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How does Radiant Mafia work?
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Dec 12, 2016 01:57
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Loel posted:How does Radiant Mafia work? Someone takes morninglord, which gives vulnerability 10 to radiant when you hit with a radiant attack. Everyone else picks up multi-tap powers (e.g. twin strike) and radiant weapons or the pervasive light feat (which procs the radiant vulnerability anyway). This gives you a very significant static damage bonus that combos really well with what the 'best' builds already were - multiattacking. The size of the bonus is what's broken - it's better than getting primary ability modifier twice on all your attacks most of the time. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 02:01
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Loel posted:How does Radiant Mafia work? one player gives enemies radiant vulnerability (morninglord is probably the most common one, giving enemies radiant vulnerability whenever you hit with a radiant power) everyone deals radiant damage
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Dec 12, 2016 02:01
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I once set up an elaborate backstory about a group of Deva who were marooned inside the Shadowfell and ran a protection racket against all the various unscrupulous other factions and monsters inside that plane. All so I could make a joke about how the party had to make a deal with the Radiant Mafia.
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Dec 12, 2016 02:20
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Ferrinus posted:It looks more to me like you read all my posts, but concluded that you can't convincingly respond to anything I said or defend any of your own actions. Literally everyone except you is on topic. Go away.
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Dec 12, 2016 02:25
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Arivia posted:Literally everyone except you is on topic. Go away. I am on topic. We're discussing whether it's appropriate to bring up 4e clones on the topic of 4e and you're in the process of conceding.
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Dec 12, 2016 03:16
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Jesus loving Christ. Can you both drop it already?slydingdoor posted:I don't think alpha striking as a problem nor do I know how to "solve" it: players should be rewarded for being lucky and for layering their powers well, and fights' being too long is a more pressing issue with the gameplay, and it would be hard to reduce alpha striking without making fights longer. Alpha strike is so high that a decent benchmark for an optimized striker is a one round kill on a standard. Combine that with a controller's ability to shut down a monster in one action and you end up with most regular at-level combats being rocket tag. At that point, I feel like those fights are won from the Character Builder. Evening things out here would avoid a lot of this I feel like.
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Dec 12, 2016 03:25
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Zarick posted:The "pick a power after you hit" seems very strange, especially for any character with a varied set of abilities. If you have a bunch of different encounter powers, do you need to position yourself optimally to use all of them? What if you're a character with both ranged and melee attacks, should you move into melee because you're not sure which power you're using until you hit? Will you provoke an OA then? How do area powers work? It seems like it just introduces a different kind of complexity. That idea from slydingdoor came partially out of an earlier discussion we had about making all powers Reliable. You won't need or want an "Escalation Die" if you can't "waste" an Encounter power on a miss. Slydingdoor just attacked the problem more directly: you "virtually" only ever use MBAs or RBAs, but if you hit, you can then choose to spend your Fiery Bolt on it instead. The model already exists in Essentials: the Slayer only ever uses MBAs, but if they hit, they can choose to dump an extra 1[W] worth of damage into the hit with a Power Strike. The Power Strike uses are never wasted on missed attacks.
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Dec 12, 2016 03:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:That idea from slydingdoor came partially out of an earlier discussion we had about making all powers Reliable. You won't need or want an "Escalation Die" if you can't "waste" an Encounter power on a miss. Right, but Power Strike isn't variable. It's always going to be the same. It's easily possible to have four different encounter powers with wildly different range and usage requirements. It seems like it'd get weird to me.
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Dec 12, 2016 04:25
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The real problem is with AoE powers that you'd normally want to detonate between multiple enemies. I guess, though, you can have a thing that's like "If you hit with your basic magic zap, you can plonk down an X by X aoe including the guy you hit and make new attack rolls for every other enemy".
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Dec 12, 2016 04:46
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I think we're looking at this from opposite angles. It's not "I will MBA first then pick from all my encounter and daily powers after I hit", but rather "I have chosen an encounter or daily power that I would like to use. I will position myself to use it and make an attack roll. If it hits, the power's effect goes off. If it misses, I lose nothing"
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Dec 12, 2016 05:02
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So basically it is "All Encounter powers are Reliable".
