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You could very easily do that by giving each player a companion character. See DMG 2 on how to make one, or what monsters to use. It's pretty easy. Or just run two full PCs each but that might be too complex in the long run, keeping track of one's powers and effects is daunting at times.
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Jan 29, 2014 12:54
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I request that the 4E Turn Tracker be added to the software list. It's a great program for tracking initiative, power/healing surge use, effects timing, saving throws etc., applying penalties to stats automatically if an according condition is present, and so on. You can import character and monster files, and apparently even program your own powers and have it handle the dice rolling, but it works just fine if you use it only as an initiative/effects tracker.
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Jan 30, 2014 10:38
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There's really nothing that says your character has to have that pact in the narrative other than they named the class feature that way. Seeker of eldritch knowledge who went a little to deep is equally valid. He just picked up the secret of effective curses (again, no need to be a curse, could simply be a minor spell). The fey pact warlock I DMed for started out as a regular Eladrin in Magic College who one day went to the stone circle where none dared to go because he was massively drunk and it seemed like a good idea. In the stone circle someone had imprisoned an ancient fey being's soul who couldn't leave, but wanted to see the world. The pact was essentially: my raw power for you being my eyes and ears. Later as we went to epic tier we shook it up a bit and said the warlock had now grown powerful enough to destroy the circle and free his patron, and volunteered his own body as a host in exchange for the full extent of fey power (unlocking over time, of course). We played it off as a merging of souls under one will and from that point on his "pact" was essentially "I'm good enough at this to tap into the magical fabric of the Feywild itself." And except for the player explicitly wanting a patron there's no reason we couldn't have done it that way from the start.
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Jan 30, 2014 21:53
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Is there a comprehensive list of traps, hazards and terrain features anywhere, maybe even sorted by level/appropriate tier? Not that it's a really big deal doing my own but sometimes when you design a dungeon you just want to read a list and plop in ready-to-use things you wouldn't have thought of, you know? e: why yes I could have googled first and found the D&D Wiki where they have have both. Sorry about the interruption, do carry on. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Feb 3, 2014 |
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Feb 3, 2014 09:44
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I never read Heroes of the Fallen Lands as a book, but the Rules Compendium is fantastic. It's not so much that it has all the basic rules (would not be a very good deal if it didn't) but the excellent index that makes it so helpful. I'm saying this as a librarian, they did a great job listing all the right keywords. Even the PDF version would be well worth it unless you can't have a laptop or tablet at the table.
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Feb 4, 2014 16:40
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I used to fudge rolls every now and then, but I resolved to do so no more. If my party gets crit-chained and wiped they get crit-chained and wiped. (But they don't get killed; if they all go down they wake up bruised and hurt and chained up by the goblins, but the next thing I say is "what do you do".)
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Feb 5, 2014 13:40
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I will say this for 3.5 and by extension that method, when I played a session last year, it made for amazingly fast DM turns when he could just say "you three, roll a Reflex save DC 14, *roll* 12 damage, 6 if you pass" rather than roll one attack for everyone affected.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:04
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One of my players has made a paladin with STR and CHA 12 and CON and WIS 18. His reasoning is that he doesn't care so much about hitting as about soaking up damage and being able to Lay On Hands, and he's planning to take mainly powers with effects. I don't think this is altogether very sensible but I'm just gonna let him do his thing and prepare to provide ample opportunity to reassig ability scores for when he stops having fun.
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Feb 9, 2014 11:20
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He spent a lot of time marking minions yesterday, so they did have a bit of an incentive to attack him - but then, that's only drawing fire from one minion. I am playing most of my monsters pretty smartly already in that I concentrate fire, target low defenses when possible etc. But he's pretty big on the idea that monsters and PCs should work roughly the same so I think I could also lead by example here. Introduce a dwarf Blackguard antagonist who effectively draws the PCs attacks by sanctioning them with high necrotic damage and puts his damaged allies back up all while hitting hard, and when he starts wondering how he could learn to do that I tell him all he has to do is swap STR/CON and WIS/CHA. But if this works for him and continues to work for him, I'm down. Just might reduce my XP budgets a bit to make up for the unexpectedly low damage output. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 12:23
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For me it's mostly a design question. I can do room by room where each room will contain one encounter (and be tailored to it) or I can do a whole dungeon to explore that has a population of certain enemy types where encounter setups are more fluid and dependant on which direction the party goes. Both are fun, the latter tends to be more elaborate I think so that might be good for climactic scenes and setups whereas the first is more "here is a cave with goblins."
