D&D 4e General /4eg/

There's no problem at all with mixing pre-Essentials and Essentials, besides most Essentials classes being boring as fuck.

Still same edition, everything is compatible. There's no call for numbering it differently.

Or rather, use it with caution.
Everything besides classes in Essentials is good. Classes are generally worse than non-Essentials, but can be worked around.
Both of my current 4e characters are coincidentally Essentials classes and are quite enjoyable, though I sometimes want to cry because of getting useless powers that I can't trade away and that aren't worth even their action cost.

Fart

ecksDeeDee I'm also lolrandumb look at me XDD

You could say the same about 3.5 and 3.0.

>getting useless powers that aren't worth their action cost

Which classes are you playing as? I thought most of the essentials used free actions or no action for their powers

Yes but unlike 3.0, people actually use pre-essentials 4e material for things other than cheesy builds

Summon Warlock's Ally as hexblade.
It gives me a pet which is a waste of actions.
There is never a conceivable situation where I'd want to use their garbage standard action attack instead of my RBA, and they don't have anything else interesting.

Particularly, I loathe the pigeonholing in Essentials class design. You don't HAVE to make a Knight with a heavy blade or hammer and a shield (or a quarterstaff, I know), but if you use anything else you have a bunch of class features that... just don't do anything at all.
And let's not even get started on Thief...

Yeah it can be converted just like 3.0.

3.0 and 3.5 don't have even close to full mechanical compatibility. Essentials and the rest of 4e is fully compatible.

They also tried to force knights to use strength via incredibly stupid methods none of which countered the actual problem of making a str/con defender class in 4e

...I completely forgot hexblades existed

I remembered binders, which are even more useless than hexblades, but totally forgot hexblades

Hey they're good for semi at-will invisibility shenanigans at least

>Or rather, use it with caution.

Essential classes are not even THAT bad, excpet for the Slayer, the Vampire and the nu-Warlock, and maybe the Executioner.

No you can't. 3.5 superceded most of 3.0, and all unconverted material is technically not valid. Essentials might be bad, but are perfectly usable alongside "regular" 4e.

So are there any good reference documents/threads/whatever about the Points of Light setting, or would I need to hunt through all the books myself if I wanted to read up on it?

Have you ever looked at the 3.0->3.5 conversion document? Tons of things got changed or made incompatible.

They removed multiple skills from the game! The changes to spells were also extremely broad - not just stuff like Haste no longer giving a partial action, either, but also stuff like changing names and removing some spells from certain classes entirely.

I mean, fuck, you saw how I wrote "partial action" up there? That's a standard action. The entire action economy was different in 3.0.

Also, of course, the wide rework of monster hit dice. And Rangers were ass.

You should read up on it some day if you haven't already - there's a lot of changes that aren't too obvious when you look into it after the fact.

The Wayback Machine should have a version of the old wiki. Eventually I will make a PDF with all that collected info, but I never have time.

I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record, but I'm not a fan of this pasta.
1. advocates using a pre-errata piece of rules and that is a can of worms.
2. is too harsh. "Reworked monster math" is a correction to average damage and reduction of solo HPs, nothing more. "Avoid MM1 and 2" makes it sound like you have to throw out two whole books, when it's a matter of a few seconds of correction.
3. I can get behind, but is it really necessary to NOT tell players you are in a SC?

>2. is too harsh. "Reworked monster math" is a correction to average damage and reduction of solo HPs, nothing more. "Avoid MM1 and 2" makes it sound like you have to throw out two whole books, when it's a matter of a few seconds of correction.
The never monsters also have better game design in general in what they do - MM1 monsters in particular can get pretty boring since, naturally, they're the first ones they made and the designers weren't entirely aware of what did and didn't work.

Personally my solution to skill challenges is to only use them for chase scenes, since I only use them for chase scenes and use them for every chase scene, I never need to tell my players that a chase scene is a skill challenge, because they all know a skill challenge is coming the moment a chase starts

>The never monsters also have better game design in general in what they do - MM1 monsters in particular can get pretty boring since, naturally, they're the first ones they made and the designers weren't entirely aware of what did and didn't work.

