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Raenir Salazar posted:I gotta admit I get a little salty when my turn as a Monk is some combination of: Attack X times, Move a Bit and sometimes Attempt a Stun but the Sorceror-Warlock takes 5x longer as they just seem to have way more interactions available. Dexo posted:Also I think if I run another game from scratch I might just like give all martials Martial adept for free We've been using this, it seems to scratch that itch somewhat. All martials get maneuvers that key off superiority dice, fighters get the best and are all basically enhanced battle masters.
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Aug 11, 2020 14:09
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Splicer posted:Here's a thing 4e got... I'm going to say 50% of the way to. Which is a vast improvement over 3.x's 10%. Page 42 provides guidelines for damage based on your level, with higher damage for tasks requiring external limited use props. So shoving someone under a passing cart would be high damage from the limited table. The reason I say 50% is: The bolded has always been my biggest grief with 4e because it lead to the absurd charop necessary to keep up even going into mid level. Yeah, there were things a DM could houserule to make it *better* (see inherent bonuses) but even with that you still had to aggressively optimize or really fall behind in effectiveness. Feats were flat and uninteresting, even though there were a loving billion of them, everyone took the same 3ish early (+attack, +resists, +hp) and then there were like 2 or 3 others that were useful to your particular build, and that was it. I didn't like how atomized the gear was and how there was generally an assumed correct choice for what your character was suppose to use every level, and you didn't really upgrade to something different, you just upgraded to the +2 / +3 / ect of the same item what's bonus was core to what you did. I think the 3 magic item attunement limit in 5e is loving genius because it forces you to make hard choices about what your priorities are for gearing your character rather than just having the hard set best-in-slots for everything. If Wizards or someone homebrewing had the wherewithal to do a 4.5e that did all the stuff 5e did compared to 3.5 (Stat caps, flattening the floating point bonuses, item attunements, murdering the feat bloat/taxes, all the monster rebalances that all the previous would necessitate) while still keeping the things I wound up liking about 4e (At will encounter and daily powers for everyone, paragon paths / heroic destinies creating a lot of separation between two people of the same base class, Warlords just as a general concept) that would basically be the perfect system for me. As is, the stuff that really annoys me about 4e creates a much larger barrier for entry than the stuff that annoys me about 5e. Yeah, 5e fighters are boring and don't have a lot going on for them, but I still really enjoy my Dwarf Eldritch Knight in the game I'm currently playing in and I never feel like dead weight or outshined completely by the others. DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 14:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is, of course, exactly how we did it in the old days of 2nd edition. It ended up just turning the whole campaign to a slog because everything became mass combat all the time. I got really proficient at carving miniatures out of erasers though. Being In Charge Of Things is a great way to give a Fighter narrative agency. You obviously don't do the mass combat thing outside of storytelling ('the mustered armies face the enemy forces head-on, giving the band of intrepid adventurers an opening to slip into their fortress')
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Aug 11, 2020 14:57
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Just had a session where we fought a group of 10 cultists, 5 flying half dragons with multi attacks that do lightning damage(to bypass the barbarian rage) a big caster. Then halfway through the fight a hasted spell caster who has cast teleport before showed. Attacked our ranger and did over 40 damage, then disintegrated the druid in beast shape and barely didn't kill him. Then bad guy caster carried the ranger away from us while making GBS threads spells down the stairs. We finished off the last non big bad and ran after him. We got lucky that the ranger rolled a nat 20 on his last death save. He stood up and dropped a silence. The barbarian and druid grappled the caster in the silence while our fighter stabbed and shot him to death. Then the big bad came out of a box naked. Turns out he had cloned himself. Drops a disintegrate and misses. We drop another silence on him. Barbarian grapples him but fails to knock him prone. Oops big bad rolls 2 nat 20s. Turns out he had a sword of sharpness and wasn't naked. He cuts off the barbarian's arm. Which is extra bad because he had 1 arm to start with. Our characters try to shoot him but his AC is high. Whoops he had haste on as well. Lucky crit from the ranger sharpshooter knocked his concentration and then the power went off at the fighter's house. That's where we are now. Ps we are level 8.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:11
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RC Cola posted:Just had a session where we fought a group of 10 cultists, 5 flying half dragons with multi attacks that do lightning damage(to bypass the barbarian rage) a big caster. Then halfway through the fight a hasted spell caster who has cast teleport before showed. Attacked our ranger and did over 40 damage, then disintegrated the druid in beast shape and barely didn't kill him. Then bad guy caster carried the ranger away from us while making GBS threads spells down the stairs. Your DM is a dick. Bail on that game.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:18
