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So I had to unfuck my cbloader last night, and in the process found a really great collection of part files for it. I wish the Readme was still up for the KDM Houserule Pack (no relation to Kingdom Death Monster). Browsing, it looked like it was doing a bunch of stuff I'd do, myself. All the instructions, the link, and whatnot are here. https://www.reddit.com/r/4eDnD/comments/bgy0lv/psa_cbloader_site_appears_dead_and_running_the/
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Jun 22, 2019 15:48
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All right, I put up a page for math fixes, haven't got any DTAS up yet. Stuff like "consider having no controllers" is less a house rule and more what you'd call a guideline, so I don't think it really needs a whole page to itself. Maybe a "DMing advice" page in the future, though.
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Jun 23, 2019 01:03
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I'd lean towards giving melee classes melee training, even if they're not defenders. Kinda sucks when your warlord gives the rogue or monk an attack and they're at effectively -7 to hit or something. Maybe let swordmages have, what was it, Intelligent Blademaster? Or just pre-errata melee training for the melee people.
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Jun 23, 2019 07:24
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Just give everyone the ability to make basic attacks with their highest stat/ It will break exactly nothing and like... 90% of clases have at least one option to get it anyway.
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Jun 23, 2019 09:30
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thespaceinvader posted:Just give everyone the ability to make basic attacks with their highest stat/ It will break exactly nothing and like... 90% of clases have at least one option to get it anyway. Basic Attack Problems are probably another thing that could go into the "4E just do this every game" page, because how they implemented them as a concept was a big mess and it's easily fixed.
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Jun 23, 2019 10:36
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Almost all 4E games I saw recruiting here give at least a form of melee training and improved defenses as feat freebies. Maybe include that?
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Jun 23, 2019 18:39
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Gharbad the Weak posted:I'd lean towards giving melee classes melee training, even if they're not defenders. Kinda sucks when your warlord gives the rogue or monk an attack and they're at effectively -7 to hit or something. That was the result of me looking for houserules over google, and why I turned to this thread for advice because there's a lot of bad ones out there. Plus ones that aren't exactly bad but very... handwavey, ill-defined, "the DM should use their judgement" kind of stuff with regards to handing out feats or bonuses. All I want is some concrete numbers 
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Jun 23, 2019 19:31
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Gharbad the Weak posted: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. IMO, this is less "nobody use hybrids" and more generic DM advice for "Don't have one character who's an obvious outlier in terms of char-op." This works in both ways, too. Don't let somebody roll a heavily optimized powerhouse in a group of less optimized characters, but don't let somebody roll an underpowered potato either. Hybrids can be harder to build, yeah, but there's plenty of hybrids out there like Barbarian|Cleric that are perfectly workable in the average party, and they're often a very good choice for a small party that needs a little more healing or dps without adding an extra person.
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Jun 23, 2019 20:38
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Yeah, 'no hybrids' is kind of irrelevant if one player is a Cavalier and another is a rebreather. The important thing to do is agree on a general level of intended optimisation, both for characters and party, and work to that.
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Jun 23, 2019 20:51
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Plutonis posted:Almost all 4E games I saw recruiting here give at least a form of melee training and improved defenses as feat freebies. Maybe include that? If you start going down this road you might as well give all characters a free 18 in their best stat while you're at it
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Jun 24, 2019 06:35
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Gort posted:If you start going down this road you might as well give all characters a free 18 in their best stat while you're at it Except you can get an 18 in your main stat without giving up something more important if you use point buy. The point of those feats is to give people feats that are "must haves" in order to just fix the games wonky math, rather than to get any "cool thing". Personally I give these out so people can have more "cool things" without worrying about falling behind the monster stat curves.
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Jun 24, 2019 07:08
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Gort posted:If you start going down this road you might as well give all characters a free 18 in their best stat while you're at it Letting people hit with MBAs is not in any way comparable with giving everyone a free 18 in their main stat, Captain Hyperbole.
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Jun 24, 2019 07:12
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I did write a thing about how to replace the: * half-level bonus * the "per-tier" bonus of Versatile Expertise and Improved Defenses * the entire magical item treadmill (i.e. inherent bonuses) with a single number: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/simplified-modifiers-for-dd-4e/ the very short version of this would be to replace these numbers with [characterLevel x 0.8], rounded down, such that a level 4 character would have a bonus of +3, since [4 * 0.8 = 3.2] If they were rolling an attack, they would roll [d20 + ability modifier + 3], and then also the weapon proficiency bonus if it's a weapon attack, usually a +2 If they were calculating for their defenses, it would be [10 + ability modifier + 3] If they were calculating for their AC, it would be [10 + armor bonus +3] If they were calculating for their AC with Light Armor, it would be [10 + Dex/Int modifier + armor bonus + 3]
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Jun 24, 2019 07:18
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Gort posted:If you start going down this road you might as well give all characters a free 18 in their best stat while you're at it Melee Training, Improved Defenses, and X Expertise are math patches disguised as feats, so it's good to hand them out. (The only reason not to, IMO, would be because 4e feats are horrible to pick, so this would at least give you 3 slots you didn't need to fill with something else.)
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Jun 24, 2019 14:15
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And honestly, giving everyone an 18 in their base stat is fine like, it's an option for point buy. The game is balanced around the possibility of it.
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Jun 24, 2019 14:38
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thespaceinvader posted:And honestly, giving everyone an 18 in their base stat is I actually did this in a game I ran and people had a lot of fun playing around with secondaries and not having to invest everything in Accuracy.
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Jun 24, 2019 15:54
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Seriously the idea that this is a game in which goodies must be doled out in limited and stringent ways is one you shoudl abandon. 4e characters are never weak if built even semi-competently, and will be superheroes by midway through their career, and capable of literally deicide by the end of it.