I'm well aware of that, and I agree, but it's still not what the OP says. That's why I'm advocating for a more precise rewrite, one that makes us sound less one-true-wayist.

>3. I can get behind, but is it really necessary to NOT tell players you are in a SC?
That actually directly contradicts advice I've heard before about skill challenges (at least if this guy knows what he's talking about): youtube.com/watch?v=GvOeqDpkBm8

IME, you can do both. You can have skill challenges as emerging frames for what would be normally just "freeform" scenes, or you can announce them in order to promote player input. It depends on your group. It's also true that skill challenges are one of the most attacked aspects of 4e, when they actually are a thing that a lot of other games do (but they aren't D&D so they don't matter).

Perhaps it should be rephrased to say that the newer monsters are better designed, and MM3 and forward uses different numerical guidelines.

>3. I can get behind, but is it really necessary to NOT tell players you are in a SC?
It's not necessary, but for a lot of people it helps with immersion, avoiding the problem of people just going "I roll Athletics at it!"

>and all unconverted material is technically not valid.
Actually, technically it is valid, you're just expected to do essential conversions (Wilderness Lore -> Survival) yourself.

This is obvious from the fact that 3.0 unconverted creatures, prestige classes, etc are still referenced as usable in 3.5 material.

user, please see

The fact that there is a conversion document rather proves the point that the systems are not compatible, though.

>Do you have any fun homebrew scenarios?

One which was basically Steel Ball Run but in an Eberron-yet-Roman Empire-at-its-largest-like world with weaponry from Ioun who was the main goddess of the whole deal.

How simple do you want to get?

Scout is literally dual axes: the class. You do nothing but hit things with your axes.

Really?

I thought the only 3.0 material 3.5 references are things they updated (half the padding in the Complete X books was updating PrCs from 3.0 books)

Eberron before the current era was actually goblinoid Rome, IIRC.

Currently playing in a fun homebrew setting where the feywild and natural world occupy the same plane of existance, and entering the feywild is as easy as walking too far away from any center of civilization and the whole world is centered around fantasy Rome run by dwarves. The DM has a whole lot of cool lore for the setting beyond that, but I'd never be able to describe it in a way that lives up to the experience

Sounds fun.

Pity, I'd like to hear more

I mean in terms of technology, really. So you've a Half-Elf empire (they reproduce like crazy and mastered the arts of psionics and the arcane, proceeding to conquer the main area of the game) in a Rome-like empire around a big lake slightly larger than the Mediterannean and some extra islands around this main one, while Humans are effectively Jews, Elves are German tribes and Dwarfs are the guys in North Africa and Iberia all the way to Anatolia, Tieflings in the Balkans and with tech roughly equivalent to Eberron, on a desperate chase after six parts of Ioun's weaponry which is disguised as a celebration but it's really being used by the Emperor to attain infinite power.

Quite the ride.

My DM browses Veeky Forums, maybe he'll show up and share more

But that's actually not true. Unconverted material that is not included in the document became unusable. You *could* use it at home but there was a lot of wonkiness. ANd most of it was converted anyway, to pad out more books.

Good, user. I'm very happy about my current campaign myself.

We started as courtiers in 1300 Milan, as the city was under a coup d'etat. We fled through half of Italy, betrayed by many of our former friends, until we got to Florence, home of the last trustworthy ally we had. He tasked us with recovering a holy relic of Justice, that could help us in our fight. We tracked it to the tower where a nobleman was confined to death a century before (this is a reference to Dante's Inferno). Under the tower was an hellish dungeon, and at its center the slain children of the nobleman, fused into a giant undead abomination. We barely managed to defeat it and retrieve the relic, when we were blinded by the apparition of a divine emissary. We ended the last session in Hell, in sight of Satan himself.

The game is great and the DM, while new, is putting in a lot of effort in the details. It does help that most of us have some background in literary studies, so we're relatively familiar with the source material. The campaign is probably going to consist in the ascent through hell, sort of a reverse Inferno. Plus, I'm not the DM for once, so that's great.

>TFW I get two free 4e splatbooks but no games to play them with.

Which ones, user?

