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Whybird posted:(with standard-action skill checks to influence what it lands on) Ugh, the standard action skill check is one of the worst things in 4e, imo, especially when it has you doing something like "give up your attack for a chance to modify another chance".
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Jul 15, 2015 00:43
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You know, good point. I guess with a good enough roll you should just be able to set one reel to 6 as a standard action. Other than that the idea is a little custom tailored to my party - I've got a player who's specifically neglecting his attacks and wants "utility", and he's playing a paladin of Avandra, godess of luck, so apart from any other problems this regularly causes, at least manning the slots should be more or less exactly his thing. e: If they pull off one skill roll each round, they'll summon 2 enemies in round 1, 1 in round 2, and the Elite key-holding boss in round 3... which makes more or less exactly a same-level encounter for their party. Gonna have to find some way to get it across to them that that's a good idea. Leperflesh posted:Do they have to put money into a slot before each pull? Because I feel like the gambling is a critical part of the essence of a slot machine. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 06:57
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My Lovely Horse posted:You know, good point. I guess with a good enough roll you should just be able to set one reel to 6 as a standard action. This sounds like it should trigger some kind of anti-cheating mechanism.
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Jul 15, 2015 12:23
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Before NEXT came out I tried to transition my party from their current PF game to 4e since I really liked the stuff I read on it. Unfortunately most would not make the jump, so sadly I never got to DM or play a game of 4th edition.
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Jul 15, 2015 12:27
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Onmi posted:Before NEXT came out I tried to transition my party from their current PF game to 4e since I really liked the stuff I read on it. Unfortunately most would not make the jump, so sadly I never got to DM or play a game of 4th edition.
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Jul 15, 2015 20:10
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Poison Mushroom posted:If half the things I've heard about NEXT are true, there will be plenty of people playing 4e for years to come. A friend of mine knows a "Wizards and Jedi are cool" guy who simultaneously hates 4th Ed with a fiery passion, but was apparently super excited about NEXT when he found out "Wizards can have at will spells! What a great idea!" during it's playtest phase. Their wife also hates 4th Ed, while having been known to complain when Fighter stuff gets reduced to "Like old final fantasy, just pushing attack over and over". I'd wonder if they had ever played 4th ed in the first place if not for confirmation from my pal that yes, they have. At least I can wrap my head around the guy's reasons for hating 4th ed.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:08
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Spiderfist Island posted:By Saturday, so take your time. Again, thanks a million for this. Do you mind if I take down my email now from that post? Hey, sorry I missed this (I realised as I was posting a big giant charop rant in the charop thread). I've had a crazy busy couple of weekends plus some motivation issues and I wasn't able to find the time.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:40
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How do I input a hybrid character (using the PHB3 hybrid rules) into the offline character builder? It's clearly been updated for PHB3, has all those classes and stuff, but I'm just not seeing how to do it.
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Jul 15, 2015 23:23
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Select 'Hybrid' under either PH3 or the miscellaneous stuff at the bottom, then you pick the two parts afterwards.
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Jul 15, 2015 23:25
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thespaceinvader posted:Select 'Hybrid' under either PH3 or the miscellaneous stuff at the bottom, then you pick the two parts afterwards. Ah I must be blind, there it is. Thanks! e. For this beginner-friendly level 1 adventure, my brother sent me a hybrid Genasi Warlord/Swordmage (reskinned as a human, since there aren't any Genasi in this setting), using the Background that lets you take any ability score instead of Con for hit points. All worked out on paper, so I could enter it myself into the CB. My new player sent me a CB file of her half-elf ranger with a +0 dexterity modifier. 
Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 23:26
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Leperflesh posted:My new player sent me a CB file of her half-elf ranger with a +0 dexterity modifier. If she's melee, she might be Str/Wis. She might want to hybrid Cleric for scale armor.
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Jul 15, 2015 23:59
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+0 DEX mod is bad for either brand of Ranger, you still need initiative even if you're STR|WIS.
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Jul 16, 2015 00:06
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Jul 16, 2015 01:16
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She's bow. She just has never played a pen & paper RPG before. She does a lot of videogames but I think it's just not clear to her at this point what the significance of various choices are. I worked with her a bit yesterday, pointing out how combat is important in this game and that her powers all keyed off of dexterity so maybe dexterity should be higher? She's still not optimized, but at least now she gets an attack bonus. I told my brother his character seemed complicated and he said "From my perspective, this -does- seem pretty simple. The character moves to and hits enemies to do damage and mark them, and when it's better to have someone else hit the enemy, she does that instead. Mark punishment is in the form of going and hitting whatever violated mark. No goals like 'rearrange the battlefield entirely' and no build elements that require, hinge off of, or prompt other party members to function in particular ways." Which, yes, OK that's true. But I was thinking more in terms of complex like, using rules from every rulebook and expansion together to get the most optimized thing possible. But whatever, it doesn't matter. He's a systems expert kind of guy who gets joy from building a library of 40+ different crazy character builds just to draw from for a new game. After we do a couple test encounters tonight, we'll get into my actual adventure and he'll start to get what the tone of the game is going to be like.
