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Hell yes if you do Blaze of Glory you should definitely not be able to be raised. Unless maybe the group spends a whole adventure getting your soul back from the underworld, over several sessions.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:27
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| # ? May 19, 2024 18:56 |
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Oh, gently caress that. Have all of you forgotten how much of a pain in the rear end it is to make a Paragon-tier character from scratch? What about Epic-tier? Not only are you forcing the player to go through that process, all over again, without the feeling of gradual growth that actually makes it fun, you're forcing them to adapt to a new character, their party to adapt to a new teammate, and making yourself adapt to an entirely new combat dynamic. Unless, when players die, they're limited to remaking similar characters, in which case, what is the loving point of it in the first place? Tedium is not danger, and threat of tedium is not proof of fun.
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Jan 12, 2017 19:40
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For the ghost powers, Im thinking... "If youve failed 1 death save, distances are within 5 tiles of your body. 2 saves, 10 tiles. You can shift two allies up to four tiles each. You can switch an ally and enemy. You can command an ally to attack. Target enemy misses their next attack."
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Jan 12, 2017 19:42
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The Blaze of Glory mechanic is bad and you should feel bad. Don't reward people for dying. Dying is not the objective or expectation in D&D, and you shouldn't get the privilege of cheesing an encounter because you or someone else hosed up.
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Jan 12, 2017 20:57
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If you're shooting for something that makes people bounce back up sooner, you can straight up do something simple like: if you fail a death saving throw, you can spend a surge to get up anyway, and be dazed until you pass that saving throw. Or: if you fail a death saving throw, you can wager a surge to reroll. Fail and you lose the surge, succeed and you can get up and take a bonus standard action (since saves are end of turn). The first makes fights feel more like slugfests, the second makes them feel like more gambling.
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Jan 12, 2017 21:21
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Is healing just a non-thing with nightmare damage? Do the leaders even bother with their healing powers, or do they build for striking? Unless the leader is a warlord, that sounds like a pain in the rear end. 4E intentionally moved away from rocket tag*. Why are you trying so hard to reintroduce one of the worst aspects of combat in older (and newer) editions? * They initially moved too far away, but post-MM3 found a good spot.
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Jan 12, 2017 22:34
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Yo! Loel! Yo! Buddy! Come over here. Sit down. Listen for a moment. How are you doing, friend? Do I have your attention? I'd like to introduce you to a little thing I call Gamma World. Combat is fast. Combat is dynamic. Character creation takes 5minutes or less. Damage is high. Death is around every corner. You need to take a trip to Gamma Terra.
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Jan 12, 2017 23:53
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Mordiceius posted:Yo! Loel! Yo! Buddy! I just got them from 5e, they arent ready for another switch 
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Jan 13, 2017 00:50
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Dick Burglar posted:Is healing just a non-thing with nightmare damage? Do the leaders even bother with their healing powers, or do they build for striking? Unless the leader is a warlord, that sounds like a pain in the rear end. Combats take too long and people are unconscious too long. Im looking for patches Edit: Im new to the system, they are new to gaming. They want interesting dungeoncrawls with minimal storygaming. Loel fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 00:51
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Basically the only time that people should be unconscious for more than a turn is if they are out of surges or the leader is unable to assist via being out of heals or being out of position/bad. None of these should happen very often.
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Jan 13, 2017 00:55
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Loel posted:I just got them from 5e, they arent ready for another switch Gamma World is a modified 4e.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:10
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dont even fink about it posted:Basically the only time that people should be unconscious for more than a turn is if they are out of surges or the leader is unable to assist via being out of heals or being out of position/bad. None of these should happen very often. Yeah, tell the leader to use a minor action and use their 2/encounter healing ability?
