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Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was the first RPG, and still is, in many ways, the flagship of the roleplaying game hobby. At the core of D&D is adventuring, where a group of adventurers achieve fame and riches through the exploration of dangerous areas (dungeons) and the defeat of the monsters within (dragons). Each player controls a single protagonist character, while another player (the Dungeon Master or DM) designs and controls the monsters and environment. All of the settings for D&D are fantastical, magical worlds, and this edition of D&D is among the most heroic of them all. It isn't the only way you can play D&D (there really is no wrong way to play), but it's arguably the best-designed game of the bunch. This is the thread for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (commonly referred to as 4E or D&D4). If you're interested in the 3.5/d20 thread, that's here. Pathfinder is here. There is a nice little thread for older D&D (pre-3E) here. So I heard this game was cancelled? Yep, D&D Next is coming out in the Summer of 2014 after a long period of stagnancy for 4e. That shouldn't bother you; every edition of D&D comes to an end sometime, and every past edition still has its fans. 4e had a very good run with some great books, and you should be able to find most of them for reasonable prices in secondary markets, either locally or on sites like eBay or Amazon. What's more, in its 5 year run, there was more material released than you could probably use in a lifetime. And, if you run out of that, homebrewing stuff on the DM side (like new monsters and adventures) is so slick and easy it'll blow your mind. Okay, I want to play D&D 4e, how do I get started? You can still get started for free! No joke, you really can. All you need is a few friends and the quick start rules and adventure found here! You can run your first one or two sessions and try out the game without any outlay. Mind you, the depths of D&D go much further than this... I want to buy books. What the hell should I buy? Well, Fourth Edition is split into two mutually-compatible divisions: Regular and Essentials. Essentials is an easier on-ramp, but either should work. If you're new to D&D, start here and try the Essentials line. Buy Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Rules Compendium, and Monster Vault. If you've played D&D before, you might be tempted to grab the PHB/DMG/MM. Be advised, though, that these books have a lot of errata. The original Monster Manual, in particular, is pretty suspect as far as monster design goes, and therefore really hard to recommend. You can't really go wrong buying them (we started with them, and we love this game!), it's just something you'll want to know. Get the errata, and go to it! If the idea of picking up a bunch of books at $20-30 a pop is distasteful, here's another way. Buy a Rules Compendium and a subscription to D&D Insider. This gives you access to literally EVERYTHING Fourth Edition, and for less than $25 up-front. You can use the character builder to make all of your characters, and the compendium will give you access to all monsters. All you need to do is make your own maps and tokens (or buy the DM's kit). Let me reiterate: Everything "Fourth Edition" is compatible. In fact, the Rules Compendium and Monster Vault are highly recommended no matter what sort of campaign you run. You can't really buy the "wrong books." What else is there? Insider is made up of the Character Builder, Compendium, and Adventure Tools, in addition to access to the Dragon & Dungeon magazines. All good things must come to an end (because WotC is bad at internet), and DDI is no longer accepting new subscribers as of December, 2015. Fear not, however! Forum hero gradenko_2000 has put together a very nice must-have list for a post-DDI world, now that basically everything 4e is up on dndclassics. Check it out! Also, there is a ton of third-party software support for D&D 4e! Just look at this list! (And um... let me know if any of it doesn't work...)