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That sounds like an awful lot of "DM pulls something out of his rear end because you weren't supposed to win yet" happening.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:19
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the clone popping out naked at the end of the fight would have been funny and great butRC Cola posted:Oops big bad rolls 2 nat 20s. Turns out he had a sword of sharpness and wasn't naked. this sucks
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Aug 11, 2020 15:21
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DeathSandwich posted:The bolded has always been my biggest grief with 4e because it lead to the absurd charop necessary to keep up even going into mid level. Yeah, there were things a DM could houserule to make it *better* (see inherent bonuses) but even with that you still had to aggressively optimize or really fall behind in effectiveness. Feats were flat and uninteresting, even though there were a loving billion of them, everyone took the same 3ish early (+attack, +resists, +hp) and then there were like 2 or 3 others that were useful to your particular build, and that was it. I didn't like how atomized the gear was and how there was generally an assumed correct choice for what your character was suppose to use every level, and you didn't really upgrade to something different, you just upgraded to the +2 / +3 / ect of the same item what's bonus was core to what you did. I think the 3 magic item attunement limit in 5e is loving genius because it forces you to make hard choices about what your priorities are for gearing your character rather than just having the hard set best-in-slots for everything.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:25
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Oh yeah I'd definitely never say 4e is like, god's gift to roleplaying, but there's so many complaints about that game that are just 100% wrong when there's a ton of actual legitimate problems that could be discussed (some of which 5e actually addressed which is cool!) and it poisons the well on discussions for "how could this game be better" and "what would you like to see in a new D&D". 4e had the benefit of actually genuinely trying to do something a little different and had a real design goal in mind. Complaints about how the game is all combat always ring hollow to me considering how even in 5e every class spends at most a paragraph before getting right into what kinds of weapons and armor that class can use and how they fight. The game is always about fighting, 4e just decided to actually make the fighting crunchy and tactical since you're going to be doing a lot of it anyway.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:42
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RC Cola posted:Just had a session where we fought a group of 10 cultists, 5 flying half dragons with multi attacks that do lightning damage(to bypass the barbarian rage) a big caster. Then halfway through the fight a hasted spell caster who has cast teleport before showed. Attacked our ranger and did over 40 damage, then disintegrated the druid in beast shape and barely didn't kill him. Then bad guy caster carried the ranger away from us while making GBS threads spells down the stairs. one time a player said "gently caress it" and turned around and attacked the big bad 7 levels before the end of the campaign where i expected him to be fought, crit every single time(x4 damage!) and one rounded the big bad. i could have done any number of things there to undo that, but by changing the campaign to be about the power vacuum created by their death it was monumentally more interesting and made that badass and lucky moment so much more iconic. which is to say, your dm sounds incredibly fail. they threw all that horseshit against you and you still won so they kept making up crap until you were sufficiently losing.
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Aug 11, 2020 15:58
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Kaysette posted:the clone popping out naked at the end of the fight would have been funny and great but Yeah, the proper response when the clone pops out of the box naked is the clone goes POOF and teleports away gg nextmap
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Aug 11, 2020 16:10
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Glagha posted:Oh yeah I'd definitely never say 4e is like, god's gift to roleplaying, but there's so many complaints about that game that are just 100% wrong when there's a ton of actual legitimate problems that could be discussed (some of which 5e actually addressed which is cool!) and it poisons the well on discussions for "how could this game be better" and "what would you like to see in a new D&D". 4e had the benefit of actually genuinely trying to do something a little different and had a real design goal in mind. Complaints about how the game is all combat always ring hollow to me considering how even in 5e every class spends at most a paragraph before getting right into what kinds of weapons and armor that class can use and how they fight. The game is always about fighting, 4e just decided to actually make the fighting crunchy and tactical since you're going to be doing a lot of it anyway. Yeah. At the end of the day, what I dislike most about 5e is that it could have been an edition that built on 4e, but instead, we got an edition that disregarded 4e to such an extent that the things that are improvements (and they do exist!) feel accidental, or even feel irrelevant because the mechanics around the improvement are worse.
