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 Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was the first RPG, and still is, in many ways, the flagship of the roleplaying game hobby. At the core of D&D is adventuring, where a group of adventurers achieve fame and riches through the exploration of dangerous areas (dungeons) and the defeat of the monsters within (dragons). Each player controls a single protagonist character, while another player (the Dungeon Master or DM) designs and controls the monsters and environment. All of the settings for D&D are fantastical, magical worlds, and this edition of D&D is among the most heroic of them all. It isn't the only way you can play D&D (there really is no wrong way to play), but it's arguably the best-designed game of the bunch. This is the thread for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (commonly referred to as 4E or D&D4). If you're interested in the 3.5/d20 thread, that's here. Pathfinder is here. There is a nice little thread for older D&D (pre-3E) here.  So I heard this game was cancelled? Yep, D&D Next is coming out in the Summer of 2014 after a long period of stagnancy for 4e. That shouldn't bother you; every edition of D&D comes to an end sometime, and every past edition still has its fans. 4e had a very good run with some great books, and you should be able to find most of them for reasonable prices in secondary markets, either locally or on sites like eBay or Amazon. What's more, in its 5 year run, there was more material released than you could probably use in a lifetime. And, if you run out of that, homebrewing stuff on the DM side (like new monsters and adventures) is so slick and easy it'll blow your mind. Okay, I want to play D&D 4e, how do I get started? You can still get started for free! No joke, you really can. All you need is a few friends and the quick start rules and adventure found here! You can run your first one or two sessions and try out the game without any outlay. Mind you, the depths of D&D go much further than this... I want to buy books. What the hell should I buy? Well, Fourth Edition is split into two mutually-compatible divisions: Regular and Essentials. Essentials is an easier on-ramp, but either should work. If you're new to D&D, start here and try the Essentials line. Buy Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Rules Compendium, and Monster Vault. If you've played D&D before, you might be tempted to grab the PHB/DMG/MM. Be advised, though, that these books have a lot of errata. The original Monster Manual, in particular, is pretty suspect as far as monster design goes, and therefore really hard to recommend. You can't really go wrong buying them (we started with them, and we love this game!), it's just something you'll want to know. Get the errata, and go to it! If the idea of picking up a bunch of books at $20-30 a pop is distasteful, here's another way. Buy a Rules Compendium and a subscription to D&D Insider. This gives you access to literally EVERYTHING Fourth Edition, and for less than $25 up-front. You can use the character builder to make all of your characters, and the compendium will give you access to all monsters. All you need to do is make your own maps and tokens (or buy the DM's kit). Let me reiterate: Everything "Fourth Edition" is compatible. In fact, the Rules Compendium and Monster Vault are highly recommended no matter what sort of campaign you run. You can't really buy the "wrong books." What else is there? Insider is made up of the Character Builder, Compendium, and Adventure Tools, in addition to access to the Dragon & Dungeon magazines. All good things must come to an end (because WotC is bad at internet), and DDI is no longer accepting new subscribers as of December, 2015. Fear not, however! Forum hero gradenko_2000 has put together a very nice must-have list for a post-DDI world, now that basically everything 4e is up on dndclassics. Check it out! Also, there is a ton of third-party software support for D&D 4e! Just look at this list! (And um... let me know if any of it doesn't work...)