How about adventures? Does 4e have many good pre-made ones? Look, this is still a sore point for me. Most of WotC's published adventures for 4e are among the worst adventures ever published. There's a lot of reasons for this, but the fact remains that, for 2-3 years, every adventure was some degree of terrible, and it soured a lot of people on the game. In particular, stay away from the H-P-E series, which starts with Keep on the Shadowfell and ends with Prince of Undeath. Some of the adventures are salvageable - in particular H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth and P2: Demon Queen's Enclave. Keep on the Shadowfell itself is somewhat usable, especially if you cut out a bunch of stuff in the middle. The rest are so much trouble to fix, you might as well write your own. But no worries! Later in the edition, WotC finally got their heads out of their asses and put out some good ones. The following are Goon-Recommended! Level 1 - The Slaying Stone (Standalone "folder" adventure) Level 2-4 - The Reavers of Harkenwold (from the Essentials DM's Kit) Level 4-5 - The Cairn of the Winter King (from the Essentials Monster Vault) Level 6-8 - The Madness at Gardmore Abbey (fantastic standalone box set) Paragon Tier - Revenge of the Giants (Standalone hardcover) Eberron - Seekers of the Ashen Crown You can also get some good mileage out of Dungeon Delve (another hardcover) since it's not an adventure and more a bunch of drop-in delves. You will need to fix the monster math at higher levels, though. Dungeon Magazine has a ton of adventures, too. They of course vary wildly in quality, but you won't be wanting for ideas. Finally, if you want to go outside WotC, the best Adventure Path right now is EN Publishing's Zeitgeist, which currently has 7 adventures stretching to 17th level. Its future for 4e is kind of uncertain, depending on the future of 4e licensing, but it's good. Don't take my word for it, though - the player's guide, DM's guide, and first adventure are all free. What's all this talk about math fixes? I thought 4e was the best D&D out there? Well, no game is perfect. There are three major math-related tweaks to the game that a lot of people use, but only the first is an outright "fix". It is important to note that, however much we may talk about these fixes, the game works out of the box. Don't feel obliged to give your characters anything, and don't be mad at a DM who says nope, we're playing rules as written (RAW). The first is what we call "MM3 Monster Math." For the third (and subsequent) monster manuals, Wizards decided to revamp how they were constructing monsters. Monsters in the first and second monster manual are slow, boring, unchallenging slogs, who hit too soft and die too slow. Now, monsters hit harder and go down quicker, making the game faster and more fun. This fix is officially supported by Wizards, and all new monsters (including the Monster Vaults) use this math. Basically, all monsters should roughly follow this rubric: I use the Monster Math Cruncher to build or balance old monsters to the new math. It's actually kinda fun. There are other changes (primarily to solos), but we could go on about that for days. The second fix is an unofficial, but very common house rule: Feat Taxes. After a while, Wizards realized that monster defenses climb faster than PC attack bonuses, and so they released the so-called "expertise" feats that give +1 to attack per tier. This fixes the attack bonus problem (mostly), but raises another: everyone who wants to be a competitive character will take these feats, making them essentially a wasted slot. The common fix is to give out an Expertise feat at level 5 or earlier. Other feats that are sometimes given out for free to avoid taxes (depending upon group and playstyle): Improved Defenses, Weapon/Implement Focus, and Melee Training (especially for Defenders like Battleminds and Swordmages who otherwise lack a useful Melee Basic Attack). The third is Inherent Bonuses. These are more a quality-of-life adjustment than an outright fix, but once you use them you'll never go back. So you might have gathered that 4e is mathematically pretty rigorous. It assumes you have certain magic item bonuses at certain levels for its math to work out right. Inherent bonuses cut through the micromanagement this would normally require and says, "Well... why don't we just give you those bonuses, then?" Using them is really simple if you're using the Character Builder - check the box that says "Inherent Bonuses." If you're not, it's still not that bad; you get a +1 enhancement bonus to-hit & damage (with a 1d6 critical hit die) at level 2; this improves by +1 (and 1d6) every 5 levels - 7th, 12th, etc. Your AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will all get a +1 enhancement bonus at level 4; these likewise improve every 5 levels (9th, 14th, etc.), but there's some weirdness with masterwork armors so be sure you take those into account too. These don't stack with real magic items, of course. Do goons talk about this game a lot? Oh holy hell do we ever. It's goons' favorite official D&D. We love newbies in this thread. Every new guy who wants to play gets tackled by people who want to help him or her. Just ask questions! Outside of this thread, we have: 4e CharOp Thread: You make characters, we make characters good 4E Class/Path/Race/Power/Etc. Homebrew: Bringing Back That Lovin' Feeling D&D4e Character Builder Modding: Better, Stronger, Faster. The Dark Sun Own Zone (56k Likes Dragonlance) Eberron [D&D3.5/4][owns] Gamma World! 4e, but slimmer and with more mutants! The most recent previous thread The previous thread before that one (some useful information on previous versions and retroclones here). ...And the thread before that, which has a lot more information on settings and classes in the OP. Now, for the MEGA-RULE. This is the 4th Edition thread. Do not discuss previous editions here, especially as it relates to their relative merit. Or, to put it more succinctly, NO EDITION WARS. End of line. Thanks to Gau for most of this OP! dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Dec 20, 2015 |
# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 02:33 |
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:55 |
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Lord Frisk posted:I'm going to throw a shameless plug for my Gamma World thread and request that it be added to the OP. Gau posted:I just now realized that the cute chibi RPG image I used in the OP predates the release of 4th Edition. It's awesome and I don't care. but the cuteness was overpowering. (And done x2) Cassa posted:Starting my group back up in Februrary, very excited to get back into it.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 03:20 |
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P.d0t posted:I actually had the DM of one of my current games "go back" on using inherent bonuses, because apparently he is the alpha grog and thinks having to loot for our math is more fun than having to loot for interesting properties/item powers. As for a two-player 4e game, while companion characters could work, it's a hell of a lot to track if you're new at the system. If they're veterans, sure, but I didn't get that impression. While I don't think 4e is putting its best foot forward with that few players, I think a 2 player game could definitely work so long as there's at least one striker in the party.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 15:38 |
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Fargo Fukes posted:Ha, I used to be in a game with the guy who wrote Masterplan. I could never figure out how to work it, though. Whilst the number-crunching and effort-saving was really impressive it was part of what turned me on to other, simpler game systems. It's cool to see it's taken off amongst 4E fans. I don't know what I'd do without it for my high paragon game. It pairs up so well with DDI, too.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 16:41 |
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I'll add all this after game night tonight. We're playing the excellent Conquest of Nerath since the whole group can't get together. It takes a village (to make an op)
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 20:26 |
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4e is about as DM-friendly as it gets. Seriously, it just runs so drat smoothly. The biggest advice I have is, let the players worry about themselves. You don't need to worry about what their abilities do, so don't even try. Worry about your side of the screen, where everything is super easy. Learn the basic rules and have some idea of what all the conditions do. (But a cheat sheet works, there.) I'd start with a published adventure for your first foray. There was a good list a few posts up thread. I'm on a tablet, but can write more later...
