/4eg/ - D&D 4e and 4e-like General: Bard Edition

This thread is for discussing D&D 4e and the games it inspired, such as 13th Age, Strike!, Valor, and any others that I don't know about.

Nentir Vale locations: web.archive.org/web/20130520012550/http://community.wizards.com/nentir_vale/wiki/Nentir_Vale_Locations
Points of Light timeline (ignore everything else on this mostly-fanon wiki): nentirvale.wikidot.com/world
D&D 4e Compendium (for those who still have Insider subscriptions): wizards.com/dndinsider/compendium/database.aspx
Compendium: funin.space
Guide compilation: enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?472893-4E-Character-Optimization-WOTC-rescue-Handbook-Guide
Offline compendium: mediafire.com/download/xuf1a608bv05563/Portable Compendium New.rar

Offline character builder: mega.nz/#!IclTgDrS!ZvoRfm1yIjWTrcQHgNDLIPocd6cEO1a8B5oHjs4FV3E
Offline monster editor mega.nz/#!5dUG3Axa!u0NSNPy2q4V-WzJg4Jy4BTM2ln-ygbpVswuJyJzjD_4 (install in chronological order)
this pasta pastebin.com/asUdfELd

Feel free to suggest things to add to the pasta!

Other urls found in this thread:

rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons & Dragons/D&D 4th Edition/
1d4chan.org/wiki/Kobold
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Might as well mention I've got a thread over at discussing ideas for a successor game currently being worked on. Had some pretty cool ideas shared so far, any more thoughts from people would be more than appreciated.

The jews did it

Whats are people's favorite adventuring locations ? I've always been partial to the riverweb.

Since /5eg/ has a repository for grabbing all of their books as free PDFs, maybe we should do the same?

rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons & Dragons/D&D 4th Edition/

Virtually anywhere on the planes, it's hard to pinpoint. I agree with the Riverweb, but the Astral Sea as a whole was also awesome.

Also, Nachtur is basically giving you carte blanche to play out your take on Labyrinth.

I'm sad I never got to play a 4E Bard, they seem like so much fun.

Teleportation-based bards are hilarious. There is a feat that allows you to replace any shift you'd give someone with a teleport of the same distance.

Just recently got the chance to play 4e on roll20 (I'd had GMed it for about 3 1/2 sessions, but it just made me realize that as a GM I really prefer narrative systems, even though prepping for 4e definitely is super relaxed). It was really good, actually having to think about what to use and where to position my character. Definitely one of my instant favorites for crunchy combat.
Now I just have to convince one of my friends to regularly GM it for me

Where can I read about the Elemental Chaos (I guess this is from it)? Which books has the points of light?

Heroes of the Elemental Chaos is a good one for that.

4e's Manual of the Planes has some details - it covers the City of Brass.

Its own dedicated sourcebook is called The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos.

Heroes of the Elemental Chaos is an Essential book focused more on elemental-themed characters.

Brief overviews on the Elemental Chaos and how it relates to the greater multiverse:
Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters (Under core in the trove).

Manual of the Planes (under Supplements)

For a more in depth look there's The Plane Below (under supplements).

The Points of Light setting is... not in any specific book, it's details scattered across the various sourcebooks and across articles in Dragon & Dungeon.

Want to know about Baba Yaga, the Mother of Witches? Want the honor code of the dragonborn race? Want the history of the Forgeborn Dwarves and the Winterkin Eladrin? Want to know of the rise and fall of Nerath, or the Bladeling revolution? You gotta work to ferret that stuff out, I'm afraid.

...

Any 4e art? It really was some of the best this game has had since AD&D

That said, as something of an obsessive over the PoL setting, if any user's got questions - races, factions, whatever - I can try to answer them. Hell, I've been doing a freaking Let's Read of all the race-related articles in Dragon Magazine during 4e's heyday.

Is there a point to this, beyond cackling maniacally as everyone teleports around rather than dive-rolling like a respectable adventurer?

