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.

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

senrath posted:

Unfortunately if you're playing 3.5 more or less as written that doesn't work. Not only does crafting take XP, some spells do as well and you can lose levels from many monsters, as well as from dying.

Also the multi classing rules as written can lead to bizarre exp scaling poo poo, though at least for that one I don't think I've ever seen it used/enforced.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 01:50

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# ¿ May 29, 2024 11:09

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Arrrthritis posted:

Do you guys have any advice to offer to people running this system play-by-post.

So, many years ago I was involved in a couple 4e play by post games, though none of them got particularly far. If you're going to do it it's important to have good maps (updated frequently) and to really make sure that everybody is able to take their turns in combat at a reasonable pace, but I would say if at all possible try to play 4e in real time/close to real time. Play by post is just so far from an optimal way to play, and things like roll20 are so much better as options that I'd only turn to play by post as an absolute last resort, and even then I personally probably wouldn't do it.

edit: I mean "Don't" probably wasn't the advice you were looking for, but I really would recommend against it.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 02:40

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

gradenko_2000 posted:

4e isn't very well suited to PbP because of how rigid the turn order and action economy is. When I ran it I just let the players always go first, and then alternated between all players turns and then all monsters turns so that you would never have to wait for specific individuals because proceeding, but that technically distorts the turn rules (alpha striking becomes even more powerful) and can still get hung up easily because of how many times you have to engage in a back-and-forth.

If I were to do it all again I would toy with the idea of having the players lay out an "AI" for their character so that I can strictly enforce a 24/48-hour turn cycle where I will make their moves for them based on the parameters they set if they don't give precise orders, but I don't know if that would work well as far as player agency is concerned.

Reactions and other out of turn actions are a loving nightmare too unless you have players prestate all of their potential out of turn actions, or you just assume they do whatever makes the most sense, or one of several other less than ideal options.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 03:02

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Arrrthritis posted:

Yeah, from the games I played I remembered it being a bit of a bummer when in a group of 4-6 people everyone is waiting on one person to update with a reaction/turn. I was mostly wondering if that issue had been dealt with

I was thinking of having the combats be resolved in real time (where we schedule a time that's good for everyone) while the actual game be a bi-weekly post thing, although I don't know if that's better or worse than just doing the whole thing in real time. I guess I like everyone being able to formulate their IC responses and think it's easier to meet up for shorter sessions, but i'm sure there are some obvious cons that aren't apparent to me yet.

Play by post with real time combat is definitely much better than just play by post, but I've also found that in my experience, once you start doing part of the game in real time you quickly end up just doing most of it in real time.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 03:35

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

BambooEarpick posted:

Hi all.

I had my first D&D experience today with some friends. 4PCs, all their first time and a DM that played once before about 10 years ago. We're running the starter set.

The first encounter was way too crazy. We have Cleric, Wizard, Fighter (ranged specialty) and Rogue. Our first encounter had the Wizard go down in a single hit and our cleric also went down before they got an action. We basically got TPK'd on the first fight but the DM was like "they take all your gold" and we survived because our wizard got a crit20 on a death roll and helped us stabilize the party.

Like, is it normal that we all just instantly die? I mean, I'm not expecting some hand holding experience but I thought it'd be more like we exchange blows or something instead of pretty much everyone and everything dropping dead in a hit or two.

After that misstep though, it went smoothly up until we reached some boss bugbear guy or something. We slept him and basically managed to avoid combat with him. That was the end of our session.

Hey, from what you posted it sounds like you guys were playing some edition of D&D, but that edition was almost certainly not 4th edition (which this thread is about). It would be pretty absurd for a character to be straight up oneshot by a monster in 4e, but there are definitely editions of D&D in which that can happen if the people playing are inexperienced (especially an inexperienced DM). Do you know which version you were playing? If you do, you might be able to get a more thorough explanation or analysis by posting in the respective thread, though you might be fine just posting here anyway, especially if you're not sure what the edition was.

edit: severely beaten

# ¿ Sep 25, 2016 10:45

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

gradenko_2000 posted:

It's this: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/simplified-modifiers-for-dd-4e/

I took the Half-Level Bonus, the Weapon Expertise/Improved Defenses "tier" bonus, and the magic item "inherent" bonus, and combined them into a single number and called it the Proficiency Bonus.