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Aug 11, 2020 16:12
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The wardrobe opens, disgorging another clone. They kill it. They turn to leave, behind the door is another opening clone box. They kill it. They run out of the room, a pillar in the hallway dumps out another clone. They kill it. The weakened pillar collapses, the ceiling empties dozens if not hundreds of naked clones stacked like cordwood. A clone struggles to its feet to be pancaked by another pallet of gooey wizard flesh from above. The floor collapses into the great hall below. An ominous, squishy rumbling comes from the chimney...
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Aug 11, 2020 16:12
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RC Cola posted:Oops big bad rolls 2 nat 20s. Turns out he had a sword of sharpness and wasn't naked. He cuts off the barbarian's arm. Which is extra bad because he had 1 arm to start with. lol don't let that guy DM anymore
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Aug 11, 2020 16:23
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Eraflure posted:lol don't let that guy DM anymore Y'all overreacting. This DM seems fairly 'armless.
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Aug 11, 2020 16:35
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Our party was shunted into an alternate reality where magic is illegal and we're trying to get home, so, what are the best 3rd-4th level necromancy spells my wizard could take? My thinking is that if all magic is illegal now, not just certain schools or practices, there's kind of no reason not to research the formerly forbidden arts.
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Aug 11, 2020 16:56
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change my name posted:Our party was shunted into an alternate reality where magic is illegal and we're trying to get home, so, what are the best 3rd-4th level necromancy spells my wizard could take? My thinking is that if all magic is illegal now, not just certain schools or practices, there's kind of no reason not to research the formerly forbidden arts. what the poo poo dude. im going to snitch on your wizard for breaking the law like that. absolutely disgusting. people like you are why society is hosed blight is good, and life transference can be good in a pinch but is situational
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Aug 11, 2020 17:04
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I 100% don't know why the clone didn't just teleport away, but on the big bad clone's turn, he said "So this would be his stunned round and it will be but he is going to action surge to get an action and if you don't like it you can suck it" Then he feebleminded our fighter. We ended up winning the fight. Druid polymorphed the barbarian into a giant ape. Final HP after the fight. Druid 44 (After using 120 wildshape hp and resisting every lightning attack with blue dragon scale mail). Ranger 5 after being healed, fighter 10, barbarian 7 and 0 arms. That is the end of the campaign I guess, but the fight before this was 2 young red dragons. And the fight before that was an adult blue dragon. So I guess its a good thing we are ending now. idk what we would have to fight next after a caster with access to 8th level spells + action surge. He also had the blue dragon mask so his AC was insanely high. Edit: If he could clone he had to be a wizard, I would love to see this guy's character sheet. Since he didn't have a spell book. I'm assuming he was a sorcerer who could cast clone??? RC Cola fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 17:17
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NPCs don't follow PC construction rules.
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Aug 11, 2020 17:22
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RC Cola posted:I 100% don't know why the clone didn't just teleport away, but on the big bad clone's turn, he said "So this would be his stunned round and it will be but he is going to action surge to get an action and if you don't like it you can suck it" Yeah, I'd have left the game here. What's the point of playing when what you do doesn't matter if it doesn't stick to the DM's perfect plan?
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Aug 11, 2020 17:23
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disaster pastor posted:Yeah, I'd have left the game here. What's the point of playing when what you do doesn't matter if it doesn't stick to the DM's perfect plan? I need to write up in the catpiss thread about the one time of my closest friend's ran a campaign. It was RC Cola's experience repeated to ad nauseam. Think the point I mentally checked out of that game was when the DM sent Lv. 20 characters (not monsters/NPC's he just made Lv. 20's, note we were Lv. 10 when this happened) to capture us so the DM's character from the last game (now a Lich) could kill all the PC's and clone us. The DM did this because he said "none of you were trusting him so he's just going to suicide squad you." We were all Good alignment religious classes as a note, but the DM made all our churches corrupt because "that's what it's like in the real world".
