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Yeah unless the leader forgets to heal himself, I ramp up the encounter difficulty significantly (25% more minions, level 1 damage forever) and it's super hard to make them feel under pressure. It took a game where I rolled 8 crits off brutes in turn 1-2 to really get them on the ropes and powers like 'stand the fallen' can just mass res team PC at a moments notice
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:40 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 08:33 |
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1st Level Damage Forever is a harsh mistress.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:42 |
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dwarf74 posted:1st Level Damage Forever is a harsh mistress. It makes crits really impactful is the thing I notice most.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 00:46 |
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:It makes crits really impactful is the thing I notice most.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:03 |
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Comp was Barbarian, Psion (character died and player wasn't in to him so we had him bite it, replaced with Warlock), Warden, Warlord and Wizard. Fights tended to be either they swept the enemies up or threatened TPK levels and no inbetween.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:09 |
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My Lovely Horse posted:In Gardmore Abbey news, my party has latched on to the idea that the abbey's downfall was caused by one of the items that are simply sidequest macguffins. I have no idea where they might have picked this up. At least they're getting a plot twist out of it? You know you're basically obligated to do this now, right? It's a two way street - if your players are convinced that one of the non-important macguffins is important, I'd run with it. You don't have to beat them over the head with it, but it's a neat touch that the players "intuition" (read: inability to maintain remember plot) is rewarded. Now they are super engaged because they managed to solve the mystery. Unless this is impossible for this campaign (because the source of corruption is something else, and can only be something else due to other clues pointing it in that direction), roll with your players "suggestions".
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:13 |
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Moriatti posted:Comp was Barbarian, Psion (character died and player wasn't in to him so we had him bite it, replaced with Warlock), Warden, Warlord and Wizard. Serious question: Is the guy playing the warlord an idiot? I'm running two campaigns at once. In one, the guy playing the leader is very switched on, very tactical. As a result, almost impossible to take his team down as he is personally rarely exposed to risk until the 'mop up' phase or because he needs to bring his plot artifact into the fight, manages his resources intelligently and holds healing back for when it's decisive to keep someone up. To threaten a wipe you need to punch through everyone's HP pools + his heals to crack the egg to get to him and the party is 3 strikers + defender + leader so that is super hard to do before the parties single target damage focuses down enough guys to win the fight (Also, stand the fallen is a great power for 'oh poo poo'). In the other one, the guy playing the cleric is not super tactical or switched on, and routinely does poo poo like 'not heal himself when bloodied' and 'charges into melee not adjacent to the defender' and gets his head kicked in. They've come close to wipes because the cleric got punched into the floor and they couldn't easily get him back or or easily heals at that point. The difference is stark - I only play level 1 damage forever with the first crew (I do some other difficult increases for the second crew, but they are on slightly souped up MM3) and the 2nd crew has come way closer to wiping. (The other note is elementalists and ranged rangers are really hard to kill) Drewjitsu posted:You know you're basically obligated to do this now, right? This is great advice. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jul 10, 2017 |
# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:15 |
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Serious question: Is the guy playing the warlord an idiot? He is not, and is often the last or second to last alive. I think it was me making minion-parties and expecting the wizard to do spread. You guys have given me a lot of good advice, I think things will go much better in the future.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 01:26 |
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:This is great advice. I'm not gonna take credit, I'm just repeating what Chris Perkins told me. He often says that he's listening to the banter between his PC's for plot hooks in his stories, as often the PC's (who are paranoid murder hobos, let's face it) will come up with something far more complicated and crazy that what the DM has in mind. And let's be serious, if the worst fears of the PC group are realized, you've got a tremendous hook for them to stay interested and engaged. Which is (in my opinion) the goal of this poo poo in the first place.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 06:06 |
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It's great for a freeform campaign but Gardmore Abbey's whole thing is that the party spends the whole adventure gathering the bits of the artifact that actually did it. And they don't really have a plausible theory about the other macguffin that I could reward, just “I think that's what did it.“
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 06:18 |
Hey guys, would this be the right thread to post a custom 4e town I made back in the day for feedback? It's been a hot minute, but I liked what I did with it, and I'd like to use it in a future game, but maybe it could do with some updating...
