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I'd appreciate any other suggestions for cool terrain, my 4e dungeon crawl soulslike starts next month. Also, I'm toying with declaring one entire dungeon level as "one encounter", putting TWO encounters worth of monsters in it, but never more than half an encounter's worth in any one area? Sound roughly ok?
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Feb 20, 2023 16:30
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if the players are never up against more than half an encounter's worth of monsters the fights are going to be trivially easy. action economy is important enough that even just designing solo boss monsters exactly on the budget tends to result in an underpowered combat and requires the boss monster be given minions, bonus actions, or exaggerated math to catch up e: if you really wanted to you could probably work out some way of having a single big battle map with more monsters than normal, with some of them isolated or arriving late, that would use up the right amount of resources equivalent to a single encounter, and accomplish what you're describing. technically all 4E's meta-encounter structure needs to work is the right amount of attrition in healing surges and dailies, so it's just a matter of finding the break-even point between "monsters on screen at one time" and "total number of monsters" through some combination of expected damage modeling and trial and error (my guess is 75% on screen / 225% total is going to be closer than 50/200, but it's just a guess) but also personally i think it kind of sounds like you might be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. 4E heavily siloes combat away from exploration and downtime for a reason; it's not Basic D&D or an OSR game where everything takes place on the same "layer," and while "a long encounter with reinforcements" or "multiple encounters without time for even a short rest between them" isn't going to break the game, it isn't necessarily going to be the most fun or interesting way to run it either; put another way, exactly what are you hoping to accomplish by making one floor = one encounter? Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Feb 20, 2023 |
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Feb 20, 2023 16:40
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It might be fine and even a good challenge if the party just doesn't get to rest for that whole dungeon level and is able to avoid some monsters, lure them into traps, or split groups.
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Feb 20, 2023 16:44
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Right I meant not even short rests. So you go into floor one, that whole floor is one encounter. So you'll have to decide when and where to use your encounter powers. Too boring? Too much of "guess I'll just spam my two at wills for the these four instances of one or two monsters?" I really, really want more varied Dungeon design instead of just set pieces. I was going to put set pieces behind fog walls that trigger a short rest.
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Feb 20, 2023 16:49
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Yeah, that's probably the main concern: half an encounter will easily be defeated by at-will powers only so they never will have any motivation to use encounters or even dailies. It's a good idea for a game, but 4E is not the kind of game that is, out of the box. Maybe if entering every mini encounter carried the danger of attracting the other monsters if you're not quick enough in defeating them, or similar conditions. Some incentive for the players to not take it safe and easy.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:00
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Jack B Nimble posted:Right I meant not even short rests. So you go into floor one, that whole floor is one encounter. So you'll have to decide when and where to use your encounter powers. Too boring? Too much of "guess I'll just spam my two at wills for the these four instances of one or two monsters?" What you're trying to do with encounter powers is the design space this game uses for dailies. Dailies tend to be the powers you hoard until you see a good opportunity to use them, encounters tend to get spammed out early in the fight. Often an encounter power will be a multi-target version of an at-will, or an at-will with a bit more damage - often they're not really powers you have to think about very much. I think if you try your experiment you'll find your players out of encounter powers after a few combat rounds, then deciding whether to at-will or daily for the rest of the dungeon. I think that'll be less interesting than playing the game as a series of encounters separated by short rests. Another thing to worry about would be healing surges. If the party don't get short rests between entire encounters of monsters, they're going to run out of hitpoints much faster than they otherwise would, because their only way to spend healing surges would be powers. Many of the powers that let characters spend healing surges are encounter powers (EG: Second wind, leader powers like Majestic Word etc) as well, so getting fewer of those would mean even less access to healing surges. Gort fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Feb 20, 2023 |
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Feb 20, 2023 17:14
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Ok, so, looking at the dungeon I just made, it actually just has three distinct fights in it, two smaller and one "boss battle". So. I can probably just use the rules as is. Also: I'm going to cross post this in the GM thread, but I'd appreciate suggestions for this environmental hazard that's going to be a major campaign element: --- Fear the Dark In this land, the wise fear what waits beyond torchlight. In the dark – especially in unlit depths – twisted horrors without form or name spawn and breed. None enter the cold earth without good cause, and none linger longer than necessary, for it is as though the earth rots from within. --- ("Rotting Dark" can happen anywhere the scouring sun doesn't reach in this campaign world. These dark areas are rotten, liquefied, and spawn malformed horrors.) So far in the first dungeon I've got: A hallway that has collapsed down into a large cess pitt and wading through it deals damage. A cliff of bare earth and climbing up invites grasping hands to seize you. A large sink hole spanning a room with ranged enemies harassing you from the other side; when you jump down, horrors spawn in the sink hole and slow you down/engage you in melee. A room that's suffocatingly dark, there's a secret entrance on both sides but you'd have to find it supernatural darkness while rolling for suffocating of some sort. I'd welcome any other trap suggestions for "rotting dark", anything nasty, corrupting, anything that's a mix of either decay or mutation (both people and the architecture itself).
