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.

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homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Mordiceius posted:

I don't know, I was trying to think of a way to make natural 1s more fun.

When the stakes are high (especially on a skill rather than a combat check), ask them what the worst thing is that could happen. If they roll a 1, it happens. Maybe they even still succeed on the check if it's one that their bonus would allow them to do, but that terrible, hilarious thing also happens.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 18:39

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 05:11

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

If you want it to be something that doesn't necessarily harm the players, have a 1 in combat be a change to the terrain in a place (and of a type) that the monsters can also be affected by. The 1 becomes a miss and a change in tactics; if the players roll another 1, you could have it go away, rather than piling stuff on.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 19:21

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

thespaceinvader posted:

You can always make unarmed attacks in melee, but only if you actually have something to chuck at range. And unarmed attacks suck unless you're a brawler or an arena fighter (one of these days I want to play an arena fighter with inherent bonuses turned on for the 'literally anything is a weapon' thing. And be fully functional when hitting people with the gnome wizard.

Just don't do that in a campaign where a natural 1 results in the gnome wizard snapping in two.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 22:18

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

thespaceinvader posted:

I thought that was the goal it's a gnome. Irritating little fuckers.

how do people not get that automatically missing without any means to avoid it other than a VERY expensive reroll IS critical failure?

The monsters getting critical hits can also represent a critical failure on the part of the PC, it's just that the monster is the one rolling for it.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 22:25

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Did WotC ever release their Lair Assault adventures in PDF form? I never got into organized play, but in retrospect I'm interested in seeing what they did with that design space. A quick scan of internet suggests it was in-store only.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2015 22:43

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

UrbanLabyrinth posted:

The Dungeon Delve book might scratch the same itch, although it was released in 2009, so is pre-MM3.

I do own Dungeon Delve. I'm interested in how they paced "no rest" situations and what kind of global conditions/unusual features they introduced to make the combats more interesting tactically in Lair Assault.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 00:43

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

I probably would regularly run one-shots if we didn't meet up only once a month as it is. I've got to move back closer to these folks.

I guess I don't advocate this as often here as I do in real life, but play online on a weeknight. You won't be able to play as long, but you will get to play most weeks, year-round. You'll usually get more gaming in from 7-9:15 pm weekly than you will once monthly, given the same cancellation rate.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 15:25

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Jimbozig posted:

Hey 4e fans, if you've been looking for a new 4e-inspired game that tries to fix 4e's problems using modern design and without going back towards 3.5, I've got a Kickstarter for you!

You've probably seen me posting about it over the past couple of years, and now it's finally finished!

I promise I am not following you around, you are just posting everywhere I was thinking of saying nice things about the game.

If you (the reader, not Jimbozig) like D&D 4e, I think you won't be disappointed with this game. The tactical combat is streamlined from 4e, skill challenges have been replaced with a fun skill/creativity minigame, and all the formatting goodness of 4e stablocks remains . . . or at least did, in the last version I saw.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 18:53

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

dwarf74 posted:

So I made some new Zeitgeist themes. Would love to hear critiques. I am worried the Executore is a bit narrow (though really strong in that narrow area). I'm more comfortable with the Clergy one...

It's missing flavor text, sadly... So this is all mechanics.

Executores dola Liberta
Broken chain badge, gold rings in ears

Level 1 Benefit: +1 to Will defense, training in Insight.

Power:
Slice the Chains that Bind (encounter)
Primal
Immediate Interrupt , Close Burst 10
Trigger: You or any number of allies within the area are Dominated or hit by an attack with the Charm keyword.
Target: Allies in burst
Effect: All effects other than damage from the triggering attack are negated, and all targets are immune to Dominate and Charm effects until the end of the triggering enemy’s next turn. You gain temporary HP equal to your healing surge value.

Level 5 Benefit: Destroy the Slavers. If you use Slice the Chains that Bind, you gain a +2 bonus to all attack rolls and saving throws until the end of the encounter against the triggering enemy. You can detect magical compulsion with a minor action by succeeding in a Moderate Insight check.

