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That question, I'm less able to help you with, I'm afraid. That being said, there are numerous DMing blogs which make some excellent suggestions about how to make high-level solo fights more interesting for both you and the PCs, with multi-stage monsters which change when they're bloodied or when they reach certain HP points, and monsters with some control over the arena. Someone will probably have those bookmarked... Should be much more interesting. That being said, if the party managed to kill the god without losing anyone, but very nearly lost a bunch of people, that sounds like the balance was pretty good. Unless you were actively aiming for a TPK, I don't see what the issue was.
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Jul 21, 2011 08:56
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Lord Twisted posted:Kiss of Death was, pre-errata, a damage loop. We didn't look at the errata, and rules as written on the character sheet meant that the rogue could trip it off of his own attacks. Hey, just to clarify, kiss of death is not an infinite damage loop: Martial Power 2 posted:Kiss of Death Rogue Attack 29 Since about mid last year free action attacks have been limited to once per turn. It's something that comes up pretty often and it's worth knowing because it prevents a lot of exploits like the one your player used. There are infinite damage loops still in the game, but that wasn't one of them. Edit: Compendium posted:Free actions take almost no time or effort. You can take as many free actions as you want during your or another combatant’s turn. There is an exception to that rule: A creature can take a free action to use an attack power only once per turn. IntelligibleChoir fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 09:18
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UnintelligibleSmurf posted:Hey, just to clarify, kiss of death is not an infinite damage loop: I have the sheet right in front of me, the "free action" section you have bolded is not present - like I said it was poorly written before it was post-facto edited. The Character Builder update we used had this error in it. (to reiterate again - any harder enemies than Tiamat as I need something to throw at them)
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Jul 21, 2011 10:58
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Lord Twisted posted:I have the sheet right in front of me, the "free action" section you have bolded is not present - like I said it was poorly written before it was post-facto edited. The Character Builder update we used had this error in it. I copied straight from the book. Must have been a cb typo.
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Jul 21, 2011 11:22
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Alasdair Crawfish posted:you could do it like dark sun - if you roll a 1 on your attack roll, you can change it from a miss into a hit at the cost of drawing from the critical fumble deck, so there's a strategic decision to make with LOLWHACKY if you want! Which version of Darksun is that from?
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Jul 21, 2011 12:17
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Mojo Jojo posted:Which version of Darksun is that from? Sounds like the AD&D version. From my past experiences, the older versions tend to have more arcane and creative ad hoc rules sets / ideas in the middle of a module.
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Jul 21, 2011 13:00
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Samej posted:Sounds like the AD&D version. From my past experiences, the older versions tend to have more arcane and creative ad hoc rules sets / ideas in the middle of a module. He's talking about something similar to the 4e dark sun suggested rule - if you roll a 1 (or miss?) You are allowed to reroll if you're willing to risk an x% chance that you'll break your weapon.
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Jul 21, 2011 13:10
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Lord Twisted posted:
Two Tiamats.
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Jul 21, 2011 15:37
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homullus posted:Two Tiamats.
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Jul 21, 2011 16:16
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Settled on Vecna using illusions of Ogremoch and "Scabies" (long story: I made up a lightning Primordial called Scapus as part of one mission, he doesn't even exist but my players have seized on this corruption of his name, having not listened to me, as clearly behind all the evil). So they fight Ogremoch for 400HP, "Scabies" for 400HP, then Vecna for the remainder of his HP.
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Jul 21, 2011 21:40
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I've been toying with a Shadowrun game after this one I'm DMing comes to its eventual conclusion. I'm only passingly familiar with Shadowrun (it was my first RPG back when I was in 10th grade, so mid-90s, whatever version that was, and haven't played it since), but I'm thinking of tweaking the setting somewhat and bouncing the idea off you guys and getting first impressions--should I continue developing this idea, or is it stupid out-and-out We all live/work in the greater Seattle area, so I figured it'd be pretty easy to have a game setup where the big "return of magic" event happens in present day, and the players can either play versions of themselves (if they really want) or pick whatever modern-day analog they want (e.g., I could play a version of myself that stayed in the Air Force and is stationed at McChord, who turns into a magic dwarf or some poo poo) Plot in general's up in the air. Also I'm sure this has been done 1000x before, but can it be done well?
