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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dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

LightWarden posted:

Over on Humble Bundle they're doing IDW's Dungeons & Dragons comics, including every volume of the 4e D&D comic for just $1. They're excellent, and writer John Rogers was also the one who the Feywild section in the Manual of the Planes.

Oh neat and at $15 you get the classic DC comic lines - well, AD&D and FR anyways. I didn't notice Spelljammer or Dragonlance.

# ? Jul 14, 2018 17:48

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 17:10

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

LightWarden posted:

Over on Humble Bundle they're doing IDW's Dungeons & Dragons comics, including every volume of the 4e D&D comic for just $1. They're excellent, and writer John Rogers was also the one who the Feywild section in the Manual of the Planes.

No joke, the John Rogers comics are what made me start DMing again after I burnt out for a while.

# ? Jul 14, 2018 17:51

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

I've never gotten anywhere near these, how big are these comics? And are they fairly complete stories, or is there like "Well, great, now I've got to figure out where the rest of the plot is" ?

# ? Jul 14, 2018 18:44

Zeerust: May 1, 2008; They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

So I'm taking my Dark Sun game off a 2(3???) year hiatus, and was curious if the DDI stuff is still accessible/usable. At this point am I just better off trying to track down the offline equivalents? I remember the online builder missing character options anyway.

# ? Jul 14, 2018 20:56

LightWarden: Mar 18, 2007; Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

Gharbad the Weak posted:

I've never gotten anywhere near these, how big are these comics? And are they fairly complete stories, or is there like "Well, great, now I've got to figure out where the rest of the plot is" ?

Fairly complete, John Rogers comic comes in three books of about 5 issues each that focus around a different adventure with its own arc and series of encounters and events. The series was canceled after that, so while there were plot threads for further adventures there's no sudden cliffhangers or any wider continuity than the three books.

Zeerust posted:

So I'm taking my Dark Sun game off a 2(3???) year hiatus, and was curious if the DDI stuff is still accessible/usable. At this point am I just better off trying to track down the offline equivalents? I remember the online builder missing character options anyway.

Don't even know if you can subscribe anymore. At one point I believe automatic renewals worked but new subscriptions didn't, but I may be wrong on that.

LightWarden fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jul 14, 2018

# ? Jul 14, 2018 21:07

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

Gharbad the Weak posted:

I've never gotten anywhere near these, how big are these comics? And are they fairly complete stories, or is there like "Well, great, now I've got to figure out where the rest of the plot is" ?

The John Rogers IDW volumes collect 32 pages each, and there are no crossovers, though it ends somewhat abruptly when Mike Mearls pushed the nuke button on the 4e line. I think the other comics were similarly self contained.

# ? Jul 14, 2018 21:11

Generic Octopus: Mar 27, 2010

Zeerust posted:

So I'm taking my Dark Sun game off a 2(3???) year hiatus, and was curious if the DDI stuff is still accessible/usable. At this point am I just better off trying to track down the offline equivalents? I remember the online builder missing character options anyway.

LightWarden posted:

Don't even know if you can subscribe anymore. At one point I believe automatic renewals worked but new subscriptions didn't, but I may be wrong on that.

It's all still accessible, even if you're getting a new sub. Getting an offline CB/Compendium set up is better though.

# ? Jul 15, 2018 04:55

Kurieg: Jul 19, 2012; RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20

LightWarden posted:

Over on Humble Bundle they're doing IDW's Dungeons & Dragons comics, including every volume of the 4e D&D comic for just $1. They're excellent, and writer John Rogers was also the one who the Feywild section in the Manual of the Planes.

Yessssssss.

Thank you for letting me know. I've been trying to find the fells five stuff for a while now.

# ? Jul 15, 2018 05:41

Zeerust: May 1, 2008; They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

Generic Octopus posted:

It's all still accessible, even if you're getting a new sub. Getting an offline CB/Compendium set up is better though.

The site is accessible, but there's no option to buy a new DDI subscription, afaict.

Obviously direct links to this stuff is presumably verboten, but does anyone have advice on getting one set up? I remember the dead thread using CBLoader, is that still the best contemporary option?

# ? Jul 16, 2018 09:09

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

It's a rock and a hard place. The "official" builder barely works, and AFAIK only works at all on Internet Explorer at this point.

On the other hand, installing the offline builder and actually making it work is one of the worst experiences with software I have ever had.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 09:15

starkebn: May 18, 2004; "Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"

Zeerust posted:

The site is accessible, but there's no option to buy a new DDI subscription, afaict.