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 22:17 |
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Elmo Oxygen posted:Or ditch the screen altogether! Other than using it for quick reference tables, there's not much need for it in 4ed unless you're fudging your rolls for some silly reason. I use a laptop because Masterplan, but if I weren't, I'd go screenless, too. Adventure advice - check out EN Publishing's Zeitgeist adventure path. It's great, by far some of the best adventures for 4e. The first installment is free, too.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 22:41 |
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Lamquin posted:Zeitgeist does look incredibly fun, but I'm not quite ready to switch over to the more modern feel the adventure seems to have. Honestly, that's not that a big deal. I stat doctor almost everything that hits my table, already, just because I'm picky that way. Spincut posted:Does Masterplan have an app? Because that would solve the only problem I have with it.
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 23:59 |
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Dexie posted:The character builder? I didn't know it had special companion stuff, and I've been looking for something like that. Where at? I'm poking around it and can't find anything like that. Edit: I added LivingForgottenRealms.com to the links and put in a spiel about adventures. Feel free to recommend more! dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Jan 30, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 05:42 |
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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.
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# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 15:10 |
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So I feel ashamed I didn't know about this earlier, but if you have DDI and Masterplan there's now a Compendium Import plugin to fill in all your libraries. You need an active DDI sub, and from there it just automates a labor-intensive process. http://compendiumimport.codeplex.com/ dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 31, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 00:21 |
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Amperor posted:This is amazing, and thank you for posting about it, I've been looking for something like this for a while. Since then, I've been doing the long export->import process for getting monsters into the program, or just making my own (using its capable monster creator), so it's a big deal for me, too. I'm shocked; I've been looking for this all my life. Where the program really shines is when you let it do combat management for you, IMO. You can import the PCs and monsters, so it will do all the initiative tracking for you. It will track conditions including their endpoints, roll initiative, roll saves and power refresh dice, track which monsters used which abilities, roll attacks and damage, track HP and healing (including regeneration), automatically adjust for resistance/vulnerability, and goddamn a lot more. While you can let it track stuff on the PCs, I usually don't because that's not my job, and it's too invisible to the players. It requires some trust from your players - they have to be good with you clicking links instead of rolling dice - and you need to have a laptop in use, but IME it frees up my brain space for fun narrations and making poo poo awesome. While I love 4e, there's a LOT going on at high levels and I've grown to depend on it.
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 02:51 |
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Elmo Oxygen posted:That's how it's usually done, right. But it doesn't usually break anything in 4ed if you're totally transparent either. And yes, definitely share minion status up front. I usually think Elite and Solo are self evident in how I describe them, but always tell my players if asked.
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 20:56 |
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So there's a good chance that, soon, we'll be retiring the Dark Sun game after a long hiatus of playtesting and illness. I am going to try and sell my players on the Zeitgeist adventure path, which is pretty phenomenal as I noted up-thread. I want to do two things, though, with the setup. (1) I want to encourage my players to use the Zeitgeist themes. I'm leaning towards handing out a free point to spend on attributes, since I think it'll greatly improve the campaign if the PCs are tied into the setting mechanically. (FYI - only the L1 benefits are in the Zeitgeist Player's Guide. For whatever reason, the 5 & 10 features are in Adventure 3.) (2) Zeitgeist has guns, but there's very little reason anyone would ever use them in 4e. D&D rewards specialization, and about the only characters they could work for are maybe Artificers and some varieties of Rangers. But even then it's iffy. Ideally, I want them to be fire-and-drop kinds of weapons - the sort where everyone can use one, so you shoot at each other, drop 'em, and close in. You know, flintlock-style. So I'm thinking of letting characters just use their normal highest attack & damage bonuses (plus the proficiency bonus, if this highest attack bonus is for an implement attack). I figure this will make them more appealing to the group as a whole, it'll keep them thematic, and I generally prefer it to the AP's potential suggestions on how to involve firearms. So that's what I'm leaning towards, but I'm open for other ideas!