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Feb 20, 2023 17:35
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Jack B Nimble posted:Also, I'm toying with declaring one entire dungeon level as "one encounter", putting TWO encounters worth of monsters in it, but never more than half an encounter's worth in any one area? Sound roughly ok? Isn't this essentially the pitch for Lair Assaults?
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Feb 20, 2023 18:29
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Jack B Nimble posted:So far in the first dungeon I've got: These are some awesome and very evocative ideas! The way I would use them is to have the dungeon as a series of descriptive encounters with skill checks (avoiding the term "skill challenge" for being too loaded), and a single final boss battle - go for quality, not quantity. So, let's start with collapsed hallway. Athletics checks mostly, but creative use of ten-foot poles. Perhaps someone jumps or wades across and secures a chest rope at chest level so the rest of the party can cross above the cesspit. If anyone has movement or teleportation powers, use them as stunts to get a re-roll or bonuses to your skill checks. Move into the dark suffocating room. Dungeoneering checks and Perception checks to figure out what's going on, Endurance checks to keep your breath. Or send your warforged in, if you have one. This gets us to the earth mound. Start climbing, then the earth becomes looser towards the top, hard to keep your balance. Athletics, Endurance, Dungeoneering, Perception, Acrobatics skill checks all around. The grasping hands could be doing some automatic damage in the meantime - Religion checks to shout appropriate prayers for the dead hands to calm down. Some sort of mechanical contraption at the top which opens a door, and needs Thievery checks. Perhaps the contraption can't be operated on alone - someone else needs to hold some part of it open. Finally, we are ready for the final boss room. After all these skill checks, the party is ready to kick some butt. The room is darkened - you can see maybe 5 squares ahead of you, and everything else is covered in supernatural darkness, so both the melee and the ranged combatants need to move closer to the source of arrows flying from the other side (naturally, the enemy is not affected). The going is difficult (we are covering difficult terrain here - still loose earth), but the melee guys charge and start laying waste to enemy artillery (make archers minions, give them a melee skirmisher or two, as a leader). A couple rounds of battle, and the PC's are trouncing the enemies handily. The controller (or anyone with multi-target attacks) is taking out minions by the bucketload, the high-damage single-target PC's are taking out the enemy skirmishers. Then the loose earth in the middle begins to shake, as a horrifying bone golem emerges from underneath the centre of the room, where the ranged party members stand. He grabs the ranged PC's, sends the melee ones flying back with powerful swings, and as a reaction, causes earth to tremble, sinking everyone affected halfway down (slowed or even immobilized for a turn), turning the whole battleground into a giant sinkhole. ... Yeah, I'm stealing this for my Vecna cultists delve.