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Feb 10, 2014 23:52
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I'm picturing four bullywug monks.
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Feb 11, 2014 11:11
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Are there any good commonly accepted alternative ritual casting rules, maybe ones that use a different limiting circumstance than components? I'm not that worried about the usual concern that you're mechanically better off saving up for items, mostly I just don't want to bother with the concept of components because it ends up as either "no you can't cast this you didn't pick up enough components three sessions ago" or gets handwaved away anyway. Playing a bit more fast and loose with the casting times would be nice too, my players usually feel they have time, just not exactly ten minutes, and then just don't bother with the ritual. Playing more fast and loose with anything, really. Also how is it supposed to work out that half the items you find are supposed to be common when there are only like 10% common items, is everyone just supposed to end up with Bracers of Mighty Striking? Sod that I'm making my own list. (Using PHB/AV/___Power books only though, maybe it's different with items from Essentials stuff.)
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Feb 13, 2014 10:33
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quote:ritual ideas Really I think I like healing surges best because they're always an available resource, but you have to pace yourself. It just might get tough replicating the effect that rituals have when you get higher in levels, when you have so much money the early ones are essentially free. But then again that was an aspect I never really liked when we did use components. "That oracle was bloody useless, let's summon another three."
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Feb 14, 2014 12:48
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UrbanLabyrinth posted:Easy enough to imitate: rituals cost 2 healing surges to cast. Rituals 5 levels below you cost 1 the first time each day they're each cast, and 2 after that. Rituals 10 levels below are free the first time you cast each one each day, otherwise 1 surge. Things like Raise Dead and Remove Disease/Affliction probably shouldn't have a surge cost either. The risk on those is plenty big enough. As another flavour thing I'm planning to introduce specific ritual requirements. Nothing that keeps them from casting the ritual at any time, just minor stuff. For example, the Invoker naturally has Hand of Fate, and I'd require them to have a hand-shaped object ready for that - could be as simple as a chalk drawing, a glove or five sticks, but they have to set up something to call the divination spirit or whatever into. (Secretly I'm planning shenanigans of the sort that when they keep a special glove around only for the ritual, after X castings the spirit stays in the object and runs around being a nuisance.)
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Feb 14, 2014 18:25
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Littlefinger posted:Do you count saving throws given with powers for 'Failed Saving Throw' effects? E.g. can a Cleric actually make someone hit by a basilisk turn into stone faster?
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Feb 15, 2014 14:17
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Friend of mine is playing a paladin and doing basically that. He let his STR and CHA sit at 12 and pumped CON and WIS to 18, so he barely ever hits but he can Lay On Hands all day and gives out +4 defense buffs as an effect. I've yet to see if this will really work out in the long term, and come to think of it, why didn't he pick a warlord?
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Feb 19, 2014 08:45
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Lamquin posted:So if I decide to do a Double Move it's a Double move - the creature can shift a square on difficult terrain if it dedicates two move actions to it. You can still always take a move action in place of a standard action and therefore stand up ([Move]) and move or shift (another [Move]) in one turn. That's just not a Double Move then.
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Feb 23, 2014 22:21
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You basically give up your entire turn - or an action point - to shift that one square. Seems reasonable in regards to other abilities.isndl posted:The real question is whether you can Move+Charge through 5 squares of difficult terrain with speed 5, which I think is technically illegal by RAW unless there's something in the Charge rules I'm forgetting.
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Feb 24, 2014 08:57
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The Belgian posted: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?
