Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Looks like we're the grognards, now.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Looks like we're the grognards, now.

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Turtlicious: Sep 17, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Countblanc posted:

whats lame about it

I shouldn't use lame, because I get that other people like things I hate. I just feel like it's anti thetical to my idea of what DnD should be. Like you can make really cool fantasy worlds on your own, it's the only fun thing outside of the game I as a DND get to do. If I shortcut through that piece of work I'd feel robbed.

Like a custom world for your players to run in is this epic awesome experience, why would you want to put in someone elses work?

# ? Oct 23, 2017 02:06

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# ? May 9, 2024 03:32

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

Turtlicious posted:

I shouldn't use lame, because I get that other people like things I hate. I just feel like it's anti thetical to my idea of what DnD should be. Like you can make really cool fantasy worlds on your own, it's the only fun thing outside of the game I as a DND get to do. If I shortcut through that piece of work I'd feel robbed.

Like a custom world for your players to run in is this epic awesome experience, why would you want to put in someone elses work?

For me, it's because sometimes, other people are better at making things than me.
I also inject a lot of my own stuff into premade adventures, as they make great base stories for players to ignore.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 02:08

Mordiceius: Nov 10, 2007; If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!

Spiteski posted:

For me, it's because sometimes, other people are better at making things than me.
I also inject a lot of my own stuff into premade adventures, as they make great base stories for players to ignore.

That and I want to play D&D but I don't have the time to create a whole world and custom adventure.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 02:39

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Turtlicious posted:

I shouldn't use lame, because I get that other people like things I hate. I just feel like it's anti thetical to my idea of what DnD should be. Like you can make really cool fantasy worlds on your own, it's the only fun thing outside of the game I as a DND get to do. If I shortcut through that piece of work I'd feel robbed.

Like a custom world for your players to run in is this epic awesome experience, why would you want to put in someone elses work?

Because I am a good DM, but Zeitgeist is better than anything I could come up with on my own. The long-term planning, complications, world-building, etc. It's the complete package.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 03:00

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

I think many of us are poisoned against modules because of how insufferably lame the vast majority of modules are.

(Forgotten Realms is terrible, first and foremost).

# ? Oct 23, 2017 03:02

Mordiceius: Nov 10, 2007; If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!

Reavers of Harkenwold and Madness at Gardmore abbey are both pretty dope, as far as official modules go.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 03:13

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

dont even fink about it posted:

I think many of us are poisoned against modules because of how insufferably lame the vast majority of modules are.

(Forgotten Realms is terrible, first and foremost).

I think this is mostly true too. The best modules I've read have been ones where they've had a setting, and a doomsday style chain of events happening, and then you let the players loose inside this place. Allows much more creative freedom than any story-driven adventure.

Zeitgeist has been the absolute exception to this though. It's a couple of steps above anything else I've played or run.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 03:28

bookkeeper: Jul 14, 2010; it means "the kapital"

None of my players have played Dark Souls 2, so I'm porting the world and some story bits for a 4e campaign (explicitly; it's not a secret). We just had our try at 5e and were pretty universally lukewarm on it, so we're going to try out 4e now. I have never played 4e and half the players haven't either, so is there anything specific I should know? We're all using the character builder, and I'm using a web utility to balance necessary custom monsters.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 03:52

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

bookkeeper posted:

None of my players have played Dark Souls 2, so I'm porting the world and some story bits for a 4e campaign (explicitly; it's not a secret). We just had our try at 5e and were pretty universally lukewarm on it, so we're going to try out 4e now. I have never played 4e and half the players haven't either, so is there anything specific I should know? We're all using the character builder, and I'm using a web utility to balance necessary custom monsters.

Got a few in my post history.

PMush Perfect posted:

I feel like this needs more emphasizing. 4E is mechanically very well-tuned, but that can end up making feeling the 'baked-in' flavor fairly restrictive. In practical terms, what this means is reskin everything. Does someone want to play something that's mechanically very like a Fighter but actually a magic kung-fu coolguy? Rad. Just keep a note somewhere that his awesome kick is "really" a warhammer and he's "really" wearing an armor and shield, and you're off and rolling. Really like how the beholder works mechanically, but can't fit a beholder into your campaign? Reskin it into a different monster, maybe change a damage type, and you're good. (Plus, you can then re-use the fight with an ACTUAL Beholder later).