I don't much enjoy 4e, personally, but I appreciate what it does well (even if it's not necessarily for me) and I loved Perkins' column, The Dungeon Master Experience. That thing has some universal and wonderful advice.

Sadly they're not all available online anymore, but here's one big stretch of some all the same.

...do you need a reason beyond that?

More seriously: 3D movement and teleportation ignores difficult terrain and can go right through people. It's a life saver with bigger enemies where going through them is like half the movement of going around them.

I'm thinking of running a 4e game. I know there were some good adventures in Dungeon Magazine, but does anyone know of any specific ones I can plunder/draw inspiration from?

Man, I used to play a Half-Elf Charisma Paladin, but there was this ONE fucking autistic chick in our group that usually fucked up shit for us all. That, or the DM struggled with keeping a schedule.

So, having just flicked through the Plane Below's section on elemental fantastic terrain and hazards, which do folks think are some of the best?

Steel Rain is pretty sweet in its simplicity - it's a storm where, instead of rain, you have razor-sharp metal needles coming down hard enough to punch clean through full-plate and out the other side.

Crawling Earth is nice because it's not out to kill you, even though taking one step and then having the earth move under you like a conveyer belt must be pretty disorientating.

Liquid Thunder is just... I don't know, there must be something useful you can do by taking sonic energy and converting it into a solid. A liquid? I don't know what the terminology here is.

Gorgon Mud is surprisingly nasty. It's basically mud that tries to eat you without actually being an ooze.

I can't tell what'd be worse; to wander onto a Skystone Field, or a Lightningstone Field, or a sheet of Void Crust.

Elemental Transformation Field was always kickass. An area that turns you into a fire elemental was awesome (But then if you fail your saving throws afterward, you get turned into semisolid fire).

Yeah; wasn't it neat how they managed to make that both a feature AND a hazard by coming up with the Multielemental Transformation Field variant, where the conflict between what kind of elemental you were turning into would tear you apart on the most primordial level?

What was the first aspect of 4e's new lore or cosmology that first caught your attention?

I can't really pinpoint anything cosmological - the whole World Axis grabbed me - but the addition of dragonborn and the tiefling empire of Arkhosia, as well as the reinvention of halflings and the great new art for dwarves were also things that really sold me on just the prototype of 4e alone.

Wuxia in 4e system?

Aside from the Monk, who is literally built out of wuxia and anime tropes, complete with powers all but named outright for Wuxia style attacks?

You can reflavor various other powers in the appropriate fashion easily.

Reskin dragonborn to look more "Asiatic" - they already have a very samurai-like culturl aesthetic. Hell, their freaking parenting style is literally an homage to Lone Wolf & Cub.

Really, I'm overloaded with what to tell you. What precisely do you need help with knowing?

Primal magic and the primal spirits. I really liked how they were a third counterpoint to the gods and primordials, protecting the world from both influences. Plus, wardens and shamans are just my jam; love 'em.

Mm, tell me about it; I couldn't stand the Druid before 4e, it just always felt so out of place - a captain ethnic version of the Nature Cleric that really had nothing beyond an overpowered assortment of bonus abilities to define it. I really couldn't stand how it was supposed to be somehow different to the clerics worshipping the embodiments of nature.

The Primal Spirits changed that for me. I'm still not a huge fan of the druid, but the barbarian grew a lot better with the new 4e take on them as a spirit-empowered berserker, and I loved the warden.

Going to be running a Living World campaign in Eberron, Sarlona, heavily inspired by XCOM2, with players as resistance operatives funded by a shadowy council from Khorvaire.

I'm in the process of thinking about ways I can handle the "zooming out", random events, mission opportunities, etc. Any ideas?

>living world
Pure cancer.

Druids were also very cool 4e, 'though I didn't play a lot of controllers in general. Heck, even barbarians, which have traditionally been my least favourite class across most editions of D&D, were actually super badass in my books in 4e; their rages being more than just a part of themselves was a cool sticking point that's held over a bit in 5e.

