I guess it is more they whole party is doing well. I brought up the thief to make sure we were doing his damage correctly.
I believe I have the encounters scaled correctly, but I will double check. I think some of the problem is me to be quite honest. I need to figure out how to control the NPC's better. I know that I have missed damage and special affects that would have helped break some of their combat advantage.
I appreciate the tips, thanks for the feedback.
Two things spring to mind: Use monsters from the Monster Vault and later. They are much better designed and just a bit meaner than some of the lack luster early monsters.
Second: Make sure your grasp of the situation matches your players. It's easy for the DM to see that nobody has ever gone down and think he screwed up but if everybody is at a handful of hit points with all the healing powers expended at the end of the fight...you're on just the right side of the catastrophe curve. When you find that bend in the curve it may be too late to fix things.
Edit: Oh, and longer "days". Make them decide if it's worth going on when you only have a surge or two left. You need to structure adventures such that there is a perception of reward for doing this.
Edit: Oh, and longer "days". Make them decide if it's worth going on when you only have a surge or two left. You need to structure adventures such that there is a perception of reward for doing this.
Yes.
If they're spending 1-3 surges per person per encounter, you're in a good place difficulty-wise for the majority of encounter (more major, important fights might have a higher surge budget). The actual challenge at that point is to keep them from resting after two fights every day.
There are a number of ways to do this, from time limits to rest costs to just 'you can't rest here', but ultimately this is one of the bigger challenges when DMing.
I have it ingrained in their minds that they can't just take a rest in the middle of a dungeon. Also they understand that if they rest and come back there is a good chance that the reinforcements will have taken up post and it may or may not be harder the second time through.
Any DMs out there use homebrew worlds? I have a nice concept coming together, but I need maps. Do you guys know of any map generators or 4E map material sites?
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Encounter maps or overworld maps?
For the former, if you don't mind working with Maptools, grab that program and go here. Second link under Two Big Starters at the top is Mapping Objects. It's a 2 GB torrent of maptools resources that will give you every terrain, object, etc feature you'll ever need to make maps.
Oh thank you, I know about Maptools and such. I was enquiring more about overworld maps. I want to create the physical map of the world before running adventures in it.
Witch_Hunter_84 on
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
Guys, I absolutely freaking love 4E so far. Now keep in mind that I've been out of the RPG scene since around the same time that 3.5 came out, so I've missed a lot (looking forward to trying out Pathfinder) but I'm having an absolute blast with 4E. Hopefully my joy continues once I've had a chance to play a character from 1 - 30! I was just playing this until I could drum up enough interest for a Deadlands or Shadowrun game, but for someone reason the system has really clicked with me.
4E is pretty damned fantastic. It can be a bit rougher at epic, since they didn't provide as much material for it, but there's still so much awesome.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Has anyone come up with a sleep deprivation mechanic for 4e? Because it always seemed weird to me that you could go for weeks without sleep as long as you were prepared to forego daily powers.
That and it makes the Mul racial trait of only needing to sleep once every two days completely pointless.
I used the Thirst rules. Combining that with the rules for not benefiting from an extended rest could make not sleeping for a few days quite painful.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Well, healing surges only reset if you take an extended rest. If you just stay awake you're eventually going to burn them all out and be worn down by attrition from encounters.
Well, healing surges only reset if you take an extended rest. If you just stay awake you're eventually going to burn them all out and be worn down by attrition from encounters.
Yea, if surges aren't a problem from not sleeping something is very very wrong aside from the not sleeping thing.
Though this really sounds like "Bob, stop being a dick." situation.
Has anyone come up with a sleep deprivation mechanic for 4e? Because it always seemed weird to me that you could go for weeks without sleep as long as you were prepared to forego daily powers.
That and it makes the Mul racial trait of only needing to sleep once every two days completely pointless.
I'd just start draining healing surges after a certain point.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
Always seemed to me that all the racial traits to do with sleep (trances, mul etc) were only relevant when it came to taking extended rests in dangerous places, where having someone who could keep watch for longer was an advantage, rather than just flavour.
Always seemed to me that all the racial traits to do with sleep (trances, mul etc) were only relevant when it came to taking extended rests in dangerous places, where having someone who could keep watch for longer was an advantage, rather than just flavour.
Yeah, pretty much.