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Jul 21, 2011 22:34
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:I've been toying with a Shadowrun game after this one I'm DMing comes to its eventual conclusion. I'm only passingly familiar with Shadowrun (it was my first RPG back when I was in 10th grade, so mid-90s, whatever version that was, and haven't played it since), but I'm thinking of tweaking the setting somewhat and bouncing the idea off you guys and getting first impressions--should I continue developing this idea, or is it stupid out-and-out The idea behind Shadowrun is that magic came back gradually, starting with the dragons waking up before you had the dwarves and elves being born to human parents, and the people turning into orcs and trolls later on even than that. Because the practice of magic was completely lost nobody had any idea of the limit of what was possible until they started trying it, and even after that things weren't really settled until Halley's Comet came back to brofist the manasphere. Hell, they may still not be. Then again you may just want to tell Shadowrun lore to go screw.
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Jul 21, 2011 23:10
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Oh, well that's totally different from what I thought I remembered. I'll have to re-read it. But then again, as you said... I might tell the official lore to piss off. In fact, on second thought, that could work out fantastically--the current D&D 4e game I'm running is set in alternate-history 15th century Europe, and supposed to be our world (but with magic and the other races and poo poo). So the Shadowrun campaign could actually be set in the same world, perhaps even a continuation of the story (repercussions that come back along with the magic, or something? or maybe the magic never went away in this version, and it's just a modern society that's had this stuff forever and developed accordingly) If I tied the Shadowrun campaign in though, I'd want to keep it a surprise and let the players discover/figure it out, cuz it'd be more fun that way. In any case, what should I look out for if I plan a modern-setting Shadowrun campaign? Or is there a system better-suited for what I'm thinking of? I've heard all kinds of complaints about Shadowrun's combat system (though I can't think of what they were)
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Jul 21, 2011 23:22
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Is there a reason you wouldn't want to just reskin 4e? I ask because I am super-prejudiced against Shadowrun as a system.
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Jul 22, 2011 04:04
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Talking about podcasts got me looking for even more. Self-Critical hits is one I really like so far, and New Style is so indie it isn't on iTunes.
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Jul 22, 2011 15:32
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Doc Hawkins posted:Is there a reason you wouldn't want to just reskin 4e? This almost makes too much sense, because you could reskin everything Martial as cyberware. No longer is it so mysterious how a guy can make you feel better just by yelling at you; now he is firing needles tipped in stimulant AND yelling at you to get your pansy rear end out of the pool of your own blood.
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Jul 22, 2011 16:25
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^^^ oh poo poo, I like that.Doc Hawkins posted:Is there a reason you wouldn't want to just reskin 4e? I have absolutely no problems with reskinning 4e, I just thought maybe Shadowrun would be good because it's already magic/wizards+modern technology. If I wanted to include guns and stuff I'd have to do a bit more work on 4e (probably, maybe not now that I think about it) I also had an idea playing Fallout:NV last night--in the long long run, if this second game goes well and finishes and people still wanna play, I might do a post-apocalyptic one in the same world, in the far future. I hope it gets that far, that idea excites the hell outta me, though I'd probably wanna be a player for that, because I love post-apocalypse stuff. Anyone familiar with Fallout PnP systems? Are they any good? Or should I just reskin 4e again if I get that far?
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Jul 22, 2011 16:56
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Given that Fallout was originally inspired by GURPS, there was a fan effort to convert some stuff across. From what I remember, it ended up kind of messy though.
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Jul 22, 2011 17:20
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Shadowrun has a lot of wonky things going on with it but the biggest is it takes forever to build a character compared to how long it takes to turn them into devil rat chow.
