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To be fair to the Psion in controlling. They can also do sort of soft control by focusing on telekinetic instead of telepathic abilities. The problem is that it just makes for a numerically worse character to do so. Still fun as hell. Telekinetic psions might have the most fun level 1 daily in the game.
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Oct 12, 2016 05:08
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Does the fighter not have access to pole-arm stuff in the books mentioned? Because if they do, you have defender/controller there. From the social interaction, there's definitely a good reason for the guy who has fought the front lines to have a say in battle plans, plus you can have a background from whatever town you grew up in or war you fought. Maybe your friend growing up went off to the Mage academy? Lots to go with there.
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Oct 14, 2016 18:55
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Pretty sure most of the fighter polearm stuff came from martial power.
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Oct 14, 2016 20:14
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Rats, NEVERMIND then.
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Oct 16, 2016 13:44
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Mechanically, what would you goons say was/is the best way that 4e utilized the design space of Power Sources?
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Oct 18, 2016 03:38
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As an indicator of secondary role, IMO.
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Oct 18, 2016 03:44
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First off, I wrote a guide on how to get started with D&D 4th Edition: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/how-to-get-started-with-dd-4th-edition-without-ddi/BambooEarpick posted:Having not played 4e I've heard numerous people complain about really long combat. Why is that? Is every PC and mob just a HP sponge? If that's the problem then can you just half everyone's HP and call it a day or are there too many mechanics that something like that would interfere with? 2. Another contributor to fight length is that there's just a lot of options to consider, period. A character might have three to four different attacks/effects that they can pick from, and if it's not completely straightforward or the players can't immediately figure out what they want to accomplish, it can take them a while to decide. This can be alleviated over time as people get used to what they want to attack with, or how their various abilities combo together. 3. Book-keeping is also a factor - people need to have their abilities laid out and spelled right in front of them, so they don't waste any time looking up the exact computation for the attack and damage roll of a Cleave attack versus Tide of Iron. At least in my homegame, we get through this quickly by utilizing pre-calculated macros and text-blocks for abilities. If you were doing this on pen-and-paper, I would recommend index cards. 4. Ultimately there's a minimum fight length you can expect, because part of the design necessitates two-to-four rounds of combat just for combos to come together, but if you work on the first three points, you can keep fights down to maybe 45 minutes to an hour. I know I've generally been able to have three, even four combats per two-hour session in a long-running 4e campaign I've been running. BambooEarpick posted:Does anyone have some resources for 4e I could look at? I'd like to one day run my own homebrew campaign but give certain classes more fun stuff. I know 4e has attacks that move enemies and that sounds neat. I think maybe having a threat mechanic would be neat, too. Like, what's to stop ranged guys from just peppering the PC's backline? A caster usually doesn't have very good AC so a few shots past the Fighter and suddenly damage output drops dramatically. Maybe have the Fighter taunt a mob so it can only attack him or can attack other things but with penalty or something. By default, all of the classes with the "Defender" role can inflict a status effect called a "Mark". If a monster makes an attack that does not include the Marking character as one of the targets, the monster's attack roll takes a -2 penalty, plus an additional effect depending on the Marking character's specific class, such as a free attack in retaliation, or the monster's damage gets reduced, or the Marking character gets to teleport to the monster, etc. This is an important distinction because as opposed to MMORPG threat mechanics, which can compel the monsters to attack the "tank", 4th Edition Defenders have no such compulsion. The monsters (as controlled by the GM) can still make the choice to "respect the Mark" or not. If they try to ignore the Defender, they get punished for it. If they attack the Defender directly to avoid the punishment, the Defender gets to "do their job" because the monster's attack is going towards someone who has high defenses and high HP.
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Oct 19, 2016 07:33
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BambooEarpick posted:Like, what's to stop ranged guys from just peppering the PC's backline? This is pretty much a universal question in RPGs and there's a lot of answers to it.
This isn't even a full list, and all but the first of those things are things that are available in pretty much every sort of tactical tabletop game. That aside, it's not like previous versions where your wizard gets 1d4 health per level and can have 23 health at level 8. Your wizards aren't gonna tank hits like a fighter, but they're not going to die if they get into a fight with a housecat, either. Your backline can actually take some hits and 4e is set up in a way that you'll have adequate healing for them at the end of the fight.
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Oct 19, 2016 09:56
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So, a couple of questions for the thread. I've been GMing a group through a homebrew campaign, and I've been tooling around with some mechanics from other games, notably the Background system from 13th Age. I've also been thinking about adding the escalation die. When I discussed it with my players in passing, they weren't sold on the idea, and suggested using it as the gimmuck for an encounter. Makes sense, no big. But the talk in the D&D Next thread has me thinking: how unbalancing would it be to have damage on a miss? The MM3 monster math is obviously pretty rigid and well defined, so how would DOAM affect that? Another thought, related to the escalation die: 4e notably has a 'nova' problem, where dropping your big abilities at the start is the best course of action. To gamify it, if the escalation die locked off your bigger abilities until a certain level, would that illeviate some of the nova problems?
