D&D 4e Compendium (for those who still have Insider subscriptions): wizards.com
Compendium: funin.space
Guide compilation: enworld.org
Offline compendium: mediafire.com
Offline character builder: mega.nz
Offline monster editor mega.nz
this pasta pastebin.com
Other urls found in this thread:
app.roll20.net
twitter.com
What I'm saying is, defenders AC should be higher than strikers and controllers, which its not. I think maybe they should have let defenders take a minor dex bonus to ac (+1 for scale, +2 for chain) and kept AC bonus for armor expertise with scale. Single weapon fighter ought to get a +1 to ac as well to attack, and sheilds ought to carry a scaled bonus, like +1 per teir for shield mastery.
Armors scale with masterwork armors.
A Fighter in scale+heavy shield will have 19 AC at level 1. How's a wizard matching that?
Also, mathematically, scaling off of two sources instead of 1 (shield and armor/stat, instead of just armor) will mean that shield will outscale attack bonuses. Which is bad. You want to keep AC and offense in the same ballpark.
The defender is a shaky role in general, and not just because of the fact that some strikers can have defender-like AC even without abusing Battle Cleric's Lore.
I fully believe that defenders having few methods of shoring up their NADs (beyond a heavy shield for +2 Reflex) was a horrid design decision.
It gives them a major achilles heel for no good reason.
There is nothing worse than laying down, say, a Combat Challenge or a divine sanction on a monster, only to discover that that monster enjoys targeting non-AC defenses. There are many, many monsters that do such a thing, even at low heroic.
Under the context of the encounter-building guidelines failing to take themes (and, obviously, house rules) into account, consider a level 4 party with themes and a whopping five free feats. Should they be treated as a level 5 party for encounter-building purposes, or as a level 6 party?
Well, depends on the expected value of a feat. If you already got the tax feats (which are the most straightforward hit/defense boosts), a feat at best can be considered something like +0.5 to-hit (cause it's situational) which would put them into level 6 range, imo.
But I prefer fights to be harder than easier... although logically, you'd start with an easier fight, and then ramp up the difficulty.
I had just reread the Rules Compendium's rules for scaling DCs. Tell me if I have this right.
Rules Compendium, page 126: "When choosing a DC from the table, the Dungeon Master should use the level of the creature performing the check, unless otherwise noted.
"Level 4: Easy DC 10, moderate DC 14, hard DC 21
"Level 5: Easy DC 10, moderate DC 15, hard DC 22"
Page 132: "Acrobatics: Escape from Restraints: DC: Hard DC of the creature's level."
Page 135: "Arcana: Identify Magical Phenomenon: DC: Hard DC of the phenomenon's level. If it has no level, use the hard DC of the creature's level.
"Arcana: Sense the Presence of Magic: DC: Hard DC of the creature's level."
Page 147: "Insight: Sense motives or attitude: Moderate DC of the target's level.
"Insight: Sense outside influence: Hard DC of the effect's level.
"Read the mood of a crowd (easy DC)
"Discern who among a cagey group is the leader (moderate DC)
"Interpret enemies' hand signs (hard DC)
"Recognize a creature as illusory (moderate DC of the effect's level)"
Is there any rhyme or reason to what DCs constantly scale based on a PC's level, and what DCs are keyed to NPCs' or external effects' levels?
It is sensible enough that identifying magical phenomena, sensing motives or attitudes, sensing outside influence, and recognizing illusions is based on NPCs' or external effects' levels.
However, it is completely bizarre that many other tasks, like escaping from restraints, sensing magic, reading a crowd's mood, discerning leadership, and interpreting enemies' hand signs is based on the PC's level. In some cases, like when going from level 4 to 5, the PC might actually find the task harder than before!
How should one make sense of this? Is the Rules Compendium simply being obtuse and always assuming that PCs are always in a level-appropriate challenge? If that is the case, then why does the Rules Compendium explicitly note when a task's DC is based on the level of an NPC or an external effect? How does this work?
I was just thinking that too. Rule of thumb should be that the DC should be based on the opposition's level, and I'm not sure why they tie it into PC level in those examples.
It's based on 'What would be a threat of X difficulty for a PC of Y level'. Not everything will be level appropriate.
Identifying magical phenomena and recognizing illusory creatures is based on the phenomenon/effect's level. The same goes for sensing motives, attitudes, or outside influence.