Obviously direct links to this stuff is presumably verboten, but does anyone have advice on getting one set up? I remember the dead thread using CBLoader, is that still the best contemporary option?

http://rogue-elements.obsidianportal.com/wikis/offline-character-builder

# ? Jul 16, 2018 09:54

Zeerust: May 1, 2008; They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed and refused to believe - that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.

The Mega link doesn't seem to work, but the install instructions clued me in on the files I was missing to get CBLoader fully operational. Thanks so much!

# ? Jul 16, 2018 13:01

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

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

IIRC the main thing you want to do for the offline builder is not install it to the default location. Permissions have gotten a lot tighter for the Program Files folder in newer versions of Windows.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 13:53

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

ImpactVector posted:

IIRC the main thing you want to do for the offline builder is not install it to the default location. Permissions have gotten a lot tighter for the Program Files folder in newer versions of Windows.

Yep. Whenever I PM someone the files and instructions, I make sure to include this. Permissions have gotten way tighter with Windows 8 and 10 since CBLoader was released.

It isn't a bad process at all as long as you put it in C:\Games\WotC\ or whatever

# ? Jul 16, 2018 14:56

Generic Octopus: Mar 27, 2010

Zeerust posted:

The site is accessible, but there's no option to buy a new DDI subscription, afaict.

Oversight on my part; if you've had ddi in the past, you can renew from your account summary page.

You can still buy a brand-new sub using a direct link to their store, but yea, WotC doesn't make it easy to give them money.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 16:53

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

It's hard to even tell how much of that is intentional, Wizards has only ever been vaguely adjacent to good web design. Right around when they closed Gleemax, they accidentally broke the rating and commenting on Gatherer, and they've never fixed it, but the card search itself is still kept up to date. Everything since is just permanently stuck at 5 stars with 0 votes.

# ? Jul 16, 2018 20:22

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

dwarf74 posted:

Yep. Whenever I PM someone the files and instructions, I make sure to include this. Permissions have gotten way tighter with Windows 8 and 10 since CBLoader was released.

It isn't a bad process at all as long as you put it in C:\Games\WotC\ or whatever

Any hints on making it play nice with Wine on a Mac?

I�ve done it on a PC before but on a Mac it was one of the worst evenings to even attempt it. But now the party is level 12 and doing four people by hand is getting pretty exhausting.

# ? Jul 17, 2018 06:27

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Xiahou Dun posted:

Any hints on making it play nice with Wine on a Mac?

I’ve done it on a PC before but on a Mac it was one of the worst evenings to even attempt it. But now the party is level 12 and doing four people by hand is getting pretty exhausting.

Sorry, man. I've never used a Mac for any serious purposes...

# ? Jul 17, 2018 14:26

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

If you're using Inherent Bonuses, you don't need the feat tax feats, right?

If so, would you still permit them in a game using Inherent Bonuses (as an additional leg up)?

# ? Jul 18, 2018 00:12

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

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

If you're using Inherent Bonuses, you don't need the feat tax feats, right?

If so, would you still permit them in a game using Inherent Bonuses (as an additional leg up)?

You still do:

gradenko_2000 posted:

I was phoneposting before, but here's a breakdown of why inherent bonuses, expertise feats, and improved defenses are necessary:

Monsters increase their attack rolls and defenses by +1 per level. This means that, over the course of the whole game, they'll have received 29 increases.

1. The Half-level bonus that players get obviously works out to 15 increases over the course of the whole game, so you need another 14 more.

2. The +6 bonuses that you get from items or inherent bonuses works out to another 6 increases, so you need another 8 more.

3. You get a +1 increase to your primary ability score modifier with the ability score increases at levels [4+8], [11+14], [18+21], and [24+28]. That's 4 increases, so you need another 4 more.

4. If you give the players a +1 to all attack rolls and defenses as they enter each "tier" of play, that's 3 increases, leaving them short by 1, but can otherwise be made up for by abilities, feats, and all that. That's what the expertise feats and improved defenses are supposed to represent.

Melee Training is necessary so that people who take Opportunity Attacks, but don't use Strength, can actually hit with their AOOs.

This isn't as imperative to be given to everybody: Defenders need it, but some defenders already use Strength anyway, and then some classes have At-Wills that are classified as being usable in the place of a Basic Attack. But as the discussion upthread says, it's not the same as saying "you can use any At-Will as a Basic Attack", because that has much wider implications.

# ? Jul 18, 2018 00:16

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

gradenko_2000 posted:

You still do:

Thank you for the quick response!

# ? Jul 18, 2018 00:35

Moriatti: Apr 21, 2014

Have any of you guys used the Stronghold rules or Fortune Cards?
I'm considering both for my game as rewards down the line but I'm not entirely satisfied with the Stronghold rules as written and have no experience with the fortune cards.