Party balance all but requires that there be at least one Leader, one Defender, and one Striker, in descending order of necessity. Past that, people can pick whatever they want. I'd recommend starting at Level 3. You don't get any of the really cool power/monster variety that makes 4e shine until that point, but it's early enough to not overwhelm people with options. (Edit: This is also a great excuse to start in medias res.)

Also worth mentioning: Use monsters from Monster Manual 3 or the Monster Vault. The older monsters are built on some wonky math that they later fixed, and end up being big boring sacks of HP that aren't very threatening. Sure, you can use one of the old monsters and fix the math if you really want to, but why do that when you can use the good math and reskin everything.

Also also, use a lot of minions. Minions are a great way to make a fight seem more threatening on the surface while also making players with area attacks get to feel like badasses. I'd recommend making it clear which are minions, though, so no one ends up feeling salty when they expend a big power on something that ends up having only 1 HP.

And finally, steal DMing tricks from video games. There are people who will call 4E "video game-y". That's going to happen no matter what you do, and those tricks get used because they work, so don't be ashamed of having, say, a collapsing boss arena that gets a little smaller every round. Or having a mini-boss Elite, who uses weaker versions of a later Solo's powers/mechanics. Or cutting a solo's HP in half, and when that form dies, it has a "second form" that's actually a different solo monster reskinned (and also with half HP).

PMush Perfect posted:

Yeah, the sweet spot for "ow" monster damage is 'oh Jesus', but MM1 trends towards 'oh', and some of the really early brutes can end up overshooting into OH JESUS.

PMush Perfect posted:

A solo that gets multiple actions a turn (but forfeits the first to drop their worst condition(s) automatically) plus a bunch of minions is the standard response [to a powerful Controller]. For example, see the dragons in the Monster Vault. But fights that are just that kind of thing reskinned over and over get pretty old. It can be expanded to just generally making some but not all of the monsters in an encounter resistant or straight up immune to certain conditions. (Like, say, a giant immobile, magical autoturret that doesn't care about being slowed and can't be proned.)

The next answer is one that solves a lot of issues; make the monsters not the actual goal of the encounter, but an obstacle towards it. Video games are a great object lesson here. "Hold the line for X rounds", "protect these fleeing civilians", "get from A to B through all these obstacles in X rounds", etc.

PMush Perfect posted:

Reduce monster HP. (I believe the Paul fix is -3 HP per level).

Not that I'm aware of, but also related to the above, don't try to 1:1 battles with versions from earlier editions. One of the greatest mistakes about 4e new DMs make is filler battles. 4e combat takes too long for each fight to not feel important in some way. If you can't imagine anyone saying "hey, remember that fight where...", then you probably shouldn't make it into a fight. Maybe a roleplay encounter, or a skill challenge.

Another fun trick I've found is an "attack check". Someone (or everyone) makes a roll as if it were a skill check, but with the attack roll for an MBA/RBA (as appropriate), and there are rewards or penalties as with any other skill check (Especially combat-related penalties such as losing a surge). It's a good way to skim through conflicts in older modules that are important thematically, but unremarkable mechanically.

PMush Perfect posted:

Treasure parcels are a very formalized system for making roughly sure that players don't fall behind on the Red Queen's Race that is 4e equipment.

If you're using Inherent Bonuses, you can kind of disregard it entirely.

PMush Perfect posted:

[The weaknesses of 4e]

1. Learn to love reskinning. If there's a concept you want to play, but don't like the fluff, or you want to use a monster in your fight but can't think of a reason for a squad of duergar to show up in the middle of a forest, reskin. Change the fluff.
2. You can't really just bounce the numbers around. The math is tuned a specific way, and if you start deviating from it too far in either direction, combat kind of just falls apart. This includes loot, which is why the Inherent Bonuses rules are so useful.
3. Kind of a fusion of the first two: Players are expected to build a competent character in one or more of the combat Roles. Your class' primary stat should always be at least an 18. 20, if possible. If you want to play, for example, a Fighter with low STR, you're going to have a miserable time and just drag yourself and your friends down. Instead, find (for example), a melee Striker whose powers are based of DEX instead, and reskin.
4. If you're missing one or more of the roles, encounter design gets a bit trickier. For example, a party with no Defender is going to have trouble keeping their squishies from taking the heat, and one with no Controller is going to have a hard time dealing with mobs or enemies with a lot of maneuvering and momentum.
5. The out of combat rules are a little... malnourished, and the skill list has been pared down dramatically as well. You might have to get creative with a few things now and again.
6. As you get up into the higher levels (especially Epic Tier, levels 21-30), players and DMs start to get a little weighed down with options and the balance of the combat kind of comes apart.