This way, your basic weapon attack boils down to [d20 + Str modifier + Proficiency bonus + weapon proficiency], and you can still simply weapon proficiency down to always a +2.

And your implement powers are just [d20 + Wis/Int/Cha modifier + Proficiency bonus]

It condenses three "passive" numbers into one single number, so that you don't have to worry about it, and it looks cleaner and simpler.

I've played around with similar things a lot when making 4e hacks or variants, and have found slightly better results using a modification of this where the "proficiency" bonus is (4/5)*level (rounded up or just rounding off normally depending on how you feel). In my experience it worked better because it has a slightly flatter (though a little less pattern based) curve and avoids that +2 at level 1 that feels a little weird. It probably doesn't matter but if anyone is interested you can save a couple minutes of work by looking over my old sheet for it.

edit: It's also ever so slightly easy to implement because you can just multiply your level by 4/5ths and round off.

Defeatist Elitist fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Aug 1, 2017

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 09:44

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

gradenko_2000 posted:

The next step is to merge it with the DTAS rules to make 4e even more minimalist.

Yeah, definitely, and merging them should be pretty simple. Try as I might to get rid of them though, I feel like so many things in 4e are tied to Ability scores and their differences that it made it hard for me to get rid of them in a really satisfying way, whereas simplifying the enhancement and expertise bonuses feels so clean and clear and obvious.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 09:53

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Seriously though, "the bonus is just four-fifths of your level" is such a great short-hand. Thanks for pointing it out.

I summed everything up, and noticed 24 was a clean 4/5ths of 30 and went "I wonder if this is reasonable all the way through". :ssh:

It also means you never get levels where there's a big power spike coming from a +2 jump. It's even worse if that jump is on a level where you're already getting a +1 from ability score increases (especially 11th and 21st)

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 10:17

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

NachtSieger posted:

so if i inject simulationism into my blood in minute quantities i can protect myself against it?

That would depend on whether you have an adaptive immune system. Are you considered a mammal?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 09:21

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Nalesh posted:

What'd be a good class for a super mobile spear/lance character? thinking kinda like a dragoon from FF

I feel like my first instinct would be some flavor of Fighter, but I could see Avenger or even Barbarian working reasonably well.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 09:55

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Xiahou Dun posted:

Looking at this : http://rpg.brainclouds.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AttackTables.pdf

If I just used that number for everyone's attack rolls for anything based off their primary stat and used that as both feat taxes and inherent bonuses and never hosed with anything else and everyone just took actually cool feats, how badly would it gently caress up the to hit math?

Because that looks pretty attractive and my vague tummy feels make it seem pretty good. Thoughts?

If you just want to get rid of feat taxes and inherent bonuses, replace 1/2 level with 4/5 of level, and it's almost identical (it actually progresses a little more smoothly).

Edit:. The ancient spreadsheet I made of you want to see how it looks.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mjibNADkJrrszj8IwJ7CMnOphdk-jvU6uw3lJh3brzs/edit?usp=drivesdk

Defeatist Elitist fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jul 20, 2018

# ¿ Jul 20, 2018 20:25

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Moriatti posted:

That only seems easier if you aren't using the builder, since otherwise you just hit the homebrew button in your feats tree.

This is also generally true. The other methods get a lot more attractive when you can't use the character builder for some reason or another (including extensive homebrewing).

# ¿ Jul 21, 2018 21:08

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

The Bee posted:

I've been thinking of getting into the groove of 4e DMing again, and I've been eyeing Monster Manual on a Business Card as a result. But looking at it gives me a few questions for custom monster design.

A) I imagine if I shuffle around NADs proportionally, they should even out (ex, give a quick but frail monster 1 less Fort for 1 more Ref). But how would AC fall into this? Since attacks on AC are more common than ones on NADs, should it be "weighted" more? (1 less AC, 2 more Will, for example). Or should I keep it 1 to 1?