My thoughts on the Stronghold rework is to have rooms that the players can quest to complete and staff for narrative benefits and maybe shopping options? I do like fortification stuff because it implies that I can place their stronghold under seige (which I will) but I was hoping maybe you guys had some more hands on experience.

# ? Jul 18, 2018 17:29

KPC_Mammon: Jan 23, 2004; Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Moriatti posted:

Have any of you guys used the Stronghold rules or Fortune Cards?
I'm considering both for my game as rewards down the line but I'm not entirely satisfied with the Stronghold rules as written and have no experience with the fortune cards.

My thoughts on the Stronghold rework is to have rooms that the players can quest to complete and staff for narrative benefits and maybe shopping options? I do like fortification stuff because it implies that I can place their stronghold under seige (which I will) but I was hoping maybe you guys had some more hands on experience.

I've never seen a good set of Stronghold rules for any edition of DnD but quests for narrative benefits sounds like a good way to go.

# ? Jul 20, 2018 01:18

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

Kevin Crawford's 'an echo resounding' is the best stronghold rules I have seen.

# ? Jul 20, 2018 15:40

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Looking at this : http://rpg.brainclouds.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AttackTables.pdf

If I just used that number for everyone's attack rolls for anything based off their primary stat and used that as both feat taxes and inherent bonuses and never hosed with anything else and everyone just took actually cool feats, how badly would it gently caress up the to hit math?

Because that looks pretty attractive and my vague tummy feels make it seem pretty good. Thoughts?

# ? Jul 20, 2018 19:17

KPC_Mammon: Jan 23, 2004; Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Xiahou Dun posted:

Looking at this : http://rpg.brainclouds.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AttackTables.pdf

If I just used that number for everyone's attack rolls for anything based off their primary stat and used that as both feat taxes and inherent bonuses and never hosed with anything else and everyone just took actually cool feats, how badly would it gently caress up the to hit math?

Because that looks pretty attractive and my vague tummy feels make it seem pretty good. Thoughts?

Seems like a lot of work for "hit on an 8+, modified by level difference and powers"

# ? Jul 20, 2018 19:28

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Xiahou Dun posted:

Looking at this : http://rpg.brainclouds.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AttackTables.pdf

If I just used that number for everyone's attack rolls for anything based off their primary stat and used that as both feat taxes and inherent bonuses and never hosed with anything else and everyone just took actually cool feats, how badly would it gently caress up the to hit math?

Because that looks pretty attractive and my vague tummy feels make it seem pretty good. Thoughts?

If you just want to get rid of feat taxes and inherent bonuses, replace 1/2 level with 4/5 of level, and it's almost identical (it actually progresses a little more smoothly).

Edit:. The ancient spreadsheet I made of you want to see how it looks.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mjibNADkJrrszj8IwJ7CMnOphdk-jvU6uw3lJh3brzs/edit?usp=drivesdk

Defeatist Elitist fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jul 20, 2018

# ? Jul 20, 2018 20:25

Moriatti: Apr 21, 2014

That only seems easier if you aren't using the builder, since otherwise you just hit the homebrew button in your feats tree.

# ? Jul 20, 2018 20:41

NachtSieger: Apr 10, 2013

Kinda late, but it's a shame the Int/Cha psion is massively, unfairly better than the Int/Wis psion, because the latter has a while mess of real actually entertaining poo poo other than "hi these enemies can effectively no longer attack" or "hi this one thing has gotten hit by a one turn Lead the Attack" or "TIME TO MAKE THIS SHITLORD FORCIBLY PROVOKE THE FIGHTER'S MATK PUNISHMENT", or the previously mentioned Living Missile/Barrage

# ? Jul 21, 2018 17:35

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Moriatti posted:

That only seems easier if you aren't using the builder, since otherwise you just hit the homebrew button in your feats tree.

This is also generally true. The other methods get a lot more attractive when you can't use the character builder for some reason or another (including extensive homebrewing).

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:08

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

Just wrapped up a campaign. Are wizards just extremely underwhelming? A player played one and had a fairly rough time, (i did offer to let him respec but he wanted to finish it out) is the class just not great or should we have done things differently somehow?

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:28

Moriatti: Apr 21, 2014

TheCog posted:

Just wrapped up a campaign. Are wizards just extremely underwhelming? A player played one and had a fairly rough time, (i did offer to let him respec but he wanted to finish it out) is the class just not great or should we have done things differently somehow?