Divine Power and Eberron Player's Guide

The Guild Living Campaign on roll20, look it up.
Constant easy-to-find games as long as mandatory voice chat isn't an obstacle for you.

Thank you.

I live to please.

Dragon 378 has an article that details Domain info for the Eberron deities. Might want to look into it

So where should I go if I'm interested in reading about PoLand?

>But that's actually not true. Unconverted material that is not included in the document became unusable.
Sounds like something you just made up, but on the off chance you're not a liar, source?

Off the top of my head: some PRCs in the late books of 3.0 had stacking critical bonuses that were explicitly disallowed in 3.5. Some skills and feats were replaced or outright removed (innuendo for ex) taking with them everything that used them as a prerequisite. Another user upthread has a few more examples.
The complete series reintroduced most of these things, or functional equivalents, but before they came out using 3.0 material was a crapshoot due to all the minute changes, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone allow mixing.

The Wizards Police wouldn't come to your house and shoot you if you used 3.0 stuff, but the two weren't meant for mixing.

The only 3.0 splat I saw allowed somewhat regularly was Oriental Adventures.

Sweet, sweet iaijutsu focus...

One fun (and weird) example came up in an optimization contest: BOVD's Thrall of Orcus has this ability:
>Pallor of Death (Su): A 6th-level thrall of Orcus can adopt the appearance of a humanoid undead creature of her choosing as if she had cast the alter self spell. While in this form, the thrall has an aura of fear (as the fear spell cast by a 6th-level caster) that affects only living nonoutsiders within 25 feet. Pallor of death lasts for 1 minute per class level and can be used once per day.

What's up with it? Well, here's how Alter Self works in 3.5:
>d20srd dot org/srd/spells/alterSelf dot htm
And here's the 3.0 version (scroll down a bit):
>dragon dot ee/30srd/spellsa dot htm

Notice how the latter is almost entirely cosmetic while the former introduces a bunch of extra benefits? Yeah. 3.0 Alter Self is basically Greater Disguise Self - 3.5 Alter Self is Lesser Polymorph Self.

Similar issue pop up all over the place when you try to use unupdated 3.0 material that references updated 3.5 material.

Fuck, did you know that the 3.0 feat Expert Tactician, from Sword and Fist, got updated/nerfed TWICE? Once in 3.0 itself, in Song and Silence, and then again in 3.5's Complete Adventurer. The original was almost at-will 3.0 Haste, and the CA one is unrecognizable.

>twf Wizards Police raped my dog

>tfw they murdered my father and turned my mother into a newt

Did she at least get better, user?

She lived the remainder of her life happily as a newt. Does that count?

Depends on whether or not it was due to being a newt, or your father's murder.

>"Avoid MM1 and 2" makes it sound like you have to throw out two whole books, when it's a matter of a few seconds of correction.
Depends a bit. MM1 and 2 have more 'fuck you' monsters effects than MM3, with frequent use of daze and stun that slow combat down by just telling players they can't do anything that round.

But yes, there are still monsters in 1&2 that can be used perfectly well with ten seconds of number swapping.

They can be used perfectly well without the number adjustment, too, it's just a matter of combat taking longer that way.

I'll take both.

>You could say the same about 3.5 and 3.0.
Yes, it was a poor choice of nomenclature. At-best, it should be called 3e revised, and has lead to a number of misconceptions in Autists about how much difference constitutes a whole edition change, due to the implication that the minutia between 3 and 3.5 constitutes half an edition change.
>So 4.5 D&D not 4.0 D&D?

Similarly, calling 4e, using fixes 4.5 is silly. At its core it's still 4e, just with better math. That's not half an edition-change.

Dead thread.

Unfortunately, there is no PoLand source book. It's just sort of scattered around all the books, and some of the board games.
Which board game was it that had the world map? Was it Wrath of Ashardalon? Did that have any fluff?

Conquest of Nerath, and yeah, it had some.

Speaking of fluff, here is a site that details pretty much everything

thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=15210

That's what I was thinking of.

But yeah, I don't think there's one book with all of the PoLand material consolidated.

But that's part of the charm I think. That the setting is so fragmented. You get a real sense of exploration and wonder not just from playing in it and reading about it, but from hunting for things to read about it.

