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SeraphSlaughter posted:One of my players for a campaign I'm just starting expressed interest in bringing some lycanthropy traits into his character. I want to encourage it since he's building up a lot of backstory for it, but I don't want him to have more abilities right out of the gate than other players. Does anyone have any resources/homebrew stuff/advice for handling something like this? I was thinking of either reskinning a Shifter as a lycanthrope since it's almost the same thing, and letting his racial ability cover it, but it doesn't seem like quite enough to cover the effects of lycanthropy. I'll probably be categorizing this as a racial feature for him anyway, so if we come up with something homebrew, it'd be replacing whatever other racial abilities he would've had. There are werewolf and wererat backgrounds in Neverwinter.
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Feb 17, 2014 04:04
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fatherdog posted:What's that from? It doesn't show up in compendium. I believe it is functionally the same as the Pack Outcast Theme, which would also be a good choice for a Werewolf-esque character.
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Feb 17, 2014 14:38
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Klungar posted:I believe it is functionally the same as the Pack Outcast Theme, which would also be a good choice for a Werewolf-esque character. Well poo poo, you're right. I've read through the Neverwinter book, so I should've remembered it from that.
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Feb 17, 2014 17:15
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A friend of mine is going for a weird gimmick build in order to do a fun story thing. In short he's trying to make a level 5 character that: - is a pacifist - no direct damage - does not have to touch anything He's made an eladrin cleric that mostly satisfies these goals, although some of his powers do deal small amounts of damage. Ideally he's looking for something that just heals / buffs the party. Has anyone been able to put together a build that does this? Maybe a cleric / warlord hybrid?
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Feb 19, 2014 08:28
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Look at classes that have effects on every power. Warpriest and Sentinel come to mind, although they're melee-focused, just dump your primary stat and never hit anything again. Edit: or a lazylord
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Feb 19, 2014 08:39
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Friend of mine is playing a paladin and doing basically that. He let his STR and CHA sit at 12 and pumped CON and WIS to 18, so he barely ever hits but he can Lay On Hands all day and gives out +4 defense buffs as an effect. I've yet to see if this will really work out in the long term, and come to think of it, why didn't he pick a warlord?
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Feb 19, 2014 08:45
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Your guess is as good as anyone's, and I'd be very wary of a character like that because, again, they're adding an extra mob to the field and contributing basically nothing to defeating it.
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Feb 19, 2014 11:37
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thespaceinvader posted:Your guess is as good as anyone's, and I'd be very wary of a character like that because, again, they're adding an extra mob to the field and contributing basically nothing to defeating it. Also, putting out damage is much more effective preventative healing. 
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Feb 19, 2014 11:43
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Preventive healing by buffing defences only works when the monsters don't have autodamage effects, miss damage, auras, and other badness they don't need to hit with to hurt you with. And, let's be honest, a +4 still only has any effect 2/5 of the time, and it's easy for the mobs to compensate by murdering the guy who you HAVEN'T just buffed insanely. You need to buff everyone's defences for defence buffs to be significantly relevant, it's why Mantle of Unity is so good.
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Feb 19, 2014 12:02
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Isn't Pacifist Cleric a thing? I mean it's not a great thing, but I'm sure I've heard of it as a build before. I think the real problem you'd run into is looking for powers that neither a.)deal damage or b.)heal. Priest only needs so much healing. At a certain point you're just pouring HP down a hole and hoping it hits something useful at the bottom.
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Feb 19, 2014 18:10
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Yeah, I've seen a "focus on absurd amounts of healing and nothing else" build "work", but all it did was make me add to the damage output of my encounters, without really making things any more interesting.
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Feb 19, 2014 18:16
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Mendrian posted:Isn't Pacifist Cleric a thing? I mean it's not a great thing, but I'm sure I've heard of it as a build before. I think the real problem you'd run into is looking for powers that neither a.)deal damage or b.)heal. Priest only needs so much healing. At a certain point you're just pouring HP down a hole and hoping it hits something useful at the bottom. It's definitely a thing, but to do it, you HAVE to take the attacking powers that give big buffs (Deadly Lure, for instance) or the non-attack ones that do the same (Sever the Source, Valourous Charge) and not be afraid to buff rather than heal in general. Healbot Cleric even post-errata can put out enough healing to make up for not doing much damage, but the net result is that the encounters run LONG and turn sloggy when everyone's done their interesting stuff anf you're chipping away at them and they're knocking you down and you're getting back up again etc etc etc. There is, on average, an expected damage output per PC. If you're singificantly below that, you'd better have a drat good reason to be.
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Feb 19, 2014 18:46
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Lazylord works as well as it does because even though you're not doing much damage, someone is. The downside to the wonderfully robust math that makes 4e tick (well, aside from having to learn how to make it work FOR you instead of against you) is that you can't deviate too far from what's expected or else encounter balancing gets really wonky.
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Feb 19, 2014 18:51
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The Leper Colon V posted:Lazylord works as well as it does It just gets old real fast if you actually play it lazily instead of chessmastering your team around.
