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I'm lucky in that my players have no patience to go magic-item shopping, so I can just hand them whatever I think would be sweet and some pocket change for expendables and they're happy. I think I've had one player want to swap an armour I hastily picked out of the PHB at the end of a session for one they would rather have had, and that's in about thirty-eight levels of playing.
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Apr 22, 2014 18:41
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:58 |
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Thief or slayer, probably, but as long as you start at level 1 I can't imagine a class overwhelming you. Picking a card to play from the five in front of you is not difficult, and you've already proven that you're willing to do some pre-game research, which puts you ahead of 90% of players I ever DMed for.
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Apr 28, 2014 18:57
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:We might be starting at mid-paragon. I would be designing the whole character from the ground up, so it would be easy to pick up the options that have a good simplicity/reward tradeoff. She's played before but that was like 2008. I am thinking PHB ranger would be easy to play and be rewarding (really, most strikers). Don't start at mid-paragon if you can avoid it.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:44
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Feats and magic items are what my very own fantasy D&D 5e would concentrate on the most. Well, and faster combat.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:54
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thespaceinvader posted:Yes, leader is by far the more necessary role. Without one, you'll have no access to surges during combat without spending standard actions (or healing potions for < surge value), which means combats will wind up on a knife edge; if someone goes down you choose between keeping yourself up by killing the enemy, or getting them back up. There are plenty of defender powers that allow you to spend healing surges. I'd say defender is more necessary of the two roles. Edit: At least, this was my experience playing regular 4e. Gort fucked around with this message at 10:06 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 08:41
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Cerepol posted:What do I do with a group that's 2 strikers and 2 controllers? Encounter wise they seem to get a bit screwed by everything. Should I just murder one and force a new character? Make every encounter a sea of minions surrounding an elite, and pull every punch you can think of.
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May 2, 2014 21:04
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Two players would actually make running combat very simple. An encounter could be a single elite on its own, for instance.
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May 5, 2014 21:08
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Use elites where you'd normally use normals?
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May 13, 2014 20:02
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thespaceinvader posted:Make sure you're using MM3 or later monsters, and don't be afraid to call it if the fight is clearly going in the PCs favour. This is all excellent advice. I'm a fan of "you mop up the rest of the zombies/orcs/soldiers, everyone lose a healing surge" as long as the players are OK with it. Soldier-type enemies are worth avoiding quite often, I'm a big fan of brutes. Do lots of damage, take lots of damage.
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Jun 26, 2014 23:29
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The extended rest/adventuring day mechanic is one I dislike. If it's clear that this will be the last encounter before a rest, I shouldn't have to deal with my players novaing all their dailies into it. Similarly, you can nova healing surges with the right powers and items, which means in the early encounters you're not threatened and later on you can just tell the DM, "Nope, outta surges - extended rest time." It's not a huge deal, but it makes work for the DM to continually come up with reasons why the party has to have three more fights before they sleep, or to risk upgunning encounters because players will nova them. I'd prefer the default largest unit of time to be the encounter rather than the adventuring day. So, instead of healing surges per day, you get surges per encounter. The problem I'm having trouble with is what to do with dailies - they're necessary to make combats not turn into "Use encounter powers, then at-wills" but having them recharge every encounter just makes it "Use dailies, then encounters, then at-wills". Perhaps have them cost a surge to use?
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Jun 27, 2014 12:23
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Piell posted:Make dailies per-session or per-adventure section. If I do this I'm still stuck having to have a certain number of fights per session or players will just nova their dailies. I want a solution that works whether players have one fight before resting or if they have ten. starkebn posted:I haven't been able to play this way, but I'm fond of the idea of only being able to use one of your 'dailies' per encounter - and them recharging every encounter. So call them something else and just use extended rests to replenish surges and HP Won't that just lead to players using their one favourite daily every single fight?