Other things I can think of:
- Give your players the Versatile Expertise and Improved Defenses feats for free. They fix some... 'leaky' math that starts to become apparent right around 5th level, so you might as well give it at chargen instead of having to remember later.
- Arbitrarily deciding when to level up rather than counting XP is probably a good idea. Maybe after every 2 or 3 sessions, depending on how long your sessions are.
- Aim for monsters that hit hard but don't have too much HP, especially with Solos. It makes combat feel fast and frantic, rather than a slog. And with Dark Souls flavor, you can go a little bit farther every now and then, and create a fight that might actually kill a couple of them until they pick up on the gimmick.

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Oct 23, 2017

# ? Oct 23, 2017 04:30

bookkeeper: Jul 14, 2010; it means "the kapital"

Good, it looks like I'm doing some of that already, and the rest is good advice. (Plus stealing tricks from video games comes naturally when I'm almost entirely ripping off a video game). Pate wields a spear, but he's a smooth talker and sneaky bastard so I made him a reskinned Rogue.

We're currently starting at level 2 and planning on progressing rapidly (to prevent people feeling too overloaded), since we ended the 5e campaign at level 6.

I had effectively stolen Minions from 4e to use in the 5e campaign occasionally, and I really liked them, so I plan to keep them coming. The party makeup will influence my encounter-building, though (there's currently no Controller, but two people have yet to choose classes).

Reducing monster HP and including "attack checks" is good stuff. I also plan to stick closely to the DMG treasure guide (the DMG is super useful about this kind of stuff); I gave out too much magic equipment in 5e and I was afraid of throwing off balance, so I'm glad for the guidelines.

The game will probably end around level 20~ so I'm not overly concerned with epic-level complexity.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 04:50

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Inherent Bonuses are good for that. They automatically add the math from when they're supposed to get a +2 weapon or whatever and you can just flavor that as them reinforcing stuff. Then actual magic items can still feel special without them falling behind on the math.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 05:05

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

PMush Perfect posted:

Inherent Bonuses are good for that. They automatically add the math from when they're supposed to get a +2 spear and you can just flavor that as them reinforcing stuff. Then actual magic items can still feel special without them falling behind on the math.

So can you just detached magical item effects and properties from the enhancement bonuses and give them out roughly at levels they'd be available with no issues?

# ? Oct 23, 2017 05:06

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Spiteski posted:

So can you just detached magical item effects and properties from the enhancement bonuses and give them out roughly at levels they'd be available with no issues?

Basically, yeah. Especially if you have your players make wishlists of items they think would be neat to find at some point.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 05:19

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

I like the idea of having this fully built setting just loving ready to go with big sets of plot hooks and such to play off of, but a) in my experience people who do that kinda thing always go too far and end up making a "solved" setting with no actual room for adventurers, and b) between life, work, and general hostile brain chemistry, that's an amount of work and planning that is, in all honesty, not possible for me to do.

I'd probably just steal wholesale from a video game like Avernum.

Also I'd love to try Zietgeist out again, but probably not as someone with ties to Crysillyr or however it's spelled. Admitingly we sadly never got past Heroic so I dunno if the Church and it's theology play a bigger role later on, but in retrospect, I absolutely should've taken the lack of a theme as a sign that it wasn't going to be a big player.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 05:31

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

ProfessorCirno posted:

Also I'd love to try Zietgeist out again, but probably not as someone with ties to Crysillyr or however it's spelled. Admitingly we sadly never got past Heroic so I dunno if the Church and it's theology play a bigger role later on, but in retrospect, I absolutely should've taken the lack of a theme as a sign that it wasn't going to be a big player.

I'm disappointed there wasn't a theme because yeah, it gets much more important in Paragon tier.

# ? Oct 23, 2017 05:34

Gharbad the Weak: Feb 23, 2008; This too good for you.

The important part is if there's a zeitgeist game that can handle pacific time zone, I want in. I'd rather not do a play-by-post, though.

War of the Burning Skies has been fun, but I doubt I could get my current DM to even think about running a 4e megacampaign again.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 02:07

TheCog: Jul 30, 2012; I AM ZEPA AND I CLAIM THESE LANDS BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST

If we're taking a headcount I'd love to be in an online zeitgeist campaign that wasn't pbp

# ? Oct 25, 2017 02:27

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Gharbad the Weak posted:

War of the Burning Skies has been fun, but I doubt I could get my current DM to even think about running a 4e megacampaign again.