So... why not the same for other tasks, like detecting magic, or escaping restraints? The DCs for those do not, in fact, stipulate "of the effect/phenomenon's level."
Oversight I guess.
It makes sense to do it the way you are describing, so just do it that way. I do not see any reasoning why they went with what they went for those unless
> Is the Rules Compendium simply being obtuse and always assuming that PCs are always in a level-appropriate challenge?
which is silly.
I think Defenders should diverse more than only "guy with big AC". Yeah, a full plate fighter with a tower shield can have a higher AC, but so do a martial artist with high DEX that keeps poking foes that doesn't pay attention to him. But I would like to see a more (monster) Brute (instead of the Soldier role) applied to characters: A Defender that doesn't rely much on AC but on HP, with power like Invigorating to keep him up fighting.
>A Defender that doesn't rely much on AC but on HP, with power like Invigorating to keep him up fighting.
Aren't those the CON secondary/primary defenders in a nutshell?
CON has a very small effect on hp in 4e
Of all the roles in 4e, Controller always felt like the problem child to me.
Not that they aren't cool- Controllers get to do a lot of awesome shit.
But everything they do seems kinda tertiary. Very nice to have, but if you're doing a three man party the class to cut always seems to be the Controller. Without the Striker you lack damage, without the Leader you lack healing and enabling, without the Defender you're vulnerable. Without a Controller... Lots of dudes might be more difficult and you don't have as much debuffing?
Although I guess what leads on from that is, is that a bad thing? Is it okay to make Controller kind of a miscellaneous role, giving them cool and interesting things to do which add to the group which don't naturally fall into raw offence, defence or support?
Which bothers me greatly.
My 4e retroclone won't even have abilities. All will be attached to class, feature choice and power options.
4e only actually needs three stats to correlate with the three defenses. The six stats just got jammed in because muh d&d
I'm trying to stick with the six, for familiarity/marketing reasons, and giving each one a combination of two things they add to.
A primary defence, like Ref/Fort/Will, and a secondary benefit like maximum HP or surges.
Keeping the defence assignments the same, we have Str and Cha affecting HP (strong body or force of personality letting you keep fighting in the short term) and Wis and Con affecting surges (physical endurance or great willpower helping you keep fighting in the long term)
The trouble is AC, Int and Dex. In the other two cases, we've managed to divorce the defence from its secondary benefit, but it's hard to really fiddle things around to split apart Int and Dex like that, and a bonus to AC is such a huge fucking benefit it's hard to know what to do.
I still think the principle, of each stat adding to defence x and also providing benefit y is decent, it's just how to make it all work.
We did try to have six different benefits, one for each stat, but it's honestly hard to find that many things in the system which actually matter to make it work.
Sounds like your life would be much easier if you just accepted that three stats is superior
Three stats would be simpler, but I don't think it's necessarily superior. If we can make the six all meaningfully distinct it does create more choices, and plus the familiarity element really can't be underplayed.
It kind of sucks, because there's more than a few things we don't think are ideal, but changing them might push things to the point it's no longer recognisable as D&D, which would severely limit our potential audience.
>but changing them might push things to the point it's no longer recognisable as D&D, which would severely limit our potential audience.
Let's be mildly real here: how many people will
1) give a shit about a 4e retroclone
2) that aren't also ok with 4e
if you're fine with 4e, and thus interested in a retroclone, you probably aren't too hyper-attached to funky things DnD does just because it's DnD.
Use Int + Dex for AC, call it Defense, and Armor add DR instead. 4e uses big numbers so DR isn't much of a problem.
Don't defenders have by far the greatest (damage)*(overall survivability) though?
Presumably the real problem with defenders is just that 4e is too easy so everyone only cares about damage (speed of encounter completion) and not damage-over-lifetime.
>4e is too easy
No, enemy damage got buffed starting with MM3. I don't know why the fuck you think enemies need to have lots of HP in addition to that, but it needs to go far, far away. We already dealt with high HP and fucking *nobody* but you wants those kill times back, let alone a game where the lethality is lopsided like 5E.
I'm pretty sure I never said monsters need more HP.
From where I'm sitting, it seems that monsters are generally too susceptible to control effects.
Except that's a good thing. The fuck are you going to do with a Warlock or a Rogue if enemies were hard to debuff and hit like they do now? That leaves jacking up the HP, which is a bad idea.