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Feb 19, 2014 20:05
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Party Boat posted:A friend of mine is going for a weird gimmick build in order to do a fun story thing. In short he's trying to make a level 5 character that: A friend of mine did a cleric that was exactly that: all she did was heal/buff or (this may be important) debuff the enemy. Halo of Consequence, Dismissal, Pacify, Iron To Glass, all those things were part of the build and none of them did a point of damage or required touching. She could throw out such ridiculous healing numbers that our DM made several encounters where the enemies all hit like tanks made out of smaller tanks just to try and counter her absurd healing. Sadly, the player had to recently leave, which I think in a small way was a relief for the DM because now he can balance encounters a bit more.
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Feb 23, 2014 12:57
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It's a complete gimmick build that I think he's only going to run for a few sessions. The story stuff is that no-one but the party can see, hear or interact with the character (and yes the DM's signed off on this). The idea of having nothing but buffs / healing is to have a character that isn't suspicious on paper, but over time could make the party think he's a shared delusion. The player's left the "truth" of the character up to the DM. I'll pass the stuff about hitting hard on to the DM though - we're an 8-player group so he's already going for glass cannon enemies as much as possible.
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Feb 23, 2014 19:41
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My players may have inadvertently gained the rulership of a large, abandoned floating city, populated only by a few Warforged, by taking a set-peice dungeony location and just deciding to claim ownership and set up shop. I'm gonna try and use some Realm building stuff from Reign and see if the game going off at a complete right angle will end in fun hilarity or disaster.
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Feb 23, 2014 19:54
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Party Boat posted:It's a complete gimmick build that I think he's only going to run for a few sessions. The story stuff is that no-one but the party can see, hear or interact with the character (and yes the DM's signed off on this). The idea of having nothing but buffs / healing is to have a character that isn't suspicious on paper, but over time could make the party think he's a shared delusion. I was thinking that maybe 4E should have a couple legit "no one is actually there" classes to accommodate situations when a character can't physically participate because he is not there/dead/an rear end in a top hat. Like, you pick the class "Guardian Spirit", and you can buff your team mates (leader), or the class "Villain's Comeuppance" and debuff your enemies (controller).
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Feb 23, 2014 20:40
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I'm a bit stumped regarding Move Actions & Double Move Actions in D&D4e. The Rules Compendium says: Published in Player's Handbook, page(s) 284, Rules Compendium, page(s) 205. posted:Double Move In the specific scenario I'm unsure about, one of my players has an ability that knocks creatures prone. What I've been doing is making them Stand up [Move Action] and then downgrade the [Standard Action] to [Move] and shifting. Am I allowed to do that considering the rules about "Double Move" since Stand Up is a [Move] action? EDIT: Oh wow, sometimes you just have to post something to make sense of it. So if I decide to do a Double Move it's a Double move - the creature can shift a square on difficult terrain if it dedicates two move actions to it. It has nothing at all to do with Stand up + Shift! Hah. Sorry about the meaningless post. 
Lamquin fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 21:44
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Lamquin posted:So if I decide to do a Double Move it's a Double move - the creature can shift a square on difficult terrain if it dedicates two move actions to it. You can still always take a move action in place of a standard action and therefore stand up ([Move]) and move or shift (another [Move]) in one turn. That's just not a Double Move then.
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Feb 23, 2014 22:21
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We always explained it as the hierarchy of actions is: Standard Move Minor and you can always trade down.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:10
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Lamquin posted:So if I decide to do a Double Move it's a Double move - the creature can shift a square on difficult terrain if it dedicates two move actions to it. In a decent number of situations, this distinction won't cause a creature to still be adjacent to a single enemy combatant at the end of its turn—although it may be an inefficient use of actions and the enemy is likely still able to just move/shift up to a square adjacent to the fleeing creature on the pursuing creature's next turn. This is not the case in situations where the creature in question is completely surrounded by some combination of difficult terrain, blocking terrain, and enemy creatures. A 'double move" isn't any special game mechanic; it's simply game terminology/shorthand to say, "I'm going to take two Move Actions." As in, "I use a double move to move 10 squares," or, "I'm going to double move to shift away and then move my speed in order to get away from the goblin without taking an Attack of Opportunity." You had it right in your example/question regarding standing up, and—of course—there's nothing stopping you from making a houserule that says double moves work the way you want them to, it just affords the same benefit to the PCs and very slightly cheapens the effect of the aforementioned abilities such as Wild Step and [Terrain]walk. Auralsaurus Flex fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 23:19
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I'm not sure I agree. The Rules Compendium gives an example where a double moving character can end the first move in an ally's space because the two moves are effectively a single action. Based on that I'd allow a double shift to move into difficult terrain. e: yeah that Party Boat fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 23:23
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quote:Combined Speed: During a double move, first add the speeds of the two move actions together. The creature moves using the combined speed.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:26
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Well, that's what I get for not playing 4e in a while and not consulting my Rules Compendium before responding. That exact situation regarding moving through difficult terrain with a speed 5 character has come up plenty of times in play and it should have come to mind regarding the double shifting question.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:32
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Auralsaurus Flex posted:You had it right in your example/question regarding standing up, and—of course—there's nothing stopping you from making a houserule that says double moves work the way you want them to, it just affords the same benefit to the PCs and very slightly cheapens the effect of the aforementioned abilities such as Wild Step and [Terrain]walk. I don't agree that allowing double moves to shift into difficult terrain is something that cheapens abilities that otherwise let you shift into difficult terrain. Giving up your standard action for something other than an attack is rather expensive. While we're on the subject, double moves let you avoid rounding on unusual movement modes (e.g. crawling in heavy armor). Unlikely to come up in actual play, but it's important if it does comes up. The real question is whether you can Move+Charge through 5 squares of difficult terrain with speed 5, which I think is technically illegal by RAW unless there's something in the Charge rules I'm forgetting.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:33
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My opinion is that it does cheapen their effect, but not by terribly much in the grand scheme of things, since—as you mentioned—you're still spending more actions doing the same thing.
