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Loel posted:Nightmare mode for damage Although I agree that damage should go way up for monsters at higher levels (I've had players take on encounters 3-4 times larger than what the DMG would consider "hard" around early paragon), the variability on those damage charts really bothers me. 5d20+29 is a really wide range. But running the numbers, 10% chance of dealing at most 64 damage and a 10% chance of doing at least 98 isn't that bad when you have hundreds of hit points. I guess I'll also steal this chart for personal use since I've lost my old custom charts in a hard drive failure years ago. Plus, it makes critical hits terrifying. Edit: Crits being 50% higher than average damage is just about perfect. This chart is great. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 20:38
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KPC_Mammon posted:Although I agree that damage should go way up for monsters at higher levels (I've had players take on encounters 3-4 times larger than what the DMG would consider "hard" around early paragon), the variability on those damage charts really bothers me. 5d20+29 is a really wide range.  Awesome, maybe you know the answer to this. The columnns are low med high limit - Ive been using high for point attacks and low for area attacks, what are the other columns for?
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Jan 7, 2017 17:29
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Use Medium damage for most at-will attacks Use Low damage for AOE/multi-target attacks, artillery melee attacks, and controller attacks with status effects Use High damage for Brute attacks, and certain Lurker attacks Use Limited damage for encounter/recharge powers
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Jan 7, 2017 17:40
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Players are in for a surprise tomorrow
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Jan 7, 2017 17:52
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My Lovely Horse posted:MBA: clawed gauntlets, deal damage and blind target until the end of its next turn. Don't do this. Blind at-will is the actual opposite of fun.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:55
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I was figuring it wouldn't happen often enough to be a huge issue - the first two rounds he'll be busy using encounter powers, I don't see the party drawing opportunity attacks, and once he does get to use the MBA he probably wouldn't be far away from "defeat" and he could have another recharge attack that meant he'd use the MBA maybe half the time. But I'll be having another look at it for certain! After all, I have four weeks to prepare now hahaha ha ha this time is going to melt away to nothing
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Jan 8, 2017 15:26
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Still a bad idea. Just because you figure it won't happen doesn't mean your players won't surprise you. Why not daze or slow or something that isn't utterly crippling?
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Jan 8, 2017 19:36
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Sure, that works too. I just keep hearing about how daze is the opposite of fun too  But that, push and slow, push and knock prone, or just slow and giving him a teleport would all work fine to keep the melee people off his back a bit.I'm gonna need to rethink this a bit anyway. The paladin player has picked the Hospitaler PP. Against regular enemies, Hospitaler's Blessing is punishing, against one single enemy, it's potentially crippling. He's gonna need lots of area attacks, which fortunately are in keeping with the theme, and/or single attacks than can reliably crack a target's defenses. Maybe he gets an MBA against Fort or Will.
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Jan 9, 2017 10:06
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So in the game I'm gonna DM for, one of my players mentioned looking for a conjurer-like class. Obvious candidate would be the Shaman, and I also stumbled on the Summoner Wizard. Is there a better pick for that?
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Jan 9, 2017 20:27
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Pretty sure the Druid has a lot of summoning options, and most of its summons have things called Instinctive Actions, which are neat. In general, the summons for the controller classes are all Dailies though. If your player wants to be doing conjuring all the time (and doesn't want to reskin like crazy) then Shaman might be the best bet. Just be aware that it's supposed to be one of the more complex 4e classes.
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Jan 9, 2017 20:47
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My Lovely Horse posted:Sure, that works too. I just keep hearing about how daze is the opposite of fun too With daze you can still take an action, so you could still charge back in even if you get dazed and pushed back. It's a super dick move if you push them back, knock them prone, and daze them, since they'd have to spend their action just standing up. Daze also sucks for non-paladin defenders since they can't enforce their marks, but they can still act on their turn and expect a reasonable chance of success. While blinded they can still act, sure, but their chances of hitting are pretty slim.
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Jan 9, 2017 21:51
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Weakened until-end-of-turn is good for hitting people as long as they have tactical options besides "hit it very hard". Just don't do Save Ends unless it's the gimmick of the encounter, your leader shits out saving throws like candy, or you're a colossal dickhead. Another fun condition that I don't think is standardized is a temporary drop in defenses, or a condition that exists solely to trigger a secondary effect from another attack. Example: Napalm Pot Reload (4, 5, 6) Standard Action: Area Burst 1 within 5 +8 vs Reflex Hit: Target is primed and slowed (save ends both). Light 'Em Up. At-Will Standard Action: Ranged 5 +10 vs AC Hit: 2d8 fire damage Special: If target is primed, instead they are no longer primed, take 4d8 fire damage and ongoing 10 fire (save ends). Edit Obviously, the specific numbers and effects I just pulled out of my rear end, but you get the idea. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 22:38
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ImpactVector posted:Pretty sure the Druid has a lot of summoning options, and most of its summons have things called Instinctive Actions, which are neat. I was going to go on a rant here about Reflavoring powers but then I noticed your edit. I think the summoner wizard already does a lot of this, though, it's at wills and encounters are summoning temporary forms to do minor effects.