Although I guess you could theoretically build a party composed entirely of Warforged using Essentials classes and just truck on as long as possible, with healing surges as your only daily resource, which could be entertaining
Also re: sleep deprivation, if the intent is to abuse the system I'd probably start calling for either Endurance checks against having your max surges lowered until you rest or Endurance checks against just falling asleep.
Sleeplessness could be fun, can take all sorts of deductions on perception, endurance, and other skills. If you want to be really mean, start giving hits to Fortitude.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
yea for every 12 hours after being awake 24 hours I would burn a surge and have them make saves or take a -1 on a random skill chosen by 1D6 to simulate the effects of sleeplessness. If this was pathfinder I would knock it down to 6 hours and do saves against losing a skill point. Of course if they sleep then they get them all back.
4E is pretty damned fantastic. It can be a bit rougher at epic, since they didn't provide as much material for it, but there's still so much awesome.
The reason that I posted about liking 4E so much is that I've never nothing good about the system, and I haven't been actively gaming for years. So when I actually started playing 4E, I was expecting something truly horrible.
Still under construction. Within a few weeks, he's going to release the beta code along with instructions on how to set up your own app project. The gplus hangout api isn't available in general to the public yet, so he can't make the app easy to use/install.
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
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AnialosCollies are love, Collies are life!Shadowbrook ColliesRegistered Userregular
Hmm, that may be enough to get me to do my first social media account that I actually use. Would need a group/game that uses it of course, but it definitely looks cool.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Neat, Dao & Marid article and it contains a bunch of epic-level enemies with some interesting mechanics.
Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
That'll make me pull the trigger on joining the 'ConstantCon' g+ circle. Looks awesome - I especially like the 'mask' feature, if only to play around with it.
That does look pretty slick. I'm hoping it pans out. As of now 2 of my 5 players are going to be moving away for work. Another one lives about an hour away so he can't always make it down to play. In fact we are going to try and video conference him in tonight. I hope it works well enough, but we shall see.
Can anyone explain the Student of Caiphon and Caiphon's Guidance? Specifically how it works with Avengers and Paladins multiclassing? In builds I'm seeing it seems like the idea is that the 18-20 crit range applies to any radiant power but the entry says it is for warlock and Student of Caiphon powers making it seem like a less then stellar thing to base a build around. If it does work on any of their radiant powers and the avenger gets to reroll everyone one of his attacks against his oath target, that seems amazing.
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
edited March 2012
It specifies warlock powers only, so it wouldn't apply to any of the avengers powers. Only way an avenger would be able to take advantage would be to have a half-elf with dilletante eldritch strike and a sunblade. Wait, nope, you need star pact.
OK, so I'm not crazy in thinking it's not the best thing.
What does star pack do? when you choose the warlock multiclass using pact initiate you take star pact.
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
True, but then you'd be stuck with using charisma (rather than your primary wisdom) since you can't take the Adept Dilletante mc feat.
Not optimal, unless you want to be spamming an at-will all day.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Looks like we got some Jan/Feb errata. A half-dozen very minor changes and then a gigantic (3 pages) list of item rarity changes.
Looks like we got some Jan/Feb errata. A half-dozen very minor changes and then a gigantic (3 pages) list of item rarity changes.
I long for a stable 4e. I hope their final months on the edition focus less on milking the last bit of money via books and more on correcting little stuff like that.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
Can anyone explain the Student of Caiphon and Caiphon's Guidance? Specifically how it works with Avengers and Paladins multiclassing? In builds I'm seeing it seems like the idea is that the 18-20 crit range applies to any radiant power but the entry says it is for warlock and Student of Caiphon powers making it seem like a less then stellar thing to base a build around. If it does work on any of their radiant powers and the avenger gets to reroll everyone one of his attacks against his oath target, that seems amazing.
Yeah, this build doesn't work anymore, as has been noted.
The reason you see builds using all over the place is that they're old builds - the fact that Caiphon's Guidance only works with warlock powers is an errata, it used to work on any radiant power, which resulted in silly bullshit like those exact builds.
Same thing happened with Daggermaster, the rogue PP.
Looks like we got some Jan/Feb errata. A half-dozen very minor changes and then a gigantic (3 pages) list of item rarity changes.
Honestly, I've ignored the item rarity rules for so long, I don't even know what they are.
The important part is that items tagged as Rare can't be bought or crafted, only handed out by the DM. I think the rule of thumb is supposed to be one rare item per player per tier, but I've yet to play with a DM who followed it.
The upshot is that anything tagged as Rare is something you can basically assume doesn't exist because you will never get it.
