|
I recently finished DMing a campaign that took a little over 2 years and saw the players rise from level 4 to level 20 (should've been 22 by XP, but I capped them). We used the following houserule: "Healing and Dying Everyone is restored to full HP at the conclusion of every encounter. Healing Surges are no longer per day, but instead per encounter. Everyone has three Healing Surges per encounter (except for those with a theme that gives an additional Healing Surge). The Durable feat grants an additional Healing Surge in each encounter. Death is not an expected game element - there are no resurrection mechanics. A PC below 0 HP is simply Unconscious. A PC who reaches their negative bloodied value is Defeated, and can only be returned to battle by game elements that normally revive dead characters. If the entire party is Defeated, an encounter ends. What happens next will depend on the situation." For those who have been experiencing ire toward 4e's adventuring day design, I recommend trying it out. It's pretty easy to balance encounters around it, helps achieve a faster pace, and ensures that people aren't totally resource screwed if their dailies are gone.
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2014 04:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 20, 2024 10:29 |
|
|
NorgLyle posted:Did you do anything special for Paladins or other classes that have mechanics based around the regular Healing Surge rules? I didn't, because no one was playing such a class in the campaign - FWIW, the party consisted of a Fighter|Warden, Ranger (Archer), Essentials Thief, Tactical Warlord, Wizard, and Warlock. The Warlock played an Essentials Slayer for the final ~5 encounters in the campaign because her character came to a pretty metal story-death of the mutually planned variety. However, I used a relatively extensive list of houserules with the understanding that such rules would shift the game balance in a different direction than 4E core, and that some builds might be more or less powerful than "expected" in this environment. I made sure to work with everyone such that their characters were playable and fun. Had someone wanted to play, say, a PHB Paladin, we probably would have discussed replacement features. thespaceinvader posted:You did a hard thing, well done? At this risk of sounding a bit trite, every campaign has such challenges; even running bog-standard 4E, there are lots of class and systemic imbalances that DMs need to correct. So I think it's a better perspective to ask, "what do I gain from making these changes?" rather than focusing on who loses something. There'll be a problem either way, and I prefer to pick my own battles. And I'll insist that my houserule is easier for the DM, not harder, having been the DM of this game as well as other games without its particular set of rules. I could always balance every encounter around every PC having three (or more) surges. There was absolutely no adventure/dungeon design anxiety about pacing their healing capabilities.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2014 01:06
|
|