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I've only tried one so far (the Coaltongue, in the first adventure), but looking at the rest of the first adventure there's a lot of maps with complex terrain as well.
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Apr 14, 2019 14:35
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Sorry for the late reply, we ended up missing that session and I was busy. 
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Apr 24, 2019 16:28
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I'm not sure what happened, but my character builder appears to have spontaneously broken. I was able to use it a few weeks ago, but now when I try to boot it up, I get this error:code:
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Apr 28, 2019 05:41
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Yea the site went down the other day. You need to replace the .part files, and then change the shortcut you use to have -d at the end of it to stop it trying to reach out and redownload new ones. You can find the files and the instruction on this discord under the 4e-stuff channel
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Apr 28, 2019 05:51
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Thanks for the heads up, because me and some old pals had finally dusted off scales of war epic level modules just in time for this to happen.
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Apr 28, 2019 08:45
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Does anyone have any rules of thumb for converting 3.5 DCs to 4e?
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May 3, 2019 23:46
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Generally, just take a look at it and figure out if should be easy/medium/hard/extremely hard for an adventurer of that particular and pick a 4e DC accordingly.
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May 4, 2019 00:04
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Rumda posted:Does anyone have any rules of thumb for converting 3.5 DCs to 4e? Are we talking skill tests or save DCs? If the former, what Light Warden said. If the latter, I don't know if there's really any way to do that other than to just increase or decrease the relevant defense by +/- two to four depending on how harsh you want to be.
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May 4, 2019 07:17
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A dumb rules question I have never found an answer to. I am a wizard PC. I perform the lich ritual in MM1. Is there anything in the rules preventing me from being a cool lich for free?
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May 11, 2019 03:08
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Well, not exactly for free. It costs 250.000 GP, then again 100.000 GP to cast, arguably also 50.000 for the phylactery. It's gonna take you a bit longer than to level 14 to save up, which is otherwise the earliest you can cast the ritual. The lich ritual has three effects: - you die. Easy enough. - you transform into a lich. A lich is a monster with monster stats so you basically exchange your PC character sheet for a statblock. Not a great deal, especially in the long run. - you gain the lich template. This is a rules conflict because templates can only be applied to monsters and NPCs. By a strict reading the only way to apply it is making your PC into an NPC altogether. The real answer is, of course, that the lich ritual is obviously a remnant of an old game design philosophy ("if it's a magic effect it has to be statted out as a spell/ritual and if it's a spell a PC can learn it"), that it's intended for monsters and NPCs and creates huge grey areas otherwise, that it's actually best forgotten altogether and the lich process for NPCs handwaved to a degree of the DM's choice, and that the balanced, proper way for your wizard PC to become a lich is to take the Archlich epic destiny from Arcane Power at level 21, which incidentally is also free.
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May 11, 2019 07:42
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I'm currently planning out the final fight for my current campaign, and I was wondering what the easiest way would be to stat out friendly NPCs who might jump in to help. I'm kind of leaning on three possibilities: I stat them up as NPCs, I stat them out as full monsters, or they're just a vessel for an additional Daily attack the players can move around.
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May 11, 2019 10:23
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Also I'm pretty sure there's an Epic Destiny that is also just "you're a lich" and that costs qualifying for it which is way less than whatever rigamarole of gold and reagents any ritual will.
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May 11, 2019 12:11
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Zeerust posted:I'm currently planning out the final fight for my current campaign, and I was wondering what the easiest way would be to stat out friendly NPCs who might jump in to help. I'm kind of leaning on three possibilities: I stat them up as NPCs, I stat them out as full monsters, or they're just a vessel for an additional Daily attack the players can move around. Aside from that, a few pointers: 1) extra NPCs should be accounted for in the battle's XP budget; 4 PCs and 3 NPCs can go up against 7 (normal, equal level) monsters or the equivalent 2) too many helper NPCs spoil the broth, steal the spotlight and lead to the DM rolling attacks against himself while players wait for their turn 3) I'd say it depends on how many NPCs you want to support the party. One is perfectly fine, two is a stretch; if it's two or more, you can still pull it off by giving each player an extra NPC to run alongside their own character (budgeting the encounter accordingly, and giving the group ample time to get used to it). Otherwise go with extra Daily powers, and maybe add an extra monster per 2-3 extra dailies. If it's actually more NPCs than PCs: forget about it, use dailies, actually even consider only one extra daily per two NPC helpers.
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May 11, 2019 13:07
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I'd just use a reskinned monster. That way you can just add a monster to the bad guy team and it cancels out.
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May 11, 2019 14:38
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Yeah there's no reason not to just pick a monster stat block, reskin it to be the friendly NPC, then set it to the right level with the MM3 rules. This is also how you do mass combat in 4E.