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Aug 11, 2020 17:35
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One thing we've been frequently trying to do our campaign is gather up small armies of supporters before entering dungeons to guard the camp and setup a mobile town for us to rest in sort of; and recently an actual little combat army because one of the PC's decided to be a Conquistador and is trying to conquer himself an empire on the continent where the big empire has declined and its mostly squabbling city
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Aug 11, 2020 17:55
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RC Cola posted:I 100% don't know why the clone didn't just teleport away, but on the big bad clone's turn, he said "So this would be his stunned round and it will be but he is going to action surge to get an action and if you don't like it you can suck it" that dm is just making crap up to fudge fights but there is honour in just giving random abilities to encounters freely, if you do it beforehand, and have an idea why you are doing it. npcs do not follow pc rules, and dnd assumes that there are thousands more spells that exist but pcs just dont use them for whatever reason
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Aug 11, 2020 17:58
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Splicer posted:The wardrobe opens, disgorging another clone. They kill it. They turn to leave, behind the door is another opening clone box. They kill it. They run out of the room, a pillar in the hallway dumps out another clone. They kill it. The weakened pillar collapses, the ceiling empties dozens if not hundreds of naked clones stacked like cordwood. A clone struggles to its feet to be pancaked by another pallet of gooey wizard flesh from above. The floor collapses into the great hall below. An ominous, squishy rumbling comes from the chimney... loving Manshoons.
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Aug 11, 2020 18:10
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Update, the bad guy had a ring of regeneration, so now the barbarian has a toe ring for a few days/weeks
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Aug 11, 2020 18:13
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Blooming Brilliant posted:We were all Good alignment religious classes as a note, but the DM made all our churches corrupt because "that's what it's like in the real world". Lmao this is like r/relationships stuff but D&D, I love it
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Aug 11, 2020 18:51
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is there a fun character build to represent being a strangle-y boy? i would like to play as a choker who was found as a baby and raised by dumb halflings or gnomes
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Aug 11, 2020 19:53
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juggalo baby coffin posted:is there a fun character build to represent being a strangle-y boy? i would like to play as a choker who was found as a baby and raised by dumb halflings or gnomes There's no actual choker in it but you might find something close enough. Otherwise, grappler fighter or a warlock who uses nothing but tentacles Splicer fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 19:59
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RC Cola posted:Update, the bad guy had a ring of regeneration, so now the barbarian has a toe ring for a few days/weeks The first bad guy, or the clone of the bad guy that was naked except when he decided he wasn't so he could cut the barbarian's arm off? Seriously, the fact that your DM will just de-limb your players to begin with is kind of loving awful. No D&D is better than bad D&D and that game you're in sounds insufferable. I've mostly been happy with the game I'm in, the last dungeon was incredibly frustrating though and the DM can be kind of rail-roady when he wants us to see the cool poo poo he designed, but some of it is legitimately cool even if it cribs from other sources. The background is that this is the 5e Forgotten Realms, but the DM is taking some liberties, one of which was importing Stormcast Eternals from Age of Sigmar and they are basically fantasy robocops with what is essentially the fantasy OCP equivalent holding the leash being one of the primary antagonists and are basically a military contractor for the Lord's Alliance. The Lord's Alliance aren't really asking too many questions about where all these automotons are coming from because they are dealing with multiple peasant revolts and also going on a land-grab, pushing to try and take over basically all of the Sword Coast. The main problem is that the stormcast are loving aggravating to fight. Every single one to a man can teleport on reaction to being hit so you can't pin them down. If they are in any sort of mortal danger or if you single one out they gently caress off with no real recourse. We just finished an arc where we infiltrated Helms Hold which was one of fantasy OCP's primary staging grounds. The surface and the upper levels of the dungeon were held by OCP with magical wards and barricades set up to quarantine