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Jun 27, 2014 14:51
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Hubis posted:So what? I could see this being a problem if there's one really spammy/exploitable power that they definitely want to use all the time, but for the most part you should be able to incentivize a little bit of decision making on the players' part for what daily they want to use. Some dailies become no-brainers if you could use them every encounter. The one I have in my mind at the moment is the fighter one that hits all enemies who end their turn next to you for 1[W]+str and lasts all encounter. It's fine as long as it's not going to happen every fight, but under the proposed system it would. I want a solution where players still need to use even their worst dailies.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:05
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RPZip posted:Let players only use one daily power per fight. I'd separate this into daily attack powers and daily utility powers and let them use up to one of each per fight, but not more. But how do you prevent players using the same daily power every fight?
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Jun 27, 2014 21:54
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Chaltab posted:If you're the DM then you should know what daily powers your players have (generally, not necessarily being able to name every one of them and remember their exact mechanics). If you have a caster repeatedly spamming a fire spell, throw in some creatures with Resist or Immune to Fire. If a character is getting a lot of mileage out of a forced movement power then send some monsters with forced movement mitigation at them. Mix it up, though. Don't suddenly have all enemies immune to what they can do, but make them choose more carefully. OK, but the daily I had in mind as making problems for the "one daily per fight but they all recharge after each fight" rule is the one where the fighter gets to do 1[W]+str against everyone who ends their turn next to him, for the entire encounter. There isn't really a way to counter that except for keeping all the enemies out of attack range of the fighter all fight. That's both very hard to do and the goal is "make the combat no fun for the fighter". I guess what I'm saying is that some dailies aren't easily countered, are very good, and are generally balanced by being limited in frequency of use. Maybe "use one daily per encounter but they recharge at the end of the session or when you've used them all". That way you don't have between-session bookkeeping, players can still use their favourite dailies more frequently than the others (since many sessions might only have one or two fights) but you won't have the fighter popping Rain of Steel at the start of every fight without exception. Mostly for my own benefit, collected house rules for eliminating the "adventuring day", please critique: * PCs heal all HP damage at the end of an encounter. (IE: During a short rest) * PCs quarter their number of healing surges, rounding down. This is their number of surges per encounter. The Durable feat and similar healing surge-increasing effects give +1 surge per encounter. * PCs may use one daily per encounter. Dailies recharge at the end of a session, or when you have no dailies remaining at the end of an encounter. * PCs reduced to 0 HP take an injury - a persistent debuff related to the damage that reduced them to 0 HP. (EG: Sharp damage might cause vulnerability, cold damage might reduce speed, crushing damage might reduce Will defense, and so on) Injuries last until the end of a session. Gort fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 01:02
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The thing about "I don't want to think" players is that it's perfectly easy to build a character who has powers that don't do anything but large amounts of damage. Then you just work your way down the power hierarchy each combat - use your dailies first, then your encounters, then at-wills until the combat's over.
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Jun 28, 2014 12:38
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palecur posted:What about adopting the 13A recharge mechanic? Make dailies encounter powers that don't necessarily come back after a short rest, like regular encounter powers. Instead, you roll for each expended 'daily' and get it back on (some number, salt to taste). That seems to me like it'd modulate the nova issue, because regaining the power isn't certain after the fight (and you might need it later). This sounds like it would just lead to people nova-ing their dailies in the first encounter and then nova-ing any that recharge in the next fight. You wouldn't save your dailies because the more dailies you use, the more total dailies you're going to get to expend.
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Jun 28, 2014 20:41
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:"Alpha striking" and "nova" is essentially what 4E combat is about. Many dailies are encounter-long, meaning that you want to pop them immediately. Others are situational dailies that rely on certain factors falling into place. The third class are just dailies that deal extra dice of damage. I don't like the way 4e assumes you'll have roughly four encounters per extended rest and would like to change it so the number of encounters per extended rest is more flexible. How would I best accomplish this?
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Jun 28, 2014 22:04
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S.J. posted:Give everyone Recharge Points either equal to, or with some relation to, their main stat or their healing surge value. Allow them to spend these points to automatically recover daily attack powers during short rests. I would like a solution that prevents someone from using the same daily each encounter.
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Jun 28, 2014 22:30
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That campaign ended a year ago or more so it's not the specific power or some kind of passive-aggressive complaining about my players - I'm just using it as an example of powers that last an entire encounter and would unbalance the game if you were able to use it at the start of every single encounter. There are probably Warden stances or Barbarian rages that you wouldn't want to see being used every single encounter as well, so I don't think allowing them to do so would be a good solution to my problem. And I haven't actually seen anyone point out any unintended consequences yet, I'd love to hear some.