Level 10 Benefit: Iron Mind. You are immune to Domination and can make saving throws at the start of your turn against any effect with the Charm keyword.

This looks really, really strong compared to the Clergy one. +1 to a defense right away and situational immunity to a whole category of powers (don't know how often Charm shows up in Zeitgeist) with a really (comically?) large THP bonus, an untyped attack bonus at level 5, and the equivalent of a weakish feat at level 10, versus . . . versus what I assume is an encounter power that has some risk and a little expansion at level 10, that changes one or two rolls in a fight.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 22:47

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

dwarf74 posted:

Alright, let's change this around a bit.

Keep the L1 features, but change the power.

Trigger: An enemy dominates/charms yadda yadda
Immediate Reaction. Special - if you were a target, do this before it takes effect.
Effect: Move up to your speed and make a basic attack against the enemy. If the attack hits, all targets can make a saving throw against it even if it doesn't normally allow a save.

L5: If that attack hits, gain your level in thp. Get +2 to saves vs charm/dominate.

L10: Make saves vs dominate and Charm effects at start of your turn. Instead of rolling, you can take your level in damage to remove a dominate or charm effect from yourself.

Level 10 probably needs to say "instead of rolling, you can take your level in damage to remove the Dominate condition or remove any current effects from a previous attack with the Charm keyword" or some such. And consider whether that includes ongoing damage.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 23:10

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

There isn't any solid rule like this, it depends on what your class is, whether you took the cheese hit points background, and what tier the game is at/going to.

"Base HP off highest stat" should have been the default. Auspicious Birth/Born Under a Bad Sign should have been a feat variant for campaigns without the default HP.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2015 20:16

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Fumaofthelake posted:

I have a question about adjacency and opportunity attacks.

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

If my PC is at 1 and an enemy at 5:

Could I hit him with a melee basic?
Would he provoke an opportunity attack if he moves?

Also, is it possible for the same movement action to provoke multiple attacks of opportunity against the same unit? Like if I'm at 1 and the enemy moves from 4 to 2 then 2 to 3, would I get to attack twice?

Yes, you can hit the bad guy with a basic attack, and he would provoke ONE opportunity attack if he moves (rather than shifting) from the PC at 1, unless the enemy's power specifically states he can move without provoking OAs. Opportunity attacks are 1/turn, so you'd only get one, but if there were another PC at 3 and the enemy moved from 5 to 2, it would eat two OAs.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2015 19:04

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Hybrids are an enjoyable technical exercise, but only 2% of the time are what people were hoping for when they hear about them. They're not even awesome in the way that baking your own bread or brewing your own beer is awesome; you have significantly fewer viable options than what you can get in the store. I don't think I would ever tell anyone totally new to them that they're awesome because (as Madmarker said) there are tons of ways to mess them up, due to the way class features are accessed.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2015 21:16

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Torquemadras posted:

What is everyone's opinion of the Monk class? I've got a rare opportunity to actually play a character myself coming up, and the sheer array of mobility options + punching LOTS of people spontaneously appealed to me. I've been looking for builds, and most people seem to be of the opinion that Monks aren't that huge on damage compared to other Strikers, but they're by far the most mobile and great at spreading damage among multiple targets.

I've played with the idea of playing a Monk as a completely nuts vigilante type, who punches so hard the air pressure alone wrecks people (hence all the burst type attacks). Monk relies heavily on Dex, though; what would be the best ways to use a high Strength mod as well? (Aside from that Stone Fist Flurry of Blows ability.)

I think they're one of the most fun classes to play. Having the ability to trade your flurry damage for inflicting ongoing fire is also pretty great -- you punch the air so hard that the air pressure heats the target to the point of combustion.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2015 19:55

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

ImpactVector posted:

IIRC, the RC treasure rules are a return to randomly rolled treasure, in line with the general trend of Essentials trying to make 4e look more like earlier editions. So they basically took the tables above and added some variance.

And I'm pretty sure the only places IBs show up are DMG2 and Dark Sun. It's probably too "gamey" to have been included in anything post-Essentials.

