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Elmo Oxygen posted:That's how it's usually done, right. But it doesn't usually break anything in 4ed if you're totally transparent either. Fights also tend to go faster if players know the number they are aiming for when they roll. If keeps them from asking if a 27 hits every single time. You don't need to tell the players what the monster's defenses are until they roll an attack against that defense either. So there is still a little bit of uncertainty when making decisions. Another piece of important information the game isn't very clear on is whether to tell your players if a monster is a minion or not. Personally, I'm want players to know as much as possible, if only to make the game run smoothly.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:53
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Yeah. Letting your players spend their daily to take out a minion (and do nothing else) really sets a tone for the game. The tone is gently caress you!
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Jan 31, 2014 21:56
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ElegantFugue posted:I have a coworker who has played in Pathfinder games, but not 4e. They have been talked into running an online 4e game as GM. I'm going to link them to the resources in this thread, but does anyone have any common 'gotcha' rules differences between the systems I can point out to help with the transition? I already mentioned the whole non-euclidean diagonal movement thing. It's less of a rules thing than a gaming philosophy thing. Out of combat, 4e works best with on a "anything not forbidden is allowed" approach to problem solving, exploration, and social interactions. Pathfinder skills, abilities, feats, spells and items tend to be more cut and dry and more specific in terms of what they can or cannot do. For example, in 4e if a player wants to wall run the resolution is purely up to the DM and group to figure out. In pathfinder there are a hand full of dedicated wall running powers, so some players think they can only wall run if they have an ability that specifically lets them.
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Feb 6, 2014 21:14
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Horse: I think including an action point ability that lets the training dummy regrow its hands instead of taking an extra action might help out. If the fight is going poorly for the dummy it spends its APs regrowing hands, but if its going well for the dummy it can spend them to press its advantage. Monkeys: Try looking around for character builds, not so much for the build per se, but for the explanation of how the build works. Knowing your good combos ahead of time and knowing the situations to use your situational abilities in saves a lot of hemming and hawing at the table. Power choice and class features seem to be less of a problem for most players than tracking the zillion conditional feats and equipment choices that you might take. At-will and Encounter utility powers are a tiny bit better for novice players too since the player won't worry about wasting a daily on the "wrong" fight. EDIT: For feats, if you pick an essentials expertise feat, improved defenses, superior weapon/implement, that takes care of 3 out of your 8 or so feats and are good choices for nearly every character. If you go with a Slayer Toughness, Durability, Heavy Armor Agility, Improved Initiative, Resilient Focus, are all decent always on choices. At Paragon you could also look at: Armor Specialization, Fleet Footed, Danger Sense, Eyes in the Back of Your Head, and Luck of the Gods are also some decent always on feats. Depending on the characters primary weapon that will alter your choice of weapon based feats. If you are using character builder be sure to use the search feature when looking through feats, since there are SO MANY to page through. wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 19:45
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:I can build a guy that requires very little stat-sheeting, although it's usually a rogue. Get CA (probably all the time), throw these dice, done. I mainly wanted to see if the thread had any ideas. Ohhhh, I thought you were asking for yourself! In that case, I'll buck trends a bit and suggest a caster of some sort. They take a bit more work in terms of character building, but during play they almost always have a lot less to worry about. Gimmie a bit and I'll post a build or two. EDIT: Wait, no, do what Rexides said.
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Apr 28, 2014 20:51
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I wish more games spent the rule space detailing running a business or organization. I've heard that Reign has really good organization rules, but that's literally all I know, if someone else knows more I'd love to hear an overview. On top of using the GP parcels as profits, you could probably use at least some of the alternate awards and boons too. If the party breaks up the criminal undergang that tried to extort protection money, someone gets the Law Bringer boon, giving them bonuses with other merchants and government types. If the party donates a massively-difficult-to-build-requiring-special-adventures, water clock to the most important cathedral of the time god, maybe someone gets a time related boon. Another option is to create a set of business stats, either using the classic 6 or a custom set. When players use their skills or go on adventures to benefit their business, it gains stat bonuses. If a player, say, uses their insight to see how to best arrange the store so that its pleasing to customers, the business gets a bonus to its charisma. Heck, if you feel comfortable enough with reskinning on the fly you could use the combat rules and occasionally run a battle with the business against the market place, with various obstacles and boons depending on how well the players ran the business during the time period, and profits decided by how well the fight goes.
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May 6, 2014 19:07
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Why does it have to be Con/Wis? A dwarf Strength primary/Wisdom secondary paladin is pretty doable, take a cleric multiclass feat for the 1/day healing word and you'd be a decent leader defender. What I like about the way Lay on Hands is treated in 4e is that while it looks a lot like healing, it works as retroactive defending so it hits the defender/leader spot really well. For a more in-depth change, leader|defender hybrid ok together since leaders' encounter healing usually uses a minor and defenders make heavy use of their immediate and opportunity actions. A resilient build Battlemind|Cleric would be a constitution wisdom combo, I don't know enough about battleminds to get anymore specific.
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May 13, 2014 01:06
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Melee training: constitution or wisdom and some decent counts as melee basic attacks would really help out here. Is the no essentials dragon thing negotiable at all? Healer's Mercy is really good, I've seen it turn a fight or two around.
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May 13, 2014 09:46
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So I got a wild (and deeply foolish)bug up my rear end to tinker around with 4e. I was looking at Player HP and the MM3 expected damage. While a lot of people mention how combat gets bogged down at higher levels, I never looked at the math side of it. Sadly, 4e follows the d&d tradition of starting the difficulty on high, and easing off as you level. Which seems like one of the crappier ways of making players feel more powerful. Here are some charts! Typically, defenders get 15 + their con + 6 HP each level after, strikers and leaders get 12 + their con + 5 HP each level after, and controllers get 10 + their con + 4 HP each level after. MM3 monsters deal an average of 8+level in damage. Dividing a given level's HP by the expected damage and you get the average number of hits a character of that role and level can take. With a PC constitution of 10, that looks like so:  With a constitution of 18:  (ugh, ignore the monster damage line, the calculations are using 8+level and should be fine, I just made a mistake copy/pasting) You'll notice how in both cases HP outstrip damage to the tune of about half a hit to an additional hit from level 1 to 10.You'll also notice that at low levels constitution plays a fairly big role in determining how many hits a character can survive. I've never been a big fan of constitution as an ability score. I also never liked the drop in difficulty that PCs face as they level. So I made some tweaks to eliminate both. Defenders get 30 HP at level 1 and 6 more each level after, strikers and leaders get 25 HP and 5 more each level after, and controllers get 20 and then 4 HP each level after. Average monster grows slightly faster to keep up with HP. Average attacks now do 8+twice the monsters level. Putting that into the same spreadsheet and you get:  I haven't had a chance to run the numbers at higher level, but since the formula for monster damage and PC HP doesn't change I imagine the problem only gets worse.
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May 22, 2014 22:13
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But doesn't that just make the problem even worse? Since those status effects and so forth reduce team PC's attacking effectiveness, which make fights drag out longer, without necessarily ending the fight sooner. Especially since PCs also gain more resistances, healing, immunities, and get out of jail cards as they level?
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May 23, 2014 00:23
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It depends on exactly what your problem with feats is. If its that trawling through all jillion of them 16 times is a pain in the rear end, then the answer might be to declare that that at certain levels the players can only pick from a much smaller list. Like at levels 1,2,6, and 10, they have to pick from the essentials improved defense or expertise feats. But level 4 and 8 are free choices. If the problem is only that there are a jillion of them, you'd need to settle on banning feats from dragon or something. Maybe let players pick feats as normal for heroic tier, but only from feats that have a increases by tier component. The problem with these choices is that that it eliminates many builds and nerfs classes that were patched with feats. I think an ideal solution would be to bake feats into Themes/Paragon Paths/Epic Destinies. Something like the Guardian gets defense and toughness related feats at certain levels. If you put in the work, you'd have something pretty solid, but it's only worth doing if you know you are going to stick with 4e for another 20 or 30 level game. wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 22:08
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So, where did the online character builder go? I can't find it from the new and improved dnd homepage.
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Aug 13, 2014 17:39
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I've been thinking about houserules a bunch lately. The ones I used in the last campaign I ran were mostly pretty straightforward: inherent bonuses and free math fix feats, rituals cost surges and you had to be trained in the key skill of the ritual to use it, level up at the conclusion of each adventure, and alchemical items were treated more like 1/ adventure items. The one other rule I used was that instead of giving out money in GP terms, I'd write up a brief description of the loot, occasionally including a plot hook, and then just assign it a level. You could then just trade the treasure in for an item, mount, boon, or what have you that was equal level to the treasure. I was going to have vehicles, buildings, and influence and favor with the powerful pretty much all work the same way, but the game didn't last long enough for that to come into play. I've been toying around with an idea to radically simplify 4e by compressing PC Ability Scores into your Fortitude Bonus, Reflex Bonus, and Will Bonus. Bonus here meaning the number you add to 10 to get your NADs, e.g. instead of a character having a 24 Strength they'd just have a +7 Fortitude Bonus and a 17 Fortitude Defense. Each of the 3 would then just inherit everything belonging to the two stats that you'd normally use to determine your Fort, Ref, and Wil. At the start of a fight you wouldn't roll Initiative, you'd just roll Reflex; you wouldn't roll Athletics or Endurance skill checks, you'd just roll Fortitude. You might also want AC as well. But even that could be: wearing heavy armor sets your AC to Fortitude +2 or +3 and your speed at -1, light armor sets your AC to Reflex +1, and then holding a shield adds another +1 or +2 to AC. This would reduce each PC's numerical statistics from being: 6 Ability Scores, 6 Ability Score Bonuses, 6 Ability Score +1/2 Level Bonuses, 4 defenses, 2 to 3 attack bonus values, 17 different skills, your initiative, your speed, your HP, your Surges and your passive perception and insight (47 or 48 different numbers which scale at slightly different rates!), down to 3 Ability Bonuses, 4 Defenses, 2 to 3 attack bonus values, your speed, your HP, and your Surges (12 or 13 things which would scale at the same rate). There would be a bunch of other possible tweaks and variations one could make here. You could retain 4e's split between acting characters rolling a d20+mod VS a static DC/Defense, or you could make it so players roll for everything and only use the Bonuses and drop the 3 of the Defenses, retaining only the an AC Bonus. You could make it so all of a character's attacks just use their highest Ability Bonus, or translate STR/CON attacks into Fort Attacks, DEX/INT attacks into Reflex Attacks, and WIS/CHR into Will Attacks. It's still a rough idea, but I think there is some promise to it.
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Jan 16, 2015 23:17
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thespaceinvader posted:Why not just go the whole hog and DTAS? Yeah, you could cut out a ton of stuff if you parried it down to: "In combat an attack roll an 8+ hits. On a skill check a roll of 4+/8+/12+ beats an easy/normal/hard difficulty. When rolling skill checks, use advantage to reflect skill training and helpful circumstance, use disadvantage if their is a major impediment." After rejiggering HP and damage values, you'd almost be done. But that always seemed a little too sterile and stripped down for me. So anytime I start going down that road, I end up trying (and failing) to staple 4e's combat system onto a FATE knockoff. Which might actually be pretty cool if someone got that working. Actually, that's pretty much what Strike! is doing. I stopped stripping out parts where I did because there are a couple of things that ability scores (by whatever name they're called) add that I think are worth keeping. I like the mini-game of trying to target the right defense. Ability scores give players a rough guide to what a character is like and that can be helpful as well. In this case, how tough they are, how quick they are, and how zen they are, is enough to give a little bit of form without relying on or bringing in the truly useless stuff 4e inherited from prior editions. Keeping these numbers around also makes it a little easier to work out compatibility issues, in case I ever got this into a playable state and wanted to use a published 4e adventure or monster or whatnot. Though, these are all pretty hypothetical benefits since I'm mostly just brain storming. Ideally, if keep working on this, I'd want to make something akin to a PC version of MM3 on a business card, where you set a level, come up with an idea, grab some powers, and have numbers that are fun and work.
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Jan 17, 2015 02:17
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Yeah, I feel like 4e's initiative was pretty much its dullest combat rule. It always took too long for everyone to roll and then write it on the whiteboard, or arrange the 3x5 initiative cards, or place their little magnetic doodad in the right spot, or whatever system we were using at the time. The length is doubly bad since it just boils down to did you beat team monster on round 1 or not. I don't know that you'd lose all that much if you just went clockwise around the table.
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Jan 17, 2015 12:07
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I'm not really sure getting rid of armor needs to be a thing for a starwars 4e game. Most of the characters either already wear armor, or would be represented by a class that uses cloth or leather. So just call leather armor reinforced clothing. Hand crossbows are blaster pistols, longbows are blaster rifles. Han and Lando are both ranged build Scoundrel Rogues. Leah is maybe a Bard with a nobility based theme? Boba Fett is a ranger. The jedi are swordmages. It's a pretty good fit right out of the box, right down to getting a defense bonus when holding a sword, and being able to call it back into their hand when disarmed. Call their teleportation powers force powered back flips. Vader is a warforged revenant Swordmage with one of those warforged only attached armors.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:09
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Fumaofthelake posted:Fairly sure our DM doesn't really know what she is doing (at least in terms of certain mechanics) so even though we created characters using some starting templates she brought along, pretty sure we ended up with hosed up characters. I'm 100% sure mine was incorrect, because I already went through and fixed it. Three possible ways the error might have happened: 1)There was a bug regarding ability scores in the online character builder that used to crop up when picking a draconian subraces where they wouldn't properly readjust your stats and give you an extra +2 to an ability score. But even that wouldn't get you past +6. I don't think it even applied to strength. 2) The DM might have ignored the stipulations on what you can drop down. Does the character have more than one score lower than 10 or any score lower than 8? 3) Maybe the DM confused the character's attack bonus with their strength bonus? +7 to hit at level 1 is pretty normal with a +4 mod and a +3 weapon prof. bonus or +5 mod / +2 weapon.
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Feb 16, 2015 23:39
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Jebus, that's a shame. 4e is probably one of the best editions of D&D for DMs who aren't really into the rules. Everything either works like it says it does, or gets out of your way to let you just roll some dice and do poo poo. Paradoxically, its also the most unforgiving about straying outside of the numeric framework they give you. But so as long as your DM knows to use MM3 math, and the updated page 42 numbers, they can pretty much just makeup whatever the hell they want to on the fly. Wholesale moves hasn't really worked for anything outside of basic/add/odd.
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Feb 17, 2015 02:52
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Mordiceius posted:Are there any classes I can suggest that are used to using ranged weapons at melee range? Rogues can do it. If he is cool with reskinning, Two Fisted Shooter would let him use a hand crossbow and a melee weapon at the same time, and then you can just fluff it as him shooting at guys in melee range. For something a bit more out there, Staff Expertise lets you make ranged and area attacks without provoking. So he could make a wizard that is fluffed as a fantasy green arrow with a crossbow. If he's not ok with reskinning, the DM could also let him take a custom version of Crossbow Expertise that that replaces the bits about ignoring cover with not provoking. Which given all of the options to mitigate and avoid opportunity attacks while shooting, I don't think that would be game breaking. Edit: Actually the way this is written, it makes it seem like like he tried to make a fighter that used a crossbow. Which would be really weird and not work at all. What role does he want to play? What exactly is the problem or issue that he's having? wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 22:40
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I ended up making a Gnomish Wizard|Warlock multiclassed with bard because I wanted to make a character that could teleport everything all the time. I think it worked out pretty well. But some of that was also based on the time frame I made the character, as more wizard and warlock powers were released that teleported, the need to dip into a second class dropped. Some of the feats I was using also ended up being errata-ed into less usefulness.
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Feb 26, 2015 00:35
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I'm sort of skeptical about the "people are only willing to buy so many books" line of reasoning. If you averaged out the number of books I bought for the system, it probably came out to 1 or 2 a year, but they got my DDI payment every month. Hell, if money wasn't so tight for me at the moment I'd still probably be subscribed. I'm not even in a game right now! Killing off the line without an equivalent revenue stream at least planned out just seems too dumb for it have been about money. Although I guess this is an industry that is ruled by terrible business decisions, so I wouldn't be shocked if that was the reason.
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Mar 25, 2015 23:46
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Sales figures for this stuff aren't very reliable or even public a lot of the time. 4e making WOTC less money of otherwise declining isn't a fact, at least not a publicly available one. It's really more of an assertion. Bei Fong's post is probably the most thought-out answer we're liable to get: the guy in charge of D&D isn't enough of a fuckup for someone higher up to fix the game.
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Mar 26, 2015 00:13
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I sometimes wonder if 4e would be played or developed differently if instead of calling it power source and class the books called the same ideas class and kit (or subclass or whatever) instead. It might have helped get away from the idea that being a cleric MEANS SOMETHING when its mechanics can encompass knights in shining armor, wizened priests channeling their god, and a drugged up holy assassin.
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Mar 30, 2015 23:10
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I mention this specifically as an alternative to trying to replace or supplement the skills, backgrounds, and non-combat feats rules. There is basically a lot of, at least mildly, playtested material out there which covers the same ground but ends up competing for build resources. Maybe let players writeup these backgrounds as pseudo-themes that give them access to a set of noncombat feats and utility powers. Hears Voices from the Astral Plan This character is constantly given advice, warnings, and clues from astral voices only they can hear. These creatures may or may not be angels, and they may or may not be benevolent.
This gives you something reasonably flavorful, while still using the game's basic rules framework. wallawallawingwang fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Apr 17, 2015 |
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Apr 17, 2015 20:57
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Mendrian posted:The only issue I have with minions (and 2-hit minions, as a result) is that it renders the damage irrelevant. That wouldn't be a huge issue in and over itself, but a huge number of powers, feats, and items interact with damage, particularly teamwork powers. By rendering the actual damage irrelevant you're making those other things irrelevant too. At least with a normal minion you know you only need to hit it so hard, and it dies. Minions are budgeted as 1/4th of a regular monster, so that is probably about the threshold to shoot for. 1/4th the HP of a MM3 Skirmisher, Controller, or Soldier is 6 HP + 2/level. A brute would be 6.5 + 2.5/level, and a lurker would be 5.25 + 1.5/level. A hit that is equal or greater than that threshold kills the monster, and damage lower than that threshold bloodies the monster, a second bloody-ing hit kills the monster. This gives you all the same fiddly bits to play with while still guaranteeing 1 or 2 hit kills.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:06
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Torchlighter posted:So I've been poring over feat lists for the past couple of weeks in preparation for a new group, and I'm looking to cut down the number of feats. Admittedly, I'm using just about every feat I can find, but what is the general consensus on feats that can be dropped, or feats that should be included in general? It might actually be easier to start with the assumption that all feats are terrible and excluded, and then try and find the must have feats, rather than going through one by one to find the bad ones. I seem to recall most people thinking the essentials feats were mostly good ones. Certainly the essentials expertise feats are, well, essential. Some of them are good enough that even if you use one of the many proposed math fixes out there and strip away the need for the +1/tier to-hit bonus, they'd still be worth taking. If you go to the character op boards you'd probably be safe including any of the blue/sky blue/gold feats that get mentioned in the various guides. The multiclass feats are mostly great as well, a fair number of people think you could roll all the power swap feats either into the base multiclass feat or into a second feat that lets you power swap. I'm not sure how many quality of life adjustments you are willing to make to the game. The teamwork feats, the ones that give you a tiny bonus which grows bigger the more party members take it, they work better as DM tools. Hand them out as bonuses instead of hoping players will communicate about which feat to all take / hope every build has room to include an extra feat. If you finish this list please release it to the internet, it would be a community service.
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Jul 29, 2015 17:10
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Did anyone ever put together a MM1 on a business card? Or publish some any sort of pre MM3 monster formula? Were pre mm3 monsters even built with a formula? I'm not interested in remaking mm1 monsters or anything, I'm looking to see if I can't glean a quick or simple conversion formula for a heartbreaker project.
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Aug 5, 2015 19:33
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Gort posted:The fact that there's a hard-and-fast formula for converting MM1 monsters to use MM3 mandates that MM1 monsters were made with a formula. If MM1 monsters weren't consistent, you couldn't just convert them, you'd have to completely re-write them. Where can this formula be found? I've seen suggestions on various forums, but there is a lot of variance in those suggestions, which makes me suspicious of them.
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Aug 5, 2015 20:42
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Gort posted:DMG, page 184 has the formulae for making Monster Manual 1 monsters. From a while ago, but thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for. I really need to go through the core books again, despite a few warts here and there they are great books.
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Aug 10, 2015 21:02
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Unknown Quantity posted:What do you do when a party may potentiaally be too well-oiled a machine to really make something hard for without just dipping into realms of the ridiculous territory like massively overr-huge numbers? As in, when you want to make the fights hard and memorable but don't want to just keep upping the numbers if they keep winning. Might I also add to the other good suggestions here: Talk to your players about it. Just tell them they are great at coming up with well designed PCs and that you'll only be able to challenge them by throwing bigger numbers at them, which will probably resulting in slower grindier combat, and what do they want to do about it? If they are all super badasses maybe that's a sign to wind down the campaign? Maybe they'd prefer to respec their characters to be less optimal? Maybe they are fine with crazy huge over leveled combat encounters? However they answer, Effectronica's advice is golden and you should do that too.
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Aug 29, 2015 00:53
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Sharrow posted:The DDI import still works, I used it for a new campaign over the weekend. This: http://blogofholding.com/?p=782 is pretty spot on in my expereince. When you say optimized for defense over damage what does that mean exactly? A Barbarian, that's the party's only striker, who is using a shield instead of a two-hander has one fix, and a party with no strikers and lots of defenders has a different one.
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Sep 2, 2015 21:13
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On mount chat, I sorta kinda seem to recall exotic mounts costing about as much money as an item of their level. Did I completely make that up? Is that a reasonable guideline? Assuming the mount in question is a standard monster, not an elite or solo, AND that your treating it mostly as a means of transportation not a companion that follows you through the majority of your fights?
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Oct 5, 2015 21:55
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My Lovely Horse posted:Not too much, I hope. He's just a good example for a lot of things. The first sentence is the tabletop version of a gimmick run in a video game. Playing around with the rules to see where they bend or break is fun if the game is as robust as 4e. I'm actually a little surprised we don't see more of it. The second sentence though. It's almost admirable the lengths this guy is going to obfuscate the discovery of the manufacturing flaws of his d20s. But then my first 4e character was an elf fighter because I thought having a 16 in Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom would be super useful, so what do I know?
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Oct 13, 2015 00:29
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Khizan posted:Gimmick runs like that can be fun in video games, because videogames are, generally speaking, skill based. If I choose to handicap myself in an FPS, I can account for that by playing better. I can dodge incoming fire, I can shoot more accurately, I can avoid certain encounters, etc. I was thinking more like pacifist and ultra low INT runs of fallout, that sort of thing. Situations where you're leaving options off the table with no workarounds. In fallout if you get a random combat encounter, there isn't much you can do except run away, which, depending on the game, isn't player skill based at all. Regardless, its meant to illustrate that other people do similar things not that those things are a perfect and direct 1 to 1 equivalent. Heck, another weakness with the simile would be that most video game gimmick runs are done single player, where an odd ball choice only effects the person making it, unlike table top. The point is merely that what this player is doing isn't completely off the wall, and similar things happen in other games. It's even got precedent in 4e with the lazylord. I appreciate that this guy is willing to experiment, even if his experiment ends in failure. Khizan posted:Everything comes down to math and dice.