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Jun 28, 2014 22:46
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:What are you asking me to elaborate on? I didn't really get what point you were making either to be honest. Could you rephrase? Edit: Actually, having re-read it, I guess I get your point - removing the choice to nova or not nova removes a tactical choice from the players. I suppose that's a valid point to a degree. I think I'll have to playtest the house-rules and see how they turn out, might be the trade-off is worth it. Gort fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jun 28, 2014 |
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Jun 28, 2014 22:50
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That is a good point - if you make it one daily per encounter then people are never going to pick the daily utilities, they'll pick encounter utilities instead. Maybe I'll modify my house rules so it's one daily utility and one daily attack per encounter. That might lead to you engineering your character so that it only has one daily utility which is then effectively an encounter power, though.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:22
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Hubis posted:I guess all this arguing about how to restrict dailies so they don't break encounters/force players to use them just seems like a lot of work and artificial restriction just because you don't want to tell characters they can't have an extended rest. Thing is, though, if players have novaed all their surges and power away in the first fight or two, it's logical that they'd want to rest and get them back. At that point you can either: 1) Make up a reason they can't stop, have them take on the next encounter without surges and dailies and probably die 2) Let them rest and continue novaing in the later encounters 1 is obviously bad because it sucks to lose and the players will probably blame you for putting restrictions on their resting, and 2 means that the encounters will be walkovers unless you pump up their level, which means you end up with swingy encounters that lead to deaths. The clear intent of the resting rules is that players ration out their dailies and surges across the "adventuring day", but if a party decides to nova there's not a lot to stop 'em without DM intervention, and sometimes it doesn't make any sense to have four encounters in an adventuring day. So the obvious solution is to give players X amount of resources per encounter rather than 4X amount of resources per day. It's just a question of finding the way that accomplishes that best while requiring the fewest rule changes.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:29
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I guess that's an option, but a savvy player will note the decreased difficulty and realise there's no downside to novaing since the DM will make the following encounters easier, which doesn't resolve the original problem. Plus sometimes there isn't a good reason to not stop, and it puts a burden on the DM to come up with one in any case. Sometimes I want an adventure with a single encounter.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:18
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thespaceinvader posted:Then... accept that nova-ing is a thing that happens, You have a remarkably defeatist attitude towards rules problems. quote:and build your encounters so that it's not a problem. How do you suggest I build my encounters so that it's not a problem? Raising encounter level leads to a swingier game since characters are not supposed to be fighting encounters significantly higher level than them. quote:Do the players find it to be a problem? Yes.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:33
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Herr Tog posted:Thanks for the help on the class thing guys~! also wtf is novaing? Using all your dailies and/or a high proportion of your healing surges in a single encounter.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:35
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Thing is though, one 4e fight is not particularly short. Putting three together is going to lead to player combat-burn-out. It's the reason why the published 4e adventures are so bad - they're just combat combat combat. For real, this doesn't look so hard. I'll try the house rules I'm mulling over and let you know how it goes. I'll just post them here again so we're all on the same page: * PCs heal all HP damage at the end of an encounter. (IE: During a short rest) * PCs quarter their number of healing surges, rounding down. This is their number of surges per encounter. The Durable feat and similar healing surge-increasing effects give +1 surge per encounter. * PCs may use one daily attack power per encounter. Daily attack powers recharge at the end of a session, or when you have no daily attack powers remaining at the end of an encounter. * PCs reduced to 0 HP take an injury - a persistent debuff related to the damage that reduced them to 0 HP. (EG: Sharp damage might cause vulnerability, cold damage might reduce speed, crushing damage might reduce Will defense, and so on) Injuries last until the end of a session. Generic Octopus posted:For real though Gort, just check out Gamma World for a version of 4e that's built around going from encounter-to-encounter rather than the adventuring day. I own Gamma World, my group (including myself) didn't like it much. I'll dig the rules out and see if there's something that can be cannibalised.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:13
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This all smacks of that "A good DM can make a good adventure no matter how bad the rules" excuse you hear people use for bad games. I'd sooner the rules supported what I want to run than to have to keep coming up with excuses why the players can't play in an optimal manner.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:01
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PeterWeller posted:E: Gort, the difference here is that 4E is actually a pretty solid game. But it might not be the game for you and your group. People have suggested a pair of really good games that do what you want to do with 4E. It is entirely the game for my group, we've played forty levels of it already. That's why I'm somewhat wise to its flaws and would like to address them with some house rules. I'm a little tired of talking about this particular issue, though. Anyone got good house rules for feats? I feel like sixteen by level 30 is too many and it'd be cool if they were more like powers where you have a limited number (like say, five) but you swapped out the worse ones for better ones as you level up. Gort fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 21:39
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I guess limiting the number of feats would require you to do a crapload of work writing out an entire new set of feats.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:23
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It's incredible the number of times I've reskinned a dragon to something else.