How about adventures? Does 4e have many good pre-made ones?  Look, this is still a sore point for me. Most of WotC's published adventures for 4e are among the worst adventures ever published. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the fact remains that, for 2-3 years, every adventure was some degree of terrible, and it soured a lot of people on the game. In particular, stay away from the H-P-E series, which starts with Keep on the Shadowfell and ends with Prince of Undeath. Some of the adventures are salvageable - in particular H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth and P2: Demon Queen's Enclave. Keep on the Shadowfell itself is somewhat usable, especially if you cut out a bunch of stuff in the middle. The rest are so much trouble to fix, you might as well write your own.But no worries! Later in the edition, WotC finally got their heads out of their asses and put out some good ones. The following are Goon-Recommended! Level 1 - The Slaying Stone (Standalone "folder" adventure) Level 2-4 - The Reavers of Harkenwold (from the Essentials DM's Kit) Level 4-5 - The Cairn of the Winter King (from the Essentials Monster Vault) Level 6-8 - The Madness at Gardmore Abbey (fantastic standalone box set) Paragon Tier - Revenge of the Giants (Standalone hardcover) Eberron - Seekers of the Ashen Crown You can also get some good mileage out of Dungeon Delve (another hardcover) since it's not an adventure and more a bunch of drop-in delves. You will need to fix the monster math at higher levels, though. Dungeon Magazine has a ton of adventures, too. They of course vary wildly in quality, but you won't be wanting for ideas. Finally, if you want to go outside WotC, the best Adventure Path right now is EN Publishing's Zeitgeist, which currently has 7 adventures stretching to 17th level. Its future for 4e is kind of uncertain, depending on the future of 4e licensing, but it's good. Don't take my word for it, though - the player's guide, DM's guide, and first adventure are all free. What's all this talk about math fixes? I thought 4e was the best D&D out there? Well, no game is perfect. There are three major math-related tweaks to the game that a lot of people use, but only the first is an outright "fix". It is important to note that, however much we may talk about these fixes, the game works out of the box. Don't feel obliged to give your characters anything, and don't be mad at a DM who says nope, we're playing rules as written (RAW). The first is what we call "MM3 Monster Math." For the third (and subsequent) monster manuals, Wizards decided to revamp how they were constructing monsters. Monsters in the first and second monster manual are slow, boring, unchallenging slogs, who hit too soft and die too slow. Now, monsters hit harder and go down quicker, making the game faster and more fun. This fix is officially supported by Wizards, and all new monsters (including the Monster Vaults) use this math. Basically, all monsters should roughly follow this rubric:  I use the Monster Math Cruncher to build or balance old monsters to the new math. It's actually kinda fun. There are other changes (primarily to solos), but we could go on about that for days. The second fix is an unofficial, but very common house rule: Feat Taxes. After a while, Wizards realized that monster defenses climb faster than PC attack bonuses, and so they released the so-called "expertise" feats that give +1 to attack per tier. This fixes the attack bonus problem (mostly), but raises another: everyone who wants to be a competitive character will take these feats, making them essentially a wasted slot. The common fix is to give out an Expertise feat at level 5 or earlier. Other feats that are sometimes given out for free to avoid taxes (depending upon group and playstyle): Improved Defenses, Weapon/Implement Focus, and Melee Training (especially for Defenders like Battleminds and Swordmages who otherwise lack a useful Melee Basic Attack). The third is Inherent Bonuses. These are more a quality-of-life adjustment than an outright fix, but once you use them you'll never go back. So you might have gathered that 4e is mathematically pretty rigorous. It assumes you have certain magic item bonuses at certain levels for its math to work out right. Inherent bonuses cut through the micromanagement this would normally require and says, "Well... why don't we just give you those bonuses, then?" Using them is really simple if you're using the Character Builder - check the box that says "Inherent Bonuses." If you're not, it's still not that bad; you get a +1 enhancement bonus to-hit & damage (with a 1d6 critical hit die) at level 2; this improves by +1 (and 1d6) every 5 levels - 7th, 12th, etc. Your AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will all get a +1 enhancement bonus at level 4; these likewise improve every 5 levels (9th, 14th, etc.), but there's some weirdness with masterwork armors so be sure you take those into account too. These don't stack with real magic items, of course. Do goons talk about this game a lot? Oh holy hell do we ever. It's goons' favorite official D&D. We love newbies in this thread. Every new guy who wants to play gets tackled by people who want to help him or her. Just ask questions! Outside of this thread, we have: 4e CharOp Thread: You make characters, we make characters good 4E Class/Path/Race/Power/Etc. Homebrew: Bringing Back That Lovin' Feeling D&D4e Character Builder Modding: Better, Stronger, Faster. The Dark Sun Own Zone (56k Likes Dragonlance) Eberron [D&D3.5/4][owns] Gamma World! 4e, but slimmer and with more mutants! The most recent previous thread The previous thread before that one (some useful information on previous versions and retroclones here). ...And the thread before that, which has a lot more information on settings and classes in the OP. Now, for the MEGA-RULE. This is the 4th Edition thread. Do not discuss previous editions here, especially as it relates to their relative merit. Or, to put it more succinctly, NO EDITION WARS. End of line. Thanks to Gau for most of this OP! dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Dec 20, 2015 |
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Jan 29, 2014 02:33
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I'm going to throw a shameless plug for my Gamma World thread and request that it be added to the OP. Looks great, by the way. Dr. Lunchables fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 02:38
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I just now realized that the cute chibi RPG image I used in the OP predates the release of 4th Edition. It's awesome and I don't care. Edit: Oh, and the Old-School Thread is now here. Edit2: Oh, and the Dungeon Master Companion site (which is linked twice) is down because apparently someone stole it from her or something. Gau fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 02:52
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What kind of fights require only a sixteen square grid? Or is this some theatre of the mind bullshit.  Starting my group back up in Februrary, very excited to get back into it.