B) Similarly, if I wanted to decrease AC but increase HP proportionally, or vice-versa, how would I best calculate that? 1 less AC = 1 more hit point per level, a la the Brute formula? Or should it be something different?

C) Should attacks that inflict a condition inflict the listed average damage, or should they deal less, similarly to how multi-target attacks function?

D) How many unique quirks should each monsters have? I know each monster should probably have a basic attack, an ability suited to their role, and a unique quirk to the "species" of monster they are (a la all goblins having Goblin Tactics), but how much more should be added from there? How many abilities should Elites and Solos get? Should Minor actions and Reactions/Interrupts be common or rare?

In general it's a good idea to look at monsters in the latter material, especially the Monster Vaults, for a reference for a lot of these things.

For A, you're right that you can easily shuffle around NADs. I wouldn't mess with AC too much (it's sort of a role thing to have higher or lower AC), but you probably can trade it 1 for 1 or 1 for 2 as long as you don't increase it or decrease it by too much. You can easily have big gaps between different NADs, but you want to stay relatively close to the AC target. For B, I would definitely not trade AC for HP like that straight up, though I haven't thought that much about how I would do it.

C really depends on the condition applied and how readily the monster can apply it. D is something where you can really choose however you want to do it as long as you give it a little thought. Giving monsters more options will rarely make them too strong because they're still fundamentally restricted by the action economy. If you give them way too many encounter abilities or whatever, then yeah, that's not good because you basically have just powered up all their at wills, but you have a ton of leeway. Minor action attacks are something that aren't super common for regular enemies, but are relatively common for elites and solos. There are certainly regular monsters with them as well. Again, looking at stuff in the Monster Vaults should give you a general sense of where to start.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2019 09:02

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

neonchameleon posted:

short rests took an overnight sleep

This seems incredibly punishing to anyone who didn't build around optimizing at will attacks, and it feels like it could fundamentally break a lot of how the game is supposed to run.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2020 10:20

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Whybird posted:

It goes hand in hand with the idea that in a hexcrawl game, you're encountering far fewer enemies. 4e is balanced around the assumption that you fight like three or four groups of enemies in a day, and getting a night's sleep doesn't happen till the end of a dungeon. In a hexcrawl setup those same encounters would be stretched out over a week-long expedition, with a night's rest all but guaranteed between them.

If a short rest is all but guaranteed after each encounter, why bother changing how much time it takes? The only reason to change how much time it takes is to restrict how often/when the players can perform a short rest, which would inevitably lead to players facing multiple encounters without short resting.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2020 00:01

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Lemon-Lime posted:

I would suggest sticking to PHB1 and PHB2 classes (plus the Monk from PHB3), because that's more than enough class options and you bypass the issue with psionic classes where the non-Monk ones just rely on spamming at-will powers augmented by psionic points (it's relatively balanced but very boring).

For slightly more advanced DMing, it''s also worth digging up a copy of the Dark Sun campaign guide for the inherent bonus rules, which IMO improve the game a fair bit. If you do that, I would also suggest using this spreadsheet which handily rolls inherent bonuses and expertise bonuses into a single number with the normal half level progression: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sna7_x0djumZZf1qk6snlEnOWrNIPf2y21yJYK6vQAw/edit#gid=0

This was made by a goon a while ago but I forgot who, so apologies. The resulting number (use either the Total column, or 4/5 level which more or less accomplishes the same thing but with a slightly smoother power curve) replaces the PCs' to-hit modifier (before stats) entirely since it rolls up all the to-hit bonuses they would get from non-stat sources.

When I initially created that spreadsheet it was because I was trying to make 4e based hacks for some sci fi ideas. While I never finished, I think I ended up concluding that I should just flatten the numbers instead. It does remain a really quick and easy reference for the base game though, since you would have to remake so much of the game in order to actually flatten its numbers.

Defeatist Elitist fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Jan 23, 2020

# ¿ Jan 23, 2020 11:59

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# ¿ May 29, 2024 11:09

Defeatist Elitist: Jun 17, 2012; I've got a carbon fixation.

Avengers are not the strongest but I think they are a really cool class, and definitely one of the classes I like playing with the most.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2021 22:08

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