The Fell's Five IDW comic series was probably the most charming use of PoLand.

Neat! Thanks.

>Fell's Five
Why must you remind me of my lost love, user?

I cannot believe I still have not read that yet. I think some anons even posted a storytime a while back, but I missed it. :(

Wasn't that written by one of the guys from Leverage?

John Rogers, I remember it because it's a very piratical name...and we never got those pirate adventures.

>Which setting is your favourite one?

There have been quite a few attempts made at 4E clones. A lot of them drift off in other directions due to the designer's urge to tinker and innovate.

At what point does an attempted 4E clone stop being a 4E clone to you?

No problem. The more I read about PoLand the more I want to play games in it.

The Iron Circle was later for 4E, right? Those guys got fleshed out in the second Monster Vault, I think.

I think so, same with Vailin and stuff too.

The point is, essentials never was a revision of 4e. 4e had living errata and updates the whole time, but essentials did not rewrite previous material. Slayer is a new fighter but it did not invalidate old fighter. On the other hand 3.5 is explicitly a revision.

An ancient blog post I found, but one that concerns a topic I've been thinking about all day.

leonineroar.com/?p=3191

What do you guys think about initiative in 4E?

Problems:
Taking time out to roll and calculate initiative in the beginning
Long wait time between turns (players zone out/don't pay attention)
Players don't always take their turns in order (players delay)
The space between one player's turn and another (handing over initiative) can take some time
Tracking initiative for monsters can be bothersome

What are your fixes?

I have never found 4e initiative to be problematic. Primarily because 4e offers so many out-of-turn actions so actual player downtime is not a huge amount of time.

Keeping track of monster turns can be a pain, but typically I roll for monster initiative in groups. to cut down on that

I've never really had an issue with 4e default initiative. I think more problems arise if you do group initiative. The winning side just wallops the other, with PCs clearing out minions before they even become a factor and debuffing bigger monsters into uselessness, or monsters simply pummeling one of the PCs into oblivion before anyone can step in to help.

The game is designed to favor individual initiative with a bunch of powers/bonuses/etc catered to that. If you're really having a problem with players zoning out between turns then either some of your players are spending too long doing nothing a turn or the bored player simply doesn't like 4e combat

This is my house rule for initiative:
>Initiative check at the start of combat, difficulty 10+highest init mod of monsters
>PCs who pass the check act
>Monsters act together
>PCs act together

The method favors the PCs a bit, but not dramatically so. I had to introduce this rule to remove some book-keeping cause I was playing with a group of morons that regularly forgot whose turn it was; this way PC turns happen consecutively in any order so there's no need to worry. In the rare cases when a monster uses special initiative tricks, I play that as is.

...

>On the other hand 3.5 is explicitly a revision.
Yes, which is why I suggested calling it 3e Revised.

This. Basically you have the PCs roll individually, and have groups of monsters act on initiatives of their own. I usually break it down by, Minions, Standards, Elites, and then Solos, and then by roles and which ones work well together. Brutes+Lurkers, Soldiers+Skirmishers, and Artillery+Controllers. Basically cut back on the book keeping a bit and allows for monsters to act tactically.

I've been thinking about trying SotDL initiative out, and having players and creatures pick between Fast and Slow Turns, just to see how it would mesh with the action economy. I don't expect it will be a good fit, but might as well run a one shot and see what it do.

>houseruling initiative
WHY?
It's super easy to track in just about any virtual tabletop.
And if you're playing IRL, there are apps for that, too.

Like hell I allow electronics at my table.

You can ban electronics for players, but use them yourself as a DM. As long as you aren't being a dick about it and are only using electronics to help game flow, that is.

My gropu just worte it down on a whiteboard or something. Hard to forget who's turn is next when you can literally point to it

I've never really got the issue with electronics distracting players. I've only ever seen one player get phone distracted, and it was the guy that always complained he'd rather be playing 3.5. I figured if your players are so easily distracted, they don't really want to play anyway; banning their phones only means they'll complain more often

Man axe support really is pretty sad. Seems like even maces had more going on for them

Axes have Headsman's chop. And Scout.

I can't offhand recall what maces have (that feat that slows on AoOs?)