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Jul 16, 2015 01:44
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Leperflesh posted:She's still not optimized, but at least now she gets an attack bonus. Eh, if she ends up missing a bunch/realizes the value of certain stats as they relate to combat & skill checks, just let her alter the sheet after the first session/combat/whatever. I've never seen a game where a new person got their character 100% the way they wanted on the first try. Leperflesh posted:using rules from every rulebook and expansion together to get the most optimized thing possible. It's really easy to do this without trying if using the CB. It's a super handy tool and I probably wouldn't have ever gotten into D&D without it.
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Jul 16, 2015 02:14
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Generic Octopus posted:Eh, if she ends up missing a bunch/realizes the value of certain stats as they relate to combat & skill checks, just let her alter the sheet after the first session/combat/whatever. I've never seen a game where a new person got their character 100% the way they wanted on the first try. This, pretty much. Let them treat it as a game where they just pick whatever's cool and whatever they think is relevant (and give them a little guidance, but don't insist too hard on what you know is optimized if there's pushback), and once they figure out how it affects their actual in-game performance just let them hit the reset button. It's the equivalent of someone playing Diablo 2 for the first time sinking lots of skill points into Frostbolt and putting stat points into Energy, except you don't make them re-level a character from scratch once they finally figure out that that's not a good strategy.
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Jul 16, 2015 05:44
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Khizan posted:Ugh, the standard action skill check is one of the worst things in 4e, imo, especially when it has you doing something like "give up your attack for a chance to modify another chance". One of the best house rules is to make skill checks during combat a minor action (so long as it doesn't contradict the standard action). This will take them from never being used in combat to being used all the time. I won't allow someone to attack an enemy and then try a diplomacy check or attack and then try to stealth check, but if someone wants to do an attack, move, and heal check a comrade, I'll allow it.
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Jul 16, 2015 17:43
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gradenko_2000 posted:This, pretty much. Let them treat it as a game where they just pick whatever's cool and whatever they think is relevant (and give them a little guidance, but don't insist too hard on what you know is optimized if there's pushback), and once they figure out how it affects their actual in-game performance just let them hit the reset button. Yeah this was already the plan. It's why I had the group do a quick "this happened on the road to the starting location" combat encounter with little more setup than that; it's a shakedown for everyone's builds, and now they have two weeks to make any changes they want before things get fairly locked-in for our first actual adventure. The new player got three shots in against enemies and rolled very badly, missing all three. Which sucked because I wanted her to get to contribute more and feel good about it, but it did show that even with a 16 in dex, she can still miss when she rolls low. I'll be giving out free Expertise feats, so that'll be another +1 for her. I think her ranger is playable with 16 dex, although it's not an optimized party when the only striker doesn't hit as well. My brother's swordmage/warlord hybrid is an excellent tank, though, and I can adjust encounters as needed to make them work well. Hey by the way: can I assume that every monster statblock in the Compendium has been adjusted to MM3 math, or do I need to hand-check them?
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Jul 16, 2015 18:00
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I haven't gone through the entire Monster Vault (not Compendium), but for the, say, 30-40% that I've used, yes, they do match the intended MM3 math, except if you want to use this follow-up that reduces HP further to make sure that HP counts don't change the hits-to-a-kill ratio in later levels.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:14
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Everything post MM3 works (including the Monster Vault), but if it's from the MM1, MM2 or an issue of Dungeon or Dragon before the MM3 then you might have problems.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:16
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Ok so the Compendium doesn't automagically adjust stuff for MM1-2 monsters and supplements. Sigh.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:17
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Almost everything in the MM1 was updated for the Monster Vault though, with the exception of the things that only show up in epic tier.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:23
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Oh... kay, so if the Compendium's annotations on a given monster shows that it was published in Monster Vault, I can assume it's been updated? (I'm very unlikely to ever care about Epic-tier monsters.)