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Feb 24, 2014 22:47
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My Lovely Horse posted:I request that the 4E Turn Tracker be added to the software list. It's a great program for tracking initiative, power/healing surge use, effects timing, saving throws etc., applying penalties to stats automatically if an according condition is present, and so on. You can import character and monster files, and apparently even program your own powers and have it handle the dice rolling, but it works just fine if you use it only as an initiative/effects tracker. dwarf74 posted:I can do it when I'm not on a tablet, but how does it compare to masterplan? Seriously I hope whoever made Masterplan has a really nice job doing interface design and usability. I've never seen a program where so many options are potentially required and each of them is right where you'd expect it, along with five others you didn't even know you needed.
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Mar 1, 2014 16:36
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Well, there are plenty of powers with miss lines or effects, and I tend towards saying anyone who wants to fail forward in combat has the opportunity to take some of those. I'd hesitate to introduce any global miss effects flat out because presumably the powers with miss lines or effects are balanced against those without. That being said, in 13th Age you deal your level in damage on a miss (on weapon attacks, but magic mostly has special effects on a miss, even if it's just half damage) and while that would scale too fast in 4E, it goes in a good direction. Maybe something like if you miss, you do your enhancement bonus in damage. I dunno.
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Mar 4, 2014 11:58
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socialsecurity posted:That's impressive you really have to try to die in 4e especially in early levels unless your DM was truly just being a dick.
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Mar 5, 2014 08:05
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My PCs keep dropping, too. We're two sessions in and I don't think there's one among them who hasn't been below 0 HP yet. Worst example from last session was the invoker going down twice in one battle, along with the paladin, but as far as I'm concerned it just goes to show you don't let an artillery stand around at 4 HP for two rounds, and also, when your party is striker-heavy, you go in guns blazing rather than hold a defense position. Speaking of the paladin, that's the one with the low primary and high secondary scores. It's kind of working out not badly, actually. He hit a fair amount last session, he's going after wounded enemies so even when his Divine Challenge does only 4 damage, they're going to respect that (see also: that artillery), and he's a decent secondary healer. I still say he'd be better with a regular build and leader multiclassing, but, y'know, duh.
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Mar 9, 2014 20:37
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P.d0t posted:Running heavy on ranged monsters in a melee party can be a tough slog on the players, particularly if you throw in minions without a controller in the party. Speaking of PCs going down, question for Masterplan pros. I had an effect active that was to end at the end of the bard's next turn. The bard went down and was dying. When her turn came up, Masterplan simply skipped it and the effect didn't end (nor did it prompt me for a death saving throw). Not a huge deal, but is there an option somewhere that I missed?
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Mar 10, 2014 08:32
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Your players actually get to make use of those feats that let a warlock profit from another warlock's curse. Nice.
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Mar 11, 2014 22:14
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I don't think you even actually crash when you fly higher than 1 at the end of your turn as a pixie, you just float down to height 1. Basically it's a limiter on how high a ledge you can reach or how wide a chasm you can cross in one turn, plus it keeps you from just spending the whole battle out of half the enemies' reach. Pixie flight does grant you near immunity to being knocked prone: - when you fly and are knocked prone, you instead fall to the ground first - you're only really knocked prone if you fall more than your fly speed - thanks to the maximum height, pixies are almost never going to be flying higher than their fly speed Only way to do it, really, is to knock a pixie prone on its turn if it's flying higher than 6, or ground it with an attack that knocks prone, then actually knock it prone with a separate attack.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:40
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Huszsersvn posted:It's typically not played that way Sidenote: forced movement isn't always an effect that forcefully pushes a creature around, sometimes it's used to model a charm or intimidation effect where enemies run away from you.
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Mar 31, 2014 06:17
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The only definition of slide where 4E is concerned is the one from the rules compendium saying "sliding a target can move it into any direction"  (except of course you can never move into blocking terrain which a wall and technically also the floor are) Realtalk, applying dictionary definitions of words or common sense logic to 4E is a ticket to nowhere, it's very much an intricate and tightly designed tactical combat system that relies heavily on its own definitions.You absolutely can describe how you're slamming your enemy into the wall with Diabolic Grasp, personally I always like to play it like in that instance that's where the damage comes from. It's just the same damage it always does. Along the same lines if you did want to slam an enemy into the wall I'd probably ask you to use a power you have that has an appropriate effect (and that wouldn't need to mechanically include a push; say you're in melee with the enemy next to a wall and you have a power that attacks Fortitude and does damage, that'd be a good one), or do some sort of improvised attack.
