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I am thinking of DMing a game for two friends (three if we are lucky) and I want to know if this is even feasible or should I just try Dungeon World instead (awesome game, but I think they would appreciate the 4E crunch more)? Will it work if I just halve monster HP and double their's? I'd rather not halve the number of opponents, because I'd like to throw in some solo monsters from time to time. Note that I am coming back to 4E after a loooooong hiatus and there might be some good pointers out there in some book that I missed.
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Jan 29, 2014 10:36
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That's what I mean about halving monster HP and doubling PC HP. I think it will allow me to work with the same XP budgets as a four-player group, and of course once it's time to pay out the XP I'll have to halve it so that they don't advance at a double rate. Seems like party DPR will be more erratic as a miss will be equivalent to two players missing, but I can't see anything wrong with this other than anything that comes with missing two party roles.
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Jan 29, 2014 11:13
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Yeah, that's what I'll probably do in the end, even though I don't like the idea of DMNPCs. I'll still do the HP thing I mentioned, though.
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Jan 29, 2014 16:30
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First time I DM/played 4E I made the mistake of not telling the players that they were facing minions, and they all blew their dailies on the first round because HOLLY poo poo LOOK AT ALL THOSE KOBOLDS. The minion/elite/solo thing is a very gamey thing and it's exactly why it needs to be spelled exactly.
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Jan 31, 2014 23:42
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So yeah, I feel that the little hack I did didn't work out so great, it was way too swingy. I think I'll just introduce a couple companion characters with simple abilities, and retire them when I get more players in the group. Best part of the session was when we were making characters, and when browsing the race choices one of the players went "Is that dude made out of storm? I want to play that  " when he saw the genasi. I think this set the tone for the rest of the campaign. I didn't really bother with Forgotten Realms in 4E because they were very boring in 3E, but I heard that it's a more or less post-apocalyptic setting right now? I heard that the Neverwinter book is a particularly good mini-campaign setting. Does anyone have any experiences with it?
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Feb 3, 2014 10:22
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Since "casting a spell" is no longer such a dramatically different thing than "swing a sword real good", I say that yes, it's something that you can throw at the players from time to time I guess. The only thing I would worry is messing up monster roles, because a monster who has both soldier defenses and artillery damage and is not an elite is just bullshit.
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Feb 5, 2014 13:26
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Gau posted:We started doing this in my last campaign and it's hella fun. It creates an air of tension, and it means you don't have to ask for defenses! I am toying with the idea of static monster attacks and active player defenses. Basically, the monster's attack becomes a DC 10 + attack bonus, and the players get defense rolls which are the defenses - 10 + 1d20. That way they have to actively try to block/dodge/resist the attacks while I am just standing there spouting numbers like an rear end in a top hat accountant. Has anyone tried something like that?
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Feb 7, 2014 10:50
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Yeah, I definitely read about it first in the 3E DMG, though I remember that it was opposed rolls instead of passing the attack DC.
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Feb 7, 2014 11:10
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I think the only lowish level monster that I really prefer the new version of is definitely the orc. Free attack at it's death throes is light years more interesting than spending a healing surge, which is basically just more HP.
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Feb 12, 2014 11:18
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For magic items I plan to introduce a group of astral-faring githzerai merchants who buy and sell magical items using their own currency (maybe residium?), so rituals and magic items will run on completely different resources and there won't be an opportunity cost between them.
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Feb 13, 2014 18:04
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Error 404 posted:My 2 cents would be to give folks one free, to be on par with classes that already get one free. Or give 2 free (with one extra for classes that get one as a feature) Can we expand that to have a new track of non-combat feat slots on levels you don't get a normal feat were you get to pick a non-combat one? Things like rituals, skill training/focus feats, stuff like that? Sort of how the game already silos powers into attack and utility (although utility powers do have combat applications). Has anyone tried something like that?
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Feb 14, 2014 11:44
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I am not entirely convinced that the Essentials classes are simpler than the old ones. Maybe they get more damage output with fewer tactical considerations, but I don't think that they make it easier to look at your character sheet and decide the best possible course of action*. My advice is to make sure that each character has one at-will power that's basically basic attack++. Most classes have one of those, it's either a +2 to the attack roll or slightly more damage. Just strike out the name and call it "Hit a Thing", and tell them to use it when they don't know what to do each round. *with the exception of defender aura which feels easier to manage for new people than the various marking mechanics, but it would be better to play monsters like in 3E (go for the fighter) until the players are more comfortable with their role mechanics.