But yeah, I really liked how druids became more than just nature clerics or shapeshifters: they truly were a force all their own. However, unlike the barbarian, 5e pretty much back-peddled on their interpretation entirely, really only streamlining 3e's take on them.

*Drow

We've had Elf and Dwarf women, somebody post sexy Bullywugs

It makes sense with the theme of the campaign and lets the players (who all have irregular schedules) drop in and out as they please.

So I remember seeing an outline of the design principles of 4e, the goals they had when they started designing it and how they achieved those goals, like transparency, class unification for greater levels of balance etc. I can't find it now, anyone know what it is? All I can find is this.

Anyone who's in a campaign, what's your party makeup like?

Just about to kick off a campaign with a bunch of 4e newbs (2/6 have played 4e before, 2/6 5e, and 2/6 no dnd/limited-RPGs-in-general at all).

Party makeup, going round the table, is

Tiefling Swordmage
Warforged Warden
Halfling Rogue
Eladrin Warlord
Eladrin Wizard
Longtooth Shifter Fighter/Ranger

Should be a nice mix. Unsurprisingly, the two experienced players are the warlord and wizard (warlord going Lazylord because he is CURSED for dice rolls).

Campaignwise, going for a bit of a Swords & Sorcery vibe, at least as far as 4e's high-octane tempo will let me. Sandals, deserts, half-buried obelisks, life being cheap, etc.

Not bashing over your party, congrats on running a 4e game, but I find your lack of humans disturbing.

Using this a point to ask:
With so many cool conceptual races (and yes, I too find them really cool), how to make humans great again?

Throw and stab scouts?

I tried selling humans as the race that Just. Doesn't. Quit. both conceptually and mechanically, but nobody was keen. They've got the history of the biggest empire with diverse kingdoms, but alas, I suppose.

Halflings are like little Swamp People, hunting gators and catfish and smuggling shit and that jumped out to his player. The shifter player is running a long 'Moon-Moon' joke. The warforged likes his characters W E I R D and F A N T A S T I C A L so more power to him, and the tiefling player wanted an excuse to be a slaver, and notDothraki demonkin barbarians fit pretty well.

Two of the guys jumped on Eladrin super-early; in-setting they're Amnesiac super-elves who appear out of nowhere with the barest memory of the feywild-equivalent in their minds. Our Warlord (heavy tinkerer/artificer vibe) likened it to "he feels like he's left the stove on... somewhere..." He actually gave a mechanical reason for not picking human; I'm doing the free Expertise+Defences thing, and he said if I wasn't, that might've eprsuaded him to go Human to get a headstart on those taxes.

I mean, I feel you too, man, I love Humans and 4e actually makes them useful as opposed to the real fringe-case 5e core/variant (pretty much only want core if you have odd stats for some reason, only want variant if you need that one feat from day 0).

Hopefully there'll be plenty of humans in next campaign after they've all had a taste of the weird.

One of the people from the successor game thread here. We're actually playing around with the idea of making humans a specific, theme focused race rather than the generic baseline. As part of the base setting, Humans are actually the same races as Giants, with certain humans simply growing and growing, with communities banding together to support their Giant, the size depending on how much food their village can provide them. Ordinary humans still carry some of the power and intensity of Giants, which we're using to justify things like exaggerated versions of IRL human endurance and pain tolerance.

Naturally, we're also including an ED equivalent for Humans which is just going to be 'And you grow up to be a Giant', which should be fun.

Oh hi, didn't get a chance to say this in the other thread, but something to consider:

Humans being mechanically 'generic' means you can reasonably see humans in every character class. Which is great from a human-centric campaign/setting, which early D&D heavily bought into, and most D&D still does to this day.

The giantkin thing is actually really cool, but it's definitely a bit off the wall if it's something so universally applied across the entire race (ie every village has their local giant(s)). It'd certainly make for a fun setting, and as the designers y'all do whatever you want etc, just that, I'm not sure how to word it specifically - this is your default setting, so be mindful of what you do to the 'default race' in it because it'll colour any and all further conceptions of humans within this system, if you get my gist?