the sanitarium in the lower floors which have been taken over by (now ancient, in the timeline) foulspawned monstrosities that are tied up with how OCP is making their not-robocops. I really enjoyed the setup and the interplay between infiltrating through the outer bounds of a militarized garrison, hitting a target of opportunity, and fading through the handful of safe passages in the quarantined sanitarium. Due to some of the mad-wizard fuckery in the hold, all teleportation is diverted. Even short range teleportation would take you to a machine in their lab that the Stormcast teleport to for fixes and repairs that we dubbed 'The Rage Cage'. I think everyone started getting frustrated by the end of it because us as the players didn't really fight any of the stormcast because of the frustration of never being able to finish one off, and the DM was getting frustrated with us not wanting to stand toe to toe with a garrison of 7 foot tall full plate monstrosities with great weapons and heavy crossbows that are functionally immortal and just leave when things go bad. One of the crowning achievements being that we polymorphed a foulspawn hulk from the lower levels of the sanitarium into a turtle and took it with us. A little bit later we got into a scrum with the stormcast garrison as we were trying to get to the last thing we needed in the dungeon. Before they could fully mobilize we threw said turtle into the middle of the room they were in, released the polymorph, and ran away as the hulk and the Stormcast started duking it out. We ultimately found an artifact that let us slip by the foulspawned without them attacking us that not-OCP was using to make their Stormcast Robocops and found a passage through to the underdark at the bottom of the Sanitarium. And released an insane green dragon that had been magically shackled in the prison right as the garrison was kicking in the door to get us. It was equal parts cool and frustrating and you could tell by the end of the dungeon (that took us like a real life month to get through) that everyone was kind of over it and ready to move on. The stormcast are frustrating to fight and this is like the third dungeon in a row where he's essentially blocked teleportation magic because he didn't want us getting away. The DM was annoyed that we were actively bucking the plans he had for us and while everyone had a good laugh at the turtlebombing the garrison with a foulspawn hulk, it felt like he was punishing and singling out the Sorceror in particular after that stunt - any time he did anything cool the DM would pull out all the stops to stick fingers in his eyes in particular which makes me feel so bad because the sorc has extremely cursed dice and can't roll well to save his life so he doesn't get many opportunities to do Cool Sorc poo poo. I woudn't call it the best D&D I've had, but it's also not catpiss bad. The DM is pretty legit and he puts some effort in it, and you can tell the stuff we come up with surprises him to the point where he does that Matthew Mercer "  UGH I'm so proud of you right now " thing. I've got a 1 on 1 session tonight for my post-helms hold debrief / personal story session, we'll see what kind of wild ride I'm in for now that I have a NotOCP's warcrime manuals and the contacts with several third party factions that would be Very Interested in knowing what the gently caress they are up to. DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 20:36
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juggalo baby coffin posted:is there a fun character build to represent being a strangle-y boy? i would like to play as a choker who was found as a baby and raised by dumb halflings or gnomes The Simic Hybrid seems tailor made for this. At level 1 you take climb speed to represent inhuman locomotion, at level 5 you take the grappling tendrils so you can hold down multiple foes and shred them. Probably as a Gloom Stalker ranger for peak ambush predator vibes.
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Aug 11, 2020 20:44
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Splicer posted:The wardrobe opens, disgorging another clone. They kill it. They turn to leave, behind the door is another opening clone box. They kill it. They run out of the room, a pillar in the hallway dumps out another clone. They kill it. The weakened pillar collapses, the ceiling empties dozens if not hundreds of naked clones stacked like cordwood. A clone struggles to its feet to be pancaked by another pallet of gooey wizard flesh from above. The floor collapses into the great hall below. An ominous, squishy rumbling comes from the chimney... I've also seen Avengers 2.
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Aug 11, 2020 22:18
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Leperflesh posted:I've also seen Avengers 2. Each clone snaps it's fingers, casts disintegrate and turns a player into ash. Checks out.
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Aug 11, 2020 22:28
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A while back, there was an UE that had a rogue subclass that was basically The Crow. Did that ever get published in any of the new handbooks?