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Feb 14, 2014 16:09
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For me the biggest change is that in MM3 powers are grouped by action (standard, move etc), which is a far better format than the one in MM1, so I don't know what people's problem is 
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Feb 15, 2014 11:21
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First of all, DDI has monsters from ALL books (which includes custom ones for adventures), and you could find lower level orcs there. Otherwise, you can pick the higher level orcs and lower their stats as you said. However, level 3 creatures are still valid enemies for level 1 characters, just use less of them to match the XP budget for the encounter you are creating.
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Feb 15, 2014 21:55
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By the way, this is either out of date, or misleading. The defenses section is correct, but the "24"s that are mentioned in the HP refer to level 1 monsters, not level 0 (like the starting defenses). It shouldn't matter for higher levels, but one extra swing to take down a level 1 monster could make a big difference in an encounter with 5 of them.
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Feb 15, 2014 23:29
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I used the monster builder tool from DDI.
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Feb 15, 2014 23:42
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No, this is not conversion instructions. The +X% damage increases refer to the "average damage" on the first section. Encounter refers to specific attacks that a monster can use only once per encounter, and should be more powerful (and I guess you get what the others refer to now). Elites and solos double and quadruple the HP values you get from the last section. There are more things you need to do in order to create an actually interesting monster (and elites and solos have a few more considerations), but the results you get provide a good starting point to fidget with for a monster at that level.
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Feb 16, 2014 00:30
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Party Boat posted:It's a complete gimmick build that I think he's only going to run for a few sessions. The story stuff is that no-one but the party can see, hear or interact with the character (and yes the DM's signed off on this). The idea of having nothing but buffs / healing is to have a character that isn't suspicious on paper, but over time could make the party think he's a shared delusion. I was thinking that maybe 4E should have a couple legit "no one is actually there" classes to accommodate situations when a character can't physically participate because he is not there/dead/an rear end in a top hat. Like, you pick the class "Guardian Spirit", and you can buff your team mates (leader), or the class "Villain's Comeuppance" and debuff your enemies (controller).
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Feb 23, 2014 20:40
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As far as HP is concerned, you can use some kind of digital tool (we use maptool, but that's too complicated if you only want to track HP). If you are running published adventures, then there is always a tactics section that can help you. Soldiers and Controllers can be a bit complex, so maybe use more skirmishers, brutes and artillery if you are designing encounters yourself. Also, I don't know which book you are using for your monster stat blocks, but the MM3 formatting makes it easier to optimize your monster's turns because powers are grouped by action type, and you can just pick one of each.
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Feb 25, 2014 21:03
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But then, why should the Goliath be the one who can't flank and not Monster 1? I could look at that picture and say "Well, Monster 1 is flanked by the two goliaths, so it can't help flank Calm Goliath". How can someone come up with such an arbitrary rule, and how could it survive more than five minutes on the table?
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Mar 2, 2014 09:27
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Has anyone tried to import the fail forward mechanics (or succeed with complications) of Dungeon World in 4E? The discussion we are currently having about skill checks in the Next thread got me thinking about it, but I am more interested about using it in combat rolls. In my current campaign I currently have just few players so a missed roll is not just a huge thing since that player will get another turn soon, but we are probably gonna get another two this weekend and I don't want to see sad faces in my table.
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Mar 4, 2014 11:40
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Dr Cheeto posted:I'm DMing a 4E game for some people completely new to pen-and-paper RPGs who were curious about D&D. It's kind of intimidating, and I want them to have a good experience. Be prepared for some people just saying "I attack the orc" when their turn comes, so pick a dead simple at-will that does a bit more damage or pushes an enemy to be their "default" attack. The Essentials non-caster classes were apparently designed to let people just use their basic attack over and over, but with all the stances and the auras and poo poo it's actually more complicated than having a simple at-will IMHO.
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Mar 5, 2014 17:38
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When my players "died" in the Slaying Stone, they just woke up later all tied up in kobold prison. I don't really like having others save the players, I feel it kinda cheapens the whole "being a drat hero" experience.