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Jan 9, 2017 22:45
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Loel posted:So, heres the plan for next session. Facing 5-7 level 6s. WHEN LAST WE MET OUR HEROES Before this fight, I had them dig through the library adjacent to the ritual room, gave them lots of hints about a dracolich incase they wanted to buy some buffs. Additionally, some Learned Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. Our bard became a necropolitan, our druid looks like a bone dragon and got +5 necrotic damage on his encounter powers for the day, and our barbarian got double move when he burned healing surges. He ended up not staying cuz work in the morning, but it was some good forshadowing. The party that actually made it to the boss fight, level 6: Shaman, Druid, Rogue, Rogue, Cleric, Bard.  The adventure begins. Heroes on the right, minions and champions in the middle, dragon on the left. He'll spend like the next 6 rounds just doing 10 range lightning waves.  Portals closer to the camera are positive energy, further away are negative energy. Party does a strong advance on the right flank, and my minions push on their left  Throughout the fight I am knocking people to 0 hp, in this scene its the healer. My minions are gone, and the party has stacked up on the undead champion.  Living champion retreats and spawns more minions, and the undead champion is held in place  Party has figured out how to use portal energies, and are dancing between them / using them for heals. The druid advances to the middle platform as the minions rush one of the rogues.  The living champion is holding is ground, so is the rogue  Uh oh. I only had about an hour of game time left, so I stopped spawning minions. (we'd gone through 15 by this point). They rushed the champion, and my dragon dropped down to help him out  They start stunlocking me all to crap, I lost like 200 hp in this scene. The escalation die meant that all attacks hit, so they were just pummelling him. I offered to end the round, but they wanted to keep stabbing   Finally got a chance to fly away, ganked the healer again  They rush me  With predictable results Good session over all, they thought it was innovative and just difficult enough. I think next time Im going to let my guys have escalation bonuses too
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Jan 10, 2017 02:21
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Kurieg posted:I think the summoner wizard already does a lot of this, though, it's at wills and encounters are summoning temporary forms to do minor effects. However, they're all kind of bad, which is unfortunate since a lot of them are thematically pretty cool. The wizard daily summons on the other hand are fantastic, provided you use the errata that gave them instinctive action equivalents.
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Jan 10, 2017 05:54
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My players, dont read this bit  Durlag's Tower, starting from topside  No idea why the colors changed But, thats the basic idea. They exit the tower, gargoyles try to push them into the ghoul pits, and if they try to flee they'll go to the basilisk nest. Basilisk nest connects to the engine room in the basement of Durlag's Tower, while the ghoul pits connect to level 3 of the tower itself. Since last fight ran long, Im cutting the Monster Vault hitpoints by about a third, using Nightmare damage still, and also giving the mobs access to the escalation die.
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Jan 10, 2017 06:24
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Dick Burglar posted:With daze you can still take an action, so you could still charge back in even if you get dazed and pushed back. It's a super dick move if you push them back, knock them prone, and daze them, since they'd have to spend their action just standing up. Daze also sucks for non-paladin defenders since they can't enforce their marks, but they can still act on their turn and expect a reasonable chance of success. While blinded they can still act, sure, but their chances of hitting are pretty slim. I gotta give that player credit, this is the same paladin who's been scraping by with 12 STR and CHA all the time - three years of that, and suddenly he's the biggest threat to any encounter just by virtue of enhancing the party's staying power so much. How about this as a defensive gimmick for stage 1: a number of decoys appear, and he can switch positions with any of them every turn. On his turn, he can act from any position currently occupied by a decoy (but not two different positions in the same turn), on PCs turns, they have to make an Insight check to find out which one is currently "real", or gamble their attack on a dice roll. Any decoy not currently "real" goes down in one hit. They'd position themselves far away from each other to not get caught in area attacks. The party's invoker could sniff them out relatively easily by attacking three of them each round with Hand of Radiance, but at best he pops two decoys and the man himself only eats one Hand of Radiance attack.