But like Poison Mushroom said, once you turn on IB, the need to balance treasure pretty much goes out the window. If you and your players are happy with the number of toys they're getting then you're doing just fine.

There are really only two issues you can run into once IBs are on:

a) On the high end, players could potentially get access to things a half-tier early. Which isn't a huge deal, normally it's just an extra +1.

b) On the low end, there are some builds that rely on having a few key magic items. An extreme example would be one of the charged based builds. If you think you've got some people that will hit the char-op boards for ideas, it might not be a bad plan to be up front with your players if you're doing a low-magic game (including the modified IB parcels).

Also, there are items whose pluses would be superseded by Inherent Bonuses, but whose effects are tied to the item's actual pluses, or whose effects grow in tiers. We ruled that players got the better version of such items when the players reached the item's level, which is later than they COULD have gotten the new item as random loot, but seemed fair.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 18:43

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Moriatti posted:

So I'm looking to do a Skype game with a few friends, and 3/5 of them picked hengeyokai. I was going to have them start in Eberron, then almost immediately move to the Infinite Staircase and Sigil. (I'm going to adapt Tales from the Infinite Staircase, The Great Modron March and Dead Gods into 4Runner as an ongoing campaign.)

The question is, what is the deal with hengeyokai in Eberron? Is there any deal? It's not huge, but I was going to try and be somewhat representative of each setting in case they head back there.

I'd probably put them in the Eldeen Reaches. Druids, small communities, in touch with nature, all that.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2015 03:37

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

e: Magic items scaling with your inherent bonus is pretty neat, hadn't considered that but right now I'm in a mood to simplify my game a little.

Scale the item bonuses, and if it's an item that actually upgrades its powers/damage expressions/whatever by level or tier, give them the better version when they reach the next item's level (which is later than the L+2 moment where they could reasonably find it, but better than "never").

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 14:12

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

dwarf74 posted:

I started with that way of doing things, but switched to the simpler way after it got confusing. It wasn't worth the overhead.

Like I mentioned, there's not much magic item shopping or crafting, so I'm not too concerned.

I was able to count on my players reminding me that their thing was upgraded. I don't think there are that many, percentage-wise, that change things other than the item bonus.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 15:17

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

djw175 posted:

I have so many characters that would make sense to have Linguist but I just can't justify taking it over actually useful feats.

There is that thing that lets you get a bonus to Insight checks equal to your number of languages (if I remember it correctly). That could be useful in some campaigns.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2015 15:27

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

RPZip posted:

Asking for a friend: Are there any really good Eberron articles that were published in Dragon or Dungeon that are worth tracking down? Looking specifically for stuff that was published in 4th edition, and from a DM standpoint (read: Not 101 Warforged Feats).

I really enjoyed the spotlight on Graywall article, but then I think Graywall is one of the best places in Eberron. It was in Dragon #368.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2015 03:42

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Echophonic posted:

That's a pretty good explanation. Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority trip a lot of folks up. Nothing teaches you how Immediate and Opportunity actions work like playing a fighter. I honestly forgot you could immediate and opportunity in the same turn, but it's been ages since that's been relevant.

It was pretty late in the game's development when I finally got around to playing a fighter. The fighter and the bard are two of the best things in 4e and those designers should be proud of themselves.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 18:39

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

dwarf74 posted:

I don't like the idea of making them immune to burst/blast damage, since that's part of the Controller shtick. I do, however, prefer 2-hit minions, who are defended against the low damage ones.

Normal 1-hit minions are not worth their encounter budget past a certain point. I pretty much always use one of the the following:

* 2-hit minons
* minions who are scary (say, explode) on death
* minions with damage auras
* minions who help the boss
* endless supplies
* ranged attackers

I like all of these kinds.