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May 11, 2019 15:19
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It's probably worth noting that if this is for more than one encounter, monsters are NOT balanced for that, their encounter abilities are about daily level, and their recharge abilities are about encounter level, for obvious reasons, so if they're stickin around you might wanna take account of that.
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May 11, 2019 20:10
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Has anyone run Zeitgeist and willing to offer some advice for a bit of the end of first act? (Adventure 5) I'll spoiler it in case people care? So I'm prepping to run the last bit of Adv 5 Cauldron Born, and seeing this stuff with Borne coming out and fighting the boats in the harbour. The problem is, the stuff with the boats looks... well, it looks like it's gonna be poo poo. The few times we've run the boats using their crappy seas rules it's been a miserable slog that no one seemed to like. Did you do the finale fighting the giant golem any other way? Or even do it with the boats and have it not be crap? I'm looking for suggestions on how to make it a good crescendo to 5 adventures worth of build up I guess.
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May 12, 2019 11:25
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Spiteski posted:Has anyone run Zeitgeist and willing to offer some advice for a bit of the end of first act? (Adventure 5) I ran the whole thing but I honestly can't remember how we did this one. I am pretty sure I used, basically, a skill challenge for it.
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May 12, 2019 13:24
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quote:NPC Advice Thanks for this. I've got maybe 4 NPCs joining for the final fight, and since I'd be handing control to the PCs I think I'll just have them give the players an additional Daily and a way of shunting hits off from themselves instead of making them manage an entire stat block. The encounter budget is in the area of Level + 5 so I'm keeping them in the barrel for if they start struggling.
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May 12, 2019 17:12
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dwarf74 posted:
Ah ok, that's probably close to what I'll boil it down to then. I wish the writers knew that their boat stuff was crap and just didn't use it.
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May 12, 2019 20:39
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Spiteski posted:Ah ok, that's probably close to what I'll boil it down to then. I wish the writers knew that their boat stuff was crap and just didn't use it.
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May 12, 2019 22:30
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Zeerust posted:Thanks for this. I've got maybe 4 NPCs joining for the final fight, and since I'd be handing control to the PCs I think I'll just have them give the players an additional Daily and a way of shunting hits off from themselves instead of making them manage an entire stat block. The encounter budget is in the area of Level + 5 so I'm keeping them in the barrel for if they start struggling. You may still need to be careful with action economy. Having an extra daily may not mean as much if the party doesn’t have the actions available to use them. I like the shunting hits idea though. Maybe give the pcs occasional choice to direct hits to an NPCs helper, with the consequence being too many shunts killing their friend(s). Especially for a set/campaign piece encounter, there’s narrative tension if close NPCs give their lives to aid the party complete an important goal.
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May 13, 2019 04:27
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I'm a little late to the party on this, but now that Insider is gone, are there any good character building tools out there? Also, does anyone know of any iOS or Android apps for use by 4e DMs?
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May 21, 2019 06:17
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Dremcon posted:You may still need to be careful with action economy. Having an extra daily may not mean as much if the party doesn’t have the actions available to use them. I like the shunting hits idea though. Maybe give the pcs occasional choice to direct hits to an NPCs helper, with the consequence being too many shunts killing their friend(s). Especially for a set/campaign piece encounter, there’s narrative tension if close NPCs give their lives to aid the party complete an important goal. I'd say make these extra dailies free actions.
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May 21, 2019 08:13
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DoubleDonut posted:I'm a little late to the party on this, but now that Insider is gone, are there any good character building tools out there? Also, does anyone know of any iOS or Android apps for use by 4e DMs? As far as I can tell no. There would be so,e great value in such a thing.
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May 21, 2019 16:58
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Update on my question: I basically threw the NPCs into the fight when things were getting down to the wire and everyone immediately blitzed the boss with them, dealing just enough damage between them to finish it off. My players were pretty jazzed about it, and I was pretty pleased that the pacing of the fight allowed a big climax like that. And that's my 4e campaign finished. It only took... 5 years? 
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May 21, 2019 21:46
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So on the one hand I'm itching to get back on the 4e saddle for an adventure or two. On the other hand, it seems intimidating after a long time away! Also Gloomhaven is scratching a lot of the same itches.... But still...
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Jun 20, 2019 12:59
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Gloomhaven's good but it's a shame the story has very few choices. I'd buy a fully-fledged PnP RPG with the same rules fleshed out though.
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Jun 20, 2019 13:58
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Gort posted:Gloomhaven's good but it's a shame the story has very few choices. It's just extremely solid for the 'tactical combat' bit that 4e also excels at.
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Jun 20, 2019 14:52
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My heartbreaker idea has always been a deckbuilder RPG, I'd love to see somethign like Gloomhaven but with bigger, more fleshed out decks, and random draw for each scene determining your options. Something like The Big Idea, or Once Upon A Time, but with more direct RPG like mechanics and a DM who also has a deck of Bad Stuff.