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 10:29 |
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Either this thread or the GM advice thread could be ok. Go ahead and post it
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 12:45 |
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There's a guy recruiting for the 4e Zeitgeist 1-30 campaign in Trad Games right now. It'll use Fantasy Grounds with some PbP elements between sessions, showing what you're doing in downtime and such. Live dialogue will be in text, which is... weird? I've never done that. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3826376 Apparently this guy has run it before, so he knows what he's getting into. He also says that Goons Get Preference, but he is posting on a few forums if he can't get enough players here. I'm hoping people show up, I've wanted to try the Resourceful Magician bard for a while, and that would mean playing a game that lasts longer than 2 sessions.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 22:47 |
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Gharbad the Weak posted:There's a guy recruiting for the 4e Zeitgeist 1-30 campaign in Trad Games right now. It'll use Fantasy Grounds with some PbP elements between sessions, showing what you're doing in downtime and such. Live dialogue will be in text, which is... weird? I've never done that. You're weird! Also yea sign up pls.
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# ? Jul 10, 2017 22:59 |
Spiteski posted:Either this thread or the GM advice thread could be ok. Go ahead and post it Ok, here goes. quote:City of Red Oak I don't have the embarrassing handrawn map I made back in the day, but the town is basically situated just off to the right of the Nentir Vale map, on the other side of the Dawnforge Mountains. I know the idea of a "valley in a mountain" isn't quite logical, but I had a specific setup in mind and didn't know how else to express it. I used these images I found on GIS to demonstrate the geography as I pictured it: I think the turtle in that image is the only reason the town has dire snapping turtles as a mascot. :B
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 02:10 |
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Gharbad the Weak posted:There's a guy recruiting for the 4e Zeitgeist 1-30 campaign in Trad Games right now. It'll use Fantasy Grounds with some PbP elements between sessions, showing what you're doing in downtime and such. Live dialogue will be in text, which is... weird? I've never done that. Much as I'd love to, I can't make that time.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 06:23 |
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11pm start #gmtproblems
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 08:20 |
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Splicer posted:#gmtproblems
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 12:41 |
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I mean, heck, I'd be up for a Euro timezone game if you guys are. Not the world's biggest fan of voice chat though.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 12:46 |
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My Lovely Horse posted:Not the world's biggest fan of voice chat though. Eh? Do you run your Gardmore Abbey game by chat, or live?
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 12:48 |
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That's a live game. I was in a text chat game a while ago and I will grant that there are issues surrounding the question whose turn it is to talk right now and getting lengthy dialogue in. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jul 12, 2017 |
# ? Jul 11, 2017 12:51 |
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The nice thing about text games is that you can say stuff that'd be embarrassing or hard to say aloud while still keeping a snappy pace.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 15:33 |
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Gharbad the Weak posted:There's a guy recruiting for the 4e Zeitgeist 1-30 campaign in Trad Games right now. It'll use Fantasy Grounds with some PbP elements between sessions, showing what you're doing in downtime and such. Live dialogue will be in text, which is... weird? I've never done that. That's... actually a good time for me? And I've been wanting to get back into SOMEthing since my group disbanded, not to mention I had an idea laying around from our unstarted Zeitgeist campaign. I should submit something.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 15:43 |
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As a guy currently running the Level 30 parts of the 1-30 Zeitgeist campaign, do it. It's really good. I have no idea how I am going to top this for my next campaign, but huge ZG spoilers follow: I am planning on doing the obvious and running a game set in the new world the PCs created, assuming it's interesting enough for a game setting, which it almost certainly will be.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 16:21 |
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Countblanc posted:The nice thing about text games is that you can say stuff that'd be embarrassing or hard to say aloud while still keeping a snappy pace. It also lets me embrace my love of the Space Quest and Quest for Glory narrator. I can't get away with that verbally.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 18:00 |
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Section Z posted:It also lets me embrace my love of the Space Quest and Quest for Glory narrator. I can't get away with that verbally. Did you mean Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold Mage, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, Kobold, or Kobold? >Flee South
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 18:02 |
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Houserule Idea that I literally just posted over on ENW. Any time a power or feat gives a bonus or penalty to a d20 roll* that's based on one of your stats, the bonus or penalty is fixed to +/-4 (for your class's primary stat) or +/-3 (for a secondary stat). Reason: Your target numbers are already scaling on a linear basis to your level and your stats. Scaling the bonus or penalty breaks this relationship. * I could be talked down to 'only attack rolls.'