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Mar 31, 2014 07:39
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HppyCmpr posted:I've already put an acolyte down a hole and an enemy warlock into a burning market stall, so I'm sure I'll go far.  Rule of thumb for pushing an enemy into a fire or an acid puddle or whatever, by the way, is 5 damage per tier (so 5 from level 1-10, 10 from 11-20...), and you could even conceivably use that for slamming them into walls if walls weren't so ubiquitious that the extra damage from that would be essentially free.Sticking with the mechanics as written and making up cool descriptions to fit them is totally the way to go in 4E. Also RPGs in general really.
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Mar 31, 2014 13:09
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ObMeiste posted:I might give it another look, but the problem I had with it was that it was rather a bit too all-encompassing and didn't really have the focused simplicity to running encounters as turntracker did. Getting creatures entered into the library is a bit of a pain. But then, even manually it's actually a really quick process and I'm done with it faster than I ever was in turntracker. Don't sit down to enter everything at once though, just enter everything you need for next session and you'll have a decently-sized library in no time.
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Apr 3, 2014 08:05
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Now that I think about it entering monster info in turntracker was slow mainly because I'd always enter the Monster Vault info in my old offline Adventure Tools monster builder and import it from there  Compendium Import is pretty cool. Entering a creature myself, though, helps me get a grip on its powers and traits.
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Apr 3, 2014 20:45
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One of my players on my use of Masterplan: "This is hilarious, we do the most complex poo poo here and no matter what it is, I just hear 'clickclick' from you and it's done." Also I discovered after the session that you can link tokens to represent curses, marks, shrouds etc. and that's just staggeringly useful. News from my STR/CHA 12, WIS/CON 18 paladin player: he noted how he wasn't sure which ability scores to increase because "a lot of good stuff for paladins seems to hinge on Charisma." Think he's catching on. Also there was a turn where he left an enemy standing with 2 HP and I couldn't help but remark "you know, if you had higher strength..." He actually explained his idea a little further, noting that he'd gone for the "stay-in-the-fight attributes rather than the kill-things attributes" and I think for all the "let the guy play like he wants to" I'm doing I'm gonna give him a few pointers about how by writing down "dwarf paladin" he's already done about 100 times more for his staying power compared to other characters than by picking CON 18 even if you project it over 30 levels. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2014 21:32
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Speaking of Masterplan - sorry I can't help out beyond saying it works fine for me, and have you tried redownloading? - , I've spotted two areas where it could use a little improvement: - you can add a custom overlay to a character's combat effects, but I haven't found a way to make that disappear automatically at a set point like other effects. A bunch of zones from wizard powers and such end at the end of the creator's turn though. It's easily remedied by creating an effect of the same name as well to serve as a reminder, but it'd be nice if it was as smooth as the rest of it. - this one I'd actually classify as an oversight: there doesn't seem to be a way to specify bonus types. When two characters both give out a power bonus to AC, you're gonna struggle a bit with properly tracking that. Or have I just not found the options yet?
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Apr 13, 2014 09:51
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Technically only for paragon paths though, but epic destinies rarely have hard prerequisites like that and in most cases it seems entirely reasonable to waive them.
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Apr 15, 2014 19:23
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thespaceinvader posted:No, that got updated. RC i think. It's just 'count as that class and power source for purposes of meeting prereqs' now.