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Dec 12, 2016 05:14
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The one stumbling block there is that lots of encounter powers either have Effect: lines, Miss: lines, or both. It'd be pretty easy to declare that any power without either becomes Reliable if it isn't already, though. This would alter the balance between some powers (there are some which are inherently crappier than others precisely because they're already Reliable, and there are feats and features and so on that let you add the Reliable tag to powers without it), but it's not like there aren't already some pretty dramatic gulfs between good powers and bad ones.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:32
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You can throw almost all of those powers away and never notice the loss. It's like how for all real purposes the only melee ranger encounter powers in the Heroic range are Offhand Strike, Ruffling Sting, and Disruptive Strike. There's only a few competitive choices at each range unless you want some really niche bullshit.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:37
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Also you just get on with it and roll your attack before declaring which one you use. The regular procedure is pick power, pick targets, roll attack roll damage etc. People get hung up on that first decision, and turns don't begin to resolve until they make that decision, also once they do that the rest of the turn is sort of out of their control, you're just following instructions at that point. The new procedure would be pick a target, roll attack, then choose power do other stuff, maybe pick additional targets or roll additional attacks then roll damage etc. If it were just "encounter powers are reliable" then players would still have their turn gated behind choosing which encounter power or at-will to use, which is where that paralysis comes into play and feels particularly halting. After a miss, they also would be like "well I'll just keep trying it until it works," which to me seems more jarring fictionally. Like you're going to just keep calling out your cool technique's name anime style then spamming the motion until someone falls for it, then it won't work anymore? Or the wizard just keeps shooting fireballs at the enemies until they hit then suddenly they're all out of fireballs. The new way makes it so narratively your wizard just can't lock on and therefore won't finish the incantations until they know they can hit it, or the thief knows when to fold 'em and when their bluff will work–reactionary power notwithstanding. Preserving the "balance" of everything is impossible with a meaningful hack, and in games I've played, basically no one took Reliable powers because they were Reliable, so I don't care about devaluing those powers. Doing more than "just making everything Reliable" also dodges the concern about DOMA/Effect powers: players can opt to use them when their (first) attack missed to access that DOMA or effect, but they can't declare that they are using the hacked power, miss with it, and keep the power unexpended.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:39
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I'm curious if there are any other classes (or builds) that blend a solid mix of melee and range beyond wild shape druids. I've tried messing with hybrids (mainly warlocks) and not come up with anything satisfactory, I've come up with some really niche builds like deft hurler cleave fighters that otherwise have zero ranged capability, and considered stuff like drow skald/rogues with hand crossbow & light blade and costing a zillion feats. Nothing's really quite what I want. I feel like I want something like Overwatch's Genji, who is primarily ranged but can burn the equivalent of a daily to temporarily become a melee monster. I'm not sure there's anything like that in 4E though, because I sure haven't found it. Any ideas?
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Dec 12, 2016 05:39
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Hunter Ranger.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:42
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Warlord with a hungry greatspear can do a decent melee/ranged mix-up, but isn't a melee monster. There's the hunter ranger (the build, not the subclass) that is Dex-based with some melee options, but if you didn't get what you wanted out of rogue it's probably not going to do much for you.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:45
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Like slyding just said, it's not exactly the same as All Powers Are Reliable because if you miss, and you want to access the Miss effect anyway, you can still say "I use this Daily regardless" and get it without having to delve into arguments over what to do with powers that are already reliable versus powers that don't need reliable because they still have Miss effects. The narrative and decision making benefits I didn't immediately get, but those are really good points too.
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Dec 12, 2016 05:52
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Rogue I have a specific dislike for in 4E because of the annoying way you have to fiddle with hiding to get reliable ranged sneak attacks. I know cunning sneak largely "solves" the problem but it's just such a crappy hackjob mechanic. How are thieves? I know basically nothing about hunter rangers. The only MP2 ranger build I know anything about is the marauder, which is not terrible but just kind of "why" when you have twin strike. It looks like hunter is basically free weapon swap on your turn, which is neat. Anything else in particular about them I should look at (feats, powers, etc)?