I was of the impression that War of the Burning Skies was not that great? Or at least the 4e version because the conversion doesn't go well with best-practice 4e encounter design?

# ? Oct 25, 2017 02:31

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was of the impression that War of the Burning Skies was not that great? Or at least the 4e version because the conversion doesn't go well with best-practice 4e encounter design?

It is a highly regarded 3e adventure path. And there's probably some really great stuff in it.

But the 4e mechanical conversion is dogshit.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 04:25

Cthulhu Dreams: Dec 11, 2010; If I pretend to be Cthulhu no one will know I'm a baseball robot.

dwarf74 posted:

It is a highly regarded 3e adventure path. And there's probably some really great stuff in it.

But the 4e mechanical conversion is dogshit.

It's.... not to bad? Actually it's all over the shop. Some modules are all right, and in other ones you're like: Use the minion rules you hopeless dipshit. I've run both half way through (still going), and Zeitgeist is a lot better but WoTBS is fine.

TBF I am updating monster defenses and damages with the business card maths and level 1 damage forever that smooths out some of the rough edges. I also automatically convert all 'underlevelled' monsters to minions as I go through which has led to some totally ridiculous battles but the players like it.

But yeah, compared to Zeitgeist I have to do all this work.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 04:40

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

4e adventures suffer from the devs themselves really not having 100% grasp on their own game and how it worked, especially early on. Of course, it's made worse by the fact that those early adventures were made by Mike Mearls, who easily understood 4e the least.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 05:24

kaynorr: Dec 31, 2003

Speaking as the person who is currently inflicting 4e WotBS on Gharbad and others, the two main problems are that the story has some janky parts where it just doesn't hold together properly at several levels, and it was created early enough in 4e's lifetime that none of the mechanics were really finally honed yet. Minions are underused, solos are bad, battlefields tend to be boring, etc. Right now I'm finding at epic tier that auras are loving everywhere, which is a bit of a bookkeeping nightmare (the one thing Fantasy Grounds can't track at all are aura on/off triggers). It also suffers from having filler fights, but I'm trying to make good use of the virtual tabletop so that they don't drag on (I think we got through five encounters in one three hour session as our record), but still have the intended effect of making you play smart lest you not have any healing surges left for the big battles.

I'm glad I bought it (I could have never run a 1-30 campaign from scratch), but I'm still having to spend a fair amount of prep time tweaking the encounters (or in some cases redoing them from scratch, if it's one of the poo poo solos or climactic battles). Given the universal praise for Zeitgeist I don't think there is any reason to play War of the Burning Sky over it unless your players really don't like the steampunk elements of the setting. Scales of War (the adventure path from Dragon magazine during the 4e era) also seemed to be, on paper at least, pretty solid. More planeswalking and high fantasy, probably a similar amount of prep time given that many if not all of the encounters predate MM3.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 15:58

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

ProfessorCirno posted:

4e adventures suffer from the devs themselves really not having 100% grasp on their own game and how it worked, especially early on. Of course, it's made worse by the fact that those early adventures were made by Mike Mearls, who easily understood 4e the least.

And also they fired a bunch of the people who made 4e what it is before they could make any adventures.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 16:19

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

kaynorr posted:

Speaking as the person who is currently inflicting 4e WotBS on Gharbad and others, the two main problems are that the story has some janky parts where it just doesn't hold together properly at several levels, and it was created early enough in 4e's lifetime that none of the mechanics were really finally honed yet. Minions are underused, solos are bad, battlefields tend to be boring, etc. Right now I'm finding at epic tier that auras are loving everywhere, which is a bit of a bookkeeping nightmare (the one thing Fantasy Grounds can't track at all are aura on/off triggers). It also suffers from having filler fights, but I'm trying to make good use of the virtual tabletop so that they don't drag on (I think we got through five encounters in one three hour session as our record), but still have the intended effect of making you play smart lest you not have any healing surges left for the big battles.

I'm glad I bought it (I could have never run a 1-30 campaign from scratch), but I'm still having to spend a fair amount of prep time tweaking the encounters (or in some cases redoing them from scratch, if it's one of the poo poo solos or climactic battles). Given the universal praise for Zeitgeist I don't think there is any reason to play War of the Burning Sky over it unless your players really don't like the steampunk elements of the setting. Scales of War (the adventure path from Dragon magazine during the 4e era) also seemed to be, on paper at least, pretty solid. More planeswalking and high fantasy, probably a similar amount of prep time given that many if not all of the encounters predate MM3.