It's a very fair point. We'll likely keep the 'Giant' thing somewhat conceptually restricted and offer alternatives for refluffing or re-theming if people want more generic humans. Most of what we're doing racial trait wise, as mentioned, is basically just exaggerated versions of stuff humans do IRL anyway.

>Humans are actually the same races as Giants, with certain humans simply growing and growing, with communities banding together to support their Giant
I remember that thread. Really nice concept indeed.

>real fringe-case 5e core/variant
Normal version is really weak even if you have all odd stats because not enough tertiary stats are useful enough to take +1 to them instead of a feat (and without variant humans other races' +2/+1 with actual racial features make them better too). Variant is too strong because feats aren't balanced, especially not for taking at first level, and combined with the +1/+1 it makes them a top tier pick for pretty much every single class or build.

For 4e, are they really useful and balanced? From what I've heard the bonus feat is a head-start quickly caught up to, and the lack of a +2 to a secondary stat is impossible to make up for down the line so you're always one step behind on secondary power to-hit bonuses etc.

I think designing them like other races is the easiest way to balance them for sure, and possibly the only way too because the versatile humans trope means they're either too universally powerful with no drawbacks or have flexible bonuses that don't matter to individual characters so they're never as strong as other choices.

I really like the extra at-wills they have access to. Most of the time it's an inferior choice to just taking the bonus, but especially combined with essentials classes, it can lead to all sorts of silly stuff.

>slayer with deft hurler, cleave, Heavy blade opportunity
>PP into tactical warpriest

Man was not meant to have such power.

That's probably the "Wizards Presents: Races & Classes" prequel book, I think. Should be in the archive up near the top of the thread, under Core, I think.

In general, I find that 5e's races are ultimately less interesting than 4e's versions. 4e had a really strong paradigm that it used to create races - everybody fit the same chassis and so you never had a race that was outright "bad".

Less optimal, sure, but there was always a class you fit well - even Minotaurs, infamous as one of the more pigeonholed races of 4e, had abilities that worked really well with any melee-focused Str and/or Wis class, including Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Avenger, Monk and Warden.

5e, in comparison, doesn't seem to have that kind of design, and its races are all over the place in terms of power as a result. Not to mention some of its awful decisions in terms of racial features/aspects. There's a reason 5e's dragonborn feel underwhelming despite gaining damage resistance in the edition switch.

I mean, hell, look at 4e's kobold vs 5e's kobold: which would you rather play?

1d4chan.org/wiki/Kobold

Thanks, that seems like it may be what I remember, I have most of the pdfs but I guess when I skimmed through that I just saw the logistical info and stuff and dismissed it.

The powers and how ability scores work make the races much stronger, I'm not sure if a less rigid way of doing it is bad (it allows for ribbons and small stuff as well as a greater variety of features) but the overall result is definitely worse I think.

So, anyone out there play Dragonborn in 4e? What did you think of the way all of their feats revolved around their breath weapon attack? Ever use any of their racial PPs?

And did anyone ever play any of the subraces from Dragon? Winterkin Eladrin, Dusk Elf or Forgeborn Dwarf? I really liked all of these, even if I thought that Dusk Elves were mechanically gipped compared to the other two.

I'm playing a Dragonborn Warlord at the moment. It's not true that all their feats revolved around their breath weapon. A lot do, certainly, but they have options outside of it. Still, I'm currently enjoying that aspect, making my Breath Weapon a large scale ally buff (+1 to hit to allies in the AoE, +5 damage against enemies I hit with it) and going Honourable Blade to use it multiple times per encounter. It's not the most optimal PP, but I'm in a low optimization game so building something fun and silly is fine;

Alright, it was an exaggeration, but still, a lot of Dragonborn feats bump up your breath weapon.

The poor Dragonfer Dragonborn got nothing outside of their introduction.

No problem though, cause dragonfear is really good!