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Jan 29, 2014 02:59
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Lord Frisk posted:I'm going to throw a shameless plug for my Gamma World thread and request that it be added to the OP. Gau posted:I just now realized that the cute chibi RPG image I used in the OP predates the release of 4th Edition. It's awesome and I don't care.  but the cuteness was overpowering. (And done x2) Cassa posted:Starting my group back up in Februrary, very excited to get back into it.
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Jan 29, 2014 03:20
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I was really tempted to PM Gau to ask what the source was of the quote he used to usher the last thread out to pasture. Anyway, here's my pastebin quick list of why every class is awesome and you should play it from the last thread.
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Jan 29, 2014 04:18
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Captain Walker posted:I was really tempted to PM Gau to ask what the source was of the quote he used to usher the last thread out to pasture. Anyway, here's my pastebin quick list of why every class is awesome and you should play it from the last thread. Wizards is comin fo yo books
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Jan 29, 2014 04:30
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Maptools Object Torrent is down, I managed to grab a copy with the Wayback Machine though... Here
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Jan 29, 2014 04:36
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Regarding Feat Taxes: If a DM wanted to fix the problem on their side of the screen by changing monster math on top of the MM3 fixes, what would be involved there? Basically, how off does the math get? Would a generic "Tier bonus" to defenses and attacks do it? What would then be lost by banning Expertise/Improved Defense feats, since the Essentials versions have secondary usefulness?
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Jan 29, 2014 06:48
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Some very good options that a lot of people would spend feats on anyway (off the top of my head, orb and staff expertise, superior will).
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Jan 29, 2014 08:36
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Dwarf74 posted:The third is Inherent Bonuses. These are more a quality-of-life adjustment than an outright fix, but once you use them you'll never go back. So you might have gathered that 4e is mathematically pretty rigorous. It assumes you have certain magic item bonuses at certain levels for its math to work out right. Inherent bonuses cut through the micromanagement this would normally require and says, "Well... why don't we just give you those bonuses, then?" I actually had the DM of one of my current games "go back" on using inherent bonuses, because apparently he is the alpha grog and thinks having to loot for our math is more fun than having to loot for interesting properties/item powers. And this from the guy who said 4e magic items are dull and he wanted to make up his own for us. Edit: BatteredFeltFedora posted:Regarding Feat Taxes: If a DM wanted to fix the problem on their side of the screen by changing monster math on top of the MM3 fixes, what would be involved there? Basically, how off does the math get? Would a generic "Tier bonus" to defenses and attacks do it? If you combine Inherent/magic item bonuses with expertise feats, the bonuses should basically be like +3 per tier. So you could scale back monster math at the same rate; it complicates the Math on a Card formula a bit though. Alternatively, you can go DTAS and have your PCs just use monster math for combat statistics. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 08:57
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I am thinking of DMing a game for two friends (three if we are lucky) and I want to know if this is even feasible or should I just try Dungeon World instead (awesome game, but I think they would appreciate the 4E crunch more)? Will it work if I just halve monster HP and double their's? I'd rather not halve the number of opponents, because I'd like to throw in some solo monsters from time to time. Note that I am coming back to 4E after a loooooong hiatus and there might be some good pointers out there in some book that I missed.
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Jan 29, 2014 10:36
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I would just run Dungeon World instead, it's far less of a hassle. I mean, it's feasible. You don't need to halve or double anything unless they categorically refuse to have a Leader in the party, but your XP budget is going to be extremely limited and it's a headache to think up of cool/interesting encounters with that little latitude to play with.
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Jan 29, 2014 10:43
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That's what I mean about halving monster HP and doubling PC HP. I think it will allow me to work with the same XP budgets as a four-player group, and of course once it's time to pay out the XP I'll have to halve it so that they don't advance at a double rate. Seems like party DPR will be more erratic as a miss will be equivalent to two players missing, but I can't see anything wrong with this other than anything that comes with missing two party roles.
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Jan 29, 2014 11:13
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Not sure how well it works in 4e, but I've had good results in other games by giving each player a "sidekick" character in addition to their main one. That way they're not dealing with missing party roles, and you can just encounters for four characters as-written.