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# ¿ Feb 2, 2014 02:13 |
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Signal posted:I found the best way to model this was as magic items, not weapons. Give them a once/encounter ability, Standard action, which has a set attack/damage. This way you don't require anything like weapon proficiencies, and it also doesn't really compete with most of the non-firearm ranged weapons, which are most useful for specialists. That way your archers are still quite relevant, but anyone has the ability to wield a brace of wheellock pistols. I have no problems modeling guns differently for different PCs. Your typical flintlocks for a normal character could easily just be encounter-use magic items, say Level+3 vs Reflex (or Level+5 vs AC), dealing 2d6+level damage, for instance. And your idea is easier than what I was considering.
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# ¿ Feb 2, 2014 02:30 |
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Neverwinter is amazing. I hate FR, but it's a solid heroic tier setting from start to finish. It almost made me want to run an FR game, it's that good. It also makes the post Spellplague Realms a lot more understandable. e: I have the top review for a lot of 4e books on amazon, including this one. So that's my full review, if you want more detail. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Feb 3, 2014 |
# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 15:28 |
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:Is there an unofficial 4e Spelljammer setting floating around somewhere? After our gaming group is done with the current game we're running (Dark Ages Vampire), I want to try and run Spelljammer. I figure 4e's combat system would lend itself well to ship combat. EN Publishing has a supplement called Admiral of the High Seas, which is a 3rd party product for 4e naval battles, which may help to make ship combat more interesting. Very helpful for spelljamming, I'd say.
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# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 20:41 |
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RPZip posted:I'm looking at running the Zeitgeist adventure path for people on the forums, probably as a PbP but possibly via roll20. Are there any things I should know before I start that aren't immediately obvious from reading through the provided documents? Any particular pitfalls or encounters that need to be reworked? Note that the themes are expanded in the 3rd adventure. See above for ideas re: firearms. 4e doesn't do well with characters working "off spec" so if you want them used, prepare to tweak.
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# ¿ Feb 4, 2014 08:07 |
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Prison Warden posted:It's probably my gaming history but the very idea of the GM hiding his rolls from the players is baffling to me. Before Masterplan, I rolled everything in the open. With the brand new Zeitgeist campaign I'm starting up next week, I'm not sure which way I'll go.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 03:15 |
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P.d0t posted:How do goons around here feel about Superior Implement training? Honestly, I hate searching for feats so much, I am almost relieved when there is an obvious choice to take.
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# ¿ Feb 8, 2014 20:26 |
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Awesome. I'm starting a new Zeitgeist game for my 4e group on Wednesday, and now I'm going to be a player in a 4e game starting Saturday. They need a melee striker, and I can't decide between Half-orc thief (maybe using spiked chain training?) or pixie rogue (fey beast tamer). I was leaning former - simple classes don't faze me, and I like the idea of a beefy jock "thief" - but I think I've talked myself into the latter because I want a blink dog steed.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 04:58 |
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Brewsuke posted:Honestly, I think the bigger to-hit bonuses and almost ridiculous amount of ways to get combat advantage with a Thief is well worth it. It makes up for the lack of Encounter or Daily powers with its maneuverability. Of course, I've never played past Heroic, so I can imagine its damage running a little thin higher up in levels. I really do like Thieves, though. They're a solid class with a lot of fun tricks. Man, I am so torn here...
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 06:18 |
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AXE COP posted:What level are you playing at? At level 1 thieves are the most damaging class in the game with only the barest of charge optimisation. I'm only doing moderate charop and don't want to make a charge-thief.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 17:19 |
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thespaceinvader posted:The difference between top and bottom of the heap is pretty tiny at level 1, though. You know, after thinking about it, one of only other two PCs I got to run in 4e was a half-orc with a spiked chain - though he was a Tempest Fighter, not a Thief - so I think I'll go with the sprite...
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 18:38 |
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thespaceinvader posted:If you want to optimise damage, you kind of have to pick a trick and stick with it unfortunately. Charging's a decent one, but multi-attacking is still king.