Anyway, all races get a bunch of "mesh my ability with the class" feats. Which I love BTW. Wish you could take them for free, it really brings out the uniqueness of each race/class combo.

Well, you can always home-rule it to work that way; I'd consider that fair at my table. But then, I really like the steps that 4e took to make races more unique by giving them racial feats and utility powers - the Goblin, Kobold and Svirfneblin were really well done on that account.

I have a player who orlled in with a DB Warden, and he took a number of the breath weapon feats. They have served him solidly, and my game isn't balls to the wall in any way.
DM here, my party consists of:
Human Bladesinger Wizard
Eladrin Pursuit Avenger
Gnome Runepriest
Dragonborn Stormheart Warden
Half-orc Rager Barbarian (currently MIA)
Human Battlemaster Fighter
Dwarf Life Cleric
It's a big group, and it gets crazy at times, but it's a lot of fun, and the party itself is varied enough to make intraparty roleplay amusing as hell to watch.

Nobody answered this yesterday, so I'm gonna ask again hoping someone remembers something cool from Dungeon Magazine.

I can't speak for Dungeon mag, but some of the modules were fairly good to pull from, especially ones that had details about the Nentir Vale.
I am currently using Hammerfast as a rough basis for the group's home base, and am ripping off Fell's Five for the plot scheme with my own twists.

How to correct this? Is this even broken?
(Not mine, found it while searching the interweb)

Level 1 Character:

Unskilled Diplomacy Modifier with Charisma stat of 8: -1
Diplomacy trained with Charisma of 10: 5
Diplomacy trained with Charisma of 20: 10
Diplomacy trained with Charisma of 20, racial bonus to diplomacy, and background that boosts diplomacy: 14
Diplomacy trained with Charisma of 20, racial bonus, background, and skill focus: 17
Diplomacy trained with Charisma of 20, racial bonus, background bonus, skill focus, and Bard Power Majestic Friendship: 22!

Either accept that some will go overboard and stack all their bonuses on one feat, and going to ace that skill in tests (unless something disastrous happens), or limit it. Remove the additional bonuses, or cap them at 5. That's how SAGA does it (the only additional bonus to a skill is a "focus" feat for +5).

Personally, I found the background bonus giving +2 to be really stupid anyway; I only allow the "can train skill" option.

(also, don't even look up arcana stacking).

>Personally, I found the background bonus giving +2 to be really stupid anyway; I only allow the "can train skill" option.

Thinking about it, I'd extend that to the races too. Small stacking bonuses is the bane of the system really, the more you eliminate, the better.

Awesome! That person is really good at diplomacy!

This post kinda suggests there might be something broken with this, and I'd be cautious of that kinda kneejerk response. This isn't 3.pf where you can just go into MIND CONTROL MODE with enough diplomacy and break the campaign; functionally it's not really much different than the guy who can ALWAYS disarm the trap or ALWAYS shrug off fatigue. You let them show off their awesomeness here and there to validate the choice, and the real challenge steps being in if they can succeed but in applying the skill; like the trapmaster, the challenge stops being in disarming the trap, but in spotting it, reaching it before the horde of goblins catches up, etc. Guarantees just means the party can rely on it and build strategies. 'He WILL be able to disarm the trap, the orcs don't know that,' 'He WILL be able to talk us past the guards, what do we need to smuggle inside with us?' etc.

The DM is even within their right to (hamfistedly but reasonably) decide that, say, the Orc warlord they need to defeat isn't here for talk - he can be cowed or outsmarted or bested in combat but he won't talk about peace treaties, especially from an elf or something.

In terms of build it's a very 'all eggs in one basket' build. 20 Cha is a big investment even at 18+race, and even the most single-minded Cha class is going to be starved for secondary stats, which means lower defences, let alone non-Cha skills (let's be honest they probably just took all the Cha skills).

Gimmicky build? For sure. They're gonna have to explain how they're the smoothest tongue in the west. A bit of extra work for the DM? Probably, but no more than planning around a guy you know can succeed at any other skill. Broken? Hardly, imho.