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Aug 11, 2020 22:48
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Dragonshirt posted:A while back, there was an UE that had a rogue subclass that was basically The Crow. Did that ever get published in any of the new handbooks? they updated it and took out all the crow related elements and now its called the phantom and its much less interesting https://5e.tools/classes.html#rogue_phb,state:sub-phantom-ua-ua2scr=b1 Splicer posted:In case you're unaware of this: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/230312/Monstrous-Races this is very cool, thank you! Undead Hippo posted:The Simic Hybrid seems tailor made for this. At level 1 you take climb speed to represent inhuman locomotion, at level 5 you take the grappling tendrils so you can hold down multiple foes and shred them. this is also a good idea
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Aug 12, 2020 00:20
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Glagha posted:Okay I definitely don't want to edition war poo poo because it's pointless but like, the game has an entire category of powers which are explicitly used for out of combat things, and a whole system for rituals that is the category for "utility spells that can only be used out of combat" and the backgrounds and skill system in 5e are both basically adapted or ripped wholesale from the game. I have no idea where people got the idea that you for some reason can't roleplay in 4e, but there's literally nothing in 3.x or 5e that somehow enables non combat forms of play that 4e doesn't. Also I literally have no idea what the gently caress you're talking about with the dragon thing. Are you talking about utility powers? Most of the utility powers that actually do noncombat things in the 4e PHB are for the wizard, cleric, and warlock. I just flipped through the ranger, their only PHB utility power that does anything not related to combat (positioning, condition clearing, extra damage) is the level 2 power that lets someone reroll a skill check. That's...nice, I guess? Let's look at fighter. Level 2 utilities? Regeneration, slide ally, cancel combat advantage, get temporary hit points...nope. Level 6? Initiative boost, defense boost, reaction to reduce incoming damage....nope. Level 10? Movement boost, negate attack but be stunned, AC buff....still combat! 16? Buff ally ac, heal hit points, or follow a withdrawing enemy. There are two level 22 utility powers, one which gives you an action point when someone is dying and one which heals you when you hit 0 AC. Now, clerics can do cool out of combat things like fly around all day, but the martials get to interact with the skill challenge rules that have been written I don't know how many times and I can't tell you how they work without dumpster diving through 50 pages of errata. Screw it, let's take a look at the Martial Power fighter utilities. The only two that have any kind of utility are the level six Strong Focus (add Wis to Athletics/Strength checks 1/encounter) and one that requires you to be bloodied to get Athletics and Endurance bonuses. I could do this for the rest of the martial classes, but I think I've made my point. Rituals are...I don't like them very much. They're gated behind stuff spellcasters get for free, they cost a ton of money, they're not very good, and the DMG tells you to have the ritual fail on page 27 if it would derail your plot. The dragon thing is a discussion I remember from way back when on this board where people were claiming that a dragon strafing Lake Town was a story power that PCs shouldn't be expected to deal with. Aerial ranged attack is certainly not something a 4e defender can handle. Splicer posted:*pulls up a random 4e Epic Destiny* Really? Because I'm looking at the rest of the epic destinies in the book and they're erratic. The Adamantine Soldier is "a man in heavy armor" who gets an AC buff, some damage resistance, an autosave, and a stance that lets you knock people back a whopping 5 feet. I'll grant the Beastlord a pass because it's all around commanding beasts faster and conceivably you could use it to command the animal to flip a switch or something. Eternal Defender gives you bonuses to carrying stuff you so can be a pack mule. Whoopee. Godhunter gives you combat bonuses against higher level enemies. Legendary General gives you some power recovery and healing abilities, and doesn't give you anything that would be helpful at actually raising, maintaining, or leading an army thanks to DMG page 40 posted:A warlord's power might, read strictly, be able to give a hundred "allies" a free basic attack, but that doesn't mean that warlord characters should assemble armies to march before them into the dungeon. In general, a power's effect should be limited to a squad sized group- the sizes of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs - not hired soldiers or lantern bearers. Martial Archetype is paragon multiclassing +1 and I suppose gets a pass if you find a 22nd level utility power somewhere, Perfect Assassin has invisibility for one round that...only activates when you kill people, Undying Warrior is Mario Mushroom respawn until you die five times and you have to wait 24 hours, and Warmaster gives extra actions to the team of PCs which...might help if