Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Cthulhu Dreams
Dec 11, 2010

If I pretend to be Cthulhu no one will know I'm a baseball robot.

Ominous Jazz posted:

Do you still give out +1 whatever magic items or do you just stick to cool magic items? I'm trying to build up some house rules for the 4e I'm about to run and plan on stealing as much as possible. I've already got "assign your stat bonuses however you want".

Yeah but I try and make sure they are cool items. You can also get ahead of the curve which is also fun

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

12Apr1961
Dec 7, 2013

Khizan posted:

Personally, I dislike this house rule because I feel like encouraging players to hold encounters/dailies for higher escalation bonuses just drags fights out longer while they plink out with at-wills to set it up. IMO the fight tempo works much better when players are encouraged to go in hot and and blow things up early. Fights in this system already have a tendency to drag out due to mechanical complexity, and adding incentive to sandbag the first few rounds just makes it worse.

I wonder if the escalation die works better at lower levels, say, early Heroic (1-4). So, level 1 boss battle, you have an encounter power, a daily power and two at-wills. Let's say the DM is creative, and you also have a terrain encounter power you get to use. You may end up doing:

Turn 1: Use daily power for an alpha strike
Turn 2: Use at-will power
Turn 3: Use encounter power
Turn 4: Use terrain encounter power
Turn 5+: Use at-will powers only

At this point, it feels like the combat is dragging on, so an escalation die is welcome to burn through monster HP.

Whereas from upper Heroic onwards, you have multiple encounter powers, item powers, and a couple dailies to burn through, then you can go through 7-8 rounds using different powers without feeling stale. Though I suppose this changes if most of your extra powers are minor actions and reactions - those you can still burn through in 4-5 rounds, and be left with your at-wills only.

Anecdotally, my campaign ran through Heroic tier in around 40-50 sessions, with one combat per session. The combats which lasted 4-5 rounds felt fast and furious, but sometimes lacked challenge, whereas the 7-8 round combats could feel like dragging, and worked best if an alternative objective was in play (e.g. flee the dungeon while enemy reinforcements keep arriving every round).

Ominous Jazz
Jun 15, 2011

Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style
Does Roll20 just not support 4e at all? I can't find how to add monsters. I'm pretty inexperienced at running on roll20 but it seems like basic things aren't there.

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Ominous Jazz posted:

Does Roll20 just not support 4e at all? I can't find how to add monsters. I'm pretty inexperienced at running on roll20 but it seems like basic things aren't there.

Not an answer to your question, but 4e runs very well on Foundry VTT. It takes some setup but once it's running it works great. You can read more at the D&D4e discord https://discord.gg/3jsz28fG

Ominous Jazz
Jun 15, 2011

Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

Verisimilidude posted:

Not an answer to your question, but 4e runs very well on Foundry VTT. It takes some setup but once it's running it works great. You can read more at the D&D4e discord https://discord.gg/3jsz28fG

Fifty dollars is very steep and I'm very unemployed right now but I'll take a look. Thank you!

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Ominous Jazz posted:

Fifty dollars is very steep and I'm very unemployed right now but I'll take a look. Thank you!

Understandable! If you get the chance to, the 4eDnD system for Foundry can be very useful. It manages automatic expiration of effects and abilities, automatically applies bonuses/penalties from effects, you can pull in powers/creatures/items/classes straight from a compendium, and more. I went ham setting mine up and it ended up working very well, if still a bit janky.

Commander Keene
Dec 21, 2016

Faster than the others



Ominous Jazz posted:

Does Roll20 just not support 4e at all? I can't find how to add monsters. I'm pretty inexperienced at running on roll20 but it seems like basic things aren't there.
My DM uses Masterplan to actually run the encounters, and Roll20 just for battlemaps and dice rolls.

Ominous Jazz
Jun 15, 2011

Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

Verisimilidude posted:

Understandable! If you get the chance to, the 4eDnD system for Foundry can be very useful. It manages automatic expiration of effects and abilities, automatically applies bonuses/penalties from effects, you can pull in powers/creatures/items/classes straight from a compendium, and more. I went ham setting mine up and it ended up working very well, if still a bit janky.

I have gotten it! I haven't gone ham yet. I don't know how to invite players into the game.

I also don't know how to do gold and items but I think that's in the rules compendium.

Edit: I've got two brand spankers players (literally haven't played elf games before) so I was thinking of starting the game with a suspicious hostage situation played put with a skill challenge so that they learn how skills can be used I'm unexpected ways to solve problems. And then at some point they go into the living dungeon where they find cultists and a mid 90s office building that very clearly belongs in our world.

Ominous Jazz fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Mar 16, 2023

Gin
Aug 29, 2004
and Tonic
If you get a chance, will you update on how your campaign is going? I'm getting closer to running my first campaign, in 4th edition, so I'm very interested in your experience.

Impermanent
Apr 1, 2010

Verisimilidude posted:

For those interested, I started making really rambly, stream-of-consciousness videos for running Dnd4e in Foundry VTT. The topics I cover are effects, conditions and auras, animations, and using character tokens to make things easier on the DM.

You can see the playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEAlvzLhF2-iQsjepsdz1Ww

I highly recommend watching them at 1.5/2x speed.

hey just wanted to say big thanks for this stuff here. I know it's old now but very helpful for letting me get my 4e campaign up off the ground.

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Impermanent posted:

hey just wanted to say big thanks for this stuff here. I know it's old now but very helpful for letting me get my 4e campaign up off the ground.

Glad my videos could be helpful!!

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
Does anyone have any links to interesting potions or scrolls I could start putting in my 4e game? The examples in the PHB are weak, I want something more interesting. I don't care if it's "too good", I'll just make fights harder. I want some interesting consumables to spice up my treasure parcels.