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 20:01 |
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I'd stick to attacks/defenses, since those are designed to respond to the smallest changes, and as-is it nerfs a bunch of other feats such as Duelist's Panache, which lets a rogue add Charisma to Athletics skills so a swashbuckler can actually be good at them.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 21:23 |
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LightWarden posted:I'd stick to attacks/defenses, since those are designed to respond to the smallest changes, and as-is it nerfs a bunch of other feats such as Duelist's Panache, which lets a rogue add Charisma to Athletics skills so a swashbuckler can actually be good at them. Skills are a lot more likely to rely on ... well, I guess tertiary-and-lower ... stats, which need more help.
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# ? Jul 11, 2017 21:31 |
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dwarf74 posted:I find that argument pretty convincing, yep. I have found it fascinating how many games separate out "Good at disarming traps" with "Able to see them coming". And then how many more split them off into different stats, often involving one you can't really afford to ramp up... While still making it as hard, or harder, to detect the traps your assumed job is to disarm.
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 00:41 |
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Dex/Wis isn't bad on a ranged rogue, since you can MC ranger and go into Darkstalker to do stealth stuff, or you can be a scout/hunter/ranged ranger and pick up Thievery somewhere, but you do have to jump through some hoops to get a good trap detector and disabler on the same character. At least it's not 3e's "literally can't disable some traps without the right class feature".
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 01:52 |
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Section Z posted:I have found it fascinating how many games separate out "Good at disarming traps" with "Able to see them coming". And then how many more split them off into different stats, often involving one you can't really afford to ramp up... While still making it as hard, or harder, to detect the traps your assumed job is to disarm.
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 01:57 |
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Has anyone converted Pathfinder Adventure Paths to 4e? If so, what are common pitfalls or some conventional wisdom I should follow? I know to, in general, cut the number of meaningless fights down, since 4e doesn't really handle those great, but is there anything else I should be aware of?
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 17:43 |
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Whybird posted:Do you mean in terms of character building, or in terms of roleplaying that isn't about fighting things? The latter, yeah. I want to be able to do things like: An epic chase across rooftops, sweet talking the baron into not invading the nice baron next door, scaling a mountain and kicking in the door of the ancient, lost temple of a forgotten god, building their own city, etc... I want to encourage them to do things both heroic and to embrace the open ended world they can explore. I also want the characters to be able to utilize their own abilities in ways to help them achieve those goals. Because they can do incredible things, during the chase they do things like "I summon a stone wall in front of them!" or "I plant an illusion in his mind that there's a perfect escape route, instead of a sheer drop that will break his legs". If they're scaling a mountain for a few days, being able to help others up sheer surfaces, leaping across chasms, ignoring or resisting severe cold, low oxygen and possibly dehydration/starvation, etc... But how? Here, let me quote another poster. ImpactVector posted:There aren't any real analogues to 5e's spells in the sense of "fuzzily worded rules bits that need to be interpreted for some problem solving effect", if that's what you're looking for. If I'm understanding you correctly, maybe this could be how I do it. In my head, if a player can shoot fire bolts at will, I feel like letting them set things on fire should just come naturally. They can light candles, they can light campfires, they might be able to light a house on fire. To me, "My guy can hurl fire at will" translates into "I can produce fire at will, so I'll never go without a hot cup of tea again". I like the idea of combining a skill check with an associated power though. Something like, "I want to push this door open." "Ok, do you have any powers that might help you push things?" "I can shove monsters via this encounter power if they're bigger than me.." "Alright, roll strength using that power." Like that? That could definitely work, where a player wants to pull something off and suggests a power that lets them do it. Then I can determine a skill for them to roll against it? Or an ability check?