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# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 19:54 |
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Okay, so the challenge: Create a character in 4e who has any drat reason whatsoever to be running around with two pistols. Striker, is the goal. Looking at a (gasp!) custom character class. Pistols in Zeitgeist, FYI, are kind of like Hand Crossbows, but in return for longer loading times, they get Brutal 2 and High Crit. I'm thinking this is incredibly easy, but check me if I'm wrong here. Basically, I just want a mix of Scout and Hunter, right?
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 01:05 |
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Wait, I'm an idiot. Why not treat the brace of pistols as a single weapon, and treat it like a Musket?
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 01:16 |
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FYI, the zeitgeist .part I posted apparently un-errata's Blinding Barrage... But yeah, I'll just do the reskin bit!
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 01:48 |
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Error 404 posted:What .part are you all talking about? e: And my player loved the idea of reskinning one musket into two pistols. She'll be going with that as a ... minotaur? Well, whatever. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Feb 10, 2014 |
# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 02:39 |
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InsomniacTurtle posted:In 4e as a DM, how often am I going to draw out a dungeon room/area on the battle map? Do i just stop the play and draw something up real quick? It seems like doing that would indicate pretty clearly an encounter is about to start. When I'm feeling industrious, I have a 1" square grid presentation pad I can prep ahead of time and bring out when the fight starts. Don't stress about your players knowing when an encounter might start.
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 18:54 |
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InsomniacTurtle posted:With drawing dungeons, do I draw the entire thing out at once, or is it a room by room kind of things?
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 20:48 |
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SeraphSlaughter posted:Is it a terrible idea to mix in Monster Manual 1 monsters with Essentials (I have the Threats to the Nentir Vale book)? I'm running my first 4e campaign starting this Sunday, and my possible party of 6(!) is going to wake up in a kobold prison; when they get outside, they'll run into a few more kobolds arguing with some other group of humanoids about how much to pay for the prisoners. I'd be using some lvl 1-2 enemies from the Nentir Vale for the negotiating party, and the kobolds from MM1. I can re-do the kobolds with MM3 math probably, but at first glance, having the kobolds be a little harder to bring down, even though they do less damage, seems like an interesting encounter mashup? If you have Compendium access or Monster Vault, that's even better, but really - they work out of the box. It's only at mid-Heroic and later that you REALLY start to notice.
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# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 18:52 |
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So Holy poo poo, guys. I ran my players through the first part of the first Zeitgeist adventure last night. loving amazing. One of those sessions that makes me thrilled to be a DM.
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 19:42 |
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homullus posted:After all the nice things you've said about it, I went and looked at it and picked it up, since it was not that expensive. Could you say more about what you like so much? Because my ultra-cursory read of it is that it's really meant for players who will actually read the "players should read this" sections and enjoy getting newspaper clipping handouts and such. Those things are exciting to me, but it definitely requires a certain level of investment. The opener of the first adventure took a lot of prep on my end, but it played out fantastically. They were very involved and on edge for almost two hours of play time trying to make sure the steamship they were on didn't blow up. At one point, they were six rounds from explosion. It was a nice change of pace because it's not often that "killing the bad guys" is the least important thing you should be doing. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Feb 13, 2014 |
# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 21:41 |
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Have you considered going with the Essentials classes to make it even easier for them?
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 15:28 |
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Fair enough re: Essentials classes. I was thinking more in terms of higher level, since that's what I'm used to these days. And at high paragon, it's no contest.
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# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 18:36 |
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Drake_263 posted:2: For monsters cribbed from MM1/2, I'll Your monsters should do somewhere around 2d6+level or 2d8+level damage for normal monsters. Brutes, up it by 25%. AoE effects, drop it by 25%. Change all attack rolls to Level +5 vs. AC, or Level +3 vs. AC vs. F/R/W. EDIT And I got to be a player in a 4e game tonight. Really weird setup, but the adventure seems to be The Slaying Stone, which fortunately I've never read, so... dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Feb 16, 2014 |
# ¿ Feb 16, 2014 02:09 |
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6 level 6 characters vs. a "mad bomber"? What is known about her in the game so far? What's her capabilities, her race, etc? In general, I'd aim for an Elite instead of a Solo here, and give her a bit of condition mitigation and a few allies. That'll be easier to weigh against 6 PCs.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 02:15 |
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This could use tweaking, and keep in mind I'm used to making tough monsters for High Paragon so this might be unfair, but... madbomber.monster The basic thought is that instead of multiattacking like most Elites, she doesn't get penalized on damage when she makes AoE attacks. edit: And yes, Blaster Traps are a perfect "ally" for her, especially with her pushing attacks.
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 02:53 |
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:55 |
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djw175 posted:That's really great. Thanks!
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# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 03:23 |