Not I think you could just nerf the control effects (and their effectiveness, like the save debuffing wizard builds) and leave the rest and be relatively ok.
It's not fun to play a Controller that doesn't control. Imagine playing a Striker that often (as often as you think control effects should happen) misses?
But it's not an issue. Defenders aren't exactly shit in 4E and their problems have very little to do with others being able to kill enemies (reasonably) quickly unaided or being able to crowd control enemies.
Err, yes
Defenders are melee crowd control, just like how controllers are ranged crowd control
Right, I'm just saying I agree that some of the control builds could be reeled in (then again, this is true for a lot of other stuff).
What about going over 9000 the idea and fuse both into one?
A wizard with unarmored agility, an int of 20 and staff of defense has an AC of 18 at level 1.
a monk with unarmored agility, and a dex of 20 has a 19 AC at level 1.
What three stats would you suggest using?
Howdy /4eg/, I've been getting the itch to go back and run a 4e game and take a break from 5e. Are there any programs that can provide me with a character sheet that has the chosen abilities/spells with descriptions at hand? I only have one copy of each of the PHBs and its far too cumbersome to be constantly passing them around the table.
If the offline character creator in OP can do this, fantastic
Anybody else pissed that the fighter didn't get plate proficiency? I thought it was a typo when I read it.
And a fighter with a shield in scale armor has AC 19 and guaranteed more HP regardless of constitution
Yeah, the character creator should do this. Last time I had it, I could print out the spells onto cards and have everything at hand.
>A Fighter in scale+heavy shield will have 19 AC at level 1. How's a wizard matching that?
Great to know. Thanks user. I know what I'm doing when I get home from work tonight.
So why did you forget that in your post?
For all of one attack, and is still less.
Immediate thought: Is there a problem with literally using Fortitude, Reflex, and Will? Maybe rename Reflex to "Wits" or something.
I suppose the biggest one is Dex and Int are a bit...different. Particularly troublesome when it comes to skills. Str/Con are usually relatively tied, both in fiction and in real life, and Wis/Cha can usually be close enough, especially when skills are brought in to differentiate between the perceptive stoic ranger or the boisterous needs-a-council-of-5-advisers leader.
Depends on how you do skills, really. If it's keeping d20+attrib+"Training" like DnD , it's going to be a bit odd.
That is a wizard who picked his level 1 feat be 'More defence' and his subtype the 'Defensive wizards' one...and he's still 1 lower than the fighter.
That seems fair. He's tough for a wizard but not quite a fighter.
staff of defense gives you a passive +1 to ac. if you actually used the power you would get another +2 to ac, for a total of 20.
Level 4. Crossbow ranger, Covenant of Wrath invoker, Charisma paladin, melee Wisdom/Constitution cleric (warpriest).
The melee cleric (warpriest) has no budget for a holy symbol, and uses no implement abilities.
Should the melee cleric's level 3 encounter power be Death Surge, Allied Accuracy, or Resurgent Sun?
Death Surge is an off-turn attack, but the character has no implement (Devout Protector Expertise, at least), and the character would likely be able to catch only themselves and the paladin in the burst.
Allied Accuracy will lend some accuracy, but the party has little in the way of "I absolutely must land this attack against this one enemy" attacks, except for maybe Valorous Smite and Silent Malediction.
Resurgent Sun is an automatic healing surge expenditure.
The warpriest's at-will powers are Blessing of the Sun and Singing Strike, their level 1 encounter attack power is Prophetic Guidance, and their level 1 daily attack power sadly has to be Lesser Aspect of Wrath due to how the party will probably spread itself out.
Fuck, yeah.
To be more accurate, +1 AC and then immediate interrupt enc for +CON Defense against 1 attack.
This seems to be a low op group, so I'd go resurgent sun for safety.
Skills period are a bit odd. The very concept behind an advantage due to some specified training makes sense, but as a strict mechanical subsystem I don't think it applies anymore. If I were to do a retroclone, I'd probably lean closer to 13th Age or SotDL and have narrative background related bonuses as opposed to skill bonuses.
As an aside, not sure why renaming Fort, Ref and Will would be an issue. Lots of games still use those as a go to for defenses or saves without much issue. But you could always rename Fort and Ref if it's a matter of taste. Maybe Endurance and Cunning? Will sort of speaks for itself, so no need for a name change if you ask me.
>and sheilds ought to carry a scaled bonus, like +1 per teir for shield mastery.
>Also, mathematically, scaling off of two sources instead of 1 (shield and armor/stat, instead of just armor) will mean that shield will outscale attack bonuses. Which is bad. You want to keep AC and offense in the same ballpark.
Shield mastery is a paragon tier feat, but if it were availible at heroic tier and gave a scaled bonus like weapon focus, i don't think that would be that broken.
>Single weapon fighter ought to get a +1 to ac
Single handed weapon fighters getting a +1 for using a shield is a pretty reasonable adjustment.
Well dex has a lot of crap that should belong to strength, so once you make dex actually fine motor controls and finesse as opposed to "agility" it should work better.
I was previously unaware that crossbow rangers, Covenant of Wrath invokers, and Charisma paladins were considered "low optimization," especially given low-heroic starts.
Tell me what power you think should be most useful, then.
Just do what I do: All defenders calculate their base defenses from 12 instead of 10. That includes AC.
Toughness and Evasion.
>Shield mastery is a paragon tier feat, but if it were availible at heroic tier and gave a scaled bonus like weapon focus, i don't think that would be that broken.
It'd make shields even better.
Using a shield would net you +5 AC at Epic. That's fucking ridiculous, considering how often it is hard to justify not using a shield when you can to begin with.
You got to understand that the scaling of defenses is already matched to the scaling of offense. Introducing MORE scaling/bonuses into it is basically fucking up the math that expertise feats unfucked, except from the other end.
took me 10 fucking minutes to make this post, get a fucking hold of yourself Veeky Forums
why do you keep saying things?
Shield mastery is available in heroic, but only if you're a fighter or multiclassed into fighter
It's called Stout Shield. Encouraging Shield goes with it, also fighter only, but gives you your shield bonus to Will
Has anyone here run Seekers of the Ashen Crown? I bought it when it came out years ago, but never got the chance to run it. I'm looking to remedy that.
I assume that the chances of making myself understood go up as I keep explaining things, but I'm starting to think that it's an inefficient way to spend my time.
I thought we agreed defenders AC wasn't scaling properly to begin with?
Classes that rely on int and dex bonuses for AC already have a scaling AC bonus, one that starts at +5 which is the equivalent of chainmail, plus another heroic tier feat which gives them the equivalent of plate.
Avengers, Monks, Barbarians and Wizards all have class features that give bonuses to their unarmed AC already.
shield specialization, rather.
Yes, and the masterwork medium/heavy armors have built in scaling that matches the stat scaling.
Also, putting the scaling on shields means a light armored type could grab a shield and scale double and still outscale the heavy armor guy, even if you are right.
And, as said, the two handed weapon guys are even more fucked.
a scaling feat, not a scaling item bonus.
I mis spoke, i meant shield specialization.
but defenders don't get class feature bonuses to AC, and they don't start with access to unarmored ajility, and armor specialization doesn't start till paragon tier, and for some reason that also gimps fighters because scale doesn't get a bonus to AC like plate or chain mail.
What is swordmage?
Also scale armor specialization does give an AC bonus
Masterwork scale does? Elemntal drake scale gives +13 AC, godplate gives +14.
It's a patchwork fix, but it's there.
oh. well then its annoying that that isn't listed under the feats summary description.
All I'm saying is that wizards, monks, and avengers all end up with higher AC's than defenders, which are supposed to be tanks.
>4e is too easy
4e is as easy as the DM wants it to be
Any experienced DM will take the encounter XP budged and wipe his ass with it.
Just give all defenders a class bonus to defenses and HP.
Viewing a single stat in a vacuum is stupid when defense and durability is far, far broader than that.
Despite the similarities, a defender is not a MMORPG tank where survivability is the only concern.
Defenders primarily defend with their HP, not their AC. In fact, making their AC too high is counterproductive, because then they incite their marks less to attack them.
Having high AC in general is bad for the game, because shit only happens on hits. If your cool monster can't hit, you can't show off how cool his stuff is.
Finally, 2 out of those classes are frontliners who need that high AC because they don't have the HP to go with it. Hell, the monk has an incentive to be always in range of two enemies at once, and the third one has to give up a much more useful offensive specialization for that AC.
look, letting defenders have an additional +2 or +3 to AC isn't broken, its just fixing a problem that needs to be addressed.