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Jan 29, 2014 12:48
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You could very easily do that by giving each player a companion character. See DMG 2 on how to make one, or what monsters to use. It's pretty easy. Or just run two full PCs each but that might be too complex in the long run, keeping track of one's powers and effects is daunting at times.
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Jan 29, 2014 12:54
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The builder has special classes for companion characters too.
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Jan 29, 2014 12:58
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P.d0t posted:I actually had the DM of one of my current games "go back" on using inherent bonuses, because apparently he is the alpha grog and thinks having to loot for our math is more fun than having to loot for interesting properties/item powers.  As for a two-player 4e game, while companion characters could work, it's a hell of a lot to track if you're new at the system. If they're veterans, sure, but I didn't get that impression. While I don't think 4e is putting its best foot forward with that few players, I think a 2 player game could definitely work so long as there's at least one striker in the party.
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Jan 29, 2014 15:38
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dwarf74 posted:I am not going to update the op just because some people have wrong opinions. A few years ago, I played an enjoyable 2-player-with-companion game where each PC just snagged an equal level (non-minion, non-elite, non-solo) monster from the old monster builder, adjusted it to the right level, and ran it alongside. It was pretty fun having a floating brain in a jar looking for a body to call its own accompany my warforged knight in his quest for understanding the "mortal" condition.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:13
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If they're only missing a leader there's the option of DMPCing a pacifist cleric with all the personality of a wooden pole.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:22
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Yeah, that's what I'll probably do in the end, even though I don't like the idea of DMNPCs. I'll still do the HP thing I mentioned, though.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:30
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Ha, I used to be in a game with the guy who wrote Masterplan. I could never figure out how to work it, though. Whilst the number-crunching and effort-saving was really impressive it was part of what turned me on to other, simpler game systems. It's cool to see it's taken off amongst 4E fans.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:38
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Fargo Fukes posted:Ha, I used to be in a game with the guy who wrote Masterplan. I could never figure out how to work it, though. Whilst the number-crunching and effort-saving was really impressive it was part of what turned me on to other, simpler game systems. It's cool to see it's taken off amongst 4E fans. I don't know what I'd do without it for my high paragon game. It pairs up so well with DDI, too.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:41
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Since it comes up so often and isn't likely to change any time soon - Recommended pre-made adventures Level 1 - The Slaying Stone (Standalone) Level 2-4 - The Reavers of Harkenwold (DM's Kit) Level 4-5 - The Cairn of the Winter King (Monster Vault) Level 6-8 - The Madness at Gardmore Abbey (Box Set) Paragon Tier - Revenge of the Giants (Standalone) All of these except for Revenge of the Giants have MM3 stat blocks and monster math.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:49
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Worth mentioning LivingForgottenRealms.com in the context of prewritten mods. All free, enough to take you right through to epic, and some real gems (and turds too) in terms of quality. The Calimshan mods in particular are good.
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Jan 29, 2014 19:21
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Since it comes up so often and isn't likely to change any time soon - Recommended pre-made adventures It's important to note that The Slaying Stone and The Cairn of the Winter King can easily be short-circuited by players through no great cleverness on their parts. It is possible to "solve" each adventure abruptly with no great effort. Yes, the DM can fudge things to fill them out. I also liked Seekers of the Ashen Crown (which follows naturally from the adventure in the Eberron Campaign Guide) quite a bit, except one of the dungeons is (very evidently) long just for the sake of giving 10 encounters for a level up.
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Jan 29, 2014 19:28
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I'll add all this after game night tonight. We're playing the excellent Conquest of Nerath since the whole group can't get together. It takes a village (to make an op)
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Jan 29, 2014 20:26
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I've only played around four sessions of 4e with a group of 3-6 friends and it's always been a blast. Thing is, our DM is more or less out of the picture now. I'm thinking of trying to step up and DM a campaign for my crew, but I've got a few questions you guys might be able to answer: - How much knowledge of the game mechanics do I need to become a successful DM? As I've said I've only played a handful of games so I'm not 100% on everything. I'm kind of hesitant to DM if I need an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, since I imagine there's a lot to worry about. - I'm currently in possession of the first three player's handbooks, but not much else. I haven't gone them too-too much as of yet, but would these books in conjunction with the rules compendium be sufficient for getting a game going? - Does anyone have any general tips I should know before I try DMing? The guy we had before was alright, but I kind of got the impression that he was a wee bit inflexible in some regards (scaling fights for our sometimes poorly thought-out party and so forth). I've gone through the OP and the few posts in this thread and I'm sorry if I overlooked something and asked something already answered.