Edit - my initial thought is to give the players a "scroll of X" and have it be a one time use of trading out one of their normal encounter powers for one from another class? That way they're not gaining an extra power, but they could pull out something specific at a useful time?

Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Apr 30, 2023

SynthesisAlpha
Jun 19, 2007
Cyber-Monocle sporting Space Billionaire

Jack B Nimble posted:

Does anyone have any links to interesting potions or scrolls I could start putting in my 4e game? The examples in the PHB are weak, I want something more interesting. I don't care if it's "too good", I'll just make fights harder. I want some interesting consumables to spice up my treasure parcels.

Edit - my initial thought is to give the players a "scroll of X" and have it be a one time use of trading out one of their normal encounter powers for one from another class? That way they're not gaining an extra power, but they could pull out something specific at a useful time?

Absolutely just give out consumables that replicate powers, but don't tax their encounter powers. It's a consumable for a reason, and especially if it's still a standard action to use, you're not really unbalancing an encounter by someone getting to use an encounter power instead of an at-will. An extra target or extra die of damage doesn't break a fight.

Alternately, look at a bunch of powers and create consumables that do the effects of those powers without the damage and make it a minor action. A scroll of wind blast that's a minor action blast 3 push 2, a scroll of fire field that creates a zone that deals 5 damage to anyone who starts/enters. Walls are cool effects you don't see often. make an item that creates a positive energy wall that you spend a healing surge and anyone who passes through the wall recovers HP equal to your surge value (and make it damage undead! players will feel super smart if they use it for a double dip!)

I try to avoid the kind of consumable that requires forethought. A sharpening stone or flaming oil sounds cool but at least for me, I hate using start-of-fight-buffs because what if you need them for the next fight? Also make sure that any consumables that replicate attacks have SOME kind of effect or miss line. It sucks to whiff an encounter power, it REALLY sucks to burn an item and have it do nothing.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Jack B Nimble posted:

Does anyone have any links to interesting potions or scrolls I could start putting in my 4e game? The examples in the PHB are weak, I want something more interesting. I don't care if it's "too good", I'll just make fights harder. I want some interesting consumables to spice up my treasure parcels.

Edit - my initial thought is to give the players a "scroll of X" and have it be a one time use of trading out one of their normal encounter powers for one from another class? That way they're not gaining an extra power, but they could pull out something specific at a useful time?

If you can find a copy of the 4E basic Adventurer's Vault somewhere, it had a whole raft of consumable things.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



On a random note from running my 4e retroclone earlier today Lurkers work amazingly with Popcorn Initiative.

Iunnrais
Jul 25, 2007

It's gaelic.
On the subject of interesting potions: one homebrew potion / grenade I got a lot of good use out of was a combo. One grenade creates a damaging zone that lasts a couple rounds or until the end of the encounter. Another grenade does nothing on its own, but acts as an accelerant to existing zones on the ground-- add xdy+z damage to any damaging zone it overlaps with. It's a simple idea, and you might think that it's basically the same as two different damaging grenades... and yet my players fell in love with the things, couldn't get enough of 'em.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
I’ve been thinking of running Dark Sun 4E. What are the good tools to run that online these days?

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Iunnrais posted:

On the subject of interesting potions: one homebrew potion / grenade I got a lot of good use out of was a combo. One grenade creates a damaging zone that lasts a couple rounds or until the end of the encounter. Another grenade does nothing on its own, but acts as an accelerant to existing zones on the ground-- add xdy+z damage to any damaging zone it overlaps with. It's a simple idea, and you might think that it's basically the same as two different damaging grenades... and yet my players fell in love with the things, couldn't get enough of 'em.

Two damaging grenades is two sources of damage. A danger zone and an accelerant is a combo that makes you feel smart, and can also come up in unexpected ways.

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

The MCDM RPG sure has a lot of 4e in it.

Healing surges, warlords, unified combat power structure, tactical combat.

I'm going to get my heart broken

DoubleDonut
Oct 22, 2010


Fallen Rib
Matt Colville's an actual 4e fan who has straight up said "4e's combat resembled video games, because video games is where combat is actually fun" so I'm pretty hopeful that the MCDM RPG will be interesting, if nothing else

Whether or not it'll be successful enough to be a going concern I couldn't say

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

The campaign is doing big money but 20k backers is obviously a much smaller audience for adventures, splat books etc than the audience for his 5E supplements. It will sell more at retail of course but nowhere near D&D numbers. I wonder if the plan is to make future products for both systems, especially since you don't exactly need to be rigorous about balance when making stuff for 5E.

Dremcon
Sep 25, 2007
No, not a convention.
Has anyone backed MCDM RPG? I love physical books, but in terms of actual use at the table, nothing beats a searchable pdf…

Tarnop
Nov 25, 2013

Pull me out

After doing lots more reading about it and watching all their videos, I think I'm in for the PDFs. I'm in the UK so I'm not going to roll the dice on shipping for the books

DoubleDonut
Oct 22, 2010


Fallen Rib
Is there a consistent source for the, uh, "final" DC charts (for skill checks as well as stuff like improvised combat actions and whatever else I'm forgetting) after all the errata and junk? I'm assuming Rules Compendium has them, but google was giving me some conflicting answers.

Lemon-Lime
Aug 6, 2009
RC has the skill DCs by level on page 126 and as far as I know, those have never been errata'd.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



So I'm running a biweekly game and have found the ADvanced Encounters Terrain Toolbox very helpful for making the environment more interesting. Also using a variety of 3rd party monster books. Are there any other hidden gems among the 3rd party books for 4e?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply