|
Hey guys, first of thanks for all the advice in the end of the last thread. I've settled on the slaying stone for our first game. There'll be 5 players and me. Now for some more silly beginning DM quesrions: How do I 'give' players items? For example: they can get a pretty neat daggger. But they can't just write down the entere description on their character sheet, that seems like it would fill the sheet up pretty quick. Just writing dwn the name means they would have to look up the properties all the time. Should I write the description on a piece of paper and hand that to them or something? I shouldn't tell people the stats of an enemy, right? I should just give their name and a description, and then some more info when they pass a monster knowledge check?
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2014 18:37
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 18:16 |
|
|
Thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2014 19:46
|
|
|
Hey, so we just ran our first game and everyone had a blast. Next time, we want everyone to roll their own characters instead of using the premade ones in the quickstart rules. I'm guessing the 'get essentials' advice is still valid? The problem is that with things going out of print, the price of the DM's kit is already very high, the rules compendium's price is going up too and monster vault has also gone out of print. Is there any way to get the print editions cheaper? I know you can buy pdfs, but things like the cardboard circles for monsters and players, DM screen, having a print copy of the rules all seem very useful.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
I bought the monster vault and heroes of the fallen lands. Not going to buy the rules compendium ast it's way to expensive now, and it sounds like heroes has most of the rules too? Is there any chance that there might be another printing of the dungeon master's kit? It seems like it'd be very useful, especially because of the screen/adventure/tokens, but the lowest price I can find is 120 euro, which is way too much.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 16:30
|
|
|
Thanks for the advice! Switched heroes for the rules compendium. We'll use the character builder to make the characters.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2014 18:37
|
|
|
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?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2014 22:28
|
|
|
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!
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2014 22:40
|
|
|
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?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2014 22:42
|
|
|
I as DM nearly killed the entire party in the first encounter of the slaying stone against some wolves. Rolled 4 crits and only 1 miss. At the end there was one guy standing with less than 10 HP.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2014 23:57
|
|
|
homullus posted:Or let the players use that one, too. We all use the same dice. Yeah that's what I did. Last guy standing & lady dragged them into the tower, lady used raise dead on the guy who was completely dead instead of just dying. (Which totally costs 50gp)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Go to LivingForgottenRealms.com thanks. This also has the LFR adventure archive, whose links are dead here: http://www.livingforgottenrealms.com/adventures.html in one 73MB zip
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2014 17:16
|
|
|
Hey, do the tokens in the DM kit cover everything in reavers of the harkenworld or should i also bring some of the monster vault ones?
The Belgian fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 27, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2014 20:55
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:I need to step up my game. Last session my players were a man down and his PC was a companion character for that session, and they still went through four encounters without blinking and had plenty of surges and daily powers left by the end of it. Only time things got remotely tight was when the bard was almost dropped by an errant crit on a nasty recharge power but that was gone as fast as it came. dragons are basically big lizards. they can fight dragons
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2014 21:56
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:At first I thought "but I want to keep dragons as a more special thing" but then that level 4 black dragon was right there in the Monster Vault. A The level 4 black dragon is great. I was using him as a 'winged demon' with my level 3 players. They seemed to be doing p well against it although we had to end the session before the encounter was over. I only had 3 players that session though. If you want to give your 6 player group a challenge, you could maybe have them fight 2 at the same time and drop their health down to 140 or something?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2014 15:03
|
|
|
Jade Mage posted:Any thing you guys know if that is a standard monster that could be reskinned to be a level 6-8 good-guy Diabolist? The only one I have is the warforged resounder. I'd prefer he not be elite, but I could handle one if necessary. What about eldarin twilight incanter (monster vault p115) gnome illusionist (monster vault p149) gnome entropist (monester vault p 151) the warforged resounder is MM2, so it still has the 'bad' monster math
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2014 15:37
|
|
|
Was there ever a book of traps, hazards & fantastic terrain published for 4e?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 14:02
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:The D&D wiki has a handy index for both: Traps and hazards here, Terrain here. There's some more terrain in the Rules Compendium as well. Thanks, but I saw those already. You're right that monsters are the real focus, but it's a shame that there's still really little traps. Was thinking about an encounter where my PCs fight zombies in a hallway in a necromancer's basement. Thought about having corpses in the hallway maybe knee-high trying to grab the PCs or something. The 'grasping vines' fantastic terrain from the plane above seems great for this.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2014 15:47
|
|
|
I noticed the gargoyle rake in the monster vault. It's a level 5 monster. It gets resist 20 to all damage and +5 temp hp per turn in its stone form (it's also unable to do anything except leave stone form while in stone form). How could a level 5 party expect to defeat this if it goes to stoneform everytime its health gets low? I doubt a level 5 party could consistently deal enough damage to offset the resistance + regeneration. It's not even a solo monster.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2014 19:23
|
|
|
Majuju posted:It's not true regeneration - the temporary HP won't stack by rules as written, so it's at most getting a 5 HP buffer. Meanwhile, you can always ready an action to murder it as soon as it comes out of Stone Form. Effectronica posted:Temp HP never stacks, so it just ends every turn its in stone form with 5 THP. But I'd have to look closer to see just how bad it is. Red Metal posted:From the compendium entry for THP Oh right, that's a lot more reasonable, forgot about temp hp working like that, thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2014 19:40
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:busting through the walls. *passes check* *moves* me: wait, you wanted to burst through THAT wall? I thought you meant the other one player: yeah me: that's the outside wall.. player: yeah? i know me: and you're on the third floor of a tower..
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2014 19:10
|
|
|
The rules compendium says that dominate does not change a creature's enemies & allies. Does this mean it's no good against creatures/players whose at-wills target 'one enemy' or 'enemies in blast'? (well except for robbing them of their turn and movement and all that)
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 20:27
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:That's about the gist of it, yes. Thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
Why not use the excellent offline character builder instead of the DDI one?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 20, 2015 20:52
|
|
|
The later ones are pretty good. The slaying stone, Reavers of the Harkenwold
|
|
#
¿
Feb 18, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
For wizards, the charop guides claim the lvl6 utility emerald eye is a must have for illusionists, but I don't see what's so great about it. It's +2 to hit vs which is nice, but it's only for two attacks usually and against a single target. I haven't had much trouble hitting things so far. Am I missing something? Also, I'm wondering: Is there some way (item/feat/something) to get damage dice on an ability that normally doesn't do damage? Mainly to get around the 'must have damage dice' requirement of enlarge spell.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2015 22:56
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:A couple (Malec-Keth Janissary, in particular) come to mind but they're all eminently arguable. And to be honest, Wizards don't need the boost. Thanks! Yeah, it looks like there are lots of other lvl6 powers that are much better & more fun. Summon iron cohort seems especially cool. Although an encounter power might be more useful. I know wizards don't really need it and wasn't planning to do it, I was just curious if it could be done. Janissary says extra damage, which I think disqualifies it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2015 23:24
|
|
|
People actually follow the action rules for swapping items and things like that?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2015 18:28
|
|
|
Fumaofthelake posted:Our DM described a scenario in which the floor gave way beneath us and there are a bunch of demon dog type little dudes in the basement. My friend's PC landed with his foot on one of their backs and got to roll damage (the dm described it as "crushing it's spine"). If you actually broke its spine, 'realistically' that would sound like helpless+prone for the fight, but at that point you might as well kill it. From a game persepective immobilized or dazed would probably make the morst sense? Not restrained as it should still be able to be pushed/pulled/slid
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 21:54
|
|
|
Pfox posted:I already have the Rules Compendium, does the DM kit have much in the way of value add? The dungeon master's book that's in the kit is different from DMG1 and 2. It's more recent though. Although it probably doesn't havr that much new stuff. The included adventure is really quite good Special tokens for player characters are included So are a bunch of extra monster tokens, trap tokens, maps
|
|
#
¿
May 26, 2015 08:44
|
|
|
ImpactVector posted:You've hit on two of the huge issues with the system. The other being the lack of variety in skills that they're based on (which they tried to fix with the Martial Practice system, but never really supported it well enough). We have no component cost for rituals in my group but treat them as daily powers. It works great. (Of course thing like enchanting items or raise dead would still have some sort of cost)
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2015 13:26
|
|
|
Lemon Curdistan posted:Why should Raise Dead have a cost? To avoid player death being trivialized? Although we haven't actually used it yet, we won't be able to until next level. We've just agreed that there should be 'a cost', not specifically a monetary cost. I personally think it would be neat is the cost were something more interesting than money but we'll see what happens.
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2015 14:14
|
|
|
I agree with what My Lovely Horse said. If you really want to keep smother in its current form, drop the three turn waiting period. That's very long and never gonna happen. Does disease immunity really do anything? I can't recall any disease player powers. 2 speed is relly slow. Looking at the oozes in the monster vault, they all have 4 or 3 speed. This thing seems very similar to an ooze and a modified version of the green slime from the monster vault's Engulf power would be a lot more 'fun' than smother, I think. As they'll be moving through rock, I'd give them tremorsens eor blindsight rather than darkvision.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2015 12:52
|
|
|
.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2015 11:49
|
|
|
Pfox posted:I'm getting super tired of flipping back and forth between the pages of my monster vault and mm3 during combat. Can anyone recommend a program that I can run on a windows-based tablet that will allow me to display monster stat blocks? I thought import DDI data to masterplan didn't work anymore?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 2, 2015 17:33
|
|
|
Trasson posted:So, first, for general 4E stuff: how should I run the gameplay? The obvious answer is just to go with 2 PCs, but that has problems of its own (role coverage, high chance of death spiral). One thought I'd had was having each player play 2 PCs. They can be one "character" for the sake of RPing and what not, but for gameplay purposes there's two pieces on the board, two sets of skills and powers, etc. This has the downside of complexity, but hell, we play Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem, it's not like outfitting and playing two characters is some great chore. I'm planning on asking their opinion but if anyone has insight/experience on which approach might work better, or if there's a third option to put forth. You could give each player one regular PC and one companion character? Companion characters are simplified characters that are designed for this kind of situation (for example, they don't need equipment except for a weapon, their defences are all determined by their role & level). If you have the offline character builder you can make them by selecting striker/leader/defender/controller as "class" in the builder.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 16, 2015 14:32
|
|
|
I'm not planning on playing a summoner, but I was wondering: Is it possible to make an effective summoner wizard? It seems like all the somewhat decent stuff is a daily power, so you're stuck being a summoner half-time at mos.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 23:33
|
|
|
Really Pants posted:Druids get the best summons. thespaceinvader posted:All the good summons are dailies, and from experience, no, it's not terribly useful having a summoner Wizard, because IME they tend not to actually get round to summoning stuff until a bit too late in the fight because they're using their control encounter powers early, and so they play like Wizards without dailies. WHich is still good, but not Wizard-good. Thanks! I know next to nothing about druids. I'll have a look into them.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2015 18:48
|
|
|
Obligatum VII posted:Didn't they later add similar instinctive action equivalents for the Wizard summons? Some of them were quite good. They still kept the negative effect if you didn't command them, but it was counterbalanced by some pretty impressive actions they take on their own. Yeah, the succubus is what got me thinking about summoner wizards. The problem being that all the summon powers of note are daily, so you can't build a full-time wizard summoner.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2015 22:36
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I think the idea is you do 1 summon per encounter rather than summon-spam. Yeah, but at that rate you cover about half the encouters / extended rest. Hence, part-time. And for the first part of heroic you're totally screwed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2015 14:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 18:16 |
|
|
Unknown Quantity posted:So having looked at controller nonsense enough I'm pretty solidly set on Wizard now. Or Enchanter Mage, more specifically. Aside from the obvious potential issue of running into something with a high Will defense, there's nothing all that wrong with mostly taking the non-damaging hindrance powers, yeah? IE Hypnotism, Illusory Obstacles, Maze of Mirrors, Sleep, etc. I'm an enchanter/illusionist and it's great fun. High will monsters are pretty rare too in my experience. You're right that you shouldn't be looking for powers that do damage, but for powers that'll piss your DM off. If you can get your DM to yell something like "But that's such bullshit", you know you've build a good character. Plus, there's powers like phantom foes that don't require an attack roll but purely depend on saving throws. Those get around high-will enemies.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2015 14:36
|
|