you're in a timed situation I guess. It's kind of a stretch. The last thing I want to address is the "4e doesn't let you roleplay" thing, and I honestly think it's because there's so much dissonance between the mechanics of what the classes claim to be and what they actually let you do. The demigod is supposed to be developing divine powers and stuff but has to run away in embarassment when the peasants ask them to bless their crops. The feyliege is supposed to be a faerie lord, but that doesn't come with any kind of cool thing you would expect a lord to do like raise taxes or armies or do political intrigue or any of that. You don't have any rights as a lord like a cool title or an estate and you don't have any responsibilities like having to appear at Oberon's court or anything. You get a 1-off defensive power fluffed as ghost knights to rub in that you don't actually have real knights to command, an incredibly anemic domination ability fluffed as control over the mind that gives you a round of domination if you critically hit with arcane charm powers, and the standard epic resurrection everyone gets. My biggest problem with 4e is that the fluff lets you supposedly do all this cool stuff like be a legendary general (described as a general so hardcore the gods themselves are trying to recruit them) or a feylord or an archlich...and then you look at the rules and you are a legendary general who doesn't get an army, a fey lord without vassals, an archlich without skeletons (necromancy wasn't added til Heroes of Shadow) or a demigod who can't really do anything like divert the river into the Augean stables. Occasionally you'll stumble on a Dark Wanderer or something that looks intriguing, but ultimately 4e just kinda lies to you about being able to play epic level characters.
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Aug 12, 2020 02:07
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That's a lot of words to say "I have very specific and oft unstated opinions about what constitutes D&D, some of which aren't actually D&D".
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Aug 12, 2020 02:24
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4e was totally correct to give all the martial classes fun abilities and it was a mistake to go back to the autoattack style paradigm.
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Aug 12, 2020 03:02
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juggalo baby coffin posted:4e was totally correct to give all the martial classes fun abilities and it was a mistake to go back to the autoattack style paradigm. Yeah I try to put "stuff" in every battle map I have and hint to my players to use them, but they're slow to catch on. "I double-smack" or "I double-attack" is far too common a refrain, alongside my spellcasters going "I use [cantrip]" every turn because they have spell slot anxiety.
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Aug 12, 2020 03:37
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Spell slots are bad too imo. Everything should be at-will/encounter powers (daily powers are bad and lead to the people conserving them and never using them). I feel like 4e was kind of ahead of its time. The D&D world wasn't ready for it and if it was remade today, I think a lot would have been done different to make it a better system. At the time, I just remember grognards being like "UGH THEY TURNED D&D INTO WORLD OF WARCRAFT. GROSS"  But to bring this back to 5e, for those of you who are DMs, what do y'all do to help people playing melee characters stay engaged?
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Aug 12, 2020 04:13
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Mordiceius posted:Spell slots are bad too imo. Everything should be at-will/encounter powers (daily powers are bad and lead to the people conserving them and never using them). I feel like 4e was kind of ahead of its time. The D&D world wasn't ready for it and if it was remade today, I think a lot would have been done different to make it a better system. you give them magic items, you tailor objects in the environment to be interacted with physically, and when a player asks if they can do some creative fuckery, you say yes basically reward them for thinking outside the box and give them some encouragement to really explore and interact with the space in a physical way, and design encounters accordingly; all martial classes have unparalleled physical prowess, so include things that play into that. when you’re designing your dungeons, don’t make it all puzzles and fighting, throw in some skill checks that are in the wheelhouse of the nonmagical people it sucks but you have to lay the groundwork for your martials to roleplay as hyper competent athletes because conventional game design doesn’t point towards that; then, you know, try to give them specific stuff to notice owing to their martial training (plot hooks linked to fighting style and make and model of equipment, poo poo like that); i find as a whole most high fantasy is obsessed with magic so bringing in mundane things for martial characters to show expertise in is a good way to balance things out, in and out of combat
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Aug 12, 2020 05:12
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