What did he want and what was his build? I was under the impression that per build your best oprions were:

Controller: Wizard
Defender: Fighter
Leader: Warlord
Striker: Ranger

It's somewhat telling that all of these started in PHB 1 (although IIRC PHB1 wizards weren't great, so if their spells were limited to that, that may have been part of the issue.)

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:33

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

TheCog posted:

Just wrapped up a campaign. Are wizards just extremely underwhelming? A player played one and had a fairly rough time, (i did offer to let him respec but he wanted to finish it out) is the class just not great or should we have done things differently somehow?

If you build them for control instead of damage, they are incredibly powerful. As long as you're not PHB-only, that is.

If you build them for AoE damage, they suck.

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:35

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

TheCog posted:

Just wrapped up a campaign. Are wizards just extremely underwhelming? A player played one and had a fairly rough time, (i did offer to let him respec but he wanted to finish it out) is the class just not great or should we have done things differently somehow?

No Wizards are AMAZING and utterly trivialising at the right levels with the right choices.

But Wizards are also hilariously poo poo, it all comes down to which spells you choose. Pick the good ones and you're a god among murderhobos, pick the stinkers and you're a hobo among gods.

What was the build, particularly the spells? Wizards were never my specialty, but I have a decent idea of which ones are worthwhile.

Moriatti posted:

What did he want and what was his build? I was under the impression that per build your best oprions were:

Controller: Wizard
Defender: Fighter
Leader: Warlord
Striker: Ranger

It's somewhat telling that all of these started in PHB 1 (although IIRC PHB1 wizards weren't great, so if their spells were limited to that, that may have been part of the issue.)

Under normal circumstances, this is pretty accurate, but the gulf between best and next best options is really not large, and there are VERY few absolute stinkers assuming you don't make bad choices.

If you optimise heavily, it varies a lot, especially if you take party-op into account

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:38

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

Moriatti posted:

What did he want and what was his build? I was under the impression that per build your best oprions were:

Controller: Wizard
Defender: Fighter
Leader: Warlord
Striker: Ranger

It's somewhat telling that all of these started in PHB 1 (although IIRC PHB1 wizards weren't great, so if their spells were limited to that, that may have been part of the issue.)

We kept it to just PHB1, and he generally felt like he was incredibly useless in combat. We finished at level 5 (since half my group is moving away), and his power selection looked like this:

Lvl 1 at will:
Magic Missile
Scorching Burst

Lvl 1 encounter:
Burning Hands

lvl 1 daily:
Sleep

lvl 2 utility:
Feather Fall

lvl 3 encounter:
Color Spray

lvl 5 daily:
Web

I do think a lot of it came from him letting his character get isolated from the rest of the party and attacked, which might have been defender failure

TheCog fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jul 21, 2018

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:40

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Yeah... The dailies are good, but he went the damage route with at-will/utility.

Going PHB only really hurts wizards a lot.

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:45

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

TheCog posted:

We kept it to just PHB1, and he generally felt like he was incredibly useless in combat. We finished at level 5 (since half my group is moving away), and his power selection looked like this:

Lvl 1 at will:
Magic Missile

Lvl 1 encounter:
Burning Hands
Scorching Burst

lvl 1 daily:
Sleep

lvl 2 utility:
Feather Fall

lvl 3 encounter:
Color Spray

lvl 5 daily:
Web

I do think a lot of it came from him letting his character get isolated from the rest of the party and attacked, which might have been defender failure

Sleep is very nearly best-in-slot, but his list is really unfocused, there's nothing he's specializing in. Magic Missile is considered an underwhelming power, for instance, unless you dedicate resources to making it good, like Blackstaff Apprentice (as a spell it provides consistent pressure against high-AC and most insubstantial enemies). Wizard is a bit challenging and the best choices are un-intuitive compared with past iterations of the D&D wizard. Their strongest spells usually have the psychic or charm tag and have strong forced movement or disabling effects. Wizards who try to dedicate themselves to damage just don't really shine.

Controllers are the odd men out in group cohesion because in 4E it's the least well-defined and least important role. Wizard can be very, very strong. In battles the wizard ideally should never have to move, so if enemies have unfettered access to them, someone failed.

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:48

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

In conclusion, wizards are a class of contrasts

# ? Jul 21, 2018 21:52

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

After doing a 1-30 campaign, I'm not really looking too much into new 4e games. I mean, I might.

But one thing that would bring me in is if the group was going "What if we had 2 leaders instead of 1 leader and a controller"

# ? Jul 21, 2018 22:25

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 17:10

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

In the game I'm running, we have one controller but she's a druid. (Also an archery warlord, a ranger, and a paladin.) Are these are hard to build as wizards? She's been one of the MVPs so far but this is still real early on.

# ? Jul 21, 2018 22:37

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

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