Chances are the player gets bored bing unable to climb ledges and getting sucker punched in the Fort by orcs all the time.

Basically this.
You can't talk your way out of everything, and I have used the wannabe diplomancer's attempt to talk to the enemy commander in order to surround the party with assassins.

What were your favorite "unconventional" races from 4e, and which ones do you wish had gotten converted?

For the list of unconventional races, I'd say it stands as:
* Tiefling
* Dragonborn
* Revenant
* Shadar-kai
* Dhampyr
* Vyrloka
* Minotaur
* Wilden
* Hobgoblin
* Goblin
* Kobold
* Bladeling
* Gnoll
* Hengeyokai
* Deva
* Kenku
* Genasi
* Shade
* Hamadryad
* Pixie
* Satyr
* Mul
* Thri-kreen
* Changeling
* Kalashtar
* Shifter
* Warforged
* Wilden

And that's not counting Svirfneblin Gnomes and Drow Elves, but you can if you want. Nor is it counting the various monster races from the MM1 and 2.

I'm not that guy from the other thread but also making a 4e-heavily-inspired game, and got stuck at the "rogue dillema".

Ever since OD&D, the rogue is more of a role than a class IMHO. A fighter should be able to do rogu-ish things like opening a lock, if he learns to. Rogue looks more like adventurer/tomb raider/dungeon crawler than a pesky thief.
With 4e Themes (and 5e Backgrounds), I thought if it would angry too much players if Rogue got downgraded to a theme.

So, a player might want to make an Assassin (Striker + Rogue), a Tinkerer (Controller + Rogue), a Thug (Defender + Rogue), a Trickster (Arcane something + Rogue)... while some other player can make a Hunter (Striker + Wilderness Man) or something like that.

But I don't want the Strike! effect of watering down roles and powers sources. So, I'm in the eye of the brainstorm, and would love some guidance out of here.

Well, you could always take a glance at Wizards Presents: Races & Classes; they've got a whole section dedicated to the Rogue and talking about just why they made it work the way they did. That might be helpful for you.

If Tiefling is on this list, why isn't Gnome?
Just because they were in a core book in 3e doesn't make them unconventional, no one played them.

Planning on introducing some new players to rags using 4e. Ive had experience with 2e, 3.5 & 5e but my first rpg books were the 4e core set and I want a chance to use them.
What advice do you have for running 4e?
What are some common pitfalls?
How does the design of a standard adventure differ in 4e from other editions? Should I have one or 2 big combats in a dungeon with lots of enemies rushing in and a running battle or should I use random encounters and lots of smaller combats.
Any other general advice for general adventure design in 4e and introducing new players using it.

Reading through DMG 1 & 2 now so I want to focus on what makes 4e different and what advice they don't mention in those books.

In addition to this, what can I use for tokens and battle maps that are cheap and easily transportable.
Being a poor student without an apartment large enough to play in sucks.

For making 4e work best-

Give everyone an Expertise feat and Improved Defences for free, use the MM3 monster math. Pic related sums it up nicely.

Use funin.space as a reference, find a copy of cbloader to make character creation easy

>What advice do you have for running 4e?
Ignore any mechanical considerations from other editions.
Do take the mindset and approach of AD&D/2e.
>What are some common pitfalls?
Using MM1+2.
Not using enough minions.
Not having creatures that synergize with each other in order to keep the whack-a-mole down.
Having battles take place on 30x50 flat plains.
Not using traps on battlefields.
Allowing books from outside the scope of the campaign, and settings you are not playing in.
>Should I have one or 2 big combats in a dungeon with lots of enemies rushing in
Not at once. If you can pace the flow of enemies well, and call time in between battles a short rest, it works mostly.
>should I use random encounters and lots of smaller combats
I am not a fan of random encounters, most of my set ups are custom made to challenge the party. Smaller combats with numbers up to Party Count+2 are ideal. Do not think battles are for exhausting party powers, they are for draining Healing Surges. You have never seen fear in a player's eyes until they have 2 healing surges and an iron golem just came around the corner.