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Feb 21, 2023 10:13
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Gort posted:The official 4E adventure paths were pretty criminal in general, just room after room of boring poo poo like three orcs and a hole in the floor (in a system that thrives on interesting monsters and a few big set-piece battles with dynamic terrain), and occasional basic encounter design gently caress ups like a level 6 encounter for a level 1 party. Nothing grinds my gears quite like a book full of good encounter design advice that the official adventure designers clearly ignored. In an alternative timeline that never was, what they should have done is grab Greg Stolze and Robin Laws. Tell them to write a Feng Shui-style adventure, big and bombastic. Make every fight memorable, with moving terrain and stunt opportunities. Write non-combat action scenes. Build them as a series of skill checks with non-trivial ways to use skills: have PC's do things like rescue people in a sudden flood, or inspire people to stand together and fight instead of running away to be picked off one by one. In combat, have objectives other than just killing the enemies. For example, the PC’s may need to open prisoners’ cages (minor action when adjacent to the cage), and let them out before the terrible dark ritual saps their vital fluids and awakens a nameless horror. Make it a big budget action movie in terms of visuals, draw exciting maps in the adventure. Let people grok that terrain matters, that movement powers matter, that pushing and sliding enemies matters. Then make a pass over it to get the math right. You can do it as a level one campaign starter. The cultists set up a “once a century“ ritual to summon the Big Bad, kidnapping the villagers to sacrifice them. The PC’s track the cultists down, get there in the nick of time, and have the big fight where they try to rescue the villagers. Depending on the outcome, either we have just the minor threats escape, or the Big Bad itself taking over the mind of the local king / chieftain, to set up further adventures. Boom!
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Feb 21, 2023 11:22
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For how bad some of the Scales of War modules were, it got the exciting opener right at least. You start in a tavern having a quiet drink, goblins throw molotovs through the windows then when you fight your way outside there's more goblins and an ogre trying to ram-raid houses with a cart full of explosives
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Feb 21, 2023 14:23
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As a side note, don't deal damage outside of combat, use lost healing by surges. That way you don't force a short rest or the use of a healing word type power but it has roughly the same effect. I also absolutely agree with 1-2 big super challenging setpiece fights is better than 3 at level slogs and a middling boss fight. Every fight needs tactical consideration whether that is met by terrain effects, dangerous telegraphed enemy powers, alternate objectives, etc. Never tax a standard action to do something, always make it a minor or free action to interact with whatever weird bullshit you've added. Always encourage weird clever thinking (if you do make something cost a standard action the outcome has to be at least as good as an encounter power around the party level, and give it an effect or miss line)
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Feb 21, 2023 18:02
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The 4E zeitgeist adventure path is maybe the best adventure path for any game ever.
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Feb 22, 2023 10:14
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The 4E zeitgeist adventure path is maybe the best adventure path for any game ever. I've certainly yet to find a better one. If anyone knows of one I'd love to play it.
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Feb 22, 2023 15:46
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Players have started to turn in their character sheets. I'm using inherent bonuses so I already had one person refund pole arm expertise, and someone else changed the feat that gives more defenses, but what's the deal with implement expertise? My warlock is starting with an "accurate wand", are these still in use with inherent bonuses? Does the accurate bonus stack with the enchantment bonus? Does he need a feat for these?
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Feb 22, 2023 20:09
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Accurate wand is a superior implement and is the equivalent of using a +3 proficiency weapon (monsters average NADs are 2 bow AC). They require superior implement training rather than expertise (like using an execution axe over a greataxe). Is inherent bonuses referring to giving players the feat tax of expertise for free or the mechanism of naturally accounting for the + component of magic item progression over leveling so people don't throw 5 or 6 swords away over their career. Accurate wand needs a feat either way!
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Feb 22, 2023 20:25
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You can use an accurate wand without the feat, you just don’t get the bonus until you take the feat. For a 1st level player with an unenchanted implement, no reason not to take the accurate wand, it’s the same as taking a regular wand and sets you up to take the feat later.
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Feb 22, 2023 20:38
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Oh whoops I think I misunderstood, so I'd told everyone they could use these bonus in place of any magic item they may or may not have, enchantment bonuses not stacking: But that's distinct from, what, letting everyone have one free expertise? Letting people have ALL free expertises? Like, a player had pole arm expertise but dropped it when I mentioned this rule. Should he put it back?