If minions are trivialized by your PCs, you can also just throw lower-level monsters (like, L-5 or more) at them with those same characteristics. Unlike level-appropriate minions, they are both very likely to be hit and much less likely to die after one or even two hits.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 16:03

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

The other advantage of using real-but-lower-level monsters is that you get to add the list of "on bloodied" effects to the aura/teamwork/positioning/on death stuff minions give you.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 20:49

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Covok posted:

I hope no one minds me asking, but is this character any good? Can he be made better? I am no expert with the system.

If you had taken Dragonfear instead of the Breath Weapon and if your DM allows you to take Born Under a Bad Sign/Auspicious Birth for a background, there's no reason to put any points in CON. The reason to do this would be to boost your other powers that have CHA riders.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 15:05

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Lemon Curdistan posted:

Why should Raise Dead have a cost?

I think the inconvenience of dragging the body around and being shorthanded is enough of a cost to the party, but if it literally has no cost, then you are playing in a setting where everyone can Raise Dead, and that changes a lot of other things about your world.

# ¿ May 30, 2015 15:18

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Blasphemeral posted:

Hi, 4e thread! Long time, no see.

I have a 4th edition epic-level game coming up, and I am building some trials for the PC to overcome in order to gain access to the peak of Mt. Mertion (Bahamut's mountain) within Celestia. They are intended to be "obviously a trial," but precisely what they are testing should be up to player interpretation.

I'd be very thankful for any suggestions you guys could provide for tests that the PCs could perform to demonstrate to Bahamut they've "got what it takes" as far as he's concerned. I've got a couple ideas that test their ideals of justice and such, but I need a couple more and I'd love to hear what you guys come up with.

In return, I'll post a write-up of their shenanigans after the session (a couple weeks from now).

Also, if you could spoiler them, just in case one of my players stumbles in (I know at least one has an account here) that would be great. Thanks!

How does the use of spoiler tags stop them from seeing the ideas?

To contribute: It doesn't, it just draws attention to which replies are to your post.

Edit, further: One test, of course, is to see how they react to not getting what they want. Top of the mountain is empty, "Peace on Oerth" is all the treasure says, et cetera. Are they good for the sake of being good, or as a means to an end?

homullus fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jun 8, 2015

# ¿ Jun 8, 2015 22:18

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

thespaceinvader posted:

Also look out for anything that says 'levels lower than the party' because going lower than the party at all is likely to result in a walkover.

I think lower-level monsters are a surprising challenge when their key abilities do not require single attack rolls (providing CA, auras, AoEs, et cetera). The surprise comes from the player realization that minion-killing multi-target attacks aren't killing these obstacles.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2015 14:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Moriatti posted:

I've found its really easy to convert older published adventures to 4e if you have the compendium. You can usually just take the encounters as written, adjust for level and go, sometimes having to also adjust for edition (instead of 1d10 Wolves, 5 wolf-like monsters re skinned to be a pack of wolves who performs a different task when hunting.)

That said, Planescape is and always will be the cooler psuedo-Sci-Fi setting then Spelljammer.

Planescape is cooler and utterly inappropriate for any edition of D&D. It's all about the metaplot of hyper-powerful creatures and losing even more power when you visit other planes, completely at odds with the "let's go kill creatures and take their stuff" of the game it was printed for. It is cooler, though (not being sarcastic).

# ¿ Sep 20, 2015 15:31

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Khizan posted:

More likely you'll spend 15 minutes resolving the combat and the outcome is going to be determined primarily by the initiative order.

This is what I would have said. A fight literally full of creatures than can Action Point and Daily can be suuuuuper short, especially if one side generally wins initiative. Like, literally, look at the damage each character at a given level can do with a daily, and then look at the HP of that same character. And then remember that if they have two dailies, they can use both when they Action Point. Some PC classes could KO clones of themselves in a single round, and two PCs (depending on class and power choices) could outright kill another PC in one round.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 21:53

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Echophonic posted:

"More feats!" shouted Giles Corey, 8th level Witch.

I think he was at best multiclassed into Witch, or not a Witch at all.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2015 19:50

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

gradenko_2000 posted:

Yeah the main benefit of the new D&D edition isn't with the improvement or iteration with the design/gameplay, so much as simply releasing a new edition period that gets people playing again.