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Jul 22, 2011 17:53
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In addition to what's been said: it's an old game with the same old unexamined simulationist assumptions. It has pure task resolution and no sane experience system. It has no mechanics to address theme, except Essence, which does it badly. Worst of all, it doesn't have mechanical support for what I consider the interesting parts of the shtick: awesome techno-magic heists. I think about playing and running Shadowrun all the time. I just think about doing it with Leverage, or Wild Talents, or Solar System, or Agon, or Fiasco, or Mountain Witch, or loving anything but the game's actual system. (If you want to keep the same system between game phases, then I rescind those last three recommendations as not generic enough.)
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Jul 22, 2011 18:22
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I'm running Shadowrun in Leverage now and it owns. It's a lot less kill-happy then Shadowrun 4E but I think that bloodlust is an artifact of the crunchy combat system and not the setting itself.
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Jul 22, 2011 18:38
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:
The Fallout PnP is a bit of a clunky system, but I won't say yet that its a bad system. I've ran one session of it and combat is clunky but I feel I can streamline it a little with some experience. You can find the wiki for it here: http://falloutpnp.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Captain Walker just made a thread about the system here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3426188 It includes a lot of the excel sheets I sent him that I've been putting together to help my game. I wish I'd known he was gonna make a thread with them so I could have prettied them up (or at least finished them). If the thread gets any actual traffic I'll start posting about the campaign I'm starting to run in the system.
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Jul 22, 2011 20:46
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Xand_Man posted:I'm running Shadowrun in Leverage now and it owns. It's a lot less kill-happy then Shadowrun 4E but I think that bloodlust is an artifact of the crunchy combat system and not the setting itself. You're living the dream, man. Did you hack it at all, or is it just a re-skin? I think I lost count of how many times I had read Shadowrun GMs complain that their players responded to all threats with overt and unhesitating lethal force nearly a decade ago.
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Jul 23, 2011 02:16
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Only thing I've hacked is giving every an extra distinction (Race) and a free Signature asset (because Shadowrun loves stuff). Some adjustment is necessary, however. Most of my players aren't as used to narrative games.  : These guys are kicking our asses. We should have prepped more! Looks across the table at the stack of plot points in front of them. Each player has at least 3. 
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Jul 25, 2011 21:37
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Xand_Man posted:
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Jul 25, 2011 21:45
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It's even worse in Leverage because plot points let you go back in time and prepare for poo poo retroactively.
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Jul 26, 2011 00:02
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Does anyone know of any articles (or have protips!) on how to run a fun investigative scenario in 3e D&D? I kinda accidentally wound up with one (a throw-away event the players decided to investigate further). I'll just throw this out there... What the players know thus far is that Dead Dude 1 and Dead Dude 2 were hired by Some Goon at a tavern in Tiny Village to steal bones from graves. The Dead Dude Duo were caught in the act by our heroic party, who wasted absolutely no time in riding them down. Dead Dude 2 surrendered them both; Dead Dude 1 never woke up before he was hanged for, you know, defiling graves and heresy and that fun sort of thing. Dead Dude 2 wasn't too bright, but did give the party some information (mainly, that he and his partner were hired, plus a sob story), and agreed in exchange for a clean death and the salvation of his soul to help the party capture Some Goon. The party is low-level and has no access to any scrying or thought-detecting magic beyond "detect evil." Unfortunately, Dead Dude 2 died heroically during a wolf attack (got knocked into the negs, no one thought to heal him until it was Too Late!), so the party is down one plan. They have arrived in town with really no plan and no stealth to speak of. I winged it from here: everyone is at the tavern, and after a pretty amusing insult contest between the party's paladin and an NPC kobold, gave the party 3 possible hooks for whodunnit. They've been doing some pretty good teamwork on this which I want to reward, even if I wasn't initially prepared. Now, I'm not really sure how to structure a skill challenge based on this. I tossed out some basic gather information checks in the tavern, plus a perception check (which was basically failed, which is why I handed out 3 leads instead of 1). We have a pretty decent representation of social checks, a little sneakiness, and a lot of naivete in the party. No one in the party is an arcane class or alchemist (which is the pretense for why someone wants bones--necromancy isn't a big part of this setting). As an aside, the graves the Dead Dude Duo were caught digging up belonged to a set of famous local adventurers who died of a plague several decades before the current time. If someone has a sweet idea for working that in...  If any of my players are goons, avert your eyes!