A +1 AC from single handed weapon fighter, and scaling bonus for shield specialization is a good fix.
2 handed weapon fighters are in no way gimped, but if you really wanted to you could add an untyped damage bonus to greatweapon fighter class features. I don't really think they need it, but sword and board fighters are pretty garbage tier, desu.
Your not even arguing the point.
DEFENDERS SHOULD HAVE HIGHER AC's THAN STIKERS
>I don't really think they need it, but sword and board fighters are pretty garbage tier, desu.
You don't understand this game.
Why do you keep bringing up wizards?
Monks, Avengers and dex-barbarians all have AC that can match defender AC, but the only defenders wizards beat at AC is 20-strength wardens without shields
>Your not even arguing the point.
Neither are you, you are just repeating it.
>Your not even arguing the point.
Yes I am.
>DEFENDERS SHOULD HAVE HIGHER AC's THAN STIKERS
See
>Defenders primarily defend with their HP, not their AC. In fact, making their AC too high is counterproductive, because then they incite their marks less to attack them.
I'm literally refuting the core of your argument.
>A +1 AC from single handed weapon fighter, and scaling bonus for shield specialization is a good fix.
it's not.
Do you really not understand how having a 6 AC gulf between a guy using a shield and one that is not is a huge fucking problem? Do you really not understand that strikers can pick up shields too?
Except they shouldn't. Those classes have lower HP averages, and they tend to go down in a few good hits or one very deadly hit, if not protected by a good Defender. But the Defender needs to look appealing as a target, mark or no mark. Having too high of defenses would counterbalance that.
The defender can survive having a lower AC score better than those classes. You're not suppose to completely mitigate damage from ever happening. There must be threat to the party somewhere.
The problem with two-handed weapon fighters is that you're either using a polearm, or you aren't being a defender
Is this the same guy who was going on about Leaders earlier? If so, just how hard can one person fundamentally misunderstand 4e?
I just find it frustrating that when I present a perfectly reasonable adjustment to fix a valid complaint you establishmentarian reflex is to defend the system, cover up its flaws and say "4e is a gud boy, he dindu nuffin!"
Damn I missed that, TLDR?
>strikers can pick up shields too
Most strikers aren't willing to spend two feats and a very suboptimal stat array to pick up a shield and probably lose damage due to occupying their off-hand with a shield instead of a weapon or implement
ugh, god, you disgust me.
You haven't even played the game, you 4e virgin, and you're telling other people how to run it. I played from level 1 all the way to paragon tier in a single campaign.
Your like a kid who thinks a diaphragm goes up the butt.
>I'm literally refuting the core of your argument.
You're not even addressing the periphery of my argument!
>I played from level 1 all the way to paragon tier
whoo impressive
I'm currently wrapping up my scales of war campaign, joined at lvl 3, nor lvl 26.
Plus countless shorter campaign in heroic and paragon, with a couple epic
They were shouting about how the most important thing about Leaders was healing and how Warlords were Strikers because they helped do damage, despite direct quotes from the book contradicting their stupid assertions.
>6 AC gulf between a guy using a shield
Agh god, you can't even add!
Scaling sheild specialization gives you a +2 at epic tier, and adding a +1 to single handed weapon fighter for using a shield is a total of +3, which puts them one over most dex builds and strikers with unarmored AC bonuses as class features.
For +6 AC I sure fucking would.
Do you understand what that means?
Monsters have something like 60-70% hit rate.
add -6 to that and you go down to fucking 30-40%. You are almost half as likely to get hit.
This is elementary math ffs.
Funny, considering warlord can be the 22nd best healing class in the game. While being the best enabling one and top tier buffers as well,
A shield itself gives +2 you fucking retard.
Even if instead of +1/2/3 the scaling is +0/1/2 you are still at +5.
>22nd
*2nd - broken keyboard
uh huh. sure you have.
I think this guy just found a new way of trolling 4e, since MMO NOT AN RPG ROLLPLAY NOT ROLEPLAY doesn't work anymore.
Yeah. They've basically conclusively proven they know nothing about the game yet they just keep going on about how they'd 'fix' it.
Shield specialization is a paragon tier feat which gives +1 AC at paragon, if it was scaling, that would mean it would give +2 AC at epic.
Now, as you said, the shield itself gives +2, so that's a grand total of a +4 shield bonus
The +1 from the single handed fighter?