They could have reprinted Mentzer's Expert rules except with d20 BAB instead of THAC0, called it good, and it still would've sold like gangbusters* just from the sheer impetus of "hey a new D&D came out, let's start playing again, guys"

* or at least as gangbusters as the hobby ever gets

I don't think Gangbusters actually did that well for TSR.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2015 19:25

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

Ugh I'm hitting a total roadblock on designing this combat map.

Supposed to be a town square during the annual fair. The idea is to have a squad of minion artillery plinking away at the parts from the empore all the way to the left, protected by two soldiers in the main area, and there's a displacer beast stalking around so I need to keep some open space free for it to maneuver and can't have too many stalls. Few other enemies as well, because the party's huge. Left half I think is fine, but the right is just super boring empty space. I fully acknowledge the cobblestone texture may be partly at fault here. Any ideas to spruce it up with either large-skirmisher friendly terrain features or just visual effects? Got some shadowy areas and lanterns lined up but I want to put those in last.

What, no dramatic costumed re-enactment of The Battle of Miller's Bridge, in which Town Hero fought off Historic Rivals, complete with prop terrain? No archery contest, with archery butts for cover?

But really, stages are large and flat and can give a little height and destructible cover, maybe even some scaffolding balconies. Archery butts could be permanent fixtures in the town square for regular drilling, as opposed to just bales of straw.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 21:59

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

yeah, so, I lie a lot

Same idea: archers on the "castle" to the left, party enters from the right (through the clearly defined entry point, the middle aisle), bad guys let loose the displacer beast and enjoy the show. It's relatively difficult to get on stage (long way around up the stairs, or climb straight up with an Athletics check) but once you're there you'll have some cover against the archers from prop bushes and trees. On the other hand, there will be melee guys. My party has plenty of ways to teleport around but mostly for the ranged characters, gonna be a nice tactical sub-challenge to decide whether to move forward with no defense or wait for the defenders to catch up.

Maybe some difficult terrain patches wouldn't go amiss. And some markings on the floor where the king's hawk swoops down in act II (note to Bill, remember to duck when Joe pulls the rope, the propmaker used real steel on the claws).

Opera houses are definitely superior. Anything that gets you multiple levels in addition to blocking LOS, really, but I also like the idea of a bad guy hiding behind a plywood shrub as if it's real cover.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 21:06

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

It would be a lot of easily-accessed art for Roll20 tokens. Still Pathfinder, though.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 18:13

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Auralsaurus Flex posted:

Yeah, that's the first encounter presented in the Slaying Stone. You later end up infiltrating an enemy-occupied village in order to track down a MacGuffin.

And might walk into the place where it is right away.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 19:50

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Anonymous Robot posted:

So here's an odd question: I'm currently working on a short story which involves a group of roleplayers, and the plot is partially interwoven with their campaign. One major factor that could be useful for me to be thinking about is finding a monster that would be thematically and/or symbolically interesting, not to mention something that would just be more fun to write about. I have a couple of criteria, plot-wise, that I need to consider.

The monster (or 'enemy'/humanoid/whatever) is responsible for killing a PC (by the group's consensus, as one of the PCs had to take over as DM mid-campaign). While his motivations for doing so are meant to be a breadcrumb for a subsequent adventure or possible modular dungeon later down the road, one of the players will not be dissuaded from giving immediate pursuit, leading to some amateur improvisation by the new DM.

What I'm looking for is a creature that's kind of ambiguously intelligent. Its capacity for strategic thought, intelligent communication, and the like should be a potential point of contention in an argument between the player and DM. I'm thinking something along the lines of a creature that might be used as an assassin by a more major villain, but when you think about it more closely it seems a little questionable that they'd even care or possess the faculties to be able to be involved in a purposeful mission like that.