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Jul 7, 2014 17:47
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Yeah, there's a vast difference between "You saw a bodak and died" and "You got poisoned and worst-case scenario you died of it three rounds later and there's a bunch of ways to get out of it". Anything that kills via grab is laughably easy to get out of - use any forced movement power on the enemy and the grab ends. Loads of classes get those at-will.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:33
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How can something be a "countdown to instant death"? You will die RIGHT NOW in ten minutes
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Jul 8, 2014 18:21
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Prison Warden posted:I made a level 3 cleric to back up a dragon against some players at level one and the rogue immediately one-shot her I always thought a decent HP-replacement would be "balance". You take hits, you lose balance. You run out of balance, the next hit takes you out and is the only one considered to actually be capable of doing physical harm to you. It'd be cool to let people trade in their actions-per-turn to get balance back. "Plant feet" - don't move, gain balance back. "Catch breath" - lose your minor, gain a bit of balance back. "Disengage" - lose your standard, gain a lot of balance back. I prefer having characters be responsible for their own defense rather than having a guy watching everyone's HP bars the whole time.
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Jul 11, 2014 22:10
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Torquemadras posted:Huh. Well, good to know. Let's see if there's any good monsters with nasty charge attacks, then! If he's immortal why would he need to escape from the players? Wouldn't they need to escape from him?
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Jul 13, 2014 12:37
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thespaceinvader posted:This isn't remotely about healing and dying, it's about the adventuring day. And as the interminable discussions a couple of pages back proved, the adventuring day is VERY difficult to remove from 4e's design, as it's a core feature OF the design and basically everything in the game is in some way connected to it. That thing you did for sixteen levels in your campaign? It's very hard to do and it'll never work out. Gort fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 23:22
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I think Monster Vault and Dungeon Delve were my favourite books 4e produced. I wish they'd done Dungeon Delve with the monsters from Monster Vault though.
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Jul 20, 2014 12:41
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:So like, imagine if you had some effect that did different things depending on whether you were fighting "a hundred low-level scrubs" or "the boss's right hand man" like you're playing in an "Enter the Dragon" campaign. So you'd have something like "Stunning blow - kills minions, stuns normal enemies, dazes elites, removes one action this turn from solos" kinda thing? That's probably a pretty good idea, at least that way when a player has a power that says it stuns enemies for a round and uses it on the dragon, he doesn't call bullshit when the dragon merely loses one of his many attacks that round instead of being stunned like his power card said it would.
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Jul 20, 2014 14:01
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Today I reskinned a hydra into a four-armed four-sword-wielding warforged, General Grievous style. Worked pretty well. And yeah, don't try and run a companion PC as a DM. If you must have something tag along, use a monster of the appropriate level and flavour.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:29
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thespaceinvader posted:If you're doing companion PCs, make a Companion Character from DMG2 and give it to the players to run. Eh, add a standard monster to the usual encounters and pow, balanced. Most standard monsters only have one encounter power, if any at all, anyway. And a character using a single daily per encounter will hardly break the game, most of my players use several.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:43
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 09:58 |
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I remember Guard Drakes being horrendous back in the day. At level 2 they do D10+3 damage normally (high, but OK), or D10 plus nine for the onerous task of being within 2 squares of an ally. So they're three-hit-KOing party members and they have powers that encourage them to bunch up. Gort fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 18:25
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