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

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girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Ferrinus posted:

I make this post every few months, but I actually have played a 4E game riddled with short, easy "popcorn" combats (the DM was just doing a 1-to-1 translation of some 3E megadungeon module) and it was actually really fun. You'd open a door and see two goblins or whatever and mop them up easily, but it gave you the opportunity to make some basic positioning/power deployment decisions and each was an optimization challenge to see if you could splatter the enemies before they managed to actually hit you - because, after all, any damage you took was ultimately going to come out of your healing surges and thus carry over to the rest of the day.

Basically, it's a mistake to think that 4E needs to have nothing but complicated setpiece battles. Rather, 4E is the only edition which can produce engaging complicated setpiece battles (rather than save or die rocket tag or whatever), but it's still perfectly fine running more generic and less ambitious D&D.

Not a bad idea! Though if you take this route, I'd recommend stealing a rule from 5E and making Short Rests take an hour. Otherwise, every tiny fight is going to get flattened by the first person with a decent Encounter power

# ¿ Dec 16, 2020 19:45

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 19:56

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I do have a shitton of beginner DM advice in my post history, but it's buried in seven pages of shitposting.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2020 20:05

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I've also used, like... super-minions that take two hits to kill, or one hit that's particularly beefy. Then it's not as important if you don't tell the players they're minions, but it's still kind of a dick move.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 18:23

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

And if you want other things, there are other games that do it better!

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 22:19

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Don't use skill challenges as a core mechanic for anything, they're boring as hell and murder any sense of agency.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 09:02

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

It's 'Essentials' as in "boiled down to their essence", not 'necessary'. Essentials classes are basically just extremely simplified versions of basic classes. If that's not something that appeals to you, then no, you don't need Essentials.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2021 09:09

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Arivia posted:

There are two Essentials books that actually are pretty Essential, but they�re being forgotten because they don�t have character classes in them. The Rules Compendium is the best single source for 4e game rules in book form, and the Monster Vault is the best resource for classic monster stat blocks using the revised monster stats.

I actually forgot those were Essentials products. Yeah, they're fantastic, and actually essential, especially if you're playing in person.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2021 09:44

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Boba Pearl posted:

I was thinking of the giant creeping mold that made sick people explode.

Actually, I have a question for the thread, my player's have dedicated their builds to maximum CC, and it's very effective, I want to provide a challenge while also respecting that they've built their builds to be very good at this thing. So like, I feel if I give my enemies the ability to just shrug it off once or twice, I'm invalidating those choices my players made. At the same time, if I throw 100s of minions at them with very high damage, they'll die super quick, as they only have one or two people with abilities that'll pop a ton of minions. I recognize the weakness, but I'm having trouble really feeling out how hard I want to push into it. We're level 10, so it feels unfair now that' they've locked in 10 levels worth of stuff to start punishing them for not diversifying more, as I feel that's not the fun part of making a DND 4e combat character.

I've tried inflating HP values to the max, but it becomes a very damage race kind of game, either they keep it locked down enough to get their nova's off, or the enemy survives 4 rounds and then haymakers the party into oblivion, normally chunking a player or two. I wanted to speed that process up, so that it's "Can you chunk the enemy in 2 turns, or will he chunk you in 2 turns."

I feel like there's no fair way to do this, without taking options away from the players. Right now, some stuff I'm floating is:

Enemies have an ability that lets them save on ALL conditions at the beginning of their turn

Enemies can split their HP, and create a copy of themselves, that isn't effected by those conditions

Enemies can transfer conditions onto each other

A Leader that can cleanse conditions 2x per encounter

Enemies that link with someone, and any conditions applied to that enemy, is also applied to the linked player

Which of these would you consider end game boss stuff, and which do you think would be more appropriate on a standard / elite enemy?

I especially like enemies that transfer conditions to each other. Some kind of hive-mind creatures or somesuch, where the strong ones can pass all of their conditions onto a nearby minion or weaker enemy at the start of their turn. Or other 'consumable' effect-clears, where removing the effect still imparts some kind of cost or penalty on the enemy, like having the option to clear effects on it at a small HP cost (about equal to the damage they'd deal with an MBA, I think?), or with a stacking -1 penalty per effect to attack rolls that turn. Or go with the old MMO standby, and have big pillars or crystals or whatever that make the boss immune to most conditions until they're destroyed. (This one keeps him from being dazed. This one keeps him from being immobilized. This one... etc. etc. etc.)

The key is not invalidating their choices, just changing them. Ideally, they end up with the interesting decision of "do we clear out the chaff/etc, so our effects stick, or do we just ignore it and focus on damaging the big guy?"