Some kind of elemental, maybe? They can be summoned and commanded and obviously have their own things going on, but their perceptions and "thought" can be utterly alien.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 21:20

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Anonymous Robot posted:

An elemental, or anything less-than-corporeal, would probably introduce some complications because the climax of the story involves a fighter character (unexpectedly) subduing the creature nonlethally and attempting to interrogate it, which is why an ambiguous intelligence is required.

(The group's DM has been murdered, and the players are finishing his campaign as a form of memorial, but one of the players has taken the PC-killer for a surrogate of the real murderer and is trying to coax an explanation from it as a form of catharsis. The novice DM is caught off-guard by his insistence on this and doesn't have anything planned out to tell him, on top of being a more weak-willed person compared to him in general, and so he tries to cop out by saying the monster had 'no reason'.)

I guess there's nothing to say that an elemental can't be corporeal, though. Or maybe a golem or something. After all, the true dungeon master, is me

I was also going to suggest golem/homuculus/low-INT undead, yeah. An earth elemental would definitely be corporeal, though.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 21:33

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

Hi it's me and my overthought encounter ideas again

How would this be for an encounter gimmick that doesn't require me to juggle tons of map overlays in Masterplan:

- the combat area has a number of vents
- anyone within X squares of a vent:
a) must hold their breath (using the drowning rules)
b) takes 5 extra fire damage whenever they take fire damage
- you can Do Stuff to a vent to plug it and render the area within X safe

The party would have to move forward slowly and shut down vents as they go to eventually reach a MacGuffin, all while dealing with fire elementals... or they could send in someone with good Endurance and defenses to run in, grab the thing, and escape.

Alternatively I could have leaking pipes or something, where you have to shut off the gas for one area of the map at a certain point. But that's a matter of details.

My opinion is that hazards that can't hurt the enemies are Not Fun.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2016 14:23

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

My Lovely Horse posted:

Plenty of that in the five encounters for this dungeon that aren't this one. But okay, point taken - maybe Doing Stuff can turn the hazards around somehow.

... maybe you can switch pipelines from the flammable gas to the dungeon's halon system or whatever.

Sorry if that came out harshly. If your players have responded well to "give up actions to turn off hazard" scenarios, it's totally fine.

If nothing else, it could be magical fire so hot that it momentarily overwhelms even fire elementals, reducing their resistance. Probably only fun if the players have fire powers they would love to be able to use.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2016 14:55

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 05:11

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

pookel posted:

I have an irrational attachment to D&D, though. I've never really played anything else. I'm considering lobbying them to try 5th edition, which I haven't tried but have been reading about.

It really doesn't sound bad the way you guys are talking about coordinating strategies, but I think you'd find it frustrating to sit in on our sessions, too. The simplest fight can take hours because of the endless discussion and micromanagement. We've played together for a year and a half and I think people are getting worse rather than better (as we level up and everything gets more complicated). I don't think we've ever done more than three encounters in a night, and I'm talking 8-hour gaming sessions. Two fights in eight hours is normal. Every few sessions, we get to roleplay for 20 minutes or so, but that's kind of rare. It's reasonable to me to say someone yells "hey, I need healing!" in the middle of combat and then we take a couple minutes to work out how that happens, but this is every. drat. turn.

(I just went back and looked at my original posts in the thread. One was at 9:46 and one was at 10:12. I made both those posts during the same round of combat, while waiting for the same turn to come around. This is typical.)

Once in a while we get a skill challenge. Which this DM announces to us is a skill challenge, and tells us which skills we can use, and how many successes we need to win and how many failures will make us fail it. Then we go around the table rolling our highest applicable skill, and see if we succeed. I feel like that is not quite how skill challenges are supposed to work. Like, maybe they're supposed to include some roleplaying, and not just "okay, you need to roll a 25 on an insight check twice, who has the highest insight in the party?"

You have a bad DM and are playing the wrong D&D for the kind of game you want to play. You probably do want 5e or Dungeon World. Dungeon World is a better game (by far) and has an awkward crush on D&D, but your irrational attachment to D&D will lead you to 5e. 5e is a worse game than 4e, but still much closer to the playstyle you very clearly want, and therefore better for your purposes.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 17:19

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

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