These.
Also, do not, if you can avoid it, create a "boss battle" against a single character. What I tend to do is have a strong single creature, but then giving them 1-5 respawning minions that serve to bolster the single creature AND deal damage, making them not so powerful as to tweak numbers, but unable to be ignored by a party that wants to win.
Think Lavos from Chrono Trigger.

It is possible to create threatening solos, but it's a difficult bit of monster design, since you need to do a lot of work to balance for action economy. And minions are fun anyway.

Loot is nice, but make it variable.
Loot should never be just gold. Throw in gems, precious items. I use LOTS of one shot magic items, potions, scrolls, rituals. Further, one use items should not count against wealth, as they are designed to be lost.
In order to facilitate SOME kindnesses, what I do is have every player choose a single magic item that they would like to get per level, +/-4 of that level, and when I make loot tables, I give some preference to those items. It's not a guarantee you will get them, however.
This is true, and I've done so, but I have found I like my way because it gives players a palpable sense of progress (even tho the boss usually gets a power up when all the minions are taken out).

Are there any physical books it would be worthwhile to pick up to DM?

Love PoL.

Currently running Reavers of Harkenworld but about to finish up. My party is over leveled, so I think I might stick a card from the Deck of Many Things in his pocket to steer them toward Gardmore Abbey.

So, query; did any anons find classes or paragon paths in 4e that they were surprised to like?

For me, Sorcerers, Barbarians and Monks all were hugely improved in 4e. The first two went from a gimmicky version of the Wizard and the Fighter respectively to having their own clear-cut identity, whilst the latter finally felt like it had embraced its wuxia and anime roots.

I mean, come on, the Soaring Blade paragon path is literally a wuxia swordsmaster!

Any advice on how to run combat so that it doesn't slow down the game and end the roleplaying?
What can I use that would cut costs for tokens and maps and be easily transportable?

Dragonborn Warlord
Dragonborn Fighter
Dragonborn Sorcerer
Human Wizard
Dwarf Warden

I'm running a "Trapped in an MMO" style game so that every complaint about the feel of the game is basically nullified. The players have what are essentially 3 lives and their goal is to beat Lolth and force an autologout. I'm extremely tempted to throw them at some Lair Assaults for some real heavy encounters, but I'm undecided.

Anyone used any of the pregenned adventures for 4e? They seem to run the gamut from terrible to good, but I'd like some recommendations.

I don't think they need a free Improved Defences, but for the love of god give them an Expertise feat for free and let them swap it to a different weapon/implement if they get a different piece of gear.

Human Sorc
Dragonborn Warlord
Pixie Monk
Dwarf Fighter
Half-Elf Inquisitor
Kalashtar Druid

you can just print maps on paper sheets, glue them with transparent tape.

for minis use those paperclip thingies (the triangular ones) and printed images of creatures. Print/cut out circles for bases for larger creatures and just glue to the bottom of the clip.

use power cards, but add a "use a skill or improvise something else, the DM will love you for it!" card.

So glad to see /4eg/ back up! I've been checking for a week or two. Just got a game rolling with some friends after not playing for a year, looking for advice about anything and everything regarding how to have a more funner, more smoother game. Not using MM1+2 is something I'll pass on to my DM (previously co-DM, but I stepped down.) Anyway thanks, long live 4e

Still doing this thing.

Does a map like pic related (possibly with even smaller regions noted) exist for Sarlona? Could someone help me make one? I'm bad at graphics.

what's the problem with MM1+2?

Bad math, worse monster design.

To expand on the MM 1 and 2 were a bit too set in 3.5 monster design, not taking proper advantage of On-Bloodied, Reactions, Minor Actions or Interrupts. A lot of big monsters just had 'Scary Standard Action Attacks'.

Can someone shed some light on skill challenges? I'm finally getting a handle on them from reading Rules Compendium, but more insight would be useful. My DM has more of a background in tactical warfare games (WH40k) so our adventures are really combat-heavy and I want to push more roleplaying with skills. When we started playing a few years ago we didn't really understand them, so as it stands it's just a chaotic mess of skill checks with little organization.