I've got a Scales of War game that I'm playing in that we're up to Level 25 in , and it's extremely hit and miss from module to module.
It's also very VERY linear, or at least feels that way. It's almost entirely focused on combat resolutions to everything.

# ? Oct 25, 2017 21:37

The Crotch: Oct 16, 2012; by Nyc_Tattoo

The shocking flame feat lets a genasi add either +2 fire or +2 lightning damage to their attacks. Should this damage apply before or after a cold weapon turns the attack to cold?

# ? Oct 28, 2017 01:17

Jolyne Cujoh: Dec 7, 2012; It's not like I've got no worries...
But I'll be fine.

It's extra damage, not more damage or smth so it's after

# ? Oct 28, 2017 03:31

turboraton: Aug 28, 2011

I posted on the Next thread. I'll be DMing for some friends my custom made Eberron campaign which I treasure. I'm happy that I'll DnD after like two years but...

God drat it I wish we could play 4e, with the math fixing, the dndinsider software and the free feats this game was so beautiful

turboraton fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Nov 8, 2017

# ? Nov 8, 2017 20:20

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

Sounds like you should just run 4E, then.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 20:39

turboraton: Aug 28, 2011

Lemon-Lime posted:

Sounds like you should just run 4E, then.

They wanna play 5e. Most Peru is like that, people wanting to either play 3.5, Pathfinder or the newest version because 4e is too videogamey. I'm fine with playing anything to be honest because my campaign is fire. But Jesus 4e is such a good system with the fixes wish we could play that instead.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 20:43

slap me and kiss me: Apr 1, 2008; You best protect ya neck

turboraton posted:

They wanna play 5e. Most Peru is like that, people wanting to either play 3.5, Pathfinder or the newest version because 4e is too videogamey. I'm fine with playing anything to be honest because my campaign is fire. But Jesus 4e is such a good system with the fixes wish we could play that instead.

Build it and they will come

# ? Nov 8, 2017 21:15

ImpactVector: Feb 24, 2007; HAHAHAHA FOOLS!!
I AM SO SMART!

Uh oh. What did he do now?; Nap Ghost

GM burnout is the number 1 killer of campaigns IME. Always run what your heart tells you. Players will show up for the pizza and fart jokes regardless.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 21:25

Lemon-Lime: Aug 6, 2009

You're the DM, just run what you want to run. If they don't like it, they can choose to GM or not to play. :v:

# ? Nov 8, 2017 21:29

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

I met a guy at work who wants to get started on RPGs with his buddies. He actually came up to me and said "you know about D&D, right" and I still don't know how he spotted it, but the point is, I'm totally down to DM an adventure or two for these guys, and you better believe I'm using 4E.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 21:34

Madmarker: Jan 7, 2007

My Lovely Horse posted:

I met a guy at work who wants to get started on RPGs with his buddies. He actually came up to me and said "you know about D&D, right" and I still don't know how he spotted it, but the point is, I'm totally down to DM an adventure or two for these guys, and you better believe I'm using 4E.

You can spot a D&D, MTG or Board game dork a mile away. As all of the above I've been approached about one or all of these hobbies multiple times, even when dressed in like suits and poo poo for weddings and the like.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 22:33

Dick Burglar: Mar 6, 2006

Yeah, nerds tend to know their own. It's like gaydar, but for nerds.

# ? Nov 8, 2017 22:35

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

Dick Burglar posted:

Yeah, nerds tend to know their own. It's like gaydar, but for nerds.

We could call it gaynerd

# ? Nov 9, 2017 00:22

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Spiteski posted:

gaynerd

You rang?

# ? Nov 9, 2017 05:31

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

I'm getting ready to run a 4e game for some friends of mine but I haven't played in a long time, what's the best option for character building nowadays? Still the online character builder (which apparently still exists after all)?

# ? Nov 11, 2017 06:16

The Crotch: Oct 16, 2012; by Nyc_Tattoo

Sometimes, the best option is in your PMs.

# ? Nov 11, 2017 06:19

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# ? May 9, 2024 03:32

slap me and kiss me: Apr 1, 2008; You best protect ya neck

Try to find masterplan. It's great

# ? Nov 11, 2017 07:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Looks like we're the grognards, now.

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