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Feb 23, 2014 23:36
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You basically give up your entire turn - or an action point - to shift that one square. Seems reasonable in regards to other abilities.isndl posted:The real question is whether you can Move+Charge through 5 squares of difficult terrain with speed 5, which I think is technically illegal by RAW unless there's something in the Charge rules I'm forgetting.
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Feb 24, 2014 08:57
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I just DM'd my first session of 4e (hell my first session of anything as a DM) and it was really fun! I only ran one encounter (and some skill stuff just before the encounter), but it still took up a decent amount of time, and some of my players even roleplayed pretty well (one player decided that her character's arms had been dislocated since they fell off the mini she was using, haha. luckily it was from one of the other player's massive collection of minis, so it wasn't a big deal). The advice this thread gave me helped run it smoother than I expected too. I'm kinda hooked.
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Feb 24, 2014 17:01
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Hey, I've been wondering if we've been misinterpreting the opportunity attack rules. We've been playing with breaking contact causing an opportunity attack. So in the picture A doesn't provoke on but B does. Should A also provoke an attack? Also, as the DM, if I want for example the other half of a warlock's pact to send the warlock a message, is there an easy way to do that without the other players noticing that I can't think of?
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Feb 24, 2014 22:28
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Moving out of a threatened square provokes an opportunity attack, even when moving into another threatened square. So A would provoke an opportunity attack.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:34
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As long as they were only shifting 1 square, neither would provoke an attack. If they were explicitly moving, then if they moved to A and then kept moving they'd provoke 2 attacks for leaving 2 threatened squares (Though I'm not sure if there are any creatures that can take more than one opportunity action a round)
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Feb 24, 2014 22:39
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Red Metal posted:Moving out of a threatened square provokes an opportunity attack, even when moving into another threatened square. So A would provoke an opportunity attack. Thanks!
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Feb 24, 2014 22:40
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Kurieg posted:As long as they were only shifting 1 square, neither would provoke an attack. If they were explicitly moving, then if they moved to A and then kept moving they'd provoke 2 attacks for leaving 2 threatened squares (Though I'm not sure if there are any creatures that can take more than one opportunity action a round) Thanks to you too, but I thought you could make an opportunity attack in every turn that isn't your own, not once per round?
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Feb 24, 2014 22:42
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The Belgian posted:Thanks to you too, but I thought you could make an opportunity attack in every turn that isn't your own, not once per round? Mhm, OAs are once per turn, Immediate Actions (interrupts/reactions, like the Fighter's Combat Challenge) are once per round. Likely he meant turn and was saying it's rare to find something that would be able to make 2 OAs on something moving through 2 threatened squares in the same move. Generic Octopus fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Feb 24, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 22:46
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The Belgian posted:Thanks to you too, but I thought you could make an opportunity attack in every turn that isn't your own, not once per round?
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Feb 24, 2014 22:47
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Is it okay to ask for help creating monsters? Usually I just reskin an already made enemy, but I thought I'd try to put something together myself. My group recently released a mad bomber. I'm thinking of making her a controller solo with lower health but higher damage than usual. Can anyone give tips for things like smoke bombs and movement powers? I can use the regular number stuff for damage and up it a bit, but utility stuff isn't well explained for monster making. There's 6 level 6 characters. A battlemind, druid, wizard, seeker, ardent, and berserker. Although none of them are exactly optimized.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:13
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6 level 6 characters vs. a "mad bomber"? What is known about her in the game so far? What's her capabilities, her race, etc? In general, I'd aim for an Elite instead of a Solo here, and give her a bit of condition mitigation and a few allies. That'll be easier to weigh against 6 PCs.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:15
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She's human or human looking at the very least. She was being locked in a terrorists' "guild" to be used as a last resort because she doesn't discriminate on what she destroys. She appears to be able to pull bombs out of nowhere of different types. In the quick scuffle before she escaped, she dropped a smoke grenade and threw another to push one of the PCs back. Edit: I can probably think up a reason for her having allies if it comes to that, so don't worry about something like that. djw175 fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 02:18
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Don't just use monsters, set up lots of blaster traps.
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Feb 25, 2014 02:42
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