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jun 25, 2021

# ¿ Jun 25, 2021 12:03

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

I'm working on a 4e hack (aren't we all?) and I wanna reskin six Defenders, six Strikers, and six Leaders. Each can have some Controller mixed in, but I don't want any dedicated Controllers. Going purely by mechanics, what would y'all say are some of the best/your favorite classes? Bonus points if they're ones that have a reasonable power-level without needing to go too deep into CharOp (or if the needed CharOp can be baked straight into the class)? Specificity of flavor isn't a big deal, everything's getting reskinned anyways.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 23:44

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Lemon-Lime posted:

remember that makes the Wizard a ranged Defender.

...Explain. I'm not saying I disagree, but please elaborate. I'm intrigued.

Edit: To go into a bit more detail, I'm gonna be using nine classes (three of each kind) for full-scale grid combat, and adapting the other nine for rangeless, slightly more abstracted combat. (i.e., long, drawn-out battles where fighting every enemy group individually would take ages)

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Sep 23, 2021

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 23:38

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Converting one or two Controllers to Defenders is actually a pretty good idea. Wouldn't take that much work, really.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2021 00:22

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

potatocubed posted:

Lore Idea: Player character minotaurs have a supernatural sense for mazes because they're the ones who escaped.

In old editions of D&D, minotaurs were explicitly called out as immune to the maze spell.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 10:50

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

IMO, the best thing to do for something like that is to basically crib the idea of Epic 6, which plants a fairly low level cap, but gives smaller, more manageable rewards when you'd get a level-up. One more feat, for example. 5th or 6th level as a cap are both great for this, 5 because you get your second daily, 6 for one more feat and your second utility power. 6 is also just 1 level below when you're expected to get +2 weapons, so you can eventually drop those in in a way that makes them feel actually special, without breaking the math too much. And Level 6 characters are still pretty manageable, since you've got few enough powers that you could feasibly fit all their cards on one sheet, depending on your build.

It's a better fit for games with themes of scrappy heroes and/or low-magic settings, rather than something like Eberron or Forgotten Realms, where high-level characters being all over the place is just a fact of life.

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Nov 29, 2021

# ¿ Nov 29, 2021 21:19

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

My Lovely Horse posted:

Goddamn it. I had a beholder fight coming up and since they're so fiddly to run and you have to do a whole attack routine every turn, I prerolled like 100 eye ray attacks and wrote them on little slips of paper to draw from a bag. I even made sure to have equal amounts of each type of ray in there, as well as give each type an even spread of rolls, because I had visions of rolling something like 8 petrification rays with high attack rolls in the first two rounds and wanted to have as diverse a pool to draw from as I could manage.

Guess what I did draw in the first two rounds

If you fudge it in advance, you can technically say you pre-rolled it.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 16:11

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Dremcon posted:

Did you modify KotS? Running it as-is is a slog.

Orcus Conversion has a lot of tips for streamlining/which fights to cut out, etc.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2022 08:35

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

One of my �if I ever become stupidly wealthy� dream purchases would be a glass-top table with a giant flatscreen TV/monitor, so I could display whatever map or grid or visuals I�d need at the time.

If you wanna go really, really old school, you could do something similar with a projector suspended from the ceiling.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2022 11:01

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Verisimilidude posted:

2. �At-will powers don�t make sense because where are the characters getting the energy to produce the effects? An infinite energy source?�

Nobody tell them about Pathfinder having infinite-use cantrips. :ssh:

# ¿ May 1, 2022 10:48

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Probably, but 95% of the kneejerk anti-4e grogs worship at the altar of 3.75e.

# ¿ May 1, 2022 11:09

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

The what

# ¿ Jun 1, 2022 23:14

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Our DM uses a house rule that gives all Superior weapons and implements a +3 proficiency bonus, and it makes using them much more appealing, because you're not blowing a feat on something actively suboptimal.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2023 15:46

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 19:56

girl dick energy: Sep 30, 2009; You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

12Apr1961 posted:

I have to wonder, if we ever got D&D 4.5 with a focus on balance, what would be done about balancing weapon types?

Like, if we assume that longsword is +3 1d8 martial weapon as a baseline (not sure if versatile is worth anything). What should a battleaxe be as a +2 weapon? Gut feel says that 1d10 is not enough, should it be 1d12? Feels like a +2 damage per W is a better trade for a +1 to hit.

Light blades are intentionally weaker than heavy blades - keep rapier as a superior weapon, but make it +3 / 1d10 damage? That way, it should be a reasonable weapon feat to take for brutal scoundrels, who will upgrade from +3 / 1d6 shortsword.

Hammers seem to be more of a Con-user weapon in the system. Maybe play around with making them brutal, so a hammer could be +2 / 1d10 brutal 1 as default, but have some interesting feats doing extra Con damage to another target as an effect?

This feels like reinventing the wheel. Unless you've got a core concept for what mechanics each weapon type is focused on, and the feats that will support that playstyle, poking at numbers just isn't going to mean much for giving each weapon a unique but balanced identity.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2023 12:13

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