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Oct 13, 2015 02:41
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Moriatti posted:To those of you that don't allow death, what do you do to give players fear of some of the bigger forces? I find that simply knowing that their characters can die means that they rarely do, and usually try to come up with a plan that isn't just "BASH THE DOOR DOWN, KILL THE GOBLINS." In my experience, 4e has been good enough about keeping random deaths low enough that I haven't ever felt like I needed to ban character death as an official house rule. When characters have died, the groups I play in always offer to resurrect the character(s), but I've never actually seen anyone take up that offer. Both when its an offer of DM fiat "OK you all wake up in prison..." and when the party has the right rituals and cash to do it themselves. I think if you ban character death you both need to have some reason, like an especially narrative heavy campaign where character death would be so disruptive that it'd ruin the narrative flow, and you need to talk to the players first and make sure they are on board with whatever your doing. If you've got player buy in you either don't need to worry about the stick half of motivation or you can pick a clear campaign appropriate penalty. The Tenra Bansho Zero RPG has a cool solution to this issue. Players can basically set a flag on their characters for a scene and while this flag is up the character gets access to extra power but is also killable.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:36
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Turtlicious posted:My players are starting to learn how reversible death is, that war priests, can heal people within 24 hours, and resurrection rituals are cheap and can work up until a month. They're wondering why assassination and death is such a big deal. I'm at a loss to explain why it's a huge deal, besides it being kind of expensive, but in the books it's only 700 GP Not sure about war priests, but the ritual has text that says: "The subject's soul must be free and willing to return to life. Some magical effects trap the soul and thus prevent Raise Dead from working, and the gods can intervene to prevent a soul from journeying back to the realm of the living." The gods won't allow you to raise this NPC wears thin pretty quickly, but the willing and free condition gives you some wiggle room. Maybe most people chose to reincarnate instead of waiting around to maybe get raised. Maybe it affords a radically different perspective on life, so most people aren't worried about what's happening on the mortal plane anymore, and don't see the point to being raised. Maybe the afterlife is pretty good to most people and they just don't want to get raised. If your wrinkled old mentor dies before giving you a clue and you try to raise him, him coming back means he has to leave the love of his life (that he hasn't seen in decades), re-inhabit an age ravaged body, and then wait for death all over again. That's an even worse deal if he know you'll find the clue anyway. That example may or may not work for you, but the idea is to try and shift the conversation away from mechanical possibilities and towards story and characterization.
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Nov 17, 2015 20:52
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The opera house needs an orchestra pit. Tubas and other big instruments provide cover. If you whack the timpani drum loud enough you can scare off the displacer beast, at least for a turn or two.
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Nov 18, 2015 21:17
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Does anyone know what happened to the CBloader wiki? The page says their subscription expired. With CBloader, is it possible to make a custom list of banned feats/classes/races/items? I'd like to make the character creation process require less paging through hundreds of obsolete, weird, or janky cruft.
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Nov 26, 2015 01:36
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Khizan posted:This. Combat takes just as long but everybody who isn't a caster is relegated back down to "hit man with sword". It's actually a little worse if you are playing a fightymans. The 4e model was everyone's turn (DM included) takes about the same length of time to play out, call it 5 minutes. For 3 players and a GM that means: a full turn takes 20 minutes, everyone waits 15 minutes between each of their turns, and everyone is the active player for about 25% of the time. In the 5e model you end up with the caster and DM's turn taking 9 minutes each while the fighter and the rogue take a minute each. That is, the caster has to wait 11 minutes to play but the fighty types each have to wait 19 minutes, IE, the caster and DM are each active for about 45% of the round and the other 2 are active for about 5%. Now to compound all that, we usually give the simple fightyman classes to new players who are trying out the hobby.
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Apr 21, 2016 04:05
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 03:44 |
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The 13th age bestiary has gelatinous tetrahedrons, hexahedrons, octahedrons, and dodecahedrons. Each round they make one of 4, 6, 8, or 12 random attacks. Dice Battle is a good thing is what I'm saying.
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Aug 25, 2016 20:46
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