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Dec 12, 2016 06:16
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Dick Burglar posted:I'm curious if there are any other classes (or builds) that blend a solid mix of melee and range beyond wild shape druids. I've tried messing with hybrids (mainly warlocks) and not come up with anything satisfactory, I've come up with some really niche builds like deft hurler cleave fighters that otherwise have zero ranged capability, and considered stuff like drow skald/rogues with hand crossbow & light blade and costing a zillion feats. Nothing's really quite what I want. I feel like I want something like Overwatch's Genji, who is primarily ranged but can burn the equivalent of a daily to temporarily become a melee monster. I'm not sure there's anything like that in 4E though, because I sure haven't found it. A lot of Artificer hybrid builds can be this, I think? Also, the dagger Sorcerer is a pretty solid mix of melee/ranged. e: None of them are really ranged -> becomes melee with X, though. e: I had a pretty neat Githzerai Artificer|Warlord hybrid build with a Farbond Spellblade Fullblade as my weapon. It's silly but fun. TheDemon fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Dec 12, 2016 |
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Dec 12, 2016 06:31
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Dick Burglar posted:Rogue I have a specific dislike for in 4E because of the annoying way you have to fiddle with hiding to get reliable ranged sneak attacks. I know cunning sneak largely "solves" the problem but it's just such a crappy hackjob mechanic. How are thieves? There are several rogue gimmicks to get reliable ranged CA outside of hiding: -Cunning Stalker feat: Gain CA vs. Enemies with no other creatures adjacent, which means any time an enemy is not in melee with the party or adjacent to another enemy -Fey Beast Tamer: Gain CA vs enemies adjacent to your fey critter (lvl 5+) -Frostcheese: Use Lasting Frost (Paragon feat) to place Cold Vulnerability on a dude, use Wintertouched to get CA from anyone with cold vulnerability -Armor of Dark Deeds (Paragon item) grants concealment when you make an attack with CA, Hidden Sniper gives CA whenever you have concealment -If you have good party members who sling around control effects then you can work with that, especially if they can drop some dazes early on but others can also work. Vicious Advantage gives CA vs. slowed and immobilized enemies, Kapak Draconian gets CA vs. slowed, immobilized and weakened enemies, plus has the ability to inflict a save-ends slow on one attack each encounter. Tome Expertise makes your conjurations cause adjacent enemies to grant CA, and Mage Hand is an at-will conjuration. -Daring Gamble U10 gives encounter-long CA on anyone who attacks you, but it can take some gimmicks to get it working Thieves have a much easier time getting CA at ranged thanks to things like Tactical Trick which lets you move your speed and get CA on any enemy with an ally adjacent to it, and if you take something like Cunning Stalker than you have most of your bases covered with the only difficult targets being two enemies adjacent to one another but away from your allies, which is a rare thing. And if you like playing Genji then you'll probably enjoy Acrobat's Trick, which lets you parkour across things.
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Dec 12, 2016 07:18
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Dick Burglar posted:Rogue I have a specific dislike for in 4E because of the annoying way you have to fiddle with hiding to get reliable ranged sneak attacks. I know cunning sneak largely "solves" the problem but it's just such a crappy hackjob mechanic. How are thieves? Every level there are MP2 melee powers that use Dex to attack, one of which is an at-will that can be used as an opportunity attack. Those can be your "Genji ults" and at-will twin striking ranged weapon spam can be the "shuriken," though you'll be probably using a longbow. Overwatch development-wise, Genji and Hanzo used to be the same character with a bow and sword anyway.
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Dec 12, 2016 07:24
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Dick Burglar posted:Rogue I have a specific dislike for in 4E because of the annoying way you have to fiddle with hiding to get reliable ranged sneak attacks. I know cunning sneak largely "solves" the problem but it's just such a crappy hackjob mechanic. How are thieves?
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Dec 12, 2016 08:05
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Gort posted:It does seem reasonable to discuss games inspired by 4e in the 4e thread, honestly. This seems like a perfect opportunity to bring the "Retrocloning 4e thread" out of the cobwebs. While I'm at it, here's a blog where I write about the clone I am working on.
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Dec 12, 2016 08:23
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Best way to do Genji legit is a Thief. Thrown daggers + short sword (or rapier if you really want), refluff as shurikens + katana. Mix between RBA feats and some charge based feats so you can do both, and generally don't worry too much about not being bleeding edge optimized; chargespam actually fits the character too, thankfully. 20 dex, probably decent wisdom; you want to multiclass Seeker as it lets you add Dex a second time to RBAs. Note that thief falls down a bit once you leave Heroic, but that's mostly since the Essentials creators never actually planned for them to go past Heroic, and in some cases never playtested past level 1.
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Dec 12, 2016 08:31
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slydingdoor posted:Hunter Rangers actually get weapon swaps whenever they want: they uniquely get to sheathe weapons as a free action (this can happen out of turn) and because of free Quick Draw weapon drawing occurs during whatever action is used to make the attack. Makes it kind of a shame that they probably have to take Master at Arms and get a redundant perk. Can multiclass/theme into Ki Focus proficiency and then just use Ki Focus Expertise for all attacks. Also nice because you only ever have to upgrade the Ki Focus and you're free to carry +1 stat sticks like the Rhythm Blade/Shielding Blade into fights. And instead of the dex focus I'd rather rock 16/16 Str/Dex and minor wisdom to get decent AC with full power choices.
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Dec 12, 2016 09:04
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dwarf74 posted:I could close the thread but I'm unclear on if I could open it again? I usually only keep threads closed if the OP wants it and makes a good case for it. I'd rather people didn't temp close threads if they can avoid it, since it's easy to forget and it keeps people who want to make good posts from posting, but I wouldn't force it to stay closed. For the record, mentioning Strike is cool if it's related to 4E. Longer Strike chat should go to the Strike thread though. Posting about posting can probably be the chat thread. 
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Dec 12, 2016 13:48
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Dnd4 is hella fun. Ive run 3 sessions, and Im loving encounter design. Ran them into some reskinned drakes and orcs, and they hated both  Bloodied powers are great. Im also able to redesign fights really quickly. Last session I had 4/7 of the party, so I plugged in the calculator and dropped some minions and standards with minimal delay.Beyond that, its very cinematic, everyone hits dying and then heroically stands back up to fight. Lot of tension in every encounter, "oh my god you saved us when you did x." 10/10 would kill the party again.