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Jan 29, 2014 21:58
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4e is about as DM-friendly as it gets. Seriously, it just runs so drat smoothly. The biggest advice I have is, let the players worry about themselves. You don't need to worry about what their abilities do, so don't even try. Worry about your side of the screen, where everything is super easy. Learn the basic rules and have some idea of what all the conditions do. (But a cheat sheet works, there.) I'd start with a published adventure for your first foray. There was a good list a few posts up thread. I'm on a tablet, but can write more later...
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Jan 29, 2014 22:17
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Since it comes up so often and isn't likely to change any time soon - Recommended pre-made adventures Many thanks for this! It is strange however that there's a bit of a gap between 8 and 12 in what appears to be a nice progression through the levels/tiers.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:25
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dwarf74 posted:Worry about your side of the screen, Or ditch the screen altogether! Other than using it for quick reference tables, there's not much need for it in 4ed unless you're fudging your rolls for some silly reason. Yoshimo posted:Many thanks for this! It is strange however that there's a bit of a gap between 8 and 12 in what appears to be a nice progression through the levels/tiers. That's because Revenge of the Giants is older, and fits in with the older adventure chains (Keep on the Shadowfell, Trollhaunt Warrens, etc.), all of which range from mediocre to bad. The newer adventures are great, but they came along relatively late in the system's lifespan after most people had soured on premades. Gardmore was definitely the last hurrah for 4th ed adventures, and it's fantastic. Elmo Oxygen fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jan 29, 2014 |
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Jan 29, 2014 22:26
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Or ditch the screen altogether! Other than using it for quick reference tables, there's not much need for it in 4ed unless you're fudging your rolls for some silly reason.  I use a laptop because Masterplan, but if I weren't, I'd go screenless, too. Adventure advice - check out EN Publishing's Zeitgeist adventure path. It's great, by far some of the best adventures for 4e. The first installment is free, too.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:41
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dwarf74 posted:That was metaphorical. Zeitgeist does look incredibly fun, but I'm not quite ready to switch over to the more modern feel the adventure seems to have. Does anyone have any experience with the Level 1-30 "War of the burning sky" adventure for 4e by the same publisher? It looks massive in scope (I suspect it still has some "old" monster stats that'll have to be reconfigured), so I'm wondering if anyone has tried it out?
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Jan 29, 2014 23:44
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Does Masterplan have an app? Because that would solve the only problem I have with it.
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Jan 29, 2014 23:57
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Lamquin posted:Zeitgeist does look incredibly fun, but I'm not quite ready to switch over to the more modern feel the adventure seems to have. Honestly, that's not that a big deal. I stat doctor almost everything that hits my table, already, just because I'm picky that way. Spincut posted:Does Masterplan have an app? Because that would solve the only problem I have with it. 
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Jan 29, 2014 23:59
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I remember the soldier monster role being unpopular with goons many threads ago, was it just because they have high defenses / low damage and are therefore the opposite of fun monster design? Did the MM3 balance tweaks do much to address it?
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Jan 30, 2014 01:08
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Party Boat posted:I remember the soldier monster role being unpopular with goons many threads ago, was it just because they have high defenses / low damage and are therefore the opposite of fun monster design? Did the MM3 balance tweaks do much to address it? I think the actual problem is that most of them don't come with a mark punishment. Even in Monster Vault, not all of them have one. Just make sure your soldiers have this, rip-off/homebrew from other monsters if need be. Fixing low damage is easy enough, if that bugs you. People talk about MM3 math all the time, and seriously use that poo poo for everything; crib interesting powers from whatever monster manual/published adventure you like, and reskin everything.
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Jan 30, 2014 02:28
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P.d0t posted:I think the actual problem is that most of them don't come with a mark punishment. Even in Monster Vault, not all of them have one. Just make sure your soldiers have this, rip-off/homebrew from other monsters if need be. So THAT'S why all the soldiers I've used have been useless speed bumps! Fairly sure, if you have DDI and use the Adventure Builder, all the stats are MM3 math compliant.
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Jan 30, 2014 03:11
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My preference would be to ditch marking wherever possible, and replace it with a reaction/aura power of some sort. Marking sucks because it's just another thing you have to keep track of (also it makes very little sense on the table, so it's really hard to explain to people sometimes).
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Jan 30, 2014 04:23
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AXE COP posted:The builder has special classes for companion characters too. The character builder? I didn't know it had special companion stuff, and I've been looking for something like that. Where at? I'm poking around it and can't find anything like that.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:28
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