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Oct 20, 2016 06:50
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Torchlighter posted:So, a couple of questions for the thread. I've been GMing a group through a homebrew campaign, and I've been tooling around with some mechanics from other games, notably the Background system from 13th Age. DOAM is not going to have that dramatic of an effect since even say, half your damage as a striker dumping The Big One on an enemy isn't going to be terribly stellar, and adding that on other characters with less Striker levels of damage means it's going to be even more sad. Yeah, it's better than literally nothing, but anything positive is better than literally nothing so that's not really a favorable thing. Locking off powers behind the escalation die feels really lovely in 4e tbh. Like, beyond nova-ing, I feel like that would really sour the fun of choice since a lot of dailies are great to pop off at the start of the fight, again, not for nova purposes. I feel like the best way to tackle nova problems is to just have a frank conversation with your players that begins with something like "I know the optimal tactic in 4e is to drop the Tsar Bomba on your enemies immediately (and to be fair its the overpowering tactic literally everywhere), but it's not that exciting for me as a GM. Now I'm not saying that you should never nova, but don't always just smash the big red button that says 'kill absolutely every single motherfucker and terrify the rest'." I mean, to answer the question, it would alleviate the nova problem, but not in an especially "fun" way. In my opinion.
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Oct 20, 2016 07:02
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Khizan posted:This is pretty much a universal question in RPGs and there's a lot of answers to it. Terrain actually mattering is a lot of what makes 4E interesting. On a flat, featureless plane, most classes are not actually that good.
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Oct 20, 2016 07:06
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Torchlighter posted:So, a couple of questions for the thread. I've been GMing a group through a homebrew campaign, and I've been tooling around with some mechanics from other games, notably the Background system from 13th Age. I've been using the escalation die for months now in a 4e game I'm GMing. I don't think it's really influenced decision-making as far as "I'm going to use my big daily one/two rounds later when it has a better chance of hitting", but it has absolutely helped in reducing misses - the highest I've ever gotten it to go was a 5, and most fights are effectively done by 3 or 4. I wouldn't go so far as to propose that certain abilities be gated behind higher faces of the escalation die. When Rob Heinsoo wrote about how to port-over the escalation die to other d20-based games in Kobold Quarterly #22, they talked about the other half of the design behind it: they calculated the defense numbers that they wanted for the monsters, as-is, and then they set them one higher in actual play. The idea is that it's actually harder than it should be for the players to hit everything, but that's because the escalation die exists. Round 1: everything is harder (relative if you were just playing a standard d20 game) Round 2/Escalation 1: everything is "the same" Round 3/Escalation 2: now it's easier compared to all other games/rules implementations And that extra 5% chance to miss is supposed to be the disincentive to firing off your big novas on round 1. But his advice does say that you still shouldn't do this if your goal is to "speed up" combat by reducing misses in the first place. The escalation die gating that Heinsoo does recommend is to use it as a driver for monster abilities. Unless there's a specific and obvious combo that needs to be pulled off in a specific order, you can do something like assigning encounter and recharge powers to higher faces of the die, and/or automatically recharging these powers at higher faces of the die. The big boon here is that it can let you run monsters on "autopilot" without making them auto-attack-or-nothing automatons. With regards to damage on a miss, a compromise solution I would propose instead is to give all encounter powers the Reliable keyword. If you miss, the fact that you missed and did not accomplish anything this turn should be enough punishment in and of itself, without having to add onto "you cannot use this ability anymore for the rest of the encounter"
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Oct 20, 2016 07:35
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There is also a feat in the game that gives hammer users secondary stat as damage on a miss so pretty sure you could include that level of damage on a miss and not have problems
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Oct 20, 2016 07:44
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Miss damage equal to your enhancement bonus. Not tested or calculated by any means but feels like it would work.
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Oct 20, 2016 08:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't think it's really influenced decision-making as far as "I'm going to use my big daily one/two rounds later when it has a better chance of hitting", but it has absolutely helped in reducing misses - the highest I've ever gotten it to go was a 5, and most fights are effectively done by 3 or 4. Being in this game I can say it really hasn't influenced how I play tactically*, it never really occurs to be like "Well I'll just hold off on throwing out this daily for two rounds, a +3 to hit will be super important!" when if I use it now and kill the monster in front of me, or at least hamper it negatively in the moment so that my teammates can murder it, I'd be available to do more elsewhere in the encounter. Mainly I come at it from an angle where I've been in epic tier games and combats could take 5+ hours with all the gimmicks being thrown around by the monsters, our finishing almost every encounter in under an hour is an incredibly welcome pacing boost haha. e: *Hell we barely notice the system is there half the time  , it only really becomes apparent when one of us misses by 1-3 and someone pipes in with "Did you remember to add the escalation die!?" and a near miss gets turned into a solid hit. 