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Jul 26, 2011 19:50
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Evil necromancer wants the bones to recreate the plague. Give him a flunkie or two that are asking around about this plague, buying strange equipment/ingredients, and so on. If you've got anyone who likes research, throw in a couple books at the library about the plague, symptoms, infection vector, etc. -or- Maybe Some Goon is infected with this plague and wants to create a cure before he dies. He needs their bones to cast Speak With Dead, so that he can talk to them about the plague and create a cure before he dies and/or it spreads. Same as above, but now the flunkies are looking in different places for their stuff. ~OR~ Some Goon is still an evil necromancer, but he needs the bones as part of a ritual to become a lich (possibly a lich with super disease powers rather than the standard fear/negative energy poo poo). Now the PCs have to Stop the Ritual Before Time Runs Out! It also makes the ingredients/equipment/etc. a lot more strange and macabre and leaves the PCs looking into back alleys and black markets rather than going to the library or hospital or reagent store.
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Jul 26, 2011 20:19
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Those are each very cool ideas. I will be cherry picking...! Do you have suggestions on how to structure DCs in the investigation? I've only run investigation scenarios in diceless games, and none of my tables have ever done the type of investigation that involves anything but "kill everyone! take their stuff" and "kill everyone but one! then break his kneecaps" so I don't have much experience to work from.
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Jul 26, 2011 20:27
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I usually just go DC 10 gets you basic info you could find out from walking around town and listening to people chat, 15-20 for a good lead (depending on how esoteric the lead needs to be), and every 5 over that gets you a specific piece of information of the rolling player's choice. I usually use Gather Info for general/nonspecific info, Sense Motive/Diplomacy for getting info directly from people, and the various Knowledge skills for specific topics (either from experts or from recorded materials). Then just adjust up or down depending on how common/rare the thing being investigated is. Edit for example: Finding out the local barkeep is married to the town deputy is base DC 5, finding out the deputy lets him get away with pickpocketing the drunks who pass out is a 10-15, finding out his pocketwatch is actually an artifact with insidiously dark powers is a 20-25, finding out the town's high priest of Pelor is actually devoted to Solaris the Tyrant Sun is a 30, and finding out that said pocketwatch is actually said priest's phylactery is a 40. Yawgmoth fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jul 26, 2011 |
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Jul 26, 2011 21:03
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Xand_Man posted:It's even worse in Leverage because plot points let you go back in time and prepare for poo poo retroactively. I've got a character in a DC game whose stichk is always being prepared, and most of his hero points go to retroactively having prepared for the big event (right weapon at the right time, knowledge of key week points, etc.) and I think that kind of stuff is really cool. It means you don't have to spend much time on research phases and can keep things moving if you've got players who really like action.
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Jul 27, 2011 02:21
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Leverage is similar. At any point a PC can turn to another PC and say something like "You remembered to turn off the security system, right?" and slide them a plot point. Boom, flashback to them hacking the security system.
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Jul 27, 2011 09:22
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Need some help with ideas. New player in my 4e game, playing a Warforged Slayer. He's pretty a cavalier player, so his backstory was pretty much "Woke up in a room with a vague notion to fight evil, did so". In the setting, I've established he's fairly unique, but in a sense that most people are familiar with magical constructs, but very few recognize that an intelligent one is a big deal. I figured I'd add some neat sideplot concerning him, which he's looking forward to. Mostly figuring out what exactly he is. I just need to flesh it out with interesting leads, information, and possible rewards. Right now its pretty nebulous. I just figure he tries to find artificers who might have any idea whats going on, one of them points him towards the workshop of a famous creator of golems, a mad hermit genius type. He's gone, but in chasing leads the party finds scraps of information and blueprints detailing Awesome Body Mods that he can use. First Question, his name is T.H.O.M. I'm drawing a complete blank on a good meaning for it, and so is he. Second, what kind of ultimate goal would creating this warforged have served? Third, what unique method did our mad artificer use to create a sentient construct? I'd like to avoid anything Powered by the Souls of Orphans.
