Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Looks like we're the grognards, now.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Looks like we're the grognards, now.

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

J. Alfred Prufrock posted:

Actually they explicitly do. And it is +1d6/plus of the IB.

The thing that is confusing is that there is 2 versions of the IB rules. The first lot that came out didn't have the crit bonus built in, then they re wrote the rules for the release of Dark Sun which included the crit bonus.
The Dark Sun variant has been confirmed as the proper version

# ¿ Aug 7, 2014 11:30

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 21:58

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

S.J. posted:

I didn't say you were. And you can definitely get through those healing surges in 3 fights if you're building the encounters correctly for your party.

That's not what I actually said though? You're not having to accomodate rules at all, here. You're making it sound like they're literally 100% out of resources in your example before entering the final fight, but that isn't what I said (or meant to imply, anyways). You put the big boss fight at the end of the series of encounters so that, yes, by the end of it they are out or almost out of resources, maybe even had to make some death saving throws. If they want to go into the fight with all of their dailies and healing surges remaining, they can, but they certainly don't have to - the game doesn't suddenly stop one way or the other, but from what you're describing the real issue is that you're basing your encounter design on a per-session basis rather than a per-game-day basis, and that isn't necessarily going to work with the base game rules, although it's almost certainly a solvable issue. Has there been an issue with splitting up your adventuring day between multiple sessions with your group?

I do like the idea of every class/role getting X healing surges per fight, though, I think that's workable. Maybe have a fatigue timer, if necessary, so that after a certain number of encounters they start the next fights with X-1, then X-2, etc healing surges in the same adventuring day?

yeah the thing that jumped out at me about Gort's situation is that it seems that IRL session = in game session.
I've read that a lot of groups do this, but I have never really understood why.

The thing about 4th edition healing surge system is not "a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges", it is "within an encounter a lot of the tension comes from being low on ways to spend surges" coupled with "within an adventuring day a lot of the tension comes from being low on surges and other daily resources".
It is important that these 2 work side by side. Each individual encounter (apart from one near the end where the actual surges have been depleted) can be balanced and tense and gruelling without the DM throwing the kitchen sink into 1 mega encounter (there is nothing stopping him doing that either).

If you have any classes or races that use healing surges in any meaningful way (dwarves with their minor second wind, paladins with lay on hands, wardens, magic items etc, or characters that have optimised surges in any way) you need to be careful about messing with the expected numbers and management there of.

Dailies have a similar issue. The relative power level of different class dailies are based around them being a limited resource. If you can daily all the time some classes come out way OP and some get shafted.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 06:09

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

My Lovely Horse posted:

For what it's worth, he's having fun, the main source of frustration for him wasting his shrouds when he misses. The others taking down a shrouded monster is even a secondary concern. I think a small problem is that he never seems to think of just putting on one shroud and invoking it immediately (which would put his damage on roughly the same level as that of a ranger, rogue or warlock), it's usually all or nothing. It has lead to some nice one-shots but I might have to tip him off that waiting for four shrouds works best for elites and solos.

This is the most important thing.
As long as the guy is having fun, then just school him a little on different ways of using his shrouds.
Make sure he understands that there is no difference to him unleashing 2 shrouds twice and 4 shrouds once.
Make sure he understands that losing his shrouds on a miss is not a bad thing - hell he is getting damage on a miss which no one else gets to do outside of dailies (unless there was only one, so in that case there is no downside)
If he has 1 or more shrouds on a target and he gets a bonus to hit from flanking or another character buff then he should invoke them
If he wants to go for the big impressive one shot, build them up on a target that no one has engaged yet (a little un optimised but hey)
If I remember correctly there are also a bunch of attack/utility powers that interact with shrouds in interesting ways - make sure he is using these too.

On paper their extra damage mechanic is not as good as the 3 original strikers (rogue, warlock, ranger) but they still work in their role and can contribute to a party - they are far from being a seeker or vampire.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 07:38

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

AXE COP posted:

Wardens are walls of meat. Really tempting walls of meat. They have huge HP pools, several ways to recover it and tons of powers based around drawing people in and keeping them there. Wardens are good at turning battlefields into horrible quagmires where the only good choice is hitting the warden.

And DWARF Wardens are twice as good as any other warden

Minor action second wind to trigger their class ability, extra surges and HP from dwarven durability. Plus beards.

Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Sep 19, 2014

# ¿ Sep 19, 2014 03:19

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

There are a bunch of things I have found to make companion characters work:

1) Do not build them as a PC - make them a monster with one or two encounter powers and a couple of at wills. This makes them a lot easier to manage
2) Make them part of the story, not just a bunch of mechanics following the party about. If the players care about the character they are more likely to engage with them
3) Players control them during combat, DM roleplays them out of combat. Out of combat they pretty much fade into the background unless the players specifically bring them to the front.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 05:51

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

RPZip posted:

Huh, fair enough. I don't actually own a copy of the RC so I wasn't aware they'd actually clarified it, I thought it was still left in the PHB state of "not well defined" so resolving it immediately made sense to me, comparable to the Backstab ability for thieves.

Yeah, that means the build doesn't really work. Oh well, it was a neat thought; I'll keep it on the backburner as an idea for another time.

Also this.

The rules compendium is pretty great and worth having.
Pretty much any rule in the PHB that is slightly fiddly has been changed or clarified to be much clearer - stealth, falling, orders of operations etc.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2014 15:36

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

My computer failed it's 3rd death save and keeled over.
I'm looking for advice about reinstalling the character builder (and the cb loader) - I have all my old files as they were installed on another drive. The character builder thread is locked so I can't ask there.
Any help would be appreciated.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 17:22

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

Generic Octopus posted:

Install the Offline Builder. (Some people run into problems if this is installed to Programs, but I've never had that issue)

Install the October 2010 patch. (To confirm this worked, races like Dwarf should be able to pick a flex stat)

Unzip CBLoader into your builder's directory.

Put your .part files in the "custom" folder.

Run CBLoader, and give it some time to merge all those .part files.

Thanks. Will give it a go later. I was missing the October patch.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 18:57

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

Iunnrais posted:

I can DM 4e, but my prior attempts at PbP have failed pretty badly, with players just ceasing to post after a week or two. Is PbP just not a good match for 4e? If you guys have any tips, I'd be happy to give it another go as DM. I have a homebrew setting/campaign I've run for a few years that I'd love to polish up by giving it a second run.

The problems you have had in previous attempts are to do with PbP, not 4th edition, which is no more prone to people failing to keep up with posting as any other system.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2015 21:59

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 21:58

Mr Beens: Dec 2, 2006

Khizan posted:

Personally I hate controllers like that as a player because they tend to trivialize the game and turn the fights into sessions on the punching bag. I get 3.5 flashbacks when our daring midnight assault on the bandit camp turns into the wizard casting a spell and saying "Well, kill them already, this won't hold them down all day".

Agreed.
My wizard took a bunch of those sort of powers (so did one of the other players with a cleric). After a couple of sessions we agreed with our DM to retrain them as they made the combat too boring - either by trivializing it or making half the opponents irrelivent . On paper locking down a monster or two or making them suck with permanent defence or attack penalties might seem good but it can make things tedious.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2015 21:05

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