Successful Businessmanga fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Oct 20, 2016 |
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Oct 20, 2016 08:47
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It's a perennial problem with a lot of games, to be fair. Magic and StarCraft both come immediately to mind but maybe I'm just more familiar with them: actions taken earlier close shape the way the game space can evolve later. It's particularly noticeable in D&D 4E because you never have more resources than at the start of a fight, therefore all the incentives are front-loaded. Fixing it would require if not a complete rework, a pretty invasive digging into the system and creating some mechanic/resource that builds over time that incentivizes more of a setup-smash-recover play turn loop. The escalation die doesn't hit hard enough to really matter, plus all it incentivizes is passively "waiting more" as opposed to trying to actively setting up exploits in later turns. I may end up having to invent something similar as my War of the Burning Sky game hits epic and my players' nova potential is becoming more and more scary.
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Oct 20, 2016 16:17
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Tactics Ogre for the PSP has a mechanic where mages start combat with 0 MP and gain a certain amount each round. You can cast weak spells all the time, or hold out for a big one. Some classes get abilities that allow them to spend (what would in 4E be) a minor action to gain some more MP. One of the obvious flaws is that there's not much a mage can do when he's not casting.
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Oct 20, 2016 16:55
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My Lovely Horse posted:Tactics Ogre for the PSP has a mechanic where mages start combat with 0 MP and gain a certain amount each round. You can cast weak spells all the time, or hold out for a big one. Some classes get abilities that allow them to spend (what would in 4E be) a minor action to gain some more MP. Final Fantasy Tactics has much the same mechanic, for the same reason. Abstractly you'd need two resource pools, a "prep" pool that starts full and a "execute" pool that starts empty; spending prep increases the potency of execute. Now that I think of it, this is kind of what Exalted does with Withering/Decisive attacks and the initiative pool.
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Oct 20, 2016 17:16
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kaynorr posted:Final Fantasy Tactics has much the same mechanic, for the same reason. No it doesn't. Final Fantasy Tactics A2 does, but it also has Blood Price which lets you cast from HP instead and ignore the whole thing because healing yourself restores more HP than it cost to cast the spell you healed yourself with. There are a number of other reasons that some combination of those two things was a Bad Idea but that's not relevant.
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Oct 20, 2016 17:32
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So I'm working on a Wis Crossbow Artificer, and I can't seem to find a Theme that does anything especially interesting. Any possible suggestions given an INT/WIS focus on a Leader? EDIT: For flavor, this is an Eberron game, and I'm playing a House Cannith Inventor. A weapon or magic items would also be a nice thing to get suggestions for. I'm level 5, currently looking at a Targeting Superior Crossbow and a Healer's Brooch. Unknown Quantity fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 22, 2016 |
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Oct 22, 2016 19:34
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Themes don't always have to push your main schtick. Sometimes they can be a side thing you want to be a part of the character too - especially for Eberron. As a non-melee leader none of the themes are really explicitly set up to boost your usual thing, so look for one that's interesting and probably gives you an up on your non-combat stuff.
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Oct 22, 2016 20:52
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If you're not sure what theme to take Ghost of the Past is the go-to for a non-melee character. Sensate is also nice for a leader as they use a bunch of encounter powers.
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Oct 22, 2016 21:29
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What are the most common/popular loadouts for Warlocks and their various subclasses, in terms of Ability scores and Trained skills? Are there any particular racial/background skill bonuses that synergize with particular builds or specific powers?
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Oct 30, 2016 09:50
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P.d0t posted:What are the most common/popular loadouts for Warlocks and their various subclasses, in terms of Ability scores and Trained skills? Charisma is the stronger charop choice for your lead ability score (because of Auspicious Birth, Superior Will, and Endurance being the only skill tied to Con), and almost all warlocks want Intelligence as a secondary. Charisma warlocks can play party face almost as well as a bard by choosing utility powers for that purpose. As far as charopped powers? Anything not poison/necrotic. Radiant and psychic powers are the most powerful because of the support that exists for them. The Hexblade and Binder warlocks are in general Not Good to Terrible.
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Oct 30, 2016 10:10
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It's a shame that poison and necrotic powers are so bad since those are some of the coolest powers that the warlock has.
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Oct 30, 2016 10:33
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djw175 posted:It's a shame that poison and necrotic powers are so bad since those are some of the coolest powers that the warlock has. If you are willing to do something like multiclass assassin and take a couple of feats it solves some of the issues, but overall they are still not as attractive as other things you could be focusing on. In later levels, damage types also matter less because you can add multiple keywords quite easily. At one point I had a warlock/bard that was regularly hitting with four keywords at once.