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Jan 10, 2017 10:36
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My Lovely Horse posted:I gotta give that player credit, this is the same paladin who's been scraping by with 12 STR and CHA all the time - three years of that, and suddenly he's the biggest threat to any encounter just by virtue of enhancing the party's staying power so much. What the gently caress? What did he pump instead? Go ultra-WIS and neglect everything else? How does he even hit anything? I don't understand this at all 
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Jan 10, 2017 19:56
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Dick Burglar posted:Go ultra-WIS and neglect everything else? My Lovely Horse posted:everyone hits closer to 70% of the time, only one defender drags the average down and has a hard time even getting to 60% hit chance. I've been telling him for three years this would happen. At this point and particularly with the boss defenses already adjusted down, I kinda feel like he's reaping what he sowed. I've kinda settled on the decoys now, and what's more I'm gonna make the boss more of an artillery for that first stage with liberal movement options so he doesn't ever need an MBA. Start with strong encounter powers, and if he's run out and still not dead/transitioned, carry on with weaker at-will elemental powers. Makes for a nice transition to the dragon form too: stage 1 is all about getting up close to him, then stage 2 hits and suddenly that's the last place you want to be.
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Jan 11, 2017 13:55
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This discussion on phases and gimmick mechanics has actually got me thinking about how the original HP counts in pre-MM3 math, which we now consider to be inflated, might have at one time been considered workable: if monsters are killed quickly, then the fight may be over before the gimmick ever gets to develop. If monsters are killed quickly, then players might be disinclined to "play along with the gimmick" compared to just shooting the sucker. It's a delicate balance, to be sure, and not really workable in the context of having too many combats, but it's something I've been thinking about lately. Definitely the old MM1 damage levels are way too low, and the old MM1 defense computations are too high, but even at the end of the mid-Paragon 4e campaign I ran, I was using HP numbers that were a little higher than what the MM3 recommended.
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Jan 11, 2017 14:40
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Just today I pondered if 750 HP total might be too much, but then thought, not for six PCs ganging up on one creature. Last session one of the strikers started pulling out his post-paragon features and hitting enemies for around 60 damage and now I'm actually wondering if it's enough. e: that's not per attack, mind. Every few rounds. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 14:53
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A lot of the adventure arc end-bosses in Zeitgeist have different mechanics as they reach tiers of HP and I always thought that was cool. It also seems like it could be fun to have a boss that gets more powerful attacks as the fight progresses - sort of as a sign of desperation. Perhaps at between 100-66% HP, an attack does 2d10 damage, at 66-33% HP, it does 3d10 damage, and at 33-0% it does 5d10 damage. Something along those lines. Players would have to play strategically to push through phases and perhaps hold their stuns/dazes until later phases.
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Jan 11, 2017 22:31
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So I knock my players to 0hp a lot, and I dont like the dying mechanic. Think Ill playtest this next session. If 0 or below hit points, roll 2d6. 10+ tis but a scratch. Apply 2 healing surges. 7-9. Make a deal with death. If he accepts, use a healing surge. If not, go to 6. If you have less healing surges available, apply as you can. If you hit 0 again with no surges, your roll counts as a 6. 2-6 blaze of glory. All your attacks crit, but you die at the end of the encounter. You can choose to do blaze of glory at any health, but you have to describe how it starts. "For my father!!" Or whatever.
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Jan 12, 2017 00:09
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I prefer "you're out of the fight" to "you're dead", then you can fluff it however you like and it's only really tricky if everyone goes down
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Jan 12, 2017 00:13
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Loel posted:So I knock my players to 0hp a lot, and I dont like the dying mechanic. Think Ill playtest this next session. This works extremely not well with how 4e generally operates unless you want something "deadly," and I really do mean to use the scarequotes.
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Jan 12, 2017 02:30
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Loel posted:So I knock my players to 0hp a lot, and I dont like the dying mechanic. Think Ill playtest this next session. 4e is purposely designed to have players hit the mat in a standard/hard encounter in order to ratchet the tension, this will lead to dead characters on the reg for a normal campaign. If you want more tension for the moments characters do go down, make it so they need to have someone get to them asap, not the very relaxed affair of the normal game where you heal downed players not because you are in fear of them passing but because you want them in the fight again to swing the encounter back in your favor. Maybe require someone else to get adjacent and roll a Heal stabilization check to return them to 0, then you can heal them, or something so its not just 'well, it's the healer's turn, get within 5/10/15 and use a minor action'. Its not a great solution, but I really don't think ' 42% chance of death' on hitting 0 is good idea in a sytem where hitting 0 is built in part of the drama the game is trying to create in a normal fight.