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Mar 9, 2014 21:57
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Between expertise, improved defenses, weapon/implement focus, and melee training you have covered more than half of the heroic tier when it comes to boring math feats that are baked directly into your char sheet without having to remember them. Add armor proficiency feats (for classes who don't lose abilities for not wearing light armor) and replace improved defenses with the three other defense enhancement feats and you have pretty much cleared the entire heroic tier when it comes to feat choice. And that's not even counting non-combat feats like skill focus etc.
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Mar 16, 2014 13:06
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Sometimes it's just narratively important to give them back their encounter resources as if they had a sort rest. I mean, otherwise it will be either nearly impossible to escape with depleted powers and HP, or you will just have to throw poo poo encounters at them that they can survive without their nice toys. Both options are bad if you ask me.
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Mar 23, 2014 21:02
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I agree with My Lovely Horse that you can use the damage that is already baked into the power to express the wall slamming, but if you need a specific mechanical representation for that kind of thing, then treating it like hazardous terrain by giving enemies a saving throw will allow you to give it some small damage (ie +1 per tier) without breaking the game too much. I think that the reason this does not exist as a specific rule in 4E is not so much because it will mess the math, but because it will add a weirdly specific layer on top of the nicely abstracted push/pull/slide system to model a very specific situation that might not even come up in play. Put rules about slamming people into walls in your game and we are back to rules about shooting fireballs through small holes or calculating where your missed alchemist's fire will randomly land.
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Mar 31, 2014 10:17
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Does anyone have any alternate maps for Reavers of Harkenwold? I don't mind how they recycle maps (it's a nice thing if you are using the actual physical maps, but we are using Masterplan so it doesn't matter), but I feel that those who are not outdoors locations are too cramped, and even with the outdoors maps they usually end up having a very tight melee in the edge because the group is very ranged-heavy and the monsters have to move towards them usually. The first and last battle in Toadwallow Caverns were a slog, because the cave mouth was a narrow location. It's an otherwise awesome adventure, and at the start of each session we are having a sort scene (a "vingette" from DMG2) inside the Iron Keep were Nazin is being a cartoon villain and talks about poo poo going on in the valley. On the other hand, we didn't enjoy The Slaying Stone that much. The macguffin works in way too specific ways to give a gently caress about, the structure of the adventure is too open-ended for a newbie group to handle with their characters still warm out of character creation, and between all this confusion it's difficult for the players to give a gently caress about the various factions of the town. If I were to run these two adventures together again for a new group, I would do the following (per group level):
Rexides fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 10:30
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Since there is probably no concept of "day" in a dyson-sphere world anyway, maybe the mechanical difference between the inner and outer worlds would be how daily abilities work. How is "magic" (in the broad, supernatural sense) work in that world? Is it just sufficiently advanced technology, or just magic? Maybe the inner world features a revolving half-shell around the sun that provides a day-night cycle but also recharges "daily" abilities for those individuals who possess them, while on the outer world you can recharge your "daily" abilities at power outlets or something.
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Apr 9, 2014 15:19
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Yeah, I know. I am just saying that in that world it could be ~~~different~~~ e: I was actually expecting someone to say that my idea is stupid because it will completely mess up encounter creation rules, not because fighters.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:59
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Pesticide20 posted:I'm going to DM for the first time, and I want to make use of Masterplan. However, the download doesn't seem to be working for me. I'm not sure if it's the site, but when I try to open up the file I'm getting an error saying the zipped folder is invalid. Is there another place for me to get it? Maybe try a different decompression software? I can open it with the windows 7 default files explorer, so dunno.
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Apr 13, 2014 11:27
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I sort of started a group with more or less the same composition as yours, and the reason I picked 4E is that the only common thing was that everyone loved was playing board games, and 4E was the closer thing to a board game that was also an rpg (yes, there is also WHF3E, but 4E was the cheaper option and we also like moving small dudes on a board). I was also considering Dungeon World, but the reason I didn't pick it was because it's the complete opposite of a board game (not a bad thing). On the other hand, if you just watched something like that D&D episode of Community and thought that playing D&D would be fun, I would suggest Dungeon World instead. Rexides fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 18:45
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A couple sessions ago we were trying to access the character builder and it was all whack. At first we couldn't get to our characters, then finally we got access to some random dude's characters. I don't know what wizards is doing but proper account management is not their thing.