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Oct 30, 2016 10:38
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P.d0t posted:What are the most common/popular loadouts for Warlocks and their various subclasses, in terms of Ability scores and Trained skills? The main and biggest flaw with warlocks is that they hybrid so well, it's difficult to make just a warlock.
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Oct 30, 2016 13:42
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Tiefling starlocks are strong because someone at Wizards wrote a article full of feats and powers for what was his own character at the time.
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Oct 30, 2016 17:14
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ProfessorCirno posted:The main and biggest flaw with warlocks is that they hybrid so well, it's difficult to make just a warlock. Except the elemental warlock, it's full warlock or bust for that. I always wanted to give one a spin. I imagine it'd be quite effective if either you were willing to regularly burn a second wind or your party carted around golfbags full of various elemental weapons. The latter being much funnier.
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Oct 30, 2016 18:54
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Obligatum VII posted:Except the elemental warlock, it's full warlock or bust for that. I always wanted to give one a spin. I imagine it'd be quite effective if either you were willing to regularly burn a second wind or your party carted around golfbags full of various elemental weapons. The latter being much funnier.
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Oct 31, 2016 20:14
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I think I'm just about ready to give my Assassin player that houserule where the Assassin doesn't put shrouds on a specific creature but just gathers them over time and triggers them on whoever he wants. Better late than never, right? There's the matter of Targeted for Death though. It's a Daily with an effect: you can place two shrouds instead of one on the target. So what's the better way to adapt that to the houserule: - you can gather two shrouds instead of one, but only until the target dies (theoretically enabling you to blast other targets with four shrouds every second round, but you have to keep that enemy alive) - every shroud you trigger on the target counts as two for calculating the damage, but only to a maximum of four (more bookkeeping, but it keeps in line with the idea of having this guy as your very special target friend) Probably not a hugely significant difference...
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Nov 1, 2016 10:48
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Is there anything actually wrong with just saying you can gather two shrouds a round for the rest of the encounter? If you want the theme though I'd just say shrouds popped on the target count for double. Has added value that you can just pop it when you want to use it so unlikely to waste it.
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Nov 1, 2016 13:41
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The only real issue is that it sounds like the power is worded such that you only double shrouds on one enemy. So it'd be a pretty significant boost to do it for the whole encounter. Though maybe that's okay since the assassin is hot garbage? I'd go with the second one, MLH.
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Nov 1, 2016 14:00
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Yeah, blanket "2 shrouds/round until end of encounter" seems like a pretty significant improvement. I like to keep the power level close to what's written when I make adjustments like this. Especially when they're just trickling down from other houserules. "Effect: Until the end of the encounter, whenever you invoke your shrouds for an attack on the target, calculate that attack's damage as if you had invoked twice the number of shrouds, or four shrouds, choosing whichever number is lower." Not that we need to do watertight wording in our group, but everyone needs a hobby y'know.
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Nov 1, 2016 14:14
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ImpactVector posted:The only real issue is that it sounds like the power is worded such that you only double shrouds on one enemy. So it'd be a pretty significant boost to do it for the whole encounter. That was my line of logic yeah.
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Nov 1, 2016 14:28
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My Lovely Horse posted:"Effect: Until the end of the encounter, whenever you invoke your shrouds for an attack on the target, calculate that attack's damage as if you had invoked twice the number of shrouds, or four shrouds, choosing whichever number is lower." Not that we need to do watertight wording in our group, but everyone needs a hobby y'know. That seems to be perfectly reasonable.
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Nov 1, 2016 17:01
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dont even fink about it posted:The Hexblade and Binder warlocks are in general Not Good to Terrible. not-joke question: What are these classes intended to do, and what do they actually end up doing?
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Nov 4, 2016 06:45
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P.d0t posted:not-joke question: What are these classes intended to do, and what do they actually end up doing? Punching people and control. They can vaguely do it, but the big thing is the basic warlock is just as good if not better then them at it.
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Nov 4, 2016 09:16
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Hexblades are definitely serviceable through mid heroic, but after that they kind of fall off compared to a Warlock just from sheer imbalance of support. After a while you just kind of run out of good things to spend feats on. If they had the same striker damage increasers and access to an off-standard attack or two they'd probably be fine, if kinda boring (like most Essentials classes).
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Nov 4, 2016 16:20
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Does anyone have a link to a good Rebreather Sorcerer build? The only one that appears to have been salvaged from the WotC forums has Levels 1-10 finished and then 10 pages of the OP saying they are too lazy to build out the rest of the levels.
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Nov 4, 2016 16:49
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