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Jun 21, 2019 10:42
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dwarf74 posted:So on the one hand I'm itching to get back on the 4e saddle for an adventure or two. If you ran a pbp or roll20 game I would be on it in a heartbeat. I missed the boat on 4e and have always wanted to try it.
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Jun 21, 2019 18:25
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I'm very D&D-starved at the moment and would appreciate if people would let me know they are starting something.
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Jun 21, 2019 18:38
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I wish I could, friend goons. But I barely have time to keep up on my in-person DCC game. Also, I am incredibly unreliable, and would probably do a terrible job at running it.
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Jun 21, 2019 18:45
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I'd love to run something but timezone issues are keeping me from joining games as it is.
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Jun 21, 2019 20:17
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Lookin' for some good house rules, hacks, and other openly available third party material to compile, because the Trad Games Wiki is makin' a comeback.
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Jun 22, 2019 00:11
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'd love to run something but timezone issues are keeping me from joining games as it is. This is my whole life. I live in New Zealand which means my timezone is [GMT]+toomuch.
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Jun 22, 2019 00:21
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Fuego Fish posted:Lookin' for some good house rules, hacks, and other openly available third party material to compile, because the Trad Games Wiki is makin' a comeback. When it comes to feats: If someone has to choose between being better at combat and a new language, they're gonna end up choosing the feat that improves combat. As feat bloated as this game is, consider giving bonus feats for noncombat stuff, like learning languages or getting a bonus to a skill. Keep an eye on anyone who's all about stacking arcana, as there are rituals that replace other skills with arcana, and arcana can directly affect combat ability in Epic via Sage of Ages. Not really Hacks or anything, but I'd throw down: Reflavor the fluff. If you want to play a dwarf, but want the stats of an elf, then screw it, your dwarf just moves a lot faster than most do. Use inherent bonuses. It cuts down the loot treadmill tremendously. Unless the entire group is made of 4e vets, I'd actually lean against allowing hybrids. I played from level 11-30 with a hybrid, and it was fun, but I'd say my character got way too powerful. Normally, if it's not way too powerful, it's way, way too weak. If one player is notably more experienced, consider pushing them towards being a Leader. Consider having 0 controllers. Controllers are effective, but it can sometimes drag combat speed way down when it's just enemies not being effective. Add another leader or defender instead. It's a good idea to have some stuff automated, like keeping track of initiative, and when statuses drop. There's a lot to keep track of. Fantasy Grounds can do this, and some of the more involved bits of Roll20. The players need to know their characters very, very well. The longer they take making basic combat decisions, the more likely someone's attention is going to fade, which means that their turn takes longer, which means someone else isn't paying attention and is now going "Oh wait I had an interrupt that would have worked 2 turns ago" and it's just a nightmare. It is possible to have very quick rounds, but people need to be paying attention and making tactical decisions, not trying to remember what their encounter abilities do. Avoid the essentials classes. They're pretty bad all around. Unless you've got a lot of experience, avoid the power-point classes. They can end up using the same power over and over and over for a full 30 levels (looking at you, dishearten).
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Jun 22, 2019 05:15
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Yeah, what they said. Are you assuming full DTAS as an option? I can post my own houserules, but that covers the basics. The rules I work with are basically just always making the Fight Math work as intended (swapping attack stats for smart fighters or whatever, inherent bonuses, free feat taxes, etc.) and then letting people spend their choices on actual character driven stuff. With a healthy amount of reskinning.
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Jun 22, 2019 06:34
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Oh! Forgot something. I've never seen it done, but I assume someone has thought about this before. There are some builds that are str/con, dex/int or wis/cha. That means that two of their non-ac defenses suck. Might want to let them have their second stat affect a different defense. But yeah DTAS. I'm sure someone has come up with a houserule to handle the NAC defenses, because when you get higher in level, one of those defenses can effectively be "you are automatically hit". It'd be nice if your fortitude wasn't 15 below your other defenses or whatever.
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Jun 22, 2019 06:46
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| # ? May 8, 2024 14:47 |
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Yeah, exactly. My personal houserule can best be summarized with "Look, you pick a stat to a do a thing at character creation but you can't double up beyond what the base game allows ; if you can come up with something that sounds even vaguely plausible after I've had three beers for how you dodge with Charisma, we good and that's your Ref stat now". So I keep the skills cause i'm too lazy to gently caress with them, but if your fighter build says Str as primary and Dex as secondary, just pick whatever you want and be consistent and we'll work it out. It's not perfect but it's playable and lets people do what they want. It is, however, loving terrible to explain to people who don't understand all the system mastery they're ignoring. It really only works because I played enough to internalize the math. (Something that fixed this is what 5e should've been, drat it. But that ball has been well and truly dropped.)
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Jun 22, 2019 06:55
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