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Apr 16, 2014 06:19
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Tried my hand at setting up an encounter that is more of a puzzle with combat mechanics than straight up combat. Storywise, the setup is that the party assassin is investigating the ruins of the old assassin guild and comes across an ancient training robot. This thing hits hard, is incredibly tough to take down, but if you're a properly trained assassin and you start doing your thing it'll go down in no time. Mechanically I set that up as a solo monster with unreasonably high damage resistance that doesn't apply to shroud attacks and equally unreasonable vulnerability to the same. It also has a simple routine that's easy to exploit: it'll keep lighting torches throughout the fight, depriving the assassin of places to hide, but it can also remove conditions from itself and it will a) do either one or the other and b) always prioritize removing conditions. So, assassin's job: hide, place shrouds, come out with hugely damaging attacks. Party's job: draw robot's attention, keep themselves alive, plink away at its HP a little bit but mostly distract it from looking for the real threat with conditions. And mess with the playing field in any other way they can think of. e: aaaand I realized I'm gonna have to apply one hell of a vulnerability if I want one attack with maximum shrouds to make up for 2-4 rounds of six characters doing 10 less damage than they're supposed to. Not as easy as I thought, this. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 15:49
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That's a very good point but I figure it's just one semi-combat, and everyone has their big personal quest where they get to be the driving force behind the plot for a while and really shine in at least one specific situation. That's more or less the premise behind the campaign, six people who all have poo poo to do in one region and figured it'd be more fun together. Although I am a bit worried about that and at the very least I'll make sure to ask them if that's a thing I should bother with setting up in the future. The chance of an errant crit is something else, though. Shouldn't happen if they follow their established basic tactics (the robot is dumb as poo poo and hiding will be easy), but "shouldn't happen if the players" is a big thing to say in RPGs. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 20:56
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Agent Boogeyman posted:I'm planning on running a Dark Sun game for a 3 man party with the fixed enhancement rules, but also want to use the Rules Compendium's setup for randomly generated treasure. How exactly do these two things work together? Or do they simply not? While not explicitly stated (but implied if you already know the DMG parcel system), it seems as if you can reverse engineer the random generation rules as: for each parcel removed due to party size lower than 5 as per the standard NON-random method for doling out treasure parcels, add a -2 modifier to the d20 rolled when generating treasure. With a 3 man party, not including the fixed enhancement rules, the modifier to the d20 is -4. Therefore, since fixed enhancements would remove an additional parcel, that would make the modifier a -6, but here is where I have the problem: It is now entirely too difficult to generate ANY treasure. I have 5 players, soon to become 6, though, so it's a little different for me. The idea is obviously that 3 characters need less money and items that 5 would - whether that really works out is anyone's guess, but the inherent bonuses/fixed enhancements are there specifically to compensate for a lack of enhancement bonuses from items, so in theory you could be fine entirely without items. In my experience it balances out and compared to the DMG's parcel system even comes out noticably in favour of the PCs. Mine have had stretches where they found only minimal amounts of cash for an entire adventure, but now they've got a few parcels coming up where they get more for six encounters than they would have for the entire level under the old system. So it seems to work out in the long run without any rerolling or fudging. e: all that being said, if I came out with absolutely nothing for an entire level, I'd reroll the whole shebang. Below average is fine, as is above average (and by nature of the system you're going to end up either far below or far above average for each parcel), but nothing at all, nope. And if the second roll comes out with nothing as well, consider reducing the penalty to -1 per missing character and see how that works out. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 09:13
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Incidentally, I worked out the average monetary value of parcels you get for level 1, hopefully correctly. For five characters you're supposed to get 700 GP and 4 items, for three it's only 375 GP and 2-3 items. Gems and art objects majorly skew each individual parcel's value, of course. e: for reference the theoretical max amount is 5700 GP but I'm pretty sure you have a better chance of finding gold and gems when you go outside and kill an actual wolf. I definitely agree with the wishlists, too. I fill my random lists exclusively from those. Not sure yet what I'll do if I ever roll up an item and there's no wishlist entry for that level. Either give them the cash value or one of my own choosing, I guess. Although it has to be said, I'm watching what my players do, and even when they only get items of their own choosing they hardly ever use them. Item powers are the first thing that gets forgotten about in my group. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 10:16
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That's an entirely reasonable sum and as bang on the average as you're going to get. I wouldn't so much say "reroll until appropriate" as "reroll until there's something." I like random loot with wishlists because it frequently inspires my adventure design. For our next session the rolls came up with three different pairs of magic gloves and that's where the idea for the six-armed assassin training robot came from. And prepping for another session, what I'd written down as "two bandits" turned into a flashy swashbuckler who used Monkey Island-style insult swordfighting and his sinister second-in-command who resented his boss, all because I rolled a songblade and a rod for loot.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:32
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