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Jan 12, 2017 04:43
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Loel posted:So I knock my players to 0hp a lot, and I dont like the dying mechanic.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:32
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Splicer posted:Tell us what you don't like about it and what you want to add/remove/change! Okay, heres my line of thinking. My players are blizzard gamers, love WoW phases, want to play DND Encounters meets Overwatch. Fast paced and tactically interesting. The characters have names no one remembers, etc. Im using nightmare damage and escalation dice so its fast and bloody. The dying counter is three rounds of not playing, which can be 20 minutes. They start getting out their phones. My proposed solution, loosely stolen from Dungeon World, gets them back in the fight - and if they die its in a suitably over the top anime rampage. Edit: Maybe make Blaze of Glory 2-5 and Deal with Death 6-9? Loel fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 17:05
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If people get knocked below 0 too much with nightmare damage in play, maybe skip nightmare damage? The 2d6 solution seems to make "you hit 0 HP" inconsequential tending towards benefitial. Spend 2 healing surges - great, that's more healing at once than you can get from any other source for quite a while. Become an immortal crit machine - even better, that's a higher offense bonus that you can get anywhere else period. Character death doesn't balance this if no one's attached to their characters. So why heal anyone anymore if you're the leader? If they get downed, they're gonna spring back up in better condition than you could have managed. In fact, why take short rests at all? You either survive or you get to do the coolest thing you possibly can. Why, if you get right down to it, not just bring yourself to single digit HP before any fight and race the others to death? ... this is starting to get a real Fury Road vibe, actually.
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Jan 12, 2017 17:33
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Seems like a feature not a bug But yeah it seems optimal play would be to Blaze of Glory a new character every encounter. Loel fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 17:44
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Loel posted:Seems like a feature not a bug Which sort of eliminates the need for leaders (or at least leader healing) and defenders (to mitigate damage) and incentivizes everyone to build toward striking. Kinda conflicts with making things 'tactically interesting.' My 2 cents is to just give them a choice instead of rolling if people are getting bored on their death save turns: quote:If you start your turn dying, choose from the following: Or something like that. Logic being that you have a 'safe' option where you save yourself with a cost, a no-cost option that can help your team but is a gamble, and the 'out with a bang' option. Maybe Inspire gives a bonus to defense if people are dropping left & right.
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Jan 12, 2017 18:52
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That does look promising.
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Jan 12, 2017 18:56
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I agree, but I'd tone any positive effect on Inspire way down. A bard has to wait 11 levels for that and even then it's a lower bonus unless you optimized. (War Chanter's Action Point feature.) I'd probably just make the middle option the regular death saving throw. If you're bored with that, you have other options now. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 18:58
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My Lovely Horse posted:I agree, but I'd tone any positive effect on Inspire way down. A bard has to wait 11 levels for that and even then it's a lower bonus unless you optimized. (War Chanter's Action Point feature.) +2 per tier maybe?
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Jan 12, 2017 19:02
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My Lovely Horse posted:I agree, but I'd tone any positive effect on Inspire way down. A bard has to wait 11 levels for that and even then it's a lower bonus unless you optimized. (War Chanter's Action Point feature.) I agree, I just threw it out there since I have no idea what damage expressions/monsters he's using and it sounded like folks were dropping constantly.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:04
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Without thinking much about it and, yeah, without knowing what nightmare damage entails, I'd spontaneously say maybe just about +2 per tier to attack or damage (leaning strongly on the side of damage), or +1 per tier to both.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:06
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quote:3) Blaze of Glory - Lose all your healing surges; regain HP equal to your bloodied value and stand up. Until the end of the encounter, all of your attacks that would miss a target instead count as hits, and all of your attacks that would hit a target count as crits. If you are reduced to 0 hp or less again, you die. At the end of the encounter, you die. I love this. Definitely badass!
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Jan 12, 2017 19:09
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Alternatively, go the Sentinels route and make up a list of lazylord powers. PC is unconscious? The player spends their turn shoving people around and granting at-wills.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:18
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Dog Kisser posted:I love this. Definitely badass! Im thinking they cant be raised Its the most legendary fight of their life, written in book and song.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:21
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Splicer posted:Alternatively, go the Sentinels route and make up a list of lazylord powers. PC is unconscious? The player spends their turn shoving people around and granting at-wills. "If youve failed one or two dying saves, the realm of death is approaching, and you begin haunting your companions. You can do the following..."
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Jan 12, 2017 19:27
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