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Feb 22, 2023 20:45
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Jack B Nimble posted:
Dark Sun Inherent Bonuses are meant to replace/supplement magic item enchants, which is separate from and stacks with Expertise feats that give a +1/tier Feat bonus to attack rolls. "Free Expertise Feat" is a different and common houserule to give everyone one for free, since it's otherwise far, far, far too good to pass up. Epic-tier Implement Expertise, on the other hand, is the equivalent to Weapon Mastery, which expands your critical hit range, and includes the word "Expertise" by coincidence only. Superior Implements are analogous to Superior Weapons, and give you extra perks for your spending a feat. They still carry Implement enchants like normal implements, so you could have for yourself an Accurate Staff of Ruin, for example, Accurate being a superior quality and Ruin being an enchantment, and Wand Expertise stacks with all those besides. Your player should keep Polearm Expertise, though: they might have thought it doesn't stack with Inherent Bonuses, or that they don't need it anymore since they're getting a +1 from their Inherent Bonuses anyways, but a player should have both, and scrapping for every +1 to hit is pretty much never a bad idea.
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Feb 22, 2023 21:07
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Ok, gotcha, I'll have everyone pick out one free "expertise" feat, such as pole arm expertise. Thank you for the write up, I haven't actually cracked open a rulebook yet so details of game balance are taking a back seat to "uh what NPCs are even in this game? Where does the first adventure take place??", But it's almost time to play so characters are getting made. Edit: ok wait, so there are various named expertise feats and then there is "weapon expertise" as a general feat. The named feats have various extra abilities, like pole arm provides charge defense. So, would my example polearm player being getting "weapon expertise" for free, and then optionally buying polearm expertise? If so, do the to-hit bonuses stack? Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 22, 2023 |
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Feb 22, 2023 21:20
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Different tables handle it differently, because while it's a common house rule, it's far from universal. I commonly see it rendered as "You get a feat of your choice with Expertise in the name, such as Devout Protector Expertise (which applies a bonus to one-handed melee weapons and holy symbols) or Polearm Expertise (which provides a bonus for polearms and a special ability)." There is no issue with letting people come up with their own kinds of expertise feat, to support a fighting style that they don't see enough support in and want to try, but some people are cowards about homebrew for some reason. There's also no issue with just giving people +1 to hit, another stacking +1 at level 11, and a third at level 21, and removing that bonus from the Expertise feats. Thus, the feats become only as good as their abilities rather than the numbers attached. For some reason, I don't see that approach too often. But the thing to avoid is letting a player have two instances of +tier to hit. Pay attention to the bonus types. Most bonuses don't stack within the same type, and expertise feats definitely share a bonus type.
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Feb 22, 2023 23:31
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Jack B Nimble posted:Ok, gotcha, I'll have everyone pick out one free "expertise" feat, such as pole arm expertise. Thank you for the write up, I haven't actually cracked open a rulebook yet so details of game balance are taking a back seat to "uh what NPCs are even in this game? Where does the first adventure take place??", But it's almost time to play so characters are getting made. Right, there are the original wave of vanilla Expertise feats that give attack bonus and nothing else, and then there's the better ones that give some marginal (or more than marginal!) bonus in addition. They're both feat bonuses though, and as always named bonuses of the same type (i.e. Feat bonus) will never stack. If you'd like, you can allow access to the good expertise feats, or you can only allow free access to, say, Versatile Expertise, which can apply to any weapon or implement but doesn't have any extra riders. It's notably also the main way of having expertise in a weapon used as an implement in a class that doesn't do so normally.
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Feb 22, 2023 23:46
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Thanks all, I feel I finally understand the issue, and the possible solutions. I went with this option: Everyone automatically gets a +1 to hit at level 1, another+1 at level 11, and a third+1 at level 21. Additionally, none of the "expertise" feats will give a bonus to hit, so ignore that part of the feats. So, you could take, for example, polearm expertise because you like the extra charge defense, or wand expertise because you like the rule about cover. If you buy a weapon expertise feat because you like those additional rules, it costs a feat. No one gets a weapon expertise feat for free, instead they get an automatic bonus to hit at levels 1, 11, and 21, and feats don't give bonuses to hit, but can still be bought for their other rules if desired.