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Jan 13, 2017 01:12
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Gamma World is OK but is very thin once you get past the novelty of the character creation. Also, in a stripped-down game of 4E they managed to make weapons more complicated, for whatever that's worth.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:13
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Yeah, tell the leader to use a minor action and use their 2/encounter healing ability? This is also assuming the leader doesn't have extra heals somewhere in his attack or utility set.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:14
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dont even fink about it posted:This is also assuming the leader doesn't have extra heals somewhere in his attack or utility set. Yeah, even the brain dead cleric I have in my game has 4 heals and can usually get people standing back up (except himself). And that's ignoring all the heals that everyone else has - the ranger has invigorating stride, the warden has a stand someone else up ability (which I've noticed she's holding to use on the cleric) as well as their own defenses. The warlord in my other game doesn't have many heals on encounters so that's a bit harder, but Stand the Fallen is a game swinging daily. Edit: If you're starting out at level 1, be aware that people can/will very quickly pile up a huge number of healing abilities.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:33
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Don't try to jam a PbtA move into 4e, it'll hurt. You distribute the treasure: give them some healing stuff if they keep getting themselves killed. If they like Blizzard games, then they probably can get with the Diablo thing of chugging red potions whenever things get dangerous. Parties that tend to get themselves KO'd all the time tend to be the same ones that never use second wind. Remind them that power exists, maybe with terrain objects that give them bonuses for using it to nudge them in the right direction if you don't want to tell them outright for some reason. Also remind them they can use the heal skill: quote:First Aid: Standard action. Yeah, that DC 10 never scales, so paragon and epic characters basically handwave it. It's like clicking the cross in Diablo 3 to resurrect your dead group member.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:36
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slydingdoor posted:Don't try to jam a PbtA move into 4e, it'll hurt. You know I never thought about it, but you could totally use that on someone who is at less than 0 couldn't you, I just saw there were rules for stabilizing dying people and figured that was the only thing you could do.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:59
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slydingdoor posted:Don't try to jam a PbtA move into 4e, it'll hurt. I kinda feel like 2nd winding in combat is a mistake because it blows your standard. I mean if you absolutely have to, you have to, but getting a heal a minor is so much better.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:06
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I kinda feel like 2nd winding in combat is a mistake because it blows your standard. I mean if you absolutely have to, you have to, but getting a heal a minor is so much better. That's why I always love playing Dwarves, never have to waste a standard.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:09
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Second-winding as a minor is what takes dwarves from "really, really good and over-supported" to "best race in the game."
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Jan 13, 2017 02:10
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I kinda feel like 2nd winding in combat is a mistake because it blows your standard. I mean if you absolutely have to, you have to, but getting a heal a minor is so much better. If your options for spending your standard action at a given time are "kill the last thing, thus ending the encounter" or "not die" then yes, but otherwise no. Your statement is also redundant, because you would literally never use 2nd wind out of combat; it's a specifically in-combat ability, because a 5-min Short Rest does better healing out of combat, unless you've for some reason char-opped the poo poo out of your 2nd wind in ways that have no combat application whatsoever (I cannot fathom this scenario.)
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Jan 13, 2017 02:22
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P.d0t posted:If your options for spending your standard action at a given time are "kill the last thing, thus ending the encounter" or "not die" then yes, but otherwise no. Your option is usually though blow 2nd wind or use a standard offensively and hope the leader can heal you. If it's a standard encounter killing the first standard drops the bad guys damage output by 20%, and killing the 2nd last bad guy would drop it by 50%. I mostly DM, but it usually looks clear cut to me that any striker should be acting offensively, the leader should use a minor heal on himself and the only class that should reliably use 2nd wind when on the ropes rather than attacking is defender?
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Jan 13, 2017 02:26
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You miss your standard if you spend a turn KO'd too, during which you aren't threatening squares, aren't sustaining your dailies, are vulnerable to free crits from coup de grace, etc. and are forcing someone else to spend their resources and their action to heal you. Use second wind. In Starcraft terms, "cycle your units" so the wounded ones are away from the brunt of the exchange and the fresh ones take their place. Healing potions are also minor actions. Buy healing potions, or if you're the GM give them out as a "hint." That's why I never got the love for dwarves' racial power, free healing potion that uses your second wind is pretty good, but not the best. Unless you take the feat to make it an interrupt, then it's real good and can pull double duty–preventing a hit with the +2 to defenses and healing you.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:32
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slydingdoor posted:You miss your standard if you spend a turn KO'd too, during which you aren't threatening squares, aren't sustaining your dailies, are vulnerable to free crits from coup de grace, etc. and are forcing someone else to spend their resources and their action to heal you. Use second wind. In Starcraft terms, "cycle your units" so the wounded ones are away from the brunt of the exchange and the fresh ones take their place. Aren't healing potions like garbage second winds?