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Jul 16, 2015 18:25
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The Vault has a serious lack of epic-level monsters, to the point where you can't really run a game without other books.gradenko_2000 posted:I haven't gone through the entire Monster Vault (not Compendium), but for the, say, 30-40% that I've used, yes, they do match the intended MM3 math, except if you want to use this follow-up that reduces HP further to make sure that HP counts don't change the hits-to-a-kill ratio in later levels.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:28
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Probably. That post I linked to says as much, why is why my use of it is something I don't particularly insist on if I'm giving out advice.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:30
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So it does, and also what I did was completely miss the "if" and read "except you want to use this follow-up..." It's good to have that sort of thing available, some parties get more of an attacks/round increase than others.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:33
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Wow. Had my first mid-Paragon PC death in this campaign last night. AoE damage is a harsh mistress.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:17
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Personally I try to stick to the 2 Vaults as much as possible and just reskin liberally anyway just because those monsters generally have more interesting abilities. This is especially true for solos.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:05
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The Nentir Vale Vault I feel is a little heavy on Very Special NPC monsters, with names and backstories and lots of powers because they're special that are a pain to keep track of in combat, but then of course you can always reskin and they work very well for if you really do need a unique enemy. MM3 has a few good ones as well that are outside the usual goblin/orc/gelatinous cube scope.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:10
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dwarf74 posted:Wow. Had my first mid-Paragon PC death in this campaign last night. AoE damage is a harsh mistress. What happened?
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Jul 16, 2015 22:12
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ImpactVector posted:Personally I try to stick to the 2 Vaults as much as possible and just reskin liberally anyway just because those monsters generally have more interesting abilities. This is especially true for solos. The Dark Sun Creature Catalog also uses MM3 math, so be sure to check out those monsters as well.
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Jul 16, 2015 22:55
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LightWarden posted:What happened? The fight was very hard. Two Elites (one kinda gimped) and a solo dragon. There is a literal Buck Rogers death ray that shoots and then deals 15 damage to anything ending its turn in a zone. She got hit by machine gun fire, Dragon breath, and the death ray all in one round, and then her turn was up next, so the auto damage finished her off.
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Jul 17, 2015 01:54
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I've somewhat burned myself out on the Dark Sun campaign I've been running, and want to take a bit of a break with some pre-made adventure paths or one shots. Does anyone have any good suggestions? I really liked Scales of War, but I don't know if I'm in the mood for running a long haul 1-30 super adventure seeing as I intend to return to the Dark Sun game. I'm tempted to run Tomb of Horrors, but it seems better suited to be fastened into an already pre-established campaign. Does it run well enough on its own despite the giant gaps in levels between chapters?
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Jul 17, 2015 02:17
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Leperflesh posted:I told my brother his character seemed complicated and he said Point out to him that tactically, his presence on the field allows his allies a lot more freedom. If his punishment is strong enough, it can be a good tactic for his ranged alliies to provoke OAs so that he gets to punish the monsters... And yeah, don't shy away from allowing people - anyone - to just fiddle with their characters between sessions. It's easy to mess tuff up in 4e, or to just fancy a change; for my money as long as the flavour remains the same or there's a flavour justification for major changes, I'm happy for people to pretty much entirely respec between sessions including changing class and race.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:57
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Ran my gambling dungeon yesterday  Roulette encounter: Part of the map was a 6x6 magic square where someone had to visit 6 specific squares while monsters were attacking, and each round things would happen based on a 1d36 roll. The roulette part was actually kind of a wash. Hardly anyone was ever on an affected square, and most PCs made a point of staying off the area. I guess I made the map too big after all. On the plus side, protecting the "runner" from attacks while they were doing their thing was a beautiful and tense tactical challenge, and I'll definitely revisit this idea. Things like that, where you have to weigh ideal tactical positioning against doing things with the grid, are where grid-based combat really shines. Slot machine encounter: worked as expected, including the skill rolls for cheating. One thing I didn't expect was that they would take turns and spin the reels multiple times in one round, essentialls summoning all the monsters at once. So no different from a regular encounter in the end except with randomly selected creatures. I also learned that my players, when presented with something like a slot machine, will immediately set their sights on playing it without considering what purpose it could serve in the dungeon. Playing dice against the legendary gambler's spirit for his treasure: fell entirely flat because one player made a "prevent the spirit from cheating" roll in the high 30s and the spirit lost with his first roll. Good thing I spent the least prep time on that one. No skin off my nose and anyone who was looking forward to a tense gambling encounter as a change from combat all the time knows who to blame.  It did mean we had time to do a few additional completely improvised scenes that turned out really great and were totally player-directed, so it's a net positive.