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 20:55 |
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Most of the time you don't even need to bring powers into it and skill checks are enough. Do encourage your players to flavour their skill checks according to their characters' themes and established abilities. The way it's meant to be is you use your attack powers in combat, and your utility powers and skills are fair game for any situation, but you can improvise around powers. For example, pushing a door open would just be an Athletics check. (However, if a player has an encounter power that lets them push stuff, and they're willing to spend it on the door, then sure, give them a bonus to the Athletics check. No attack roll necessary for the power, they want to spend a resource to gain an advantage, that's totally fine - I just wouldn't let them rest up directly after the door cause then it's not really a spent resource. There should be an implicit danger of getting into a fight after the door so they have to choose - use this power now for the door and maybe miss it in the fight, or save it, have a harder time with the door, but if there's a fight, push time?) The dude who can make fire can be a bit more complex, and what you have him roll depends on what he wants to do. Light candles, light a campfire, make tea - sure. Don't even have him roll, that stuff would be near effortless anyway. Light a house on fire, that can be Arcana - but what does he want to achieve by burning down the house? Is the problem "how do we light this house on fire"? Then he could just use his fire power. Is the problem "how do we convince the evil villagers we're serious" and his idea how to do that is to light up a house? That could be an Intimidate check. Context is everything. Here's how I'd approach your other examples: - summon a stone wall: very specific effect, I feel this should be restricted to characters who actually have that power (if you allow everyone to do it just with a skill check, what good is any power?) - plant illusion: Bluff, as long as it's established this character can do illusion stuff. - help others up the mountain, jump chasms: Athletics, no question - ignore cold, starvation etc.: Endurance, again, no question I'd get a Rules Compendium and read through the skills chapter. There are tons of applications baked in that are exactly the kind of heroic fantasy stuff you want, and a bunch of helpful suggestions for improvising with each skill.
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 21:18 |
User0015 posted:If I'm understanding you correctly, maybe this could be how I do it. In my opinion, traditional D&D spells are really bad at this. You're not playing any real kind of "game" with them in modern D&D except "outwit/surprise the DM". Generally there are enough pauses in non-combat time that you can rest and recover spent resources, and most of the "I do a thing" spells don't have a roll associated with them so they can't really interact with any other mechanics even if you wanted them to. I agree that a player shouldn't roll to light a candle. There's a concept that gets thrown around a lot called "just say yes", which basically means that dice should only hit the table when both success and failure are interesting. Otherwise, who cares? Sure, you do it. Good work. So in both the candle and door opening, I'd just let them do it. Or maybe if there was a time constraint and they wanted the door open NOW with no chance of failure, I'd make them use the power and have it be expended for the fight that's right behind the door. But burning a house down? Yeah, that's a roll. If you fail, it takes too long and someone notices. And while it's not necessarily a thing in the basic rules, once you get the dice on the table you can start to interact with mechanics. Maybe you have bennies you can spend every session to reroll. Or they could spend a healing surge for +2. Plus, spells are generally limited to a select number of classes. So if you like hitting things with sharp objects, you're probably out. Unfortunately, outside of spells and combat, there really aren't that many rules in the game. This is kind of true in most games that don't have some kind of meta-currency though.
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# ? Jul 12, 2017 21:44 |
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13th Age has a good guideline for using powers outside of combat, that are fairly adaptable to 4E:quote:Rituals
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 02:57 |
Next week we're going to do some kind of one shot before we start a new campaign (of 5e) and I thought I would give 4e a try and see if the other players like it. Two of them and myself have played it but its been at least 3-4 years. Who has a generous list of easy pregens? I'm up to date on the character builder but man am I out of practice on making 4e gubbins.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 22:07 |
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Next week we're going to do some kind of one shot before we start a new campaign (of 5e) and I thought I would give 4e a try and see if the other players like it. Two of them and myself have played it but its been at least 3-4 years. Who has a generous list of easy pregens? I'm up to date on the character builder but man am I out of practice on making 4e gubbins.
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 22:28 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 08:33 |
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Next week we're going to do some kind of one shot before we start a new campaign (of 5e) and I thought I would give 4e a try and see if the other players like it. Two of them and myself have played it but its been at least 3-4 years. Who has a generous list of easy pregens? I'm up to date on the character builder but man am I out of practice on making 4e gubbins. Also here are some level 1 characters
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# ? Jul 13, 2017 22:31 |