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Jan 13, 2017 02:35
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Blood Apricots do a pretty good job as quick healing. You do need to prime them with a surge out of combat, but afterward you can spend a minor to eat them so you can spend a surge + heal 2d8. If you have a surge sponge like a warden laying around they're very doable, especially seeing as they only cost 50gp a pop.
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Jan 13, 2017 02:43
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Dwarf Earthwardens can get some obscene defenses, along with some nasty slow/prone stuff on mark punishment, when they second wind, it's hilarious.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:24
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Spiteski posted:Aren't healing potions like garbage second winds? They heal less than a second wind, but are minor actions. Blood Apricots are better under most circumstances, but not everyone wants to use Dragon material.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:31
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Healing Potions restore a flat amount of HP in exchange for a surge, but that's still better than missing out on a turn, or missing out on a Standard by Second Winding for the full surge value as long as the potion value is enough to prevent a knockout. The most I would be willing to do in regards to healing and knockout rules would be to put the person at the bottom of the initiative count on the same turn they're revived to minimize time that they're not doing anything. Otherwise, that's kind of the point. Knockouts are supposed to be hella inconvenient. That's why you want to avoid them.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:32
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A surge you can't spend when you need it is worthless. Healing potions are less efficient than spending surges out of combat but let you dump your surges in combat instead of dying, as many times as you have potions and minor actions. They're a tool in the toolbox. For low hp classes there's much less of a difference in efficiency, too. The most effective striker in my old group used the heck out of potions and bloodcut armor and stuff to play insanely aggressive and draw a lot of fire to get at priority targets. Their favorite class was the Scout because they have a stance that halves damage you take on your own turn, so they could just run through traps and damaging terrain and through opportunity attacks and junk to completely destroy the weenie with the wand in the back, or cut the rope that drops the chandelier, or press the evil base's self-destruct button or whatnot. Their objective was to end the adventure with 0 healing surges, and everyone was way more engaged because that scout set a faster pace for them. The players are familiar with WoW, where if you do dungeons the safest, most conservative way there's nothing challenging but the tedium. Jumping off cliffs and running through fire to take shortcuts, overpulling and AOEing, and that kind of stuff is where the fun is. Giving a perverse incentive to die is for special moral quandary -type occasions and storygames. Just play the rules as is and remind them of all the tools in the toolbox.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:Healing Potions restore a flat amount of HP in exchange for a surge, but that's still better than missing out on a turn, or missing out on a Standard by Second Winding for the full surge value as long as the potion value is enough to prevent a knockout. The other piece of economy is that you're going to stop (probably) when the lowest health/surge guy runs out of surges. If you're in a party with a melee ranger or the cha secondary rogue build and you're an elementalist, you're never ever ever going to run out of surges before the ranger so you can afford to spend them ridiculously inefficiently. So while they are inefficient in healing per surge, the improved action economy is always going to be worth it.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:57
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The other piece of economy is that you're going to stop (probably) when the lowest health/surge guy runs out of surges. If you're in a party with a melee ranger or the cha secondary rogue build and you're an elementalist, you're never ever ever going to run out of surges before the ranger so you can afford to spend them ridiculously inefficiently. So while they are inefficient in healing per surge, the improved action economy is always going to be worth it. That's what the Comrades' Succor ritual is for. Probably the only ritual worth remembering actually exists.
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Jan 13, 2017 04:44
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I got roped into running Madness at Gardmore Abbey for my group. Gonna be relaxing to not have to do any prep work for a while, I think. Might be a slight issue in that it looks like we'll have a 2 leaders/4 strikers party but it's their funeral. (Practical application of the paladin player's build paradigms across a whole group? Possibly! Alliteration also achieved, accidentally) Question, though. I guess this calls for spoiler tags? What if the party finds, say, 4-5 cards, walks back to their quest giver who will, surprise, turn out to be the secret collector, and goes "we did your thing, verily, and hey look at this crazy poo poo we found" and shows him the cards? e: any other advice for running the adventure is also appreciated. I intend to stick fairly close to the written word with this one.