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Jul 19, 2015 14:37
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My Lovely Horse posted:It did mean we had time to do a few additional completely improvised scenes that turned out really great and were totally player-directed, so it's a net positive. Don't leave them out 
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Jul 19, 2015 23:37
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Once they got back into town we still had a few hours of playing time, so I dropped an idea from the pile of sidequests on them. They're loosely allied with local revolutionaries, one of whom had been captured by the brutal militia and replaced in the revolution's structure with a complete off-with-the-nobles'-heads rear end in a top hat. The mission: deal with this. They went through a couple of ideas for a plan. Assassinating the new guy was quickly voted out. Establishing a communications channel with the guy on the inside was briefly a favourite - he could have led from the inside, and they could have smuggled in goods and info so he could stage a prison takeover from within eventually. That plan morphed into breaking him out and replacing him with the party's changeling, who would then either get out or organize the takeover, but they quickly realized the revolution as a whole wasn't ready for that kind of direct action yet. But once they had started to think of the changeling's capabilities, they had the idea for the final iteration - simply sign the guy out in the guise of a high-ranking militia officer. Now, when they got into town by train, they had to defend it from attacking undead, and a militia officer had actually commended them on their bravery. At that point they were still considering joining the militia, so the officer wrote them a letter of recommendation that would get them an audience with the militia commander-in-chief, a hardass dwarf named Gorat. For the prison plan, they decided to go with the highest ranking officer they could find and went to see him so the changeling would have a reference. The audience went well. Gorat even made them a reasonable offer to work with the militia as outside operatives that they had to seriously consider. But for now it was all about the prison break. The changeling took on Gorat's form, they dressed up the bard all in black leather, and the two of them went to the prison gates in the dead of night, commandeering two actual militia members on the way. Fake Gorat demanded to see the prisoner for "special questioning", with a nod to the bard, and, of course, the prisoner was brought to him immediately. The captain manning the prison office wasn't so intimidated that he wouldn't remember doing the official paperwork, so he had the "commander" sign release papers; the changeling happily complied, signed with "Commander Goat", and off they were. Some way down the street "Gorat" relieve the militia guys of their duty and took the prisoner away, then they took him back to the revolution HQ, and that was that. ========== So many reasons why I liked how this went down: - it was entirely their own idea start to finish - it ties in with a couple of other side things some characters have going on - it was the first time they changeling really used what he's got, in years of playing, and I hope considering how well it worked they do it more often from now on - when they got rid of the militia guys, the changeling gave the prisoner a good whack in the stomach with one of their truncheons, then said "we can take it from here" - in retrospect I thought that was a great way to play it "the evil way" while staying fully in line with the party's goals. It actually can work! - I'd been looking for a way to establish "the militia tortures people" without getting too grimdark about it; turns out the players assumed that would be the case anyway, so I just placed little details that simply confirmed the notion. "Special questioning" was a well-known term, they kept it out of the paperwork, and so on. - loads of opportunities to revisit their actions here in future dealings with the revolution and militia.
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Jul 20, 2015 07:06
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So I've been poring over feat lists for the past couple of weeks in preparation for a new group, and I'm looking to cut down the number of feats. Admittedly, I'm using just about every feat I can find, but what is the general consensus on feats that can be dropped, or feats that should be included in general? edit: Forgot to specify, I was talking about heroic feats to begin with, and just some general guidelines about feats to include. Torchlighter fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 12:00
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Torchlighter posted:So I've been poring over feat lists for the past couple of weeks in preparation for a new group, and I'm looking to cut down the number of feats. Admittedly, I'm using just about every feat I can find, but what is the general consensus on feats that can be dropped, or feats that should be included in general? Are you asking for a sub-list of the 3564 feats that people like?
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Jul 20, 2015 14:48
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Torchlighter posted:So I've been poring over feat lists for the past couple of weeks in preparation for a new group, and I'm looking to cut down the number of feats. Admittedly, I'm using just about every feat I can find, but what is the general consensus on feats that can be dropped, or feats that should be included in general? Because if they've played any crunchy computer or tabletop RPGs before, you can pretty much just point them at the build guides and let them go to town. At least for me, a lot of the fun in 4e is in trying out builds and seeing them work. A pared down feat list would risk cutting a linchpin of a build you've never heard of. For players that are newer to gaming or less invested in the build aspect, I've had good luck with "recommend pick" lists, where you pare things down so they can pick from a list of 3-4 options that will all be effective instead of the full list. It's a little more work for you, but if you just follow the charop guides it doesn't actually take that long.
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Jul 20, 2015 15:30
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