Imagine if combat was only one roll of your Combat skill versus the Enemy DC. Would it be fair/fun?

Now, imagine you're in a court room trying to defend yourself because the prime minister is accusing you from kidnapping the princess Nadia.
Would it be fair/fun to be only one Diplomacy roll? Why not use your History skill to recall some ancient law, then Insight to learn the prime minister is lying (and getting a +2 to your next Diplomacy roll because of that), maybe using some other skill? And in the end use Acrobatics to escape the courtroom?

That's a skill challenge, but the player shouldn't be aware they ARE in one, for starters.

Best way I've found to do them is to leave them more in your players hands. Set an objective, for example decipher this treasure map, then start with the player to your left and ask them what they want to do. Once he decides figure out what skill it will take and what difficulty it will have (easy, regular, hard) have them roll and tell them the result.

If they want to ask around town to see if anyone's heard of this treasure that'd be streetwise. If they want to recall stories about where the treasure is buries that's history. If they want to compare landmarks on the map to ones in the area that's nature. Be sure to disregard stupid suggestions though, like intimidating the map into telling us and other ahiy the players will come up with.

Question for the general:
My players adopted a swarm of cute were-rats.
Now we are interested to promote them to a party companion, and I've looked at the various humanoid "swarms" for inspiration (Angry Mob, etc.)
The issue I'm having is that swarms tend to be very tanky against some monsters(1/2 damage vs melee and ranged), while very squishy against artillery and controllers (10 vulnerability to AoE).
Any ideas how to adjust the math? Or is this a non-issue in the long term? Has anyone had much experience with monstrous allies and companions?

I'd probably represent them as an Encounter power rather than a monster, if only to simplify things. But that's just my tendency as a GM, the less things I have to roll for in a fight the better, since extra actions and turns just add more time to things.

In an IRL 4e game I represented a fire elemental the PC's rescued as an Encounter power that created a Fire AoE with a Summon at the center who could opportunity attack people passing through the zone, for example. It gave a good mechanical representation without adding too much to the complexity of each fight.

Companions are controlled by the players, so I don't need to worry about rolling for it or tactics.

Player-like NPCs using the henchmen rules in DMG2 are usually easy to handle. Mount-likes are also not a problem. But swarms feel like they could fuck up the math pretty bad.

I'd say let it rock. It's an additional thing to consider in combat; they'd want to take care of artillery even more, and maneuver the rats to brutes and stuff, which is col imo.

I like this too though

What were some cool builds that were really only possible in 4e?

Playing 5e makes me really miss my warlord.

Everyone misses Warlords.

The 5e battlemaster is such a fucking halfassed version of the class that I don't know why they bothered.

The way I generally describe the Warlord is that it's the Eldritch Knight to the Warlord's Wizard. You are getting a LITTLE of the tricks of the class proper but are still mostly a fighter.

Personally, I really miss the weapon-focused monk build - Soaring Blade triggered a desire for unarmored, agility-based swordsmaster I didn't even know I had, and can be refluffed in some surprising ways.

Heck, the monk in general was so much better in 4e than 5e. We went back to the grandfather Monk whose abilities are full of ribbons nobody who wasn't a teenager in the 70s knows why they exist, the 4 Elements monk whose shoddy ki mechanics prevent them from being the mystical elemental monk you could easily pull off in 4e, and the Ninja, who was... okay, decent.

Party builds really took off in 4e, but going that way you risk being VERY OP.
Even without going all Radiant Mafia, or focusing on gaining extra Action Points, or activating Agile Opportunist for everybody, or something similarly flashy, there are a fuckton of enabling statuses or powers, if the whole party focuses on the same they WILL be enabled. Even knockdown can get a good amount of in-party synergy!

Any true leader or defender build, really. Anything that rewards precise positioning. Shaman is an excellent example, for one.

XGE may help a bit, but it's more