The charop people are gonna be maaaad when they see Dancing Weapon is Rare now.
Edit: And I'm mad that Dice of Auspicious Fortune are now, too.
Anything that makes charop munchers mad works for me!
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
I've been playing around with the new monk options and was wondering, does the flurry of blows feature count as an attack?
More specifically, I'm wondering whether the Hellfire Master wizard feat (enemy that saves against effect of your fire attack takes damage) would work with the Slashing Kama Style feat (deal ongoing damage instead of flurry damage to one target) and Desert Wind flurry of blows.
On the other hand, if it's not an attack, would that mean that using it against a target subject to the Unseen Scrutiny power (invisible to target until you attack it or end of enc) mean that you would stay invisible to it?
Posts
Two things spring to mind: Use monsters from the Monster Vault and later. They are much better designed and just a bit meaner than some of the lack luster early monsters.
Second: Make sure your grasp of the situation matches your players. It's easy for the DM to see that nobody has ever gone down and think he screwed up but if everybody is at a handful of hit points with all the healing powers expended at the end of the fight...you're on just the right side of the catastrophe curve. When you find that bend in the curve it may be too late to fix things.
Edit: Oh, and longer "days". Make them decide if it's worth going on when you only have a surge or two left. You need to structure adventures such that there is a perception of reward for doing this.
Yes.
If they're spending 1-3 surges per person per encounter, you're in a good place difficulty-wise for the majority of encounter (more major, important fights might have a higher surge budget). The actual challenge at that point is to keep them from resting after two fights every day.
There are a number of ways to do this, from time limits to rest costs to just 'you can't rest here', but ultimately this is one of the bigger challenges when DMing.
For the former, if you don't mind working with Maptools, grab that program and go here. Second link under Two Big Starters at the top is Mapping Objects. It's a 2 GB torrent of maptools resources that will give you every terrain, object, etc feature you'll ever need to make maps.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
That and it makes the Mul racial trait of only needing to sleep once every two days completely pointless.
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Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Yea, if surges aren't a problem from not sleeping something is very very wrong aside from the not sleeping thing.
Though this really sounds like "Bob, stop being a dick." situation.
I'd just start draining healing surges after a certain point.
Yeah, pretty much.
Although I guess you could theoretically build a party composed entirely of Warforged using Essentials classes and just truck on as long as possible, with healing surges as your only daily resource, which could be entertaining
Also re: sleep deprivation, if the intent is to abuse the system I'd probably start calling for either Endurance checks against having your max surges lowered until you rest or Endurance checks against just falling asleep.
It made nightwatches a little easy. :P
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
The reason that I posted about liking 4E so much is that I've never nothing good about the system, and I haven't been actively gaming for years. So when I actually started playing 4E, I was expecting something truly horrible.
Just gonna leave that there.
Is that available now? I couldn't tell if there was a way to "add" it to Google+, or if it's still in the planning phases.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
Or just roll a star pact hexblade.
What does star pack do? when you choose the warlock multiclass using pact initiate you take star pact.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
Not optimal, unless you want to be spamming an at-will all day.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I long for a stable 4e. I hope their final months on the edition focus less on milking the last bit of money via books and more on correcting little stuff like that.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
Yeah, this build doesn't work anymore, as has been noted.
The reason you see builds using all over the place is that they're old builds - the fact that Caiphon's Guidance only works with warlock powers is an errata, it used to work on any radiant power, which resulted in silly bullshit like those exact builds.
Same thing happened with Daggermaster, the rogue PP.
Honestly, I've ignored the item rarity rules for so long, I don't even know what they are.
The important part is that items tagged as Rare can't be bought or crafted, only handed out by the DM. I think the rule of thumb is supposed to be one rare item per player per tier, but I've yet to play with a DM who followed it.
The upshot is that anything tagged as Rare is something you can basically assume doesn't exist because you will never get it.
The charop people are gonna be maaaad when they see Dancing Weapon is Rare now.
Edit: And I'm mad that Dice of Auspicious Fortune are now, too.
More specifically, I'm wondering whether the Hellfire Master wizard feat (enemy that saves against effect of your fire attack takes damage) would work with the Slashing Kama Style feat (deal ongoing damage instead of flurry damage to one target) and Desert Wind flurry of blows.
On the other hand, if it's not an attack, would that mean that using it against a target subject to the Unseen Scrutiny power (invisible to target until you attack it or end of enc) mean that you would stay invisible to it?
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