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Apr 19, 2014 23:15
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My players also also pretty bad at choosing magic items, so I'll just give them inherent bonuses, gimmicky wondrous items, ritual scrolls and grandmaster training/divine boons/whatever because they tie in better with the narrative.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:27
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What if you just make a character using the companion rules? Basically something like a reskinned monster? She will participate for like, what? Two sessions tops?
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Apr 28, 2014 20:49
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Or the opposite, if the rest of the party likes the character so much that they want her to hang around after the player is gone, having it done by companion rules means that you don't add that much complexity to the table.
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Apr 28, 2014 21:33
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I usually roll my eyes at any custom magic item system that doesn't start with "characters get inherent bonuses by default, and now on top of that...", but that's just me. Generally I wouldn't bother with something like what you describe unless I specifically planned to make it a huge part of the plot, because of all the upkeep you mentioned. You could probably pokemon it and say that a character mainly interacts with one of his items (the weapon, probably), and the personality of the other items becomes relevant only when he uses some kind of defining property (daily, or some kind of triggered reaction). In any case I would probably try to divorce that interaction from mechanical benefits (see inherent bonuses), because it won't be just a magical item treadmill, it will be a magical item treadmill that talks back.
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Apr 29, 2014 11:24
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Cerepol posted:2 strikers and 2 controllers That usually happens when people are just interested in the name of the class and don't care about the fact that, for example, an avenger is more or less a striker paladin, fluff-wise. Just talk to them and see if they can switch to a class with the same power source, but different role.
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May 2, 2014 21:54
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:You can also consider increasing damage, but one-shotting monsters with a striker is going to get old. I agree with that. I tried it myself (I actually halved monster HP), and everything became too swingy. Either the player would miss and basically guaranteed the monster to survive for another round, or hit and pretty much one shot it. Keeping the damage normal might seem like it will slow combat down, and it will, but players won't feel it since their turns will come up twice as fast than when playing with a full party.
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May 5, 2014 18:39
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Arivia posted:Basically my players got their hands on some schematics for making a special good (water clocks) and want to open their own shop, complete with buying property, hirelings, etc. The game isn't turning into Business Simulator 2014 - we've established NPCs will be doing the day to day stuff, but I'm just looking for resources to punch up the mechanics of actually creating and funding the business, generate plot hooks, and perhaps most importantly tell me how to deal with profits. 4E keeps a really tight track on treasure (I'm using parcels over the randomness of the Essentials system) and since they're still in heroic tier, 300g in profits for this month could mess with things pretty badly. Or in converse, parcels make treasure tight enough that dropping a parcel of loot to instead use as their profits would make exploring feel really slim, especially since we're using inherent bonuses so they're already 2 parcels down a level. Since you will be dealing with actual (fantasy) money, you should work with 4E's parceling system. First of all, I don't think the PC's should finance this themselves, because dropping a large amount of money up front will mess up with their adventuring needs. Have a wealthy NPC (or more) invest in their business, this way there is less risk for the PCs, and it could also provide some good hooks. Once per level, they should get to run a group skill challenge (I'd make it a complex one) that represents running the business. Diplomacy, Bluff and Insight are obvious "Sales" skills. Streetwise and Intimidate could also help, if you can think if something. Arcana and Religion could probably help you find specialty clients. If they succeed at the skill challenge, they get XP for the challenge and a nice parcel (level+3?) representing their profits after the investor gets his cut. Since it's bad to not have anything happen when they fail, maybe the investor get's angry at them and tells them to perform a favor for him. Maybe you could even build an entire "adventure" around this if the players need to level up before they can tackle the next adventure. Start with a couple skill challenges about organizing the business and trying to find customers. This might attract the attention of the local thieve's guild who might want some protection money, which can lead to a couple combat encounters to spice things up. Maybe later they will be invited to the house of a local lord who wants to see the invention in action, but when they get there they find out that someone else claims that they stole his own invention. For the finale, have them investigate the competitor and maybe drive him out of business by proving that he is a fraud. Then award an entire adventures worth of money at the end, signifying a successful business venture. e:just ten minutes late
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May 6, 2014 16:03
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My Lovely Horse posted:Hey you and I know that but I know better than to wrap this particular player's head around it. v Aww, it's like telling a kid there is no Santa. Just let him live the dream for a while, one day he will have to learn about primary stats, but that day doesn't have to be today.
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May 13, 2014 17:12
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v