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Dec 14, 2016 19:37
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You have seven players?
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Dec 15, 2016 00:09
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Dick Burglar posted:You have seven players? It uh. Can be hard sometimes.
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Dec 15, 2016 00:33
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Dick Burglar posted:You have seven players? Sometimes! All of us have work, half of us have kids. Sometimes I have a full party, last night I had cleric druid rogue rogue.
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Dec 15, 2016 01:34
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Yeah my group is seven and we're frequently missing a few people. 7 is the absolute maximum number of manageable I think, but it's still okay.
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Dec 15, 2016 01:36
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So, can someone give me a one-paragraph descriptor/elevator pitch of each of the various settings D&D has? I know there's Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk and Planescape (and probably a few others), but I don't really have any context for them and, with no luck in finding the lore laying around, Eberron's the only one I've gotten any kind of exposure to and knowledge of.
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Dec 15, 2016 02:42
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My current campaign has 6, and I have ran with 7 before. It does get rough once you get past 5, I think 7 is kind of the absolute maximum, once your over that you should really try to play two separate games if at all possible. Edit for Above: Forgotten Realms: Generic Fantasy Greyhawk: Generic Fantasy Dragonlance: Generic fantasy, but with Draconians (Dragonborn before Dragonborn, but with goofy on death powers where they turn into stone or whatever), and goofy names for gods that exist in other campaign settings, and the spellcasters wear robes that depend on their alignment I guess Eberron: Pulpy/Steampunky Fantasy, Sort of Final Fantasy meets Forgotten Realms I guess Ravenloft: There seem to exist two seperate Ravenlofts to me, one is Castlevania/Hammer horror film the campaign setting, that one is alright. The other Ravenloft is trying to run HARDCORE HARROR games using DND rules where you roll on fear tables kind of like call of cthulhu and monsters are immune to everything unless you have a blue weapon made of gold or whatever, and you can't play a wizard because everyone hates wizards but you play one anyway that one is less fun. Planescape: All that stuff you read in the Manual of the Planes and such, except broadened out into an entire campaign setting. In a sense, every campaign setting is a Planescape campaign if you allow it to be, but Planescape specific campaigns generally involve Sigil(which is infamously a plane that goes to all the other planes a whole lot) and such, where as a regular Campaign that just uses the planes may be just going to one of the layers of the abyss to get some mcguffin but is otherwise set in the Forgotten Realms. goldjas fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Dec 15, 2016 |
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Dec 15, 2016 02:52
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The best setting, which also has significant 4e support, is Dark Sun. Dark Sun: The planet is a desert thanks to lovely wizards who run city-states of varying quality. If you don't die to bug people or drown in a silt sea or have your weapon shatter and leave you defenseless against cannibal halflings, you might be able to become a god king.
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Dec 15, 2016 03:30
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Unknown Quantity posted:So, can someone give me a one-paragraph descriptor/elevator pitch of each of the various settings D&D has? I know there's Dragonlance, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk and Planescape (and probably a few others), but I don't really have any context for them and, with no luck in finding the lore laying around, Eberron's the only one I've gotten any kind of exposure to and knowledge of. Forgotten Realms is based around adventurers as active, independent agents. The world is well-detailed with many groups trying to manipulate things for their own desires; it's up to your group to decide what to fight for and how. You play in the Realms if you really want to dig into the setting and let your PCs run crazy, changing the world around them in amazing ways.
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Dec 15, 2016 04:13
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Arivia posted:Yeah my group is seven and we're frequently missing a few people. 7 is the absolute maximum number of manageable I think, but it's still okay. Yeah we typically start at 10 players or so, and while everyone is welcome to keep showing up, one or two usually drop out entirely and another one or two of the remaining are unable to make any given game. Seven or eight is a big but manageable party, but it's gonna average at five or six per session. We've always had big games, so our usual DMs are used to it.
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Dec 15, 2016 04:42
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So how much information should players have both in and out of combat? Should they know AC and NACs for their enemies, HP? Should they know the DCs for things they want to use skills for before they decide to roll? etc. Mostly asking because in the previous 4e campaign I played in our GM denied us all of this information, and at the every least not knowing our enemies defense numbers really slowed down combat until we managed to piece together what the target numbers were on our own in every fight.
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Dec 15, 2016 05:21
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| # ? May 14, 2024 15:32 |
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I'd say give them skill check DCs if they have time to examine it, but only a rough estimate if they, say, want to break down a door during combat, and never any enemy stats. Maybe a rough estimate for one enemy defense score if they have a pertinent knowledge skill and want to spend a move action to roll for it
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Dec 15, 2016 05:35
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