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Feb 23, 2023 04:21
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The only issue with that is that without that +1 the expertise feats are mostly not worth a feat slot. Really they should just be default bonuses for weapon groups but the ship had already sailed by the time the weapon group expertise feats came out.
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Feb 23, 2023 15:04
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SynthesisAlpha posted:The only issue with that is that without that +1 the expertise feats are mostly not worth a feat slot. Really they should just be default bonuses for weapon groups but the ship had already sailed by the time the weapon group expertise feats came out. So now I'm looping back around to "apply inherent tier bonus to hit, expertise feats don't give bonus to hit but can be chosen for utility" but then also saying "look just pick one for free". My only remaining question would be, is there one for every kind of weapon? Or is this a situation where, like, the generic long sword user is left out because all the feats are for like pikes and whips and staves and not for swords and maces and axes?
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Feb 23, 2023 15:53
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Jack B Nimble posted:So now I'm looping back around to "apply inherent tier bonus to hit, expertise feats don't give bonus to hit but can be chosen for utility" but then also saying "look just pick one for free". No, every weapon and implement type has one, and there are several multiple weapons or weapon/implement combo ones as well. It’ll be a lot cleaner in the tool just to let them have one free feat for free.
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Feb 23, 2023 16:11
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Yeah, 1 free expertise feat is the easiest rule. Only runs into edge cases when characters have a build that uses two different weapons. I'd just give expertise for both in that case.
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Feb 23, 2023 18:23
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Jimbozig posted:Yeah, 1 free expertise feat is the easiest rule. Only runs into edge cases when characters have a build that uses two different weapons. I'd just give expertise for both in that case. I think there's actually a "you don't get a little boutique benefit BUT your +1 applies to multiple unrelated weapons" feat floating around somewhere, although it would kind of sting to lose those benefits. Presumably whatever you're going to do with your sword in one hand and orb in the other is going to make up for them, but I'm a little skeptical. Actually, the easiest thing to do there might be to just be really generous regarding what kind of attacks a ki focus applies to and let the weapon generalist just use the ki focus expertise benefit with all their stuff, insofar as it's applicable.
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Feb 23, 2023 20:30
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Iirc, the only expertise feats that grant their bonus with multiple groups are for weapon + implement users, the one you're thinking of is probably Versatile Expertise, which is "any one weapon group and any one implement group".
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Feb 23, 2023 21:27
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Master at Arms gives a +1/2/3 to all weapon attacks and gives you a Quick Draw-like effect.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:40
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One thing to consider is that if you've already given out the "+1 to hit, no other benefit" as a free feat, and nobody will pick up the appropriate feats on top of it (since the remainder of the bonus is not that strong), then you can reflavor this as an alternative reward for a dungeon - perhaps specialised training that the characters get as a reward for rescuing an aged weapons master, or perhaps they find a treatise on combat styles, . This is how I flavored the "Expertise" feats and "Improved Defenses" feats in my game. The PC's got Expertise for free around level 4 by aligning themselves with an organisation that provided them with appropriate training. They missed a couple opportunities in game to get "Improved Defenses" though, but looks like they are finally going to get it, as they have recovered Tablets of Zerthimon for a githzerai community who don't have much of a material reward to give, but as one says - "In knowing the teachings of Zerthimon I have become stronger".
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Feb 27, 2023 13:39
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4e characters get to choose so many feats as they level I never really bothered to reduce the number of choices by giving the obvious ones out as freebies. Sure, everyone taking expertise at level 1 might be one-note, but you'll get another 17 (?) feats to pick across your character's lifetime, they were never all going to be interesting. Incidentally, I wish 4e had had a lot fewer feats, but the ones you picked were much more powerful. Maybe just one heroic, paragon and epic feat, but make them a lot more defining. Gort fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Feb 27, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2023 15:34
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On the other hand, forcing players to take 2 feats that they are mathematically required to take is dumb in order to make the game math work. Giving it to them for free allows them to take other cool feats in their place, especially for classes and character builds that are exceptionally tight on feats to begin with.