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Jun 24, 2019 16:38
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I can't imagine not having an 18 in your main stat at all and that's going to affect your character way more than slightly better MBAs. Unless you put a 20.
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Jun 24, 2019 17:14
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I don't remember the last time I made a character that didn't have a 20 main
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Jun 24, 2019 17:15
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I've done 16/16 starts on several occasions before, with balanced-primary builds, and routinely used 17.15 stat arrays in Living Forgotten Realms where you could rebuild between levels. In short, if you're likely to be playing mostly at levels where your primary is odd anyway, it might as well be a 17.
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Jun 24, 2019 17:18
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That makes sense, we've just always played super loose with the stats because they're stupid anyways so we would let people move numbers a little into their optimal places whenever necessary.
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Jun 24, 2019 17:21
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One of my players has a 14 in their primary stat and took a feat that gives +1 defense against opportunity attacks as their third feat
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Jun 24, 2019 17:32
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Here are basically the two arrays you want for 99% of characters in 4E: Gort posted:One of my players has a 14 in their primary stat and took a feat that gives +1 defense against opportunity attacks as their third feat My condolences.
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Jun 24, 2019 17:41
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Most of my players hate charop and are bad at it, so I just pick three feats that don't suck for them, come up with an IC description of what they represent, and let them decide what they're learning as an IC choice.
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Jun 24, 2019 17:41
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Gort posted:One of my players has a 14 in their primary stat and took a feat that gives +1 defense against opportunity attacks as their third feat gently caress it
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Jun 24, 2019 17:47
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Gort posted:One of my players has a 14 in their primary stat and took a feat that gives +1 defense against opportunity attacks as their third feat
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Jun 24, 2019 17:52
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I'm pretty sure that's not intended as a good example
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Jun 24, 2019 22:08
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dwarf74 posted:Are you saying this as something admirable that others should strive towards? Is this one of those "We're not ROLL-players, we're ROLE-players" chestnut? No
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Jun 25, 2019 02:24
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Gort posted:No
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Jun 25, 2019 05:15
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*Takes hand off holstered pistol, continues drinking at the bar*
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Jun 25, 2019 06:06
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I was more illustrating how 4e has a bunch of no-brainer character choices like the maths fix feats, and how maxing out your attack stat is one of them, so if you're giving out the maths fixes for free you might as well do the same with the attack stat
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Jun 25, 2019 10:32
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There is honestly no reason other than tradition for 4e (or any D&D-like) these days to not say 'pick one of these two stat arrays, assign them how you like to the stats'. Or roll dice to determine where they go if you want to generate your character randomly, but for god's sake if you do, pick your class afterwards.
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Jun 25, 2019 10:50
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thespaceinvader posted:There is honestly no reason other than tradition for 4e (or any D&D-like) these days to not say 'pick one of these two stat arrays, assign them how you like to the stats'. Yeah, this is flat out the way I do it when I run 4E. There's no point in doing point-buy, just get players to pick between 18/14 or 16/16.
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Jun 25, 2019 11:53
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It's straight up how Gamma World did it too, you ended up with an 18 in your primary/16 in your secondary and random rolled everything else. Unless you rolled the same stat as primary and secondary and then you had a 20 and random everything.
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Jun 25, 2019 19:10
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I finally got some friends to agree to play the game, and I'm wondering if there's a place that has a complete archive of all of the errata. The WotC site has a compiled version, but that includes Essentials changes which do things like "Make Magic Missile always hit because that's how it's always been and that's how it should always be", and I'm concerned about other ideologically-driven changes. Any other things I should be aware of? It's been a while since I've been able to play. I know that MM3 match, the feat tax, and inherent bonuses are a thing. Is there anything else I should be aware of? Like, is there a version of the character builder that still works? I remember some other stuff, like how wizards are kind of weird because they hadn't figured out Controllers since then. Most of the players here are brand-new to 4e, and while there aren't any "traps", I feel like I want to give them the best experience 4e has to offer.
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Jul 16, 2019 04:57
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To my knowledge the CBLoader can only work on a PC and then only with some messing around ; so out of luck if you're a Mac user. If you aren't, I believe they patched the hell out of that so you might be in luck, but I haven't been in the loop since my old laptop died and I had to switch to Apple out of necessity of it being there. My classic rules fix is basically Death to Ability Scores Lite : when you look at a class it's pretty obvious there's [Primary Ability Score] and choice of [Secondary Ability Score], so just let people pick those to be whatever they want as long as they're consistent. Not as good as actually decoupling ability scores and there's probably some ways to abuse it, but it takes like zero effort, can be explained to new people pretty quickly and is better than happy thoughts.
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Jul 16, 2019 05:22
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demota posted:I finally got some friends to agree to play the game, and I'm wondering if there's a place that has a complete archive of all of the errata. The WotC site has a compiled version, but that includes Essentials changes which do things like "Make Magic Missile always hit because that's how it's always been and that's how it should always be", and I'm concerned about other ideologically-driven changes. I'd say be careful of party composition - a party full of strikers will play differently to a party that's half-and-half defenders and leaders. Try and get a mix of strikers, defenders and leaders, controllers are optional, especially in smaller parties.
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Jul 16, 2019 08:16
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Due to player attrition, I'm down to four players from six. Those two were Strikers, leaving the party with: Paladin, Monk, Artificer, and Cleric. It's been a ride.
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Jul 16, 2019 17:51
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Due to player attrition, I'm down to four players from six. Those two were Strikers, leaving the party with: Paladin, Monk, Artificer, and Cleric. It's been a ride. That monk is never going to die.
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Jul 16, 2019 18:52
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Just pour as many buffs onto that dude as you can and go ham
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Jul 16, 2019 19:20
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