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Jul 31, 2011 07:13
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M.c.P posted:First Question, his name is T.H.O.M. I'm drawing a complete blank on a good meaning for it, and so is he. Trial Harmonic Ordnance Machine. He's a prototype ambulatory weapon powered by magical resonance between his spirit and the materials used to construct him. quote:Second, what kind of ultimate goal would creating this warforged have served? His heart is a geode from an ancient volcano, with a fire elemental sealed inside. His body is made from special ores or metals or whatever that the elemental can manipulate and move around from within the geode. The artificer's ultimate goal was to harness the power of the Elemental Chaos and turn it against the primordials, creating an army of golems by summoning elementals into suitable physical objects, erasing their memories and imprinting the desire to fight for justice upon them. Unfortunately, one of his later experiments went out of his control or something, as experiments like this are wont to do, and now he's probably dead or at least even crazier than he used to be. That gives you plenty of potential plot hooks and villains to throw at the party later on.
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Jul 31, 2011 09:04
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1) Something Something Original Model. Or have the M be the Roman numeral. His name is actually THO-1000. 2) The artificer wanted to know about the origin of souls? His research led him to believe that humans,elves and all the rest weren't special, they were just capable of holding one, and when an entity capable of holding a soul is born, one finds him. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You said you wanted to stay away from dead orphans, but you could easily twist it so that these constructs were intercepting souls intended for new borns. So every warforged he makes causes a soulless abomination to be born. Or, when he finishes it, it draws in his soul for some reason (THOM is a superior vessel and artificer is the nearest wizard). Or maybe it was intention. The artificer wanted to live forever, didn't fancy the risk of liching up and getting turned all the time, so he created a fancy metal body. An inevitable (they're lawful creatures that hunt down people who try to subvert universal laws, like death) bursts in during the ritual though and it all gets screwed up. Those are kind of the "You're just a failed experiment" angle. Maybe you can tie it to the main plot though? The artificer saw a glimpse of the terrible future and started creating a new race to do it. One Thousand Metal Soldiers to battle the forces of darkness. He died after making the first one though (or maybe the first couple, and the others turned evil) 3) His core is made from a fabulously rare metal which only exists in fragments of the fallen moon. And then you need some kind of planar alignment and a big fancy orrery deally to tie it all together. That way it gives you an interesting encounter location with the movement of the orrery and various plane related effects coming and going throughout.
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Jul 31, 2011 09:51
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M.c.P posted:
Temporary Humanoid Orderly Mechanism. He was commissioned as an emergency replacement for a doctor, but somewhere along the line his programming/memory got hosed. Or the mad artificer decided that it would be better if it was heavily armed and combat ready. Wearsyourgodnow fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Jul 31, 2011 |
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Jul 31, 2011 09:54
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Mojo Jojo posted:1) If this is the case he might find out that THOCM (900), THOD (500), or THOC (100) exist and are jealous of his advanced construction or willing to assist him somehow. Maybe THOMM could be a possible threat to his own survival (and his allies) on the way to finding his origins.
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Jul 31, 2011 17:32
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Mondays posted:If this is the case he might find out that THOCM (900), THOD (500), or THOC (100) exist and are jealous of his advanced construction or willing to assist him somehow. Maybe THOMM could be a possible threat to his own survival (and his allies) on the way to finding his origins. I do like this a lot. Temporary Humanoid Operative 1000? It's a bit of a dark backstory, but how about he was designed to fulfil a purpose within a single operation and then "die" and was never intended to develop sentience? (Hence "temporary" in the name). Something went "wrong", and instead of shutting down permanently upon completion of the operation, he somehow self-emancipated. He might even be on the run from people who want to take him apart to find out what happened because they do / don't want it to happen again. Maybe even 2 groups of people, one with each viewpoint.
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Aug 1, 2011 06:48
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AlphaDog posted:I do like this a lot. Shades of Scud, the Disposable Assassin in there. Not that that's in any way a bad thing.
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Aug 1, 2011 20:36
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Gomi posted:Shades of Scud, the Disposable Assassin in there. Not that that's in any way a bad thing. I don't know what that is but it sounds really cool. Link?
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Aug 2, 2011 08:26
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