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Feb 27, 2023 16:58
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“You get a lot of feats so why give out freebies” grinds really roughly against the reality that getting to play any campaign long enough to take advantage of that is quite the rarity. Give people the no brainer freebies so they can make actual cool choices.
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Feb 27, 2023 17:25
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SettingSun posted:“You get a lot of feats so why give out freebies” grinds really roughly against the reality that getting to play any campaign long enough to take advantage of that is quite the rarity. Give people the no brainer freebies so they can make actual cool choices. I can see both perspectives, because the value those expertise feats give won't really come into play until the second tier of play anyway. I agree that giving them as freebies to provide better choices for your players is a good idea. I also don't think it's that bad of a situation to not give them freely to players, who can always take those feats as one of their choices. Ultimately it's just a matter of preference. I give them to my players, but if another DM didn't it's not the biggest deal.
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Feb 27, 2023 17:35
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SettingSun posted:“You get a lot of feats so why give out freebies” grinds really roughly against the reality that getting to play any campaign long enough to take advantage of that is quite the rarity. Give people the no brainer freebies so they can make actual cool choices. Yeah, the difference in opinion might be down to different experiences playing 4e. I've been lucky enough to GM two campaigns that ran all the way from level 1 to level 30, so the vast majority of my playtime's been with characters who absolutely have not lacked for feats. My players aren't that big on character optimisation either, so they don't necessarily follow the "maximise your hit number at all costs" philosophy. I would, but I never get to be a player 
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Feb 27, 2023 17:49
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I've been saying for a while that feats and magic items occupy much of the same design space ("stuff that you acquire over time and that mainly modifies existing powers and abilities") and therefore we should have either feats or items, although I guess that was a lot more true when magic items weren't "a way to get more Daily powers, but ones you'll forget you have".
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Feb 27, 2023 18:12
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12Apr1961 posted:One thing to consider is that if you've already given out the "+1 to hit, no other benefit" as a free feat, and nobody will pick up the appropriate feats on top of it (since the remainder of the bonus is not that strong), then you can reflavor this as an alternative reward for a dungeon - perhaps specialised training that the characters get as a reward for rescuing an aged weapons master, or perhaps they find a treatise on combat styles, . The feat that a character picks at level 1 exists with them for 100% of their play time; the feat that a character picks at level 2 exists with them for 98% of their play time; the feat that a character picks at level 4 exists for 85% of their lifetime, the level 6 feat for 70% of their lifetime, the level 8 feat for 66%, and the level 10 feat for 60% of the time, say. Imagine if every one of those feats was allowed to move forward a spot. That'd add up to more time with all of those feats. The level 2 feat could move into the level 1 spot, the level 4 feat into the level 2 spot, the level 10 feat into the level 8 spot, and then you have another feat that exists to fill the level 10 spot. (The feats at level 11 onward couldn't be taken earlier, usually, on account of being available only in paragon tier onward, but you know.) More joyful feats being able to be taken earlier, and an entire extra feat that's doubtless more pleasing to the player than expertise, can only be a good thing. Personally, I just disallow expertise feats, and use the 13th Age escalation die (+1 to hit at the end of each round, up to +6) to make up for it, which has the side benefit of encouraging people to hold onto their encounter and daily powers for use as finishers, when they're most likely to land.
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Feb 28, 2023 02:02
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Iron Heart posted:More joyful feats being able to be taken earlier, and an entire extra feat that's doubtless more pleasing to the player than expertise, can only be a good thing. 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".
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Feb 28, 2023 18:28
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Iron Heart posted:Personally, I just disallow expertise feats, and use the 13th Age escalation die (+1 to hit at the end of each round, up to +6) to make up for it, which has the side benefit of encouraging people to hold onto their encounter and daily powers for use as finishers, when they're most likely to land. 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.
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Mar 1, 2023 00:09
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