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Jan 13, 2017 15:09
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By necessity, it's the last significant encounter, occurring only after the adventurers have collected eighteen of the Deck's twenty-two cards (or fourteen if they have not yet overcome the rival adventurers) by defeating the villains of the abbey Remind the party that their characters would know they can run away from fights and that sometimes their enemies get reinforcements if they leave but sometimes they don't. Also all that stuff about healing potions. If they're struggling, they might want to eat the XP cost and let one of the NPCs follow them around–they are both defenders and basically made exactly for the composition your party picked, or for one where the party defender is getting annihilated, which they might if no one else soaks attacks.
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Jan 13, 2017 19:13
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Yeah but itsn't it set up so they return to their quest givers at regular intervals? Although I guess the obvious course of action for the collector, if the party shows off their mysterious bounty prematurely, would be to think "so these idiots have found some cards, well I'm sending them back anyway so I'll wait and see if they find any more." Good point about the NPCs, I'll mention that to the group so no one feels pressured into making a defender.
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Jan 13, 2017 21:46
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If the companions are substituting for full defenders then you might want to upgrade them to full defender auras, possibly using the eladrin knight option in the case of the eladrin companion. Either that or just have them automatically respect all marks, I suppose.
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Jan 14, 2017 00:57
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The way I see it, a GM shouldn't overthink their portrayal of NPCs to try to satisfy themselves and their own notions of how the NPCs should act with their GM knowledge of "the future." If it's that much of a bother, I just assume the NPCs are so good at bluffing or whatever that I should just play them as if they didn't have or develop whatever plans the module says they do until some convenient offscreen time. That way I don't have to lie to anyone. More to the point, you said you were playing it by the book, the book says don't do X until Y, so don't. You'll give stuff away to the group if you try to foreshadow things when the book doesn't tell you to do so. Otherwise you risk killing the "climax of the campaign." You said you wanted to sit back and do less prep, so trust the book. Don't pull punches and don't buff the companions closer to PC-tier. Play it by the book and let the players adapt. If they literally can't and don't like it, the PCs can come back when they're higher level or something, or you start hacking the game then, after there's a clear need and call to do so.
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Jan 14, 2017 03:44
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Good point. I do regularly need to remind myself that things feel very different if you're a player with no idea of what's planned. I mostly wanted to avoid anyone at the end thinking "hey, we showed him the cards, shouldn't he have let something on, particularly with my stratospheric passive Insight that I pumped high specifically for this" but more realistically they'll just think "drat this guy would be great at poker, and we idiots even told him we were collecting the cards."
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Jan 14, 2017 16:47
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(with an eye towards hacking/cloning) Has anyone here tried having minions auto-hit when they attack PCs? I assume (particularly at higher levels) you would want to scale down the damage, I'm just curious to know if anyone has tried something like this, and has any feedback on how it went and what they would suggest to fine-tune it.
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Jan 15, 2017 04:47
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P.d0t posted:(with an eye towards hacking/cloning) Has anyone here tried having minions auto-hit when they attack PCs? I assume (particularly at higher levels) you would want to scale down the damage, I'm just curious to know if anyone has tried something like this, and has any feedback on how it went and what they would suggest to fine-tune it. It was fine - Zeitgeist AP uses it a lot with minions. Instead of the making an attack it uses a very low damage aura 1, often combined with stuff that lets you move through the minions. This seems to set up big fight scenes (like players vs a ships crew) very well Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jan 15, 2017 |
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Jan 15, 2017 04:55
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| # ? May 19, 2024 18:56 |
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Make a monster or trap spawn minions that autohit and die when they enter someone's space. Hitting the minion pushes it instead of killing it, the minion's movement on its own turn provokes opportunity attacks when they try to enter someone's space. Apply different spawners different resistances and vulnerabilities and their spawned minions different types of damage and effects depending on their spawner. The fight becomes a free-for-all multiball tennis/dodgeball match.
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Jan 15, 2017 05:01
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