a gladiator-acrobat, so the NPC gave him a kazoo and told him to blow it when he was in trouble. Later in the day, the player was about to take a boatload of damage, so he blows the kazoo and out comes the NPC, jumping into the arena like an Assist move in Marvel vs Capcom, slaps the enemy upside the head and causes the incoming attack to fail.
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May 30, 2016 15:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:I turn NPCs into specialized encounter powers. One of my players exhibited kindness to a gladiator-acrobat, so the NPC gave him a kazoo and told him to blow it when he was in trouble. This is exactly how I was planning to do it. Do you have any example mechanics?
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May 30, 2016 21:09
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Probably a dumb question, but I wanted to double check this rules interaction, as it seems to work differently from what I understood for a while. I took Practiced Killer on a Tiefling Thief for Ki Focus proficiency, for Blazing Arc Ki Focus and Hellfire Blood, and a Vanguard Weapon for +1d8 on Charge Attacks. The Vanguard property doesn't specify that the weapon needs to be used on the charge, but the rules from PHB3 on Ki Focuses seems to disallow this interaction: "Being able to use a ki focus as an implement means you can also use it with your weapon attacks. You can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of a weapon attacks you make using a weapon with which you have proficiency. However, you must choose to use the enhancement bonus, properties, and powers of the ki focus, rather han the weapon you're wielding, or vice versa. You can't use both when you use a power." However, it does specify "when you use a power", so would it work if you used the Ki Focus for the power, but the Vanguard Property is triggered anyway because you're charging? In other words, is the Vanguard Property universal and still usable when I'm using a Ki Focus, or does this rule basically make it so the weapon in question isn't magical at all?
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May 30, 2016 21:21
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Debatable, but won't break the game either way, IIRC.
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May 30, 2016 21:35
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Lord Justice posted:The Vanguard property doesn't specify that the weapon needs to be used on the charge quote:"Being able to use a ki focus as an implement means you can also use it with your weapon attacks. The "when you use a power" bit doesn't really enter into it since nearly everything you do in 4E is using a power, including using the Melee Basic Attack power when you charge. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 21:40 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 21:37
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All right, thank you for the clarification. I always kind of figured you could use both things if the weapon or ki focus didn't specify it had to be used, but I guess I was wrong. I suppose the best option now would be a Flaming Spiked Chain. I seem to remember some way of optimizing the Spiked Chain, like utilizing the Flail part of it to prone enemies? I don't really remember the specifics though, it's been a few years since I worked with 4E.
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May 30, 2016 22:00
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Flailcheese is basically Lashing Flail, Dragging Flail and Flail Expertise to make all your MBAs knock prone and slide. Amazing on Knights and Berserkers, solid on everyone else.
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May 30, 2016 22:07
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Gort posted:This is exactly how I was planning to do it. Do you have any example mechanics? Seconding this request. Stuff like, is it a shared encounter power? Do you make it a minor so it's an add-on? Etc.,
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May 30, 2016 22:13
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What books can I mine for ideas for psionic monsters and their powers? I'm thinking of something like an installation guarded by Shardminds, Githyanki, Githzerai, that sort of thing.Moriatti posted:Seconding this request. I give it to specific player characters, and as Minor Actions if it's an active ability so that it doesn't interfere with Standards, or as Interrupts/Reactions for the same reason. It's really more like how most item powers or even wondrous items work - you're just changing the context of how it happens in-game.
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Jun 2, 2016 12:13
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